Archive for 2008

Ryan Howard had a scorchingly hot month of September, as he hit .352/.422/.852, with 11 home runs. Producing a 1.68 WPA/LI in the month put the slugging first baseman ahead of all other hitters in the season’s final month and likely earned him plenty of undeserving MVP votes. There were several other hitters, however, that had performed extremely well in September, yet whose work in that span will likely go unnoticed by the larger fanbase of major league baseball. A couple of these players have been covered here before, but at least two will surprise or shock you.

First, Andre Ethier finished just one-tenth of a win behind Howard, as his final month resulted in a 1.57 WPA/LI. Dave mentioned here that the talk of Manny Ramirez as MVP was a bit odd considering that Ethier was arguably better than Manny since his arrival. In September, Ethier hit .462/.557/.692, with 12 extra base hits. His batting order compadre, Ramirez, hit .370/.465/.753. There is no doubt that Manny is a big reason that the Dodgers were able to win the division, but nobody should sell Ethier short. His performance over the last few months has been just as important.

Felipe Lopez is quite the interesting case. He was solid for the Reds a few years back, went to the Nationals as part of that odd Austin Kearns–Gary Majewski trade, and was deemed to be so ineffective this year that the Nationals–yes, the Nationals–let him go. After all, in 100 games, he was hitting a measly .234/.305/.314. The Cardinals were quick to snatch him up and he did not disappoint. In 43 games, he hit .385/.426/.538, numbers you may expect from Cardinals-teammate Albert Pujols, but not the light-hitting Lopez. This past month, he hit .414/.443/.596, with 6 doubles and 4 home runs. For those keeping score, that means he hit 2/3 of his total number of home runs over the final month.

Shin-Soo Choo of the Indians had a tremendous more-than-half-season with the Indians. In the final month, he hit .400/.464/.659, with 5 doubles and 5 home runs. He was not this hot during the entire season, but his overall numbers and very impressive: .309/.387/.549, 28 doubles and 14 home runs in 94 games. His teammate, Asdrubal Cabrera, started off alarmingly slow, but finished very strong, with a .416/.455/.571 in September, complete with 6 doubles and 2 home runs. It didn’t bring his seasonal line to that of Choo’s, but he did manage to “up” it to .259/.346/.366.

Lastly, Joey Votto of the Reds had a great rookie season, hitting .297/.368/.506 in his first year of big league action. His 32 doubles and 24 home runs are equally impressive and his continued development will be a big part of the Reds’ success moving forward. Over the final month, though, his batting average rose just slightly to .309, but his OBP rose to .400 and his SLG jumped to .723. One fourth of those doubles came in September, and 9 of those 24 home runs did as well. He also showed he could be fleet of foot, adding 2 triples.

The regular season is just about over, so you would think the performances of these players would be fresh in our minds, but unfortunately they are not covered too often. Tonight we will take a look at pitchers who flew under the radar in September. This would basically be anyone not named Sabathia, Lee, Halladay, or Lincecum.

On the left arm of CC Sabathia, the Brewers made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. It wasn’t an easy season by any means, but their survival resulted in a playoff berth via the wild card, and with that, a first round NLDS matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies. What will they need to do in order to go from Wild Card to World Champion?

Get on Sabathia’s back

The big southpaw has been ridiculously great since coming over from Cleveland, and with their season in jeopardy the last few weeks, he’s repeatedly answered the call on short rest. He’s made three starts on three days of rest and has given up six runs with a nifty 4/21 K/BB, averaging over 7 innings per start on short rest.

Well, he’ll have a chance to do it again in Game 2, as he went Sunday to get them in, but they can’t give up their chance to get him two starts in this series. With Ben Sheets likely on the shelf for at least for the first round, the Brewers need Sabathia to throw as many innings as he possibly can, and that means keeping him on his three day rest schedule. The odds of them beating the Phillies if CC only makes one start are not good, and if CC’s willing to keep pitching with abbreviated rest, the Brewers have to take him up on it.

Swing For The Fences

The Brewers hit 198 home runs as a team, and the middle of their order features some fearsome power – they even get longballs from unusual sources such as SS and CF. They play big baseball, and if they buy into cliches about bunting and making productive outs to win October, they’ll be cutting their offense off at the knees. They have a lot of guys who can hit the ball a long way, and they need to let them try. The less often they bunt, the better off they’ll be. Swing away boys.

This is a few weeks old but I just caught Matthew McGough telling the hilarious story of his first day as the Yankees bat boy on The Moth podcast. It’s definitely worth a listen, especially if you’re a fan of one of the 21 teams already looking forward to opening day 2009.

