Sunday Notes: Middlebrooks in SD, Ottavino’s New Case Study, LaTroy at 42, more from AZ

Will Middlebrooks is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to explaining his unfulfilled potential in Boston. The 26-year-old third baseman is hesitant to blame injuries – no one wants to be seen as an excuse-maker — but there’s no denying his familiarity with the trainer’s table. Wrist, finger, leg, back – he’s been on the disabled list four times in three years, and on numerous occasions has played hurt.

Middlebrooks is a Padre now, having come to San Diego in exchange for Ryan Hanigan this past December. He’s also – at least for the moment – unencumbered by malady. I asked if injuries were the root cause of his uneven performances in a Red Sox uniform.

“No, of course not,” responded Middlebrooks. “That hasn’t been the only thing. There’s a big learning curve when you’re a young player. You’re learning pitching. There are guys adjusting to you and figuring out your weaknesses. It’s that cat-and-mouse game we always talk about.”

It’s hard for a cat to catch a mouse when he’s hobbled, and Middlebrooks has a plodding .695 OPS in 232 big-league games. He has the potential to do much more, particularly in the slugging department. Prior to his 2014 power outage – just two dingers — he had 32 home runs in 660 at bats. A mechanical adjustment may help him invigorate his long-ball stroke.

“The biggest thing I did this offseason was free up my hands a little bit,” said Middlebrooks. “I was always an elbow-up guy, and couldn’t really load. I had to load more turning my upper body, so the only way to get to the ball was to open up, and I’d get outside the baseball. Now I’m a little lower with my elbow, which frees up my hands. Before, I felt stiff and cut off to balls in, and now I feel a lot more free and easy.”

Middlebrooks made the adjustment after studying video of himself this winter. Why weren’t Boston’s hitting coaches – Greg Colbrunn and Victor Rodriguez – able to help him implement those same changes?

“Those guys worked their butts off trying to help me,” said Middlebrooks. “It’s just a matter of something clicking.”

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In December, Eno Sarris wrote about how Adam Ottavino was interested in Steve Cishek’s platoon splits. More specifically, the Rockies reliever wanted to know why his Marlins contemporary had so much success against opposite-handed hitters. By gleaning such information, Ottavino hoped to improve his own numbers versus lefties.

When I talked to him last week in Phoenix, Ottavino admitted he’d been barking up the wrong tree. He’s since moved on to a more appropriate research subject.

“Cishek wasn’t really a good case study for me, because he throws differently than I do,” said Ottavino. “We have the same repertoire (fastball-slider), but we don’t give the hitter a similar visual.

“I’m focusing on Garrett Richards now, because he throws across his body like I do. Plus, my velocity spiked toward the end of the year, so while he’s throwing a tick harder, we’re in a somewhat similar range. Some of his pitches cut a little more, and maybe sink a little differently, but at the end of the day, we both throw across our bodies with the same two pitches. It’s a similar set of variables.”

Ottavino’s velocity comp raised an eyebrow, as Richards’ fastball averaged 96.4 mph last year. But, as he inferred, the difference wasn’t marked – Ottavino’s heater averaged 94.3. Opposing hitters may want to be especially wary of it in 2015.

“I’m looking at Richards’ usage and the areas he’s attacking,” explained Ottavino. “I’ve noticed that hitters are very defensive against him. It seems like he’s throwing up-and-in to a lot of lefties. That’s an area I haven’t really gone to much and it’s one of the things I’m focusing on.”

Ottavino will remain slider heavy – 47.2% last year – as the pitch is his bread-and-butter. Based on his study of Richards, he may begin utilizing it differently.

“He keeps his backdoor breaking ball a lot shorter than his put-away breaking ball,” said the Northeastern University product. “That could be evidence I should vary my breaking ball against lefties like I do against righties.

