Archive for Teams

Shortly after the Mariners made the mistake of trading Brandon Morrow for Brandon League and another guy, it was noted by the Mariners’ front office that, the season before, League had thrown baseball’s most unhittable pitch. No pitch in baseball, apparently, generated a lower contact rate against than Brandon League’s splitter, and that gave us Mariners fans something to look forward to. What it actually wound up doing was give us something to complain about all the time, but no matter. That was the first I’d personally heard of a most unhittable pitch, and I fell in love with the concept. What better measure of dominance than whiffs over swings?

Of course, we all understand that pitches don’t exist in isolation. That year, League’s splitter was baseball’s most unhittable pitch, but it wouldn’t have been so if League only ever threw his splitter and never threw his fastball. There’s a lot of game theory stuff at play, so isolating individual pitch types is a little improper and misleading. Still, it’s a fun exercise, and I’m about to indulge. So we’re all about to indulge.

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See bottom of post for note on what is likely not an abandoned — but, rather, a distinctly harder — changeup.

Here’s an exchange that could very well occur between two mostly knowledgeable baseball fans:

Person No. 1: “A young pitcher whose fastball sits at 92 to 93 mph — and touches around 97 or 98 — struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “I have no reason to doubt it.”

And here’s another, also entirely possible, exchange on a similar theme:

Person No. 1: “Toronto right-hander Henderson Alvarez struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “Remove yourself from my sight, you gutless liar!”

One reason why that first conversation might exist is because many pitchers — like, Aaron Harang, to name one — have struck out seven batters in as many (or fewer) innings this season. Another reason is because pitchers who throw harder also tend to post both more strikeouts and lower xFIPs (a metric informed in no small part by strikeout rate).

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There’s a sentiment that the players for the Miami Marlins have more or less given up. Not too long ago, Buster Olney wrote about it, and Ozzie Guillen fired back in fairly colorful fashion. On one hand, since June 5, the Marlins have gone 35-61, better only than the Astros in the National League. On the other hand, since the start of August the Marlins’ run differential is essentially even. There’s some evidence pointing both ways, and when uncertain, it’s probably wisest to err on the side of professionals behaving like professionals.

Wednesday, it might not have mattered whether the Marlins have given up or not, because Wednesday the Marlins went up against Kris Medlen. The Marlins beat the Braves in ten innings on Tuesday, but Wednesday they were left as Medlen’s latest victims. The Braves scored three times, which was two more times than they needed to, as Medlen worked eight scoreless before handing the ball off.

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I thought about leading off this post with one of those “Guess who leads the Majors in WAR among shortstops” questions, but then realized that I put Jimmy Rollins name was in the headline, so that seemed to not be much of a challenge. But, yes, Jimmy Rollins currently leads all MLB shortstops in WAR, checking in at +4.9 for the season. He’s been the lynchpin to the Phillies second half comeback, but on the other hand, he was also one of the reasons that they had a big hole to dig out of to begin with, because Rollins is having one of the weirdest good seasons in recent history.

Here are his monthly splits:

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In 2011, White Sox reliever Addison Reed faced 293 minor league hitters and struck out 111 while walking only 14 of them. It was a good year for Reed. He went from A-Ball, to High-A, to Double-A, to Triple-A in 3 months and 15 days.

In 2012, Reed has faced 229 major league hitters and struck out 52 while walking 18. He has also allowed two more home runs than in his time in the minors while facing 64 fewer hitters.

Despite all this, the AL Central-leading, supposedly rebuilding Chicago White Sox have called on the rookie Reed to perform as the team’s closer. And even with his his 4.82 ERA, the White Sox have stuck with him and have been rewarded with the 9th most net shutdowns in the American League (28 shutdowns, 9 meltdowns, 19 net SD) and a total of 28 saves.

So have the White Sox done it? Have they finally found the heir to the ghost of Bobby Jenks? Or have his recent struggles been a portent of pending trouble?