Today will kick off a series of retrospectives now that the regular season is over and done with. These will concern themselves only with the regular season and how the teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula, which I feel is the best overall measurement of a team’s actual talent level for the season.

Number One: Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox occupied the top spot according to BaseRuns and by a fair margin to boot, 35 runs better than the second place team. The Red Sox were 2nd best on offense at a projected 884 runs scored and 7th at run prevention with 699 runs allowed.

Boston’s pitching was well balanced between the rotation and the bullpen. The rotation was anchored by Josh Beckett and Jon Lester and saw a solid, if curious and likely unsustainable, performance from Daisuke Matsuzaka as well. The bullpen was built on the backs of another outstanding season from Jonathan Papelbon and a breakout year for Manny Delcarmen.

On the hitting side there were many people to spread the credit around to. J.D. Drew rebounded from a vilified first season in Boston to post fantastic numbers both at the plate and in the field. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz provided much less value than before but were still helpful contributors. The breakouts though came from Dustin Pedroia (a fine, but nowhere near MVP performance) and Kevin Youkilis, who busted out a never before seen slugging power.

While the catcher and center field positions did what they could to drag down the offense, the rest of the lineup made up for it and with Boston’s immense financial resources they should be in prime position to patch what few holes they have and continue being a dominant force in 2009.

In my very first post here at Fangraphs, back on April 14, I took a look at Phillies leftfielder Pat Burrell, and how his numbers had been very consistent over the last few years. They had also been consistently better than his reputation would suggest; his reputation was seemingly spawned from a very poor 2003 season following his 6 yr-50 mil extension. His batting average will only be high thanks to very high BABIPs, but based on his 2005-07 numbers, he was as much of a sure thing in the OBP, SLG, OPS, and BB department as you can find. He might not have been atop the leaderboards for each of these metrics, but you knew exactly the type of production he would provide. And, to top it off, he cut back on his strikeouts.

He started out scorchingly hot, hitting 8 home runs with a 1.126 OPS in 28 April games, before cooling in May. June and July saw “the bat” range from .956-.973 in OPS, before his much documented slide in August and September. Even when he struggled, however, he seemed capable of stepping up in crunchtime, and his 1.15 clutch score, ninth highest in baseball this year, seems to agree. On the whole, Pat hit .250/.367/.507 this year, an .875 OPS, with 33 doubles, 33 home runs, and 102 walks. Using win based metrics, he was worth about 2.5 wins above an average hitter via WPA/LI, and his 3.78 WPA ranked 12th in the sport.

As I did back in April, let’s compare his last few seasons:

2005: .389 OBP, .504 SLG, 27 2B, 32 HR, 99 BB
2006: .388 OBP, .502 SLG, 24 2B, 29 HR, 98 BB
2007: .400 OBP, .502 SLG, 26 2B, 30 HR, 114 BB
2008: .367 OBP, .507 SLG, 33 2B, 33 HR, 102 BB

His OBP was down from the previous three years but his SLG outranked his marks in 2005-07, even if by the slightest of margins. His home runs and doubles increased, evidenced by his .257 ISO, his highest in this span. Pat’s BABIP, which went from .341 to .298 to .283 from 2005-07, fell to .275 this year. The Phillies won the NL East for the second straight season, thanks in part to his hot early season performance, which made up for the slow start of Ryan Howard. Howard returned the favor over the last month of the season, but if the Phillies want to avoid a repeat of last year’s division series, both sluggers will need to be at the top of their games.

Pat will be a free agent at the end of this season, and while he has expressed a strong desire to remain in Philadelphia, it just does not seem like a viable option. His fielding has deteriorated to the point that some teams in the senior circuit may seriously shy away from him. It would appear that he would fit best in the American League, where he could work as a designated hitter, but we will have to wait and see. He has been one of the top offensive leftfielders over the last four years and it is a shame that so many in Philadelphia could not get over his very poor 2003 campaign. Burrell is not a hall of famer, and he has never even been named to the all star team, but there are many teams out there, including the Phillies, that could continue to benefit from his bat for the next few years.

The Dodgers had an up-and-down season, coming from behind to overtake the Diamondbacks and win the N.L. West after Manny Ramirez breathed some much needed life into their offense following his acquisition at the deadline. For the final two months, Manny swung the bat like the best hitter in baseball and offset some of the other problems the team was having. But Manny can’t win a title by himself, so what do the Dodgers need to do to take out the Cubs and march towards a World Series title?

