TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Play Dusty for Me

Portrait of a Serial Rally Killer

Today is Day Six of the Corey Patterson era at the lead-off spot for the Chicago Cubs. The Dusty Baker theory of management has promoted Corey to this spot after accumulating a .326 OBP (career: .302) with a walk to strikeout ratio this season of 30/106. Corey has managed to strike out consecutively five times during his brief tenure as the lead-off hitter, 9 overall. He has scored 3 runs during this period -- two of them on homers -- but he's stolen three bases. He's swung at the first pitch in over 80% of his at-bats as a leadoff man.

Whom did Patterson replace? The platooning second-base duo of Todd Walker and Mark Grudzielanek. Grudz was injured the first half of the year, during which Walker leadoff most of the time and played second. Grudz has an unremarkable career OBP of .328, a bit below average for all major leaguers. He's got an OBP of .311 this year. Walker has an OBP of .371. Grudzielanek's walk to strikeout ratio is 8/20; Walker's is 35/41. It's not like Grudzielanek has extra power or speed over Walker: Grudz has averaged six homers a year over his 11-year career and has slugged .357, Walker about 10 homers per year with a .440 slugging average. And Walker's working on his career-high year with 13 homers. So of course, the obvious solution when Grudzielanek returned to the roster from the DL was...platoon them.

After a month of this platooning, when Garciaparra was added to the roster, Dusty decided to insert Nomar in the two-hole and name Patterson his leadoff hitter. Patterson, said Dusty, "could be like a Lou Brock guy." On this point Dusty is correct in some ways: Brock was a big strikeout guy, especially for his era, and had only a slightly above-average career OBP of .343. Lest you think I'm being hard on Lou due to the pitcher-friendly era he played in: Brock in 19 seasons made the top ten in OBP only once, when he finished ninth in 1971. Of course, Brock was a superb base-stealer in an era when that was an asset to the offense. Patterson and Brock's OBP were virtually the same at the age of 24. Brock had good pop for his era; Patterson has below average pop for an outfielder in 2004 (compare his 13 homers to Walkers' 13 at second base).

It's possible Patterson may join Feldman and Haim among the great Coreys of our time, but even in the unlikely event he turns into Lou Brock, the question is: is being a Lou Brock the right thing for this era of baseball? And do you get to be a Lou Brock by swinging at the first pitch nearly every time you go up there?

This has to be the disturbing part for Cubs fans...why, with Walker doing a perfectly acceptable job as a leadoff man -- he's as aggressive a baserunner as there is, considering he's not a base-stealer -- did Baker feel it was necessary to first platoon Walker with a lesser player, and then replace him in the order with a player who surpasses him in only one category, stolen bases?

Because that, baby, is the Dusty Baker way. He may ride it all the way to the hall of fame if his clubs keep making him look good, through no fault of his own. (Dusty is a three-time manager of the year: Bonds won the MVP each year Baker won Manager of the Year.) But apropos of my post a couple of days ago about Dave Justice the Regular Season Guy vs. Dave Justice the Post-Season guy, it may not fly the Cubs to the ring-fitting.

posted by The Crank 3:02 PM

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Hanging Them Out on the Closer Line

An offhand remark by a broadcaster on a game the other night caught my ear: something to the effect that there were only a handful of relievers still closing for the club they wre closing for in 2003.

This seemed to jibe with my own subjective impression. So today I looked at all 30 major league rosters: who was the "named" closer as of April 1st, 2003, and who is closing now.

I also looked at gaps in "save opportunities" -- significant DL stretches of roughly 10 save opportunities -- among the closers who were closing in April of '03. To be kind, I counted Billy Wagner and Armando Benitez, presently on the DL for supposedly short stretches, as their teams' currennt closers.

There are only six major league clubs with the same "named closer" now as at the start of '03: Atlanta (Smoltz), St. Louis (Isringhausen), LA (Gagne), Yankees (Rivera), Orioles (Julio), and Anaheim (Percival). (Of course, that four of these six teams are in first place will only add fuel to the fire for the 'winning teams have dominant closers' theory of the bullpen). I'm not quite counting Bob Wickman, who missed almost all the period in question.

