SB Nation User Blog: Tommy Rancel

Evan Longoria and The 500 Home Run Club

Tommy Rancel — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:32:10 -0000

More photos » by Chris O'Meara - AP

As 2010 projections start to be released, we will take a look at some of the more important ones from time to time. Projections are what they are, but they are still fun to look at. All in all, I would say the ZiPs projections are a bit more realistic than the Bill James projections because ZiPs tends to be a bit conservative. Aside from the single season projections, you may have noticed that the ZiPs projections include an extrapolated career projection; most namely the projection of Evan Longoria.

In case you missed it, according to ZiPs, Longoria will finish his career with a line of .263/.349/.501 and 526 home runs in 2535 career games. Remember that we take the yearly projections with a grain of salt, so this roughly ~16 year projection should be taken even more lightly. Nonetheless, there isn't much going and it's nice to dream of Longoria hitting that 526^th home run as a member of the Rays.

Currently, there are 25 members of the 500 home run club with more to be added over the next decade. By the time Longoria is projected to be approaching such a milestone the membership could be close to double.

Here is the list as it stands today...

	HR	AB
Barry Bonds	762	9847
Hank Aaron	755	12364
Babe Ruth	714	8398
Willie Mays	660	10881
Ken Griffey Jr.	630	9703
Sammy Sosa	609	8813
Frank Robinson	586	10006
Mark McGwire	583	6187
Alex Rodriguez	583	8304
Harmon Killebrew	573	8147
Rafael Palmeiro	569	10472
Jim Thome	564	7706
Reggie Jackson	563	9864
Mike Schmidt	548	8352
Manny Ramirez	546	7962
Mickey Mantle	536	8102
Jimmie Foxx	534	8134
Ted Williams	521	7706
Willie McCovey	521	8197
Frank Thomas	521	8199
Eddie Matthews	512	8537
Ernie Banks	512	9421
Mel Ott	511	9456
Gary Sheffield	509	9217
Eddie Murray	504	11336

Obviously, longevity is a must. Even Mark McGwire, who has the least about of at-bats of any member, needed over 6,100 at-bats. McGwire by far has the best HR/AB ratio hitting a "dinger' nearly every 10.6 at-bats or a full AB better than second place Babe Ruth, who averaged a home run every 11.7 at-bats. Longoria is no where near that kind of pace, but he is still ahead of six players in the club

	HR Per AB
Mark McGwire	10.61235
Babe Ruth	11.7619
Barry Bonds	12.92257
Jim Thome	13.66312
Harmon Killebrew	14.21815
Alex Rodriguez	14.24357
Sammy Sosa	14.47126
Manny Ramirez	14.58242
Ted Williams	14.79079
Mickey Mantle	15.11567
Jimmie Foxx	15.23221
Mike Schmidt	15.24088
Ken Griffey Jr	15.40159
Willie McCovey	15.73321
Frank Thomas	15.73704
Hank Aaron	16.37616
Willie Mays	16.48636
Eddie Matthews	16.67383
Frank Robinson	17.07509
Evan Longoria	17.2
Reggie Jackson	17.52043
Gary Sheffield	18.10806
Ernie Banks	18.40039
Rafael Palmeiro	18.40422
Mel Ott	18.50489
Eddie Murray	22.49206

A few other things to note...

In 2008, Longo's HR/AB was 16.59, but dropped to 17.6 in 2009. Injuries seem to have slowed him down at bit last year, but a 17.2 average is pretty good in its own right.
Right now Longoria's rate is closest to Frank Robinson. It took Robinson nearly 8,500 at-bats to get to 500. If Longoria stays on his current pace of 17.2, it would take 8,600 to get to 500. That means Longo would need to keep his same HR rate and amass 600 at-bats each year for the next 14+ seasons.
Aside from the 526 homers, the projection has Longoria hitting 628 doubles. Only Hank Aaron (624) and Barry Bonds (601) have hit 500+ home runs and 600+ doubles.
Longoria currently hits a double every 13.76 ABs. That pace is better than any member of the 500 home run club with Ted Williams' 14.76 coming as second best.
The last statistic I looked at was walks. Longoria ranks in the bottom third in terms of walk rates amongst the list, but at age 24 he has plenty of time to practice his patience at the plate.