“I’m always trying to evolve faster than the hitter can evolve to what I’m doing. I’m looking for any type of anything that could help me. I like to study pitchers who are similar to me – what works for them – and right now I’m focusing on Garrett Richards.”

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Sharper command is all that stands between Pierce Johnson and a big-league mound. Thanks to a tweaked delivery and Jake Arrieta, the 23-year-old is poised take that next step.

Johnson – one of the top pitching prospects in the Cubs system – allowed just 5.9 hits per nine innings last year at Double-A. The 43rd-overall pick in the 2012 draft also walked 5.3 per nine, which necessitated an off-season alteration.

“I changed my windup,” explained Johnson. “I went to instructs and quieted my delivery. I was always over the head, look down, look up, and kept losing my target. I want to keep my eyes on the target the whole time, so I stopped going over my head.”

The shortening up has required a concentrated effort. Johnson has thrown the same way since high school, and he admits to “sometimes finding (himself) almost doing it, because it feels so natural.” In search of new muscle memory, he did extensive dry work during the offseason, going through his new motion without throwing a baseball.

More recently, he’s been picking Jake Arrieta’s brain.

“Jake kind of took me under his wing and went through video with me,” Johnson told me earlier this week. “We looked at what he did against batters – how he sees them and attacks them – and we also looked at video of me from this spring. His mental game is so strong. He’s really well prepared. That’s something I’m trying to take away from him.”

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Two Sundays ago, this column included Ellis Valentine’s pointed opinion of Josh Hamilton. Substance abuse wasn’t the only subject the former Expo and I addressed when we spoke. We also touched on the beaning that inexorably altered his career.

Valentine suffered a fractured cheekbone when he was hit by a pitch two months into the 1980 season. He came back strong after missing six weeks, but his career began spiraling downward the next year. His own drugs issues played a role, but taking a fastball to the face proved to be an equally-injurious psychological obstacle.

“The mental part of my game changed after I got hit in the face,” Valentine told me. “Before, I could anticipate a lot, because I didn’t have to worry about the ball hitting me. All of a sudden, I was going up to the plate worrying where the damn ball was.

“It was both (conscious and subconscious). I was thinking about it, and subconsciously I knew an object was coming toward me. I basically had to rethink my at bats – I had to relearn how to hit – which was tough.”

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Trevor Bauer and the Diamondbacks not seeing eye-to-eye, and Arizona ultimately dealing the strong-willed pitcher to Cleveland, is old news. It happened two-plus years ago, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.

Even so, perception evolves with the passage of time. With that in mind, I revisited the issue in a recent conversation with Bauer’s Triple-A pitching coach, Mike Parrott.

“He’s a guy with tremendous ability, but he was also challenging,” Parrott told me. “He believes there’s a certain way he has to do things to be successful. Trevor believes every one of his pitches is major-league caliber, and while you never want to take that confidence away from somebody, he had about seven or eight pitches. The catcher didn’t have enough fingers to call all of them.

“I’d tell Trevor to maximize his strengths by minimizing the number of pitches he had. He threw too many balls. It’s tough enough to command two pitches, and he was trying to command seven. The thing with Trevor is, he’s a very thoughtful guy and isn’t going to buy into something unless he feels it’s going to make him better. Sometimes he would buy into it, but other times he wouldn’t.”

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LaTroy Hawkins was 39 years old when I interviewed him late in the 2012 season. His sunset looming – or so I thought — I wrote that he might have pitched in his last big-league game. My supposition turned out to be wrong, albeit just barely. Cut loose by the Angels, Hawkins went three months without an offer.

“After the 2012 season, it was tough getting a job,” Hawkins told me last week. “I had to sign a minor league deal with the Mets, and had I not gotten that deal, I’d have retired. I almost retired anyway, because it was a minor league (contract).”

The resilient right-hander proceeded to earn a job in spring training and log 72 appearances out of the Mets bullpen. Last year he pitched in 57 games for the Rockies, bringing his career total to an even 1,000. Only 15 pitchers in history have appeared in more games.