Of these, only Smoltz, Gagne, and Julio spent no time on the DL. Rivera's DL stint was relatively short.

Of the remaining closers, 7 were closers for other teams at the beginning of the '03 season.

Fifteen clubs have had three or more "named closers" during the period.

Seventeen of the current closers were not closing anywhere (even counting Armando Benitez and Billy Wagner, both of whom are on the DL at this writing). Fourteen of these pitchers had fewer than five career saves prior to the '03 season. Out of this group, three -- Trevor Hoffman, Wickman, and Danny Graves -- were previously "established closers" (a somewhat questionable claim for Wickman); Graves had been in the rotation in '03 after closing in '02, Hoffman missed '03 with shoulder surgery.

I'm not going to try to do an analysis of the whys and wherefores of this in the context of the "do you have to have a dominant closer" debate. My intuition is that the Bill James neoconservative belief that a "committee" that throws out its best reliever for a situation when the runners are on base late -- whether or not it's a save situation -- is in fact a better route to victory. I call it "neoconservative" because before the days of the invented closer, the set-up man, the 7th inning man, the left-handed specialist, and the middle-inning slop guy, and certainly before the save rule was invented, most major league teams used a "committee" for the save opportunity and the best reliever for the most intense game situation. But with the Red Sox disaster of '03 we won't be seeing contending teams trying that any time soon.

I will just throw out some possible theories -- discuss quietly amongst yourselves.

(1) closing isn't as hard as some people think
(2) closing is a lot harder than some people think
(3) clubs don't want to pay a lot of money for that closer
(4) closers are being used hard and heavy and are burning their arms out
(5) it's just one of those things.

posted by The Crank 8:49 AM

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Post-Season Sampling -- a Walk in the Park?

I was poking around baseball-reference.com for this and that today, as is my wont, and I ran across one of those odd coincidences like Vinny Castilla's identical two-year triple crown numbers in 1996-97 and John Lowenstein's identical .242/.313 AVG/OBPs in back to back years (Lowenstein went on to hit .242 yet again in a later year).

This one was David Justice's number of at-bats in his final year -- 398 -- which turns out to be exactly equal to his career post-season at-bats. Justice is the career leader in games played in the post-season, by the way, and the oddly synchronous line between his last, injury-laden year at 36 and his career post-season numbers got me thinking. Do we have, in Justice, finally a sample size to show how "tough" the post-season is? Ignoring the probably bogus theory that some players "rise" to the post season and others do not, 112 games seems to me like a pretty good case study.

I've left in Justice's final season of 2002 as representing his "worst" "year" of 398 at-bats, which was actually still quite a productive year. I also took Justice's 162-game averages and pro-rated his stats to show what his "average" 398 at-bats produced. Finally I looked at Justice's "best" stats -- his career highs across the board, in aggregate, not necessarily his best single year (that's the way baseball-reference does it, it's like a "MAX" function in a spreadsheet) for a "best" "year" of 398 at-bats. This last seems a bit bogus to me, but it's easier than tearing one's hair out to identify an actual season as Justice's best.

Sample	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B
2002 36 OAK	118	398	54	106	18	3
21 PS series	112	398	55	89	17	2
162 Game Avg	113	398	65	111	19	2
"Best" Year	106	398	64	111	26	3

HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
11	49	4	1	70	66	.266	.376	.410
14	63	3	2	64	79	.224	.335	.382
22	71	3	3	64	71	.279	.378	.500
28	81	7	5	64	67	.329	.427	.596

Again, the first two sets of stats -- his 2002 and his aggregate for all post-season games -- are real; the latter two are pro-rated from his average and maximum totals for all seasons.

