Archive for Game Preview

Many pundits will label this as a must-win affair for the Rays. That is not entirely correct since this is only a must-win in order to avoid must-win games in this series until the weekend. For this must-win-to-avoid-a-must-win, the Rays turn to their most experienced starter, the elderly James Shields.

Shields is not without his own childish controversies. Just ask the local radio caller who suggested the Rays’ braintrust turned to him in game two only because of his Jewish beliefs. You see, the Rays management includes some names that end in “man” and “stein” and therefore they are just part of one large Zionist conspiracy to overtake the world. Shields, being from California with curly hair, is just another example of the Jewish-based agenda. The host dispatched Mr. Rick Sanchez’s concerns by pointing out that Gabe Kapler – a member of the Rays who is actually, um, Jewish – is nowhere to be found on the roster despite his beliefs.

Matt Garza is so much better than Shields that it’s evident why some would resort to truth telling like our friend on the radio. Garza had the better FI … well, not quite, but his xFIP was … not better either. He did have the better ERA though, and hey he throws harder. Shields didn’t even have a better ERA during the 2008 playoffs than … well, gosh, yes he did.

Shields’ problems this season are rooted in home runs and batting average on balls in play inflation. There’s no need to hand wave those away as just flukes because Shields has always had a slightly above league average rate in both, but not to this extent. Color me skeptical on Shields’ supposed flaring hittability given his career best strikeout rates. There are some thoughts that his fastball command has slipped, perhaps due to overthrowing, but at the end of the day that stuff is pretty hard to prove.

In reality, Shields over Garza means next to nothing unless the Rays have to go to David Price in game four. It’s the next series where the two slot tends to ensure two starts. Besides, Shields appears to match up with the Rangers well, as Jason Hanselman shows here, using the Rangers’ contact and slugging percentages based on pitch types. That will only come into play if Shields uses his changeup, something he did little of last time out in a truly weird outing against Kansas City.

Expect the Rays to roll with mostly the same lineup against C.J. Wilson, who – at least check – is not Cliff Lee. That should boost offensive expectations and morale, even if only a little bit.

It was a nice win for the Rangers today and they look to go up 2-0 with another win tomorrow. The only major change from game one to game two is that James Shields and C.J. Wilson get the call as the starters.

One knock against Shields is that he has been inconsistent this season. To see how consistent Shield’s and Wilson’s starts were across the season, I decided to graph both starter’s Game Scores from best to worst.

Wilson has put up better Game Scores across the entire season when compared to Shield’s starts. Wilson had fifteen Game Scores over sixty, while Shields only put up six over sixty. Besides have more good games, Wilson’s bottom 5 performances don’t drop off like Shield’s bottom 5.

Each game that a starter does better, he gives he team a better chance of winning, no matter if he offically gets the win or the loss. Here are the team’s Win/Loss records when each pitcher pitched to a certain level of Game Score:

The pitcher’s team usually won when the pitcher was able to achieve a game score of 56 or higher. If Shields can post Game Scores like his regular season numbers, he has about a 25% chance of throwing a great game, 50% of the time the game will be a toss up and 25% of the time it will be clunker. Wilson on the other hand had 50% of his game great, 30% in the toss up range and 20% in the bottom range. Shields season was consistently inconsistent over the season, while Wilson was generally consistently good.

The chances for the Rangers to win tomorrow’s game look good considering the scheduled pitchers. The Rays need to hope the “Good” Shields shows up to have a chance to even up the series.

Much of the attention around Game One of this Giants-Braves series understandably will go to Bobby Cox’s decision to have Derek Lowe start rather than Tommy Hanson. Cox did this in order to keep Hanson on regular rest, and given that Lowe isn’t as bad as some think to he is, it’s an understandable choice. The Giants’ top three starters — Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez — are excellent, but Lowe, Hanson, and Tim Hudson are no slouches, either. The Giants have one of the best pitchers in baseball going tomorrow night, but if Lowe can keep the ball on the ground like he usually does and his infielders do their part, the Braves are going to be hard to score on, too. Moreover, as Dave Cameron pointed out in our playoff preview podcast, the Braves have a excellent bullpen (even with Takashi Saito being out) that Bobby Cox should be willing to go to early and often.