Heal Rafael Furcal

Furcal was the team’s best player for the first five weeks of the season, but then missed all but the last four games with a serious back injury. The Dodgers struggled to replace him, finally settling on Angel Berroa for most of their September playoff push. The only problem is that Berroa is horrible – he hit .230/.304/.310 in 226 at-bats and that might have been playing over his head. He racked up a -1.57 WPA/LI in just over a third of a season, a truly horrible offensive performance. Even if Furcal isn’t completely healthy, he’s almost certainly an upgrade over what they’ve had at the position. The more often they put him in the line-up, the better their chances of winning.

Use Juan Pierre as a pinch-runner only

Despite the fact that he pales in comparison the both Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, Juan Pierre has still started five of the last 15 games the Dodgers have played. Joe Torre likes putting him in the line-up despite the fact that Pierre can’t hit. He has value as a baserunner, and high leverage steals can make a big difference in a single game (Dave Roberts, anyone?), but there’s just no reason to write Pierre’s name on the line-up card. He shouldn’t start a single playoff game, and if Torre can’t resist the urge to keep him on the bench, the Dodgers will suffer for it.

Don’t be afraid to use Clayton Kershaw

While I advised the Cubs to keep their talented young pitcher to low leverage situations, I’d suggest the opposite for the Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw is significantly ahead of Samardzija as a pitcher, putting together a solid season as an above average starting pitcher at the age of 20. If he’s unleashed as a reliever who can throw max effort for 20-30 pitches a night, he could sit comfortably in the high-90s with a devastating breaking ball to boot. He’s good enough to be used in tight situations, and Torre should ignore the fact that he can’t legally drink yet.

Well, the regular season is not entirely over, as the White Sox and Tigers play at 2 PM EST today. The south side bunch trails the Twins by one half game in the AL Central, meaning the best they could do is force a tie with a win, leading to a one game playoff. The White Sox are putting the season in the hands of Gavin Floyd, who has definitely exceeded expectations this season. Jim Leyland is handing the ball to Freddy Garcia, former Mariners and White Sox great, who won a ring with the White Sox in 2005.

Garcia spent last season with the Phillies, though most of it was not actually spent with the Phillies, as he missed a large portion of the season due to injury. And, as a Phillies fan, I can attest to the fact that while he did look great in spurts in the several starts he did make, he was more than largely ineffective. He spent the last year and a half or so rehabbing and getting back in shape, hoping to audition for, and impress, a team willing to give him a chance this season.

The White Sox were one of these teams, but Ozzie Guillen felt that Freddy just was not ready yet, and likely would not return this season. Garcia used these words as a motivational tool, driving him to prove he was definitely ready for big league action. Sportscenter hinted that Garcia held some ill will towards Guillen for the comments; I am sincerely hoping this was more of a literary technique by the anchor as opposed to the truth, since Guillen’s comments (for once) were pretty harmless in this case.

He has made two previous starts, compiling 10 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 3 HR, 3 BB, 9 K. I will refrain from discussing, in detail, his 4.50 ERA, 6.43 FIP, or 8.10 K/9, since he has made just two appearances, but a solid performance from Garcia, against his old team, could knock the White Sox out of the playoffs. Let’s hope this does not happen, however, or else we will be one step closer to dozens of mainstream newspapers discussing how the Mets with Johan Santana did not get in but the Twins sans-Santana are still alive in October.

Life was good for the Cubs this year – they won 97 games, best in the National League by a comfortable margin, and essentially ran away with the NL Central. They were the only NL team to crack 800 runs scored, and only the Dodgers allowed fewer than the 671 runs they gave up. They hit, they pitched, they fielded well – they were the league’s best team and played like it all season long.

So, as they look to open their NLDS series against the Dodgers, what is the path to success that will lead the Cubs to a WS Championship?

Get Carlos Zambrano fixed

Three starts ago, Big Z threw a dominating no hitter, shutting down the Astros in a game that seemed to state loudly that his arm was fine. His next two starts were a disaster, however, as he gave up 13 runs in 6 1/3 innings. His command was gone (7 walks), he wasn’t missing bats (3 strikeouts out of 35 batters faced), and hitters were pounding the pitches they swung at (4 of the 9 hits he allowed were XBH knocks).

The Cubs need Zambrano to win it all. The most important variable for the Cubs this October is getting him pitching like the guy he’s been for the last few years. If they can’t, the odds of them holding a parade drop significantly.

Low Leverage Jeff Samardzija

His no-clue-where-the-strike-zone thing is worked well in August, when he posted a .256 BABIP, which kept runs off the board even as he put baserunners on. However, he simply couldn’t sustain that kind of performance, and he was pretty lousy in September – more walks than strikeouts with 19 of the 47 batters he faced reaching base. Velocity can be seducing, and it’s tempting to want to hand the ball to the guy who throws 98 as often as possible, but Samardzija isn’t a very good reliever right now, and the fewer important innings the Cubs give him, the better off they’ll be.

