SB Nation User Blog: jubjub

Mitchell Report - Open Thread

jubjub — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:22:54 -0000

Let's have a diary to talk about the Mitchell Report as names are released today.

The first big name to come out - Roger Clemens. If Bonds is going to burn in hell for steroid use, I hope there's a chair next to him for Clemens.

It's not really shocking when you think about how dominant he has been into old age, but still that's got to be the biggest surprise in there.

ESPN article

UPDATE: The list (bold=A's connection)

http://cbs2chicago.com/national/Mitchell.report.baseball.2.609138.html#playerlist

Chad Allen
Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Mike Bell
Marvin Benard
Gary Bennett, Jr.
Larry Bigbie
Barry Bonds
Kevin Brown
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Lenny Dykstra
Bobby Estalella
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jason Grimsley
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston, Jr.
Matt Herges
Phil Hiatt
Glenallen Hill
Darren Holmes
Todd Hundley
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Exavier "Nook" Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Gary Matthews, Jr.
Mark McGwire
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Rafael Palmeiro
Jim Parque
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
John Rocker
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Gary Sheffield
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Matt Williams
Todd Williams
Steve Woodard
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun

Poll

Clemens to HOF if true?

Yes

130 votes

No

95 votes

225 votes | Poll has closed

Why all the trade Dan Johnson talk?

jubjub — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:24:31 -0000

Why is it that there seems to be a consensus here that the A's should trade Dan Johnson?

Unless the A's can get a decent prospect back, I don't understand the rush to trade Johnson. He currently sports an .812 OPS, which doesn't make him Pujols, but it doesn't make him Neifi Perez either. Since we don't know how Cust will turn out (he has been in the minors for a decade for a reason...), why would we essentially dump a productive player to free up a spot for a minor leaguer who if he wasn't in the A's depleted farm system would be an afterthought (how many 1B prospects do you see with no power....)

To frame this argument, I present a comparison with a player we all agree should not be traded - Nick Swisher. Nothing against Swisher, I just wanted to show how close their performances this year have been.

A comparison with Nick Swisher:

Johnson Swisher
Age 27 years 26 years
BA .257 .256
OBP .366 .391
SLG .446 .435
AB/HR 24.9 27.4
VORP 10.9 17.9

A comment about the VORP difference - it comes from two things: 1) Swisher is compared to OF while Johnson is compared to 1B - if both were 1B, Swisher's number would come down considerably; 2) Swisher has a few extra BB's - 10 to be exact on a PA-adjusted basis.

So, the differences between Swisher and Johnson are essentially one year in age difference, 10 walks, and more defensive flexibility with Swisher. Swisher is the better player, but not by a huge gap and certainly not as the fan attitudes would have you believe. Yes, Swisher has been pretty good for a few years now, but if you take out Johnson's 2006, they have been very comparable players in terms of OPS.

Based on the above, I don't really understand the almost without argument consensus that has formed on AN that Dan Johnson should be traded. I don't even neccessarily disagree with trading him, I just don't get why it is seen as inevitable. At a relatively cheap price, he seems like an ideal insurance policy against a Cust regression/Barton development delay/Swisher injury. Since this team isn't exploding with offense, it seems odd to trade away one of the only players with an OPS above .800 (only 3 players higher).

Poll

Should Johnson be traded to make way for Barton?

No

61 votes

Yes

104 votes

165 votes | Poll has closed

Rickey Henderson named Mets new hitting coach

jubjub — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:48:05 -0000

No more Rickey comeback jokes as he's the hitting coach for the Mets.

NEW YORK -- Rickey Henderson is replacing Rick Down as hitting coach of the New York Mets starting Thursday.

Henderson, who had been a special instructor for the Mets this season, is a 10-time All-Star who set career records for stolen bases (1,406) and runs (2,295). He was the AL MVP in 1990.

The Mets' decision to make Henderson their hitting coach was first reported Wednesday night by Newsday on its Web site.

