| 11:13 |
: be here shortly
|
| 11:14 |
:
|
| 12:02 |
: I’m here!
|
| 12:02 |
eno time! |
| 12:03 |
Can I kick it? |
| 12:03 |
: yes you can
|
Shortly after the Chattanooga Lookouts took home the Southern League championship on Monday, the team’s best player packed his bags for the big leagues. That player, of course, was Max Kepler, who will spend the final two weeks of the season in Minnesota following a well-deserved promotion.
Kepler put up crazy good in the minors this year. The 22-year-old spent nearly the entire season at the Double-A level, where he hit an absurd .322/.416/.531 in 112 games, while also kicking in 18 steals in 22 attempts. Kepler also accomplished the rare feat of walking more than he struck out this year, posting walk and strikeout rates of 14% and 13%, respectively. Even more impressively, he complemented this control of the strike zone with a healthy amount of power. Although he hit just nine homers on the year, his 32 doubles and 13 triples at the Double-A level produced an isolated power of .209.
There isn’t much to dislike about Kepler’s minor league performance this year. He drew walks, rarely struck out, clubbed oodles of extra base hits and stole a fair amount of bases. In other words, he did it all; and as a result, KATOH’s very bullish on him. My system projects him for an impressive 13.2 WAR through age 28, making him one of the highest-ranked prospects in the game. This represents a dramatic improvement over the weak 1.1 WAR yielded by his 2014 campaign.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.
Most Highly Rated Game
Cleveland at Minnesota | 20:10 ET
Anderson (77.2 IP, 111 xFIP-) vs. Gibson (186.0 IP, 100 xFIP-)
No second-place club is currently within fewer than three games of their respective division’s first-place club. Between that and an abbreviated Thursday schedule, none of tonight’s matchups feature much in the way of stirring consequences. The closest thing to urgency? Minnesota’s pursuit of the American League’s second wild-card spot. The Twins sit merely a game behind the Astros for the opportunity to participate in the play-in contest. Tonight represents an opportunity not only to observe how the club fares in that endeavor, but also to observe two of the AL’s most productive rookies, Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor (3.8 WAR) and Minnesota’s Miguel Sano (2.1 WAR). And for those among us who have a state car inspection scheduled for 5:30pm at the region’s best and/or only Nissan dealership, tonight also represents an opportunity to pass an hour acting out a strange, one-man performance of Sartre’s No Exit in that same dealership’s poorly lit waiting room.
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A funny thing about doing a job like this is that you’re expected to write all the time. Which means you’re expected to write early in seasons, and you’re expected to write analytically, and when you write analytically early in seasons, you can end up looking like a moron. Earlier this season, for example, I remember writing reasonably positive things about Carlos Peguero. And early last year, over at JABO, I wrote about how the Rockies weren’t striking out anymore. You can guess what happened to Peguero. And you can guess what happened with the Rockies. The Rockies resumed striking out. They lost lots of games.
So, this isn’t anything new, but early information can mislead. We’re always just trying to separate what’s real from what’s fake, and we tend to be too impatient about that. But every so often, you can spot something legitimate. Several months ago, also at JABO, I observed that the Royals were barely ever striking out. They were on a potentially historic pace, and it was definitely something to stay aware of. To be honest, I at some point stopped being aware of it, but then I noticed again. The season’s about over, now. The Royals are thinking about the playoffs. They’ll be taking with them one hell of a group of contact hitters.
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Yogi Berra’s playing career ended well before my time. He was a superstar of an earlier generation, and though he never left the public eye, I certainly don’t know him any better than any of you do. So much of his stardom was due to his character, and to receive revealing anecdotes, we have to turn to the storytellers. Others are better equipped to talk about Berra’s personality. Others are better equipped to talk about their interactions with him, about all the things he said, about his graciousness and about his legacy. Berra, like all of them, was more than a baseball player. Berra was a person like few of them, and to fully understand him is to spend most of the time thinking about what he was off the field.
But of all the functions of statistics, one of them is to allow us to connect to the bygone eras. Stories provide information about the type of person Berra was. Statistics provide information about the type of player Berra was. Berra played before I knew what was going on. He played before most of you knew what was going on. We never got to watch him, outside of a few old video clips, but by digging into the data, we have a means by which to appreciate how talented he was, and how unlikely his story turned out to be. Berra did have one of those rare larger-than-life personalities, and that’s what made him more than just a great baseball player. Yet he was an unquestionably great baseball player, and as it turns out, he was also unquestionably clutch.
With October approaching (I am as surprised as anyone by that fact), awards season is starting to shape up, which means the writers on these fine digital pages are doing their best to break down who should win and who should not. As I quite fortunately find myself to be one of those writers, I have some thoughts, especially as they relate to the Cy Young. Today, my hope is that you will join me on a journey of sorts into some preconceived notions of Cy Young benchmarks and barriers.
First, an introduction to our candidates. In the American League, it looks as if anyone will have a hard time beating David Price, as Sonny Gray’s most recent starts — one of which was the shortest of his young career — have been sub-par, and Dallas Keuchel also had one of the worst starts of his career recently, coughing up nine earned runs to the Texas Rangers. Chris Sale and Chris Archer also merit some consideration, as well.
