Manny Ramirez and the Infinite Madness

Well, it’s happening again.

In the final season of his 8-year, $168 million contract, Manuel Aristides Ramirez has gone and ruffled the feathers of the white-collar set once more; this time, though, with the theoretical exit door looming within the snowdrifts of another approaching winter, many are opining with comfortable resignation on the future of the controversial prodigy: After this season, Manny’s gone.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably note the fact that I think Manny’s great, and am a huge fan of almost everything he does. In an era of homogenized superstars and spurious accomplishment, he is as authentically gifted as he is weird. Manuel is smooth, rolling chaos: beneath his baggy uniform pants and massively untamed dreadlocks lies an eccentric savant, an outfielder whose borderline-inexplicable fits of whimsy surround his prodigious offensive abilities like drunken seagulls circling an ivory tower. If I found myself capable of declaring that one Major League Baseball player stood above all others as my favorite, that man might be Manny Ramirez.

And yeah, he’s “controversial,” but in the grand scheme of things, it’d be something of a stretch to call the guy troublesome. The imbroglios he’s constantly finding himself wrapped up in have a distinct tepidity to them, be they his baserunning pratfalls, circumlocutious defensive meanderings, ethereal maladies or, you know, peeing behind an outfield wall or two. His unnecessary diving cutoff of a Johnny Damon relay throw, which allowed David Newhan to circle the bases for an inside-the-park homer, stands to this day as the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on a baseball diamond. He’s avoided the media, refused to pinch-hit, forced his way onto waivers, and threatened to hold out on the club. Such onerous predilections might a selfish man vilify, but Manny’s always been more of a troubled son than a wantonly selfish superstar. Undoubtedly, this is due in large part to the fact that he is a freaking good hitter and has a .619 career slugging average against the Yankees. In late July of 2005, after seasons worth of trade demands, Ramirez was booed by the home crowd after refusing to give up a schedule day off. And yet his is a smile so large and a personal style so endearing that on the afternoon of the trade deadline (4:00pm, July 31st), when Ramirez pinch-hit for John Olerud at 4:54pm, Fenway Park exploded into a cathedral of raucous and unabashed cheering at the very sight of him: the favorite son would not be shipped elsewhere.

Something seemed to change after that single. In a euphoric post-game interview, a beaming Ramirez confessed his dopamine-drenched love for the Sox:

“Forget about the trade man. This is the place I want to be man. It’s great man. They love me here man. This is the place to be. ‘Manny being Manny,’ he’s great man… we’ve been through a lot, this is the place for me, I’m just happy to be here… I’m back!”

It was all true, of course: Boston did love him madly, and though he’d continue to dog the occasional grounder, and maybe toss a few trade requests out there, the city’s mind was made up: Manny was ours, and he’d keep being ours if we kept treasuring him. Spare the rod, spoil the child, win a lot of baseball games. Youkilis-gate and McCormick-gate, though, have been uncharacteristic departures from his usually carefree nature. After seven years of well-intentioned shenanigans, smacking Youk in the dugout in the middle of a game and wrestling a 64-year-old traveling secretary to the ground betray the shadows of a more nefarious side. Having accepted him into their hearts, Red Sox fans might be a little afraid of being conned: is Manny still the crazy asshole we once worried that he was?

The guaranteed portion of Ramirez’ contract runs out after the 2008 season ends, and the ballclub holds two options, one for 2009 and one for 2010, each at $20 million. There’s no way to couch that dollar figure with romantic verbiage or economic spiel – it’s a very large amount of money, even for baseball standards. Those types of lofty sums are generally reserved for three types of players:

1. Hired Guns. There’s really only one person that’s ever fit this description, and it’s Roger Clemens. Still, it happened, and will happen again sometime.
2. Transcendent Superstars. These players – ideally – are monstrous producers who are able to function as the face of a franchise, blazing apexes of power and talent whose presence alone makes their organizations perennial contenders. This is how the Tigers think Miguel Cabrera will be; similarly, Johan Santana and Jake Peavy’s teams view the players in this light. Alfonso Soriano. Guys like that.
3. Living Legends. Derek Jeter fits the mold here, as did Barry Bonds and Jeff Bagwell. Until they positively can’t continue on, they “mean” more to their team than silly things like statistics could ever summarize. You just can’t imagine these guys in another uniform.

A lot of the guys on that list make more like $17-$18 million per year, but what’s a few hundred thousand Fenway Franks among the Faithful? Does Manny fit into any of the aforementioned categories?

My gut feeling is that no, he does not, especially considering the fact that he failed to reach 500 at bats in both 2006 and 2007. It’s very difficult for an expensive player to endear himself to a fanbase when he isn’t playing, and with Manny, those injuries tend to be nebulous and slow-healing. Additionally, he doesn’t injure himself crashing into the Monster or bowling Dioner Navarro over; rather, he’ll be experiencing discomfort in this muscle or that joint, or whatever, and he’ll sit out four games. Sox fans will ignore it if the team’s winning, but that’s a dangerous line to flirt with, especially with the Rays’ rise to prominence and the Yankees’ failure to truly fall from grace, despite what you may have heard (they’ve only lost 2 more games than the Sox!). When the Yankees are sitting at home licking their wounds and the Red Sox are winning World Series games, all is forgiven. But what happens if they lose to the Yankees in the postseason this year or – even worse – watch the Yankees step over them in late September to send the Sox packing?

There is almost nothing that a sports figure can do to earn a permanent vacation in a city like Boston. No matter how much the city loves him, if he’s getting paid $20 million in 2009 for 450 at-bats after an offseason of wondering whether or not to pick the option up, Manny’s going to be viewed as a mistake, which is something that no one involved wants to have happen. It’ll only be worse if Manny’s defensive abilities erode significantly. Indulge me, for a moment, in my little note on his glovehandling:

Manny is excellent at judging balls off the wall (especially the Green Monster), has no problem going left or right, and has even been known to go back on a few. Charging popups, though, is a different story, and anyone who’s spent time watching the confounding left fielder can attest to his total lack of ability in this arena. His wide-eyed pursuit of shallow bloops reminds one of an obese third-grader foolhardily charging at a slip-and-slide. He picks out a spot in the grass where he thinks the ball will land and then, hat flying off his head, exuberantly lopes for it before sliding in, glove extended, and trying to make a play. The ball might land in his glove. It might land six feet behind him, or two feet to the left of him – he really has no control of himself once he’s decided where he’s going to slide. It’s a hold-your-breath adventure, and his recent bizarre attempt on a Maicer Izturis blooper was a classic example.

With a runner on third and one out, Ramirez tried to slide in and make a catch to hold the runner at third, but missed. By the time he stopped sliding, the ball was about nine feet behind him. Instead of standing up and running for the ball, Ramirez – misjudging how far away from the ball he actually was – appeared to reckon that the distance would be best closed on all fours. In the middle of crawling, he momentarily flirted with the idea of scrapping his plan of pursuit and running, but stumbled, and in a fit of totally indescribable body-control logic, decided to roll the last few feet to get to the ball as fast as he could. He misjudged this distance, too, and rolled right on top of the ball. Ellsbury – who had just finished charging to his aid – went to reach through Manny’s legs for the ball (which he was still sitting directly on top of) before thinking better of it and pulling his arm out of the way as Manny located it and stood up before flipping it into third, where Maicer Izturis stood in disbelief. Cameras panned to a thoroughly unamused Theo Epstein in the crowd, then found an expressionless Francona, standing on the top step of the dugout with a lip full of chewing tobacco, trying his best to disappear in plain sight.

Okay, thanks, that was fun. Manny’s not the first outfielder to err fantastically in his pursuit of a falling baseball, and he won’t be the last. There are far dumber things an outfielder can do, like throw the ball into the stands before there are three outs, something that many otherwise steady outfielders have done (Trot Nixon and Benny Agbayani come to mind). But what if he makes a bone-headed blunder or two during a key late-season series? There’s a lot of potential for regret here, and if it turns out Jacoby Ellsbury is actually a bad leadoff man, the Sox could find themselves in 2009 with a considerably depleted offense while everyone waits for the clock to run out on Manny’s option year so they can finally dump him.

Or he could be great. No, there’s no chance he’ll statistically be $20 million worth of great, but the organization has money to burn and no one wants Jason Bay to play the Edgar Renteria to Manny’s Orlando Cabrera. It is the unfortunate reality of the world we live in that media perception often creates reality, and if Manny went .285-25-90 for the Sox next year, he’d go through rough stretches where whispers of his advanced age and notable ineffectiveness would crop up and become difficult to silence. There is no easy answer here, because with Manny, the only easy question to ever answer has been “Can the man hit?” An enigmatic impresario with the bat and a charming lout everywhere else, a fanbase and an organization is finally having to engage in the overwhelmingly difficult task of putting a dollar value on everything he is and does. Manny, for his part, has mostly indicated that he wants to stay in Boston, though he recently annoyed the front office by insinuating that they weren’t being clear with him (with Manny, what’s clear?) He knows that baseball is a business, and for the most part, seems along for the ride. And why should he be any different? Watching him play and listening to him talk gives one the distinct impression that for all of his hard work and dedication to the craft, those priceless qualities which make Manny Manny remain just as much a mystery to him as they do the rest of us.

The Youkilis and McCormick incidents do not, in fact, tell us anything different about Manny as we’re familiar with him. The spin put on the incidents by Francona and the rest of the team – “hey, we’re a family, and when you’re family and things happen, you deal with it internally and get over it and move on together” – is probably more truth than benign happy-facing. Sometimes people argue, sometimes they fight. It happens to the best and the worst of us, and when it happens (mostly) behind closed doors, the fans should be thankful that the players aren’t taking shots at each other in the media or carrying their problems out onto the field.

The man stands on the precipice of baseball immortality, and the final years of his career should be extremely interesting. Will his skills slowly decline until he hits .260 and calls it a career? Will he stick around for as long as it takes to get to 600 homers? He’s entering rarefied air, and for a person as, well, rare as Manny is, it would behoove us all to sit back and enjoy the theater. Now in his 8th season with the Red Sox, he has posted a 1.007 career OPS at Fenway Park. In his career, he’s hit .349 when his team wins, and .262 when his team loses. He hit .321 in postseason play for the Sox, and has provided the team with numerous iconic moments and images. He is a monster, and it would be the most unfortunate of errors for anyone to try to slight what he has done for the organization, regardless of the occasional fleeting headache.

I’m not advocating a particular plan or policy, here. I’m just saying that regardless of what happens, he’s done so much more than he’s been paid to do, and without him the Red Sox would probably be working on Year 90 right now. Besides… tickets will still be impossible to get, whether he’s making $20 million next year or not.

 

But Does He Know ALL The Words To The Oscar Mayer Song?

Quick, name the player that leads the American League in Batting Average (.337), is slugging .548, has 23 stolen bases, and – oh yeah – plays second base.

Give up?

Unless you’ve been paying particularly close attention, or have been frustrated all season by the guy in your league that owns him, you might not be terribly familiar with the Lone Star dynamo that is 26-year old Ian Michael Kinsler. Hailing from The Old Pueblo – sunny Tucson, Arizona – Kinsler was drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2000 (29th round) following an exceptional high school career (and again in 2001 in the 26th), but opted instead to continue with college, which included stops at Arizona State and the University of Mississippi. He was then drafted 496th overall by the Rangers following his 2003 season at Missouri (.335/.416/.536). He was taken as a shortstop after pretty much every team had grabbed one at some point in front of him, but switched to second base in 2005 at AAA Oklahoma (Pacific Coast League). The 6′0″, 200lb Kinsler never looked back, and in 2008 has firmly entrenched himself in the leadoff spot for the league’s premier offensive ballclub after signing a 5-year, $22 million contract this past February that keeps him under the Rangers’ control through 2013.

Going from 17th-round selection to veritable first-half MVP in 5 years is no small feat. He leads the majors in both hits and doubles, has cranked 14 homers, and is on pace to score 144 runs. Nicknamed “lettuce,” apparently because his hair sticking out the sides of his helmet reminds more than a few ballplayers of patches of the leafy plant, Kinsler has in his third full season made his first All-Star team, is the #2 ranked player on Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball, and has begun establishing for himself a reputation as one of the league’s premier young infielders. He hasn’t been doing a ton differently at the plate this year: making a little more contact, trading some ground balls for fly line drives, and the like. He’s a definite pull hitter, and all of his 14 home runs have been to the left field. He’s hitting .356 with runners on base, and .419 with runners in scoring position.

The biggest knock on Kinsler this year has been his flippant ground-ball boxing around the second base bag. His 16 errors and .970 Fielding Percentage are both worst among Major League second basemen, though those figures don’t really tell the full story on Kinsler. He’s also dominating all other Major League 2Bs in assists and putouts, and his 5.71 Range Factor (putouts and assists per 9 innings) is a full .34 ahead of the second place entrant, Placido Polanco. It’s difficult to say how much of this has to do with the Rangers pitching staff (guys like Gabbard and Millwood induce a lot of grounders) and how much of it has to do with Kinsler’s ability to convert balls hit at him to outs. For what it’s worth, Kinsler also lead MLB 2Bs in Range Factor last year (5.69), and Michael Young is third among MLB shortstops at 4.72. It’s also interesting to note that Kinsler’s Zone Rating, as measured by STATS Inc, is not great at .813 (11th among MLB 2B). His Revised Zone Rating, according to THT, is .796, which is decidedly substandard.

Joey Matschulat at MVN recently took a brief look at Kinsler’s defense in 2008, and pointed out that his “range” – or his ability to be mobile and get to difficult grounders – may have taken a step backwards in 2008. According to THT’s Statistics, Kinsler got to 53 balls last year that were out of his zone; as a percentage of his putouts and assists, those out-of-zone grounders made up for 7.4% of his chances. In 2006, they made up 3.125%, and in 2008, they’re making up 3.25%, so yes, he’s taken a step backwards range-wise in 2008. Right? This has not been caused by Kinsler fielding more grounders than usual. His Total Chances per 9 Innings have been very similar for the past 3 years: 5.73, 5.82, 5.88; essentially, he’s only getting one more ground ball every 2 games than he did in 2007. The lack of out-of-zone grounders he’s fielded is very striking, but it might be premature to say that he has in fact taken a step backwards. There is much baseball yet to be played.

There’s one quirky figure in Kinsler’s stats that deserved some exploration. As a percentage of his team’s total chances, (Total Chances/Team Grounders), Kinsler’s rate has increased over the past 2.5 seasons, including a weird spike in 2008. His “Chance Share” from 2006-2008 has gone from 30.16% to 34.22% to 42.37% in 2008. Neither Michael Young nor the Rangers’ 3B carousel has experienced any sort of matching trend. By comparison, Mark Ellis, who is viewed by many as the top defensive 2B in baseball, has participated in 39.30% of his team’s ground balls.

How is it that a player has had as many Chances Per 9 Innings as he’s always had, but he’s got more Chances per Ground Ball than he’s ever had? The answer would seem to have something to do with double play opportunities. Kinsler has had a TON of them this year – 24% more than 2007, to be exact -and he leads baseball in both double plays started and double plays turned (Michael Young is 3rd and 5th, respectively). Robinson Cano was 2007’s DP/9 leader at .882. This year, Kinsler is at 1.04. I’m not aware of any studies on the matter, but it would seem to be clear that double play opportunities are (at least partly) out of a fielder’s control. Sure, they have something to do with the number that they convert, but save for a few really acrobatic twin killings, it’s pretty much a function of runners being on base. This meshes well with the fact that the Rangers pitching staff is absolutely horrible, and there are pretty much always runners on first (they lead the majors with 395 walks allowed).

Again, I don’t know how much influence fielders have over their own ability to participate in double-plays, but if we assume that they don’t, how much is Kinsler’s 5.70 Range Factor influenced by his situation? If we take the average Double Plays per Inning for all qualified second basemen and “normalize” their Double Play numbers, Kinsler’s range factor comes down to 5.36: this still leads the majors, but guys like Polanco (5.27), Utley, and Cano (both 5.20) are closer to him. The double play quirk doesn’t really help us pinpoint the cause of Kinsler’s errors. He attributes them to his “energetic” playing style; others wonder if he’s still playing shortstop in his mind.

Ian Kinsler is not a gold-glove second baseman. However, he’s not exactly Dick Stuart either. He gets a ton of ground balls, and muffs some of them. He also makes a few too many bad throws. From looking at his numbers, one gets the impression that his defensive shortcomings are somewhat exaggerated. Defense remains a difficult skill to evaluate, and Kinsler is no doubt conscious of his high error totals, but I’d be much more comfortable disparaging his defense if this were 2009 and we were still talking about him leading the league in errors.

