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whimsical word balloons Comments

Comments left for Band-Aids, by Will Carroll.

Garza feels great, the Cubs are thinking very hard about pitcher usage, and hurry, Billy Wagner, hurry!

Click here to read the entire article.

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Jessica Bader
(30943)

Re: Wagner

The Mets do have a New York-Penn League team in Brooklyn that doesn't end its season until the weekend.

Sep 01, 2008 10:25 AM
rating: 5
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Great catch, Jessica. I was looking for playoffs when I should have just been looking at the regular schedule!

Sep 01, 2008 10:28 AM
 
Brian Oakchunas
(9790)

You have to wonder if there is something wrong with Harden and they just aren't telling anybody. He didn't look too sharp in his last start.

Sep 01, 2008 10:34 AM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Wonder, yes, but no evidence of this. I want to see how they fill out the rotation.

Sep 01, 2008 16:19 PM
 
Brock Dahlke
(44450)

Hey Will, I have one open spot on my 5x5 Head to Head league, Who would be the better option for that spot, Takashi Saito or Phil Hughes, or Neither of them?

Sep 01, 2008 10:52 AM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

S or W? That's the question.

Sep 01, 2008 16:19 PM
 
Brock Dahlke
(44450)

So you are pretty sure both will contribute in the near future?

Sep 01, 2008 17:18 PM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

I think they have roughly equivalent chances of contributing. I'd guess that Hughes would be slightly above, but without context, I can't make much of a guess on which would help you more.

Sep 02, 2008 07:49 AM
 
mswain784
(37716)

Iannetta should have been playing every day anyway. His triple slash stats are just as good as Geovany Soto's. How Torrealba got 250+ PAs over him I'll never know.

Sep 01, 2008 10:59 AM
rating: 0
 
buddaley
(26251)

Thanks Will. It was a terrific event as it was last year with you, Joe Sheehan and Friedman. Don't sell yourself short. Friedman was great. Seems to me he is as candid as he can be. But you got us started on a terrific note, and later preempted a question that my son and I planned to ask. Great minds you know.

I know it's not your specialty, but do you know anything about the validity of rumors that Hunsicker might be headed to Texas? I think that would be a big loss for the Rays.

Sep 01, 2008 11:26 AM
rating: 2
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Texas Rangers? Sure haven't heard anything and they have a great setup there with Daniels and Levine. I'm sure a lot of people would like to get Hunsicker, esp with the Rays success. If I was a Lerner or Lincoln, I'd get his number.

Sep 01, 2008 16:26 PM
 
InBoWeTrust
(38019)

Re: Harden - His last start he was only in the upper 80's with an uncharacteristic 4 walks. I think its smart to let him rest. 10 games up in the wild card, the Cubs have leeway with their moves and can risk starting Sean Marshall to keep these guys fresh.

Sep 01, 2008 12:18 PM
rating: 0
 
battlekow
(31681)

Ben Sheets just left his start after 5 innings and 54 pitches. No reason given yet.

Sep 01, 2008 12:31 PM
rating: 1
 
battlekow
(31681)

According to the Brewers broadcast, he has tightness in his left groin.

I hate it when my left groin seizes up.

Sep 01, 2008 12:40 PM
rating: 1
 
Jessica Bader
(30943)

The Mets broadcast just said that Sheets's early exit was due to left groin tightness.

Sep 01, 2008 12:40 PM
rating: 1
 
battlekow
(31681)

Jupiter jinx.

Sep 01, 2008 12:43 PM
rating: -3
 
jlefty
(39531)

...well if I had known Jenn Sterger was going to be there... gotta let us know something like that!

Sep 01, 2008 12:41 PM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

"Special guests." I didn't tell you the guys from Outs Per Swing would be there either.

Sep 01, 2008 16:24 PM
 
FrankNoto
(25148)

Any reason why you think 50 AB in August will necessarily alter Ankiel's swing for the worse for 2009? I could see this if the injury was not repaired soon or they allow him to try to play through it, but that does not appear to be the case.

Sep 01, 2008 14:11 PM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Just telling you what the Cards are thinking.

Sep 01, 2008 16:25 PM
 
STLbuckeye13
(38466)

I trust the Cards medical staff zero. I feel like they always make goofy decisions.

Sep 01, 2008 18:40 PM
rating: 0
 
ajmorriso
(29761)

Is it a better idea to skip Harden or keep him on normal rest but throwing only 80-90 pitches?

