NL West Update

Barry Zito failing to cover first on a routine grounder

The Giants have officially demoted Barry Zito to the bullpen.

Zito currently has an ERA of 7.53, a BAA of .336, a WHIP of 1.95 and 11 ks to 15 walks in 28.2 innings. He's currently on pace to go 0-33 and perhaps if the Giants had left him in the rotation, we could have witnessed an "un-perfect" season. I honestly don't know what's wrong with him. His velocity has been down, his curveball hasn't been fooling anyone and he's just been doing a solid Daniel Cabrera impression by walking way too many people. As a fellow lefty, I feel for the guy and would like to see him return to at least a level of mediocrity. The Giants were going to be a bad team regardless this season but until now they've essentially payed 126 million dollars to put up a loss every fifth day. Oh well.

Also around the NL West

Troy Tulowitzki has been dropped to the 6th spot in the Rockies batting order for the forseeable future and everyone behind him (Helton, Holliday, Atkins and Hawpe) has just moved up one spot. He's slumping very hard despite putting up similar rates to last year. His BABIP however remains somewhere sub-.200 so perhaps a turn around is in the near future. Also recently, the Rockies assigned opening day second baseman Jayson Nix to the minors. He wasn't a very good hitter in the minors and for a few games this April showed he's not a very good hitter in the majors. The second base job is now a platoon between Clint Barmes and Jeff Baker with Barmes, who's off to a solid start, getting the majority of the platoon time.

Max Scherzer

The Arizona Diamondbacks called up top prospect Max Scherzer. The former University of Missouri player had his first season in the minors last year and put up a very solid line (2.88 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and 131 k's in 106 innings). He did this across 3 levels of the minors (although only 16 innings were pitched in AAA - they also happened to be 16 very good innings). His immediate role for the club isn't exactly clear. He'll be working out of the bullpen somewhere (not accumulating saves or being a primary holds guy either) but it is possible he fills in for Micah Owings should he miss his next start or for Edgar Gonzalez should he continue to suck. If Scherzer translates his success in the minors even modestly in the majors, expect the Diamondbacks to run away with the NL West.


Pictures courtesy of the internet

Bleeding Dodger Blue

Hang tight Ms. Winehouse, we're close to curing the T-Virus

I'm back from the dead like a (expletive) Zombie (see above). I've been busy with many things not pertaining to blogging baseball (one of the things has been fantasy baseball though so I've been in the neighborhood).

The Dodgers still can't seem to play right. Even though we're not completely through the first month of the season and it's way way too premature to write them off, the Dodgers are floundering around somewhere near the bottom of the NL West, in fact they've won the same amount of games as the Giants and have lost one game less than the Giants. Any team that sees themselves close to the Giants should know they're in trouble (I realize that there are a few teams off to slow starts and are underperforming, but I just feel it necessary to pick on the Giants).

I do not believe in Brad Penny at all. Dodgers fans think he's a legit ace and someone to structure a rotation around. Delusion. History has taught us by now that Brad Penny is a beast for half a season. In fact, he's not even off to such a great start this year. His ERA is pretty but his WHIP is 1.42, his BAA (Batting Average Against) is .297 and he's gotten 17k's in 30 innings. He could prove me wrong and I hope he does but I'm not sold on him being a legit ace (I'd try to trade him for Oswalt, Verlander or Sabathia right now if I had him). A lot of people are high on the Dodgers and I too thought they were going to be a solid team this year but a few weeks in and I'm having my doubts. Billingsly is too young and unrefined and will probably be better next year. Hiroki Kuroda has been off to a strong start and it will be interesting to see how batters handle him once he's been through the league a bit. Esteban Loaiza isn't anything to brag about and Derek Lowe is a baller. I like him (though for fantasy no so much). Maybe next year the Dodgers will have Lowe, Penny, Billingsly and Clayton Kershaw (who's a beast) and they'll be ready to compete in the NL West.