But it’s not all negatives outside the batter’s box. In addition to Kinsler’s bat-wielding proficiencies, he is also a fantastic base-stealer. Kinsler’s success rate of 95.83% (23/1) is second only to Jimmy Rollins (24/0) and Chase Utley (10/0) in terms of efficiency, and Chase isn’t really in the same league as those two. Using the same method I did to lampoon Hunter Pence’s miserable baserunning, here’s the MLB Baserunning Leaderboard (min: 10 attempts):

RK	PLAYER	TEAM	SB	CS	ATT	SB%	OPS	BRRV
1	Willy Taveras	COL	39	4	43	.907	0.598	4.957
2	Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	34	3	37	.919	0.737	4.549
3	Jimmy Rollins	PHI	24	0	24	1.000	0.778	4.2
4	Ian Kinsler	TEX	23	1	24	.958	0.945	3.558
T-5	Juan Pierre	LAD	35	7	42	.833	0.644	2.856
T-5	Jacoby Ellsbury	BOS	35	7	42	.833	0.714	2.856

For the first half of 2008, Kinsler hasn’t been a good baserunner, he’s been downright elite. I included the OPS column in this table to give you an idea of how special Kinsler’s blend of speed and power has been thus far. For those curious, there are 5 other guys in the top 30 of the Baserunning Run Value standings with a .900+ OPS: Sizemore (#7, 22 SB), Rodriguez and Holliday (T-#11, 13 SB), Utley (#13, 10 SB), and Berkman (#16, 15 SB). Kinsler is having a special season: since 1901, only 65 players have registered seasons with 40+ steals and a .900+ OPS. The last 5 to do it? Hanley Ramirez (2007, .948/51), Alfonso Soriano (2006, .911/41), Carlos Beltran (2004, .915/42), Bobby Abreu (2004, .972/40), and Beltran again (2003, .911/41). Ty Cobb did it 8 times, Honus Wagner 6 times, and Rickey Henderson did it 4 times. His pace has him set to steal 39; if he has the chance to steal 40, one has to imagine he’ll take it. Kinsler’s Marcels projection has him slipping considerably in the second half: .842 OPS the rest of the way, which would land him at .898 on the season. He’s right on the cusp, and if his first half has been more “manifestation of improved skills” and less “lucky out of his mind,” he’s got a pretty good chances of 40/.900.

Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan wrote the following of Kinsler after pegging him as a “breakout candidate” this past January:

Kinsler made small improvements across the board in ’07, hitting more fly balls, walking a bit more, stealing more bases at a better rate and playing better defense. Given a full season—Kinsler has missed 74 games in two seasons—he could put up Dan Uggla’s numbers, with much better defense and a higher OBP.

Questions about Kinsler’s defense aside (Sheehan also predicted a monster season from Francoeur, oops), fans who jumped on the Kinsler bandwagon early have been greatly enjoying his (apparent) breakout season. It’ll be next to impossible for him to keep his pace up: his .365 BABIP will come down, and his 45% fly ball rate will have plenty to do with that. Of interest is the fact that while his OPS has climbed each month this year (.754, .881, 1.091, 1.186), his stolen base output may be falling (7, 8, 5, 3 in July). Kinsler pretty much idolizes Michael Young, and has stated on numerous occasions that he uses the shortstop as a model of consistency and focus on and off the field. From 2005-2007, Young has upped his batting average by 16 points in the second half of the season; Kinsler’s supporters are certainly hoping that he’s taking Young’s tutoring to heart.

 

Oh How the Mighty Have Become Slightly Less Mighty

Ah, the life of a reliever.  Most of the time, your workday starts at about 8:30PM.  Sure, you get a little throwing in during the afternoon here and there, maybe do some working out on the weekends, but usually you’re just relaxing and hanging out on a bench with 6 or 7 other dudes, checking out the cute girls in the crowd and catching the occasional home run.

There’s a flip side to this, of course: save for 50 or 60 guys in the bigs, you are, for all intents and purposes, eminently replaceable.  Everywhere you look, there are candidates to take the job of the guy sitting next to you: flopping starters, young minor leaguers, rule 5 picks.  They’re all candidates to be slotted into the bullpen, and when they are, well, one of you’s gotta go.  Relief pitchers are a little bit like socks.  You’ve got a big drawer full of them, some are left, some are right; they work best when they come in a quality left/right pair, but if you’ve gotta mix and match and make do, hey, they’re just socks, right?  They get the job done even if one’s a little bit bigger than the other one.  They’re also like socks in that your favorite ones tend to get worn over and over and over.  Maybe they’re really cushy, and you get a little irresponsible with your sock rotation.  Before you know it, you slip them on one day, and fwoop: your big toe goes right through the end.  Well, that’s too bad.  Think I’ll go down to the store and get some new ones.

Carlos Marmol has, by most accounts, some of the best “stuff” in the majors as far as relief pitchers go.  With a fastball that sits at about 95mph and bores in on right-handers and a low-80s “slider” that’s got about 7 inches of movement on it, he’s got the pitches to strike out any batter on any given night.  Lately, though, he’s been struggling, amassing a 9.34 ERA since June 1st.  What gives?

Marmol has appeared in 49 games this year, throwing 52.1 innings over the stretch.  Put simply, that’s just too much throwing.  He’s projected to appear in 84 games this year and throw 90 innings.  Last season, only two pitchers appeared in 84+ games: Jon Rauch (88) and Saul Rivera (85), while only three guys threw 90 or more innings: Heath Bell (93.2), Saul Rivera (93), and Peter Moylan (90).  Rauch also appeared in 85 games in 2006, and at a towering 6′11″ 291lbs, could probably throw 200 innings per year even if he was forced to pitch with a bowling ball.  Saul Rivera, the only man to qualify for both lists in 2007, is just as much of a physical freak of nature as Rauch: he’s listed at 5′11″ 150lbs, and is a 70/30 fastball/slider pitcher who’s also getting a bunch of work this year.  Heath Bell’s currently healthy and pitching in San Diego, while Peter Moylan is shelved for the season after undergoing surgery on his right elbow earlier this year.

Marmol, at 6′2″ 180, is rather slight of build for an athlete.  I’m obviously not trying to make a causal connection between size and durability, but there’s reason to believe that Marmol isn’t really cut out to be an 80-game pitcher.  Marmol was signed out of the Dominican as a outfield/catcher prospect, but when scouts judged that his bat wasn’t MLB-caliber, they put him on the mound, and he dazzled while alternating between starter and reliever.  Most of the dazzling was happening in the first few innings, though, and he tended to be too wild to last late into ballgames. He started 13 games in 2006, but hurt his arm in August and was made into a full-time reliever following his return.  He shined in 2007, striking out 96 batters in 69.1 innings (1.43 ERA). Going into 2008, Marmol was the club’s top setup option in front of Kerry Wood.  Manager Lou Piniella has shown that he has no qualms about pitching Marmol on an almost nightly basis, opting instead to take it easier on Kerry Wood, who’s thrown 44.2 innings this season (and 233 fewer pitches).

Depending on who you ask, the slider is either the most or second-most stressful pitch a person can throw.  Marmol, of course, throws a ton of them.  He’s thrown 920 pitches this year, of which between 40-45% have been sliders, depending on the classification algorithm you use (most of his other pitches are fastballs in the low-to-mid 90s).  Mike Wuertz, Brad Lidge, and Doug Waechter are the only pitchers who throw more sliders as a percentage of their pitches than Marmol, and Doug Waechter is the closest to Marmol in terms of pitch count with just 747.  Marmol has thrown 70 or 80 more sliders than anyone else in baseball, and they appear to be taking a toll.  Here’s a look at Marmol’s daily K/BB and BB/9 graphs for 2008:

Not so good.  After peaking with a K/BB of almost 7 in late April, Marmol is down to a pedestrian 2.8 as the summer months have witnessed his BB/9 climb to 4.3.  Neither number is great, though both are right around where he finished 2007 (2.754, 4.54).  After appearing to be solidifying his reputation as a top right-handed setup man, Marmol has come back down to earth rather dramatically over the past month or so.

