SB Nation - Garrett Olson

Ten Lessons Jim Hendry Needs To Learn From The 2009 Season

Al — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:00:14 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

Example of a player Jim Hendry should not sign to an overpriced, multiyear contract.

I suppose this post could have waited till next week, but once again we are faced with more than 48 hours between games -- for the last time in 2009 -- and so I thought I'd start some discussion this morning with these things that I think were done poorly by Cubs GM Jim Hendry since the end of the 2008 season.

Hendry got a three-year contract extension (through the 2012 season) after last year's successful regular season, with the hope that 2009 would be even better. It didn't work out that way; Hendry had about as bad an offseason last year as any GM in recent memory, but with new ownership poised to take over, it isn't the right time to blow everything up and start over. Hendry will be given at least one more year to get things back on the track we thought the Cubs were on during their two-year run as NL Central champions in 2007 and 2008.

Some of the problems with the 2009 Cubs were not Hendry's fault and many of them were beyond his control. It's not Hendry's fault that Aramis Ramirez dislocated his shoulder four weeks into the season and missed a total of 75 games (through yesterday). A-Ram produced above his usual level (.906 OPS, compared to his career level of .847) and I think we all agree that the Cubs missed his production in the two months he was out from mid-May to mid-July, not to mention that he wasn't at full strength on his return. To have produced the way he did after the All-Star break -- without complaining -- is a credit to Ramirez's work ethic and ability. It's not Hendry's fault that Alfonso Soriano played most of the year injured, though he perhaps could have insisted harder that Soriano have arthroscopic surgery in June, and maybe he'd have been ready in September. It's not Hendry's fault that all the Opening Day rotation starters spent time on the disabled list, forcing the Cubs to have 21 starts made by guys (Sean Marshall, Kevin Hart, Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija) whose performance can best be called "uneven". (The Cubs were 9-12 in those 21 games.)

Credit where credit is due: give Jim credit for recognizing that Randy Wells could help the team as a starter, though I don't think anyone could have guessed he'd be as good as he has been. Credit for giving Koyie Hill the backup catcher job; he's been very good in that role. And credit for getting John Grabow and Gorzelanny for, essentially, nothing; Grabow will likely be retained as a key part of the 2010 bullpen and Gorzelanny, though his performance has been up and down, does have talent and will be in the mix for the 2010 rotation.

With that in mind, below the fold you'll find ten ideas Hendry must internalize and go by as he builds a roster for 2010. (Not necessarily in priority order.)

1. Stop fixing "problems" that do not exist. I think this is one we can all agree on; the troubles with the 2009 Cubs began with the decision made at the organizational meetings last fall that "we're not lefthanded enough", a mantra particularly of Lou Piniella's, due to the Dodgers' RHP-centric pitching staff in the 2008 NLDS. The Cubs didn't lose that series because of a lack of LH batters, but since Lou (and the rest of the staff) thought that was the reason, they went out of their way to identify a "lefthanded, middle-of-the-order bat" that they could insert behind Derrek Lee and ahead of Ramirez. We are all familiar with the expensive disaster that produced so I won't rehash it here. I caution Hendry about this because they are about to do the same thing -- fix a nonexistent problem. "We need a speedy leadoff man", goes the managerial mantra. Well, no, Lou, you don't. A leadoff man's primary job is to get on base. You already have someone who can lead off and do that -- Kosuke Fukudome, who ranks 8th in the NL in walks, despite having almost 100 fewer plate appearances than the leader (Albert Pujols). The Cubs are 22-13 with Fukudome leading off this year (that's a 101-win pace for a full season). The last time Hendry went after this type of player, he traded three useful minor leaguers for Juan Pierre. Jim -- do not get sucked into this trap again.

2. Stop bidding against yourself for players. The first argument against this, you might think, is "Jason Marquis", but Marquis did what he was asked to do -- if the Cubs had kept him this year and he had produced the way he did in Colorado, the Cubs would have gotten fine 4th or 5th starter value for the $7 million a year average per year over the life of Marquis' contract. True, Hendry could have likely had Marquis for less, since no one else had expressed interest at the time. And you can't make the argument "Alfonso Soriano" about this, either, because Soriano had been offered six-plus years by the Phillies and seven by the Angels; the Cubs were determined at the time to make a statement in the free agent market. Soriano was the top free agent after 2006, and yes, the Cubs overpaid to get him. He may still be healthy and productive enough to be worth the deal, at least for the next 2-3 years. (Heaven help the Cubs in years 7 and 8, though.) No, what I'm talking about is paying $30 million for three years' worth of the iffy Milton Bradley when absolutely no other team was even after Bradley, much less offering three years. Or giving a two-year contract to Aaron Miles for any amount of money, when we now know there was at least one option (Andres Blanco) right in the Cubs' own farm system who could have done a better job for the league minimum. Advice to Jim: when you're thinking about doing this, don't. Just don't.

3. Stop giving out contracts that are longer than they need to be. Related to the last point, there was no need to give Marquis a three-year deal; two plus a mutual option would have likely done it, and then if the Cubs really did want to deal him last year, they could have arranged for the other team to pick up the option (if that team wanted him badly enough) or simply decline the option and let him go to free agency. This is particularly true in the case of Marquis; the return for him (Luis Vizcaino) was worthless, because the Cubs wound up dumping him and eating the contract. The same thing applies to the Miles and Bradley deals.

