SB Nation User Blog: pedrophile

4 team trade!!!

pedrophile — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:54:39 -0000

NY trades:
Joba
Hughes
Tabata
Cano
Kennedy

Boston:
Ellsbury
Buchholz
Lester
Masterson
Lowrie

Minnesota:
Santana

St. Louis:
Eckstein (knows how to win)

NY is able to shift Jeter to SS and Eckstein can move to SS improving D and offense. Santana is the obvious best player in the deal so Boston and NY agree to alternate starts where he pitches for one team and then the other. When facing each other he will start for the home team but can come on in relief for the visiting team.

btw: the best feature of this trade is all boston and ny rookies are gone and we don't have to listen to all these hughes vs. chicken salad sandwhich offers.

Injury Nexus

pedrophile — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:27:45 -0000

This comes up in conversation quite often. And many times it's used improperly. I'll try to shed some light.

The original article comes to a conclusion that the "injury nexus" is a real event. The one possible reason was felt that the ligaments, tendons, joints, etc. have not fully formed. And the actual date of the injury nexus was believed to be before age 23.

While this article principally talks about age they do talk about maturity - in that each person's body will mature at different ages. The age they quote is by no means intended to be exact.

The study shows the worst point in time for pitchers is age 21 and at, or around, age 23 is the best point. But since the study is only on MLB players then for a 21 year old to qualify he would have needed a successful MLB season at age 20. Quite a rare feat. And easily understandable while we wouldn't see age 20 on the chart. There would not be enough 19 year olds to make it valid statistically.

What was not really discussed in the original article was other causes for the damage. In particular the ascending innings pitched and higher pitch counts. Pitchers that are either allowed to accumulate much higher innings pitched from one year to the next (ie 115IP to 190IP) or simply the players that just can't handle the longer season and are affected by injury.

Since the article BP has talked more about these phenomena and they have also moved from a specific nexus (if they even perceived it that way) to something more generic. They discuss the age as a factor, the physical maturity, and the levels of innings pitched the pitcher has weathered.

Is a 27 year old pitcher that has always had low innings (ie late start to baseball) and not exposed to MLB past his injury nexus?

IMO he is not. While he is past the physical maturity issue he still has not taken the beating that a significantly larger workload will put on him. And he has not proven in successive seasons that this hasn't affected him. I'm not dismissing the physical maturity issue. I just believe it is only one of many factors.

I would really like to see some studies that look at minor leaguers based on the same rules as the original study. And I would also love to see some studies based on IP progression.

btw: I hope I'm not giving the impression that BP's work is flawed or that I know much more about it than they do.

Links:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6720

OT - Really cool vids

pedrophile — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:10:15 -0000

Too much negativity here. Here is some fun videos to watch.

Please put other links of specific videos that you watched and liked.

Travel Sick - Lima,Peru - Get Mugged
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnfefAN6C30&NR=1

Travel Sick - Papua New Guinea - Bats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJllhTzde4&feature=related

Travel Sick - Czech Republic - Frisbee with wild beast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf-ZKv4XeCw&feature=related

Ali-G - Sexuality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vEx2RwJHLA&feature=related

Ali G - Beckham and Posh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P842Tmi6lrc&feature=related

2008 Dice-K, what will it bring?

pedrophile — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 03:05:21 -0000

disclaimer I didn't get the chance to watch him pitch during that one stretch where he was totally lights out.

First the statistical side with some comments:

IP Hit HR BB K's ERA
204.2 191 25 80 201 4.40

splits
LEFT: .238 / .744 RIGHT: .253 / .719 HOME: .266 / .750 AWAY: .230 / .714

The hit rate is good but not great. The BB rate is troublesome. But I am very very impressed with his K rate in his first full season. ERA reflects the high walk rate. I think his ERA would have been higher if not the very good K rate.

His split numbers are solid. A lot to like there.

His month by month numbers fluctuate but just about everyone has this. Maybe not quite as extreme, but no biggy.

Now the scouting side:

What I saw from him

when not tired:

He threw more pitch types than anyone. His fastball is excellent. Not too much movement but good control and velocity. Mid-90's.

His curve is a plus pitch. He has very good control over it and gets swings and misses.

His slider is another pitch that is plus.

His change is meh.

when tired:

His fastball only has average velocity and combined with not too much movement and it can be hit. When he tries to dial it up he loses control. At times he keeps the ball down when doing this. But many times the ball is left up.

His curve loses much of it's break. Hangs quite a few.

His change doesn't have the most depth to begin with. When tired it has nada. And he normally doesn't separate his change enough in velocity either.

Other bad things - tends to use too many different pitch types which doesn't help when losing control. This tends to help cause those long innings he is plagued with.

Analysis:

When he is rested and on his game hitters look silly with his combination of stuff, many pitches, location, etc.

But this was a very long season for him. Not only that but he tried to use the training regimen he used in Japan - but they played less frequently there. He did change his regimen as the season went on.

Late in the season he tired early in games. In the playoffs he looked dominant for a few innings throwing 95, big curves, sliders. Making hitters look silly. But once he started to tire his breaking stuff wasn't so sharp and adding zip to his fastball led to poor location.