New York, which leads the NL East by two games over second-place Atlanta, is sixth in the NL with a .268 team batting average.

Henderson replacing Down as hitting coach for Mets

Poll

Will Rickey make a good hitting coach?

Yes

29 votes

No

12 votes

41 votes | Poll has closed

Kendall's K Rate

jubjub — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:59:27 -0000

This isn't a "Kendall sucks" diary, but an attempt to see if his decline in performance is a trend or noise.

I wasn't a big fan of the Kendall acquisition, but I was always hopeful that he would turn out to be a good player since we were stuck with his contract. With his struggles this year, it got me to wondering whether it was simply a deterioration of skills for a catcher on the wrong side of 30 who's played a ton of games or simply a run of bad luck.

One statistic that struck me was his strike out rate. Let's take a closer look.

If Kendall really is seeing his skills diminish, K rate seems like an obvious place for a decline to show. He's a small guy who chokes up 1/3 and takes a "light" swing. This should enable him to control the bat very well and avoid strike outs. If he's suddenly striking out more, it could represent a decline in vision and/or hand-eye coordination. So, the hypothesis is that if his K rate is trending upwards for a long time, it represents a decline in skills.

I snagged Kendall's K/AB stats for each month since 2002. Since the monthly stats are so erratic, I used a 3-month moving average to show trends.

Jason Kendall's K/AB Trend with A's
4-2005 N/A
5-2005 N/A
6-2005 8.1% - almost 14% his first month in the league with new pitchers, but adjusted
7-2005 4.9%
8-2005 5.9%
9-2005 5.3%
4-2006 5.8%
5-2006 6.2%
6-2006 9.5%
7-2006 10.7%
8-2006 10.0%
9-2006 10.1%
4-2007 9.8%
5-2007 12.4%
(if someone can figure how to get a graph of these on the web, please let me know)

The Bad:

There is a strong trend towards more strikeouts. A short-term bump in strikeouts could represent "pressing" too much, but a trend over 2.5 years that shows one's K rate more than doubling is, well, troubling.

The Good:

Jason's OPS has been fairly steady with the A's (aside from the nose dive due to this year). Now granted, these numbers aren't great, but at least they're pretty consistent.

Jason Kendall's OPS Trend with A's

4-2005 N/A
5-2005 N/A
6-2005 .654
7-2005 .699
8-2005 .650
9-2005 .670
4-2006 .628
5-2006 .733
6-2006 .680
7-2006 .683
8-2006 .714
9-2006 .730
4-2007 .661
5-2007 .537

Jason has had his K rate this high in the NL and managed to post some decent months. In late 2002/early 2003, his K rate trended above .10 and he managed to post a decent 2003 and 2004 while dramatically dropping his K rate trend to below .05. So, there's a glimmer of hope that he may come back.

Jason's walk rate was .0856 BB/PA in the NL and 0.077 BB/PA in the AL, which represents a decline of about 10%, but with all the noise in the statistics, I'm willing to overlook. His rates have declined to Chone Figgins-esque levels this year, but even as of last September, he walked 12 times.

So, the conclusion? With his strikeouts up and his walks down, his value has clearly declined. However, his walks should revert to their long-run average, which will help. If he walks more and has less strikeouts, at least we know this - he won't hit into as many DP's! If he can turn around his K rate like he did in 2003 and 2004, he might even warrant a one-year extension (at a much discounted price).

(And if Kendall's wife finds this diary, please note that I had three good points and only one bad point....)

Poll

Is Kendall's decline permanent?

Yes, he's done

96 votes

No, he will come back with a few decent years

18 votes

114 votes | Poll has closed

Should Travis Buck make the team?

jubjub — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:48:06 -0000

With Buck tearing it up, should he make the team out of Spring Training? If so, should he be the starting RF?