4. Stop trading for guys you think are good because you liked them five years ago, or are fond of their college coach. You don't have to guess who I'm talking about here; his name is Aaron Heilman. (And several years ago, his name was Michael Barrett.) It's great for a GM to be loyal to his players, and Hendry is someone a lot of MLB players want to play for, for this very reason. But any Mets fan could have told Hendry that Heilman had lost whatever command he had last year -- you should have heard the booing for Heilman when he came in at Citi Field, louder than I think I've ever heard for any returning former player -- and though Heilman has been better the last six weeks, he still was not worth losing Felix Pie (Pie, though he went to Baltimore, essentially was part of this deal because Garrett Olson, who was acquired for Pie, was part of the deal to the Mariners for Heilman). And really, Jim, isn't it time to stop the Notre Dame-Wrigley Express? As far as I can tell, there are four active major leaguers who went to ND: Heilman, Samardzija, Craig Counsell and Brad Lidge. All of those guys have issues. Enough already.

5. Stop handing out one-year renewal deals to players like candy. Chad Gaudin didn't throw very well and had a noted off-field incident in 2008. He didn't figure to play a major role in the 2009 rotation or bullpen, yet the Cubs signed him to a $2 million deal in December to avoid arbitration. Then he stunk it up in spring training, forcing the Cubs to simply release him and eat the contract; the Padres and Yankees later got replacement-level production for the league minimum. The Cubs could have gotten this sort of production out of Justin Berg or Esmailin Caridad, as it turned out. Gaudin should have been non-tendered in December.

6. Don't waste half a year's roster spot on a Rule 5 pick that your manager isn't going to use. Maybe David Patton would have pitched better if Lou Piniella had actually used him more than once every five games. We'll never know, obviously, but Lou essentially wasted a roster spot by relegating Patton to pitching in blowouts or in long extra-inning games. The Cubs could have used an extra bench player -- since Aaron Miles was useless -- because Lou was working with what was for all practical purposes an 11-man pitching staff. Lou and Jim deserve equal blame for this one -- and I hate to say it, but BCB poster BLou was right about this one. At this point, maybe it's best for the Cubs to stay out of the Rule 5 draft for a while.

7. Do more careful evaluations of your prospects and young players to maximize their value, whether it be in the major league lineup or in trades. It's clear now that the entire organization was split on Felix Pie's progress. Two years ago, his trade value would have been a lot higher than "Garrett Olson", and of course, now it's probably far higher than that again. Hendry sold on Pie at the lowest possible point, and he and Lou together dragged down a former top prospect's trade value (they did the same with Rich Hill, who could have been dealt after the 2007 season for a pretty good return, although few would have suggested it after Hill put together such a good season). This is another reason why it's silly to have played Bobby Scales in left field for even one game. Scales is a great story and maybe he's a 25th guy on someone's roster next year -- but his trade value is close to zero. Jake Fox, on the other hand, might either be a useful spare part for the 2010 Cubs or might have some trade value, but scouts aren't going to see it if he sits on the bench, Lou. This is where a GM has to have some input with his manager, not simply let the manager dictate the roster. In general, GM's shouldn't be making out lineups -- but Hendry, in this case, could have let Lou know that Fox should have been playing (and Fox should have also been playing 3B from the day after A-Ram went down, too).

8. Don't automatically think that you have to sign expensive free agents to get better. Last offseason, rather than sign Milton Bradley, the Cubs could have approached the White Sox for Jermaine Dye. Dye could have been available by trade; at the time it appeared the White Sox were trying to dump contracts. In fact, I wrote about this possibility last November. Dye didn't have a great year, but he was at least as good as Bradley without the baggage, and with Dye having a $12 million mutual option that will almost certainly be declined by the White Sox, he might be available for not too much money and years (see points 2 and 3). There may be other players available like this -- and, in fact, Hendry almost has to use this route to be able to move Bradley's contract. Magglio Ordonez is almost certain to be on the block, and though he had a terrible season, it's possible he could rebound and he's a lifetime .308/.389/.513 hitter in Wrigley Field (relatively small sample size of 90 PA). NOTE! Do not assume that because I mentioned Ordonez, he is the ONLY player I'd go after for such a deal. He's only one example. Another such player is Luke Scott, who would have looked pretty good in a Cubs uniform in 2009, and who is likely headed for a hefty raise in arbitration. Maybe the Cubs can do that if they can trade Bradley elsewhere. The point of all this to Jim Hendry is: get creative, the way you did when you pulled off the Nomar Garciaparra deal in 2004.

9. Get "good clubhouse guys". I mean, this should be a no-brainer. Any Cubs fan who's been around even for ten years knows that the 2003 Cubs, managed by a player's manager, Dusty Baker, succeeded in part because they had strong clubhouse leaders, Eric Karros and Damian Miller. Miller and Karros were sent packing before 2004, and the 2004 Cubs, despite having more talent and ability than the 2003 version, collapsed in the final week. The acrimony there was visible in public, with players calling the press box to bitch, along with some high-profile public trouble between the team and its broadcasters. I'm not saying those were the only reasons for the success or failure of those two teams, but they clearly did have some impact, particularly with a players' manager like Baker who pretty much lets the clubhouse run itself. If there are no strong player-leaders, such a clubhouse is an "inmates running the asylum" situation and the results are predictable. Similarly, the Cubs lost strong player-leaders Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood after 2008 and added one player who reportedly was not a good clubhouse presence. NOTE! I am NOT saying that the Cubs must go out and reacquire DeRosa and Wood. However, I am saying that I believe all successful teams have players like this in their clubhouse. Hendry needs to identify some such players who can both do this and be productive in the lineup, and acquire a couple of them. Without trying to ignite the stats debate again, I believe having guys like this does matter. (Of course, they should also be good players -- that goes without saying.)

