Archive for Teams

Chris Carpenter is going to take the hill for St. Louis tonight in Game Two of the NLCS. During the game, you’re going to hear about Carpenter’s postseason track record — it’s very good — and about how he’s come back for the playoffs after missing most of the season. Carpenter is both often excellent and often injured, so those are the two things he is understandably most famous for.

But, perhaps there’s one other thing that Chris Carpenter should be well known for, because he’s probably better at this than he is at just about anything else – shutting down the running game.

Read the rest of this entry »

For a team that won 89 games, the Angels have a decent number of holes to fill this offseason. There is a good core there, but questions about the rotation and the kerfuffle about Vernon Wells could make this a particular trying situation for Angels’ fans.

Let’s start with Wells. Here’s what Alden Gonzalez had to say about it in his season wrap:

“[Torii Hunter] really wants to come back, and may do so for about half his 2012 salary ($18 million) on a one- or two-year deal. But his return will hinge on whether [Angels general manager Jerry] Dipoto is able to shed Vernon Wells, who’s owed $21 million over the next two seasons, and what he decides with regard to the young, high-upside Peter Bourjos.”

The Angels’ reluctance to kick Wells to the curb is maddening. That it could also cost them a chance to get back Hunter is downright infuriating. Not only is Hunter the type of team leader and universally regarded good guy that every team will want this winter, but he is also coming off a good season as well. And while he may want to come back, he isn’t going to need to wait by the phone all winter waiting for Dipoto to call.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the Red Sox get ready to begin contract negotiations with David Ortiz, they can relax comfortable in the knowledge that money will not be an issue in the negotiations. All Ortiz really wants is respect. That should make things pretty simple, right?

Jokes aside, “respect” probably translates to money plus multiple years, say, two. Ortiz is going to turn 37 next month, so he probably is not planning on playing too much longer. Ortiz was not very happy about not being offered multiple years last off-season, so he probably is not going to readily settle for just one this time around.

After a down year in 2009, Ortiz began to bounce back in 2010, and was even better in 2011 and the first part of 2012 (in the 90 games in which he appeared prior to his season ending due to injury). It is the 2011 and 2012 seasons that are of particular interest here, not only because these excellent performances are the most recent and relevant data with respect to his true talent, but because of the unusual way Ortiz went about doing it. This adds to the already complicated matter of figuring out how good a hitter Ortiz can be expected to be over the next couple of seasons given his age, and thus, how much the Red Sox (or other potential suitors) should be willing to invest in him.

Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals have a ferocious offense, capable of putting up runs in bunches against any pitcher in baseball. So, on one hand, the fact that they torched Madison Bumgarner for six runs and chased him from the game in the fourth inning can simply be chalked up to a good opponent. On the other hand, the lousy performance was the continuation of a six week trend, and there are reasons to think that perhaps Bumgarner has worn down over the course of the season.

Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s good news for the New York Yankees, it’s that, while they’re behind two games to zero to the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, they haven’t yet started CC Sabathia. The flip side of that, though, is that the Tigers haven’t yet started Justin Verlander, and they’re about to, in Tuesday’s Game 3. The series is by no means over, as the Giants demonstrated in the Division Series round against the Reds, but it’s a little Verlander dominance away from feeling over, and Verlander is frequently dominant. Given the losses and the struggles and the Derek Jeter injury, these are challenging times for the Empire.

In Sunday’s Game 2, the Yankees were shut out 3-0 by Anibal Sanchez and the Tigers’ bullpen. This was a game in which Hiroki Kuroda was perfect through five innings, and still he never pitched with a lead. The Yankees, during the regular season, had the best team offense in baseball. It’s largely gone missing in the playoffs, and though they say pitching and defense wins championships, you also need at least a little hitting too. Sunday, the Yankees had none of it.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Diamondbacks had a disappointing 2012 season and the front office has identified key areas in which the team must improve. The outfield isn’t one of these areas, as the Diamondbacks now boast five players who could all stake a claim for a starting role, whether in Arizona or on another team.

They could conceivably make things work if everyone was retained, but that seems like a sub-optimal use of valuable resources. With platoons — both traditional and non-traditional — and injury risk, carrying four or five competent outfielders is often necessary. However, trading one or two of these players could solve issues elsewhere on the diamond. The team would still boast a solid outfield while improving in other key areas. But determining who to trade isn’t as straightforward, as non-performance factors must be taken into consideration.

The Diamondbacks currently have Justin Upton, Chris Young, Adam Eaton, Jason Kubel and Gerardo Parra under contract. Upton is the most talented of the group as well as the most expensive. Eaton is a top prospect under team control that played well in a small sample of September plate appearances. Kubel is a strong hitter who can’t run or field who is signed to a team-friendly contract. Parra is an average hitter under team control with excellent fielding marks. Young is a terrific defensive centerfielder capable of 20/20 production under team-friendly contractual terms.

The team is likely to retain Upton and play him in right field. The team also seems intent on playing Eaton in center field, which means that Young seems like the odd man out. He could shift to left field, but part of what makes him valuable would get eliminated in the process. Given his age, fielding skills, offensive pop and contract status, as well as the free agent market developing at the position, Young would instantly become a very attractive trade target if he were made available. Dealing him makes the most sense for the Diamondbacks, as he has become expendable with Eaton’s presence on the roster, and could extract the most value in return.

