Archive for August, 2012
Erik Bedard Walks the Plank
Erik Bedard is exactly the sort of pitcher a team signs to a one-year contract, and last December, the Pirates signed Bedard to a one-year contract worth $4.5 million. At the time, I’m guessing the Pirates figured they probably wouldn’t still have Bedard come September. He’d be an interesting wild card for a Pirates team with an outside shot, but more likely he’d either get hurt or traded to a contender. You don’t sign Erik Bedard because you’re making big plans around Erik Bedard.
The calendar is just about to turn, and, sure enough, the Pirates no longer have Erik Bedard. Viewed that way, this has played out about as expected. But Bedard isn’t known to be hurt, nor has he been traded away to a contender. Rather, the Pirates simply released Bedard outright, citing inconsistency and under-performance. The thinking with Bedard has long been that he’ll be effective as long as he’s healthy. He’s been healthy, and lately, he’s been ineffective.
The League’s Best Changeups, Animated
August 28, 2012
In today’s edition of the Daily Notes — and by way of previewing Tommy Milone’s start later tonight in Cleveland — the author presented a leaderboard of the league’s best changeups this season, as determined by pitch-type runs. Indeed, one of the names on that leaderboard was Tommy Milone’s own, whose changeup has been worth 16.1 runs above average. In fact, Milone is first on that list — tied with another AL West left-hander, Seattle’s Jason Vargas.
Vargas and Milone have a lot in common. They’re both left-handed, they both have fastballs that sit at 87-88 mph, and they’ve both held right-handed batters to a lower wOBA-against this season (.296 and .290, respectively) than they have left-handed ones (.322 and .319) — largely on the strength of their plus changeups, one assumes.
A final thing they have in common is how the present author made animated GIFs of them this afternoon. Nor are these GIFs of either the haphazard or slapdash variety, but rather the carefully and artisanally crafted sort. Indeed, in so making these GIFs, the author sought to find instances in which each pitcher had thrown in front of one of the league’s better cameras — of particular importance when dealing with left-handers, the angles of whose pitches are distorted considerably by cameras that are not straight-on from center field.
Orioles Throw Spaghetti, End Up With Randy Wolf
While the Orioles bullpen has continued to keep them in the playoff race, the Orioles rotation has been a bit of a patchwork job all year long, and so today, they’ve reportedly signed a new patch named Randy Wolf.
While you can perhaps make a case for a change-of-scenery helping give players a fresh start, it’s hard to imagine Wolf is going to be anything besides a bad pitcher in the AL East, however. Here are Wolf’s numbers relative to league average from each of the last three seasons.
2010: 105 ERA-/122 FIP-/118 xFIP-
2011: 98 ERA-/113 FIP-/116 xFIP-
2012: 145 ERA-/122 FIP-/113 xFIP-
As is often the case, Wolf’s results have jummped around a bit despite his overall profile not changing much, as his walk rate, strikeout rate, and groundball rate are all pretty close to his career norms this year. However, after a couple of years of outperforming his peripherals due to hits on balls in play and runner stranding, he’s now gone the other way this year, getting victimized by those two variables.
For his career, Wolf has been slightly above average in both hit prevention and runner stranding, so there’s more reason to believe that he has (or had) some ability to outperform his FIP. However, that ability simply moved him from being meh to being okay, and at age 35, he seems to be closer to the meh end of the spectrum. His decline in strikeout rate tells a lot of the story.
Source: FanGraphs — Randy Wolf
The Orioles aren’t exactly flush with pitching depth, and since the Brewers released him, the Orioles are only responsible for the pro-rated league minimum for the remainder of the year. Giving Wolf a roster spot in September in the hopes that he finds some of his previous ball in play voodoo isn’t a terrible gamble for roughly $80,000, but Wolf’s performance trends and the move to the AL East suggest this probably isn’t going to work very well.
It’s basically the cheapest possible solution on the market, but in this case, the Orioles probably will get what they paid for.
Ahead in the Count
Blake Beavan is not an exciting pitcher. He doesn’t have electric movement or blazing speed. At least, his pitches don’t. I haven’t seen him on the dance floor. Although he once threw in the mid-90s, he doesn’t much anymore and he mostly throws fastballs in the strike zone that look rather pedestrian and ordinary. He looks like the sort of pitcher who should get shelled a lot and/or play for the Twins. Perhaps there’s something in his delivery that is interesting, but we don’t have the technology yet to deduce it.