10. Think outside the box. Jim Hendry did this when he managed to dump an unproductive Todd Hundley on the Dodgers and get back two useful players in Mark Grudzielanek and Karros, without whom the Cubs might not have won the division in 2003. He did it again in 2004 when he engineered the four-team trade that got Nomar to the North Side. He needs to be creative in his thinking again this year. Don't fall prey to the "this is what's wrong with us and we are going to go fix that no matter what it costs" thinking that helped ruin the 2009 Cubs. Be ahead of the curve; that's what helped the Cardinals do so well this year. Also, this could apply to the idea that Hendry might be able to find solutions just by looking in his own system for next year (say, Andres Blanco, Justin Berg, Esmailin Caridad) rather than scouring the waiver wire for someone else's discards (as he did this year with the Aaron's).

There may be more lessons than just these ten, but going by these simple precepts might help Jim Hendry build a 2010 Cubs team that will once again be the favorite to win the NL Central -- and this time, actually do it.

Roster Moves

Jeff — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:45:35 -0000

Tacoma's elimination last night freed up a couple current prospects and one former one, so Adam Moore, Matt Tuiasosopo, and Garrett Olson are on their way to join the Mariners. Neither Moore nor Tui are expected to play a whole lot - Moore's a third stringer and Tui will ironically be used as a defensive replacement - but these call-ups are as much about experiencing the environment as experiencing game action, so both of them should benefit. Also, Olson.

To make room for Moore on the 40-man roster, the M's are cutting ties with Stephen Kahn. You might remember Stephen Kahn for throwing one inning in the last three years. It was a bad inning.

Is This Sparta?

Graham — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:21:58 -0000

More photos » by Duane Burleson - AP

His hat is stifling. It narrows his vision. And he must see far. His glove is heavy. It throws him off balance. And his target is ninety feet away.

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We've been hearing about the Mariner bullpen quite a lot this season. For a unit that was entirely comprised of question marks, it's held out particularly well, and is often cited as one of the prime reasons the Mariners have remained above .500 well into September. Perhaps no element of the team has defied expectations so much as the relief corps. With a week left in spring training, there was no closer. Late inning duties this year have been shared by a guy who was traded for a no-name last winter, someone who was a no-name last winter, a guy who's coming back from microfracture surgery in his pitching elbow, someone who isn't Tim Lincecum (he didn't last for very long), and Sean White, who is boring. Complementing the late inning boys was a random crop of AAA arms and Miguel Batista. One can only imagine how bullpen coach John Wetteland must have felt when presented with his men at the start of the year, but eventually he was able to turn them into a functional (albeit more than slightly insane) unit.

How? As the story goes, on an early-season road trip, Mark Lowe downloaded 300, which for those unfamiliar with it, is a ridiculously over-the-top movie about the Spartans at Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred during the second Persian invasion of Greece in late 480 BC (spoiler: they all die). He shared his enthusiasm for the film with Wetteland, and things snowballed from there. Members of the bullpen adopted characters from the movie, Spartan helmets popped up everywhere, and a grand ol' time was had by all. One wonders exactly how badly the relievers expected the team to do if they felt as though they identified best with a bunch of guys who all end up dead, but there's no denying it fueled an us-against-the-whole-damn-world mindset that the bullpen latched onto and used as inspiration to pitch their hearts out. The siege mentality was further reinforced when MLB officials decided to take their helmets away. Small wonder, then, that the bullpen has pitched their collective hearts out this year, keeping games just close enough for the struggling position players to scrape out more wins than losses.

This would be all well and good if the Mariner bullpen was actually as good as traditional numbers suggest. But they're not. They're not even average, despite all the one-run games and saves for David Aardsma. By using tRA-derived valuation statistics, they've been more than a quarter-century of runs below average, which turns out to be the worst mark in the American League. AL West rivals Oakland, on the other hand, are well over the +50 mark, which is a spread of almost seven and a half wins. By the numbers, they have answered the questions surrounding them in spring training, and the answer turns out to have been 'holy crap they're bad'. But this doesn't jive at all with their ability to keep them Mariners in business in close games. The team has won an absurd number of one run games, and generally has the ability to keep games close once the team turns over pitching duties to the bullpen. So what gives? Is the Mariner bullpen an above-average unit with an elite closer as the spearhead, or is David Aarsdma the equivalent of affixing a razor blade to a forty foot tall marshmallow and calling it a weapon? Or is the answer somewhere in between?

I hope it's the last option, because otherwise I've just spent a tonne of time collecting data for no good reason. Let's dig in.

Note: All data current as of 2:39 PM Sept 12th, 2009. Partial innings denoted as .3 for one out, .7 for two.

