SB Nation - Ty Taubenheim

Monday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:30:33 -0000

by Jim Prisching - AP

Jeff Suppan reacts after walking in three runs during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Cubs. Searching for someone who will take his contract could be one of the Brewers' focal points this week.

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Some things to read while the blue socks tie your look together.

All eyes turn to Indianapolis this week, as the Winter Meetings start today. While there, Brewer management would most likely jump at any chance to unload the contract of Jeff Suppan. Tom H. floated the idea of a Suppan-for-Juan Pierre deal, while Jorge Says No! wonders if Jeff Suppan and prospects for Gil Meche makes sense (Also noted in Rumorville). For whatever it's worth, the Meche deal is probably unlikely unless one of the Brewers' top prospects is involved. Apparently the Mets have also contacted the Royals to ask about him.

Other pre-meeting buzz:

Tom H. has a winter meeting preview with some stuff you've heard before and a Doug Melvin complaint about cost uncertainty.
Steve Henson of Yahoo says the Brewers are more likely to look for free agents than trades to fill the gaps in their rotation and bench.
Adam McCalvy has a look at some of the prospects that could be mentioned if the Brewers decide to make a deal, but acknowledges the fact that the Brewers don't have the organizational depth to make a major splash via that route.
Apparently Edwin Jackson, one trade candidate the Brewers have expressed interest in, could find a new home soon.
Meanwhile, Yahoo is reporting that multiple teams are interested in Doug Davis, but the only candidate they're naming at this point is the Crew.

If you weren't around over the weekend, Noah did a great job in the weekend Mug of covering reaction to the Gregg Zaun deal. Here are a few more nuggets on Zaun I spotted this morning:

Adam McCalvy tweeted that Zaun's deal includes $600,000 in incentives tied to games started, which could push the total guaranteed value up to $2.75 million if Ken Macha is unwilling to let one of the young guys play.
Fire Doug Melvin is not excited about the decision to guarantee Zaun the starting job.

The Zaun move inspired Casa de Machado to throw in the towel for 2010, complete with this quote:

I think are chances in 2010 are slim to none.

It's like this picture and The Iron Sheik's Twitter all rolled in to one. (h/t to the Former Hacks for the Sheik link)

I know at least some of you attended the Brewer Clubhouse Sale over the weekend. Did you find anything good? Did you show up in this WISN story?

Just one transaction note today:

Indians: Signed former Twin Brian Buscher to a minor league deal.

Some free agent deals might get done at the Winter Meetings this week, but don't expect John Lackey to be one of them: Lackey is believed to be seeking $17 million+ per year for at least six years, and it'll take some time for his price to fall back into a range that isn't laughable.

Six years and $102 million would probably earn Lackey honorable mention on Big League Stew's list of the worst ten contracts of the 2000s. Click that link if you'd like to feel better about the Brewer tenure of Doug Melvin: All ten contracts mentioned are clearly worse than Jeff Suppan's deal.

Looking for a buy-low rotation candidate? Diamond Notes mentions the Dodgers are expected to have interest in Chien-Ming Wang, when/if the Yankees announce their decision to non-tender him for next season. Assuming the price is right, one would think the Brewers might be interested too.

Speaking of the Dodgers, they're continuing to cut costs by attempting to deal George Sherrill.

On this day in 2005, the Brewers traded Lyle Overbay (along with Ty Taubenheim) to the Blue Jays for David Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson, clearing the way for Prince Fielder to take over at first base in 2006. Overbay has hit .275/.356/.449 over four seasons as a Blue Jay.

On this day in 2007, the Brewers acquired Salomon Torres from the Pirates for two minor leaguers. Torres posted a 3.49 ERA and saved 28 games for the 2008 Brewers.

Happy birthday today to Jim Austin, who posted a 3.06 ERA while making 83 relief appearances as a Brewer between 1991 and 1993, and turns 46.

Oh, and it looks like winter is now upon us, so it may be time to bust out the solar powered hat and gloves. Or just stay home and watch the Pride and Prejudice with Zombies miniseries. (h/t C. Trent Rosecrans)

Drink up.

Breaking Down Arnsberg: What Are the Astros Getting?

davoag — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:27 -0000

More photos » by Darren Calabrese - AP

Is the criticism of Brad Arnsberg justified?

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In case you missed the FanShot from last Friday, the Astros hired a new pitching coach. Brad Arnsberg comes with a reputation as a young pitcher-killer, but was loved by all his staffs and seemed to be able to work some magic with 'reclamation projects.' The World Wide Web was abuzz with articles about his abundance, or lack thereof, of talent. A fine hat-tip to clack and AstroAndy for linking to them.

What I wanted to do, though, is to see if it was warranted. What we're really worried about here are young pitchers, right? Guys 24 years old and younger are in the prime area for suffering from over-use. There are two different models out there currently used to predict injuries to young pitchers. Both were researched pretty thoroughly, but it's hard to tell if they're good predictors of injury potential or just good at explaining what happened in the past.

