Saturday Snippets
Posted by John Autin on June 26, 2011
-- CC Sabathia became the majors' first 10-game winner (by a few hours) with 8 strong innings, and the Yankees moved into 1st place. Sabathia is 50-19 in his 2-1/2 years with the Yankees, and is 50 games over .500 since 2007 (86-36). He has more wins, IP and strikeouts in that span than Roy Halladay.
-- After 238 career starts, Jake Peavy made his first relief appearance Saturday, and picked up a win with 4 dominant innings against the Nationals.
-- Justin Masterson may have suffered the most unjust loss of the year. The only run charged to him in 6.2 IP was the result of two errors by rookie 2B Cord Phelps and a balk by reliever Tony Sipp, the first of his 3-year career.
- It was the 5th time this year that a starting pitcher was charged with a loss while allowing just 1 run, unearned; 2 of them were suffered by Twins.
- Matt Cain earned the win with 7 scoreless IP, and the Giants regained 1st place in the NL West.
-- J.J. Hardy extended his multiple-hit streak to 6 games in Baltimore's 10-5 loss to Cincinnati. The longest such streak this year is 7 games, by Vladimir Guerrero and Lance Berkman.
- Joey Votto drove in 5 runs with a pair of HRs off Brian Matusz, for his first multi-HR game this year.
-- Milwaukee bashed 4 HRs (including a ranningu homuran by Yuniesky Betancourt), extended their lead in the NL Central to 2 games, and improved to 28-11 at home.
-- Chipper Jones (1 run, 2 RBI) even his career Run and RBI totals at 1,534 each. The greatest career total by a player with equal Runs & RBI is 830, by Gene Woodling.
-- The Phillies lost 4-1 to Oakland, the 15th time this year they've been held to 1 run or less. In their 2008 championship season, they had 16 such games all year. (On the other hand, that club didn't have Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.)
-- Justin Verlander (8 IP, no runs, 14 Ks, 1 walk, 4 hits) pitched Detroit back into a share of 1st place. He has won his last 6 starts, allowing 4 runs in 49.2 IP, a 0.72 ERA.
- Verlander took over the MLB lead with 124 strikeouts; he won the 2009 MLB strikeout crown with 269.
- Six straight winning starts matches the longest streak in the majors this year, by Jered Weaver and Yovani Gallardo.
- The last Tiger streak of 6 straight starts with 7+ IP and no more than 2 runs was in 1997, by Justin Thompson.
- He's gone 8+ innings in his last 5 starts; no Tiger has had a longer streak since Jack Morris in 1987.
- He leads the majors in Quality Starts (16 of 17), and is 2nd to James Shields with 6 Outstanding Starts (8+ IP, 1 ER or less).
-- The 8 runs scored by the Mets in the 6th inning was 1 shy of their previous game high this year. They finished with 14 runs on 17 hits, both season highs. Lucas Duda (4-5, 4 RBI) had the first 3-hit game of his young career, and matched a Mets record with 3 doubles, last done in 2009 (Jose Reyes). Duda, who owns a 1.003 OPS in 108 games at AAA, came into today's game 9 for 52 this year, with 2 extra-base hits.
-- Jaime Garcia lost to Toronto, allowing 5 runs in 7 IP. Four unearned runs scored in the 3rd inning, yet Garcia has no one to blame but himself: he walked the first 2 batters that inning, including opposing pitcher Carlos Villanueva, an .081 career hitter (5 for 62).
-- Houston won the race to 50 losses, and fell to 13-27 at home. The game ended on a line-drive double play, with Jason Bourgeois caught off first base. Where the heck was he going, down 5 runs in the 9th and with a runner ahead of him?
-- Tim Wakefield's 2nd start against his former club didn't go as smoothly as his 1st (7 scoreless IP in 2005). In his first game in PNC Park, Wakefield allowed 5 runs in 6 IP, including Lyle Overbay's 3-run HR, as the Red Sox lost their 4th straight and the Pirates moved 2 games over .500 (and got to .500 at home).
- Joel Hanrahan's string of hitless IP was ended at 9.1 by Dustin Pedroia's 2-out double in the 9th, but he struck out Adrian Gonzalez as the tying run to maintain his perfect record in 22 save chances. Hanrahan had retired 26 of 27 batters before Pedroia's hit.
