Ok so this is the last of the 3 teams I'm running the half way evals on, sorry for the lateness of them though, I have been a bit sick as of late, but anyhow lets delve into the stats. And just a heads up, since both Jaimie Garcia those who filled in for him haven't had 10 starts I'm only going to be covering the regular 4 (Wainwright, Lynn, Miller and Westbrook)
Adam Wainwright:
Here we have the proverbial ACE of the Cardinals starting rotation and boy has he taken that to heart this year, which is impressive since it's not long since he was still rehabbing that injury a couple years ago. As of now Wainwright has a K/9 of 8, a little below the past few years, BB/9 of 1 and HR/9 of 0.39. Now all of these of these are great indicators of how amazing Wainwright has been and theres more if we look at his ERA, FIP and xFIP (2.51, 2.24 and 2.68), which shows that for the most part this performance is real and it's not likely to see any sort of major down turn in the second half. I say for the most part because there are a couple small things in his advance stat line that might suggest some regression, the first of those things being his HR/FB ratio, now first let's look at his FB% first, it sits at 25.8% and he has a HR/FB ratio of 6%. So 6% of that 25.8% of fly balls are leaving the park, not the first thing to recognize is that 6% is EXTREMELY low placing him 7th in terms of lowest HR/FB ratio. Now while this is all well and good he has this in combination with having only 11.1% infield fly balls and his combination of FB% and HR/FB ratio being the lowest in the league, now what we can gather from this is that of the 25.8% fly balls that are hit off of Wainwright 6% leave the yard and 11.1% are hit high but stay in the infield. So that means of course 82.9% of his fly balls are in the outfield, which alone seems like a lot to not have become home runs, now usually the next best indicator is to check how else he's getting his outs (ie. strike outs). Wainwright as I said before sports an 8.07 K/9 so he strikes out 8 batters per 9 innings but unfortunately this doesn't really take our gaze away from those fly balls as he is well outside of the top 30 in terms of K/9 meaning of course he's not one of those big strike out guys like Max Scherzer, Matt Harvey or Yu Darvish. So what we can gather form this is that his HR/FB ratio is likely not sustainable at least if he keeps giving up the number of fly balls into the outfield that he has been. So expect the potential for more home runs allowed by Wainwright in the future, however don't expect much more down turn as this just seems to be a career year, hell could set him up for a Cy Young.
Lance Lynn: The second in the rotation for the Cardinals is a rather new pitcher as Lynn has only pitched one full season, last year, prior to this year, though he had a part season in the bullpen the year before. Now whats funny is that he has the same fly ball situation that Wainwright currently has going, similar numbers, situation and everything, so again expect an increase in the number of home runs allowed over the remaining season. On the other hand he sports a 3.89 ERA, 3.09 FIP and 3.75 xFIP, so there is a bit of improvement to come his way in the future. Since he has only had 1 full season just like all rookies I can't make a speculative statement on where his stats might be based on his averages but what I can tell you is that he had a fairly steep decline after the half way point, obviously because of the stark increase in his number of innings pitched and given that he is likely to exceed that number of innings this year as well expect another drop off (last year he hit 176 innings and he's currently at 135).
Shelby Miller: Now get this Shelby Miller....has the same fly ball situation as Lynn and Wainwright so expect an increase in home runs and just like Lynn last year, this is his first full season so again expect a decrease in performance as the year goes on and the innings increase. His ERA, FIP and xFIP also indicate that there should be a correction back to the average since the numbers are as follows, 2.79, 3.04, and 3.38. This of course means that his defence is helping him keep hits from actually turning into base hits. Now unlike Lynn and Wainwright, Miller is a huge strikeout guy as he has a K/9 of nearly 10, which puts him on the same level as guys like Scherzer, Harvey and Darvish however with rookie pitchers with this level of strike outs we have to take into account that batters will eventually make an adjustment to his pitches and start being able to hit them and when we look at his repertoire Miller has 4 pitches (Fastball, Curve, Cutter and Change up). Now this isn't bad because having more weapons in your arsenal is better, however he throws his fastball nearly 75% of the time meaning that if hitters can catch up to his fastball that could be bad news for him. So expect the same changes as with Lynn.
Jake Westbrook: Now heres the only guy on the Cardinals rotation that I cringe just thinking about. Westbrook is not the pitcher he was, not to mention he seems to have gotten worse since coming back from injury. He' sporting a fairly nasty K/9 of 3.28, BB/9 of 3.47 both of which are not good, he's striking out a fairly low number of batters and on top of that he's walking a lot of batters as well. In addition to these nasty stats theres the ERA/FIP/xFIP set 3.18, 4.25 and 4.72. So this means that there is a severe drop in ability that is coming Westbrook's way, not to mention that he's a second rate starting pitcher and has the same fly ball situation as Wainwright and the rest but even crazier (he has a higher % of fly balls and a lower HR/FB ratio). Overall this is the best you should expect from Westbrook and don't be terribly surprised when his performance takes a significant dip.
Alrighty so thats that for the Cardinals starting pitchers, should have the hitters up by the end of the weekend at the latest, so look forward to it. After that I plan on posting a small 'Guide To Evaluating Players' post after it so hopefully it'll be a good read for you all.
-Eric
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Bird Watch: The First Half Of The Orioles Season (Hitting)
Alright so next on the chopping block is to look into the hitting performance of the Orioles over the first 'half' of the season.
Matt Wieters: Ok so the catcher for the Orioles is the first one I've decided to look at and his primary stats are more or less in line with what he did last year as well as his career average (those stats being AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS). Now on the other hand there are some slight changes that could indicate something further if the trend continues, for instance Wieters had 60 walks over the course of the season but so far with just 50 games left in the season he only has 30 (after playing 2/3 of the season already) so it's possible that he's being less selective at the plate and thus taking less balls though his strike outs have gone down so far but what does show whats going on is what happens after he hits the ball. That of course is the fact that his FB and GB percentages have gone up while his LD (line drive) percentage has gone down a fair bit from previous years and falling in line his HR/FB ratio has taken a nose dive of about 4% from last year. So basically what this shows is that he's trying to make contact on pitches that would otherwise be balls and is getting bad hits that end up being fly ball or ground ball outs. Now if he, like most, tends to deviate to his average then he should see a slight increase in power and average in the rest of the season however, not only has his hitting stats suffered a bit this season but he hasn't been nearly as good as expected defensively this year as his fielding runs above average has dropped 5.5 points and his WAR (wins against replacement, basically meaning how many games the team wins just by having him on the team) has dropped by nearly 2 points and is the lowest in his career. Overall I expect some bit of a turn around but don't expect high to start mashing the ball at an amazing pace either.
Chris Davis: So here we have the big anomaly of the year in baseball, now you should know what I mean by that as Davis has just come out of no where to become one of the games premiere power hitters. So obviously I cant really compare this years stats with what he's done in the past as it would seem obvious that he's changed something major that has triggered some innate ability he didn't have before. Anyhow let's get into it, at this point David is having his 3rd full year in the majors after a few year stint with the Rangers, where he was only up for one full season, and a full season with the Orioles the previous year as he was traded. Now his stats this year have been out of this world as he's been able to hold an above .300 AVG, high OBP and nearly above .700 SLG. The obvious explanation is that he has had an increase in his walk rate and a decrease of his strike out rate, then his ISO (isolated power, SLG-AVG) has shot up as well meaning not only is he being more selective about pitches and making more contact because of it but he's making BETTER contact and is driving more of his hits out of the park. Now there are already signs that Davis is starting to regress, what I'm talking about of course is the fact that his AVG dropped to below .300 in June but it's plummeted to .209 so far in July and he's been kicking way off what his pace was for home runs. So overall there are really 2 ways this can go, either Davis will continue to regress back to his previous years numbers or he'll right himself and remain a pretty high end power hitter in the AL, personally I think the later is more likely as I don't think he'd just click like this and then within a few months fall back into old habits for good.
Ryan Flaherty: Not much to talk about here as Flaherty has been just what he has been all his career, an infielder with not much power and not much ability to hit. Then in addition to this there hasn't been much change for him in the way of any of this stats be it offensive or defensive, he was more of a roster filler when the Orioles true second baseball Brian Roberts went down with injury during spring training so expect to see more of the same from Flaherty.
J.J. Hardy: Hardy, the SS for the Orioles, is one of those one/two tool short stops out there in the MLB similar to guys like Elvis Andrus who is really only useful for some average hitting and his speed however Hardy is better known for his defensive ability and his power hitting as he usually breaks 20 home runs but in doing so ends the season with a low .200's AVG. Ok so what we've seen from Hardy this year is more of the same, and thankfully his splits don't really indicate that he has specific areas of his hitting game that he is lacking in, but his strike out rate is 4% lower than the last 3 years and his career average to in the future I expect that to correct itself to some degree and his batting average to decrease slightly to accommodate for it. In addition to this his HR/FB ratio has gone up about 3% from last year and 2% on his career average, which would indicate that he may fall off pace in terms of power for the remaining games. Looking at the rest of his stats doesn't tell us much in terms of what to expect in the future however I believe that it would be wise to expect maybe another 8 or so home runs but a slight increase in strike outs and a slight decrease in his AVG, which would equate to a better year than 2012 but not quite as good as 2011.
Manny Machado: And here we have another rookie phenomenon and I personally think that he's been unfairly over shadowed by the start of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. Now like Davis, Machado has been able, for the first half to sustain an AVG of over .300 and has been on a doubles hitting spree, now a problem is that he has had an exceedingly low walk rate so he isn't being as selective at the plate as he could be and if he did make those changes his OBP would go up a fair bit and he'd likely have more runs scored to show for it. On the positive side he has a strike out rate thats only a few points above the norm in the MLB and as a young player we all should expect it to decrease closer to the mean as his career continues in addition he has already taken steps to improving his ability as his line drive percentage has gone up by nearly 4%, which would account for the amazing amount of doubles that he been hitting. Now as like Davis, he to has been seeing a decrease in his stats as well, he's seen a severe drop in in AVG and walk rate meaning he's swinging more at pitches and likely pitchers are challenging him with tougher pitches, which can be seen in the fact that his LD% has decreased by 13% and then his GB and FB % have increased by 10% and 4% respectively. So in essence what this tells us is that he's swinging at more pitches that may not be the best to drive or put into play and as a result his at bats are resulting more in ground ball and fly ball outs. Now despite being a small sample size his HR/FB ratio has taken a huge leap, which if true, could mean he's sacrificing AVG for power much like the way that his team mate J.J. Hardy works at the plate. Though overall since he still is a very young player it's hard to say what people expect him to be in the end, but I do expect he'll continue on his normal trend but he won't end up as high as his initial 1st half numbers suggested he would as most high talent rookies end up crushing in the first half, then they get challenged by pitchers in the second half and their stats drop off until they make the necessary correction and I believe that Machado will be able to make that adjustment.
Nate McLouth: McLouth this year has shown a bit of a turn around since after being passed around 3 teams in the last few years he's managed to decrease his strike out rate a fair amount and is hitting more for average these days with Baltimore, what has been most surprising is that the last 3 years has seen his development of his speed and it is currently at it's peak. Now in terms of regression there doesn't seem to be any realistic stats to indicate this is not real as there has been a steady increase in these areas since he's come over to the Orioles. This shows that he's had a decent increase in the AVG and speed departments but the stats that show how this is happening is his BABIP, and his LD, FB and GB percentages, the percentages have all steadily increased or decreased in the right direction of the last 3 years (LD up, GB and FB down). Then BABIP is a stat called 'batting average against balls in play', it's basically a way to better look at what a players average SHOULD be or at least what direction you can expect it to move in and in McLouth's case his BABIP has, like his percentages, have gone up and is sitting pretty at .313. All of this basically tells us that McLouth is starting to come into his own and hitting the prime of his career, lucky thing the Orioles traded for him, and like I've said his stats have steadily increase since the beginning of the 2009 season so it's a real increase in his abilities and it is not likely that his current pace will decrease and even more his second half stats so far have also indicated that theres unlikely to be a heavy decline in his skill set.
Adam Jones: Now heres the real muscle of the Orioles batting order good ol' Adam Jones. Like many of the Orioles hitters Jones has been surprisingly consistent throughout his tenure with the Orioles, however there are a few things this year that do raise a bit of question, that being his walk rate, which has gone down a couple percent from the last couple of years and is very low at the point it's at. In addition to this there has been an decrease above his career average for FB and GB percentages and a increase as compared to his career average of line drive percentage, since we lack the same sort of steady increase in his stats over the past few years like we've seen with McLouth theres no reason to think that these changes will necessarily be permanent in the second half and that there won't be a drop off. This can be seen even more by the percentages more or less righting themselves in the few second half games he has had so far, but his walk rate has also increased, which makes up for the lower number of line drives to some extent. Now one thing I haven't mentioned in all of these evals is batting average with runners in scoring position and pitch count splits, now the reason for that is because all of the Orioles hitters don't have any issues with any sort of situational or clutch hitting and in the cases of Machado, Jones and McLouth they seem to thrive in those situations. Overall just like the majority of the hitters for the Orioles we can expect more of the same from Jones, now yes there will likely be a decrease in the amount of power hitting that we see from him in the second half, however he has also increased his walk rate and his slugging has taken a sharp upward turn so there is a good chance that he may not even see a decrease since he has decrease in one way but an increase from the other end.
Nick Markakis: With more consistency to the Orioles line up we see Nick Markakis. This guy has been doing the same thing for the past couple years, his numbers have stayed rather steady and unchanged. Though his ISO (isolated power) has decreased over the last 2 years to this year it's important to note that despite this decrease those 2 years only saw him take 400 or so at bats over the whole season whereas this year he's likely to sport around 500-600 at bats and get about the same number of home runs as the previous years. As well his LD%, GB% and FB% are slightly above/below what his career averages, which indicates that his stats are going to decline, however even though his career averages aren't as good his past 3 years have actually been slightly better in those 3 stats that his current coverage, making the idea that we could even see an increase in his production more likely. One more thing that proves this theory on my part is that his OBP, AVG, SLG and OPS are currently a bit lwoer than his career averages but even more so when you look at his previous 2 years of production. In essence what this tells us is that Markakis has yet to show us his best and is likely to get better in the last couple of months of the season.
Nolan Reimold: Now the reason I'm writing in Reimold is because out of all the other people that have been cycled into the DH position he's the only one that has been present for 100+ at bats, the rest having less and in most cases 40 or less at bats. Now in terms of Reimold, he has shown rather lacklustre ability so far this year hitting at a pitiful .195 so far and his OBP and OPS have followed suit and the reasoning for this can be seen in the fact that his strike out rate is up 9% more than his norm and his walk rate is down about 2.5% from the norm. Now the unfortunate news about this is that like McLouth, this trend has been occurring over the past 3 years so there is less evidence to suggest that it isn't going to be permanent. However on the other hand if we are to expect that the changes that have occurred over the past years are permanent we must also expect that his heightened line drive rate from 2012 must also follow suit so despite the lower walk rate and higher strikeout rate there is good potential that at the very least his OBP and AVG should improve to a degree for the remainder of the year.
Ok, now onto the final, and most playoff relevant, team over the week I should have posts on the Cardinals hitting and pitcher for the first half.
