SB Nation User Blog: poorboywilly

Tabata Returns

poorboywilly — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:26:31 -0000

José Tabata returned to the Altoona lineup this morning. He was 0-2 with an infield popup and a centerfield flyout, while Altoona went down 1-3 to New Britain, and Daniel Moskos actually had a pretty good outing (7IP 2ER 1BB 3K) but got the hose on the loss. He's now sitting on a pretty remarkable 2.55 GO/AO ratio, but he can't strike anyone out.

Tabata was replaced by Gorkys Hernández, who also went 0-2, presumably just to ease him back into the game. Hernández didn't start, probably with this plan in mind in a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone approach since he has been slumping since joining Altoona. I for one will be interested to see who moves out of CF when Tabata is back at "full strength".

Hopefully these two both start hitting and make Altoona a little more interesting (than watching paint dry), especially since Lincoln has been promoted.

Sánchez Contract

poorboywilly — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:33:55 -0000

I just wanted to find out if anyone knows about Sánchez's contract: 635 plate appearances he must get to automatically vest the option, unless he is an All Star, in which case there is a 600 plate appearance--virtually guaranteed--threshold. I don't think he is going to get voted in, but without McLouth I don't know if there is anyone else on the team more worthy of an All Star spot. Does it matter if he gets voted in or if he is an "All Star by default"?

DL for Donnie Veal

poorboywilly — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:34:51 -0000

Donnie Veal was apparently placed on the 15-day disabled list today with a "groin pull" that occured when he pitched for fifth time of the season on Friday. By "groin pull" I mean "we need our roster spot back for a while", not that there are really any better options in AAA. Dejan speculates that V V and Steven Jackson are the likely candidates, although I think it could be Chris Bootcheck. His era is fairly poor, but they were pretty close to keeping him in spring training and his 32K/4BB in 23.1 innings is tremendous, which perhaps speaks to the idea that a couple of bad outings hurt his ERA (as can happen easily with relievers).

At any rate, it doesn't really matter who we bring up, they aren't going to be all that much better than Veal, but the difference will be that we won't be working with a six man (or five man as the case has been since Capps was beaned) pen. It's nice to try and find a live lefty arm through the Rule 5, but when he simply can NEVER pitch it hurts, and I question how much value Veal himself is getting from nothing but bullpen sessions.

Why Gorzelanny Doesn't Start for PBC

poorboywilly — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:11:34 -0000

It came as a shock to many (myself included) when Gorzelanny was summarily sent to Indianapolis during spring training. To me, despite how poorly he had pitched last year, he had reached the point in his career where he either sticks with the big league club or turns into Kip Wells, but perhaps the minors are the best thing for him. In an article at pittsburghpirates.com, I came across this wonderful tidbit:

When Gorzelanny does pitch again for the Pirates, which the organization certainly believes he will, he'll have a pitch at his disposal that he didn't utilize during a tumultuous 2008 season. After getting away from using his curveball last season, Gorzelanny has resurrected the pitch in Triple-A this year and with some success.

"In the beginning of [last] year, I tried throwing it and for some reason it just wasn't there," said Gorzelanny, whose strikeout on Monday included a nasty curve that Dunn swung through. "I realized that it's probably a good idea to get my curveball back and work on both of those. Things have gone well. It definitely expands my repertoire."

This is incredible. He imagines that perhaps, after getting cast away like so much chaff to the murky deep of "organizational depth", he should work on bringing his curveball back. I'm pretty sure this is what professional pitchers do: tighten down their repertoire and drop some pitches because they are rusty at the beginning of a season. So what has he been throwing? Just fastballs? I can see a reliever having trouble with a pitching and letting it go for a week or two because the team is doing well and he's pitching setup almost every game, but a starter can't just go out and wing a curveball in every time, especially not when you have the command of Gorzelanny, especially vintage 2008 Gorzelanny.

I guess perhaps it's not really his fault. Just another young pitcher who pitched way more innings than the year before and then goes down in a terrible crash and burn.

Tyler Yates to DL

poorboywilly — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:57:36 -0000

Yates, who apparently most of the year has been battling on-again off-again elbow inflammation, was placed on the 15 day disabled list today, retroactive to yesterday (the 16th). There is supposedly no structural damage.

To fill the opening, Tom Gorzelanny (?) was recalled from AAA. Apparently the idea is that they wanted someone who could pitch multiple innings if needed, as Sean Burnett threw 46 pitches yesterday and presumably won't be able to do that again for at least another day. Once the long relief need is gone, Russell says they want Gorzelanny starting (presumably for Indianapolis) and someone else coming out of the pen.

Here is a story on pittsburghpirates.com.