Read the rest of this entry »

I will now include, for your consideration, an incomplete list of things this ALCS Game 1 post could’ve been about:

1. Robinson Cano being called out at first in the second inning
2. Alex Rodriguez continuing to struggle
3. Doug Fister picking it up after getting drilled by a comebacker
4. Delmon Young torching the playoffs
5. Jose Valverde being a massive liability
6. Ichiro and the home-run porch
7. Raul Ibanez condensing a career’s worth of heroics into one week
8. The Tigers’ bullpen being poorly set up behind the starters
9. Drew Smyly dominating

The opener of the American League Championship Series did not leave us wanting for twists and intrigue, with the Tigers finally knocking off the Yankees 6-4 in 12 innings and five hours. It’s good to know the crescendo of the Division Series round has carried over into the next. Game 1 left us with entirely too many question marks and talking points, but after everything else, we were left with one major story drowning out the others: Derek Jeter is hurt. He’s hurt bad, and he’s done for the playoffs.

Read the rest of this entry »

I did not know five minutes ago — but probably should have, owing to how I’ve watched Law and Order at least once in my life — that, per U.S. law, all deaths are classified as one of five sorts. These sorts, in fact:

• Natural
• Accidental
• Homicide
• Suicide
• Undetermined

Another thing I didn’t know five minutes ago, but have realized is likely not the worst idea, is that a way to discuss the Nationals’ (now deceased) 2012 season — and, in particular, their playoff-series defeat at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals — is via the language of forensic science, a very basic understanding of which I’ve just acquired from Wikipedia, and which I will now dispense haphazardly throughout what follows.

“What was the cause of the death of the Nationals’ 2012 season?” we ask.

Here are cases for all five of the legally recognized types:

Type of Death: Natural

Real Definition: Death by illness or malfunction of the body.

Baseball Definition: All humans die. All baseball teams but one (i.e. the World Series winners) are eliminated. Most human deaths are natural. Most baseball teams, just by virtue of the season/playoff format, are unlikely to win a championship in a given season.

Relevance to Nats: The Nationals were a good baseball team this year, posting the best Pythagorean record in the National League. That said, the Cardinals were also a good baseball team, one which posted the second-best Pythagorean record in the National League. Over the course of 162 games, the Nationals would probably have beaten the Cardinals, like, 82 times. Logic dictates then that, over the course of a playoff series — a short, five-game series, especially — each team probably had about a 50% chance of winning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Of the four teams that made it into the American League Division Series round, two were lovable underdogs, teams no one expected to get anywhere close to that far. Around spring training, the Orioles were projected to finish last in the AL East, as they are just about every year. The Athletics were projected to finish last or close to last in the AL West, well behind the elite-level Rangers and Angels. No one expected the Orioles or A’s to make any noise, so when they did, people got swept up, and they were two incredibly easy teams to root for in the first series round of the playoffs.

And both of them got eliminated, leaving us with the Yankees and the Tigers to fight over the AL pennant. The Tigers played in the ALCS as recently as 2011, and the Yankees played in the ALCS as recently as 2010, so something about this matchup doesn’t quite feel so fresh. Granted, the Tigers and the Yankees have faced their adversity, too. The Tigers were multiple games out of a playoff spot in the middle of September. The Yankees not only had to fight off the Orioles, but they also had to deal with major injuries to Mariano Rivera, Michael Pineda, and Andy Pettitte. It’s been an easy road for neither team, but because people long expected both the Yankees and the Tigers to make the playoffs, this matchup doesn’t feel as appealing as it could’ve been.

Read the rest of this entry »

As expected, Alex Rodriguez finds himself on the bench to start game five, with Eric Chavez playing third base and Raul Ibanez filling in at DH. We talked about this possibility yesterday, with both having better numbers against right-handers this year and A-Rod obviously not having a very good postseason thus far. With their backs against the wall, the Yankees are going with the platoon advantage and guys who have performed better versus right-handed pitching this year. It’s hard to blame them, even if swapping out Rodriguez for Ibanez probably doesn’t make a huge difference one way or another.

But, there’s a pretty interesting subplot that develops because of this decision – by starting two LHBs who have huge platoon splits in Chavez and Ibanez, there is almost certainly going to be a situation where Buck Showalter goes to a left-handed reliever to get one of them out late in the game. If the score is even remotely close, Girardi will have to strongly consider pinch-hitting for either one, as they simply aren’t effective big league hitters against lefties at this point in their career. And A-Rod is going to be Girardi’s best right-handed batter on the bench.

So, starting Ibanez and Chavez sets up the very real chance that Rodriguez is going to be sent up to pinch-hit in a high leverage “clutch” situation – the very role that the narrative claims he performs the worst in. At least throughout his postseason history, the narrative is wrong, but this line-up choice sets up a situation where Girardi is going to have to publicly decide whether he buys into that narrative or not.

Read the rest of this entry »