SB Nation - Danny Ardoin

Giants 10, Dodgers 8: Down Goes Milton

Eric Stephen — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:51:05 -0000

Will Doug Mientkiewicz and Blake DeWitt be teammates next week?

The Dodgers dropped their final spring game in Arizona, losing 10-8 in Scottsdale to the Giants. A few notes from the game:

The Giants' 19-year old uber prospect Madison Bumgarner allowed only a Juan Castro double in his three innings. I have a feeling Bumgarner, rated by Baseball America as the ninth best prospect in baseball, will be pitching at AT&T Park sooner than we think
Eric Milton gave up 8 runs, bringing his spring totals to 38 hits, 29 runs, and five homers in 19.2 innings. After the game, it was announced that Milton, as well as Tanyon Sturtze -- who might still make the club -- agreed to go to Albuquerque, per Ken Gurnick. Of course, this all but assures James McDonald the fifth starter spot.
The Dodgers outrighted Danny Ardoin to AAA, removing him from the 40-man roster. Ardoin has ten days to accept or decline the assignment. If he decides to go to Albuquerque, Ardoin will backup A.J. Ellis while earning a relatively high minor league salary of $210,750.
Hiroki Kuroda had a solid, albeit short, final spring tuneup, allowing one run in three innings. Perhaps more importantly, he allowed no flyballs.
Tomorrow's game against the Angels starts a run of three straight games at Dodger Stadium. The game, a 7:10 start, will be televised by KCAL, MLB Network, and MLB TV, depending on your preference or location.

Know Your Foe: Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants

Poseidon's Fist — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:15:07 -0000

Happy Tuesday. Opening Day is 13 days away! That means it is time to evaluate who exactly will be representing our divisional foes on the field in 2009. This week I run down what the most likely 25-man roster will be for the Dodgers and Giants, and the D-Backs and Padres will follow next Monday.

Note on projections: All projections are courtesy of CHONE (except Steve Holm, which is a Bill James projection due to CHONE ignoring Holm's existence). Some bench players and bullpen arms were projected for quite exorbitant at-bats or innings, so they were scaled linearly down to reasonable numbers.

Note on format: Bold items represent locks. For example, all eight starters for the Dodgers are set, but Blake DeWitt and Delwyn Young are still fighting for a bench spot. And off we go...

Los Angeles Dodgers

Lineup:

All eight starters in the lineup are set, with only the batting order left to decide. Rafael Furcal will hit first, followed by Orlando Hudson, but the rest is yet to be determined.

Order	Player	Position	AB	BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA
1	Rafael Furcal	SS	560	.284	11	51	.358	.412	.347
2	Orlando Hudson	2B	486	.276	10	54	.353	.407	.340
3	Andre Ethier	RF	489	.292	16	69	.366	.468	.365
4	Manny Ramirez	LF	483	.290	32	101	.399	.542	.408
5	James Loney	1B	527	.294	13	80	.355	.446	.352
6	Russell Martin	C	500	.286	14	74	.384	.434	.366
7	Matt Kemp	CF	498	.299	16	74	.353	.476	.365
8	Casey Blake	3B	490	.259	20	66	.336	.439	.341

This line-up would be expected to produce 5.332 runs/game as constructed (or a max of 5.410 with optimal orientation). This equates to 863.8 total runs during the season.

Judging by wOBA, the starting lineup features one elite hitter (Ramirez), zero very good hitters, seven above average hitters (Furcal, Hudson, Ethier, Loney, Martin, Kemp and Blake), zero average hitters, and zero below average hitters.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Dodgers are no longer punchless. In fact, their offense is quite scary. You might be surprised to know they are projected to score north of 11 total runs more than the Rockies projected lineup.

Bench:

Brad Ausmus was signed to replace Danny Ardoin as Russell Martin's backup. Ausmus should get more playing time than Ardoin, but Martin still hogs the plate like no other catcher. Loretta will be the chief pinch hitter, and Juan Pierre will be on the bench solely because his salary makes him untradable.