First, it's interesting how remarkably consistent Justice was. He spent 7 seasons in the NL and 7 seasons in the AL. And his 162-game averages, pro-rated to our magic number of 398 at-bats, are remarkably close to his "best" years for the counting stats per at-bat. (The averages don't match the "highs" mind you, since those are selectively taken from a mixture of years, at-bats, etc.)

One should note that at the start of the 2004 season, Justice stood at 91st on the all-time OPS list. Not bad; maybe not Hall of Fame material, either, although Paul Waner and Lary Doby are right around him on the list (Ellis Burks and Moises Alou are close as well, if you want further comparators). Justice was certainly usually the 2nd or 3rd best hitter on any given club he was on. Pretty good career.

So in the post-season, Justice managed to walk pretty much at the same rate as he did throughout his career. He hit and slugged at a much slower rate: 50 points difference in his batting average, quite a number fewer homers but about the same number of doubles and triples, which accounts for a slugging percentage in the post-season about 120 points off his career average.

The difference between Dave Justice's usual production during the season and his production in the post-season comes down to: he got fewer singles and homers. In the post-season he got 12 fewer singles and 8 fewer homers than he got in his usual 398 at-bats; that's 18% fewer singles and 37% fewer homers. I note somewhat parenthetically that the differences in runs scored and RBI are almost entirely accounted for by the lower homer totals, even if you assume all the "missing" homers were solo shots.

It's also worth noting that the "worst" Dave Justice regular season was still better than Dave Justice post-season. It's a measure of how tough the post-season is.

I am not quite sure what to make of all this, as our one case study of a pretty good hitter with a large enough sample size to take a look at a comparison to regular season production. I'll state the obvious first, which is that one is facing better pitchers in the post-season, and they're stingier with homers and contact. But they're not any more or less stingy with the walks, at least for a player who knew how to take one.

Does this have any implications for how teams should approach the post-season? Should they be more like Bonds and Moneyball and work the count for the walk? If contact is scarcer but on-base opportunities are not, it may be that the name of the game in the post-season is patience.

I don't have the access to the data to do a formal study, but I'd love to see this thought-experiment repeated with all players with at least 50 or so plate appearances and see what comes out of it.

posted by The Crank 5:52 PM

Monday, August 02, 2004

In La-La land, Dodger players are a) coming from under the rubble thanks to a Paul Depodesta wrecking ball and b) thanking the organization for keep the names of the back of there jerseys. The Dodgers added to their 25 man roster via trade Brad Penny, Hee Soep Choi, Steve Finley and Brett Mayne while losing Paul LoDuca, Guierrmo Mota, Dave Roberts, Todd Martin, and Juan Encarnacion. This trade will certainly attempt to answer the age old question: How important is team chemistry to winning ball games? And if it is important, can manger Jim Tracy keep the Dodgers on the same page for the next two months? Vin Scully had remarked in a telecast before the trades occurred that he had not seen a Dodger Ball club with this kind of camaraderie since 1988. The Dodgers have also have 34 comeback victories which many attribute to their "team chemistry". The team was shaken up by the departure of the aforementioned players so far as having Jose Lima and Darren Dreifort write the numbers of the players dealt on their caps.
How will the Dodgers perform now? We'll, they were off to a good start by taking 2 of 3 games in San Diego, putting the Padres 3.5 games back. At 26 years of age, Brad Penny has overcome a frayed rotator cuff in 2002 and is pitching well as he enters the prime of his career. Penny posted a 3.18 ERA for Florida while averaging a little over 6 innings per start. Penny will likely improve his marks in Dodger Stadium, which has always been kind to power pitchers. Becoming the number one starter by default, Penny is backed up by Odalis Perez, Jeff Weaver, the erratic Kaz Ishii and ecstatic Jose Lima. Hiedo Nomo not yet lost for the season, and would take Lima's spot in the rotation if completely healthy. Hee Sop Choi will still likely platoon with Jason Werth (with Green playing OF when Choi plays and 1B with Werth in the lineup). Choi, 25, is a big man (6'5" 240lbs) with bigger potential and solid numbers (.495 Slg, .388 OBP) and will bat sixth in the order. However, the loss of LoDuca introduces David Ross behind the plate, who is batting .169, but features a little pop and a good arm behind the plate.Finley is a question mark. The 39 year old center fielder hit .183 in July and goes from hitter friendly Arizona to Los Angeles. He supplants Milton Bradley in center, which, at least now, does not seem to be a problem for the fiery Bradley. If Finley can maintain numbers similar to what he's put season long, then the Dodgers have certainly made an upgrade offensively. The bullpen shifts around a bit with the loss of Mota. Driefort appears to be the primary set-up man for Gagne, and in spite of his loss Saturday night, he has put up good number in the past month (1.54 ERA, 7 Holds) Giovanni Carrara looks to take Driefort's role as the set-up man to Mota (Tracy seems to like specialization) and has pitched well in his return. Duaner Sanchez and Yhency Brazoban look to be featured in important situations as well.

