Fili's GOD for May 30th 2011: Toronto Blue Jays vs Cleveland Indians

Jo-Jo Reyes gets the start tonight for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Reyes is 0-4 this season.  Normally Reyes wouldn't be the type of pitcher who would be involved in the Game Of the Day.  But today is different.  


Reyes' career record is 5-19, including:
2011: 0 - 4
2010: 0 - 0
2009: 0 - 2
2008: 3 - 11

Reyes' last win was June 13th 2008 against the Angels.

Since then he has made 27 starts without a victory.

The major league record for consecutive starts without a victory is 28, held by Matt Keough

He has 13 consecutive losses which is about halfway to the 27 consecutive losses that Anthony Young put up.

But he is nowhere near the record for the most consecutive appearances without a victory, 153 games by John Smoltz

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.    

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

Fili's GOD for May 4th 2011: Milwaukee Brewers at Atlanta Braves

Today's Game Of the Day is the first start of the season (and of the Milwaukee Brewers career) for Zack Greinke.  Greinke was traded, along with SS Yuneisky Betancourt, from Kansas City to Milwaukee this off season for a solid package of players including SS Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Jake Odorizzi, and Jeremy Jeffress.

I wrote about Greinke here, when I didn't know he was going to pitch in the NL or miss the first month of the season.

Greinke suffered his injury playing pickup basketball so the injury wasn't pitching related.  There shouldn't be much reason to expect Greinke to pitch any worse than what we would have thought before the season, just that he'll pitch less.

Greinke made 3 minor league starts to gear up for tonight.  They looked like this:
High A: 1 start, 3 innings pitched, 10 batters faced, 1 hit, 0 walks, 4 strike outs.
AAA: 2 starts, 7.2 innings pitched, 33 batters faced, 10 hits, 1 home run, 2 walks, 9 strike outs.

Nothing there to indicate that he's not ready to go.

He'll be squaring off against Tim Hudson of the Braves.  Hudson came back last year after missing most of 2009.  He picked up right where he left off.

Hudson doesn't strike out a ton of hitters (6/9 innings career, but in the 5-5.5/9 innings range recently).  He doesn't walk anybody (2.75/9 innings career).  He gets a ton of ground balls (59% career, but well above 60% since his injury).

The Brewers offense-with guys like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, and Ricky Weeks-is geared toward the home run.  Hudson's ground balls are geared toward preventing the home run.

It should be a good game between two pretty good teams, and two very good pitchers.


BONUS GOD
I'm also going to a AAA game tonight.

The Albuquerque Isotopes host the Omaha Storm Chasers.  Albuquerque is the AAA team for the (/my favorite team) LA Dodgers.  Omaha is the AAA team for Zack Greinke's former team, the KC Royals.  This is my first chance to see some of the Dodgers' top prospects, namely: Trayvon Robinson and Dee Gordon.

I most recently wrote about Robinson and Gordon here and Robinson and Gordon are both liking the Albuquerque air.

Robinson is off to a .365/.500 line.  Though the strike outs (29 in 96 plate appearances) are still a big problem.

Gordon is hitting .343/.340.  Not even Coors Field AAA can get him to hit for power.  He's stolen 11 bases though but has already committed 7 errors.

I'll also be hoping that Scott Elbert gets called on in relief.  Elbert has a fantastic arm as evidenced by 598 strikeouts in 516 career minor league innings as well as 29 K's in 26 major league innings.  Unfortunately, he walks about half that many.

I'm also excited to take a look at 4 top prospects for the Royals.  The Royals have the best farm system that's been put together in a while.

See John Sickels' Farm System Rankings

The first is Eric Hosmer.  Hosmer was rated as the #8 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America.  He's currently obliterating minor league pitching to the tune of .518/.581.    The first baseman looks about ready for the bigs.  His career minor league OBP is just shy of .400 while his slugging is just shy of .500.  He walks a decent amount while drastically cutting his strikeouts last season.  He's ready to go and could be called up any day.

Next on the list (and Baseball America's prospect list at #9) is third baseman Mike Moustakas.  Moustakas isn't as far along as Hosmer is despite being a year older.  He can still hit the ball though.  He has a career .498 minor league slugging percentage.  He's struggled in AAA though.  In half of last year plus a month this year he's just hitting .308/.516 in AAA.  As evidenced by the OBP he doesn't walk as much as Hosmer but he avoids strikeouts while still hitting the ball a long way.  The defense at 3rd is shaky, but the Royals already have Hosmer and Billy Butler as 1B/DH's.  Moustakas will have to stick at 3rd to get playing time in KC.

Lorenzo Cain was a big part of the Greinke trade.  He's not nearly the hitter that Hosmer or Moustakas is.  He's more of a decent glove, decent bat center fielder.  He's put up a .365/.415 line in the minors.  In limited AAA time he's hit .363/.385 as well as .348/.415 in 43 big league games.