It seems to be a three horse race between Buck, Johnson, and Durazo for the final spot in the starting lineup. Kielty may ultimately be the starting LF (a world I wish not to see), but I assume he will be out through the first few weeks of the season and at least not at full strength. Here's how the three candidates are faring:

Johnson is playing respectably with a decent average and 9 walks versus 7 strikeouts (.776 OPS) - not great, but not terrible.
Durazo has been hitting well, but one walk in 15 games is a frightening prospect for the former holy grail (.818 OPS).
Buck has been tearing it up with a high average and good doubles power and only 3 K's in 14 games (1.094 OPS).

So, should we give Buck a chance to prove himself now and give him the RF job (putting Swisher at 1B and Stewart in LF) and see what he does with it for the first month? If he struggles, do you send him back to the minors? For those that have seen the games, how is his defensive range? How does it compare to Swisher? With Kotsay out, I figure we want some more range in RF to help offset (I know the RF stats show Kotsay's range declining, but the boy seems to get to some impossible balls out there...).

If we send Buck down to the minors, do you put Johnson at 1B or do you ask Piazza to play 1B and Durazo to DH? Any other options?

For me, the critical issue on Buck is whether you think he could bounce back if he struggled initially. That seems to be the main test when considering whether to "rush" a prospect or not. The only way to measure that is to know the guy and see how responds to adversity. I don't really expect that Buck would be the starting RF all year, but would a "cup of coffee" in April hurt or help him?

I say give him a chance. He's our #1 OF prospect and he looks ready.

Is this team a winner?

jubjub — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:19:17 -0000

When you watch this team, do they strike you as a winner? Not even specifically in the playoff/no playoff sense, but just as winners? The injuries have hurt, no doubt, but is this team fundamentally a winning ball club?

I want to say yes, but I'm not 100% sure. We all know they were built for 2006+ and anything this year is gravy, but can the young guys learn to want to win? Does this team have the fire? We brought Kendall and Kotsay in for that reason, but do they provide it? Anybody can be pumped up when you're up 12-0, but can they maintain their edge down 4-0?

If it's the 4th inning and we're down, we lose. How does that happen with a young ball club? They should be fighting for every at bat. Instead, they seem content to call the games in. Seems to happen every game. You can even script what will happen from then on:

Kendall - ground out to 2B with the weakest swing in the majors (swings like a girl)
Kotsay - swings at first pitch ball and hits a pop fly to CF.
Chavez - swings at first pitch ball and fouls out to 1B.
Kietly - K's with the longest swing this side of Adam Dunn
Johnson - (ray of hope) battles and might get a hit, but left stranded
Payton - might hit a homerun or flies out to LF
Swisher - looks overmatched at the plate every time and they throw him a slider breaking in on his hands and he swings EVERY SINGLE TIME for the K.
Scutaro - hits ground ball to 1B.
Ellis - hits ground ball to 2B.

Obviously, I'm sure they'll heat up again, but why does this team seem content to lose? Why don't they fight and fight for all 27 outs? They seem to lack the fire that made the teams with Miggy and Giambi so good.

So, the question is, does this team look like a winner? We're hanging in this year against a weak American League, but if you compared this team to good teams of the past decade, do they hold up? I don't really see a winning formula in the lineup and I hope that some of the talent in the minors or to be acquired in the next couple of years has some fire and who know to wait for a strike before swinging.

My Attempt to Heal the Offense

jubjub — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 13:18:28 -0000

On August 6th, I posted a diary about the A's August Offensive Woes. And then they went out and scored 27 runs in two games. So, in an attempt to reignite the offense, I've posted the same diary, but with updated August stats.

Please, do your best to tell me what an idiot I am, how the sample size is too small, and how we just have to stay positive. The more comments, the better the odds they'll break out of the slump. I'll do my part by eating an entire bucket of chicken before today's game, ala Wade Boggs.