Odds are Longoria won't play long enough to actually hit 500 home runs, and the odds are even longer that if he does it will be as a member of the Rays. He would need to play for another 14 or 15 years at a high level and avoid a major injury. While the quest for 500 may fall short, the fact that we have a player so talented that 500 home runs doesn't seem that crazy is pretty good.

Tampa Bay Rays Face Several Decisions On Player Options; Carl Crawford, Gregg Zaun

Tommy Rancel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:26:44 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Tampa Bay Rays will just say "yes" when it comes to Carl Crawford's $10 million dollar option for 2010.

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One of the first orders of business to take care of during the hot stove league is squaring away options. So far 11 options have been accepted or declined since the end of the World Series with several more looming. Around these parts the Tampa Bay Rays have three options of their own to take care of.

Two of the three options seem like slam dunks. One is an obvious pick-up and one is a simple decline. The third option, however, is 50/50 and will probably determine the course of who is our catcher next season.

The Rays hold a $1.9 million dollar option (plus performance bonuses) on left handed specialist, Brian Shouse. Overall, his 5.17 FIP was far from impressive and his -0.1 WAR made him a negative value. However, it wasn't his fault that manager, Joe Maddon, had him face nearly as many righties (52 PA) as lefties (70 PA). Shouse did the job expected of him in 2009, and held left handed batters to a line of .224/.246/.373. Righties continued to crush him at a .356/.442/.622 clip. Nonetheless, Shouse just didn't pitch enough to justify picking up his nearly $2 million dollar option A left elbow strain sidelined him for 63 days, and while he made 45 appearances, he threw just 28 innings. With that being said, the $200k buyout is the likely course of action in this case.

The Rays are more likely to go with fellow side-winding lefty, Randy Choate, who was nearly as effective and will cost probably half of what Shouse will. There is always the possibility of signing former Ray (for 24 hours) and sabermetric wunderkind, R.J. Swindle on a minor league deal. The Rays could also go without a traditional lefty and turn to reverse split righties like Lance Cormier and newly acquired Jesse Chavez to serve as LOOGY's.

The next option is just as simple; the Rays will exercise the $10 million dollar option on left fielder and franchise player, Carl Crawford. This is a no-brainer and regardless of what CC's future holds, he will remain Rays' property for the time being. According to fangraphs, Crawford has made $13.1 million dollars in his career with the Rays. The nice $10 million raise is well overdue considering the fact that he as given the team $104.7 million dollars worth of production during his career.

CC is easily worth the $10 million dollar tag, but with some scouts saying Desmond Jennings could give you the same production right now for the league minimum, it doesn't look likely CC will finish his career with the Rays. Despite that fact, stranger things have happened, and both sides have expressed interest in a long term deal. Either way, the Crawford decision will be the biggest and most emotional decision in the franchise's history.

The final option because to leader of the Zaunbie nation, Gregg Zaun. Hailed as the veteran savior to our catching woes, Zaun didn't disappoint in the final two months of the season. Brining his veteran savvy and his reputed ball blocking ability, Zaun also swung a mighty stick in his near 100 plate apperances with the Rays. Small sample size rules apply, but Zaun hit .287/.323/.489 for the Rays. That earned him a 0.7 WAR or $3.2 million dollars in value. This means he has essentially covered his potential 2010 $2 million dollar option in production.

He is hardly the answer at catcher alone, and ZiPs has him projected for a .237/.335/.367 line in 2010. More likely, Zaun would be the left handed batter in a catcher platoon; picking up most of the at-bats against right handed batters. The problem with that is the Rays have a very similar situation with their other catcher Dioner Navarro. Navi is arb2 eligible and will make something in the neighborhood of ~$2 million dollars next season. I doubt the Rays will tie nearly $4 million dollars in two platoon players. There is also the question of Zaun playing 100-120 games behind the plate at 39. I could see the case for both sides of this option and honestly have no inclination of which way it will go. However, once the option is picked up or declined, we will have an answer to which way the Rays are intending to go.