The problem the Braves face going into Game One is not so much preventing runs, but scoring them. First, there’s the small issue of Tim Lincecum being really good, even though it has been a “down” year for him (“only” 5.1 WAR, 3.15 FIP). Even more problematic for the Braves is the state of their offense. Perhaps more than any other team, Atlanta’s offense illustrates why simply going off of current season stats when analyzing a matchup is a mistake. In 2010, the Braves’ offense was cumulatively the third most productive in the National league at 39.9 park-adjusted batting runs above average (the Giants were seventh at -14.6). Leaving aside the difference between observed performance and true talent, if we take a closer look, we see that Chipper Jones (+12) and Martin Prado (+17.4) were responsible for about 30 of those. Both Jones and Prado are out for the playoffs. Those injuries, coupled with a McLouth–Cabrera–Ankiel mess so horrible that it makes one think “man, Eric Hinske should really get some starts,” could make things very ugly for Atlanta going up against Lincecum tonight.

The situation isn’t hopeless. Much attention will be given to probable NL Rookie of the Year Jason Heyward and “how he responds” to the pressure situation of being the playoffs. The Braves are obviously counting on a lot from Heyward, but he is not the Braves’ only good hitter. Brian McCann isn’t just a good hitter for a catcher, he’s a good hitter, period. CHONE’s latest update sees McCann as a slightly better hitter (+17/150) than Heyward (+16/150). This means that San Francisco can’t simply save their best left-handed relief specialist for one or the other. Although Derek Lee has had a down season in 2010, his track record suggests he’s a much better hitter than his .340 wOBA in 2010 would indicate. These three players (perhaps including All-Star Omar Infante) don’t make the Braves’ offense a great one by any stretch. Still, Cox has wisely maximized his resources this season by hitting Heyward second (usually the most misused spot in the batting order) more than anyone else on the Braves. If Cox follows his practice from Sunday and slots the right-handed hitting Lee at #3 between Heyward and McCann, it will be much more difficult for the Giants to leverage left-handed relievers against the Braves in crucial situations.

The San Francisco’s offense is probably slightly better than Atlanta’s overall, although the Giants have some holes and questions marks as well. The Giants also have the advantage in starting pitching on Thursday. However, the gaps are smaller than they might seem, and between the Braves’ bullpen and a few good hitters in the key spots in the batting order, Atlanta has more than a sluggers chance. I look forward to the possibility of some interesting matchups between both bullpens and middles-of-the-orders tomorrow night.

When analyzing regular season baseball, we tend to look at the big picture. Anything can happen in a single game, so examination with a larger lens will help us better understand what’s going on. But in the playoffs that all changes. Bench players stay right there, as teams roll out their A lineups every day. Injured players, who influenced the team’s overall season stats, play no part in a postseason run. There’s also no chance of missing an opposing team’s ace; there’s a good chance of seeing him twice in a series. Both the Yankees and the Twins will open the series with a lefty ace on the mound.

Francisco Liriano

Three years since his breakout 2006 season, Francisco Liriano returned to form in 2010. His 2.66 FIP finished second in the AL to Cliff Lee, and his 3.06 xFIP led the way. What hurt him was poor results on balls in play. His .340 BABIP was the second highest among AL starters this season. Much of this is due to terrible outfield defense. Liriano’s BABIP on fly balls is .254, quite a deal higher than the AL average of .138. Unsurprisingly, the Twins rank 20th in outfield UZR. But even Liriano’s results on ground balls doesn’t compare favorably to the league. Of the 284 ground balls he has induced this year, 71 have gone for hits, a .250 BABIP. The league average is .231.