Hawkins – now 42 years old and still with Colorado – will add to that number this season. When it’s over, he’ll ride into the sunset.

“I have a lot more games behind me than I do ahead of me,” said Hawkins. “This is my last year. Then it will be family time. My daughter will be a freshman in high school, so it’s time to turn the page on playing.”

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August Fagerstrom recently wrote about how well Adrian Beltre has aged. That got me thinking about how notable third basemen from the not-too-distant past did in their later seasons. Beltre will be 36 years old this year. Here is what a few of them did at that age, or older:

Wade Boggs (age 36) 142 OPS+, AL All-Star
George Brett (age 37) 153 OPS+, AL Batting Title
Chipper Jones (age 36) 176 OPS+, NL Batting Title
Cal Ripken (age 38) 144 OPS+, AL All-Star
Mike Schmidt (age 36) 153 OPS+, NL MVP

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My pitching performance in last weekend’s FanGraphs Whiffleball game was of the Jekyll-Hyde variety. Had it been a “real” game, a strange official-scoring scenario could have occurred.

I started and threw three Pedro-in-his-prime innings – it was a K-fest, folks – then moved to an infield position. I subsequently returned to the mound for the ninth, with a 1-0 lead, and promptly began plunking batters. Ingloriously, I blew the game.

But what if I’d closed it out? Would I have been credited with a save?

Per official scoring rules, the winning pitcher can’t earn a save, but having gone fewer than five innings, I didn’t qualify for a win. The term “relief pitcher” is included in the criteria, but I relieved Jeff Sullivan, who finished the eighth. All other criteria were met.

That specific scenario won’t happen in a big-league game, but a similar conundrum could. Say a pitcher moves from the mound to the outfield for one batter – this has happened before – with two out in the top of the eighth in a tie game. His team takes the lead in the bottom half and he returns to throw a scoreless ninth. Unless there’s something in the rule book I’m missing, he’s credited with a save.

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My Whiffleball implosion – I hit three batters in the ninth inning – also brings to mind HBP interpretation. Avoiding the plastic spheroid wouldn’t have been difficult for my collegial opponents, and much like a Tim Wakefield knuckleball, it wouldn’t have hurt them all that much. But a free base is a free base, which any analyst worth his salt recognizes.

A few years back, I asked Wakefield how many fewer HBP he’d have if batters didn’t occasionally lean into his butterflies. More so, what if umpires didn’t grant first base when the hitter made no attempt to avoid the pitch? Wakefield was political with his response, but I can’t imagine him not being frustrated when it happened.

Dave “Ron Hunt” Cameron, savvy veteran that he is, stuck his elbow over the plate in the ninth inning of the Whiffleball game. In the most controversial call of the day, he was denied first base as the pitch was not only easily avoidable, it was over the inside edge. (We opted for a do-over.)

MLB umpires almost always reward hitters who lean in and intentionally take one for the team. As far as I’m concerned, they really shouldn’t.

RANDOM STATS AND FACTS

Twelve pitchers (minimum 30 plate appearances) had an OBP of .222 or better as hitters last year. Nine played in the National League West.

Ten pitchers had nine or more sacrifice hits. Four played for the Washington Nationals.

Three position players had 11 or more sacrifice hits. Two played for the Cleveland Indians (Jose Ramirez and Mike Aviles) and one for the New York Yankees (Brett Gardner).

Al Rosen, the last Cleveland Indian to be named MVP, died on Friday. Rosen was a unanimous selection in 1953 after hitting .336/.422/.613 with 43 home runs and 145 RBI. He missed the batting title – and a Triple Crown – by one percentage point.

On this date in 1977, the Pirates and A’s executed a nine-player trade. Pittsburgh’s key acquisition was Phil “Scrap Iron” Garner, who had 17 hits in 36 postseason at bats for the 1979 “We Are Family” World Series champions.