Get Fontenot in the line-up

Mike Fontenot hs had a remarkably good season as a reserve infielder who played when Mark DeRosa was playing something besides second base. His .305/.395/.514 line made him one of the Cubs best hitters, though obviously those numbers are inflated by his limited playing time. However, there’s a good case to be made that Fontenot is a better player than Kosuke Fukodome right now, and the Cubs best line-up involves moving DeRosa to right field in order to keep Fontenot in the line-up. As good as the Cubs offense is, you don’t want to be leaving runs on the bench in a playoff series, and the difference between Fontenot’s bat and Fukodome’s could end up deciding a game. Play your best players, and right now, Fontenot is one of your best players.

Last night the Mets and Brewers both won, leaving the NL Wild Card race at a standstill. The Rays lost and Red Sox won leaving the Rays still without a clinched division title. The Twins came back from a huge deficit and completed a sweep of the White Sox, but that still left the separation in the division at one half of a game, just with a new leader now.

Those races are all highly publicized. One other race was pared down last night that might have gone unreported. With the Mariners losing, the Padres were officially eliminated from the race for the first overall pick in next June’s amateur draft. The tiebreaker for draft order is to award the earlier pick to the team with the worse record in the year prior and of the three teams vying for that top spot: Seattle, Washington and San Diego, the Padres had the best record in 2007, followed by Seattle.

This means that in the event that San Diego and Seattle tie in overall record come Monday, the earlier pick will be awarded to the Mariners. Since if Seattle wins out and the Padres lose out, the two teams would end up with identical records, there is now no way for the Padres to surpass the Mariners for the first pick. What that ends up meaning is still very much up in the air, but no matter who ends up emerging over the course of next Spring, draft picks get exponentially more valuable the closer they get to first overall.

The current consensus top talent, San Diego State starter Stehpen Strasburg, will be closely watched along with fellow southern California collegian Grant Green. In the event that their stock hold up into next June, that San Diego will have to hope that at least Seattle, and possibly Washington as well, pass on both can not fill them with much glee.

Three games remain for both the Phillies and Mets. The Phillies currently hold a one game lead in the NL East, and the Mets are deadlocked with the Brewers atop the Wild Card standings. The Mets have not blown a 7.5 game lead like last year, but the similarities to last year at this same time are pretty striking. Entering the final series in 2007, the Phillies and Mets were tied, and were set to host the Nationals and Marlins at home, respectively. In the first game, Cole Hamels looked dominant, striking out thirteen Nationals en route to a 6-0 win. Up north, Oliver Perez fell to Byung-Hyun Kim, 7-4, giving the Phillies a one game lead.

The next day, John Maine had a Hamels-like performance as the Mets beat up on the Marlins, 13-0. The Phillies were not as lucky, and why should they have been, with Adam Eaton on the mound? Why Eaton was pitching on such an important day will forever escape me and the multitude of Phillies fans. Anyways, they lost 4-2, once again bringing the division to a tie. On the final Sunday, I will never forget watching in shock (and glee) as Tom Glavine imploded and the Marlins erupted for seven runs in the first inning. Ramon Castro came a few inches short of a grand slam to make the score 7-5, and the Mets were down and out. Jamie Moyer, meanwhile, looked brilliant for the Phillies, as they clinched the division with a 6-1 victory.

Weather permitting, the Phillies will host the Nationals for three this weekend, while the Marlins visit Shea Stadium. Below are the tentative matchups:

Phillies vs. Nationals
Friday: Joe Blanton vs. Collin Balester
Saturday: Jamie Moyer vs. John Lannan
Sunday: Cole Hamels vs. Odalis Perez

Mets vs. Marlins
Friday: Mike Pelfrey vs. Chris Volstad
Saturday: Brandon Knight (?) vs. Ricky Nolasco
Sunday: Johan Santana vs. Scott Olsen

The question mark is not meant to serve as an insult towards Knight but rather it points towards the fact that the Mets seemingly have not decided who will pitch Saturday. The New York announcers speculated Knight would toe the rubber tomorrow and he very well might. Should the Phillies or Mets clinch prior to the final game, Hamels and Santana will likely be given the day off in order to pitch in the first game of a playoff series. With the way the forecast looks this weekend, these final games may be Monday or Tuesday. The circumstances of this season’s division race is different than last year, but just like then, both teams will have to stave off potential spoilers to earn their way into October baseball.