-Eric
Matt Wieters: Ok so the catcher for the Orioles is the first one I've decided to look at and his primary stats are more or less in line with what he did last year as well as his career average (those stats being AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS). Now on the other hand there are some slight changes that could indicate something further if the trend continues, for instance Wieters had 60 walks over the course of the season but so far with just 50 games left in the season he only has 30 (after playing 2/3 of the season already) so it's possible that he's being less selective at the plate and thus taking less balls though his strike outs have gone down so far but what does show whats going on is what happens after he hits the ball. That of course is the fact that his FB and GB percentages have gone up while his LD (line drive) percentage has gone down a fair bit from previous years and falling in line his HR/FB ratio has taken a nose dive of about 4% from last year. So basically what this shows is that he's trying to make contact on pitches that would otherwise be balls and is getting bad hits that end up being fly ball or ground ball outs. Now if he, like most, tends to deviate to his average then he should see a slight increase in power and average in the rest of the season however, not only has his hitting stats suffered a bit this season but he hasn't been nearly as good as expected defensively this year as his fielding runs above average has dropped 5.5 points and his WAR (wins against replacement, basically meaning how many games the team wins just by having him on the team) has dropped by nearly 2 points and is the lowest in his career. Overall I expect some bit of a turn around but don't expect high to start mashing the ball at an amazing pace either.
Chris Davis: So here we have the big anomaly of the year in baseball, now you should know what I mean by that as Davis has just come out of no where to become one of the games premiere power hitters. So obviously I cant really compare this years stats with what he's done in the past as it would seem obvious that he's changed something major that has triggered some innate ability he didn't have before. Anyhow let's get into it, at this point David is having his 3rd full year in the majors after a few year stint with the Rangers, where he was only up for one full season, and a full season with the Orioles the previous year as he was traded. Now his stats this year have been out of this world as he's been able to hold an above .300 AVG, high OBP and nearly above .700 SLG. The obvious explanation is that he has had an increase in his walk rate and a decrease of his strike out rate, then his ISO (isolated power, SLG-AVG) has shot up as well meaning not only is he being more selective about pitches and making more contact because of it but he's making BETTER contact and is driving more of his hits out of the park. Now there are already signs that Davis is starting to regress, what I'm talking about of course is the fact that his AVG dropped to below .300 in June but it's plummeted to .209 so far in July and he's been kicking way off what his pace was for home runs. So overall there are really 2 ways this can go, either Davis will continue to regress back to his previous years numbers or he'll right himself and remain a pretty high end power hitter in the AL, personally I think the later is more likely as I don't think he'd just click like this and then within a few months fall back into old habits for good.
Ryan Flaherty: Not much to talk about here as Flaherty has been just what he has been all his career, an infielder with not much power and not much ability to hit. Then in addition to this there hasn't been much change for him in the way of any of this stats be it offensive or defensive, he was more of a roster filler when the Orioles true second baseball Brian Roberts went down with injury during spring training so expect to see more of the same from Flaherty.
J.J. Hardy: Hardy, the SS for the Orioles, is one of those one/two tool short stops out there in the MLB similar to guys like Elvis Andrus who is really only useful for some average hitting and his speed however Hardy is better known for his defensive ability and his power hitting as he usually breaks 20 home runs but in doing so ends the season with a low .200's AVG. Ok so what we've seen from Hardy this year is more of the same, and thankfully his splits don't really indicate that he has specific areas of his hitting game that he is lacking in, but his strike out rate is 4% lower than the last 3 years and his career average to in the future I expect that to correct itself to some degree and his batting average to decrease slightly to accommodate for it. In addition to this his HR/FB ratio has gone up about 3% from last year and 2% on his career average, which would indicate that he may fall off pace in terms of power for the remaining games. Looking at the rest of his stats doesn't tell us much in terms of what to expect in the future however I believe that it would be wise to expect maybe another 8 or so home runs but a slight increase in strike outs and a slight decrease in his AVG, which would equate to a better year than 2012 but not quite as good as 2011.
Manny Machado: And here we have another rookie phenomenon and I personally think that he's been unfairly over shadowed by the start of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. Now like Davis, Machado has been able, for the first half to sustain an AVG of over .300 and has been on a doubles hitting spree, now a problem is that he has had an exceedingly low walk rate so he isn't being as selective at the plate as he could be and if he did make those changes his OBP would go up a fair bit and he'd likely have more runs scored to show for it. On the positive side he has a strike out rate thats only a few points above the norm in the MLB and as a young player we all should expect it to decrease closer to the mean as his career continues in addition he has already taken steps to improving his ability as his line drive percentage has gone up by nearly 4%, which would account for the amazing amount of doubles that he been hitting. Now as like Davis, he to has been seeing a decrease in his stats as well, he's seen a severe drop in in AVG and walk rate meaning he's swinging more at pitches and likely pitchers are challenging him with tougher pitches, which can be seen in the fact that his LD% has decreased by 13% and then his GB and FB % have increased by 10% and 4% respectively. So in essence what this tells us is that he's swinging at more pitches that may not be the best to drive or put into play and as a result his at bats are resulting more in ground ball and fly ball outs. Now despite being a small sample size his HR/FB ratio has taken a huge leap, which if true, could mean he's sacrificing AVG for power much like the way that his team mate J.J. Hardy works at the plate. Though overall since he still is a very young player it's hard to say what people expect him to be in the end, but I do expect he'll continue on his normal trend but he won't end up as high as his initial 1st half numbers suggested he would as most high talent rookies end up crushing in the first half, then they get challenged by pitchers in the second half and their stats drop off until they make the necessary correction and I believe that Machado will be able to make that adjustment.
Nate McLouth: McLouth this year has shown a bit of a turn around since after being passed around 3 teams in the last few years he's managed to decrease his strike out rate a fair amount and is hitting more for average these days with Baltimore, what has been most surprising is that the last 3 years has seen his development of his speed and it is currently at it's peak. Now in terms of regression there doesn't seem to be any realistic stats to indicate this is not real as there has been a steady increase in these areas since he's come over to the Orioles. This shows that he's had a decent increase in the AVG and speed departments but the stats that show how this is happening is his BABIP, and his LD, FB and GB percentages, the percentages have all steadily increased or decreased in the right direction of the last 3 years (LD up, GB and FB down). Then BABIP is a stat called 'batting average against balls in play', it's basically a way to better look at what a players average SHOULD be or at least what direction you can expect it to move in and in McLouth's case his BABIP has, like his percentages, have gone up and is sitting pretty at .313. All of this basically tells us that McLouth is starting to come into his own and hitting the prime of his career, lucky thing the Orioles traded for him, and like I've said his stats have steadily increase since the beginning of the 2009 season so it's a real increase in his abilities and it is not likely that his current pace will decrease and even more his second half stats so far have also indicated that theres unlikely to be a heavy decline in his skill set.
Adam Jones: Now heres the real muscle of the Orioles batting order good ol' Adam Jones. Like many of the Orioles hitters Jones has been surprisingly consistent throughout his tenure with the Orioles, however there are a few things this year that do raise a bit of question, that being his walk rate, which has gone down a couple percent from the last couple of years and is very low at the point it's at. In addition to this there has been an decrease above his career average for FB and GB percentages and a increase as compared to his career average of line drive percentage, since we lack the same sort of steady increase in his stats over the past few years like we've seen with McLouth theres no reason to think that these changes will necessarily be permanent in the second half and that there won't be a drop off. This can be seen even more by the percentages more or less righting themselves in the few second half games he has had so far, but his walk rate has also increased, which makes up for the lower number of line drives to some extent. Now one thing I haven't mentioned in all of these evals is batting average with runners in scoring position and pitch count splits, now the reason for that is because all of the Orioles hitters don't have any issues with any sort of situational or clutch hitting and in the cases of Machado, Jones and McLouth they seem to thrive in those situations. Overall just like the majority of the hitters for the Orioles we can expect more of the same from Jones, now yes there will likely be a decrease in the amount of power hitting that we see from him in the second half, however he has also increased his walk rate and his slugging has taken a sharp upward turn so there is a good chance that he may not even see a decrease since he has decrease in one way but an increase from the other end.
Nick Markakis: With more consistency to the Orioles line up we see Nick Markakis. This guy has been doing the same thing for the past couple years, his numbers have stayed rather steady and unchanged. Though his ISO (isolated power) has decreased over the last 2 years to this year it's important to note that despite this decrease those 2 years only saw him take 400 or so at bats over the whole season whereas this year he's likely to sport around 500-600 at bats and get about the same number of home runs as the previous years. As well his LD%, GB% and FB% are slightly above/below what his career averages, which indicates that his stats are going to decline, however even though his career averages aren't as good his past 3 years have actually been slightly better in those 3 stats that his current coverage, making the idea that we could even see an increase in his production more likely. One more thing that proves this theory on my part is that his OBP, AVG, SLG and OPS are currently a bit lwoer than his career averages but even more so when you look at his previous 2 years of production. In essence what this tells us is that Markakis has yet to show us his best and is likely to get better in the last couple of months of the season.
Nolan Reimold: Now the reason I'm writing in Reimold is because out of all the other people that have been cycled into the DH position he's the only one that has been present for 100+ at bats, the rest having less and in most cases 40 or less at bats. Now in terms of Reimold, he has shown rather lacklustre ability so far this year hitting at a pitiful .195 so far and his OBP and OPS have followed suit and the reasoning for this can be seen in the fact that his strike out rate is up 9% more than his norm and his walk rate is down about 2.5% from the norm. Now the unfortunate news about this is that like McLouth, this trend has been occurring over the past 3 years so there is less evidence to suggest that it isn't going to be permanent. However on the other hand if we are to expect that the changes that have occurred over the past years are permanent we must also expect that his heightened line drive rate from 2012 must also follow suit so despite the lower walk rate and higher strikeout rate there is good potential that at the very least his OBP and AVG should improve to a degree for the remainder of the year.
Ok, now onto the final, and most playoff relevant, team over the week I should have posts on the Cardinals hitting and pitcher for the first half.
-Eric
Friday, July 26, 2013
Bird Watch: The First Half Of The Orioles Season (Pitching)
Ok so unlike the Blue Jays, the Orioles have actually been doing pretty well for themselves a couple of issues coming up here and there, those being having several close 1-2 run games, meaning the offence in those games didn't provide the starter with enough run support, and the mid section of the bullpen, just before the set up and closer get involved. So let's take a look at the Orioles pitching for the first half of the season:
Chris Tillman: Tillman has been a very welcome surprise for the Orioles this season a he seems to be finally coming into his own on the mound. Now I say this despite a good performance last year because he did not play for the full year and ended with a record of 9-3 whereas he currently is at 12-3 right now, so with a much better winning percentage. Ok so as of now there honestly isn't much to say about Tillman, he only has a few stats that aren't really in line with his career averages or slightly higher/lower with the exception of his home runs per 9 innings and his home run/fly ball ratio. Now his HR/9 ratio is 1.58, whereas his career average is at 1.44 so he has the potential to allow less home runs during his starts in the second half. Then to further prove that we can look at his HR/FB ratio this year, which is 15.6%, and his career is 12.4% showing that he has been getting a bit unlucky with the long ball and suggests like the HR/9 stat that he is likely to give up less home runs in the second half. Now I suppose the only other area I can look at for holes or hope in Tillman's stats is in his FIP and xFIP, which sits at 4.87 and 4.17 respectively, now his ERA sits at 3.84 so his field independent pitching ratios suggest that the team's defence has been helping keep the ball from becoming base hits so while there may be a decrease in his number of home runs in the second half the numbers also suggest that he's been getting off lucky and his ERA and WHIP is set to increase a bit. Now some may wonder what of FIP or xFIP should I focus on when looking at players? Well the answer to that is based on what you want to focus on as xFIP is the same as FIP but it doesn't incorporate home runs so in the case of Tillman, since we expect his home run rate to change, and that it wasn't very high to begin with, we should be looking at his xFIP. Overall Tillman should enjoy some more success in the rotation though don't be surprised if his ERA and WHIP inflate a little, the only final thing to consider is that this will be his first full season so he could run into some issues down the stretch since he hasn't pitched over 90 innings at the major league level.
Jason Hammel: Now I loved Jason Hammel last year, he just came out of no where and acted as the team's unofficial ace and he helped a couple of my fantasy teams to a swift victory. However he is taking in the ass this year as he has had a pretty severe regression in nearly all stats, his K/9 has dropped from 8.62 to 6.27 so he's not striking out as many people as before, which could be either a lack of command or just that his pitches aren't fooling hitters anymore. As well as this his HR/9 has increased from 0.69 to 1.45 so it's more than doubled so his talent for suppressing the long ball has vanished, his ground ball percentage has gone down from 53.2% to 40.9% so he's not hitting the bottom of the strike zone as much to cause ground balls, his HR/FB ratio has also gone up from 9.7% to 13.5% so this would suggest the balls that he's not getting ground balls are more than likely getting located in the centre/middle of the strike zone and pummelled out of the field. Now on the other hand Hammel does have some indication that he has been getting a bit unlucky as his 5.80 ERA is fairly higher than his 5.00 FIP and 4.57 xFIP again suggesting he's in for a slight turn around and his career stats as compared to the previously mentioned ones are somewhat lower, which would generally indicate he is going to trend upwards. NOW this isn't entirely true and that is because he has 4 full seasons in the majors, excluding this year, and 3 of those 4 years were with Colorado in the NL West where the hitters are much weaker than in the AL East so it's hard to draw those conclusions with only 1 full season in the AL East. So basically I would expect the his ERA and WHIP will get a bit better though his other stats are up in the air as you can't really make a safe assumption since the majority of his career stats are from a MUCH weaker hitting division.
Miguel Gonzalez: Now heres another young pitcher who is doing a good job for Baltimore and holding the team in the game on a regular basis as he is just in his second full season in the big leagues. Now like with Jason Hammel, because of this lack of major league experience these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt as there isn't really enough major league stats that you can appropriately draw a conclusion. Now to be honest Gonzalez's stats are pretty much in line with what you'd expect from a solid #3 or #4 pitcher in your starting rotation and his stats generally show that there isn't much change to be expected, his ratios (HR/FB, K/9, BB/9. GB%, HR/9, etc.) are all at or just slightly above/below the career average and what he managed to post the year prior so I expect he continues to do what he's doing. Now there is one thing to note and that is similarly to Chris Tillman, because he has a lack of major league experience he has only pitched 105 innings most in his time in the majors and only 130 innings as his most in a season with the Red Sox AA affiliate so he could see some regression as the large number of innings start to wear on his pitching arm, especially with the Orioles looking like they will be playoff bound. So all in all nothing to worry about, Gonzalez should keep doing what he's doing but keep in mind he may show a bit of wear and tear later as the final month closes in.
Wei Yin Chen: Boy do the Orioles have A LOT of young pitchers in the rotation and all guys who are managing to perform well and keep the team in the race for the AL East title and the playoffs in general. Now in terms of Chen in the games he pitched post and pre injury, which has kept him out of the line up for an extended period of time he has had some increase in one stat but a decrease in another. Now the first to see is that his K/9 has decreased from 7.19 in 2012 to 4.90 this year, which is a bit worrying at first glance since strikeouts are a big part of a starters repertoire, though he has seen a decrease in his HR/FB ratio as well from 1.35 in 2012 to 0.66 this year so even though he's lost strikeouts he's still able to keep the ball out of the stands. Now the final interesting bit about Chen's stat line is that his ERA has taken a nose dive, which is a good thing, from 4.02 in 2012 to 2.78 this year, which suggests that he's been incredibly effective with keeping the ball within an area that the fielders can throw them out when he doesn't get those strikeouts. Now like I've talked about you also have to still take note of his FIP and xFIP, which are each 1.00 point above the prior so despite all of these spectacular numbers the Orioles defence is saving him to some extent though like Gonzalez, there is nothing to suggest that his ability will decrease in the mean time and last year he pitched 192 innings so he is more than capable of pushing his innings high.
