SB Nation - Mike Koplove

My Mike Koplove Story

Jeff — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:52:43 -0000

I didn't know a lot about baseball when I was 15. I thought Alex Rodriguez was the worst person in the world. I thought Jack Cust was a future MVP in the making. I thought John Stephens was going to change the way the world thought about pitching. I thought Mike Cameron was okay. I thought Darin Erstad was a flukey pile of crap. I thought Oakland was the model franchise, defense wasn't important, Gillick should've been more aggressive, and Bret Boone was clean. When was 15, I thought I knew everything about baseball there was to know, when in truth all I knew was message board speculation and what I'd parroted from my first ever volume of Baseball Prospectus.

However, as cocksure as I already was as a young teenager, of two things I had never been more certain in my entire life. As I watched the FOX game of the week one Saturday afternoon in September of 2001, I knew two things beyond any reasonable doubt:

(1) Mike Koplove had a really awesome name for a pitcher
(2) He was never going to make it

The Diamondbacks brought in Koplove in the bottom of the 11th of a 5-3 game. They were leading the Dodgers by two in the game and four in the standings, and with only a couple weeks to go in the season, a win would all but push LA out of the picture. So this was a big assignment for the rookie Koplove, who inherited a runner on first and nobody out. And as he came to the mound and warmed up beside the FOX stat graphic, it hit me.

That's a great name.

This has always been a thing with me. Even now, albeit to a lesser extent than when I was younger. When I hear about a guy for the first time, and I don't really know anything about his ability, I will evaluate him by his name. Some names just sound like successful baseball names, while others don't. Brian Lesher sounded successful. Robert Ramsay didn't. Justin Kaye sounded successful. Brian Sweeney didn't. Aquilino Lopez, Jeff Heaverlo, and Rafael Soriano sounded successful. John Halama, Brian Fitzgerald, and Jermaine Clark didn't. I don't know what it is that lends them these perceived characteristics, but some names sound like they throw really hard or hit for mammoth power while others sound all finessey and weak. This evaluation technique had led me astray in the past, but I didn't care. I was convinced that, if you just gave me a name, I could tell you whether or not he'd go on to have a good big league career.

Mike Koplove sounded promising. He sounded like he probably got a lot of strikeouts. So as he warmed up and the graphic showed a 0.00 ERA and a bunch of K's, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Yeah, you knew it. I'd never heard about the guy until he warmed up in the 11th, but almost immediately I was sure that he'd go on to be an ace in relief. He had the sort of name you could chant or put on a jersey, a name so sharp you could prick your finger on it.

Then I watched him pitch. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking with each successive delivery; that was eight years and a lot of organic chemistry ago. But I do remember how bad he was. Via Baseball-Reference:

Mike Koplove replaces Brian Anderson
-G. Sheffield walk
-P. Lo Duca hit by pitch
-E. Karros walk, Green scores
Mike Morgan replaces Mike Koplove

Koplove faced three batters and put all of them on, throwing four strikes out of 14 pitches and departing having walked in a run. Bob Brenly came out to take the ball and replace him with a guy twice his age, and Koplove slowly walked off the field to a rousing ovation from the Dodger faithful, head down and glove hanging loosely by his side. My girlfriend always feels really bad for players on TV who're losing or otherwise having a rough go of it; had she seen Koplove that afternoon, she might've wept. Pitchers aren't supposed to show a lot of emotion when they get pulled from a game, and certainly not as a visitor when they might elicit a response from the crowd, but through his body language, Koplove looked defeated. You could read him like a diary.

Morgan came in and almost immediately gave up a game-winning single to Adrian Beltre. And as the Dodgers celebrated around home plate, for a brief moment the camera cut to the Arizona dugout, where Koplove was leaning forward with his arms in his lap, staring at the field. That's when I knew that it wasn't in the cards. The whole baseball thing. I guess I fancied myself some sort of really perceptive sports psychologist, but as I watched Koplove reflect on how he had personally cost his team an important win in the standings, I put myself in his shoes and decided that, no, it wasn't possible to recover from something like this. Koplove had buckled under the pressure as a rookie in a pennant race, and because of that he'd never again have the trust of his teammates, his manager, or even himself. Subsequent opportunities would only bring flashbacks, and flashbacks would only bring failure. On a Saturday afternoon in 2001, I was positive that I'd watched the promise of a 24 year old's Major League career disappear over the span of three batters.

