tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36893532024-03-07T00:07:22.859-05:00Boy of SummerTravis Nelson's Baseball Blog:
Baseball Trade Rumors, News, Commentary, Trivia, Statistical Analysis, and Book Reviews from Major League & Fantasy BaseballTravis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.comBlogger703125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-82322288167751574212024-02-29T10:20:00.003-05:002024-02-29T10:20:16.682-05:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKLZDCoxDgBhn1g7rkX-FHxsjMAVN6Jcx8GE9G-IVCB6FB5awQMSccbpFGccEE4FNCFGHvt4DFiz-1kcsz-fGb_Auqe5vMFfBtumJSXNnJEcRbn3ceVw7fP9vcM75a45sb4WrgMjsDfmvFZaPWL_zV882t5XeL1cktXpVny_HCFwcQf09zyuKHjQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="838" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKLZDCoxDgBhn1g7rkX-FHxsjMAVN6Jcx8GE9G-IVCB6FB5awQMSccbpFGccEE4FNCFGHvt4DFiz-1kcsz-fGb_Auqe5vMFfBtumJSXNnJEcRbn3ceVw7fP9vcM75a45sb4WrgMjsDfmvFZaPWL_zV882t5XeL1cktXpVny_HCFwcQf09zyuKHjQ=w640-h224" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-62643522448577802542023-04-20T13:49:00.003-04:002023-04-25T12:08:20.096-04:00Lehigh's Levi Looking to Last<p>My mother-in-law called me excitedly Wednesday afternoon to tell me that her physical therapist's brother - a minor league pitcher - was getting promoted to the majors with the Reds. His brother is <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stoudle01.shtml" target="_blank">Levi Stoudt</a>. What's more, she thought I would take a particular interest, which of course I did, because Stoudt is a graduate of Lehigh University, my alma mater. </p><p>Lehigh is not exactly a pipeline for famous of MLB players, or, really, <i>any</i> fame, for that matter, outside of engineering. Our most famous alumni are, in the order I can think of them, Lee Iacocca, CJ McCollum and Don Most (Ralph Malph from Happy Days, though he never finished his degree), which is about as weird a trio as you could hope to conceive. As for baseball, well, basically nobody. A cold-weather school, Lehigh cannot hope to produce the numbers and quality of players that come from places like Texas, California, Florida and Arizona, to name a few. </p><p>There is only a handful of players in the minors right now from Lehigh, none of whom seems especially close to making the majors, including Stoudt, for that matter. He had given up 9 walks and 8 hits, including 3 homers, in just 11 innings at AAA before his callup yesterday, so it really was kind of a surprise that they picked him for this spot start. The next best former Lehigh "prospect" is probably <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=black-000mas" target="_blank">Mason Black</a>, another pitcher taken in the 3rd round of the draft, like Stoudt, but just getting his first taste of AA ball as a 23-year old this year, so he's a ways off, at best. </p><p>For Stoudt's part, well, he did not exactly cover himself in glory yesterday, getting roughed up by the powerhouse Tampa Bay Rays for 7 runs on 9 hits - including Yandy Diaz' 6th homer - in just 4 innings of work. He walked one and struck out 3. His bullpen did surprisingly well, allowing just one more run in 5 innings of work, but the offense didn't score a run, so he took the loss. </p><p><a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/levi-stoudt-686651?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb" target="_blank">His StatCast page</a> tells the tale: He evidently has decent <i>stuff</i>, a fastball that averaged 93mph with good spin and a curve at 78, plus a slider at 83 and a changeup at 80mph, but he had trouble locating them. He allowed 10 "hard-hit" balls, including seven at more than 100mph, which means they were generally coming back at him harder than he was throwing them in, always a recipe for trouble. His slider and fastball seem to have good movement, but the curve and change were flat and did not fool anyone, and even the slider seemed to get hung up in the zone quite a bit, like <a href="https://www.mlb.com/video/yandy-diaz-homers-6-on-a-line-drive-to-left-center-field" target="_blank">the one Diaz hit into the left field stands</a>. He allowed an average exit velocity of 95.1 mph. For comparison, only <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/judgeaa01.shtml" target="_blank">Aaron Judge</a> and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/alvaryo01.shtml" target="_blank">Yordan Alvarez</a> had a higher AvgEV last year. The launch angle of 18 degrees and barrel rate of 11.8 he allowed must have made it a bit like watching, say, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldspa01.shtml" target="_blank">Paul Goldschmidt</a> come to the plate... <i>for every at-bat</i>. </p><p>So...it was not a great start, by any stretch, but then, the Reds are not a great <i>team</i>, by any stretch! They're "only" 7-12 right now, but nobody would be surprised if they lost 100+ games again this year, I don't think. The Cincinnati team has a collective 5.36 ERA that is somehow only 5th worst in the majors right now, so it's not like most of the competition is particularly stiff. Plus, if the "scramble" you see in the video to get that home run ball that Diaz hit is any indication, there are only a few thousand folks in attendance at Great American Ballpark most nights anyway, so it's not like there are many people there to boo him if things get out of hand. He should get a few more chances to prove himself before the year is out. </p><p><b>Lehigh History Lesson:</b></p><p>Before Stoudt debuted yesterday, the only Lehigh alumnus to make the majors in almost the last 40 years was <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcbrima02.shtml" target="_blank">Matt McBride</a> (no relation to <a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71GNL2lZtKL._AC_SY500_.jpg" target="_blank">Bake</a>, to my knowledge). Matt had attended Liberty High School in Bethlehem, PA, a few blocks from where I lived from 2002-2013, and then went to Lehigh in the early 2000s and just <u>dominated</u> Patriot League competition, especially in 2006, when he hit .417 with power, patience and speed. He had 19 doubles, 12 homers, 21 walks and 22 steals in just 56 games, and as a <i>catcher</i>, no less! Five-tool catchers tend to get <i>noticed</i> by scouts, even in the Patriot League. </p><p>McBride got drafted as a supplemental 2nd round pick by Cleveland, ahead of Chris Davis, Justin Turner and <a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7d95ac1c-2371-43d5-bdf4-c30b19557875_1172x1216.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Doug Fister</a>, among many others who went on to much better careers in MLB. (Other than McBride, Stoudt and Black, nobody from Lehigh has ever been drafted higher than the 10th round.) </p><p>McBride only spent as couple of seasons in the minors as a regular catcher. He caught only 16 of 110 would-be-base-stealers and had 16 passed balls at Single A and AA in 2007. As a result, the organization turned him into a corner outfielder and firstbaseman, where his bat did not play as well. He hit for average and some power in the high elevations of the PCL, but it never translated to the majors. In the end, McBride got fewer than 200 total major league at-bats, spread out over four seasons between 2012 and 2016. He hit .201 with 4 HR despite playing more games at Coors Field than anywhere else. He finished up his last two years playing for his home-town Lehigh Valley IronPigs, not very well, but still showing flashes of the power that got him drafted, hitting .235 with 19 HR in just 108 games combined in 2018-19. </p><p>The last, possibly <i>only</i> good MLB player before that was <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hartzpa01.shtml" target="_blank">Paul Hartzell</a>, who somehow has a <a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Paul-Hartzell/" target="_blank">~6,500 word bio on SABR's website</a>, despite really only being a decent swingman for 3 of his 4 full seasons in the 70s. Among his top 10 comparable players listed on Baseball-Reference, most have no SABR bio at all, and the three who do have less than half as much written about them. They do have some great nicknames, though:</p><div class="gridtitle" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(201, 203, 205); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px -1px; padding: 3px; scroll-margin: 2.5em 0px 0px; white-space: nowrap;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;">Similar Pitchers</span></div><ol style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; list-style-type: none; margin: 6px 9px; padding: 0px;"><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martisp01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;"><span>Speed</span><span> Martin</span></a><span> (975.7)</span></span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/davispe01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;"><span>Peaches</span><span> Davis</span></a><span> (971.4)</span></span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/schotge01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;">Gene Schott</a> (968.8)</span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/alvarhe01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;">Henderson Alvarez III</a> (965.9)</span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ramsdwi01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;"><span>Willie the Knuck</span><span> Ramsdell</span></a><span> (965.1)</span></span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/williji05.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;">Jim Willis</a> (964.6)</span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tylerst01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;"><span>Steel Arm</span><span> Tyler</span></a><span> (964.4)*</span></span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/poholto01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;">Tom Poholsky</a> (963.4)</span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/parsobi01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;">Bill Parsons</a> (962.7)</span></li><li style="list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 3px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/y/yeagejo01.shtml" style="touch-action: manipulation;"><span>Little Joe</span><span> Yeager</span></a><span> (959.2)</span></span></li></ol><p> * Not to be confused with <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/ohtansh01.shtml" target="_blank">Tungsten Arm O'Doyle</a>. </p><p>Hartzell got injured in 1979 or 1980 - he blamed having to go back and forth from starting to relief all the time - and was soon out of baseball, but tried a brief comeback in 1984. </p><p>Hartzell was coached at Lehigh by another alum, the only other Lehigh player to appear in the majors for the previous half-century: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/andercr01.shtml" target="_blank">Craig Anderson</a>. Anderson has the ignominious distinction of being arguably the worst* player on the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1962.shtml" target="_blank">1962 Mets</a>, which, for a team that famously lost 120 of 160 games, is really saying something. [For the record, Anderson amassed -2.7 bWAR, far below the second worst player (<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bellgu01.shtml" target="_blank">Gus Bell</a> at -1.5) and pitcher (<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/daviara01.shtml" target="_blank">Ray Daviault</a>, at -1.2)]. <i> </i></p><p><i>* Realistically, Anderson couldn't have been the <u>worst</u> player on that team, or even the worst pitcher, or they would not have allowed him to pitch 131 innings. He just managed to do the least to help the team win with all the innings he was given. But if <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/moforhe01.shtml" target="_blank">Herb Moford</a> or <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fossla01.shtml" target="_blank">Larry Foss</a> or <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mizelvi01.shtml" target="_blank">Vinegar Bend Mizell</a> had actually had a better chance of getting batters out, I'm sure <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stengca01.shtml" target="_blank">Casey Stengel</a> would have handed the ball to one of them a lot more often than he did. </i></p><p>Anderson was their "closer", before anyone knew what that was, going 3-17 with 4 Saves in 10 chances, though this was years before the Save stat would be codified. Starter Roger Craig had 3, and the whole rest of the team had only three combined, one each for three different pitchers. Anderson pitched in parts of three other seasons in the majors outside of that year with the fledgling Mets, going 3-6 and allowing 31 Earned Runs in about 61 innings of work. He finished his baseball playing career in the minors, having some up and down years in places like Buffalo and Indianapolis, but never made it back to the majors after age 25 and was out of baseball at 27. </p><p>For what it's worth, apparently Lehigh's athletic department hands out the <a href="https://lehighsports.com/news/2010/8/6/BB_13083" target="_blank">Anderson-Hartzell Pitching Award</a> to its best pitcher each year, so I guess these two are still thought highly of on South Mountain. Hartzell in particular has helped with a group that assists players in their transition from pro sports back into the "real world" which is pretty cool. </p><p> And, basically for the last century, that's all there is. Someone named <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/ockwh01.shtml" target="_blank">Whitey Ock</a> made one start in 1935, going 0-for-3 with a walk. About a dozen players in the 1920s and before hailed from Lehigh, most of them for only a handful of games. No Lehigh alum has played even 100 games in the majors as a position player in over 100 years, and as for pitching, outside of Anderson and Hartzell, the other 5 pitchers who have <i>ever</i> pitched after attending Lehigh - including Stoudt - have not totaled 100 major league innings. </p><p>The last Lehigh alum to play 100+ games in the majors was <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/twombba01.shtml" target="_blank">Babe Twombly</a>, presumably so-called because he was the younger brother of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/twombge01.shtml" target="_blank">George Twombly</a> (not a Lehigh grad), who spent parts of five seasons in the majors, mostly during World War I. Babe was actually pretty decent, hitting .377 one year and .304 overall in about half the games of the 1920 and 1921 seasons with the Cubs, but he evidently liked the West Coast better and spent most of the rest of the decade playing for Los Angeles or Hollywood or Seattle in the Pacific Coast League. Fellow Lehigh alum, the somehow-unrelated <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/twombcy01.shtml" target="_blank">Cy Twombly</a>, also pitched in the majors in 1921 - briefly and poorly, though he was proud of the fact that he retired <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruthba01.shtml" target="_blank">Babe Ruth</a> both times he faced him - before playing several seasons in the minors and eventually going on to become a beloved head of the athletic department at Washington & Lee in Lexington, VA. </p><p><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mccormo01.shtml" target="_blank">Harry "Moose" McCormick</a> reaped a modicum of success from major league fields in his time, playing over 400 games spread out among five seasons between 1904 and 1913. He appears to have only attended Lehigh briefly in 1904, graduating from there despite spending most of his college years at Bucknell. He was a pinch hitter and spot starter in the outfield for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/mcgrajo01.shtml" target="_blank">John McGraw</a>'s Giants, and even got to play in a couple of World Series, both in losing efforts. I believe he's the only Lehigh man to ever play in the Fall Classic. </p><p>The most prolific, if not the best, player to ever make the majors from Lehigh's hallowed halls was <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/carrch01.shtml" target="_blank">Charlie Carr</a>. He played just over 500 games in the early 1900s and jumped to the Federal League as a 37-year old in 1914 despite being out of the majors for almost a decade at that point. He leads just about all Lehigh grads in most offensive counting stats, except walks and caught stealing, and the latter only because his career was so long ago that they didn't yet think to count those. </p><p>And that right there is the whole of Lehigh's legacy to major league baseball. Here's hoping Levi Stoudt is on his way to changing that. </p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-5973258602592764272023-04-17T14:06:00.003-04:002023-04-25T12:10:03.187-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyBxcNne6mZPtr9iaOdgJ___06zKPabi85AeMUvs3lBznJSwNhjkcPDTSYdWVEStnUfdHOw15M49WDPBR-yzg6sVA_dgwWAAcGLvvvPZZRu__l4QvAdcONV8RBujY7i9RulzSBDxIVem5aKoeMKufuMUqt8VTAD1iUWFUp6nARUDspviHIfJ0/s1080/doubles%20vs%20barrel%20rate%202022.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1080" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyBxcNne6mZPtr9iaOdgJ___06zKPabi85AeMUvs3lBznJSwNhjkcPDTSYdWVEStnUfdHOw15M49WDPBR-yzg6sVA_dgwWAAcGLvvvPZZRu__l4QvAdcONV8RBujY7i9RulzSBDxIVem5aKoeMKufuMUqt8VTAD1iUWFUp6nARUDspviHIfJ0/s16000/doubles%20vs%20barrel%20rate%202022.JPG" /></a></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU0o8PJPvtj7sSAPv1ZCH1rwXIVN-dIAfQIc8XHgupbdbE1RcelWFf59yZjUI9CGnbIT0-xhwU8Ko-Zswvs6MpTzhyh1TwbKsgWrrZFCAHpN5-3hdtgj-B0MxNsRPMDUGA2PfSJ3LGDfjPPqtWKDWCHpYjaszaW34BSFxOhkJaE_Y72c3tCPk/s868/balls%20in%20play%20by%20location%202022-23.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="868" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU0o8PJPvtj7sSAPv1ZCH1rwXIVN-dIAfQIc8XHgupbdbE1RcelWFf59yZjUI9CGnbIT0-xhwU8Ko-Zswvs6MpTzhyh1TwbKsgWrrZFCAHpN5-3hdtgj-B0MxNsRPMDUGA2PfSJ3LGDfjPPqtWKDWCHpYjaszaW34BSFxOhkJaE_Y72c3tCPk/s16000/balls%20in%20play%20by%20location%202022-23.PNG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-67795734043804829042023-02-10T15:29:00.002-05:002023-02-10T15:29:55.127-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm6xICkQVlcQbUGESLFDN02sW1S3WnayaUi5Uc7hFNRpqv8iGAu4SPeqP6DGkFCfQHgOOXTpKdXerZ_LUoNI8Gu2l6wiAynJsRQ0M1h9J-8J4mTreU-XRTyK3KTxWXP5AzxeSgCRpF7IYcjtHEVnObRjrltsnav5qwYzXCejNF0maKMczIiVs/s915/colon%20MLBPA%20logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="915" data-original-width="881" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm6xICkQVlcQbUGESLFDN02sW1S3WnayaUi5Uc7hFNRpqv8iGAu4SPeqP6DGkFCfQHgOOXTpKdXerZ_LUoNI8Gu2l6wiAynJsRQ0M1h9J-8J4mTreU-XRTyK3KTxWXP5AzxeSgCRpF7IYcjtHEVnObRjrltsnav5qwYzXCejNF0maKMczIiVs/s16000/colon%20MLBPA%20logo.jpg" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-64165783125071204182022-10-31T12:24:00.001-04:002022-10-31T12:24:18.949-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFWpxAt3uf1ynpcCErCOvFJ_9feAAm8IMJK3mOLt4WXb62SA4FN1_ZBGckxSHR3Vsj1Wc7oekR8wPZgTwIxE8isns3NXfGVveFOT6H8uSniuhfhYiOjdSZRzppVYx59uPVhWzgCqWEigGUvnYbfTVJu8xo8ttriKZ7xV9Eh8VdJlTAYlkIPQ/s994/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="758" data-original-width="994" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFWpxAt3uf1ynpcCErCOvFJ_9feAAm8IMJK3mOLt4WXb62SA4FN1_ZBGckxSHR3Vsj1Wc7oekR8wPZgTwIxE8isns3NXfGVveFOT6H8uSniuhfhYiOjdSZRzppVYx59uPVhWzgCqWEigGUvnYbfTVJu8xo8ttriKZ7xV9Eh8VdJlTAYlkIPQ/w640-h488/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; width: 360px;"><tbody><tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 15pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 48pt;" width="64">Year</td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 75pt;" width="100">Ex. Inn. Games</td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 37pt;" width="49">11+ IP</td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 37pt;" width="49">12+ IP</td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 37pt;" width="49">13+ IP</td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: 1pt solid windowtext; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap; width: 37pt;" width="49">14+ IP</td></tr><tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;"><td height="19" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 14.5pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2010-11</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">457</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">242</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">116</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">65</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">34</td></tr><tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;"><td height="19" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 14.5pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2012-13</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">435</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">231</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">133</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">82</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">52</td></tr><tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;"><td height="19" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 14.5pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2014-15</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">444</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">260</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">151</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">85</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">41</td></tr><tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;"><td height="19" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 14.5pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2016-17</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">367</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">207</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">107</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">56</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">26</td></tr><tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;"><td height="19" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 14.5pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2018-19</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">424</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">233</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">131</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">76</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">42</td></tr><tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;"><td height="20" style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: 1pt solid windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; height: 15pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2021-22</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">423</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">120</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">32</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">9</td><td align="right" style="border-bottom: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 0.5pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;">2</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /> <p></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-39514206138580979102022-10-04T16:32:00.000-04:002022-10-04T16:32:00.228-04:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9WKzoqsSyCJggXYW97H-t2njgPYLm0_GQlYG6NP2K8bddy7-20vnoHLvpBz32OMXfX8eTy9d0v2Pzm9IzmueoxbZ--gv_Z4dbFza6KLCX_VvYiDNrWZRyDyVJ8bHAcmexK8vU6m4QjOGGckNodluBHyXWZcHbu6CGiXRpfmkA_6UvMSgji-A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9WKzoqsSyCJggXYW97H-t2njgPYLm0_GQlYG6NP2K8bddy7-20vnoHLvpBz32OMXfX8eTy9d0v2Pzm9IzmueoxbZ--gv_Z4dbFza6KLCX_VvYiDNrWZRyDyVJ8bHAcmexK8vU6m4QjOGGckNodluBHyXWZcHbu6CGiXRpfmkA_6UvMSgji-A=s16000" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-9541913802835846302022-04-26T10:19:00.003-04:002022-04-26T10:19:16.657-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKGWvhrFoAj59VfE9mkLSZ-9Z1k6H8LWYEuubyzQwMRrF8XrjpiuL1OPvHudpIgxlOgHQUvm8vWhsym4V0VZ0jaiVWflUzh_xeOFwFggTZBZlFUgDoS9SMYXoNtfFK8KMVCkwjEZGeuib45vFXUw8dXhpSoCNagCXNtSEnQmbFQOpQCiwvBA/s978/Mar-Apr%20BiP%201996-2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="978" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKGWvhrFoAj59VfE9mkLSZ-9Z1k6H8LWYEuubyzQwMRrF8XrjpiuL1OPvHudpIgxlOgHQUvm8vWhsym4V0VZ0jaiVWflUzh_xeOFwFggTZBZlFUgDoS9SMYXoNtfFK8KMVCkwjEZGeuib45vFXUw8dXhpSoCNagCXNtSEnQmbFQOpQCiwvBA/w528-h442/Mar-Apr%20BiP%201996-2022.jpg" width="528" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-29616089667930236232021-02-16T00:11:00.007-05:002021-02-17T13:22:18.289-05:00Bauer's Powers Questioned<p>Controversial pitching ace Trevor Bauer signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last week, which was <a href="https://www.truebluela.com/2021/2/12/22269484/trevor-bauer-contract-details-dodgers" target="_blank">remarkable on a number of levels</a>:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Bauer only secured a three-year deal, whereas most 30-year olds coming off a career year might be inclined to try to broker a deal for much longer. </li><li>Bauer had talked about wanting to pitch every 4th day instead of every 5. With a rotation that also consists of Clayton Kershaw, Walker Bueller, David Price and promising young pitchers in Jose Urias, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin, it's hard to imagine the Dodgers skipping one or more of them to give Bauer an extra turn, or otherwise messing with their schedules to satisfy him. Kerhsaw in particular is supposedly a creature of routine, and presumably has the clout needed to thwart any such plans. </li><li>There had also been talk of Bauer wanting to garner distinction as the highest paid player in the game at least for this year, and possibly next. This deal doesn't quite get him there, but Year 2 could really be a doozy in that regard. </li><li>He gets a $10 million signing bonus. In the first year of the deal he's earning $28 million, and the second will earn him $32 million. However, his employ for 2022 remains to be seen because...</li><li>...he has opt-out clauses after each year. </li></ul><p></p><p>There are also caveats about the team deferring his 2021 salary if he opts out after this year, and the buyouts he'd receive if opting out ($2M for 2021, $15M after 2022), so he could effectively earn $85 million for two years' work, or $102M if he sticks around for all three. </p><p>Assuming he does well and enjoys himself in 2021, it's hard to imagine him turning down a guaranteed additional $47 million for one more year's work, but I guess you never know. I suppose if he's lousy in 2021 he's got even more reason to stay. </p><p>Bauer evidently does not care for long term commitments, stating that he prefers "flexibility" and not being despised by the fanbase when he's still earning huge piles of money even as his skills erode and he turns into a pitching machine in his late 30s. I'm paraphrasing here. </p><p>Of course, if he's lousy as soon as 2021 or 2022, he'll be plenty despised anyway. </p><p><b>Was He really <i>That</i> Good???