Tag: baseball

It All Comes Down to This

By Blaidd Drwg

The playoffs are set, just a few teams jockeying for position.

Yankees and Orioles for the AL East – If the Yankees win, they win the division, so they control their own destiny. If they Orioles win and the Yankees lose, we get a tie breaker on Thursday. If the Orioles lose, the Yankees win the division.

Rangers and A’s for the AL West – man, this became a race all of a sudden. Both teams go into tonight’s game tied. The A’s are on fire, the Rangers are not. It should be a fun one to watch. The winner takes the division; the loser gets the wild card and has to fly cross country to play that game on Friday in NY or Baltimore if the Orioles win tonight.

The NL is set other than the Nats and Reds battling it out for the best record.

The most intriguing story line is Miguel Cabrera and his quest for the Triple Crown. Cabrera leads Mike Trout in BA by .007, Josh Hamilton in HR by 1 and Josh Hamilton in RBI by 11.

No one is going to catch Cabrera in RBI, so he has that one locked up.

For the HR’s, basically it is up to Hamilton. He needs 2 to take the lead and 1 to tie and is facing A’s rookie A.J Griffin. Hamilton has not homered in his last 8 games and has just 1 homer in 32 AB in Oakland this year. Cabrera should know if he has the HR title locked up before his game starts – the A’s/Rangers starts at 12:35 PM PT and the Tigers/Royals starts at 5:10 PM PT. I think I put my money on Cabrera winning this title outright as Hamilton won’t be swinging for the fences as the Rangers need to win this game.

BA is where it gets interesting. Trout faces the M’s and Blake Beavan this afternoon (3:40 PM PT start). Trout is a career 0-8 against Beavan and is just 12-41 at Safeco this season. If Trout manages to pull off a 4-4 afternoon, that would raise his average to .328571. Cabrera currently stands at .330645. Assuming that Trout goes 4-4, all Cabrera needs to do is to get 1 hit. It does not matter how many at bats he has. The only way that Cabrera does not win the title with a 4-4 day by Trout is if he goes 0-4 or worse. An 0-4 day would leave Cabrera at .328526 average, just a hair behind Trout. Cabrera should win this title too.

Regardless how you feel about the Triple Crown categories being over-rated, it is really cool to have something potentially happen that has not happened in 45 years.

 

UPDATE 3:54PM: Simply unbelievable – the A’s sweep the Rangers and take the division. The Nats get the NL best record and Cabrera locks up the HR and RBI titles. Mike Trout was hit by a pitch in his first at bat.

Swing and a Miss

By Blaidd Drwg

It was a good week for pitchers in the strikeout department:

On Wednesday, Doug Fister set an AL record when he recorded 9 consecutive strikeouts. He broke the record of 8, which had been done by several pitchers, most recently by Blake Stein (!) in 2001. He didn’t quite make it to the MLB record, which is 10, held by Tom Seaver.

On Tuesday, the Oakland A’s set an AL record for hitters strikeouts in a season with 7 games left on their schedule. The A’s batters swung past the Tampa Bay Rays 2007 total with their 1,325th K. They will end up obliterating the AL record. They still have a way to go to set the major league mark – that is 1,529 set by the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks

On Monday, the Angles showed us just how bad the Mariners can be by tying a MLB record by striking out 20 Mariner hitters in a 9 inning game in a 5-4 victory. Zach Grienke struck out 13 in just 5 innings before giving way to a parade of reliever who fanned 7 over the final 4 innings of the game. With all of those strikeouts, the Angles did somehow manage to put Miguel Olivo down on strikes only once in his 4 plate appearances (even more shocking – Olivo had 3 hits in the game).

And Down the Stretch They Come…

By Blaidd Drwg

The NL has 4 of its 5 playoff spots finalized, with only the 2nd wild card still remaining. Even then, the Cardinals have a 3 game lead over the Dodgers with 6 games remaining, making it unlikely that the Dodgers will catch the Redbirds.

The AL is a different story – no one has actually clinched a playoff spot and it could be an interesting last week of the season. Going into Friday’s games, the Yankees lead the east by 1, the Tigers lead the central by 2 and the Rangers lead the west by 4. The wild card also has races, with the Orioles 1 game ahead of the A’s for the first spot and the A’s 2 games ahead of the Angels and Rays for the 2nd spot.

Here is how this is going to play out:
East:
Yankees have 6 games left – 3 at Toronto and 3 vs. Boston. They are in the best position to win the division since they play the two worst teams in the division and neither Boston nor Toronto is playing particularly well right now. As much as I know the Red Sox would like to spoil the Yankees playoff chances, I don’t think it will happen. I see the Yankees taking 5 of the 6 to win the division.