So is Marmol wearing down, hurt, or was he just pitching way over his head in the first couple months of the season?  Given that his current season numbers are closely aligned with his numbers from last season, I’m tempted to say it’s a little bit of the first and a lot of the latter.  Marmol hasn’t really done much in the majors to this point, so there’s nothing to say he’s going to establish himself as a full-season, dominant force, especially if his pitch load remains the same.  Piniella is almost certainly overworking him right now, and his numbers appear to be suffering as a result.  He could benefit from a reduced workload in the coming months, so that he’s able to stay fresh and maintain his peak velocity and movement as the Cubs head into the playoffs (which they almost certainly will do).  Against a patient ballclub, a BB/9 that approaches 5 will spell trouble for a pitcher whose fastball stays up in the zone and induces a lot of fly balls (56%).  If his fastball isn’t at “exceptional” level, that could mean big trouble and broken hearts in Wrigley Field come October.

 

This Post Contains No Pictures of Hunter Pence’s Girlfriend

Hunter Pence has never really looked like a real major league baseball player to me.  Listed at 6′4″ 220lbs, the blond-haired Texan seems too gangly a mess of arms and legs to ever amount to much on the field, the kind of player that wears his uniform a little too snugly and and habitually sticks his tongue out when he exerts himself.  If you thought he didn’t belong on the ballfield, though, you’d probably be wrong: since being taken by the Houston Astros in the second round of the 2004 draft, Pence has impressed at every stop, going .303/376/.554 from over four minor league seasons before making serious Rookie of the Year noise in his 2007 freshman campaign.

Scouts have tended to disagree on Pence’s ceiling throughout his entire playing career.  The kind of player that does “nothing pretty but everything well,” he projected to some as an average major leaguer and others as a five-tool star.  He made a habit of choking up on the bat during his minor league career, a tendency which stuck out considering Pence’s size and reputation for power (Pence has remarked that even his mother made fun of him for doing so).  He tended to be extremely streaky at the plate.  He had good speed, but had a strange, loping, arm-intensive stride that lacked fluidity.  He had a strong throwing arm, but did a funky stutter-hop before unleashing the ball in a violent, jerky motion.  He wore only one batting glove, on his left hand.  He was quick, but seemed too “long” to be a gold-glove caliber outfielder.  He has a hitch in his swing where he brings his hands way down before coming through the zone, a point that major league pitchers could exploit by busting him in.

Still, Pence impressed everyone in the Astros organization, and batted .571/.647/1.071 in spring training prior to the 2007 season.  Despite his efforts, he was sent down in favor of 27 year old Chris Burke, a nifty little multi-position player who was in his fourth season with the organization and was rumored have both speed and the ability to hit for average.  Neither proved to be true, and the Astros quickly realized the error of their ways: on April 28th of that year, the club announced their plans to call Pence up to the majors and hand him the starting center fielder gig.  He responded by going out of his mind at the plate, hitting .342 through the All-Star Break and finishing the year batting .322 with 9 triples, 17 homers, 11 steals, and 69 RBI despite missing a month with a chip fracture in his right wrist.  Pence’s Astros finished 73-89.

Prior to the 2008 season, the young outfielder earned himself a little bit of unwanted media attention when, on the eve of the club’s first full-squad workout, he accidentally leaped through a sliding glass door on his way to the bathroom, which shattered and left him covered with small lacerations on his hands, knees, and pretty much everywhere else (he was wearing a bathing suit at the time). He received numerous stitches and missed about a week of action, but returned at full-strength on March 3rd and went on to have an excellent spring (.352, 3HR).

Pence started the 2008 regular season in the #2 spot in the order because Kaz Matsui, who was the Astros’ planned #2 hitter, was out of commission with – ugh – a “severe anal fissure.” Pence struggled to a .161 average in the first two weeks of the season and found himself dropped to #7 slot, but got to .250 by the end of April thanks to a 14-for-29 stretch towards the end of the month. Pence went .346/.400/.577 in May but slumped again in June and is currently sporting a mediocre .265/.306/.422 line in 332 at-bats.  As his hitting has gone through peaks and valleys (he was at .311 on May 27th then hit just .200 in June), so has his spot in the order: he’s got at least 50 at bats in the 1, 2, 6, and 7 spots in the order, with most of his time coming at #6 where he’s hitting .297.

Something of a free-swinger, Pence doesn’t care much for walks.  His 5.7% walk rate is on the very low end of the spectrum, alongside fellow contact guys like Pudge Rodriguez, Juan Pierre, and Dustin Pedroia.  For a “dynamic” guy, though, he strikes out a little too often right now, with just 0.29 walks for every K (13th worst in the majors).  It’s not impossible to thrive with a BB/K figure that low – Ryan Braun and Corey Hart’s are lower, though they both have shown more power than Pence and have better contact rates.  Still, his

plate discipline is less than stellar.  30.87% of the balls that Pence swings at are outside of the strike zone; of players with O-Swing figures that high, Pence’s contact rate on balls outside the strike zone – 52.13% – is 3rd worst, behind Torii Hunter, Matt Kemp, and Mike Jacobs.  The book on Pence generally says that he has a predilection towards sliders down and away, a la Alfonso Soriano.  The numbers would seem to give a general thumbs up to that assertion.  All of these rate statistics have carried over from 2007.  His batting average on balls in play last year was .378, though; this year, it’s come down to earth, as has his batting average.  Pence probably won’t finish his career with a .300 batting average.

Pence has also been bad enough on the basepaths this year to warrant a reconsideration of his supposed base-stealing abilities. According to The Book (2007: Tango, Lichtman, Dolphin), a baserunner being caught stealing has a “Runs to End of Inning” value of -0.467 (the average team will score almost a half-run less per inning when a runner is caught stealing), and is the single most detrimental offensive play a baseball player can make. In 2008, Hunter Pence has stolen 5 bases on the season and has been caught 7 times, a .417 success percentage that is far and away the worst among major league regulars who have attempted at least 10 steals. Pence was “only” 31 for 45 in his minor league career (.689), and no major leaguer who stole 20 bases last year had a SB% less than .700 (as a group, 20-steal players in 2007 were .824). Using Run Values and Win Values from The Book, I calculated “Baserunning Run Values” and “Baserunning Win Values” for Major League starters in 2008 based on SB and CS. Here, according to those values, are the 5 most overrated baserunners in the majors (min. 10 SB attempts):

Rk	Player	TM	SB	CS	BRRV	BRWV
1	Pence, Hunter	HOU	5	7	-2.394	-0.211
2	DeJesus, David	KCR	6	5	-1.285	-0.107
3	Theriot, Ryan	CHC	15	8	-1.111	-0.074
4	Granderson, Curtis	DET	6	4	-0.818	-0.064
5	Damon, Johnny	NYY	13	6	-0.527	-0.024

In short, he’s been killing his team on the basepaths (I’m considering them “overrated” because they get lots of attempts – you can’t call them “the worst” because the truly awful guys just never even try). He’s not getting picked off, either, catchers have simply been throwing him out. In 2008, MLB catchers have averaged a .263 Caught Stealing Percentage; Pence has been thrown out by Chris Coste (.270 in 40 games) Mike Rabelo (.273 in 32 games), Josh Bard (.128 in 37 games), Paul Bako (.318 in 60 games), Raul Chavez (.412 in 19 games), Dioner Navarro (.381in 61 games), and Corky Miller (.500 in 19 games). Navarro is the only catcher on that list who is his team’s primary catcher, and Josh Bard is widely considered to be one of the worst catchers in the majors at throwing out baserunners, so being caught by him is not only detrimental to your team’s success but is in fact borderline insulting. Pence has never stolen 20 bases in his professional career, and it’s almost a guarantee that he won’t accomplish the feat at the major league level. He might never steal 15.  One weird note is that he currently leads major league baseball with 23 infield hits, one ahead of Ichiro Suzuki.  None of these have been bunt hits, so it may stand to reason that he’s been topping off balls and is very good at getting out of the box.  More likely, though, is the theory that Pence has been relatively lucky in this department, and that his batting average should be even lower: he had just 13 last year in over 100 more plate appearances, and only five players had more than 23 infield hits on the season last year (Ichiro was the leader, with 44).  There are usually only 3 or 4 guys per season that have 30+ infield hits, so Pence’s rate is likely not sustainable.