-----

I didn't think about Mike Koplove again for another eight years. Lots of people didn't. He did stick around the bigs for 222 games, earning himself a little money in the process, but he hasn't thrown a Major League pitch since September 2007, and so his acquisition by the Mariners a few days ago was met with legendary indifference. Soon-to-be 33 year old minor league relievers generally don't attract a lot of attention.

When I heard about the trade, though, I raised my eyebrows. Koplove? Really? After making sure we didn't give up anything of value (we didn't), I scrambled to check out where the new guy had been before we got him, and how he'd been doing. Turns out he's been in AAA for a long time and doing all right. The more I read, the more interested I became. Decent numbers. Kills righties. Sharp slider. Sidearm delivery - I'd forgotten about that. As I picked up more and more information, I became more and more convinced that he could conceivably be of some use at the Major League level. That the Mariners had very quietly brought in an arm who could spend 2010 as a valuable righty specialist in the bullpen of a competitive team.

Honestly, I'm probably biased, here. It's difficult to be objective about players of whom you have vivid memories from many moons ago. More often than not, you want to see those players succeed. If this were somebody else with the exact same profile but without that meltdown in relief against the Dodgers, I'd probably think nothing of it, the way I thought about the trade for Jared Wells. It would just be the acquisition of a guy who's a nobody today and who'll be a nobody tomorrow.

On the other hand, with a name like Mike Koplove, he has to be good.

56-51, Game Notes

Jeff — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:42:11 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

Colon looks in, gets his sign, and readies for the pitch to CAT CAT THERE IS A CAT ON THE FIELD EVERYBODY PAY ATTENTION TO THE CAT

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I've learned something about myself these last two nights. Honestly, I don't know why it never dawned on me until just now. And what I've learned is that, for all the talk about how offense is exciting and chicks dig the longball and the Rockies kept selling out because there was non-stop action, for me - and I'm only talking about me, here - while high-scoring games can be a fun change of pace from time to time, they rapidly lose their appeal as they start to drag on. Which, in turn, means that duration is a bigger determinant in how much I enjoy watching a baseball game than the level of offense. In terms of an equation:

Enjoyment = Aα + Bβ + Cγ + Dδ +…

There are a whole lot of different factors that can affect how much I enjoy watching a baseball game. Leverage. Significance. Whether the Mariners win or lose. And so on. All of those things are included above as separate variables. But what I've learned tonight is that

If α = level of offense and β = duration

Then B > A

The first two games of this series have taken something like seven combined hours to complete. I'm glad the M's came out on top of both of them, but rather than happy and enthralled, all I've been for much of those seven hours is bored and annoyed. Congratulations, Mariners - your wins have taken so long that at several points I've lost interest and felt like a bad fan for doing so. That's not how this is supposed to work.

Thank you for winning. Winning is neat. Now just please do me the courtesy of hurrying up.

Reflecting on his performance and then looking at the box score, Luke French pitched a better game than his line would suggest. Both home runs were on pitches I imagine he'd like to have back - particularly Gordon's, which came on a high-80s 1-0 fastball literally in the center of the zone - but outside of those, I thought he looked pretty good for what he is. Though both the TV radar gun and the PITCHf/x reported velocities seemed high, French still got some fastballs up there at 90+ and he seems to have "sneaky" heat, in that his fastballs look faster than they really are. I don't know what causes that sort of thing, but that was my impression, and by and large he was able to put it where he wanted.

As for French's secondary pitches - for one thing, he threw them a lot. 43% offspeed on the game. And for another, they were effective. 26 of 38 were thrown for strikes, six missed bats, and only one was hit particularly hard. What's interesting is that, where he came in having excelled with his slider, tonight it was his changeup that stole the show. Although I guess that was mostly the doings of Miguel Olivo, who swung at five changeups and missed four of them. Still, Olivo's a big league hitter, and French's change threw him for a loop. It's encouraging to see him working off that pitch pretty well since it was a big part of his success in AAA.