First, let's look at our cast of intrepid heroes and Denny Stark. Who's been leaned on the most? The quartet of Mark Lowe, Sean White, Miguel Batista, and David Aardsma have accounted for a little over half of the innings thrown by Mariner relievers this season, as shown in the chart below:

Figure 1: Innings pitched by Mariner relievers in 2009

Chris Jakubauskas and Shawn Kelley have also both seen significant time this year as well, and Kelley was thriving in a late-inning role until he suffered a rib injury in mid-May. Five arms have appeared in both the rotation and the bullpen, including Brandon Morrow, who began the season as the closer before a series of meltdowns got him demoted. Now that we have a pretty good idea of who's soaked up how many innings, let's take a look at their numbers in RA and tRA form:

Table 1: RA, tRA, rRAA, and pRAA for Mariner relievers in 2009

rRAA and pRAA are computed by taking the difference between league RA and tRA respectively and multiplying by innings pitched/9 for rRAA and expected innings/9 for pRAA, with Δ denoting the difference between rRAA and pRAA. As the column on the far right shows, Mariners pitchers have, by and large, far exceeded their expected value as far as defence/park-independent statistics are concerned. This is hardly a surprise, as the Mariners have the best defence in the game and play in a pitcher-friendly park. The biggest differences are in Sean White and David Aardsma's numbers, who between them 'should' be worth around 15 runs less than their actual numbers would suggest. Again, this isn't a surprise, as the pitchers likely to have the biggest negative difference between pRAA and rRAA are those who've been highly effective by ERA and associated metrics. The opposite should also hold true: the poor performers are likely to have been negatively impacted by their fielders.

In fact, the only relief pitchers who have a lower tRA than RA are Mark Lowe, Brandon Morrow, and Garrett Olson, and only Lowe has been part of the bullpen all season. The numbers are fairly remarkable - by using traditional numbers, the Mariner bullpen has been worth +6.4 runs total, and with pRAA, they've been at a rather alarming -25.9. Miguel Batista is particularly notable for having cost us almost ten runs over the course of the season, but he's had a couple of competitors for the suckiest bullpen arm award, with Jakubauskas and Stark (in ten innings somehow) pushing him all the way. Some (most) of the numbers in the table above has to have come from the defence, as Safeco Field isn't going to explain away the whole thing. But before we look at defensive contributions explicitly, I'd like to introduce the concept of leverage.

Most of you should be familiar with Jeff's lovely win expectancy charts, which appear after nearly every game. The idea of win expectancy is straightforward. For each game state (outs, score, runners, inning) we can figure out the likelihood of an average team beating another average team. Despite most teams not being completely average and entirely constituted of average players, win probability can be used as a measure of how important a given event was in terms of winning or losing baseball games. A walk-off home run? Worth a lot. A two-out walk with the bases loaded in the second when down by five? Not so much. In fact, for each game state, we know what the possible swings in win probability are. A team cannot possibly make a big impact in one at-bat when they're ten runs down, even if the batter hits a grand slam, but with the tying run at third with one out in the ninth, the situation can become critically important.

Table 2: 2009 AL relief leverage by
team, descending

Leverage is a measurement of just how important those situations are. Fortunately, the good people at Fangraphs keep track of this number for both teams and individual players. Here we are concerned with the average leverage a pitcher sees, denoted as pLI (the average is 1.00). In general one might expect bullpens to see higher leverage situations than starting pitchers, but as Table 2 to the left shows, this is not the case for most of the American League, which have seven teams below 1.00 and 12 below 1.10. The standout teams are the Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners, with the latter leading the major leagues in bullpen leverage (the Dodgers and Cubs are also both over 1.20 in average bullpen leverage).

There are a number of reasons why we might see such a disparity in the stressfulness of situations seen by a bullpen. One such reason might be that a team is poor enough that they are regularly losing by large enough amounts to make winning improbably: this might apply to the AL's basement teams: Oakland, Kansas City, and Baltimore. Or the opposite could be true and the team could routinely be so far ahead by the time the manager goes to a reliever that their innings simply aren't worth very much, which is the route taken by the New York Yankees and their absurdly powerful offence.

Conversely, a team which finds its bullpen highly stressed will be in contention to win many games, one that relies on excellent run prevention to keep things close. That would be the Mariners. Their bullpen leverage index of 1.23 means that the runs saved or given up by Mariner relievers are worth 132% of those saved or given up by their counterparts in New York.

The same concept applies to individual pitchers on the same team. By multiplying innings pitched by individual pLI, we can see the relative importance of the innings a pitcher has soaked up, as shown below:

Figure 2: IP*pLI for Mariner relievers in 2009

As we can see, David Aardsma springs into the lead once important innings are considered. The top four of Aardsma/Lowe/White/Batista are now responsible for almost two thirds of leveraged relief innings, and the team total has jumped by more than 100 innings (this is insane, by the way). Aardsma and Lowe are entirely responsible for the team's jump in innings total, with the former experiencing the equivalent of 76 extra innings' worth of stress and the latter a robust +38, due to pLIs of 2.21 and 1.55 respectively. Brandon Morrow's adventures in Minnesota and Texas see him grab more innings, and poor Doug Fister, who made his debut at the end of a blowout game, has his contribution marked as wholly irrelevant and thus discarded.