Here's a month-by-month breakdown of our Runs and OPS (AL rank in parenthesis):

April Runs: 89 (12) OPS: .657 (14)
May Runs: 112 (12) OPS: .672 (13)
June Runs: 148 (4) OPS: .820 (4)
July Runs: 155 (1) OPS: .809 (3)
August Runs: 69 (7) OPS: .743 (10)
August1 Runs: 42 (14)

August1=If all runs scored by all teams on August 6th and 7th are removed. Yes, I think it's kind of bad science to remove those, but the drop in rank is clearly significant and August 6th and 7th are clearly outliers. The only bright spot is that the White Sox have only scored 43 runs in the same game set.

Our August OPS has dipped significantly. The main problem? No one is on fire leading this offense. It was Crosby in June. Chavez in early July. Johnson in late July. Who's going to step up?

At least our pitching staff has stayed hot:

April ERA: 3.65 (2) OPSA: .684 (3)
May ERA: 5.43 (13) OPSA: .784 (12)
June ERA: 2.83 (1) OPSA: .629 (1)
July ERA: 3.66 (1) OPSA: .705 (2)
August ERA: 3.73 (4) OPSA: .689 (1)

August Offensive Woes

jubjub — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 14:24:07 -0000

Here's a month-by-month breakdown of our Runs and OPS (AL rank in parenthesis):

April Runs: 89 (12) OPS: .657 (14)
May Runs: 112 (12) OPS: .672 (13)
June Runs: 148 (4) OPS: .820 (4)
July Runs: 155 (1) OPS: .809 (3)
August Runs: 15 (8) OPS: .626 (13)

Our August OPS has dipped significantly. The only hot player right now is Johnson (and man is he on fire with a post-June OPS of 1.074). Is there reason to worry?

At least our pitching staff has stayed hot:

April ERA: 3.65 (2) OPSA: .684 (3)
May ERA: 5.43 (13) OPSA: .784 (12)
June ERA: 2.83 (1) OPSA: .629 (1)
July ERA: 3.66 (1) OPSA: .705 (2)
August ERA: 2.62 (2) OPSA: .577 (2)

Piazza?

jubjub — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:18:09 -0000

ESPN mentioned a rumored Piazza to Oakland deal this morning, but I haven't seen anything about it. Does that make any sense at all? The guy will be 37 before the end of the season and makes $16MM+ (don't know about 2006+). Also, check out his OPS numbers the last few years - notice a trend?

2000 1.012
2001 .957 (-.055)
2002 .903 (-.054)
2003 .860 (-.043)
2004 .806 (-.054)
2005 .749 (-.057)

Also, his OPS after the all-star break last year was .615 with Jason Kendall-esque power numbers.

So, does this make any sense or is it just NY media being their usual selves? I would think we would have to be able to unload some salaries to pick him up (Durazo, Hatteberg, etc - wish we could get Dotel off the DL for 1 day to trade him). Also, we know Minaya loves his latin players and we don't have many.

So, what's the verdict?

Current A with Best Career

jubjub — Tue, 31 May 2005 17:24:04 -0000

In 25 years, after all the players in the A's organization have played out their careers, which one will we point to and say had the best career?

Will Chavez take the next step and finally put up the numbers his early projections indicated or hill he linger as a .270-.290 with 25-35 HR hitter (good, but not great)? Will it be Harden who probably has the highest upside of any player in the organization, but is still young and fragile? Will it be any of the current crop of young position players who will get plenty of playing time in the near future (Crosby/Swisher/Johson)? Or, will it be one of the prospects in the minors? Barton? Ethier? Putnam?

Here are my guesses with odds:

Harden - 40% (most upside, but a pitcher - will he be clemens or andy benes?)
Chavez - 15% (good career numbers to date, but will he take the next step?)
Street - 15% (good slider, but will need to learn another pitch to fool hitters for years)
Suzuki - 10% (maybe a shock, but figure he's a .300-.320 10-15 hr hitter for a decade as a catcher)
Herrera - 10% (5 tools, but who knows)
Barton - 5% (hot bat, but small guy who might not do much against advanced pitching)
All Others - 5%

So, who's your pick and why?