</b></p><p>And make no mistake: There is a chance that he will in fact be lousy in 2021. Or at least that he'll be mediocre. That may sound like an odd claim when discussing the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, but stick with me here:</p><p>Bauer won the 2020 NL CYA by going 5-4 with an NL-leading 1.73 ERA. He had 100 K's against only 17 walks in 73 innings pitched. He led the Senior Circuit in WHIP, Hits/9IP, adjusted ERA (<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/earned_run_avg_plus_season.shtml" target="_blank">5th best all-time and 3rd best since the Dead Ball Era</a>), shutouts and complete games (2 each). </p><p>If you clicked on the ERA+ link above, then you may have noticed another name on that list: Shane Beiber, former teammate of Bauer's in Cleveland, who won the <i>AL</i> CYA in 2020 and whose adjusted ERA of 281 is 2nd since the Dead Ball Era, behind only Pedro Martinez' amazing Y2K campaign. </p><p>In fact, if you look at that list again, you'll see something very curious: Among the top 21 names/seasons on the list, <b>four</b> of them are from 2020. Most are all-time greats, though there are a few anomalies, specifically:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Tim Keefe in 1880, who holds the top spot despite appearing in only 12 of his team's 83 games and pitching only 105 innings, and </li><li>Dutch Leonard, a decent pitcher who seems to have taken full advantage of the fact that a whole bunch of AL hitting talent went to the Federal League in 1914. </li></ul><p></p><p>Keefe would eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame, even if he was just getting started in 1880. The other names are almost exclusively upper-echelon Hall of Famers: Greg Maddux, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Pedro Martinez each appear twice in the top 20, as does Roger Clemens. Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Pete Alexander, Three-Finger Brown and Keefe each show up once. Other seasons are ones for the ages, if not by eventual Cooperstown cronies: Doc Gooden in 1985 and Zach Greinke in 2015. </p><p>But then there are the four 2020 seasons, Bauer, Beiber, Dallas Keuchel and Yu Darvish. Darvish and Keuchel are both fine pitchers - Keuchel won the CYA a few years ago and Darvish is actually the all-time career leader in K/9, in case you didn't know (<i>I didn't</i>) - but neither of them is going to get a plaque in Cooperstown someday. </p><p>For that matter, if you look at the top 50 seasons all time in ERA+, there are five(!) of them from 2020, since Dinelson Lamet also makes the cut, tied at #39 with Greinke's Cy Young year of 2009. Only four other seasons appear twice on that list, and only one before 2020 appeared three times: That was 1997, when Pedro, The Big Unit and the Rocket all had incredible seasons at the same time. And we have our suspicions about how the 34-year old Clemens pulled that off... </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yyk5Bt1qxRKADDlV_cW5rjY5_R3DlS_x8nhrR4zgOzQUyGw9NgohU4SF3TUhdd_LY81Lf3qMcs4Q6oW4TD1Xv6G5HQzl3kQpxkATT5YHqUkZS25i878nswOVj0qv8WRe_IAtrA/s490/aliens+steroids+meme.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yyk5Bt1qxRKADDlV_cW5rjY5_R3DlS_x8nhrR4zgOzQUyGw9NgohU4SF3TUhdd_LY81Lf3qMcs4Q6oW4TD1Xv6G5HQzl3kQpxkATT5YHqUkZS25i878nswOVj0qv8WRe_IAtrA/s320/aliens+steroids+meme.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Seems odd, right? We've got stats going back to 1876 - 146 years! - and 5 of the top 50 pitcher-seasons all come from <i><u>this</u></i> year? Are we in some kind of pitching renaissance?? Will we all one day tell our grandchildren how we once saw the great Dinelson Lamet pitch the same year as Trevor Bauer and Dallas Keuchel???? <i>(Well, we didn't really <u>see</u> them, nobody did, since we were all stuck at home all year, but you know...)</i> </p><p>Of course not. </p><p><b>Welcome to Small Sample Size Theatre! </b></p><p>These are all, or at least some of them must necessarily be, a mirage of the shortened season. Just like Keefe's truncated 1880 campaign, which has topped the list ever since there <i>was</i> a list of single-"season" adjusted ERA leaders, many of these appearances are here only because they were not forced to pitch a full season. Nobody started more than 13 games in 2020. Bauer started only 11. It was basically a third of a season, maybe a smidge more. As good as they are, it can be all but assured that, had they another ~20 starts to make in 2020, Some of those five pitchers would no longer have been on that list of the top 50 ERA+ seasons in MLB history. Lamet was an unaccomplished prospect working his way back from season-ending surgery. Keuchel had pitched to a cumulative 3.77 ERA in four years since he won the CYA. They certainly would have fallen back to the pack if given the chance. </p><p>Might Trevor Bauer have done so too?? </p><p>Coming into 2020 Bauer had, shall we say, a checkered past. Entering the 2018 season he had a fairly pedestrian 4.36 ERA, equating to a 99 ERA+, in 728 innings across six MLB seasons, including the previous four as a rotation stalwart for Cleveland. It was a pretty good sample size, indicating that Bauer was a <a href="http://www.boyofsummer.net/2003/12/flashes-of-adequacy.html" target="_blank">LAIM</a>, but not much more. </p><p>Then in 2018, he seemed to have turned a corner. He was among the league leaders in Wins, ERA, strikeouts and a bunch of other stats when he got hit by a comebacker off Jose Abreu's bat in mid August and missed a month and change with a stress fracture in his leg. Upon his return he pitched only 9.1 innings across three games, as the team didn't want to risk reinjuring him since they had basically wrapped up their division in mid-August. Bauer pitched in relief in three postseason games, giving up three earned runs in four innings, including taking the Loss in the deciding Game 3 of the ALCS against Houston. (That was a Cleveland home game, so presumably Houston did not get any help from the rubbish receptacles.) </p><p>His 2019 season was more up and down. He pitched very well in April (5-2, 2.45 ERA) then in May, <i>hmmm</i>, <i>not so much</i> (1-5, 5.50, and also 7 <u>un</u>earned runs) . He was back to form in June (4-1, 3.06 ERA), was doing OK in July, and despite a <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA201907020.shtml" target="_blank">few</a> <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE201905160.shtml" target="_blank">clunkers</a> among his usual quality starts in those two months, was having a decent year. Coming into his last start in July, he had a 9-7 record and a 3.49 ERA, with 179 K's in 152 innings, including 15 Quality Starts in 23 outings. Pretty solid numbers, if not the type that win any awards. </p><p>But then, this happened:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="361" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aCeXEa0Ouk8" width="434" youtube-src-id="aCeXEa0Ouk8"></iframe></div><p>And that bit of long-toss over the centerfield fence, as you may know, was the last pitch he would ever throw for Cleveland. This outburst, not to mention all the times he'd gotten into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/21/why-on-earth-is-climate-skeptic-twitter-troll-trevor-bauer-mlb-most-hated-man" target="_blank">trouble on social media, and for berating fans who criticized him</a>, gave Cleveland all the excuse it needed to rid itself of him. The Tribe suspended and then promptly traded him to the Reds (with the Padres) for Franmil Reyes and Yasiel Puig, among others. </p><p>Bauer had a few decent starts for Cincinnati down the stretch in 2019, but overall pitched to an ERA of 6.39 in a Reds uniform that year. They skipped his last start of the season against the lowly Pirates, who finished with 93 Losses and the 11th worst average runs scored per game. </p><p><b>2020 Hindsight:</b></p><p>Amazingly, in 2020 Bauer came back and pitched remarkably well, albeit in about a third of a full season. You would have to assume the law of averages might have brought his ERA back up closer to his career mark in the ~4 range if he'd had the rest of the season to pitch, though it presumably still would have been a good year. </p><p>Additionally, for the pitching he did accomplish, consider his competition. Remember, <a href="http://www.boyofsummer.net/2020/09/2020-playoff-teams-and-batting-champs.html" target="_blank">in 2020 there really was no "National League" and "American League"</a>, not until we got to the playoffs. The Reds played in the "Central Division" consisting of only the 10 AL & NL Central teams, and 9 of those 10 teams were among the dozen worst offenses in MLB by average Runs Scored/Game, the lone exception being the White Sox (5th best). </p><p>Among those 11 starts, Bauer had:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Two against the Cubs, who despite winning the NL Central, had the 11th lowest runs scored average in MLB. He was 1-1 with 3 runs allowed in 13 innings against Chicago. </li><li>Two vs. the Tigers, the 8th worst offense in MLB. He allowed one run in 13.1 innings and fanned 20. </li><li>Three vs. the Brewers, the 4th worst offense in MLB. He was 2-1 with six runs allowed in 20.1 innings and 32 strikeouts. </li><li>One start against the Royals, the 5th worst offense in MLB (7 shutout innings, 9 K's, no balls thrown over the CF fence), and...</li><li>Two starts against the Pirates who had the <u>worst</u> offense in MLB. He allowed two earned runs in 12.2 innings with 19K's, though he lost one of those starts due to three unearned runs. </li></ul><p></p><p>Alas, he did not get a chance to face his former team in Cleveland, who had the 6th worst run production in MLB last year. The only start he had in the regular season against a team that could actually hit was against the White Sox in September. He gave up two runs in seven innings and struck out five, but took the loss because the Reds had the <i>third</i> worst offense* in baseball last year by Runs/Game, and they scored no runs at all against the Pale Hose pitchers, including Keuchel. </p><p><i>* In terms of batting average, the 2020 Reds were one of the worst hitting teams in MLB history. The team's collective .212 batting average was the lowest for a "full season" by a team since the Dead Ball Era. And it gets worse, believe it or not: Because the The Great American Ballpark is a pretty good hitter's park, their overall offense was actually helped by it! They hit just .204 on the road with a .360 slugging percentage. They're like a whole team of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/z/zuninmi01.shtml" target="_blank">Mike Zunino</a>s. </i></p><p><i>The only teams who even come close to that hitting ineptitude since 1910 are generally expansion/relocation franchises or historical anomalies:</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>In 1963, both the Mets and Colt 45's, recent expansion franchises, hit .220 or worse. </i></li><li><i>The 1972 Texas Rangers, in their first year as the transplanted Washington Senators (Part II!) collectively hit .217 and had <u>one</u> player with double digit homers: Ted Ford with 14. The entire AL hit .239 that year and the league owners voted to implement the DH for 1973. Ted Williams retired permanently from managing. </i></li><li><i>The 1968 Yankees hit just .214 in the Year of the Pitcher, though they were 5th in the AL in homers so the offense wasn't really as awful as the batting average would suggest. Mickey Mantle hit .237 that year and then retired. That roster also contained several players who would eventually find more success as a manager and/or GM than they ever did as a player, specifically Mike Ferarro, Bobby Cox, Dick Howser, Gene Michael, and the father of Ruben Amaro, Jr., but sadly none of them hit a lick that year. </i></li><li><i>And...ummm...I feel like I'm forgetting somethi...</i></li><li><i>...Oh! And also the 2020 Rangers, Cubs <u>and</u> Pirates, all of whom hit .220 or worse. </i></li></ul><p><br /></p><p>Again, Small Sample Size Theatre! 31 teams in all of MLB history have hit .220 or worse for the season - only 11 since the dawn of the 20th century - and <b><u>four</u></b> of them were this past year! So did Bauer and the others pitch so well because their competition couldn't hit? Or was their competition simply overmatched by the incredible talent of Bauer et. al? Chicken or egg...egg or chicken? I suspect we won't know until we get to see another full season of baseball this year. </p><p>Anyway, despite their historically anemic offense, by a quirk of the COVID schedule, the Reds managed to make the postseason. Bauer pitched well in the NLDS, allowing only 2 hits and no runs in 7 innings and change, with 12 K's. Unfortunately, the Reds lost 1-0 to the Braves in the 13th inning, and then got shut out again the next day, 5-0, becoming the <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2020/10/1/21497437/reds-playoffs-records-no-runs-real-bad#:~:text=No%20team%20has%20ever%20played,series%2C%20an%20MLB%20postseason%20record.&text=For%20most%20of%20their%20brief,staff%20was%20doing%20its%20job." target="_blank">only team in history not to score any runs at all in a postseason series</a>. </p><p>So there are technically <u>two</u> data points from 2020 suggesting that Bauer can succeed against stiffer competition. </p><p>Moreover, before he got hurt in 2018, he had stretches of real brilliance. His last 11 starts before the Abreu comebacker consisted of a 7-1 record and 93 K's in 72 innings with a 1.62 ERA, numbers very similar to those he put up in 2020, and not very different from the rest of his 2018 season to that point. He pitched well that year against the Yankees, Astros, Twins, Rangers, Cubs and A's, all teams that could hit, in addition to beating up on the likes of the Royals and Tigers. </p><p><b>Deeper Down The Numbers Rabbit-Hole...</b></p><p>Bauer's Statcast and batted ball data for 2020 show some interesting things. He had the lowest line drive percentage of his career (17.8%, compared to 22% for his career) as well as the lowest pull percentage (35.4%, compared to 41.2% for his career). He also had the highest launch angle (20.9 degrees, well above his 13.4 degree career average) and the lowest ground ball percentage of his career, 0.72, way below his career mark of 1.12, which is odd, as you would think allowing a higher percentage of fly balls would have allowed <i>more</i> runs, not fewer, especially in that ballpark. His home run rate was right in line with his career marks. </p><p>He had the highest strikeout rate and lowest walk rate of his career, which makes some sense when you consider that he spent most of his time pitching against teams who couldn't hit. But more to the point of explaining how all those fly balls and line drives did not turn into runs, his batting average on balls in play (i.e. when he didn't allow a walk, homer or get a K) was a paltry .215, way below both his own career average of .294 and the MLB average of .292. </p><p>That .215 BABiP also happened to be the second best in the majors, behind only fellow "Central Division" opportunist Kenta Maeda, who clocked in at a .208 BABiP. Any guesses who Maeda faced the most? That's right: 3x each against Detroit and Cleveland, 2x against Milwaukee and once against Pittsburgh. He also faced the White Sox twice, allowing 2 earned runs in 5 innings each time. He finished 2nd in the AL Cy Young voting. </p><p>With Beiber, Bauer, Darvish and Maeda, the #1 and #2 spots in both the AL and NL Cy Young voting all pitched against the same (apparently) impotent competition. Both Beiber and Darvish had only two of their 12 starts against a team that was not in the bottom ~1/3 of the majors in run scoring, the White Sox, of course. Darvish allowed only one run in 14 innings, while Beiber allowed 4 runs in 11 total frames, getting a no-decision each time. </p><p><b>All Ahead Full-Impulse Bauer!</b></p><p>Dodger Stadium is still a pretty forgiving pitcher's park, so it could mask any failings on Bauer's part, at least as regards his pitching. But if he gets lit up on the road a few times (recall the hitter's parks he'll frequent in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Houston) will we see the old Bauer's temper tantrums again? Will the fans hold back their ire in 2022 for a man making $47 million a year if he starts serving up longballs? Will he blow up at someone on Twitter again, alienate teammates or journalists, or otherwise make himself less than welcome during his tenure? </p><p>Probably. But if he can keep pitching like he did in 2020, nobody in Dodger Town will mind all that much. And if not, at worst he'll be gone before Joe Biden's term in office is over. Seems like a pretty good deal for both sides. </p> Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-63900023217045577762020-10-01T01:19:00.002-04:002020-10-01T01:19:08.874-04:00Pitching Leaders and MVPs and Cy Youngs for the East, West and Central<p> As I mentioned yesterday, the way MLB chose to set up its schedule for 2020 effectively means that there really was no true National League and American League. Normally it makes sense to have the Yankees competing for a playoff spot with the White Sox and the A's and other Junior Circuit teams because they are all in the same league, and face much of the same competition. </p><p>But with the 2020 rules, teams from the East, Central an West divisions in each league only faced each other and the corresponding division in the other league. The Giants are sitting home this October and watching the Astros - who had the same record against the same competition - advance a step closer to the World Series. The Twins had the best record among all the Central teams, and yet found themselves as a #3 seed, playing #6 seed Houston, which had a losing record. It would be like allowing the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1954.shtml" target="_blank">103-win 1954 Yankees</a> to face the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CLE/1954.shtml" target="_blank">111-win Indians</a> in the World Series because the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYG/1954.shtml" target="_blank">New York Giants only won 97 games</a>, against a completely separate slate of teams. </p><p>Anyway, the players, too, should be rewarded for leading their competition in whatever statistical categories they did. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/troutmi01.shtml" target="_blank">Mike Trout</a>, for example, should now have his first home run title to go along with all the other amazing things he's done in his career, since his 17 homers led all players in the West this year. But alas, Luke Voit hit 22 (against all different teams and pitchers) so it's not to be. </p><p>Anyway, we covered most of that yesterday. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>But what about the pitchers?</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymHAHAC1xLg2YvZoBQHyZwCYjnJkPQd7nXXam0aODoF-lxUU63MlU5oAnZaBexK_iIvJhC-81Mi6kyF1a_cIaqjjSUfkdmW4qC0QdqV7PZQkZ0eIfQ55kbEk27TCCtQmtB06Jvg//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="824" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymHAHAC1xLg2YvZoBQHyZwCYjnJkPQd7nXXam0aODoF-lxUU63MlU5oAnZaBexK_iIvJhC-81Mi6kyF1a_cIaqjjSUfkdmW4qC0QdqV7PZQkZ0eIfQ55kbEk27TCCtQmtB06Jvg/w582-h191/image.png" width="582" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>You surely already knew about how amazing Shane Beiber was this year, leading the "AL" in all three triple crown categories, Wins, ERA and K's. As it happens, he led the Central "League" in all three of those as well as both Fangraphs' Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) and and Baseball Reference WAR (bWAR). <p></p><p>Yu Darvish led both the actual NL and the true Central with the same 8 Wins. Gerrit Cole led the East with 7 Wins, and Marco Gonzales of the Mariners and Zach Davies of the Brewers also both had 7 Win for the year, which led all comers in the West. </p><p>You may have known that Jacob DeGrom had another Cy Young-worthy year, and he indeed led the East in both ERA and strikeouts (but not Wins, because he still pitches for the Mets.) You may <i>not</i> realize, however, that the leader for the West is not Clayton Kershaw or some big name, perennial superstar, but a relative unknown. Dinelson Lamet, the Padres' pitcher who compiled a 10-13 record and a 4.37 ERA in parts of the 2017 and 2019 seasons - straddling a year-plus missed due to Tommy John surgery - led the West in ERA and strikeouts, though he went just 3-1. Heck, even DeGrom won four! </p><p>The Saves leaders were remarkable in that none of them ever led their leagues in Saves before. Kintzler had been a closer in the past, but had struggled since 2017 while bouncing from the Twins to the Nationals to the Cubs to now the Marlins. Brad Hand was the closer for the team that won the AL Central, and has been a pretty good closer for a number of years. Liam Hendricks anchored the A's bullpen as they were the only team in the AL West with a winning record. </p><p>And when you get to b/fWAR, again you see some familiar names: DeGrom, Lamet, Bieber, of course. But also Zac Gallen, who went just 3-2, but fanned 82 batters in 72 innings with a 2.75 ERA while pitching half his games in the thin, hot air of Arizona. Antonio Sentzatela ties Gallen for the lead in the West with 2.8 bWAR, which you might not guess from his decent-but-not-extravagant 5-3 record, 3.44 ERA and only 41 strikeouts in 73 innings. </p><p>Hyun Jin Ryu (5-2, 2.69) wasn't just the best starter on the Blue Jays staff, he was practically the only <i>good</i> starter for them until they traded for Taijuan Walker. And also he led all pitchers in the East in bWAR. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Real Awards Winners:</b></p><p>If the annual awards were given based on the players' actual competition instead of their traditional leagues, these are who I think might deserve them:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdNT5BsBrm_dQ-y5IuOm_yKThMdy8tQ3rDlzIl9kQYFqv36hyphenhyphenowLvIwVVMov4Q0P0-7KYd8xOSD35vCC9-FGP_F75WLwUFdqUbCrrc5f78Sx3Qi12mXdgF0BQVgriAfO9mY9_WA//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="120" data-original-width="826" height="89" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdNT5BsBrm_dQ-y5IuOm_yKThMdy8tQ3rDlzIl9kQYFqv36hyphenhyphenowLvIwVVMov4Q0P0-7KYd8xOSD35vCC9-FGP_F75WLwUFdqUbCrrc5f78Sx3Qi12mXdgF0BQVgriAfO9mY9_WA/w620-h89/image.png" width="620" /></a></div><br /><i><u>Cy Youngs:</u></i><p></p><p>DeGrom led the East in ERA, K's and fWAR. Beiber led the Central in the same, plus Wins AND bWAR, and will likely win the actual AL Cy Young Award. Dinelson Lamet led the West in ERA and K's, as we discussed, plus fWAR. </p><p><br /></p><p><u><i>MVPs:</i></u> </p><p>Freddie Freeman led the East in Runs scored, bWAR and fWAR. Bieber deserves all the accolades in the Central, though you couldn't go wrong giving the trophy to one of the Joses, Abreu or Ramirez. In the west, Mookie Betts was head and shoulders above the rest. </p><p><br /></p><p><i><u>Rookie Pitchers:</u></i></p><p>In the East, the Braves' <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/players/ian-anderson/19951/stats?position=P" target="_blank">Ian Anderson</a> went 3-2 with a 1.95 ERA in half a dozen starts, which normally would not be enough to garner consideration for an award like this, but this year, that was half the season. </p><p>In the West, <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/players/tony-gonsolin/19388/stats?position=P" target="_blank">Tony Gonsolin</a> made eight starts and had a 2.31 ERA to go with his 2-2 record and 46 strikeouts in as many innings. </p><p>But the real story is <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/players/devin-williams/15816/stats?position=P" target="_blank">Devin Williams</a>, who only pitched 27 innings in relief, but he was amazing in all of them. He struck out more than half of all the batters he faced - 53 K's out of 100 batters - and had a 0.33 ERA, which is the lowest ERA in a season by a major league pitcher with at least 25 innings under his belt in over 110 years! (Someone named <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mooreea01.shtml" target="_blank">Earl Moore</a> allowed <u><i>zero</i></u> earned runs in 26 innings for the Phillies in 1908.) </p><p>So there you have them, the leaders and awards if life were fair, which it is not. </p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-58791885778811578352020-09-29T15:52:00.007-04:002020-09-29T17:31:08.873-04:002020 Playoff Teams and Batting Champs, by Region Instead of Leagues<p>This was a weird year. </p><p>In an effort to minimize travel, and thereby minimize potential exposure to COVID-19, Major League Baseball implemented an odd, 60-game schedule that allowed teams only to play the other four teams in its own division and the five teams in the corresponding geographical division in the opposite league. This means, for example, that the Yankees played both the Atlanta Braves and the Miami Marlins, but not the Tigers or the Indians, who are both obviously a lot closer, not to mention <i>in their actual league</i>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFQiiKEORX_QMMQJmsTPV5hREVmTyfB8xGKAXiR5tGM7zDwu9sFgaVhYtp-pZvNooGjAuFeeR2pWz9eF3v8vH8BjnKHX2Fxw75NOqUfey4aWbNI0MG8rtFAhaS8CauuabZoOo22w//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="768" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFQiiKEORX_QMMQJmsTPV5hREVmTyfB8xGKAXiR5tGM7zDwu9sFgaVhYtp-pZvNooGjAuFeeR2pWz9eF3v8vH8BjnKHX2Fxw75NOqUfey4aWbNI0MG8rtFAhaS8CauuabZoOo22w/w536-h275/image.png" width="536" /></a></div><br />Additionally, as another concession to the disease and its effects on us all, we have a new, 8-team-per-league postseason format in which the winners from each division and their runners up all make the postseason, plus the two teams with the next best records. This gives us not one but <u>two</u> teams with losing records (the Brewers and the Astros) who actually have a chance to win the World Series. <p></p><p>Which sucks.</p><p>The decisions on who makes the playoffs are, in themselves, somewhat nonsensical. Here are the three actual in-practice regional quasi-leagues this season (East, Central and West) and how they stack up against each other. The teams in bold are the ones going to the actual playoffs. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYjPBKBqDHdsiSIII1cckBwRvbB5rJ0yboK68EDcyAr5mglOi_8OpNtS7K_HeUAt-3KL2D1tfam6cKDmjqeyXg4HuVwaxR-GmYBVCnk79_3Y5sL02ePkRBKZVgm_wx4mLnYm8U4A//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="309" height="632" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYjPBKBqDHdsiSIII1cckBwRvbB5rJ0yboK68EDcyAr5mglOi_8OpNtS7K_HeUAt-3KL2D1tfam6cKDmjqeyXg4HuVwaxR-GmYBVCnk79_3Y5sL02ePkRBKZVgm_wx4mLnYm8U4A/w287-h632/image.png" width="287" /></a></div><br />You can probably see a couple of things wrong with this picture right away. Almost everyone from the Central got in (7 of 10 teams), while the Phillies, for example, have almost as good a record as the Astros and Brewers, whom they never played. If MLB had chosen instead to take, say, six teams from each <i>regional</i> league, and give two teams a bye for the first round or something like that, instead of doing it the way they did, Philly might be in the playoffs right now instead of one of those teams. Not that they would deserve to be, but still. <p></p><p>Furthermore, the Giants had the exact same record as the Astros, <i>against the same competition</i>, but did not make the playoffs. Granted, their head to head records (Houston won two of three) would likely have given the advantage to the Astros anyway, but if MLB had chosen instead to take the best five teams from each region, plus one more to round out the 16 - which probably would have been more fair - then the Giants would have been in and the Brewers out. And the Phillies would <u>still</u> be watching the playoffs from their couches, as they should be. </p><p>As it is, in <i>this</i> reality, the teams will all play a three-game series, entirely at the home stadiums of the higher seeded teams in the first round. Then, if they get past that, they will play the ALDS and NLDS at neutral sites in California and Texas, as shown below. As a result, we have a playoff picture that is murkier that it has ever been, heading into the first day of competition. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaNNVSUhrZQHaf5Lcg4VOsEYv74DykHuIijA5aU5lHrqJrN1XOmX0RrcnNSnCaZoQZeIsfokalRmAn8yPQUuE7D3kYMoBy369cd4dzlEKqNYu-F5WEUMTD8l79NH8Ce4oxqzIMxg//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="928" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaNNVSUhrZQHaf5Lcg4VOsEYv74DykHuIijA5aU5lHrqJrN1XOmX0RrcnNSnCaZoQZeIsfokalRmAn8yPQUuE7D3kYMoBy369cd4dzlEKqNYu-F5WEUMTD8l79NH8Ce4oxqzIMxg/w509-h292/image.png" width="509" /></a></div><br />Another problem with this format is that the seeding was done based on division winners and runners up getting the highest seeds, rather than by best overall record. So the Twins are a #3 seed, even though they had the best record among the teams against whom they actually competed. They're playing the Astros, who had a losing record, but are seeded above both the White Sox and the Jays, both of which had winning records, because the TrAshtros finished second in the AL West, which was pretty awful outside of Oakland. <p></p><p>Part of the reason for this format is that the shortened season and limited competition sort of inhibits our ability to tell how good a team is. Sure, Gerrit Cole seems to be the ace the Yankees signed for a bajillion dollars in the offseason, but he was 5-1 with a 1.69 ERA against teams that did not make the playoffs (Phils, Sawx, O's and Nats), and 2-2 with a 4.10 ERA against teams that did (the Braves, Rays and Jays). How would he have fared against the A's, or the Twins? We may never know, especially if the <a href="http://www.boyofsummer.net/2020/09/the-2020-yankees-so-streaky-even-facing.html" target="_blank">streaky Yankees can't advance past the first round</a>. </p><p>But I was curious to see who would have led their respective "regional leagues", and more important perhaps, who might have "won" the awards if the players were being compared to their regional peers this year instead of to players they never faced until the postseason, or maybe not at all. I'll look at the position players today and will save the pitchers for tomorrow.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>Position Players:</u></b></p><p>So here are your hitting leaders! </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36mAIcmB8O3jAtc2O0QROe_zU3RNSb2D7TGiAAGOWITQI5IEZYocCrmysQrlu3nrdguZIGXdKml_rNPAK-HiF8gTzZVZiU_0eYkx4B_hHzXu9Jopycp7t7JksidJbyQLtqZ17vg//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="820" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36mAIcmB8O3jAtc2O0QROe_zU3RNSb2D7TGiAAGOWITQI5IEZYocCrmysQrlu3nrdguZIGXdKml_rNPAK-HiF8gTzZVZiU_0eYkx4B_hHzXu9Jopycp7t7JksidJbyQLtqZ17vg/w614-h219/image.png" width="614" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Luke Voit and DJ LeMahieu would still have their respective crowns, but Tim Anderson and Donovan Solano would also have won batting titles. </p><p>Interestingly, LeMahieu takes the title over Anderson in real life this year, the reverse of 2019, which marks the first time since 1956-57 that the same two players have finished #1 and #2 in the AL batting title race, albeit not in the same order each year. </p><p>At that time it was Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams, and of course Mickey won the Triple Crown in 1956, including his only batting title and the first of his three MVPs. Williams hit .388 a year later and won the "slash line triple crown" (leading the AL in average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage) but finished 2nd in the MVP coting for the 4th time, each time losing to a Yankee (twice to DiMaggio, once to Mantle and once to Joe Gordon). </p><p>Good times! Anyway, back to 2020...</p><p>Manny Machado would have led the West in RBIs! Mike Trout in homers! In the Central, Jose Abreu would have two of the three triple crown pillars all to himself, instead of the just the AL RBI crown. </p><p>Donovan Solano seems to have followed the Gio Urshela path to becoming a major league regular. Both were signed as amateur free agents as teenagers from Colombia. Both bounced around multiple organizations for many years, primarily as a glove-first backup infielder. And both somehow just <i>learned how to hit</i> in their late 20s. Urshela famously filled in for the injured Miguel Andujar, and has hit .314 with 27 homers in 650 plate appearances the last two seasons, while remaining a plus defender at the hot corner. Solano, meanwhile, has hit .328 with 28 doubles and 7 homers in over 400 at-bats the last two seasons, and by rights should now have a batting title to his credit. </p><p><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/villajo01.shtml" target="_blank">Jonathan Villar</a> is also an interesting case: He was traded from the Marlins to the Blue Jays for a PTBNL in mid-season, and stole a total of 16 bases. (The Jays sent <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=conine000gri" target="_blank">Griffin Conine</a> to Miami to complete the trade, apparently having decided that having four sons of former MLB or international baseball stars on their roster was enough.) On paper it looks like Villar amassed fewer than 10 steals each in the AL and the NL, but in reality, he stole more bases than anybody he played against in the eastern "League". His 16 steals were one more than Trevor Story had, and yet Story has some black ink on his ledger, for leading the Senior Circuit, whereas Villar does not get credit for the second time he led his competition in steals (he had 62 in 2016 with Milwaukee, which easily led the NL). </p><p>I have also listed the Wins Above Replacement leaders from both Baseball Reference (bWAR) and Fangraphs (fWAR) as well as the position players who I thought might be considered the Rookie of the Year for each region. In this case, the bWAR and fWAR in two of the three regions both agree on Freeman and Betts. Mookie Betts leads both WAR types, both in the NL and in the "west" thanks largely to his stellar defense in addition to his excellent hitting and base running skills. Despite not leading the West in any of the individual stats (he hit .292 with 16 HR and 10 steals), he appears to have been the best overall player, in his or any division or league. </p><p>As for the Central, if the BBWAA were deciding they would probably give it to Abreu, who led middle America in both homers and RBI. But Jose Ramirez essentially carried the entire Cleveland offense, and played stellar defense at the hot corner to boot (or, you know, <i>not to boot</i>, which is what you're trying to do when you play third base), so I might give the MVP to him if I had the chance. </p><p><b>And Now for the Rookies...</b></p><p><u>EAST</u>: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bohmal01.shtml" target="_blank">Alec Bohm</a> did not play the whole year but when the Phillies called him up, he hit .338 in 44 games with gap power (11 doubles, 4 HR) and didn't totally embarrass himself on defense. Only one MLB rookie with at least 160 at-bats has hit better than that in a season since Ichiro burst on the scene hitting and AL leading .350 in 2001. (Trea Turner hit .342 in 307 at-bats in 2016.) Maybe if the Phillies can upgrade some of that <a href="https://theathletic.com/2004447/2020/08/18/a-bullpen-debacle-years-in-the-making-how-did-the-phillies-get-here/" target="_blank">dumpster fire of a bullpen</a> of theirs, they'll have something to build on next season. OK, probably not. </p><p><u>CENTRAL</u>: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roberlu01.shtml" target="_blank">Luis Robert</a> hit just .233, but keep in mind that the <i>major leagues as a whole hit just .245</i>, the lowest mark since 1972 (.244), which was so terrible that half of the owners voted to implement the DH and old people have been whining about it ever since. Also keep in mind that Robert hit 11 homers and 8 doubles, stole 9 of 11 bases in just 202 at-bats, and played <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/luis-robert-is-already-an-elite-defensive-center-fielder" target="_blank">stellar defense in center field</a>. Extrapolate that out to a full season and you're talking about a Gold Glove rookie knocking on the door of the 30-30 club. </p><p><u>WEST</u>: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lewisky01.shtml" target="_blank">Kyle Lewis</a> is another rookie centerfielder, albeit not as good defensively as Robert. He also hit 11 homers, and hit .268 and took a walk more than once every other game, giving him the best OBP among rookies in the AL. </p><p><br /></p><p>Tomorrow I'll look at the pitchers and see who I think should win the MVP and Cy Young awards for each region. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-86755435121631272822020-09-27T18:35:00.005-04:002021-02-16T22:29:08.173-05:00The 2020 Yankees: So Streaky, Even Facing the Twins May Not Save Them... <p><span style="font-family: times;">People sometimes talk about a team being "consistently inconsistent," meaning that they never seem to string together a winning (or losing) streak of more than a few games.</span></p><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;">The <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2020.shtml" target="_blank">2020 Yankees</a> are, I think, bette</span><span style="font-family: times;">r described as "inconsistently consistent," i.e. that they seem consistent for a while, and just when you think you know who they are, they do a 180. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;">Here is a schematic of their season results:</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><img alt="" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="790" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG1aF4nyKM_v96GWs4wEa9zSE86C2vR-QETO8I9R_CVhCTegIu5fou8cJLPbKHNvGB4DRV7Vq4SLrKVeIMIBQ7bOeEOx3_cSNzBZLPRKshfx8j9F83n8APkzhbfomlAIQtN2tuUQ/w415-h230/image.png" width="415" /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;">Green markers, above the reference line, are Wins, and red ones are Losses, with the margin of victory (or defeat) indicated by the size. The bar is capped at 10 runs, so the Yankees' 20-6 win against the Jays looks just like their 13-2 win the next night and their 12-1 win earlier this week. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">You can see the problem. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i1f9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>They won 8 of their first 9. </li><li>Then they lost 5 of the next 7. </li><li>Then they won six in a row. </li><li>Then they lost seven in a row. </li><li>Then they won 4 out of 5. </li><li>Then they lost 7 of 8. </li><li>Then they rattled off 10 straight wins(!), which included sweeping Toronto, outscoring them 43-15 in a 3-game set, and setting a new record with 19 homers in a series. </li><li>And now they've lost five of their last six, despite having most of the team back and ostensibly healthy. </li></ul></div><br /><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fc4i3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">Somehow, despite finally enjoying the presence of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/torregl01.shtml" target="_blank">Gleyber Torres</a>, and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/judgeaa01.shtml" target="_blank">Aaron Judge</a>, and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stantmi03.shtml" target="_blank">Giancarlo Stanton</a>, and Urshela and LeMahieu and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hicksaa01.shtml" target="_blank">Aaron Hicks</a> - all players who have spent some time on the injured list this season, some more on it than off - the Yankees still have not been able to stave off either the Blue Jays or the Marlins. </div></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;">The Jays, despite being four games over .500, have actually been outscored a little this season (292-303). Similarly, the Marlins are two games over .500 but have actually been outscored a LOT this season (254-293). Two teams that not only shouldn't come close to making the playoffs in a "normal" year, but probably shouldn't even have winning records <i>this</i> year, have both clinched a playoff berth at the Yankees' expense in two consecutive nights. It was hard to watch.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;">I dunno what any of this means, but I find it interesting, and a little disconcerting heading into the playoffs. How can a team that can't even beat the <i>Marlins</i>, let alone the Tampa Bay Rays, an actual <u>good</u> team, win a championship? </span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><span style="font-family: times;">I mean, obviously the Dodgers would have to be the favorite, but the Dodgers have notoriously choked in several postseasons since their last World Series win in 1988, and especially with the bizarre way the playoffs are set up this year, you would have to think it's anybody's game. </span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">As things stand now, the Yankees could face the Twins in the first round*, which under normal circumstances would be a <i>guaranteed win</i>. For one thing, the Twins have not won a playoff game since 2004, which was three presidents ago. It was so long that Destiny's Child was still together. So long that the iPhone was still almost three years away. So long ago that <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20041214005373/en/America-Online-Unveils-Top-Searches-for-2004">Hilary Duff was the most searched name on AOL</a>. Also, AOL was still important. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="position: relative; text-align: left;"><i>*Sorry, I wrote most of this before the final couple of games of the season, and it now looks like the <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-picture" target="_blank">Yankees will have to face the Indians in the first round</a>. So, take the rest of this post for what you will. Maybe the Twins will somehow beat the Astros and the Yankees can face them in the ALDS or something. </i></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div>Second, in case you hadn't heard, the Yankees have <i>owned</i> the Twins for the better part of the last two decades. The Yankees are an astonishing 119-39* against Minnesota since 2002, including 16-2 in the playoffs, spanning five different series and a Wild Card game. They have won more than 75% of their games against the Twins, which is the best record any team has against anybody over that span, and might be the best record any team has ever had against another team over so long a time. To be fair, the Yankees and Twins have not played each other this year because of the weird COVID rules, so it's hard to know how they match up in 2020. But still. Winning more than 3 out of every four contests for 18 years???</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"> How dominant is that? Here are two comparisons:</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0"><b><u>1. The 1936-53 Yankees vs. Browns</u></b></span> </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">Back in the so-called Golden Age of Baseball (really just the Golden Age of New York, specifically <i>New York Yankee</i>, Baseball), the St. Louis Browns were a perennial doormat in the Junior Circuit. During their last 18 years in St. Louis, they won barely 40% of their games overall, and that includes three winning seasons, so you can surely imagine how awful they usually were in the other ones. They were so terrible that the owners thought they could make more money in Baltimore, which had not had a franchise since 1902. They lost 100+ games five times and 90+ games six other times. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">Sure, they <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SLB/1944.shtml">went to a World Series in 1944</a>, but that was still during WWII, when a lot of the best players were wearing olive and khaki uniforms instead of pinstripes or gray flannels. That team only won 89 games in the regular season, and had only two players with double digit homers, one who hit .300, and one with 100 RBIs. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">Other than <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stephve01.shtml" target="_blank">Vern Stephens</a> at shortstop, the lineup was pretty forgettable, as was the pitching staff. About half of the players were out of MLB by 1945 or '46, pushed out by the players returning from military service. Many had never been in MLB before the War, or had only come out of retirement when younger, healthier and better players were conscripted to fight the Nazis. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">In 1945, the Browns were so desperate they tried a one-armed outfielder named Pete Gray. Later, with Bill Veeck at the helm, they hired a midget for one game, as a promotional stunt, to try to boost attendance. <a href="https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/inside-pitch/grandstand-managers-night" target="_blank">They once played a game with the fans giving managerial advice via placards that were handed out at the gate</a>, and they brought 45-year old <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/paigesa01.shtml" target="_blank">Satchel Paige</a> out of retirement. All of that happened in 1951. Within about a month. They were bad. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="df9f4-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEut82MK66077BZXe0VSJFcBfyEf0R5Zim31u9ZfP6Uj7AVnmOUOWX0xBMYjkfhx08m57CBfm6RPyfJDM-b0ZycXxmPydMlQ3Tonp2jwwjDPHvg41s1LO2tG7BWW-hxS-2zvXUg//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEut82MK66077BZXe0VSJFcBfyEf0R5Zim31u9ZfP6Uj7AVnmOUOWX0xBMYjkfhx08m57CBfm6RPyfJDM-b0ZycXxmPydMlQ3Tonp2jwwjDPHvg41s1LO2tG7BWW-hxS-2zvXUg/w250-h333/image.png" width="250" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Small in stature...but also in attendance. And winning percentage. </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Meanwhile, in that same 18-year span (1936-1953) the Yankees won 13 AL pennants and a dozen World Series. They developed eleven future Hall of Famers, not to mention many other stars. They had a winning record every year, and finished lower than third just once, in 1945, when the likes of Tuck Stainback and Mike Garback manned CF and catcher instead of Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra, who were in the service. But otherwise, they were a perennial juggernaut, and a regular winner. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Imagine almost two decades in which the same team won, on average, two out of every three World Series. That's baseball (<a href="https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/yankees-suzyn-waldman-1.29148226">Suzyn</a>) in the "Golden Age". </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anyway, those Yankee teams faced the lowly Browns 22 or 23 times per season - there were only eight teams in the AL at the time - and regularly trounced them, amassing a 272-124 (68.7%) record against them in that time. And even that winning percentage is well shy of how dominant the Yankees of the 21st century have been against Minnesota - which has actually had some pretty <u>good</u> teams - since 2002. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><u>B. The 1998 & 1927 Yankees vs. The Field</u></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Or, to look at it another way, the 1998 Yankees, widely considered one of the greatest baseball teams of all time, went 114-48 in the regular season and 11-2 in the playoffs, winning the first of three straight championships. If there is another claimant to the title of Greatest MLB Team ever, it is perhaps the Yankees' <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1927.shtml" target="_blank">1927 Murderers Row squad</a>, who went 111-44 in the regular season and then swept the Pirates, 4-0, in the World Series. And even those teams "only" won 71.4% and 72.8% of their games, respectively, including their postseason heroics.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLJk78z3w5PzBwNnhrpVdR8B5STDaM__hs2tPr3cYiDtnpfZVgu2loY4-kO9-hJZsoZwECCDAuV3dCp6pSIwgrpQ2Zn-fo7HFi79zjPMK4hzjYiHm4ndb_Yo16ouVyQh-1u2Mmg//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="660" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLJk78z3w5PzBwNnhrpVdR8B5STDaM__hs2tPr3cYiDtnpfZVgu2loY4-kO9-hJZsoZwECCDAuV3dCp6pSIwgrpQ2Zn-fo7HFi79zjPMK4hzjYiHm4ndb_Yo16ouVyQh-1u2Mmg/w416-h314/image.png" width="416" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>The Twins are at the bottom of the pile, obviously. </b></div><br />The Yankees' winning percentage against the Twins since 2002 (75.3%) would equate to a 122-Win regular season team, which no team in history has come close to achieving. So the 2002-2019 Yankees have actually been better against the Twins than either the 1927 Yankees or the 1998 Yankees were against, well, <u>everybody</u>. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, this Yankees team is neither those. The 1927 team famously used only 25 players on its roster the entire season. Literally nobody got hurt, <i>ever</i>, whereas these 2020 Yankees can't seem to stay of the injured list for more than a week. The 1998 Yankees lost more than three in a row only once all season (they had a 4-game streak in August), and only lost three in a row three times all year. </div><div><br /></div><div>But this 2020 team' propensity for being maddeningly unlike, well, itself from one week to the next could spell doom for them in the playoffs. They'll likely be on the road against the Twins for that 3-game series, were they have only a 11-18 record (compared to 21-8 at home). Moreover, the Twins are 23-6 at home this season, so this could be the year the curse of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/kellyto01.shtml" target="_blank">Tom Kelly</a> (??) is finally broken. </div><div><br /></div><div>Or, the fact that the Yankees have been pretty terrible this week might indicate that they're ready to go on a tear, and sweep through the early rounds of the playoffs. It's anybody's guess. That's why they play the games. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Suzyn.</i> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-89432692622635792592020-08-18T15:42:00.002-04:002020-08-18T15:42:18.508-04:00Tatis' Grand Slam, and Writing about Unwritten Rules<br /><br />Hoo-boy... <br /><br />I dunno if y'all heard about this one, but Fernando Tatis hit two homers! The second one when his team was already leading by quite a little piece! A lot of people were really upset about this, apparently. Fernando Tatis owes the pitcher an apology! The nerve! Hitting a grand slam - his second homer of the game! - when his team already had a significant lead! How *dare* he?? <br /><br /><br />Oh, wait, No, not <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">last night</a>. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">*This* game</a>, from 1999.<br /><br /><br />In that game, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Fernando Tatis SENIOR</a> hit two homers, actually two grand slams, IN THE SAME INNING, both off <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Chan Ho Park</a> of the Dodgers. In Sr.'s case, they had a 7-2 lead in the third inning - due largely to his first grand slam of the inning - and would go on to win 12-5. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/5c/15cf362a-72d6-5c91-b5e4-3b76b2bd191d/5addce0dcea55.image.jpg?resize=500%2C523" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Actually, now that I think of it, <i>nobody</i> told him he should have laid down and coasted after that first homer. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">MLB actually celebrates it</a>! Someone writes a story and shows the video every year on the anniversary. Sure, it was a smaller lead, earlier in the game, and he swung at a 3-2 pitch (his first one came on a 2-0 pitch), but still. The parallel is there at some level. <br /><br /><br />OK, it's weak, I admit, but I'm trying to make a point here:<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tatisfe01.shtml">Fernando Tatis <i>The First</i></a> had easily his best season in 1999. In January, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">his son was born</a>, which was probably pretty exciting. After floundering with the Rangers for a couple of seasons, he'd been traded to the Cardinals at the deadline in 1998 and played well enough down the stretch and in spring training in 1999 to win the starting 3B job outright. <div><br /></div><div>He rewarded the team by hitting homers in each of his first three games that year, and he continued to hit. The two-grand-slam game was bracketed by games with homers before and after, and by early May his average was over .300, and he was on a 66-homer, 192 RBI pace. Obviously he cooled down after that, but overall, he would hit .298 with 34 homers, 104 Runs and 107 RBI as a 24-year old. He even stole 21 bases and walked 82 times! <br /><br /><br />All would turn out to be career highs, as he was never fully healthy again. Sad face. <br /><br /><br />He played only parts of the next four seasons, hitting just 37 homers *total* from 2000 to 2003, then missed two whole years, then played a few games with the 4th place Orioles in 2006, then missed all of 2007, and then caught on as a part timer with some forgettable Mets teams (...or anyway <i>I </i>had forgotten them.) in the late 2000s. He won the dreaded Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year award in 2008, but even at that, he hit 11 homers in 92 games and was already 33 years old. His star had passed. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31JTzhdNtRewuPQQJ13c1rmURabrO53qz-2FuAFd2FSJ9xOa1J6HmrijRIcuBfuFQ7dPSksN0kO9rKKZ-HUMI2iuhPx2lv4ieZUwI3CFeNqSZAHZ3Ams-kju_lkkbA8eBQtjvgw/s640/baron+-+fernando+tatis.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />In short, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Fernando Tatis </a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">The Younger</a> should hit 'em while he can. Life is too short. Baseball careers are too short. For every Ken Griffey or Barry Bonds, a good player whose son would turn out to be one of the all-time greats, there are probably a dozen Tim Raines Jrs and Josh Barfields and Sean Burroughs and Kyle Drabeks who never make much of a mark in the majors, despite the accomplishments of their parents. Tatis and Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette all look like wonderful young players, the future of MLB. All three have already spend time on the injured list. Anything can happen. <br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0077722/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4976x3317+0+0/resize/840x560!