Kevin Gausman: Good ol' doughnut boy himself. Now if you don't know what I'm talking about I made a post on Gausman when he was first called up and reason being because he feasts on powdered doughnuts in between innings, definitely another funny habit some players have. Now with Gausman there isn't much to talk about and thats because the numbers he's shown in terms of ratios match up with his minor league numbers except K/9, which was expected going from AAA hitters to major league hitters. Though the downside is that because of his inexperience against major leaguers he's been beat up quite a bit, sporting an ERA of 6.21, though his FIP and xFIP (5.03, 3.76) suggest that if he gets the ball to start again this year some improvement will likely be seen in how many runs get out during the game. So don't go crazy for Gausman just yet, yes he is one of the Orioles biggest pitching prospects along with Dylan Bundy but give him a year or two and I'm sure he'll be pitching like all of the other young studs in the Orioles rotation
The Rest: Now since the Orioles have had a bit of issue with their starters getting injured this year there have been a surge of pitchers who have gotten starts here and there, though they all fall under the same category, crappy pitchers. Nearly all of these starters ended up sporting a high ERA, sometimes with high strikeouts and low walks but still allowing a fair number of runs and overall not helping the rotation a great deal as most of them got sent down when they could be replaced. Now the final thing I can say about the evolution of the Orioles rotation this year is the addition of Scott Feldman, while I don't think theres enough data to draw any conclusions I do believe he could be a difference maker for Baltimore strictly because he played with Texas for a few years in one of the most hitter friendly parks and had decent success and while Camden Yards is a hitters park it's not nearly as bad as Rangers Ballpark so expect Feldman to be a good contributor to the Orioles lineup and maybe assist in the playoff push.
Ok so thats all for the Orioles starting pitching staff, expect a post on the Orioles hitters within the next couple days.
-Eric
Chris Tillman: Tillman has been a very welcome surprise for the Orioles this season a he seems to be finally coming into his own on the mound. Now I say this despite a good performance last year because he did not play for the full year and ended with a record of 9-3 whereas he currently is at 12-3 right now, so with a much better winning percentage. Ok so as of now there honestly isn't much to say about Tillman, he only has a few stats that aren't really in line with his career averages or slightly higher/lower with the exception of his home runs per 9 innings and his home run/fly ball ratio. Now his HR/9 ratio is 1.58, whereas his career average is at 1.44 so he has the potential to allow less home runs during his starts in the second half. Then to further prove that we can look at his HR/FB ratio this year, which is 15.6%, and his career is 12.4% showing that he has been getting a bit unlucky with the long ball and suggests like the HR/9 stat that he is likely to give up less home runs in the second half. Now I suppose the only other area I can look at for holes or hope in Tillman's stats is in his FIP and xFIP, which sits at 4.87 and 4.17 respectively, now his ERA sits at 3.84 so his field independent pitching ratios suggest that the team's defence has been helping keep the ball from becoming base hits so while there may be a decrease in his number of home runs in the second half the numbers also suggest that he's been getting off lucky and his ERA and WHIP is set to increase a bit. Now some may wonder what of FIP or xFIP should I focus on when looking at players? Well the answer to that is based on what you want to focus on as xFIP is the same as FIP but it doesn't incorporate home runs so in the case of Tillman, since we expect his home run rate to change, and that it wasn't very high to begin with, we should be looking at his xFIP. Overall Tillman should enjoy some more success in the rotation though don't be surprised if his ERA and WHIP inflate a little, the only final thing to consider is that this will be his first full season so he could run into some issues down the stretch since he hasn't pitched over 90 innings at the major league level.
Jason Hammel: Now I loved Jason Hammel last year, he just came out of no where and acted as the team's unofficial ace and he helped a couple of my fantasy teams to a swift victory. However he is taking in the ass this year as he has had a pretty severe regression in nearly all stats, his K/9 has dropped from 8.62 to 6.27 so he's not striking out as many people as before, which could be either a lack of command or just that his pitches aren't fooling hitters anymore. As well as this his HR/9 has increased from 0.69 to 1.45 so it's more than doubled so his talent for suppressing the long ball has vanished, his ground ball percentage has gone down from 53.2% to 40.9% so he's not hitting the bottom of the strike zone as much to cause ground balls, his HR/FB ratio has also gone up from 9.7% to 13.5% so this would suggest the balls that he's not getting ground balls are more than likely getting located in the centre/middle of the strike zone and pummelled out of the field. Now on the other hand Hammel does have some indication that he has been getting a bit unlucky as his 5.80 ERA is fairly higher than his 5.00 FIP and 4.57 xFIP again suggesting he's in for a slight turn around and his career stats as compared to the previously mentioned ones are somewhat lower, which would generally indicate he is going to trend upwards. NOW this isn't entirely true and that is because he has 4 full seasons in the majors, excluding this year, and 3 of those 4 years were with Colorado in the NL West where the hitters are much weaker than in the AL East so it's hard to draw those conclusions with only 1 full season in the AL East. So basically I would expect the his ERA and WHIP will get a bit better though his other stats are up in the air as you can't really make a safe assumption since the majority of his career stats are from a MUCH weaker hitting division.
Miguel Gonzalez: Now heres another young pitcher who is doing a good job for Baltimore and holding the team in the game on a regular basis as he is just in his second full season in the big leagues. Now like with Jason Hammel, because of this lack of major league experience these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt as there isn't really enough major league stats that you can appropriately draw a conclusion. Now to be honest Gonzalez's stats are pretty much in line with what you'd expect from a solid #3 or #4 pitcher in your starting rotation and his stats generally show that there isn't much change to be expected, his ratios (HR/FB, K/9, BB/9. GB%, HR/9, etc.) are all at or just slightly above/below the career average and what he managed to post the year prior so I expect he continues to do what he's doing. Now there is one thing to note and that is similarly to Chris Tillman, because he has a lack of major league experience he has only pitched 105 innings most in his time in the majors and only 130 innings as his most in a season with the Red Sox AA affiliate so he could see some regression as the large number of innings start to wear on his pitching arm, especially with the Orioles looking like they will be playoff bound. So all in all nothing to worry about, Gonzalez should keep doing what he's doing but keep in mind he may show a bit of wear and tear later as the final month closes in.
Wei Yin Chen: Boy do the Orioles have A LOT of young pitchers in the rotation and all guys who are managing to perform well and keep the team in the race for the AL East title and the playoffs in general. Now in terms of Chen in the games he pitched post and pre injury, which has kept him out of the line up for an extended period of time he has had some increase in one stat but a decrease in another. Now the first to see is that his K/9 has decreased from 7.19 in 2012 to 4.90 this year, which is a bit worrying at first glance since strikeouts are a big part of a starters repertoire, though he has seen a decrease in his HR/FB ratio as well from 1.35 in 2012 to 0.66 this year so even though he's lost strikeouts he's still able to keep the ball out of the stands. Now the final interesting bit about Chen's stat line is that his ERA has taken a nose dive, which is a good thing, from 4.02 in 2012 to 2.78 this year, which suggests that he's been incredibly effective with keeping the ball within an area that the fielders can throw them out when he doesn't get those strikeouts. Now like I've talked about you also have to still take note of his FIP and xFIP, which are each 1.00 point above the prior so despite all of these spectacular numbers the Orioles defence is saving him to some extent though like Gonzalez, there is nothing to suggest that his ability will decrease in the mean time and last year he pitched 192 innings so he is more than capable of pushing his innings high.
Kevin Gausman: Good ol' doughnut boy himself. Now if you don't know what I'm talking about I made a post on Gausman when he was first called up and reason being because he feasts on powdered doughnuts in between innings, definitely another funny habit some players have. Now with Gausman there isn't much to talk about and thats because the numbers he's shown in terms of ratios match up with his minor league numbers except K/9, which was expected going from AAA hitters to major league hitters. Though the downside is that because of his inexperience against major leaguers he's been beat up quite a bit, sporting an ERA of 6.21, though his FIP and xFIP (5.03, 3.76) suggest that if he gets the ball to start again this year some improvement will likely be seen in how many runs get out during the game. So don't go crazy for Gausman just yet, yes he is one of the Orioles biggest pitching prospects along with Dylan Bundy but give him a year or two and I'm sure he'll be pitching like all of the other young studs in the Orioles rotation
The Rest: Now since the Orioles have had a bit of issue with their starters getting injured this year there have been a surge of pitchers who have gotten starts here and there, though they all fall under the same category, crappy pitchers. Nearly all of these starters ended up sporting a high ERA, sometimes with high strikeouts and low walks but still allowing a fair number of runs and overall not helping the rotation a great deal as most of them got sent down when they could be replaced. Now the final thing I can say about the evolution of the Orioles rotation this year is the addition of Scott Feldman, while I don't think theres enough data to draw any conclusions I do believe he could be a difference maker for Baltimore strictly because he played with Texas for a few years in one of the most hitter friendly parks and had decent success and while Camden Yards is a hitters park it's not nearly as bad as Rangers Ballpark so expect Feldman to be a good contributor to the Orioles lineup and maybe assist in the playoff push.
Ok so thats all for the Orioles starting pitching staff, expect a post on the Orioles hitters within the next couple days.
-Eric
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Bird Watch: The First Half Of The Blue Birds Season (Hitting)
Ok so first, sorry for the delay, I've been rather busy lately but here it is, the hitting eval for the Jays first half.
Jose Reyes: To be honest I've got nothing for Reyes, all of his stats have been rather good, he's batting a solid .318, has an OBP of .368 (the lack of walks is the only bad thing) and is slugging .447, which is actually pretty high considering some of his other years. Now when evaluating a hitter, going into the situational splits is the first thing I do after browsing their standard stats because it tells you where that batter can improve his approach or where they are lacking if their base stats don't already show that. Now in Jose's case nearly all of his splits are fairly even with his basic stats, his vs. pitcher AVG ranges from .299-.371, which is great from anyone, additionally his AVG with runners in scoring position is .313. Now the few issues he has, first off his 2 strike approach is pretty weak as his cumulative AVG with 2 strikes on the count is .149 and in the most clutch situation, runners in scoring position and 2 outs, AVG is .200. Then the last holes in his split stats are that his AVG in the first inning is .241 and finally he is only hitting .200 if the gams is close and in the last 1/3 of the innings, which a bit of a disappointment considering the team is lacking in those kind of areas. But overall Reyes has more positives than negatives.
Melky Cabrera: Melky, like Jose has been fairly consistent, he's got a .280 AVG, .325 OBP, .363 SLG. Now I should have made it clear that the reason both Melky and Jose have good batting splits against all types of pitcher situations is because they are both fairly efficient switch hitters so they are used to batting against left and right handed pitchers from both sides. In addition to these things like Jose, to a lesser extent, Melky has a low batting AVG with a 2 strike count, .232, and then again his AVG with the game late and close is a disappointing .224 and then his AVG in a tie game is .245. Now while this is bad for the team Melky is like our #1 clutch hitter as he has a batting AVG with runners in scoring position .295, and then with 2 out and runners in scoring position an AVG of .341. So in other words Melky is an overall successful clutch hitter and a good #2 hitter, when he's healthy, but again we need a change in his 2 strike approach.
Jose Bautista: Bautista is a bit of a go with the flow kind of guy, that meaning that he can have a year of AMAZING stats (see 2011 or 2010) but then it can regress a bit, so this year his stats so far are as follows: .252 AVG, .348 OBP and .501 SLG. Now the OBP is good because it means he's taking a fair amount of walks (about 10% of at bats, which is alright) and though his slugging is a bit lower than what we would like to see as he was always expected to be the team's premiere power hitter but he's taking a serious backseat to Encarnacion as he only has hit 23 home runs and theres only about 65 games left and his batting AVG could be better as .252 is pretty low when you look at the games top power hitters. Now when you look at Bautista's splits theres some different stuff, his splits with left vs. right handed pitchers are fairly similar but considering he's not a switch hitter his AVG against left handed pitchers is about 20-30 points lower, one rather disturbing thing is that his batting average when the team is winning is 70 points higher than when the team is losing, and it's only 287. In addition to this like everyone he has a very poor 2 strike approach with a batting AVG with 2 strikes of .192, his AVG with runners in scoring position is .306 and .296 with 2 out and runners in scoring position and he has an AVG when the game is late and close of .302 though his AVG with a tie game is only .192. So all of these numbers basically tells us that Bautista has a good approach at the plate but like most he has a poor approach with 2 strikes and same when the game is tied, in addition to this from what you can see from his monthly splits is a regression, going from very low AVG in April to high in May to average-mediocre in June and back to low in July so hopefully we see a turn around there. All in all it seems he needs to improve in the same area as the others.
Edwin Encarnacion: Ok so this is the 'big man' good ol' E5. So his base stats are very similar to Bautista's only a fair amount higher and with a higher total in the counting stats (HR, R, RBI). On the split stats again fairly similar but a bit higher than Bautista's and even the same problems are prevalent though again to a slightly lesser degree with Edwin (lacklustre AVG with 2 strikes). To balance this tough Edwin has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .329 and .318 with 2 out and runners in scoring position, then in addition to these great clutch stats he also has AVGs above .275 when the game is close and late or tied. Not really much for Edwin to work on, yea he does have the same 2 strike approach but his AVG is above .200 so he's not nearly as bad as the other guys on the teams offence.
Adam Lind: Man, Lind can't seem to figure out what he is, he was a power hitter in 2009/2010 and now he's a batter who hits for avg with decent power but he is performing well for us this year as he has an AVG of .300, however his OBP is .365 so he's not taking that many walks, which is a bit of an issue and we don't need that happening with the number of walks Arencibia isn't taking. Lind has also been trending down since the start of July in terms of his batting performance and his splits show a fairly poor performance in games that end with the teams loss, now on the other hand he is one of the few who don't seem to have much problem with his 2 strike approach as he is hitting .230 in that situation. As well he hits well with runners in scoring position and with 2 outs in the same situation, .321 and .333 respectively, the only down sides are that he hits poorly late/close games .217 and and then he hits below .200 in the 6th, 7th and extra innings, generally ones that matter as those innings are usually the ones where the middle relief guys are brought in and before the setup and closer are brought in, who are generally harder to hit against. So Lind seems like the most complete hitter here so far.
Colby Rasmus: Colby fits into the same kind of category as Adam Lind as he's been one of our most productive players this year, with a decent AVG of .264, OBP of .333 and SLG of .480, which is all well above his career average which, is nice because it shows that he's finally coming into his own, something we've been waiting for as a lot was expected out of him when he was with St. Louis. Now his splits for months, pitchers and win/loss situations are all fairly even so he's driven no matter what the situation, however again his 2 strike approach again is poor as he only has an AVG of .180. Now heres something strange, Colby has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .324, which is fantastic, however his AVG with 2 out and runners in scoring position (a very clutch situation) is only .182! Then his late and close game AVG is .230 and in tie games he has an AVG of .282 and like Lind he has issues in specific innings, 3rd, 5th and 6th innings. So again Colby is a very good hitter for us but again he needs work on his 2 strike approach and hopefully find a way to improve in the innings he has issues in.