We need to account for leverage when we look at value metrics like pRAA, and again this is a simple case of multiplication. Numbers multiplied by pLI are denoted with an apostrophe:

Table 3: pLI and leveraged rRAA and pRAA for Mariner relievers in 2009

Aardsma's performance is particularly notable, but apart from the fantastic contribution from our closer, what really stands out is how poorly Miguel Batista has been used. His pLI was just a tick below average, and this season he's been running a tRA of almost six. While his contract demanded that he be on the roster somewhere, the damage he's caused could probably have been mitigated by relegating him to mop-up duty rather than deploying him in relatively close games. Denny Stark and Chris Jakubauskas both saw their negative contributions decreased due to their throwing in less stressful situations, which would have left Batista all alone at the bottom if not for the increased impact of The Adventures of Brandon Morrow. The chart does show you why the Mariner pen is held in high regard by those watching, though. The important innings have gone to White, Aardsma, and Lowe, and by and large they just haven't allowed runs, to the tune of 44 runs saved by rRAA. Let's look at an overall comparison between rRAA, pRAA, and the leveraged numbers:

Table 4: rRAA, pRAA, and leveraged values for Mariner relievers in 2009

As shown in the table above, leveraging the numbers results in an increase in both rRAA' and pRAA'. This should go as a feather in the cap of Don Wakamatsu, as it demonstrates his ability use his bullpen arms (sans Batista) effectively - the most important innings have gone to the most able pitchers. It's really no wonder that those watching games and following closely think that the team has a good bullpen. Naturally, we pay more attention when we're in with a shot at winning, and in those situations, the relief corps just doesn't give up runs. It's hard not to be confident in the later innings when your top arms are that good at shutting the opposition's bats. But again, how much of this is the responsibility of the pitcher? pRAA' agrees that the bullpen is generally far better when the game's on the line, but still has the unit as well below average, and almost three wins less valuable than it would appear when simply looking at runs, which is a similar result to what we saw earlier when looking at unleveraged values.

The defence, then, has to have some responsibility for the perception of the bullpen as an elite unit. How much defensive support has each pitcher received? Is defence clutch in any way (the most likely explanation for this would be sensible use of defensive replacements)? Although you could probably figure things out from the numbers above, we like our graphs around here - the chart below shows the defensive support given to each pitcher per tRA's xRR, which is simply expected runs minus actual runs with park effects accounted for. Both plain xRR and xRR multiplied by pLI are shown.

Figure 3: Defensive support (standard and leveraged) for Mariner relievers in 2009 (click image for full size).

Aardsma and White have been the primary beneficiaries of the defence this season, but it's hard to argue in favour of defensive clutchness: Morrow didn't get much support, and Lowe has been a little better than his traditional line too. In fact, summing leveraged xRR and subtracting plain xRR leaves you with one extra run, which is a little surprising considering the average pLI of 1.23. Overall, the defence hasn't cared who's pitching or what the score is - it's just gone out and made plays no matter the situation. Despite some of it being explained away with leveraged numbers, I have to conclude that the greater part of the difference between 'common knowledge' and a quick statistical peek at our pen's numbers is due to Franklin Gutierrez and company.

All in all, I think it's pretty clear that although the bullpen isn't as good as commonly believed, it hasn't been as bad as simply looking at unleveraged pRAA would suggest, simply because the guys relied on when the games are on the line have been much better than those in mopup duty (surprise!). However, the bullpen has still been below average, and without the safety blanket of the best defence in the game to make them look good, we'd hear less about resilience and esprit de corps and more about fatigue and the need for mechanical tweaks.

If this is Sparta, it's been more Sellasia than Thermopylae.

Felix Pie's Progress, With a Side of Player X

devil_fingers — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:57:19 -0000

More photos » by Gail Burton - AP

TIME FOR PIE (at a baseball game).

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This past January, as part of their seemingly perpetual plan to get better by getting older, the Cubs traded long-touted prospect Felix Pie to the Orioles for a ~~quarter pound of raw beef~~ Garrett Olson and A ball reliever Henry Williamson. Pie, 24 years old to start the 2009 season, had almost always hit well in the minors at levels in which he was among the younger performers. Bur after less than 300 disappointing MLB plate appearances spread over the 2007 and 2008 seasons, the Cubs were "done" with Pie. The Orioles, who have spent the last couple offseasons ripping off clubs with less-than-brilliant GMs, received a guy who had come to be seen as a tool-sy guy who had lost his luster. He was to serve as maybe a defensive LF (where he would be a defensive standout, given his good defensive in CF) or a fourth outfielder for the Orioles, already loaded with young talent with Adam Jones in CF and Nick Markakis in RF. Then the year began, and Pie wasn't hitting. At all. He had some injury problems. Luke Scott started killing the ball, then Nolan Remold came up and did the same.

The last few weeks, Pie has really been smoking the ball. Adam Jones' injury has given him even more playing time. I'm not going to do one of my little "projections" here, but let's take a look at some of the positive factors about Pie this season that make him possibly more than just a high-end stopgap for the Orioles, a team that many (rightly) see as having a very bright near future.

The first thing to note, of course, is that Pie never really got a chance with the Cubs. 300 PAs is nothing, and Pie got less than that spread over two seasons.. Second, again, Pie was only 24 years old at the start of the season. There would seem to be plenty of development time left.

Despite his dreadful career MLB wOBA prior to joining the Cubs, the "big" projection systemss that also took into account his minor league performance all saw him as a .310-.320 wOBA hitter. That's about 5-10 runs below average over a full season. Not good, but when combined with good defense in CF, it leaves open the possibility for a league average player. Thus far this season (in only 230 PAs, to be sure), Pie has exceeded those expectations, with a .335 wOBA. Nut bad for a 25 year-old, really. While 230 PAs isn't much, let's look "behind the scenes" a bit to see if there's anything to the improvement.s

His peripheral hitting stats show some progress so far this season. With the Cubs, his walk rates were between 7% and 8%. This season he's up to 9.7%. He still strikes out a great deal, but his K rate is down to 22% after being over 25% in his time with the Cubs. His BB/K ratio is also up to .49, up from the .33 and .24 he put up in 2007 and 2008 with the Cubs.