Liriano punishes hitters with his slider. It’s tough to get a good gauge using pitch type values, since it doesn’t account for sequencing and we have no splits. Liriano’s slider does rate as the best in the league, though that’s in large part because he throws it a third of the time. On a rate basis he falls below a number of other pitchers. A few Yankees do hit the slider particularly well, including Robinson Cano, Marcus Thames, and Mark Teixeira. Still, without splits we can’t really gauge this with any degree of accuracy.

Tonight’s Yankee lineup will feature three lefties — Cano, Curtis Granderson, and Brett Gardner. Unfortunately for them, Liriano does his best work against same-handed hitters. This season he has struck out 52 of 172 lefties faced (30.2 percent) while walking just four. Not a single left-handed batter has hit a home run off of him. The rest of the lineup will hit from the right side. While Liriano is a bit weaker against righties he still has excellent numbers, including a strikeout per inning. Righties do tend to hit the ball in the air more often, though, which as we saw can become a problem.

If there is any concern about Liriano right now, it’s that he’s tiring down the stretch. After allowing just three home runs through the first five months Liriano allowed six in September. His strikeout rate dipped, though it still remained high at 8.1 per nine. That could be just the opening that the Yankees are looking for.

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CC Sabathia

What CC Sabathia has lost in strikeout numbers — and it’s not much — he has gained in ground ball tendency. For the first time in his career half the balls put in play off him were on the ground. The closest he came previously was in 2005. Yet he suffers from the same high BABIP on grounders as his counterpart Liriano. The league has hit .254 on ground balls in play off CC, while hitting .231 on ground balls overall. This can be in part attributed to the weak right side of the Yankees infield. Derek Jeter has a -4.8 UZR, while Alex Rodriguez is at -1.7. This might present problems for the Yankees, since the Twins rank near the top of the league in ground ball rate. Denard Span, Michael Cuddyer, Orlando Hudson, and Joe Mauer are among the top 50 in ground ball rate.

Sabathia for the most part features three pitches, though he’ll normally use only two on each hitter. Hitters of both handedness will see two types of fastball, a four-seamer that sits around 93, 94, and a two-seamer that sits around 93 and has sinking action. That’s what aids his ground ball rate. He’ll throw a fading changeup to righties, while he attacks lefties with a slider that, according to pitch type values, ranks near the top of the league. He’ll also use the slider against righties at times, mostly going for the low, inside corner. He has thrown just four changeups to lefties all season.

In the Twins lineup he’ll likely face four lefties: Span, Mauer, Jason Kubel, and Jim Thome. None of them has particularly good numbers when facing same-handed pitchers. For his part, Sabathia handles lefties well, holding them to a .261/.318/.360 line. Of the 220 lefties he has faced this season he has struck out 62 (28 percent) while walking just 14. It’s not quite Liriano-style dominance, but he does combine it with excellent numbers against righties: .232/.295/.354 with an 18 percent strikeout rate.

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The playoffs get underway in a few hours live from St. Petersburg. David Price will make his first career postseason start against the Rangers while Cliff Lee declares war on batmen as if he is The Joker (and he might be, check out the dastardly smile on this guy). Lee’s tendency to give offenses a collective Glasgow smile raises the importance of Price holding the Rangers off the board. It also makes one wonder how the Rays will possibly score.

One cannot spill ink over this game without mentioning the Rays’ 3-0 record versus Lee. But Lee held them to a line of .253/.265/.347 while striking out 25 batters in just 24 innings pitched and did not allow a home run while — and perhaps more startling for this particular lineup – walking only two batters. Nearly all of the Rays’ runs were created in an emasculating manner for one of the better offenses in the American League, yet credit their run prevention unit for keeping Lee’s squads (twice Seattle, once Texas) silent on the boards long enough to scratch paint off the Titanic’s deck.