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F47%2F7f%2Fe29f0ee7407e9f69c0f04d5d13c0%2Fhttps-delivery.gettyimages.com%2Fdownloads%2F1266888744.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />The real problem with these unwritten rules comes out in the quote from Rangers' manager Chris Woodward: </div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>“I think there’s a lot of unwritten rules that are constantly being challenged in today’s game. I didn’t like it, personally. You’re up by seven in the eighth inning; it’s typically not a good time to swing 3-0. It’s kind of the way we were all raised in the game.”</blockquote><br /><br /><br />Except we were <u><i>not</i></u> all raised that way. Apparently in Woodward's home territory in Southern California, and for that matter in Padres' manager Jayce Tingler's original stomping grounds in Missouri, maybe kids are raised not to ever swing at a 3-0 pitch. Even when it looks like a meatball and you've got the bases loaded. Or not to try to hit homers when your team is already winning by several runs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Kids in Latin America aren't raised that way. Those cultures tend to be a little less stuffy, a little less concerned about showing each other up. People get that it's a game, and that they're playing ball for a living, and that it's OK to find that exciting. The alternative for so many of them is destitute poverty, so why not get a little psyched if you've found a way out of that?? <br /><br /><br />But suburban American white kids often have it drilled into their heads that they should be calm and dignified and that they should not show up the opposition and that they should "act like they've been there before" even if they haven't. You hit your homer and keep your head down and trot around the bases - not too slow, not too fast - or he'll drill you (or worse yet, your teammate) in retaliation. <br /><br /><br />Well, Tatis <i>hasn't</i> been there before, and he wasn't "raised in the game" that way. (<i>Plus, apparently he missed the "take" sign.</i> :-/ ) He's 21, and he'd never hit a grand slam in the majors before. He'd never homered on a 3-0 pitch before. When you're that young, it's all new, and when you're that talented, you should be allowed to explore the depths of that talent. <br /><br /><br />Not for his sake, or anyway not <i>just</i> for his sake, but for <u>ours</u>. The fans. We're the whole reason he's here, he has this job to entertain us. And we want some damn excitement once in a while! This friggin' pandemic is hard enough on all of us without having to suffer through watching a talented youngster take a get-me-over fastball down the pipe on 3-0 with the bases loaded. Take a chance and enjoy it while you can! </div><div><br /></div><div>And let us enjoy it a little too. <br /><br /><br /></div>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-77643971131322463142020-08-12T12:51:00.006-04:002020-08-12T13:25:15.424-04:00What the DiMaggio-Williams Rivalry Can Teach us About Modern MVP Voting...<p>Welp, here I am again, going down another JoePos rabbit hole...</p><p><a href="https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/the-george-mcquinn-fiasco/comments">Today's baseball-in-the-time -of-COVID essay</a> details the inexplicable way in which <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/willite01.shtml">Ted Williams</a> managed to win his second Triple Crown in 1947 but lose the MVP by one point to <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dimagjo01.shtml">Joe DiMaggio</a>. Posnanski attributes it to the fact that the Yankees won their division by a dozen games and the writers did not often vote for players who were not on pennant winners or at least serious contenders in those days, not for first place in the MVP running, anyway. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2017/07/0607_oag-dimaggio-williams-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="800" height="430" src="https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2017/07/0607_oag-dimaggio-williams-2.jpg" width="556" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>He blames, perhaps rightly, the three first-place votes for the resurgent firstbaseman, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcquige02.shtml">George McQuinn</a>, who had been released by the Philadelphia Athletics a year before but hit over .300 for the Yankees as they won the AL pennant running away. McQuinn was out of MLB a year later after hitting just .248, but in the mean time it looked an awful lot like McQuinn was the reason they won. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e1/29/af/e129afe5b5634cb4861da7ef8ef0a0f2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="270" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e1/29/af/e129afe5b5634cb4861da7ef8ef0a0f2.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Personally, I thought the seven first place votes given to Yankees super-reliever <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pagejo01.shtml">Joe Page</a> had more to do with it than that, but in any case, The Kid Lost and the Yankee Clipper won, and that was that. </p><p>However, this McQuinn "correlation = causality" argument reminds me of the 2003 AL MVP vote. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stewash01.shtml">Shannon Stewart</a> got traded to the Twins for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kieltbo01.shtml">Bobby Kielty</a> and a PTBNL at the All Star break. They were 44-49 at the time, but they went 46-23 in the second half, the best record in baseball. Stewart hit .322 with 6 homers and 38 RBI (2.6 bWAR), which made it <i>seem</i> like Stewart was the reason they were winning. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/423c70e8-3b84-4d49-8a5f-c2f3216a2913_1.d174b1e5b7dc8033bd5a066fe07ed1da.jpeg?odnWidth=612&odnHeight=612&odnBg=ffffff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="612" src="https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/423c70e8-3b84-4d49-8a5f-c2f3216a2913_1.d174b1e5b7dc8033bd5a066fe07ed1da.jpeg?odnWidth=612&odnHeight=612&odnBg=ffffff" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>In reality, the team as a whole hit almost exactly as well in the second half (779 OPS) as they had in the first (768), even though Stewart himself was markedly better than the guy he largely replaced in the lineup, Bobby Kielty, had been. The lineup did average almost 5.4 runs per game after the break, compared to 4.6 before, but that must have been due to the timeliness of their hitting more than its overall quality. </p><p>In fact it was the <i>pitching staff</i> that got its act together in the second half, pitching to a 3.96 ERA, compared to the 4.74 they had racked up before the break. In particular <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/radkebr01.shtml">Brad Radke</a> and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rogerke01.shtml">Kenny Rogers</a> both pitched notably better, and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/santajo02.shtml">Johan Santana</a> just pitched <i>more</i>, as the Twins finally realized tat he should be starting every 5th day. </p><p>At around the same time, the White Sox traded for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/evereca01.shtml">Carl Everett</a>, another outfielder who really picked up his game after being traded. He hit .301 with 10 homers and 41 RBIs (2.0 bWAR) for the Pale Hose, and Chicago went 41-27 in the second half, after playing 5 games<i> under</i> .500 in the first half. Simultaneously, the first-place, 51-41 Royals (!) went back in the tank for the second half (32-38) and fell to third. </p><p>And for what it's worth, at around the same time the Blue Jays, who had traded Stewart away, <i>also played better in the second half</i>. Using the same logic, then, this would suggest that Stewart's <u>absence</u> was the reason the Jays started winning, which is only slightly more silly a suggestion than the previous one. </p><p>In any case, Everett didn't get a single MVP vote of any kind (nor, for that matter, did Bobby Kielty), while Stewart got three first place votes and finished 4th overall! So, what gives? </p><p>Well, there were two things at play here:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The Twins ended up winning their division by four games over the White Sox. In particular, they went 5-2 against Chicago in September, in the heat of the pennant race, including a three-game sweep at home that was part of an 11-game winning streak which effectively put the last nail in the coffin for the ChiSox. They went from two games <i>behind</i> Chicago on September 9th, after losing to the White Sox twice in a row, to 3.5 games up on Chicago on September 18th, after that sweep. So the optics were there, the Twins literally overtaking the White Sox down the stretch, even if Stewart himself didn't especially do anything remarkable in those particular games or in the pennant drive in particular (he hit .289 with zero homers in September). </li><li>Jayson Stark, senior baseball writer on ESPN.com and regular contributor to ESPN's various online and cable TV products, such as <i>SportsCenter</i> and <i>Mike & Mike in the Morning</i>, was <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=1626319">lobbying hard for Stewart to get the MVP</a>. </li></ol><p></p><p>Admittedly, others made this argument as well (Mark Sheldon from MLB.com, Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, who may have had a bit of a home bias) but none with as large an audience or as much clout in the world of baseball journalism as Stark. Stark has made something of a career of finding interesting looking numbers in baseball and writing about them, but of course just because they're interesting - or more to the point, just because they correlate with winning - does not necessarily mean they're meaningful or causal. </p><p>My favorite, which I learned about in<i> Psychology I</i> as a freshman at Lehigh, is the <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/super-bowl-indicator/">Superbowl indicator</a>. From 1967-1997, the conference that won the SuperBowl correlated at 90% with the way the Dow Jones finished, though there is really no good causal explanation for this. My psych professor used it to remind us that <i><b>correlation never implies causality</b></i>, an expression he repeated so often that I can still hear his voice in my head as I type it out, now almost 27 years later. </p><p>Likewise, there is no more reason to believe that McQuinn deserved all the credit for the success of the 1947 Yankees than that Stewart deserved it for the 1997 Twins. Or that the Superbowl conference winner deserves credit for the stock market finishing up (or down). But it's an easy case to make, and harder to disprove when the optics seem to support it. </p><p>In 1947, nobody had the kind of audience that Stark did in 2003, but writers like Dick Young or Jimmy Cannon probably had wider readership than just about anybody else out there, writing for the New York papers, and may have advocated for McQuinn's votes with their fellow writers as well as their readers. </p><p>We'll probably never know, exactly. But it's interesting to consider how these decisions may have been made. None of them occurs in a vacuum, and the modern day decision makers (if indeed 2003 can even be considered "modern day" anymore) are not immune to the same kinds of flawed lines of logic. </p>Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-50754731608135619812020-07-30T16:36:00.002-04:002020-08-18T15:46:40.899-04:00Missing the Markakis in the Quest for 3,000<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The news today that <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/markani01.shtml" target="_blank">Nick Markakis</a> is to <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29559679/nick-markakis-changes-mind-opts-play-braves" target="_blank">rejoin the Braves</a>, having changed his mind about opting out due to concerns over COVID-19 reminded me of <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/nick-markakis-has-a-real-chance-at-3-000-hits-c275175746" target="_blank">this article I read on MLB.com</a> more than two years ago, in which the possibility of Markakis eventually getting to 3,000 career hits was discussed. That article was inspired by <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/nick-markakis-fantasy-stats-chance-for-3000-hits-atlanta-braves-highlights/f8xt1vfn7n881m569c0qofw3t" target="_blank">another one from the Sporting News</a>, which I did not read at the time.<br />
<br />
But I read the first one with interest because Joe Posnanski wrote it, and he's like, my hero and stuff, and because it was on the official website of Major League Baseball. If MLB says it, well, it must be worth considering! Joe apparently either read the article in TSN on his own or was alerted to it by an editor who asked him to run with the theme of whether Markakis had a real shot at the 3,000 hit club.<br />
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The theory, at the time, basically went like this:<br />
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<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Markakis already had over 2,000 hits, and was "only" 34 years old.</li>
<li>Markakis was off to a <u>really</u> hot start (hitting .336 with walks and power when the article was posted online). </li>
<li>Other players in the 3,000-hit club (Rickey, Raffy, Winfield, Biggio) were actually behind Markakis' hit-pace at that age</li>
<li>Markakis plays almost every day, so he doesn't have to be awesome to get his hits. </li>
</ul>
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The other factor, possibly, was that the original article was written by a Braves' homer with a deadline to meet. Dave Jordan wrote that article for TSN, but I can't find anything else he's ever written for them. He appears to have covered sports for the Brunswick (GA) News in 2015, but not since then. His Facebook page says he did the same for the Chatsworth (GA) Times, but it is not clear when or for how long. He appears to be now retired, though he still comments frequently on Georgia sports issues. Old habits die hard, I guess.<br />
<br />
The article itself is full of the kinds of meaningless tidbits you tend to see in local sports pages from home-friendly writers, quasi-analysis to justify his take (focused mostly on Markakis' durability and seemingly favorable comparisons). That, and quotes from his manager or hitting coach about how "driven" he is or how he "never lets off the pedal", and from the player himself about how he tries not to over think things and to takes it one day at a time.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmCd5LqRDOV2iUiwK6KvAA0EBviW3-6TariNKjDwk85WYopZIiWgmpCNFomjllagtDWDGM1PN6LFckNikMU7kn_fODokgECTVCgI0CDJrCVICFENLo7gtWPKlYM_I8DbLDMeLNw/s509/happy+to+be+here.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="509" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmCd5LqRDOV2iUiwK6KvAA0EBviW3-6TariNKjDwk85WYopZIiWgmpCNFomjllagtDWDGM1PN6LFckNikMU7kn_fODokgECTVCgI0CDJrCVICFENLo7gtWPKlYM_I8DbLDMeLNw/s0/happy+to+be+here.JPG" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Posnanski's take on it was a little more nuanced, a little more guarded, though he exaggerated a bit:<br /><div><br /><blockquote> Then Markakis settled into being, well, the sort that scouts will call "a professional ballplayer." They're all professionals, if you want to be technical about it, but Markakis was one of those guys who went out there every day and, without fanfare, without flash, without fail, just did his job. He hit around .300. You could count on him for 40-plus doubles and 20 or so homers. He played a solid outfield. One year he led the league in sacrifice flies.<br /> <br />Markakis was the kind of guy who would lead the league in sacrifice flies.</blockquote><br /> <br /> In reality, Markakis had not hit 20 homers in a decade by then, and had not hit 40 doubles since 2010 (though he would end up hitting 43 in 2018). The problem with saying that a player does his job "without fanfare, without flash" is that while the phrase implies that you won't see the kind of antics you see from the likes of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Wille Mays Hayes</a>, what we really mean is that the player is not excellent at anything.<br />
<br />
He hits for a <i>decent</i> average. He has <i>modest</i> power. He <i>doesn't make mistakes</i> on the basepaths (indeed, because he rarely takes chances). He plays <i>solid (or serviceable)</i> defense. The top comps for Markakis include the likes of Buddy Bell, Cesar Cedeno, Al Oliver, and Bill Buckner. Guys who you might describe as "pretty good for a long time" and not a whole lot more. There are worse things to be described as than "workmanlike" but it rarely gets you to the Hall of Fame, and anyway those guys tend to peter out by age 37 or so.<br />
<br />
Speaking of comparisons, Pos compared Markakis to the<a href="https://stathead.com/tiny/pVB1z" target="_blank"> eerily similar Johnny Damon at that age</a>. Their numbers were nearly identical at the time, and Damon would go on to have four more productive seasons after age 33.<br />
<br />
Then, he just disappeared.<br />
<br />
Damon hit .222 in 61 games in 2012 and was released by Cleveland, never to play again. He was, and will likely forever remain, 231 hits shy of 3,000 and an all-but-certain Hall of Fame election. As it was, when his name first appeared on the ballot, he got 1.9% of the vote and was removed from the running, probably forever. The fact that he ranks 330 (!) players better in career bWAR than recent Cooperstown inductee Harold Baines is unlikely to help him much. <br />
<br />
Posnanski cited <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/billjames" target="_blank">Bill James' Favorite Toy</a>, his milestone prediction tool, which at the time gave Markakis a 28% chance of reaching 3,000 hits. That sounds about right, maybe even a little high. Certainly not as optimistic as Dave Jordan seemed to be. Posnanski talked about how Markakis would need to have a really incredible career from there on out to have a real shot at it, a Raul-Ibanez-kind of second half (or latter third) of his career, which of course are few and far between. <br />
<br />
For what's it's worth, I really did not buy it at the time, but the take looks particularly bad now, more than two years later. Why? Well, for one thing, latter-half careers like the one Ibanez had don't come around very often. It appears that Ibanez was probably better than the Mariners realized at the time (also he was a disaster on defense), so they kept running a cavalcade of former stars out to left field instead of giving Ibanez a real shot: Rich Amaral, Rickey Henderson, Brian Hunter, Glenallen Hill. Finally Ibanez became a free agent and signed with the Royals, for whom "disaster" was just one of many typical adjectives to describe them, so why not! He hit well in his first season (though he did not qualify for a batting title for the first time until he was 30) and he didn't stop hitting for more than a decade!<br />
<br />
But Markakis has been around for a decade and a half at this point. He's a known commodity, and therefore unlikely to suddenly "break out" as Ibanez did, because he's already had 14 years in which to prove he can be something more than "workmanlike" and has yet to do so.<br />
<br />
Also, Markakis has a few things going against him that he did not at the time:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>After that hot start in 2018 (he was hitting .354 with an OPS just north of 1.000 at the end of play on May 5th) he essentially went back to being the "professional ballplayer" he's always been, hitting .282/.346/.407 the rest of the 2018 season, almost exactly in line with his career totals prior to 2018 (.288/.358/.422). </li>
<li>While his rate numbers did not suffer in 2019 (.285/.356/.420) he missed significant time last year, for only the second time in his career. He got hit on the wrist by a pitch and missed almost two months, playing in only 116 games total, and amassing only 118 more hits, 55 fewer than he had averaged in his previous six seasons. </li>
<li>He, like everyone else, will have missed about 100 games this season due to COVID-19. That's probably cost him about 100 more hits, given his standard production. </li>
</ul>
That's basically a whole season worth of games lost between last year and this, games he can never get back. <br /><ul style="text-align: left;">
</ul>
Actually, Markakis will have missed even more, since he opted out on July 6th and has therefore not been working out with the team, and so cannot just show up at the stadium and expect to get his name in the lineup tonight <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191397/" target="_blank">like the hero in some cheesy sports rom-com</a>. Maybe he comes back quickly and misses, say, only 10 games total of the 2020 season. That still means he has less than a third of a true season to play this year, maybe 50 games total. <br />
<br />
At his usual rate of production (assuming no deterioration of skills due to age, which is unlikely) we might expect Markakis to get about 50 hits in a little over 200 plate appearances. That will give him a little more than 2,400 hits for his career, as he heads into his age 37 season.<br />
<br />
But it's actually even worse than that. The outfield crop for the Braves is pretty crowded already without Markakis:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Ronald Acuna, one of the bet players in the game, has center field nailed down. </li>
<li>Marcell Ozuna is just 29, which happens also to be the number of homers he hit last season, to go with a dozen steals. Sure, <a href="https://securea.mlb.com/mlb/images/players/head_shot/542303.jpg" target="_blank">his beard is ridiculous</a>, but the man can hit. </li>
<li>Adam Duvall may have hit 30+ homers a couple of times, but he's basically a backup at this point in his career. He's an ideal platoon partner, as he tends to struggle against righties while crushing lefties. </li>
<li>Scott Schebler and Ender Inciarte are both lefty batters, like Markakis, though both with something to offer that Markakis does not. Schebler has some pop (he hit 30 homers for the Reds in 2017) and Inciarte has speed and defense. He's stolen 20+ bases three times, and has won three (deserved) Gold Gloves. (Admittedly Markakis also has three of them, but he had a negative dWAR in each of those three seasons. <a href="http://www.fieldingbible.com/the-winners.asp" target="_blank">The Fielding Bible awards</a> write-ups have never even mentioned him, much less awarded him anything.) </li>
</ul>
The Braves, like everyone this year, can also use a DH, but they already have Matt Adams, a lefty hitter with 20+ homers each of the last three seasons, albeit with batting averages below .250 in two of those seasons. Adams cannot hit lefties (no seasons above .220 since 2016) but then neither can Markakis, as we will see...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/07/nick-markakis-to-re-join-braves.html" target="_blank">Reports suggest that Markakis is expected to be a platoon player</a> whenever he does come back. This makes some sense, as Markakis has not been great against lefties for quite a while, and fared particularly poorly against them last season, hitting just .245 (compared to .298 against RHPs).<br />
<br />
In the last seven seasons, dating all the way back to 2013, Markakis has <i>averaged</i> .269 with about one home run a year against southpaws, compared to .286 with 9 homers per season against righties. Still not great, but serviceable.<br />
<br />
And therein lies the problem. Players who are "not great, but serviceable" do not amass 3,000+ hits. Especially when they fit that category <u>only</u> against right handed pitchers, and have really never gotten above that level in their whole careers.<br />
<br />
Everyone - literally everyone - who eventually reached that 3,000-hit plateau was legitimately excellent at some point in his career, usually for quite a while, and often at more than one aspect of the game. Thirty two different players have at least 3,000 hits and among them, they <i>averaged</i> more than eleven .300+ batting average seasons per career and almost three batting titles each, and none had fewer than four seasons of hitting .300 or better.<br />
<br />
Markakis has only two such seasons, 2007 and 2008, when he hit .300 and .306, respectively. So he has not hit .300 for a season in a dozen years, and has never come close to a batting title.<br />
<br />
Even those in the 3K club who did not hit .300 often had incredible longevity, generally bolstered by other skills and/or their status as an icon in the game or for their particular franchise:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Carl Yastrzemski "only" hit .300 six times, but he also won three batting titles including a Triple Crown in 1967. He played in an era in which batting averages were low for everyone, famously winning the AL batting title in 1968 hitting just .301, the only player in the Junior Circuit to hit .300 that season.) He was a Red Sox icon who played for 23 seasons, was still an everyday player at age 39, and a serviceable part timer after that. </li>
<li>Eddie Murray never won a batting title, but he led the majors hitting .330 in 1990 for the Dodgers despite not actually leading his league. How? Willie McGee was hitting .335 in 501 at-bats with the Cardinals when he got traded to Oakland, where he hit only .274 against American League pitchers, bringing his MLB season average down to .324. However, he had enough plate appearances to qualify for the NL batting title already, so he won it instead of Murray. In any case, Murray hit .300 or better seven times and amassed more than 500 homers (including 20+ at ages 39 and 40). They called him Steady Eddie for a reason, not just the rhyme. </li>
<li>Cal Ripken Jr. hit .300+ only four times, and never won a batting title, but he played in over 3,000 games, including several of them consecutively, as I understand it. </li>
<li>Adrian Beltre, Robin Yount and Rafael Palmiero each hit .300 or better six times but did not win a batting title between them. Beltre and Raffy both hit for power and almost never missed a game. Beltre almost never walked, either, which gave him more chances for hits. Beltre and Yount both played excellent defense at key positions (whereas Markakis is a replaceable right fielder). Also, Yount was washed up at age 37, the age Markakis will be in 2021. He only got to 3,000 because he was a regular at the age of 18. </li>
<li>Craig Biggio and Dave Winfield each hit .300 or better four times without winning a batting title, but Winfield was still productive into his 40s (he hit .290/26/108 for the 1992 Blue Jays at the age of 40) and hung on for a few years as a bat-for-hire to get his 3,000th hit. Biggio was, frankly, kind of an albatross around the neck of the Astros' offense by the last few seasons of his career, but by then he was a demigod in Houston, so he got his at-bats.</li>
