SB Nation - Leo Rosales

The 2009 'Pitties: Single-game Performance of the Year

Jim McLennan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:18:48 -0000

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Petit tallies up the hits by Pittsburgh. He looks almost as startled as we were by the answer.

The first 'Pittie of the 2009 season proved to be one of the closest ballots in the history of the awards, with four of the options for Play of the Year each receiving between 19-24% of the vote, and the top two choices being tied as late as Wednesday afternoon, when 130 votes had been cast. However, the final few votes meant that the Play of the Year goes to the Triple-Play against the Dodgers. Josh Wilson's time with Arizona may have been short - only 11 games - but between this and his turn on the mound, it certainly had its share of memorable moments!

We now move on to the second category. After the jump, we'll revisit the five best single-game performances of the 2009 season by a Diamondback - and also see why, curiously, Roger Cedeno is connected to more than one of them! The links in the header go to the game recap, in a new browser window, so you can relive the performance there when considering your vote.

B-bullpen no-hits the Padres for nine straight frames, June 7 vs. SDP
This game was nearly an awful example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Leading 6-1 in the bottom of the ninth, Juan Gutierrez and Chad Qualls allowed five runs to blow the game. In extra innings, the offense didn't help, being blanked for eight straight frames before Mark Reynolds homered off pinch-pitcher Josh Wilson in the 18th. But fortunately for Arizona, Jon Rauch, Esmerling Vasquez, Clay Zavada + Leo Rosales were magnificent, allowing no hits from the 10th through the 18th, effectively pitching a no-hit complete game. Rosales finally got the win, retiring the last ten Padres.
Dan Haren goes fishing for Marlins, July 10 vs. FLA
The best-pitched game of the season by a Diamondback, as measured by Game Score, was Dan Haren's complete-game shutout of Florida just before the All-Star break [Haren had #2 and #3 on the list too]. It was also tied for the eighth-best Game Score in the National League this season. The four-hit gem featured one walk and ten strikeouts. After a single and wild pitch to lead off the game, the Marlins managed to get only one other runner past first-base the rest of the way. Haren also added a hit, driving in a run with an infield single in the fourth, and came around to score on a home-run by Felipe Lopez.

Yusmeiro Petit takes no-hitter into 8th inning, August 4 vs. PIT
Just for comparison, I don't think Brandon Webb has ever had a no-hitter through five innings, let alone allowing zero hits through the front seven. Of all the D-backs pitchers, you'd have got long odds against Petit coming closer to a no-hitter than anyone since the Big Unit's perfect game in 2004. But he completely blanked the Pirates offense, giving up only three walks before Roger Cedeno singled with no outs in the eighth. Petit retired the next three batters to finish strong, with eight shutout innings and threw 108 pitches, a dozen more than in any major-league game for his career.

Chris Young smacks three homers in a game, September 6 vs. COL
With homers in the second, sixth and eighth, Young became the eighth Diamondbacks to homer three times in a game. It was a startling performance as he'd only had two long balls in his previous fifty appearances combined, going all the way back to June 13th. According to Hit Tracker Online, the home-runs totaled 1,252 feet, almost a quarter-mile. Chris had a chance to go deep again in the ninth against Matt Herges, but the Rockies' hurler walked Young instead - not often you'll see a home pitcher being greeted with disapproval by the crowd for not giving up a home-run!
Justin Upton goes 5-for-5, September 16 vs. SDP
Upton became the 13th Diamondbacks to collect five hits in a game, and the first to do it on the road since Danny Bautista in April 2004 - that he did it in one of the most hitter-unfriendly parks in the league, Petco, makes the feat all the more impressive. He doubled in the first, singled in the fourth, and tripled in the sixth, giving him two chances at the cycle, but could 'only' single in the seventh and ninth. Just two players younger than Upton have gone 5-for-5 in a game, since Cal Ripken did it as a 21-year old in 1982 (Alex Rodriguez and Cedeno - yep, him again! - both in 1996).

Poll

What was the best single-game performance for Arizona in 2009?

B-bullpen no-hits the Padres for nine innings

38 votes

Haren's complete-game shutout of the Marlins

18 votes

Petit takes no-hitter of the Pirates into 8th

20 votes

Young hits three homers vs. the Rockies

13 votes

Upton goes 5-for-5 against the Padres

12 votes

101 votes | Poll has closed

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...

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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.

Your 2010 Diamondbacks: The First Projections

Jim McLennan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:43:32 -0000

More photos » by Paul Beaty - AP

Eric Byrnes and Chris Young - will they float, or will they sink?

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After a crappy season like the one just endured by Arizona fans, it's comforting to turn towards 2010, even before the line is officially drawn under 2009 - the playoffs have largely become a buzzing sound in the background, with the best I can hope for, being that a team I don't hate wins the World Series. Bill James is clearly with me there: as has become tradition, the Bill James Handbook is the first of the projection systems to throw its hat into the ring for next year, and the publishers, Acta Sports, were kind enough to give us a look at the numbers for Arizona.

Think of this as an early Christmas present - it's as much designed to whet the appetite for the 'real' numbers to come next April, as anything else. That's especially the case for a generally young team like Arizona where, generally, we are looking for our players' stats to improve, simply through experience and maturity. After the jump, we'll take a look at the numbers projected for the 25 players currently most likely to be on the 2010 Diamondbacks roster, and see whether there is a shiny new truck or a lump of coal waiting for us under the tree.

Obviously, these are astonishingly early projections, not just in terms of the numbers, but the playing time for the individuals concerned. Even I would be rash to try and project, for example, how the playing time in the outfied will be split up next season: the one just finished should be warning enough there [who had 120 games in their Gerardo Parra office pool?]. Hence, for each hitter below, I've listed the number of games projected, which will influence expectations for HR and RBI in particular. I've also given their 2009 OPS, for comparison - those marked with a * are based on less than 150 PAs. I've chosen the 13 position players I think are most likely to be significant parts for next season, and for whom we have projections.

	Gms	HR	RBI	OPS	2009
Brandon Allen	122	19	60	.823	*.669
Eric Byrnes	74	7	28	.735	.663
Stephen Drew	151	17	71	.792	.748
Conor Jackson	135	12	69	.807	*.516
Miguel Montero	132	18	69	.801	.832
Gerardo Parra	132	8	64	.779	.729
Mark Reynolds	153	40	107	.907	.892
Ryan Roberts	125	11	47	.785	.783
Rusty Ryal	50	4	15	764	*.946
Chris Snyder	78	9	34	.761	.685
Justin Upton	148	28	90	.904	.899
Josh Whitesell	46	4	13	.802	*.633
Chris Young	151	25	73	.789	.711

The most obvious omission is Tony Abreu, who was not listed - I think he's more likely to be on the Opening Day roster than Rusty Ryal. I also note that the games played may make sense for individuals, but do not necessarily do so in total. adding up the totals for Byrnes, Parra, Upton and Young, you get 505 games: even allowing for PH appearances, this pretty much maxes the outfield, without any room for Conor Jackson. Unless he's playing first, but Brandon Allen has 122 games there too... You see the issue, which is why I'm not going to bother adding up these numbers to reach any kind of team total.

