It has not all been rosy in Jeff Samardzija’s first season as a major league starting pitcher, but it has certainly been successful. With a 4.06 ERA backed by a 3.54 FIP and 3.59 SIERA, Samardzija has shown the ability to strike out batters at a high rate while getting his walk issues under control. He has battled inconsistency at times, mainly during a stretch in the middle of the season, but overall it has been a rather impressive campaign.
After brutal June and July performances, Josh Hamilton has performed well in the first few weeks of August, hitting .320/.382/.580 in 55 trips to the plate. According to both Hamilton and his coaches, the improvement is the direct result of his willingness to finally make adjustments in terms of which pitches to swing at. After months of hacking away at pitches well out of the strike zone, he’s finally learned his lesson.
“I’m just making my mind up that I’m going to try to focus better on taking more pitches and getting in better hitter’s counts,” Hamilton said. “You see the difference. My third at-bat, I struck out. He didn’t throw me a strike. I asked the umpire, ‘Did he throw any strikes?’ He said, ‘No.’ That was the difference, being patient and getting in good hitter’s counts and knowing that if they’re pitching it there, you can hit it instead of trying to make something happen. Just take your base and score runs.”
He’s definitely saying the right things, and his recent performance is a dramatic improvement. So, is Hamilton really becoming more selective?
The Giants took it on the chin Tuesday night, losing 14-2 to the Nationals. But that didn’t stop catcher Buster Posey from adding to the spectacular numbers he’s posted since the All-Star break: .457/.531/.787 with seven doubles and eight home runs in 113 plate appearances. His wRC+ over that time is an astounding 248. Simply put, he’s been the best hitter in baseball in the second half, and it’s not particularly close. Mike Trout — regularly regarded as “the best player on the planet” — has accumulated 2.3 WAR to Posey’s 2.6 over the past 30 days, and that’s with Posey’s catchers-legs base running and lower defensive rating.
For the season, Posey’s batting .332/.406/.547 with 19 home runs. His 158 wRC+ ranks fourth in the National League, behind Joey Votto, Andrew McCutchen, and Ryan Braun. He’s accumulated 5.0 WAR, good for fifth in the league, behind McCutchen, David Wright, Braun, and Michael Bourn. And again, Posey takes a hit for his base running.
The 2012 MLB season began with a very public bounty of international talent — Japanese stars, Cuban expats and even a Taiwanese surprise. With the season dipping into its final six weeks, we are beginning to see both the good and the bad of these international players who made the direct transition to MLB rookie.
SP Yu Darvish — The biggest star from Japan since Daisuke Matsuzaka has had a very Daisuke Matsuzaka season — much despite steady predictions of the opposite. Well, actually, he has an 86 FIP-minus and 94 xFIP-minus. That’s at least a better FIP than Daisuke’s rookie year, but an identical xFIP.
Dave Cameron has written extensively on Darvish lately, noting Darvish has a command problem, the league has realized Darvish has a command problem, and Darvish has a scary group of command problem comparables.
At the same time, though, Darvish has been adjusting his approach to a less-aggressive (compared to the NPB) league. He has been toying with his repertoire, and I would not be surprised if he entered the 2013 season with a streamlined pitch selection that sets up his elite slider (one of the best in the league) more effectively and simply.
Read the rest of this entry »
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Three Important and Upcoming Dates
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Three Important and Upcoming Dates
Here are three essential dates for the reader’s impossibly stylish and totally leather-bound business agenda.
Tuesday, August 14th, Noon ET
According to the pitcher’s own father, 16th-overall pick Lucas Giolito makes his debut for the Washington Nationals Gulf Coast League affiliate — versus the Marlins affiliate in that same league. Giolito was considered a possible No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft until a sprained elbow this past spring complicated his status. The right-handed Giolito sat in the mid-90s with his fastball as a senior at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, according to Baseball America’s Nathan Rode, even hitting 100 mph at one point.
Andrew Bailey is set to make his Red Sox debut this week. After being sidelined with a thumb injury for the entire season, the Red Sox are expected to activate Bailey on Tuesday. Bailey was acquired to take over the closer role after Jonathan Papelbon left for Philadelphia. And while his injury has certainly hurt the Sox, they’ve performed pretty well without him.
Ben and Sam discuss the significance of a potential big-league promotion for Jurickson Profar and investigate the link between Johan Santana’s no-hitter and his subsequent struggles.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Cole Hamels‘ three-pitch strikeout of Justin Ruggiano during the first inning of Monday night’s Phillies-Marlins game (box) in Miami isn’t more significant than most other three-pitch strikeouts, except for that (a) it occurred on three consecutive changeups and (b) it occurred in front of the very excellent Miami center-field camera, itself particularly well-suited to capture the movement of Hamels’ changeup and (c) the author happened — for some reason that no know one really knows — the author happened to be watching the game in question.
Also, because it’s rather late and managing editor Dave Cameron doesn’t know I’m posting this, is another reason why I’m posting this.
(PITCHf/x data courtesy Brooks Baseball.)
Other Lists
Northwoods League
Coastal Plain League
New England Collegiate League
With August very much here, the nation’s collegiate summer leagues — many of which have probably hosted at least one future major leaguer — are coming to an end.
Below are the players to have performed most ably in this year’s edition of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Offensive production (represented as the totally made-up SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average) is essentially a version of wRC+, except using the three main defense-independent inputs (home-run, walk, and strikeout rate), all regressed duly*. Pitching performance (represented by the also entirely made-up SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention) is calculated using a version of kwERA, with regressed strikeout and walk rates as the relevant inputs.
*By the method outlined here.
The idea here is not to suggest that the following players are/were the actual best prospects from the Cape League this summer. Outlets like Baseball America and Perfect Game will certainly do a much better job of that. Rather, it’s to (a) represent as accurately and responsibly as possible the best performances of the Cape League season and to (b) acquaint ourselves with those top performers.