When you look at French's fastball and tendency to pitch up in the zone, you'd think he's always due to get shelled. But throw in a pair of good offspeed pitches and an ability to move the ball around the zone and you get a guy who's better than being just another Garrett Olson. Olson couldn't even throw strikes today with a giant lead. French threw strikes with more than two-thirds of his pitches. A skeptic might call him "Garrett Olson with command," but Garrett Olson with command isn't Garrett Olson anymore, and that's why I think French could be a pretty good piece. When you can locate and work against both lefties and righties, you've got an excellent chance of contributing at the Major League level. Though hardly spectacular, what I saw from French tonight only served to confirm my moderately optimistic expectations.

I can't get over how uncomfortable and awkward Olson looks in a baseball uniform. I know that sounds weird but you'll notice it too the next time you see him, and then that's all you'll be able to see for the rest of the season. I don't like to wear shorts. However, I get hot really easily, so I went to try on some shorts the other day, but when I put them on I didn't at all feel like myself. That's how I see Garrett Olson in a baseball uniform. Like he doesn't have any confidence in his image because he's wearing something he doesn't think suits his body.

I think it's high time we give this segment a new name.

As if the 222 games of Major League experience weren't enough of a clue that Koplove isn't going to be making any prospect lists, Dave Sims chimed in with - and this is an exact quote - "Didn't even know he was still bouncing around baseball. Thought he hung 'em up."

Any act of building is building to the future. This is like Mitch Hedberg/every picture is of you when you were younger all over again.

In the top of the third inning, Michael Saunders ripped a 3-1 low-inside fastball down the right field line for his first ever Major League triple. As a starter, Kyle Davies has a career 5.92 tRA over nearly 500 innings. I wonder if it still counts as your first career Major League triple if you hit it off a AAA arm.

As evidenced by the promotion at Kauffman today, 80s Night is a popular phenomenon for people of all ages. It gives them an excuse to wear clothes they'd never wear, use words they'd never use, sing along to songs they'd never sing along to, and generally just celebrate a memorable but nevertheless thankfully distant decade that hasn't stood the test of time. It's an opportunity for people college-aged or older to reflect on all the stupid shit they used to like so many eons ago, and for people high school-aged or younger to look at their parents and wonder what the hell was wrong with them. Now here's a thought: the Royals haven't won more than 84 games in a season since 1989, and they haven't made the playoffs since 1985.

Miguel Batista inherited a 10-4 lead and threw 14 strikes out of 28 pitches. Garrett Olson inherited an 11-5 lead and threw 20 strikes out of 37 pitches. Without being able to record catcher glove location prior to each pitch, we don't have a real good measure of pitcher command. Strike rate in blowouts, however, might be a useful proxy, because there's no good reason to nibble around the edges. Hey, by that test, guess which relievers of ours who pitched today don't have good command?

Yuniesky Betancourt as a Royal:

OSwing%: 22.9% (25.0% league average)
ZSwing%: 67.5% (65.7% league average)
Zone%: 63.2% (49.3% league average)

Over the last 30 days, Yuni's Zone% - the percentage of pitches thrown within the strike zone - has been the highest in baseball, 4% above Jason Kendall. Pitchers are clearly just going right after him, not the least bit afraid that he's going to deliver much damage. In Yuni's defense, though, at least his discipline looks to be quite a bit better. I'm not going to jump to any conclusions because there are sample size issues here to take into consideration, but as a member of the Royals, Yuni has swung at fewer balls out of the strike zone than the average Major Leaguer. If you remember what he was like as an M, that's just a little bit flabbergasting. For them, this is an encouraging sign of progress. And I actually think that's pretty cool.

Jack Hannahan got to play two innings in the field at short in relief of Jack Wilson, diving at but missing a groundball single. I'm surprised the Mariners are giving him the opportunity to work on his versatility at the Major League level, but I'm also ecstatic, because the prospect of Hannahan as a utility player tickles me in all the right places, and this way I don't have to watch any Chris Woodward. Hannahan's approach to hitting makes it really, really hard for me to believe he's as bad as his numbers, and should his plus defense translate to other positions around the infield, he could very well turn out to be quite the find.

A cat running around the living room: not interesting. A cat running around the street and the sidewalk: somewhat interesting. A cat running around the living room of someone who doesn't own a cat: more interesting. A cat running around a baseball field during the middle of a game: maximum level of interest. Whenever something like this happens, the critter invariably ends up drawing a greater ovation than pretty much anything that happens during the game, which makes me think that zoos have it all wrong. The key to making an animal interesting isn't so much presenting the animal itself as it is presenting the animal in a situation in which people don't expect an encounter. I'd find our zoo way less boring if I only saw animals in surprising situations.