Still, such caveats aside, this makes for encouraging reading on an individual level, with most players expected to improve their performance, or at least stay around the same level. As noted, this is no surprise, given most of our players are on the upside of the aging curve. James is particularly impressed by Allen, whose OPS is projected to be behind only Reynolds and Upton. That seems optimistic, though I am prejudiced by his struggles in 2009. Somewhat of a bounceback for Byrnes and Young: the former goes from entirely-sucky to poor, while the latter goes from fairly-sucky to about CF average [I like the idea of 25 homers], and is projected to outperform Parra, slightly.

Montero is the only player with any real regression, and the gap in performance over Snyder is expected to be much smaller, only forty points of OPS. Roberts, Reynolds and, perhaps surprisingly, Upton are projected to be very close to 2009 production. I say that for J-Up, mostly because of his age: he's only 22 and, generally, players will improve significantly at that point, and so projecting no change feels conservative. If you discount the first two weeks of last season, Upton's OPS the rest of the way was .930,. and that may be a better starting point for his 2010 number. However, if you look at the ten 21-year olds whose OPS was closest to Upton's [a list that includes seven Hall of Famers!], their OPS at age 22 dropped fractionally, by eight points, so maybe we shouldn't expect too much.

Here are the projected pitching numbers. As with the hitters, I've selected a dozen for whom projections are available, who would seem to have a good shot at the roster. I did include Davis, even though I expect him to sign elsewhere; I certainly hope that whoever we do get as a replacement, provides around the same level of performance projected below.

	IP	W-L	ERA	2009
Blaine Boyer	57	3-4	4.74	4.12
Billy Buckner	94	4-6	4.98	6.40
Daniel Cabrera	42	2-3	5.14	6.00
Doug Davis	202	11-12	4.46	4.12
Juan Gutierrez	68	3-4	4.76	4.06
Dan Haren	221	16-9	3.38	3.14
Yusmeiro Petit	105	6-6	4.37	5.82
Chad Qualls	50	3-2	3.42	3.63
Leo Rosales	47	3-2	3.83	4.76
Max Scherzer	180	11-9	3.80	4.12
Esmerling Vasquez	54	3-3	4.67	4.42
Brandon Webb	180	13-7	3.40	N/A

As with the hitters, there are a couple of names who appear unfairly omitted. Clay Zavada appears to have a bullpen spot locked down, and is more likely to be a part of the team in 2010 than Cabrera. - maybe Daniel Schlereth too, though there were no numbers available for him Bit more of a variation here than on the hitting; generally, the trend seems to be an overall regression towards the mean, with the good pitchers getting worse and the bad ones getting better. I would, however, be prepared to bet that Yusmeiro Petit will not have an ERA better than Doug Davis next season.

One major comfort is the expectation that Brandon Webb will return almost to his normal level of productivity - James gives Webb thirty starts, and an ERA almost identical to that projected in 2008 (3.39) and 2009 (3.36), so appears to have no qualms about the surgery - though s hard to say how much such things play into these estimates. The numbers have him and Haren forming an impressive 1-2 punch for Arizona: worth nothing that less than a handful of NL pitchers are forecast to win over 15 games [Lincecum, Wainwright, Santana].It seems the W-L records are, as usual, conservative; makes sense, since these things depend heavily on the runs scored by a pitcher's team-mates.

I would project Buckner and Gutierrez to do better than the James numbers; on the other hand, Petit and Rosales will be doing very well if they can produce as expected. It's good to see James sees Scherzer as improving next year. If he joins Dan and Brandon at 3.80 or below, that would put us in very good shape, since only two teams in the majors had three such qualifying starters in 2009 (the Cubs and Cardinals), and few played in a hitter-friendly park like Chase. Finally, in case you're counting, adding up those W-L records gives us a total of 145 decisions and a team record of 78-67. I think we'd settle for that at the middle of September next year.

For the full projections, which are a lot more detailed than the numbers here, and for all the other goodies therein, you'll need to buy the book. It comes out on November 1st from Acta Sports and can be ordered through their website.

September: A Gurgling Vortex of Suckitude in Review

Jim McLennan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:30:14 -0000

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

When I search for Leo Rosales, AP gives me two photos - one of which is actually Clay Zavada. Poor Leo. So, here's the other one.

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An 8-18 record. Only 3.77 runs per game. A -41 run differential. Pretty much the worst month for the team since June 2006, when we went 8-20 and were -72 in runs - though even there, we scored four runs per game. The offense in particular was phoning in its performance, with a line of .247/.314/.393, an OPS of only .707. While a little better than April's .703, that was partly-based on a low BABIP figure of .265. In September, the figure was .300. League average for both was .298, so the team wasn't unlucky last month - they flat-out sucked.

This is not what you want at the end of the season. What you want are some nuggets of hope, onto which you can cling through the long, dark winter - a sense that better things are just around the corner for your team. September was not such a month. The only comfort to be drawn is that the Mets and Pirates both had a worse time of it, going 8-20. I don't know about you but, "we sucked fractionally less than Pittsburgh" is not the final thought I want to take away from the 2009 season. After the jump, we'll see if we can find any heroes, and also name some names...

Heroes

Few and far between this month: to get five, I had to lower the bar significantly compare to previous months. Therefore, you should think of the following, not perhaps as those who played particularly well, but more those who didn't blow quite as many chunks as their team-mates.

Billy Buckner: 30.1 IP, 31 H, 10 BB, 26 K, 13 ER, 3.86 ERA
The addition of a cut-fastball to Buckner's armory appeared to turn him from the sub-replacement pitcher we saw at the start of the year [an 8.63 ERA in his first 40.2 innings], to being perhaps the foremost candidate for the #5 starter's spot next season. Stilll a work in progress, he needs to keep the ball down if he's to be effective.

Miguel Montero: .310/.372/.452, 3 HR, 9 RBI
The last few games will decide whether Montero can hit .300 on the year - he currently sits at .299 - but he posted his third straight month above that line in September. Though his power was down, from 11 doubles to three, Montero took a season-high number of walks, leading to a year's best OBP of .372.

Leo Rosales: 11.2 IP, 12 H, 3 BB, 5 K, 4 ER, 3.09 ERA
Not a great month for the bullpen, who burbled their way to a collective 5.35 ERA in September. The only other reliever with five innings and an ERA under 4.80 was Gutierrez at 3.86, so Rosales deserves credit. He has got his ERA back to near-league average with a good couple of months, and seems we could do worse at the back of the 2010 bullpen.

Max Scherzer: 31 IP, 24 H, 12 BB, 24 K, 12 ER, 3.48 ERA
We were concerned about Max wearing down at the end of the season, but he proved to be our most effective starter in September, though you wouldn't know it from his 1-3 record. He did allow six home-runs over the month, but all of them were solo shots. For a 25-year old in his sophomore season, he's had a solid year.

Chris Young: .266/.343/.500, 6 HR, 10 RBI
Probably the brightest note on offense was the return to form of Young, who had the best OPS of anyone with 30 PAs. Even putting aside the power-surge, including three HR in one game, his .266 average has been bettered by Young only once since May 2007. If he can carry that into 2010, it'll be a significant help to the team.

