Archive for 2008

As I write this, Bill Plaschke’s “Pierre-dar 2008” is informing him something wonderful has just happened. You see, it appears that Juan Pierre has been one of the clutchiest players this season. As of this minute he ranks seventh in the entire MLB with a 0.93 clutch score. Directly ahead of him is teammate Russell Martin and his 0.98.

For his career, Pierre has a clutch score of 4.70. All told, his career WPA of 0.66, WPA/LI of -4.01, and REW of -0.24 are pretty ugly for someone who makes as much as he, but his clutch score is rather impressive. In that same span, 2000-2008, here are the clutch scores of a few others:

David Ortiz: 2.83
Derek Jeter: 1.39
Albert Pujols: -1.13

The usual knocks on Pierre’s game have not dissipated but I never foresaw myself typing the title this post possesses. In case the clutch score confuses, it compares a player to himself, measuring how well he performs in high leverage situations to how well he performs in all situations. If a player has a .333 batting average in important situations but a .333 in all situations, he would not be considered clutch. He would be a good, solid player, but not a clutch one.

In that regard, while Pierre is nowhere near as productive as the aforementioned three, his career has consisted of more productive game-raising results than all three combined. I never thought those words would ever escape my type-mouth.

On May 28th, a eulogy for Jim Edmonds‘ career would not have been out of place. He had been released by the Padres on May 9th after hitting a measly .178/.265/.233 during the first five weeks of the season, then caught on with the Cubs on May 15th and began his career in Chicago by going 3 for 24 out of the gates. Following his 0 for 4 performance on May 27th, his OPS stood at .455.

His body was breaking down, his bat looked slow, and he couldn’t even hit his weight with two franchises. It looked like time had taken its toll, and Edmonds was just done as a major league player.

Looks can be deceiving. On May 30th, his next time in the line-up, he went 3 for 4 with a double and a home run (his first extra base hits since April 21st) and he hasn’t looked back since. From that day through his two home run performance on Saturday, Edmonds hit .400/.446/.800 in 56 plate appearances. 11 of his 20 hits have gone for extra bases during that stretch, and only J.D. Drew, Milton Bradley, and Vladimir Guerrero have been more productive hitters since Edmonds started hitting again.

Edmonds line as a Cub stands at .311/.358/.581, even with his auspicious start to his career on the north side. For whatever reason, he was able to find a juvenation machine and resurrect a career that looked to be just about over. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of Edmonds death were greatly exaggerated, and Cubs fans couldn’t be happier about it.

I’ll start by just asking you to watch this video, of Staten Island Yankee pitcher Pat Venditte as he faces off against Astros prospect Ralph Henriquez. As a brief preface, I will leave you with this: Henriquez is a switch-hitter and Venditte is a switch-pitcher! Yes, you read that correctly. Take a look at this epic matchup:

The crowd absolutely ate this up, the announcers seemed utterly befuddled, and Henriquez/Venditte literally looked like they wanted to fight each other after a bit. Equally interesting is whether or not the umpire made the correct call or not. Initial discussions at Baseball Think Factory discussed how the NAPBL—National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues—rulebook calls for the pitcher to first make a decision as to his handedness; afterwards, the batter can switch sides until he has two strikes.

Another take on the situation, apparently from a different NAPBL rulebook, says that the batter and pitcher can each switch places one time during the plate appearance.

Pete Abraham, at the Lohud Yankees Blog, asked veteran umpire Charlie Reliford about the situation to which Reliford replied the only rule is that, once the pitcher is on the mound, the batter cannot switch sides.

So, in summation, assuming Charlie Reliford is not senile or incompetent, major league baseball will literally have to change its rulebook should Pat Venditte ever make it to the show.

Last year, in need of an offensive boost, the Brewers called Ryan Braun up from Triple-A and handed him their third base job despite concerns about whether he was capable of playing a major league quality third base. Braun went on to have one of the most remarkable rookie seasons in major league history, becoming one of the league’s best hitters from the day he stepped on the field.

Russ Branyan isn’t at the beginning of a great long career, but it’s eerie to note just how history is repeating itself up in Milwaukee. With a struggling offense and no obvious answers at third base, the Brewers recalled Branyan from Nashville (where he was hitting .359/.453/.693) on May 25th and gave him regular playing time at third to get his bat in the line-up while they figured out if they could live with his defense.

He hasn’t stopped hitting since he got to Milwaukee, putting up a .306/.405/.855 mark in 62 at-bats since he got the call. He’s doing it in typical Branyan-style fashion, joining the three true outcome heroes of the game with a 15.1% BB%, 38.7% K%, and .548 ISO based on 10 longballs. Of his 74 plate appearances, 45 of them (61%) have ended in a walk, strikeout, or home run. Notable TTO monster Jack Cust has had 56% of his plate appearances end in a BB, K, or HR for comparison, while Adam Dunn is at 55% and Ryan Howard is at 53%.