posted by Robert 7:45 PM

So Long, Nomar

Don't Let That Swinging Door Hit You on the Way Out

If there were a 12-step program for being a member of the Red Sox Nation, I'd be a candidate for it, were I not surrounded by so many co-dependent enablers. There was no bigger booster of Nomar in a Red Sox uniform than I: I first fell in love with the man when he made an astounding leaping catch of a sure line-drive double from the shortstop position at a game I watched in double-A Trenton ten years ago. For heaven's sake, we took my infant son home from the hospital in a Nomar Number 5 outfit.

So why on earth am I so happy to see Nomah no more?

Skipping all the irrelevant falderal about Nomar's attitude, his unhappiness with the organization, etc. there's a very good reason. Nomar is on his way to being a not very good hitter.

At 31, Nomar has never learned to lay off that first pitch. "First pitch swinging, what a shocker," we say to one another with great regularity. When Jerry Remy got a wire notice that Nomar had hit into an inning-ending double play in his first at-bat as a Cub, he said sarcastically "I wonder if he swung at the first pitch."

This has always been a problem for Nomar, but when you have quick wrists and a great eye, it's not apparent. Your .357 to win the batting championship makes up for a lot of lost on-base percentage. But when you're in your thirties, your reflexes are slowing, and your wrist has had reconstructive surgery, it's time to apply the years of baseball wisdom you've accumulated and start attacking the at-bat with some veteran wile.

Not so Nomar. Here are his pitches per plate appearance since 1997 up through his last game with the Red Sox:

3.74
3.23
3.37
3.22
3.05
3.18
3.06
3.12
2.93

Not only does Nomar see fewer pitches than virtually any regular in the majors per at-bat, he's swinging earlier and earlier. For comparison, the major league median among regulars is 3.8 pitches per plate appearance; the worst two hitters in this category in the majors right now are AJ Pierznski and Alex Sanchez, at 3.0 pitches per plate appearance.

If you want to look at it another way, a pitcher throwing to a lineup of Nomars who gives up a hit an inning can throw a 9-inning complete game with just 108 pitches. A pitcher throwing to a lineup of, say, Bob Abreus, is going to take 155 pitches to complete that same game.

A pitcher is a fool to throw Nomar something hittable in the first three pitches, since the number of 3-0 counts Nomar has run up over the years can be counted with the stitches on a baseball with quite a few left to spare. I have my suspicions it's exactly this tendency which leaves the impression Nomar doesn't come through in the clutch: if there is such a thing as being a clutch hitter, it's because of working the count in key situations. Showing patience.

He's going to fit right in on the free-swinging Dusty Baker Cubs, where free-swinging is a way of life. (Dusty, at this writing, has just installed Corey Patterson as his leadoff hitter and parked Nomar right in front of Sammy. The breeze is going to be blowing out at Wrigley quite a bit this year.)

Nomar, man, I LOVE YOU. I can't wait to see what kind of super-kids you and Mia Hamm produce. But what Theo Epstein knows about you and didn't say: you're never going to be the great superstar hitter you once looked like, because you just didn't learn to think through your at-bats.

