The Orioles played one of the worst games of the year against the Yankees; Rockies farmhand Brad Hawpe has steadily moved up the ladder; and Steve Trachsel showed his annual flash of brilliance against the Rockies. All this and much more news from Baltimore, Colorado, and New York in your Wednesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
A couple of weeks ago, I spelled out the argument that there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect. Just as a follow-up, I want to point out something Rangers’ Director of Player Development Grady Fuson said in an interview with Jamey Newberg:
“And most of these kids that we’re signing out of high school or junior college or college, for the first three or four years of their careers they are still growing. They are still adding muscle mass and growth, and at least my perception of developing pitchers is most don’t come into their prime until at least their mid-20s. And I think that all has to do with body growth and body mass and finding that one delivery that helps repeat. And I think that all takes two or three years to build into your system.”
Fuson makes the point that is central to TNSTAAPP: Most pitchers in the minor leagues are still developing physically, which is what makes them such risks. Pitching professionally is hard enough on the arms of grown men; it’s moreso on ones not fully mature.
The Red Sox don’t strand that many runners, given how many they get on base. The Reds continue to dismantle a snake-bitten team. The Padres appear close to acquiring Brian Giles. These and other news and notes out of Boston, Cincinnati, and San Diego in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
I’m a huge Rafael Soriano fan. In fact, I’ve been so impressed with him that I’ve given him my full endorsement. Soriano came up last year, pitched in the rotation for a stretch, but didn’t do particularly well. After being sent down to the minors, he honed his slider and change and this year he returned as a reliever. Since then he’s been outstanding. Despite only throwing 40 innings, he’s on BP’s Top 30 Relievers list. Soriano deals. He has his off days, but not many this year, and I’ve been to games where I had to pick my jaw up off the sticky Safeco concrete, his stuff looked so good. You’ll hear reports that he’s got dominant closer stuff, but Soriano was a starter in the minors and he’ll be back in the rotation sooner or later. Think Johan Santana. So here are the guys pitching relief now who could be starting and health willing, winning if given the opportunity.
Today, if a short UTK isn’t enough for you, I would like to point you to the interview that Nate Silver and I did with Rickey Henderson last week. I only wish that I had my radio gear with me for that one, but I’ll be sure to target Rickey for BPR soon. He was insightful, intelligent, open, polite (once leaving us to say something to a couple teammates, but stating loud enough for us to hear that “I have to finish this interview; I’ll be back”), and he never once referred to himself in the third person. This summer, I spoke to Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson–two of the best players I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing play. I’m grateful and humbled by the experience and opportunity.
And if that’s not enough, there’s a new edition of Baseball Prospectus Radio up. The lead guests are myself and Derek Zumsteg, getting grilled by Scott McCauley on what our weeks were like in the wake of the Pete Rose revelations. If you’re not sick of hearing about it–as Jayson Stark calls it, “The story that never ends”–then it’s a pretty good show and the first I ever recorded with no coffee in me.
Pudge Rodriguez and Jorge Posada’s great seasons have been lost in the shuffle in Florida and New York. Reggie Sanders, Jason Kendall and company have caught fire in the second half in Pittsburgh. These and other news and notes from the Marlins, Yankees, and Pirates in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Barry Bonds is good, and everyone seems to know it. Dusty Baker prefers speed to power. And Doug Glanville apparently isn’t a fan of The Osbournes. All this and many more quips in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
The strained hip should have been a signal. People came out of the woodwork, claiming that Mark Mulder had been experiencing pain for weeks, but again, the leakproof A’s kept the information out of the hands of everyone who follows injury information. Mulder’s injury, as you know, is a stress fracture, not a muscle strain–but what does that mean? The definition of stress fracture is clear cut, but the specifics of Mulder’s acetabular fracture are much less clear. First, we have no clear cut facts from media reports or sources. Second, the information is a bit unclear. Most reports have the fracture in the femoral head, or acetabulum. Most stress fractures of this type happen at the femoral neck. Add in the note from Susan Slusser that Mulder cannot golf and could have “broken his leg,” and the signs point to the neck again.