Tuesday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:38:23 -0000

More photos » by J Pat Carter - AP

Dan Uggla tags Mike Cameron during an inning where two Brewers made outs on the basepaths.

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Some things to read while watching out for whammies. (h/t C. Trent Rosecrans)

With any luck, this could be the last morning I'll ever have to wake up and discuss a disastrous Jorge Julio outing. Here are what some others are saying about him:

Quevedo at the Buffet wants him gone.
Brewed Sports wants him gone.
CZWief wants him gone.
Between the Green Pillars wants him gone.

Julio did, however, become just the second pitcher named Jorge to hit a batter named Jorge in MLB history. So there is that. Jorge Cantu, by the way, was the victim in the other case too, getting hit by Jorge de la Rosa.

But, it might all be over today. The Official Site says the team is expected to call up a pitcher and it could be Mike Burns, who is 6-2 with a 2.98 ERA for Nashville. It won't be David Riske, who will undergo Tommy John surgery today.

Even with Julio's disaster last night, the Brewers had too many opportunities to come away with just four runs, including one inning where Prince Fielder and Mike Cameron both made outs on the bases, with Fielder getting caught trying to steal third.

Also, Mike Cameron and Ryan Braun left last night's game early with injuries suffered in the sixth inning. Cameron is suffering from "knee irritation" and is day-to-day, while Braun says he's fine after fouling a ball off his leg.

Meanwhile, the Marlins will make a couple of roster moves before tonight's game. Cristhian Martinez, who won last night's game, has been optioned to AA to make room for Anibal Sanchez, who is expected to start tonight. They also optioned catcher Brett Hayes to AAA and are expected to recall Alejandro de Aza. (hat tips to Fish Chunks and TheJay in last night's recap)

Could Corey Hart be on the move? The Detroit Free Press mentioned a quote from Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe suggesting the Tigers might be one of several teams interested. Tom H.'s Twitter, however, said Doug Melvin called the notion "pure nonsense." Just another case of Cafardo being Cafardo.

Here's something cool from down in the minors: At The Old Ball Game has frame-by-frame photos of the delivery of Joshua Butler, who's quickly regaining prospect status this season.

Need your daily draft fix? Andy Seiler has a new mock draft of the first three rounds, and has the Brewers selecting RHP Drew Storen (Stanford), 3B Matt Davidson (California HS), RHP Alex Wilson (Texas A&M), SS Daniel Fields (Michigan HS), 2B Josh Kobernus (U. of California) and RHP Eric Smith (Rhode Island).

On Power Rankings:

Inside the Majors has the Brewers holding steady at #3.
Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star moved the Brewers up from ninth to sixth.
Foul Balls moved the Brewers down from third to fourth in the NL, but kept them at #6 overall.
WhatifSports moved the Brewers up from seventh to fifth.

The Brewers are asking you to help them make Miller Park a better place to watch a game, one belligerent drunk at a time. Follow this link to learn how to text security re: that douchebag in your section. Extra points for the first person who uses it to report/eject The Happy Youngster.

Around the league:

Giants: Designated reliever Pat Misch for assignment.
Indians: Released David Dellucci.
Mets: Placed Angel Pagan on the DL with a groin strain.
Phillies: Mike Koplove exercised a clause in his contract allowing him to become a free agent.

The Reds bullpen got a bit of a workout last night too. Edinson Volquez, in his first start back off the DL, left after one inning with numbness in his pinkie and ring fingers. Hal McCoy says Volquez is headed back to Cincinnati to get it checked out but does not believe it's serious.

Yesterday might have been Manny Acta's last game as manager of the Washington Nationals. Chico Harlan has a quote from Nats acting GM Mike Rizzo that he thinks implies Acta could be done.

Sean Berry, though, is back with the Astros after surgery to have cancer removed from his kidney. Good to see he's back and doing well.

If you're a frequent FanPoster (or would like to be), be sure to check out the new improvements to the FanPost editor, including the ability to autopromote your FanPost on your Twitter page.

Oh, and I only got four of the answers on Keith Law's stolen base quiz, but in my defense, I took it at 6:35 am.

Drink up.