SB Nation User Blog: RollingWave

Phil Hughes 2009 major debute

RollingWave — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:07:07 -0000

So Hughes' subbing for Wang against the Tigers who's trying to figure out wether he have YIPs, HIPS or mechanical issue or all of them.... anyway.

6IP 0R 2H (both singles) 1 walk 1 HBP 6K

Unless Detroit somehow mounds a 10 run come back he's probably in line for the win.

Game Day had him at mostly 92 on the FB but a lot of 93 94 in the early going.

I guess most prospect watchers and Yankee fans (and most of all Brian Cashman) probably breath a little sigh of relieve after this outting.

Request: Curt Schilling

RollingWave — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:40:48 -0000

Now that he's offically retired, doing a mechanics retro on Curt would be nice, he should probably be a text book example of how RHP should pitch.

His career is interesting.. he was drafted fairly late , his lines in the minors were just decent, with no real flash of what he ended up doing in the majors. his early major career seem to have " career journey man" spelled all over it until he reached Philly...

The Tigers signed someone!!

RollingWave — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:50:14 -0000

via twbsball.dils.tku.edu.tw

according to sources in Taiwan, the Tigers have signed LHP Fu-De Ni to a minor league contract. Ni will be guranteed to start in AAA.

Ni's becomes the first Taiwanese player to sign with an MLB club after playing professionally in Taiwan's CPBL.

Ni was last season's CPBL strikeout king, and has been one of it's top pitcher in the last couple of seasons. he was mostly a starter last year, but also served as a swingman earlier . he's 26 years old.

Ni's not exactly overpowering, but does appear to profile nicely as a lefty RP that might be able to get righties out as well. he's been one of the top pitcher for Taiwan's national teams during international competitions such as the Olympics.

some youtubes of Ni's past performances.

(Ni vs team canada in the Olympics qualifier wildcard round)

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=966cDP4trsk

(Ni 's 13 K 0 BB 8.1 IP outting in the CPBL, interview until around 0.40)

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=AR-LTzhsEZg

Rumors from Taiwan

RollingWave — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:10:09 -0000

Not exactly a mega rumor but interesting ...

http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/081215/78/1b6ni.html (it's in Chinese)

anyway, the rumor here is that the M's are offering to sign Fu-De Ni to a minor league deal for roughly 150,000 bucks, Ni would be the first player to cross over to the states AFTER playing pro baseball in Taiwan. (all the other current guys in the majors / minors signed before they ever played pro ball in Taiwan)

via l.yimg.com

Ni is (obviously shown in the picture) a lefty pitcher, he's been a swingman most of his time in Taiwan (that happens quiet a bit more than it does in the states though.) this year he started most of the time. he's listed at 183 cm (roughly 6.0 to 6'1) and 78 kg. with a record of 145.1 IP 3.34 ERA and a pretty impresive 132/32 K/BB ratio (132 lead the league by 22)

Having seen him pitch, he's sort of a lefty sidearmer in the high 80s low 90s. in the majors I'm guessing he would profile as a LOOGY most of the time , though he wasn't all that effective vs lefty in Taiwan (but it was mostly singles. the underlying preriphals were very good,)

One of the main reason that Ni is considering the move is that his team, the China Trust banking Whales, dissolved not too long ago, for a variety of reasons (game fixing scandals, bad economy, the CPBL not overly popular in general) so quiet a few players are on the move recently, Ni, being a lefty pitcher that's actually pretty decent and is still relatively young (1982/11/14), has the best shot of making the jump to the majors amoung the unemployed

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=966cDP4trsk&feature=related

this is Ni, destroying some Canadian lefties in the Olympics qualifier round.

I'm not sure how he translate to the majors. but there's at least a reasonable chance that he's a servicable lefty out of the pen

Melky Cameron

RollingWave — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:35:21 -0000

In what is turning out to be one of the most interesting offseason in awhile the Brewers and Yankees apparently made another move by swaping their CF

It's a odd move fore either side I think, for the Brewers, your trading a good player for a guy that's not very good but still young enough and shown some spark at times that might give you hope, but i guess at worse they clear salary for whatever they want. for the Yankees it seems that while CF was a problem there was no real long term solution out there (and this is not either) and this move might prevent you from getting a long term solution in one of the other area of need (first base)

Both team get seomthing, but neither seem to have gotten what they really really needed

CC--> Yankee (?)

RollingWave — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:13:32 -0000

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2008/12/10/2008-12-10_pitcher_cc_sabathia_agrees_to_7year_160_.html

Not completely confirmed, but seem like CC has agreed to 7/160 with the Yankees, the largest contract ever for pitchers

Well it's a risky gamble with a good upside, I guess there wasn't a whole lot of choice for the Yankees.

to demonstrate CC's upside and risk, one need to look no further than his similar age comparables on BR.

it's about as mixed as it gets, with possible outcome to either extremes (and i mean extreme!)

