All-Star Week was marred by the surprising news that Jay Gibbons retired. It was surprising in the sense that many probably did not realize that Gibbons was still “in baseball.” It has been a semi-interesting wild ride for the 35-year-old. Gibbons never went to the playoffs. While he made contact and had nice power, his low on-base percentage and poor defense at non-premium positions limited his usefulness. He dropped off of the map for a while after getting named in the Mitchell Report. Nonetheless, for some reason Jay Gibbons has always been on the periphery of my attention.

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Fare thee well, father, mother. I’m off
to de-luck the f*** out of this s***.

With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.

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Ever since the new collective bargaining agreement was announced in November 2011, people speculated as to how the newly-formulated signing bonus budgets for the MLB Draft would affect draft strategy.

Signability became extremely important. Teams could not afford to fail to sign a pick because it caused them to forfeit their pick and the bonus money allotted for that pick, ultimately lessening their overall spending pool. That focus on signability resulted in an influx of college seniors getting drafted in earlier rounds than their talent would have otherwise dictated.

Drafting college seniors in the top ten rounds allowed organizations to sign those players — who lack negotiating leverage due to their inability to return to college — well under the prescribed slot value and bank money to utilize elsewhere.

Most teams drafted a college senior or two in the first ten rounds, but the Toronto Blue Jays took the strategy to a whole different level. In rounds four through ten, Toronto drafted seven-consecutive college seniors, and not one of those players has signed for more than $5,000 — including outfielder Alex Azor out of the United States Naval Academy, who signed for a mere $1,000 in the tenth round. Azor saved the Blue Jays $124,000 against their overall signing bonus allotment.

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Pitchers get hurt all the time, but I think we can all agree that CC Sabathia was on the short list of guys who we would expect to make every start in a given season. He’s been a workhorse of the first order for the last decade, but yesterday a twinge in his left groin sent him to the disabled list for the third time in his career and first time since 2006. The Yankees insist that their ace will only miss two starts and return immediately after the All-Star break.

Sabathia’s injury hurts New York but two starts isn’t the end of the world. Unfortunately for them, he wasn’t the only starter they lost on Wednesday. Andy Pettitte (1.4 WAR in nine comeback starts) was struck by a batted ball and suffered a fractured left ankle in yesterday’s game, sending him to the sidelines for a minimum of six weeks and more realistically 8-10 weeks. In the span of about four hours, the Yankees lost their two best starting pitchers.

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Right now, like as this is being written, Ricky Romero is in the process of getting bombed by the Red Sox. The 27-year-old lefty just finished an inning in which he gave up a double to Dustin Pedroia between two walks before an error and a few groundouts allowed singles from Mike Aviles and Darnell McDonald to plate some runs. Six runs in all. So far all the balls in play have been ground balls — his bailiwick — but something is still off.

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Jose Bautista is back. After a horrendous April which saw him post just a .185/.298/.333 line, the Jays’ star has surged. He’s following up a .257/.342/.552 May with a a .258/.413/.774 June, including an absurd 10 home runs in 18 games.

Bautista’s resurgence has come with a return to what elevated him to the game’s premier power hitter back in 2010: get the ball in the air often and with authority.

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We went for a nice family hike on Father’s Day. On the drive south toward the Santa Cruz mountains, we were listening to Marty Lurie’s show on KNBR before the Giants game against the Mariners. Lurie had a nice selection of audio cuts from players and coaches talking about the role their dads played in their lives. And then Lurie played a long interview with Giants manager Bruce Bochy. My ears perked up when I heard Lurie ask Bochy if he’s ever had to deal with a player’s father calling him up, complaining about playing time or raising other issues. Bochy chuckled and said he’s never had to deal with that. “One of the nice things about being a big-league manager is that the parents aren’t involved at this level,” Bochy said, or words to that effect.

I thought about Chris Lincecum and the role he’s played as a sometimes-consultant to Tim and pitching coach Dave Righetti. And I thought about Colby Rasmus and his dad, and all that went down in St. Louis before the Cardinals traded Rasmus to the Blue Jays last July. Then I turned off the radio and went on a nice, long hike.

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A number of pitchers with noticeably lower velocity this year either have landed on the disabled list or have had their seasons cut short due to injury. The Pirates’ Charlie Morton had Tommy John surgery (age 28, down 1.5 mph). The Tigers’ Doug Fister (age 28, down 1.1 mph) and the Blue Jays’ Brandon Morrow (age 27, down 1 mph) have both landed on the DL with oblique injuries. And the White Sox’ John Danks (age 27, down 1.5 mph) just started a stint on the DL due to elbow soreness.

Previously, I found that pitchers who lose at least 1 mph of velocity have over twice the odds of not throwing at least 40 innings in the subsequent year. This could simply be due to ineffectiveness, injury or both. A steep decline in velocity can create — or be a signal for — all sorts of problems. If a pitcher loses velocity simply due to a tired arm, they can increase their chance for injury by trying to pitch through it. Losing velocity also tends to make pitchers less effective over time. And once a pitcher loses velocity, the odds of regaining at least some of it the following year are very low (more on this below).

Today, I want to look at how age impacts the chances of regaining velocity for pitchers and then highlight some hurlers who fans should keep their eyes on this year and next year.

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With the closest Midwest League stadium five hours away, my providing first hand scouting coverage of that league is difficult to say the least. Fortunately, a contact has been kind enough to provide me the scouting scoop on more than a handful of the league’s top prospects. These aren’t exact quotes, but summaries of conversations had over the course of the first two months of the minor league season. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the start of 2011, the Blue Jays are tied for 26th in WAR among first basemen. Yesterday, the team sought to do something to change that mark when they demoted Adam Lind to Triple-A. The most shocking thing about the demotion may be that it took so long.

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