SB Nation User Blog: mattwelch

Jered Got Jobbed

mattwelch — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:35:16 -0000

The American League named 8 starting pitchers to the All-Star game today. Going into today's play, Jered Weaver ranked 7th in the league in ERA, 7th in Adjusted ERA+ (which adjusts for your home park), 3rd in wins, 2nd in complete games, 4th in quality starts, 5th in WHIP, 11th in strikeouts, and 12th in innings pitched. As you all know, he didn't make the team. Here's a list of the top 17 starting pitchers in the league, ranked by ERA+, who have thrown at least 100 innings this year. The All-Stars are in bold.

NM IP   W L ERA  ERA+ QS Last name
ZG 121 10 4 2.00 214  14 Greinke
EJ 115  6 4 2.59 172  13 Jackson
FH 117  8 3 2.72 162  13 Hernandez
KM 119  8 5 2.80 158  12 Millwood
RH 116 10 2 2.79 154  11 Halladay
MB 108  8 2 3.09 149  10 Buehrle 
JW 107  8 3 3.10 144  11 Weaver
NB 107  6 4 3.10 131  11 Blackburn
CL 120  4 8 3.45 131  13 Lee
DB 106  6 7 3.13 130  13 Braden
MG 104  6 5 3.45 129  10 Garza
JS 116  6 6 3.50 127  10 Shields
JV 109  8 4 3.54 126  10 Verlander
JB 105  9 3 3.67 126  11 Beckett
AB 101  7 4 3.83 114  10 Burnett
CS 115  7 5 3.85 114   8 Sabathia
TW 103 10 3 4.30 108  10 Wakefield

What jumps out here, aside from the highway robbery on poor Kevin Millwood, is that it's not as if Joe Maddon had to pick Justin Verlander, Josh Beckett and Tim Wakefield to fill quotas from crappy teams. Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson were already representing the Tigers, and Lord knows there's never any shortage of Red Sox.

I actually don't mind the Wakefield pick, since he's a good old guy making the team for the first time at age 42, has probably deserved it before, and is certainly the winningest non-All Star active, if not of all time. Plus, he can throw 10 extra innings if need be. But did Beckett and Verlander really deserve it more than Jered Weaver? Oh hell no they didn't.

The silver lining, obviously, is that Jered will have extra rest over the break, and hopefully be kicked up the rotation in front of Joe Saunders, who looks like he needs a nap.

Poll

Reaction to Jered Weaver not making the All-Star game

Best Angel Non-All-Star Seasons

mattwelch — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:58:55 -0000

What were the best single seasons by Angels who didn't make the All-Star team? Here's a top 10 list, using Win Shares, with the guys who actually made the squad instead of them in parenthesis. "AA" in this chart is the number of Win Shares "above average," given the playing time of the Angel in question. "MVP" is where they finished in the MVP voting (all but Wally Joyner in 1991 was a top-16 finisher). And, as always when I do stuff like this, the Angel team seasons are pro-rated to 162 games, so that the impact-on-season playing field is leveled.

To give you an idea of what Win Share totals mean (or at least correspond to), here's a list of last year's AL leaders; basically anything above 30 puts you in the MVP conversation; 23-29 is All-Star material, 19-22 is a good regular player, 15-18 is a solid regular or spectacular reserve. Without further ado, and with hopes that it's readable:

G   AB   R  H   HR RBI SB/CS BB  BA   OBP  SLG OPS+ WS   AA MVP  
1) Tim Salmon, 1995 (Manny Ramirez, Paul O'Neill) 
143 537 111 177 34 105  5/5  91 .330 .429 .594 164 32.5  14   7
2) Bobby Grich, 1981 (Willie Randolph, Frank White)
100 352  56 107 22  61  2/4  40 .304 .378 .543 164 30.8  15  14
3) Tim Salmon, 1997 (Paul O'Neill)
157 582  95 172 33 129  9/12 95 .296 .394 .517 136 28.9  11   7
4) Doug DeCinces, 1982 (George Brett, Buddy Bell, Toby Harrah)
153 575  94 173 30  97  7/5  66 .301 .369 .548 149 27.5  11   3
5) Frank Robinson, 1973 (no DHs were selected)
147 534  85 142 30  97  1/1  82 .266 .372 .489 150 25.7  10  15
6) Orlando Cabrera, 2007 (Derek Jeter, Michael Young, Carlos Guillen)
155 638 101 192  8  86 20/4  44 .301 .345 .397  95 25.4   7  15
7) Wally Joyner, 1991 (Mark McGwire, Cecil Fielder, Rafael Palmeiro) 
143 551  79 166 21  96  2/0  52 .301 .360 .488 133 25.1   9
8) Brian Downing, 1982 (Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, Ben Oglive, Willie Wilson) 
158 623 109 175 28  84  2/1  86 .281 .368 .482 132 24.6   6  14
9) Vlad Guerrero, 2008 (Ichiro Suzuki, J.D. Drew)
143 541  85 164 27  91  5/3  51 .303 .365 .521 130 24.4   9  14      
10) Bobby Bonds, 1977 (Reggie Jackson, Ken Singleton, Richie Zisk)
158 592 103 156 37 115 41/18 74 .264 .342 .520 136 24.4   6  16

