SB Nation User Blog: Gray

Yeah, about that great pitching...

Gray — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:17:56 -0000

So Man Mountain and I went to the Futures game tonight, where we watched the prospects beat the crap out of pretty much every Reds pitcher we threw at them.

Well, okay. Mainly just Arroyo, Cordero and Lincoln. But those are kind of important guys to have not giving up runs to sub-MLB level hitting.

We came to the basic conclusion that the top five guys in the Futures lineup did a pretty nice job of not making fools of themselves against big league pitching. I mean, look at the results:

Heisey: 3 for 3 with a double

Valaika: 4 for 5 with a double

Francisco: 2 for 5 with 2 HRs, one a cheap inside-the-park one

Frazier: 1 for 4 with a walk

Alonso: 1 for 2 with 3 walks and a HR

I can't believe I dragged my camera along for these crappy pictures, but here goes. First, the lineups. Note that nobody wants to stand near Dusty. Also, each team seems to have one weird guy in shorts.

They had the local guy who pitched to Josh Hamilton for the HR Derby throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Then, they had the kid in this picture (who was apparently related to a sponsor) throw out a ceremonial second pitch. Somehow they resisted the urge to add more ceremonial pitches.

Arroyo pitched out of the stretch a lot. He also gave up a lot of hits.

Name this player!

Home run trot view.

Post-HR congratulations. This may have been after the inside-the-park HR. If I could actually identify these guys I might be able to tell you for sure. It was kind of a freak play, incidentally. Dickerson ran over near the line, but not in any particular rush. He didn't catch the ball. Then he managed to flip over a short fence/wall. When he popped up he seemed to think the ball had bounced foul, but no, it had bounced in fair territory. Once everything was sorted out, everyone had scored. But have no fear, Francisco had a real, honest-to-goodness HR later in the game.

More home run trotting...

The wind was doing strange things. This is an attempt to excuse that ridiculous failed catch of the popup in center, but really, he should have gotten it. There was also a dropped fly ball in right, I presume by Bruce. There was a band of sunlight shining on the field, and he lost track of the ball when he ran into that light.

Pirates Preview Time!

Gray — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:12:35 -0000

According to Jeff Schlegel, a travel columnist writing for the New York Times, "Pittsburgh has undergone a striking renaissance from a down-and-out smokestack to a gleaming cultural oasis." Unfortunately, their baseball team does not look ready for such a renaissance this year.

1: THE BASICS

Team name: Pirates

Team status: crappy

2: GETTING SLIGHTLY MORE SPECIFIC

Last winning season: 1992 (right before they lost Barry Bonds to free agency [but note that he never had more than 34 HRs in a season in Pittsburgh...])

And I know you're all anxious to see the back of peoples' heads in the Pirates' baseball stadium, PNC Park, so here you go:

via upload.wikimedia.org

3: SERIOUSLY, THOUGH

I rushed back from a spring break trip to Montreal to write about pretty much the crappiest team around? These guys make the Reds look good. Like, really good.

4: BUT WHAT ARE THEY SAYING ABOUT US?

I wandered over to Bucs Dugout to see that they are doing NL Central previews. It turns out that the Reds are in the NL Central, and look at the shit they're talking about us:

OFFSEASON

Not good. Like the Astros, the Reds seems to think that once you have a decent core in place, the right thing to do is to spread the rest of your money around to as many mediocre veterans as possible. In addition to signing Hernandez, Taveras and Rhodes, the Reds also re-signed a number of their own free agents, including David Weathers (one year, $3.9 million), Mike Lincoln (two years, $4 million), Norris Hopper (one year, $402,000) and Jerry Hairston (one year, $2 milion). Individually, there were arguments to be made for each of these signings: both Weathers and Lincoln were modestly effective last year, Hopper cost barely above the league minimum, and Hairston posted an .871 OPS in 261 at bats in 2009. But Weathers is 39 and had problems with walks last year, Hairston will be 33 and had two straight years absolutely awful years before 2008, and Lincoln and Hopper have never been very good.

