Understatement: Jason Heyward’s 2011 season did not go quite as most of us expected. His (seemingly) long-awaited 2010 rookie campaign at age 20 mostly lived up to the hype, but he followed up with stereotypical “sophomore slump” season that was marred by nagging injuries, benchings, but most of all, poor hitting (relative to expectations, at least). Now 22, Heyward is so far may not be hitting as well as he did in his rookie year, but he is doing well. His resurgence over the first quarter of the season thus far is one reason the Braves are currently leading the National League East.

Many explanations have been given for Heyward’s 2011 issues, too many to deal with one way or the other. If it is not too boring, I want to focus on a couple different ways that “regression” was used in this particular case to see how it is sometimes misused, or, perhaps more accurately, used in a clumsy fashion.

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On Tuesday, Adam Jones took a 1-0 fastball from CC Sabathia in the second inning and launched it out to left field. On Wednesday, in the 15th inning, he destroyed a curveball from Nate Adcock, breaking a 3-3 tie and giving the Orioles a go-ahead run that led to their extra inning win. Yesterday, the victim was Luke Hochevar, whose 4th inning slider didn’t break far enough out of the zone, allowing Jones to deposit it over the center field wall for his third home run in as many days.

The power surge continues Jones’ strong start to the season, and his 13 home runs are now just six fewer than he had in both 2009 and 2010. The long ball barrage has raised his overall season line to .295/.345/.604, and his 159 wRC+ puts him in the top 20 in offensive performance to begin the year. Once you add in the fact that Jones is a center fielder who also runs the bases well, Jones has been a top five player in the sport so far.

While it’s still early, his strong start is evoking memories of Matt Kemp’s breakout year last season, and the two might be a bit more similar than you think.

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Alexi Amarista, IF/OF, San Diego Padres
Current Level: MLB
2012 Top 15 Prospects Ranking: 8th (Angels)
Current Value: MLB ready

Recently acquired from the Los Angeles Angels in the deal that sent Ernesto Frieri to the American League, Amarista offers some skills that play very well in San Diego: speed, versatility and defense. The 23-year-old has spent parts of three seasons in triple-A, never hitting below .278. Because he makes a lot of contact, Amarista produces low walk rates and he offers no home-run pop but he does have surprising gap power for his size (listed at 5’7”). Amarista is a great left-handed hitting 25th man for a National League club but he could receive an opportunity for regular playing time now that incumbent second baseman Orlando Hudson has been cut loose. He has the potential to steal 20-30 bases in a full season.

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Based on Game Score, Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout game against the Astros on May 6th, 1998 is the best-pitched nine-inning game in Major League history. The 105 score is better than every perfect game and four points better than any other game period. He was 41 days shy of his 21st birthday and it was his fifth big league start.

Wood, now 34, is set to announce his retirement from baseball today according to ESPN Chicago’s Bruce Levine. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 1,000 career innings, his career 10.31 K/9 is the best in history by a right-handed pitcher and the second best all-time behind Randy Johnson (10.61 K/9). His 20 strikeouts against Houston remains the National League single-game record, and five days later he struck out 13 Diamondbacks to set the all-time record for strikeouts in consecutive starts (33).

In many ways, Wood is the embodiment of everything that can happen with young pitchers. He dominated, he walked a ton of guys, he got hurt, he dominated again, got hurt again, shifted to the bullpen, and then got hurt yet again. Unlike Mark Prior, Wood was hurt long before Dusty Baker came to Chicago’s north side and starting running arms through the shredder. He had Tommy John surgery in 1999 and shoulder inflammation in 2001, but still managed to rack up 17.2 WAR before his career really flew off the rails in 2004.

The laundry list of injuries includes labrum and rotator cuff surgery, five separate DL stints for non-surgical shoulder problems, knee surgery, back problems, blisters, an oblique strain, and triceps issues in addition to the elbow reconstruction. Wood spent 16 different stints on the disabled list during his 14-year career, including a bout with shoulder inflammation this season that appears to have contributed to his decision to retire. Frankly, it’s surprising he didn’t call it a career sooner given all the physical problems.

In an age when the term “electric stuff” gets slapped on every kid with a mid-90s fastball, none have lived up to the moniker like Wood. His fastball would legitimately sit in the mid-to-upper-90s early in his career and that curveball … it was just a thing of beauty. Batters swung and missed at his offerings a whopping 12.3% of the time since the data starting being recorded in 2002, a testament to how nasty he was. Wood topped the 200 IP plateau only twice (2002 and 2003) but he had four different seasons of 3+ WAR, including another at 2.7. He started, he closed, and he setup between injuries for the Cubs, the Indians, the Yankees, and then the Cubs again.

It’s almost impossible to find someone who wasn’t a fan of Kerry Wood. He was never an underdog in the sense that he lacked talent — he had talent to spare, if anything — but he was an underdog in that his body did everything it could to sabotage his greatness. Wood was one of the most exciting pitchers of his generation, fitting the Texas fireballer stereotype to a tee. Paul Sullivan of The Chicago Tribune says he’ll announce the decision following this afternoon’s game, and chances are Wood will make his final appearance as a player in relief and walk off the field to a standing ovation. After all he’s been through, Kerry will leave the game of baseball on his own terms and that’s awesome.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Featured Game: Baltimore at Washington, 19:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Baltimore at Washington, 19:05 ET
Regarding What Today Represents
Today represents the first slate of interleague games this season.

Regarding What Else Today Represents
Today also represents the first time various sportswriters will carry on at length concerning the value and/or meaning of interleague play this season.

Regarding What This Game, Specifically, Represents
This game, specifically, represents the first time that Mid-Atlantic half-rivals Baltimore and Washington have entered interleague play in something resembling “contention” since Pythodorus was archon of Athens.