Their offense is somewhat sloppy. James Loney and Russell Martin are still developing and will encounter a few bumps. Also, Loney never displayed much power in the minors but the fact that he's a big guy and is young leads some to believe he'll develop it as time goes on. Also their 3b spot is just a mess. They have Nomar and Andy LaRoche who's currently injured. Bummer.
Their biggest problem is their carousel outfield. In terms of hitting, Andruw Jones is still acting like he's closer to Bobby Jones instead of Chipper Jones on the Jones hitting spectrum. Fortunately he's better than both in terms of defense. The rest of their OF is Juan Pierre, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp. Kemp needs to improve his walks but is looking like an all-star. Maybe because of the uncertainty in the outfield, all 4 players are off to sluggish starts.

Joe Torre has his work cut out for him especially since right now the Diamondbacks have a "We're going to go undefeated for the rest of the season" swagger.

PS - Jason Schmidt, baseball misses you and the Dodgers need you. Get well soon.

Frank Thomas Released

A day after being benched, Frank Thomas has been released by the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays have struggled a bit thus far (10-10 after today's loss to Detroit) and the Big Hurt is off to a slow start (he is hitting .167/.306/.333) with three homers to date. That being said, Thomas is a notoriously slow starter, so this may just be par for the course with him. Many think that the Jays cut him in order to avoid having to paying out his $10 million option next year and this is theoretically possible, but is such a bad PR-move that it's sort of mind-boggling if that is the only reason. Additionally, they are still on the hook for Thomas's $8 million salary for the 2008 season.

Personally, I'd be shocked if no one throws a little bit of money at the Hurt and I'd also be surprised if he doesn't hit well later on this year. Toronto General Manager J.P. Ricciardi says that Thomas has not been getting around on the fastball like he should be, but I'm not really quite so sure. Thomas famously resurrected his career with the Oakland Athletics in 2006 to the tune of being voted 4th in AL MVP voting with a .270/.381/.545 line with 39 homeruns. His 2006 salary? $500,000. Last year he batted .277/.377/.480 with 26 dingers and, although he isn't getting any younger, the two-time MVP wants to play and will get a shot somewhere.

On the Fantasy side, this is going to create some AB opportunities for Adam Lind, so you might want to snatch him up if there's a weak crop of OF in your league. The 24-year old could end up being a pretty good lefty bat in a decent lineup, hitting behind high OBP players like Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Matt Stairs and Lyle Overbay.

BABIP: Luck? Skill? Both?

Flashing the Trivia: What former Seattle Mariner stand-out, despite never being a strikeout pitcher, has one of the top-5 lowest active BABIP? Hint: He is over forty years old.

Hey everyone, how's it going? A lot of good baseball this week, especially that 22-inning Rockies-Padres marathon. I wish i would have stayed up for that but I stopped after the Mets and Nationals went 15 innings the same night. It's also been a lot of fun to watch the second-year players.

I've noticed that the second-year players that had below-average years last year (Alex Gordon, Justin Upton, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Lastings Milledge, Tim Lincecum, Carlos Gomez, Adam Wainwright, Franklin Guiterrez, Matt Cain, Mark Reynolds), are off to great starts this year. But star rookies (Jacoby Ellsbury, Troy Tulowitzski, Ryan Braun, Hunter Pence, Phil Hughes, and others) are slumping, some mightily. It's give and take, for second-year players, usually it's that third year you see the true player. So who's for real? That's a story for another day.

So for the basis of this article, most of you are probably wondering what the hell I am talking about. Well, for years, many sabermatricians have argued the viability of many statistics in general because of how luck factors into them. There is one statistic that is arguably considered the best way to measure luck: BABIP.

David Ortiz has a .063 BABIP, is that the reason for his bad start?

"Better lucky then good?" Is it that simple?

BABIP is short for Batting Average on Balls in Play and was developed by statistician Voros McCracken.