Draft Thoughts

poorboywilly — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:14:15 -0000

A few things are becoming clear to me:

The Broncos are not too concerned with the QB position. They feel that the Simms/Orton monster can take care of business, especially so with the addition of a feature back. Hillis/Moreno is going to be good.
The secondary was seen as a gaping wound-hole on this team. And why not? Every player in the secondary is getting either near retirement or near the end of their contract. Dawkins, while a good pickup, is very old: he will be able to impart wisdom on the likes of Barrett, Bruton, and McBath as they take over as the safeties of the future. Goodman and Bailey are both getting old, and we released Bly. Even if we are satisfied with Goodman as our number two, are you really satisfied with Williams and Bell taking the rest of the CB positions? Apparently the Broncos are not, and McBath adds another youngster in there who can be groomed by the experienced and (at least in Bailey's case, don't know about Goodman) eminently knowledgeable starters.
Richard Quinn. I've heard some good comments, some bad comments, and some "who IS this?" comments. In my opinion, the broncos may be setting up the magic three tight end experiment. Putzier is, and likely always was, roster fodder, a backup plan. However, Graham and Quinn are elite blockers. Graham is also excellent in the passing game. Scheffler (IMO) is a good blocker who is a star in the passing game. Imagine a three tight end set that has basically two extra tackles, and legitamate ability for all three tight ends to catch a pass. That is a red zone offense I personally drool for.
Seth Olsen: we definitely needed to adress some O-Line depth with the age of Wiegmann. Olsen appears to be more of the G/T guy than the G/C type, so this portends either Hamilton sticking around and moving to center when Wiegs is done, or that Licks-ten-tigers is seen as the center of the future, which he may be. I think this pick is great value, this guy may not be IDEAL as a zone blocker, but he certainly was undervalued by other teams.
Lack of DT. The Broncos have two people on the roster with legitimate NT size, and Thomas, Powell, Peterson and Clemons who are 4-3 DTs, perhaps 3-4 DEs. The Broncos apparently saw enough at the minicamp that made them feel the DT position was set to go for the still veiled-in-secrecy hybrid defense. A versatile guy who can play down and up in Ayers was picked, and please, don't worry about this "one year starter" garbage. In his junior year he still led the team in tackles for loss.

I am pretty satisfied with the draft so far. I wasn't initially too pleased with Moreno, but I also knew in my bones that it was going to happen, knew for a few months even, so it was pretty easy to get over. There have been several trades, one of which is definitely lost us some value, and it will obviously be at least a couple of years before we can grade the draft, but right now I'm feeling alrighth about this. The team knows what is here and what needs to be here, it knows what are positions are strengths, and where there are stop-gaps. There is clearly a plan.

Tom Gorzelanny Sent to Indy

poorboywilly — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:15:26 -0000

This morning, the Pirates optioned Tom Gorzelanny to AAA Indianapolis. It is surprising, perhaps especially to Gorzelanny himself.

To me, this begins to enforce a new emphasis on throwing strikes. It has been preached for years, by the previous regime and the new one alike, but now Gorzelanny is paying the price for not pitching over the plate. While Paul Maholm was efficient enough to go over his scheduled four innings in his last start, Gorzo only managed to pitch three innings his last time out; he is simply throwing too many pitches. Not only has he walked five batters in nine innings this spring, he's also beaned two guys and given up eight hits.

UPDATE by Charlie: Jose Tabata was also sent to the minors. He'll report to Altoona. This is a reasonably conservative assignment given the way he hit there after joining the Pirates organization last summer, but it's probably the right move. A good month or two will probably earn him a promotion to Indianapolis.

As for the Gorzelanny move, it now appears that Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens and Virgil Vasquez are the remaining candidates for the last two rotation jobs, with Paul Maholm, Ian Snell and Zach Duke as the front three. I'm not sure any of Ohlendorf, Karstens or Vasquez are great bets to have success this year, but I'd take Ohlendorf and Karstens if it were my choice. Vasquez is a nice guy to have around, but he has little upside as a starter, and his home runs allowed would probably be completely out of control in the majors.

Ngoepe Flashing Some Skills

poorboywilly — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:01:30 -0000

All I can say right now is WOW. I just watched Gift Ngoepe drill his SECOND triple in two at bats today to drive home the second run for South Africa, trying to stay alive against Mexico. He scored the first South African run as well.

His swing was sweet, inside out and drove the ball straight through the gap to the opposite field. He's apparently a switch hitter, and was batting on the left side. He can fly too, he was gliding smoothly around the bases after the hit.

Does Marshall Drop Too Many Passes?

poorboywilly — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:42:09 -0000

Much has been made recently on television (especially during the Cleveland Browns game as Braylon Edwards was also on the field) about Brandon Marshall's drops. Does he really drop the ball more than he should?

As a disclaimer, let us first get out of the way the idea that a dropped pass is a subjective measure, and as such isn't a fully accurate statistic, like yardage or number of touchdowns which can clearly be shown to be an exact (or at least rounded to nearest yard) value. The data I found on number of drops was provided by Stats, Inc and I could not find their definition of a drop anywhere, so technically the could be counting pretty much anything. I think, however, most reasonable individuals would define a drop as something along the lines of "a pass thrown to a receiver which is not recepted (by the receiver in question) but is touched by both hands of the receiver." If anyone CAN find Stats, Inc's definition, please do share!