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As a small-market team with limited firepower, the Cleveland Indians need to optimize their run-scoring capabilities. Whether they’re doing that is hard to quantify: Cleveland ranks in the middle of the pack among American League teams in most offensive categories. One thing is certain, though—the Indians take an analytical approach to lineup construction and in-game strategy.

Manager Manny Acta and assistant general manager Mike Chernoff discussed the subject, in separate conversations, when the Indians visited Fenway Park last weekend.

Lineup construction

Chernoff: “It’s Manny’s job to make out the lineup. It’s entirely up to him, but he does seek input from us. He reaches out to our analytics department to ask questions about the best lineup construction in certain situations, or maybe to see how a change he’s thinking about might help our team. He’s very open-minded about seeking feedback.”

Acta: “The main thing is scoring runs, so you need to stack up your best hitters up front. Read the rest of this entry »

“In the end,” Thompson wrote, “very few people will remember anything I have done as a baseball player. But hopefully they will remember what kind of person and teammate I am.”

— the Philadelphia Inquirer

For those who missed the Rays and Red Sox game last night, here’s the update: In the bottom of the eighth, moments before a blood-souring hit-by-pitch to Will Rhymes, pinch runner Rich Thompson took over for Luke Scott at second base. Much of the audience was probably — and perhaps rightly — focused on Rhymes.

But at the same time, Thompson standing at second was a spectacle in itself.
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[On Hugo Chavez]
What I say about Chavez, I don’t say I like his ideas, I don’t say I like the way he is. I just said I like the man because he works hard and he says what he thinks. Some people don’t like it, but I don’t say I like the man, he’s a governor. I don’t say I like the man, he do great things in the world, in my country. I said I like the man because he loves his country.
— 2005, press conference before second game of ALCS

[Asked to name the toughest person he knows]
Fidel Castro. He’s a bullshit dictator and everybody’s against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes they roll out the red carpet.
I don’t admire his philosophy. I admire him.
— 2008, interview, Men’s Journal

[While talking to a reporter in his office]
I love Fidel Castro… I respect Fidel Castro.
You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherfucker is still here.
— 2012, interview, Time Magazine

One month ago today, Ozzie Guillen returned from a five-game suspension for saying “I love Fidel Castro.” And no one cares. The Marlins have gone 16-11 since he got back; they were just 2-3 under interim manager Joey Cora. The entire controversy, which seemed to suck all the oxygen out of sports television and radio for the week between the publication of his comments and the end of his suspension, appears to have dissipated.

(Well, just about. A little over a week ago, when the Marlins were in Houston for a series, Ozzie cursed out a radio host who asked him about the backlash , and the Astros kicked out a group of fans who chose to lampoon Ozzie by dressing up as Castro by wearing matching beards and cigars.)

The controversy even seems to have dissipated in Miami. “That’s a fact,” says Dr. Andy Gomez, the assistant provost at the University of Miami who is also a senior fellow in the university’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. “The Cuban-American community, we’re going to judge him based on how many games he wins, not on how he feels about Fidel Castro.”
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The Toronto Blue Jays made the shocking decision today to demote veteran first baseman Adam Lind to triple-A. In his place the organization added catcher/infielder Yan Gomes to the 40-man roster and promoted him from Las Vegas.

Make no mistake about it, the rookie will not replace Lind in the lineup. Despite outstanding surface numbers at triple-A, the Brazil native has the ceiling of a platoon/part-time player. However, I’ve softened my stance on him since the spring when I wrote about not reading too much into his small-sample numbers. After posting decent numbers at the double-A level in 2011, Gomes followed that up with solid results in the Arizona Fall League in late 2011 and then even better numbers at triple-A this year. Defensively in the minors he’s played 149 games at catcher, 29 at first base and 10 at the hot corner – grading as average-at-best at each.

His numbers at triple-A are definitely aided by the potent hitter’s environment in Las Vegas and the rest of the Pacific Coast League. He was hitting .359 with 17 extra base hits, including five homers, at the time of his promotion. His continued aggressive approach led to just six walks in 131 at-bats, good for a walk rate of 4.3% (He posted walk rates of 3.6% in high-A in ’10 but was up to 8.1% in ’11). Gomes, 24, will also need to adjust his two-strike approach at the big league level; he was hitting .595 while a head in the count at triple-A but that number plummeted to .186 while behind in the count.

A teammate of J.P. Arencibia’s at the University of Tennessee, Gomes and Toronto’s incumbent starting catcher are friendly so that will help him fit into the clubhouse – which some observers have likened to a frat house. Gomes fits a number of club needs. He’ll serve as the third string catcher behind Arencibia and Jeff Mathis. He’ll be a better backup to third baseman Brett Lawrie than the light-hitting Omar Vizquel was and he could occasionally fill in for the equally versatile Edwin Encarnacion, who appears to be the new everyday first baseman.

Although I suggest tempering enthusiasm for Gomes’ promotion it’s not hard to envision him playing an important role on the Jays’ 25-man roster. This move also suggests that Toronto really is taking the 2012 seriously and taking a legitimate stab at competing for the wild card slots. They realized that Lind was unfortunately costing the club runs – and possibly wins. Gomes, on the other hand, should be given a legitimate shot to contribute to the team’s success going forward – or until the organization can cash in on some of its young arms, such as low-A starter Noah Syndergaard, in an effort to acquire a potent veteran bat for the middle of the lineup. An eventual promotion of Vladimir Guerrero, who’s working out in extended spring training, is another possibility.

Regardless of what happens going forward, Gomes deserves some recogniztion for working hard to develop himself into a legitimate big leaguer after being the 310th player selected (10th round) in the 2009 amateur draft and the first Brazilan born player in the majors.