Assuming Joe Maddon stays consistent in his approach to southpaws, then B.J. Upton and Jason Bartlett will bat first and second. This is relevant because when Upton delivers offensively, it usually comes at the expense of a lefty. In fact, his .268/.381/.538 line results in the 20th best ISO against lefties this season, ahead of names like Mark Teixeira, Nelson Cruz, Miguel Cabrera, and all of his teammates. Bartlett’s .355 on-base percentage against lefties this year is no fluke and while he provides no pop, he does a nice job of making contact, leading to some potential hit-and-run opportunities if they so present themselves.

Evan Longoria will finally return and one has to think Kelly Shoppach (owner of a .455 slugging percentage versus lefties this season) and Sean Rodriguez (.292/.375/.442 in his first full major league season against lefties) will find themselves taking swings at Lee tomorrow as well. Perhaps the biggest question mark is Carlos Pena, who hit .179/.316/.359 against same-handed pitchers and looked awful while doing so. The Rays’ roster guarantees to be flexible when it comes to dexterity and position, but even they cannot platoon every position.

Given what we know about Lee, that depth might be more vital in this game than the rest.

Series Information

Stadium – Tropicana Field plays completely opposite compared to the hitters paradise of Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Tropicana is a pitcher’s dream with a spacious center field.

Home Plate Umpires – I do not know which umpire is going to work behind home plate for game one, but the six umpires working this series are Tim Welke, Jim Wolf, Jerry Meals, Bill Miller, Jeff Kellogg, and Mike DiMuro. The crew is not half bad with Bill Miller and Tim Welke being pitcher friendly with a wide strike zone and Jeff Kellogg known to be a hitter’s friend with a smaller than average zone.

Game 1 Information

What to look for when the Rangers take the field?

Cliff Lee is getting the call for game one of the series, which is huge for the Rangers to start the series with a legitimate ace. My fellow writers, Matt Klaasen (here) and Albert Lyu (here) have each done a nice write up on what to expect from Lee. There is not much else for me to add to what they have already said.

Against the Rays this season Cliff looks like he has not had his best stuff, going 0-3 with a 4.56 ERA. Looking a little deeper, he has pitched decently by striking out 25, walking two, and not allowing any home runs in 23.2 innings.

The Rangers bullpen is adequate with Darren Oliver and Darren O’Day setting up Neftali Feliz. If the Rangers have a lead after the sixth inning, they should feel confident that the pen should hold onto it.

Defensively, the Rangers are fairly solid. The Ranger’s outfield has the 5th best UZR total for the season at +20.8 UZR. All the outfielders play above average defense with the exception being David Murphy, who is probably only league average. The infield’s UZR over the season is -5.8 UZR. The infield would have been exactly average, except for Michael Young and his -5.8 UZR. While not a great defense, the teams defense ended up as 11th overall in the league according to UZR.

What to look for when the Rangers are batting against David Price?

The Rangers have a couple of key injuries in the outfield that will effect the team. David Murphy looks like he won’t be able to go in game one, but Josh Hamilton will be back to patrol center field. It is tough to know the exact the lineup the Rangers are going to use, but here is my best SWAG using previous game information.

Andrus-SS
Young-3B
Hamilton – CF
Guerrero-DH
Cruz-LF
Kinsler-2B
Francoeur-RF
Cantu-1B
Molina-C

The order toward the bottom may be changed around, and I think Ron Washington will go with Cantu because he wants to use a right handed bat versus the left handed starter, David Price. The offense has been a strong point of the team this year. Hopefully, Hamilton can remain healthy and re-anchor the lineup after missing the past month.

Final thoughts

The Rangers are not receiving as much media love as the other teams in the playoffs and Vegas has them as the least likely American League team to win the World Series (10 to 1 odds). But the team is well rounded and, when they acquired Cliff Lee during the season, the Rangers got a much needed ace to match up against the opponent’s ace. This game is not in anyway a must win for the Rangers, but a game one victory would go a long way in helping Texas to their first ever post season series win.

The editors of FanGraphs invite you to put the following in your pipe and smoke it.

Or just read it with your eyes. You choose.

(NERD scores in parentheses.)