In the National League, it’s unsurprisingly a battle between permanent fixture Clayton Kershaw, teammate Zack Greinke, and relative newcomer Jake Arrieta. That one is arguably tougher to call, though batted-ball mastermind Tony Blengino tried his hand at it last week.
All of this leads to an abstract thought I had recently. Let’s say we find ourselves with two leading candidates for one league’s Cy Young, both possessing the exact same ERA and WHIP. Maybe one pitcher’s fielding-independent statistics are better (something that potentially had a hand in Corey Kluber’s Cy Young win last season), but the main difference between the two pitchers is a pretty standard measure of “success”: wins. One pitcher plays for a bad team — as is the case with Sonny Gray, for example. One of them plays for an exciting, playoff-bound team — as is the case with Dallas Keuchel.
You may have heard that Yogi Berra passed away. As I often do when I hear about a former player in the news for whatever reason, I tend to look at his player page. Judging by the popular players searched box today, you are doing the same. When I look at Berra’s, the thing that pops out to me right away is just how consistent he was.
Wanting to put this apparent consistency in context, I asked the venerable Jeff Zimmerman for a little data help. Turns out my suspicions were well founded. Let’s take a look at three tables real quick:
| Player | Career WAR | Max Single-Season WAR |
| Jake Beckley | 61.2 | 4.9 |
| Bid McPhee | 62.7 | 5.4 |
| Max Carey | 60.1 | 5.6 |
| Sam Crawford | 71.1 | 5.9 |
| Paul Molitor | 67.6 | 6.0 |
| Lou Whitaker | 68.1 | 6.1 |
| Yogi Berra | 63.7 | 6.4 |
| Willie Randolph | 62.1 | 6.5 |
| Reggie Smith | 64.6 | 6.5 |
| Fred Clarke | 72.8 | 6.5 |
Usually, players of this caliber have that one big year that sort of defines their career. Heck, even players not of that caliber end up having one random career year that defines their career. Not Berra, nor the other gentlemen on this list. Six of the others are in the Hall of Fame with Berra, and I could make a pretty decent case for the three (Whitaker, Randolph and Smith) who aren’t.
From 1950-1956, Berra posted between 5.2 WAR and 6.4 WAR every season, with his 6.4 WAR in 1956 ending up as his career high. That was during his age-31 season. It was the last season where Berra was a star, but he posted at least 2.2 WAR for the next five years, finishing up the run with 2.2 WAR in his age-36 season in 1961.
| Player | Career HR | Max Single-Season HR |
| Al Kaline | 399 | 29 |
| Harold Baines | 384 | 29 |
| Yogi Berra | 358 | 30 |
| Chili Davis | 350 | 30 |
This list is even shorter. Berra knocked 30 homers in both 1952 and 1956, but otherwise never cracked 28. He hit 10 or more homers in 16 straight seasons. I can’t figure out how to search for consecutive season records, but in general, only 49 players have reached double digits in that many seasons. From 1949-1958, Berra racked up at least 20 homers.
| Player | Career Fld | Max Single-Season Fld |
| Bill Dickey | 20.0 | 3 |
| Buddy Rosar | 24.0 | 4 |
| Billy Sullivan | 24.0 | 4 |
| Al Lopez | 20.0 | 4 |
| Malachi Kittridge | 39.0 | 5 |
| David Ross | 37.6 | 5 |
| Yogi Berra | 27.0 | 5 |
| Bernie Carbo | 24.0 | 5 |
| Charlie Deal | 21.0 | 5 |
| Muddy Ruel | 20.0 | 5 |
You’ll notice that all but two of these players — Carbo and Deal — were/are catchers. There is a commentary there on how we measure catcher defense, but even with that said, there have been hundreds of catchers since Berra came into the league, and only a handful meet this criteria.
We could probably look at a few other statistics and end up with similar lists that put Berra in select company along the same lines as above. But we don’t need to. The point was that Berra was simply as steady as you could be for a very long time. That sort of player is an incredibly rare and valuable asset anywhere on the diamond. Having that sort of player behind the plate is remarkably valuable. Berra wasn’t the only reason the Yankees were a powerhouse team in those days, but having that steady influence behind the plate had to make life a hell of a lot easier for the Yankees.
I don’t know the best characteristics to leading a long life, but I’m guessing one of them is being consistent. If Yogi Berra was as consistent in life as he was in a big league uniform, then it’s no wonder he lived to be 90. Rest in peace, Mr. Berra.
The current version of the Kansas City Royals are primarily known for two things: playing amazing defense and having a dominating bullpen. That combination of elite glovework and unhittable relievers carried them to the World Series a year ago, and helped them run away with the AL Central this season; they entered the month of September with 13 game lead over the second-place Twins.
But despite a pre-punched playoff ticket, September has provided plenty of reason for Kansas City fans to worry about their chances headed into October. After an 11-2 drubbing at the hands of the Mariners last night, the Royals are now just 7-13 this month, thanks to a pitching staff that apparently is coming apart at the seams. In those 20 contests, the Royals have allowed 120 runs, for an average of 6.0 runs allowed per game. Up through August 31st, they allowed just 484 runs over 130 games, or 3.8 runs allowed per game.
This month, opponents are hitting .290/.364/.474 against the Royals; only the Phillies and A’s are allowing opponents to do more damage in September. And it’s not just a couple of guys; almost the entire staff is getting lit up.
