SB Nation User Blog: El Lay Dave

Joe Beimel going the full hirsute route. Found via Diamond Leung's blog.

El Lay Dave — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:59:48 -0000

Joe Beimel going the full hirsute route. Found via Diamond Leung's blog.

Confession - I'm not all that enamored of the All-Star Game

El Lay Dave — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:25:34 -0000

I'm old enough to remember a time when baseball on television consisted solely of the NBC Game of the Week on Saturday, selected Dodger road games (including all games in San Francisco), the post-season, and the All-Star Game. The only time the leagues met competitively was for the World Series. There was no 24-hour sports station, Baseball Tonight, MLB Network, games on internet. In a time like that, the All-Star Game was a true event, the stars of the game, many of whom you might rarely see on TV, let alone in person.

But now baseball telecasts exist for nearly every game, highlight shows abound, and you can find at least a clip of a few plays of every game on mlb.com. The serious fan can get his eyeful of any player in any league at any time. Add to that interleague play, providing another venue to see matchups between the leagues. Already this season we've seen Josh Beckett take on the Phillies bats and fail, the Dodgers and Angels face each other, and, not surprisingly, the Mets vs. the Yankees on Fox's national broadcast. There is no novelty to NL vs. AL anymore.

Despite losing the appeal of rare opportunity, at least I could watch high caliber players in fantasy-league type lineups compete against each other in a spirited but friendly exhibition of the best MLB had to offer. The fact the game was an exhibition allowed the players to focus on the individual matchups - batter vs. pitcher, battery vs. stolen base king - but also allowed them to drop the game faces in between. It was an atmosphere where all the players (except for Pete Rose) looked like they were having fun playing the game they played as boys.

In a desperate knee-jerk reaction to an All-Star Game that ended in a tie (so what?), Bud Selig and crew decided that home-field advantage for the World Series should be decided by that season's former interleague exhibition game. This is simply asinine and makes me angry enough to distract from my enjoyment of the game. Having something so crucial as World Series home field advantage - made more important by the DH/noDH rule enforced by home team's league rules - decided in a game that is impossible to manage purely to win and has some meaning for only a handful of players whose teams are realistic post-season contenders is simply a ridiculous concept. The participants in the contest are, at best, minor stakeholders in the prize to be bestowed. Dumb.

It also seems to me that the rule forcing the All-Stars to include at least one player from every team is contradictory to the goal of making the game count for something. If there's a meaningful prize at stake, then the leagues should pick the best players irrespective of team affiliation. No Oakland A's representative this year? Too bad; the AL has a better chance to win with more Red Sox, Yankees, or whoever on their team.

The fault is probably more mine than baseball's anyway. These little things add up and just grate against me, providing too much irritation for my curmudgeonly self to ignore and they gnaw away at me all game long. The All-Star Game just isn't must see TV anymore for me, and I'd just as soon ignore it as watch it these days. These days I'm now able to follow baseball more closely and intensely than ever before, so the All-Star break might be a welcome respite from baseball mid-summer.

I suppose I should propose some solutions for the All-Star Game, although my suggestions are actually quite simple:

Make it an exhibition game, the outcome having no bearing on anything else.
Remove the every team has a representative rule; just pick the top studs in each league.
Relax the roster limit, why not five more players to choose from? More stars!
Fire Bud Selig.

One of the great All-Star moments of all time, in any sport, was Magic Johnson participating in the NBA All-Star game after he was HIV positive and not even on the Lakers active roster. If Bud Selig was commissioner of the NBA instead of David Stern, that moment would have never happened due to various rules and the fact that it wasn't wholly an exhibition game.

Eric Milton - Not what he once was?

El Lay Dave — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:30:23 -0000

At the risk of jinxing tonight's game....

Last season Canuck Dodger warned those of us who were expecting Chan Ho Park to flop in a big way based on his clearly awful performances over the previous few season that we weren't accounting for other factors that were equally important. Canuck pointed out that Chan Ho's velocity was markedly up - I believe he sat 93-94 in a lot of his appearances - and that that was evidence that he was healthy for the first time in years. Perhaps so, since Park gave the Dodgers more good innings, and got bashed much less, than many of us expected.

This season's latest reclamation project is Eric Milton, who last started Sunday in the game broadcast on ESPN. They show us several clips of a younger Milton who was capable of hitting the mid-90s with his fastball and challenged hitters up in the zone. ESPN compared that Milton to the current one, who is attempting to resurrecting himself as a control-based lefty throwing an assortment of breaking stuff and spotting a fastball that might touch 90.

It is pretty clear that Milton hasn't built up his stamina yet as he visibly tires around 75-85 pitches at this point (in the ESPN game, his last pitch was higher than his target by about one foot and whacked by Reed Johnson), but perhaps I was too quick to judge him as a mere gopher-ball assembly line. His pitching approach is markedly different now compared to his Cincinnati and Philadelphia days, so perhaps we should cast a somewhat warier eye at his old number and let our eyes be the judge. Maybe he can even turn into a (very?) poor man's version of one of Phil Gurnee's faves, Frank Tanana, who ended up logging 21 seasons in the majors.

Chad Billingsley and the Verducci Effect

El Lay Dave — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:44:08 -0000

Should we be concerned?