J.P. Arencibia: Now this guy drives me FUCKING INSANE, and thats because of his approach at the plate and attitude towards it, before I get into the stats everyone reading this knows I hate Arencibia because he doesn't take walks and swings at everything and has one of the top 3 strikeout percentages in the MLB. But just that isn't what makes me dislike the guy it's the fact that he's talked about how he's stated on record that he has just started ignoring strikeouts and that it doesn't matter to him, he just swings at pitches he feels good about, which is not only selfish but just infuriating for a die hard fan like me, especailly when he sits right in the middle of the batting order, it just breaks up our good hitters and often gets us the last out. ANYHOW J.P. has an atrocious AVG of .225 (12th lowest in MLB), which wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't have the lowest OBP in the game (.258) and a SLG of .425. Now Arencibia has pretty bad splits with right/ left handed pitchers (average against lefties and shit against righties) though his AVG is getting better in July so hopefully that trend continues but we'll see BUT he has a large drop off in AVG when the team is losing, .294 for winning and .163 for losing. Just like expected all of his other splits are fairly bad as well since they are all below .250 and about 80% of them are below .200, so not much out of what bad expectations we have of his stats. Overall Arencibia and he's terrible attitude toward batting is a MAJOR reason for the Blue Jays offence being the way it is right now, again he has the same problems as everyone else though his lower AVG amplifies those issues.
Brett Lawrie: Not really anything I can say about Lawrie but thats not because he's been good, in fact he's been slumping most of the season but he's only been on the field for 60 games, which I don't think I can make an accurate evaluation on. So overall give him a month then he'll likely be in more standard form since he missed so much time on the DL with the hamstring injury.
Maicer Izturis: Like most hitters at his age there isn't anything to fantastic, most if not all of his numbers are pretty average though his numbers have been trending upwards since the beginning of the season. Though again he has problems with his 2 strike approach and with runners in scoring position, though not so much with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. Again not really anything aside from the typical that Maicer needs to work on, though to be honest I was really weirded out when the Jays signed him when there were better 2nd baseman they could have tried to get via trade.
Bonifacio and DeRosa: Now I've included these guys as one because one their troubles are similar to other players and two because they aren't being played as everyday players, though if Bonifacio was hitting I guarantee he'd be in the lineup more often just for his ridiculous speed. Now Bonifacio has been a lot like Arencibia just without the power making him next to useless as a hitter since his main strength is his speed, which he can't institute unless he's on base and DeRosa has the same issues as Izturis, though he is a bit better in clutch situations.
Overall the issue for the Jays offence seems pretty clear, the main thing they need to go out and get, if their feeling up to it and think that they can afford prospect or player losses is a second or third baseman (since Lawrie can cover either position) who can hit for high average and in clutch situations. Then they should be getting on the hitting coach about his work, I do realize that the guy who is in the position now is new and was promoted from AAA but this is the time when heads start to role usually. Hell the Nationals just fired their hitting coach since their offence has been as bad as the Jays, now seeing that is a little annoying because it's kind of showing that the Jays managerial or GM staff care a little less about finding out the problem (of course I don't know who is directly in charge of the coaching staff) and it doesn't help that Gibbons is being so cloak and dagger about everything in his interviews. All in all I'm 100% sure they WILL NOT reach the playoffs, maybe next year Blue Jays. Tomorrow or Friday I will have the first eval post on the Orioles pitching up for your reading
-Eric
Jose Reyes: To be honest I've got nothing for Reyes, all of his stats have been rather good, he's batting a solid .318, has an OBP of .368 (the lack of walks is the only bad thing) and is slugging .447, which is actually pretty high considering some of his other years. Now when evaluating a hitter, going into the situational splits is the first thing I do after browsing their standard stats because it tells you where that batter can improve his approach or where they are lacking if their base stats don't already show that. Now in Jose's case nearly all of his splits are fairly even with his basic stats, his vs. pitcher AVG ranges from .299-.371, which is great from anyone, additionally his AVG with runners in scoring position is .313. Now the few issues he has, first off his 2 strike approach is pretty weak as his cumulative AVG with 2 strikes on the count is .149 and in the most clutch situation, runners in scoring position and 2 outs, AVG is .200. Then the last holes in his split stats are that his AVG in the first inning is .241 and finally he is only hitting .200 if the gams is close and in the last 1/3 of the innings, which a bit of a disappointment considering the team is lacking in those kind of areas. But overall Reyes has more positives than negatives.
Melky Cabrera: Melky, like Jose has been fairly consistent, he's got a .280 AVG, .325 OBP, .363 SLG. Now I should have made it clear that the reason both Melky and Jose have good batting splits against all types of pitcher situations is because they are both fairly efficient switch hitters so they are used to batting against left and right handed pitchers from both sides. In addition to these things like Jose, to a lesser extent, Melky has a low batting AVG with a 2 strike count, .232, and then again his AVG with the game late and close is a disappointing .224 and then his AVG in a tie game is .245. Now while this is bad for the team Melky is like our #1 clutch hitter as he has a batting AVG with runners in scoring position .295, and then with 2 out and runners in scoring position an AVG of .341. So in other words Melky is an overall successful clutch hitter and a good #2 hitter, when he's healthy, but again we need a change in his 2 strike approach.
Jose Bautista: Bautista is a bit of a go with the flow kind of guy, that meaning that he can have a year of AMAZING stats (see 2011 or 2010) but then it can regress a bit, so this year his stats so far are as follows: .252 AVG, .348 OBP and .501 SLG. Now the OBP is good because it means he's taking a fair amount of walks (about 10% of at bats, which is alright) and though his slugging is a bit lower than what we would like to see as he was always expected to be the team's premiere power hitter but he's taking a serious backseat to Encarnacion as he only has hit 23 home runs and theres only about 65 games left and his batting AVG could be better as .252 is pretty low when you look at the games top power hitters. Now when you look at Bautista's splits theres some different stuff, his splits with left vs. right handed pitchers are fairly similar but considering he's not a switch hitter his AVG against left handed pitchers is about 20-30 points lower, one rather disturbing thing is that his batting average when the team is winning is 70 points higher than when the team is losing, and it's only 287. In addition to this like everyone he has a very poor 2 strike approach with a batting AVG with 2 strikes of .192, his AVG with runners in scoring position is .306 and .296 with 2 out and runners in scoring position and he has an AVG when the game is late and close of .302 though his AVG with a tie game is only .192. So all of these numbers basically tells us that Bautista has a good approach at the plate but like most he has a poor approach with 2 strikes and same when the game is tied, in addition to this from what you can see from his monthly splits is a regression, going from very low AVG in April to high in May to average-mediocre in June and back to low in July so hopefully we see a turn around there. All in all it seems he needs to improve in the same area as the others.
Edwin Encarnacion: Ok so this is the 'big man' good ol' E5. So his base stats are very similar to Bautista's only a fair amount higher and with a higher total in the counting stats (HR, R, RBI). On the split stats again fairly similar but a bit higher than Bautista's and even the same problems are prevalent though again to a slightly lesser degree with Edwin (lacklustre AVG with 2 strikes). To balance this tough Edwin has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .329 and .318 with 2 out and runners in scoring position, then in addition to these great clutch stats he also has AVGs above .275 when the game is close and late or tied. Not really much for Edwin to work on, yea he does have the same 2 strike approach but his AVG is above .200 so he's not nearly as bad as the other guys on the teams offence.
Adam Lind: Man, Lind can't seem to figure out what he is, he was a power hitter in 2009/2010 and now he's a batter who hits for avg with decent power but he is performing well for us this year as he has an AVG of .300, however his OBP is .365 so he's not taking that many walks, which is a bit of an issue and we don't need that happening with the number of walks Arencibia isn't taking. Lind has also been trending down since the start of July in terms of his batting performance and his splits show a fairly poor performance in games that end with the teams loss, now on the other hand he is one of the few who don't seem to have much problem with his 2 strike approach as he is hitting .230 in that situation. As well he hits well with runners in scoring position and with 2 outs in the same situation, .321 and .333 respectively, the only down sides are that he hits poorly late/close games .217 and and then he hits below .200 in the 6th, 7th and extra innings, generally ones that matter as those innings are usually the ones where the middle relief guys are brought in and before the setup and closer are brought in, who are generally harder to hit against. So Lind seems like the most complete hitter here so far.
Colby Rasmus: Colby fits into the same kind of category as Adam Lind as he's been one of our most productive players this year, with a decent AVG of .264, OBP of .333 and SLG of .480, which is all well above his career average which, is nice because it shows that he's finally coming into his own, something we've been waiting for as a lot was expected out of him when he was with St. Louis. Now his splits for months, pitchers and win/loss situations are all fairly even so he's driven no matter what the situation, however again his 2 strike approach again is poor as he only has an AVG of .180. Now heres something strange, Colby has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .324, which is fantastic, however his AVG with 2 out and runners in scoring position (a very clutch situation) is only .182! Then his late and close game AVG is .230 and in tie games he has an AVG of .282 and like Lind he has issues in specific innings, 3rd, 5th and 6th innings. So again Colby is a very good hitter for us but again he needs work on his 2 strike approach and hopefully find a way to improve in the innings he has issues in.
J.P. Arencibia: Now this guy drives me FUCKING INSANE, and thats because of his approach at the plate and attitude towards it, before I get into the stats everyone reading this knows I hate Arencibia because he doesn't take walks and swings at everything and has one of the top 3 strikeout percentages in the MLB. But just that isn't what makes me dislike the guy it's the fact that he's talked about how he's stated on record that he has just started ignoring strikeouts and that it doesn't matter to him, he just swings at pitches he feels good about, which is not only selfish but just infuriating for a die hard fan like me, especailly when he sits right in the middle of the batting order, it just breaks up our good hitters and often gets us the last out. ANYHOW J.P. has an atrocious AVG of .225 (12th lowest in MLB), which wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't have the lowest OBP in the game (.258) and a SLG of .425. Now Arencibia has pretty bad splits with right/ left handed pitchers (average against lefties and shit against righties) though his AVG is getting better in July so hopefully that trend continues but we'll see BUT he has a large drop off in AVG when the team is losing, .294 for winning and .163 for losing. Just like expected all of his other splits are fairly bad as well since they are all below .250 and about 80% of them are below .200, so not much out of what bad expectations we have of his stats. Overall Arencibia and he's terrible attitude toward batting is a MAJOR reason for the Blue Jays offence being the way it is right now, again he has the same problems as everyone else though his lower AVG amplifies those issues.
Brett Lawrie: Not really anything I can say about Lawrie but thats not because he's been good, in fact he's been slumping most of the season but he's only been on the field for 60 games, which I don't think I can make an accurate evaluation on. So overall give him a month then he'll likely be in more standard form since he missed so much time on the DL with the hamstring injury.
Maicer Izturis: Like most hitters at his age there isn't anything to fantastic, most if not all of his numbers are pretty average though his numbers have been trending upwards since the beginning of the season. Though again he has problems with his 2 strike approach and with runners in scoring position, though not so much with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. Again not really anything aside from the typical that Maicer needs to work on, though to be honest I was really weirded out when the Jays signed him when there were better 2nd baseman they could have tried to get via trade.
Bonifacio and DeRosa: Now I've included these guys as one because one their troubles are similar to other players and two because they aren't being played as everyday players, though if Bonifacio was hitting I guarantee he'd be in the lineup more often just for his ridiculous speed. Now Bonifacio has been a lot like Arencibia just without the power making him next to useless as a hitter since his main strength is his speed, which he can't institute unless he's on base and DeRosa has the same issues as Izturis, though he is a bit better in clutch situations.
Overall the issue for the Jays offence seems pretty clear, the main thing they need to go out and get, if their feeling up to it and think that they can afford prospect or player losses is a second or third baseman (since Lawrie can cover either position) who can hit for high average and in clutch situations. Then they should be getting on the hitting coach about his work, I do realize that the guy who is in the position now is new and was promoted from AAA but this is the time when heads start to role usually. Hell the Nationals just fired their hitting coach since their offence has been as bad as the Jays, now seeing that is a little annoying because it's kind of showing that the Jays managerial or GM staff care a little less about finding out the problem (of course I don't know who is directly in charge of the coaching staff) and it doesn't help that Gibbons is being so cloak and dagger about everything in his interviews. All in all I'm 100% sure they WILL NOT reach the playoffs, maybe next year Blue Jays. Tomorrow or Friday I will have the first eval post on the Orioles pitching up for your reading
-Eric
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Bird Watch: The First Half Of The Blue Birds Season (Pitching)
Alright so myself and many other fans have been UNBELIEVABLY disappointed by the way the Blue Jays have performed in the first half of the season, plenty of problems have cropped up for the team, be it injury, lack of performance or other things. Now the Jays first half has can really be defined as 3 parts, the first being the games leading up to the 11 game winning streak, the 11 game winning streak itself and the games after the streak. So let's explore why I separated it into these 3 areas.
The pre-streak set of games, ok so what we see from here is that the Jays were pretty much winning 1 game for every 3 games played for the majority of this section of the first half with the exception of a couple 3 game winning streaks and a couple 4 game losing streaks. Now a large amount of this can be attributed to the Jays lack of clutch hitting, but at the same time they had quite a few hiccups in pitching primarily starting pitching but no problems from the bullpen, which was the inverse of what everyone thought was going to happen. So let's break it down by each starting player's performance over this stretch, starting off with pitching (hitters will be in a separate post)
Starting Pitchers:
The pre-streak set of games, ok so what we see from here is that the Jays were pretty much winning 1 game for every 3 games played for the majority of this section of the first half with the exception of a couple 3 game winning streaks and a couple 4 game losing streaks. Now a large amount of this can be attributed to the Jays lack of clutch hitting, but at the same time they had quite a few hiccups in pitching primarily starting pitching but no problems from the bullpen, which was the inverse of what everyone thought was going to happen. So let's break it down by each starting player's performance over this stretch, starting off with pitching (hitters will be in a separate post)
Starting Pitchers:
- R.A. Dickey: Ok so one thing I quickly noticed about Dickey was that in most cases he was either great or horrible, if you take a look at his stats for the first half on Baseball Reference you'll see that 11 of this first half starts only had him allow 3 or less runs, which by any logic is a good pitching performance. In addition to this he has 7 other starts with 6 or more runs allowed, with 1 other outing with 4 runs allowed so despite these bad performances you can see that he more than 50% of the time will pitch a great outing. Now the sad thing about this is that he's only getting an average of 3.9 runs per game of support meaning that even if he puts up an outing where he only gives up 3 runs he's still not 100% to win the game. Now Dickey's 'Field Independent Pitching' is about inline with his current ERA, which indicates he's playing he hasn't been getting lucky or unlucky so far. However his walks per 9 innings is quite a bit higher than his career average and even higher then what he accomplished the last couple years, in addition his home runs per 9 innings this year is fairly higher than the previous 4 years and his career average. Now there obviously has to be a reason for these numbers being so far above his career average and the past few years, now I'm sure a portion of this increase is a result of moving from the NL East to the AL East since the AL is a harder hitting league than the NL (though don't discount the NL East as they are definitely the hardest hitting division in the NL). Now what I expect from Dickey is an improvement in the categories as he is likely adjusting to the hitters of the AL (the man has spent most of his time in the majors pitching for an NL team) and because he's been trying to pitch through injury the whole time, now however minor that injury is it undoubtedly has an effect. And in addition to this if we delve a little deeper into the stats we can see that his home run/fly ball ratio is about 3% higher than higher than the his career average and 4% above the league, which leads me to believe he's in for a a decrease in runs allowed by home runs just form that alone. Now theres plenty more stats to talk about so I'll just say take a look at his baseball reference page as well as fan graphs definitions of the various stats to get a better understanding
- Mark Buerhle: Now if theres one thing I hear SO often from either people who claim to be Blue Jays fans or commenters on Jays oriented posts/articles it's that Mark Buerhle is terrible and should be traded or sent down, so let's take a look. Now I'll first take it the same as I did with Dickey, Buerhle has pitched 10 games where he gave up 3 or less runs which again is pretty good now then on the flip side he has pitched only 3 games allowing 6 or more runs and finally 6 games pitched with 4-5 runs allowed, which may not qualify as a quality outing it is very considering where Mark Buerhle is in his career. When this trade went through fans I'm pretty sure recognized Buerhle as either the #4 starter of our rotation since Johnson was just being placed there due to his injury history and to be honest this is what Buerhle has been for years. Now just like Dickey he gets just enough run support that he will more often then not lose the games he pitches well in (4.35 runs per game), overall what we're seeing so far is a trend of our pitchers not getting the run support needed to win games, which is very disappointing considering how much power we have in our lineup. Anyhow let's look at more of the stats for Buerhle, now unlike Dickey, Buerhle has a FIP and xFIP below that of his current, which indicates that he's in for a bit of a reduction on the number of runs that opponents score on him per game and that can be further seen in the fact that, like Dickey he has a home run/flyball % that is 2% above his average and the league average so again theres another indicator that some correction is in order. Overall Buerhle and Happ have been the most consistent of the Blue Jays pitchers so to those fans that want to throw Mark under the bus you should just shut up and read some stats before making those ignorant comments.
