Reports from Boston indicate that Pedro Martinez is coming along according to plan. The Red Sox–like always–are being both cautious yet aggressive with their ace. Juggling the need to keep Pedro healthy while squeezing every inning they can out of him is a tough job. Expect Pedro back late this week on a strict pitch count.
Bonus UTK points to Chris Bosio and the Devil Rays. Bosio has been working with Joe Kennedy to alter his pitching mechanics and the early results looked good. Kennedy brought his velocity up to his normal low-90s rather than the mid-80s where he’d been living (and getting shelled.) There’s the chance that Kennedy was just over-exerting, but the mechanics looked great in the few pitches I got to see on MLB.TV. Still, Kennedy’s shoulder began to stiffen up and the Devil Rays smartly took Kennedy out. Adjusting mechanics is always difficult and frought with danger to young arms, so this was a smart, cautious move with a guy that could be their ace.
This was probably not part of the plan for the Diamondbacks when they traded Byung-Hyun Kim away…or was it? Did the health of Matt Mantei or Mike Koplove really affect the decision to add a 3B like Shea Hillenbrand? I don’t think so, really. With two closer candidates down with shoulder problems, the Snakes will turn to another sidewinder, Mike Myers, to show up in the ninth. Looking at the Michael Wolverton’s Reliever Evaluation Tools, Myers looks to be quite a dropoff, but an efficient use of Oscar Villareal might help.
Derek Zumsteg sits down to watch yesterday’s Yankees-Tigers contest expecting to write a column on Roger Clemens’ 300th win. Here’s his diary of yesterday’s game.
Curt Schilling makes a shameless attempt to curry umpires’ favor…er…protest against QuesTec. The Diamondbacks spot an endangered “run producer” in the wild, plug it into lineup. Rod Beck makes delightful alcohol jokes. The Blue Jays endorse 4-play.
I’m Boyd Nation, the chief cook and bottle-washer over at
Boyd’s World, a site devoted
to
rankings, analysis, and the occasional opinion about college baseball.
I’ve been asked by the Baseball Prospectus editors to write a series of
pieces on the college game in time for this year’s
College
World Series. For the most part, I’m going to be trying to pull
together
analysis of the college game with, hopefully, some pointers on lessons
that
can be learned about the game in general. This week, though, I’m going
to
start off with an introduction to the college game, go to an admission
of
the two most common objections major league fans tend to have to the
college game, and finish with an explanation of why there are reasons
to
love the college game both as a pastime in itself and as part of a
broader
context of baseball appreciation.
There is no other hospital I have ever seen that includes its Astroturf infield in the tour. Hidden away just off the Interstate in northern Cincinnati, I was invited to go into, what for me was essentially the mouth of the beast. Swerving through the new construction of a suburban office park, almost anonymous from the outside, Beacon Orthopaedic Clinic beckoned me to come inside, to let my guard down, and to face the man I’d criticized in print more than any other. It was the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh being invited into the Clinton White House. It was Doug Pappas being invited to a Selig family picnic.
In my years as an injury analyst, there was no name that had come up more than Ken Griffey Jr.. When speaking of Griffey, there was no way to avoid involving Dr. Tim Kremchek in the discussion. Like many, my opinion of Kremchek had descended from joking derision. My views were colored by incidents which, from the outside, supported my views. More recently though, Reds Assistant General Manager Brad Kullman convinced me to keep an open mind, that I might be wrong about Kremchek. I decided to try and find out for myself.
Yesterday’s Shea Hillenbrand-for-Byung-Hyun Kim trade is many things, all of which can be summed in one word: Fun.
It’s a baseball trade, one in which the financial considerations are a tertiary concern. It’s two teams getting together to exchange strength in an effort to patch weaknesses, with an eye towards glory this year. It’s a challenge trade: one-for-one, no cash, players to be named or future considerations. I’m not ashamed to say that the deal put a real hop in my step; there are so many angles to the swap, so many facets to be examined, and so many ways in which it could go right or wrong for either team.
The Indians sort through tall pitching prospects as the Quest For 2005 continues. The Dodgers offense is bad–like historically bad. The Mariners’ insane love affair with Dan Wilson rolls on. Plus other news and notes out of Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
It all comes back to health.
Yesterday’s Diamondbacks/Red Sox trade hinged not on talent–that was easy enough to agree on–and not on money, but on how the health of a couple of D’backs pitchers would affect their depth. Whether you think the Sox helped their pitching, the Snakes helped their putrid offense, or that there will be more deals cascading from this one, ignoring health just isn’t possible.
I’ll leave the trade analysis to others here at BP, but this is one where the numbers I watch (VORP, MLVr) don’t agree with how most will analyze this trade.
Onto the injuries….
The Diamondbacks have quietly done a good job of rebuilding their farm system. The Royals have fallen out of first place in a hurry. The Phillies’ bats are ice cold. Plus other news and notes out of Arizona, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.
Relocation’s gotten a lot more complicated lately.
Some time ago, baseball narrowed all the potential sites for an Expos move to Portland, Oregon, and two Washington, D.C. bidders: the District of Columbia itself, and a Northern Virginia group. These three groups have traveled to make presentations to MLB about their sites and funding packages. In short, Portland’s got no economy but a funding mechanism and sites, Northern Virginia has some money and bad sites, and D.C. has sites but is still working on money. All of them have expended a lot of effort, and have jumped through MLB’s hoops like cute, obedient doggies. So Selig decided to try and prod another bidder into the process, taking an open opportunity to say that he’d be delighted if San Juan, Puerto Rico would make a bid. This is another reason city governments shouldn’t trust MLB.