Tampa Bay Rays Continue To Buck Trends And Set New Ones; Market Exploitation 101

Tommy Rancel — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:29:43 -0000

It is no secret that the Tampa Bay Rays are never going to be major spenders in the free agent market like their AL East Rivals, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Instead, this team is built on, and will continue to be built on, things like: the amateur draft, international signings and development, shrewd free agent signings, and the occasional risky trade. In the Andrew Friedman era we've seen examples of nearly all of these scenarios; the drafting of Evan Longoria, the signing of Akinori Iwamura, the signing of Carlos Pena, and the Delmon Young/Scott Kazmir trades just to name a few.

Much to our collective chagrin, not all of the Rays moves are going to work as planned. For every Pena, there will be a Hee Sop Choi. For every Matt Garza and Ben Zobrist trade there will be deals like the ones involving Dioner Navarro and Edwin Jackson that don't exactly work as hoped. To be successful, the Rays not only need to follow the good process practice, but they must also excel in spotting market inefficiencies and exploiting them fully.

After the 2007 season the Rays made a conscious effort to improve their defense. They sought out cheap and effective defenders (Jason Bartlett, Gabe Gross) and built an American League Championship team around it. Defense has always been an important part of the game, but after seeing the Rays blueprint for success, many other teams went into 2009 looking for that same success.

Teams like the Mariners(trading Yuniesky Betancourt and replacing him with Jack Wilson as well as acquiring Franklin Gutierrez), Rangers (moving Michael Young for Elvis Andrus) and the Tigers (Adam Everett, Gerald Laird) all improved their defense and their win totals. In many ways because of the Rays success defense became the new version of Moneyball. This past off-season, teams shied away from offense only players and looked for a more readily available and cheap asset that can be found in a variety of places. However, defense isn't the only efficiency the Rays have tried to recently exploit.

In 2007, the Rays took a shot on a rehabbing Al Reyes and in return received a solid season from the oft-injured veteran. It was no surprise when Reyes flamed out in 2008, but he gave the Rays more production than any of us could've imagined. Also in 2007, the Rays traded for another oft-injured reliever in Grant Balfour, who had been placed on a few scrap heaps before landing with Tampa Bay. The Rays gambled on Seth McClung's potential in favor of Balfour's. In 2008, Balfour exceeded everyone's expectations and was a top three reliever in the American League; in 2009, he regressed to the top 15 or 20. Of course, there are names like Joe Nelson and Jason Isringhausen that didn't work out as well, however, the process was and still is good. We should all expect the Rays to continue dabbling in the injured reliever market in hopes of finding that next diamond in the rough.

The Rays were used to selecting at the top of the draft before 2009. Under the current regime we've added Evan Longoria, David Price and Tim Beckham at the top of the draft board. However, in 2009 the Rays were faced with a lower draft pick for the first time in franchise history. While it was never publicly acknowledged, the Rays seemed to target "toolsy," but injured players, especially in the beginning of the draft. With their first four picks they selected four injured prep stars. Once again, the plan didn't work perfectly as the projected easy sign, Levon Washington is set to play at a junior college and Kenny Diekroeger stayed committed to Stanford. However, third round selection, Todd Glaesmann, is projected to be an above average center fielder or corner outfielder. Meanwhile fourth round pick, Luke Bailey, may be the most talented catcher in the draft. The Rays will have to wait a bit longer, especially in the case of Bailey, who already faces an uphill battle as a catching prospect, but if all goes well the Rays will have secured a few first round talents without handing out a seven figure bonus to any draft pick.

Yesterday, the Rays may have uncovered another market inefficiency by executing the first "sign and trade" that we've seen in recent baseball history; trading Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates for Jesse Chavez. As far as the trade goes, in a vacuum it's win for the Pirates. They get a three-win second basemen, who is signed for the 2010 season at well below market value. However, when you take the deal in context, Iwamura's days with the Rays were in the single digits no matter how you look at it and they were able to get something with everybody knowing that.

