Esteban Loaiza’s had a Cy Young-caliber first half for the White Sox. Channeling the golf gods, the Cardinals rate as sub-par–in a good way. The Rangers continue to acquire young talent to put on the field with young stars Rodriguez, Blalock, and Teixeira. These and other news and notes out of Chicago, St. Louis, and Texas in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
There are a few things that came out after Randy Johnson’s first start back. First, Johnson had only minimal swelling in his knee after the start. That’s a very good sign. Second, he had exceptional command, getting more than 70% of his pitches through the strike zone. Next, a good Tivo-enabled look at his delivery showed that his soft landing took some of his velocity. According to Tom House’s book, The Pitching Edge, a stable front base is a must for transferring energy and thereby velocity.
As Junior Spivey and Danny Bautista return from the DL after significant time out, some of the younger players that have kept the Diamondbacks in the divisional race will get squeezed out of the roster, and sent back to Tucson. There’s no team in recent memory that went so far from the intended roster construction only to return to it later in the season, so I don’t have a good point of comparison.
Larry Walker and the Rockies are debating a trip to the DL after tests on his hip were inconclusive. A hernia still hasn’t been ruled out, and he was certainly moving gingerly last week in Pac Bell (Granted, so was Barry Bonds). There’s confusing noise coming from Colorado on this one, so it seems like the trip to the DL would solve Clint Hurdle’s roster challenges and give Walker a chance to heal himself up from whatever it is that’s ailing him.
It is always better to try and evaluate performance than to do nothing. This is true in almost everything. If you work for a huge telecom company (for instance) and there’s no tracking of any kind of project success or failure, that’s a major problem–ideas are floated off, no one knows whether they fail or succeed, and when they go over budget and don’t work, no one learns a valuable lesson from that failure. Instead of remaining ignorant and believing that things are going well, spend the money and see what’s up.
Along these lines, all we’ve had to evaluate umpiring are raw stats. If an umpire tends to yield fewer walks and more strikeouts, it’s a good bet that he’s being generous with his personal strike zone. When that happens, players are forced to swing at bad pitches or get rung up on called third strikes. There are obvious issues with looking at umpires this way: if one ump happens to work a lot of good starters by luck, he’ll look like more of a pitcher’s umpire.
Computerized ball and strike calling even in its most primitive forms is potentially a great tool for evaluation and a step toward finally getting the strike zone settled.
The National League is beginning to sort itself out, after looking like it was
going to be a wild, 13-teams-for-three-spots free-for-all. The Mets, Brewers
and Padres have been done for a while, and the Reds, Rockies, Expos and
Pirates are going to have a hard time selling the idea they’re contending for
much longer. That still leaves nine teams within six games of a playoff spot,
however, which will make for a great second half of baseball.