Friday, August 13
Milwaukee (Yovani Gallardo, 9) at Colorado (Jorge de la Rosa, 9) | 9:10pm ET
• Casey McGehee entered Wednesday’s game versus Arizona batting .272. Entering play today, that number’s risen to .285 — mostly on account of he’s gone 9 for his last frigging 9. “But, Cistulli,” maybe you’re saying, “didn’t you even know that batting average is so 1997?” “Well,” I reply, “it also makes up about 80% of a player’s on-base percentage, so stick it.”
• Jorge de la Rosa currently sports a 5.01 ERA, but only a 3.73 xFIP. Impress your friends and/or enemies by reciting this loudly in a public place.
• If I had my druthers: We could all impress each other without even trying.

Toronto (Marc Rzepczynski, N/A) at Los Angeles Americans (Scott Kazmir, 2) | 10:05pm ET
• Hear me now and believe me whenever you want: this game isn’t being featured because of Scott Kazmir’s sweet pitching skills. Kazmir has below-average strikeout, walk, and groundball rates. No, the real pleasure will be watching Toronto, currently the only team with a collective ISO greater than .200 (specifically, .210), take massive hacks at Kazmir’s junk*.
• Jose Bautista hit his league-leading 36th dongpiece last night. Hear him roar!
• Ah, man: I love the Rze and so can you. Like Tom Cruise in a certain 1983 cinematic masterpiece, Marc Rzepczynski has all the right moves. He doesn’t qualify for a NERD score yet, but has a 3.41 xFIP against a 7.15 ERA. And he’s only 25. And even the vowels in his name are consonants.
• Peter Bourjos! Peter Bourjos! Peter Bourjos! (Yes, this is what passes for baseball analysis these days.)

*And by “junk,” I mean his pitches, of course.

Saturday, August 14
San Diego (Mat Latos, 10) at San Francisco (Madison Bumgarner, 7) | 4:10pm ET
• Damn, Mat Latos, you’re only 23 and have one of the best xFIPs (3.56) among starting pitchers.
• Damn, Madison Bumgarner, you’re better than I thought you were going to be.
• Damn, Ryan Ludwick, who died and gave you a career 7.9 UZR/150 in right field?

Oakland (Trevor Cahill, 5) at Minnesota (Brian Duensing, 4) | 7:10pm ET
• Neither Cahill nor Duensing are real edge-of-your-seat exciting pitchers. Both are below average in terms of swinging-strike rates, and hence K/9. But they’re also pretty-really good at inducing grounders. On the season, Cahill is sporting a 56.4% groundball rate; Duensing, 52.4%. How many will they induce tonight?!? Tune in to find out!
• In case you didn’t hear, Oakland recently promoted prospect Chris Carter to the big club. I had the opportunity to see all 6’5″, 230 of Carter this spring when Triple-A Sacramento visited Portland, Ore. Here was my first thought: “I could totally take that guy.” Here was my second: “I must be pretty sauced right now.”
• If I had my druthers: I could totally take that guy.

Boston (Jon Lester, 9) at Texas (Colby Lewis, 6) | 8:05pm ET
• Lester has groundball rate of 54.3%. That’s surprising to me, and, because I’m not that special, I’m guessing it surprises you and you and you. How’s he doing it? Well, I asked the internet that question — specifically, StatCorner’s awesome scouting tool — and here’s what I found. (All pitches are graded on 20-80 scouting scale in each cat).

Pitch	%	Sp	K	BB	GB
FB	58%	93	70	60	75
SI	16%	89	80	65	50
CB	14%	77	65	45	70
CH	8%	85	60	25	75
Overall	--	--	70	50	75

What we find here is that, with the exception of Lester’s sinker, he’s getting near league-best groundball rates on all his pitches. Now you know!
• Colby Lewis is dynamic. That’s it: he’s just frigging dynamic.
• If I had my druthers: Someone would design a plane or something modeled after Colby Lewis’s dynamism.