What I see for him:

If he can improve his stamina he will be a dominant pitcher. It's as simple as that. He could improve from the stretch and/or improve his pickoff move. This did hurt him.

He did get rattled at times. He did overthrow. He has a slow motion and his throwing from the stretch has much less velocity.

But he's such a good talent that if he can keep his stamina he will still be dominant.

He consistently looks dominant before being tired.
He consistently looks like crap when tired. My biggest concern with him is the sharpness of his breaking pitches while tired.

If Dice-K can improve his conditioning we'll see a huge year from him.

I know I mention tiring an awful amount but it's huge in his case. I'm not going to get into the injury risk. It's just a huge unknown from the Japanese league to this league

Jeremy Guthrie (Guts) - 2008

pedrophile — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:58:41 -0000

what will it bring?

First let's look at 2007 for him.

IP 175.1
Hits 165
HR 23
BB 47
K's 123

For his LH/RH splits the numbers are almost identical except LH hit 87 Slugging points higher. This is quite solid splits.

Now if you look month by month you can see April was a bad month for him. But digging deeper you will see that was mostly his relief appearances.

The next thing you will see is that in spite of having a solid July his hit rate went from spectacular to average. This decline continued into an awful August. He was eventually shut down to come back for a start in September.

Month     ERA     IP     H     HR     BB     SO     AVG
April    5.87    15.1    19    11    10    1    5    12    .311
May    1.78    35.1    23    8    7    3    5    20    .192
June    1.69    37.1    24    8    7    2    5    30    .182
July    3.93    36.2    32    17    16    6    15    26    .235
August    6.23    34.2    46    26    24    11    10    22    .313
Sept    4.50    16.0    21    8    8    0    7    13    .318

His injury was the oblique so need to worry. But it was the final telling point in him having nothing left in the tank.

First you could see it in the hit numbers. More importantly you could see it in his velocity. From mid nineties then to more often in the low nineties. And finally in the oblique injury.

In the past three years he was only going about 130 IP so getting tired late in the year is to be expected.

Now let's look at the further past:

He was good at Stanford and a high selection. He tore it up in AA before being promoted to Buffalo. Then he stunk. Terribly. His stuff was still excellent but he couldn't seem to finish hitters.

I've also heard rumours that Cleveland was trying to change his pitching mechanics and he wanted nothing to do with that. From some of his most recent comments I think it was equally a lack of confidence on Jeremy's part that he couldn't handle adversity. ie. him stating how much Mazzone has helped him gain confidence in himself.

The future:

I have heard many superlatives about his stuff. I do like his fastball and earlier in the season it was a plus pitch. His other offerings I would call solid or slightly above. But when his fastball velocity is down he was hittable and gave up a ton of homers. I think this might be because he likes to work up in the zone. he gets many k's from his fastball that way. McGowan could stand to learn from this.

I think he will be a solid #3 pitcher next year and might even be a #2 if he can continue to keep the HR's down. I am worried about the 6HR in July and 11HR in August. All pitchers get tired but you can't get that torched when you are tired.

I could see Guthrie being better than Carmona or McGowan for the next year or so. I'm just not so sure Guthrie will have a very long career. His offspeed stuff is solid but definitely needs that fastball as his bread and butter

Maybe 5 to 6 solid seasons with 1 or 2 of them being stellar. And then a quick flame-out. I'd like to see more from him but that's my prediction.

for some video check out the mlb page for him
http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=425386

2008 - Dustin McGowan

pedrophile — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:42:21 -0000

what will it bring?

First let's look at 2007 for him.

IP 169.2
Hits 146
HR 14
BB 61
K's 144

type 2B HR BB K Avg OBP SLG OPS
vsLH 19 12 35 78 257 326 432 758
vsRH 8 2 26 66 198 262 252 514

Looking at that he had low hit numbers, very good K numbers for a first full year, decent but not great BB numbers.

Next when looking at splits you can see LH hit him much harder. But he was able to K lefties just as often as righties. This would imply his offspeed works just fine against them. And watching him you can see both his curve and slider inside account for most of his K's against lefties. Against righties it's the same pitches but away. He doesn't K that many with his fastball - which is normal for a ground-ball, or low in the zone, pitcher.

Looking at the month by month splits you can see he was bad in May, ok in June, and good the rest of the way.

If you looked at his batting average against the last 3 months you would be surprised at his ERA thinking it should be lower. But there were two things I saw.

was he faced the Yankees a fair bit and walked them a lot and gave up too many runs in those games. But that's the Yankees.
he was getting tired and running out of gas. I felt he pitched as well in August and September as in July but he frequently tired early in those games occasionally getting rocked.

OK - Now to the future.

