General Baseball Thread 2012

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by WhoIsJohnGalt

Phillies fans. they deserve misery.

Man I hate the Phillies. But if they're going to get performaces like that out of the fifth starter (I'm referring to Joe Blanton) they're going to be very much in the mix despite their current offensive woes.

[OrangeSe7en]

Congrats to the Tiger fans on the season that they're going to have. This might be their best season since 1984 when they started out something like 44-4. Their 3-4 is incredible.

[SouthStndJunkie]

Another excellent start from Rick Porcello today....Tigers beat the White Sox 5-2.

He's only 23 years old and it seems like he has been pitching forever.

I think this is the year he puts it together and takes his game to the next level.

Porcello is never going to be the kind of pitcher that strikes out 200+ every year, but when he is on, it's ground ball out after ground ball out.

[TonyR]

Tebow wearing a Yankees hat and sitting with D-Wade at Yankee stadium tonight!

[SouthStndJunkie]

Originally Posted by OrangeSe7en

Congrats to the Tiger fans on the season that they're going to have. This might be their best season since 1984 when they started out something like 44-4. Their 3-4 is incredible.

Thanks....I'm looking forward to the season.

They started out 35-5 in 1984.

[bombay]

My Cardinals are off to a 7-3 start.

[Requiem]

Ah, ****in' Mariners.

[SouthStndJunkie]

Tigers beat Kansas City 3-2.

Justin Verlander with a complete game.

9 innings 7 hits 2 ER 2 BB 9 Ks.

JV had to throw 131 pitches, which is an awful lot early in the season.

Of course the 131st pitch was a 100 mph fast ball.

JV got into a bind in the 9th inning, or he would have thrown about 20 less pitches, but he gave Jim Leyland that look like he was going to have to drag him off the mound.

[broncocalijohn]

Originally Posted by SouthStndJunkie

Tigers beat Kansas City 3-2.

Justin Verlander with a complete game.

9 innings 7 hits 2 ER 2 BB 9 Ks.

JV had to throw 131 pitches, which is an awful lot early in the season.

Of course the 131st pitch was a 100 mph fast ball.

JV got into a bind in the 9th inning, or he would have thrown about 20 less pitches, but he gave Jim Leyland that look like he was going to have to drag him off the mound.

Those stats are pretty bad for Verlander. On my Angels' news, Weaver went 7 innings with 0 runs to pick up his second win. SSJ, you should just make a Verlander thread as he does deserve one. I loved it when Weaver and Verlander were battling for the CY Young up until mid August. Two great pitchers for the AL.

[SouthStndJunkie]

DENVER -- Jamie Moyer turned in a vintage performance in becoming the oldest pitcher to ever win a major league game.

The 49-year-old Moyer threw seven masterful innings and Dexter Fowler hit a two-run homer, helping the Colorado Rockies hold on for a 5-3 win over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night.

[SouthStndJunkie]

Originally Posted by broncocalijohn

Those stats are pretty bad for Verlander. On my Angels' news, Weaver went 7 innings with 0 runs to pick up his second win. SSJ, you should just make a Verlander thread as he does deserve one. I loved it when Weaver and Verlander were battling for the CY Young up until mid August. Two great pitchers for the AL.

Weaver is a damn fine pitcher as well.

I love watching good pitchers work their craft.

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by SouthStndJunkie

Weaver is a damn fine pitcher as well.

I love watching good pitchers work their craft.

Give me a 1-0 pitching duel with sound fundamentals over a batting practice home run-fest any day.

[Gort]

All Your Baseball Are Belong To Us!

don't look now, but the O's are sitting atop the AL East at 7-4.

if only it would last all season. (sigh)

[Rohirrim]

And the Dodgers are 9-2, right on top.

[broncocalijohn]

^^Two teams that won't stay on top. Dodgers are the surprised team of the NL (with Nationals) but when you play the Padres 7 games already, stats can be a tad misleading. It is good but we would need to see this spread out with other opponents.

I hope Orioles would be that good and take out the Yanks and Red Sox. Time for a change to that division as Rays are only team that breaks through he last few years.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by broncocalijohn

^^Two teams that won't stay on top. Dodgers are the surprised team of the NL (with Nationals) but when you play the Padres 7 games already, stats can be a tad misleading. It is good but we would need to see this spread out with other opponents.

I hope Orioles would be that good and take out the Yanks and Red Sox. Time for a change to that division as Rays are only team that breaks through he last few years.

I watched a few of those Dodgers games. Their pitching has been phenomenal. Matt Kemp is on a tear. They're coming out of the gate in mid-season form. Maybe it's the new ownership?

[bendog]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

I watched a few of those Dodgers games. Their pitching has been phenomenal. Matt Kemp is on a tear. They're coming out of the gate in mid-season form. Maybe it's the new ownership?

Or losing the old ones

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by bendog

Or losing the old ones

Or it's still just April.

[campocorto]

Originally Posted by broncocalijohn

^^Two teams that won't stay on top. Dodgers are the surprised team of the NL (with Nationals) but when you play the Padres 7 games already, stats can be a tad misleading. It is good but we would need to see this spread out with other opponents.

You're just being a hater because you are an Angels fan.

In that division, the Dodgers are a serious player. They have perhaps the best player and best pitcher in baseball.

Arizona (Chris Young and Justin Upton both battling injuries) and San Francisco (Brian Wilson out for year) are already having bad luck go against them.

[TheChamp24]

Originally Posted by campocorto

You're just being a hater because you are an Angels fan.

In that division, the Dodgers are a serious player. They have perhaps the best player and best pitcher in baseball.

Arizona (Chris Young and Justin Upton both battling injuries) and San Francisco (Brian Wilson out for year) are already having bad luck go against them.