More troubling was the signing of Taveras to a two-year, $6.25 million deal, ostensibly to be their starting center fielder. As a basestealing fiend and a solid defensive outfielder, Taveras has his uses, but he managed just a .295 slugging percentage last year in Coors Field, and he has absolutely no business starting. Ramon Hernandez, meanwhile, has good power for a starting catcher, but his batting average has been dwindling for a while now, and he may be close to done.

Wait a minute, I agree with them.

5: BECAUSE I'M TOO LAZY TO E-MAIL ANYBODY IN ADVANCE

Yes, that would require planning and passing up good eating, drinking, and whatnot in favor of working on this. Sorry, but the incentives are just not there. My solution: quote random comments from Bucs Dugout! Like, say, this one, in a rousing discussion of the starting rotation for this year:

Crap

I keep telling myself we have better depth at pitching than last year, but after the top 3, I’m not sure who we can count on. Ohlendorf sounds better than he is. We’re basically praying that Gorzo starts to pitch again. I’d hate to have two soft throwers like Duke and Karstens as starters with our defense, but that might be our best bet. Maybe Maholm, Duke, Snell, Gorzo, Karstens.

Even in the "top three", we’re counting on Maholm not regessing, Snell "fixing his delivery" or whatever, and Duke keeping his ERA under 6. Not good.

Yeah, so brings us to section 5.A. That's right:

5.A: STARTING PITCHING

Their pitching staff is just full of young, mediocre (or worse) pitchers. Let's look at their top five starters from last year:

Zach Duke, 26. The guy had a freak performance in his rookie season in 2005: 1.81 ERA, 1.2 WHIP in 84 IP, for an ERA+ of 234 (textbook example: effects of small sample sizes). He then returned to Earth in the next three seasons, with an ERA+ of 99, 79 and 86 and WHIP of 1.5, 1.7, and 1.5. But yeah, he's young, turning 26 in a month.
Paul Maholm, 27. Another freak small-sample-size performance in his 2005 rookie season, ERA+ of 194, WHIP of 1.16 in 41 IP. But after two blah seasons, he turned in a solid performance last year, bringing his WHIP back down to 1.28 and finishing with an ERA+ of 111 in 206 IP. And did I mention that he's also young?
Ian Snell, 27. His breakout season was in 2007, when he got his WHIP down around 1.3 and posted an ERA+ of 116. He then proceeded to suck even more in 2008 than he did in 2005 or 2006, with a WHIP over 1.7 and an ERA+ of 76 in 164 innings.
Tom Gorzelanny, 27. He had a solid performance in 60 innings in 2006, then continued that in 201 innings in 2007. Both seasons, his WHIP was below 1.4 and his ERA+ was above 110. But he seriously sucked last year, with a WHIP of 1.8 and an ERA+ of 62 in 105 IP. Hence the mention above of praying that he "starts to pitch again." Hey, it could happen...
Phil Dumatrait, 26. Wait, this guy is still around? My sources tell me that the Pirates picked him up off of waivers and he pitched 78 innings last year with an ERA+ of 78 and a WHIP above 1.5. But, um, he was better than Gorzelanny. At any rate, he's gone.

A Post-Gazette article on Monday quoted the Pirates GM, Neal Huntington:

Also today, general manager Neal Huntington said the first cuts of the spring will come "early next week," with a larger wave a week later.

Huntington said, too, that Jimmy Barthmaier, owner of an 18.69 ERA, is off the list of rotation candidates. The field now remains eight, Huntington said, reiterating that only Paul Maholm is a lock, with Ian Snell and Zach Duke right behind, but adding Virgil Vasquez to a field that already included Ohlendorf, Tom Gorzelanny, Jeff Karstens and Daniel McCutchen.

Wait, who? Oh, that's right. All three came over from the Yankees in the Xavier Nady trade last season.