Win Shares has Toby Harrah slightly ahead of DeCinces in 1982, but with more playing time. Otherwise the top six on this list were the best in the league at their respective positions. Again, something to think about when people over-rely on All-Star game appointments in judging a player's career. Yeah, Bobby Grich only made six All-Star teams, but in 1981 he became the first second baseman to lead his league in home runs and slugging percentage since Rogers freaking Hornsby, so maybe don't bug me about his All-Star selections, mmmkay?

Poll

Weirdest thing about that list

Are Angels disproportionately snubbed in the All-Star game?

mattwelch — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:00:43 -0000

In my HTML clusterfudge of a comment on the Matt Holliday thread, I had a throwaway line about Bengie Molina being arguably the best catcher in Major League history to never make an All-Star game. So I decided to look at which active position players had the most career Win Shares (as of 2008, anyway; for some reason the Hardball Times is no longer keeping track of Win Shares in season) without having ever been named to an All-Star team. There are, shall we say, some familiar names on the list:

C Bengie Molina (122)
1B Kevin Millar (135)
2B Adam Kennedy (104)
SS Orlando Cabrera (169)
3B Adrian Beltre (186)
LF Raul Ibanez (150)
CF ~~Coco Crisp (82)~~ Mark Kotsay (146)
RF Matt Stairs (151)
DH Pat Burrell (163)

Some other current and former Angels nearly crack this list, too, including Jose Guillen (125) and Chone Figgins (101). And, as we all know, Tim Salmon was the best eligible player of all time to never make an All-Star team.

Something to think about whenever someone talks down an Angels or West Coast player's Hall of Fame candidacy based on number of All-Star teams made. Hopefully Joe Maddon will stoke Chone and Jered Weaver, and maybe even Mike Napoli or Juancho this year.

Poll

Best eligible player to have never made an All-Star team

Standings Since April 25

mattwelch — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:00:56 -0000

Since the morning of April 26, when we woke up in last place, at 6-11, 5.5 games out of first place, we've gone 35-21. That's the best record in baseball since then. Here's a list:

LAA 35-21 .625
BOS 35-23 .603
LAD 35-23 .603
TBR 35-24 .593
COL 35-24 .593
NYY 34-24 .586
DET 33-25 .569
TEX 32-25 .561

And yes, since swapping Jeff Weaver for Jered in the rotation on July 3, 2006, we are (once again!) playing exactly .600 baseball -- 288-192.

Can we keep it up? Not .625, I don't think. And .600 is a hard, hard dollar when two-fifths of your rotation is Matt Palmer and Sean O'Sullivan. But this team has surprised us before....

Since Swapping Weavers, We're a .600 Team

mattwelch — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:48:23 -0000

Something I should have posted before last night's game, though then I would have been later accused of jinxing: Starting with the game on July 3, 2006, when Jered Weaver finally replaced his brother Jeff in the starting rotation (and, fittingly, beating his always-more-doted-on-by-statheads rival Felix Hernandez), the Angels up until last night's first pitch had gone 282-188. That is exactly .600 baseball, over nearly three years.

Lest any of you snippy little bores toss more accusations of "cherry-picking" at me, the replacement of a replacement-level #5 starter with a potential ace was and is a legitimate shift in a team's composition, as was (about six weeks prior) the replacement of a .200 hitting flameout prospect at catcher with a Mickey Tettleton-type take-n-raker. I have been pointing out the essential .600ness of this ballclub on this site for years now, and will take any bets that we'll finish closer to .600 this year than .500.

Anyway, after last night's horror we're now down to .599 since July 3, 2006. How does that compare in baseball? As Jim Morrison would say, "Pretty good!"

LAA: .599 (282-189)
NYY: .573 (272-203)
BOS: .564 (268-207)
PHI: .562 (264-206)
NYM: .552 (260-211)
LAD: .544 (258-216)
CHC: .537 (251-216)

This calls for a poll!

Poll

Winning percentage the rest of the year?

