Fili's GODs for May 27th 2011: Rockies v Cardinals and Mariners v Yankees

Two games tonight that I'm especially interested in.  The first is the Colorado Rockies vs the St. Louis Cardinals.

Rockies' rookie Juan Nicasio makes his major league debut against the Cardinals.  Nicasio is a 24 year old right-hander making his first major league start.   Nicasio is 5 - 1 with a 2.22 ERA in AA thus far.  More importantly he has 10.01 K/9 and just 1.59 BB/9.  Nicasio does a decent job of getting ground balls but his percentages have been decreasing at each level:
A - 49%
Hi A - 45%
AA - 42%
Nicasio throws a mid-90's fastball, slider and change up.

Pitching in the bigs against a potent Cardinals offense (117 wRC+; 2nd in baseball) is a big jump for a guy who was pitching in High A Ball last season.


The second game features another young pitcher, Michael Pineda.  I reviewed Pineda's review here.  Pineda was very good that day, and has been even better since.  Pineda is 6 - 2 with a 2.16 ERA for Seattle in 9 starts.  He's striking out 9.41/9 and walking just 2.16/9.  His 2.26 FIP is better than every starter's in baseball not named Roy Halladay or Matt Garza.

He is showing the left/right split that I was concerned about:
vs L: K/9=8.78, BB/9=2.36, HR/9=.68
vs R: K/9=9.95, BB/9=1.99, HR/9=.28
He's just been so good that it hasn't mattered.

I was concerned about his change up not being good enough to get out left-handed batters.  He's responded by only throwing it 6% of the time.  His run value per 100 change ups is slightly negative, but only -.22.

He's thrown his fastball (62%) and slider (32%) much more often.  Both of those pitches have been excellent.  His fastball has been worth 1.69 runs per 100 pitches while the sider has been worth 2.93 runs per 100 pitches.  That's the 8th best fastball and 12th best slider amongst starters.

Tonight he faces a challenge.  The New York Yankees and their #1 (118 wRC+) offense.  He gets a bit of a reprieve though, as the game is in cavernous SAFECO field and not New Yankee Colosseum.  SAFECO is particularly hard on left-handed batters, which the Yankees have plenty of (Granderson, Cano, Gardner and switch hitters Teixeira, Swisher and Posada), with an 86 park factor for home runs according to StatCorner.    

Yakety Sax: Toronto Blue Jays

Not as encompassing as the Chicago Cubs' Yakety Sax, but the Toronto Blue Jays pulled off a Yakety play today.

Play this video as you behold:

*SBnation

*H/T to OD

Video from the MLB website

Posey's leg Busted

By now you've probably heard the Buster Posey broke his leg on this play against the Marlins.

Ouch.

For you masochists out there, you can watch this one too.

Well, Posey's leg is broken and he may miss the season

SAN FRANCISCO -- Catcher Buster Posey has a broken bone in his lower left leg, the Giants revealed on Thursday, meaning the worst has happened: The National League's reigning Rookie of the Year will likely be sidelined for the entire season.

Posey has 1.8 WAR thus far on the season. That gives him an expected WAR of about 6 for an entire season. With the injury the Giants will miss out on about 4 Wins

The Giants will try to replace him Eli Whiteside. Whiteside has 1.1 WAR in 315 career plate appearances. That's a close enough approximation for the number of PA's he'll get the remainder of the season. So, we add a Win to the Giants' total.

Now they are down 3 Wins.

The new back up catcher, Chris Stewart, is terrible, so he gives them 0 Wins.

The Giants are 2.5 games up on the Rockies right now. I had the Rox and Giants about equal coming into the season. If they were equal and the Giants are to lose 3 Wins over the rest of the season, the loss of Posey could cost them the division.

That's not even counting the fact that the Giants have given up more runs than they've scored this season (170-172) while winning 56% of their games while the Rox have scored 17 more runs than they've allowed while only winning 50% of their games.


The Giants will certainly want to make a move to shore up the position.  So whom might be available?


Astros: JR Towles and Jason Jaramillo. Houston is going nowhere and Castro (on the DL) is the catcher of the future.
Blue Jays: Jose Molina is a free agent after the season, and JP Arencibia looks like the real deal.
Brewers: Wil Nieves could be available as LuCroy and Kottaras are 1&2 in Milwaukee
Cubs: might move Koyie Hill if Wellington Castillo convinces them he can play
Dodgers: wouldn't mind them trading Barajas away and letting Ellis show if he can play
Mariners: Adam Moore deserves a shot to play. Miguel Olivo could be offered up
Mets: Love themselves some Josh Thole, so Ronny Paulino could go
Nationals: Wilson Ramos is the new #1 catcher in DC so Pudge might make sense
Pirates: They would let Ryan Doumit go for cheap
Yankees: Sabean loves him some old dudes-Posada?

