In his second major-league season and first year as a rotation regular for the Montreal Expos, Zach Day has emerged as one of baseball’s biggest early-season surprises. The right-hander, who turns 25 next month, has posted a 2.63 ERA so far this year, eighth-best in the National League. Day’s bread-and-butter pitch, the sinker, has helped him put up the highest groundball-to-flyball ratio in the majors at 3.74 (well ahead of second-place Derek Lowe’s 3.16). Day recently made headlines after getting ejected Saturday in Colorado for putting superglue on his fingers in an attempt to cover a blister. Day recently chatted with BP about Gluegate, the challenges of being a sinkerballer, and the keys to keeping hitters off balance.
There’s an awful lot of stuff in baseball analysis that’s just a complete waste of time. Some people love doing studies that take a look at something either esoteric, rare, or with no potential practical application when it comes to the actual game of baseball. That’s great; there’s nothing wrong with those kinds of diversions. We’ve all got those kinds of activities in our lives. But in terms of practical application on a real life baseball team, a “sabermetric” biography of the 1952 Yankees isn’t particularly useful. That sort of stuff has never spun my wheels, and it’s one reason I tend to yell and scream at BP writers who mention ballplayers from before Kristy Swanson was born.
Historians and fans of sepia tones will undoubtedly pipe in with: “Of course you can learn something from history!” (Derisively insert sound of adults in Charlie Brown cartoons here.) No one’s saying that’s not the case. But we prefer to focus on ideas that actually have practical applications on the field, and can directly and visibly translate into more wins, which means more championships, more money, etc. We’ve taken a fair amount of flak over the years for not making more things public, and not fully embracing an academic model for the serious study of baseball. Some of the criticism is well-deserved, some of it’s simply a disagreement over what people in the field are really doing. We like the idea of innovating to gain a competitive advantage and beat the snot out of opponents, rather than having the material published in some peer-reviewed journal.
When Rany Jazayerli came back from a Pizza Feed a few weeks back and mentioned that he had talked to a couple of front office guys about a different kind of platoon, my chin hit the virtual floor. The idea he had mentioned, and which was apparently perceived as novel, was at least 20 years old, and Gary Huckabay had been approached about studying the idea by a major league club back in 1998. (Even more surprising is that the club that wanted this issue studied is not largely perceived as a progressive organization.) This supposedly novel idea had also been mentioned in one of the old Elias Analysts, but was never really fleshed out in those pages.
What kind of platoon are we talking about? Using the groundball/flyball tendencies of pitchers and hitters to determine and acquire the most favorable possible matchups.
The Expos bench has helped fuel the team’s best start in history. The Giants bullpen’s suffering through the PTP curse. Vernon Wells is earning his pay. Plus more news and notes out of Montreal, San Francisco, and Toronto.
Jerry Hairston’s injury lets the Orioles be creative–too bad they’d rather play Deivi Cruz. The Royals’ young starting rotation starts to show signs of wear. Jose Contreras is Spanish for Ed Whitson. Plus news, notes, and Kahrlisms from nine major league teams.
Last night was a night full of team troubles–the type of night that separates the contenders from the pretenders. The good teams will deal with it by using their depth and remaining flexible, while the bad ones will fall apart and blame things like chemistry. I have to say, I’m beginning to root for a collapse for some teams, because at rock-bottom might come the desperation that could lead to a team being run by Paul DePodesta, a Brad Kullman, or a Josh Byrnes. If injury is the ruinous road to riches…well, I’ll be the tour guide. Onto the injuries…