Three Posts in One
I’ve been toying with a few posts for the last day or two, and frankly, I just could not give any of these full-post treatment. Instead, here are all three at once for your consumption.
Bruiser ‘Brook
Jake Westbrook missed all of the 2009 season minus nine minor league innings and only served the Indians with 34 innings in 2008. He’s back. Unfortunately, he forgot to pack something. Namely his control. In three outings, Westbrook has walked 10 batters (none intentionally) and hit four batters – two in each of his first two starts.
Westbrook is no stranger to plunking batters – he average seven per season from 2003-2007 – but that mark leads the league. Amusingly, another starter returning from injury – Rich Harden – also has four with a lot of walks.
The Mariners infielder switcharoo
When Seattle decided to flip Chone Figgins and Jose Lopez, one of the theories was that they wanted the better fielder to get more opportunities on batted balls. Well, that’s worked so far … if Lopez is who they consider the better fielder. It’s early, but Lopez has seen 41 balls in his zone (making plays on 35) and Figgins has only seen 29 (making plays on 26). It’s early, so the numbers don’t mean too much, but Figgins has also made seven fewer out of zone plays than Lopez.
The Boston marathon
You knew this already. Nobody, but nobody, respects the ability of either Jason Varitek or Victor Martinez to throw a runner out. Call the tandem Defensive Indifference, because it’s almost unfair that Carl Crawford is going to be padding his stolen base figures against this group all season. Check out the leaderboards under steals allowed and you’ll find:
Tim Wakefield 10
Josh Beckett 6
Jon Lester 5
Running on the elder knuckleballer is a given, but the other two? Beckett has a combined 36 against him the past three seasons. He’s on a decisively worse path this season. Lester, meanwhile, actually had 19 steals against him last season, but only 21 in his other 59 career starts. Even John Lackey has allowed two steals. This unit is some kind of bad at throwing out runners.
and 2 more tonight off Beckett/Varitek
And Vlad stole 2 last night.
It’s pretty sad to watch, for a team built on pitching and defense you can give bases away like that every game.
When does the Boston media smear job of VMart start though? From ‘catcher-of-the-future,’ ‘great clubhouse guy,’ ‘professional hitter,’ to DH who’s only worth 1yr/3m
In a four game series against Boston, Crawford went 3 for 16 with one walk–but managed to steal 4 bases. I’m not sure how many times he actually got on base, due to an error or fielder’s choice, but that a pretty darn efficient base running
Crawford has been thrown out like 2 times out of 30+ attempts against Boston over the last few years. That’s one heck of a success rate (almost 95%). Unless Crawford hits a double, any time he gets on base you might as well assume he’s going to 2B. I’m rather surprised it’s not more bases than that. I mean, there’s still third base to steal. Crawford could in theory end up with more SB than trips to first against the Red Sox this year.
I would imagine that so-so base stealers in the AL east get the biggest bump though. If Vlad can steal against the Red Sox, you have to assume guys like Granderson and Adam Jones are going to get to pad their SB numbers too. And with 18 games, they could end up with 9 SB just against the Red Sox each.
Perhaps Figgins has been better at turning double plays. Third base is pretty straight forward… field the ball and throw to 2nd or 1st. Second Base requires more finesse, with trading off responsibilities with the SS as well as some difficult catch-and-throw manuevers for double plays.
I wonder if you get more multiple base hits hitting it through the 2b or 3b. Perhaps you are more likely to hit a triple past one more so than the other.
Any merit to such an inquiry?
Lopez’ good UZR (so far) confirms my eye test. He’s been a pleasant surprise at 3B. At the plate…..is another story.
Not to make excuses for the throwing of Varitek and Martinez, because they have both been very bad, but the number of baserunners the starters have been allowing, with “help” from the defense, has been really bad, too. Beckett’s career OBPA is .304, so far this season, it’s .345. Lackey’s career OBPA is .322, so far this season, it’s .391. Wakefield’s .328 career, .365 this season, and Lester’s is .328 career, .405 this season. Only Buchholz has been consistent with what you might expect, assuming he should be about the same instead of improving. Too many runners on base, bad throwing catchers, playing teams with good speed who typically do run more aggressively than most, everything possible is making it worse.
Lopez has been benefiting from having Wilson beside/behind him, which was part of the plan (since SS help 3B a lot more than 2B). Lopez has a strong arm, but he’s also had the advantage of having Kotchman at 1B t to dig out any throws that sail a little wide (I think he’s only completely airmailed one so far). But again, that was part of the plan. The surprising thing is that Lopez has looked quite competent charging and barehanding balls, though it’s also surprising that more teams haven’t yet tried to test him by bunting down the 3B line. He’s certainly no Beltre, and he hasn’t pulled off the latter’s throw-while-falling-towards-the-3B-dugout signature move, but he looks better at 3B than I think anyone expected.