Orioles have 6 games left – 3 vs. Boston and 3 at Tampa.
Rays have 6 games left – 3 at Chicago and 3 vs. Baltimore.
The final TB-Baltimore series could really put a monkey wrench in the playoff chances for one of the two teams. Both the O’s and the Rays are hot and they both need to sweep their weekend series. It is entirely possible that both of these teams could make it to the playoffs, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they do.

Central:
Last week, the White Sox had a 3 game lead in the division. This week, they are trailing the Tigers by 2.
The White Sox need to take at least 2 out of three from the Rays (they really need a sweep) and then sweep the Indians in their last series. Why? Well the Tigers benefit from the most favorable remaining schedule of all the contenders – the have 3 at KC and finish with 3 vs. Minnesota. That is going to make it very tough on the Sox.

West:
The Rangers are in the driver’s seat, but by no means have it locked. They play 3 vs. the Angels and 3 at Oakland. Basically if they take 2 out of 3 from the Halos, the Rangers win the division and the Angels go home for the season.

The A’s are playing the Mariners for 3 and then finish with the Rangers. They really need to sweep the M’s and hope that either the Rangers fell apart against the Angels or have won the division and decided to monkey with their rotation to get it set for the playoffs. The A’s are a longshot to win the division but are in a pretty good spot for a wild card, even with their all-rookie rotation.

The Angels just basically need to win out against the Rangers and the Mariners. It could mean that there is meaningful baseball played in Safeco field in October, just not for the Mariners.

My Prediction:
East Winner: Yankees
Central Winner: Tigers
West Winner: Rangers
Wild Card 1: Orioles
Wild Card 2: A’s

Depending on everyone’s final record and how the wild card standings finish, you could actually end up with this nightmare scenario:

Oakland wins the 2nd wild card and flies to Baltimore, arriving sometime in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday

Oakland at Baltimore for the wild card game on Friday if Baltimore ends up with the best wild card record.

New York at Baltimore for the ALDS on Sunday if NY ends up with the best record.

MLB has decided in its infinite wisdom that the team with the best record gets to play the wild card winner (great), but the series format is 2 games at the WC winner and 3 at the Division Winner. So, the Yankees might not know that the need to get on a flight to Oakland until late Friday night. As much as I hate the Yankees, I don’t understand how that makes any sense. It probably negates any advantage they gain from playing the wild card winner. Of course, this gets much more interesting if there is a tie anywhere and we need a playoff to determine the winner.

The Curious Case of Aaron Cook

By Bliadd Drwg

Earlier in September, the Red Sox came limping into Seattle, for a pillow fight series against the Mariners. Things have been so bad for the Red Sox this season; they actually had a worse record than the Mariners on September 3rd, the first game of the season. Normally the Red Sox are a big draw – historically pulling 30,000+ for a weekday series. This year, not so much. The beautiful Labor Day afternoon game drew a whopping 21,000 and the Tuesday and Wednesday games drew 12,700 and 13,000 respectively (although it seemed like there were less people at the Wednesday game).

That Wednesday game, the Red Sox brought out starter Aaron Cook, sporting a stellar 5.35 ERA before that start. What made it more interesting for me were his strikeout and walk stats – entering the game, Cook had struck out 11, walked 12 and given up 10 home runs…in 70.2 innings. That translates into less than 2 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched. That, my friends, is a truly pathetic total. Cook has always been an extreme ground ball pitcher, which probably explains his success when he pitched for Colorado, despite striking out only 3.7 batters per nine. To put that into perspective, my favorite soft tosser, Jamie Moyer averaged 5.4 strikeouts per nine innings over his career.  It is hard to survive as a MLB pitcher with a number as low as Cook has posted, but he has somehow managed to do it.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First, I wondered if there had been any pitcher who made it through 100 innings and gave up more home runs than strikeouts. I haven’t bothered to look that up yet, so that is for another post. Second, those extremely low numbers set up one of the more bizarre pitching outings I have seen from a truly statistical standpoint.

Coming into the Mariners game, Cook had made 13 starts. Here is the aggregate on the number of strikeouts and walks he has registered per game:

 

# of Strikeouts Times # of Walks Times
0 7 0 5
1 3 1 6
2 2 3 2
4 1

 

So Cook managed to strike out 2 or less in 12 out of his first 13 starts. Enter the Seattle game. He gets on a roll early, striking out Trayvon Robinson in the first, meaning his K total exceeds half his previous starts, one inning into the game. In the second, he gets Eric Thames looking, and I am waiting for the plague of locusts to descend on the stadium; two strike outs in two innings? Someone obviously took Aaron Cook’s place on the mound.

