Walking down Occidental to a Mariners game is a great experience. There’s the smell of brats on grills, roasted peanuts and kettle corn, the bad music of persistent street musicians and the chatter of fellow fans walking south to the stadium…
…And guys selling programs. Independent programs. Many teams only have one program, the one the team puts out, but in Seattle, we have a choice.
I bought both this week to compare, and the results…man, I pity people in cities without competition, if their team-issued programs are anything like this.
Zack Greinke finally gets the call in Kansas City. Jason Giambi hits the DL for the Yanks. Richie Sexson comes off and returns to the DL for the D’backs within a matter of days. Ben Petrick retires after revealing he’s been battling a horrible disease for the past three years. And Dennis Tankersley gets another shot in San Diego. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
The White Sox are scoring runs in bunches this year, thanks in no small part to…Juan Uribe? The A’s acquisition of Eric Karros isn’t looking too good, especially when you consider that Graham Koonce is still waiting in the wings. And the Phillies have finally grabbed a piece of first place in the NL East after a month of unperforming. All this and much more news from Chicago, Oakland, and Philadelphia in your Tuesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
I was checking out BP’s Adjusted Standings report this morning. I think we’re
far enough into the season that the report is useful in indicating which
teams’ win-loss records are clouding their true performance, for better or
worse. Schedules are pretty unbalanced–how many games have the Red Sox played
in Skydome this year? Six? Seventeen? Twenty-five?–and the effects of under- or overperforming
Pythagenport, or being particularly efficient or inefficient in generating
runs out of offensive events, are beginning to be felt. It’s interesting to
look at these gaps and find the performance issues–great, now I’m going to
trip spam filters–that cause them.
Take those Red Sox, for instance. With 228 runs scored and 180 runs allowed,
their record of 27-17 is a match for their Pythag mark. But according to Clay
Davenport’s calculations, the Sox should have a 241-167 edge in runs. The
offensive gap, which has cost them at least one win, is mostly explained by
the team’s early-season struggles with runners on base: 251/.342/.403, as
opposed to a whopping .281/.364/.468 with the bases empty. There’s no reason
to believe that the Sox have some inability to hit with runners on–most teams
hit a bit better in that situation–and their performance in May has been much
better than what they did in April, so they should be find going forward.
We have a Nick Johnson sighting! So often, even the slightest Johnson news seems almost too cruel with a legion of people that drafted him high (myself included) hoping against hope that they’ll see some return–not to mention the team that traded for him in real life. Johnson is finally making progress, but again, I’m not going to say that he couldn’t blink wrong and end up starting the rehab process again. Still, a 3-5 day with a homer is a major positive. If all goes well this week, he could make his Montreal debut near Memorial Day.
Jose Reyes is also making progress in extended spring training. (Jeez, if both Reyes and Johnson make it back in June, what will I write about?) Reyes has had good results in back-to-back extended spring training games, hitting and running well. There’s still some room for improvement, but it appears that the changes made in his rehab program are paying off. If all goes well, Reyes will likely make a quick rehab stop in the minors and could be back in the Mets lineup by the first week of June.
Randy Johnson describes what it’s like to be perfect. Jason Schmidt and Tom Glavine describe what it’s like to come close. Bud Selig thinks the Expos will find a new home soon. Reggie Jackson is honored by a few of his peers. And Kevin McClatchy wants to build the Pirates into a winner through a fruitful farm system. All this and many more quips from around the league in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
HOUSTON ASTROS
Adam Everett leads the majors with 10 sacrifice bunts. That’s from the #2 hole, which means that Mr. Williams is shortening the innings in which his best bats come up. With slugging and on-base percentages in the threes (OBP low-threes), there’s no reason to keep Everett up there, except for the stubborn belief that he’s “changed.” This concludes this week’s Jimy Williams bash.
Moving from the mundane to the sublime, Roger Clemens is doing something that has very little in the way of precedent. Perhaps it’s an obvious point, but most 41-year-old pitchers don’t perform at this level. Heck, most 41-year-old pitchers aren’t pitchers. The closest parallels are Cy Young, who posted a 1.26 ERA (LERA of 2.39) in 299 innings for the 1908 Red Sox, Ted Lyons’ wonderful “Sunday Pitcher” performance of 1942, Warren Spahn’s last hurrah in 1963, and, most appropriately, Nolan Ryan, who struck out 301 batters in 1989 at the age of 42. None of them had quite the year the Rocket has had to this point… There’s a moment in “Bonnie and Clyde” where Clyde says: “Hi! We’re Bunny and Claude. We steal carrots.” Houston version: “Hi! We’re the Houston Astros. We blow saves.” GRADE: B-
Three days after first getting the news of it, the death of Doug Pappas seems
no more real than it did on Friday. I know that denial is a stage of grief,
but it’s easy to get stuck there when you find your friend quoted in the
paper, as Doug was in yesterday’s Denver Post, the words from an
interview conducted well before his passing.