Sep 01, 2008 14:53 PM
rating: 1
 
mistahlee
(16711)

Great ballpark event at the Trop, Will. Thanks. Among other things, we appreciated your insight into the development of David Price. Best regards.

Sep 01, 2008 15:22 PM
rating: 0
 
jlarsen
(36311)

Will, Do you think that Rocco is 1) one of the best medical comeback stories in the last decade of baseball, 2) has bulked up in body-size a little and 3) is actually benefitting from his long time off.

When do you think Price will debut and is he better to be used as a reliever or Starter in aforementioned possible call-up?

Sep 01, 2008 18:59 PM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Hard to say on 1. It has to be up there, but we REALLY don't understand this. 2. Maybe, but that could be because of the medication, treatment and finally not being injured and slow healing.

Price ... I'd be in no rush and suggested giving him one start to buy the rotation a day's rest, then putting him in the pen in a 5/7 role.

Sep 01, 2008 22:49 PM
 
Joey Matschulat
(28886)

Jarrod Saltalamacchia will have an MRI tomorrow on his injured elbow.

Sep 01, 2008 21:38 PM
rating: 1
 
Nate Sheetz
(28372)

"Who do you think we should be more worried about, from a pure workload standpoint?"

I take your point, but in reality I don't think this is an easy question to answer. I'd imagine in a 1-hit complete game there's going to be a tendency to "reach back" to get those last few outs that just wouldn't come up when you get the hook partway through the 7th. And 110 pitches in 6 1/3 doesn't indicate to me that a pitcher was necessarily laboring.

Ignoring individual makeup, I'd be inclined to be more "worried" about the complete game unless you tell me that 1/3 of an inning involved some horrifying number of pitches.

Sep 01, 2008 22:49 PM
rating: 0
 
Russ
(12139)

Isn't asking Garza about a potential subconscious mechanical flaw in his delivery the baseball equivalent of the psyche-out technique in golf of asking your opponent how he can even hit the ball with that hitch in his backswing? For the Rays' sake, I hope you didn't get inside his head.

Sep 02, 2008 07:05 AM
rating: 1
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

If it were a flaw, yes.

Sep 02, 2008 07:50 AM
 
dianagram
(9530)

re: "Who do you think we should be more worried about, from a pure workload standpoint?"

All pitches aren't created equal. Pitchers with easier, more fluid motions can more easily take on greater pitch counts.

Also, its the maximum pitches in an inning that would worry me more. Consider 2 pitchers. They both throw 100 pitches over 7 innings. But one of them has inning pitch counts of 10,15,15,15,15,15,15 and the other has 5,25,10,30,5,5,20. I'd be more worried about the pitcher that had the 25 and 30-pitch innings ... its the fatigue during an inning, as WELL as the aggregate number of pitches and innings, that can doom a pitcher.

Sep 02, 2008 07:34 AM
rating: 2
 
DAra
(1391)

On a similar note, let's say Pitcher A labours and gets through 5 but it takes him 118 pitches. Pitcher B gets through 7 innings on 90 pitches.

At the end of the year, if both make 35 starts, the first guy ends up throwing 175 innings while the second guy ends up throwing 245 innings.

I konw that its very unrealistic to expect 35 straight starts like these, but the point is, going forward if both were free agents, I think 90%+ of us would prefer to give Pitcher B the bigger contract.

I think innings by itself is a bad metric for workload. We need BP to come up with a normalizer that takes into effect the pitches per inning or something similar.

Sep 02, 2008 09:29 AM
rating: 0
 
BP staff member Will Carroll
BP staff
(1112)

Or, the difference between Scott Kazmir and Roy Halladay.

PPI is too granular. You end up with an average that tells you nothing. PAP uses pitches, but can't "find" the Kazmir-style 100 P/5 IP starts. It's a scouting issue, not a stats issue.

Sep 02, 2008 11:37 AM
 
DAra
(1391)

If you are telling me that only through scouting can you point out the differences b/w Kazmir and Doc, then I submit that there's more work to be done.

I think it boils that to the fact that not all innings are equal.

There needs to be inning stress index or something to this effect where one can measure the relative stress of each inning that a pitcher goes through.

Sep 02, 2008 21:21 PM
rating: 0
 
SmoltzsBeard
(39580)

Hey Will, what's the deal with Rafael Soriano? I sent you an email about it, but havn't seen his name mentioned in a while. I apologize if I missed your mention of it.

Sep 02, 2008 10:24 AM
rating: -1
 
SmoltzsBeard
(39580)

Nevermind, found it.

Sep 02, 2008 10:24 AM
rating: 0
 
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