Sunday Notes: Arroyo’s Rehab, Clark & the MLBPA, Doc Gooden, AFL Arms, ChiSox, more

Bronson Arroyo has a love-hate relationship with vacation mode. He loves to chill out and enjoy life – often with guitar in hand — but that all-too-familiar mound of dirt constantly beckons. The idea of not returning to it leaves him cold.

Arroyo was a paragon of health and reliability from 2004-2013. The tall righthander made at least 29 starts annually, but that streak ended when he underwent Tommy John surgery last July. Five months after signing as a free agent with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arroyo found himself in unfamiliar territory.

“It’s been a weird experience,” Arroyo said earlier this week. “That first month, watching the team on the road, was the first time I’d been separated from a ball club. I’d be watching these guys play in San Francisco and I’d be sitting in the house in Arizona. It wasn’t cool.”

Arroyo didn’t spend all of his time in the house. When I semi-jokingly asked how long he was on the guitar disabled list, he said he was playing in his cast two days later. He then related how hard it is to keep him cooped up inside.

“After I got out of the hospital, the doctor called my girlfriend and asked ‘How is Bronson recovering?’” said Arroyo. “She said, ‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s at the casino playing Roulette right now.’ He was like, ‘What?’ So it didn’t have me down that long.”

Positive attitude aside, Arroyo realizes recovery from Tommy John surgery is a long and winding road. His therapy sessions last four hours and he won’t begin throwing until January. While his recovery is going well, he admits his arm can’t be deemed fully recovered until it is battled tested.

Until that time, Arroyo will cross his fingers. Being on the shelf for the first time in his career has been a stark reminder that no one plays forever. In all likelihood, he would if he could.

“Having this reprieve, I realize it’s not that cool to be retired,” said Arroyo. “They’re probably going to have to kick me off the field, like Jamie Moyer.”

Moyer, who threw his last pitch at age 49, was one of a kind. Arroyo is unique as well – he prides himself in having “stayed youthful” – but regardless of any reticence toward retirement, he has to prove he can still be effective.

“I’m watching guys like Josh Beckett, at 36, retire and tell me stuff like, ‘It’s taking me four hours to get ready for a game and I can’t do this anymore,” said Arroyo. “Or a guy like Derek Lowe, who is 38 – the age I’m going to be next year – slowly fade out of the game. It’s going to be tricky to see if I can come back from an injury and not do that – not fade. Can I be the same guy I have been? I think I can pull it off, but it’s a road I haven’t been down.”

——

Earlier this month, I asked several big-league general managers for their thoughts on the current run-scoring environment. A few days ago, I broached the subject with Tony Clark, who serves as the executive director of the MLB Players Association.

Clark attributes the offensive downturn to “a number of reasons.” He also said trends are historically cyclical, and that “It’s been interesting for any fan to watch how the game has changed over the last 10-15 years, independent of anything players have done.”

According to Clark, what players think about today’s run-scoring environment follows a predictable pattern: For pitchers, it’s not a huge concern. For hitters, it is a huge concern. As for what fans think, Clark considers it a key talking point.

“Inevitably, having fans who come to the ballpark enjoy the game is a concern that’s a part of every conversation,” said Clark. “Fans are paying attention to it, and we’re interested in having a conversation about whether anything needs to be done about it.”

Clark said that no prospective rule changes have been brought to the table. If they are, the MLBPA is amenable to listening. That goes for changing the height of the mound, banning shifts, or anything else.

“The players are willing to have a conversation about anything that improves the game,” said Clark. “That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to agree with what somebody else thinks improves the game. But to the extent that our players are aware of what’s being bantered about, I think we have a more engaged and educated group than we’ve ever had.”

——

Dwight Gooden was a dominant pitcher at a young age. As a 19-year-old rookie in 1984, he struck out 11.4 batters per nine innings while winning 17 games for the New York Mets. A year later, he went 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA.

Gooden’s career is well-documented, from his brilliance on the mound to his battles with substance abuse and the law. Less known are his views on pitching, which I got a snapshot view of in a brief conversation last night.