In actuality, it's a win-win for both parties. The Pirates get that three-win second basemen and the Rays are basically getting something for nothing. Once again, Aki is a fine player and worth every penny of the $4.85 million dollar salary, but the Rays have better and cheaper options in Ben Zobrist, Sean Rodriguez, Reid Brignac and Willy Aybar, who in total will make less than Iwamura in 2010. In return for a player that had as good of a chance as you or I playing for the Rays in 2010, they get a 26 year-old relief pitcher who projects to be at least an average middle reliever. Jesse Chavez is young, has had major league success and most importantly is cheap and controllable(with options).

I don't expect this sort of deal to become the norm in baseball because the system is not set up for many of these trade opportunities like the NBA. However, the Rays surveyed their limited options, and were able to trade a player who they had no use for and still get a Major League ready chip in return. They also save themselves the money it would've cause to buy out Iwamura's option.

Chavez may turn out to be nothing more than an average reliever and that's alright. He is under team control for five years and could fill a variety of roles for the Rays. If the worst case scenario plays out and Chavez is deemed a "bust," then all the Rays would have lost is time and patience. The deal from a talent prospective isn't extremely impressive, but the Rays finding yet another way to acquire useful talent without using a lot of resources is very.

Report: Rays Interested In Cuban Free Agent Noel Arguelles

Tommy Rancel — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:44:58 -0000

Per Kiley McDaniel, the Rays are a finalist in the "heated" bidding for Cuban free agent pitcher Noel Arguelles. It's hard to speculate on a dollar figure, but one would believe the Rays have some money left over from the unsigned draft picks to make a decent bid for the young left hander's services.

Arguelles is a 20 year-old lefty, who some felt would've fallen into the late first round or sandwich round had he been in the amateur draft. Stuff wise, Arguelles throws a fastball, curveball, change-up and a slider (Note: Kiley says he may have scrapped this as he did not throw it during a recent workout) that could be a plus pitch with more development. As a member of the Cuban Junior team, his reported velocity was in the 92-95 MPH area, but he fell out of shape and saw his velocity dip to the high 80s at some of his earlier workouts. More recent reports have him in much better shape and his velocity back in the low 90s.

Obviously, he would start in the minor leagues, but the consensus is that he could rapidly move through the minor leagues. We do not know how high the Rays rank among the finalists, but it's believed the Rays are serious players. If nothing else, it's an interesting situation to monitor before the MLB free agency period begins.

Update: here's video of Arguelles, as taken by Kiley:

Noel Arguelles from Kiley McDaniel on Vimeo.

Why The Rays Should Target Brendan Donnelly

Tommy Rancel — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:38:27 -0000

More photos » by Al Behrman - AP

about 1 month ago: Florida Marlins reliever Brendan Donnelly pitches against the Cincinnati Reds in the eighth inning of a baseball game, Friday, Sept. 18, 2009, in Cincinnati. Donnelly was the winning pitcher in the game won by Florida 4-3. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

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Brendan Donnelly was briefly mentioned in the Kelvim Escobar post, but now it's time to make the case for Donnelly on its own. For some reason I confused Donnelly for being an oft-injured reliever. However, he's only been on the DL twice in eight Major League seasons. One of those times, the more serious time, was because of a fractured face he suffered when he was hit by a batted ball. The other occurrence was a calf strain suffered in late 2009 in which he spent 16 days on the DL for the Marlins.

Like other potential target, Kiko Calero, Donnelly went from above average relief pitcher to bouncing around from system to system before landing with the Marlins in 2009. Also like Calero, he experienced some what of a career renaissance with the fish.

After spending the first few months of the season pitching for the Houston Astros Triple-A affiliate, Donnelly made his way to the Marlins and made his debut in early July. From there he went on to give them 25 quality innings down the stretch. Of course 25 innings is a relatively small sample size, but a 2.82 FIP and a 3.32 tRA is encouraging. The 2009 success comes on the heels of an unsuccessful season in 2008 for the Indians. In '08 he made just 15 appearances and allowed 13 earned runs and 10 walks in just 13 innings. However, from 2002-2007, Donnelly was among the better middle relievers in baseball.