Villains

A special, extended edition of this section, thanks to a pitching staff whose ERA was 15th in the league at 5.24, and hitters ranked 14th by runs scored. A special note on the offense. At .750 and .670, two of our starting pitchers, Billy Buckner and Dan Haren, each had better OPS numbers in September than all of the following batters.

Brandon Allen: .188/.282/.377, 3 HR, 9 RBI
First baseman of the future? Not on September's performance, which also included 25 strikeouts in 69 at-bats. Manager AJ Hinch thinks Allen panics with two strikes: "I think he gets in-between pitches. He worries about the breaking ball...and gets a little jumpy with the fastball... His strike-zone judgment is actually pretty good... I think that over time that will allow him to be a better two-strike hitter."

Doug Davis: 26.1 IP, 42 H, 14 BB, 16 K, 20 ER, 6.84 ERA
If Davis is pitching for a big free-agent contract, you wouldn't know it. That's his worst ERA for any month with more than one start in over eight years, since a 7.71 ERA in three April 2001 games. Opponents hit .375 off Davis in September. He wasn't helped by a .415 BABIP - but nor was he helped by a K:BB ratio perilously close to even.

Stephen Drew: .240/.294/.350, 1 HR, 6 RBI
I remember at the break, we were hoping for the same second-half surge we got from Drew in 2008. It hasn't happened, with a 50-point drop in his OPS since the break, though this month was better than May for Drew. Could the problem be his removal from the lead-off spot? There, he hits .305, eighty points higher than in the two-hole.

Kevin Mulvey: 23 IP, 23 H, 12 BB, 18 K, 18 ER, 7.04 ERA
Not looking like one of Byrnes' best trades. Jon Rauch has a 2.08 ERA for the Twins, and picked up as many victories in his first two games there, as during his entire time in Arizona. Mulvey, meanwhile has been hit hard - five home-runs in September, a Petit-esque rate. Those and the walks are what have hurt his overall numbers.

Yusmeiro Petit: 11.1 IP, 15 H, 5 BB. 10 K, 10 ER, 7.94 ERA
Speaking of Petit-esque... Here's the real deal, showing how it should be done, with three home-runs in this brief stint. Part of the problem is, seven of the last eight HR allowed have come with men on base; in his first 25 career homers, 20 were solo shots. Insane fly-ball rate + Chase Field = may end up not being present on the 2010 roster.

Mark Reynolds: .187/.286/.363, 4 HR, 11 RBI
Special K just doesn't like September. His career OPS for the month is .751 - the next-lowest is more than 60 points better. He probably wasn't helped by a BABIP of .250 - he has been anywhere from .319 to .396 the rest of the season, averaging .338. Srikeouts and walks remained remakably consistent, but it does seem he is flagging at the end of a long, largely memorable, season.

Ryan Roberts: .224/.298/.303, 1 HR, 5 RBI
RR's roller-coaster year continues: in the four months with 50+ PAs, his OPS has been .933, .396, 1.004 and .600 - no month within four hundred points of the next. Maybe we only need to play him in months that end in a Y? He had the lowest OPS of anyone with more than twenty PAs, and did little to solidify his claim on a starting-role next year.

Poll

Who was the Diamondbacks' Player of the Month for September?

Billy Buckner

14 votes

Miguel Montero

29 votes

Leo Rosales

1 votes

Max Scherzer

2 votes

Chris Young

26 votes

72 votes | Poll has closed

Diamondbacks 7, Rockies 5: From Dusk Till Dawn

DbacksSkins — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:38:52 -0000

More photos » by AARON J. LATHAM - AP

Dbacks color guy Matt Williams' sporadic dip into statistical language tonight can mean only one thing: Hell might be freezing over, and Jason Marquis' 2009 deal with the devil might be finished.

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Record: 65-83 Pace: 71-91 Change on last season: -8

The Dbacks came one game closer to winning the NL Wild Card tonight, knocking the Rockies off a game and bringing themselves within 19 games of the WC leader with 14 left to play. No, but seriously, the Diamondbacks continued to play the Rockies tough in 2009, bringing the season series between the teams to 7-9, but needing to win the next two games in order to overcome that ugly sweep in Coors two weekends ago and earn a season split.

After getting off to a rough, Kevin Mulvey-driven start, the Diamondbacks rallied for a come-from-behind victory and held on to win against the Colorado Rockies. Brandon Allen had a two-run, game-tying homer, Ryan Roberts had two hits, two walks, and a solo shot of his own, Stephen Drew decided to read Jim's article and had two line-drive singles, Gerardo Parra had a two-RBI double off the glove of Brad Hawpe, and Mulvey and the bullpen combined to allow only 1 run after the 3rd inning. Details, as always, after the jump.

Kevin Mulvey started out his second major league start by giving up a double to Carlos Gonzalez, a former Dbacks farmhand who hit a homer off him in his Dbacks debut last week. After getting Snakekiller Seth Smith out on a fly ball and Todd Helton on a grounder, it appeared as though he might escape without damage. However, consecutive walks to the Tool and Rockies All Star Brad Hawpe loaded the bases for Yorvit Torrealba, who is currently hitting over 1.00 with RISP. (Seriously. He's like 18-16 or something) Torrealba lined a single to CY in center. BAM! Rox 2, Dbacks 0. Mulvey struck out Ian Stewart to end the threat and advance to the bottom.

However, the Dbacks were facing mighty Jason ZOMGZ USED TO BE LEEDING THE NL IN WINZ!!! Marquis, (Not to be confused with ZOMGZSanchez) who promptly gave a run back. Chris Young singled to lead off the bottom, Stephen Drew followed with a single of his own, but Justin Upton, the best hitter on the team, tried to lay down a bunt, presumably for a hit. He was tagged out, and one has to wonder why, exactly, he would do such a thing. In retrospect, it ended up paying off as a sac bunt, as Miguel Montero drove the ball deep to RF to bring in CY on an arc that nearly left the park. Mark Reynolds, who finished 0-3 but with a walk, popped out to end the inning.

The teams traded 0's in the second, which was probably slightly less impressive for Mulvey, who was facing the Rockies' 8, 9, and leadoff hitters. After issuing a 2 out walk to his nemesis, Carlos Gonzalez, a terrible jump and a strong throw by Miguel Montero caught CarGon trying to steal 2nd for the 3rd out. In the bottom of the inning, Gerardo Parra reciprocated by erasing his own leadoff walk on a CS, and after a Ryan Roberts walk, Brandon Allen and Mulvey struck out to end it. In the third, Mulvey continued his "2 on, 2 off, 2 on, 2 off" pattern by allowing a single to Smith and a homer to short left by Tulowitzki, and Marquis struck out the Dbacks' 1-2-3 hitters in the bottom of the inning. Sign of things to come?

Um, no. Mulvey followed with his own 3-up, 3-down inning, and Miggy led off the bottom of the 4th with a deep double. Reynolds bounced into a very strange play where Miggy took off for 3rd, thought better of it, then slid back into 2nd. Meanwhile, Toolo fielded the ball but, seeing Miggy running right in front of him, ran towards him to get the out, before realizing that he needed to toss it to Clint Barmes instead, who completely miffed the tag. First and second, no outs.