Karstens posted an ERA+ of 102 in 51 innings after coming over, and Ohlendorf continued the sub-70 ERA+ sucking he had been doing in NY. They're both 26, though.
I don't think that McCutchen has played in the majors before, though he has posted nice strikeout numbers in the minors. He kept his WHIP below 1.2 in AA and AAA across the Yankees and Pirates organizations last season. Also 26.

One more note about the starters: Duke, Maholm, and Gorzelanny are all lefties.

5.B: RELIEF PITCHING

Their relievers were surprisingly not-horrible last year, anchored by then-24-year-old closer Matt Capps (137 ERA+, sub-1.0 WHIP), 30-year-old John Grabow (145 ERA+, 1.3 WHIP), and Damaso Marte, whose 119 ERA+ and one K/inning were traded with Nady to the Yankees. They also relied heavily on mediocre performances from Tyler Yates (88 ERA+), Sean Burnett (87), Franquelis Osoria (68), T.J. Beam (100), and Denny Bautista (68). Given that the PIrates basically did nothing in the offseason, unless a rookie breaks out the relief corps should look a lot like last year's, sans Marte.

5.C: NON-PITCHERS

5.C.1: WAS THERE A TWO-FOR-ONE DEAL ON LAROCHES?

The hope was for the corners to be manned by Andy and Adam LaRoche. However, Andy is an idiot who didn't believe his doctors when they told him he'd have to keep doing the prescribed exercises:

"My back felt great and this offseason I didn't really stick with (the exercises) like I should," LaRoche admitted. "I guess the doctors were right when they said I'll have to stick with them for the rest of my career."

He missed the spring training opener, but I imagine he's playing by this point. So let's look at the actual starters...

5.C.2: THE OFFENSE: THE BROTHERS LAROCHE AND OTHERS

Last year, the Pirates were strong at catcher (Doumit: 128 OPS+), first (Adam LaRoche: 123), and in the outfield (Nady, now gone, Bay in left, also now gone in that big Ramirez deal, and McLouth in CF with 126). The rest of the infield was mediocre: Freddy Sanchez (79) at second, Jose Bautista (95) with the most starts at 3B, and Jack Wilson (77) at short. Nobody has any real speed except for McLouth (23 SB/3 CS). And I have no idea who's supposed to fill out the outfield. They did invite Andy Phillips to spring training, so maybe they'll try him. According to some guy at Bucs Dugout, outfielder Andrew McCutchen does have some promise, but he may not even start the season in the majors. So, it looks like they'll be relying on lots of retreads to fill in those outfield holes, unless I'm completely missing something.

This is always possible. In fact, aren't the Reds doing the same thing?

6: CONCLUSIONS AND AVENUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

I'm sure if I say that this team will suck even more than the Reds this year, that will come back to bite me, but I think that I can say it with some confidence anyway. The Pirates took a team that went 67-95 last season, pulled what the Reds love to do when blessed with a good outfield (decimate it), got little in return, and then basically did nothing else. They're now hoping that the guys who played way above their heads last year can maintain that, and the others can return to their top form. This seems unlikely to happen.

Of course, their greatest strength is their youth. Given how young pretty much the entire team it is, a few players could always find their stride. But since there are so many holes, it's going to be pretty tough for enough guys to step up this year to give this team a chance of making the playoffs. And with their pitching situation, this could be another long, painful season. At least a few young offensive players should be fun to watch...

APPENDIX A: ADDING AN ACTUAL LINEUP

There was a complaint in the comments about the "conspicuous" absence of a projected lineup, so here's one.

Morgan LF (career OPS+ in 267 ABs across two seasons: 98)
Sanchez 2B
Mcclouth CF
Doumit C
LaRoche 1B
LaRoche 3B
Wilson SS

And in RF, one of Hinske (2008 OPS+: 107 with the Rays, after bombing with Boston in 2007 to the tune of an OPS+ of 83), Moss (he's only 25, with an OPS+ of 95 over his two seasons in the majors), or Pearce (career OPS+ in his two seasons: 91).

Holy crap, that's a depressing lineup.

