Archive for Teams

The Oakland A’s want to move to San Jose, approximately 45 miles south of Oakland and 50 miles southeast of San Francisco. The Giants oppose the move on the ground that the A’s granted the Giants the “territorial rights” to San Jose and the rest of Santa Clara County back in the 1990s when the Giants were trying to build a ballpark in Santa Clara.

Earlier this year, I explained the history of the Giants/A’s territorial-rights dispute over at Baseball Nation.

Territorial rights describes the way Major League Baseball divides the major metropolitan areas of the United States for its 30 franchises. (Well, 29 franchises in the U.S., plus one in Toronto, Canada). According to research done by baseball researcher and writer Doug Pappas in 2002, Major League Baseball amended its rules between 1990 and 1994 to expand the definition of territorial rights to include not just each team’s home city, but also the surrounding counties.

All of the two-team territories but one share the same counties: the Yankees and Mets; the White Sox and Cubs; and the Dodgers and Angels. Only the Giants and A’s split the counties surrounding their home cities. The A’s territory includes Alameda and Contra Costa counties; the Giants’ territory includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey and Marin counties, “plus Santa Clara County with respect to another major league team.” San Jose is in Santa Clara county. To get your bearings, look at this map of California counties.

—snip—

[T]he Giants never built a stadium in Santa Clara county, because several voter initiatives to fund such a stadium failed. Instead, [owner Bob] Lurie sold the Giants to a Peter Magowan-led group, who in turn privately financed what is now called AT&T Park, in downtown San Francisco. Nevertheless, the MLB rule granting the Giants “Santa Clara County with respect to another major league team” was never amended.

Under MLB rules, a team can move into the territory of another team upon the vote of three-fourths of the owners, the two ballparks are at least five miles apart; the move results in no more than two teams in a single territory; and the team moving compensates the team already in the territory.

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Ubaldo Jimenez was once a terrific young starting pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. He had tremendous raw talent and pitching acumen to boot. If harnessed, he figured to miss bats, keep the ball on the ground and limit walks while remaining on the effectively wild side. He could dial it up to 96 mph — average fastball velocity of 95.8 mph in 2007 — and threw a top-notch, looping curveball that was tough to pick up with his herky-jerky windup. He was, potentially, the prototypical pitcher capable of succeeding at Coors Field.

After posting WAR totals of 4.3, 5.9 and 6.4 from 2008-10, he took a step back last season. His strikeout, walk and groundball numbers were very similar to the prior three years, but he served up more home runs and was less effective at stranding runners. Last season was a case of strong ERA estimators that belied better performance than his actual earned run average. As such, he seemed like a prime regression candidate this season. Through 28 starts and 161.1 innings this year, however, Jimenez has just 0.4 WAR. After averaging 5.5 WAR from 2008-10, Jimenez isn’t currently on pace to finish with even one win above replacement over a full season.

While last season’s relative struggles — he had been so effective that 3.5 WAR represented a down year — at least gave hope to improved performance, everything has gone wrong this season. Jimenez has regressed, but not in the direction his 2011 peripherals portended. Instead, he is set to finish this season with the worst numbers of his career across the board. He quickly went from one of the best to one of the worst, and it doesn’t seem that the major causes are easily fixable.

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The Dodgers have gotten plenty of attention for their in-season roster shakeup, and justifiably so, because the Dodgers have been busy. Beginning in late July, they added Hanley Ramirez, they added Brandon League, they added Shane Victorino, they added Joe Blanton, they added Adrian Gonzalez, they added Nick Punto, they added Josh Beckett, and they added an injured Carl Crawford. It’s hard to believe the Dodgers did everything they did because those were a lot of big moves in a short amount of time. Yet when the Dodgers made their first big move, adding Ramirez, they were eight games over .500 and sitting in second place. Today the Dodgers are eight games over .500 and sitting in second place.

They’re chasing the Giants, and the Giants made some moves of their own. On July 27, the Giants picked up Marco Scutaro, and on July 31, the Giants picked up Hunter Pence. Pence hasn’t worked out yet, and the Giants also lost Melky Cabrera to a suspension. But Scutaro has worked out and then some, and it’s Scutaro to whom the rest of this article is devoted.

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Cardinals right-hander Shelby Miller was ranked fourth overall among all prospects by our Marc Hulet on his preseason top-100 list and within the top 10 on most other lists of that sort. Despite a poor start to his season at Triple-A Memphis, Miller was excellent over his last 10 starts there, posting a 70:7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 59 innings.

After being officially recalled to the majors on Tuesday, Miller made his major-league debut in relief on Wednesday afternoon against the New York Mets, posting this mostly cartoonish line in a 6-2 Cardinals loss (box): 2.0 IP, 7 TBF, 4 K, 0 BB, 2 GB on 3 batted-balls (66.7%), -0.16 xFIP.

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You know the saying — “It’s not about the size of the boat’s engine, it’s about the motion of the ocean.” Pretty sure that’s it. The point is, despite the strong correlation between fastball velocity and strikeout rate, there are plenty of pitchers that make less gas work by varying speeds, varying location, and varying movement.