When I went back to research Arnsberg, I looked at every staff he had from 2000 in Montreal to 2002 with the Marlins and through his five-year tenure in Toronto. I focused on all the pitchers he had that were 24 or younger. This is a bit of a departure from the model, since they stop at 25, but since two-thirds of his stops were of the one-year variety, I downgraded the age a year. The two methods I mentioned were Tom Verducci's theory on an increase in innings from year to year, most recently laid out here. The other was Pitching Abuse Points (PAP), first published back in 1998 by Rany Jazayerli here. I believe it's been tweaked a bit here and there since then, but it's a good starting place for the discussion. My results after the jump...

Arnsberg oversaw 28 different pitchers in their Age 24 season or younger. His biggest year for this was in 2000 in Montreal, when 10 different young pitchers got into games. The 2000 season also seemed to be a learning year for Arnsberg as to how best to utilize pitchers. Of the 10, only one threw more innings than the previous season (Javier Vasquez, +63 IP) and only one had more than 10 PAP per start (Vasquez, 16 PAP). Carl Pavano pitched seven fewer innings than in 1999, but had a PAP/Start of 4.8 and then suffered an injury the following season. The rest all had significant drops in innings pitched and none had more than 2 PAP/start. None of the relievers in his bullpen threw three straight days and only Pavano suffered an injury the following season. Knowing what we do now about Carl, it's easy to see it probably wasn't Arnsberg's fault.

The next year he surfaced was in 2002 with the Marlins. Five guys played at 24 or younger and two of the five had jumps higher than 30 innings. Both Justin Wayne and Nate Robertson pitched over 40 innings more than the previous season, but each threw the majority of their innings in the minors, not the majors. It's hard for me to pin these jumps on Arnsberg for that reason, since their workload was controlled by the minor league pitching coordinator, not the big league pitching coach. As for the other three, Josh Beckett threw 47 less innings than the previous season and averaged 2.1 PAP per start. Pretty reasonable for a 22-year old. Brad Penny had a 69 inning drop in his workload and had 0.8 PAP/start. The other guy in this group was Blaine Neal, a reliever who saw his workload go up by six innings and was used three straight days twice that season. One of those times, though was on both ends of a double-header, when he faced just one batter in the first game. No real injury trouble here, at least not by Arnsberg's work. Beckett had the blister problems, but that's not related to overuse and Penny did have arm trouble, but much later than this.

On to the Toronto years, where Arnsberg saw an impressive group of young pitchers hit the big leagues. In his first season, he had five pitchers in the age range we are looking at. Two drastically increased their inning total (Dustin McGowan, +70, Chad Gaudin +74) while one starter also saw an uptick into the danger zone (Gustavo Chacin +36). The other two guys, Brandon League and Shaun Marcum had smaller increases or decreases, but only Chacin had any PAP to speak of. Chacin's total of 3.7 PAP/start is high, but not distressingly so and his innings increase was slight in comparison to McGowan's. Still, Chacin did suffer a major drop-off in performance and had an injury or two thrown in for good measure. Of course, his delivery is a bit quirky and he came out of nowhere to begin with, so it's hard to say whether Arnsberg led to this flameout. Certainly, the other guys on this list went on to have solid years after 2005, so we may just be dealing with a small sample size.

In 2006, Arnsberg oversaw seven young pitchers, including newcomers Casey Janssen, Ty Taubenheim, Jeremy Accardo and Davis Romero. Accardo, Romero and Dustin McGowan all had inning increases but the rest saw their totals drop. Janssen was the only pitchers with more than 1 PAP/start and his was exactly one. Marcum saw his total drop by 35 innings and had a PAP of 0.8 while League had a slight drop in innings, but was used twice three games in a row. Taubenheim moved from a starter's role in the minors to the bullpen in the majors, which explains his 60-inning drop. None of the evidence here supports the conclusion that misuse led to any injuries.

In 2007, there were only four pitchers in our age-range, including two holdovers, League and Taubenheim. Newcomers Jesse Litsch and Josh Banks both saw increases, though Litsch saw his total rise by 29 innings, just underneath the magic threshold. Litsch also had just 0.7 PAP/start, meaning he wasn't throwing a ton of pitches. League saw his total drop by 59 innings, in part due to injury (I think, though I can't find it anywhere). Taubenheim had his total rise by 15, but was not used in more than two straight games, so he didn't really get overworked.

Litsch was the only pitcher considered young in 2008 and he saw his total innings drop by 11, but his PAP jumped up to 4.2 per start. More distressingly, though was how he was used down the stretch. From August 21 to September 29, Litsch started nine games and threw 61 innings and 980 pitches. He totaled 88 PAP for an average of 9.7 per start, a huge jump over the beginning of the season. He went 5-4 over this stretch and had an average game score of 62.4. Those were both reasons why he pitched so much, I'm sure. He was doing so well that the Jays wanted to keep him pitching to keep them in the race, as the team got to 12 games over .500 on Sept. 12. However, Litsch was pretty much abused during this stretch. He was used once on two days' rest, throwing 49 pitches over three innings and was used once on three days' rest in the back half of a doubleheader. Litsch threw 110 pitches over 5 1/3 innings.