Nomar's got a lot of hacks left in him, and those balls are going to fly far. But he's got many more swings and misses and pop-ups in his future, unless he gets his own 12-step program for those who become Drunk on First Pitch Swinging.

posted by The Crank 3:35 PM

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Bonds OBP Update

Barry has slumped in the last week of July. Here's what he'll have to do for the rest of the year to hit various OBP marks. We assume 200 more PA.

Target	Needs	Comments
600	590	A little harder than it was a month ago.
582	537	What he needs to break his own OBP record
553	451	This would be good for #2 ahead of Ted Williams
545	428	Beats Ruth for #3
512	330	This is Mantle, the highest non-Bonds/Williams/Ruth in the modern era
500	295	He could do this with just his walks
400	000	Clinched

posted by David 10:35 PM

THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS


By Diane M. Grassi

Much like we have already seen in terms of competition this Major League Baseball season, the July 31st mid-season trade deadline has proven that "parity" seems to be the overall theme this year. The mid-season trades this year were less blockbuster and more conservative than in past years. We did not see as much unloading of players but saw more strategical trades which might prove profitable for many clubs still in the mix down the stretch run for division titles and Wild Card bids.

The obsession with the potential trade for Randy Johnson proved to be nothing more than a distraction from teams' overall needs to continue to improve their clubs. In the end, the most hyped potential trade of the season allowed all of the other trades to take place under its radar. Of the 13 trades, there were 34 players involved with almost 50% of them minor leaguers, as an eye on the future was also a key consideration. Many clubs fortified their lineups, trading more "like" players for each other, and some for team chemistry reasons.

Two teams, for example, which hope they have improved their chances for contention this season, are the NY Mets and the Chicago Cubs. The NY Mets, although miserably slipping in the National League East standings this week, still have hopes to make a run for it. They won the pitching prize second only to Randy Johnson by way of starter, Kris Benson, from the Pittsburgh Pirates. He will give them what they hope is added punch to their starting rotation which they could very much use. Now all they need is to start hitting and playing defense.

The Chicago Cubs, still hoping to contend for the Wild Card berth in the National League now have shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra, who has yet to get really hot since coming off the DL in Boston on June 6th. Garciaparra was reportedly extremely unhappy since this past off-season when he was part of Boston's almost done deal in its failed acquisition of Alex Rodriguez.

Some questioned whether Garciaparra's near half-season long stint on the DL was part holdout due to his dissatisfaction with management. For a player of his caliber and competitiveness that would be hard to believe. And because he has lost so much time this season, Garciaparra has yet to find his stride, giving the Cubs a chance to catch him just when he starts to get hot. Additionally, the Cubs did not sacrifice starting pitcher Matt Clement in the deal, keeping their powerful rotation in tact. Kerry Wood and Mark Prior just need to remain healthy, while the Cubs have a lot of ground to make up.

Also of note, the Yankees dismissed starting pitcher, Jose Contreras, who has struggled for most of the two years he has been in New York, after his fleeing from the shores of Cuba in 2002. He was traded straight up for Esteban Loaiza of the Chicago White Sox. Loaiza, while not having the stellar season he had in 2003, finishing second in voting for the AL Cy Young Award, is a proven commodity which the Yankees needed given the uncertainty of their starting rotation all year, mainly due to injuries.

The Yankees were also able to pick up John Olerud, former All Star 1st baseman, recently released by the Seattle Mariners. He will be a good addition to try to make up for the hole in their lineup from the ailing Jason Giambi, who is not expected back for a while. While Tony Clark has been a formidable fill-in, he could use some rest now, too.

There will be endless articles written, prognostications made and much fodder among the experts concerning all of the various trades made this week, not touched upon here. But the clear issue remains that there are possibly 20 teams out of 30 not yet mathematically eliminated from post-season contention and those wanting to prove that their records have significantly improved from last year.