- Josh Johnson: Now this has been a fair disappointment and theres not really any other way to look at it, Johnson was fantastic in the games he pitched during spring training but he has seldom been able to show that kind of skill in the regular season. Johnson has shown 7 starts that qualify as quality starts (gave up 3 or fewer runs), then there were 2 outings where he allowed 6 or more runs and finally 3 outings of 4-5 runs allowed. Now again like I said before this is not terrible because when you look at the talent we have in the batting rotation we should easily be able to put up 4+ runs for our pitchers without any problem, and if we did we'd have a MUCH better record than the team currently does. Then as expected, like the other starters, Johnson only gets an average of 3.92 runs per game, so again theres the offence coughing up all over his well pitched outings, which I'll reiterate, occur much more often than bad ones. Now unlike Dickey and Buerhle, Johnson when we look at the deeper stats has a much lower FIP and xFIP than his current ERA (more than a point and a half lower) so that alone should tell you that he is MUCH better than his current stat line portrays him. In addition to this all of his standard stats (ERA, WHIP, HR/9) all are much higher than his career stats and most of the last few years where he under performed. Finally we know from watching the games Johnson has had problems with the long ball and so this statistical 'piece de resistance' will leave you a thinking better of Johnson, and that is that his current homer run/fly ball ratio is 2 times more than his career value, now I'm sure people who are slightly more versed in baseball stats will say 'Well Hey! Marlin's Park is a pitchers park, of course he didn't allow home runs there'. And that is where they would be 100% WRONG and that is because Marlin's park didn't get put up until the start of the 2012 season, before that they played in Sun Life Park, which according to ESPN's Park Factors, Sun Life Park sat at about the same area (within 1-2 positions) of Rogers Field in terms of runs allowed per game. So again those out there should be expecting a turn around from Johnson in the second half, especially if the offence can get their shit together.
- J.A. Happ: Alright, now up until his injury Happ was honestly the most consistent pitcher in our starting rotation and you could see how much of a blow to the team it was when he went down with that ball to the head. So he pitched 3 quality starts during that run and 3 that had him give up 4-5 runs and even still he only got an average of 3.57 runs per game of support. Not much to say otherwise, his stats indicate that there should be a slight decline in the number of walks he gives up and a slight increase in the number of strikeouts he gets but overall if he gets plugged into the rotation immediately upon his return we should expect just what he has delivered up until this point and that is a #5 starter who consistently gives you a game within 5 runs.
- Brandon Morrow: Now while he's been injured about as long as Happ has there he has not been nearly as consistent as J.A has. Now Morrow has turned in 5 quality starts and 4 starts of 5 or more runs, now this doesn't look good on his record and reflects to some extent in his ERA and WHIP, though like Johnson, he has struggled with the long ball and his last 2 years and career average HR/9 suggests that there should be a decrease of at least 1 in his HR/9 over the season. In addition his FIP and xFIP are slightly lower than his current ERA. Now while the FIP/xFIP argument isn't a huge one it does show that his struggles are real and not just a product of lack of run support, especially since he gets the most of it amongst our starting pitchers at an average of 5.60 runs per game. Now with Morrow almost all of his stats suggest that he will get better than he has been but unlike the other starters this is a case of lacklustre pitching and it sounds like Morrow needs to figure out whats up with his ability in order to get back on track.
- Esmil Rogers: Now this was a welcome surprise, mainly because I going into the season I always saw him as our long relief guy replacement for, the more effective Luis Perez, but boy did he prove me wrong when he got the call to start. So the way Rogers worked into this mix was as follows, he was originally a 1-2 inning reliever but then our starters started going down with injuries so the team started stretching him out over 2-4 innings to see how he would handle it and eventually moved him to the rotation on June 13th. From then he has pitched 4 quality starts (3 or less runs) 2 outings with 4 runs and one with 7 runs, overall thats pretty good considering almost the entirety of his career had been as a reliever with Colorado and Cleveland. Now unfortunately, just like the other starters Esmil only gets an average of 4.22 runs per game of support. Now I will say I can't go and make too many assumptions based on Roger's past stats since almost none of them represent him playing as a starter but I expect he may have issues as he approached a higher inning count as he has never pitched more than 83 innings at the major league level and he's already at 77 by the all star break. So I expect he may be one of the first moved to the bullpen when some of our starters start coming off the DL.
- Ramon Ortiz: Another nice surprise, though again theres not much I can say about him as he came in part way into the season to handle a spot left by one of our injured guys and ended up getting tossed on the DL himself. He pitched half decently through the stretch not allowing more than 5 runs in every outing he had, though just like Rogers I expect that once all of the guys are back he'll be back in the bullpen.
- Chad Jenkins: Pretty much the same as Ortiz only he stumbled and the Jays replaced him.
- Todd Redmond: The newest addition to the Jays rotation, Redmond seems more like a place holder since some of the starters are soon to come off the DL but the team needs to make up for the next 1 or 2 starts they would miss. However Redmond has pitched well and it has been a rather ideal situation as he can go strong for 5 innings and then the bullpen crushes it from there.
Well thats my eval of the first half of the starting rotation, now overall I don't think there is too much wrong with these guys, some of them need adjustments to get them back into spring training form (Morrow and to a lesser extent Johnson) but in addition to that Dickey having the All Star break to rest and hopefully recuperate from his nagging injury that he's been pitching through is great. So my final thoughts are that there are tiny adjustments that need to be made to most starters and large adjustments to some (Morrow and Romero, if he hopes to come back up this year) but all in all it's more the fault of the lack of run support from the offence that has caused most of the downfall of the team rather than the starting pitching. (Expect to see one of these every day this week for the Orioles, Blue Jays and Cardinals)
-Eric
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Update On Content
Ok, so over the last while this blog I think I've more found what I'd like to focus on in terms of the content on this blog, which may seem a bit obvious to you readers but I'm going to be completely pushing out posts on the Cardinals, Orioles and Blue Jays in under the 'Bird Watch' tag from here on out with the exception of some on and off unrelated stuff, like off the field antics by players, trades, signings, etc. So keep your eyes open.
-Eric
-Eric
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Bird Watch: Almost At The All Star Break
So the past week hasn't shown a hell of a lot of development on the part of the Orioles or Cardinals as per usual as they both seem to keep up their usual methods of winning. Though the Orioles have had their starting pitcher Wei Yin Chen return to the rotation and in a big way as he pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball, which makes for a fantastic return from the disabled list. In addition to this both Kevin Gausman and Zach Britton got demoted to AAA to make room for him which, is not unexpected as Zach Britton was pretty ineffective in his last start on Tuesday when he gave up 5 runs including a 4 run 5th inning. Then when we look towards the Cardinals they have been a bit up and down, they had a close game against the Marlins with Lance Lynn pitching against Jose Fernandez which, turned out to be a fairly well pitched game, ending in a 3-2 score. Next they had a blow out game against the Astros in a 9-5 win though we must keep in mind that 4 out of the 5 runs were allowed in the 9th inning by a relatively new pitcher to the Cardinals bullpen, Michael Blazek. They next won another game against the Astros with Shelby Miller on the mound however, this game was won by only 1 run so their pitching was a little less effective in this instance, though again isolated incident. The last 2 games have been against the Cubs, the first of which they lost 3-0, which is a bit disturbing considering Edwin Jackson was the starting pitcher for the Cubs, who hasn't been too effective as of the last few seasons. Then in the latest game on Friday, the Cardinals just barely squeaked by in a 3-2 win against the Cubs. Now this was again very surprising as the pitcher for the Cubs, Carlos Villanueva, is not that great of a pitcher again.
Overall however the Jays have had the most roller coaster like week or so, they've been turning in outings both good and bad, Johnson was good against Cleveland as he only allowed 2 runs, however the offence has been completely turned off as they didn't score any runs at all, despite all of their hitters they had on base, and it was against Jimenez at that! Then the next game, they barely won 5-4 where Esmil Rogers pitched a great game, and in a surprising turn of events the bullpen coughed up 3 of the total runs that Cleveland scored overall. Thankfully the offence wasn't completely asleep during this game, now I say 'completely' asleep because they still were only hitting 2-8 with runners in scoring position which, is still not great considering what we have in the line up. Then R.A. Dickey turned in a great outing on Thursday but again the offence was only able to scrap together 2 runs despite being against a relatively unexperienced starter and Dickey only giving up 2 earned runs and another of them being scored due to a fuck up by Rajai Davis, who over threw. Now the we have the last game on Friday they lost against the Orioles 8-5, again the offence was asleep as they only hit 2-10 with runners in scoring position and in a complete turn around Mark Buerhle gave up all 8 runs of the game flipping the series of good pitching outings by the Jays starters. I feel like the Jays are being like a dyslexic team as they do something positive but then turn it around and all of a sudden have a negative outing in the same aspect. All in all they have to win the remaining games before the All Star Break or they are going to have no hope of redemption and a shot at the playoffs.
-Eric
Overall however the Jays have had the most roller coaster like week or so, they've been turning in outings both good and bad, Johnson was good against Cleveland as he only allowed 2 runs, however the offence has been completely turned off as they didn't score any runs at all, despite all of their hitters they had on base, and it was against Jimenez at that! Then the next game, they barely won 5-4 where Esmil Rogers pitched a great game, and in a surprising turn of events the bullpen coughed up 3 of the total runs that Cleveland scored overall. Thankfully the offence wasn't completely asleep during this game, now I say 'completely' asleep because they still were only hitting 2-8 with runners in scoring position which, is still not great considering what we have in the line up. Then R.A. Dickey turned in a great outing on Thursday but again the offence was only able to scrap together 2 runs despite being against a relatively unexperienced starter and Dickey only giving up 2 earned runs and another of them being scored due to a fuck up by Rajai Davis, who over threw. Now the we have the last game on Friday they lost against the Orioles 8-5, again the offence was asleep as they only hit 2-10 with runners in scoring position and in a complete turn around Mark Buerhle gave up all 8 runs of the game flipping the series of good pitching outings by the Jays starters. I feel like the Jays are being like a dyslexic team as they do something positive but then turn it around and all of a sudden have a negative outing in the same aspect. All in all they have to win the remaining games before the All Star Break or they are going to have no hope of redemption and a shot at the playoffs.
-Eric
Monday, July 8, 2013
The Final All Stars
Ok so for those of you who don't know how the whole process works for the All Star Game, fans vote on a selection of players they want to see play and the ones with the most votes at each fielding position get the starting job. Now there are also a set of 'reserve' players who get the call when they are highest voted amongst other major league players, then there are the pitchers who are selected specifically by the All Star Team's manager and in most case some or a lot of bias is seen here (managers stacking pitching with their teams pitchers when there are better or more deserving players). Then after all of these selections are made we come down to the 'Final Vote' basically what happens here is the manager of each league selects 5 players that he thinks could make the cut for the All Star Game and then fans over a short period of time vote on it and whoever of the each group has the highest vote count gets the final roster spot on the All Star Game. So let's start off by looking at who we have as our AL and NL Final Vote players
AL: Ok so a bit of an oddity as Jim Leyland thought that to only select relievers, especially when there were a lot of impact players better than say Tanner Scheppers, David Robertson or Joaquin Benoit. (Josh Donaldson for instance?)
Joaquin Benoit, RP, Tigers
Steve Delabar, RP, Blue JaysDavid Robertson, RP, YankeesTanner Scheppers, RP, RangersKoji Uehara, RP, Red Sox
Now there is no reason to go through these guys one at a time because they all are part of the sample position so instead I'll give you my top 2 for this and explain why. So the two I would vote for are Koji Uehara and Steve Delabar, now the reasoning for this is strictly because they have been solid and part of a solid bullpen whereas the Tigers bullpen is a god damn mess and Benoit is no exception to that, the Yankees bullpen hasn't been all that stellar either (Rivera is beginning to show some cracks in his armour), and the Texas bullpen has been above average but not fantastic, much like their starting rotation (excluding Yu Darvish). Whereas Koji Uehara has been bounced around from set up man to 7th inning man to closer and he hasn't faltered a bit in fact he seems to be pitching better in the closer role, which makes him invaluable in any bullpen and then Steve Delabar, while not quite as effective as Uehara (mainly because of walks) he has still managed to keep a very impressive ERA and WHIP, throwing hard in the mid 90's and being an integral part of the Jays bullpen and again like Uehara he's been moved around from being the 7th inning guy, to the set up man to the long man so he also has a lot of value for any team.
NL: Ok so this is a better spread than the AL in terms for position players that deserve a spot. Though what the hell is with having 2 Dodgers players on there, not that they don't deserve a spot on the roster but just seems a bit spiteful as it may separate fans in the voting and in the end neither might get in.
Ian Desmond, SS, Nationals
Freddie Freeman, 1B, Braves
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Dodgers
Hunter Pence, OF, Giants
Yasiel Puig, OF, Dodgers
Ok so this one is a pretty easy choice for me, though all of the players on this list have been performing pretty well above their usual (with some exception to Hunter Pence as he's been up and down for a while, and his ups aren't that phenomenal). Anyhow my choice for this is Yasiel Puig, now I've seen plenty of people out there bitching about how he doesn't deserve a spot for this reason or that reason and I'd just like to set the record straight. First off the comparison to other players that have been one hit wonders, Puig isn't just a hitter like these come and go players, he's a five tool guy, he hits for power and average, he can run the bases as well as anyone else, he is stellar defensively with a really athletic style and he's got a cannon of an arm for throwing guys out, all of which he has demonstrated time and time again, whereas these comparison players just have a spurt of power and then fade away. Now to top this part off let's compare Puig's stats vs a couple other players' first month in the majors.