The first question I asked the 50-year-old Gooden was about his early career pitchability: Did he excel on pure, raw stuff, or did he already have a good feel for how to attack hitters?

“My dad taught me about pitching at a very young age,” answered Gooden. “He taught me about reading bat speed and how to go after weaknesses. He taught me how to set up hitters. I was very fortunate that my dad was a huge baseball fan who knew about pitching. When I was young – my years from 9 to 15 – he’d take me out to do drills. He made me a student of the game.”

His curveball – taught to him by his father — was among the best of his era. He described the grip as, “basically holding it like my fastball, but with my fingers together and holding it a little tighter.” He threw the pitch until undergoing labrum surgery in 1992, at which point he was “mentally afraid to snap it off” and learned a slider.

Gooden didn’t throw a changeup – “I could just never get a feel for one” – nor did he throw a two-seam fastball, as he couldn’t get any movement on it.

‘I basically had two pitches,” Gooden told me. “I had a fastball and a curveball. But what I did was turn that into four pitches by changing speeds on my fastball and changing speeds on my curveball.

“In my prime, I was between 95-98, but being a power pitcher wasn’t really an ego thing for me. I liked throwing high fastballs to get strikeouts, but changing speeds and location are more important than velocity. Today, they make too much out of kids throwing 98-99.”

——

Chris O’Dowd caught some of the top arms in the recently-completed Arizona Fall League season. The Colorado Rockies catching prospect played for the Salt River Rafters, whose pitching staff included Houston’s Mark Appel, Arizona’s Archie Bradley and Jimmie Sherfy, and Minnesota’s Jake Reed.

O’Dowd, a 24-year-old Dartmouth College product and the son of former Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd, hit .271/.335/.385 this year between high-A Modesto and Double-A Tulsa. He didn’t see extended game action in the AFL, just nine games, but he experienced plenty of the flame-throwing foursome catching their bullpens. O’Dowd offered perspectives on each in the league’s final week.

On Mark Appel and Archie Bradley: “We have pitchers here who are great command guys. They find ways to get outs by pitching to different zones and using everything. Then there are guys like Mark and Archie. I’m not moving as much back there with them, because they come right after guys with their fastballs. I’m sitting on the thirds, or even the halves, and they’re attacking. That doesn’t mean they’re simply power pitchers getting by with raw stuff, it’s just more their mindset.

“It’s tough to compare (their fastballs). It’s the whole package that makes each of them special. It’s how they change speeds and which locations and counts they’ll do it. They’re unique unto themselves. Archie has the breaking ball and Mark has the really good slider. They’re very different pitchers.

“I’ve seen Mark, over the course of his time here, get more depth on his slider. From what I’ve seen, it’s a very-above-average pitch. One thing he’s been working on out here is fastballs in.

“Archie’s breaking ball is by far one of the best I’ve caught, because of the 12-to-6 and the power behind it. He’s throwing it close to 80 mph. He’s working on a slider too, but his trademark is his power curveball.”

On Jake Reed and Jimmie Sherfy: “They have very live arms. There is a lot of movement on their fastballs, with power. They have similar repertoires in that their slider is their go-to. Both have a good enough feel for their slider to use it behind in the count, ahead in the count, or as a strikeout pitch. It’s more a matter of which location they’re throwing it to.

“Both have been trying to use changeups more in games. With their whippiness and arm speed, it’s going to be an above-average pitch.

“They’ve been up to 99-100 with their fastballs. I don’t know what they’ve been averaging, but I’d definitely say 95-plus. Their velocity really jumps out at you. It’s something you don’t see every day.”

——

My wife was recently watching a segment from Ken Burns’ “Baseball” and reminded me of one of the series’ great lines. A scout reporting on a young phenom named Walter Johnson said: “This boy throws so fast you can’t see ’em and he knows where he’s throwing, because if he didn’t there would be dead bodies all over Idaho.”