	FIP	tRA
2002	2.58	3.56
2003	2.38	2.93
2004	3.07	3.15
2005	4.15	4.72
2006	4.62	4.96
2007	3.09	2.96

Coming mostly as member of the Angels (Red Sox in 2007), his average FIP for those seasons is just over 3.3 with an average tRA of slightly over 3.7. As mentioned above his 2008 for whatever reason was awful, but thanks to a strong showing in his brief 2009 it seems as that 2008 was some what of an aberration.

Like my other targets, Donnelly throws a fastball/slider combo. Even though he will occasionally mix in a change up and a split-finger, Donnelly is throwing a fastball or a slider over 80% of the time. While his heater sits around 90, he still throws a hard slider. Over the course of his career his slider has averaged 86.7, but in 2009 it was hitting 88.

Donnelly is a pretty neutral pitcher with a lean towards a flyball tendency (43 FB% to 35 GB%). His swing strike percentage usually tops 10% which is decent for a reliever. The real value of a Donnelly signing lies in his ability to get out right handed batters as well as left handed batters almost equally.

Career	PA	BA	OBP	SLG
vs. RHB	787	0.225	0.286	0.341
vs. LHB	702	0.231	0.323	0.338

It's rare to see a relief pitcher with such equal usage and one that has this much success against both sides of the plate. Donnelly is near death to right handed batters with a career .627 OPS against in 787 plate appearances, but is nearly as effective against lefties with a .662 in 702 PAs. In the small-ish sample size of 2009, the ability to handle both lefties and righties out has not left Donnelly.

2009	PA	BA	OBP	SLG
vs. RHB	55	0.220	0.278	0.340
vs. LHB	49	0.262	0.354	0.357

His career K/9 of 8.7 is solid as are his career K/BB of 2.66 and HR/9 of 0.74. Donnelly isn't flashy or overpowering and maybe that's the reason he's flown under the radar all these years. Regardles off the reason, we do know that for most of his career he has been a good relief pitcher who can get out batters on both sides of the plate.

This probably marks the end of bullpen targets amongst the known soon-to-be free agents, but I'm sure we will take a look at some more as we learn of declined options and non-tenders in the next two months. If the Rays are able to sign a combination of any of the following: Benoit, Calero, Escobar and Donnelly, the bullpen should continue to ball on a budget

Looking At What Exactly is Angels Baseball

Tommy Rancel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:21:43 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Scott Kazmir was not brought to LA for his defense.

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If you read quotes from members of the Angels Organization or listened to any talk radio show on mainstream media stations today, then you heard the words "wish they played" or "got away from" followed by "Angels baseball." Apparently, the Yankees didn't win the ALCS as much as the Angels lost it by not playing "Angels baseball."

From what I can gather, Angels baseball is a lot like "Twins baseball"; doing the "little things," being "clutch," and of course playing solid defense. Defense was something the Angels didn't do well in this series, but it was something they did fairly well all season with a team UZR of 11.6. The Angels are often credited with above average defense, but that's not always the case.

Sure, back when the Halos won the World Series in 2002 they were a great defensive team led by Darin Erstad's +20 defense in center field. They were also very good the following season. However, since 2003 they've only had one really stand out defense squad (2005) followed by some below average to average ones before the 2009 team.

Year	Team UZR
2009	11.6
2008	0.9
2007	-2
2006	-14.2
2005	24.5
2004	-7.3
2003	38.4
2002	41.2

This year's Angels team was led by Chone Figgans, who had a 14.5 UZR at third base. The biggest surprise was the man in second place, Juan Rivera. Despite a reputation as a poor fielder, Rivera had a 13.6 UZR in left field. One good season doesn't mean Rivera is a plus defender, but most people remember his play, or lack there of, in late September in Fenway Park, and do not realize that Rivera was a better fielder than multi-time gold glover Torii Hunter.

While his supporters will admit he has lost a step, in most circles Hunter is still seen as a good center fielder. However, that perception hasn't been true since 2003 when he posted a UZR of 13.2. Since then his UZR's have been: -0.1, 2.6, -10.9, -6.0, -11.5, -1.9, but he does make a lot of highlights. In other news, Bobby Abreu continued to be Bobby Abreu and that means another season of near -10 defense.