This does seem to be a reflection of a more refined approach to the strike zone, as his O-Swing (percentage of pitches swung at outside of the strike zone) is down below 28%, which is an improvement for him from this Chicago seasons. His contact rate is also back up.

Pie is also hitting more line drives and flyballs, and many of those are going out of the park. Although Pie's fast, getting the ball in the air is good. His 2009 BABIP a the time of this writing is .309, and The Hardball times xBABIP calculator returns a .316 for me. Not luck there. HIs HR/FB rate does seem a bit lucky. According to Hit Tracker Online, 3 of Pie's 8 home runs this season have been "just enough," and that's a bit of a lucky rate. Still, he's hitting a decent number of doubles, and power, like patience, is something that usually is still developing for players Pie's age.

As for fielding, Pie has a very limited sample in the OF this season, with less than 500 innings so far. But his UZR/50 is +7.9 so far, which is in line with prior performance. UZR doesn't like him so much in CF this season, but less than 220 innings of defense is like judging a players hitting by 50 PAs. For his career, Pie is +4 in CF, and scouting reports tend to agree that he's a good defender out there.

Again, there are no guarantees here, but looking at age, past performance, and peripherals for this season, Pie definitely looks like a guy who has a very good chance than just a a stopgap starter or 4th OF. Let's compare his with another center fielder, Player X.

Player X is only 6 months younger than Pie. The player is a better hitter than Pie prior to 2009, and this season is still better, but Player X's 2009 wOBA of .343 is only a few runs better than Pie's .335 (and, again, one really should use a projection here -- I'm just looking at perception). Player X has a sterling defensive reputation, but this season has actually been -8.7 runs below average in CF this season. His career UZR/150 in CF is 1.0 as opposed to Pie's 4.3

While Pie's career walk rate, 8.5%, is about average, Player X isn't exactly Rickey Henderson at the plate, with a 5.6% walk rate. Player X's .39 BB/K ratio is also below average and worse than Pie's in 2009, although it is an improvement for Player X. Most shocking, perhaps, for those of us who don't follow the Orioles on a day-to-day basis, player X as a 35.3% O-Swing for his career, while having only about a 75% contract rate.

Who is Player X? Player X is the guy that Pie backs up: Adam Jones.

My point is not to put down Jones. Far from it. Despite some obvious flaws in his strike zone judgment and a down year defensively, Jones is still rightly regarded as a cornerstone of a resurgent Baltimore franchise. My point is that when you look at Pie's numbers in comparison, and realize that despite Pie seemingly having been around forever, that they are about the same age. So (sample size caveats granted), Pie needs to be in the mix for a starting spot next season.

Indeed, maybe Pie needs to be in CF with Jones in left, although either way would mean great OF defense. Reimold (who isn't making anyone forget the young Barry Bonds in left field) could move to DH or first, with Luke Scott taking the other spot (unless they trade him).

Or, hey, maybe the Orioles just want to give up on Pie like the Cubs did. That's fine by me. I know a team that could use a good outfielder or two... couldn't Baltimore use a shortstop who was once more valuable than Billy Butler?

72-65, Quick Game Notes

Jeff — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:45:54 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

OH GOD NOT AGAIN

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Maybe if I write really fast people won't notice that this is how I spent my Saturday night.

When I went through the PITCHfx data and saw that Luke French threw 63% strikes, I could hardly believe it, because I could've sworn he threw a lot more balls. Turns out maybe he should've, because the strikes he threw got pounded. Though I thought he was a lot better than his results the last time out, today he was awful - just awful - to the point that even the A's made him pay. Slider? Fine. Fastball? Kept missing. Change? Practically non-existant. How does a guy with French's fastball throw 37 pitches to righties and only five changeups?

A step back for a guy whose spot in next year's rotation is in no way guaranteed. While he's not a bad pitcher, I'd wager he doesn't have anyone's confidence right now, and that confidence won't come until he starts getting better results.

Jason Vargas, meanwhile - welcome back. Vargas was good with Tacoma, came up, had his ups and downs, went back to Tacoma, was good, then came up again. Tonight he worked in relief of French and threw 2.1 perfect innings, flashing more of that changeup I love so much (five thrown, three swinging strikes). I think it's a product of having spent so much of my life surrounded by praise for Jamie Moyer and Trevor Hoffman, but the changeup is my favorite pitch, so I love having a guy like Vargas who can use it whenever he wants to great effect. French may very well wash out. Garrett Olson may never improve. Vargas, though, I think is good enough to pitch in the bigs for a pretty long time, even if he doesn't get any better.

Rank of Michael Wuertz's swinging strike rate among all relievers:

2009: 1st
2008: 22nd
2007: 4th
2006: 1st
2005: 3rd

Seems like the Cubs could've used something like a ZiPS projection before trading him for pocket change. Wuertz has often been accused of falling in love with his slider, but considering his slider is literally the most unhittable slider in baseball, I think he can be forgiven, and if the A's handle this right, they'll be able to use him to trade for a lot more than they originally gave up.

Of the two feel-good stories we've plugged in at DH, I never expected Mike Sweeney to be the one to catch fire down the stretch. His homer today was longer than any Jose Lopez has hit all season.

I can't find an exact count, but on only something like 120 occasions has a player ever struck out five times in a game. BIll Hall just wants to be remembered.