While he may not be a good base stealer, Pence is athletic enough to be a good defensive outfielder. He split time between CF and RF in 2008, but when the club brought Michael Bourn into man center in 2008, Pence was switched permanently to right, a move which seems to have paid off defensively for the Astros. The Astros are tied for the fifth-best fielding percentage in baseball, and after posting an .885 Revized Zone Rating in CF in 2007, Pence has put up a .931 RZR in RF in 2008 and is second among NL right fielders in out-of-zone outs recorded (he’s also got 6 assists and has yet to make an error in 746 innings).  He’s got the pop to play corner outfield, though his 10.3% HR/FB rate could use a little boost.

What Astros fans have in their 25-year old right fielder is a guy who will hit .280 with 25 homers and 10 steals on a regular basis, and should drive in 80-100 runs with the right guys around him.  He’s probably never going to be a legitimate MVP candidate, but should find his way onto a few All-Star squads due to his propensity to run hot and cold (he’ll have years where a big first half makes him a shoe-in).  He’s a youthful talent in an organization that’s still looking for a post-Bagwell/Biggio identity, and his presence and playing style should endear him to a new generation of Astros fans.  At 41-48, the Astros aren’t going to make the playoffs this year, despite strong seasons from Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, and Miguel Tejada.  Their rotation, of which Runelvys Hernandez actually counts himself a member, is a complete joke, and they lack the prospects to make 2009 – or even 2010 – seem like sure things.  With that knowledge, it’s going to be very important for the organization that Pence play like the exciting player that everyone seems to think he has the potential to be.  Smarten up on the basepaths, son.

 

Lester to Rodriguez

Here’s a quick look at how Jon Lester vs. Alex Rodriguez (0-4, K) went down during his complete game shutout of the Yankees on Thursday, July 3rd:

The left-hander threw 13 pitches to Rodriguez over the course of 4 at-bats. The blue box is A-Rod’s approximate strike zone, and the arrow represents the batter (the axis are in feet). 9 of the 13 pitches were classified by PitchFX as fastballs, and they have been circled in blue.

The only pattern that seems clear here is that Lester was avoiding putting the ball down and away from A-Rod. Other than that, he was mixing his spots, which is probably as good an idea as any against an elite batter like Rodriguez. The first at-bat, which lasted five pitches, was the most interesting. He took the first two pitches, both fastballs right at the knee, and fell behind 0-2 (the only two called strikes against A-Rod in the game). Lester then tried to climb the ladder with the high fastball you see there. Rodriguez then fouled off a nasty cutter on the inside corner of the strike zone before whiffing on a fastball directly on the upper-right cordner of the strike zone. Varitek set the at-bat up beautifully, Lester executed, and Rodriguez went down swinging.

A-Rod, possibly anticipating fastball, swung at the first pitch of his second at-bat. He got a change-up on the right side of the plate – again, excellent execution by Lester – and pulled it on the ground to Lugo. He went up swinging in his third at-bat, and this time got a first pitch right on the inside corner, a fastball right on his hands that he fouled off. He went up and away with a curveball that just barely missed being called a strike. He went back inside for the third pitch, placing it almost exactly where the first fastball was. This pitch was a cut fastball, though, coming in at about 3mph slower than the first. Rodriguez managed to lay off of it. He fouled off another fastball in on the hands, took another fastball in at the knees that could’ve gone either way, and then flied out to Coco Crisp on a fastball back on the outside corner.

In A-Rod’s final at-bat, he appeared to guess right on the first pitch, a fastball right on the inner edge of the plate that Rodriguez finally managed to get his hands inside of and put in play. He didn’t get all of it, though, and the result was a routine fly ball to Ellsbury in left to end the game.

The Lester/Rodriguez matchup was a great example of what happens when a pitcher is really “on” during a performance: hitters get set up, the pitcher executes, and batters are retired. For most of the game, Rodriguez was unable to handle pitches on the inner half of the plate and couldn’t do anything with pitches on the outer half, and when he finally got around on an inside fastball, the pitch was good enough to result in a harmless fly out. A-Rod is arguably the best hitter alive and one of the best of all time, but no matter how good you are with the bat, when you run into a pitcher that’s having an exceptional night, you’re probably not going to do very well. #13 has certainly already reviewed what Lester and the Sox did against him that night (he got two hits yesterday against the Sox). Yankees and Red Sox fans alike eagerly await how the next Lester-Rodriguez matchups turn out.

 

You got PUNKED!

At 6′4″, 240lbs, Brett Myers fits the physical profile of a hard-throwing, dominant right-handed pitcher.  And so he appeared to be through much of his early career:  An imposing force in high school, the Phillies made him their first-round pick in 1999 (12th overall) following the conclusion of a senior year in which he registered 130 strikeouts in 78 innings.  He was assigned to rookie ball, and struck out 30 batters in 27 innings for the Gulf Coast Phillies; from there, he methodically rose through the system, making his major league debut in July 2002 against the Cubs, tossing a masterful 8-inning effort (5K, 2H, 1ER) and earning his first win.  He appeared destined for stardom and rose to prominance in 2005, where he went 13-8 with a 3.72 ERA and 208 strikeouts in 216 innings.

He pitched almost identically in 2006, but in 2007, things started getting a little funny.  With his team facing a shortage of relief options, Myers began openly campaigning to be placed in the closers’ role.  Already having a bit of a bull-headed reputation, he believed himself a natural fit for the high-pressure job.  Myers made three starts in 2007, the second and third of which were miserable, and then – lo and behold – the team made him a setup man.  With incumbent closer Tom Gordon ineffective and ailing, the team named Myers the closer within a month and, despite straining his shoulder a few weeks later, he finished out the rest of the season in the role.  The numbers were very good: in 53.1 relief innings, Myers posted a 64/18 K/BB ratio with a 2.87 ERA and 21 saves, registering the final out of the regular season to seal a postseason berth for the Phillies.  The team was happy, and he was happy.  In the offseason, though, Philadelphia was looking to add pitching, and finding a market that had more options at closer than at starter, the Phillies signed Brad Lidge and announced their plans to move Myers back into the rotation:

“I’m upset, not with the Phillies, because I understand the situation,” Myers said [following the announcement]. “I’m upset because I think I really found myself and my role this year as a closer. I know, because I’ve been told that I’m best suited to be a closer.”

Though Myers reasoned that the dual experience would make him more valuable as a free agent, he was obviously unhappy with the change, and presumably (note: this is not necessarily my own speculation here) did not fully dedicate himself to converting back to the rotation, notoriously refusing to participate in long-toss between starts.  The stubbornness may come part and parcel with the right-hander, who’s had a couple of very public outbursts during his playing time with the Phillies. He was infamously arrested in Boston in the summer of 2006 for smacking his wife around in the middle of a crowded street (the intersection where the assault occured, incidentally, is NEVER not full of people on the weekends).  He also then called reporter Sam Carchidi a “retard” following a August 2007 game in which he surrendered two homers in the ninth to the Padres.

Prior to that season, Myers had effectively called Billy Wagner a wuss following the 2007 offseason, after comments Wagner made about the venemous nature of Philadelphia’s sports scene.  Those same fans and media members are certainly taking their hacks at Myers these days.  His fastball is to Philadelphia sportswriters what Kim Kardashian’s ass is to Thesuperficial.com: oft-discussed, criticized, pondered, analyzed (and now, basically accused of being fake!). He’s lost a quarter-inch of horizontal movement on his fastball and almost a half-inch of “rise” to accompany a 3mph drop in velocity, from 2007 to 2008 (initial speeds: 93.87mph, 90.56mph, according to Josh Kalk’s figures).  Following a miserable outing on June 27th against the Rangers, Myers woke up next to T.J. Bohn and Oscar Robles as a member of the AAA LeHigh Valley IronPigs:

My apologies for the rudimentary graph.  The blue box is an approximation of the strike zone based on the PitchFX data and the generally accepted standard width of the zone (20″).  Myers threw 66 pitches, 46 of which were to left-handed batters, as is rather obvious from this picture.  Almost everything he threw was inside on lefties, seeming to prefer throwing his curveball and sliders down and in on them while keeping them down and away off righties.  Myers faced five righties: Kinsler twice (homer, double); Young twice (line out, single); and Byrd (walk).  His strategy didn’t seem to work, as batters were able to lay off his offspeed pitches (mostly) and attack his mistakes.  He generated 9 swinging strikes (two were against Saltalamacchia, who would swing at a pitch that was rolled to him from the mound), seven on curveballs.  As might be obvious from the graph, Myers preferred his curveball that night, throwing them 39% of the time.  This is a pretty good indication that, having no confidence in his fastball (88.4mph average), he’d pretty much made up his mind to try and pitch around everyone.  The fastballs are noticeably clustered up in the zone and away from lefties.  Myers was afraid to pitch to contact.