The no out situation was quickly rectified by Gerardo Parra, who did one of the two things he does best: grounded into a double play, erasing Mark at 2nd but sending Miggy to 3rd. Roberts, however, singled with a liner of his own to score Montero, and Brandon Allen flexed his muscles, sending a 3-2 pitch low in the zone out onto the pool deck in right center and tying the game, for his 4th home run of his brief rookie season. Trent Oeltjen pinch hit for Mulvey but struck out. Following the game, AJ Hinch commented that if the Dbacks had still been behind his next time up, Mulvey would have hit for himself, but with a tie game and a chance to win it, he opted to bring in the bullpen.

At the time, the decision to bring in Daniel Schlereth was met by a collective groan in the Snakepit Gameday Thread, as Dbacks fans everywhere penned their suicide notes. Son of Stink responded by pitching two perfect 1-2-3 innings in a row, while the Dbacks wasted offensive opportunities in the 5th and 6th. A 2 out Upton double went for naught in the 5th, as did two 1-out walks and one 2-out walk in the 6th, when the New And Improved Chris Young reverted to Old And Fail Chris Young, popping out to Barmes with the bases juiced.

Leo Rosales pitched a perfect 7th for the *SPOILER ALERT* win, and the Dbacks finally broke through against the Rockies' bullpen in the bottom. Manager Jim Tracy brought in LOOGY Randy Flores, who promptly gave up another line-drive single to Droo into LF. Tracy pulled his lefty for a righty, who got two quick K's of Upton and Montero before Reynolds showed remarkable patience in drawing a full-count walk. Parra came to bat again, and did that OTHER thing he does really well, by getting a double with RISP -- well, maybe we should call this a "Coors Field double". The deep fly ball to RF bounced off the tip of Hawpe's glove, bounced off the wall, and rolled around to give Droo and Reynolds time to score. Parra was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple for the 3rd out, but the Dbacks had their first lead over Colorado since the 6th inning of the first game in the Coors sweep.

Hinch brought in Scott Schoeneweis for a perfect 8th, and Power Hitter Ryan Roberts led off the bottom with his 7th home run of the season, in a sign that it might just be Arizona's night.

Juan Gutierrez, the Dbacks' de facto closer, pitched himself out of a sticky situation in the 9th for his 6th save. Gutierrez walked Hawpe to lead off and gave up consecutive singles to Torrealba and Stewart to make it 7-5, allowing only his 2nd run of the last 13 innings. With no outs and runners on 1st and 2nd, Gutierrez responded by striking out pinch hitters Jason Giambi and Garret Atkins and getting CarGon to pop out harmlessly to Miggy to end it.

It was a game that got pretty dark, pretty quickly, but the Arizona side fought their way back for another comeback win, and have now taken 3 of 4 after going 1-9 in their previous 10. After allowing 5 earned runs in 3 of his last 4 starts against the powerful Giants, Mets, and Padres offenses, Jason ZOMGWINZ Marquis rebounded against the Dbacks to give up merely 4 earned over 6. Mulvey, on the other hand, preserved his perfect Mark Grace-esque ERA of 9.00, a trend we'll be glad to see end eventually... hopefully.

[Click to enlarge, at fangraphs.com]
Badass of the Day: Ryan Roberts, +19.0%
Also mavericky: Parra, +16.9%; Schlereth, +14.5%; Allen, +13.4%
Boarding the bus to Reno: Kevin Mulvey, -21.7%
Should have stayed in bed: Chris Young, -12.3%

Pretty typical come-from-behind WP graph, with the Dbacks coming back from about an 80% chance to lose in the 4th inning. Also, the Diamondbacks got into Taco Territory for the first time in September, with a run to spare, no less. Oh joy!

In the gameday thread, which ended up with nearly 660 comments, the top poster was.... well, me, with soco coming in second with 156. NASCARbernet (63) and Jim (62) were the next two, and the only other posters with more than 47. Commenters included kishi, 4 Corners Fan, DbacksSkins, katers, friendly visiting fan coolopotamous, soco, AcucracK, snakecharmer, hotclaws, Jim McLennan, emilylovesthedbacks, eel, luckycc, asteroid, NASCARbernet, mrssoco, jazzbo13, piratedan7, Scrbl, and Wailord. Our GDT was narrowly pipped by Purple Row's, who outcommented us 664-657. (Note that both GDT's were narrowly pipped by Purple Row's Overflow Thread, with an additional 795 comments. Oh well, you win some, you lose some?)

Normal 5:10PM saturday start tomorrow, with young Mad Max Scherzer facing off against young Jason "Kinda Looks Like A Monkey" Hammel. Will the Dbacks win to take the series and keep the hopes alive of a season split? Or will the Rockies drive another stake into the hearts of the Giants? Will more random Rockies-eating bears show up in the Gameday Thread? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Kemp & Ethier Rule The Day For Dodgers

Eric Stephen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:06:04 -0000

More photos » by Matt Sayles - AP

Andre Ethier made a spectacular catch to preserve the lead in the top of the eighth inning tonight.

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Matt Kemp stole the show early, and Andre Ethier saved the Dodgers late, holding off the Diamondbacks 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in the second game of their four-game series.

Kemp homered in the first, then singled and stole second in the third, scoring when a throw from rightfielder Justin Upton hit Kemp at second base. Kemp motored around third, scoring easily, a la Kirk Gibson. This was the third game of the season in which Kemp had both a home run and a stolen base.

Kemp has also homered in four straight games and five of his last six, giving him a career high 23 on the season. Is a 30/30 season in reach? It sure looks like it.

Vicente Padilla was solid, giving up only a run in 5.1 innings. Early on, it looked like his night would be a short one, as he loaded the bases with nobody out in the first inning. However, he gave up just one run that inning, retiring 16 of the final 19 batters he faced.

Scott Elbert, on his first day back up with the big club, gave up two runs in the sixth to tie the game, but the Diamondbacks would score no more off the Dodger bullpen. Ronald Belisario picked up his third win of the year, pitching 1.1 scoreless innings, although he did allow an inherited run to score.

Justin Upton, who rivals Kemp for the title of best young outfielder in baseball, had three hits in five at-bats for the second straight game. Upton has been unbelievable over his last 20 games, hitting .427/.489/.756 with 20 runs scored and 18 driven in. He has reached the point where I don't want him batting against the Dodgers in any situation, yet I can't turn away when he's at the plate.

Andre Ethier drove in the go-ahead run in the bottom of the seventh with a bases-loaded walk, and then saved the Dodgers' bacon in the top of the eighth with a wonderful running catch at the wall in right field, saving at least a game-tying double, if not more, by Brandon Allen.

Jonathan Broxton picked up his 30th save on the season, becoming just the fifth Dodger to do so, joining Eric Gagne (three times), Todd Worrell (three times), Jeff Shaw (twice), and Takashi Saito. Broxton has struck out 13 of the last 28 batters he has faced.

