Archive for Cody Ross

The Red Sox entered this season with high hopes. Fast-forward 122 games and they’re a disappointing 59-63 with just 4% odds of making the playoffs. The front of the rotation has had issues preventing runs. Several members of the lineup have performed below their established level of production. Plenty of key contributors have spent time on the disabled list, and recent reports suggest players have a mutinous relationship with their manager.

Plenty has gone wrong for the 2012 Red Sox, but one of the bright spots has been Cody Ross. The 31-year-old outfielder, who signed for just one year and $3 million, has a .359 wOBA, 122 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. His strong production has many wondering about his next contract. Ross has said that he’d like to return to Boston, and all signs point to the team having mutual interest. Ross may have put himself in line for a multi-year deal similar to Josh Willingham’s most recent contract — three years and $21 million — despite being less consistent and not as talented. Willingham has produced in the 3 WAR to 4 WAR range during the past several seasons while Ross has been in the 2 WAR to 3 WAR range.

And then there’s this: the main area in which Ross excels — crushing lefties — can be replicated fairly easily. Interested teams may be able to acquire cheaper Ross-like production by considering a few players with similar skill-sets.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates are 36-32, two games back in their division and one game behind the Mets or Giants for the second wild card spot. The last time the Pirates were playing this well was July 25, 2011, after James McDonald pitched very well in a road game against the Braves. The next night, the Pirates lost the infamous 19-inning contest and were never the same again. They won 19 of their final 61 games and finished 72-90.

Losing that particular game wasn’t the real reason the team floundered down the stretch. Their pitching was solid but the offense was relatively inept. Some pitchers regressed after performing above their heads, but the offense never improved. It wasn’t a talented enough core, and their prized deadline acquisition — Derrek Lee — got hurt after five games and essentially missed a month. His gaudy .337/.398/.584 slash line with the Pirates was misleading, as he returned to action after the team was clearly out of the race.

Ryan Ludwick didn’t help matters either, as he sputtered after joining the team. However, despite my inclinations at the time, the Pirates were smart to look for players like Lee and Ludwick. While those players are perceived as marginal upgrades if used in specific roles for most offenses, the Pirates didn’t have most offenses. These players weren’t costly and potentially represented significant improvements to the Pirates situation.

Seeing as they are approaching similar territory this year, the team has another important decision to make: go for broke and trade valuable prospects for impact major league talent, or look for this year’s version of Lee and Ludwick.

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The San Francisco Giants won the World Series last season in large part due to a fantastic pitching staff. However, the offense provided timely hitting down the stretch of the regular season and in the playoffs thanks to some key acquisitions made before, or during, the season. Oddly enough, three of the key players on their championship squad were picked up off of the scrapheap. Each member of the trio was available to virtually every team either through free agency, outright release, or waivers, yet all three wound up in San Francisco, and boy did they pay dividends.

Aubrey Huff was acquired at the start of the season, after having put together an abysmal 2009 campaign. He produced 1.8 wins below replacement level that year as part of an erratic prime. Pat Burrell joined the team in June after being released by the Rays. Suffice to say, he came nowhere near living up to expectations after signing a two-year deal to DH for the reigning AL champs. Cody Ross was acquired off of waivers towards the end of August, costing only his remaining $1 million in salary.

These three players illustrated the inherent value in scouring different areas of the talent spectrum. Not every move needs to be substantial to make a difference, and sometimes improving in a few smaller areas can reap the same reward.

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Cody Ross isn’t bald, he just emits Awesome from his head. – chatter Tony
Cody Ross is the answer to every question. – chatter TexasRanger

Ah, but this is the Philly review, so that will be enough of the Ross love here. Which is good, because we don’t have to cover the Great Bruce Bochy Lineup Disaster either, especially since it turned out okay for the Giants. Instead, we’ll reach back into the chat to find a couple quotes that offered real-time feedback on Ted Barrett’s strike zone:

Aren’t you noticing a completely different strike zone being called for both pitchers in this game. Matt Cain is getting inside, outside, and low. Have not seen those same pitches call for Cole Hamels – chatter T Barrett
Maybe the complaints are based on when Cole get squeezed rather than quantity. The non-strike 3 to Sanchez was a big call (like Halladay’s against Burrell in game 1). – chatter Andy

So we turn to the pictures – from Brooks Baseball – to try and get the full story:

At first glance, there’s reason to doubt Barret’s zone. There are five clear strikes on the outside the zone for the Giants, and only two that are as far outside the zone for the Phillies. If we count all of the “wrong” calls inside and out, we get eight called strikes that weren’t strikes and four strikes that were not called strikes for the Giants. Then there’s four called strikes that weren’t strikes and five strikes that weren’t called for the Phillies. It’s the sort of thing that seems both real and yet somehow not completely significant. But a lot of this is in the eye of the beholder, as these chat responses to the posted strike zone show:

looks pretty even to me – chatter Evan
Whole camels could fit inside Cain’s sz – chatter bowie
mostly shows me that cain did a better job of hitting that left side of the zone. he peppered a lot of pitches very close to the line – chatter Giants

Ah-hah. The truth is in the eye of the beholder often, but let’s try to say something true about this game: “Though the strike zone may have favored the Giants in a slight way and put pressure on Cole Hamels in key moments, the game was won by timely hitting by the Giants and the failure of the Phillies’ batters to come through in similarly tough situations.” You can quote me on that.