The starting pitcher tonight will be Mike Montgomery.  He's #19 on Baseball America's list.  Montgomery isn't your huge strikeout pitcher.  He's struck out about 8 batters per 9 inning in the minors. Montgomery seems to be able to limit home runs quite well; he gets well over 50% ground balls and has only given up 8 home runs in 272 minor league innings.  Montgomery is 1-1 with a 2.87 ERA this year and 3.87 FIP in 27 innings.  He's K'd 7.7/9 while walking an uncharacteristically high 5/9.

He'll be facing my doppelganger, Tim Redding.
**********************************************************************************

Fili's GOD for April 6th 2011: Tampa Rays vs LA Angels of Anaheim

Today's Game Of the Day is the Tampa Rays vs the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  

The Tampa Rays burst into prominence in 2008 when they exorcised the word 'Devil' from their name and won the AL East with 31 more wins than they had the previous season. 

This year Tampa is off to a poor (0 - 4) start and what better way to get off of the schneid than by returning to their devilish roots and starting Hellboy himself, Jeremy Hellickson.  And they are, you know, playing the Angles.

http://www.draysbay.com/

Hellickson is one of a seemingly infinite number of top prospects in the Rays' system.  In 580 career minor league innings, Hellboy has a 2.71 ERA, 2.1 BB/9 and 9.8 K/9.  

Hellickson displayed the same dominance in 36 major league innings last year.  3.47 ERA, 1.98 BB/9 and 8.17 K/9.  

Hellickson doesn't have the amazing fastball featured by many top prospects.  His fastball clocked in at about 92 MPH last season.  His devastating pitch is his changeup.  Hellickson through the changeup about 29% of the time last season, one of the highest rates in the league.  In contrast he threw his fastball only 53% of the time, one of the lower rates in the league.  

In the small sample, Hellickson's change saved 2.96 runs per 100 pitches.  If he had that rate for a full season he would have had the 3rd most effective changeup in the majors last year.  Behind only Felix Hernandez and Shawn Marcum.

Hellickson also throws a curve (17%, -.94 runs saved per 100) and a pitch labeled as a cutter, though that may be just noise since it was only thrown 1% of the time.

*All pitch data from FanGraphs.

Hellickson shows good stuff with a 73% contact rate (88% league average) and 13% whiff rate (9% league average).  

Hellickson had some trouble with lefties last year (5.63 FIP vs L, 2.22 FIP vs R).  That's a very small sample though and it shouldn't be expected to continue so dramatically since changeups are usually effective against opposite handed hitters.  The Angels don't have much in the way of left-handed bats (sorry Bobby Abreu and switch-hitting Maicer Izturis). 

Whether or not Hellickson dominates tonight, expect him to have a good season and career.  

Hellickson isn't the only player going tonight.

The Angels' Dan Haren is an outstanding pitcher as well.  Haren had a down year last year; 3.91 ERA and 3.71 FIP compared to 3.23 and 3.12 over the last 2 years.  

Johnny Damon will be DHing (with good reason).

UPDATE:

Hellickson was pretty awesome.  He struck out 5 in the first 2 innings, and 10 of the 25 batters that he faced while walking only 2.  He did give up a jack to Alberto Callaspo.

Brooks Baseball says Hellickson:
threw 99 pitches
38 fastballs, 24 for strikes, 2 swinging strikes at an average of 89.5 MPH
30 changeups, 19 for strikes, 8 swinging strikes
26 curveballs, 20 for strikes, 9 swinging strikes
5 cutters, 1 for a strike

Excellent mixing of his pitches.  Excellent strike rates and excellent swinging strike rates.

Hellboy didn't disappoint even though Tampa drops to 0 - 5.
*****************************************************************

There was another amazing game.

I only got to see Jeff Francis deal to a couple of hitters while taking a quick break from shingling my Grandfather's house.  I missed a doozy of an ending.

The biggest play, in terms of WPA, was Carlos Quinten's double with the Sox down 1 with 2 outs in the top of the ninth facing Royal's closer Joakim Soria with 2 strikes.

When the at bat started, the Royals had an 83% chance of winning.  After Quinten's hit, the [i]Sox[/i] had an 83% chance of winning.  Talk about turning the game in your favor.

The entire ninth inning was insane.  When the inning started the Royals were up 6 - 3.  They had a 96.5% chance of winning.
AJ Pierzynski grounded out.  98.5% chance of Royals winning
Morel grounded out.  99.6% chance of Royals winning
Pierre single. 98.8%
Beckham walk. 96.6%
Rios single scores Pierre (6-4). 92%
Konerko single scores Beckham (6-5). 83.4%
Quentin double scores Beckham and Lillibridge (6-7). 17.4%
Ramirez flies out. 20.8%

Gordon strikes out.  11.7%
Butler singles. 21.6%
Dyson steals 2nd. 28.7%
Ka'aihue double scores Dyson. (7-7) Royals now have a 70.2% chance of winning.
Francoeur walks. 71.1%
Escobar grounds into a fielder's choice. 64%
Pena grouns out. 50%

That is absolute madness.  The Royals went from 99.6% chance of winning to a 88.3% chance of losing to a 71% chance of winning to even odds-in one inning.

Baseball is awesome.