The issue is, in 2001, McCracken wrote a very controversial article describing how pitchers have no control over balls in play. Here's a quote from that article:

The critical thing to understand is that major-league pitchers don't appear to have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play. There are many possible reasons why this is the case, and I don't really have a concrete idea as to why it is.

But the one thing I do know is that it is the case.

Many articles have spurred from that statement; most against this assertion. I mean, don't pitchers have some degree of control?

Well let's start with what exactly defines BABIP. It is (courtesy of Wikipedia):

or

According to Wikipedia:

BABIP is commonly used as a red flag in sabermetric analysis, as a consistently high or low BABIP is hard to maintain - much more so for pitchers than hitters. Therefore, BABIP can be used to spot fluky seasons by pitchers, as those whose BABIPs are extremely high can often be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season.

An average BABIP is approximately .290, with it being higher for a good hitter and lower for a new pitcher.

It was clear that whoever submitted this definition, took it from McCracken's point of view.

McCracken argues that BABIP has been a good indicator about how a pitcher might perform in the future. Not because it identifies effectiveness, but because it identifies how lucky or unlucky a pitcher was over that particular season.

Sabermatricians have been in an uproar. Tom Tippett wrote in an article for Diamond Mind Baseball his thoughts against the idea. Tippett summarizes McCracken's argument in a few points:

• there are "massive differences in the ability of pitchers" even before considering balls in play. To put it another way, a lot of a pitcher's ERA is explained by his walk rate, strikeout rate, and ability to prevent homers.
• the correlation between a pitcher's IPAvg one year and the next is low, suggesting that pitching ability might not have a major impact on IPAvg, as compared to other factors such as defense and luck
• some of the best pitchers in the game, such as Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez, have gone from the top to the bottom and back to the top in IPAvg in subsequent seasons, again suggesting that these results are largely out of their control
• the variations in IPAvg decrease when you add park effects and the quality of the defense to the analysis
• projections of next-year pitching stats are more accurate if you use a team's collective IPAvg than if you use each pitcher's personal IPAvg from the year before

For my purposes here, when you click that article, skip all the way down to the bar charts because that's pretty much the whole basis of the article. Tippett's argument is that the success can be tied to BABIP with respect to the length of the pitcher's career and the era they pitched in (with respect to the type of pitcher they are). Here's a quote from the article:

We've seen that there's more than one way to succeed as a big-league pitcher. Robin Roberts walked 772 fewer batters than his peers. Roger Clemens struck out 1355 more batters than average. Greg Maddux yielded 147 fewer homeruns. And Charlie Hough prevented somewhere between 299 and 371 hits on balls in play.

The bottom line, though, is that I am convinced that pitchers do influence in-play outcomes to a significant degree. There's a reason why Charlie Hough and Jamie Moyer and Phil Niekro and Tom Glavine and Bud Black have had successful careers despite mediocre strikeout rates. There's a reason why the top strikeout pitchers have also suppressed in-play hits at a good rate. Using power or control or deception or a knuckleball, pitchers can keep hitters off balance and induce more than their share of routine grounders, popups, and lazy fly balls.

How do I see it? Well I believe it's a degree of both.

It's luck in the fact that line-drives (more importantly the ones that result in outs) are generally not recorded statistically. This "hitting them where they ain't" addage, has been used to explain David Ortiz, Miguel Cabrera, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi's slow start this season (as explained in Sarah Green’s article for the Metro Boston News )

But there is a degree of skill in causing more pop-ups and grounders as a result of keeping a player off-balance.

I believe look for consistency in BABIP to see how effective a pitcher is over about a five to seven year period. Therein lies another question: Do we include minor league statistics? I don't think so, there's a big mental part of the game and being in the majors is a big part of it.

In short, BABIP is good to analyze a veteran pitcher. Good for getting bargain, rather lesser-hyped, players off the waiver wire in your fantasy league.

This is an issue that is a sabermetrical work in progress. But it's a good start.