——

Tim Anderson is the top position-player prospect in the Chicago White Sox organization. He’s also raw, as evidenced by some of the numbers he put up between three levels this season. The toolsy 21-year-old shortstop hit .301 with an .808 OPS, but he had just 9 walks to go with 82 strikeouts. He also committed 34 errors in 84 games.

Anderson missed two months this summer after a hit-by-pitch resulted in a slight fracture to his right wrist. As a result, he was assigned to the Arizona Fall League where he told me his wrist feels fine and he’s improved his defense. Notable in the latter is his ability to read swings, which he describes as “basically a pre-step, making sure I have my shoes set when the ball is going through the zone.”

The 2013 first-round pick said the White Sox don’t really shift in the minors – he positions on his own – but he has hit against slight shifts. When that happens, he basically ignores where the infielders are. “If I hit the ball, it’s either going to fall or it’s going to go to them,” Anderson explained. “I’m not going to change my swing for them.”

When I asked Anderson to describe his swing, he told me it’s “very level” and that he feels he “stays through the ball well.” I was intrigued by his answer when I asked what message he typically gets from his coaches: “We don’t really talk about hitting. Sometimes I figure things out on my own, but then again, if I see anything wrong, I’ll ask a question or something.”

The uber-athletic right-handed hitter was more nuanced when describing his approach.

“I look fastball middle away and adjust from there,” Anderson told me. “I feel my strength is away, and I hit the ball a lot better when I do that. If I look middle in, I pull and sometimes roll over the ball. I hit balls all over the field, but mostly up the middle and to the (opposite field) a little bit. When I do pull, it’s because I was simply reacting to inside.”

——

Pat Listach had a fairly nondescript playing career. A switch-hitting infielder/outfielder, he appeared in 503 games for the Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros from 1992-1997. He batted .251/.316/.309 and left the yard a total of five times.

For a brief time it looked like he would be a star. The ’92 Brewers won 92 games and Listach hit .290 with 54 stolen bases as their starting shortstop. Injuries and inconsistency followed, and Listach eventually moved into the coaching ranks. He spent the past season as Houston’s third base coach. In August, he reminisced about his first round tripper.

“We were at Fenway Park and it was late in the year,” remembered Listach. “Paul Molitor came up to me and said, ‘When are you going to hit a home run? You’ve done everything else this year, but you haven’t hit a home run.’ Next at bat, I hit a home run. It was against a lefty. I think he was a September call-up who didn’t get much time after that. It’s unbelievable, but I can’t remember his name.”

The pitcher was Scott Taylor, who was making his big-league debut in relief of Roger Clemens. Taylor struck out the first batter he faced – fittingly, it was Molitor – and gave up the home run to Listach a few innings later. Taylor made 20 appearances, all but one in relief, over parts of two seasons.

Listach was recently named manager of the Tacoma Rainiers, Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate.

——

Forty-eight players with the last name of Taylor have played in the big leagues. For the most part, they had short careers. Only four Taylors have played as many as 10 seasons, and 20 of them appeared in just one season. Tony, an infielder from 1958-1976, mostly with the Phillies, is baseball’s most long-tenured Taylor.

——

The late Stan Musial would have been 94 on Friday. How great was “Stan the Man”? He hit more career doubles (725) than Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra combined (710). He hit hit more career triples (177) than Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds combined (175). He hit more career home runs (475) than Roberto Clemente and Paul Molitor combined (474).

——

ESPN’s Mark Simon saved me some effort a few days ago. I’d been thinking of looking up which of this year’s pitchers had the highest swing-and-miss rate on pitches in the strike zone, and lo and behold, there it was on Twitter. (If you don’t follow Mark and read his work, you’re missing out on some great stuff.)

Here is the top half of the list:

Chris Sale 23.2%
Max Scherzer 21.8%
Marco Estrada 21.7%
R.A. Dickey 21.1%
Yusmeiro Petit 20.5%
Jacob deGrom 20.3%
Collin McHugh 20.0%
Michael Wacha 19.8%
Cole Hamels 19.7%
Clayton Kershaw 19.7%