Sunday, August 15
Cleveland (Justin Masterson, 8) at Seattle (Felix Hernandez, 10) | 1:05pm ET
• Fact One: Justin Masterson has 63.4% groundball rate.
• Fact Two: The Cleveland infield has had a whole lot of Jason Donald and Asdrubal Cabrera and Mark Grudzielanek and Anderson Hernandez and Jhonny Peralta and Andy Marte up in it.
• Fact Three: Literally, all those guys have negative UZRs. Yeah, it takes some time for UZR to stabilize, but that’s a bad trend, at the very least.
• Fact Four: Justin Masterson has a .347 BABIP against.
• You fill the blanks, America.

Baltimore (Jake Arrieta, 1) at Tampa Bay (Jeremy Hellickson, N/A) | 1:40pm ET
• He’s only pitched 14 innings, so whatever, but here are the (very impressive) nerd scouting numbers for Hellickson. (Again, per StatCorner, on the 20-80 scouting scale.)

Pitch	%	Sp	K	BB	GB
FB	51%	91	65	25	80
CH	27%	81	80	80	35
CB	18%	75	80	80	80
Overall	--	--	80	70	80

• Who’m I kidding? I’m just watching this so the computer-robot known as R.J. Anderson doesn’t freak out on me.
• If I had my druthers: R.J. would someday get his wish to become a real boy.

Milwaukee (Manny Parra, 7) at Colorado (Ubaldo Jimenez, 8) | 3:10pm ET
• Dear Future Self, Is Casey McGehee 18 for his last 18 now? What’s it like where you are? Do they have frozen yogurt still?
• Manny Parra is a lefty who throws 92-94 mph and has a killer split-finger pitch. He’s also someone who’s been cursed by God, as his career .352 BABIP-against confirms.
• Experiment: Sit at a sports bar and tell the dude next to you that Ubaldo Jimenez isn’t the best pitcher in the majors. Wait for his reaction.

This edition of One Night Only features hella special effects.

You’re welcome in advance, is what I mean by that.

Friday, July 23 | Cincinnati at Houston | 8:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
The Pantone 185s: Travis Wood (NERD: 7)
26.2 IP, 7.76 K/9, 3.04 BB/9, .161 BABIP, 34.3% GB, 6.5% HR/FB, 4.21 xFIP

Space Team: Bud Norris (9)
68.0 IP, 9.66 K/9, 4.37 BB/9, .377 BABIP, 41.3% GB, 9.7% HR/FB, 4.00 xFIP

Why Travis Wood Is Worth Your Time
• In only the third start of his career — July 10th at Philadelphia — he flirted with perfection. (Maybe he flirted with some other things, too. All we know about is the perfection.)
• He followed that performance up with another fine start, home versus Colorado on July 18th: 6.0 IP, 26 TBF, 6 K, 4 BB, 7 GB on 15 BIP (46.7%). Not dominant, but certainly good.
• He’s just a tiny little super guy. (By which I mean to say, he’s only 23 years old.)

Why Bud Norris Is Worth Your Time
• His xFIP (4.00) is far below his ERA (6.09). In other words: Regression in the hizouse, players!
• Per StatCorner’s nerd scouting system, Norris’s slider rates above average in swing-and-misses (70 on the 20-80 scale), zone percentage (60), and ground balls (75). Also, he throws it 35% of the time. So watch it now, ‘fore his arm falls off.
• Those are two pretty good reasons, actually.

A Startling Discovery
The Reds are only 1.5 games out of first.

That Same Startling Discovery Written in Comic Sans
The Reds are only 1.5 games out of first.

Batter Bullets
• Michael Bourn (10) and Drew Stubbs (9) both did quite well via Baserunning NERD. Bourn attempts a stolen base a full quarter of the time he’s on first or second without a runner ahead of him. He takes the extra base on a hit two-thirds of the time (where league average is around 40%).
• One word: Joey Votto. Boom, stats: .305/.413/.574, .424 wOBA, 163 wRC+, 4.1 WAR.