At 27 years old and with over 1,000 innings logged in the majors, it could be said that Brett Myers’ career is at something of a crossroads.  While he tries to work out his problems in AAA (he surrendered 3ER in 5IP and lost his IronPigs debut to Jeff Karstens and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees last night), he has a couple clear paths ahead of him.  He could work out his issues there, build his arm strength back up, and come back to the Phillies as the dominant starter they need him to be.  Myers is due $8.5 million in 2008 and $12 million next year, so if he fails to impress in AAA, the Phillies would be in a difficult position if they thought it was in their best interest to trade him.  Should he find himself available to other teams, though, he could either re-emerge as a starter or a reliever, as many people frankly believe he’d still prefer to be the latter.  Or, of course, he could simply flame out as so many players have done before him.

Myers is married to a woman named Kim; his daughter is Kylie, and his son is Kolt. There’s simply no way that a person names their son “Kolt” unless they are totally committed to having a name that sounds American and starts with the letter “K.”  Clemens named his kids the same way.  Myers, from Jacksonville, Florida, has modeled himself after a long lineage of big, power righties, but when your fastball is crossing home plate at 80mph, it’s time to seriously evaluate just what it is you’re trying to do.    During Spring Training this year, Brett Myers spearheaded an elaborate practical joke on teammmate Kyle Kendrick, convincing him that he’d been traded to Japan.  The incident was caught on camera, and the pair even did an interview on the Today Show (Myers giggled and wore sunglasses the whole time).  Well, Kendrick’s currently sitting at 8-3, and while he’s not really a good major league pitcher right now, his 1.56 G/F ratio has helped the Phillies win in their bandbox of a park.  The same couldn’t be said about Myers’ MLB-worst 2.12 HR/9, which is why Kendrick still has a rotation spot and Myers doesn’t.

The prank was in good fun, both sides enjoyed it, but it stands as a bit of an awkward reminder of the little twists and turns that life likes to take on people, and Myers probably isn’t giggling very much right now.  Hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, Brett; there’s no guarantees.

 

AL West Side Story

Just saying.

 

On Wistfully Recalling the Days of Shouldergate

November 14, 2001: The Toronto Blue Jays hire Oakland Athletics Director of Player Personnel J.P. Ricciardi as their new general manager, replacing the incumbent Gord Ash (fondly remembered in Toronto for trading away Michael Young, hiring phony Vietnam vet Tim Johnson as manager, and, of course, Wells-for-Sirotka). Michael Lewis’s Moneyball was still two years away from publication, but even without its detailing of the inner workings of the Athletics’ organization, it was clear to see the success that Billy Beane and Ricciardi were enjoying in Oakland. They had just been eliminated in heartbreaking fashion by the New York Yankees in the playoffs once again, but their regular season was astounding; while many of their key contributors, including aces Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder, were being paid just six-digit salaries, the team won 102 games, seven more than any other American League team besides the record-setting 116-win Seattle Mariners.

All of these successes are well documented in Moneyball and need not be retread at this time. They only serve as evidence for why the beginning of the Ricciardi Era in Toronto was met with excitement and optimism by fans and media alike (the anti-Moneyball movement still a speck on the distant horizon), who appreciated how much Beane and Ricciardi had done with so little in Oakland.

Oakland’s successes also serve to contrast exactly how underwhelming a job Ricciardi has done in his seven years in Toronto.

When Ricciardi took over the GM role in 2001, he vowed to make the Jays, a team treading water in the years before his arrival, a legit contender by 2005. The farm system would be rebuilt; prospects and young major leaguers would be ready to compete with the juggernauts of the division; things would be different by 2005.

Over the next four years, Ricciardi proceeded to make the following first round draft picks:

2002: Russ Adams (SS) (14th overall)
2003: Aaron Hill (SS) (13th)
2004: David Purcey (LHP) (16th)
2005: Ricky Romero (LHP) (6th)

No team has a 100% success rate when it comes to first rounders, even when they’re drafting, like Toronto did, exclusively college players, but suffice it to say: this is an unimpressive group.

Adams was unable to stick with the major league club after multiple stints there, ultimately compiling a .248 / .314 / .376 line in 864 at-bats over the course of four seasons. Last season in the Rogers Centre as a late season call-up in 2007, Adams is playing in Syracuse, approaching his 28th birthday and showing very few signs that he’ll be back with the Jays anytime soon, barely hovering over the Mendoza line in AAA in 2008.

Hill can be considered a success. While he may never develop into a consistent .300 hitter or 25-homer threat, expecting perennial figures that fall a little short of those marks would not be unreasonable. But consider this: 2003 marked the second consecutive year, the first two of Ricciardi’s GM reign, in fact, that he drafted a shortstop in the first half of the first round. While Hill and Adams were both eventually groomed as potential second base replacements for Orlando Hudson (more on him later), the fact is that Ricciardi used back to back high draft picks on the same position. I don’t have a problem with this approach. The careers of baseball draft picks, even first-rounders, are notoriously difficult to foresee, and as such, taking the best player available, regardless of position, is a sound strategy. In the best-case scenario that each of these picks enjoys success in the minor leagues and develops into a legit major league talent, trades can always be made to clear up logjams. Unfortunately, Ricciardi did an about-face on this line of thinking two years later, in the 2005 draft, when everyone in his scouting room pushed for the drafting of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Ricciardi liked Romero, and didn’t want another shortstop in the pipeline, with Adams already in the majors and Hill having recently made his debut as well. Romero is mired in New Hampshire in AA ball this season, walking a batter every other inning, while struggling to keep his ERA below 6, his WHIP below 1.75. Tulowtzki? Well, you know what he’s done. (And is it even worth mentioning that in the years since this draft, the Jays have signed Royce Clayton, John McDonald, and David Eckstein as shortstop stopgaps?)

David Purcey, now 26 and having lost his standing as an exciting major league prospect, made his debut earlier this season; in two starts, he did his best Dontrelle Willis impression, walking 11 in 7.3 IP, allowing nine runs and striking out only three. His return to Syracuse was swift.

Needless to say, the Blue Jays weren’t exactly ready to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world heading into 2005. They were coming off a disappointing injury-ravaged 2004 season that saw them finish 67-95, allowing Tampa Bay to finish out of the AL East cellar for the lone time in their first decade of existence. Ricciardi had, by this point, backed off his three-year plan, proposing that 2007 would now be the year that Toronto would be ready to make a playoff run. When most of us procrastinate like this, we face some sort of consequences; Ricciardi was rewarded with an increase in the team’s payroll and his second contract extension, signing through 2010.

And still the questionable personnel moves persisted. In fact, of the Blue Jays’ most promising young talent on its 2008 roster, seven years after Ricciardi took over, Gord Ash is responsible for more than Ricciardi. Alex Rios? An Ash pick. Ditto Dustin McGowan. Roy Halladay too. And even when it comes to Vernon Wells, Ash was the one responsible for drafting him; Ricciardi the one responsible for his current seven-year, $126 million deal that, even the day it was signed, seemed questionable, if not downright foolhardy.

That the Blue Jays have yet to make a bona-fide playoff run during Ricciardi’s regime, or that they currently sit at an underwhelming 41-43, once again last in the AL East, is almost a secondary concern. So too is the fact that, depending on whose reports you believe, they could’ve acquired players like Eric Gagne (they got Luke Prokopec instead) or Ryan Howard (they stuck with Ted Lilly, then watched him leave in free agency a year later). Every GM makes personnel gaffes, and while Ricciardi has had his share, he has made some admirable moves as well, such as the Koch-for-Hinske trade, or the drafting of Shaun Marcum. Inexcusable, however, is the staggering amount of PR blunders he has made over the years. The Adam Dunn debacle is the latest, and though it’s fresh in everyone’s minds, it’s worth reiterating just how badly Ricciardi has handled the entire situation, from the moment he was asked about Dunn on The Fan 590 until the present.