With Branyan, the Brewers knew what kind of player they were getting, and they were willing to overlook the flaws in order to see if he could provide some much needed offense. Perhaps teams that continue to overlook these AAAA sluggers should take note – Branyan already has more extra base hits in 20 games than everyday designated hitter Jose Vidro has for the Mariners all season, for instance. Finding a guy who can just hit the baseball really far isn’t all that hard, and the organizations struggling to get production from their DH positions should be fairly ashamed of themselves.

If baseball continues to trend in the direction that it has been – less offence – then pitchers with average or fringe-ish stuff have a much better chance of putting together a solid Major League career. Right-hander Jonah Nickerson is one of those minor league pitchers whose career is looking a little bit brighter.

Currently in High-A Lakeland, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, Nickerson is continuing to build a solid pro career after being a very good starter at Oregon State University. The 23-year-old was drafted in the seventh round of the 2006 draft and has “fringe-average stuff” (86-88 mph fastball, curve ball, cutter, change-up) but he has solid command and knows how to pitch.

Nickerson did not pitch for the Tigers organization in his draft year, but he entered full-season ball in 2007. In 150 innings in low A-ball, he allowed 9.32 H/9 and 2.27 BB/9 but struck out just 6.93 batters per nine innings. Moved up to High-A ball in 2008, Nickerson has continued to improve. In 74 innings, he has allowed 8.76 H/9 and 1.95 BB/9. His strikeout rate has remained about the same at 6.81 K/9. He could be even more successful if he induced a few more ground balls, as he currently has a 1-1 ratio with fly balls. It might be a good time to give him the Double-A test.

No, a slow offensive third of a season in the Major Leagues does not suddenly make Nickerson a potential No. 1 or 2 starter. However, he is someone to keep an eye on as a possible future No. 4 or 5 starter, especially given the lack of top prospects in the Detroit system.

Close to halfway through this regular season, those everyone pegged for success back in the beginning of the calendar year can be found atop most pitching leaderboards: Cliff Lee, Joe Saunders, Shaun Marcum, and Edinson Volquez. A fifth pitcher, however, has been performing at quite the high level as well despite the lack of similar publicity.

His name is Aaron Cook and, for those unfamiliar with his work, he pitches for the Colorado Rockies. Through 15 starts, Cook is 10-3 with a 3.29 ERA, 3.99 FIP, and 1.27 WHIP. In 104 innings of work he has allowed 105 hits and 27 walks to go along with his 50 strikeouts. The ERA, FIP, WHIP, and his 1.85 K/BB are all career highs for Cook; while the season has plenty of life remaining, his current numbers appear to be better than any of his past work.

A notorious groundball pitcher, his percentage of such balls in play has actually decreased overall from 2005 until now. Though essentially stagnant between 2006-2007, he has thrown a lower percentage of grounders and line drives, replacing them with flyballs in this four-year span.

One reason for his success is his somewhat vast increase in runners stranded. Last year, when he posted a 4.12 ERA, 4.58 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, and 1.39 K/BB, he had just a 68.1% LOB rate. This year it has jumped to 75.8%. All told, he is allowing a smaller percentage of runners to reach base and then stranding a much higher percentage of them.

His 2.21 WPA ranks 2nd in the NL behind just Volquez while ranking 5th in the entire MLB behind Lee, Saunders, Marcum, and Volquez. His 1.14 WPA/LI ranks 10th in the NL and, the only clutchier starting pitcher than Cook has been Vicente Padilla (1.13 for Padilla, 1.09 for Cook). Additionally, his 13.13 BRAA and 1.30 REW rank 9th in the NL.

Coming into this season many pegged, and rightly so, Jeff Francis as the Rockies ace. Close to the halfway mark Cook has been one of the best in baseball, let alone his own team, while Francis has struggled.

Does anyone remember a stranger season in recent memory than the one Cliff Lee is currently putting together? As we’ve covered extensively here, Lee came out of the gates pitching like 1988 Orel Hershiser, dominating opponents with ridiculous performances that seemingly came out of nowhere, but lately, he’s been hit hard and watched his ERA rise significantly – he’s just barely edging out Shaun Marcum for the AL Lead as of today. However, his core performance hasn’t regressed nearly as far. Look at his by month performances:

April: 0.48 BB/9, 7.65 K/9, 0.24 HR/9, 1.80 FIP, .195 BABIP, 81.6% LOB%
May: 2.10 BB/9, 6.55 K/9, 0.52 HR/9, 2.99 FIP, .346 BABIP, 79.7% LOB%
June: 2.20 BB/9, 10.47 K/9, 1.10 HR/9, 2.99 FIP, .437 BABIP, 70.3% LOB%

He got lucky in April, so maybe karma is coming back to haunt him, but really, a .437 batting average on balls in play is not regression to the mean – it’s regression so far past the mean that it can’t even see it with a telescope. It might be tempting to look at Lee’s 5.51 ERA in June and determine that he’s back to being what he always was, but the old Cliff Lee was never a 2 BB/10 K/1 HR pitcher. His core stats from June would fit right in with Johan Santana’s career line. June is simply not an example of Lee reverting to previous form.