The third inning is where it gets really strange. Dustin Ackley leads off and strikes out swinging. At this point I am ready to head for cover as it was due to start raining blood any minute. Trayvon Robinson again strikes out and I am fully expecting the second coming at this point. What are the chances that Aaron Cook, who has struck out 11 batters all season, will actually strike out the side? Pretty good actually. After a couple of walks (more on those in a minute), Jesus Montero struck out swinging to end the inning. The 5K’s in the first 3 innings would be all Cook would get – he would pitch 3 more innings without recording another strikeout.

What’s so interesting about the walks? Well, it means that a guy who has batters put the ball in play 91% of the time, managed to face 5 batters, record 3 outs and not a single one of them managed to put a ball in play.

You never know what you are going to have happen when you come to the ballpark on any given day.

Have They Ever Been to Chicago in April?

By Blaidd Drwg

Are the schedule makers for MLB really that stupid? Here is a partial list of where opening day is going to take place in 2013:

LA Angels @ Cincy

Boston @ NY Yankees

San Diego @ NY Mets

KC @ Chicago

Detroit @ Minnesota

Seattle @ Oakland

St Louis @ Arizona

Philly @ Atlanta

SF @ LA Dodgers

Colorado @ Milwaukee

Chicago @ Pittsburgh

Miami @ Washington

Baltimore @ TB

Cleveland @ Toronto

For some reason the article did not mention where Texas vs. Houston is going to take place, not that it really matters. My point is the location of some of the openers. What do you want to bet at least half of the games taking place on April 1 & 2 in New York, Chicago, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh get cancelled due to bad weather (or at least get delayed).

I hate the new divisional alignment, I hate seeing interleague play every day and I hate the “unbalanced” balanced schedule. I really think that baseball is about 2 years off from adding the DH to the National League, which might be the only good thing to come of this – I really hate seeing pitchers flail at the ball, or worse yet, not even swing at an incoming pitch.

Don’t even get me started on the Mariners bizarre schedule, that is for a separate post.

Congratulations to Jose Reyes

By Blaidd Drwg

…on committing the 500,000th (or so) error in MLB history. The great guys over at baseball-reference.com noticed that their tracker was on approach for 500,000 errors this season and Jose Reyes seems to be the lucky soul to be the one to bring the total to that nice, round number.

I say 500,000 or so because, due to the vague nature of some of the statistics, especially in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s, that number may not be entirely accurate. Also, as the blog on baseball-reference states:

One other issue that may affect things is that some errors are overturned at a later date, so even on the night we deign an error the 500,000th it may actually move up or down the last next week when mlb reviews borderline scoring calls.

Either way, let’s celebrate both a milestone error and the tremendous amount of research that BR.com has done to make looking up odd stats so much easier for people like us.

Fun Statistical Anomolies

By Blaidd Drwg

Occasionally, you will get a guy leading the majors in some statistical category without actually leading either league in that category.

Big Mac’s League Leading 58 Home Runs immortalized in a baseball card.

It happened in 1997, when Mark McGwire smashed 58 home runs to lead the majors, but didn’t lead either league due to his trade from the A’s to the Cardinals during the season.

It also happened in 1990, when Eddie Murray lead the majors in Batting Average, but did not lead in NL (he was with the Dodgers at the time) in BA. Murray got traded to the Dodgers in the 1988 off season (for Juan Bell, Brian Horton and Ken Howell – how is that for a bad trade), so it wasn’t that he split his season between two teams. How did it happen then? Well, Willie McGee was leading the NL with a .335 on August 29th with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. McGee then got traded to Oakland, but batted just .274 the rest of the season, dropping his season average to .324, giving the MLB lead to Murray without him actually leading the NL in AVG. In case you were wondering who the 1990 AL batting leader was, it was 37 year old George Brett, who paced the junior circuit with a .329 AVG.

Rick Sutcliffe almost pulled off a similar feat in 1984 after getting traded to the Cubs from the Indians – he won 20 games without leading either league in wins, but ended up tied for the MLB lead with Mike Boddicker and Joaquin Andujar.

