Archive for Teams

Yesterday, it was reported Matt Harvey may need Tommy John surgery because of a torn UCL in his right elbow. Some people may say they saw the injury coming and the Mets were crazy to let him throw over 175 innings this season, but the evidence doesn’t really support those ideas. After looking over the history of other 24-year-olds, it appears that the pitcher’s ability to throw hard and recent small velocity drop were the only identifiable injury indicators.

Myself and others have looked at many indications of a pitchers chances of getting hurt. High increase in innings for a young pitcher (Verducci Effect). Velocity and Zone% drop (PAIN Index). Inconsistency in release points and velocity late in a game. High breaking ball usage. Bad Mechanics. High fastball velocity.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates are in a dogfight for the National League Central title, and the resurgent A.J. Burnett is a big part of the team’s success. Since coming over from the Yankees, the right-hander has put up close to 350 strikeouts with a near-3.00 ERA. All this, and he throws two pitches 95% of the time. Burnett knows he doesn’t have the largest arsenal — he enjoys his reduced repertoire — but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t added a few wrinkles as he’s matured.

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Episode 375
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses the mediocrity of the LA Angels and the consequences of same.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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Max Scherzer is an incredible 19-1, and he’s also considered the frontrunner in this year’s race for the American League Cy Young Award. There is no debating the reality of his record — his record is his record, as numbers are numbers. There is, however, debating whether or not he should be in the lead in the award race — the AL has other good starters, too, so Scherzer isn’t in a league of his own. Predictably, then, there is debate regarding the significance of Scherzer’s win/loss record, because not many people have done this before, and that has to count for something, right?

There are few debates in which I can imagine being less interested. That’s not true, there are lots, but I wrote that sentence to make a point. No, you can’t realistically get to 19-1 if you haven’t pitched really well. Scherzer has pitched really well. There is a strong relationship between performance and record, as much as we’d all like to kill the win. Scherzer, though, has also received the most run support in baseball, because his team’s offense has a Miguel Cabrera in it, and there’s a relationship between run support and record, too. If we’re going to adjust for run support, we’re already trying to strip away some context; might as well go all the way and just look at the numbers that really matter. Not included among those numbers are wins and losses.

I like looking at the numbers 19 and 1 as much as the next guy. To be honest, for some reason 19-1 looks better to me than 19-0. But I’m more interested in what’s going on underneath, what’s going on with Scherzer specifically. Scherzer and Rick Porcello have always had a fair number of things in common. This year, they’ve added to the list, and they’ve both been better for it.

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There probably were some analysts who liked Jayson Werth’s seven-year, $126 million contract for the Nationals when it was signed prior to the 2011 season, but no names spring to mind. It was not that Werth had been a bad player. There was actually an argument to be made that the contract was market value for a player of Werth’s projected value, but it was an open question as to whether a team in Washington’s situation should have been paying market value at that point, as Dave Cameron noted at the time.

The last point was based on the question of whether or not the Nationals would be good enough during the first part of the contract to justify making such an aggressive move. After a near-.500 2011 season, the Nationals held up their end of the deal in 2012, going 98-64 and winning the Natinal League East. They lost to the Cardinals in NL Division Series, but given the excellent young talent they seemed primed to make a few more runs with Werth still is his decent years.

But Werth was not really holding up his end. In 2011, he did not hit that well, and in 2012, he missed about half the season due to injury. This season, the Nationals are having an extremely disappointing season given the expectations raised by 2012. Many things have gone wrong for Washington this year, but Werth is not one of them.

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Over the weekend, various reports have emerged suggesting that the Angels are likely to fire either GM Jerry DiPoto or longtime manager Mike Scioscia in the wake of their disastrous 2013 season. While Scioscia denies that there is an abnormal rift between the field staff and the front office, there’s enough smoke here to believe that there is a fire somewhere, and it would actually be unusual if someone wasn’t held responsible for a $140 million failure.

Firing decision makers as a response to poor performance is standard operating procedure in Major League Baseball, and the GM and manager are the two guys whose job descriptions include taking responsibility for the results on the field. Both DiPoto and Scioscia know how this game works, and neither one would have much of a right to be surprised if they were let go following the season. However, if the Angels actually want to fix what is broken, they should be more interested in figuring out what went wrong and why rather than just meting out punishment to satisfy the desire to hold someone accountable.

