SB Nation - Jack Cassel

Transactions: Spring Training Cuts

Ryan — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:15:17 -0000

From 3-15-09:

Reassigned RHP Tomo Ohka and LHP Ryan Edell to Minor League Camp

Although all Spring Training stats need to be treated with a high degree of skepticism, a pitcher fighting for a roster spot giving up 14 hits and 10 runs in 3.2 innings is a sign that he's not very good. That's what the Indians saw in Tomo Ohka.

Edell was a starter all of last year, but the Indians brought him to major-league camp to (I assume) take a look at him as a reliever. If he makes the Clippers as a reliever we'll know if they liked what they saw.

Optioned LHP Rich Rundles to Columbus (AAA)

Rundles looked like he had a decent chance of making the bullpen after making the 40-man roster late last season, but Eric Wedge saw some things he still had to work on:

''It's getting to the point where innings are tough to come by,'' Wedge said. ''Rundles needs to be very good against left-handers and be able to defend himself against right-handers. It's fairly new for him to be dropping down [throwing sidearm], and he has to get more consistent with that. So he has more development to do.''

With Rundles going down, it's very unlikely the Indians will be taking a situational lefty north with them.

From 3-19-09:

Reassigned the following to Minor League Camp:

1B: Jordan Brown, Beau Mills, Stephen Head

Brown and possibly Head will be playing in Columbus; Mills is headed to Akron. Mills is the prime prospect, Brown the sort-of prospect, and Head the not prospect.

RHP Jack Cassel

SS Jesus Merchan

3B Wes Hodges

A lot of things outside of Hodges' control has gone right for him. The Indians, instead of moving Jhonny Peralta to third, traded for Mark DeRosa, who is a free agent at the end of this season. And Andy Marte is for all intents and purposes not in the indians' future plans. That means Hodges now has the opportunity to play himself onto the 2010 roster. I still think it's more likely Peralta's playing at third next season, but if Hodges plays well, it will make the Indians' decision much more difficult.

Optioned the Following Players to Columbus (AAA):

2B Luis Valbuena

While Hodges is going to have to play his way into the Indians' future plans, Valbuena seems to be the default option at second in 2010. If the Indians do shift the infield around next season, his performance this season in Columbus will be the impetus for it.

LHP Tony Sipp

Sipp hasn't been able to stay healthy (tommy John in 2007, shoulder problems last season), but the only thing preventing him from pitching with the Indians this season is proof that he can handle a relievers' workload.

RHP John Meloan, Adam Miller, and Juan Salas

It was a given that Salas would be optioned to AAA as depth. Meloan washed out of the bullpen battle fairly quickly, but my expectations are still pretty high. Adam Miller looks like he'll undergo season-ending surgery on his right middle finger; the injury is possibly career-threatening. Miller's never pitched for the Indians, but it's a huge loss nonetheless. A healthy Miller in this year's bullpen would have given Eric Wedge a relief ace capable of filling in a multi-inning cap if a starter had to come out early, and eventually a late-inning setup man.

Optioned C Carlos Santana and Hector Rondon to Akron (AA)

Both players did nothing this spring to dampen the high expectations already placed on them. Santana is already an advanced hitter, but the Indians are fine at catcher and won't need to promote him agressively. Rondon, on the other hand, probably needs a full season in Akron.

[Update: Although not listed in the official transactions, the Indians also assigned LHP David Huff to Minor League camp.]

Monday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:13:16 -0000

Some things to read from inside your Indestruct-O-Bubble.

So, with 24 days until pitchers and catchers report, the Brewers are expected to exchange arbitration figures today with their four remaining eligible players. Brewers Bar has predicted the figures he expects to see.

Another day, another series of updates on Ben Sheets:

As noted in the FanShots, the Mets have interest in Ben Sheets, which creates a scenario where the Brewers could lose two Type-A free agents and receive no first round picks in return.
Jeff Moore of Dugout Central thinks Sheets' best fits are in Texas or back in Milwaukee, but predicts Sheets will be a Met.
Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe is reporting the Phillies are also interested in Sheets, but the Cafardo rule applies: until someone else reports it, take it with a grain of salt.

Last week it was noted in the FanShots that Randall Simon was going to try out for the Brewers as part of their annual tryout camp. Buried in Tom H's story is a note mentioning that Mark Bellhorn and Robert Fick also tried out, but none were signed.

Elsewhere in free agency, the Brewers are reportedly considering making an offer to Chad Cordero, who is recovering from a torn labrum. The Grand National Championships has a deeper look at torn labrums and wonders why Cordero appears to be rushing his.

Let's take a look around the world of rankings:

Mike Cameron was the eighth best defensive center fielder in baseball in 2008 according to Tiger Tales, saving four runs above average.
Corey Hart, on the other hand, was only the 13th best defensive right fielder, and cost the Brewers a run.
J.J. Hardy is the seventh best fantasy shortstop in the NL for 2009, according to FakeTeams.