Hiroki Kuroda pitched five innings for Class A Inland Empire tonight, and per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, is tentatively slated to start Sunday night against San Diego.

Chad Billingsley faces off against Max Scherzer tomorrow night. Jim Thome is expected to be activated tomorrow, and although the corresponding move hasn't yet been announced, Beto Duran of ESPN 710 noted that Travis Schlichting was placed on the 60-day disabled list to make room on the 40-man roster. However, that move has not yet been announced.

UPDATE: Schlichting to the 60-day DL has been reported by Jim Peltz and Kurt Streeter of the LA Times.

WP -Ronald Belisario (3-3): 1.1 IP, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout

LP -Leo Rosales (1-1): 1.1 IP, 2 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 1 strikeout

Sv - Jonathan Broxton (30): 1 IP, 1 hit, 2 strikeouts

Box Score

Nationals 9, Diamondbacks 2: Decaffeinated Dbacks Defeated in DC

DbacksSkins — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:59:38 -0000

More photos » by Nick Wass - AP

Mark Reynolds tied Albert Pujols for the Major League lead in home runs, but also had a throwing error.

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We returned you to your regularly scheduled Yusmeiro Petit starts today, as the Petit Unit allowed 4 runs (3 earned) in just 4 innings pitched to get the loss and break his own brief scoreless inning streak. However, Petit wasn't even close to being entirely to blame; he had some help from some vintage early-season clutch hitting and defense, while once again, the Dbacks scored all their runs via the longball. A piss-poor bullpen outing from Scott Schoeneweis, didn't help, either, nor did an easy caught-stealing call.

Story after the jump.

The Arizona Diamondbacks turned in an all-around lethargic and sloppy performance today in a rather sad way to end what had otherwise been a pretty decent road trip. After taking 3 of 4 at the Mets and sweeping 3 games from the Pirates, the Dbacks found themselves on the other end of a sweep, as the Washington Nationals took a 3 game set from Arizona in Washington, DC.

It all started off so well, too! New Snakepit favorite Trent Oeltjen led off his 3rd career major league game with a line drive solo home run barely into the Nationals' bullpen to give the Dbacks a quick 1-0 lead. Pretty good start against a guy who came in with a 7.16 ERA, right? However, the lead rapidly evaporated, as Petit allowed a 2-out ground rule double to Ryan Zimmerman (his first of two), followed by a towering home run from Adam Dunn, and the Nats took a 2-1 lead they would never relinquish.

Neither team scored in the 2nd, although former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez doubled and Petit gave up a single for J.D. Martin's first career hit. In the 3rd, the Nationals began to pull away. Oeltjen beat out a 2 out infield single in the top of the inning, but was easily gunned down trying to steal 2nd base with Ryan Roberts at the plate. In the bottom, Zimmerman led off with his 2nd double of the game, Dunn popped out, and after intentionally walking Josh Willingham, Chris Snyder quickly caught Willingham off the bag. It was a pretty fortunate out, as Petit next uncorked a wild pitch, sending Zimmerman to 3rd. With a chance for Petit to escape the inning unscathed, Elijah Dukes hit a very sharp grounder that ate up Mark Reynolds, bouncing off his glove and over his head into left field. Some 3B might have made that play, but to be fair, it was rightly ruled a hit, as Zimmerman came home to score the last run the Nationals would need. Nationals w/ RISP: 2-4 on the day.

Things looked slightly rosier in the top of the 4th, when Reynolds drew the first of his 2 walks with 2 outs in the inning, followed by a Chad Tracy single, but Chris Snyder flied out. Dbacks w/ RISP: 0-1 on the day. In the bottom of the inning, Petit got two quick outs, and should have pitched a scoreless frame, but Nyjer Morgan singled, stole 2B, and then Cristian Guzman slapped an infield "single" to Reynolds. Guzman may or may not have been safe anyway, but Mark's rushed throw to first allowed Morgan to score as it went by Tracy and to the fence. Nats w/ RISP: 3-6.

The Diamondbacks REALLY squandered opportunities in the 5th and 6th. In the top of the 5th, Alex Romero led off with a single, followed by Chris Young's double with no outs. However, Josh Whitesell popped up for Yusmeiro Petit, (Muchas graciás, said Petit in the dugout) Oeltjen bounced a swinging bunt straight to Martin, and Ryan Roberts grounded out to 2B. Dbacks w/ RISP: 0-4. In the 6th, Stephen Drew and Reynolds drew no-out walks against new Nationals pitcher Tyler Clippard, but Riggleman replaced Clippard with Jason Bergmann, who got Tracy to fly out and Snyder to ground into an inning-killing double-play. Dbacks w/ RISP: 0-6.

Clay Zavada came on and pitched a perfect 5th but had a rough 6th, going single, popout, single, walk, to load the bases with 1 out. AJ Hinch pulled 'Stache for Leo Rosales, who threw 6 straight balls to walk in one of Zavada's baserunners. Rosales then calmed down, getting Zimmerman to ground back to the mound to choke off the run at home, while new catcher Miguel Montero inexplicably threw to 3rd after realizing there was no play at 1st. The decision didn't hurt, as Dunn struck out. Nats w/ RISP: 3-8.

More of the same scoringFAIL for the Dbacks in the 7th, as Romero led off with a single and was immediately killed by Chris Young's GIDP. CY seems to have a unique ability to hit a ground ball JUST when we needed him to strike out or pop up, since the next two batters singled but were stranded by Roberts' K. Dbacks w/ RISP: 0-7. Rosales had a perfect bottom of the inning.

Despite Mark Reynolds' best effort, it went from being a 4 run game to a 7 run game after the Dreaded Eighth Inning (TM). Mark's solo shot with one out made it 5-2 and tied him with Albert Pujols for the most home runs in the majors, but Chad Tracy's subsequent single was erased when Gerardo Parra, pinch hitting for Leo Rosales, grounded into a double play, practically jogging down the line to 1B while doing his best Felipe Lopez impression.

In the bottom, AJ Hinch inexplicably pulled a truly Melvinesque move in bringing in Scott Schoeneweis to face four right-handed batters, a switch-hitter, and one lefty. By now, the results were all too predictable, and CY decided to get in on the action, too: Single; Groundout; Single about 2 feet in front of CY and bobbled; stolen base; single to CY; error on CY; single; sacrifice bunt. Hinch finally pulled Schoeneweis with the score 7-2 and runners on 2nd and 3rd. He lasted for 2 outs, and one of those was a gimme on a sac bunt. Blaine Boyer decided to clear the table, not wanting to have to deal with inherited runners, so he quickly gave up a walk and a single to allow two more of Schoeneweis' runs to score before finally getting the 3rd out. Clearly eager to get on the plane and leave the Nationals' House of Horrors, the Dbacks obediently went down in order in the 9th.

Nobody had a particularly good game today. Trent Oeltjen had an infield single and solo homer, and finished 3-4, but was caught stealing and had an error assessed against him. Reynolds had two walks and another home run, but also an error. Tracy and Romero each had two hits, while Montero and CY(!!) had a hit each and Drew drew a walk. Yusmeiro Petit's ERA went from 5.81 to 5.87; Clay Zavada's went from 2.97 to 3.13; and Scott Schoeneweis' went from 6.63 to 8.24. The team cranked out 10 hits yet only scored 2 runs, partly due to going 0-7 with runners in scoring position and partly because of THREE double plays grounded into.