Puig: AVG: .440, OBP: .466, SLG: .743, SO: 23, BB: 4, HR: 8, AB: 109
Player A: AVG: .306, OBP: .368, SLG: .514, SO: 28, BB: 11, HR: 4, AB: 120
Player B: AVG: .286, OBP: .372, SLG: .514, SO: 19, BB: 13, HR: 4, AB: 117
Player C: AVG: .274, OBP: .284, SLG: .491, SO: 21, BB: 2, HR: 4, AB: 109.
Now who are those three players? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In only slightly more plate appearances they either didn't hit as well as Puig has, struck out more than Puig has or walked less than Puig (and hell I'm a Blue Jays fan). And we gave Harper and Trout All Star Game invites without a question last year despite that they were both what some considered to be over performing rookies, just goes to show you shouldn't judge the man until the years over and you can actually see his full season of work.
-Eric
AL: Ok so a bit of an oddity as Jim Leyland thought that to only select relievers, especially when there were a lot of impact players better than say Tanner Scheppers, David Robertson or Joaquin Benoit. (Josh Donaldson for instance?)
Joaquin Benoit, RP, Tigers
Steve Delabar, RP, Blue JaysDavid Robertson, RP, YankeesTanner Scheppers, RP, RangersKoji Uehara, RP, Red Sox
Now there is no reason to go through these guys one at a time because they all are part of the sample position so instead I'll give you my top 2 for this and explain why. So the two I would vote for are Koji Uehara and Steve Delabar, now the reasoning for this is strictly because they have been solid and part of a solid bullpen whereas the Tigers bullpen is a god damn mess and Benoit is no exception to that, the Yankees bullpen hasn't been all that stellar either (Rivera is beginning to show some cracks in his armour), and the Texas bullpen has been above average but not fantastic, much like their starting rotation (excluding Yu Darvish). Whereas Koji Uehara has been bounced around from set up man to 7th inning man to closer and he hasn't faltered a bit in fact he seems to be pitching better in the closer role, which makes him invaluable in any bullpen and then Steve Delabar, while not quite as effective as Uehara (mainly because of walks) he has still managed to keep a very impressive ERA and WHIP, throwing hard in the mid 90's and being an integral part of the Jays bullpen and again like Uehara he's been moved around from being the 7th inning guy, to the set up man to the long man so he also has a lot of value for any team.
NL: Ok so this is a better spread than the AL in terms for position players that deserve a spot. Though what the hell is with having 2 Dodgers players on there, not that they don't deserve a spot on the roster but just seems a bit spiteful as it may separate fans in the voting and in the end neither might get in.
Ian Desmond, SS, Nationals
Freddie Freeman, 1B, Braves
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Dodgers
Hunter Pence, OF, Giants
Yasiel Puig, OF, Dodgers
Ok so this one is a pretty easy choice for me, though all of the players on this list have been performing pretty well above their usual (with some exception to Hunter Pence as he's been up and down for a while, and his ups aren't that phenomenal). Anyhow my choice for this is Yasiel Puig, now I've seen plenty of people out there bitching about how he doesn't deserve a spot for this reason or that reason and I'd just like to set the record straight. First off the comparison to other players that have been one hit wonders, Puig isn't just a hitter like these come and go players, he's a five tool guy, he hits for power and average, he can run the bases as well as anyone else, he is stellar defensively with a really athletic style and he's got a cannon of an arm for throwing guys out, all of which he has demonstrated time and time again, whereas these comparison players just have a spurt of power and then fade away. Now to top this part off let's compare Puig's stats vs a couple other players' first month in the majors.
Puig: AVG: .440, OBP: .466, SLG: .743, SO: 23, BB: 4, HR: 8, AB: 109
Player A: AVG: .306, OBP: .368, SLG: .514, SO: 28, BB: 11, HR: 4, AB: 120
Player B: AVG: .286, OBP: .372, SLG: .514, SO: 19, BB: 13, HR: 4, AB: 117
Player C: AVG: .274, OBP: .284, SLG: .491, SO: 21, BB: 2, HR: 4, AB: 109.
Now who are those three players? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In only slightly more plate appearances they either didn't hit as well as Puig has, struck out more than Puig has or walked less than Puig (and hell I'm a Blue Jays fan). And we gave Harper and Trout All Star Game invites without a question last year despite that they were both what some considered to be over performing rookies, just goes to show you shouldn't judge the man until the years over and you can actually see his full season of work.
-Eric
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Roster Spots For The All Star Game
So the rosters for the all star game came out earlier and there was quite a bit of discussion as to who should be elected to the final spots in the AL and NL rosters respectively and who should have made it and who shouldn't have. So first off I'll go over the rosters and who if any I believe should have been on instead of others, etc.
Starters:
AL:
-C: Joe Mauer (Not much to say here I thought he was the man for the job and thankfully he got it)
-1B: Chris Davis (Same as above, no complaints on that)
-2B: Robinson Cano (Nothing here either)
-SS: J.J. Hardy: Ok so theres not many who are going to talk about this but I think I will, so like I said in my previous post my vote was for Jose Reyes. Now while that may have been partially done because he's a Blue Jay it is also because it adds an element that there isn't much of in the AL starting roster, and thats speed. Reyes is like lightning on the base path and if we look at the other players who were potentials for the All Star Game, there are none that have any speed to at least make things exciting when their on base like Reyes can. Now I'm not saying that Peralta or Hardy don't deserve a spot but I think that Reyes would have been a smarter choice as if he was uninjured up until now his numbers would be better than the other two, in terms of overall value.
-3B: Miguel Cabrera: Now I have no complaints about inclusion about Cabrera although I have seen some people talking about Longoria and I agree that he should have been included because he's been having an amazing time so far this year and hasn't been majorly sidelined by injury like he usually is. However you can't dethrone the best hitter in the league for him, and Manny Machado (who got the call in the reserves) is much better than Longoria defensively and to be honest he's a close match offensively as, despite not having the same level of power, he is still able to put up Mike Trout-esque numbers and if you were to look at both players on the ESPN Player Rater for all hitters you'd notice that Longo and Machado are right next to each other.
-OF: Mike Trout, Jose Bautista and Adam Jones (Nothing to say here)
-DH: David Ortiz: Now I was VERY disappointed with this choice on the side of the fans, David Ortiz isn't a bad player or anything but Edwin Encarnacion has been MUCH better, even being still in the top 3 of home run leaders and is more versatile at different positions than Ortiz (who has only played DH for a few years now).
NL:
-C: Yadier Molina: No complaints here, I voted for Posey but it isn't a huge difference
-1B: Joey Votto: No complaints here, though plenty of people are saying that Paul Goldschmidt should have gotten the spot, now while he has been putting up numbers similar to Votto he has been a bit anxious at the plate as you can see his On Base Percentage is not that much higher than his average which tells me that he might drop under the pressure, and Votto is much better at the plate in terms of getting on base and has shown more consistency that Goldschmidt. Now I do believe that he should have made the reserves instead of some.
-2B: Brandon Phillips: Nothing Here
-SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Nothing to say
-3B: David Wright: Nothing to say
-OF: Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran: Now all of these fit in my mind except Beltran because just like Ortiz he is putting up half decent numbers but players like Andrew McCutchen are MUCH better than him, hell there are even players on his team that deserve a spot for the Cardinals more than him (no Shelby Miller? WTF).
Reserves:
AL:
C: Jason Castro, Astros (expected as he's the best performing Astro at the moment, though I would have picked Jose Altuve)
C: Salvador Perez, Royals (Same as above, though he hasn't been as good as he was expected to be so far)
1B: Prince Fielder, Tigers (No real complaint here)
2B: Jason Kipnis, Indians (For both Kipnis and Pedroia the pick fits as they are both dominating the 2nd base position)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox
2B: Ben Zobrist, Rays (this one doesn't make as much sense since Zobrist, despite his versatility has been rather lacklustre and like I said before Longoria would have been more deserving of the position that Zobrist)
SS: Jhonny Peralta: Tigers (Like I said before I think that the hitting numbers are clouding what Peralta is and like previously stated Reyes would have been a better fit as his numbers (outside of power stuff) would be more in line with Peralta had he not been injured for so long.
3B: Manny Machado, Orioles: Got no gripes here
OF: Nelson Cruz, Rangers: Got no complaints about Cruz, but Gordon and Hunter have hardly been amazing this year, their reserve outfield positions would have been better suited to better performing players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Nate McClouth or Alex Rios as all three of them are playing MUCH better than Gordon and Hunter and can easily fit into the positions in the batting order you would expect Gordon and Hunter to take.
Tomorrow I'll be going over the final roster spot guys.
Starters:
AL:
-C: Joe Mauer (Not much to say here I thought he was the man for the job and thankfully he got it)
-1B: Chris Davis (Same as above, no complaints on that)
-2B: Robinson Cano (Nothing here either)
-SS: J.J. Hardy: Ok so theres not many who are going to talk about this but I think I will, so like I said in my previous post my vote was for Jose Reyes. Now while that may have been partially done because he's a Blue Jay it is also because it adds an element that there isn't much of in the AL starting roster, and thats speed. Reyes is like lightning on the base path and if we look at the other players who were potentials for the All Star Game, there are none that have any speed to at least make things exciting when their on base like Reyes can. Now I'm not saying that Peralta or Hardy don't deserve a spot but I think that Reyes would have been a smarter choice as if he was uninjured up until now his numbers would be better than the other two, in terms of overall value.
-3B: Miguel Cabrera: Now I have no complaints about inclusion about Cabrera although I have seen some people talking about Longoria and I agree that he should have been included because he's been having an amazing time so far this year and hasn't been majorly sidelined by injury like he usually is. However you can't dethrone the best hitter in the league for him, and Manny Machado (who got the call in the reserves) is much better than Longoria defensively and to be honest he's a close match offensively as, despite not having the same level of power, he is still able to put up Mike Trout-esque numbers and if you were to look at both players on the ESPN Player Rater for all hitters you'd notice that Longo and Machado are right next to each other.
-OF: Mike Trout, Jose Bautista and Adam Jones (Nothing to say here)
-DH: David Ortiz: Now I was VERY disappointed with this choice on the side of the fans, David Ortiz isn't a bad player or anything but Edwin Encarnacion has been MUCH better, even being still in the top 3 of home run leaders and is more versatile at different positions than Ortiz (who has only played DH for a few years now).
NL:
-C: Yadier Molina: No complaints here, I voted for Posey but it isn't a huge difference
-1B: Joey Votto: No complaints here, though plenty of people are saying that Paul Goldschmidt should have gotten the spot, now while he has been putting up numbers similar to Votto he has been a bit anxious at the plate as you can see his On Base Percentage is not that much higher than his average which tells me that he might drop under the pressure, and Votto is much better at the plate in terms of getting on base and has shown more consistency that Goldschmidt. Now I do believe that he should have made the reserves instead of some.
-2B: Brandon Phillips: Nothing Here
-SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Nothing to say
-3B: David Wright: Nothing to say
-OF: Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran: Now all of these fit in my mind except Beltran because just like Ortiz he is putting up half decent numbers but players like Andrew McCutchen are MUCH better than him, hell there are even players on his team that deserve a spot for the Cardinals more than him (no Shelby Miller? WTF).
Reserves:
AL:
C: Jason Castro, Astros (expected as he's the best performing Astro at the moment, though I would have picked Jose Altuve)
C: Salvador Perez, Royals (Same as above, though he hasn't been as good as he was expected to be so far)
1B: Prince Fielder, Tigers (No real complaint here)
2B: Jason Kipnis, Indians (For both Kipnis and Pedroia the pick fits as they are both dominating the 2nd base position)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox
2B: Ben Zobrist, Rays (this one doesn't make as much sense since Zobrist, despite his versatility has been rather lacklustre and like I said before Longoria would have been more deserving of the position that Zobrist)
SS: Jhonny Peralta: Tigers (Like I said before I think that the hitting numbers are clouding what Peralta is and like previously stated Reyes would have been a better fit as his numbers (outside of power stuff) would be more in line with Peralta had he not been injured for so long.
3B: Manny Machado, Orioles: Got no gripes here
OF: Nelson Cruz, Rangers: Got no complaints about Cruz, but Gordon and Hunter have hardly been amazing this year, their reserve outfield positions would have been better suited to better performing players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Nate McClouth or Alex Rios as all three of them are playing MUCH better than Gordon and Hunter and can easily fit into the positions in the batting order you would expect Gordon and Hunter to take.
OF: Alex Gordon, Royals
OF: Torii Hunter, Tigers
DH: Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays: No complaints here though again I think Ortiz and Encarnacion should be switched
OF: Torii Hunter, Tigers
DH: Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays: No complaints here though again I think Ortiz and Encarnacion should be switched
NL:
C: Buster Posey, Giants: Good
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, D-backs: Good
1B: Allen Craig, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Marco Scutaro, Giants: Scutaro? Really? There are plenty of better players that could have taken his place and again he's aged to the point that he's nothing more than a batter who hits for average with little to no power and fairly little speed.
SS: Everth Cabrera, Padres: Good on both short stops and Alvarez
SS: Jean Segura, Brewers
3B: Pedro Alvarez, Pirates
OF: Domonic Brown, Phillies: Good on all accounts for outfielders as well
OF: Michael Cuddyer, Rockies
OF: Carlos Gomez, Brewers
OF: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, D-backs: Good
1B: Allen Craig, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Marco Scutaro, Giants: Scutaro? Really? There are plenty of better players that could have taken his place and again he's aged to the point that he's nothing more than a batter who hits for average with little to no power and fairly little speed.
SS: Everth Cabrera, Padres: Good on both short stops and Alvarez
SS: Jean Segura, Brewers
3B: Pedro Alvarez, Pirates
OF: Domonic Brown, Phillies: Good on all accounts for outfielders as well
OF: Michael Cuddyer, Rockies
OF: Carlos Gomez, Brewers
OF: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates
Pitchers:
AL:
RHP: Clay Buchholz *, Red Sox: Got no problems though he's injured and was replaced with Colon, and don't have any issue with that considering Colon's ridiculous strikeout to walk ratio
LHP: Brett Cecil, Blue Jays: Great idea as he nearly pitched a combined perfect game and it was only interrupted by a couple intentional walks.
RHP: Bartolo Colon @, A's
RHP: Jesse Crain *, White Sox: Has been pitching really well and is known to have versatility as having been a reliever and starter with a fair amount of success at both spots. Though he's injured and has been replaced with Perkins, again I have no problem with him as he's done a better than average job as the Twins closer.
RHP: Yu Darvish, Rangers: No complaints he's been dominating this year.
RHP: Felix Hernandez, Mariners: No complaints with him or Iwakuma as both of them have been dominant
RHP: Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners
RHP: Justin Masterson, Indians: I don't have any complaints now, but if you asked me a couple months back I would have laughed my ass off due to Mastersons ridiculous inconsistency (he was great in 2011, then terrible in 2012 and was so so in 2010)
RHP: Joe Nathan, Rangers: No problem here or with Rivera
LHP: Glen Perkins @, Twins
RHP: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
LHP: Chris Sale, White Sox: He sits nicely in the top 15 of pitchers and deserves this spot as he's been consistently good and with a rather lacklustre team in the White Sox
RHP: Max Scherzer, Tigers: Nothing to say here, Scherzer has been even more dominant that Darvish with a current record of 13-0
RHP: Justin Verlander, Tigers: Now this just seems like favouritism on the part of Leyland because there are many pitchers who are playing a lot better than Verlander is this year, now I don't know if it's the reduced velocity that's causing it but pitchers like Ervin Santana and Hiroki Kuroda have been worlds better than him so far this year (despite that Verlander is on a MUCH better team than the two of them).