<li>Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock never won a batting title, but each hit .300+ more than half a dozen times, and both were after the career stolen base record (and others, in Rickey's case) late in their careers, so they got to stick around long enough to amass 3,000 hits. </li>
<li>Others in the 3K club who never won a batting title include Derek Jeter, Paul Molitor and Eddie Collins, but they each hit .300 or better at least a dozen times! </li>
<li>And the rest of those 32 players? Most of them were so good, you know them by their nicknames: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rosepe01.shtml" target="_blank">Charlie Hustle</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/aaronha01.shtml" target="_blank">Hammer</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cobbty01.shtml" target="_blank">The Georgia Peach</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/musiast01.shtml" target="_blank">The Man</a>, The Machine, Tris, Cap, Flying Dutchman, Say Hey, Nap, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gwynnto01.shtml" target="_blank">Mr. Padre</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kalinal01.shtml" target="_blank">Mr. Tiger</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/suzukic01.shtml" target="_blank">Ichiro</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rodrial01.shtml" target="_blank">A-Rod</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wanerpa01.shtml" target="_blank">Big Poison</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/boggswa01.shtml" target="_blank">Chicken Man</a>. </li>
<li>Also <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/carewro01.shtml" target="_blank">Rod Carew</a>, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/brettge01.shtml" target="_blank">George Brett</a> and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/clemero01.shtml" target="_blank">Roberto Clemente</a>, who each hit .300+ more than ten times and won at least three batting titles, despite not having a good nickname. All of them are absolute icons of MLB history, often the best player in their franchises' history. </li>
</ul>
<br />
So there you have it:<br />
<br />
The road to 3,000 hits is either to hit .300 early and often, or to stick around forever compiling hits based on your other skills even while that ability has declined. Yes, everyone who has amassed 3,000+ hits is in the Hall of Fame, but as you've seen, each of those players brought something else to the table, too, often several things. Markakis fits none of those categories. He's never been an excellent hitter, topping out at what you might call "pretty good" more than a decade ago. He doesn't walk a ton, or steal bases, or hit for power, or play great defense, and now he doesn't even hit lefties at all.<br />
<br />
That same Predictor that gave him a 28% shot at it two-plus years ago? Well, if you give him credit for, say, 45 hits this year i.e. what we might expect from his normal production but in slightly reduced playing time due to the delays and being platooned, he would have exactly 2400 hits at the end of 2020. If we project out those 45 hits over, say 150 games (to account for the model not knowing about COVID-19), and use that in the <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/billjames/_/age/37/careertotal/2400/yearone/135/yeartwo/118/yearthree/185/goal/3000" target="_blank">Favorite Toy, he ends up with just a 7% chance at 3,000 hits</a>.<br />
<br />
And that is already giving him credit for a bunch of hits he doesn't yet have, and assumes that the 2021 season is something resembling normal, and that Markakis is playing in it. If he misses more time this year, or spends more time on the bench because Ozuna, Duvall, Inciarte and others are all more productive, that chance can drop to zero in a hurry. Markakis is only on a $4 million, one-year contract. That's a rounding error for the giant banking conglomerate that owns the Braves. They could drop him like a hot potato, and he might not catch on anywhere, like Damon.<br />
<br />
And all that talk about how he could get to 3,000 hits would seem silly in retrospect, if it doesn't already. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-83094819378514331512020-03-05T18:12:00.002-05:002020-08-18T15:47:56.512-04:00Ken Griffey Jr. and NL Gold Glove Voting Trends<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
One of the more fun aspects of Joe Posnanski's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=338920266763093" target="_blank">run-down</a> of the <a href="https://theathletic.com/1457115/2019/12/17/the-baseball-100-a-project-celebrating-the-greatest-players-in-history/" target="_blank">100 greatest players of all time over at The Athletic</a> is his tendency to go down into "rabbit holes". He'll chase something that takes his fancy and the next thing you know you've learned about all the notable players named after US Presidents, or about the Negro Leagues, or about whether Warren Spahn really threw a screwball. Or whatever.<br />
<br />
Also, I like that these articles often send me off into some rabbit hole of my own, usually due to some throwaway line in the article. Thrown away only because (I imagine) - with 100 of these articles to write in 100 days - Joe simply does not have time to chase down every one of these esoteric little tidbits, not because he doesn't want to.<br />
<br />
A few weeks ago it was about <a href="http://www.boyofsummer.net/2020/01/how-did-robin-roberts-lose-nl-mvp-in.html" target="_blank">how/why Robin Roberts somehow did not win the 1952 NL MVP</a> Award. The answer to that, the three or four of you who may have read my blog post will recall, was that the sportswriters were dumb and inexplicably voted for relief pitchers with unusually high Win totals on the merits of they'd never seen that before.<br /><br /> Today's rabbit hole comes from the article on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">player #48, Ken Griffey Jr.</a><br /> <br /></div><blockquote><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">Griffey was traded to Cincinnati by request just 10 or so weeks after he turned 30. He was good in his first year with the Reds — he hit 40 homers and slugged .556 — but for the first time since he was a rookie, he did not win a Gold Glove.* <br /> <br /><i> *The voters, oddly, gave a Gold Glove to Steve Finley instead. Look, over his career, Griffey won several Gold Gloves that, in retrospect, look questionable, but it’s entirely unclear how he could have lost the 2000 Gold Glove to Finley, who was playing with a bulging disc in his back and had well-below-average range that year. </i></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"></div></blockquote><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /> So this got me to looking into the history of NL outfield Gold Glove Awards.<br />
<br />
The first ones were given in 1957, but these were for all the major leagues. Willie Mays won one, of course, but so did Al Kaline of the Tigers and Minnie Minoso of the White Sox. The next year they split them up by leagues, and the NL winners were Mays, Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson.<br />
<br />
In those days they actually assigned ones to Left, Center and Right field, though that would change in 1961 when they just started giving them to any three outfielders, which meant (usually) Roberto Clemente and two center fielders. If you were assigned to Left, it was usually because you were not a good defender in the first place.<br />
<br />
From 1961-68, the NL Awards went to Mays, Clemente and someone else, usually Curt Flood. Those three won them <u>six years in a row</u>, the longest such stretch in history. Fifteen years earlier, White America would have never even see those three play. Think about that for a while. <br />
<br />
By 1969, Mays was 38, and played in only 117 games, so Pete Rose won "his" award. Then Curt Flood got himself embroiled in a legal controversy you may have heard of, so he was no longer playing in 1970, and Tommie Agee won that award instead, along with Rose and Clemente.<br />
<br />
In 1971, Rose and Agee were replaced by Bobby Bonds and Willie Davis. And <u>that</u> is the<i> last time until 1995</i> that two new players will the NL Gold Glove in the same year, almost a quarter of a century later.<br />
<br />
You see, I think Griffey's failure to win the 2000 NL Gold Glove comes down to what you might call "institutional inertia". The NL GG voters - managers and coaches - evidently rarely deviated much from whomever they had voted for last year. In the AL, though the number of different players winning Gold Glove awards in the outfield is nearly identical overall, there was a lot more year-to-year change than in the NL, for some reason. <br />
<br />
But for the NL, between 1962 and 2005, a span of 44 seasons, only three(!) times did two of the three outfield Gold Glove awards go to people who had not won it the previous year. The first was the one I just mentioned. The other two:<br />
<br />
1995: Finley, Grissom, Mondesi (Grissom, Barry Bonds and Darren Lewis had won in 1994)<br />
1997: Bonds, Mondesi and Larry Walker (following Bonds, Finley and Grissom in 1996)<br />
<br />
And that's the end of the list. In the other 41 seasons, no more than one change was made from the previous year, and seven times, no changes happened at all.<br />
<br />
I don't know if this means that those players really <i>were</i> that dominant or if it means the managers and coaches were just lazy and generally voted for whomever they listed last year, unless that player changed leagues, or positions or died or something. It's just an observation of a trend.<br />
<br />
Anyway, as for the NL Gold Glove situation in Y2K...<br />
<br />
In 1999, Finley, Andruw Jones and Larry Walker had won the NL Gold Gloves.<br />
<br />
Jones, was, of course, AMAZING in CF with 3.8 dWAR, not that anyone knew this at the time, since that statistic did not exist yet, but they knew he was awesome. That easily led all NL outfielders, which is to say that he deserved the award. Finley was 3rd in dWAR (1.9), a good distance behind Mike Cameron (2.6), but deserving, nonetheless. Larry Walker actually had the <i>worst defensive season of his career in 1999</i>, -1.2 dWAR, but he also threw out 13 runners in just 114 games, and those are the kinds of things voters remember, I suppose.<br />
<br />
In 2000, well, Finley and Jones were both still healthy and productive but Larry Walker was injured (because of course he was...) so who should the third OF award go to?<br />
<br />
If you look at dWAR among NL outfielders in 2000 (min 130 games), the top 3 were Jones (2.7), Tom Goodwin (1.4) and Griffey (1.3), with Richard Hidalgo (1.2) hot on their heels. Edmonds was 11th, at 0.4 dWAR. Finley was 18th (!), at exactly zero. But voters can be fooled by recency bias and by SportsCenter, so here we are. <br />
<br />
The trouble, I think, was that Griffey joined the NL in the same year as Jim Edmonds - who simply *looked* a lot more exciting out there in CF, made more SportsCenter highlights, etc. So, even though Griffey covered more ground, made more plays, etc., Edmonds had one more Assist, made one less Error, and that's as far as anyone probably looked at the numbers at that time. They likely never even thought much about Goodwin or Hidalgo of the fact that The Kid made 24 more Put Outs in CF than Edmonds.<br />
<br />
In 2006, the voting started to change in character. With the advent of better measuring sticks for defense, voters started paying more attention, doing more homework as it were, and the voting became less of a popularity contest. In 2011 they went back to awarding Left, Right and Center-fielders separately. In 2013 they incorporated a sabermetric element to account for 25% of the vote weight. And it's all helped.<br />
<br />
In the 14 most recent seasons, i.e. since 2006, only <i>three</i> times have the NL Gold Gloves been awarded to two or more of the previous year's winners. Just as many times, <u>all three winners</u> have been someone who did not win the previous year. And every year since 2006 has seen at least one brand new name appear on the list of awards, including eight seasons with two new names. Not just two who didn't win last year, but two who had <u>never</u> won before. <br />
<br />
But 20 years ago, none of that was happening. Steve Finley was winning the award despite being exactly average on defense. Rafael Palmeiro was winning the AL GG award for first base despite playing only 28 games there. Jermaine Dye won an AL Gold Glove that year, and he was straight up terrible! (In fact he only had a positive dWAR in a full season once in his 14-year career!) It was chaos!<br />
<br />
So yes, Griffey probably deserved that award in 2000. But since the same system had allowed him to win the award with a <i>negative</i> dWAR of his own twice (1992 and 1999) as well as in a season in which he played only 72 games (1995) perhaps the system does not owe him anything?<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-5729185298867104632020-01-21T13:42:00.002-05:002020-02-12T16:47:57.276-05:00Notes on the MLB HoF Voting before the 2020 Announcements<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Modern technology is great.<br />
<div>
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For the last decade or so, a small group of devoted fans, led by <a href="https://twitter.com/NotMrTibbs" target="_blank">Ryan Thibodaux</a>, has been collecting the <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!17003&ithint=file,xlsx&authkey=!ALD8BEbKmTajwcI" target="_blank">publicly and privately confessed Cooperstown voting results</a> from BBWAA members prior to the announcement of the actual vote, which is anticipated tonight at 6PM. Far from eliminating any tension or wonder before the official announcements, this serves only to increase it, or perhaps just change its nature. </div>
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Since we only know a portion of the voting results (they have a little over half of the ballots accounted for at this point) they also calculate the percentage and number of remaining ballots needed to make enshrinement, or to meet the 5% minimum requirement for staying on the ballot. They track not just which sportswriters voted for whom, but who they didn't vote for, if they did last year, and who they may have added to their ballot. Additions are coded in green, retractions in red. </div>
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Pete Abraham, for example, added Todd Helton and Billy Wagner to his ballot. Filip Bondy removed Gary Sheffield (in his 6th year of eligibility) but added Helton, Jeff Kent, Manny Ramirez and Larry Walker, in his 10th and final year. Bondy used all 10 of his available votes, so you can see why he would think Sheffield expendable, if it meant giving Walker one last chance at enshrinement. </div>
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Peter Gammons, on the other hand, <i>removed</i> Helton and Walker from his ballot, but added Kent. Gammons has also consistently voted for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, so I guess it's OK to be a loudmouth who jokes about reporters being killed or a cheater who uses drugs to improve his results, but being an awesome hitter in Colorado is somehow no longer acceptable behavior. Man, having his face on the $20 bill has really gone to Gammons' head. </div>
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Other curious things to note here:</div>
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<li><u>Derek Jeter is the only player named on every ballot so far. </u>With Mariano Rivera having finally broken the longstanding trend of non-unanimous voting results, writers have no good reason not to vote for an obvious Hall of Famer like Jeter except spite. Nobody can stand any longer on the logic of, "If Joe DiMaggio didn't get in on the first ballot then nobody should!" or, "If Babe Ruth wasn't unanimous then nobody should be!" That ship has sailed. There is a precedent now, and it's doubtful any of the BBWAA members want to deal with the backlash from perhaps being the ONE writer who inexplicably refused to vote for Jeter. </li>
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Whatever his shortcomings, and this is not to say that there were none, Jeter checks EVERY box for a Hall of Famer: He was a 14-time All Star shortstop who hit .310 over a 20-year career on the game's biggest stage, led the team to five World Championships, won five Gold Gloves, five Silver Sluggers, a Rookie of the Year award, and the MVP awards for the All Star game and the World Series. His postseason career is like another All-Star caliber season unto itself, as he is the career leader in almost everything except homers and RBIs, not the stats you expect from a shortstop who usually hits leadoff. (He's 3rd and 4th all-time in those, BTW.) He's the total package, and his defensive shortcomings or perceived overratedness are no reasons to pass him up. </div>
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<li>Three voters - Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, Anthony Reiber of New York Newsday, and former Newsday writer Steven Marcus all voted for ONLY Derek Jeter. </li>
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<li>Marcus either did not vote for anyone last year or did not have a vote, as his line shows neither greens nor reds, including the Jeter vote. </li>
<li>Shaughnessy is a well known curmudgeon who's not above making something like this about himself and his own sense of indignation. Last year he voted only for Mariano Rivera. </li>
<li>The real curiosity is Reiber, who actually had voted for Bonds, Clemens, Pettitte, Ramirez, Schilling and Vizquel last year, but took those away so he could make a statement, I guess. Maybe in the blinding light of the awesomeness that was Derek Jeter's career he saw that nobody...OK, never mind. He's an idiot. </li>
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<li>Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are getting closer, but are not there yet. Both have over 70%, but experience suggests that the writers who do not publish their ballots in advance or email the trackers privately about them tend to slant more conservatively in their voting, so those percentages are likely to drop a bit in the final tally. Since both finished with about 59% last year, though, they're still poised to make a significant jump. </li>
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<li>Curiously, two voters, Jon Heyman and Christina Kahrl, have given the nod to Bonds (a 7-time MVP award winner who ostensibly started using PEDs after having already won three of them.) but not to Clemens (a 7-time Cy Young Award winner who ostensibly started using PEDs after having won three of them.) Clemens even has the better postseason resume, often something of a tiebreaker for tossups like this. Heyman's logic was <a href="https://deadspin.com/here-is-an-extremely-weird-baseball-hall-of-fame-ballot-1830943269" target="_blank">picked apart by Deadspin</a> a few years ago, but as far as I can tell, <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristinaKahrl/status/1212788546983153673" target="_blank">despite all the questions about her ballot on Twitter</a>, Kahrl has not explained her ballot. </li>
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<li>Curt Schilling (78%) and Larry Walker (83%) are the only other players polling over the 75% required for enshrinement at this point. </li>
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<li>Walker's vote total, like those of Bonds and Clemens, dropped a little more than 11% in the final tally last year, which would put him slightly below the threshold. Again, the more old-school voters who don't know (or care to know) <i>how to Internet</i> tend to discredit players whom they think received a disproportionate benefit from their home ballpark. (<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=riceji01&year=Career&t=b#all_hmvis" target="_blank">Jim Rice excepted, evidently.</a>) However, players often get a bit of a bump in their final year, and this being a less crowded ballot than in recent years, Walker may still make it. </li>
<li>Schilling probably will not, as he's just barely over the threshold to begin with, and if he drops as much as he did last year (about 9%) he'll end up well below it, but still close enough to likely achieve enshrinement in 2021, his 9th year on the ballot. </li>
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<li>The only other players polling even close to 50% are Omar Vizquel and Scott Rolen. This is their third year on the ballot, but they've followed very different paths here. Vizquel started out strong, with 37% and then 43% last year. He may even end up over 50% this year, as he and Andy Pettitte were the only two from last year who did better in the final count than the pre-announcement polling had showed. Rolen, however, started at about 10%, then got 17% last year, so if this result holds - he's currently at 47.7% - it would be a ~30% jump in one year, which is pretty rare, I would imagine. Evidently there is a pretty serious <i>Scott Rolen is better than you think campaign</i> going on somewhere, and it's working.</li>
<li>Several players appear likely to fall off the ballot for not receiving at least 5% of the vote. In fact, several of them have only <u>one</u> vote to date: Cliff Lee, Eric Chavez and Jason Giambi. </li>
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<li>Not that I expected him to get elected, or even think he should be, but it surprises me that Giambi isn't getting a<i> little </i>more support. He has the sort of resume that might have kept him on the ballot in the Old Days - 440 homers, over 2000 hits, an MVP award (and he probably should have won another) - but players like this have gone once-and-done on the ballot several times recently: Carlos Delgado, Lance Berkman, Mo Vaughn, Andres Galarraga, Jim Edmonds, Paul Konerko (who currently has two votes and is epected to fall off the ballot), etc. </li>
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The unfortunate side effect of the so-called Steroid Era and all the wonderful hitters we got to watch at the time is that we don't know whose stats to take seriously, and the BBWAA tends to err on the side of caution. Plus, Giambi has his sniveling press conference in which he apologized - sorta - for using steroids. </div>
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And he has recency bias going against him. That is, the way in which his career just kinda petered out over a drawn out time after his Yankees contract probably hurts him a bit, too. He hit .212 over parts of six seasons at the end of his career, with about as many homers (44) in his last 410 games - more than half in a Rockies uniform - as he did in his MVP season alone (43). The voters tend to frown on "padded stats" preferring guys to go out closer to their peak. Take away those six seasons and Giambi's career (.286 batting average, 396 homers, 146 OPS+ in almost 8000 plate appearances) looks a lot like Duke Snider's or Orlando Cepeda's, but also Frank Howard's and Albert Belle's. Not a slam dunk or anything, but maybe more than one person would have thought him worthy of a check mark.<br />
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<li>Two players - Rafael Furcal and Alfonso Soriano - have not received a single vote yet. Furcal I get: He was a pretty good player for a few years, but didn't amass the counting stats the voters like to see. His defense bumps his overall WAR total to about 40 (Vizquel has about 45, for reference, in about 10 more seasons) which is impressive for a short career, but just not enough. </li>
<li>Soriano, though? He got some MVP votes, finishing as high as 3rd one season. He hit over 400 homers, had over 2000 career hits, had a 40-40 season and just missed a second one by a single homer. You'd think someone would give him a vote. I mean, Danny Tartabull got a single vote, for crying out loud, and Soriano hit 150 more homers! Danny Tartabull! </li>
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Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this goes tonight. I fully expect Jeter to be unanimous and Walker to just make the cut, but that should be it. </div>
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Next year though, with all of these guys carrying over and nobody who seems particularly like a Hall of Famer <a href="https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/future-eligibles#2021-eligibles" target="_blank">being added to the ballot </a>(Mark Buehrle, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Torii Hunter are the <u>best</u> of the new nominees next year) it could be Clemens, Bonds, and Schilling giving speeches on the dais in Cooperstown next July. </div>
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It may be a good year to get cheap accommodations and tickets to the ceremonies. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, people will be staying away in droves. </div>
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-53976924884075968212020-01-16T13:36:00.004-05:002020-04-15T12:55:35.822-04:00How did Robin Roberts Lose the NL MVP in 1952? (Hint: Not the Ladies' Fault)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The <a href="https://theathletic.com/1516443/2020/01/15/the-baseball-100-no-72-robin-roberts/" target="_blank">latest in Joe Posnanski's series on the top 100 baseball players</a> of all time, over at The Athletic, is <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roberro01.shtml" target="_blank">Robin Roberts</a>.<br />
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Among the other compelling stories he tells about Roberts is this little tidbit:<br />
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The Baseball Writers of America gave out the first Cy Young Award in 1956, one year <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">after</em> Roberts’ historic run. So, one of the greatest pitchers ever never won a Cy Young.
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He also didn’t win an MVP award, though it’s hard to see how he lost the award in 1952. They gave it <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sauerha01.shtml" target="_blank">Hank Sauer</a>, who led the league in homers and RBIs. Here’s how Oscar Fraley of the United Press International responded to that vote:
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<i>“Anybody who knows the difference between a bunt and punt must be completely flabbergasted at the selection of Hank Sauer in the National League. Most of the voters obviously never heard of Robin Roberts … one theory is that they were all on vacation and the ballot was filled in by the editor of the women’s page.”</i></blockquote>
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Yes, there was always time for a little misogyny in 1950s baseball writing!</blockquote>
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But the main point was sound: Roberts went 28-7 with a 2.59 ERA, and his last 23 starts the Phillies went 21-2; both losses came when Philadelphia was shut out. By WAR, Roberts was three wins better than Sauer. And it’s not like Sauer played a significant role in the pennant race; his Cubs were mediocre non-contenders.