Jonathan Mayo of MiLB.com ranked Jeremy Jeffress as the #44 prospect in all of minor league baseball. Follow the link for a brief profile. (also noted in FanShots)
As of this writing, Brent Brewer leads Cody Scarpetta by seven votes and Alexandre Periard by 15 votes in the balloting for the 17th and final spot in our Community Prospect Rankings. You have until noon today to cast your ballot.

BCB Community Projections

Retail Merchandising Interns

Rich Harden's shoulder

The Baseball Beat

6-4-2

Changing Pace: The Astros' Change Ups

DyingQuail — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:15:05 -0000

The pitch/fx system is quickly becoming on of the most informative and enlightening tool for both baseball analysts and more traditionally minded scouts. The system burst on the scene in 2006 and it quickly raised eye brows. Some of you may remember Joel Zumaya scorching the radar gun on FOX with 101 MPH and 102 MPH -- at the time, a lot of people called shenanigans on. The reason for this, is because Sportsvision's pitch/fx system was measuring the velocity of the ball five feet away from the mound, not at the traditional mid-point in its trajectory.

The system works on only two cameras and a whole hosts of technological know how. There is one camera on the first base line, usually where the press booth closest to home plate is (you can see them on TV every once in awhile if you’re paying attention). Then there is one directly behind home plate, usually a good ways back in the first row. These can be spotted at the park, but not so much on TV. Both cameras take 25 simultaneous pictures of the ball as it is released from the pitcher’s hand to the plate. Running some algorithms and kinematic formulas, pitch/fx can locate the ball in space and then run a estimated flight of the ball based on the two sets of 25 pictures. The system measures everything under the sun. Velocity at each point, acceleration, maximum movement in the x, y, and z planes, total movement x, y, and z, release point, and most importantly: where it crossed the plate. Those where just the macro categories, there are further detailed measurements taken based on those broad categories -- it takes up 53 columns on a spread sheet. Some of those categories include, the result of the pitch (ball, strike, called strike, foul ball, HBP) and what happens if a pitch is put in play. The game state, runners on, the out, pitch count, etc. Also, using a complicated algorithm, analysts have come up with ways to categorize each pitch, tailored to the pitcher’s known repertoire. It’s a gold mine.

So what does it have to with the Astros and their change ups?

There have many analysts all providing valuable and insightful commentary and wizardry in working with the data. While I could turn out an entire paragraph of those who have done great work, today I'm going to focus on one researcher, physicist Josh Kalk. Kalk runs a free blog that allows you to access and manipulate his pitch/fx database. While there are imitators, he is currently the only one to implement a correction algorithm to standardize the data -- which makes the fact that he's allowing the world to play around with it for free all the more impressive.

Kalk has done some great work at the Hardball Times in looking at the attributes of each pitch that make it effective utilizing a system known as runs100. His Anatomy of a Pitch: Change ups, revealed the importance of two attributes of the pitch: speed differential from the fastball and release point similarity to the fastball (i.e. hiding the change up in the fastball). Armed with that knowledge, lets discover which Astro has the best change up.

The Speed Differential Aspect:

Kalk's study found that the greater the differential between fastball and change up the better the outcome of the pitch. By that criterion, three pitcher's jump of the chart: Jose Valverde, Jack Cassel, and Rany Wolf. Some of you might have scoffed at Cassel making the list because his fastball is pretty slow: 87.7 MPH -- which is actually pretty close to Alberto Arias' 86.0 MPH change up -- but he gets a 10.5 MPH speed differential by averaging 77.2 MPH on his change up.

These three are a cut above the rest in terms of their speed differential, so lets who hides their change up the best.

The Release Point Aspect:

via baseball.bornbybits.com

Tom Brady's back-up's brother has great speed differential, but there are two distinct locations for his change up and fastball, which probably allows hitters to key in on before they get fooled. Sorry Jack.

via baseball.bornbybits.com

This is why Jose Valverde is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Look at how hidden the change up is inside his fastball. Not only can hitters not differentiate the release, but they have to battle an 11.5 MPH differential in speed. Oh yeah, and they've also got to watch out for the splitter too.

via baseball.bornbybits.com

Wolf apparently hides all of his pitches inside of all of his pitches. Randy obviously has a lot of confidence in the pitch, because he throws it more in the 3-2 count than he does any other (16%).

The Tiebreaker:

Randy and Jose both have great speed differentials and hide the pitch well, which means we have to go extra innings to discover who has the better change up. The third most important aspect that Kalk revealed in the study was the change up's ability to tail away from an opposite handed hitter. So we're looking for negative movement for Valverde because he is a RHP and positive movement for Wolf who is a LHP (pitch/fx sets the middle of the plate as 0 and the coordinates are set for RHB).

Randy Wolf: 10.25 in.

Jose Valverde: - 4.58 in.

So there you have it: Randy Wolf has the best change up. If he departs for greener pastures on the West Coast this off-season (I've got my fingers crossed) then the title will fall to Valverde. Regardless of his uniform next year, Randy Wolf can rightfully claim the best change up of any Astro in 2008.