Well, Reed has a few oddities on his stats sheet, and depending on which items we consider aberration and which we consider omens, it can alter the way we see the 23-year-old relief ace.
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Few things get baseball fans more excited than the opportunity to begin taking an extraordinary young talent for granted, so baseball circles are abuzz right now with talk of the Orioles’ promotion of top prospect Dylan Bundy. It didn’t at any point appear as if Bundy would see the majors in 2012, so this news comes as a surprise, but few were also counting on the Orioles to remain in the race for this long, and now the circumstances are what the circumstances are. Suddenly, Bundy makes some good sense.

To hear the Orioles tell it, they weren’t going to call Bundy up, then Tuesday night they played the Mariners for seventy innings, so they decided to call Bundy up. It might seem short-sighted to you for the Orioles to change their plans for a top prospect because a September game went longer than expected, but for one thing, the Orioles kind of need to be short-sighted at the moment, and for another, how likely is this to stunt Bundy’s development, really? It doesn’t matter so much that the Orioles changed their plans if the difference for Dylan Bundy is small or inconsequential.

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Wei-Yin Chen gave up two runs in just 5.1 innings Tuesday against the Mariners. The next 12.2 innings all belonged to the Baltimore bullpen. Their response? Six hits, four walks, 16 strikeouts and zero runs, with all but one of those 12.2 innings requiring a shutout just to keep the game going.

As a result, Steve Johnson, Darren O’Day, Tommy Hunter, Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop, Jim Johnson and Brian Matusz combined for a massive 1.170 WPA on the game. The Orioles bullpen now owns a 12.51 WPA for the whole season, with yesterday’s performance enough to push them over the 1984 Tigers for the highest season bullpen WPA since our reports carry the data (back to 1974). Judging by the historical data, this Orioles bullpen has been the most influential in recent major league history.

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Mike Trout? Miguel Cabrera? Please. Sure, numbers and metrics matter (at least the ones I selectively use to make my case depending on what I choose to argue beforehand). But if want a player who has actually made the difference in his team’s (probably) successful playoff run, there is only one choice for the 2012 American League’s Most Valuable Player: Kevin Youkilis.

Okay, I’ll admit it: the title and first paragraph are just meant to grab attention. I do not really think that Youkilis should be the 2012 AL MVP. However, Youkilis has had a big impact on the White Sox since being coming over from Boston at the end of June. If the current standings hold (White Sox three games ahead of the Tigers), one could reasonably argue that Youkilis has been the difference the American League Central championship this year.

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It’s that time of year again – with just a few weeks left in the season, baseball writers are turning their focus to the postseason awards, and as usual, the MVP races are the ones that are going to get the most attention. In the NL, the conversation is mostly about finding ways to make sure that Ryan Braun doesn’t win his second straight trophy, with Buster Posey stepping up to provide BBWAA members the out that they so desperately want. Over in the AL, there hasn’t been as much discussion for most of the summer, as Mike Trout has been running laps around the rest of the contenders, making it hard to put together any kind of realistic argument for a non-Trout candidate.

However, Miguel Cabrera is having a monstrous September, hitting .373/.426/.797 over the last couple of weeks, and now that he’s taken the lead in both batting average and runs batted, the talk of a potential “triple crown” has breathed life into his candidacy. Jon Morosi went so far as to call the decision to give Cabrera the award “a formality” and say that it’s “obvious” that Cabrera is the right choice. Instead of engaging in a hyperbole-off, however, let’s actually investigate the actual differences between them this season and see whether the case for Cabrera actually stands up to logic and reason.

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When the San Diego Padres extended both Huston Street and Carlos Quentin this summer, they effectively signaled an intent to contend in the NL West in the near future. The organization felt that future was imminent enough to forego acquiring additional young talent via the trade market and instead committed valuable resources to injury-prone (though productive) assets who play non-premium positions.

All this from a team who owned a 34-53 record at the All-Star Break this season. Needless to say, the moves ruffled a few feathers and caused some to question whether the organization was truly intent on building a World Series contender or simply staving off an inevitable attendance decrease that normally accompanies mid-season fire sales.

If the Padres’ recent performance proves to be a believable measuring stick for its future, though, the front office in San Diego understood something that the vast majority of baseball fans did not. Their team was ready to start winning ballgames much earlier than expected.

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