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The rest of the story on Roberts is of course excellent and well worth the pittance you need to invest to break down the Athletic's paywall, but this got me to wondering how that could happen. How does a pitcher who so clearly outclasses the rest of the league, who wins 28 games for a decent team,* <u>not</u> manage to win, or at least come closer to winning, the MVP? <br />
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<i>* The 1952 Phillies started out just awful. They were 10 games below .500, at 29-39 as late as June 23rd. Manager <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/sawyeed99.shtml" target="_blank">Eddie Sawyer</a> - who had perhaps gotten some grace for finishing 73-81 in 1951 because he had helmed the 1950 "Whiz Kid" Phillies to their second franchise pennant ever, had run out of rope with which to hang himself. He was fired five days after that, ironically after the team had won 4 of 5 games. </i><br />
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<i><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/o'neist01.shtml" target="_blank">Steve O'Neill</a>, who had managed the Tigers to the 1945 World Series championship, took over and the team immediately improved, going 59-32 the rest of the way, and finishing "just" 9.5 games out of first. That doesn't sound so great until you notice that they were 17.5 back when O'Neill was handed the reins. </i><br />
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<i>This was, interestingly, the <u>third</u> time in his career that O'Neill had taken over a team mid-season and gotten immediate improvement from it. He led the 1950 Red Sox to a 63-32 record after the great Joe McCarthy was forced to resign, with the team at 31-28, and he led the 1935 Indians to a 36-23 record after <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/johnswa01.shtml" target="_blank">Walter Johnson</a> (!) had stumbled to a 46-48 record. He's one of two managers in history with 1000 or more career wins to his credit whose teams never played below .500 ball on his watch. The other is, ironically, the great <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/mccarjo99.shtml" target="_blank">Joe McCarthy</a>. </i> <br />
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Anyway, here is, I think, how Roberts lost the MVP in 1952:<br />
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The voting - and my understanding of the reasons for it - was as follows:<br />
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<b>#1 Hank Sauer (226 points)</b>: Led the league with 37 HR (tied with Ralph Kiner, on the last place Pirates). Only Gil Hodges (32) was even in the same neighborhood. Nobody else in the NL hit more than 25 that year. Also led the NL in RBIs with 121. Second was Bobby Thompson with 108, only three others had over 100. Remember the sports writers LOVED RBIs in those days. <i>He got *8* 1st place votes. </i>This will be important later. <i> </i><br />
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<b>#2 Robin Roberts (211 points)</b>: Had the amazing season noted by Posnanski above. Led the NL with 8.5 bWAR, tied with Jackie Robinson, who somehow finished 7th. (Robinson had by then led the NL three of the previous four seasons in bWAR, but nobody knew that at the time, and anyway the writers tend to want someone new to vote for because it makes for a better story.) Roberts outclassed all other NL pitchers by nearly two whole bWAR (Warren Spahn was 2nd with 6.6). Roberts received <i>seven</i> 1st place votes.<br />
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<b>#3 <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blackjo02.shtml" target="_blank">Joe Black</a> (208 points)</b>, a rookie reliever with the pennant-winning Dodgers. Went 15-4 with 15 Saves* in 142 IP and led the NL in games finished with 41. Also won RoY honors. He, like Sauer, received <i>eight</i> 1st place votes.<br />
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<li><i>* The Save Rule was not codified until 1969, and was then applied retroactively, so nobody knew this at the time, but the writers must have been aware of how frequently someone like Black was used to save (lower case) a baseball game. </i> </li>
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<b>#4 <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wilheho01.shtml" target="_blank">Hoyt Wilhelm</a> (133 points)</b>, another rookie reliever, this one for the Giants, who finished a close 2nd in the NL pennant race. They were as close as 3 games back on September 17th but went 4-5 the rest of the way, losing 4 of those games to the Phillies (Two to Roberts!) and finished 4.5 out. Wilhelm led the NL in games, ERA (2.43 in 159 innings, all in relief), and winning percentage (.833, with his 15-3 record). <br />
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<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/snidedu01.shtml" target="_blank">Duke Snider</a> got the other first place vote, though he finished 8th over all. Nobody on a losing team finished higher than 13th that year. The writers simply wouldn't vote for players on bad teams, almost ever. <br />
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They would, however, vote for starting pitchers.<br />
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In the years before the Cy Young award was instituted, specifically since the sportswriters had been given charge for the decision in 1931 but prior to 1952, starting pitchers had won it <u>nine</u> times, not quite a quarter of the time. Carl Hubbell and Hal Newhouser had each won it twice. Bobby Shantz won it in the American League THAT VERY YEAR. So how did Roberts miss out? Was it the writers' fault for allowing (gasp!) the ladies' editors to vote Sauer, as Fraley intimated? <br />
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No.<br />
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The writers who blamed other writers for electing Sauer were missing the mark, it seems. Really, it was the <i>writers who voted for relief pitchers</i> who perhaps should have been shamed.<br />
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At the time, the relief ace was just becoming a Thing. Prior to 1950, there had only been two pitchers to appear in 50 or more games and pick up 15 Wins without starting at least five times: <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/konstji01.shtml" target="_blank">Jim Konstanty</a> - who won the 1950 NL MVP for the Whiz Kid Phillies - and someone named Mace Brown of the 1938 Pirates.<br />
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Those Pirates were a decent team, finishing in second place at 86-64. They had a solid pitching staff (3rd in ERA) that lacked stamina (second to last in complete games). So Brown, who was eminently mediocre (100 ERA+) but apparently perpetually available, vultured off 15 Wins from the starters. It was more out of necessity than intent that he managed to win so many. He also lost nine and had a 3.80 ERA.<br />
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With Konstanty, it was different. He was <i>intended</i> to be the relief ace. They pitched him every other game, for a couple of innings, on average, and he led the NL in appearances, games finished and Saves (22), while racking up 16 Wins and pitching 152 innings. He made the All Star team and won the MVP pretty handily over Stan the Man Musial, picking up 18 first place votes, while nobody else on the ballot got more than two (Granny Hamner and Eddie Stanky). It was a great story.<br />
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So in 1952, when not one but <u>two</u> spectacular rookie relievers came along at the same time, and their two teams finished 1st and 2nd in the NL, with each picking up 15 Wins for them, I guess those guys vultured off a lot of the sportswriters' attention just as they vultured off credit for "Winning" games in which they had pitched two innings while someone else covered the first seven.<br />
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And Joe Black, being on the first place Dodgers, got more of the votes than Wilhelm, or, as it would happen, than the preposterously amazing Robin Roberts and his 28 (mostly deserved) victories. Wilhelm, as a knuckleballer, may also not have been given as much credit as he deserved. He got zero first place votes for MVP and finished a distant second in the Rookie of the Year voting to Black despite having, on paper, almost exactly the same season.<br />
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The MVP voting system follows a curious, top-heavy approach, in which a first place vote is worth 14 points, but second and beyond are worth 9, 8, 7, 6, etc. on down to 10th, worth just one point. There are three writers for each city with a team assigned to vote, which at the time meant 24 total writers for the eight-team National League. It's a feature, not a bug, as they want the players writers think are the best to have an advantage over everyone else.<br />
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So those eight first place votes that Black received were worth 14*8 = 112 all by themselves. His 96 other points meant that he averaged just six points each from the other writers, or a 5th place vote. Roberts' seven first place votes netted him 98 points, which meant the average of his remaining voters was 6.65 points, almost a 4th place showing per writer. But those five extra points for a first place vote are key, and that's where the issue lies.<br />
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If three <i>- just three -</i> of the voters who thought that Joe Black was the NL MVP had instead voted for Roberts, he would have gotten <u>at least 15 extra points</u> in the voting and tied Sauer for the award. And that assumes that the voters who gave Roberts 9 points, for second place, voted for him first instead. If any one of those who had given him a <i>third place</i> or lower vote changed his mind to recognize the absurdity of voting for Black over Roberts, Roberts would have won the award, as he deserved to do.<br />
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Instead, somehow Black received eight first place votes compared to Roberts' seven. And this for winning slightly more than half the games (15 to 28), striking out slightly more than half as many batters (85 to 148) and walking almost as many (41 compared to 45) despite pitching far less than half of Roberts' innings (142 to 330). Just bizarre.<br />
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Black, you may think, led the league in Games Finished! Which meant he was often on the mound for the deciding moment at the end of a game! It's the <i>timing</i>, is what it is!<br />
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Which is fair...except that Roberts led the NL with 30 COMPLETE games, and also pitched in relief, finishing two other games. Which means of course that he actually finished 32 games overall, <u><i>while also starting 30 of those</i></u>. There is just no plausible way to suggest that Black was anywhere near as valuable a pitcher as Roberts was in 1952.<br />
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On the plus side, according to most sources, Roberts was such a humble and pleasant man that it probably never bothered him nearly as much as it bothers me. <br />
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-64514087986504272872019-09-30T21:45:00.000-04:002019-09-30T21:45:10.879-04:00Homer-Prone Kimbrel the Impetus for Maddon's Firing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Cubs had a really rough second half, largely owing to the ineffectiveness of their closer, Craig Kimbrel, signed to a three year contract in the middle of the season after sitting out the first half. The Cubs had won 95 games last season, making the playoffs for the fourth straight season (a Cubs record), and much was expected of them this year, from both pundits and fans. <br />
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And things <u>were</u> looking pretty good. They were tied for first place in the NL Central on June 7th, the day they signed Kimbrel. He was a big name, with a long track record of success, at least 30 Saves every season back to 2011, with a strikeout rate that never dipped below 13 per 9IP, and an ERA that only once exceeded the 2.74 he put up for the World Champion Red Sox in 2018. He led his league in Saves four times in a row, winning Rookie of the Year honors in the first of those. He won a championship with Boston last year, despite some shakiness in the winning of it.<br />
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He took a few weeks to make it up to the majors, pitching well in four outings for AAA Iowa before getting called up to the majors and debuting on the 27th of June. He pitched well there too, but not for long. He soon began blowing Saves left and right it seemed, taking four losses while compiling an ERA of almost seven. <br />
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Even more alarmingly, he's surrendered <b>nine homers in just 20</b> innings and change. <br />
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This, it turns out, is fairly unique. There have only been 14 pitchers in history who have allowed a homer rate of 3.9/9IP or more while pitching at least 20 innings. <br />
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They're an odd bunch, and interestingly, all since the year 2000. I guess before that anyone giving up homers so often didn't get a chance to pitch 20 innings. <br />
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Six of the 14 were in their first or second major league season. Five others were in their final or penultimate MLB season. (Three of them qualify as both, owing to short careers.) Only three of the 14, other than Kimbrel, have had a modicum of success in the majors after a season like this, though the jury is still out on a few of them. The details of each are as follows: <br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Mike Lincoln</b>, age 25 in 2000, had a couple of years of growing pains when he first got to the majors with the Twins, and got released before the Pirates picked him up and helped him figure... <i>something</i> out. He had a couple of decent years as a useful bullpen cog for a couple of forgettable Bucs teams, compiling 112 innings with a 2.96 ERA at the height of the Steroid Era in 2001-2002. He struggled through injuries and ineffectiveness for the next half dozen years, with an ERA over 5.5 while pitching just 166.2 innings total over that span. He was out of baseball in 2010. </li>
<li><b>Jim Parque</b>, age 27, had been a first round draft pick in 1997 and had won 13 games for the White Sox in 2000, but by 2002 he was still trying - unsuccessfully, it would prove - to regain his prior form after a shoulder injury and surgery had derailed his career. He surrendered 11 homers in 25 innings of work that year, for an ERA of almost 10, and would pitch only 17 more innings in the major leagues, for the Rays, in 2003. He was out of organized ball after the 2004 season, and his comeback attempt in 2007 lasted only 11 games with Seattle's AAA team. </li>
<li><b>Tim Worrell</b>, by 2006, though he had amassed over 950 innings already in 13 previous MLB seasons, he was 38 years old and proving that pro baseball is a young man's game. His nine homers allowed in 20.1 major league innings showed the Giants that he clearly did not belong in a MLB uniform anymore, and they released him at the end of June. </li>
<li><b>Anthony Vasquez</b>, well, you could be forgiven if you don't remember him. He's the only guy on this list who was only in the majors for a single season, which is a little surprising. He only spent about five weeks in the majors, for a Mariners team that lost 95 games in 2011. Amazingly, Vasquez was only in seven games, but got the decision in all of them, going 1-6. That, as it happens, is the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/tiny.fcgi?id=l6cF5" target="_blank">most games for any pitcher who has gotten a decision in every game of his career in over 100 years.</a> He's kicked around the minors and foreign winter leagues ever since, played for five different organizations besides Seattle, but has never gotten the call back up to the big leagues. </li>
<li><b>Brett Myers</b> had already won 97 games in the majors and compiled 40 Saves from 2002 to 2012, but by 2013 he was apparently toast. He gave up 10 homers in 21 innings, pitching parts of four games, and was released by the Tribe. He's been out of baseball ever since. </li>
<li><b>Kirby Yates</b> was only in his second year in the majors with the Rays, having had a fairly successful rookie year in 2014 (3.75 ERA in 36 IP), but he had one heckuva sophomore slump. After surrendering 10 homers in a shade over 20 innings that year, the Rays sold him to Cleveland in November, and then they sold him to the Yankees in January, before he had ever thrown a pitch for them. He was not particularly good for the Yankees either, who waived him in October. The Angels did the same in 2017 and he went to San Diego, where he has put together three good seasons, gotten promoted to be their closer, and they're now discussing a long term deal. So good for him. </li>
<li>John Moscot, Dillon Overton and Erik Johnson were all in their mid-20's in 2016 and either in their first or last year in the major leagues. </li>
<ul>
<li><b>Moscot,</b> a smart, polished college pitcher from Pepperdine, made his MLB debut at 23 in 2015 but a year later could not keep the ball in the park, surrendering 22 runs in 21 innings, including ten homers, which is a lot, even for a Reds pitcher. He took a couple of years to rehab after Tommy John surgery, and has not pitched professionally since, working for the Reds as a coach or instructor or something. He is now pitching for and helping to promote Israel's Olympic baseball team, which is pretty cool. </li>
<li><b>Overton</b> was another polished college pitcher, drafted by Oakland in the second round in 2013 - who worked his way back from a mid-2013 Tommy John surgery and still managed to get batters out despite reduced velocity. He climbed the A's ladder quickly, earning a call up to the majors just two years after his minor league debut, but was rocked for a dozen homers in just 24 innings of work, and was designated for assignment and traded to Seattle shortly thereafter. He pitched poorly for Seattle and its minor league affiliates for a couple of years, then got picked up by the Padres. Still just 26 years old, he pitched well in 2018 (8-2 with a 2.90 ERA in almost 100 innings) but was, alas, accomplishing it all with smoke and mirrors, having fanned just 48 batters in over 80 innings in the PCL. The decision to use the Titleist-like major league ball for the highest level of the minors in 2019 was disastrous for Overton, who allowed 25 homers in 115 innings, for a 5.46 ERA, though somehow he still managed to go 10-5. </li>
<li><b>Johnson</b>, another polished college pitcher drafted in the second round, out of Berkley in his case, had impressed enough over the course of his minor league career to keep getting called up to pitch for the White Sox, albeit only for 5 or 6 games a year, every year from 2013 to 2015. In 2016 he was traded along with Fernando Tatis, Jr. to the Padres for James Shields.* Anyway, for Johnson, that 2016 season was a <i>doozy</i>, in which he gave up 14 homers in 31 innings and change before blowing out his elbow. He missed all of 2017 rehabbing after (<i>stop me if you've heard this one...</i>) Tommy John surgery. He pitched 40 decent innings as a reliever for the Padres' AA and AAA affiliates in 2018, but did not pitch professionally this year. Interestingly, Johnson is the only one on this list who pitched for more than one team in the season in which he gave up homers at such an alarming rate. That means the Padres watched him surrender 5 homers in just 11 innings of work in 2016 after allowing 8 in 35 innings in 2015), and decided they wanted him anyway. They were rewarded by seeing him pitch even worse, and this in the best pitcher's park in the majors. He surrendered 9 more homers in less than 20 innings for the Padres, and has not thrown a pitch in MLB since. His Wikipedia page says he's a free agent, which, I guess if you're using that to advertise your services, you may be on the way out. </li>
</ul>
</ul>
<i>* Now there's a trade I imagine the Pale Hose will regret for a long time, though not for the loss of Johnson. Shields went 16-35 with a 5.31 ERA over three seasons for them and Tatis tore up the minor leagues for a couple years, then leapfrogged AAA entirely and played like a Rookie of the Year candidate before he got hurt in August. </i><br /><ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Shawn Kelley</b> had already compiled a record of 19-19 with four Saves and a 3.67 ERA in parts of seven MLB seasons for three different teams by the time 2016 rolled around, which is to say that he'd been decent-but-forgettable.* He parlayed one good season with San Diego into a three-year deal with the Nationals, and rewarded them with his best season yet in 2016, with a 2.64 ERA and 80 K's in 56 innings, including three Wins and seven Saves. He was however the pitcher who gave up the two-run triple that Justin Turner hit in the deciding game of the NLDS against the Dodgers that year, and reportedly had some arm "discomfort" when he was removed from that game, and suffered through various ailments in 2017, which might help explain how that became his <i>worst</i> season. He compiled a Boeing ERA (7.27) while serving up a dozen homers in just 26 innings of work. In 2018 he had been pitching pretty well (3.34 ERA in 32.1 innings) but earned the ire of basically everyone in Washington when he threw a temper tantrum after allowing a homer in a game in which the Nats had been leading 25-1 at the end of July. He was DFA'ed a few days later and the Nats evidently thought so little of him that they traded him to Oakland for International Bonus Slot Money.** Anyway, he was tried as the closer and setup man for the Rangers this season, and still allows too many homers (12 in 47 innings in 2019) but not like he did two years ago. </li>
</ul>
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<i>* I, for one, entirely forgot that he pitched for the Yankees for two years, in 2013 and 2014, though in my defense, those were two of the more forgettable Yankees teams in recent memory, the only time they've missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since the Wild Card was implemented in 1994.</i><br />
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<i>**Which isn't even a real thing. I mean, forget being traded for <u>cash</u>, this is being traded for <u>permission to spend your own cash</u>, something the A's don't actually have in the first place.</i></div>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Andrew Heaney</b>, a first-round draft pick by the Marlins in 2012, was sent to one LA team (the Dodgers in the Dee Gordon trade) in December 2014 and then, five hours later, to the Angels, straight up for Howie Kendrick. He looked like a legit prospect in 2015 but got hurt and needed (surprise!) Tommy John surgery in 2016, and was not yet particularly effective when he made his comeback in 2017, allowing 12 homers in not quite 22 innings. He made it all the way back, logging 180 innings of league average work in 2018, including a one-hitter on his birthday, which must have been cool. He suffered from more injuries this year, logging only 95 innings in the majors, one of many reasons the Angels were not as competitive as they had hoped to be in 2019. </li>
<li><b>Drew Gagnon</b> is still technically a rookie, having logged only 35 innings for the Mets over parts of the 2018 and 2019 season, but his performance did not exactly inspire much confidence in the Mets' staff or its fans, I would think. He pitched to a 2.33 ERA, allowing only 12 homers in 89 innings at AAA Syracuse, but then surrendered 11 homers in just 23 innings in the majors. It's not like was serving them up to just anybody, either. Other than Odubel Herrera, who hit his only homer of the season off Gagnon (<i>turns out he's better at hitting girlfriends than baseballs...</i>) everyone who homered off him had at least 12 dingers on the year, and the group averaged almost 25 homers for the year, if you include Freddy Freeman twice. He's not super young, at 29, but is still under team control, for whatever that's worth. Maybe he'll pan out after some growing pains, or maybe he'll benefit if they go back to using baseballs that don't immediately turn and fly away screaming at the sight of a baseball bat. </li>
<li><b>Dan Straily</b> is an 8-year veteran, a journeyman who has won 10 or more games in the majors three times, and no doubt the woeful Orioles hoped he would provide some stability in the rotation. However, after 47 innings, during which he had allowed an AL-leading 22 homers, even Baltimore had seen enough. He got DFA'ed and then traded to Philly in June where he languished in AAA for the rest of the season. Only 30, and with a dozen decent starts for Lehigh Valley, he presumably feels like he can still contribute in the majors, but that remains to be seen.</li>
<li>And last, but not least, <b>Craig Kimbrel. 😢</b></li>
</ul>
Easily the most expensive, highest profile guy with the greatest track record on this list, Kimbrel perhaps just seemed a little rusty when he got called up in late June, but that rust never got scraped off or painted over, and he's a large part of the reason the Cubs are not playing for the Wild Card right now. <br />
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Three of his four losses came against NL Central contenders, one against Milwaukee in July and then two in three days against the Cards in September, leaving the Cubs three games out with seven left to play. Save <i>just those two games</i> and Chicago is still within one game of the Wild Card with a week left in the season. <br />
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Instead, Joe Maddon never used him again. Unable to trust his bullpen, he tried to stretch Yu Darvish the next day, an ill-advised gamble to say the least. Darvish had not pitched more than eight innings in a game since June 11th. Of 2014! Five years and two long DL stints (including one for Tommy John surgery) ago. He has only two complete games in his entire career and the other "complete" game was a 4.1 inning rain-shortened affair against the Yankees in July of the same year. So this was a Bad Idea, and the Cardinals made him pay for it.<br />
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Then the Cubs somehow allowed themselves to get swept by the Pirates, who lost 93 games this season. By the time the Cardinals hosted them and dropped two of three in the season's final series, it no longer mattered. They finished five games behind the Brewers for the second Wild Card (and two behind the Mets and one behind the Diamondbacks, just to be fair) but perhaps with Kimbrel not turning from one of the premier closers in baseball into a walking dumpster fire in less than a year, they might have made a late push and gotten themselves into the playoffs again. <br />
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And Joe Maddon might not be out of a job. <br />
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The irony there being that Maddon is not the one who signed Kimbrel. </div>
Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-17741681565134553932019-09-25T18:05:00.001-04:002019-09-28T00:30:31.493-04:00Why Not Use Aroldis Chapman in a Tie Game on the Road???<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The 2019 Yankees have lost five games on walk-offs on the road this year, and their best relief pitcher, Aroldis Chapman, has appeared in exactly none of them. <br /><br />These games were:<br /><br />1. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA201905260.shtml">Yankees Lose 8-7 to Kansas City in the 10th</a> on May 26th<br /><br />Domingo German had stunk up the joint for five innings, allowing 7 runs, but then Nestor Cortes Jr. inexplicably turned in four scoreless to keep the Yanks in the game while the offense chipped away at the Royals' soft underbelly, the bullpen. To be fair, it turned out that all of the Royals' bellies were soft, since they've now lost 100 games, but this one particularly so. Their collective 5.40 ERA is the 4th worst in MLB.<br /><br />Jonathan Holder entered this game to start the bottom of the 10th, got a strikeout, but then walked Billy Hamilton, who hit just .211 for the Royals before being released, and is not known for his patience at the plate, having walked on average about once every 14 plate appearances throughout his MLB career. Naturally Hamilton stole second, then scored on a walk-off single by Whit Merrifield. <br /><br /><b><i>Why No Chapman???</i></b><br /><br /><div>
