SB Nation User Blog: marcello

This is awesome.

marcello — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:16:43 -0000

This is awesome.

James (LA): You're leaning draft, but you are always down to take a shot at the horrible right...

marcello — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:26:23 -0000

James (LA): You're leaning draft, but you are always down to take a shot at the horrible right fielder in Atlanta. When are they going to get rid of him?!?!?!

SportsNation Keith Law: They tried to get him to leave, but they told him to "take a walk," and he was just hopelessly confused.

KLAW with another burn of Francoeur. That is all.

Wagner Mateo, CF from the Dominican Republic, Future Giant?

marcello — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:02:07 -0000

Wagner Mateo, CF from the Dominican Republic, Future Giant?

Since it's subscription material, I'll only cut out two short clips:

Pros: Mateo is what scouts like to call a toolshed: some have projected him to own five plus tools. He put on quite the show in batting practice, as you can see in the video. One swing sent a ball over the wall in center field, an easy 400-foot shot. Mateo's game isn't just power, as he utilizes his plus speed on the basepaths and in the field. His arm has also shown improvement, grading as a 60 on the 20-80 scale with the display he put on for scouts at the event.

Projected Team: He has long been tied to the Dodgers and Giants, with the Cardinals also mentioned. It has been confirmed that he is not locked into a verbal deal. The Giants brought a large contingent of their scouting brass to the showcase, and they're mentioned by many insiders as the leaders for Mateo's services. They're also my pick.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

marcello — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:04:18 -0000

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

That's it, pack it up. Murray Chass wrote something I agree with and like.

/Soils self

marcello — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:59:28 -0000

/Soils self

I can't stop thinking about Barry Zito

marcello — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:21:38 -0000

I really want to believe Zito is back. I want him to be a good pitcher for the Giants, as I’m sure pretty much all of you do. But I don’t trust him yet. He’s used up all of his trust points. So, what do I do when I’m confused and vulnerable? I check out the stats to see if I can confirm some of my biases. I’m just going to throw some numbers out, from FanGraphs and StatCorner, and see if we can find anything.

Year	FBv	ERA	FIP	K%	SwStr%	uBB%	Ball%	BABIP	GB%	HR/BIA
2002	87.1	2.75	3.87	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	.254	34.5%	N/A
2003	87.5	3.30	4.05	15.26%	7.1%	8.88%	38.7%	.239	39.1%	4.53%
2004	86.9	4.48	4.50	17.60%	8.0%	8.53%	37.8%	.291	36.1%	6.76%
2005	87.3	3.86	4.34	17.94%	9.0%	9.34%	39.1%	.243	40.0%	6.62%
2006	85.8	3.83	4.89	15.98%	7.3%	9.95%	40.5%	.281	37.4%	6.60%
2007	84.5	4.53	4.28	15.47%	7.1%	9.33%	38.5%	.261	39.1%	6.54%
2008	84.9	5.15	4.72	14.67%	7.1%	11.25%	39.0%	.295	35.8%	4.34%
2009	86.6	3.99	4.19	17.53%	7.9%	6.19%	35.5%	.261	47.1%	2.86%
Career	N/A	3.82	4.30	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	.273	38.1	N/A

Glossary:

FBv – Fastball Velocity

SwStr% - Percentage of strikes that are swinging. These have a direct linear relationship with K%, so this can be an indicator if a pitcher has been strikeout lucky or unlucky.

uBB% - Percentage of batters walked unintentionally.

Ball% - Percentage of pitches thrown that are called balls. From StatCorner: The R2 of Ball% to walks is roughly +.56 on a cubic formula.

HR/BIA – Homerun per Ball in Air (line drives + flyballs + pop ups)

Ok, so that’s some data that might not be easy to wade through if you’re unfamiliar with it. In case you couldn’t tell, I bolded the years with the Giants and I also bolded some numbers in the tables that are pretty severe outliers for this year.

Let’s start with his fastball velocity, which has been brought up many times as the reason for his success so far. I’m not sure that that conclusion can be drawn, given the data above. Although 3 of his 4 best seasons by FIP were in his 3 highest velocity seasons, his 3rd best season was in his lowest velocity year, 2007. I don’t know either way, but I’d be hesitant to just credit the improved velocity, especially considering a few of the other numbers we’ll get to.