Since he got so close today and I don't think I'm going to be around tomorrow, let's get this out of the way - congratulations, Ichiro, on reaching 2000 career hits. 2000 career Major League hits, anyway. People will always bring up his Japanese stats and some will insist that their exclusion is insulting, but the Japanese (A) don't play in the Major Leagues, and (B) don't play at a Major League level, so for our purposes, those stats are meaningless. What does hit #2000 mean? Nothing, really, at least nothing more than hit #1999 or hit #2001, but America loves a big round number as much as it loves its big round people, and to get there in fewer than nine seasons is one of those things that I don't think we're going to appreciate in full until Ichiro's gone.

We all take Ichiro for granted. Every single one of us. Let his big day be the one day we try - just try - to understand how extraordinary he really is.

Miguel Batista : Mariners :: appendix : humans. He doesn't serve a critical purpose and all he ever does is make you hurt.

Mariners Make Exactly Zero Surprising Roster Moves

Jeff — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:53:50 -0000

From Baker's blog and a bevy of Twitters, the M's have kicked off September by adding Mike Carp, Jason Vargas, and Adrian Beltre back on to the big league roster. Those aren't the only players you're going to see added this month, but Tacoma's still gunning for the playoffs, so in the interest of maintaining a pleasant relationship with their highest affiliate, the Mariners have for the time being elected to only take its best pitcher and one of its best hitters. Rooting for a minor league team seems fulfilling.

Carp's here to both get some playing time and fill in for Russell Branyan, who may be done for the year with a funny back. On the plus side, Branyan's back issue helps explain his second half and lower his price in the offseason, but then it also serves as a chilling reminder that he's a 33 year old slugging first baseman who's had old player skills his entire life. Going forward he is by no means a sure thing, which is why it'd be nice if we could depend on Carp to provide a little productivity as a fallback. He's no star in the making, as Dave talked about earlier today, but guys have done more with less, so there's some reason for optimism.

Vargas...well I don't know why so many people seem to have written him off already. Granted, little can be expected of him over the course of this final month, since the team is in theory still trying to limit his innings, but considering he didn't throw a single meaningful pitch all of 2008 due to injury, I'm more than happy with his strong changeup and ability to induce swings at balls out of the zone. Vargas has been good in AAA and okay in the Majors, and though he's not RRS, he's not Garrett Olson, either, and it's nice to have him back. Despite the crowded picture, he may very well be a part of our future rotation.

Beltre's back for what will likely be his final five weeks in a Mariner uniform. His time in Seattle has been marked by several long fly balls at home dying on the track, relentless fan criticism, and a contused right testicle. I wonder what's the opposite of a home town discount.

56-51, Game Notes

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

More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

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

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

Enjoyment = Aα + Bβ + Cγ + Dδ +…

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

If α = level of offense and β = duration

Then B > A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yuniesky Betancourt as a Royal:

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

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

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

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

53-49, Thoughts On Garrett Olson

Jeff — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:07:40 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

On the plus side, Olson has ML-caliber wizardry.

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It's weird to think about just months after supporting the trade to get him, but Garrett Olson really has nothing going in his favor. He doesn't miss bats. He doesn't get groundballs. He doesn't hit his targets. He doesn't have a good fastball. Most big league starter scouting reports don't begin with "Ryan Feierabend without the changeup," but that's what Olson's looked like, and though his breaking ball is kind of neat, it's hardly extraordinary, and certainly not enough to save the whole package. What a strange repertoire for a former top prospect. With a lot of work, he's a decent #4.

Between three levels back in 2006-2007, Olson walked 89 and struck out 282 in 293.2 innings. His K/BB in AAA was over 3. The numbers are certainly there to justify his former standing. If something's changed, I want to know what it was. If nothing's changed, I want to know why scouts were high on him. It's just - I'm trying to look at Olson objectively without focusing on his results, and objectively, what's there? If something isn't there that used to be there, what was it?

To me, visually, Garrett Olson doesn't look like a baseball player so much as he looks like an actor. And Amaury Nolasco doesn't look like an actor so much as he looks like a baseball player. You thinking what I'm thinking?

Garrett Olson is why people who're new to statistics have so much trouble making sense of regression as it relates to HR/FB%. Olson has allowed 113 fly balls this season. He's also allowed 18 home runs, for a HR/FB% of 16%. That rate is unusually high, and over time we would expect it to trend closer to 10-12%. However, when you watch him pitch and you see him give up a longball, you always feel like he deserved it, like he just has the sort of stuff that ML hitters like to deposit over the wall. It can be hard to understand. Hell, even I'm sitting here thinking "16%? That's it?" But what's important to keep in mind is that, just last year, when Olson was the same disappointing pitcher, his HR/FB% was 9.5%. Olson, right now, is bad, but he's not this bad. Whether the home runs have been the result of bad pitching, bad luck, or both, their continuing at this rate is unsustainable, and they've made him look worse than he really is. No one in the bigs deserves that sort of tRA.

What's remarkable about Don Wakamatsu is that I bet he'll still find a way to say something positive about Olson, even after his third straight abbreviated start. Lesson being, make one awesome relief appearance with the bases loaded and Don will forever have your back.

As of this writing, the M's can drop Olson from the rotation and replace him with Snell. However, in the event of a Washburn trade tomorrow, then there's an open slot with Olson, Jakubauskas, Morrow, and Fister as the candidates. Let's assume that Morrow's not an option. That leaves Olson, Jak, and Fister. Fans are getting sick of Olson, and Jak has settled into the if-I-only-pitch-in-ugly-losses-then-no-one-will-notice-I-suck long relief role in the bullpen. That leaves Fister as the popular choice. The danger, though, is that Fister doesn't have a repertoire either, he doesn't get many grounders, and his swinging strike rate is one of the lowest in the PCL. So, while a lot of people will likely clamor for Fister to get a chance should Washburn go away, it all likelihood it would just be a change for the sake of making a change, as opposed to a change for the better. (Post-Washburn trade update: resolved!)