Flashing the Trivia: Jamie Moyer

The First Annual MR. IMPACT

MARK REYNOLDS 3B ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS

Ok, so I know that this is the trendy pick of the week, but can anyone honestly put this down? I was originally going to name Chase Utley my pick for the First Annual MR. IMPACT, but Mark's line was too much to ignore:

2008 ARI 8 32 9 11 1 0 5 12 3 9 0 0 .344 .400 .844 1.244

If you need an interpretation, let me make this as simple as possible for you. THAT STATLINE IS RIDICULOUS!

Reynolds second year could not have started any better. Playing on a 7-2 division leading team and carrying the offense with the other Chris Young, this guy couldn't have gotten off to a hotter start. Hes leading the league in HR and RBIs while batting .344 with an OPS of 1.244. Now I know that there is a distinct possibility that Reynolds will not be able to keep this 200+ RBI rate, but let us give credit to where credit is due. He has been the hottest pickup in fantasy, and if you had the Nostradamus like telepathy to draft him as a late steal you look like a freakin genius. As always, the fantasy gods will dictate that guys like A-Rod and Hanley will be at the top of this board for the duration of the season, but I could not deny this man his rightful spot for the time being.

Contenders for this episode's MR. IMPACT included:

Torii Hunter, OF, LAA
Chase Utley, 2B, PHI
Jimmy Rollins, SS, PHI

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to reply to this post or you can always email me at Christopher.Young61@gmail.com

Focker out.

Record Crowd of 115,300 Watch Red Sox Beat Dodgers

115,300 strong watch the Red Sox and Dodgers at Los Angeles Coliseum


I know this is old news, but it more than deserves to be mentioned. On March 29th, a record crowd showed up to watch the Boston Red Sox defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 in an exhibition game.

That score is actually quite remarkable considering it was only 251 feet down the left field line. It is a stadium traditionally made for football (the USC Trojans currently play there). But what was clearly more remarkable was the fact that 115,300 paid fans came and watched. Thats twice as many people that Shea Stadium holds. This game didn't even count.

It's very refreshing to see that even though there's that steroid cloud hanging over the game (especially with Jose Canseco's book "Vindicated" pending release), people still love baseball.

I'm personally going to Met games all summer, let me know if you want to come along.

Take care all, oh and fellow bloggers, get some more posts out there!

Is This the Year the "Other" Chicago Team Becomes the Toast of the Town? Umm, Not Quite...

Flashing the Trivia: Last season, on April 18th, Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers defeating them 6-0. Which former White Sox player drew the only walk Buehrle let up, putting the only blemish on his day? (answer at bottom)

The true start to the baseball season with the series in Japan finishing up a few days ago. I ended up catching bits and pieces of the two games but both games were very fun to watch. A series split, with the first game going into extras. Whether or not you agree with the season starting in Japan (a discussion I'll probably bring to the message board), it's a lot of fun to finally have baseball back.

Well the season previews continue with the Chicago White Sox. A team that strives each year to be something more than the "other" team in Chicago.

After a few moves, the team has definitely improved themselves from last season. But unfortunately they are still not the Cubs, and even more unfortunate is that they remain in a division with the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers. They'll be lucky to finish near the .500 mark.

Can Jermaine Dye and the White Sox Turn
Things Around?


Let's go from top to bottom:

Jerry Owens (x) is suffering from a sore right groin but projects to be the starting left fielder and leadoff man when he comes back in a few weeks. Owens hit .268 with a .324 OBP for the Sox in 93 games last season, stealing 33 bases in his first sizable time on the big league roster. He was hitting .361 with a .378 OBP in 10 Cactus League games, but the nagging groin injury limited the speed element of his game, keeping him to one stolen base. He tends to hit for average but hits for close to no power. He declared that this season, with enough playing time, he should be able to steal 60-plus bases. Owens may move to center when he comes back (Nick Swisher to left) but that remains to be seen. The speedster should hit .290 with 7 homers and 45 RBIs this season along with 50 stolen bases.