Player	Position	AB	BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA
Brad Ausmus	C	186	.212	2	17	.299	.280	.269
Mark Loretta	IF	247	.262	2	23	.338	.342	.309
Juan Pierre	OF	222	.283	1	14	.328	.357	.312
Delwyn Young	OF	171	.262	5	24	.320	.429	.328
Blake DeWitt	IF	252	.252	6	30	.316	.378	.308

Delwyn Young is out of options, so expect him to fill in at the fifth outfielder slot over the recently signed Doug Mientkiewicz - he would also provide the main power threat off the bench. The final bench spot will go to an infielder who can play short. Blake DeWitt is the best offensive option, although he could struggle defensively at short. Chin-Lung Hu and Juan Castro are DeWitt's competition.

You just have to feel bad for DeWitt. Jeff Kent retired, Nomar Garciaparra and Casey Blake were free agents. After a solid rookie year in 08, DeWitt had a starting job...until GM Ned Colletti brought in three free agents that could push him clear off the roster.

Rotation:

Joe Torre has constructed his rotation for a RLRL beginning. Randy Wolf hopes to soften the losses of Derek Lowe and Brad Penny.

Player	IP	W	L	FIP	WHIP	K
Hiroki Kuroda	158.0	9	8	3.98	1.31	106
Randy Wolf	124.0	7	7	4.42	1.41	103
Chad Billingsley	161.0	10	8	3.68	1.33	156
Clayton Kershaw	115.0	7	6	4.28	1.44	102
Claudio Vargas	108.0	6	6	4.71	1.38	80

This gives Chad Billingsley the home opener. The fifth starter position is still a roulette wheel. None of the contenders have impressed, so James McDonald, Eric Stults, Eric Milton, and even 2008 2nd round pick Josh Lindblom has a longshot chance. In January, an additional game was added for April 7, so the Dodgers can't take advantage of the schedule to put off their decision.

Bullpen:

Jonathan Broxton will get his first shot as a full-year closer, though Hong-Chih Kuo has closer stuff. Guillermo Mota returns to LA, while 2008 pleasant surprsie Cory Wade is guaranteed a spot.

Role	Player	IP	W	L	FIP	WHIP	K/9
Closer	Jonathan Broxton	72.0	5	3	2.78	1.15	10.88
LH Set-up	Hong-Chih Kuo	45.0	3	2	2.69	1.18	11.00
RH set-up	Guillermo Mota	56.0	3	3	4.46	1.42	7.58
RH set-up	Cory Wade	53.0	3	3	4.00	1.25	7.30
2nd LHP	Scott Elbert	43.0	2	2	4.34	1.47	10.47
Relief	James McDonald	57.0	3	3	5.10	1.39	7.72
Relief	Jeff Weaver	50.0	2	3	5.19	1.41	5.59

Scott Elbert is has the lead in the LHP race, and James McDonald is assured of a relief role if he doesn't become the fifth starter. The final spot in the bullpen is likely between Jeff Weaver and Claudio Vargas, though Eric Stults, Ramon Troncoso, Brian Mazone, Tanyon Sturtze, Erick Threets, and Lindblom remain in contention.

Why the Dodgers will win the NL West:

The Dodgers boast exceptional lineup by divisional standards, with practically zero question marks. The bullpen is strong and capable of reining in strikeouts. With Manny Ramirez in the fold, they are the favorite in the division.

Why the Dodgers will NOT win the NL West:

This rotation is as weak as Los Angeles has fielded in some time. Kuroda and Wolf are decent rotation pieces, but LA will strongly be relying on the young arms of Billingsley and Kershaw. Then consider the disaster of a fifth starter and Manny's potential undoing, and it's easy to imagine a scenario where another NL West foe leapfrogs the defending champs.

San Francisco Giants

Lineup:

Emmanuel Burriss could replace Kevin Frandsen in the starting lineup, but the other seven starters are decided. The lineup has yet to be announced, but it could follow as such:

Order	Player	Position	AB	BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA
1	Randy Winn	RF	563	.281	12	55	.341	.412	.336
2	Edgar Renteria	SS	534	.283	11	59	.345	.408	.335
3	Fred Lewis	LF	.446	.262	9	46	.346	.404	.335
4	Bengie Molina	C	453	.276	16	71	.314	.435	.327
5	Pablo Sandoval	3B	477	.283	11	68	.315	.426	.324
6	Travis Ishikawa	1B	431	.248	16	67	.322	.432	.331
7	Aaron Rowand	CF	523	.273	14	64	.338	.421	.335
8	Kevin Frandsen	2B	382	.288	6	44	.343	.411	.334

That line-up is worth a mere 4.448 runs/game (peaking at 4.473 arranged differently). That's the same as just 720.5 total runs.