Let’s end this with a look at the highest leverage moments in the game, and the results of the at-bat.

The weekend took your faithful Phillie correspondents to places we didn’t expect, and none of those places featured wifi and a comfy moment to kick back and review the first two games of the NLCS. Better late than never. The Phillies and Giants split the weekend, which wasn’t great for the maroon marauders because the series tilted lightly in the Giants’ favor with those results – teams that win one of two games on the road in a seven-game MLB series win the series 56.2% of the time.

Game One was just one of those games, it seems. Seven innings, eight hits, seven strikeouts, no walks and more ground balls than fly balls doesn’t seem like a line that would normally produce four earned runs, but that’s what happened to Roy Halladay Saturday night. The difference between excellent and a -8.8% WPA night for the Doc could have been summed up in two fly balls from Cody Ross that ended up in the seats. This same Cody Ross had exactly average power this year (.145 ISO) and had gone -for-16 against Halladay in his career. The same Cody Ross that was Cody Ross the Marlin until Brian Sabean briefly made him Randy Myers by supposedly claiming him just to block the Padres. Then the Giants then realized that he was better than Jose Guillen, at least in the field, so that he could become the Cody Ross, Giant, that the Bay Area now knows and loves. Either way, you read that fateful name backward as Grant did on the McCovey Chronicles, and you get “ssoR y doC,” which is about all that can be said to Halladay, who pitched well enough to win.

It did seem like the Phillie offense could have put together a five spot – Tim Lincecum wasn’t at his best either. He walked more (three), and gave up equal numbers of fly balls and ground balls, but he also struck out eight – one of which was Ryan Howard with two batters on in a tie game in the third inning (worth 6.6% in WPA alone). Though the two teams had the same amount of baserunners, and the Phillies showed a better slugging percentage as a team, it was the Giants that strung together the hits in the big moments.

The following may seem random – and most likely was – but the big lineup change between games one and two may have had a little bit to do with the different outcomes. As Rob Neyer noted before the game Sunday, Charlie Manuel reversed Placido Polanco and Chase Utley in the batting order so that the heart of the order did not include two straight lefties in Utley and Howard.

It’s a little strange to see Polanco and his lack of power batting third, and it may feel like separating two lefties isn’t that big of a deal, but just look at what the Giants did in the two games for your pudding-based proof. In Game One, Javier Lopez brought his lefty sidearm release to the mound to get Utley to ground out and Howard to strike out before leaving in a double switch that would have made Dusty Baker proud. In Game Two, Bruce Bochy brought Ramon Ramirez out to pitch to the righty Shane Victorino, but after Victorino sacrificed, he was faced with the choice of walking the lefty Utley to keep Ramirez in the game and pitch to Polanco, or burning Lopez on Utley, bringing in Sergio Romo to pitch to Polanco, and then summoning Jeremy Affeldt to get Howard. That is a lot of relievers, but with the off-day coming today, the second move-heavy approach is probably what Bochy should have done. Instead, this is what happened:

Bottom 7th: Philadelphia
– R. Oswalt singled to shallow center
– R. Ramirez relieved J. Sanchez
– S. Victorino sacrificed to third, R. Oswalt to second
– C. Utley intentionally walked
– P. Polanco singled to shallow center, R. Oswalt scored, C. Utley to second
– J. Affeldt relieved R. Ramirez
– C. Utley stole third, P. Polanco stole second
– R. Howard struck out swinging
– J. Werth intentionally walked
– P. Sandoval at third
– S. Casilla relieved J. Affeldt
– J. Rollins doubled to deep center, C. Utley, P. Polanco and J. Werth scored
– R. Ibanez lined out to third

4 runs, 3 hits, 0 errors
San Francisco 1, Philadelphia 6

Don’t underestimate the difference the new lineup made, as it obviously made Bochy’s life difficult in the seventh inning Sunday night (and then he went and made some dubious decisions of his own). Now it’s clear that he’ll have to use both of his lefties to get through the heart of the order late in game three, provided his starter once again gets the job done against the new-look lineup.