51-45, Game Notes

Jeff — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:51:07 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

HEY GUYS HEY GUYS DID YOU SEE THAT??! HEY GUYS!

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Things kind of came unglued there in the seventh when he made a couple mistakes, but for six innings, Ryan Rowland-Smith was everything we wanted him to be. He had his normal starting velocity, he had all of his offspeed stuff working, and save for a handful of pitches that got away from him, he had his command. Though he wasn't missing a lot of bats, that's not his M.O.; RRS is a contact pitcher, and the fact that he retired 14 consecutive hitters over one stretch should tell you something about the quality of that contact for much of the game.

The problem, of course, is that contact pitchers have very little margin for error, and tonight we saw the whole spectrum. Early on, the Indians hit a few pitches hard. Then nothing for innings at a time. Then they went back to smacking the ball. On the one hand it's a shame the seventh had to go and spoil Ryan's outing, but on the other, an inning like that is always lurking just beneath the surface, and the fact that RRS was good for six innings is no more or less important than the fact that he later got beat by the long ball. These are just the ups and downs of his sort of pitcher type. Granted, the seventh kind of took that to the extreme, but still.

I don't want to focus too much on the runs allowed, though, because the most important thing to take away from RRS' start tonight is that he made it back, looked himself, and tossed seven innings. I really liked the look of his curve - he was getting some really sharp break and using it as a weapon against righties - and one changeup in particular stood out, the one he threw to Victor Martinez for a strikeout in the sixth. Though his fastball's not great, having three offspeed pitches he can throw for strikes allows him to keep hitters from sitting on it. That's a big help. In a way, it's the difference between him and Garrett Olson.

Welcome back to the bigs, RRS. A guy like him is never going to blow anyone away or dominate over multiple innings, but that's not what he's expected to do, and if he can turn in a bunch of starts like tonight's, then he'll be of good value to this team going forward. Kick some ass, Ryan.

I understand that it was his bobblehead night, but still, I was blown away by the fact that Safeco gave Franklin Gutierrez a standing ovation before his first at bat. It's not that he didn't deserve one; it's that I never expected him to get one. Not from us. It's great to see Mariner fans becoming more invested in the team and more aware of what makes it good. Alternatively they might all just really hate Wladimir Balentien.

Jose Lopez' BABIP on July 14th: .249
Jose Lopez's BABIP since: .387

That didn't take long. The fact that Lopez has carried over his offensive success from 2008 should probably be a bigger story than it is, because there was a lot of skepticism over the winter.

A friend of a friend recently got a new haircut. Apparently she went in to the hairdresser and kept asking her to cut it shorter and shorter until the lady refused to cut anymore. The friend of a friend then went home and proudly showed off her follicular equivalent of an irritated cockatiel to anyone who would listen. Now, that sounds bad enough on its own, but compounding the problem is that friends aren't honest about things like this. Nobody likes this new haircut, but at the same time nobody has the nerve to be straight with this girl to her face, so since coming home she's received nothing but a steady stream of compliments.

When people change their appearance, they want to know how they look. They want an honest assessment more than a pleasing lie, because no one wants to walk around looking uglier on purpose. Unfortunately not even the closest friends are aware of this, so generally speaking even a change for the worse will be met with falsely positive reviews. It is with that in mind that I will do Miguel Batista a favor.

No, Miguel. Absolutely not. You have literally never looked worse.

49-44, Very Quick Notes

Jeff — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:59:12 -0000

And thus ends Garrett Olson's 2009 stint in the rotation. When you watch him, you don't see much velocity or command or composure or a great breaking ball or a great change. That he used to be one of Baltimore's top pitching prospects seems to say more about Baltimore's old farm system than it does about Olson, because there's nothing in there that would blow a scout away. He's just thoroughly mediocre, without a whole lot of upside. I like having him around as insurance both now and down the road, but he just isn't good, and games like this are why so many people are afraid of dealing starters. Olson'll be okay, but he's pitched himself out of his spot. Welcome back Jason Vargas, and welcome back RRS.

Add "swing" to the list of Jack Hannahan's positive attributes that still don't add up to make much of a hitter. It's the weirdest thing. When you look at his discipline numbers and watch him swing, you'd think he'd be some sort of lefty masher with on base ability, but instead he just sucks. But boy did he look good this afternoon. How does that swing have three homers while Raul Ibanez's swing has 25?

I don't know why anyone ever thought that unpadded outfield walls would be a good idea, and maybe today will help shed some light on the sort of hazard they really pose. Putting players in that kind of danger is unnecessary, and having the kind of range in the outfield that we do these days is only going to make us that much more uneasy.

Franklin Gutierrez was going to make a spectacular catch looks really easy.

Larry Stone on Olson today at Baker's blog:

Olson did not have one swinging strike, by the way.

Atta boy, Larry.

The 1-2 changeup that Rodney threw to Wladimir Balentien in the ninth was pretty much never in the strike zone. Too often fans will criticize a hitter's pitch identification without understanding how hard it really is, but that swing - that swing decision was awful. It's a shame, too, because up until then Wlad had put up a good day at the plate, and now all anyone will remember is how bad he looked with the game on the line.

Ryan Langerhans came so close.