Something tells me the Dbacks are glad to be on the flight back to Phoenix about now.

Badass of the day: Mark Reynolds, +10.0%

Boarding the bus to Reno: Yusmeiro Petit, -21.5%

Should have stayed in bed: Chris Snyder, -16.3%; Ryan Roberts, -13.4%

Present and accounted for in the Gameday thread were.... well, some guy who had the most comments, and then soco, snakecharmer and Wailord coming in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively. Other posters included Azreous, myself, ZonaBacks10, 4 Corners Fan, drvnlow, mrssoco, katers, TwinnerA, kishi, pygalgia, Zephon, Jim McLennan, unnamedDBacksfan, Gravity, rapdawg, and emilylovesthedbacks.

Diamondbacks Mid-Term Report Card

Jim McLennan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:34:39 -0000

More photos » by Matt York - AP

Clay Zavada - surely a lock for Most Valuable Mustache of 2009.

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As we head towards the second-half of the season, it seems like a good time to review the major players in the first half of the season and grade them according to their performance. A couple of things to note before we go into the 25 chosen ones: I'm grading on a curve, with a C basically meaning they performed at league average for their position. More recent performances are also weighted more heavily, and adjustments then made for intangibles such as expectations, salary, etc. - even at the same position, we expect more out of Drew than Ojeda, say.

If the overall marks seem somewhat high, this is because a number of players, some of whom had significant impact on team performance, could not be assigned grades. I'm being somewhat generous there, since in certain educational establishments, these would be automatic F's...

Sick notes: Conor Jackson, Brandon Webb.
Incomplete: Bryan Augenstein, Blaine Boyer, Alex Romero, Doug Slaten, Josh Whitesell.
Expelled: Tony Clark, Josh Wilson.
Transferred to another school district: Tony Peña

Basic stats for position players are OPS+ and UZR (combined across positions if necessary); for pitchers, I'm using ERA+ and WHIP. Follow me after the jump for the report-card - you'll see why it took a little longer than I thought to produce! And I expect to see it back on my desk, signed by the players' parents, by Monday morning, or else some of you will be staying after school...

Top of the class
Dan Haren, A+, 226 ERA+, 0.808 WHIP
As noted previously, Haren had one of the best first-halfs in franchise history, posting an astonishing ERA of 2.01 and an even-better WHIP. He could easily have had thirteen or fourteen victories by this stage. Yes, the BABIP is freakishly-low, and we should probably expect some regression going forward. However, there's little evidence he'll stop being among the best pitchers in the National League.

Dean's list
Justin Upton, A, 134 OPS+, UZR 8.8
Expectations were high for J-Up coming in to 2009, but I think it's safe to say that he has surpassed them all, with one of the best seasons in recent history by a player his age [only A-Rod, Griffey and Pujols have posted a better OPS+ since 1981]. And look at that UZR: while he still makes too many silly error, the metric ranks him the second-best fielder on the roster.

Doug Davis, A-, 133 ERA+, 1.440 WHIP
Perhaps the most unexpected pleasant surprise of the season is DD, whom we thought would return his usual ERA in the mid-fours. Heck, no - and the weird thing is, his BABIP is .303, so it's not as if he has been 'lucky'. Indeed, quite the opposite as far as his 4-9 W-L record goes: that's the lowest Win % of any pitcher in the past century with such a good ERA+ [since Ned Garvin, 5-16 with a 158 ERA+ in 1904]

Gold stars
Mark Reynolds, B+, 125 OPS+, -5.5 UZR
Special K certainly stepped up his production on both sides of his nickname, tying for second in the majors for home-runs (24), but leading all players in strikeouts (123) and on pace to break his previous all-time record by 20. However, his output overall was excellent and, despite ongoing issues with his glove, he also deserves credit for speaking up and apparently becoming a clubhouse leader to many.

Max Scherzer, B+, 124 ERA+, 1.349 WHIP
Question-marks about Max's stamina seem largely to have been answered, with Scherzer going six or more innings in the majority (ten of 17) of his appearances. His strikeout rate is down a little compared to last season, but hard to complain when it's still more than a batter per inning. Perhaps most encouraging, third-time through the lineup, batters hit .221 of Scherzer, though this is BABIP-assisted.

Solid performances
Clay Zavada, B, 269 ERA+, 1.500 WHIP
A great story, Zavada's fairy-tale reached its "happy ever after" on May 21 when he made his major-league debut. But wait! There's more! He then went on to post the longest scoreless streak to open a career in franchise history. While he's doubtlessly overachieving tremendously - I don't expect him to post anything close to a 1.69 ERA in the second-half - he's a joy to watch, pitching or not.

Gerardo Parra, B-, 94 OPS+, 1.1 UZR
Called up from Double-A due to the Jackson and Byrnes injuries, he's performed pretty well. He has the best BA of any NL rookie with 200+ PAs, and trails only Colby Rasmus of the Cardinals in OPS. So far, he's certainly among the best outfielders his age (he only turned 22 in May) regularly playing the majors this year. If he could learn to hit lefties (.178 BA), he'd be golden.

Felipe Lopez, B-, 101 OPS+, 3.8 UZR
Lopez is like the super-brainy kid who cruises through tests without actually bothering to try. He always gives the impression he could do better, but really, what's the point? However, his production is pretty close to that of Orlando Hudson (OPS+ 106) and Lopez's defense - a cause for concern pre-season - is actually much better (O-Dawg's UZR is -5.3). Still, a transfer to another district may happen soon.

Stephen Drew, C+, 98 OPS+, -0.6 UZR
I'm tempted to append "Must try harder" to the grade, since great things were expected after his 2008 season (110 OPS+). He hasn't lived up to that, though I wonder if injury played a part, as he has been better since coming back off the DL (OPS .795 vs. .666). We'll be hoping for the same second-half explosion we saw last year: his current OPS is almost the same as at this point in 2008.

Middle of the pack
Jon Rauch, C+, 105 ERA+, 1.387 WHIP
The archetypal bad kid appears to have turned over a new leaf, after starting off the year looking destined for an F. From a 9.00 ERA on May 4, he has slashed that figure in half, thanks to a 2.12 ERA over 17.1 innings since the start of June. Of course, he still has a poor reputation and his previous crimes and misdemeanors will not easily be forgotten. yet there's been more good than bad from him.

Scott Schoeneweis, C, 84 ERA+, 1.600 WHIP
The dog ate Scott's homework. Actually, there are far better excuses which should be applied in mitigation of his performance. One, we needn't go into. However, his stats would be a lot better if he faced strictly left-handers: their OPS against him is .686; right-handed batters post a 1.059 OPS. It's been more or less like that since 2007, so why he ever sees righties, beats me.

Jon Garland, C, 100 ERA+, 1.500 WHIP
When he's good, he's very good, but when he's bad... In 18 appearances, he's allowed one earned run or less seven times, but has also had four games allowing six or more earned runs. Not much middle ground for Jon, though averaging over six innings per start is pretty good. Guess his performance is much in line with what we expected, given a career ERA+ of 103.