If I Had My Druthers
• Travis Wood would once again flirt with perfection.
• This time, Perfection would be like, “You wanna come up to my place for a cup of coffee?”
• Travis Wood would be like, “Awww yeah. Cup of coffee.”

My advice to you, one layabout to another: don’t ever go to work again.

My other advice: start today.

Thursday, July 22 | Colorado at Florida | 12:10pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Rockies: Jorge de la Rosa (NERD: 8)
30.2 IP, 9.39 K/9, 5.58 BB/9, .315 BABIP, 52.4% GB, 22.7% HR/FB, 4.17 xFIP

Los Marlins: Josh Johnson (10)
128.0 IP, 9.14 K/9, 1.97 BB/9, .285 BABIP, 49.0% GB, 3.6% HR/FB, 3.01 xFIP

A Mostly Irreverent Note on Jorge de la Rosa
If I’m correct, they changed their player search function ahead of this season, but traditionally it’s been impossible to search for players whose names are shorter than three letters in Yahoo’s fantasy baseball platform*. Hence, it’s been tres difficile — because of the two two-letter words — to search for de la Rosa. Another player whom this has affected: Fu-Te Ni. And also: Chin-lung Hu. (Racism, innit?) Off the top of my head, de la Rosa’s the best of the group, however.

*It returns the following: “Your search query must be at least 3 characters. (Error #163)”

A Slightly More Substantive Note on Jorge de la Rosa
He crapped the bed last time out — at Cincinnati on July 17. Line: 19 TBF, 0 K, 5 BB, 5 GB on 13 BIP (38.5%). That resulted in 3 HR and 7 R (6 ER) in just 3.1 IP.

Unlike the previous outing, in which de la Rosa conceded 7 R (5 ER) in 4.1 IP but generally did his part (6 K, 1 BB, 22 TBF), this wasn’t explained away by bad luck.

A Completely Obvious Note on Josh Johnson
While ranking Johnson No. 9 overall in his recent Trade Value series, Full-Time Employee Dave Cameron wrote of Johnson: “If you haven’t seen him pitch, you’re missing out. The fastball has both velocity and movement, the slider is a knockout, and the change-up plays up because of how hard he throws it.”

Hear Cameron now, and believe him now, too: Josh Johnson is the goods.

Batter Bullets
• Gaby Sanchez appears to be a major leaguer. His nerd line on the season: .301/.367/.462, .367 wOBA, 128 wRC+. Question: Is his .340 BABIP helping matters? Answer: Yes, and it’s more than possible that he’s just a league-average hitter, but he’s got the sort of high-contact, line drive approach — like a Michael Young, maybe — that can be pleasant to watch.
• Carlos Gonzalez’s plate “discipline” has been the subject of some interesting work around these electronic pages of late. Dave Goleblahski recently looked at said work and even coerced Resident Cyborg Dave Allen into producing this swing contour thing:

Cool, right? Anyway, if you want a hint as to what the deal is with CarGo, here’s his walk rate: 4.4%. Now here’s his strikeout rate: 24.3%. Connect the dots, America.

If I Had My Druthers
• Sources would reveal that the “rosa” of Jorge de la Rosa’s surname is actually the selfsame one as in Seal’s 1994 smash-hit single “Kiss from a Rose.”
• Either Seal or de la Rosa or someone would explain why and/or how there’s a kiss from said “rosa” — and how it got on that grave and whether it’s still there or not.
• Heidi Klum.

Though the Spice Girls never mentioned it, sometimes one can become two, as well.