So, what happened to the 2013 Angels? How can a team with the best young player the game has seen in 100 years still manage to be so awful?

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In a sense, Sunday’s Phillies game shouldn’t have been too important. It’s long been apparent the Phillies aren’t going anywhere, or at least, they’re not going where they’d like. The Nationals, too, probably aren’t going anywhere, and while their playoff hopes aren’t quite so dashed, they’re hardly in the picture. And on the mound, the Phillies had a 36-year-old free agent to be, a guy coming off shoulder surgery, a guy who posted an 8.65 ERA before going on the disabled list after seven starts. The Phillies, thus, weren’t even throwing a prospect.

But they were throwing an unknown, by the name of Roy Halladay. Halladay was making his first start since going under the knife, and given who he is and who he’s been, the game captured the interest not just of Phillies fans, but of baseball fans, fans who grew accustomed to thinking of Halladay as unbreakable and automatic. Healthy Halladay was the very picture of the shutdown workhorse. Unhealthy Halladay was a grim reminder that rooting for pitchers sucks. Many were eager to find out what Halladay might have left in the tank, and Sunday he and the Phillies knocked off Patrick Corbin. Following is something of a Halladay start in review.

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It is tough to criticize the Texas Rangers’ decisions. If the current standings hold up, they will win the American League Westfor the third time in four years. Even if Oakland catches up, the Rangers will still probably make the playoffs for the fourth season in a row. They went to the World Series in 2010 and 2011. No team has a spotless record when it comes to personnel decisions either at the time or in hindsight. Every team enjoys some good luck and suffers some bad luck. These days, no team has a lineup full of superstars or even above-average players. Most teams have to get by with at least one or two mediocre players, usually to save money so that it can be spent elsewhere.

Thus, it is not completely strange that Rangers are making do with Mitch Moreland as their primary first baseman once again. Moreland got off to a hot start this season, but came back to earth with a current seasonal line of .244/.306/.446 (98 wRC+). He is is even starting to lose playing time in a semi-platoon with journeyman Jeff Baker. Moreland was only a bit better last season, which he finished with a 105 wRC+ after splitting first base duties with Michael Young and Mike Napoli. Moreland is pretty much a league average bat, which does not cut it as a first baseman, even if it does not kill the Rangers given their other strengths. As written above, few teams are without a weak spot on the diamond.

Nonetheless, the Rangers would obviously like to be better at first base. From that perspective, it is interesting to see the talented first baseman that came up with Texas over the last decade or so and have since moved on.

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Today, the Rays acquired David DeJesus from the Nationals a few days after Washington got him from the Cubs. The cost of both acquisitions was either a minor prospect or cash, as DeJesus is being moved essentially as a cost savings maneuver. He wasn’t in big demand at the trade deadline, and isn’t seen as a major acquisition.

A few weeks ago, the Rangers acquired Alex Rios from the White Sox, after this transaction was rumored for weeks heading up to the trade deadline. The Rangers received a lot of praise for getting a deal done in the wake of Nelson Cruz’s suspension, with several people noting that the Rangers got both “the best hitter” (Rios) and “the best pitcher” (Matt Garza) available this summer.

Perception is a funny thing. Here’s David DeJesus and Alex Rios, season to date.

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Lately, Yasiel Puig has been in one of his slumps. For really the first time in his professional career, he’s been the target of a lot of criticism, some of it warranted and some of it over the top. Most significantly, he’s had some struggles at the plate, with his aggressive approach backfiring. Thursday afternoon, the Marlins pitched to him accordingly. The first four times Puig stepped up to the plate, he saw a first-pitch slider. The fifth time he did get a sinker, but by that point it was 6-0 in the ninth so for all I know the plan was ignored.

The first time Puig got a first-pitch slider, he popped it up. The third time he got a first-pitch slider, he fouled it off. The fourth time he got a first-pitch slider, he swung right through it. But the second time he got a first-pitch slider, he beat the living crap out of it. All four times, Puig swung at the slider. One of those times, he gave the ball a ride, or a punishment, depending on how you feel about balls and what they enjoy. There was something remarkable about that ball in play. Something potentially remarkable, at least.

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