LHP: Brett Cecil, Blue Jays: Great idea as he nearly pitched a combined perfect game and it was only interrupted by a couple intentional walks.
RHP: Bartolo Colon @, A's
RHP: Jesse Crain *, White Sox: Has been pitching really well and is known to have versatility as having been a reliever and starter with a fair amount of success at both spots. Though he's injured and has been replaced with Perkins, again I have no problem with him as he's done a better than average job as the Twins closer.
RHP: Yu Darvish, Rangers: No complaints he's been dominating this year.
RHP: Felix Hernandez, Mariners: No complaints with him or Iwakuma as both of them have been dominant
RHP: Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners
RHP: Justin Masterson, Indians: I don't have any complaints now, but if you asked me a couple months back I would have laughed my ass off due to Mastersons ridiculous inconsistency (he was great in 2011, then terrible in 2012 and was so so in 2010)
RHP: Joe Nathan, Rangers: No problem here or with Rivera
LHP: Glen Perkins @, Twins
RHP: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
LHP: Chris Sale, White Sox: He sits nicely in the top 15 of pitchers and deserves this spot as he's been consistently good and with a rather lacklustre team in the White Sox
RHP: Max Scherzer, Tigers: Nothing to say here, Scherzer has been even more dominant that Darvish with a current record of 13-0
RHP: Justin Verlander, Tigers: Now this just seems like favouritism on the part of Leyland because there are many pitchers who are playing a lot better than Verlander is this year, now I don't know if it's the reduced velocity that's causing it but pitchers like Ervin Santana and Hiroki Kuroda have been worlds better than him so far this year (despite that Verlander is on a MUCH better team than the two of them).
NL: No surprisingly I have no gripes with any of the decisions that were made about the pitchers for the NL, mainly due to the fact that in cases of Travis Wood or Jose Fernandez, they were the only ones chosen from their team and thankfully they really are the best players on their teams. Now on the other hand I would have liked to see them work in Shelby Miller as he's been just as good as some of the NL's top pitchers.
LHP: Madison Bumgarner, Giants
LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Reds
LHP: Patrick Corbin, D-backs
RHP: Jose Fernandez, Marlins
RHP: Jason Grilli, Pirates
RHP: Matt Harvey, Mets
LHP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
RHP: Craig Kimbrel, Braves
LHP: Cliff Lee, Phillies
LHP: Jeff Locke, Pirates
RHP: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals
LHP: Travis Wood, Cubs
RHP: Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals
LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Reds
LHP: Patrick Corbin, D-backs
RHP: Jose Fernandez, Marlins
RHP: Jason Grilli, Pirates
RHP: Matt Harvey, Mets
LHP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
RHP: Craig Kimbrel, Braves
LHP: Cliff Lee, Phillies
LHP: Jeff Locke, Pirates
RHP: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals
LHP: Travis Wood, Cubs
RHP: Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals
Tomorrow I'll be going over the final roster spot guys.
-Eric
Friday, July 5, 2013
The All Star Game
Ok so I finished spamming the MLB site with my All Star game votes, now before I just list off who I voted for I want to weigh in on something thats come up over the last couple weeks and thats whether Yasiel Puig, the Cuban rookie phenom for the Dodgers, should be allowed to play at the All Star Game. In a word YES, now I think the people who think otherwise, Jonathon Papelbon and Mike Scoscia, are brain dead and don't even understand what the All Star Game is anymore. It's not an arena where the players that other players think are deserving attend it's a show for the fans, so if the fans what Puig in the lineup he sure as hell should be in there. Now on top of this plenty of people have complained about it because he 'hasn't paid his dues' or 'he doesn't have the experience' but then your saying that being the top player in all of the MLB for a month, by a LONG shot, doesn't give him enough merit? Let's not forget that both Bryce Harper and Mike Trout made the All Star roster last year even though neither of them had a full season worth of experience, but we let them through because the two rookies were having amazing seasons, it did't matter if they were a flash in the pan so to speak because they were playing amazing baseball and people wanted to see them. So all in all I think Puig, should he keep this up until the final rosters are to be decided more than deserves a spot in the roster, maybe not a starting position but he should be there.
Ok so now that thats out of the way here are my picks for the All Star Team
-AL
C: Joe Mauer: Now this is pretty easy to defend, the guy has been hitting for average driving in runs and hitting for some power just like whats expected of him and given that there aren't any real high end catchers in the AL (I'm talking Buster Posey/Yadier Molina level) it's pretty easy to decide
1B: Chris Davis: Now this again seems like a no brainer, the man has found himself at the plate and is mashing home runs like theres no tomorrow and I hope he keeps at it so we can, if lucky, we can wash that filthy stain of Barry Bonds off the single season home run record.
2B: Robinson Cano: This was a bit harder as there hasn't been a real run away player but when I consider the situation the Yankees have I believe that Cano this year is better than his stats say he is because the Yankees offence is not nearly as potent as usual with all of C and D class players they've been subbing in it seems like Cano just isn't getting the pitches he needs to get those home runs, RBIs and runs in.
3B: Miguel Cabrera: Again like Davis a complete no brainer, though I would have liked to vote for Longoria since this seems like his big season were he isn't set back with injury after injury and is actually managing to put some respectable stats on the board. However Cabrera is having a year just as good as his Triple Crown year last year and that sure as hell gets him my vote.
SS: Jose Reyes: Now I know Jose won't get the call for the game as starting short stop, but I chose him for a couple reasons. The first being my loyalty as a Jays fan, the second is that if you look at how he played pre injury and since coming back he's much better than the competition for the starting position (despite the small sample size) and third the 3 players who are in the lead for the starting short stop position are rather underwhelming, J.J Hardy has proven to be a one trick pony for years (can only hit for power and not much for avg with littler to no speed), Johnny Peralta is a pretty lacklustre defensive player and for reasons I can't understand is surging well above what any season he's had (despite being 31 and most analysts not thinking he'll be able to sustain this) and then Elvis Andrus just hasn't been playing up to what you'd normally expect out of him, especially when we look at last year and the year before.
OF: Jose Bautista, Mike Trout, Adam Jones: Now these guys again seems like no brainers, Trout is by far and away the best outfielder in the AL presently, Bautista has found his power stroke and is still a defensive and offensive monster and Adam Jones like Bautista has been hitting the ball well, not much else to say other than that it's not necessarily a large pool of amazing players we have to choose from.
Write In: No One
-NL
C: Buster Posey: Now the debate between Molina and Posey has been a big one, and I could have gone either way but I believe more in Posey because he has consistently shown that he can perform at this level since he first got called up to the majors where as Molina has more developed into the same level of power and average as Posey more recently.
1B: Joey Votto: Another no brainer, surprise! Though I have the same reasoning in the argument between Votto and Goldsmidt as with Posey vs. Molina.
2B: Brandon Phillips: Again we have pretty slim pickings here, the only competition in this position are Matt Carpenter and Marco Scutaro, now Scutaro I believe doesn't have much beyond his ability to hit for average so he was out in my mind and then Matt Carpenter is very much a rookie and I don't think I can vote for a guy who is only performing at or around Brandon Phillips area with not having shown it for a fair amount of time.
3B: David Wright: Now this is too me again a no brainer, now I love seeing Pablo Sandoval play but he's been in a rut since coming back from injury and to be perfectly honest the extra weight is affecting the man defensively and you can tell it where as Wright is playing better than Sandoval and he's the home player so that wins him points in my books, I mean Mets fans tried to campaign on a cougar dating site to get him into the starting position.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Now I mulled over this decision over and over and it's not because I think another player is better than him at SS but I wondered if he'd actually be back for the game, if so great I say he starts but if not I would like to see the position go to Jean Segura and not Brandon Crawford because as always Segura has been MUCH better than Crawford in every respect at short.
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper: Not much to say here all of these guys are easy to debate about, CarGo has been one of the top 3 hitters in baseball for an extended period of time, McCutchen has been playing just as good if not better than previous years that got him on the All Star team and Bryce Harper, until his collision with the wall, was putting up numbers that would have dwarfed his previous season.
Write In: Yasiel Puig: See the first paragraph of this post
And thats all of them, post your picks if you feel like it and hopefully we'll see a good turn in the voting when it comes out Saturday night.
-Eric
Ok so now that thats out of the way here are my picks for the All Star Team
-AL
C: Joe Mauer: Now this is pretty easy to defend, the guy has been hitting for average driving in runs and hitting for some power just like whats expected of him and given that there aren't any real high end catchers in the AL (I'm talking Buster Posey/Yadier Molina level) it's pretty easy to decide
1B: Chris Davis: Now this again seems like a no brainer, the man has found himself at the plate and is mashing home runs like theres no tomorrow and I hope he keeps at it so we can, if lucky, we can wash that filthy stain of Barry Bonds off the single season home run record.
2B: Robinson Cano: This was a bit harder as there hasn't been a real run away player but when I consider the situation the Yankees have I believe that Cano this year is better than his stats say he is because the Yankees offence is not nearly as potent as usual with all of C and D class players they've been subbing in it seems like Cano just isn't getting the pitches he needs to get those home runs, RBIs and runs in.
3B: Miguel Cabrera: Again like Davis a complete no brainer, though I would have liked to vote for Longoria since this seems like his big season were he isn't set back with injury after injury and is actually managing to put some respectable stats on the board. However Cabrera is having a year just as good as his Triple Crown year last year and that sure as hell gets him my vote.
SS: Jose Reyes: Now I know Jose won't get the call for the game as starting short stop, but I chose him for a couple reasons. The first being my loyalty as a Jays fan, the second is that if you look at how he played pre injury and since coming back he's much better than the competition for the starting position (despite the small sample size) and third the 3 players who are in the lead for the starting short stop position are rather underwhelming, J.J Hardy has proven to be a one trick pony for years (can only hit for power and not much for avg with littler to no speed), Johnny Peralta is a pretty lacklustre defensive player and for reasons I can't understand is surging well above what any season he's had (despite being 31 and most analysts not thinking he'll be able to sustain this) and then Elvis Andrus just hasn't been playing up to what you'd normally expect out of him, especially when we look at last year and the year before.
OF: Jose Bautista, Mike Trout, Adam Jones: Now these guys again seems like no brainers, Trout is by far and away the best outfielder in the AL presently, Bautista has found his power stroke and is still a defensive and offensive monster and Adam Jones like Bautista has been hitting the ball well, not much else to say other than that it's not necessarily a large pool of amazing players we have to choose from.
Write In: No One
-NL
C: Buster Posey: Now the debate between Molina and Posey has been a big one, and I could have gone either way but I believe more in Posey because he has consistently shown that he can perform at this level since he first got called up to the majors where as Molina has more developed into the same level of power and average as Posey more recently.
1B: Joey Votto: Another no brainer, surprise! Though I have the same reasoning in the argument between Votto and Goldsmidt as with Posey vs. Molina.
2B: Brandon Phillips: Again we have pretty slim pickings here, the only competition in this position are Matt Carpenter and Marco Scutaro, now Scutaro I believe doesn't have much beyond his ability to hit for average so he was out in my mind and then Matt Carpenter is very much a rookie and I don't think I can vote for a guy who is only performing at or around Brandon Phillips area with not having shown it for a fair amount of time.
3B: David Wright: Now this is too me again a no brainer, now I love seeing Pablo Sandoval play but he's been in a rut since coming back from injury and to be perfectly honest the extra weight is affecting the man defensively and you can tell it where as Wright is playing better than Sandoval and he's the home player so that wins him points in my books, I mean Mets fans tried to campaign on a cougar dating site to get him into the starting position.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Now I mulled over this decision over and over and it's not because I think another player is better than him at SS but I wondered if he'd actually be back for the game, if so great I say he starts but if not I would like to see the position go to Jean Segura and not Brandon Crawford because as always Segura has been MUCH better than Crawford in every respect at short.
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper: Not much to say here all of these guys are easy to debate about, CarGo has been one of the top 3 hitters in baseball for an extended period of time, McCutchen has been playing just as good if not better than previous years that got him on the All Star team and Bryce Harper, until his collision with the wall, was putting up numbers that would have dwarfed his previous season.
Write In: Yasiel Puig: See the first paragraph of this post
And thats all of them, post your picks if you feel like it and hopefully we'll see a good turn in the voting when it comes out Saturday night.
-Eric
Bird Watch: Two Faced, Meaningless Win and More Close Calls
Ok so the last set of games for the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Orioles didn't really have anything out of the ordinary with the exception of the Blue Jays, who seem to be incapable of staying on one side of the spectrum, and the Cardinals to a lesser extent.
Ok so let's get the Orioles out of the way, the Thursday game as well as the Friday game did not have anything unexpected, they played just like they have for about a week and a half, scoring well below double digit runs, the game being decided by a very small margin and the bullpen, coughed up a few runs that caused the loss for the team. So the obvious thing to say here is, just like last post, that the Orioles need help in their bullpen and their offence needs to get scoring more runs as they definitely have the talent at the plate with Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Manny Machado alone. Now outside of these theres not anything to complain about because the closeness of the games means that the Orioles starters are doing a good job of holding the opposing team to a small number of runs, Feldman allowed 2 on Wednesday, Britton allowed 2 on Thursday and Gonzalez allowed 1 on Friday all over 6-7 innings.
Next we have the Cardinals, who got back to their winning ways on Wednesday, completely destroying the Angels 12-2 with Shelby Miller on the mound which, considering his usual pitching performance, should come to no surprise. However on Thursdays game the Cardinals lost the series finale against the Angels 6-5, which was a bit of a surprise as Wainwright allowed 4 runs in the game and Mujica the closer gave up the runs that cost them the game. Now it should be noted that the runs given up by Wainwright were for the most part in one inning and the one that brought the Angels within 1 run was in the 9th inning so despite the bad line, he did pitch nearly an entire game, which is commendable. On the other side Edward Mujica was BAD, in just 2/3 of an inning he allowed 4 hits 2 earned runs and a home run and the Albert Pujols single scoring that Wainwright gave up should be attributed to Mujica as he was the one that allowed the home run by Josh Hamilton that brought in Pujols and tied the game. He then proceeded to allow singles by 2 more batters and then Erick Aybar came to the plate and singled in the final run of the game, a bit of a disappointment as Mujica had not had a blown save until that game and the performance itself was really bad. Now the Friday game was sort of back to the typical Cardinal play as they won 4-1, however this was against the Marlins and when you see the box score the one thing thats glaring back at you is 2 fielding errors by Matt Carpenter, which they only got out of because of lucky ground balls that they turned into double plays. So all in all it seems Matt Carpenter is beginning to show cracks in the armour as he has allowed a fair number of errors over the last week or so of games, though it would seem he just to get in more fielding practice as he is still solid enough at the plate that there is little to no chance he looses his starting position due to defensive inability.