Friday, July 16 | Texas at Boston | 7:10pm ET
Friday, July 16 | Washington at Florida | 7:10pm ET
Starting Pitchers (The Ones Who Matter)
Rangers: Colby Lewis (NERD: 6)
110.2 IP, 8.54 K/9, 3.09 BB/9, .266 BABIP, 40.3% GB, 8.5% HR/FB, 3.96 xFIP

Nationals: Stephen Strasburg (NERD: ca. Infinity)
42.2 IP, 12.87 K/9, 2.32 BB/9, .328 BABIP, 45.7% GB, 10.0% HR/FB, 1.99 xFIP

Zealous Introduction
If you ever wanted to know how Kurtz felt when he said “The horror, the horror” that one time in that one book, you might very well find out tonight when you’re forced to choose between watching Stephen Strasburg and Colby Lewis. “Cistulli,” at least one of you is probably saying, “ever hear of a little thing called ‘flipping back and forth between games’?” To which I reply: “Yes.” And also: “Trying to watch games simultaneously is a little bit like being in a Cash Cube: try and grab for all the money at once, and all you get is not that much money.”

Some Brief Evangelizing
To my sabremetric brothers and sisters, I’d like to inform you that the Most Reverend Colby Lewis will be preaching the Gospel of Joy tonight from the Fenway Park mound. Here’s what you can expect: lifted spirits, charismatic gifts, and a slightly regrettable soul patch. Here’s another thing you can expect: basically what you’ve been seeing since Lewis’s stateside return.

By way of example, cast your eyes at Lewis’s pitch selection and whiff rates for the entire season (courtesy Texas Leaguers):

Pitch	SEL	WHIFF
FF	54.0%	6.1%
SL	26.2%	16.7%
CU	11.0%	8.0%
CH	8.6%	7.7%

Now here are the same numbers, but just for his most recent start (July 7 versus Cleveland):

Pitch	SEL	WHIFF
FF	51.6%	6.1%
SL	27.4%	15.4%
CU	10.5%	0.0%
CH	10.5%	10.0%

It strikes me as rather extraordinary just how closely those lists resemble each other. I don’t know what this’d look like if we did it for a large sample of pitchers. In any case, it appears to suggest consistency — both in Lewis’s repertoire and its effect on batters.

We can probably expect Lewis to throw his fastpiece slightly more than half the time, his slidething about a quarter of the time, and then the curve and change split pretty evenly over the remainder.

What the What?!?
As I’ve probably mentioned here, Matthew Carruth of Lookout Landing does these great series previews over at Lookout Landing. One particular service he provides in said previews is to rate — using Pitchf/x data — to rate on the 20-80 scouting scale each offering in a pitcher’s repertoire by whiff rate, zone rate, and groundball rate.

Here’s what happens when we do that for Strasburg:

Pitch	%	Sp	K	BB	GB
FB	47%	98	80	75	45
CU	23%	83	75	75	80
CH	19%	90	80	75	70
SI	11%	96	40	45	20
Total			80	75	50

Observation #1: Egads.

Observation #2: It’s actually a little hard to tell what’s been more effective, Strasburg’s curve or his change.

Observation #3: His fastball also appears to be decent.

Two Hitters
• Though Lewis has definitely stolen the heart of the present author, original All-Joyer Daniel Nava isn’t going softly into that good night, slashing .300/.371/.488 (.371 wOBA, 128 wRC+) through 89 PA. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad: he’s got a .418 BABIP. Per StatCorner, he’s currently sporting a .277 wOBAr — that is, wOBA regressed to some combination of Nava’s and a league-average BABIP. That’s not so good.
• Maybe during some sort of spirit quest or whatever, you saw Roger Bernadina’s blossoming into a useful right fielder for the Nationals. Otherwise, it’s likely that you’re still kinda like “Bernawho?” when you see his name. In any case, Funky Cold Bernadina is currently slashing .282/.345/.436 (.347 wOBA, 114 wRC+) through over 200 PA. The difference between Nava and Bernadina is that the latter is currently sporting a totally believable .329 BABIP.

If I Had My Druthers
• One of these games would get rained out, thus removing the burden of choice from my shoulders.
• Colby Lewis would get a hem on his garment, so I could touch it (i.e. the hem).
• Both teams would go out to Dairy Queen after the game.