Look at the wOBA like we did with the Dodgers. From that we can conclude that the starting lineup features zero elite hitters, zero very good hitters, six average hitters (Winn, Renteria, Lewis, Ishikawa, Rowand and Frandsen) and two below average hitters (Sandoval, Molina). Take your pick of statistical analysis - all project the Giants to have an abysmal offense.

Bench:

Rich Aurilia is all but assured of a bench spot, and Nate Schierholtz will earn one as well due to being out of options. Burriss will either start or find a spot on the bench, and Steve Holm is the only contender as the backup catcher.

Player	Position	AB	BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA
Rich Aurilia	IF	377	.263	10	43	.320	.398	.318
Nate Schierholtz	OF	311	.291	9	44	.331	.471	.348
Emmanuel Burriss	IF	323	.270	2	34	.331	.347	.308
Steve Holm	C	181	.238	5	21	.312	.365	.306
Andres Torres	OF	208	.251	4	19	.328	.388	.321

Eugenio Velez has attempted to learn OF to get the fifth bench spot, but it might not be enough. Juan Uribe, who signed this offseason, also looks to be an odd man out. Andres Torres appears to have a solid shot at the 5th OF spot with his hot spring; he is 31and spent each of the last three seasons in AAA with a different organization.

Rotation:

Player	IP	W	L	FIP	WHIP	K
Tim Lincecum	154.0	10	7	3.05	1.23	175
Randy Johnson	109.0	6	6	3.85	1.27	96
Matt Cain	189.0	11	10	3.84	1.32	166
Barry Zito	176.0	8	11	4.81	1.55	120
Jonathan Sanchez	120.0	6	7	4.02	1.39	116

By far the Giants' strength, the rotation has all but been set since Randy Johnson signed. Like Joe Torre, Bruce Bochy is constructing his rotation in a RLRL fashion.

Bullpen:

The Giants acted quickly to sign Affeldt and Howry, who will set up for Brian Wilson. Sergio Romo is currently sidelined with an elbow injury and won't be ready for Opening Day, but there will be a spot waiting for him when he returns soon thereafter.

Role	Player	IP	W	L	FIP	WHIP	K/9
Closer	Brian Wilson	65.0	4	4	3.71	1.38	8.72
LH Set-up	Jeremy Affeldt	79.0	5	4	3.70	1.35	7.86
RH set-up	Bob Howry	63.0	4	3	3.62	1.25	7.00
2nd LHP	Jack Taschner	59.0	3	4	4.20	1.44	7.78
Relief	Sergio Romo	60.0	4	6	3.76	1.20	9.15
Relief	Merkin Valdez	30.0	1	2	4.69	1.50	7.88
Relief	Luis Perdomo	56.0	3	4	4.99	1.41	7.71

Jack Taschner's familiarity card might trump the hand of Alex Hinshaw, but Taschner could be traded, opening up the possibility for Hinshaw to be the middle relief southpaw. Luis Perdomo is a Rule 5 pick from St. Louis, and his decent spring points to a possible spot in the pen. Non-roster invitee Brandon Medders and Merkin Valdez will battle for the other opening.

Why the Giants will win the NL West:

With the Cy Young winners in tow, San Francicso just might have the best starting rotation in the division - only Arizona is otherwise in contention. Then consider the emerging Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez. The bullpen will be decent, especially with the back end headed by All-Star closer Brian Wilson. The lineup has candidates to significantly exceed projections (such as Pablo Sandoval), so it is possible they could score just enough for the pitchers to lead them to the top.

Why the Giants will NOT win the NL West:

It remains to be seen whether Lincecum and Cain's arms can hold up after ridiculous abuse in 2008. A long term injury to either would be debilitating to their divisional hopes. Zito and RJ are tailing off in their respective careers. And then there's the offense. The lineup is constructed solely of veterans past their prime and unproven youngsters. Even with a helthy Lincecum and Cain, don't expect the lineup to produce enough for divisional aspirations.

