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September 21, 2008

Prospectus Preview

Sunday's Games to Watch

by Caleb Peiffer

Today's Full Slate of Games

Matchup: Brewers (84-71) at Reds (72-82), 1:20 p.m. ET
Probable Starters: Seth McClung (98 IP, 4.22 RA, 1.43 WHIP, 80 K) vs. Bronson Arroyo (187, 5.01, 1.41, 150)
Pythagorean Record: Milwaukee, 82-73 (715 RS, 671 RA); Cincinnati, 70-84 (673 RS, 747 RA)
Hit List Rankings: Milwaukee, #9; Cincinnati, #25
Prospectus: The motivation for impartial fans to watch the Brewers at this point is chiefly psychological—to study the reactions and attempt to gauge the temperament of players toiling for a team that is seemingly doomed to a second straight collapse, this one even greater than last year's. Either that or it's practical, if one wants to discover as many new ways as possible to lose a baseball game in agonizing fashion. Three days ago it was Salomon Torres who acted the goat, getting the first two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Cubs before coughing up three straight hits and a game-tying three-run homer; the Brewers later put runners on second and third with none out in the top of the 12^th but could not score, and predictably Chicago pushed across the game-winner in the bottom of that frame. After being bludgeoned on Friday by the Reds, who smacked seven homers in their 11-2 win, Milwaukee again dropped a one-run game yesterday. This time it was Prince Fielder who failed to come through, making a key error that helped Cincinnati score three times to take the lead in the sixth, and then striking out with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth against former Brewer Francisco Cordero, who is now a perfect six-for-six in save chances against his former mates this year. Perhaps Milwaukee's recent failing in one-run affairs—they have lost three straight and five out of the past six—is simply compensation by the baseball gods for their unnatural success over the first five months; through August 13 Milwaukee was 23-10 in games decided by a single run, a winning percentage (.697) that would have placed it among the top 20 teams of all time in that category.

That luck has evaporated, however, and the Brewers' chance at advancing has dropped from a high of 96 percent on September 1 down to 15.6 percent. If Milwaukee does end up missing out on the postseason once again, its fall from among the ranks of the chosen will qualify as the 12^th greatest in baseball history, according to the numbers run by Clay Davenport and the research done by Nate Silver; this after last year's squad squandered an 86.7 percent shot from July 2^nd onward.

Matchup: Twins (83-72) at Rays (92-61), 1:40 p.m. ET
Probable Starters: Francisco Liriano (64 2/3 IP, 4.59 RA, 1.31 WHIP, 55 K) vs. Andy Sonnanstine (181, 4.77 RA, 1.28 WHIP, 113 K)
Pythagorean Record: Minnesota, 85-70 (797 RS, 720 RA); Tampa Bay, 87-66 (726 RS, 628 RA)
Hit List Rankings: Minnesota, #12; Tampa Bay, #3
Prospectus: The Twins lost again last night, falling 7-2 to the Rays for their sixth defeat in the past seven games, but Joe Mauer did pick up a pair of singles in five at-bats to raise his league-leading average to .329. Mauer is gunning for his second American League batting title—with a .347 mark in 2006, the first pick of the 2001 draft became the first backstop to ever top the junior circuit in average. There haven't been many other catchers who won batting championships in the other league(s), either: in 1875 Deacon White of the Boston Red Stockings led the National Association with a .367 mark, Bubbles Hargrave (no relation) hit .353 for the Reds in 1926 to pace the NL, while Ernie Lombardi won a pair of titles, with a .342 mark for the '38 Reds and a .330 for the '42 Braves. (King Kelly caught part-time when he won two batting titles for the Cubs in the 1880s, but spent the majority of his playing time elsewhere on the diamond.) That's the list, or was until along came Mauer, who clearly needs a good nickname to join in the spirit of his historical peers.

It Mauer can hang on against Dustin Pedroia (.324) and Magglio Ordonez (.323), he would join Lombardi as the second catcher with more than one title. What makes Mauer's season especially impressive is that he has caught 132 games behind the plate—41 more than he did in his injury-shortened 2007 campaign, and already 12 more than when he won his first title in '06. In Lombardi's two winning seasons, he caught 123 and then 85 games, while Hargrave caught 93 in '26, and White 75 in 1875. Of course, one of the reasons why so few catchers have won titles is because of the physical abuse that they absorb behind the plate, which generally exacerbates their characteristic lack of foot speed. (Bill James opined in his New Historical Baseball Abstract that Lombardi was "surely the slowest player ever to play major league baseball well.") Mauer has had injury issues since the spring of 2004, when he needed surgery to repair a torn meniscus suffered at the start of his rookie campaign, and has been playing with bone-on-bone in his knee ever since. He attempted 14 steals in 2005, his first full year, 11 in 2006, eight last year, and just two so far in '08.