Miguel Montero, C, 94 OPS+, N/A UZR
He's like the kid who gets a pass because his brother's the quarterback, then suddenly discovers that cuts no ice with the SATs: as our backup, Montero had a not-exactly great line of 225/344/.353, teetering on the edge of a failing grade. Maybe Miggy just needed a challenge, because he has surged at the plate since Snyder went down, pulling him up to average. Keep up the improvement, please.

Chad Qualls, C, 125 ERA+, 1.179 WHIP
Normally, that good an ERA would deserve a higher mark. But since May 25th, he has blown three saves in eight chances, and the only warm feeling we get when he enters the game is if he makes us lose control of our bladders. He has fallen in with a bad crowd - that'd be the rest of the bullpen - and is staying out late and skipping classes. Worrying signs for a parent: he's better than this.

Needs improvement
Chris Snyder, C-, 90 OPS+, N/A UZR
General wisdom is Snyder is a better game-caller than Montero. Yet with Montero/Garland this year, opponents have a .676 OPS, much less than Snyder/Garland (.922). Maybe Chase Field isn't the problem? [Haren pitches better with Snyder, Davis is catcher-neutral, and Scherzer also seems to prefer Miggy] At the plate, Snyder still walks a lot, but a .224 average is his worst since 2005.

Esmerling Vasquez, D+, 93 ERA+, 1.618 WHIP
Interesting reverse split for the young right-hander: lefties hit .200 off him, while righties hit .343, the opposite of what we would have expected, though all three home-runs allowed were by southpaws. However, it's could well just be BABIP, where his split is .426/.200, so I'd expect things to even out over time. Too many walks - 15 in 29.2 innings - doesn't help.

Leo Rosales, D+, 89 ERA+, 1.189 WHIP
Weird numbers for Rosales: opponents hit .227 with only one homer,. Basically, he had one bad inning, where he walked four of five batters, leading to three earned runs - outside of that, his ERA was 3.78, including 3.1 hitless frames in the 18-inning marathon against the Padres. While that's more an explanation than anything else, might he be worth another shot?

Juan Gutierrez, D, 90 ERA+, 1.594 WHIP
Turned 26 yesterday, and while his raw 'stuff' continues to be there (45 K's in 42.2 IP), his ability to control it isn't (21 BB). He has also been a fly-ball pitcher: his GO/AO ratio is the worst on the team at 0.62 - league average is 1.10 - as is a 24% line-drive percentage. That's not generally a sign of success at Chase, but he has somehow kept the ball in the park, with just one homer this season. Could go either way.

Augie Ojeda, D, 56 OPS+, 1.9 UZR
While we can't fault Augie's effort, and some aspects of his game, such as his defense, are credible enough, the truth is he has been badly overmatched at the plate this season. His career OPS+ is only 63 and he has fallen short of that, hitting only .221 with a single home-run. At age 34, I've a feeling the next few months could be Augie's last hurrah on a major-league roster.

Ryan Roberts, D-, 76 OPS+, 1.0 UZR
I don't know what Roberts had for breakfast on May 9, but whatever it was, worked. From then through June 2, he was on fire, hitting .438 (21-for-48). Then, as soon as it began, it ended, and he went 3-for-40 before being called to the principal's office and told he was being held back a grade. It was nice while it lasted, but overall, you could see why he still qualified as a rookie at age 28.

Fail
Chad Tracy, F, 72 OPS+, -1.5 UZR
Tracy has not been the same man after coming back from knee surgery last May. Prior to it, his career OPS+ was 105 - since then, it's 79. The odds of the team picking up the $7m option for next season look pretty slim, especially as he's strictly platoon fodder (career OPS vs. LHP: .619). Chalk up another victim to the Curse of the Contract Extension: see also the next two 'scholars'.

Chris Young, F, 68 OPS+, -2.9 UZR
Despite recent signs of life - his OBP is .390 since June 1 - the season's batting average still sits resolutely beneath the Uecker line. Since the game was integrated in 1947, only five qualifying players have been sub-.200 over a full season (most recently Rob Deer, who hit .179 in 1991); we don't want CY to be #6. UZR thinks his defense has fallen off this year too - he was +0.5 in 2008.

Eric Byrnes, F, 63 OPS+, 10.7 UZR
No, that UZR is no mistake: by it, he's the best fielder on the team. However, it's almost irrelevant when his OPS+ barely beats out Ojeda, and Eric earnd almost $11m more [autograph shows and TV residuals not included]. That ranks Byrnes 235th among the 241 major-leaguers with 200 PAs this year, and his 22% infield fly rate would be 4th among qualifying hitters, if he had enough playing time.

Billy Buckner, F, 53 ERA+, 1.770 WHIP
Yusmeiro Petit, F, 57 OPS+, 1.758 WHIP
We'll give the third member of the Triple-Headed Beast of Webb Replacement Suck, Bryan Augenstein, a pass - he was called up from Double-A, so his struggle was no surprise. No such excuse for these two: the team went 3-11 in their fourteen combined starts. We would probably have had better results asking Webb to pitch left-handed. Get well soon, Brandon. Please...

Poll

Who was our MVP in the first half?

Doug Davis

3 votes

Dan Haren

257 votes

Mark Reynolds

36 votes

Max Scherzer

2 votes

Justin Upton

18 votes

316 votes | Poll has closed

Marlins 8, Diamondbacks 1: Davis Gets Phished

DbacksSkins — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:28:29 -0000

More photos » by Matt York - AP

Don't worry, Doug. We feel it too.

Browse more photos »

Record: 38-51 Pace: 69-93 Change on last season: -6

Ho hum. Just in case we were getting a collective big head from winning 7 of 8 going into the All-Star Break, the baseball gods knocked us down a rung today. The Arizona Diamondbacks, in fairly ignominious fashion, completed the official first half of the season today, dropping the series finale versus the Marlins 8-1. 1 run? 1?? Really?? After we scored 20 runs in the previous games in the series? Yep. Most notably, the offense and defense regressed to April 2009 levels, rather than the improved edition we've been seeing lately.

Follow me after the jump for all the ~~exciting~~ gory details!

This one was as good as over almost before it started. Doug Davis, who came into the game with a sparkling 3.13 ERA, gave up 5 runs in only 4 innings, including 3 in the top of the 1st, putting the Marlins squarely in the driver's seat. To be fair, he was also let down by his defense, although no errors were given. Several balls rolled into the outfield that probably could have been fielded and turned into outs in a regression to the sloppy style of baseball that we sorta thought we had gotten over, at least since Reynolds' rant. It took Doug a whopping 99 pitches to get through only 4 innings, although he did hold the Marlins scoreless in the 2nd and 3rd, before giving up a two run blast to Jeremy Hermida in the 4th off the right field foul pole. 3 walks in 4 innings didn't help, either, despite an umpire with a strike zone roughly the size and shape of Nevada -- at least for the Marlins' pitchers, for whom everything low and inside was called a strike. To be fair, Marlins All Star Josh Johnson DID have a fairly impressive game, alternating between the inside and outside corners of the plate and showing why he's their ace. Perhaps today's game was just an example of what might have happened last night to Jon Garland, had the Dbacks not rolled up three double plays behind him. Neither Chad Tracy nor Davis were assessed an error later, when Tracy fielded a routine grounder and tossed to Davis, slightly down the line, who flat-out missed the bag with the side of his foot. Although it went as a hit, it's a perfect example of the kind of shoddy plays made by the infielders today.