Debut Review: Rubby de la Rosa

Rubby de la Rosa burst onto the Dodgers' prospect list last year when his fastball velocity started regularly hitting 95+.

He spent 2010 in A and AA where he posted the following numbers

A: 8.34 K/9, 2.58 BB/9, 3.12 FIP, 59.1 innings
AA: 6.88 K/9, 3.71 BB/9, 3.22 FIP, 51 innings

Despite his explosive fastball he wasn't able to strikeout a huge number of batters.

In 2011 he started off again in AA

AA: 11.70 K/9, 4.28 BB/9, 2.50 FIP, 40 innings 

Today he was called up to help out a Dodger bullpen that has Jon Broxton, Hong-Chi Kuo, Vicente Padilla and Blake Hawksworth on the DL.

Don Mattingly summoned de la Rosa for the first time to face Hunter Pence, Carlos Lee and Brett Wallace.  How'd he fare?

1 perfect inning with 2 strikeouts.  How'd he get there?  Let's take a look.

He started off Hunter Pence with a 95 MPH fastball at the knees that was called a ball.  He followed that up with a similar pitch that Pence fouled off.  The third pitch was a change up that missed low.  Behind in the count 2-1 de la Rosa cranked up a 96 MPH fastball down the middle that Pence hit foul.  The next pitch was a slider that missed very high.  Facing a full count de la Rosa blew a 96 MPH fastball past Pence.  First strikeout of de la Rosa's career comes against a pretty good hitter.

Next up was Carlos Lee.  De la Rosa started Lee with a curveball that missed high.  He came back with a fastball down and in that caught a lot of plate.  Lee swung and grounded out.

The third batter was Brett Wallace.  The first pitch was de la Rosa's fastest of the night.  A 97.3 MPH fastball for a called strike.  Wallace swung through a change up off the plate and fouled off another fastball away.  De la Rosa came high and inside with a fastball that was called ball one.  The 97 MPH fastball was followed by an 81 MHP curve down and in the Wallace swung through for strike 3.

All in all on the night
De la Rosa threw 13 pitches, 8 for strikes.
8 fastballs averaging 95.6 MPH
2 change ups averaging 87.4 MPH
2 curve balls averaging 78.3 MPH
and a slider at 83.4 MPH

He got swinging strikes on 3 of 13 pitches (23%)

The only ball put in play against him was a ground ball.

3 batters faced isn't a lot, but 2 strikeouts and a groundout is about as good as you can get.

Good luck to Rubby

*Stats from FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball

Fili's GOD for May 18th 2011: Texas Rangers at Kansas City Royals

A fun game today with two young pitchers going at it.

The Texas Rangers send Alexi Ogando, whom I reviewed here, up against just promoted Royals prospect Danny Duffy.   

Ogando is 4 - 0 with a 2.06 ERA so far...so he's been fantastic right?  No, that honor would go to Pineda.  Ogando looks great, but there's a lot of reason to think that there have been some smoke and some mirrors involved.  Ogando is only striking out 6.6 per 9 innings thus far.  He does have a very good walk rate (2.06/9) though.  He's giving up a lot of fly balls (34% ground ball rate) and home runs (1.24/9).  That all adds up (and multiplies and divides up) to a FIP of 4.21.  That means, we should expect his ERA to be closer to 4 than to 2.

So, how does a guy who's below average at striking batters out, getting ground balls, and giving up homeruns have a 2.06 ERA?

Ogando's BABIP against is .193.
Batted Ball Type: Ogando's BABIP, League BABIP
Ground Ball: .140, .229
Fly Ball: .091, .138
Line Drive: .600, .716

He's well below average on each type of ball.  The Rangers' infield defense (think Beltre and Andrus) is pretty good, so the ground ball BABIPs might stay low, but not this low.  The outfield is...not as good...that is unlikely to stay low...and line drives...those are hits (and, yes, I love ellipses).

As a result of Ogando's low BABIP he is also stranding 95% of the runners that get on base against him.  He also stranded 93% last season, but when the major league average is 72%, 90% plus looks unsustainable.

Ogando has been better as a starter than I expected, but he's not as good as that 2.06 ERA might lead some to believe.    