The Yankees had played a doubleheader the day before, and most of the bullpen had worked, including Jonathan Holder, though he had thrown just nine pitches. Chapman had thrown 21 pitches, but had not pitched at all the day before so he was technically available. We have to presume that Aaron Boone was preserving him to either save the game if they got a lead or for the next day's game. <br /><br />2. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA201907060.shtml">Yankees Lose 4-3 to the Rays in the 9th</a> on July 6th<br /><br />With CC Sabathia both literally and figuratively on his last legs right now, it's easy to forget that for a while this summer he looked like a pretty darn good pitcher. This outing, his longest of the season (7 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K) fell right in the middle of his best stretch of pitching in a while, four straight Quality Starts, totaling 25 innings and just nine runs allowed. Three of those came against Tampa Bay. (Unfortunately he's 0-4 with a 7.82 ERA since the last game of that streak.) <br /><br />After Adam Ottavino pitched his typical scoreless inning in the 8th, they gave the ball to Chad Green, who seemed at first like he would continue his excellent streak of scoreless innings (he had not allowed a run in a month), getting Kevin Keirmaier to ground out on the first pitch and then striking out Willy Adamaes looking on four pitches. But then Travis D'Arnaud* came up and hit the first pitch he saw into the seats. <br /></div>
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Which made Chad Green a Sad Green. :-( <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAtWJcL6JPQb0X8G7KTfc4FD2WCw7HiL9vtON7hrPv5eNY93cjYXctigX8d4sJdxNbDFImMlWpmALt0ZNEmrHgaoz9hKBJDDucRvvVK5Ci9T8Wsa1XAR0DVBlPTKpghdXln8rA2A/s1600/sad+chad.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAtWJcL6JPQb0X8G7KTfc4FD2WCw7HiL9vtON7hrPv5eNY93cjYXctigX8d4sJdxNbDFImMlWpmALt0ZNEmrHgaoz9hKBJDDucRvvVK5Ci9T8Wsa1XAR0DVBlPTKpghdXln8rA2A/s320/sad+chad.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><br /><i>* D'Arnaud may seem like a fluke, hitting 16 homers this season in part time work, after being released by the Mets and playing just one game with the Dodgers before they decided they had seen enough, but he was once a pretty highly regarded prospect. He was a first round draft pick by the Phillies in 2007, and was used in the package that pried Roy Halladay out of the Blue Jays' hands, and then (along with Noah Syndergaard and others) RA Dickey away from the Mets. Though he'd never done much in the majors, he's hit over .300 at both AA and AAA and has slugged over .500 in AA and over .600 in AAA in parts of several seasons, adding up to about one year's worth of at-bats in each. Its like his career was just waiting for the 2019 Rabbit Ball to happen. </i><br /><b><i>Why No Chapman???</i></b><br />Chapman had thrown 17 pitches in nailing down a Save the night before, and 29 pitches in blowing one the day before that, so he really was unavailable. The Yankees have not used a reliever three nights in a row all season, either because of policy or because their bullpen is so deep that they don't have to, but either way, that was not going to happen. <br /><br /> And Green had been mostly great for the two months before this outing, since returning from a minor league stint (1.99 ERA in 22.2 IP with 34 K and just 2 walks since returning from AAA). Sometimes you throw a 95-mph fastball on the outer half to try to get strike one and the the guy fists it into the opposite field stands. You tip your cap and move on. <br /><br />3. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET201909100.shtml">Yankees Lose 12-11 to the Tigers in the 9th</a> on September 10th<br /><br />Boone managed this game as though he almost didn’t want to win. Nestor Cortes, Jr., with his 2019 ERA over 5.00, and an ERA of almost 9 in his previous eight outings spanning a month, started and gave up 4 runs (2 earned) in 2+ IP. He now has an ERA of 7.40 since the start of August, surrendering at least one run in 13 of his last 18 appearances, including seven in a row. He's gotta have some pretty incriminating photos of Aaron Boone if he's gonna make the 25-man postseason roster... :-/<br /><br />Other pitchers who will be able to enjoy October form the comfort of their own couches followed, including Luis Cessa, Cory Gearrin, Jonathan Loaisiga and Ryan Dull (who was released shortly thereafter). Those last three had just joined the team a few weeks before, one after an injury stint, the other two after having been waived by their former teams.<br /><br />The offense also included a lot of second-stringers. Tyler Wade, Clint Frazier and Mike Ford started. Aaron Judge and D.J. LeMahieu never entered the game, Luke Voit only as a pinch hitter. Though there was only one official Error, a dropped double play ball and other miscues led to five unearned runs, the most the team has given up in a game since April 10th. Of 2018. This was not a typical Yankee game.<br /><br />When the Yankees tied it up and went ahead, Boone used Ottavino and Britton in the 7th and 8th, but then with the game tied again in the 9th, Boone called not on Chapman or Tommy Kahnle or Chad Green, but on Chance Adams. <br /><br /><i>Chance. Frikking. Adams. </i><br />Adams now has 15 total appearances in his burgeoning MLB career and has given up at least one run in 11 of them. Clearly, this game was not that important to Boone. <br /><br />Adams struck out Travis Demerritte but then allowed a double to someone named Grayson Grenier, who it turns out is not a character in a 50 Shades... novel but rather a third string catcher who was hitting a buck-seventy-five coming into that game. Willi Castro pinch ran for him and then Jordy Murcer hit a 2-2 pitch to right to walk it off. <br /><br /><br />Why No Chapman???<br /><br /><br />No idea. Chapman had not pitched in three days, and only once in the last two weeks. Even if you think the game is meaningless, you'd think you'd want to get your closer some work to help keep him sharp for the playoffs. This was a Tuesday game, and they had one scheduled the next day, though it got rain delayed into a doubleheader on Thursday, they didn't know that would happen at the time. Still, it was the 100+ loss Tigers, and they needed a closer only in one of those two games, it would turn out. <br /><br /><br /> 4. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201909130.shtml">Yankees Lose 6-5 </a><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201909130.shtml">To the Blue Jays in the 12th </a>on September 13th<br /><br /> Masahiro Tanaka was not particularly sharp, but he bulldogged his way through five innings and after a 5-run fifth by the Bronx Bombers, went to the showers with a slim lead. The bullpen blueprint was followed to plan, with Kahnle, Ottavino and then Britton, except this time Ottavino suffered from some pretty bad luck in the 7th. <br /><br /> He allowed a single, then a wild pitch allowed the runner to advance, then walked the next batter on a borderline pitch that he felt he should have gotten. You could see it frustrated him. He induced a grounder toward first for an "easy" 3-6-1 double play, but was late covering first and had to settle for a fielder's choice at second, leaving runners on first and third. <br /><br /> Then he balked home the tying run. <br /><br /> He got Vladdy Jr. to fly out, then intentionally walked the next batter and struck out Randall Grichuk to end the inning, but without the lead. Zach Britton pitched a scoreless 8th, followed by two scoreless from Luis Cessa. Then in the 10th, Boone brought in Tyler Lyons, a lefty the Yankees had just picked up less than a month before because he'd been released by the Pirates. If the last-place Pirates couldn't find a use for this guy, it begs the question of what the heck the Yankees want with him, but Boone had him on the roster so he figured he ought to use him, I guess. <br /><br />Lyons did not disappoint, at first, getting a strikeout, a lineout and a foul pop for a perfect 11th. But then Bo Bichette took him deep on his third pitch of the 12th to end the game. Bichette Happens, right? <br /><br />Except it didn't have to. <br /><br /><b><i> Why No Chapman???</i></b><br />Boone could have taken the scoreless inning from Lyons, thanked his lucky stars, and then brought in his closer to pitch the 12th. Chapman had pitched on previous night, but had thrown only 13 pitches, getting two easy outs against Detroit to nail down a 6-4 win. He was surely available, since that was only the second time he'd pitched all month. Again, tie game on the road and all that, I know, but these are the Blue Jays. Their bullpen is actually decent overall, but they had already used nine pitchers to this point in the game. The good ones were basically gone by now. The remaining five guys in the bullpen who were not tabbed for the starting rotation had a collective ERA of almost 6.00! The Yankees would have gotten to them soon. Alas, we'll never know because Lyons served up that gopher ball instead. <br /><br />And finally, (I hope)...<br /><br /><br /> 5. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA201909240.shtml">Yankees Lose to Tampa, 2-1 in the 12th</a> on September 24th<br /><br /> Another 4-hour, 12-inning marathon ends in a walkoff loss with the Yankees' best reliever not even warmed up. Yes, the Yankees have already clinched their division, but they still have home field advantage to play for, which will matter if they have to face Houston again. (Recall that in 2017 both teams won all their home games in that 7-game ALCS.) The Rays are still trying to win a Wild Card. This is not a meaningless game. <br /><br /> But it was managed more like an audition for the playoffs than a meaningful in-season game. Boone used 11 pitchers, only one for more than an inning, Jordan Montgomery who started and went two. Stephen Tarpley allowed a homer in the 5thbut otherwise the Rays were held hitless from the 4th inning on. Cory Gearrin, however, allowed a homer to Ji-Man Choi, suffering his third loss of the season, and giving the Rays a tenuous half-game lead on the Indians for the second Wild Card. <br /><br /><br /> Why No Chapman???<br /><br /><br /> Again, Chapman was surely available. He had not pitched since the 19th, and has pitched just three times this month. The Rays' bullpen is not as thin as Toronto's, but the Yankees have some pretty good hitters, and might have taken advantage of a mistake or two if Boone had not made his own first by allowing Gearrin to pitch in the 12th instead of Chapman. <br /><br /> So, there you have them. Five losses, four of which may have been prevented or at least delayed by using Chapman. Instead, you have losses attributed to Chad Green and four guys that most people who aren't Yankee fans would not even know were on the roster: Chance Adams, Cory Gearrin, Tyler Lyons and Jonathan Holder. The four of them have a combined ERA of 6.35 in 85 innings of work for the Yankees this year, compared to Chapman's 2.28 ERA in 55 innings. They have one more strikeout than Chapman does, 83 to 82, though it took them 30 more innings to get them. They've also allowed 18 homers in those 85 innings, compared to just three for Chapman. <br /><br /> The real concern here is - it has to be - whether Boone will manage such games this way in the postseason. Those teams - who might include Tampa, who has beaten the Yankees twice in this manner - all have better bullpens than the Royals or Tigers or Jays, but they're not unlimited. The Yankees have to be willing to put their best pitcher out there in a tie game in extra innings if it comes to that, or else risk losing the game with a sub-optimal option out there on the mound. <br /><br />Chapman has pitched in consecutive games 15 times this season, so he's certainly capable of it. But will Boone allow it? Will he live up to it? At least if they beat Chapman, you can stand up tall and say you had your best out there and they just got to him. Yankee fans will never forgive Boone if he ends up blowing the ALCS or the World Series with Jonathan Holder or Cory Gearrin on the mound. <br /><br /> The old adage about not using your Closer in a tie game on the road (because who will then protect the lead if you get one?) seems to me a bit of old wisdom that is frankly not so wise. </div>
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-20735183801805575182019-09-16T23:48:00.002-04:002019-09-23T09:32:17.902-04:00Talking Tanking: Why Are So Many MLB Teams So Terrible???<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In case you were as yet uncertain of the State of Things in Major League Baseball, i.e. whether teams were really tanking in order to try to A) be more competitive in the future, or 2) make more profit in the meantime, I submit the following:<br />
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In the entire history of major league baseball, there has, I think, been only one season in which four teams finished with 100 or more losses. That was in 2002, which if you recall, was right in the thick of several MLB owners crying poor all the time and insisting that if the players union did not accept a salary cap immediately, if not sooner, they would need to contract two teams. The Twins and the Expos were most often cited, though also occasionally the then-Florida Marlins, as examples of teams the sport could better do without.<br />
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Ironically, none of those teams were the ones that lost 100+ games in 2002. Those teams were in fact: Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay. The last two of those also had their names bandied about as possible contraction options, though not as much as Montreal and Minnesota.</div>
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This year, there are already two teams in MLB with 100+ Losses, Detroit and Baltimore, and two more (I know, I know...) <i>on a pace for</i> 100 or more. <br />
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The 2019 Miami Marlins, with a baker's dozen worth of games left to play, will face only teams with winning records the rest of the way. They have three games each against Arizona, Washington and Philly, and four against the Mets. Only the games against the Nationals - who currently lead the NL Wild Card race - are at home for them, not that they have much of a home-field advantage, with the third worst home record in MLB. <br />
<br />
Believe it or not (Phillies Phans sure do :-/ ) The Marlins actually have winning records against The Diamondbacks and the Phillies, but are a combined 7-24 against the Nats and the Mets. :-( They could reach their 100th loss before payday this week! Unless you get paid on Tuesdays for some odd reason. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The other potential 100-loss team, the Royals, currently sit at 95 losses, with 12 to play, but again they face only winning teams for the last two weeks of the season. They play three at Oakland, who has one of the best at-home records in MLB, then four at Minnesota, who's good at home, but better on the road. Then the Royals host a two-game series (two games??) against the NL East winning Braves, who have the third-best road record in MLB, followed by a season ending three-game set against the Twins...who actually <u>do</u> have the best road record in MLB. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
This is, I believe, will be the only time other than 2002 when four teams lose 100 or more, as I mentioned above. <br />
<br />
Not that there haven't been a couple of close calls. <br />
<br />
In 1985, three teams (out of 26 total) lost 100 or more: the Giants, Indians and Pirates, and the Rangers may very well have joined them had they made up a rain out. They finished 62-99, and could very well have lost their 100th to the Brewers if they'd played all 162 games in their proposed schedule, though the Brew Crew was no slouch in the Losing Games Department that year either, finishing 71-90 themselves. <br />
<br />
The Giants and Pirates at the time were in the midst of a couple of down years, but both were about to get really, really good, at least for a while. The Tribe was <u>always</u> a mess in those days, which is hard to imagine now, but they had only one season with a winning record between 1981 and 1994, and even that was just an 84-win season in 1986 before returning to 100-loss form in 1987. <br />
<br />
The other close call was 1969, an expansion year with 24 teams in MLB That year, two teams lost 110(!) games - the expansion Expos and Padres, of course - and two others lost 99 (Cleveland and Philly). Again, with a shortened season, Cleveland missed its chance for 100 L's, finishing 62-99. Philly went 63-99. <br />
<br />
So, in short, there has never been a season in which four teams finished with at least 100 losses if they were actually <u>trying</u> to win. It's worth noting that some of the examples of times when it has happened or has come close to happening, come with extenuating circumstances. <br />
<br />
In 1969, for example, two of the 99+ loss teams were hamstrung by the slim pickings available from an expansion draft. Given a variety of options, I promise that you would not choose to start off the first Canadian MLB franchise with the likes of Bobby Wine and Gary Sutherland and a 36-year old Maury Wills, quite literally on his last legs (or so he seemed, until he went back to the Dodgers). <br />
<br />
Or a San Diego franchise with Jose Arcia and Tommy Dean and what used to be Johnny Podres, whom I'm pretty sure the Padres just picked up because they thought it would be a good marketing ploy or something. <br />
<br />
In 2002, the Devil Rays were only in their 5th season, right in the middle of a decade of not just <i>not winning</i>, but losing at least 90 games every season. That team took a while to get its footing. Mostly it took new owners. <br />
<br />
The Royals in 2002 had their first 100-loss season in history, but they had been bad for years under the Foundation ownership group that took charge of the team after Ewing Kauffman died in 1993. They would have a winning season in 2003 before sinking even lower into the depths, with three straight 100-loss seasons. Similar to the Astros of a decade ago, those terrible teams helped lay the foundation for the teams that would eventually appear in two World Series, and even win one. <br />
<br />
And that's really what this all comes down to. The Marlins, Orioles, Royals and Tigers are essentially cutting everything unessential out, tanking on purpose to try to get better draft picks, and more of them, to win in the future, while still making profits now. They're doing what Houston did a decade ago, and even then some people could see it, as Sports Illustrated famously predicted in 2014 that the 100-loss Astros would win the 2017 World Series. I can't say it doesn't make business sense, but I can tell you this:<br />
<br />
All <u>four</u> of them cannot win the 2022 World Series. <br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-25677462481284509452019-09-10T15:59:00.004-04:002019-09-10T15:59:44.487-04:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In response to Joe Posnaski's riveting, highly important, gritty <a href="https://theathletic.com/1199269/2019/09/10/posnanski-is-the-statcast-batter-a-righty-or-a-lefty-looking-into-baseballs-newest-optical-illusion/" target="_blank">journalism piece on the handedness of a computer graphic</a>, I present the following:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">The Statcast hittter! </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">1) The initial graphic: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmAzOQcjRFzrWhA5APV0u_GDhLeYYdg38fnm44G6PAIk4KucVYM3PdEQ0qi4JscoXLVT44-3MtA0Hmjz8yICMr3jRpAkvPFh-ZULm_-rvW3P1NU-5LBFmNsbfKpPJef4JhatFog/s1600/baseball+hitter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmAzOQcjRFzrWhA5APV0u_GDhLeYYdg38fnm44G6PAIk4KucVYM3PdEQ0qi4JscoXLVT44-3MtA0Hmjz8yICMr3jRpAkvPFh-ZULm_-rvW3P1NU-5LBFmNsbfKpPJef4JhatFog/s1600/baseball+hitter.JPG" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">2) Drawn as a righty</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPX-zafW-3kNtJ_XfmsbE4BrsbO0KzJrJozJgpI-uxT87Lc0ydPXPtvKaBHdXS2IZxO0FcUE_q2jrSu3KM3ZvYKkXS2zLzDyInbWeCFKTfoeqO-HE4pZP705uoyyj1oBZUctuRA/s1600/baseball+hitter+righty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPX-zafW-3kNtJ_XfmsbE4BrsbO0KzJrJozJgpI-uxT87Lc0ydPXPtvKaBHdXS2IZxO0FcUE_q2jrSu3KM3ZvYKkXS2zLzDyInbWeCFKTfoeqO-HE4pZP705uoyyj1oBZUctuRA/s1600/baseball+hitter+righty.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">3) Then as a lefty, </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaE5M52zy6aucndSYC7VQTDw0cKPd2FCK_2f5IqLJDnh3qSbh2PNBi-HC-hLUqFnJpcl1H8AuiUHWzXNwpV_csxXmWCMT88TYQq-jSofUiEuwBtGFC2bMcviKPtIE05Lde20u-eA/s1600/baseball+hitter+lefty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaE5M52zy6aucndSYC7VQTDw0cKPd2FCK_2f5IqLJDnh3qSbh2PNBi-HC-hLUqFnJpcl1H8AuiUHWzXNwpV_csxXmWCMT88TYQq-jSofUiEuwBtGFC2bMcviKPtIE05Lde20u-eA/s1600/baseball+hitter+lefty.jpg" /></a></div>
...all using the same image.<br />
<br />
<br />
The thing to notice here is <u>not</u> that it magically works both ways. The thing to notice is that<i> both batters are using one of those <a href="https://gameonperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fat-Bat-300x300.jpg" target="_blank">giant red plastic bats you give to toddlers</a>. </i><br />
<br />
And you thought homers were up before!<br />
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-2389873872202673832019-09-03T18:07:00.001-04:002019-09-03T18:07:24.230-04:00Verlander's No-Hitter and Considering Context<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Justin Verlander threw his third career no-hitter on Sunday, against the Blue Jays. This is apparently a record as he's the first opposing player to ever no-hit the same team twice in their own stadium, which I guess is something people count now. Verlander's no-no (kept from perfection only by a first-inning walk to Cavan Biggio) may or may not have sealed his Hall of Fame resume, but in any case, it was certainly a cool feat. <br />
<br />
For whatever it's worth, I do think the feat comes off as a <i>little</i> less impressive when you consider the opposing lineup:<br />
<br />
* Bo Bichette, SS: Though the rookie phenom has cooled off of late, his cooling off period is still pretty solid. Seems like a pretty darn good, if not terribly patient, major league hitter. No disrespect to him. <br />
<br />
* Vlad Guerrero, Jr., 3B: Another real player. He hit .341 in August. <br />
<br />
...aaaand that's about where the real threats in the lineup stop. Sure, Randall Grichuk had 23 HR (24 now) but he was hitting .234 coming into that game, and he rarely walks. He and Justin Smoak are respectively ranked 118th and 129th in batting average among the 130 qualified MLB hitters this season.<br />
<br />
Backup catcher Reese McGuire had a .300 batting average coming into the game, but that's a small sample size mirage. He has a .239 batting average in almost 170 games in AAA, and is only on the roster because the Jays' normal lousy backup catcher, Luke Maile, hitting .153, is on the DL. McGuire's not <i>really</i> a threat, his 3-for-3 night with a homer on Friday notwithstanding. <br />
<br />
As of the end of the game, the whole rest of the lineup was barely above the Mendoza Line. Cavan Biggio (.214), Rowdy Tellez (.218), Justin Smoak (.215) and Yankee castoffs Brandon Drury (.222) and Billy McKinney (.216) rounded out the lineup, which managed not to get a hit all night.<br />
<br />
For that matter, it's almost surprising that the Blue Jays had not been no-hit yet this season, as their team average of .236 is the worst in the majors. (The Mariners, 4th from last with a .241 team BA, have been no-hit twice this season.) <br />
<br />
Granted, the Jays, like everyone else this season, <u>can</u> hit homers. Smoak has 20 HR, and Biggio, Tellez and Drury are all in double-digits, with McKinney at 9 homers. But if a pitcher can keep them from homering - and that's by no means a sure-thing with Verlander, who has allowed 33 dingers this year, third most in MLB - they almost don't hit at all. <br />
<br />
It reminds me a little of Erik Milton's no-hitter against the Angels in 1999. That lineup - also during the expanded September roster period - included a few of their regulars (Todd Greene, Troy Glaus, Orlando Palmiero) but also a bunch of <i>extremely</i> marginal players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Leadoff man Jeff DaVannon was making just his <i>second MLB appearance ever</i>. </li>
<li>Steve Decker and Matt Luke were each making one of their last, as neither would ever play in MLB after 1999. </li>
<li>Backup catcher Bret Hemphill was amazingly doing <i>both</i>, as he played only 12 games in MLB. This was his 5th. </li>
<li>Trent Durrington was in the middle of a miserable rookie season in which he hit .180 with 2 RBIs in 136 plate appearances. </li>
<li>And #9 hitter, journeyman infielder Andy Sheets, "hit" .197 that year. And I don't mean a modern, <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/_/id/32170/rougned-odor" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgb(34, 93, 183) !important; font-family: BentonSans, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rougned Odor</a>-style .197 in which, yeah, he hits under the Mendoza Line but also hits 20-25 homers. Sheets hit a <i>traditional</i> .197, with three homers in 244 ABs. </li>
</ul>
<br />
So this is not quite that bad, as while the Blue Jays' lineup did include five rookies, a few are really promising rookies, unlike Hemphill and DaVannon, for example. Plus, some of the regulars with low batting averages are established veterans, not washed-up roster filler like Decker or Luke. <br />
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It's still an amazing accomplishment for Verlander, of whom I'm generally a fan, except when he faces the Yankees, but like many things in baseball, it's best not to just hear the storyline and take it at face value. In this modern age of nearly everyone swinging for the fences, maybe it's not so surprising that a whole team of swing-and-miss batters faced one of the best swing-and-miss pitchers of all time and simply, well, <i>missed them all</i>. <br />
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-37225882797636682222019-08-15T22:46:00.001-04:002019-08-15T22:46:41.255-04:00Wain You're Wright, You're Right<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't know if this really means anything or not, but it's something I've been noticing all season because - after a decade-long hiatus from the practice to be a dad* - I've started playing fantasy baseball again. I finished 5th last year in a 12-team league of mostly strangers who never talk (trash or otherwise) and almost never trade, which I figured was not too bad for someone who had been paying attention to baseball but not PAYING ATTENTION the way you have to if you want to be competitive in a Fantasy League. <br />
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<i>I mean, I'm still a dad, but my 8 and 11 year olds don't take two hours to rock to sleep every night anymore, so I have a smidge more time. </i><br />
<br />
Anyway, because I'm playing again (currently 3rd in my league, though honestly I'm closer to 7th than I am to 2nd) I look at all kinds of things when trying to decide whether or not to start a player on any given day. Particularly starting pitchers, as in a 5 x 5, head-to-head league, a couple of bad starts can really ruin your week. Most of the info available is either not very useful, like batter vs. pitcher splits, which almost always have too small a sample size to be meaningful, or are so obscure and inexplicable that you can't use them to justify a decision. <br />
<br />
It may very well be true that so-and-so has hit .375 with seven homers and 15 RBI in Tuesday afternoon games this year...but do you want to count on that?? A few years ago I wrote about how <a href="http://www.boyofsummer.net/2010/06/tale-of-two-pitchers-yankees-aj-burnett.html" target="_blank">AJ Burnett was terrible whenever he pitched for the Yankees on national TV, but just fine when his starts were broadcast only locally</a>. No good reason for it that I could detect, but there it was. <br />
<br />