No, the Angels did not play well defensively in this series, but playing defense was not the strongest suit of this Angels team nor has it been in a couple of seasons. Maybe more of the blame should be on the Angels .346 wOBA offense that averaged 5.45 runs a game in the regular season, but just over three runs a game in the ALCS. Or maybe the Yankees, who were the best team in the regular season, just happened to continue being the best team in the ALCS.

Dioner Navarro's Unlucky (and Bad) 2009. Possible Rebound in 2010?

Tommy Rancel — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:54:26 -0000

More photos » by Brian Blanco - AP

It was that kind of season from Dioner Navarro.

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Please don't get his confused as making an excuse for Dioner Navarro's poor season. No major leaguer should accumulate 410 plate appearances and hit .218/.261/.322, but that's what Dioner Navarro did this past season. His .583 OPS was second worst amongst all Major Leaguers with at least 400 PAs. Also finishing runner up was his .261 OBP. To say his season was bad is an understatement, but, and this is a Kim Kardashian sized but(t), the man was a tad unlucky.

As mentioned, his OPS and OBP were second worst in the Majors. However, he also had the second lowest BABIP amongst big leaguers with 400 PAs. His BABIP of .233 trailed only Ken Griffey Jr.'s .222 as the lowest. A .233 is an extremely low BABIP considering his line drive percentage was a pretty normal 19.8%. It was also over .50 points lower than his career .285 BABIP coming into the 2009 season.

Just for comparison's sake here is how Navi's season compared with the equally slow Jack Cust.

2009	LD%	GB%	FB%	BABIP
Navarro	19.8	37.3	42.9	0.233
Cust	19.8	37.4	42.9	0.323

Of course, there are other factors in this like Cust hitting the ball a lot harder (Career .216 ISO to Navi's .111) as well as home park factors, opponents defense and so on and so forth. Nonetheless, they basically hit the same types of balls and Cust's landed nearly 10% more for a hit. Again, it's not a perfect comparison, but just goes to show there was definitely some bad mojo coming from Navarro's bat.

In somewhat of a statistically oddity, I noticed the AL East catchers were just unlucky as a group. While Navi's BABIP was the second lowest, the third and fourth lowest totals belong to fellow AL East backstops Rod Barajas(.234) and Jason Varitek(.238). I'm sure being a catcher, and therefore slow doesn't help, but it seems Jorge Posada and his .335 BABIP put a hex on them.

Bad luck may explain part of Dioner Navarro's nearly .80 point drop in batting average year over year, and of course fewer hits mean fewer times on base, but luck did not have anything to do with his poor pitch selection. He swung at a career high 28.4% of pitches out of the zone, and also walked a career low 4.6%.

At this point, we don't know if Navarro will be offered arbitration or non-tendered. At age 25, Navarro and the Rays are at a crossroad. He's probably not as bad as he was in 2009, but definitely not as good as he was in 2008. In fact, Navi's success at the plate, as well as his BABIP, has fluctuated quite a bit over the last four years ).294, .253, .321, and .233). The trend, as well as regression, suggests that he is likely to rebound in 2010, but that's a gamble in the neighborhood of $2.5 million dollars. All I know is if he does stick around maybe a lucky rabbits' foot or some horseshoes could make his 2010 a bit better than 2009.

Rays Name Derek Shelton As New Hitting Coach

Tommy Rancel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:09:38 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

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Operation fix B.J. Upton has a new general. The Rays announced 39 year-old Derek Shelton will be the teams new hitting coach. Shelton spent the past five seasons in the same position with the Cleveland Indians.

We've been over the quanitfying of positional coaches and really there is no way to do so, but just some numbers that won't appear in the press release below. From 2006-2009, the four full seasons that Shelton was hitting coach, the Indians averaged 86 sacrifice hits; the Rays had 70 in 2009. A normal Shelton coached lineup strikes out around 19% of the time and walks around 9%. This is pretty much in line with what the Rays have done recently. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how Shelton handles the lineup of free swingers.

Here is the press release from the Rays...