Bottom line: Mulder is, for all intents and purposes, done for 2003, both regular and post-season. But what does this injury mean to Mulder’s future? Hip injuries are notoriously slow to heal due to poor blood flow in the area, but I haven’t heard anyone trotting out the Bo Jackson comparisons yet, and hopefully they won’t. With proper healing on a normal timeframe, there’s little to indicate that Mulder couldn’t return for 2004 fully healthy.
Anybody else think Russ Ortiz looks a little like Pete Vuckovich?
Ortiz was credited with his 18th win yesterday, which gives him three more Ws than any other National League pitcher. Now, while there can be a lot of legitimate debate about who the best hurler in the NL is this year, Ortiz really shouldn’t be part of any of it. His win total is entirely a function of durability and a great Braves’ offense, which has scored 134 runs in his 179 1/3 innings pitched, good for third in the league in run support. In most other categories, he’s unimpressive: 11th in Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement, 13th in ERA and 19th in strikeouts (with a poor 121/83 K/BB ratio).
This is a weird year in the NL. The best pitchers in the league by Support-Neutral measures are all lacking in the traditional statistics, mostly because almost all of them have spent time on the disabled list or been hampered by insufficient run support.
I love day baseball. To me, there are few things better than sitting in the sunshine and watching a ballgame. Better still if it’s a weekday, because it adds that sense that you’re getting away with something, even when you don’t work a 9-to-5 job. Well, a.m. to p.m., anyway. So when I was offered tickets to Thursday’s Dodgers/Expos tilt at Chavez Ravine, I was all over it. Truth be told, I don’t get to as many ballgames as you might think, thanks in large part to the availability of so many games on television. It’s lazy, I guess, but seeing 25-30 teams in one night has a lot of appeal, especially when so many games right now have playoff implications. Like this one. Both teams started the day four games out of the Wild Card slot, having split the first two games of their series. Neither team has been able to get much traction in the Wild Card chase, in part because neither scores all that often. Both are heavily reliant on good starting pitching. The final was 2-1, Dodgers, but to say that the Dodgers won would be overstating things. It was more like they happened to be standing there when the Expos had a ballgame to give away.
The A’s pushed Mark Mulder onto the DL while he rehabs a strained hip. As with Randy Johnson’s knee, this is Mulder’s right (plant) leg, which understandably takes a lot of impact and torque in the pitching motion, even with great mechanics like Mulder. Mulder will miss at least two starts while on the list, but since he will be able to keep his arm loose, he shouldn’t need much work before jumping back into the rotation. Expect the A’s to be aggressive but smart with his rehab.
Trevor Hoffman is headed to the Cal League, which should be interesting to see. If he starts a game–as is often the practice for relievers in the minors–will the Storm play “Hell’s Bells” at the beginning of the game? How menacing will Hoffman look with the eyeball lid? How will Hoffman look pitching against Casey Kotchman on Saturday? These are all questions that we should know by next time we meet. The plan on Hoffman is two “starts” at Lake Elsinore, a couple more at Double-A Mobile, and then back to San Diego sometime after rosters expand on September 2.
Giants starter Jesse Foppert left last night’s game with numbness in his fingers due to a nerve problem in his elbow. You’re right, that sounds bad. Reader Loren Jones did the research and thinks it’s cubital tunnel syndrome, which is correctible, but not unheard of in pitchers. Foppert will have tests and we’ll know more by the weekend.