Incidentally, I was dubious, but even with his batting average of .271, OBP of .298, and slugging percentage of .371, Sanchez usually batted second last season--356 PAs second, 162 first, 61 third, and only a handful anywhere else in the lineup. This for a guy with zero SBs all season. As if this lineup needed help to be any crappier...

Help a baseball blogger get a scholarship

Gray — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:48:54 -0000

Sure, this isn't Reds-related, but not much is going on right now, so why not hop over to this poll and vote for a fellow baseball blogger, David Cameron? The winner of the poll gets a $10,000 scholarship.

Sure, he writes about the Mariners (I know, I know: who cares?), but he certainly appears to be an intelligent, stats-focused blogger. In an odd twist, the scholarship would be applied to his studies in my department, though I apparently don't know this guy. I avoid undergrads, after all.

Oh, and he's in second place, running about a thousand votes behind the current winner. But hey, it's only a couple of clicks.

Time to start drinking: There's a game on soon!

Gray — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:24:50 -0000

Yeah, I know, I find it hard to care about this, but the Dodgers and Phillies are playing. Does anybody have any good reason why I should support one team or another?

You could read the crappy yahoo game preview here. I bet it's thrilling. I don't really know, since I haven't actually read it myself...

Or we could just talk about politics or the economy or the Office or something. And what's everybody drinking? I'm avoiding the beer so far since I'm actually attempting to get some work done, but don't let me keep you from drinking...

That wacky tie-breaker in international baseball

Gray — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:08:55 -0000

The United States team lost to Cuba in 11 innings. Since they were tied after ten, the crazy tiebreaker kicked in: each team starts with men on first and second, choosing where in the lineup to start hitting.

What amazes me is that everyone seems to choose to bunt the runners over. The Cuba team did this; both then scored on a single. Davey Johnson did the same thing with the U.S. team, even after the first guy to try bunting was injured. But keep in mind: they sent out the #2 hitter in the lineup...to bunt.

One runner scored on a sac fly, then the last runner was stranded when the next batter fouled out.

We all know what Dusty (Baker) would do in this situation. But would any MLB manager go against this conventional "wisdom" and let all three batters hit?

Can these titles contain profanity?

Gray — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:36:03 -0000

You know what, Reds? Fuck you.

I take three days off from the Inter Net to pack and move back into the country, and I return to find that you've traded Dunn? Not to mention that you're behind the PITTSBURGH PIRATES in the standings.

So someone decided we couldn't possibly re-sign Dunn without bothering to have, you know. A plan. Like a plan for an actual outfield, post-Dunn. Or an actual offense, that could create runs and shit. Minor details.

This team officially has major holes in LF, CF, SS, and catcher, no decent subs, and the pitching isn't exactly stellar. And the logical move was to trade Dunn for practically nothing?

Fuck this.

It could be worse...

Gray — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:42:20 -0000

Sure, I'm not incredibly happy with the general managing of the team this year, but it could be worse. Like, say, over at the Astros.

From the Sporting News trade rundown linked from the front page post:

The Astros and general manager Ed Wade continue to amaze and astound. They started Thursday a half-game out of the NL Central cellar, 13 1/2 games behind the division-leading Cubs and 9 1/2 games out of the wild-card lead. And yet, they traded Cusick, a young mid-level prospect -- who was a South Atlantic League All-Star this year -- from an almost already barren farm system for a 35-year-old reliever [LaTroy Hawkins] who had been designated for assignment by the Yankees after posting a 5.71 ERA in 2008.

...

This on the heels of trading for veteran lefthanded starter Randy Wolf, who is on the verge of reaching contract incentives that could leave the Astros on the hook for as much as $3 million for the rest of the season. Neither deal makes much sense, but both players have at least one thing in common -- they were targeted by the Astros as free agents last offseason.