.625+

30 votes

.600-.624

74 votes

.575-.599

76 votes

.550-574

35 votes

.525-.549

20 votes

.500-.524

23 votes

.475-.499

2 votes

.474 or worse

19 votes

279 votes | Poll has closed

On Pace for 90 Wins

mattwelch — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:58:34 -0000

Did you know we're on pace for 90 wins? We are! Even though, sadly, we won't have the NL West to kick around forever.

What else happens when you divide 162 by 65 and then apply it to the team's various stats?

* Kendry Morales hits 50 doubles and 25 home runs, easily setting a team record for extra-base hits by a first baseman. Didn't see that coming (and, alas, probably won't).
* Matt Palmer goes 15-0. Vegas will be taking your bets.
* Chone Figgins racks up 205 hits, and scores 122 runs.
* Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders each pitch 220+ innings. No one else on staff tops 142. This, thankfully, will probably change.
* Torii Hunter sets career highs in runs (117, beating previous high of 94), hits (177, over 172), homers (40/31), RBIs (127/107), walks (70/50), stolen bases (27/23), Batting Average (.321/.289), On-base Percentage (.399/.344), Slugging Percentage (.611/.524), OPS (1.010/.859) and OPS+ (158/124). He probably will nab some of those career highs, but there's no reason to expect a man to stay *this* hot.
* The team steals 170 bases, most since the literally insane season of 1975.
* Juan Rivera essentially reproduces his monster (and many say flukey) 2006, going .316/.355/.516 with 25 homers and 90 ribbies, as compared to his 2006 line of .310/.362/.525 with 23 HRs and 85 RBIs.
* The team commits the fewest errors (85) in franchise history, not counting the strike-shortened 1994 campaign. (TOTALLY did not see that one coming.)
* For the first time since the offensive spike year of 2000, and only the ninth time in franchise history, we have four players with 20+ home runs -- Hunter, Morales, Rivera and Napoli (22). Unfortunately, the rest of the team, unfortunately, combines to hit just 37.

That's my goofball list, anyway.

Poll

Which of these is most likely to happen?

Torii sets career highs in everything

21 votes

Figgy gets 200 hits

14 votes

Palmer wins 15 games

6 votes

Juancho parties like it's 2006

61 votes

Kendry sets franchise record for XBHs by a 1Bman

14 votes

Team sets mark for fewest errors

1 votes

mattwelch wastes another deadline Saturday morning goofing off on Baseball Reference

22 votes

139 votes | Poll has closed

Team Stats vs. Perception

mattwelch — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:19:07 -0000

Just tooling around Baseball Reference, comparing team stats, and a few gaps jump out between perception of the Angels and reality:

Perception: The Angels have a shoddy offense. Reality: We're 7th in the league in runs per game, at 4.95 (higher than in 2008, 2006 and 2005); better than the league average of 4.81, and (given the extreme difference in ballpark effects) better (on an average basis, anyway) than the Texas offense of 4.97. This while Kendrick stank and Vladdy didn't contribute (though a couple of guys have hit quite a bit better than expected).

Perception: The Angels play National League-style small ball. Reality: The team is exactly tied in sacrifice bunts with -- wait for it! -- Billy Beane's Oakland, with 18. American League teams average 17 sacrifices; the NL 29. Still, the AL runs a helluva lot more than the NL, averaging 49 steals in 64 attemps versus 39 in 55 (Scioscia, true to his form, is near the top in baseball, at 68 and 89). In fact, the American League has been stealing slightly more often than the National League, on average, all decade, so I don't even know what "National League-style small ball" means anymore, aside from "I'm an announcer and I'm lazy."

Perception: The Angels depend on a high-contact, high-average, high baserunning model for success. Reality: OK, that remains totally true. We're first in Batting Average (just like 2007!), 11th in strikeouts (just like 2008 and 2006!), 11th in walks (2002!), 12th in home runs (2007, 2006!), and 2nd in stolen bases (2008, 2007!). The good news, for those of you who have grown weary of this type of offense, is that at least we seem to be following the '07/'04/'02 model, instead of the '08/'06/'05/'03. Check out how bizarrely close these groups are to one another:

GOOD HATCHER YEARS
2009 .282/.342/.429 4.95
2007 .284/.345/.417 5.07
2004 .282/.341/.429 5.16
2002 .282/.341/.433 5.25

BAD HATCHER YEARS
2008 .268/.330/.413 4.72
2006 .274/.334/.425 4.73
2005 .270/.325/.409 4.70
2003 .268/.330/.413 4.54

I figure with the warming weather, and the return of Vlad, this offense will be above 5 runs per game, and within the top 5-7 in the league. I have also been known to be optimistic.