And that means that the MLB season will continue to gel and remain exciting. This next couple of weeks is also very important for MLB to pick up more fans, as it is an exclusive time. The NBA season is done, the NFL and college football training camps just started and the 2004 Summer Olympics have not yet begun. The sports headlines will thereafter have limited ink for MLB.

So MLB needs to shine right now, print its changed rosters and put its focus between the lines again. The past couple of weeks have been too much about money ball, but now it's simply time to play ball!

posted by Diane M. Grassi 5:26 PM

Opportunity Costs

I had to make the choice between watching Greg Maddux go for career win 300 on the tube or attending the Pedro Martinez-Johan Santana matchup at the Metrodome. I opted to watch Maddux, so I had to settle for flipping between channels to keep track of both games. This might be the first time in my life I've genuinely regretted not having TiVo.

Maddux was decent after the first. He gave up a couple of solo shots to Jimmy Rollins and Bobby Abreu in the first. The Cubs have to be mighty happy that Abreu is leaving town, because he just killed the Cubs this series. He had 2 dingers and 5 RBI in the first game, and then the game-winning homer in yesterday's game. Sammy Sosa and Aramis Ramirez tied the game in the second with back-to-back homers with no outs. The Cubs' bats came back to life one inning too late, as Maddux was lifted after 6 trailing 3-2 before the Cubs hung a four spot in the bottom of the 7th against Randy Wolf and two relievers, a rally capped by new Cub Nomar Garciaparra's RBI single. Kyle Farnsworth made things real interesting in the 8th by loading the bases with no one out. Farnsworth got a strikeout before being lifted, and then Mike Remlinger cleaned up the mess by getting the last two outs, leaving the bases juiced. More on Farnsworth later. LaTroy Hawkins then made things interesting in the 9th by bringing the tying run to the plate before shutting the door, no doubt in homage to Lee Smith, who sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" in the middle of the 7th.

The Twins-Red Sox was pretty good, too. Martinez and Santana traded strikeouts all day -- Pedro had 11 in 7 innings and Santana fanned 12 in 8. Santana had yet another 3-or-fewer-hits start, giving up just two solo homeruns, one each to new Red Sox SS Orlando Cabrera and Manny Ramirez. If there's one knock against Santana, it's that he's prone to the long ball. He's given up 22 in 23 starts (152.1 IP), which maybe is a little on the high side, but he's still got a 3.30 ERA in spite of that.

Pedro left with a 3-2 lead. After Santana got K's #11 and 12 in the top of the 8th, the Twins scraped together a two-run rally in their half of the 8th. Cristian Guzman and Lew Ford led off with singles, and then they pulled off a daring double steal with lefty rookie Justin Morneau at the plate. Morneau then flashed some warning track power for a game-tying sac fly, and when the relay to the infield was kicked by Cabrera, Ford dashed home for the game-winner. Joe Nathan hit Mark Bellhorn to lead off the 9th, but then whiffed Cabrera and got Ramirez to hit into a game-ending 4-6-3 for hist 30th save in 31 chances.

And this last point leads us back to Farnsworth. This guy has been the Cubs' closer of the future for a few years now. He has supremely nasty stuff -- upper 90's fastball (occasionally breaking into triple digits) and a low-to-mid-80s slider, but somehow that only translates to an ERA just over 3 and a slot as the setup man -- when the regular setup man has to close due to injury. Shouldn't Farnsworth's ERA be about half what it is given the stuff he has? He's basically a slightly harder throwing version of Joe Nathan (who seems to top out somewhere around 97-98 mph), and yet it's Nathan who has turned into the closest thing to a guarantee this side of Eric Gagne while Farnsworth is a victim of his own potential. It just seems like the sort of situation where Farnsworth will eventually become a 40-save guy for another team, sort of like the way Lou Brock blossomed after the Cubs traded him in the '60s. Only time will tell, I suppose.

posted by Tom Renbarger 2:30 PM