In 2009, Litsch was shut down in April and finally had Tommy John surgery in June. I think it's safe to say that his usage pattern at the end of 2008 may have led to this, but we can't be certain. Arnsberg's last year with Toronto saw five pitchers in our age-group, including Litsch. Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Mark Rzepczynski and Brad Mills made major-league debuts and all but Mills saw increases in their inning totals. None saw jumps of over 30, though they all had more PAP than in Arnsberg's past. Romero tallied 6.3 PAP/start and saw his innings jump 14, while Brett Cecil had a jump of 24 innings and 2.1 PAP/start. Rzepczynski made the jump straight from Double-A and saw an increase in 28 innings while having a PAP of 3.8 per start.

What does this mean? Arnsberg gets blamed for the injuries to Marcum and McGowan, but in their formative years with the club, you can see he really didn't do much to hurt them. Only in 2008 did his usage patterns significantly change, and that also coincided with a new manager, Mr. Old School Cito Gaston. This is a classic example of a guy from a bygone era trying to throw pitchers out there like they did in the '70's and hoping it will work. In 2008, for example, Gaston used pitchers on short rest six times, while the American League average was just 3.7. In 2009, he was right in line with the league average of 3, but it still shows that he used his pitchers differently than most of the league. Arnsberg didn't like it, and clashed with his manager as was chronicled here and here. I'm not sure you can blame Arnsberg for what happened to Litsch but you definitely can't blame him for Marcum and McGowan. B.J. Ryan also can't be blamed on him, nor can A.J. Burnett, as both guys had either a history of injuries or a jump in innings before coming to Toronto.

At least one place is mad Arnsberg left Toronto, while there are a couple other places that still levy criticism. I'm not sure how Arnsberg will do with Houston, but I do know he's got a pretty good track record of keeping the young guys healthy. He'll have a tough time on his hands next season, though, as Bud Norris saw a 95 inning jump in his workload, though his PAP/start was just 0.5. Yorman Bazardo was also in the danger zone with a 34 inning jump, and his performance doesn't need any regression. The only worrying part of the bullpen was Sammy Gervacio being used three straight days three different times and once for four straight games. Of course, the 24-year old only threw more than 20 pitches in a game twice, so it's not as worrisome as it appears.

To review, Arnsberg coached for four different managers and only under Gaston did his track record go astray. Out of all his young pitchers, just three were inordinately abused: Chacin, Litsch and Vasquez. Now, we can see that Vasquez was just built to hold up to a higher workload, similar to Roy Halladay. Still, it doesn't excuse the abuse in the first place. Is Gaston more to blame for the last couple of seasons in Toronto? We can't REALLY tell, but after reviewing all this, I certainly feel better about the Astros' new pitching coach.

Tuesday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:54:44 -0000

Some things to read while keeping the dream alive.

I don't have much for news today, but when you're done here check out The Sports Bubbler, where they have interviews with Prince Fielder, Ken Macha, Mat Gamel, J.J. Hardy, Brad Nelson, Tim Dillard, Alexandre Periard and Rickie Weeks from this weekend's Winter Warm-Up festivities.

Also, Big League Stew has a picture of Kate Armitage, who apparently won a date with J.J. Hardy.

Dating J.J. Hardy probably takes some patience, because he doesn't swing at the first pitch. Over at The Hardball Times, dixieflatline has a look at first pitch fastballs. The Brewer notes: Corey Hart and Prince Fielder don't get many first pitch fastballs, J.J. Hardy doesn't swing at many of them, and Rickie Weeks doesn't hit them well.

So Jason Kendall was one of the best defensive catchers in baseball last season, despite having been below average for much of his career. Will it last? Brian Cartwright of FanGraphs rated Kendall's throwing arm as the second best in baseball in 2008, but projects him to be merely average in 2009.

Another slow news day, another "Where are they now?" with Baseball America's Minor League Transactions:

Ty Taubenheim signed a minor league deal with the Pirates.
Gary Glover signed a minor league deal with the Nationals.

Also in those transactions: The Brewers reinstated Ryan Jensen from their inactive list and released him. Jensen played for the Brewer Rookie team in Arizona in 2007.

On the hot stove:

Blue Jays: signed OF Jason Lane and IF Brandon Fahey to minor league deals.
Dodgers: Signed knuckleballer Charlie Haeger to a minor league deal.
Pirates: Claimed SP Virgil Vazquez off waivers from the Tigers. They may also be interested in Braden Looper.
Rangers: May not make a move regarding Ben Sheets for the next few days, as team officials are on an annual trip to the Dominican Republic.
Royals: Signed Zack Greinke to a four-year deal, buying out his last two seasons of arbitration and his first two years of free agency. The deal is rumored to be worth $38 million.
Tigers: Signed Timo Perez to a minor league deal.

Of course, if you're the Reds and you're not a player in the free agent market, you could always try to draw more fans to the ballpark by adding a fourth mascot.

Do you hate, or at least moderately dislike, Bud Selig? I've heard it's a somewhat common thing. Home Run Derby has compiled a list of 24 Facebook groups you can join, starting with calls for Selig's resignation or firing and spiraling downward from there.

Oh, and after watching this guy recreate a Cal Ripken poster, I need more thumb tacks. A lot more.

Drink up.