Jeremy Guthrie and Jonathan Sanchez — both acquired in deals this past offseason — were supposed to help the Rockies and Royals, respectively, find some stability in their rotations. That never really played out however, and on Friday the two teams engaged a rare double change-of-scenery deal.
Michael Cuddyer will remain a member of the Colorado Rockies. Even though the team has allegedly received numerous calls about the veteran outfielder, Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd has insisted that Cuddyer isn’t going anywhere. But with the Rockies already 13.5 games back, and Cuddyer struggling, O’Dowd may want to reconsider.
Rockies first baseman Todd Helton committed an error on Wednesday night — couldn’t get his foot on the bag — and Colorado lost. The 38-year-old hall-of-fame contender has the second-worst numbers of his career — .332 wOBA and 99 wRC+, not counting his abbreviated first season in 1997 — and he is becoming the scapegoat of a miserable Rockies team.
Who would blame Helton for calling it a career? He has 8,044 plate appearances, 354 home runs and 61.8 WAR on his resume. He has been a solar flare among bottle rockets.
But if we dig into his 2012 numbers, we find baseballing pride of Tennessee should have a few more years left in his bat.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Rockies rotation has been a disaster this year. As a group, they have a 6.31 ERA, and while their FIP (5.15) and xFIP (4.44) are somewhat better, both marks are still among the worst in the league. The main culprits — the rockies are 29th in walk rate (3.71 BB/9), 29th in home run rate (1.58 HR/9), and 30th in BABIP allowed (.349). Putting guys on base before you give up hits and homers is a sure way to allow the other team to score, and while the park and defense are significant non-pitching factors, their starters xFIP- is 114, worst in baseball, and that’s all on the pitchers.
So, Jim Tracy is going to try something different. Very different. In lieu of just changing the names on the back of the jerseys, Tracy is essentially throwing away the standard construction of a starting rotation, and is going to use his pitching staff in an extremely unconventional manner — four “starting pitchers”, each one limited to 75 pitches per outing.
To be honest, I love the idea of trying something different, but I’m just not sure this roster and this location is the right place to try it.
Since starting the season with a 12-12 record, the Rockies have lost 15 of their past 19 games. During this free-fall, the team has experienced a five, four and a six-game losing streak. Now, after 43 games, the team’s 16-27 record is tied for the third-worst in the franchise’s history. Needless to say, it’s been a bad stretch of baseball. And sadly, it was one that was all too predictable.
On March 5th, Christian Friedrich was inducted into the annual Best Shape Of His Life club thanks to this MLB.com article from Thomas Harding:
Even worse, he had bulked up to 240 pounds by the latter part of the season, partly because of his off-base workouts and partly because he had fallen into the habit of late-night meals.
But this winter, Friedrich spent a week and a half training with Phillies standout Cliff Lee. Friedrich, who said he was floored by Lee’s physical conditioning, dropped to 205 pounds, and he hopes to be in that vicinity during the season.
A 35 pound weight loss is certainly a drastic change, but as has been often chronicled, many of these off-season workout stories turn out to have little to no impact on a player’s performance on the field. In fact, so many players are noted to report to camp in the “Best Shape Of Their Life”, the story has become something of a running joke. However, getting in better physical condition can occasionally lead to significant changes, and it’s looking like Friedrich might just be an example of why these stories keep getting written.
According to a baseball source, Major League Baseball has dropped the 100-game suspension levied against Eliezer Alfonzo last season due to the same procedural issues that surfaced during the Ryan Braun case over the offseason.
The specific procedural issues were yet again not specifically outlined in this report, but the important aspect to note is that this was not an appeal case that Alfonzo and his team won. This suspension was not brought before an arbitrator. Instead, Major League Baseball re-examined the procedural facts of the sample collection and simply dropped the suspension.
When seeing Colorado Rockies shortstop prospect Trevor Story in person, very little about his all-around game strikes one as sexy beyond his current triple slash line of .283/.395/.535. However, as a teenager in the South Atlantic League, Story’s numbers are on par with the best middle infield prospects in the game which has led to many questions about his ceiling and comparisons to Nolan Arenado, the current king of the Rockies prospect mountain.
In Wednesday’s game between the Dodgers and Rockies, Colorado led 2-1 heading into the 8th inning. The Dodgers scored two in the top of the 8th, the Rockies answered with three in the bottom of the inning, and the game went to the 9th with the Rockies up 5-to-3. L.A. had runners on first and second, with two outs, and Dee Gordon at the plate. On a 2-2 pitch, Gordon hit one into the gap in right center field. Rockies right fielder Michael Cuddyer fielded the ball and threw it to cut-off man Troy Tulowitzki, who then made a weak and off-line throw home. Both runners scored and the game was tied.
After the play, I remarked on Twitter how surprised I was by the weak throw home from Tulowitzki. Yes, Tulowitzki’s made six errors so far in 2012, matching his season total from 2011. But the two-time Gold Glover has tremendous range and a very strong arm. He caught the ball cleanly and with plenty of time to get off a good throw, but didn’t. Here’s the video of the play.
Immediately, several Rockies fans and bloggers responded to me on Twitter with “whether on offense or defense, Tulo freezes up in the clutch” or words to that effect. Those comments surprised me more than Tulowitzki’s poor play. To the FanGraphs leader board and, behold, Tulowitzki has been the least clutch hitter in baseball over the last three seasons. My colleague Paul Swydan wrote about Tulowitzki’s clutch problem last August, but noted that Tulo was moving in the right direction, improving his hitting in high-leverage situations. So far this season, however, he’s heading in the wrong direction, with a -.10 clutch rating, ranking him 112th out of 184 qualified batters. Of course, clutch ratings will have big swings at this point in the season, with fewer high-leverage plate appearances per player. Just a look at Matt Kemp’s -.12 clutch rating so far tells you it’s too early to form a judgment.
But what about Tulowitzki’s defense? Does his glove freeze up in the clutch, too? We don’t have a clutch rating for defense, so firing up the leader board will do us no good.
Yesterday, it took Los Angeles Dodgers manager Clint Hurdle Don Mattingly* approximately 40 seconds — depending on where you start and stop your timer — to argue The Worst Call of the Season. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, it took the umpiring crew about 2 minutes and 50 seconds to gather in the infield, discuss Carlos Beltran’s hit, reconvene in their underground video review chamber, and then return to announce a home run.
* All white guys look the same to me.
Getting the calls wrong in baseball takes time. Managers — depending on their personality, the game situation, and the offense — take different amounts of time arguing both bad and good calls. The arguing, for the most part, exists because of uncertainty. My lip-reading skills inform me most arguments follow this general pattern:
Manager: “Did you really see X event?”
Umpire: “Most certainly did I see X event.”
Manager: “That statement you just made right there is tantamount to the excrement of bovines.”
Umpire: “You are ejected.”
Recent evidence suggests, however, that despite these conflicts resulting from close calls, instant replays still take more time than good ol’ fashioned shout-spittin’ matches.
Evidence furthermore suggests that in the time it takes to get in a healthy workout, a normal person could empty approximately ten Squeeze Cheese cans directly into his or her porcine gullet.
Which is to say: Quicker is not always better.