Thanks to Eric Stephen and Grant for their assistance in achieving accuracy.

Why Chris Iannetta is a Special Boy

RockiesMagicNumber — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:05:50 -0000

-- I'd like to apologize briefly, my first article here is quite long. But I promise it's worth the read. I don't plan on my feature being this long on a regular basis. I worked on this article on and off for a couple of weeks. Please enjoy! --

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Who is the longest tenured catcher in Rockies history? By tenured, I mean actual playing time, not JayHawk Owens sitting on the bench for 4 seasons.

Did you say Joe Girardi? If you did, you're right.

The top 5 longest playing catchers in Rockies history are:

1. Joe Girardi

2. Jeff Reed

3. Yorvit Torrealba

4. Kirt Manwaring

5. Charles Johnson

Among those, I'll go ahead and step up and say that Jeff Reed was the best of the lot of them. He had a good % of runners thrown out (somewhere around 30), not too many passed balls, and in 1997 and 1998, he simply clocked the ball. During his time, he more or less platooned the backstop with Kirt Manwaring.

Shout out to Charles Johnson, he put up some good numbers after the Hampton trade, but trading him to Boston for BH Kim was a decent move.

The point of this story is: Colorado has never really had a steady backstop. They've gone through a good number of them, some did well, some didn't. Taking a look at Rockies' catchers through the history of the team:

1993-1995 Joe Girardi

1996-1998 Jeff Reed/Kirt Manwaring

1999 Henry Blanco

2000 Brent Mayne

2001 Ben Petrick

2002 Gary Bennett

2003-2004 Charles Johnson

2005 Danny Ardoin

2006-2007 Yorvit Torrealba

2008 Chris Iannetta

Other noteworthy catchers include JD Closser, Todd Greene, Bobby Estalella, Sal Fasano, Adam Melhuse, Jayhawk Owens, and Danny Sheaffer.

(For the record, I just put the catcher who caught the majority of the games in each year as the starter, I know Ben Petrick was around longer than just 2001, etc. The other noteworthy guys are just the catchers who played in a couple seasons for more than like 1 game.)

We've tried a number of free agents, journeymen, trades, and hoped for the "Catcher of the Future" to be in our system, and several times, we think we've had him. I'm really excited about Chris Iannetta, and I think he's got a lot going for him, and he's gonna be a solid catcher for years to come.

So the question to ask is "What makes Chris Iannetta so special?"

The answer and more after the jump.

I'll answer that in 4 letters: "IsoD"

The man has simply superhuman plate discipline, almost Helton-esque. Almost.

Iannetta's first stint in the majors in 2006 yielded a .260/.370/.390 line for August/September. Now, I don't know about you, but a .370 OBP from a catcher is downright awesome. Heck, a .370 OBP from anyone is pretty awesome. I'd run out on the field and hug Clint Barmes if he could muster up a .370 OBP. Iannetta was looking pretty good.

But then we all know that in 2007, he fell flat on his face and batted .218/.330/.350. Not very good at all. At this point, I thought to myself "But he looked like such a great plate discipline guy when he came up! What happened?" So I looked at his - you guessed it - IsoD.

In 2007, his IsoD was .112. In 2006, it was .110. For his minor league career, it was .106. So we know he's getting on base via walk/hbp at roughly the same rate as he always does, so what else could it be? Well, let's take a look at the other two culprits, BABIP and Swinging%.

For a player with so little experience as Iannetta, we can't really look at career BABIP and expect it to be a good baseline. I tend to use a .310 BABIP as a good baseline in Coors Field, what with the big outfield and propensity to hit a good dying quail. Iannetta's BABIP in 2006 was .310 (That's right. I'm good) and in 2007 it was a high and mighty .289. Now, that isn't an atrocious BABIP, but 1. it's low for Coors Field, and 2. Iannetta really isn't a high average hitter, so any drop in BABIP is gonna look more severe on actual AVG than on others.

So right then, it looked to me like Iannetta was just plain getting unlucky, his hits weren't dropping or they were right at someone. But with an IsoD of .112, I figured that his bat would eventually come around, but until then, he still had a better OBP than the other options.

