About a month ago, Matthew Carruth wrote about Jonny Venters and his unbelievable batted ball profile. At the time (May 6th), Venters had allowed 37 balls in play. Of those 37, a remarkable 34 of them (91.8%) were ground balls. Obviously, Venters couldn’t keep up that kind of pace, right?
Prince Fielder is a big guy who swings hard and hits a lot of home runs. Not surprisingly, he also strikes out a lot; those things tend to go hand-in-hand. Except, well, not this year.
I noticed Fielder’s strikeout rate a couple of weeks into the season, but at that point, he was one of a handful of sluggers who were making a lot of contact early in the year. Most of the others – Miguel Cabrera, Paul Konerko, Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Kemp, and Alex Rodriguez, to name a few – have gone right back to striking out as frequently as they had before. For them, it was just a blip on the radar.
Fielder, though, has kept making contact at a crazy high rate. Since that post was written, Fielder has struck out in just 13.1% of his plate 221 plate appearances – not exactly what you would consider regression to the mean, and the sample is getting larger by the day.
Who watches the Blackmon?
This edition of One Night Only contains:
1. An expanded preview of tonight’s Dodger-Rockies game.
2. An in-particular examination of Jhoulys Chacin’s increased ground-ball rate.*
*The same Jhoulys Chacin who, in turns out, isn’t pitching tonight. I give the reader my solemn vow that (a) he really was listed as the probable for Colorado when I ran the numbers last night and (b) there are still some interesting things about his ground-ball rate, even if they’re not relevant to the present game.
Also, Juan Nicasio — who is pitching — is also an interesting case and will suffice.
3. Brief previews of three more games: Boston at New York (AL), Arizona at Pittsburgh, and Oakland at Chicago (AL).
4. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of tonight’s games.
5. Some total throw away-type lines.
A check of the traditional metrics suggests that American League Cy Young Award runner-up David Price has regressed this season. After just six losses last season, he has already taken the loss in five of his 13 starts. His 3.35 ERA is still good, but up more than a half run over his 2010 mark of 2.72.
Price has been roughed up a few times this season. Most notably on 4/29 against the Los Angeles Angels when he gave up five runs on 12 hits in 4.1 innings. In May, he allowed five runs in back to back starts (5/16 v. Yankees, 5/21 v. Marlins). Those brief showings of mortality actually had some in the Tampa Bay area asking the question – what is wrong with David Price?
The answer is nothing. In fact, Price is a better pitcher than he was a season ago. While he was great last season, his peripheral stats were not in line with his win/loss record or ERA. His 3.42 FIP and 3.83 xFIP were both good, but not second-best pitcher in the league good. His “luck” categories, meanwhile, showed some favorable results, although nothing to suggest fluke or steep regression.
Normally I put the biggest WPA swing on top, but I’m making an exception here, because I enjoyed this one that much.
Moving the Needle: Nyjer Morgan caps the late-inning madness with a walk-off double, +.389 WPA. If you have MLB.tv and a few minutes today, I suggest entertaining yourself by watching the eighth inning of this game. It started with a 2-1 Brewers lead, but ended in a 6-6 tie. That meant the Brewers had to battle back in their half of the inning. They finished that comeback in the ninth when Morgan doubled into the right field corner, scoring Craig Counsell. While that was an exciting and energizing end, the real story was in the eighth.
Notables
Randy Wolf: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K. He got out before it got ugly. That one run? He balked it in.
Ryan Braun: 3 for 4, 2 2B. One of those doubles drove in two in the eighth, bringing the Brewers to within two.
Prince Fielder: 2 for 3, 2 HR, 1 BB. The second homer drove in the tying runs in the eighth. It was a moonshot no-doubter — one of the simple pleasures in the life of a baseball fan. Those were his 16th and 17th homers, which now tie him with Jay Bruce, Carlos Quentin, Matt Kemp, and Curtis Granderson for third in the league.
Ronny Paulino: 4 for 4, 1 HR. His homer in the eighth put the Mets up big. The inning also included a Jose Reyes single and stolen base, and a Carlos Beltran RBI double.
Also in this issue: Rays 4, Angels 3 | Cubs 4, Reds 1 | Orioles 3, A’s 2 | Braves 3, Marlins 2 | Mariners 7, White Sox 4 | Astros 4, Cardinals 1 | Twins 3, Indians 2 | Blue Jays 9, Royals 8 | Phillies 2, Dodgers 0 | Red Sox 11, Yankees 6 | Pirates 3, Diamondbacks 2 | Rangers 7, Tigers 3 | Rockies 5, Padres 3 | Giants 3, Nationals 1
Let’s start this article off with a little experiment. You have five seconds to think of the best pitchers in baseball. Ready? Go!
What names immediately popped into your head? Surely, CC Sabathia and Roy Halladay made your list. It’s also likely that Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum were two of the more popular choices. Some of you may have said David Price or Justin Verlander or Josh Johnson, and those are all acceptable answers. Now, be honest, how many of you thought of Dan Haren?
The following is the first and behemoth installment of a three-part (or more) series concerning baseball’s next great market inefficiencies.
The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.
—Official MLB Rulebook, Page 22
On Tuesday, in the sixth round of the MLB Draft, the San Diego Padres selected outfielder Kyle Gaedele (who the Tampa Bay Rays had previously drafted in the 32nd round of the 2008 draft). Gaedele plays center field and shows good signs of hitting for power, but what most writers, sports fans, and guys named Bradley talk about is Gaedele’s great uncle.
Casual fans probably do not know about Kyle’s great uncle, Eddie Gaedel (who removed the e off his last name for show-business purposes). We nerds can forgive the casual fan for forgetting a player who outdid, in his career, only the great Otto Neu. Gaedel took a single at-bat, walked to first, and then left for a pinch runner.
What makes Eddie Gaedel a unique and important part of baseball history, however, is not his statistics, per se, but his stature. Gaedel stood 3’7″ tall, almost half the height of his great nephew. Gaedel was the first and last little person to play in Major League Baseball, and the time has come for that to change.
Whenever the younger half of a brother-brother tandem is called up, the comparisons are unavoidable. Billy and Cal Ripken, Jose and Ozzie Canseco, Jason and Jeremy Giambi, and, of course, Ryan and Steve Braun. Most recently, we’ve had the combination of B.J. and Justin Upton, one of the least one-sided brother tandems in MLB history. With the Oakland Athletics’ recent call-up of 24-year-old Jemile Weeks, younger brother (by four-and-a-half years) of Milwaukee’s Rickie Weeks, we may see yet another balanced brother combination. Jemile is poised to put together a solid big-league career, but he’ll be doing it with a different approach than big brother beyond just his switch-hitting.
We all know that Jose Bautista is destroying worlds this season: the Bautista (hat tip: Bradley Woodrum) has mashed 20 homeruns and posted a .513 wOBA, accumulated 5 WAR in only 61 games. To put that in some perspective, his .513 wOBA would rank 22nd all-time if the season ended today, and when you adjust for the scoring environment, it’d rank as the fourth best offensive season in major league history (trailing only Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds). He’s having a season for the record books.
In thinking about this recently, I started pondering: how does Bautista’s homerun pace compare with other all-time great seasons? We’re all captivated by a homerun race, and while Bautista isn’t going to break any single-season homerun records, has his homerun pace been as impressive as the rest of his season? And so, I decided to compare his 2011 season against batters that hit 70+ homeruns (Bonds, 2001), 65 homeruns (McGwire, 1999), 60 homeruns (Ruth, 1927), and 54 homeruns (Bautista, 2010). Take a peek:
