SB Nation - Blaine Boyer

Braves Re-sign Wes Timmons, Add Mitch Jones

cbwilk — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:02:22 -0000

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

Mitch Jones broke a few bats this year, but he also hit 35 home runs in AAA.

The Braves have retained another one of their Minor League free agents, bringing third baseman Wes Timmons back into the fold. Timmons has been with the organization since he was drafted in the 12th round in 2002 and this is the second year in a row he has been re-signed after becoming a free agent. He's spent his last four full seasons at AAA for the Braves, collecting a .267 average and .746 OPS in over 1400 AAA plate appearances, good numbers for a utility player who has seen time at every infield position in his career. 2009 was Timmons' best season of his career, as the 30 year old hit .283 for Gwinnett with a .782 OPS, including a .416 OBP, and was named an International League All-Star, as well as being named the league's best defensive third baseman for the third consecutive season. His June was particularly impressive as he managed a .394 average and 1.018 OPS in 71 at bats.

Gondeee reported it last week, way before anyone else, and now it's official, the Braves have also added Minor League free agent outfielder/first baseman Mitch Jones. Jones made his Major League debut with the Dodgers this June, collecting a .308 average and .785 OPS in 15 plate appearances, including going 2 for 5 as a pinch hitter. He had an outstanding year for the Dodgers' AAA Albuquerque affiliate, hitting .297 with a 1.015 OPS, 26 doubles, 35 home runs, and 103 RBI in just 434 plate appearances. It's surprising however that he had never been called up to the Majors since an average AAA season for him works out to about 483 plate appearances, a .270 average, a .905 OPS, 28 doubles, 29 homers, 91 RBI, and 134 strike outs, a very respectable number considering his offensive production.

At worst, Jones will provide a powerful, veteran presence to the middle of Gwinnett's lineup, but it seems likely that he'll be given a shot to earn a spot on Atlanta's team, likely as a right handed hitter with power off the bench who can adequately play first base as well as left and right field. As a 32 year old with very little Major League experience, he may not be the ideal answer to some of Atlanta's offensive woes, but he could very well provide infuse some much needed power to the Braves in 2010.

I'm not sure it's been reported on Talking Chop, because I certainly missed it,because I erroneously had him as part of my Rule 5 preview, but the Braves have released outfielder Brian Barton. Barton was acquired from the Cardinals in exchange for Blaine Boyer and appeared in just one game for Atlanta, spending the remainder of his year with Gwinnett, where he hit .266 with a .744 OPS, 17 doubles, 7 home runs, and 17 stolen bases in 426 plate appearances.

C.B. Wilkins is the author of the baseball novel Four-A. The story follows a relief pitcher over the course of a year as he bounces between AAA and the Majors, attempting to balance his dreams and his reality. It can be purchased here: https://www.createspace.com/3407939

Monday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:18:55 -0000

by Jim Prisching - AP

Craig Counsell is expected to re-sign today.

View full size photo »

Some things to read while John Tesh rocks the NBA on NBC theme (h/t Amy K. Nelson).

Randy Wolf is expected to undergo a physical this morning and once he does, expect his contract to become official sometime later today. That might not be today's only announcement, though: the Brewers are also expected to finalize a deal with Craig Counsell today. With Counsell, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Alcides Escobar, Mat Gamel and Casey McGehee all on the roster, the Brewers' Opening Day infield is probably set, barring injury or trade.

Meanwhile, Mike Rivera is surprised to be looking for work after being non-tendered over the weekend. He thought the decision not to retain Jason Kendall would give him an edge as the only returning catcher familiar with the Brewer pitching staff.

As of this writing, roughly 4% of voters in the poll on your right listed the decision to offer Dave bush a 2010 contract as the one Brewer move from this weekend they would change. That's not exactly a large chunk of the fanbase, but In-Between Hops is taking on that vocal minority, making the case that the Brewers made the right move by giving Bush another shot.

If you missed Morineko's Weekend Mug, follow the link over to it for full coverage of the Brewers' arbitration decisions, and a link to this list of all the non-tenders leaguewide.

Looking back at last week, Jon Heyman ranked the Brewers among the Winter Meeting winners. Meanwhile, Marc Hulet of The Baseball Analysts listed Rule 5 selection Chuck Lofgren in the "Why Bother?" category.

The more I think about it, the more I think Lofgren will have a tough task ahead of him if he's going to make the team out of spring training. With Trevor Hoffman, LaTroy Hawkins, Todd Coffey, Claudio Vargas and Mitch Stetter back, there's only two bullpen spots left that are potentially available (barring injury), and Chris Smith, John Axford, Chris Narveson, Zach Braddock and now Lofgren fighting for them. I like Lofgren's potential and hope the Brewers will get an opportunity to realize it, but right now he might be the third or fourth best lefty in the bullpen competition.

If you have a vague interest in Brewer baseball, but wish there was less analysis and more profanity on this site, then Miller Park Drunk's RUNNING series might be just the ticket for you. Follow these links for bad Prince Fielder jokes, some fan fiction involving Ryan Braun trying to rap, and a vague musical reference to Rickie Weeks.

In the minors: Baseball Intellect has video footage of some at bats featuring Cameron Garfield, Cutter Dykstra and Josh Prince from a Pioneer League game back in July. They're pay-only, but there are worse ways to spend $2.95.

If you were gone this weekend, you didn't miss the opportunity to help select a center fielder and catcher for the BCB All Decade Team. Voting closes at 4 pm today for center fielders and 4 pm tomorrow for catchers. We'll open the voting for the final starting outfield spot later today.

Around baseball:

Blue Jays: Signed catcher John Buck to a one-year deal worth $2 million, signed Joey Gathright to a minor league deal,
Braves: Signed Matt Diaz to a one year, $2.55 million deal, avoiding arbitration.
D-Backs: Re-signed infielder Augie Ojeda to a one year deal, and avoided arbitration with Blaine Boyer.
Dodgers: Signed pitcher Josh Towers to a minor league deal.
Giants: Signed shortstop-turned-pitcher Tony Pena Jr. to a minor league deal.
Indians: Re-signed pitchers Adam Miller and Anthony Reyes to minor league deals.
Marlins: Signed catcher Ronny Paulino to a one-year deal, avoiding arbitration.
Nationals: Re-signed Scott Olsen to a one year deal. Also signed pitcher Ryan Speier to a minor league deal.
Padres: Signed pitcher Kevin Correia to a one year deal, avoiding arbitration.
Pirates: Signed Ronny Cedeno to a one year, $1.125 million deal, avoiding arbitration.
Rangers: Signed infielder Esteban German to a one year deal, avoiding arbitration.
Rays: Avoided arbitration with catcher Dioner Navarro and pitchers Grant Balfour, Rafael Soriano, Lance Cormier and Randy Choate.
Royals: Avoided arbitration with pitchers Brian Bannister and Kyle Davies. They also signed pitcher Bruce Chen and catcher Vance Wilson to minor league deals.
White Sox: Signed J.J. Putz to a one year deal.

Meanwhile, the market heated up immediately for Yankees non-tender Chien-Ming Wang, with Ken Rosenthal reporting that six teams have already expressed interest. He doesn't list the teams, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover the Brewers are one of them.

I promise, I'm not going to mention it every time someone says something new about Jason Kendall. In fact, I might try to go the rest of the week without mentioning him at all. With that said, I thought these three links about him were interesting:

Joe Posnanski has a look at the potential Opening Day lineup for the 2010 Royals, now including Kendall.
He also compares Kendall to a superball on the field at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Reminding us all how far and how fast Kendall has fallen, Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? named Kendall the Pirate Catcher of the Decade.

Weeks ago I linked to a post from minor league veteran Garrett Broshuis, mentioning the challenges in finding quality, healthy food in minor league clubhouses. It looks like that problem may be on its way to being resolved: After discussing it at the Winter Meetings, several teams are making an effort to provide healthier options, and remove the constant flow of junk.

If you're a fan of sabermetrics, or just want to learn more about them, I've got two links for you today:

TangoTiger has a look at OPS+, and some minor adjustments that could be made to it to make it more useful than some other advanced metrics.
That post links to this one, Big League Stew's beginner's guide to wOBA. I learned a fair amount by reading that one.

Gorman Thomas celebrated a birthday over the weekend, and while this probably isn't what he had in mind for a gift, David Chalk of Seventh Inning 'Stache has inducted him into the MLB Mustache Hall of Fame.

On this day in 1998, the Brewers acquired Alex Ochoa from the Twins for a minor leaguer named Darrell Nicholas. Ochoa spent one season as a Brewer, hitting .300/.404/.466 before being traded to the Reds for Mark Sweeney after the season.

Happy birthday today to:

Former Seattle Pilot and 1970 Brewer Greg Goossen, who turns 64.
Dave Nilsson, who appeared in 837 games as a Brewer and turns 40.
Marcus Jensen, who appeared in 18 games over two tours as a Brewer and turns 37.

Sean Forman, founder of Baseball Reference, is also celebrating his birthday today. You can help him celebrate by sponsoring a page. I know someone around here will want this one.

Drink up.

Braves 2009 Season in Review: Middle Relief

gondeee — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:48:31 -0000

More photos » by John Heller - AP

Atlanta Braves reliever Peter Moylan was one of the most valuable members of any team's bullpen last year.

Browse more photos »

Middle relief is never a sure thing in baseball. The Atlanta Braves have been lucky in the past to have cobbled together good middle relief corps. They haven't been so lucky the last few years, but last year they did a decent job of assembling good middle relievers while working around some injuries.

The most striking thing about the 2009 middle relief crew was how fast the team was to make a change early in the year. The Braves hadn't broke camp a week when they released Blaine Boyer after two (out of three) disastrous outings. Blaine bounced around the rest of the season, ultimately finding some success (or luck) in Arizona. The Braves were also quick to cut ties with Jeff Bennett after he went kung-fu on the clubhouse wall.

Peter Moylan

Perhaps the rock of the 2009 bullpen, Peter Moylan appeared in 87 games only a year removed from Tommy John surgery. He got off to a rough start, but continued to battle, and posted a 1.00 ERA in the second half of the season. He gave Bobby Cox the luxury of having a second setup man, and his 25 holds led the team and ranked 6th in the NL.

Going back to the 87 games he appeared in, that should raise some alarms, but Moylan insists he likes to pitch that much and many say that his arm angle puts less strain on the elbow than an overhand motion. Those 87 games ranked one game behind the NL leader in appearances for a pitcher, and the Braves had 4 relievers in the top-10 in appearances.

Eric O'Flaherty / Boone Logan

One of those relievers who was in the top-10 in appearances was Eric O'Flaherty. The lefty specialist appeared in 77 games (56.1 innings pitched) and put in his best work as a major leaguer. The Braves got him off the waiver wire from Seattle last off-season, and he beat out Boone Logan in spring training for the LOOGY role. A minor pick up at the time, his good season makes that move look genius -- getting a reliever like that without having to give up anything.

Boone Logan came over as part of the Javier Vazquez trade. He was called up several times in 2009, but had spotty success while being used rather sparingly by Cox.

Here is a breakdown of all the lefty relievers on the Braves in 2009, and how they did versus left and right-handed batters:

Pitcher	BA vs. RH	BA vs. LH
Mike Gonzalez	.218	.194
Eric O'Flaherty	.282	.215
Boone Logan	.364	.231

O'Flaherty was pretty close to Gonzalez in handling lefties, but Logan wasn't that far away either. The big difference between O'Flaherty and Logan comes when they're facing right-handed hitters, with Eric having the clear advantage in that department. The Braves will probably want to keep all the depth they can, but Logan is out of options and arbitration eligible this year, so a non-tender might be in his future.

Kris Medlen

While Medlen posted a respectable 4.26 ERA for a rookie, his ERA as a reliever was even better at 3.47. He struck out more than a batter per inning in relief and gave up less than a hit per inning while keeping his walks in check. He was used inconsistently at times, getting long rests only to pitch on consecutive days. This unfamiliarity with the major league bullpen role caused Medlen to admittedly undergo some growing pains, but his work ethic kept his spirits up and his mind ready for any situation.

He could certainly move into a setup role next year, and may become one of the more indispensable members of the Atlanta pen. With the Atlanta rotation at 120% capacity, there's little chance that he would move back to a starting role, but his familiarity with starting may make him an ideal emergency swing man -- further increasing his value to the bullpen and the team.

Manny Acosta

Here are Acosta's ERAs the last three years:

2007 - 2.28
2008 - 3.57
2009 - 4.34

Meanwhile his FIP has hovered around 4.77, and has never been below 4.25, so that should tell us that Manny is either getting real lucky or he's getting bailed out by other Atlanta relievers -- either way it seems to be catching up to him. He is becoming more and more worthless, and that tells me his spot in the pen is in question.

Others

Jo-Jo Reyes and James Parr could find some time in the bullpen in 2010, though neither is ideal for the role. Luis Valdez is doing well in winter ball, and he could play a prominent role in the pen as well. I wondered why the Braves didn't use him more this year, especially towards the end, but maybe they wanted him to get work in winter ball and not the majors.

As always, there is a lot of work to be done this off-season to bolster the Atlanta bullpen.

Rule 5: You do talk about the Rule 5 draft

DanUpBaby — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:00:18 -0000

Nothing exemplifies the Hot Stove season quite like worrying about the Rule 5 draft. Most of the players don't stick it out all year; most of the ones that do are eventually traded for Ronnie Belliard or Blaine Boyer; and most of the time it would be completely absurd to spend time thinking about this. Fangraphs won't return my calls, but according to my new WARP/seconds-in-your-limited-lifespan converter most of these guys peak around fifteen, twenty seconds. (Brian Barton, simply because his nickname was briefly "Enunciate It", broke the curve at forty-five.)

But it is November, and I already did a VEB Theater, and though it kills me to say it there is no baseball going on at Busch Stadium. So let us take solace in the dim light of this good news: the Cardinals will probably not lose a useful player to the Rule 5 draft this year. In approximate order of near-term usefulness:

ALLEN CRAIG
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He doesn't really have a position; he's a minor league slugger who played in the PCL, so his numbers are vaguely suspicious; he strikes out too much and doesn't walk enough.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's looking more likely every day to spend significant time in left field in 2010, and there's a non-zero chance that he has a hot month while David Freese burns and Tony La Russa is suddenly convinced he can play third. He's never crushed a league, but he's also been extremely consistent level to level—in his three full seasons he's always hit .300, always hit 20 home runs, and always managed an OBP over .365. If the Cardinals find a left-handed outfielder they're comfortable with he is the ideal short side of a platoon.

JON JAY
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He might be the platonic representative of the Cardinals' more conservative draft inclinations—he's almost guaranteed to be a likable fourth outfielder, but he's almost guaranteed not to be a likable third outfielder.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He cowrote the Federalist Papers, and every dollar the Cardinals don't have to spend on a fourth outfielder who can play great defense and get on base a little is a dollar they can spend on the player who is consigning him to the bench. If pressed into service on a full-time basis he probably wouldn't hit much worse than Harold Ramis did last year, although the only thing we have to suggest his defense would be as good—I have the distinct impression that he was drafted as a defensive "tweener"—are a year and a half of minor league numbers.

ADAM OTTAVINO
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: His career minor league ERA is 4.15, and his career minor league BB/9 is even higher. In the high minors he's basically been Todd Wellemeyer.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's a first rounder, so we have to think about him, up to and including the moment in which he crushes our dreams. We were only allowed to stop thinking about Chance Caple last June. In addition to that, Ottavino's always been a Stuff Guy, and not a Results Guy; this is good for him, and bad for us. lboros's expert scouting report set me back about three years, as far as forgetting about him as a front-line guy goes.

In any case, he's too good a Rule 5 pick to not put him here. He's exactly the kind of starter who gets drafted, pitches fifty innings for a non-contender in the Brad Thompson role, and spends a third of the season on a rehab assignment for Rule 5 Syndrome. In fact, if he were playing for another team, we would be including him on a list of players for whom the Cardinals should dump Brad Thompson on the eve of the Rule 5 draft.

TYLER NORRICK
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: The Cardinals have Trever Miller and the Diner signed through 2010, so for once we don't need to worry about LOOGY free talent. He walked nearly seven batters per nine innings last year.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's probably better than Carmen Cali. Against lefties, his strikeouts-to-hits ratio was 2.5, which is awesome. His first name is Floyd, which is awesome, too.

DARYL JONES
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: He followed up 2008's breakout campaign with a breakdown campaign, treading water in AA Springfield. He's not a good 2010 option, even though we were hoping he would be.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: He's DJ Tools! He runs like a gazelle! He leaps like a gazelle! He no longer hits like a gazelle! He's the top hitting prospect on a team that doesn't have any, and he's got a skill-set that's become more popular in the outfield corners in recent years. He's not nearly as MLB-ready as Brian Barton was, but somebody might grab him anyway.

BRYAN ANDERSON
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: I don't think anybody's thought about him since last March.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: You remember Charles Cutler, who we all watched fly up the prospect lists this year with a great high-average low-power season in the low minors? Bryan Anderson is five months younger than Charles Cutler. Anderson was rushed through the system, but until going down with injuries this year he had displayed his one tool, hitting for average, at every spot. So far he's stuck at catcher.

He probably shouldn't be Molina's back-up this year, if the Cardinals have any long-term plans for him—because he's still only 23—but he's interesting enough at a position where offense is at such a premium that if keeping him on the roster were contingent to, ah, keeping him on the roster, some club would do it.

FRANCISCO SAMUEL
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM: Adam Ottavino's career walk rate, which is a concern, is a little more than half of Francisco Samuel's walk rate. I have nothing else to say about that.
WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: It takes exactly two good weeks for our opinion to change about middle relievers, and the Cardinals traded every single righty relief prospect who was ahead of him on the depth chart before 2009.

MARK HAMILTON
WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE THINKING ABOUT HIM:

WHY WE WILL ANYWAY: After threatening to join Mike Ferris in the annals of great college sluggers who didn't do anything in the Cardinals system he was nearly as impressive as Allen Craig in an abbreviated season spent between AA and AAA. It seems like we've been thinking about Hamilton a lot longer, but they're the same age, and Hamilton's hitting prowess is less BA dependent. He might be the most underappreciated player in the Cardinals' system.

If something were to happen to—no. No. For the Cardinals Hamilton will never, ever, ever, ever play regularly, ever, don't even consider the possibility, but for another team in the Rule 5 draft he could be Chris Shelton.

The 2009 Diamondbacks Season, Part VI: Defense

Jim McLennan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:33:06 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

One of three AZ errors in a nightmarish inning against Anaheim in J.U.N.E. - as in Justin Upton's Newest Error. But was he really that bad?

Browse more photos »

Few losses were more spectacularly painful for the 2009 Diamondbacks than the one which we endured in Seattle on June 21st. With the game tied in the bottom of the ninth, Clay Zavada loaded the bases with two down. Enter Chad Qualls, who got a ground-ball to Mark Reynolds, who made a perfect throw across to Tony Clark at first, for the last out of the inning, to send the game into extras. Except, Clark muffed it, dropping the ball and the winning run cantered across home-plate. That was one sad example of what seemed to plague Arizona for much of the year - just a week later, another inter-league game, against Anaheim, turned into a meltdown with three Angels batters reaching on D-backs' errors in the same frame.

Looking at some defensive stats, it would seem very clear that it's an area in which the Diamondbacks need to improve significantly, if they are to have any hope of challenging next season. However, as ever, after the jump, we'll be taking a look at a broader range of numbers and whether they can add any depth to the picture. We'll also see who they say was the best defender on the team this year. You might be surprised by the answer.

By just about every basic metric, our defense was undeniably among the worst around. With 124 errors, the Arizona Diamondbacks were ahead of only the Washington Nationals (143) - and that's in all of major-league baseball, not just the NL. At 68.0%, their defensive efficiency - the percentage of balls in play which e converted into outs - was better than just the Astros (67.6%) in the National League. We turned only 132 twin-killings (ok: technically, it was 131 and a triple-play), fifteen below league-average and ahead of one team, the Marlins (129). If there's any hope, it's that we had significantly fewer errors over the last 81 games (fifty) than the first 81 games (seventy-four). Let's start by breaking down the errors to see what positions were the source of our problem.

2009 Arizona errors
Pos	Err.	NL Av.	Rank
C	9	8	=5th
1B	15	10	=2nd
2B	11	13	=10th
3B	27	19	3rd
SS	16	18	9th
LF	9	6	3rd
CF	5	5	=5th
RF	13	5	1st
P	19	13	2nd

While Mark Reynolds may have made more individual errors than anyone else, third-base was not an especially problematic positions for us. First-base, right-field and - perhaps surprisingly - our pitchers, all made 45% or more errors above NL average. Whatever Doug Davis's merits, his fielding wasn't apparently one of them, as he was tied for the league-lead in errors, with five. Jon Garland was just behind, committing four, but especially notable was Blaine Boyer, who had three errors in only nine chances. At the other end, Dan Haren was one of four NL pitchers to be perfect when given more than 40 chances (Wainwright, Josh Johnson and Livan Hernandez were the others).

For right-field, I don't think I need go into specifics - I could just post Justin Upton's baseball card as an explanation there. At first-base, things probably weren't helped by the lack of a regular man at the position. Chad Tracy (56) started most there, but we had six other names written into the line-up, ranging from Brandon Allen (29 games) down to Rusty Ryal (five). Mark Reynolds was responsible for one-third of the 1B errors, despite starting only 24 games there. The vast majority (21) were before the All-Star break, and I doubt we'll see much of him there in 2010. For the next chart, we break down the E's into catching, fielding and throwing errors, and compare to NL average.

Error by type + position
Pos	Cch	Fld	Thr
C NL	11% 4%	0% 18%	89% 78%
1B NL	27% 22%	60% 54%	13% 24%
2B NL	0% 11%	71% 53%	29% 37%
3B NL	0% 1%	48% 54%	52% 44%
SS NL	6% 7%	38% 49%	56% 44%
LF NL	0% 0%	33% 74%	67% 26%
CF NL	0% 0%	80% 75%	20% 25%
RF NL	0% 0%	77% 80%	23% 20%
P NL	0% 8%	5% 22%	95% 70%

We are dealing with pretty small numbers, especially in the Arizona sample, so caution should be exercised. However, a couple of numbers do stand out as worthy of mention. The pitchers' problems mentioned above seem to be almost entirely on the throws, and the same goes for left-field - that ties in with my memories of the Parrazooka mis-firing in that position. Also worth mentioning is the change in numbers between 2008 and 2009 for Mark Reynolds. He made half as many errors at third on throws last season as in 2008 (18-9), on almost the same number of total chances. His fielding errors were also down, (15-10), but it's Mark's throws that really improved.

There's no doubt the errors tell a sorry tale of the problems in Arizona, but as we saw (in some depth!) earlier this season, they are far from the whole story as far as defense is concerned. There's a whole raft of numbers which go beyond the simple error, and some don't cast the Diamondbacks defense in such a bad light. Leading the pack would be Fangraph.com's UZR - see the above link for more info on it. As measured by that, the Diamondbacks' defense overall were at +22.0, which was fifth-best in the National League. WTF? Shome mishtake, shurely? Well, here's the breakdown of UZR by position. Yes. Another table... [Note: UZR isn't calculated for catchers or pitchers]

2009 AZ UZR by pos.
Pos	UZR	NL Rk
1B	-7.0	15th
2B	14.0	2nd
3B	-3.7	=9th
SS	7.2	2nd
LF	14.1	5th
CF	-13.1	14th
RF	10.4	2nd

There are some radical differences here, though UZR does concur with Errors that first-base was our worst position or thereabouts. Second-base comes up as a strength too - it has to be said, Felipe Lopez far from disgraced himself there this season, and we find ourselves in the same place as we were last winter, with a big questionmark at the spot. However, it's the contrast at CF and RF which are most striking. If you looked purely at errors, you'd think Chris Young was about average, while Justin Upton was the worst in the majors, commiting more by himself than the entire outfield of eight teams. However, UZR strongly disagrees, rating Young at -7.4, ninth of 11 qualifying fielders, while Upton was at +6.3, tied for Jason Werth as best in the league.

Before we anoint J-Up as unjustly robbed of the Gold Glove, we should probably do some checking. There has been some interesting work done lately on the accuracy possible by the hit-tracking systems, on which metrics like UZR depend. These are still human-powered - there's no version of PITCH/fx, which uses multiple cameras to objectively record location and speed. As a result, the 95% confidence level is +/- eighteen feet and four degrees of direction. That's a significant margin for error. If we contrast the Baseball Prospectus stat, Fielding Runs Above Average, it gives Arizona a combined total of -38. That seems to sit closer to what we'd intuitively expect. But even here, we see Chris Young in the basement at -13 and Justin Upton leading the way at +9.

Let's check one more. Bill James just released his Fielding Bible Awards for 2009, which combine votes from a number of sources. You won't be surprised to learn that no-one on the Diamondbacks won anything, but the following players were mentioned - note that these do not separate AL and NL, so the ranks are among all major-league players. Miguel Montero (13th, C); no-one at 1B; Ryan Roberts (13th, 2B); Mark Reynolds (16th, 3B); Stephen Drew (13th, SS); Gerardo Parra (19th, LF); Chris Young (10th, CF); Justin Upton (4th, RF); Jon Garland (P, 6th). So maybe Upton really was the best fielder on the Diamondbacks last year.

A couple of other things to note. Not all Arizona pitchers saw balls in play converted into outs at the same rate. If you look at the Defensive Efficiency figures for those who pitched 40 innings or more, there's a wide gap between the conversion rate for Leo Rosales (73.9% of balls in play became outs) and Billy Buckner (63.2%). Now, while these numbers need to be broken down more - it could just be that Rosales induced more infield flies, and Buckner more line drives - one would tend to expect both numbers to regress towards the team's overall mean (68.0%). Might be another reason to give Buckner a shot in the rotation next year.

Finally, let's take a look at the outfield: how were they at holding runners, and stopping them from taking a base. There are a lot of different scenarios involved here. Runner on first and a single; do they go to third? Or if they're on second, do they go home? What about advancing on a sacrifice fly? You can break down the numbers for each situation: here they are for our LF, CF and RF players. In total, however, the "hold rates" for the positions, the National League average and the number of "kills" - runners thrown out - were as follows. LF: 66.8% (63.3% ave, one kill). CF: 37.6% (44.0% ave, three kills). RF: 52.7% (50.5% ave, four kills). This is more evidence Young's 2009 defense wasn't up to much - not least because all three kills were by Parra...

Overall, there is a huge amount of room for improvement in this team's defense. Not necessarily in their range, which seems not to be the issue. It's more in the "fundamentals" side, such as hitting the cut-off man, knowing where about you have to be on a play, and not making mental mistakes. The raw talent and skills on view in the field were sometimes very impressive in 2009: however, too often, there was a problem with converting that into outs. And as Mark Grace said, if you habitually give a major-league team four outs in an inning, they will eventually bury you. Sound basic baseball needs to be the focus of this team in spring training next year, and if the players aren't on board with that, they should get familiar with the bench.

I was going to talk about our baserunning as well, but I've already gone on longer than expected, so that will have to wait for part...er, seven. I hope to have this series finished in time for Opening Day. Mind you, I'm not saying which Opening Day...

The 2009 Diamondbacks Season, Part V: The Bullpen

Jim McLennan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:15:35 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Somehow, this pic - Qualls yelling to the bench for help after hurting his knee against Houston - sums up the bullpen's entire season...

Browse more photos »

The Arizona bullpen allowed 271 runs and finished the season with a 4.61 ERA, both numbers which put them ahead only of Washington among National League relief corps. We've previously discussed the waking nightmare which was the eighth inning, but it's also worth taking a look at the numbers posted by the bullpen in general. How do they stack up in total? What were the issues? How might things have gone, and where do we go from here?

FIP vs. ERA
On straight ERA, as noted above, our relievers were pretty bad, even when you adjust for park factor. However, the underlying performance numbers weren't quite as horrendous. Arizona relievers had a combined line of .264/.338/.395, which is an sOPS+ of only 101, not too much worse than average. Fangraphs.com's FIP stat goes even further: the D-backs FIP was 4.02 - sixth-best in the league - with the biggest gap between that and 'actual' ERA of any team in the National League. This explains why they rated our pen at 36.1 runs above replacement, not just above average, but very close to the number (39.4) posted by the "lights out" 2007 bullpen.

The only two relievers with 10+ innings, to have a FIP higher than their ERA were Clay Zavada (FIP 3.92) and Blaine Boyer (3.34), both of which make sense. Zavada certainly benefited from the lucky scoreless streak which opened his career - his ERA the rest of the way was 5.34. And Boyer is obviously not the 2.68 ERA pitcher he was with Arizona: if he was anything like that, the Cardinals wouldn't have dumped him. Still, even if they deliver their FIP numbers in 2010, I don't think we'll mind too much. The other eight relievers all had FIP better than their ERA, the amount ranging from 0.07 (yeah, Scott Schoeneweis was as bad as he looked) to 1.06 for Juan Gutierrez.

There are various reasons why FIP can differ. It's based purely on home-runs, strikeouts and walks: you might think, "Hang on - the number of hits that stay in the park is irrelevant?" But the problem there, is that those do depend on the defense, so are not a good measure of pitching ability. I'll go into more detail about our glovework in the final part of this series, but Arizona's defensive efficiency - the percentage of balls turned into outs - was below average. If it seems counter-intuitive that you put H, K and HR into a mathematical blender and get a number that means anything, studies have shown that FIP is a better indicator of future performance than ERA.

Win Probability
However, the Hardball Times Win Probability Added is less convinced, saying our relievers cost Arizona 2.81 wins, this year ahead only of Pittsburgh and Washington. This is the same Win Probability we graph after every game; the winning team has 0.5 of a win to divide up, and the losers -0.5 blame. Over the entire season, our hitters "cost" Arizona 6.53 wins, and our starting pitching 1.67. [The total, not by coincidence, is 11, the number we were below .500] However, you should remember the value of a performance is radically dependent on when it happens. As Dave Studeman points out, "If a player hits a home run in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game, he is credited with more WPA points than if he hits a home run in the first inning of a 1-0 game."

The late innings will tend to have more leverage as a result, though given the bullpen threw about half the innings of the starters, to be "responsible" for more losses than the rotation isn't good. Still, the implication is that the offense was a bigger problem for the team in 2009 than the pitching in total. For context, it 2008, the bullpen WPA was -1.16 wins and in 2007, it was a stunning +7.48 victories. This is likely a reflection of the huge number of close contests in which that team was involved. Almost one-third (52) were decided by one-run, and when you get into the late innings of such games, every out has a very significant impact on Win Probability.

Was the bullpen overtaxed?
Not apparently. The average team saw 2,184 PAs dealt with by their relievers last season; Arizona saw fractionally less than that, at 2,122 - it clearly helped to have one of the most durable starters in the league, in Dan Haren, whose IP/start was 6.95, fourth-best in the league. Jon Garland (6.18, 24th) and Doug Davis (5.98, 34th) were also above the NL-average of 5.82. The Diamondbacks were also the least-likely team to use a reliever on back-to-back days: this happened only 80 times, the most common subjects being Gutierrez and Rauch, each eleven times. However, the results of such outings were good, with a 3.67 ERA.

The only reliever who worked more than 55 innings for the Diamondbacks was Gutierrez, who threw 71 innings [Rauch and Tony Peña were both around the same for the year, combining the totals for their two teams], which was not enough to put him among the top thirty 'pure' relievers in the majors. By appearances, his 65 games was only ranked #70, though Rauch ended up =13th by that metric. Arizona were right in the middle of the pack with regard to asking our relievers to get more than three outs too, so overall, workload doesn't appear to have been much of an issue for the bullpen as a whole.

Inherited issues
What did seem to be a problem was the bullpen's problem with inherited runners. Across the league, 30% of inherited runners scored, but for the Diamondbacks' relievers, that number was 38%, the worst figure in the NL. Only two relievers were below league average, and that fractionally: Scott Schoeneweis and Leo Rosales both came in at 29%, and the brevity of the former's appearances were likely a factor. From there, things only get worse, all the way up to Blaine Boyer (8 of 17 inherited runners scored, 47%) and Daniel Schlereth (7 of 12, 58%). Obviously, while we are talking small sample size here, and not all inherited runners are created equal, the overall numbers are significant enough to indicate a problem.

The Arizona bullpen: anti-clutch in action
A major driving factor in a pitcher's ERA will be how they perform with runners in scoring position - as we saw with Doug Davis this year, you can get away with allowing a lot of base-runners, as long as you don't let them get past third-base. This was something our bullpen didn't do last season. The Diamondbacks' OPS for their relievers across all situations in 2009 was .734: they can be divided into three groups by their performance with runners in scoring position (min. 30 such PAs):

    Significantly better: Leo Rosales (.653), Tony Peña (.655), Esmerling Vasquez (.686)
    There or thereabouts: Chad Qualls (.728), Juan Gutierrez (.730),
    Significantly worse: Blaine Boyer (.779), Jon Rauch (.853), Clay Zavada (.959), Scott Schoeneweis (1.078), Daniel Schlereth (1.192)

This would explain the high ERA; not just the raw number of pitchers, but the disparity. We had four relievers whose OPS was 100 points or more worse than bullpen average, when they had runners in scoring position, compared to none who were that much better. Avoiding such a skewed result in 2010 will certainly help. Harder to say whether it's something that can be addressed, or is just a question of waiting for regression to the mean.

What might have been
The front-office got criticism for letting Brandon Lyon and Juan Cruz walk at the end of 2008, and it's fair to say that the arms they brought to Arizona instead, Schoeneweis and Tom Gordon, were dismal failures. Admittedly, the former's problema could in no way have been foreseen, and completely derailed the year. Before his wife's death, Scott had an ERA of 2.53; after, it exploded to 10.80. But in the final analysis, he is just another in a long line of disappointing LOOGY's brought in by the team: see also Randy Choate, Mike Myers, Eddie Oropesa, etc. Since Myers in 2002, no free-agent southpaw reliever has had an ERA+ above 100 for Arizona.

Gordon was a low-risk roll of the die, but even at that, it must have been disappointing to get no more than 1.2 innings and a 21.60 ERA from the veteran. He only cost $600K, but one assumes the budget included the maximum Gordon may have earned, $3m. Between the price of him and Schoeneweis ($2m), the team could certainly have done better. Looing at the players we let go, Juan Cruz signed a two-year, $6m contract with the Royals, but had an ERA of 5.72, with a strikeout rate almost cut in half (from 12.4 K/9 to 6.4). Allowing Cruz to walk now seems wise, and Kansas City will be hoping for much better in 2010.

At first glance, Brandon Lyon was excellent with the Tigers, holding opponents to a .205 average and posting a 2.86 ERA, that seemed to justify fully his $4m deal, and likely sets him up for a big pay-day this winter. However, Lyon did have a freakishly-low BABIP of .229, leading to a FIP above four - the difference put him in the top 20 among major-league relievers. Still, signing him for $4m and getting anything like his actual performance would have been a much better deal for Arizona than Gordon and Schoeneweis.

2010?
From statements so far, it does appear that one or more arms will be added to the bullpen in the off-season. We'll be discussing this in more detail in due course, but I imagine the core is alreay present, in Qualls, Gutierrez, Vasquez and Zavada. Boyer and Schlereth would also seem to have a potential role, though use of the latter in high-leverage situations still concerns me. I still wouldn't mind us spending $5 million or so of the estimated $28m available on a couple of decent arms: I think "reliable" is the key-word there. Rather than us taking a risk on anyone like Gordon, we want someone who we know will contribute.

The last installment of this series will follow, probably next Monday. There, we'll be looking at defense and base-running, and their impact on the team's performance last season.

The 2009 Diamondbacks Season, Part IV: The Eighth-inning Retch

Jim McLennan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:00:22 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

Jon Rauch waits for the bases to clear after giving up a a three run homer to Travis Ishikawa during the eighth on August 25 in San Francisco. Or "business as usual," as we called the eighth inning in Arizona.

Browse more photos »

Arizona fans will have nightmares about the eighth inning for most of the winter. The team allowed 120 runs there, 15 more than the next worst frame. Two particularly savage meltdowns come to mind. On June 2nd in Los Angeles, seven stellar innings of one-run ball by Dan Haren and a 5-1 lead were undone in the space of three outs from Tony Peña and Daniel Schlereth, as the Dodgers scored five times. And then, on July 9th at Chase, the Marlins inflicted the first ten-spot on us since August 2005, sending fourteen men to the plate as the Diamondbacks blew a seven-run lead for the first time in franchise history.

While perhaps the worst incidents, those were far from the only times the eighth inning proved troublesome. On no less than eighteen occasions, Arizona's opposition scored three times or more: no team in the majors had a worse inning this year. After the jump, we'll break down the numbers, see what kind of impact it had on our W-L record, and who were the guilty men in the bullpen.

To some extent, the reputation of the eighth inning exceeds the reality. While I know it probably didn't feel that way, the vast majority of the time (in 106 games), our pitching staff posted a mundane, competent zero. And despite the high number of runs allowed, the team wasn't actually all that much worse at blowing late-inning leads than average. The graph below shows our win percentage (the lower line) when ahead at the end of an inning, compared to MLB average (the upper line).

If there's a problem here, it seems to have been our issue keeping first-inning leads, not going into the eighth. The 2009 Diamondbacks actually had a losing record there, going 16-20 when they ended the opening frame up. In comparison, MLB teams won better than two of three overall. Of course, this doesn't say, when the leads were lost. However, after shrinking then remain constant from the second through the fifth, the gap gradually narrows. In the eighth inning, we won when ahead 86.2% of the time, compared to MLB average 90.6%. That translates only to about 2.6 less victories than expected.

Looking closer, there's no denying the eighth inning sucked for our pitchers, but it didn't often cost us the lead. We were ahead 58 times going into the eighth - in 53 of those games, we still had the lead leaving it. It may have been a smaller lead, certainly, but that's still a better 'save percentage' than any other frame bar the ninth. However, when you include tied games in the equation, the balance shifts dramatically. Of the nineteen times Arizona were tied at the start of the dreaded eighth, they led after it only twice - they were still tied eight times, and were behind nine. Given our record when trailing at that point was 2-85, those deficits almost certainly became losses.

The numbers in the eighth were startling, especially when compared to the seventh: batting average increased from .254 to .295, though this may largely be explained by an increase in BABIP from a reasonable .302 to .335. Equally as responsible for the spike in opposition scoring are the 19 home-runs allowed. While far from the most given up by our pitchers (that'd be the 32 during the fourth), 47.4% of the eighth-inning blasts came with men on base - including the only grand-slam we allowed in 2009, off Clay Zavada by Angel Pagan, in Citi Field on August 1st. That compares to 38.7% of our homers overall. The same goes for hits with men in scoring position: the opposition batted .267 there overall, but in the eighth, the figure increased to .338.

So, the numbers there were a combination of factors: bad luck in BABIP, inability to keep the ball in the park, especially with runners on base, and clutch hitting by the opposition. Let's now break it down and see which of our pitchers were most often used in the eighth inning, and then take a look and see how they did. Put another way: "Hooray! I get to use another diagram!" And here it is:

Jon Rauch, Juan Gutierrez and Peña were the main workhorses, combining for 38.2% of the plate-appearances. Rauch was substantially the least effective of the trio, with an .820 OPS against, compared to .744 for Gutierrez and a very-impressive line from Vasquez, .181/ .298/.236. That's a .534 OPS, with no home-runs and three extra-base hits in 72 at-bats. At the other end of the spectrum, two whose numbers stood out in a bad way: Blaine Boyer and Scott Schoeneweis. The former was hit at a .396 clip in the eighth, but in mitigation, this was with a ..438 BABIP, and he allowed only four extra-bases and no homers. Not so Schoeneweis: his performance was 19-for-50 with four home-runs, for an OPS of 1.076.

The good news is, I am disinclined to expect a re-occurrence in 2010. To start with, there'll be no Schoeneweis, Rauch and Peña, and with regard to the eighth, the first two in particular were more problem than solution. A return of BABIP and opposition clutch towards more normal levels is also likely. However, avoiding multi-run homers and sound defensive baseball would also be helpful - not that there is anything particular different about the eighth inning, compared to any other. That said, I think I won't be alone in feeling pangs of concern until Gutierrez, Vasquez, Zavada or whoever gets to work the inning next year, shows that it's just a number between seven and nine.

I'll hold over a more general analysis of our bullpen numbers this year until next time. :-)

Cubs, Gorzelanny Lose Ugly To Diamondbacks, 12-3

Al — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:05:49 -0000

More photos » by Paul Beaty - AP

"Oh, brother," says Gorz, "I should have asked to start last night."

Browse more photos »

If you missed the FanShot I posted, the Cubs announced this afternoon the policy for refunds for yesterday's rainout:

All paid tickets for the Oct. 1 game are eligible for a refund. Refunds are available by sending the tickets to the Wrigley Field Ticket Office at 1060 West Addison Street, Chicago, IL, 60613. All refunds must be requested before Dec. 31, 2009. Tickets will not be eligible for exchange for 2010 or any future seasons.

Refunds will be made by check. Please allow four weeks for delivery. The original purchaser of the ticket or tickets will receive a refund to his/her credit card instead of a check if that was the original method of payment.

Also, word around the ballpark today was that the reason the umpires waited so long to call last night's game was some sort of edict that had come to teams from the MLB offices that they wanted "all games" to be played this season if at all possible. Only a call directly from Bud Selig finally got the game to be cancelled.

That's about the only good news I can bring you from Wrigley Field today; certainly, the Cubs' depressing 12-3 loss to the Diamondbacks didn't have any. Tom Gorzelanny got hit, in fine Chicago fashion, early and often; Chris Young, who seems to have hit about half of his career homers against the Cubs (in reality, only five of 70), smashed a ball that the wind carried onto Waveland with two runners on in the first inning. By the time Rusty Ryal hit a three-run double off Gorzelanny in the fourth, it was 7-0 and if the umpires or the MLB offices had had any sympathy for the (approximately) 15,000 who showed up today (tickets sold: 33,786), they'd have called it after the fifth inning with the score still 7-0 and the Cubs with only three singles.

Instead, a parade of five Cub relievers gave the visitors from Arizona (who had some very chilly-looking fans wearing their garb walking around outside Wrigley this morning) five more runs. Only Justin Berg, who threw two very nice innings, and John Grabow, who struck out two in a scoreless frame of his own, pitched well. I can't imagine we'll see Jeff Stevens back next year -- he got hit hard -- nor should David Patton, a waste of a roster spot, return in 2010. Aaron Heilman, who had actually gotten his season ERA under 4 (3.97) before today's game, gave up a HR to Eric Byrnes, his second of the game, a two-run shot, and Heilman's (perhaps) farewell to Cubs fans shows him with a season ERA of 4.16. I like Berg, incidentally, a lot, and I think he will be a significant contributor to the 2010 bullpen in middle relief.

The Cubs managed three consolation runs off Billy Buckner and reliever Blaine Boyer in the seventh, but that was all on a day when some off-and-on showers that didn't even show up on radar screens dotted the ballpark. It seemed a fitting way to say farewell to a rainy season. Rain may dot the area tomorrow, so be prepared for another postponement. It'd somehow feel appropriate.

August Rush: the Diamondbacks Heroes and Villains

Jim McLennan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:06:05 -0000

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Yusmeiro Petit is disappointed to be reminded by Alex Romero of exactly what his spot in the rotation is - near no-hitter or not.

Browse more photos »

I kinda wanted us to have a losing record, simply so I could use the title The Wails of August, but Monday night's comeback ruined that. Curse you, Rusty Ryal. Instead, while it took a late burst to do it, in the shape of a five-game streak, the Diamondbacks posted their second consecutive winning month, going 15-14 in August, to follow up July's record of 14-12. That's not to be under-estimated, because Arizona hadn't enjoyed back-to-back months above .500 since the end of 2007. It was a pretty streaky month: we had our worst losing run of the year, when we dropped seven straight, but also contained a couple of five-game winning spells. [Contrast April, where our longest streak in either direction was only three]

After the break, we'll drill down a bit, to both team and individual performances in pitching and hitting, and see who starred in August and who should be barred.

This was a good month offensively, with the team enjoying their best OPS of the year to date, reaching .791. That was an sOPS+ of 105, ranking them fourth in the National League. We trailed only the Marlins in hits and the Phillies in home-runs - I was amused to note that, in August, the entire Mets roster had only three more home-runs than Reynolds! Of course, we also had more K's than any team bar the Rockies, and our BABIP of .321 was a little above league-average, .306, so a certain element of luck may have been involved.

On the pitching side, the Diamondbacks set right in the middle of the pack, a 4.32 ERA ranking them eighth, and an sOPS+ of 94 was good for seventh. However, this did conceal a significant split between the starters and the bullpen. Despite a 12-9 record, the rotation's ERA was 4.55, up sharply on July's figure of 3.72. The relief corps, on the other hand, had a 3.79 ERA, only fractionally higher on last month's figure of 3.66. This continued their excellent second-half form: since the break, their ERA is 3.47, third-best in the league. We'll see how that is impacted by the loss of Qualls for the rest of the season.

Heroes

Miguel Montero - .326/.367/.543, 3 HR, 18 RBI

Montero continues to produce at a very high level for the position. Among the ninteeen major-league catchers with 60+ at-bats, only Joe Mauer had a better August OPS - no shame being second to him. Montero had eleven doubles in the month, easily the most on the team, and was tied for the lead in extra-base hits with 14. One issue: he has forgotten how to take a walk, with only one in 78 PAs, from July 27-August 22.
Yusmeiro Petit - 28 IP, 27 H, 8 BB, 20 K, 3.54 ERA

August started for Petit with him becoming the Arizona pitcher to come closest to a no-hitter since the Big Unit's perfect game, and he returned the best ERA of anyone in the rotation over the month. The reason is largely due to his HR/9 rate dropping to 1.29, well below his career average of 1.95, and closer to NL average, 1.01. When he keeps the ball in the park, Petit is a decent-plus pitcher.
Mark Reynolds - 277/.370/.660 (1.030 OPS), 11 HR, 21 RBI

It's the first time Special K has had an OPS over a thousand for a full month, and it increased for the sixth straight month. He also had a new career high in home-runs; basically, the difference from July was largely that three hits left the park instead of hitting off the wall for doubles. Oh, and he led the team in stolen-bases, going 4-0 there. Mark is currently on pace to hit 49 homers and steal 27 bases by the end of the year.
Ryan Roberts - .352/.443/.560 (1.004 OPS), 4 HR, 12 RBI

Anyone who wants the 2010 second-base position e.g. Rusty Ryal, Tony Abreu, will have to go through Ryan Roberts to get there. He's staking his claim with a blistering second-half, batting .331 in 137 PAs after the break, mostly in the leadoff spot, and better still since the trade of Felipe Lopez left Roberts as the de facto starter at the position. It's a remarkable turnaround from June, where he hit only .098.
The B-bullpen [Esmerling Vasquez, Blaine Boyer, Juan Gutierrez] - 30.2 IP, 25 H, 10 BB, 19 K, 1.76 ERA

These three get a communal nomination; Vasquez in particular had an excellent month, allowing one run in 10.2 innings of work, for a 0.84 ERA. The trio don't strike out a lot of opposing hitters, with a K/9 of only 5.58, but they didn't allow mant hits either - their WHIP is 1.14. It's a big turn-around from earlier, in the season when their appearance in a game was largely taken as the waving of a white flag.

Villains

Stephen Drew - .229/.284/.419 (.793 OPS), 4 HR, 16 RBI

The much-anticipated second-half surge by Drew pretty much withered and died on the vine in August, though in his defense, a BABIP of only .225 was a significant factor in his disappointing month. While not as bad as April and May, Drew's struggles against left-handers were particularly obvious - in 32 PAs last month, he went 2-for-31 with one walk, and is now hitting only .191 this season against them.
Dan Haren - 40 IP, 42 H, 7 BB, 34 K, 22 ER, 4.95 ERA

The second-half slump was not unexpected for Haren, having been a feature of most seasons in his career. However, it's been much more pronounced in 2009, albeit magnified by the brilliance of his outings before the break. Some is BABIP regressing to the mean, but his walk-rate has jumped up, from 1.11/9 IP in the first half to 1.84 now. Same for home-runs, which have increased from 0.84/9 IP to 1.55.
Chad Qualls - 8.1 IP, 8 H, 2 BB, 11 K, 5 ER, 5.40 ERA

Our closer will certainly not look back kindly on August, ending as it did with him writhing on the ground in pain. But, even putting that aside, it was not a month to remember. He only had six save opportunities. Maybe it was ring-rust; he only got in to nine games, but had just one 'clean' full inning. The nadir was obvious: the three-run pinch-hit homer which cost us the game in San Francisco last week.
Max Scherzer - 32 IP, 39 H, 11 BB, 39 K, 23 ER 6.47 ERA

Max's tank looks basically to have reached empty: this is something of a surprise, as he has only just passed his innings pitched last year [including the AFL], but he had only one quality start in six August attempts. While the strikeouts still happen in quantity - 39 is a career high for him - opponents hit .300 off Scherzer last month. Still, better for him to struggle in a year where we aren't in a pennant race.
Chad Tracy - .262/.304/.308 (.612 OPS), 0 HR, 5 RBI

Grim factoid: In the second half, Tracy has a lower slugging percentage than Alex Romero or Augie Ojeda, and sadly, the chances of the Diamondbacks wanting to exercise their 2010 option for Chad appear to be getting slimmer. Since the start of 2008, his OPS+ is only 76, and that isn't worth $7m. August was his first full month (60+ AB) without a single HR in three years.

Poll

Who was the D-backs' player of the month for August?

Miguel Montero

43 votes

Yusmeiro Petit

4 votes

Mark Reynolds

52 votes

Ryan Roberts

12 votes

The B-Bullpen

16 votes

127 votes | Poll has closed

Bud Norris gets shelled again, Astros shutout in process

HighLeveragePerformer — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:25:00 -0000

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

Assume the position, David.

Browse more photos »

Absurd.

For some reason, as Blaine Boyer was closing the door in the ninth inning this song came to mind:

I don't think it really has any connection to the Astros, or baseball in general, although the melancholy lyrics and deliberate rhythms do sort of parallel our team's slide towards an irrelevant finish of the 2009 season.