Is it better for a pitcher to start in the bullpen or should we throw him to the wolves and let him figure things out in the rotation?

 

I examined the 20 pitchers that have received at least 1 first place vote for Cy Young since 1990.  I wanted to know whether or not highly successful pitchers broke into the majors as starters or were eased in via the bullpen.

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Every time I see someone complain that the Rangers are moving Derek Holland back to the bullpen or back to the rotation with exasperated "WHY WON'T THEY JUST PICK  ROLE FOR HIM AND LEAVE HIM THERE!!!!!!!!!" frothing from their imaginary mouths, I think to myself, "self, why does it matter?  Throwing a baseball is throwing a baseball."

So I decided to dive into some numbers and see what they said about pitchers in Holland's position.

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With about a month left until I head back to work (and a month and a week until the kids come back), I'm looking at finally getting around to writing a script to automatically send out an alert when the no hitter watch is on.  Here's how my back of the envelope plan looks:  Script reads in a webpage that has all the game linescores for that day.  Script scans the linescores looking to see if a game has any hits.  Once a certain inning is reached (possibly user definable?) an alert gets sent out via rss/twitter/email.  The email contains teams, inning, score, and pitcher with the no-no going. 

I wrote a little program to scan minor league teams for statistics off thebaseballcube so I'm not completely out of my element on this one.  The only technical hurdle will be learning how to post to twitter/rss.  That's doable.

Poll

Would You Use a No Hitter Alert Service?

40%

Yes

22 votes

60%

No

33 votes

55 votes | Poll has closed

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJD8k2hgRmU

Playing Hardball with Ron Stalinovich, career minor leaguer. 

When you go to the ballpark, are you seriously gonna pay 4.50 for a hotdog?

Links to the other videos (and an AWESOME '86 Mets music video)

Commercials for Easton bats.  The other videos feature Carlos Zambrano, Andre Ethier, Brad Hawpe, and Matt Kemp.  Watching Zambrano in the "taking one for the team" video is delightful.

 

Released by the Nationals.

He lost the last two years to injuries after a really nice 2005.  Now 30, he's lost a chunk of velocity and isn't likely to ever regain his past form.                                        

cribbed from rotoworld:
"Nationals released RHP John Patterson.
Stunning. Obviously the Nationals shared the same concerns about Patterson's lack of velocity that we did, but he still looked like their probable Opening Day starter and they'll only save about $600,000 by cutting him. They're left with a rotation of Shawn Hill, Jason Bergmann, Tim Redding, Odalis Perez and either Matt Chico or John Lannan. They'll probably need both young lefties initially with Hill likely to open up on the DL."

The Rangers currently lead the majors in HR with 64.  That puts them on pace to hit 230, tied for 24th most in the history of baseball.

Amongst the 24 teams to have hit more than 230 HRs in a season, 17 finished with records above .500.  The overall winning percentage of these teams was .532 (86-76).  To reach 86 wins, the current Rangers would need to win 58% of their remaining games (68-49).

Switching gears...

Since the change to the divisional playoff format in 1969, 142 teams have finished May with a .400 winning percentage or worse (they finished the year with an average winning percentage of .415).  

Of those teams, four of them came back to reach the playoffs (3%).  Most recently, the Houston Astros won the Wildcard in 2005 despite starting the year off 19-32.  The others to come back from a horrible first three months were 1989 Toronto Blue Jays, the 1981 Kansas City Royals, and the 1974 Pittsburgh Pirates

Three women played in the Negro Leagues.

Replacing Hank Aaron, Toni Stone played 2B in 50 games and hit .243 in 1953 for the Indianapolis Clowns.

Mamie Johnson pitched herself to a 33-8 record in three years between 1953-55 also for the Clowns.

After selling Stone's contract to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1954, Connie Morgan played two years at 2B.

cribbed from texasrangers.com:

The Rangers have placed pitcher Kevin Millwood on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring muscle.

The move is retroactive to April 29. Reliever Wes Littleton was called up from Triple-A Oklahoma. Mike Wood, who started against the New York Yankees on Thursday, is replacing Millwood in the rotation

Cribbed from rotoworld:

Manager Ron Washington said Monday that he likes Ian Kinsler hitting seventh against right-handers.

Kinsler should never have been hitting ninth against them in the first place, so moving him up a couple spots is at least a start. "Everybody kept asking me when I was going to move him up. Well, I jumped him two spots," Washington said. "To go any farther, though, he's going to have to move past some veteran hitters. When he does that, it will be safe to say 'He's arrived.'"

He's not quite as high as some of us think, but Washington's certainly not saying that he won't move up higher.  I'm satisfied for now.

1/22 - Dwayne Jarrett(WR) - USC - Whereas Ted Ginn reminds me of Steve Smith, Dwayne Jarrett reminds me of Keyshawn Johnson.  I think he has the talent to be a top notch possession receiver that goes over the middle to make tough catches for about a decade.

2/53 - Quentin Moses(LB) - Georgia - He's free falling because of concerns about his work ethic.  He originally looked like he could have been a top 10 pick.  I like Bobby Carpenter as much as the next guy, but I think he can play any of the LB positions.  

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