Archive for Teams

Using veteran right-hander Ricky Nolasco as bait, the Miami Marlins have successfully hooked three hard-throwing arms. The Fish have acquired Angel Sanchez, Josh Wall and Steve Ames, while the two clubs also exchanged international signing dollars, and you can read more about the big league portion of the deal by checking out Jeff Sullivan’s offering from the weekend.

This deal can be best categorized as quantity over quality, in terms of the prospects heading to the state of Florida. Although all three young, right-handed hurlers can hit the low-to-mid 90s with their fastballs, their ceilings are tempered by command issues and lack of consistent secondary stuff. Despite having a weaker minor league system in terms of depth, none of the three arms appeared on my pre-season Top 15 prospects list for the Dodgers. The prospects have never appeared on any FanGraphs top prospects lists over the past four seasons, although Sanchez was highlighted as a potential sleeper on my pre-2012 Dodgers Top 15 prospects compilation.

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Michael Cuddyer just finished going streaking. His 27-game streak, which lasted from May 28th to June 30th, was the longest since Dan Uggla’s 33-gamer in 2011. While he didn’t reach the 30-game benchmark that many sites use, 27 games is nothing to shake a stick at — Cuddyer’s streak was just the 135th of 25 or more games since 1916 that happened during the same season (there were also 18 that spanned two seasons, but I don’t count those. If you have a problem with that you can go suck a lemon). I didn’t have the time to go through all of those streaks, but I did have a chance to take a look at the streaks of 30 or more games, and I thought we could put Cuddyer’s streak into perspective.

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Justin Verlander was excellent yesterday against Toronto, throwing seven shutout innings en route to the Tigers’ 11-1 demolition of the Blue Jays. He was not quite as dominant as the Verlander of 2011 and 2012, but that is a pretty high standard. Actually, the 2013 Verlander has not really measured up to that standard all year. Verlander won both the Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player in the American League in 2011, then was just as good in 2012. He pitched a cumulative total of 489 and a third innings and had a 2.52 ERA during those seasons.

By reasonable standards, Verlander’s 3.54 ERA and 112 innings pitched at the halfway point of the 2013 season is very good. By his own recent standards (as well as that being set by his 2013 rotation mates Max Scherzer and Anibal Sanchez), it is somewhat disappointing. It is not that Verlander’s 2013 is bad in itself, and it is hardly the Tigers’ main main problem — that would be the bullpen (solution: move Verlander to the ‘pen!). Still, Verlander’s apparent decline might concern some people. My intention is not so much to evaluate Verlander’s current true talent or possible health problems, but to put his recent performance in historical perspective relative to pitchers with similar stretches of success.

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For fans of Carlos Marmol, it’s been a confusing few days, even beyond the usual confusion baseline. On Tuesday, Marmol was shipped from the Cubs to the Dodgers. On Wednesday, there were initial reports the Dodgers were cutting ties, but now it’s clear they simply intend to send him to the minor leagues for a little while, in theory to get him “straightened out.” Marmol, at some point, should pitch for the Dodgers, and they have more interest in him than they had in the now-departed Matt Guerrier. Cynics will note that the solution to an inconsistent Brandon League isn’t adding another one, but if the odds are X% that League turns it around, the odds are greater that one of League and Marmol turns it around.

Of course, Marmol was just designated for assignment. There’s not a lot there, beyond the strikeouts, the frequency of which is plummeting. Since 2011, among pitchers with at least 150 innings, Marmol ranks 14th-worst in OBP allowed, at .355. He’s hanging around the likes of Dallas Keuchel and Derek Lowe and Edinson Volquez, and though Marmol generally limits batting and slugging, his career isn’t on the way up. Marmol, probably, can be useful, but since 2011 he has a 105 FIP-. Guerrier has a 109 FIP-. Lots of relievers can be useful and Marmol isn’t going to pitch the Dodgers into first place.

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Homer Bailey threw a no-hitter last night, putting him in the same group as a lot of other people. It was actually his second no-hitter, putting him in a much smaller group of guys who have done it twice. This post is not really about Homer Bailey’s no-hitter — I’m working on one of those too, but it’s a little more research intensive — but about the fact that Homer Bailey shouldn’t have needed to throw another no-hitter to get some attention. Because, even before last night, Homer Bailey was pitching like an ace.

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Talk to a few Cubs about advanced stats and you’ll get a mixed bag of responses. Quiet appraisal from Luis Valbuena. Internalization and response from Jeff Samardzija. “NERRRRRRDD” yelled jokingly at the correspondent by Darwin Barney. But one the most remarkable turnaround stories in the clubhouse, Kevin Gregg had an equally nerdy response to the numbers: “Mechanical change.”

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Well friends, we are now approaching that time of year where a significant drop in a pitcher’s velocity passes the 50% threshold in terms of signaling that they will finish the year down at least one full mph.

The table above breaks out the percent of pitchers who experience at least a 1 mph drop in their four-seam fastball velocity in a month relative to that same month a year ago and who also went on to finish the season down a full 1 mph. It also shows the relative risk — meaning, the increased likelihood that a pitcher will experience a true velocity loss at season’s end when compared to those pitchers that didn’t lose 1 mph in that month.

For example, pitchers that lost velocity in May finished the season down a full 1 mph 47% of the time, compared to just 6% that didn’t lose 1 mph in May — an increased likelihood of 7.8.

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Something you might not have heard from the past few days is that Micah Owings became a free agent. Owings opted out of his contract with the Washington Nationals, and the Nats granted him his release. Something you probably did hear from the last few days is that Casper Wells pitched in relief. Wells wasn’t the only recent-days position player on the mound, but Wells didn’t just pitch — Wells looked good. Or, all right, and good for an outfielder. The standards are quite a bit different, because only pitchers are trained to be pitchers.

In the ninth inning of a blowout between the White Sox and the Indians, Wells retired three of four batters. Mike Aviles popped out, Drew Stubbs walked, Asdrubal Cabrera whiffed and Jason Kipnis lined out to the track. Wells was the only White Sox pitcher who didn’t allow a hit, which isn’t to say he didn’t get a little lucky with the Kipnis drive. Still, what got people talking was Wells’ style. He threw hard, and he also mixed in an offspeed pitch with which Cabrera was neatly put away. Read the rest of this entry »

With the lack of high quality pitchers on the trade block, the Brewers have made it known that Yovani Gallardo could be available for the right offer. Since Gallardo is only 27-years-old and under team control through 2015, he has the potential to bring back a more significant piece to help the Brewers rebuild than the rent-a-veteran types that other clubs are shopping. However, there’s one small problem; Gallardo is doing his best to scare off any clubs who might have seen him as an answer to their rotation problems.

In his last two starts, Gallardo has allowed 13 runs while pitching only seven innings, and those clunkers came against the Cubs and Nationals, neither of whom are known for their ferocious offensive attacks. It’s not wise to decide that a player is not useful based on a couple of recent poor performances, but Gallardo has been trending the wrong way for a while now.

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Entering play yesterday, there were four catchers among the top 30 position players in WAR. Three of them should come as no surprise: Buster Posey, Joe Mauer and Yadier Molina. The fourth might be a bit of a surprise, though. Well, at least it might be if you hadn’t read the title of this article. Which, I’m guessing you did. That’s right, it’s Russell Martin.

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