Endurance. He tired at the end and it clearly affected him. This was expected though. He even talked about this to the media and stated how he needs to be much better conditioned for the long season. This sounds a lot like what Verlander was saying last year. I just hope he bears fruit like Verlander who didn't tire so much this year.
LH hitters. He has shown he can K them. His off-speed works fine against them. The problem is they are able to sit on his fastball too much and not only hit it but hit it hard. He needs to improve his change. Maybe even throwing a few more off-speed pitches early in the count. But the change is the big one.
Fastball. It's a top-notch pitch. One of the best in baseball. But he rarely strikes anyone out with it. I think he is watching Halladay too much. He has to start throwing the high fastball for K's when ahead in the count. I like him pitching down in the zone. But with that fastball when ahead pitching up would be huge for him.
Location. It was terrible early in the year when he got nervous or hit around a bit. But as the season progressed he maintained his cool more and more. I'm impressed.
I think he will have a low to mid 3's ERA with K's slightly higher than IP, walks will go down a bit, hits will go up a bit.

Beyond) Improve the change, maintain confidence and control, throw the fastball up in the zone when ahead in the count => Ace

I don't expect all this of anyone and you shouldn't really ever expect an ace. But he really doesn't have far to go to become one. Only time will tell if he can make these steps.

I'm in love with Zack Greinke

pedrophile — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:33:06 -0000

Man-love that is.

Quote from todays game:
"That is something I wouldn't have been able to do in the past," Greinke said. "Since I've moved to the bullpen, I've been striking out guys better. Ten is a real lot. I never would have imagined that when the season started, me striking out 10 in a game cause I just couldn't miss that many bats."

"Greinke has an electric fastball," White Sox catcher Toby Hall said. "It just jumped out of his hand, good slider, good curve."

His box score was:
IP hits runs bb k's pitch-strike era
8.0 2 0 0 10 101-75

It seems he is learning to be more efficient. Normally with a big k game that doesn't hold up. Very nice to see. On top of that he didn't walk anyone which also normally happens when effectively wild. A truly dominating game.

And if you look 10 outings he has given up 3 runs versus the Yankees, 1 earned against Cleveland, and that's it.

That's 35 1/3 IP with 4 earned runs.

Oh, and here are the month by month ERA's for him:

April 3.51
May 7.15
June 3.06
July 2.77
Aug 2.81
Sept 2.57

more numbers? ok, here you go:

month ip hits hr bb k h/9 bb/9 k/9
-----------------------------------------------
April 25.2 30 1 9 16 10.5 3.16 5.61
May 22 34 6 5 18 13.9 2.05 7.36
June 17.2 12 1 4 20 6.11 2.04 10.19
July 13 9 0 5 12 6.23 3.46 8.31
Aug 16 13 0 4 16 7.3 2.25 9.00
Sept 22 17 2 7 18 6.95 2.86 7.36

So it looks like the low ERA in April was a bit lucky because of the very high whip, and of course he got pummeled in May. His three months in the pen had a whip of about 1.00 showing the ERA was definitely earned. Even back in the rotation his K's are much higher than at any point in his career.

I think the only hurdle for him now is maintaining this. The ability to keep the pitch count decent, and keeping his hits,k's, bb ratios all similar to what he has done so far.

These numbers scream top of the rotation. Ace? I think he will be one.

thoughts?

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=425844

ps: Please feel free to create your own "i'm in love with ..." thread, pitcher or player.

Greinke

pedrophile — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:38:29 -0000

What's he going to be?

and

Who saw his last game? How was he pitching.

I think KC made a very good move switching him to the pen and then another good move to put him back in the rotation. The guy was out for a year and probably was rusty at the beginning of the year. And the last thing Zach needed was to struggle. Being in the pen helped him gain confidence and regain his touch IMO.

It's interesting to me that both Carmona and Greinke added velocity on their move to the pen and kept it when going back to the rotation. I hope Zach is able to keep it.

Before I saw Greinke as a #3 with the upside of a #2 because of his HR tendency and off the field issues. Now I'm not sure. I don't want to get too
carried away but if he keeps that stuff he has a chance to be an ace.

Great read - Josh Hamilton

pedrophile — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 08:02:40 -0000

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2926447

I think this is a great read for anyone. For those that are cheering for him they will especially enjoy. For those that don't because he put himself there - maybe they'll learn empathy.

What Lester went through was scary and life threatening. And an obvious triumph. What Ankiel did was unbelievable from the struggles as well as the arm problems.

Neither of them were self-inflicted and they should be celebrated.

but ...

if I was in some car accident and almost died - I would cherish life and it would be something to come back. But I wouldn't see that the same as someone doing what Josh has done and is doing. The guy screwed up his life. But he is doing something huge. Not only turning it around but being a huge example for others. This guy is a hero in the true sense of the word. He is flawed. He screwed up. He is making huge efforts to help himself and to help others. He is accommodating to the fans and the media. He relishes the chance to make it bigger than baseball.

Personally I never understood the "you screwed it up you deserved it". I've made plenty of mistakes as well. Nothing like what he did. But then again I've not had to live his nightmare of a life. And huge comeback.

Thoughts?

Poll

What will Josh end up as?

Bust - by talent

3 votes

Bust - back on drugs

10 votes

Solid MLB player

40 votes

Occasional All-Star

48 votes

Perrenial All-Star (superstar)

9 votes

110 votes | Poll has closed

What The ..........

pedrophile — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:22:45 -0000

is happening in Baltimore tonight?

Texas has 26 runs and counting. Two men on and no outs. This is unreal.