But sometimes, there may be something to these splits. Case in point: Adam Wainwright. <br />
<br />
Wainwright is a seemingly known commodity, albeit an aging one. Having been in the majors for 15 years, he's nearly 38 now, and had struggled with injuries the last few seasons, but he's basically been healthy in 2019. He finished 2nd or 3rd in the NL Cy Young Voting four times, but he also missed all of 2011 and parts of 2008, 2015, 2017 and 2018 due to various ailments, including Tommy John surgery and a torn Achilles tendon. <br />
<br />
This year his overall stats seem eminently mediocre: 8-8 4.35 ERA, 118 Ks, 49 walks and 15 homers allowed in 120 innings of work. The league as a whole allows slightly fewer walks and slightly more homers, plus Busch Stadium is a decent pitcher's park (park factor of 94, where below 100 favors the pitcher) so his adjusted ERA is 97, just 3% below average. None of this is unusual for an aging, once-nearly-great, occasionally injured starting pitcher. <br />
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What's unusual is <i>how</i> he's gotten there:<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 598px;">
<colgroup><col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col span="3" style="mso-width-alt: 1256; mso-width-source: userset; width: 27pt;" width="36"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 1070; mso-width-source: userset; width: 23pt;" width="31"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 1722; mso-width-source: userset; width: 37pt;" width="49"></col>
<col span="7" style="mso-width-alt: 1070; mso-width-source: userset; width: 23pt;" width="31"></col>
<col span="3" style="mso-width-alt: 1489; mso-width-source: userset; width: 32pt;" width="43"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.5pt; width: 48pt;" width="64">Split</td>
<td style="width: 27pt;" width="36">W</td>
<td style="width: 27pt;" width="36">L</td>
<td style="width: 27pt;" width="36">ERA</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">GS</td>
<td style="width: 37pt;" width="49">IP</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">H</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">R</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">ER</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">HR</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">BB</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">IBB</td>
<td style="width: 23pt;" width="31">SO</td>
<td style="width: 32pt;" width="43">WHIP</td>
<td style="width: 32pt;" width="43">SO9</td>
<td style="width: 32pt;" width="43">SO/W</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;">Home</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">2</td>
<td align="right">2.19</td>
<td align="right">11</td>
<td align="right">65.2</td>
<td align="right">58</td>
<td align="right">17</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">23</td>
<td align="right">2</td>
<td align="right">68</td>
<td align="right">1.234</td>
<td align="right">9.3</td>
<td align="right">2.96</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.5pt;">Away</td>
<td align="right">2</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">6.96</td>
<td align="right">11</td>
<td align="right">54.1</td>
<td align="right">62</td>
<td align="right">42</td>
<td align="right">42</td>
<td align="right">9</td>
<td align="right">26</td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">50</td>
<td align="right">1.62</td>
<td align="right">8.3</td>
<td align="right">1.92</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div>
At home, Wainwright is the perennial Cy Young contender he was half a dozen years ago, albeit without the requisite longevity, averaging only 6 innings per start. His best ERA in his heyday was a 2.38, and his best ERA+ was 155 (2.42 actual ERA), back in 2010 when the NL averaged slightly fewer runs per game. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
But on the road, he's a disaster. You know who else is 2-6 with a 6.96 ERA right now? Drew Smyly, who was so bad that he got DFA'ed by the Rangers, lasted about three weeks with the Brewers before getting released again, and had to achieve two decent and two mediocre starts with Philly just to get to that level. That's pretty bad. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Put another way, Wainwright's home/road opponent slash lines are as follows:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Home: .238/.311/.369</div>
<div>
Road: .298/.383/.510</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
For perspective, that means hitters on the road against Wainwright are about as productive as Justin Turner has been this year (.292/.375/.506) whereas his opponents at home are Jake Bauers (.233/.308/.379). If his name doesn't ring a bell it's because he was sent back to the minors at the end of last month when the Indians, so desperate to improve on his abysmal production, traded away their second best starting pitcher for a known head-case outfielder in Yasiel Puig and a DH waiting to happen in Franmil Reyes. That's also pretty bad, which of course means Wainwright has been quite good at home. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The how or why is the real question though. One thing for certain is that this is not normal for Wainwright, at least not to this extent. His career ERA at home (2.83) is considerably better than that on the road (3.98) but not THAT much better. Most players are better at home, and Busch Stadium is a pitcher;s park, so that makes sense. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He has experienced severe splits like this before. In 2017, his last (mostly) healthy season, he was 8-1 with a 3.08 ERA at home and 4-4 with a 7.32 ERA on the road. Ditto for 2016: 3.20 ERA at home, 6.18 on the road. He was hurt for most of 2015, and 2014 was the reverse: a 3.27 ERA at home, but a remarkable 1.72 on the road. Before than, the two years before that were more of the same, modest splits with an ERA advantage around a half or three quarters of a run at home, the kind of thing you expect. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So what's happened in the last several years? How has Wainwright become so completely inept on the road in the last few seasons? According to Fangraphs, since the start of 2016, he's got a 3.06 ERA in 264 innings at home, but a 6.58 ERA in 220 road innings. His walks and homers and hits allowed all go way up, his strikeouts drop. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The biggest difference, looking at all his summarized batted ball data for the stretch since the start of 2016, is that his home run rate, and especially his homers per fly ball, go way up on the road. His fly ball rate goes up slightly (about 4%) but also more of those flies become homers - about 50% more - which makes for a bad combination in this Era of the Rabbit Ball. An aging pitcher who gets by on cunning and defense more than stuff is going to have a hard time in a league where the balls fly out of the parks like Titleists, and even moreso in parks that tend not to favor pitchers. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not really sure what it all means for Wainwright. Maybe it means he's nearing the end. He is almost 38 after all. Maybe it means that Cardinals' manager Mike Schildt should just reverse-Ed-Whitson his ass and <u>only</u> start him at home, come hell or high water. Maybe it means he has some kinda special signal system at home and can somehow figure out just how to pitch to everybody there, but has no such system on the road. Maybe he and his wife (does he even have a wife???) are on the outs and he never gets a decent night sleep on the road. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I really have no idea. I do know that Wainwright has not pitched a Quality Start on the road since the end of June. I also know that I will not be putting him in my starting lineup when he faces the Reds at Great American Bandbox tomorrow night. </div>
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-7077179445778127072019-03-25T23:01:00.002-04:002020-09-30T18:06:07.920-04:00Howard & Power<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Joe Posnanski posted a fascinating, albeit sad, <a href="https://joeposnanski.com/pumpsie/" target="_blank">story about Pumpsie Green</a>, the first African American player to play for the Red Sox, which was the last team to integrate, more than a dozen years after Jackie Robinson's debut. The Red Sox, and owner Tom Yawkey in particular, were really, really terrible at the time. I mean, by most accounts, Yawkey was just a truly awful person, short sighted, irredeemably racist, who ran the team like a rich man's toy. Which, I guess it was.<br />
<br />
Despite the Red Sox ill treatment of him (Green was forced to not just stay apart from the team, but to travel apart from them), he thrived in the spring of 1959:<br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: lato, lato, "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>And still, Pumpsie Green hit — .400 for the spring — and he played good defense anywhere they put him, and numerous reporters called him the star of Red Sox camp. Red Sox reporters later said that it was clear from background conversations that Red Sox GM Bucky Harris fully intended on keeping Pumpsie on the roster.</i><i><br /></i><i>But quotes from our hero Tom Yawkey, who is in the Hall of Fame, were not as promising.<br /> </i><i><br /></i><i>“The Sox,” Yawkey said, “will bring up a Negro if he meets our standards.”</i></blockquote>
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Evidently the Red Sox standards for a Negro were that he be Caucasian, because Green didn't make the major league roster out of camp. Still, he hit .320 at AAA, stole bases, walked twice as often as he struck out, played well all over the diamond, so eventually they had to bite the bullet (read: fire their racist manager) and bring him up.<br />
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One of Posnanski's commenters lamented that the Yankees at the time were just as racist, just less obvious about it:<br />
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The racism was indeed shameful. But the Yankees owners were just as racist, but they knew how to say the right things in public. They also refused to hire black players until the end of Jackie Robinson’s career. Nothing against Elston Howard, who was an excellent player, but the Yankee brass picked him as a token to shut up protesters, and deliberately looked for a player who would never complain about how he was treated. </blockquote>
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And in this time, the Yankees won 5 in a row. </blockquote>
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It would be nice to live in a world where doing the wrong thing meant you suffered the consequences. We usually don’t.</blockquote>
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This got me looking into Howard and the Yankees' history, and I don't think it's as cut and dried as that. While he didn't debut with the Yankees until 1955, Howard had been with them much longer than that, and was hardly a "token" player, as he got over 300 at-bats in 1955, mostly as an outfielder. </div>
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In any case, it seems fairly clear, from the Red Sox failure to sign both Hank Aaron and Willie Mays when they had the chance, that at least some teams <u>did</u> suffer the consequences of doing the wrong thing, even if the Yankees weren't suffering so much. I think if they had not been so good, they may have tried a little harder to find an African American for the major league team, but we'll never know. </div>
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Anywho, Elston Howard was signed by the Yankees in July 1950, barely a year after Robinson won the MVP. He did well enough in half a season at Class A Muskegon (.283 with 9 HR in 54 games) but got drafted and spent all of 1951 and 1952 in the military. He hit well in AA in 1954 (.286, 10 HR, 70 RBI) then tore the cover off the ball at AAA Toronto (.330, 22 HR, 109 RBI) <i>while being converted to catcher</i>. The Yankees brought him to the majors in 1955 and he spent the whole year there. Also the 13 years after that. Evidently he was ready by then. </div>
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Which is not to say the Yankees' record is impeccable in this regard. Far from it. </div>
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One early possibility for the First Black Yankee was a young pitcher named Frank Barnes, who played at Muskegon with Howard in 1950 and 51, but he had control issues. He walked 121 in 179 innings, mostly in Class A in 1951, for example, so you could at least kinda justify holding him back from a purely baseball perspective. He did eventually go on to have a few cups of coffee in the majors with the Cardinals in 1957, 1958 and 1960, but didn't do much there. </div>
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But they also had a young first baseman named <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/powervi01.shtml" target="_blank">Vic Power</a>, who hit like crazy everywhere he went: He hit .328 with a .501 slugging percentage in more than 400(!) games at AAA from 1951 to '53. His reward for such prowess on the diamond, you ask? <i>Power was never even invited to Yankees Spring Training.</i> And you thought today's free agents had a tough time of it! </div>
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Part of the trouble was that the Yankees were <u>loaded</u> at the time, in the midst of winning five straight World Series, with 1951 AL RoY Gil McDougald at 3B, and an outfield consisting of Gene Woodling (who led the AL with a .429 OBP in 1953), perennial All-Star <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bauerha01.shtml" target="_blank">Hank Bauer</a> and some kid named <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mantlmi01.shtml" target="_blank">Mickey something</a> in center. </div>
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First base was manned mostly by decent-but-unspectacular <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/collijo01.shtml" target="_blank">Joe Collins</a> and sometimes Johnny Mize or Bill Skowron. Why they thought Joe Collins needed a yet another caddy or why they didn't think Vic Power could do it better than Eddie Robinson (more on him later) is not entirely clear, but you know: <i>Racism</i>. </div>
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Apparently Power was not the humble, turn-the-other-cheek kinda "Negro" that then Yankees owners Del Webb and Dan Topping wanted to be the one to break the Color Pinstripe. He dated white women, played first base too "flashy" (i.e. fielding the ball with one hand instead of two) and quipped back at some of the racism he experienced in his travels. When a waitress told him that her restaurant didn't serve Negroes, he told her, "That's OK. I don't eat Negroes." He was what the white establishment at that time might have called <i>uppity</i>, and that just wouldn't do for the straight-laced, starched collar Yankees of the 1950s. No sirree. </div>
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So they traded him in an 11-player deal to the Philadelphia A's. We're used to hearing of all the talent that went from the Athletics to the Yankees in those days for seemingly little return (Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Clete Boyer, Art Ditmar, Ralph Terry...the list goes on...) but here at least is one case where the A's clearly got the better of the deal. </div>
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Anyway, the details of the trade are unimportant, but basically it was Power and a bunch of forgettable spare parts for the husk of what had once been 4-time All-Star first-baseman <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/robined01.shtml" target="_blank">Eddie Robinson</a>* and a bunch of different forgettable spare parts. Robinson hit an occasional homer over the next couple of seasons, and he gave Yankees manager Casey Stengel the platoon options he loved so much, but otherwise, well...they coulda done without him. </div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<i>*Whom I discovered when researching this is 98 years old, the oldest living member of three different franchises (Yankees, Tigers and Senators) and the last surviving member of an Indians World Series winner. Cool, right?</i></blockquote>
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In Philly, and later in Kansas City, Vic Power kept up doing just what he'd been doing at Syracuse for the last two years. He hit for average, nearly winning a batting title in 1955, and (ironically only modest) Power. He hardly ever struck out, just 14 times in 620 plate appearances in 1958, for example. He slashed doubles and triples all over the place, scored and drove in runs, and when someone invented the Gold Glove, well, he won a bunch of those, too. Seven in a row! </div>
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So while Howard was seemingly not exactly <i>held back</i> by the Yankees, the real story is that Power was not there two or three years before that. </div>
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Not that the Yankees could have been a whole lot better in that span! They finished out of first place only once between 1949 and 1958, and that year they won 103 regular season games, finishing second to the 111-win Indians. </div>
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But in a more "fair" world, one where (as Joe's commenter suggests) <u>both</u> the Yankees <u>and</u> the Red Sox get punished for their poor treatment of African Americans, maybe Vic Power debuts with the Yankees in 1951 or '52, becomes a hero the the city's huge Puerto Rican and black population, supplants Joe Collins at first and helps the Yankees overtake the Tribe in 1954, keeping that streak alive! </div>
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As a Yankee fan, it's unseemly for me to be too greedy here. Let's just say it would have been nice for Power to have been given a fair shake in Yankee pinstripes. </div>
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-65348042878445311142018-05-02T13:33:00.000-04:002018-05-02T13:36:16.606-04:00Hosmer Hitting Without "Producing"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today is the second of May, 2018. Due to quirks in early season schedules and the fact that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmq4WIjQxp0" target="_blank">Albert Hammond was a prophet</a>, the San Diego Padres have played the most games in MLB, which happens to be 31. (For the record, so have the Rockies, Astros, Brewers and Rangers. The fewest is 25, by the Twins.)<br />
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Despite that, the Padres have the 10th fewest runs scored overall, and the 9th lowest average runs scored per game, thanks to having the second worst OBP and the third worst slugging percentage in MLB, respectively. Only the Orioles and the <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/derek-jeter-addresses-marlins-long-term-plans/c-266020282" target="_blank">"We Will Be Competitive" Marlins</a> are below the Padres in OPS. They're really pitiful.<br />
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Well, most of them. There are two (and only two) exceptions.<br />
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The first is Christian Villanueva, a 27-year old rookie who came out of the Mexican Leagues after spending several years in the Rangers' organization, hitting for some power, if not for much average, speed or patience. His brief, 36-game career has already included 13 homers, which means he's on a Ruthian pace of 59(!) over 162 games.<br />
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He's also leading the NL in slugging percentage at .707(!) I don't expect that to continue, of course. No Padre has <u>ever</u> led the NL in slugging percentage. Not Dave Winfield,. Not Adrian Gonzalez. Certainly not Tony Gwynn. Not even Ken Caminiti when he was winning his chemically aided MVP award in 1996. San Diego is just too tough a place to hit homers consistently. But in short, Villanueva is not the problem.<br />
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Anyway, the other exception - well, sort of - is Eric Hosmer, famously signed to a much discussed <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/2/17/17024518/eric-hosmer-contract-padres" target="_blank">8-year, $144M deal back in February</a> He's hitting a quite robust .298/.402/.500 right now, having played in all but four of the Padres' games to date.<br />
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He's got a very respectable slash line. He's been pretty healthy. He hasn't made too many bone-headed plays at first base. (OK, well there was <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/982812614509125634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sbnation.com%2Fmlb%2F2018%2F4%2F7%2F17211490%2Fastros-padres-pop-up-muffed-eric-hosmer-walk-off&tfw_site=SBNation" target="_blank">this one</a>.) So what's the problem?<br />
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Despite the respectable slash line, Eric Hosmer has five RBIs. F-I-V-E. 5. Three of those came on solo homers. Which means he has driven in another runner <i>twice</i>, and none in the past month. It's really pretty remarkable.<br />
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In the Padres' second game of the season, Hosmer hit a double in the bottom of the 8th that scored Hunter Renfroe, though Matt Szczur, trying to score from first, got thrown out at home plate, presumably because he hoped there might be some vowels there.<br />
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Then, the very next day, in the bottom of the third, Hosmer hit a double that scored Jose Pirela. Though the Padres lost all three of their games in March, Hosmer was performing as advertised. He was "on a pace for" 108 RBIs (also 108 doubles and 108 walks, but who's counting?)<br />
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<i>And that was the last time Hosmer drove in somebody other than himself.</i><br />
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Not that it's his fault, exactly. Hosmer has only 16 at-bats with RISP, which ties him for <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/split/39/sort/atBats/count/201/qualified/false" target="_blank">211th place in MLB</a>. Most of the guys down there are injured, part-timers or just terrible players. Being this early in the season, there are a few other RBI-deprived outliers:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Eric Sogard also has 16 at-bats with RISP, but has no hits in any of them, though he does have one RBI, presumably on a sacrifice. </li>
<li>Joe Panik and Jonathan Schoop are both 2-for-17 with RISP, each with only 2 RBIs, though they're both injured and hence have not gotten much of a chance to pad those numbers. </li>
<li>Carlos Gomez has only two RBIs in 22 at-bats with RISP, largely because he has hit just .227 in those situations. Of course, unlike Hosmer, Gomez has been pretty terrible overall, hitting just .178 for the year. </li>
<li>Brandon Crawford has been even worse, with just two hits in 20 AB's with runners in scoring position, for one lousy RBI. He's hitting just .191 overall, though. </li>
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Hosmer, by contrast, has hit .313/.389/.438 with RISP, by far the best in all three categories among players who have had at least, say, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_finder.cgi?request=1&match=seasons&as=result_batter&class=player&offset=0&type=b&min_year_game=2018&max_year_game=2018&team_id=ANY&min_season=1&max_season=-1&min_age=0&max_age=99&isActive=either&bats=any&split_1=situa%3Abases&sid_situa%3Atkswg=situa%3Atkswg%3Aany&sid_situa%3Aleado=situa%3Aleado%3Aany&sid_outcb%3Aoutcb=outcb%3Aoutcb%3Aany&sid_oppon%3Aoppon=oppon%3Aoppon%3Aany&sid_situa%3Atimes=situa%3Atimes%3Aany&sid_plato%3Aplato=plato%3Aplato%3Aany&sid_situa%3Abases=situa%3Abases%3ARISP&sid_defp%3Adefp=defp%3Adefp%3Aany&sid_opptp%3Agbfb=opptp%3Agbfb%3Aany&sid_plato%3Aplats=plato%3Aplats%3Aany&sid_opptp%3Apower=opptp%3Apower%3Aany&sid_hitty%3Atraj=hitty%3Atraj%3Aany&sid_lineu%3Alineu=lineu%3Alineu%3Aany&sid_age%3Aage=age%3Aage%3Aany&sid_total%3Atotal=total%3Atotal%3Aany&sid_dates%3Ahalf=dates%3Ahalf%3Aany&sid_locat%3Astad=locat%3Astad%3Aany&sid_situa%3Ainnng=situa%3Ainnng%3Aany&sid_locat%3Asite=locat%3Asite%3Aany&sid_dates%3Amonth=dates%3Amonth%3Aany&sid_situa%3Acount=situa%3Acount%3Aany&sid_situa%3Aouts=situa%3Aouts%3Aany&sid_wpa%3Alever=wpa%3Alever%3Aany&sid_locat%3Ahmvis=locat%3Ahmvis%3Aany&sid_role%3Astsub=role%3Astsub%3Aany&sid_hitty%3Ahitlo=hitty%3Ahitlo%3Aany&sid_situa%3Aclutc=situa%3Aclutc%3Aany&c0gtlt=gt&c1criteria=PA&c1gtlt=gt&c1val=15&c2criteria=RBI&c2gtlt=lt&c2val=2&c3gtlt=gt&c4gtlt=gt&c5gtlt=gt&c5val=1.0&location=pob&locationMatch=is&orderby=HR&sr_split_totals_choice=by_split&number_matched=1" target="_blank">15 chances to drive in a run but only done so twice</a>. Admittedly, I'm cherry-picking the data here, but you can see how unusual it is for him to be simultaneously so successful without having much actual, you know, success.<br />
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Looked at another way, Hosmer currently has 3 HR and 5 RBI, which puts him on a pace for 16 HR and 26 RBI for the year. That would be the second lowest RBI total in history for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/season_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&as=result_batter&offset=0&type=b&min_year_season=1871&max_year_season=2017&min_season=1&max_season=-1&min_age=0&max_age=99&lg_ID=lgAny&lgAL_team=tmAny&lgNL_team=tmAny&lgFL_team=tmAny&lgAA_team=tmAny&lgPL_team=tmAny&lgUA_team=tmAny&lgNA_team=tmAny&isActive=retired&isHOF=either&isAllstar=either&bats=any&throws=any&exactness=anypos&pos_1=1&pos_2=1&pos_3=1&pos_4=1&pos_5=1&pos_6=1&pos_7=1&pos_8=1&pos_9=1&pos_10=1&pos_11=1&games_min_max=min&qualifiersSeason=minpas&minpasValS=502&mingamesValS=100&qualifiersCareer=nomin&minpasValC=3000&mingamesValC=1000&c1criteria=RBI&c1gtlt=lt&c1val=30&c2criteria=slugging_perc&c2gtlt=gt&c2val=.400&c3gtlt=gt&c4gtlt=gt&c5gtlt=gt&c5val=1.0&location=pob&locationMatch=is&orderby=HR&number_matched=1" target="_blank">any player who slugged at least .400 over 502 plate appearances</a>. The lowest was the inimitable Frank Baumholtz, who managed to drive in only 25 runs for the 1953 Cubbies, despite hitting .306 and walking more than he struck out, though he hit only three homers all year. Nobody who <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/tiny.fcgi?id=9tlJk" target="_blank">slugged at least .440 (Hosmer's career mark) for a season ever drove in fewer than 33 runs</a>.<br />
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Even more interesting, perhaps, is that only a handful of players in history have hit at least ten homers without driving in twice as many RBIs as homers. Joey Gallo missed it by two RBI last year (41 HR, 80 RBI). Curtis Granderson missed it by one the year before (30 HR, 59 RBI). And Barry Bonds did it twice, hitting 45 HR with exactly double that total, 90 RBI in 2003, and driving in "only" 137 runs when he set the record with 73 homers in 2001. Hosmer has never hit more than 25 HR in a season, let alone 73, so I think it's safe to say that his season won't be quite like that.<br />
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Now, with all of that said, it is of course still early in the season, and this trend probably won't last. The Padres aren't doing their "proven run producer" any favors by batting him second in an NL lineup that doesn't run (nobody on the roster has more than 3 steals) and has an out-machine like Manuel Margot leading off. Presumably some combination of Wil Myers et. al. will eventually provide a few more opportunities for Hosmer to drive in runs, and he'll take advantage of those.<br />
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But at this point he could have a much more normal looking rest-of-the-year and still end up with only 50 or 60 RBIs. Heck, Myers led the team last year and he only had 74. He had 5 RBIs by April 9th! So if the first year of this contract winds up and writers start calling it an albatross because Hosmer somehow forgot how to drive in runs while he was on the plane from Kansas City, remember that it's not really his fault. He can only work with what they give him.<br />
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Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.com0