As it happened, Blake Beavan was facing the Twins a little while back. While trying to come up with a new way to summarize a very typical Blake Beavan start, I noticed that he had thrown an unusually high, even for him, percentage of strikes (74%) and furthermore, that he had thrown a first-pitch strike to 20 of the 24 batters that he faced. Blake Beavan’s one Major League skill is his control and those are both excellent rates.
Wade Miley: Wonderfully Average
If you knew exactly what pitch was coming, it would probably be easier to hit. Somehow, Wade Miley is an exception.
Miley’s season has been quite a pleasant surprise for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He’s amassed 14 wins and a shiny 2.80 ERA, corroborated by a 3.09 FIP. He’s given up fewer hits than innings pitched and he’s been almost as stingy as Cliff Lee with his walks. He’s probably the leading candidate for NL Rookie of the Year right now, or at least one of the co-favorites along with Todd Frazier.
And yet, Miley is getting it done by throwing almost 75% fastballs. If they were really special fastballs, that’s one thing – but the league average fastball velocity is 91.1 mph and Miley’s is, yep, 91.1 mph. So how is he finding success throwing average fastballs perpetually in the strike zone?
… And Nick Punto
My favorite part of this weekend’s Red Sox-Dodgers blockbuster isn’t the absolutely insane nature of the trade, it’s the “… and Nick Punto” that will forever be attached to it until the end of time. Los Angeles surrendered two high-end pitching prospects and absorbed more than a quarter-billion dollars in salary obligation to acquire a star-caliber first baseman, a potential star-caliber outfielder, and a serviceable (with a chance for lots more) starting pitcher. Oh yeah, and a utility infielder.
Winning Teams, Gleaming Ballparks, and Attendance
Last week, a sport columnist on the local CBS affiliate in Chicago rained down the invective on White Sox fans for failing pack U.S. Cellular Field to capacity for the three-game series with the Yankees. The White Sox lead the AL Central. The Yankees lead the AL East. It was a premiere match-up of two teams expected to play in October. Fewer than 28,000 fans attended the first two games. You want to be a top tier team, then get off your Barcaloungers and put your money where your mouth is, the columnist demanded of White Sox fans.
We’ve heard this type of thing before, many times. Earlier this season, it was Indians closer Chris Perez who took to Twitter to complain about fans not showing up to Progressive Field when the Indians were leading their division. Early in the 2011 season, sports business reporter Darren Rovell’s went on an infamous Twitter spree with a series of “empty stadium” photos.
Baseball writer and White Sox fan Cee Angi took exception to last week’s White Sox-related column, and penned a detailed response at The Platoon Advantage. Cee coined the term “attendance shaming” and called out the local sports columnist and others who rail against empty seats without either looking at actual attendance numbers over the years or understanding the economic and non-economic factors that come into play. She notes that the White Sox’ attendance has dropped less than 1% from 2011, when the Sox finished third in the AL Central, to this year, when they find themselves (perhaps surprisingly) in first place. And with dynamic pricing and other advanced forms of sales and marketing, she argues, it’s entirely unclear whether fewer fans in seats at U.S. Cellular means less revenue for the team. If the team’s revenue is the same or more than expected before the season starts, she says, then fewer fans in seats should have no bearing on a team’s willingness to make trades and take on additional salary as the season progresses.
Daisuke Matsuzaka on Waivers: A Worthy Gamble
On Monday, the Boston Red Sox activated Daisuke Matsuzaka and sent David Ortiz to the DL. On Tuesday, they put Daisuke on waivers.
The recent Dodgers-Red Sox super-trade cleared the slate of expectations for Boston’s 2013 team, and it seems unlike they would be interested in giving Dice-K another chance while their minor leagues brim with newfound pitching talent. And though it is unwise to call the recent trade a salary dump — given the talent they got in return — it appears all postseasons bets are on hold for now. According to Paul Swydan, the Red Sox should have six open roster spots heading into next season, and one of those does not likely belong to the veteran, oft-injured Matsuzaka.
BUT: Despite having TJ surgery last May, despite hitting the DL with a back strain last month and despite being less than a month away from his 32nd birthday, Matsuzaka has a career-low walk rate and his best strikeout rate since 2008.
And he could be a worthy gamble for a team in contention.
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