There are few reversal of fortune so dramatic as the 0-2 home run. When pitchers corner a batsman into an 0-2 count, said batsman has hit .154/.160/.216 through the 2013 season. The following sample of at bats combine for an immaculate 1.000/1.000/4.000 slash.
Let’s take a look at them.
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Earlier, we took a look at the young season’s most impeded home run so far, which is the home run that faced the most opposition from the game conditions at the time. All necessary data was recovered from the ESPN Home Run Tracker, which is among my most favorite of Internet resources. If we look at one extreme, then, it follows that we should look also at the other extreme, or else the matter will feel incomplete, and this is a website devoted to completeness. And so we now turn our attention to the home run that has gotten the biggest boost from the game conditions. Home runs like this are probably more interesting than home runs that remain home runs despite strong winds and cold conditions, because these might be identified as “lucky”.
In terms of impeded home runs, we had one dinger at -20 feet, and another dinger at -17 feet. So it was a close race, and the error bars probably overlap. Here, in terms of aided home runs, we have one dinger at +64 feet, and another dinger at +43 feet. That’s a much bigger difference, but there might still be some error-bar overlap, for reasons we’ll get into. Let’s look at the home run in question!
Adam Dunn arrived in the Major Leagues in 2001. Since then, he has led the major leagues in both walks (1,172) and strikeouts (2,046) and is third in home runs (408), and his career stands as something of the perfect example of the Three True Outcomes. Of the 7,256 times he’s walked up to the plate, 3,702 of those PAs (51%) have ended without defensive involvement. Dunn has perfected the slow pitch softball style of baseball and turned that skillset into a pretty effective big league career.
And now, at age 33, Dunn is participating in an experiment to become an entirely new kind of hitter. Two weeks in, and it’s hard to call the experiment anything other than a total failure.
When FanGraphs was in Arizona earlier this spring, our merry band of nerds made our way to a Jarrod Parker vs Chris Sale afternoon tilt. The result on that 16th of March — an 11-5 win for the White Sox and bad performances from the two starting pitchers — was mostly unimportant to everyone in involved. But a few innings sitting behind the plate did provide some insights, including some reasons why those results were unimportant.
Is a pop-up the same as a strikeout? No, of course not, by definition they are very different things. A pop-up requires contact, whereas a strikeout requires no contact, or at least very little contact, or a two-strike foul bunt. Pop-ups and strikeouts look nothing alike, to the eye. However, to the numbers, pop-ups and strikeouts look very much alike. On one level they are very different, and on another level they are very similar.
A few weeks ago, Dave asked whether infield flies should be included in FIP. The idea is that IFFBs have little to do with defensive skill, and pop-ups are effectively strikeouts, in terms of plate-appearance result. Pop-ups don’t advance runners, and pop-ups are almost always outs. They’re not literally always outs, but then, a batter can reach on a strikeout if the ball gets away from the catcher. So while pop-ups lead to outs slightly less often, they’re still just about automatic.
As we explained yesterday in Part 1 of the series, we’re looking at the financial health of all thirty major league teams. The focus is on attendance, local TV contracts, and estimated 2013 payroll. We’re not ranking the teams one to thirty because we lack the kind of detailed information that would make such a ranking meaningful. We do, however, have enough information to paint with broad strokes, so as part of our attempt to give an overview of where each team stands as 2013 begins, we’ll look at their access to monetary resources for the upcoming season.
We’ve grouped the teams in tiers. Today we look at the ten teams in the middle.
In alphabetical order, by team name:
Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.
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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.
Third base is a little deeper than it used to be, and only a handful of teams have little to no hope of being productive at the position. The devil is in the details at the hot corner, as there has been very little turnover among the top 20 teams here. Teams that have quality reserves or prospects coming up the pipeline see a bump here, as we’re looking holistically at the position and not just at the nominal starter. This is an important consideration across the diamond, but particularly so at third given how physically demanding the position is. Only six third basemen suited up in 150 or more games last year. Compare that to 13 at second base and 11 at first base and shortstop, and it becomes clear that depth is important at third base. Unfortunately, most teams don’t have adequate depth, hence the bump for the teams that do.
Let’s get on to the rankings!
I’ve been a little tardy in picking up the ball for the fifth part of this series, and for that I apologize. I hope it was worth the wait. In case you’re new to the series, here are parts one, two, three and four.
Vetoed trade: December 2003, the Texas Rangers send Alex Rodriguez to the Boston Red Sox for Manny Ramirez and Jon Lester.
Completed trade: February 2004, the Rangers send Alex Rodriguez and cash to the New York Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and player to be named later (Joaquin Arias).
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From the esteemed Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago:
White Sox pitcher Chris Sale confirmed Tuesday his representatives have had discussions with the club about a contract extension.
(snip)
“We’ve been kind of back and forth but nothing too crazy right now,” Sale said Tuesday when asked about extension talks.
Think of the headline potential. “Sale Extended: Now Through 2018!” That is SEO gold right there.
Who do you think is the slowest player in major league baseball? No fair guessing Bartolo Colon. Allow me to re-phrase. Who do you think is the slowest position player in major league baseball? You probably have a few names floating around in your mind. Many of them are probably catchers. I can tell you I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a worse runner than Jesus Montero. Montero wasn’t just slow, but his technique was so bad he had to spend the offseason learning how to run. Montero is a 23-year-old high-level professional athlete. That whole chapter was embarrassing. Maybe it’s still embarrassing; I haven’t seen the new, improved Montero in 2013.
Montero, then, is a candidate for MLB’s slowest player. So are other catchers, like Jose Molina. But allow me to direct your attention to Paul Konerko, who isn’t a catcher, but who is old and defensively unremarkable. Konerko has very quietly had an outstanding career, and Konerko has very quietly been perhaps the slowest player in the league. If he wasn’t the slowest player before, he certainly hasn’t gotten quicker with age.