To state that a player on another team “doesn’t really like baseball that much” and “doesn’t have a passion to play the game” is absurdly inappropriate on multiple levels. We can assume, it’s safe to say, that Dunn never previously made such a confession to Ricciardi over a few drinks, which means that Ricciardi’s claims are dependent on either heresy or flat-out speculation. How could a general manager of a baseball team possibly think that making such a speculation on Toronto’s most popular sports station would be appropriate? Confounding the situation even more is the fact that Adam Dunn is exactly the type of player that the Blue Jays need. He has hit twice as many home runs as anyone on their roster, and it’s not like the value of his walks and OPS is lost on Ricciardi; these stats were at the heart of the Athletics’ strategies as documented in Moneyball, and have since gained a wider appreciation throughout the majors. Ricciardi’s logic then, is baffling. Combine this statement with his offseason signing of David Eckstein and his early-season release of Frank Thomas, and it seems like his newest goal is merely to provide as much material as possible for Fire Joe Morgan. That Ricciardi’s claim to have talked to Dunn personally and cleared the air was negated by Dunn’s insistence that such a conversation never occurred only adds another layer of misguided and downright inexplicable decision-making to the entire saga. But it wouldn’t be the first time.

It was Ricciardi who sent Orlando Hudson to the minors before the 2002 season, despite an impressive spring training, because Hudson referred to him as a “pimp.” While Homer Bush, Felipe Lopez, and Joel Lawrence struggled for the Blue Jays, Hudson played in AAA when the major league team could have used him, if not for Ricciardi’s personal vendetta.

It was Ricciardi who withheld information about B.J. Ryan’s injury in 2007, actually presenting false info to the media and to fans, before later opining, when it was revealed that Ryan needed Tommy John surgery, that “they’re not lies if we know the truth.”

Every few months, it seems, Ricciardi says or does something he shouldn’t, and while having an outspoken figure in management is feasible when he’s successful – just ask the White Sox about Ozzie Guillen – it’s hard to stomach when he’s not. Ricciardi’s tenure in Toronto is on its last legs, and he knows it. How else to explain the appeal to the city’s collective nostalgia, bringing back Cito Gaston to the Blue Jays’ bench? Ricciardi’s contract runs into 2010, but if he lasts until the end of it, it’ll be at least two years too long.

 

Born to be Effectively Wild

After throwing five innings of two-hit baseball last night at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas, Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka moved to 9-1 on the season, an impressive mark which completely belies the fact that he’s been pitching like a blind person for the majority of 2008.   His arsenal is as wide-ranging and varied as the results it yields – as we pass the midway point of the season, Matsuzaka’s four-seamers, two-seamers, cutters, and splitters have been dividing their time between generating strikeouts and landing two feet outside the strike zone, vexing hitters and Yankees fans alike as he continues to rack up wins.

The numbers aren’t pretty.  In 70 innings, Matsuzaka has walked 40 and struck out 60, a nifty 7.71 K/9 counteracted by a disgusting 5.66 BB/9, third-worst among starters with at least 60 IP (the two starters worse than him, Miguel Batista and Tom Gorzelanny, are a combined 9-16).  Daisuke’s simply been all over the place this year, and for each of his cleaner efforts – like his 6.2IP, 9/0 K/BB start against the Athletics on April 1st -he’s thrown incredible clunkers, like his start against the Tigers on May 5th in which he threw five innings, struck out one, walked EIGHT batters, and still recorded the win.  In 13 starts this year, he’s walked 4+ batters five times, and 3+ batters eight times.

While the Sox have been scoring a healthy 6.04 Runs per 9 innings for him, Matsuzaka’s benefitted from a lot of luck to go along with his strikeout numbers.  Batted balls are dropping in for hits at a rate of just .259, which is the key contributing factor to his .212 batting average against.  The .212 figure is 8th in the bigs (min: 60IP), but four of the pitchers ahead of him strike out more batters than Daisuke (Marcum, Volquez, Harden, Kazmir), and none even come close to his 1.39 WHIP.  His strand rate of 77.2% is lucky enough, but when you consider that alongside his BB/9 figure, it is probably the luckiest in the league.  There are five other pitchers who have BB/9 figures over 5.00, and their strand rates are all way lower: Batista (64.9%), Gorzelanny (68.0%), Perez (71.4%), Zito (64.6%), and Snell (67.4%).

Matsuzaka’s Fielding-Independent Pitching ERA of 4.17 is currently being depressed by a ridiculously low home run rate.  46.7% of balls hit in play against him have been fly balls, but only 5 of those 93 flies have been homers, a 5.4% HR/FB.  For comparison, 16.1% have been infield flies.  Two of the five homers came in his first two starts (Mark Ellis and Jack Cust), and one was a Aaron Miles weak pull-job to right field in Fenway that had a 23mph wind behind it.  None have had true distances of over 400 feet; for whatever reason, no one has really squared up on Matsuzaka this year.  This is all the more interesting when considering that 7/13 starts have been made at Fenway, a park which generally turns its fair share of fly balls into homers.

For all his wildness, Matsuzaka has only had one truly awful start this year, and that was in his first appearance after a DL stint: facing the Cardinals on June 21st, he surrendered 7 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks in 1+ innings.  Aside from that, the reasons for his wildness and his ability to get himself out of jams have both been equally difficult to grasp.  His K/BB ratios are identical with the bases empty and with baserunners on, so he doesn’t appear to be having any problems with the stretch.  Perhaps batters are simply waiting around too much: when going after the first pitch, hitters are 13-36 (.361) with 2 homers and 6 doubles in 2008.

 

While a City Hangs Flaccid in the Balance

The Mets are shitty.

Having already gone through the timeless, sweeping motions of firing their manager, pitching coach, and first base coach, the other New York ballclub finds itself still very much without answers: they’re 3-4 under new manager/gangster Jerry Manuel, including back-to-back losses to the lowly Seattle Mariners, one fueled by a grand slam by Felix Hernandez (off Johan Santana) and the other an embarrassing 11-0 drubbing on Tuesday night. The matchup featured the fourth-inning ejections of Manuel and Mets CF Carlos Beltran. Facing knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, Beltran took an 0-1 pitch at the knees that was called a strike; Beltran seemed to express displeasure with home plate umpire Brian Runge’s call, prompting Runge to emerge from behind the plate and not-so-subtly try to show Beltran up before (perhaps sarcastically) dusting off the plate. When Manuel came out to ask what the problem was, things quickly escalated before Runge apparently initiated contact with Manuel, who was quickly ejected from the game amidst wild gesticulations and violent head-cocking. Beltran was ejected immediately thereafter for what he later said was a “weak” move on Runge’s part (appearing to initiate contact with the manager as an excuse to throw him out of the game).  These are the things that happen when you’re 37-39 in New York.

Though Mets fans cheered Manuel’s tirade, they are a fanbase in a state of unabashed discontent. Following last season’s historic September collapse, the ‘08 Mets are a study in mediocrity. At 37-39, they sit in third place in the NL East. They have never been more than four games above .500 on the season, and have not been three games above .500 since May 18th. They have four winning streaks of three or more games on the season (3, 5, 3, 3) and four losing streaks of three or more games (3, 3, 5, 5). They’ve surrendered more runs than they’ve scored. They finished April 14-12, went 13-15 in May, and are 10-12 in May: in other words, there is no reason to think that the team is getting any better.

And did I mention they’ve got the second-highest payroll in baseball?

Although it’s fun to blame him, it’s not Jose Reyes’ fault. At .293/.352/.484, Reyes is quietly beating his career average of .285/.333/.432, and with a strong second half could actually be in line for the best season of his career. He’s only got 31 RBI on the season, but that can be at least partially attributed to his terrible luck with RISP – in 57 such at-bats he’s struck out just 5 times, and sports a .208 BABIP. He’s been criticized in the past for trying to elevate too much, which not only results in a high percentage of infield fly balls but also tends to take away from his ability to utilize his speed, but this season he’s actually got the highest G/F ratio of his career (1.43) and has trimmed his infield fly ball rate from 13.4% to 10.5%, all while maintaining a career-best 21.7% line drive rate and a 9.3 HR/FB, which is just about major league average.