ST. PETERSBURG, FL-The Tampa Bay Rays have named Derek Shelton major league hitting coach. Shelton, 39, spent the last five seasons as hitting coach for the Cleveland Indians.

"Derek has proven himself to be one of the better minds in baseball when it comes to hitting," Rays Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said. "He brings a fresh voice that can help our talented core of hitters reach new heights. His attention to detail and ability to communicate will be great additions to our group."

"I believe he is the kind of coach who can create a hitting program that will benefit the organization both at the minor league and major league levels," said Rays Manager Joe Maddon. "In our conversations, I found that we share the same philosophy on a number of different areas. He was very clear and concise on his intentions and in the end it was an easy decision."

Shelton was named the Indians hitting coach on June 4, 2005, at the age of 34, replacing Hall of Famer Eddie Murray. He remained in that role through the end of 2009. Over his tenure the Indians ranked fifth in the major leagues in runs scored, seventh in batting avg., third in on-base pct., sixth in slugging pct., second in doubles and 10th in home runs. In each of his first four seasons (2005-08), the Indians offense ranked eighth or higher in the majors in runs scored. In 2009 they finished 12th.

Shelton spent seven years with the Indians, also serving as hitting coordinator from 2003-05. Prior to that, he spent six seasons coaching in the New York Yankees organization. He began his coaching career with the GCL Yankees (Rookie) in 1997 and earned promotions to Tampa (A) in 1998 and Norwich (AA) in 1999. He then managed three years for the GCL Yankees (2000-01) and Staten Island (Short-Season A; 2002), leading his clubs to first-place finishes in 2000 and 2001 and league championships in 2001 and 2002.

A former catcher, Shelton played two years (1992-93) in the Yankees organization before an elbow injury ended his career. He graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in criminal justice. He resides in Tampa with his wife, Alison, and two children, Jackson and Isabella.

He becomes the sixth hitting coach in club history and the youngest. He follows Steve Henderson (1998, 2006-09), Leon Roberts (1999-2000), Wade Boggs (2001), Milt May (2002) and Lee Elia (2003-05).

Good luck and welcome Derek Shelton

Why The Rays Should Target Kelvim Escobar

Tommy Rancel — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:44:17 -0000

by Duane Burleson - AP

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It's been beaten into our heads a million times already, but with limited payroll space, the Rays options for potential bullpen replacements is also limited. Over the past few weeks we've covered Joaquin Benoit and Kiko Calero as attractive free agents that fit the Rays profile. We've also identified that profile as some one who is effective, gets strikeouts, has a good contact rate, can get both left handers and right handers out, and most importantly is cheap. Of course asking for all that you are going to get candidates with flaws, but the hope is those flaws won't manifest at least in 2010. Until we get more candidates after the December non-tender deadline, here are two final candidates that I've identified as being targets as soon as free agency starts next month.

Before we look at the difference in each individual's case, here are some similarities: Brendan Donnelly and Kelvim Escobar are former teammates playing on the same Los Angeles Angels team from 2004-2006.This also means that both are former players of Rays manager Joe Maddon from his time with the Angels. The final similarity comes in the form of injury. Both players have battled injuries in the past which is no different from most MLB pitchers as well as the other relievers we've looked at.

We'll finish up with Donnelly in another post, but now more on Escobar...

Kelvim Escobar was a well above average starting pitcher for the Angels from 2004-2007. He finished with an average FIP of 3.4 in those seasons. However, he would miss the entire 2008 Major League season with an injured shoulder, undergoing laburm surgery in July 2008. He started out 2009 on the DL and made three rehab starts in the minors before making his season debut on 6/6/09 pitching five innings of two run ball for the Halos. Unfortunately, a "pinch" in his shoulder landed him back on the DL. The Angels thought it was a temporary setback, but Escobar did not throw a major league pitch for the rest of the season.

It's hard to project the numbers on Escobar because he's split his MLB career as a reliever and a starter. He has made 411 appearances with 209 of them in relief and 202 coming as a starter. He worked as a closer for the Blue Jays in 2002 and then posted 200 innings as a starter for Los Angeles in 2004. Regardless of his role, Escobar has been effective. Here are some of his career numbers...