Sports Illustrated did a series of articles before the 2007 season that had Chris Iannetta as one of "8 who may be great". In the article, they praised Iannetta's makeup, his size, offensive talent, etc, but what stood out most was what other people had to offer him. Specifically, his personal idol Javy Lopez. After being cut in Spring Training '07, Lopez, who had already made a friendship with Iannetta, left a note for him in his locker saying "Good luck. I'll be watching."

In his early years, Iannetta was projected to be a severe pull hitter, until a fellow client of his agent, one Wade Boggs, gave Iannetta some advice to help his opposite field power.

Pretty impressive following.

As mentioned, Iannetta's 2007 was less than stellar, but with Yorvit Torrealba being a borderline MLB catcher, and Iannetta starting to show some promise, Hurdle finally gave Iannetta the chance to hold down the full time catching position.

AND BOY ARE WE ALL HAPPY WE DID.

Chris Iannetta's .264/.390/.504 batting line showed all the best parts of his major league numbers (IsoD) and all the best parts of his minor league numbers (IsoP). He may not have hit the ball a lot, but when he did, it went somewhere. That .240 IsoP (compared to the .264 AVG) tells me that Iannetta averaged a double every time he hit the ball. If you add Iannetta into the top 5 catchers listed at the beginning of this article (and he's only about 17 games shy of cracking the top 5), his 2008 performance ranked 2nd in terms of wOBA (weighted On Base Average), with only Jeff Reed's 1997 season ranked higher, and still, Iannetta hit the ball harder, walked a whole hell of a lot more, but Reed managed a .297 batting average to bolster his OBP and give him a nice, hearty .913 OPS.

Marcel and CHONE both project Iannetta to bat for a lower OPS this season, while still getting on base at a clip right around career norms, but for him to suffer a power outage of around .050 IsoP. I don't really see this happening, personally. His BABIP for the season was .314, so I can see him dropping back a few points of AVG to right around .260, and if you add back in a IsoD of .118 (right between his .126 IsoD in 2008 and the career .110 we'd expect), we're at .260/.378, and then an IsoP of around .205 (I'm dropping back his MLB IsoP to around his minor league totals, just for the sake of conjecture), that puts him at .260/.378/.465, good for an OPS of .843.

Another thing to consider here, and there's a distinct chance I overstate it, but Don Baylor coming back as strictly a hitting coach might help him focus on making us a more patient team. I don't see a reason that Iannetta can't build on this season and maybe even bring a slightly higher AVG.

Defensively, Iannetta handles the wild pitching of Ubaldo Jimenez and Jorge De La Rosa, backstops a groundball-heavy approach from Aaron Cook, and picks up whatever fill-in-the gap pitcher we have taking the mound. Throwing out basestealers isn't a strong point of Iannetta, as he has yet to pass the 25% mark on the season, but he can do it effectively (I swear I saw him throw out Juan Pierre once). The trick will be just learning more about when to make the moves, etc. A lot of intangible, coaching-driven kinds of things.

Iannetta also doesn't pass a lot of balls. He's not the best, but if you look at his Passed Balls per 1000 outs caught (I completely made this metric up just to compare our catchers), Iannetta has improved from 3.48 in 2006 to 2.68 in 2007 and 2.39 in 2008. And that's with Ubaldo pitching a full season.

If you want to talk about regression, what's to regress? I can see his power dipping a bit, but there was only a .015 difference in SLG between Coors and EveryWhereElse, so we can't just say "COORS FIELD EFFECT!". He has a solid IsoD, which, even if it drops a bit, it's still superhuman. His BABIP isn't out of line.

Iannetta seems to be this combination of all the best parts of our history of catching corps. He is homegrown (Petrick, Closser). He is always out signing autographs before games (Charles Johnson), and the fans love him (Kirt Manwaring). He's offensively awesome (Jeff Reed). He shows good defensive instincts behind the plate (Girardi). I wanted to suggest he's balding already, but I couldn't think of anyone to compare him to.

He really does sound like the real deal, folks.

So, to recap: We have a 26 year old catcher who has an eye at the plate that is second to only Helton amongst the Rockies, who has developed a lethal power swing, plays a solid backstop defensively, we have Don Baylor coming in as a hitting coach, and to top it off, he has portrayed himself as a polite, nice young man who is good with the fans.

I'd like to welcome in the Catcher of the Future.