Wade told The Chronicle that he was happy to make the deals because the pitchers had spurned the Astros' offers in the offseason. And now, both pitchers were bad enough this season that they were almost given away in a trade market filled with teams desperate for pitching help. So, basically, when the pitchers had free will, they chose to stay far away from Houston -- in Wolf's case, he took a lower offer to go to San Diego -- so Wade went about other routes to acquire them despite their struggles this season.

Amazing.

In which Dusty demonstrates his lack of understanding of basic statistics.

Gray — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:18:12 -0000

Seriously, I don't know how to begin to reason with someone who says something like this (from CTR's blog):

"Every time he doesn't get a hit, his odds of getting a hit go up every time," Baker said of his shortstop.

...

No, Dusty, I don't think that's true. If I flip a (fair) coin, and it comes up heads six times in a row, what's the probability of it coming up tails the next time?

Yep, still 50%.

Toronto, 26/6/2008

Gray — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:08:30 -0000

I had managed not to see that the Reds were playing in Toronto this summer, but given that I'm not too far down the road, plus I've been meaning to go to Toronto anyway, I jumped at the chance to take a quick trip over there this week. We departed Thursday morning and wandered the city until I dumped my companions and went to the game. Then we left yesterday afternoon, back to Montreal in time for the weekend.

As I made my way from the ticket pickup window to the gate, I ran across several guys in Reds jerseys, one of who was wondering aloud if his 14 K signs would be enough to record all of Edinson's strikeouts. We joked about this. Ha, ha.

I know nobody here needs to be reminded of this, but this was kind of a depressing game.

First off, Corey Patterson was starting.

But at least he wasn't the leadoff batter. Cherry Hudson Junior took that honour:

Not that he did too much with it or anything. Edinson didn't look horrible initially. He was hitting 94 or 95 on the stadium gun.

He didn't seem to be locating his pitches so well, though. He held it together in the first, then made one big mistake in the second to give up the two-run HR. But the third started with Scutaro doing his best to dive into a pitch. Dusty argued a bit, and then things didn't get much better.

Soon enough, there are quite a few men on base and a conference at the mound. Things aren't looking good.

Somehow he only gave up three runs on a HBP, two walks and two singles. So I guess that's something. And at least the Reds got a run back on a Dunn double in the top of the fourth. He advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a BP sac fly. The Reds wouldn't score again, though.

This was not a great line.

But Volquez had a decent bottom of the fourth, getting a flyout and two groundouts. Two groundouts and a strikeout for the Reds, and then all hell broke loose. After a double, another double, a wild pitch, a groundout, then another double, Dusty finally bothered to come out to the mound.

I still can't believe it: no strikeouts.

By the later innings, I was starting to get bored. But I did noticed that the Blue Jays scoreboard puts up a maple leaf by the name of Canadian hitters. Like, say, Joey Votto:

The only Blue Jay from Canadia is Matt Stairs, apparently.

Oh, and note that Patterson wasn't actually playing in center field.

He was in centre field. Ha, ha. Oh, and he grounded out and struck out.

But at least there was the frequent sight of Dunn at second. Here he is after his second double. Also, for those who were wondering, a metre is 3.28 feet, to three significant figures.

So sure, he didn't hit that HR I called for him, but two doubles aren't so shabby. Note that he was booed lustily every time he came to bat. He showed them, or something.

Okay, so the game sucked. But there were surprisingly many Reds fans there, and at least I got to see the CN tower all lit up afterwards, right?

Next up: Toronto

Gray — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:54:20 -0000

Yeah, I guess I haven't been paying attention, since I didn't notice that the Reds play the Blue Jays next. This is about as close as they're going to get to here.

But since it's an off-day and we seem to have lost the short-lived tradition of team previews, I figure that we could use a thread for that. The projected starters:

Tuesday, 7:07 EDT: B. Arroyo vs. A. Burnett

Wednesday, 7:07 EDT: A. Harang vs. R. Halladay

Thursday, 7:07 EDT: E. Vólquez vs. J. Litsch

I like our chances here, if we can see good Brandon and good Aaron. Oh, and is it time for a Canadian music-themed night? Rush and Guess Who, anybody?