Scuffy Moehler’s career hangs in the balance; the Royals are being deterred by aches and pains; Mo Vaughn might finally hang it up; and Scott Williamson is pitching pain free. All that and much more Thursday’s titillating edition of UTK.
One of my favorite sayings–I think I first saw it in an r.s.b post back when I was in college–is “Life is not a meritocracy.” As much as we in America embrace the notion of a Horatio Alger ideal–that anyone can do anything they want to if they work hard enough–the fact is that intractable, and sometimes unfair, barriers to success do exist.
In baseball, we generally call these barriers “service time” and “financial commitments.” Players with the MLB Seal of Approval and guaranteed contracts keep their jobs long past the point of reason, while more deserving younger players toil one level below, doing everything in their power to reach The Show, but get left behind by the conservative nature of dyed-in-the-wool baseball people who would rather watch a veteran be old than take a chance on a younger player.
This column will highlight a number of the bad baseball players who are blocking the progress of better ones.
The Diamondbacks staff is getting healthy, leaving them with too many arms on deck. Pedro Martinez continues to show the Red Sox they goofed by signing his 2004 contract so early. Ben Broussard gets his shot at Cleveland’s first base job. Neifi Perez’s hot streak has him poised to join the MVP race. News, notes, and Kahrlisms on 19 major league teams.
In last week’s Lies, Damned Lies, I reviewed Adam Dunn’s major league career one plate appearance at a time, in order to determine how his performance changed when facing the same pitcher multiple times. For those of you who, like me, did some damage to your short-term memory over the long weekend, the idea was to discover whether, per Michael Lewis’ discussion in Moneyball, Dunn is a hitter with a hole in his swing that gets continually more exploited in repeated trials.
In Dunn’s case, the answer was a tentative “no”, but a lot of people mailed me to ask that I broaden the scope of the analysis. As D.H. writes:
“I like your research, but my problem is that you’ve presented no baseline. It
reminded me of a STATS Baseball Scoreboard article on whether Greg Maddux did
better the more times he faced a particular batter because he’s so “smart.” The
data showed that the hitters improved as time went on. But, like in your study,
there was no baseline to compare against. Adam Dunn may show a drop-off the
more he faces a particular pitcher, but maybe all players exhibit identical
drops. Or, maybe all players exhibit more precipitous drops, and only the good
ones (like Dunn) stick around because they only lose 20% of their value.”
In other words, is there any systematic advantage to the pitcher or the hitter given repeated trials? Doesn’t seem likely, I wrote back, not if the league is going to remain at some kind of equilibrium for very long. But D.H. is correct that it’s a question that deserves further study, much like why on Earth I didn’t wear sunscreen to the ballgame on Sunday.
As I mentioned in the Dunn piece, there is publicly available play-by-play data for each season from 2000-2002. In order to make sure that the players we’re working with formed a closed system, I limited the analysis to players who made their major league debuts in 2000 or later. It was then possible to look at all possible ‘pairings’ of the batters and pitchers within this group–what happens when Billy Batter faces Pete Pitcher for the first time? For the fifth time? For the 20th time, after Bill Batter has dropped the -y from his name and grown a mustache, and Pete Pitcher is discovered to be three years older than listed and actually named Pedro Pichardo?
Psst, wanna see a freak?
You see, Major League Baseball this year has given us something so twisted, so extraordinary, so enigmatic that it belongs in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. So put on your best gawk and prepare to be amazed.
Right next to General Tom Thumb, Robert Wadlow and the great Frank Lentini you’ll find a burly creature with a half dozen arms that don’t work known as the 2003 Cincinnati Reds–the worst contending baseball team in history.
As of today, the Reds sport a 25-27 record while allowing the opposition to outscore them by a whopping 58 runs. They’re on pace to be outscored by 181 runs over the course of the season. A simple Pythagorean equation would predict a team like the Reds would finish with a record of 66-96 playing that kind of baseball. Technically they should be 21-31 at the moment.
Yet there they are, hovering within striking distance of a division lead at 3.5 games out, record-wise playing respectable baseball. It’s thoroughly abnormal. They should be an afterthought by this point of the season.
As I reported yesterday, Eric Hinske is out for four to six weeks after electing to have surgery. The doctors will remove his fractured right hamate bone and he should return pain-free. While this is a blow to the Jays, Hinske (-.112 MLVr) has been hitting well below both last year’s performance (.146) and his PECOTA projection (.147). Mike Bordick (-.077) is actually a slight upgrade based on current performance, but without the pesky upside.
With young pitchers, erring on the side of caution is seldom a bad move. For
the Royals, keeping Runelvys Hernandez healthy for the long term is
much more important than his missing one or even two starts in May. Hernandez
had a fine bullpen session, but after a discussion with Tony Pena and John
Cumberland, the Royals placed the right-hander on the DL with elbow tendinitis. He is eligible to return on June 5, meaning he should miss only one start.
This time, it happened on the field. David Wells will miss a start
after exhibiting a “giant [bleep]ing bruise” on his right calf, the
result of a Josh Phelps screamer Sunday afternoon. Wells will be fine
long-term, and his absence means we’ll get a good look at Jose
Contreras in his first start. Oddly, this
will be the first missed start by a Yankees pitcher this season, a fact that
surprised me when I saw it at Rotowire.