A final note: The last two years the Angels have hit into an awful lot of double plays -- 140 and 146. So far this year we're on pace for just 107, which would be the second-lowest total in the Scioscia era (2002, even with all those men on base, produced just 105). Though now that Vlad's back expect the GIDPs to come back with him.

Insightful Scioscia Profile

mattwelch — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:07:11 -0000

This CBSsports.com article on Mike Scioscia, linked here the other day, is well worth a read-the-whole-thing. Like the best Scioscia profiles, this one made a couple of points that are always worth repeating:

1) Scioscia didn't just change a few emphases and a few players, he changed an entire organizational culture.

The Angels discovered that early on, shortly after hiring Scioscia. The club was preparing a letter that was headed out to prospective season-ticketholders before the 2000 season. In that letter, something was written about the Angels' plans to "compete."

"I remember him saying, 'Tim, I understand what's going on, but 'compete' isn't the word to use. 'Contend' is,'" Mead says. "He wasn't being critical at all. But he differentiated between the two words: In 'compete,' there's a little bit of hope. 'Contend' is an expectation.

"Even though, in 2002, he was the manager of the year and we won the World Series, in my mind 2000 was still his greatest year of managing because he had to turn the direction of an organization."

2) Far from being a straight Tommy Lasorda disciple, Scioscia is the sum of many, many different influences, largely composed of Alston-era Dodger personnel and Walter Alston himself.

Scioscia learned from guys like Maury Wills, Lou Johnson and Jim LeFebvre while maturing in the Dodgers' organization. Donald LeJohn, his Double-A manager in 1978 at San Antonio. His big league manager, Tommy Lasorda. And a couple of other managers with whom he's spent time, the late Walter Alston and Sparky Anderson, who lives not far from Scioscia in Westlake Village, Calif. Behind the plate, he learned from guys like Del Crandell, Johnny Roseboro and Roy Campanella.

"I think you take little pieces from everybody," Scioscia says.

3) He is even-keeled, and definitely not super-intimate with his players on a day-to-day basis.

As outfielder Torii Hunter says, "You can't read him sometimes. You don't know if he's happy, or if he's upset."

Read the whole thing.

Panther. In Suburban New Jersey

mattwelch — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:50:34 -0000

Panther. In Suburban New Jersey

Scioscia's Bullpens

mattwelch — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:51:56 -0000

So, as most of you know, the Angels pitching staff has been the definition of schizophrenic this year. We lead the league in starters’ ERA, and are last in the league in relief ERA. (I would bet, without looking it up, that that has never been done over a whole season in ML history.)

Anyway, in some of the comments on this site I have seen people argue that hey, we always have the best bullpen in the league, it’s just an aberration, cut Scioscia some slack, etc. While I agree with the macro sentiment -- there’s no way the bullpen will continue sucking this hard, and Scioscia is generally da bomb -- it just is no longer true that we have a reliably great bullpen year after year. The chart below shows starter & reliever ERA during Scioscia’s tenure, the difference between the two, and the ranking of each within the league. Check it out:

Year  SP   Rk   RP   Rk   Diff
2009 3.84 (1)  5.69 (14) -1.85 
2008 4.14 (5)  3.69 (4)  +0.45
2007 4.22 (3)  4.24 (8)  -0.02
2006 4.16 (2)  3.78 (5)  +0.38
2005 3.78 (1)  3.75 (5)  +0.03
2004 4.70 (4)  3.47 (1)  +1.23
2003 4.90 (11) 3.15 (1)  +1.75
2002 4.00 (4)  2.98 (1)  +1.02
2001 4.49 (7)  3.54 (4)  +0.95
2000 5.54 (12) 4.16 (2)  +1.39

As you can see, we basically had the league’s best bullpen the first half of the decade, and have been toggling between good and mediocre ever since. Meanwhile, among the many ways Scioscia has transformed the character and composition of this franchise, we have gone from a sucky rotation to a reliably great one even when dipping down 8 and 9 places on the depth chart.

What does it all mean? If nothing else, I think it demonstrates one of the principles of competition -- reputation outlives fact. It also underscores what I’ve thought all along: 2009 is a transition year for the bullpen, and so far it has been a disappointment not just on the results level, but in the fact that we haven’t seen much development from the guys who are supposed to be the Bullpen of the Future: Arredondo, Jepsen, Bulger, Thompson. There was a time when the organization could pull donkeys out of a hat and produce brilliance year after year, but we are long gone from those days. Also, Troy Percival and Frankie Rodriquez were both really good pitchers, and we’ve enjoyed very good Scot Shields all the way until now.