	Games	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP
Starter	202	7.4	2.11	0.77	3.83
Reliever	209	9.98	2.27	1.05	3.98

	BA	OBP	SLG	BABIP
Starter	0.256	0.329	0.389	0.304
Reliever	0.243	0.329	0.385	0.307

	BA	OBP	SLG
vs. RHB	0.255	0.321	0.378
vs. LHB	0.253	0.336	0.399

As you can see, he's just a good pitcher. As a starter he allows less home runs and slightly less walks, but as a reliever he strikes out over two and a half more batters per nine. Looking at the second set of statistics, it's amazing to me how similar they are given the two completely different roles. Batters get on-base exactly the same whether he's a starter or a reliever and the slugging is almost identical. The BABIP is almost also similar meaning there isn't much "luck" involved. Of course there's over 1,000 innings difference between the two, but still pretty amazing. Equally impressive is his ability get out hitters regardless of their handedness.

Stuff wise, he throws up to six pitches as a starter: fastball, slider, cutter, curveball, change-up, split finger. However, as a reliever for the Jays in 2002 and 2003, he threw mostly fastballs, curveballs and split fingers with a few change-ups mixed in. It's hard to say what he will throw these days and how hard since he hasn't really thrown in over two seasons. The injury concerns are huge. And Escobar's injury history also includes past elbow problems, but given his past success in either the starter or relievers role and his history with Joe Maddon, he's definitely worth a flier.

David Price Finds His Two-Seam Fastball And Goes Underground

Tommy Rancel — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:58:37 -0000

Along the way during the 2009 season something happened to David Price...in a good way. After reviewing Price's season month by month, I noticed that something happened between July and August. I'll let the chart speak for itself...

	IP	LD%	GB%	FB%
June	27.2	19.5	37.8	42.7
July	23.1	23.1	37.2	39.7
August	31.1	21.4	44.9	33.7
Sept/Oct	37	11.7	44.1	44.1

I left out the month of May as the 9 innings pitched is a smaller sample size in a study of already small samples.

As you can see Price went from a slight lean towards being a fly ball pitcher to a ground pounding gopher ball pitcher (slight exaggeration). My first instinct was that he might have thrown more curve balls or sliders and that would explain the increase, but looking at pitch usage by month this was not the case. In fact, Price went to less off speed stuff and increased his fastball usage quite a bit.

	IP	FB	SL	CB	CH
June	27.2	63.7	30.6	1.8	3.9
July	23.1	66.9	21.1	1.9	10.2
Aug	31.1	81.6	10.1	1.3	6.9
Sept/Oct	37	78.7	7	8.1	6.2

We all know Price loves his fastball, but he really loved from August on. However, this wasn't the same old 95 MPH rising heater that moved a little horizontally. This fastball moved in a lot more, moved down slightly more, and was thrown with a little less velocity; David Price had found his two seam fastball.

Thanks to R.J, we can see that shift on this plot. The average horizontal movement for the fastballs in starts 8-12 or July was 6.05. For starts 13-17 (August) that movement was 8.6. Vertically, the average blue diamonds moved 10.6. The red circles moved 9.2. Clearly, there was a shift towards more two seamers and this new process produced results.

The bad news is Price's K/9 dropped from 7.05 in June and July to 5.94 in August in September. Neither is what we had in mind for Price especially the latter. However, after posting an average BB/9 of 4.94 in June/July, his BB/9 dropped to 2.5 from August on. Overall, his strike percentage went from 62% to 68%. His HR/9 also dropped from 1.76 to 0.79. This led to a drop in FIP from 5.77 to a much shinier 3.84. Opposing hitters did not like the new approach from David Price as his OPS against was .612 over the final two months after it was .837 over the first two.

I'd like to think the shift in pitch type had something to do with second half success along with regression and just some better luck, but a larger sample size is needed to draw conclusions. Nonetheless, it seems that while continuing the search for his lost slider and his continued experimenting with his off-speed and breaking pitches, he stumbled upon yet another new weapon. If Price gets the handle on all of them he could go from a two pitch pony to a five pitch thoroughbred in less than 12 months.