The story of the Florida Marlins in 2008 could be summed up by saying they had a ton of offensive firepower, but poor pitching outside of Ricky Nolasco and very poor fielding as well. One of the heavy hitters, definitely known more for his power than anything else, is Cody Ross, the protagonist of the fourth biggest play of the season. Take a look at the game graph below, and compare it to our fifth biggest play, which involved Jason Giambi’s walkoff:

When I first saw the graph for this June 7 game between the Reds and Marlins, it seemed odd: it looked like the big swing in win expectancy at the end of the game was not as impressive as Giambi’s. In fact, they were both very, very close, however the difference soon dawned on me. A bit before Giambi’s at-bat, the Yankees had a much lower probability of winning the game than the Marlins did with the same leading time before Ross’s plate appearance. Regardless, both were huge plays ensconced in the top five of all offensive plays this season.

Leading 2-0 in the fourth inning, Luis Gonzalez homered to extend the lead against Bronson Arroyo. An inning later, Jorge Cantu added a solo bomb of his own, giving the Fish a 4-0 lead through five innings. In the top of the sixth, that poor defense I mentioned earlier came back to haunt the Marlins. With two on and two out, back to back errors by Jorge Cantu and Wes Helms allowed the Reds to score a run. With the bases now loaded, Andy Phillips smacked a game tying three-run double to left off of Scott Olsen.

The game would remain tied until the bottom of the seventh, when our hero, Cody Ross, hit an RBI single. No sooner than the very next frame did Adam Dunn crush a solo home run to once again knot the game. The Reds attack continued against Logan Kensing, as singles by Jerry Hairston Jr and Jay Bruce extended their newfound lead to 7-5. After a 1-2-3 inning for Burke Badenhop, Francisco Cordero entered the game for the Reds, hoping to show why he received that ridiculous contract in the off-season.

At the beginning of the bottom of the ninth, the Marlins had a 9.8% probability of winning the game. Cantu led off with a double, increasing their WE to 20.8%. Wes Helms then grounded out, advancing Cantu to third base, but decreasing the Marlins’ expectancy to 12.6%. Dan Uggla walked, putting runners at the corners, and again increasing their probability to 22.1%. Luis Gonzalez followed with a sac fly, that, despite bringing the Marlins within one run, added another out and reduced their expectancy to 10.2%.

Ross then stepped up to the plate to engage battle against Cordero in a PA with a leverage index of 3.58. On a 1-1 count, Ross smashed a line drive over the outfield wall to win the game, 8-7. With just a 10.2% WE entering the plate appearance, Ross’s gigantic home run resulted in an expectancy swing of 89.8%, just slightly ahead of Giambi’s 89.6%, and good enough for the fourth biggest offensive play of the season.

The title of this post should be taken quite literally. Cody Ross, a 5’9 outfielder of the Florida Marlins, may not intimidate opposing pitchers with his stature but he sure will with his bat. Over the last 14 days he has been the most productive major league player—hitter or pitcher—with a 1.44 WPA. The player closest to Ross is Jose Guillen, who has a 1.26 WPA in that same span. Ross has posted a .316/.386/.711 slash line in this span, complete with 3 2B, 4 HR, 2 SB, and 11 RBI.

Something really interesting regarding Ross’s numbers is his seasonal slash line: .228/.299/.535. Ross has an OPS of .834 that clearly consists primarily of his power. His ISO counts of this and last year back that up; .318 in 2007, .307 this year. Oddly enough, though, his BABIPs traveled in different directions; .374 last year, .191 this year. Last year’s very high BABIP led to a slash line of .335/.411/.653 in 66 games. With a 1.064 OPS last year Ross showed he could be a productive major leaguer but that OPS looks like a 50/50 balance when stacked up next to this year’s OBP and SLG.

I looked to see if there has been a significant number of instances in which players posted OPS totals above .830 with an OBP under .300 and found the answer to be a resounding no. In fact, since 1901, there have only been three hitters to accomplish this “feat” while playing 50 or more games:

1) Mike Jacobs, 2008: 54 GP, .847 OPS
2) Cody Ross, 2008: 50 GP, .834 OPS
3) Daryle Ward, 2000: 119 GP, .833 OPS

Now, granted Ross and Jacobs are still playing so it is not truly fair to list them alongside Ward; Daryle is the only person to do it for a whole season since 1901. There have likely been others to accomplish what Ross and Jacobs are doing during random 50-game spans but, right now, they are the only two players with these numbers.

For those unaware, Jacobs is also a member of the Marlins. Just two players this year have a sub-.300 OBP and .830+ OPS and both are on the same team. Overall, though, they’ll each need about 60+ games of similar production to reach the level of Ward.