Orlando Cabrera has always been an overrated player. He's not a bad player, just overrated. He has very little power (10 homers would be a stretch this year) and usually hits in the ball park of a .270 AVG with a .321 OBP. His fielding has been steady over the years as he has won two gold gloves including one last season. He's the White Sox's second best stolen base threat with at least 20 stolen bases over the past few seasons. Nothing spectacular here: .270 AVG, 7 homers, 82 RBIs, .350 OBP.

Nick Swisher will be the team's leadoff man and left fielder while Owens is on the 15-day DL. It's hard to call if Swisher will move to the number 2 hole or number 5 hole, but I believe he belongs here (Ozzie Guillen really likes Orlando Cabrera at 2 because of his propensity to hit-and-run, yeah I don't get it either). Swisher should be a decent number 2, every year he's steadily raised his on-base percentage to last year's peak of .381. If he can cut down on the strikeouts (131 last season, 152 in 2006) and keep increasing the walks (100 last season after 55 and 97 in '05 and '06 respectively) he should crack the .400 mark. Batting in the leadoff spot should do wonders for Swisher's patience, which was already pretty good to begin with. The power has always been there for Swish, maybe with a higher OBP can come a higher average. Look for him to hit .270 with 30 homers and 80 RBIs (hitting out of the two hole, hits RBIs will take a hit).

Jim Thome has been around for awhile and just when you thought he was washed up, he still hangs around with respectable numbers. But still, he's always the guy that one fantasy player drafts only because he either feels he must (in the 14th round) or if he happens to not be there (in the 8th round, ouch). Thome is still a utility-only player as he DHs while spelling Paul Konerko once in every long while (yet David Ortiz remains a first baseman). He should put up numbers similar to last season: .275 AVG, 35 HRS, 96 RBIs, and a .410 OBP.

Paul Konerko follows in the clean-up spot. Each year the power and production are always there, the only thing that drops off every once in awhile is his average. Starting in 2003 he hit .234, .277, .283, .313 and .259 in consecutive years. Despite hitting .406 with 13 hits in 32 at-bats, Konerko has been nursing a toe injury but it shouldn't keep him out of the opening day lineup. He's had his injuries over the years but nothing serious, and I expect the same this season. Something to the tune of a .270 AVG, 30 HRS, and 100 RBIs.

Jermaine Dye is not the best number 5 hitter to have but it is rather difficult when a team has three clean-up hitters, you have to find somewhere to put them. Dye has had numbers similar to Konerko over the years with a fluke 2006 where he hit .315 with 44 homers and 120 RBIs. His numbers tend to be a shade better than the .254 AVG, 28 HRs, and 78 RBIs, that he put up last season. Dye's OBP has been average to below average and his walks are not bad (45 last season) but nothing impressive. His power numbers have kept him high in the lineup, but look for similar numbers to what Dye put up last season with at last one trip to the 15-day DL.

A.J. Pierzynski is batting sixth, for some apparent reason, I believe Joe Crede should be in this spot. Pierzynski is an average catcher, only two years removed from being an All-Star. But he'll always be remembered as the guy on the wrong end of one of the worst deals in Major League history when in 2004 he was sent to the San Francisco Giants for Boof Bonser, Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano. Pierzynski does play with fire and his propensity to be a jackass sometimes makes him fun to watch. I'd expect much the same of what he put up last year: .263 AVG, 14 HRs, and 50 RBIs. His best days are behind him.

Alexei Ramirez was a long-shot to not only start, but even make the big league team. After trying to make the team as a back-up second baseman, he won a starting job, but in center field over Carlos Quentin. Ramirez only recently came over from Cuba, so when he signed a four-year deal with the White Sox, never spent any time in the minors. Ramirez was 6-for-16 while playing center field for Cuba in the World Baseball Classic in 2006. He was also part of the 2004 Cuban national team that won a gold medal in the Athens summer Olympics and possesses a .335 career average in Cuba (Wikipedia is a great thing sometimes). I don't know much about him, he appears to be a poor man's Placido Polanco with more power, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I'd expect him to have numbers close to .275 AVG, 15 homers, and 65 RBIs.