Commencing countdown (Five), engines on (Four)

By Blaidd Drwg

Roger Clemens, regardless of your feelings toward him, is a hall of famer. With 7 Cy Young awards, an MVP, 354 wins and 4600 strikeouts, I don’t care what he may or may not have taken. Roger Clemens is also eligible for the hall of fame in 2013. That should be an interesting vote seeing as there are 6 legitimate new candidates for the hall (Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Sosa, Schilling and Biggio) as well as at least 5 guys that are returning and should eventually make the hall (and I am not counting Jack Morris who I believe is not worthy of being a hall of famer). Needless to say, the next few ballots are going to be very crowded and just about all of the 11 guys who are on this year’s ballot who should get into the hall all have steroid questions floating over their head. That is going to make things very interesting.

Flash back to a couple of weeks ago when Roger Clemens announced that he was going to pitch one game for the independent Sugar Land Skeeters. Clemens is 50 and has not pitched in a game since 2007. My first thought when I heard this was, “He is trying to make a comeback to reset the clock on his HOF eligibility.” It makes sense – if he pitches in a MLB game this season, it would reset his eligibility, making his first year on the ballot 2018 instead of 2013. The 2013 vote is stupidly going to be a referendum on steroids, with the tyrant old school voters trying to make a meaningless point. You also have at least 3 potential HOFers on each of the next 4 ballots after 2013, so things may get a bit more crowded. Pushing his eligibility back to 2018 creates a larger buffer for a shift in attitude, and hopefully a shift in the voting to the newer members of the BBWAA.

This is of course speculation on my part, but considering Clemens had a successful start in his first appearance and is planning on making another start for Sugar Land, I could definitely see the Astros, who have absolutely nothing to play for, signing Clemens and putting him out on the mound for at least one game in late September. Stranger things have happened.

Ichiro and His Trade to the Yankees

By Blaidd Drwg

At the time the Mariners traded Ichiro to the Yankees, I will be honest, I had absolutely no idea why the Yankees would have wanted him. They were pretty set in the outfield and really didn’t need a DH, so the trade seemed odd, especially since Ichiro has struggled over the last 2 season, particularly against left handed pitching. Something that did not get widely reported by the media in Seattle was this little detail of the deal from ESPN.com:

Before completing a trade to acquire the Japanese star, the Yankees spelled out a list of conditions to Ichiro, a former American League MVP and two-time batting champion.

Ichiro would be asked to switch positions, hit at the bottom of the lineup and possibly sit against left-handed pitching.

Ichiro knows his career is coming to an end and he is probably desperate to win a World Series title and the Yankees are his best hope for doing that this season. I found it very interesting that the Yankees scouting has noticed exactly what I have about Ichiro this season:

He can no longer play above average defense in right field.
He isn’t a top of the lineup hitter considering his sub .300 OBP.
He is cheating on fastballs against left handers and can’t hit them effectively anymore.
He has slowed down (there has been a huge drop in the number of infield hits he has had over the last 2 seasons).

The move to the Yankees has not really helped either – Ichrio had slash totals of 261/288/353 with the Mariners and 265/296/368 with the Yankees, translating to an OPS= of 82 with the Mariners and 77 with the Yankees. His time with the Yankees has been bizarre: he hit in 16 out of his first 17 games with them, but managed to only produce 2 multi-hit games. The Yankees have generally batted him in the bottom third of the lineup and have sat him the last 2 games against a lefty starting pitcher.

I have never been a huge Ichiro fan, but he was a fun and frustrating player to watch and I would love to see him win a championship. I suspect that if he does this season, he will call it quits and in 5 years become the first Japanese inductee into Cooperstown. If he does not, I bet he takes a part time role with a contender to try again next season. I think that even Ichiro has realized that he has reached the end of the line. He is currently 449 hits away from 3000 and I just don’t think he has enough left in the tank to get there.

Don’t Cry For Me, Miguel Batista

By Blaidd Drwg

Batista has been around so long, that he pitched for the Montreal Expos when they were still playing in Montreal.

Miguel Batista was recently released by the Mets and it appears his career is over. He will be “best” remembered around these parts as one of the worst free agent signings of the Bavasi era, sporting 2 mediocre and 1 terrible season for a 3 year, 24 million dollar contract.

Batista was exactly league average (his OPS+ according to baseball-reference.com is exactly 100) over his 18 year career and he did have a couple of decent seasons with the Diamondbacks back in the early 2000’s, but he was never great.

One interesting fact if he does indeed retire before the end of the season: He is the last remaining active member of the 1992 Pirates team, having appeared in one game for them back in ’92. Why is that significant? Well, 1992 happens to be the last time the Pirates had a winning record. That is how long Miggy has been around