No, that's not the new CD/download from some nouveau alt.folk artist. This seems to be the new primary concern regarding the next ace of the Dodger pitching staff. Or at least it seems that I have been observing an increase in mentions of the "Verducci Effect" and "Chad Billingsley" in the same sentence. However, I wasn’t under the impression that Billingsley’s workload had increased by amount that should cause increased concern. Eric Stephen touched on this thought as well here on TBLA, but I wanted to expand on it a little further.

What is the Verducci Effect?

Baseball Prospectus defines the Verducci Effect in their glossary this way:

Named for Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, this is a negative forward indicator for pitcher workload. Verducci, who called this the 'Year After Effect,' found that pitchers under the age of 25 who have 30-inning increases year over year tend to underperform. Will Carroll independently found that pitchers who break the "Rule of 30" tend to get injured. Carroll renamed this 'rule' the Verducci Effect in honor of the man who initially found the evidence.

Tom Verducci himself summarizes his idea in his own words (emphasis mine):

The unofficial industry standard is that no young pitcher should throw more than 30 more innings than he did the previous season. It's a general rule of thumb, ….

Pitchers generally feel the effects of abusive increases in workload the next year, not the season in which they were pushed. In other words, you might be able to finish that marathon for which you didn't properly train, but your body will have hell to pay for it. I call it the Year After Effect.

Here's the way I track it: Find major league pitchers 25-and-under who broke the 30-inning rule. In some cases a pitcher's innings the previous season may have been artificially depressed, such as by injury, so I'll use his professional high for the baseline, or…his college workload. All innings count (minors, majors, postseason).

How does the Verducci Effect apply to Billingsley?

Many of the references, like Beyond the Box Score point to Billingsley’s IP increase from 2007 to 2008 "147 IP last year, 212 this year – 65 inning increase", note 65 is a little more than twice 30, and stop there. However, Billingsley’s innings pitched in 2007 were "artificially depressed" while he worked in a bullpen role for half the season. If one uses his "professional high" in 2006 (163 IP) as the baseline instead, that is a 49 IP increase for last year instead, or 63% more than 30 IP, instead of 117% more. Beyond the Box Score lists seven pitchers who are Verducci Effect candidates based on last year’s increases, and this adjustment puts Billingsley in family with the two lowest increases on the list. Tim Lincecum and Jair Jurrjens.

Consider Billingsley’s IP totals over time. Again, Eric Stephen touched on this, but when viewed graphically, it’s pretty clear that 2007 is the outlier and that Billingsley’s innings pitched increase is pretty steady for his entire professional career, even if we tack on an estimated 230 IP for 2009.

Note: 2003 was his draft year, thus that is a partial-season following his season as a HS senior.

Also notice that for Verducci Effect purposes, his increases in IP from year to year show a slow and steady increase (dare we say well-planned?), 2007 notwithstanding:
12.00 / 17.00 / -16.00 / 49.33

Furthermore, Billingsley has shown steady improvement in his pitch efficiency in his MLB career:
Pitches/IP 17.81 17.09 16.69
Pitches/7IP 124.68 119.62 116.80

The differences may not seem large, but at 2007 pitch rates, he would have completed five fewer innings in 2008. This may make his 2008 increase more like 44 IP instead of 49.

Conclusions:

Billingsley’s IP increase of 49 compared to his previous career-most is something to keep an eye on, but the red alert status of the 2007 to 2008 increase is a red herring when it comes to the Verducci Effect.
If he had pitched 30 more innings in 2007, a season started in the bullpen and finished as a starter, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
We don’t know what extra work the Dodgers had Billingsley do during 2007 or the following off-season, if any.

As with all pitchers, especially young ones, injury is always a possibility and a risk, but it seems to me that, at worst, Chad Billingsley’s odds of injury or highly degraded performance are only slightly increased by the Verducci Effect.

When will a young Dodger get a multi-year deal?

El Lay Dave — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:23:15 -0000

Andre Ethier's arbitration hearing is today, a semi-secretive process both sides seem to relish as much as traffic on the 405 during a rainy rush hour. While the Dodger have settled most of their arbitration cases, it has been some time since a young player has signed a multi-year deal, and none of the current crop.

Andre Ethier is entering his age 27 season; his birthday is in late April. He's shown decent progression and is at a point in his career where the downside risk seems low. Yeah, he's probably not a 130+ OPS+ hitter every year, but he is very likely a solid corner OF entering his peak years and could be had for what seems to be a fairly reasonable price.

Meanwhile reports are that Nate McLouth just signed for 3yrs/$15.75M. The numbers exchanged for arb were 3.8 and 2.75.

Compare to Ethier:

McLouth - 436 G, 1484 PA, .261 .338 .461 109 OPS+, 51 HR
Ethier - 420 G, 1542 A, .299 .364 .482 116 OPS+, 44 HR

McLouth is primarily a CF, Ethier is not. Both entering their age 27 season, McLouth about six months older. Ethier's arb exchange is 3.75 and 2.65.

I still find it curious that the Dodgers have not signed a single younger player to a multi-year deal. A similar contract for Ethier doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

On a related note, from Tony Jackson's blog: "This is unconfirmed, but I'm pretty sure it's true: when the three-person arbitration panel makes its decision after Ethier's arbitration hearing this morning, that decision, which usually is made public the following day, will be sealed for a few days. Not even Andre or the club will know what it is. It won't be made public until after ALL of the pending arbitration hearings have taken place."

http://www.insidesocal.com/dodgers/2009/02/if-youre-waitin.html