As Lee continues to post months with a FIP below 3.00, we’re going to have to continue to revise our estimate of his true talent level upwards. This is a classic example of why I couldn’t care less about a pitcher’s ERA. His run prevention results of late hide the fact that he just continues to assert that he’s a better pitcher now than he’s ever been.

As numerous studies have shown, it’s very hard to predict who will perform well in clutch situations, as the Great Clutch Project continues to demonstrate. Even players with cemented reputations as clutch or choke hitters see huge swings in their performance in high leverage situations, and it’s nearly impossible to find a guy who consistently does better than we would expect in big time pressure spots.

However, there is one player who is currently following up a pretty clutch 2007 with an even more clutch 2008 – he’s the only guy who amassed a clutch score of 1.00 or greater last year and has already done the same this year. That guy is the legendary master of timely hitting… Maicer Izturis.

In 2007, Izturis totaled 1.12 wins thanks to clutch hitting, good for the 19th highest clutch rating in the game despite getting just 336 at-bats as a part-time player. So far in 2008, he’s totaled 198 at-bats and already amassed a 1.22 clutch rating, 4th highest in baseball. Almost all of that has come in the last month, as Izturis has been a big hit machine for the Angels recently, including these remarkably high leverage hits.

June 11th, 5.96 LI, 7th inning, down 2-1, vs Scott Kazmir: Bases loaded single scores two.
June 1st, 6.39 LI, 9th inning, 3-3 tie, vs B.J. Ryan: Walk off single wins game.

He amassed .702 WPA in those two at-bats alone, accounting for most of his 1.01 WPA on the season.

In his career, Izturis now has a clutch score of 2.59 in 1184 at-bats. If he sustains this kind of performance much longer, it won’t be long before he gets tagged with the clutch hitter label.

When the Detroit Tigers organization selected Cale Iorg with its sixth round pick in 2007 (and gave him more than $1.4 million), it took a flyer on a talented, toolsy player who had not played organized baseball in almost two years. It also added to the accomplishments of one of the larger, yet lesser known, baseball families.

The Iorgs are not as well known as the Boones or the Bells or even the Hairstons. But Cale’s father Garth was an infielder with the Toronto Blue Jays for nine seasons in the ’80s and uncle Dane was a utility player in the late ’70s and ’80s for a number of teams, including the Phillies, Cardinals and Royals.

Brother Isaac, now 29, was drafted by the Blue Jays in the 19th round of the 2001 draft out of Brigham Young University and spent four seasons in the minors before hanging up his cleats. Brother Eli was selected in the supplemental first round by the Houston Astros in 2005 and is currently in Double-A. Eli, 25, spent just one year on a Mormon mission during college and signed with Houston for $900,000, despite being drafted higher than Cale.

Although Cale, a shortstop, played college baseball for just one season, he was considered by many scouts to be the most talented ballplayer in the family. So far this season, the 22-year-old is hitting .260/.326/.415 in 246 High-A ball at-bats. He has eight homers and 12 stolen bases in 17 attempts. The weakness for all three members of the younger generation has been plate discipline and Cale is currently walking 7.8 percent of the time and striking out at a rate of 27.0 percent. Defensively, he has committed 11 errors in 59 games.

Although Eli could make it to the majors quicker than Cale, the younger brother appears to have the brighter future with an intriguing combination of speed and power at a premium position.

One of my favorite numbers to look at is the run support provided to a given pitcher. It’s nothing necessarily sustainable but provides solid supporting evidence when discussing the validity or merit of a starting pitcher’s statistics, namely his W-L record. For instance, many understand that W-L records are not necessarily indicative of performance quality–a guy can give up 2 or 3 runs in 8 innings and lose, or give up 5 runs in 5 innings, but receive 8 runs of support and win.

Interestingly enough, that example comes pretty close to replicating both ends of the run support spectrum. John Lannan, who Dave noted should be known for more than just injuring Chase Utley last year, is at the bottom, receiving just 22 total runs in his 14 starts. When extrapolated it comes to 2.39 RS/9, a full 0.39 runs ahead of closest “competitor” Paul Byrd. However, he has a 3.36 ERA and, including unearned runs, has a RA/9 of 3.47.

On the opposite end we have Kyle Kendrick of the Phillies. In 15 starts this season Kendrick has received 74 runs of support, or 8.50 RS/9. The next closest? Oliver Perez, whose 7.47 RS/9 is over a full run less.

It comes as no surprise then that Lannan is 4-8 and Kendrick is 6-3, even though the former appears to be pitching better than the latter.

Additionally, Kendrick is no stranger to run support either, as his 7.74 RS/9 last season would be atop the Fangraphs leaderboard if his 20 starts qualified for inclusion. So, in the last two years, Kendrick has made 34 starts and received 178 runs of support. In those 34 starts he has gone 199.1 innings while allowing 99 runs (earned or unearned). Since his mid-season callup in 2007 he has gone 16-7; his 4.47 RA/9 is more than erased by his 8.04 RS/9.

Maybe Lannan should talk to Kendrick about lending him some of those runs in order to boost his barometer.