The average DH is a flawed concept

RollingWave — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:04:23 -0000

This is something I've been thinking, because the term "average DH" get's thrown around a lot , but the more I think about it, I realize there's a serious problem with that number .

I'll explain it in a very simple matter, below was the AL teams in 08 and their leader in DH games played last year.

ALE

TB: Floyd, 72

BOS: Ortiz, 108

NYY: Matsui: 66

TOR: Stairs 77

BAL: Huff: 108

ALC

CHW: Thome 139

Min: Kubel 77

CLE: Hafner 54

KC: Butler 82

DET: Sheffield 106

ALW

LAA: Anderson 59

Tex : Bradley 99

OAK: Thomas 59

SEA: Vidro 69

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The # is pretty obvious, there was only 3 teams that had guys with more than 100 games started at DH, (ok 4 if you count 99 game Bradley) and even then only Thome went signficantly over that mark. so yeah, last year in the AL, there was about *1* team out of 14 that had a true full time DH all season.

So what's the point? obviously where the other DH times go, it doesn't take a genius to realize that most AL team rotate their better players in the DH slot .

The problem? this "average DH" is in fact mostly # by guys who play most of their time in other positions, and while they're DHing, the guy who's taking their spot on the field tend to suck with the bat. that's what we're overlooking.

http://www.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080925&content_id=1455905&oid=36019&vkey=6

Let's just use the Yankees as a example, Steve Goldman noted that the Yankees DH was pretty decent last year at 282/.378/.461 , but Mr. Goldman miss the point, while Posada's DHing, Jose Molina is giving away automatic outs, while Jason Giambi is DHing, Wilson Betemit is sucking in the field, while Johnny Damon DHs, then usually it's something along the lines of Justin Christian or Brett Gardner.

This is my point, unless your team has a true full time DH like Jim Thome, then your "DH" isn't really "The DH" so to speak, but the bench guy that's inserted into the lineup in place of the regular that's DHing for the day. (unless of course, your using your bench guy as the DH like the Mariners . )

This sort of number would be really hard to compile , since we need to indentify who's actually replacing who, but if someone do compile such numbers, I highly suspect the "average DH" will look at lot more like "the average catcher" then "the average first baseman"

Here we go again, this year's HOF voting

RollingWave — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:05:07 -0000

• Harold Baines
• Jay Bell
• Bert Blyleven
• David Cone
• Andre Dawson
• Ron Gant
• Mark Grace
• Rickey Henderson
• Tommy John
• Don Mattingly
• Mark McGwire
• Jack Morris
• Dale Murphy
• Jesse Orosco
• Dave Parker
• Dan Plesac
• Tim Raines
• Jim Rice
• Lee Smith
• Alan Trammell
• Greg Vaughn
• Mo Vaughn
• Matt Williams

Here we go again, let's see how many idiots vote for Dan Plesac this year?

Ricky is a obvious no-brainer, Big-Mac would be too if wasn't for that which shall not be named.

Amoung others, Raines / Blyleven should be in but would likely take awhile.

Jim Rice will get in... is there really that much of a difference between him and Parker / Murphy / Baines / Vaugh ? hell I'd take TJ / Smith / Trammell if Rice is in.

consider trading Johjima?

RollingWave — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:05:56 -0000

Just a thought, but with the M's unlikely to be good in the next couple of years, why should they hold on to Kenji Johjima and his 3/24 contract? instead of playing Jeff Clement there?

I mean Johjima was hit by bad luck this year so there is the problem of his trade value, but even then, him blocking Clement is almost as bad. while he's likely a better short term player than Clement . by the time the M's are ready to contend again he's probably not there anymore.

There's a few team that's pretty darn desperate for a catcher, the new M's FO would do well to try and fleece someone with Johjima. Boston? Detroit? either NY team?

So how consistent is defense?

RollingWave — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:18:09 -0000

I'm looking at the recent PMR posts, and comparing them with PMRs from last year, and what really struck me was how inconsistent players seem to be from year to year.

There are even cases where someone goes from really bad to pretty good (Hanely) or vice vera (Coco Crisp) and some known long time attrocities (Mr. Jeter) were able to make remarkable recovery in his mid 30s. and while there seem to be some consistency, as a whole it just seem to flucate pretty wildly.

so while I agree that defense is the one area where some teams are really holding a edge over others, the question begs that how consistent are these results and what should we really make of it? while obviously a known good glove like Mark Teixiera would surely out perform the statue of Jason Giambi in any given year. on a more general bases, is it truely a good idea to base signings and trades heavily on defense?