Kemp and Ethier will come back down to "earth", just Kemp is a darn fine Earth.
I do question their starting pitching depth, and their closer Guerra.
But it seems every NL West team has question marks.
IMO, all are solid clubs that have a weak spot here and there.

But good God, Kemp is freakin going insane out there. 11 games, and he has a OPS of 1.477

[SouthStndJunkie]

Former Texas Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez will retire on Monday in Arlington as a member of the team he spent the majority of his career with, a baseball source told ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick.

[SouthStndJunkie]

Miggy turns a sweet 5-3 double play to end Kansas City's threat in the 9th inning.

Tigers win 4-3 and sweep the Royals.

[crawdad]

Albert hasn't hit a home run in 45 at bats! Cards move on without him!

[bombay]

Triggercut:

While some west coast MLB writers are asking "What's wrong with Albert Pujols?" because #5 doesn't have any HR yet this season (49 AB), I think a far more telling statistic is this: why isn't Albert Pujols walking anymore?

Last season Albert walked 61 times in 651 plate appearances, which is a rate of walking once every 10.67 times at bat.

His rate in years previous to 2011:

2010: walked every 6.8 times
2009: walked every 6 times
2008: every 6.16 times
2007: every 6.86
2006: every 6.89
2005: every 7.12
etc.

What's obvious is this: up until 2011, Albert Pujols was a phenomenally selective hitter. His lack of strikeouts and high walk rate suggest the obvious: a Hall of Fame-like ability to judge the strike zone and mash pitches within it.

A quick visit to FanGraphs reinforces this. They track how often a guy swings at pitches outside the strike zone. That's abbreviated as O-Swing%, but is frequently referred to as "chase rate"--the rate at which a guy chases pitches out of the zone.

For a sizable portion of his career, Albert Pujols had a ridiculously low chase rate below 20%. In fact, from 2002 through the 2009 season, Albert's average chase rate covering all those seasons was below 20%. That's phenomenal.

In 2007 his O-Swing was 18.3%. In 2008 it jumped to 21.6%. In 2009 it went up again to 22.9%. No biggie. Those are still ridiculously low chase rates.

But they show a trend.

In 2010 Albert's o-swing% really jumped: 27.5%. That's almost mortal.

In 2011: 31.8%. That's...well, that's about what a lot of other great ballplayers put up--guys who don't have 10-year, $250m contracts.

So far in 2012, and again the sample size is small: 44.7% chase rate.

And so I'll say it again: Albert's swing when he was a younger man with better eyes and faster reflexes was a miracle of hand-eye coordination unlike anything we've ever seen. Now though, I think that Albert has to "cheat" a little on his swing, and starts it earlier than he used to, and the result is that he swings at more pitches out of the zone than ever before. Albert is still Albert. Even swinging at pitches outside the zone, he's still going to make contact with far more of them than anyone else out there...but less often is that contact going to be him squaring up a pitch.

I think the guy will hit .300-ish for the Angels, and I think he'll untrack the power and sock 30-35 HR for them. But I also am not sure I expect him to be able to do that 3 or 4 years from now, much less 6 or 10.

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by bombay

So while some west coast MLB scribes are asking "What's wrong with Albert Pujols?" because #5 doesn't have any HR yet this season (49 AB), I think a far more telling statistic is this: why isn't Albert Pujols walking anymore?

Last season Albert walked 61 times in 651 plate appearances, which is a rate of walking once every 10.67 times at bat.

His rate in years previous to 2011:

2010: walked every 6.8 times
2009: walked every 6 times
2008: every 6.16 times
2007: every 6.86
2006: every 6.89
2005: every 7.12
etc.

What's obvious is this: up until 2011, Albert Pujols was a phenomenally selective hitter. His lack of strikeouts and high walk rate suggest the obvious: a Hall of Fame-like ability to judge the strike zone and mash pitches within it.

A quick visit to FanGraphs reinforces this. They track how often a guy swings at pitches outside the strike zone. That's abbreviated as O-Swing%, but is frequently referred to as "chase rate"--the rate at which a guy chases pitches out of the zone.

For a sizable portion of his career, Albert Pujols had a ridiculously low chase rate below 20%. In fact, from 2002 through the 2009 season, Albert's average chase rate covering all those seasons was below 20%. That's phenomenal.

In 2007 his O-Swing was 18.3%. In 2008 it jumped to 21.6%. In 2009 it went up again to 22.9%. No biggie. Those are still ridiculously low chase rates.

But they show a trend.

In 2010 Albert's o-swing% really jumped: 27.5%. That's almost mortal.

In 2011: 31.8%. That's...well, that's about what a lot of other great ballplayers put up--guys who don't have 10-year, $250m contracts.

So far in 2012, and again the sample size is small: 44.7% chase rate.

And so I'll say it again: Albert's swing when he was a younger man with better eyes and faster reflexes was a miracle of hand-eye coordination unlike anything we've ever seen. Now though, I think that Albert has to "cheat" a little on his swing, and starts it earlier than he used to, and the result is that he swings at more pitches out of the zone than ever before. Albert is still Albert. Even swinging at pitches outside the zone, he's still going to make contact with far more of them than anyone else out there...but less often is that contact going to be him squaring up a pitch.

I think the guy will hit .300-ish for the Angels, and I think he'll untrack the power and sock 30-35 HR for them. But I also am not sure I expect him to be able to do that 3 or 4 years from now, much less 6 or 10.

To be fair, didn't Matt Holliday's average drop about 20 points from 2010 to 2011? Part of it could be that the guy hitting after him wasn't performing as well. I mean he still hit like .295 or whatever but his HR and RBI were down, and 20 points is 20 points.

Who's hitting after him right now? Kendrys Morales? That's a big dropoff from Holliday to Morales.