Next up, strikeouts. Obviously, they are up around the highest they’ve been since 2002 and that is good. Is he getting lucky? Well, based on his SwStr%, I don’t think he is getting too lucky. His SwStr% is league average and his K% is a bit above average, so it seems reasonable with maybe a little regression coming.

Now we get to something interesting, Zito’s BB%. So far, this is the best BB% he’s put up, BY FAR, since his 2002 Cy Young season. I have serious trouble believing this is real. This number stabilizes fairly quickly, so you can’t easily just waive it off as small sample size, but I’m still skeptical. The good news is, he is throwing fewer balls in general, so, if he can somehow keep this up, he should be able to put together a good season even with some regression in his K%.

His BABIP is mostly uninteresting, given that it’s a completely reasonable number, but when looked at in conjunction with GB%, it’s a little odd. Speaking of which, Zito is getting WAY more groundballs than he ever has. As with his walk rate, this makes me raise an eyebrow (just one). I’m not sure of the precedence for pitchers dramatically improving their groundball rates. I’m sure it’s happened before but I don’t know how common it is. My guess would be that it’s pretty rare and would usually result from the development of a new pitch. Someone who’s good with Pitch f/x might be able to point to something, such as better movement on his pitches, but for now I’m just going to shrug my shoulders and point to the BB% paragraph above. Anyways, back to my first sentence about BABIP. Typically ground balls become hits more often than flyballs, so it’s interesting that Zito’s GB% is so low considering he’s getting so many groundballs. This most likely can be explained by small sample size, so if Zito keeps up the groundballing ways you can expect a few more hits to fall in than have so far.

Lastly, we come to something that will surely regress, his HR/BIA. The lowest rate in 2008 among starters, was Cliff Lee at 3.32 (Timmy in 2nd at 3.53) and Zito’s current number is horribly out of line with his career. In fact, 2007 was pretty out of line for him since 2003, so either he’s figured out the secret of how to not give up homers, or he’s been pretty lucky for the last 1+ season. Expect some regression here.

Soooo, what does this tell us? Well, I’m not entirely sure. Yes, I just wasted a lot of your time, sorry. It’s pretty clear he’s going to be giving up a few more homeruns, but other than that, I’m left scratching my head. I really don’t trust his current BB and GB rates, but I don’t just want to write them off either. Clearly, we need to see more to be sure. Please chime in with your thoughts, stat based, eye based, hunch based, or divine-message-in-your-sleep based. Also, please feel free to correct me if I’ve messed up analyzing the numbers anywhere.

Pablo Sandoval, Catcher

marcello — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:15:39 -0000

Pablo Sandoval, Catcher

Interesting piece over at BtBS about the measurables for catchers defense. Sandoval rates out pretty well against his minor league prospect peers. Some guy named Matt Wieters is also pretty good. Sandoval's ranks in this group:

SB%: 6th
Attempts/Inning: 1st
SB/Inning: 3rd
PB/Inning: 4th

So, teams didn't run on him, and when they did, he made them pay for it. In addition, he was great at blocking pitches. I really hope, if Posey isn't ready yet, that Pablo is our starting catcher in 2010.

Interesting Article from ESPN Ombudsman

marcello — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:33:25 -0000

Interesting Article from ESPN Ombudsman

I agree with most, if not all, of what she says, but I wonder what the decision makers at ESPN think.

Optimistic marcello is optimistic.
Pessimistic marcello snorts derisively.

OT: Pokemons Question

marcello — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:34:09 -0000

OT: Pokemons Question

I recently purchased a Nintendo DS and will eventually be trying out Pokemon for the first time. But which one? There are like 20 options, and I don't know which to choose. Diamond? Pearl? Platinum? Help please from all the Pokemon fiends here.

Don Cherry is still a retarded tool

marcello — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:39:06 -0000

Don Cherry is still a retarded tool

I'm not sure what's worse, his blatant nationalism, or his belittling of another sport (which happens to be the most popular sport in the world). I honestly hate this guy. If he didn't dress like a seizure machine to go, no one would know who he is. Die.