Casey Blake isn’t quite as good as the Indian front office thinks he is; Paul Lo Duca has hit the wall; and the Mariners and the A’s share similar schedules down the stretch. All this and much more news from Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Seattle in your Friday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
The Astros got a dose of Mark Prior on Wednesday, but they also got some good news regarding their ace, Roy Oswalt. Oswalt, torn groin and all, threw on Tuesday with a “minimum of pain.” He’ll take the mound on Friday to test the leg, and if all goes well, he could be back in the lineup sometime the following week. I can’t imagine a scenario where Oswalt could stay healthy for an extended period of time, but the Astros have managed to convince him to take on the risk.
Another day, another diagnosis for Curt Schilling. The injury to his knee is now described as a bone bruise, but trainer Paul Lessard has been quoted as saying there is no structural damage. As before, the symptoms don’t match the diagnosis well, and if the femur and tibia impacted, one would expect some damage to the meniscus. A torn meniscus’ most common symptom? Locking, which is how Schilling described his injury when it occurred. Keep your eye on Schilling’s next start.
The Expos have shut down Tony Armas Jr. and Orlando Hernandez for the remainder of the season. It’s unclear how both fit into the plans of the Homeless Expos in 2004, but both are likely to need relocation services in one form or another. The bigger question is what type of team would take a flyer on either of these types of pitchers–the young but injury prone hurler on the downslope of potential, or the wily veteran with the Hollywood story but questionable age.
In early August, the Mariners demanded money for their playoff strips. You get to pay up front for every possible home game, plus a non-refundable handling fee (a ridiculous $35). In the past, I’ve complained about this a little, particularly the absurdity of having to pay for hypothetical one-game playoffs at the end of the season. It’s all part of their plan to get your money earlier and earlier, and what they don’t take in in non-refundable fees, they stick in a bank and rack up interest dollars. With seven teams in each league able to hit their fans up for playoff money with a straight face, that works out to be a lot of money.
I want baseball to be healthy. Other sports are edging ahead of baseball when it comes to outrageous fees (you might get to pay to stay on the waiting list for season tickets, for instance). So in the interest of keeping my favorite sport ahead of the times, I’d like to present my bill for the 2010 Seattle Mariners playoff strip, presented to me by a time-traveling me (who annoyingly refuses to give me betting advice, stock market tips, or even to travel further back in time and give high-school Derek a particularly important piece of information on one of my/his/our girlfriends that would have prevented a lot of misery all around):
Only twice during the free agent era have the Pirates signed a player of sufficiently high profile to warrant draft compensation to the team he departed (although why this was the case with 1979 signing Andy Hassler is unclear. He had no profile). Until 1998, Pittsburgh free agent signings were of the superannuated veteran, high-risk/low upside variety. As such, the Pirates paid for the last 53 games of Gene Tenace’s career, the last 40 games of Amos Otis, and the last 72 games of Sixto Lezcano. Only the 1979 signing of outfielder Lee Lacy, an undistinguished part-timer with the Dodgers from 1972, paid dividends. Lacy was not blessed with great power or plate judgment, but in six Pittsburgh seasons he was a consistent .300 hitter. Even he, though, must be marked with an asterisk as he was, allegedly, one of the narcotics abusers infesting the Pittsburgh clubhouse at the time. Then again, drugs in the clubhouse didn’t bother anyone in Pittsburgh at the time, so perhaps it isn’t worth mentioning.
In both the 1997 and 1998 off-seasons, the club once again sallied into the free agent market. Pitcher Mike Williams was signed after going 6-16 with a 5.52 ERA from 1996-1997. The following winter, Mike Benjamin, a utility infielder with one of the all-time weak bats (.224/.275/.337 in 507 games through 1998) to a four-year, $3.25 million contract. For a franchise that claimed to have limited resources, Benjamin was a disastrous addition and a clear sign that the owner and his general manager (still Bonifay) did not understand that baseball had entered the age of the two-way infielder.
The Diamondbacks are killing themselves on the basepaths. The Royals can’t beat their division rivals lately. The Phillies have received a banner year from Placido Polanco. These and other news and notes out of Arizona, Kansas City, and Philadelphia in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.