In my last Game Of the Day, I wrote about the KC Royals prospects.  One that I didn't write about is making his major league debut tonight.  That's Danny Duffy.

*MLB.COM

Duffy is an interesting guy.  He took about a year off from baseball.  But he's come back about as good as can be.

Duffy has been a beast in the minor leagues.  In 344 innings across all levels, Duffy has struck out 10.5 batters per 9 whilst walking 2.9 per 9.  He's a pretty neutral fly ball/ground ball guy (40% ground ball rate).

Duffy throws 4 pitches:  A fastball in the lower to mid 90's, change-up, curve and slider.

He's not likely to be a star, but he's the second most talented starting pitcher (behind Jeff Francis) on the Royals right now.

*Stats from FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference, and StatCorner

Yakety Sax: Chicago Cubs (5/17/11)

Wikipedia says:

"Yakety Sax" is often used in television and film as a soundtrack for outlandishly humorous situations. It is frequently used to accompany comedic chases, most notably in the sketch comedy program The Benny Hill Show,^[3] where it accompanied otherwise silent, rapidly paced comedy sequences (often involving a chase scene). This use of the piece, and the chase scenes themselves, have been parodied in many other movies and TV shows.

So play this video

While watching these plays in the Cubs Reds game last night.

The Reds won 7 - 5 yesterday as the Cubs gave up 7 unearned runs on 4 errors.

The first play occurred with the bases loaded, 2 out and pitcher Edinson Volquez up in the bottom of the 4th and the cubs up 3 - 0.  Volquez hit a sinking line drive to first baseman Carlos Pena that Pena couldn't handle (1st error).  Second baseman Darwin Barney retrieved the ball and threw it back into the infield.  Kerry Wood cut the throw off near first base.  He then threw the ball home but past catcher Wellington Castillo.  All 3 runners on base scored and the Cubs Win Probability (WP) went from 75.3% to 45.3%, a decrease of 30%.

In the bottom of the 6th with 2 out, a runner at first and Miguel Cairo at bat, Cairo swung through a third strike but the umpire ruled that the ball hit the ground before being caught by Cubs' catcher Wellington Castillo.  Confusion abounded as the Cubs walked off the field and the Reds' Ramon Hernandez and Miguel Cairo took their gift bases.  Though a run didn't score, the gaffe cost the Cubs 1.9% WP

Then, in the bottom of the 8th with the Cubs back on top 5 - 3, nobody out, and runners at 1st and 2nd, the Reds' Ryan Hannigan tried to sacrifice.  Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood fielded the ball and threw to third to try and nab the lead runner.  His throw was in plenty of time, but it was plenty off line and went into left field.  Left fielder Tony Campana couldn't stop it and it rolled to the wall.  Scott Rolen and Fred Lewis scored as Hannigan ended up on 3rd.  With the Cubs' lead in the 8th they had a 63.3% WP.  After the error they had a 17.4% WP.  That's a decrease of 45.9%.

Four errors, decreased the Cubs' WP by 77.8% in total.  Yakety Sax, indeed.


*WP data from FanGraphs' awesome new box scores.

Jose Bautista is on Fire

Bautista had a pretty good weekend.


Bautista did this in 3 games vs the Twins
He came up to bat 16 times
He drew 2 walks
He struck out once
He had 7 hits
He had 1 single
He had 1 double
He had 5 home runs
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs wrote this article today.

Jose Bautista Facts

Bautista is on pace for a +14.6 WAR season (assuming 150 games played), which would be the second best in the history of baseball. In 2001, when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, he accumulated “just” +12.9 WAR. 

Relative to league average, Bautista’s current performance – if sustained for the whole season – would go down as easily the best offensive performance of all time. His current wRC+ is 278 – Barry Bonds’ 2002 season holds the record at 245. Babe Ruth‘s best season at the plate came in 1920, when he posted a 235 mark. 

Also since the start of the 2010 season, Jose Bautista’s Isolated Slugging is .381. The next highest in baseball is Miguel Cabrera… who is at .281, exactly 100 points lower. 

Over the past 365 days, Bautista’s line is as follows: 156 games, 673 PA, .292/.421/.708, 33 2B, 3 3B, 63 HR, 114 BB, 100 K, 10 SB, 2 CS. Albert Pujols is second in home runs over the same time period – he has 41.

Over the weekend, Bautista hit five home runs in Target Field. The Twins have hit six home runs in Target Field all season.

I might have underestimated him