Joe Crede has been one of the more overrated third basemen of the past few years, especially in fantasy baseball. He is slightly above average but got a huge boost from a lot of people after his 2006 season in which he hit .283 with 30 homers and 94 RBIs. After an injury-ravaged 2007 campaign and Josh Fields coming on strong, I expect the 30-year-old to have a bit of an off-year as he gets moved at the trading deadline: .270 AVG, 23 homers, 60 RBIs.

Juan Uribe, I'm not really sure why he's in the starting lineup at all. Ramirez should have gotten the second base job while Carlos Quentin got the start in center. Uribe is not that great of a fielder, nor is he too great of a hitter either. Look for no more than .230 AVG, 15 homers, 70 RBIS.

*x- injured.

Now for the rotation (with 2007 stats)

1. Mark Buehrle: 10-9, 3.63 ERA, 115 Ks, 201 IP
2. Javier Vazquez: 15-8, 3.74 ERA, 213 Ks, 216.2 IP
3. John Danks: 6-13, 5.50 ERA, 109 Ks, 139 IP
4. Jose Contreras: 10-17, 5.57 ERA, 113 Ks, 189 IP
5. Gavin Floyd: 1-5, 5.27 ERA, 49 Ks, 70 IP


Mark Buehrle has been the ace for a few years now and has been great at times, like his no hitter last season. But he's been mostly average and has never really been a true ace. Javier Vazquez really isn't a number 2 starter either, he's also been mostly average over the years as well. Danks is largely unproven and his numbers in minors don't exactly scream phenom (4.17 ERA in 69 IP at AA and 4.31 ERA in AAA in 2006 before being brought up). Contreras falls into the same mold as Vazquez, nothing but average. Floyd struggled for three years with the Phillies before being sent to the White Sox in the deal that sent Freddy Garcia the other way.


As you may have noticed, I am not too high on their rotation to say the least. This is what will make them finish a distant third in their division. I'm not too high on their bullpen either:

Closer: Bobby Jenks, 3-5, 2.77 ERA, 56 Ks, 65 IP
RH Set-up: Scott Linebrink, 3-3, 3.80 ERA, 25 SO, 45 IP
LH Set-up: (None) Boone Logan, 2-1, 4.97 ERA, 35 SO, 50.2 IP

The White Sox bullpen was in such a state of flux last season that they severely overpaid to bring in both Linebrink and Octavio Dotel. Linebrink should do well this season as the set-up man, finally creating a bridge to Bobby Jenks. The only problem is the rest of the bullpen. Dotel has been prone to injuries over the years and has historically not done well right away bouncing back from them. Middle relief may be messy once again for the franchise.

Many argue that it isn't too big of a deal if you don't have a prominent lefty-righty combination in the bullpen. I agree with that, but it's hard to argue when you have only one lefty in the bullpen, and that player only has one full year of experience under his belt.

This team is a slightly below average franchise. They're in a bad place right now: not good, but not bad enough to throw in the towel and acquire prospects. But I really think they should at this point, and the Swisher deal in the end I believe will be more hurtful (Gio Gonzalez will rise with the Athletics) than helpful. After another sub-.500 finish this season, hopefully they do throw in the towel and trade their high priced talent before they get too old and lose their value and get some quality prospects.


Okay everyone, that's it for now. I hope everyone enjoyed the first week of the season as much as I did. Make sure you create your fantasy team now, your not going to remake your team using the waiver wire (which I find out the hard way each year). Also, if anyone of you readers out there would like to contribute, let me know. We are always looking for writers.

Take care everyone, and enjoy spring baseball.


Flashing the Trivia answer: Sammy Sosa.

Statistical information courtesy of mlb.com and baseball-reference.com. Picture courtesy of espn.com.