First, a look at raw number of drops. Brandon Marshall is third in the NFL in drops with 11, behind Dwayne Bowe (13) and Braylon Edwards (16!). However, as many of us may know, Marshall also leads the NFL in "targets" (number of times thrown to, another subjective, albiet less so than drops, stat), with 146 targets, eight above Andre Johnson who has even played one more game. So is it really fair to say, based on raw number of drops, that Marshall drops too many passes? Nay I say.

I went looking for a "drop rate" stat, and the only one I stumbled upon was receptions per target. This isn't quite the same though; many receivers are deep threats, and do not get as many catchable passes as a possession receiver or someone like Joseph Addai who is constantly receiving checkdowns from Manning. We should be proud to note, however, that Eddie Royal ranked 12th and Tony Scheffler ranked 18th in this catch per target category among players with 3.125 targets per game in the AFC!

Anyways, to concoct the results below I took the 20 players with the most drops from the AFC and from the NFC, and divided their drops by their number of targets, to obtain a drop rate. Note that you could also use these results to determine "uncatchable target rate", another interesting stat.

AFC

Player	Drops	Targets	Drop Rate
Braylon Edwards	16	120	0.133
Marshawn Lynch	7	60	0.117
Joseph Addai	4	37	0.108
Jabbar Gaffney	6	57	0.105
Dwayne Bowe	13	128	0.102
Anthony Gonzalez	7	70	0.100
Marcedes Lewis	6	61	0.0984
Justin Gage	6	63	0.0952
Ronald Curry	4	43	0.0930
Chris Johnson (Ten)	5	58	0.0862
Dustin Keller	5	64	0.0781
Brandon Marshall	11	146	0.0753
Hines Ward	7	98	0.0714
Chad Johnson	6	89	0.0674
Laverneus Coles	6	90	0.0667
Santonio Holmes	6	92	0.0652
Ted Ginn Jr.	5	79	0.0633
Dallas Clark	4	76	0.0526
Matt Jones	5	105	0.0467
Randy Moss	5	109	0.0459

NFC

Player	Drops	Targets	Drop Rate
Madison Hedgecock	6	12	0.500
Marques Colston	8	51	0.157
Koren Robinson	6	49	0.122
Warrick Dunn	6	52	0.115
Rashied Davis	6	64	0.0938
Hank Basket	4	45	0.0889
Calvin Johnson	9	110	0.0818
Frank Gore	5	65	0.0769
Bernard Berrian	6	80	0.0750
John Carlson	5	67	0.0746
Muhsin Muhammed	6	85	0.0706
Reggie Bush	5	71	0.0704
Amani Toomer	5	72	0.0694
Bobby Wade	5	72	0.0694
Santana Moss	7	107	0.0654
Roddy White	8	128	0.0625
Terrel Owens	7	117	0.0619
Donald Driver	5	82	0.0610
Steve Smith	6	104	0.0577
Jason Witten	5	95	0.0526

Conclusions

As you can see, discounting poor Madison "Butterfingers" Hedgecock who only has 12 targets anyways, Braylon Edwards (who anecdotally was dropping too many passes) and Marques Colston "lead" their respective conferences in drops per target. Clearly our list also incorporates some of the best in the league, as I haven't heard anyone complaining about Steve Smith's, Santana Moss' or Randy Moss' hands. The list includes all pass catchers, thus you see some RBs and TEs in there. I don't think this in any way taints our results, because RBs are usually getting short passes and shouldn't drop any more (in my opinioin) than a WR. The TEs that appeared on the list are either great pass-catching TEs or talented youngsters and thus should (also in my opinion) not have a worse drop rate than average receivers either. At any rate, it is doubtful that conducting this study with only WRs would yield any significantly different results.

For these 40 samples, the expected value for drop rate is 0.0924; on average we would see 9.24% of passes thrown at these receivers dropped. The variance is 0.0048 and thus standard deviation (square root of variance) is 0.0696, meaning we would expect that over two thirds of the NFL would have a drop rate from about 0.03 to 0.16.

Furthermore, the Central Limit Theorem allows us to estimate the error in these calculations based on our sample size (40). The average of the samples is 0.0924, and Marshall's drop rate of 0.0753 is below this average. How much does the average of our sample predict the average of the league? Well, the probability that the actual league average drop rate is greater than Marshall's drop rate of 0.0753 is 0.931. Therefore, we can say with about 93% certainty that Marshall does not drop more passes per target than the average NFL player.

What's with scheduling this week?

poorboywilly — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:59:12 -0000

I don't get it. I didn't check out the schedule this week because I assumed the Broncos playing an intra-division rivalry game would be televised in a neighboring state. Now I see I get the Jets and 49ers. Why does CBS have eight games and only one timeslot this week while FOX has five games to spread over two timeslots? Thanks NFL. I even purchased your stupid channel to watch my team play the Browns and now an attrocious bit of scheduling has one station deciding between St. Louis-Arizona and Pittsburgh-Dallas (tough choice) while the other station has eight games at two different times and can air only one.