After getting 13 extra-base hits during the previous 3 games, the offense looked punchless once again as it was held to 9 scattered one-baggers. The team went a woeful 1-for-6 w/ RISP, scoring their 1 run in the 7th. Until that point, no Dbacks hitter had even reached 3rd base. But, it didn't HAVE to be like that. Felipe Lopez led off the bottom of the first with a single, but was caught stealing second by about 5 feet, on an 0-2 pitch. As Grace noted, pitchers often toss a throwaway fastball on 0-2, so it was almost like a pitchout. Naturally, on the very next pitch, Stephen Drew drove a single into right field that very well might have scored Flip, had he been on second. In the 7th, Augie Ojeda reached on a fielder's choice, before going to 2nd on a Lopez groundout and finally scoring to break up the shutout on Drew's RBI single. For the game, Drew went 3-5, while Lopez was on base four times on two hits and two walks. Chad Tracy also had two hits, while Gerardo Parra reached once on a walk and Alex Romero had a pinch single. Tony Clark, who has apparently played his last game as a Diamondback, saw his last AB w/ the Dbacks: naturally, it was a pinch strikeout for Leo Rosales in the 5th. Our 3 and 4 hitters struggled again; Mark Reynolds and Justin Upton combining to go 1-8 with 6 strikeouts and 8 men left on base. Upton smacked a single into left field in his last game before his first All Star Game.

The bullpen performed... credibly, I suppose, going 5 innings and allowing only a single earned run, by Esmerling Vasquez. Clay Zavada allowed two unearned runs in the Dreaded Eighth Inning© after a sharp grounder bounced about 20 feet straight up off of Reynolds' glove and into left field. Zavada's ERA dropped to 1.69. Jon Rauch, Juan Gutierrez and Leo Rosales all pitched scoreless innings; Rauch continues to be essentially our best reliever lately. Gutierrez helped himself out with an impressively fast move to first, picking off former Dback Emilio Bonifacio.

Badass of the day: Stephen Drew, +2.3%

Boarding the bus to Reno: Doug Davis, -25.9%

It's a testament to how quickly the game got out of hand that Drew led all players with a scant 2.3 WPA. Chad Tracy, Gerardo Parra, Juan Gutierrez and Leo Rosales were also in the black, while Alex Romero and Jon Rauch managed to add exactly nothing either way (0.0%). Everyone else was in the red as far as WPA is concerned.

20 posters in the Gameday thread today, adding up to 366 total comments. I led, and was the only poster in triple digits, with unnamedDBacksfan narrowly catching marionette for second place. Posters included sayheyupton, DyeLongJustice, (in his first Gameday thread since joining the 'Pit) snakecharmer, Giannaros, DbacksSkins, hotclaws, unnamedDBacksfan, marionette, emilylovesthedbacks, NotGuilty, 4 Corners Fan, Wailord, Muu, pierzynskirules, Turambar, BattleMoses, Jim McLennan, Tim Weiss, katers, and soco.

No game tomorrow, for obvious reasons. I'm assuming Jim will have a Gameday Thread posted for the All Star Game, so I'll see you there. The Dbacks head next to St. Louis -- Dan Haren and Justin Upton will be there first, as All Stars, and the rest of the team will join them for a series against the Cardinals to start the official second half of the season.

Let's hope it goes a little better than the first half.

Kevin Towers talks about Hairston trade, Gonzalez's streak and Black's contract

jbox — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:43:36 -0000

XX Sports Radio: Kevin Towers Interview (MP3) with Darren Smith

The last few days have been rough, losing leads. Haven't been able to score runs. The Pads are giving opportunities to a lot of young players. The key is getting healthy again. They have to pitch well and score more runs.
Towers always gets upset when the Padres lose, he doesn't lower his expectations. "Winning motivates me. You know when you lose ballgames regardless of what your payroll is or what type of ball club you have out there, I take loses very tough." Last years team had more talent.
"Everth Cabrera looks like the real deal." Cabrera could be like a Raphael Furcal. Tony Gwynn Jr. has been doing a great job at the top of the batting order and providing great defense in center.
This year Towers is trying to find out if these players belong or don't belong. "I like some of the things I've seen from the young guys." He is hoping that they have something to build upon in 2010.
"I wish Nick Hundley was healthy." They wanted to see him catch 120-25 games to see what they have behind the plate. Josh Geer keeps in you in every ball game, he's a legitimate 4th or 5th starter.
"Hopefully after the break we'll get Mat Latos up here."
He's hoping that the pitchers that came over in the Hairston deal will make an impact.
"Really we kind of looked at this year as a chance to see younger players."
Hairston is going to be a 4+ in arbitration next year and he is more than likely going to triple his salary. The money wasn't a big deal in the Hairston deal. He did a nice job for the Padres. They traded one pitcher Leo Rosales to get him. The strength of the minor league system is in the outfield. If they waited until the off season they wouldn't have gotten much for him.
"Probably the best player in the the deal is the Player To Be Named Later, that will be here before the end of the month that will make an impact on our pitching staff".
Adrian Gonzalez is a legitimate Major League Baseball player. Everth Cabrera is very exciting. Chase Headley is starting to come on. Nick Hundley once he gets back.
Adrian Gonzalez doesn't want to take a day off. He wants to be in there each and every day, regardless of how he is swinging the bat. He's still young, he's an Iron Man. Towers likes having his bat in the line up. He'll play the next 4 days in San Francisco and hopefully win the home run derby. Towers leaves it up to Adrian and Black to decide when to take a day off.
"I think Adrian is smart enough to know that if he felt like he's getting tired... I think he's fine."
This is the best Dodger team that Towers has seen in his 14 years. The Dodgers have a great following. The attention that Manny got for being busted for using PED's really bothered Towers.
Towers is very pleased with Moorad and Garfinkel.
Towers thinks it is very doubtful that he'll trade Adrian Gonzalez before the trade deadline.
All the scouts and staff are on the same page. Moorad's vision isn't a lot different than Sandy Alderson's.
This is Buddy Black's best year as a manager, he's done a good job motivating the guys and dealing with young and veteran players. He deserves a renewed contract and that will happen in the next 30 days.
"I don't think he should be held accountable for the 99 losses last year or this year. A lot has to do with the product, cut our payroll by 50%, he believes in young players, that's how they did it in Anaheim, I think the players respect him. I think he's smart, he understands what he has to work with, he manages the game well and he's somebody that I certainly believe in and he'll only get better with time."
"I think we should all be held accountable"

Poll

Does Buddy Black deserve a renewed contract?

Yes, for all the reasons stated by Towers

160 votes

No, because he should be held accountable

99 votes

259 votes | Poll has closed