Jack Moore did an excellent job of talking about Tom Layne’s history and his ability to get whiffs from batters on both sides of the plate earlier today. He’s certainly not doing it with gas — his fastball barely averages 90 mph — and though he does have a curveball and a slider/cutter, he’s probably not doing it with different speeds. He mostly works in the high 70s to the high 80s. And the motion of his ocean? Neither the x-movement or the y-movement on his primary breaking pitch, the curveball, could be considered elite.

Suddenly we’re talking about the struggling 28-year-old starter in Triple-A, not the sizzling reliever that just struck out the meat of the revamped Dodgers lineup two days ago. Except that Layne has a trick up his sleeve that is used less often these days: multiple arm slots.

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Tom Layne’s major league career is just 157 pitches old. Typically, this is not great news for a 27-year-old. Layne, however, has put together an exemplary 157 pitches to open his time in the big leagues. Following a one-out save Wednesday night, Layne sits with a 1.74 ERA and a 17-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his first 10.1 major league innings. Even Layne’s two runs allowed only scored after a new Padres pitcher allowed the inherited runners in.

Layne was acquired from the Diamondbacks on May 2nd for “future considerations,” then a career minor league starter coming off a 6.21 Triple-A ERA in his age-26 season — essentially defining the “org guy.” Layne started with the Padres as well at first, rattling off five more Triple-A starts with a 7.77 ERA. Those struggles may have done more for his career than any prior minor league successes — by June, Layne was sent to Double-A San Antonio. He allowed 10 earned runs in his first two starts there, was converted to a reliever, and his quest to the majors began anew.

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Right now, the St. Louis Cardinals are in a playoff position. It’s true! Or, it might be true, depending on how you feel about the scheduled one-game playoff. Some people feel like that’s the beginning of the playoffs, where other people feel like only the winner advances to the real playoffs. So at the very least, right now, the St. Louis Cardinals are in a position to be in a position to make the playoffs. At 74-63, they’re clinging to the second Wild Card slot, just ahead of the Pirates and Dodgers.

You’d hope that the Cardinals would make the playoffs a year after winning the World Series. That’d be one heck of a letdown story otherwise. A number of different players and factors have driven the Cardinals to where they are, but first and foremost, one notes that the Cardinals lead the National League in runs scored, with 658. They lead the National League in wRC+, at 109. Offense isn’t the only reason why the Cardinals have been successful, but it’s a big reason, and having an offense like the Cardinals’ offense can make up for a lot of other roster deficiencies.

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Yesterday, the venerable Joe Posnanski sent out this message on Twitter.

The most underrated player in baseball is easy: Alex Gordon … so underrated nobody even talks about him being underrated.

— Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) September 5, 2012

Posanski’s right about Alex Gordon being better than people think, as his arm makes him a real weapon in the outfield and he’s developed into a pretty good hitter after a disappointing start to his career. There’s no question that Gordon is an underrated player, as his particular set of skills aren’t as sexy as some others, and of course he plays in relative obscurity in Kansas City.

But, at the same time, Gordon simply falls in line with the typical formula of underrated players. Small market, bad team, good but not great hitter, strong defense at a corner position – these types of players are always underrated. So, in that sense, it’s not really Gordon that’s underrated as much as it is his particular combination of skillset and geography. And for me, that’s a little less interesting. If we knew that Gordon would get more press if he simply played for a winning team or in a more prominent market, then Gordon isn’t so much “the most underrated player” as he is a victim of the media coverage of lousy midwest franchises.

In thinking about Posnanski’s tweet, I wondered if we could tease out the geography and team record aspects, and try to find out which player is perhaps the most underrated based simply on his own merits, rather than because he plays in obscurity due to the failings of his teammates or because of his current zip code. What we’re looking for is a good player who doesn’t get much recognition for his value despite playing on either a winning team or in a major media market with significant television exposure and national coverage.

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Last Thursday, I took a stab at predicting how batter’s swing influences their ground ball / fly ball splits. One of the most important retorts to the research (a retort made both in the comments and on The Book blog) was that pitch location was the determining factor of bat angles — what I was attributing to hitter tendencies (at least for hitters who have big GB/FB platoon splits).

Consider today’s offering a second puzzle piece — hopefully an edge piece — in what is a 1000-piece puzzle of understanding GB/FB splits. Today I offer the case study of two (essentially randomly picked) hitters with large GB/FB platoon — Adam Dunn and Jay Bruce.

The results surprised me, twice, and in the end, it appears these two hitters employ different swing patterns, suggesting there may be traction with my original theory, even though pitch location does have a considerable affect on swing angles.
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Before we get into the meat of this article, I feel like I need to preface everything, so that the message and significance aren’t unclear. You might find it dreadfully uninteresting to read through this brief preface, but then, just imagine how much better reading the article will feel afterward!

(1) This was originally titled “The Most Indiscriminate Swinger in the World” but then I thought better of that because you people are crude.

(2) This article makes use of PITCHf/x plate-discipline data, which some people might not find to their liking. It forces two bits of that data together in a haphazard ratio, which more people might not find to their liking. There are always going to be sample-size concerns, and especially in this instance. I am aware of how the analysis might be considered insufficient and yet I’m still comfortable with it, because it’s more right than it is wrong.

See, that wasn’t too bad. Off we go.

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