That Doug would be sharing knowledge even after his death is appropriate. The
man is gone, and we’re all less for that loss, but what remains, what will
remain, is his amazing work. From his efforts as part of the Society for American
Baseball Research to his writing for Baseball Prospectus to his nascent
Weblog, Doug spent much of his life sharing knowledge with others. Without fanfare, every day Doug made the world a little smarter, a little better, and
did so for nothing more than the fact that he enjoyed it.
For years now, the words “Cardinals” and “promising prospects” have seemed as incongruous and unrelated as “concept album” and “enjoyable listening experience.” On a system-wide level, that’s still the case; the Cards remain saddled with one of the weaker stables of minor league talent in baseball. That said, they are cobbling together a promising corps of young starters. In no particular order, let’s take a look at a few of them:
The Dodgers’ offense has cooled in the month of May. The Twins’ rotation has had its ups and downs already this season. And the after trying out third base, first base, and, yes, right field, the Giants will be starting Pedro Feliz at shortstop this week, in place of Neifi Perez. All this and much more news from Los Angeles, Minnesota, and San Francisco in your Friday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
The Angels lose Troy Glaus for 60 days, or perhaps the entire season. Walkin’ machine Kevin Youkilis makes his debut with the Red Sox. Sammy Sosa hits the DL, weakening the Cubs’ lineup even more. Carl Everett returns for the Expos. And Raul Mondesi’s contract has been terminated by the Pirates. All this and much more news from around the league in your Friday edition of Transaction Analysis.
It was another day at the Indy Motor Speedway today, where I give hourly updates on nothing. Nothing happens, really. The same cars go out and do laps (very fast), then come in. The excitement is, maybe, a crash, but there was only one of those. Thankfully, no injuries and barely any damage to the million-dollar car. But the funny anecdote is that I was sitting with one of the drivers and he turns to me and says “you’re the baseball guy on the radio, right?” I said, yes. He paused and said “If I got a couple million dollars together, could I get to play for a team?” It took me a second to realize he wasn’t kidding. “No, (name), it’s not like racing. You’d have to go through the minors and all that.” He shook his head. “That sucks. Doesn’t seem fair.” I wasn’t sure if he was joking, but later, his cell phone rang. The ring tone? “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” On to the injuries…
The big story here is the arrival of the young guns. Two catchers who demonstrated strong throwing arms in the minors, Kevin Cash and Gerald Laird, are showing that their ability translates to the major leagues. While Victor Martinez looks like the Next Big Thing at catcher based on offense alone, Cash’s superiority on defense makes up a big portion of the current offensive gap between the two. The same is true for Laird, whose all-around performance makes him a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate despite his recent hitting slump. We wondered in our last catching article who the young heirs to Jason LaRue and Mike Matheny were. It looks like we might have our answer.
The Phillies will miss Randy Wolf for one start and Jim Thome for a couple games. Neither is likely to hit the DL, but it is concerning for the team. Wolf had a “tingle” in his elbow after an outing in Colorado. While there’s no pain the day-after, the team is concerned enough to give him some extra rest. He’ll work on the side while Jeff Cooper and the rest of the staff watch him closely. Thome is dealing with more hand problems; two swollen fingers on his right hand now join his left thumb that has been bothering him since Spring Training. Highlights from Sunday clearly showed Thome wincing as he swung the bat, even when he hit a home run.
The timetable for Dmitri Young has changed slightly. Published reports say that the Tigers expect their slugger back on May 25th, rather than early-June. Why is this? The Tigers are bringing back Young before he’s completely healed. Alan Trammell was quoted as saying that he expected Young to “play with a limp.” It’s not often that a team will rush someone back to help salvage a .500 season, but it shows just how important the improvement is to this franchise.
Simi Valley, Calif. native and Long Beach State (No. 5) RHP Jered Weaver sat down with BP to discuss Team USA, superstitions and how he dominates hitters. Jered is a six-time 2004 National Player of the Week, seven-time Big West Player of the Week, a finalist for the Dick Howser Trophy awarded to the top player in collegiate baseball and a potential #1 overall pick in the upcoming June draft. His 2004 line:
W-L ERA IP H R ER BB SO
14-0 1.27 113.1 55 19 16 14 171
It wasn’t so long ago that the Indians, almost by acclimation, were deemed to have the best farm system in the game. That’s a fleeting honor by nature, as great systems are generally loaded with talent in the high minors–talent that isn’t long for the farm. Indeed, mashers like Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner are now plying their trade in Cleveland. Brandon Phillips exhausted his prospect status and the patience of his handlers, but he’s renaissancing in Buffalo this season. The gaggle of high-ceiling arms once in the system is now splitting time between major league duty and the injury docket.
All that said, replenishment is in the offing. The Indians’ High-A Carolina League affiliate in Kinston has been far and away the most dominant team in the minors thus far. At 27-9 (a tidy .750 winning percentage, which translates to 108 wins over a 144-game schedule), the Kinston Indians are playing Chet to the rest of the ‘Lina League’s Gary and Wyatt. All without the transmogrification-cum-comeuppance in the end.
Unless you’re the Giants, success isn’t reducible to one player, but in Kinston’s case it may be reducible to three. So ready yourselves for the “Kinston Trio.”