Rangers manager Ron Washington played the first chess matchup of Game One correctly, bringing in Alexi Ogando to face Allen Craig in the sixth inning, but Washington imploded the next time he had to make an important move, and Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and his charges started the World Series with a win.
It seems to happen every year — a good hitter gets especially hot in the playoffs and people start talking about how he should get the “Barry Bonds Treatment,” i.e., walking the batter almost every time he is up. It is generally a bad idea to give a free pass to any hitter that often, but if any current player deserves that treatment, it is Albert Pujols. A comparison of Pujols and Bonds as hitters is not quite as interesting as it sounds. Pujols’ highest single-season wRC+ is 185 in 2003; in 1993, Bonds’ wRC+ was 193 and that was only his sixth-best season. What more is interesting is the thought that teams should walk Pujols almost every time he is up. If you are reading FanGraphs, I hope that you know that walking even a Hall-of-Famer-if-he-retires-three-years-ago hitter like Pujols every time is bad strategy. However, Pujols is obviously good enough that opposing managers are justified in giving him a free pass in certain situations. How common are those situations?
As far as team sports go, baseball is a bit odd. Unlike the constant motion sports like hockey and basketball and soccer, baseball is incredibly granular, with each event taking part in its own discrete space. The only major team sport (at least in America) that shares this granularity is football, but even football shares more with the aforementioned three than it does with baseball, due to the necessity of exceptionally coordinated team movements.
Instead, baseball is a series of individual vs. individual events. Oddly enough, this highly individual-based game seems to prevent all but the very greatest players of all time from carrying teams on their backs to championships — and even then, the production of a Barry Bonds or an Albert Pujols cannot hold a candle to what a Michael Jordan or a Bill Russell ever did for their teams, largely because these highly individualized events can actually exclude baseball’s superstars from even participating at all when the game is on the line.
Perhaps it is because of this phenomenon of the sport that we’ve seen Mike Napoli — a semi-platooned catcher-slash-designated hitter who was cast off by not one but two general managers by February– define so much of the American League in 2011.
It’s World Series time, so that must mean it’s time to discuss (read — argue about, mock, decry, belittle, etc.) the differences between the American and National Leagues. Sometimes, the fact that an extra hitter has to hit for a National League team or that one less gets to hit for the American League team can lead to some interesting decisions, like Vladimir Guerrero playing right field, David Ortiz playing first base or Ryan Spilborghs serving as a designated hitter. This season however, the moves should be pretty cut and dry.
It seems to be a foregone conclusion in Milwaukee that Prince Fielder is a goner. A rough estimate of the Brewers’ payroll might have them about $10 million short of 2011’s outlay once arbitration numbers are final, and $10 million a year is not enough to sign Prince Fielder. But baseball benefits from a long, well-recorded history. What can we learn from the other Prince Fielders that have left before?
Sometimes announcers state that a player is not able to catch up to a fastball. Common sense states that the faster the pitch the harder it is to hit. I decided to look at the results of every fastball swung at to see how the results changed as the speed increased or decreased.
Fastballs generally have a 20 MPH difference in speeds (80 MPH to 100 MPH) at the major league level, so a baseline of what happens at every swing needed to be created. I took the results of every fastball over the last 4 years. I divided them up by in 1 MPH intervals (except for those >100 MPH which were grouped together). Then, I divided up the results further into those pitches missed, fouled off, hit into an out or hit for a hit. Taking all the data, I got the following results:
With the Rangers and Cardinals each capturing their respective league championships over the weekend, one central theme of the 2011 postseason has become obvious – how important a dominating bullpen can be in October. Both the Rangers and the Cardinals were let down by sub-par starting pitching, but were rescued by shut-down work from their relief corps, and the depth of both bullpens allowed each manager to have a quick hook with struggling starting pitchers.
Throughout both series, but especially the NLCS, this was treated as something of a surprising development. We were constantly being told that the failure of the Cardinals starters to get beyond the fifth inning was a significant problem, and that if Tony LaRussa didn’t start to get more innings from his rotation, the Cardinals were doomed. Of course, the Cardinals never did get much from their starters in the NLCS (they combined to pitch 24 1/3 innings in six games) but won the series pretty easily anyway, outscoring Milwaukee 43-26 in the process.
The reason for the Cardinals success – besides an offense that put up seven runs per game, which never hurts – was the quality and quantity of work that LaRussa was able to extract from his bullpen; Jason Motte, Fernando Salas, Mark Rzepczynski, Octavio Dotel and Lance Lynn allowed three runs in 24 2/3 innings. The Cardinals essentially shifted innings from their starters to their relievers, and given what we know about the relative performance of starters and relievers, this was absolutely the right call.
The Rangers carry a 3-2 series lead back to Texas over the weekend, needing just one win to advance to its second consecutive World Series. The team successfully staved off the Angels in the regular season and convincingly took care of the Rays in the ALDS in large part due to its retooled bullpen. The acquisitions of Mike Adams, Koji Uehara and Mike Gonzalez were each singularly effective, but the compounded factor of utilizing this trio has made even more of an impact.
Add to that the relief usage of starter Alexi Ogando and the emergence of Scott Feldman as a late innings threat and it’s clear that this Rangers playoff squad differs substantially from the team that fought for the AL West crown all season long. The new-look playoff bullpen also sheds light on a potentially revolutionary way to effectively use pitching staffs in the postseason.
Nelson Cruz compiled yet another solid campaign for a corner outfielder, hitting .263/.312/.509 with 29 home runs in 124 games. The 31-year-old Dominican has always been known for his behemoth-like raw power and featured that brute strength on Monday afternoon in a three home-run game against the Detroit Tigers, including a walk-off grand slam — the first ever in postseason play.
(Robin Ventura hit a walk-off grand slam in Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS for the New York Mets — but his teammates mobbed him after rounding first base, so he was technically only awarded a single.)
Cruz came up through the Brewers’ organization and was rated the #8 prospect in the system by Baseball America in 2005. In three separate cups of coffee in the big leagues, though, he was clearly overmatched and acquired the dreaded “Quad-A” label that plagues so many power-hitting prospects from the Pacific Coast League.
That derogatory label has since been demolished, much like Cruz does with a belt-high, 90 MPH fastball down the center of the plate.
Amidst his ascension from Quad-A player to an All-Star type player with 84 home runs over the past three seasons, it’s easy to forget that Nelson Cruz could be playing for your favorite team right now.