Finally we have the Blue Jays, now I can't really understand what team these guys are anymore. the last 2 series against the Tigers and the Red Sox had me cringing every time I saw a hit from the opposing team and nearly every starting pitcher of theirs fell victim to the other team's offence. Now overall these series were immensely disappointing as the Tigers had been struggling and, in my mind, the Red Sox have one of the most over-rated offences in the MLB (with the exception of Pedroia and Ortiz, none of their players currently have the ability to hit with huge power, hell even the numbers say Napoli is in for a big regression). But thats neither here nor there, the problem of course is how the Jays can loose to the Tigers, without Miguel Cabrera I might add, 11-1 and then turn around and beat the Twins senselessly 4-0 the next day. Especially when the same pitcher, Mark Buerhle, was responsible for giving up 4 runs to the Red Sox not even a week ago. The Jays really need to decide what kind of team they are in order to move forward because there loosing streak up until today has almost completely negated the good that the 11 game winning streak did, which is a real shame because that would take them out of contention again and make a lot of fans angry. Now the theme for nearly all of the lost games over the last 2 games was bad pitching as all of the starters that had shown themselves as consistent individuals got rocked over and over again, and a few errors were made by Bonifacio and Rasmus, and I'll admit some of them did seem like a loss on concentration because those were routine plays that we've seen these players make hundreds of times and I'm sure everyone thought that Bonifacio was over the error hill. The game against the Twins though had the Jays back to what was good about them in the winning streak, consistent batting with runners in scoring position, good pitching and a near perfect bullpen, now they just need to hold onto that as Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion find their footing again after their few game absence. Overall this is nearly the end for the Jays season in my mind, if they can't get to within a respectable distance of the wildcard or first in the AL East in the next week (before the All Star Game) they won't have a hope in hell of reaching the playoffs.
-Eric
Ok so let's get the Orioles out of the way, the Thursday game as well as the Friday game did not have anything unexpected, they played just like they have for about a week and a half, scoring well below double digit runs, the game being decided by a very small margin and the bullpen, coughed up a few runs that caused the loss for the team. So the obvious thing to say here is, just like last post, that the Orioles need help in their bullpen and their offence needs to get scoring more runs as they definitely have the talent at the plate with Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Manny Machado alone. Now outside of these theres not anything to complain about because the closeness of the games means that the Orioles starters are doing a good job of holding the opposing team to a small number of runs, Feldman allowed 2 on Wednesday, Britton allowed 2 on Thursday and Gonzalez allowed 1 on Friday all over 6-7 innings.
Next we have the Cardinals, who got back to their winning ways on Wednesday, completely destroying the Angels 12-2 with Shelby Miller on the mound which, considering his usual pitching performance, should come to no surprise. However on Thursdays game the Cardinals lost the series finale against the Angels 6-5, which was a bit of a surprise as Wainwright allowed 4 runs in the game and Mujica the closer gave up the runs that cost them the game. Now it should be noted that the runs given up by Wainwright were for the most part in one inning and the one that brought the Angels within 1 run was in the 9th inning so despite the bad line, he did pitch nearly an entire game, which is commendable. On the other side Edward Mujica was BAD, in just 2/3 of an inning he allowed 4 hits 2 earned runs and a home run and the Albert Pujols single scoring that Wainwright gave up should be attributed to Mujica as he was the one that allowed the home run by Josh Hamilton that brought in Pujols and tied the game. He then proceeded to allow singles by 2 more batters and then Erick Aybar came to the plate and singled in the final run of the game, a bit of a disappointment as Mujica had not had a blown save until that game and the performance itself was really bad. Now the Friday game was sort of back to the typical Cardinal play as they won 4-1, however this was against the Marlins and when you see the box score the one thing thats glaring back at you is 2 fielding errors by Matt Carpenter, which they only got out of because of lucky ground balls that they turned into double plays. So all in all it seems Matt Carpenter is beginning to show cracks in the armour as he has allowed a fair number of errors over the last week or so of games, though it would seem he just to get in more fielding practice as he is still solid enough at the plate that there is little to no chance he looses his starting position due to defensive inability.
Finally we have the Blue Jays, now I can't really understand what team these guys are anymore. the last 2 series against the Tigers and the Red Sox had me cringing every time I saw a hit from the opposing team and nearly every starting pitcher of theirs fell victim to the other team's offence. Now overall these series were immensely disappointing as the Tigers had been struggling and, in my mind, the Red Sox have one of the most over-rated offences in the MLB (with the exception of Pedroia and Ortiz, none of their players currently have the ability to hit with huge power, hell even the numbers say Napoli is in for a big regression). But thats neither here nor there, the problem of course is how the Jays can loose to the Tigers, without Miguel Cabrera I might add, 11-1 and then turn around and beat the Twins senselessly 4-0 the next day. Especially when the same pitcher, Mark Buerhle, was responsible for giving up 4 runs to the Red Sox not even a week ago. The Jays really need to decide what kind of team they are in order to move forward because there loosing streak up until today has almost completely negated the good that the 11 game winning streak did, which is a real shame because that would take them out of contention again and make a lot of fans angry. Now the theme for nearly all of the lost games over the last 2 games was bad pitching as all of the starters that had shown themselves as consistent individuals got rocked over and over again, and a few errors were made by Bonifacio and Rasmus, and I'll admit some of them did seem like a loss on concentration because those were routine plays that we've seen these players make hundreds of times and I'm sure everyone thought that Bonifacio was over the error hill. The game against the Twins though had the Jays back to what was good about them in the winning streak, consistent batting with runners in scoring position, good pitching and a near perfect bullpen, now they just need to hold onto that as Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion find their footing again after their few game absence. Overall this is nearly the end for the Jays season in my mind, if they can't get to within a respectable distance of the wildcard or first in the AL East in the next week (before the All Star Game) they won't have a hope in hell of reaching the playoffs.
-Eric
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Bird Watch: Bad Calls, Bad Pitching and Moving Along
Ok so I figured I'd wait a day to post this just so that I could make sure that the streak, whether positive or negative, was actually not just a one game thing and seems like some interesting things occurred in the games on Tuesday. Now to break things down for the last 2 days we had 2 back to back losses for the Cardinals, one blow-out win and one close loss for the Blue Jays and two close games for the Orioles, one win and one loss. Now there were some specific things to look at in these games that definitely bring the results into better context, so let's get to it.
First off we have the Cardinals, still second in the National League because of the winning streak that the Pirates have going but even so the rest of the National League teams are doing much worse so they are ways ahead in the wild card race. Now in the first loss against the A's the offence seemed to have been clicking since they scored 5 runs right? Well thats not entirely true, the team just took advantage of Milone's weakness to the long ball, so all of their runs came through home runs. In addition they were only 1-11 with runners in scoring position and only scored these runs in 2 innings, so this all means that they were unable to take advantage of runners on base in order to further their score, 5 times to be exact. In addition to this their fielders made 2 errors, which contributed to the score that Oakland achieved in the game and as we all should know Jake Westbrook is not that great of a pitcher anymore, especially when he only lasts 4 innings, allows 10 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks and only strikes out 3. Overall not the greatest performance by the Cardinals but of course you can't really make a conclusion about one game so lets look at the following game. Now this game was again a loss, agains the Angels 5-1, and the pitchers were Lance Lynn and Jered Weaver. Ok so this game went fairly similarly to the previous one in that one of the people who made an error in the previous game made another during this game (Matt Carpenter), the offence went 1-7 with runners in scoring position and the offence still had a high number of hits. Now the difference is that all of the Angel's runs came in the 2nd inning, when Lance Lynn had a hiccup in his delivery as he only allowed 2 base runners after that inning. So it seems the pitching is not a problem however the offence and defence still needs to get itself together to an extent to avoid slipping any further back in the standings.
Now the Blue Jays, again being frustrating. So the first game looked at was the 8-3 blow out win against the Detroit Tigers, which was somewhat of a surprise for me, as I expected Dickey to implode against one of the best offences in the MLB. However that sure did not happen, Dickey did a pretty great job on closing the door on the Tigers only allowing 2 runs and getting a fair number of strikeouts and ground ball outs. The offence followed suit as well going 3-7 with runners in scoring position, got a good number of hits and their runs didn't come over just one or 2 innings, which means they DID eat into the starter and didn't just take advantage of one or two break down situations on the part of the starter. Now what was disturbing is that before this game began we found out that Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind and J.P Arencibia are day to day, which is worrying as 2 out of 3 of those players have been our offensive core and the third can be a difference maker at times when he gets the right pitch. However they still managed to overcome it. Now of course from this one might expect something similar the next game similar to what you'd expect from the Cardinals games. They started off the game similarly to their last in that they pounced on the starter, Doug Fister, VERY early as they scored 4 runs in the first inning and then two more in the second. However the Toronto starter Chien-Ming Wang pitched worse than Fister and allowed 6 runs in the second inning, unfortunately much like his previous outing his sinker was fairly flat, in didn't have it's usual sinking motion, and his control was a bit off as more than half of the pitches he threw were balls. However once he was pulled out our bullpen dominated for the most part for the rest of the game, with the exception of the one run that Neil Wagner allowed in the 8th and unfortunately his deflection of Jose Reyes' return is what cost the Jays the run. Now one thing I've talked about a fair amount that I believe honestly stopped any hope the Jays had of coming back was the Umpiring, in the bottom of the 9th their was a few really bad blown calls, so much so that when the last batter, Jose Reyes, came to bat the count was 2 out none on when it should have been 2 on and none out. This is because there was a bad call at the first batter, which meant that Emilio Bonifacio should have been on base then the up blew a foul ball call, which first wasn't a foul and second hit Kawasaki and thus he should have been on base too and considering the speed that Bonifacio has I can guarantee you he would have had no trouble making it to third and with Reyes, Bautista and DeRosa coming up they would have easily come back. Either way I just have a BIG thing against the terrible umpiring this year as many strikes/balls have been blown in games I've watched (both Jays and others) and then theres the self righteous umps like Angel Hernandez that make me think they should just replace all of them.
Ok so finally we have the Orioles, now theres honestly not much to say about these two games as it's just the same style they've been playing at for the past week or so, which is scoring under 5 runs per game, while still getting a steady amount of hits and coming within 2-3 runs of winning or losing and their pitchers don't give up a huge amount of runs. Now what I'm more interested about is the fact that the Orioles just put together a trade with the Chicago Cubs for Scott Feldman, and the reason I find him interesting is because he is a ground ball pitcher who has spent the brunt of his career in Texas one of the worst hitters parks in the league. Despite this he still was able to keep a respectable ERA and win-loss ratio and given that the Orioles have a better defence than the Rangers and that Camden Yards is a fair bit less homer friendly than Rangers Ballpark I expect he could be a very successful pitcher with Baltimore and not to mention he had a time at Texas when he was managed by Buck Showalter so he has an established relationship with the Orioles skipper and Buck knows what Feldman is capable of.
-Eric
First off we have the Cardinals, still second in the National League because of the winning streak that the Pirates have going but even so the rest of the National League teams are doing much worse so they are ways ahead in the wild card race. Now in the first loss against the A's the offence seemed to have been clicking since they scored 5 runs right? Well thats not entirely true, the team just took advantage of Milone's weakness to the long ball, so all of their runs came through home runs. In addition they were only 1-11 with runners in scoring position and only scored these runs in 2 innings, so this all means that they were unable to take advantage of runners on base in order to further their score, 5 times to be exact. In addition to this their fielders made 2 errors, which contributed to the score that Oakland achieved in the game and as we all should know Jake Westbrook is not that great of a pitcher anymore, especially when he only lasts 4 innings, allows 10 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks and only strikes out 3. Overall not the greatest performance by the Cardinals but of course you can't really make a conclusion about one game so lets look at the following game. Now this game was again a loss, agains the Angels 5-1, and the pitchers were Lance Lynn and Jered Weaver. Ok so this game went fairly similarly to the previous one in that one of the people who made an error in the previous game made another during this game (Matt Carpenter), the offence went 1-7 with runners in scoring position and the offence still had a high number of hits. Now the difference is that all of the Angel's runs came in the 2nd inning, when Lance Lynn had a hiccup in his delivery as he only allowed 2 base runners after that inning. So it seems the pitching is not a problem however the offence and defence still needs to get itself together to an extent to avoid slipping any further back in the standings.
Now the Blue Jays, again being frustrating. So the first game looked at was the 8-3 blow out win against the Detroit Tigers, which was somewhat of a surprise for me, as I expected Dickey to implode against one of the best offences in the MLB. However that sure did not happen, Dickey did a pretty great job on closing the door on the Tigers only allowing 2 runs and getting a fair number of strikeouts and ground ball outs. The offence followed suit as well going 3-7 with runners in scoring position, got a good number of hits and their runs didn't come over just one or 2 innings, which means they DID eat into the starter and didn't just take advantage of one or two break down situations on the part of the starter. Now what was disturbing is that before this game began we found out that Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind and J.P Arencibia are day to day, which is worrying as 2 out of 3 of those players have been our offensive core and the third can be a difference maker at times when he gets the right pitch. However they still managed to overcome it. Now of course from this one might expect something similar the next game similar to what you'd expect from the Cardinals games. They started off the game similarly to their last in that they pounced on the starter, Doug Fister, VERY early as they scored 4 runs in the first inning and then two more in the second. However the Toronto starter Chien-Ming Wang pitched worse than Fister and allowed 6 runs in the second inning, unfortunately much like his previous outing his sinker was fairly flat, in didn't have it's usual sinking motion, and his control was a bit off as more than half of the pitches he threw were balls. However once he was pulled out our bullpen dominated for the most part for the rest of the game, with the exception of the one run that Neil Wagner allowed in the 8th and unfortunately his deflection of Jose Reyes' return is what cost the Jays the run. Now one thing I've talked about a fair amount that I believe honestly stopped any hope the Jays had of coming back was the Umpiring, in the bottom of the 9th their was a few really bad blown calls, so much so that when the last batter, Jose Reyes, came to bat the count was 2 out none on when it should have been 2 on and none out. This is because there was a bad call at the first batter, which meant that Emilio Bonifacio should have been on base then the up blew a foul ball call, which first wasn't a foul and second hit Kawasaki and thus he should have been on base too and considering the speed that Bonifacio has I can guarantee you he would have had no trouble making it to third and with Reyes, Bautista and DeRosa coming up they would have easily come back. Either way I just have a BIG thing against the terrible umpiring this year as many strikes/balls have been blown in games I've watched (both Jays and others) and then theres the self righteous umps like Angel Hernandez that make me think they should just replace all of them.
Ok so finally we have the Orioles, now theres honestly not much to say about these two games as it's just the same style they've been playing at for the past week or so, which is scoring under 5 runs per game, while still getting a steady amount of hits and coming within 2-3 runs of winning or losing and their pitchers don't give up a huge amount of runs. Now what I'm more interested about is the fact that the Orioles just put together a trade with the Chicago Cubs for Scott Feldman, and the reason I find him interesting is because he is a ground ball pitcher who has spent the brunt of his career in Texas one of the worst hitters parks in the league. Despite this he still was able to keep a respectable ERA and win-loss ratio and given that the Orioles have a better defence than the Rangers and that Camden Yards is a fair bit less homer friendly than Rangers Ballpark I expect he could be a very successful pitcher with Baltimore and not to mention he had a time at Texas when he was managed by Buck Showalter so he has an established relationship with the Orioles skipper and Buck knows what Feldman is capable of.
-Eric
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