Who else can take the fall here? Carlos Beltran virtually matching his career rates, and is on pace for his sixth 20/20/100/100 season, so he’s been doing his job. How about the other Carlos? While it’s true that Delgado has basically been terrible in 2008, it would be unfair to blame him, because he is 36 years old today and, depending on who you ask, has been in obvious decline for at least two seasons (img courtesy Fangraphs):

Delgado hit 38 homers in 2006 for the Mets, but also had his lowest batting average in 9 years, and has not really come close to matching the level of productivity since. When you’re cooked, you’re cooked, and while Delgado could turn it around a bit in the second half, he is slugging just .399 and doesn’t have much pop left in the tank.

The Mets have two other players with at least 200 at-bats: Luis Castillo and David Wright. Luis Castillo is a three-time All-Star who has made a career out of hitting around .300, making a lot of contact, switch-hitting, playing excellent defense, and swiping a couple dozen bags, which is a skillset tailor-made for second base, especially in the National League. After being traded at the 2007 deadline, he hit .296 for the Mets, including a sweet .316/.404/.418 line in September. Castillo has in fact been a disappointment for the Mets thus far. He has been slowed by an almost comical number of minor injuries this season, and in addition to being perhaps the worst defensive second baseman in the NL, has hit just .253. He’s got a 1.75 BB/K, but with tired legs and a 63.5% ground ball rate (the highest in the majors), hits have been very hard to come by, which is a problem when 80% of your at-bats come as your team’s 2-hitter. Manuel has hinted that Castillo may begin to platoon with Damion Easley, which is good for Castillo’s health but can’t exactly be seen as a positive for the Mets, as Easley is simply not an everyday major leaguer.

And then there’s the golden boy. Hailing from Hickory High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, David Wright is, at 25 years old, already one of the most popular and highly-regarded players in the major leagues. After being called up in the summer of 2004, Wright has had a stranglehold on the third-base job, and with good reason – in addition to being a highly capable defender (his reputation was sealed after his 2005 bare-handed, over the shoulder catch on a Brian Giles blooper) Wright has slugged .523, .531, and .546 in his three full seasons in the bigs, and last year posted a stellar .325 average to go along with 34 steals. He is also highly regarded for his work ethic and dedication, started a multiple sclerosis foundation, owns .5% of Vitamin Water, and is disarmingly friendly with fans and the media.

In 2008, though, Wright has struggled. He is hitting just .272/.369/.466 on the season, including a miserable .241/.316/.301 in June, the worst month of his career thus far. Wright actually leads major league third baseman with 56 RBI despite the fact that he’s hitting just .253 with runners in scoring position. His strikeout, walk, and batted ball totals are largely in line with his career averages. He’s been something of a second-half player throughout his career, so it’s tempting to say that he has just been in an extremely prolonged cold slump and that he’ll put together a monster second-half. After finishing fourth in MVP voting in 2007, Wright’s titanic reputation may be causing people to view him as more of a disappointment than he has actually been (he was a trendy #1 overall fantasy pick in 2008).

His BABIP of .298 is below his career average but not unlucky; for whatever reason, he has simply not flashed much power this year. Courtesy of HitTracker, we can explore some numbers related to David Wright’s home runs on the season. With respect to the fact that I have no idea how home run distance correlates from year-to-year, I thought the following would be at least interesting to mention. His median “true” home run distance (which adjusts for stadium and atmospherics, etc) is down five feet, from 401.5 to 396.5, from 2007. 58% of his home runs have had true distances under 400 feet this year, as opposed to 2007, when just 43% of his homers were less than 400 feet in distance. His median home run speed off the bat is down 2 mph, and he appears to be pulling his homers a bit more. In 2008, his median home run is 10 degrees closer to the left field line than it was in 2007. I’m not really sure if it means anything, but it could be a sign that he’s pressing a bit.

As a group, the Mets are hitting .255, good for 22nd in the Majors, and have only 65 homers (also 22nd), after batting .275 and finishing 11th in homers in 2007. They’d need to bat about .293 as a group over the remainder of the season to get back to their 2007 level.

The pitching, on the other hand, has basically been league average: 4.15 ERA, 1.91 K/BB, and a .256 batting average against, tied for 10th best in the majors. Johan Santana has not been the best pitcher in baseball, or even the best pitcher in the National League, but he has been a top-10 guy nonetheless. Sporting a pedestrian 7-6 record, many have questioned whether or not Santana has seen an erosion of his skills in 2008, pointing to problems with home runs and a decreasing strikeout rate. While his K/9 has dropped to a mortal 7.94 (career: 9.38), he has been pretty stingy with the homers as of late, surrendering just three in his last seven starts. His 3.39 K/BB is 12th-best in baseball, he has a 2.93 ERA, and has thrown the 8th-most innings in baseball. John Maine has also been very good this season, posting a 3.78 ERA in 88 innings.

Following a breakout 2007 season, Oliver Perez has disappointed, thanks mostly to atrocious command: his 5.62 BB/9 is the worst in the majors by a healthy margin. Perez has always thrown a ton of sliders – he’s at 28.3% this year – and those sliders have always been very slow (78.5MPH), clocking in behind such flamethrowers as Paul Byrd, Greg Maddux, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle. His mix of pitches hasn’t changed from his career totals, nor has his batting average against, which is traditionally quite low (.244 for his career). All of this information basically points to the fact that when Perez is good, he’s overachieving, and not the other way around. He can’t throw strikes, which has always been and continues to be the main factor behind his failures.

Pedro Martinez and Mike Pelfrey – the one an aging veteran, the other an unpolished rookie – round out the rotation. Martinez is a first-ballot hall of famer and arguably one of the best pitchers of all time, but age has not been kind to the svelte right-hander. In between his numerous injuries, he’s struggled to succeed on his wits and assortment of 80mph offspeed pitches: batters are hitting .341 off Martinez, and while he hasn’t pitched quite as poorly as his 6.57 ERA indicates, he is a league average pitcher at best and not someone that the Mets can rely on to stay healthy by any stretch of the imagination. Pelfrey, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is a big (6′7″) righty who throws a hard sinker, changeup, and slider. “Big Pelf” has been improving throughout the season, which is probably a testament to the quality of his fastball: his pitch selection borders on the obvious, as he basically only throws fastballs and sliders to righties and only throws fastballs and changeups to lefties. A FIP of 4.11 suggests that he has been pitching quite well, and though he’s due for some bumps in the road thanks to 4.08 walks per nine innings, he’s probably in the majors to stay.

Thanks to the fragile health of Martinez and Oliver Perez’ terrible pitching the Mets have had to give starts to the likes of Nelson Figueroa, but their bullpen hasn’t been half bad. Feliciano and Schoeneweis have thrown 30 innings a piece and have sub-3.00 ERAs, and while Aaron Heilman’s struggles have inexplicably come to represent the bullpen, Duaner Sanchez (4.26 ERA) has pitched well and aside from a three game stretch in early June that was almost certainly due to overuse, Billy Wagner has been brilliant in the closer’s role, with 37 strikeouts to just 7 walks in 31innings pitched.

Faced with an under-performing and uninspired ballclub which seems to lack an identity, Minaya did what he thought he had to do in firing Randolph. The real problem with the club, though, is probably Minaya himself, as observers have been noting for years. On his watch, six of the club’s ten highest paid players have become Carlos Delgado, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, Orlando Hernandez, Oliver Perez, and Luis Castillo. Their farm system – already depleted by the win-now Santana deal – is held in low regard by scouts around the league, leaving them with little hope for 2008 unless the big club starts performing now. They’ve wound up with a weird amalgamation of decrepit veterans and spare parts surrounding their big three of Reyes, Wright, and Beltran, and a lot of the failure to sustain any kind of intelligent organizational philosophy (beyond “sign lots of crappy Latin ballplayers”) lands directly on Minaya, whose inability to recognize the fact that he was given the Mets job because of his predecessor’s mismanagement of the farm system has almost certainly sewn the seeds of his own demise.

Finally, here’s a look at what the prediction markets over at TradeSports think about the Mets’ chances of taking the NL East this year:

This is a team you should probably sell on, too. They crumbled under pressure last September, and there is no real reason to think that the team will suddenly catch fire in a division that belongs to the Phillies. With any luck at all the Brewers (or maybe even the Cardinals, if they get a healthy Pujols back soon) should be able to take the Wild Card, leaving the Mets in an extremely expensive boat that no one ordered paddles for. Perhaps missing the playoffs will be enough to get Minaya canned. Then, and only then, can the organization start to move into the 21st century and exorcise the ghost of Scott Kazmir from the murky ether which floats over Queens.