- Fun Wakefield facts: His last season with the Pirates was 1993; he had a 5.61 ERA, but threw shutouts in his last 2 starts. I wonder who was the last pitcher to finish a season with back-to-back shutouts, then spend the whole next year in the minors? And he was awful in the minors in '94 -- yet in '95, he placed 3rd in the AL Cy Young vote. The lineup for his last Pittsburgh start: Tony Womack, Tom Foley, Midre Cummings, Jeff King, Dave Clark, Al Martin, Rich Aude and Tom Prince. That game, on Sept. 30, 1993, was a 4-hit whitewash of the NL champion Phillies, the first shutout against them all year ... 2 days after they clinched the division.
- Adrian Gonzalez is at .358/16/71. How many players have won the MVP in their first year of a free-agent deal? Off the top of my head, I can think of Andre Dawson ('87), Barry Bonds ('93), Ichiro Suzuki ('01) and Vladimir Guerrero ('04). Others?
- Go, Pirates!
-- Royals 3, Cubs 2: I hear the weather was nice in KC; I sure hope so. The winning run scored in the 8th off Jeff "I Still Don't Know Why They Asked Me to Do this Commercial" Samardzija, who came on to face Jeff Francoeur and proved that an unstoppable swing is no match for an uncontrollable object. Samardzija pulled off the difficult feat of walking Francoeur, then walked Mike Moustakas; after a passed ball and an infield single produced the run, Samardzija hit a batter as his parting shot. He has 31 walks in 42.1 IP this year, and 81 walks in 124 IP for his career (5.88 BB/9), with a 5.31 ERA. I think you already know my opinion of the Cubs' organization....
June 26th, 2011 at 3:23 am
royals/cubs sounds more like an spring training met game
June 26th, 2011 at 7:59 am
A-Gon was a trade, not a free agent signing.
June 26th, 2011 at 8:35 am
@1
Or a deleted scene from Bull Durham!
With hindsight, Zambrano should have been left in that game.
June 26th, 2011 at 9:12 am
On that '93 Phils-Pirates game won by Wakefield; since it came two days after the Phils clinched, I assumed they ran out a lineup of backups to rest up for the playoffs. Not true. They had all the usual suspects go the distance. I'm happy to report the shutout wasn't Kruk's fault (1-2 with 2 walks).
June 26th, 2011 at 9:29 am
Terry Pendleon (1991) and Kirk Gibson (1988), as well.
Willie Hernandez (1984) and Rollie Fingers (1981) came via trade and won in their first years with the team. Fred Lynn, as we all remember, won in his rookie year, thus his first with a new team (1975).
That does it for the free agent era.
June 26th, 2011 at 9:32 am
JA, regarding your "Fun Wakefield Facts", nice digging and collating!
@4
Stephen, I assumed the same on reading the initial blog, before seeing your post.
It's hard not to root for Wakefield, the active win leader, to reach at least 200.
June 26th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Adrian Gonzalez of the Red Sox was the final out in 2 straight games
is that an odd occurrence or does that happen a lot during a season
What's the record for being the final out in the most consecutive games?
June 26th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Let's figure this out. Assuming a team used the same nine batters in each game, the chances of player being the final batter is 1/9. But the game's got to be a loss, so multiply that by 1/2 = 1/18. Now it's got to happen twice in a row, so 1/18 * 1/18 = 1/324, which just happens to be exactly once every two seasons.
But you don't have the same batters every game, so it probably happens considerably less often than that.
My guess is that one or two players has done it three times in a row.
June 26th, 2011 at 11:38 am
@2, BigYaz -- Thanks for the wake-up call on A-Gon. Two-comment penalty on me.
June 26th, 2011 at 11:41 am
@ Neil L,
You are one of my favorite posters, but bringing up Zambrano turns the TPARC (timmy p appearance and ramble [newstat-346] to.489), which is entirely too high for such an early post and such a quiet peaceful Sunday.
@ John Autin,
You, for the first time, have let me down. Bringing up that 1993 Pirates lineup was not fair. I was/am a diehard Met fan. And before Atlanta and Phillie, the Bonds/Bonilla/Van Slyke Pirates were the Mets' foil and seemed to break my heart every year. '93, was their first year of a sad decline that has never seemed to stop. Too many bad memories remembering a crumbling empire. Womack and - AND Jeff King, tsk, tsk, tsk. My last Womack-memory, (that is a funny phrase) is that he told Joe Torre, through the media, a bad idea in a Torre-centric NYC-media, that the 2005 Yankees were destined to fail, because he, he of the 72 OPS+, was being used incorrectly. I am not sure the correct way to use a Womack, but the Yankees' season did end early. Thus, at least for me, Womack was and is always right.
I always thought Jeff King was a strange player as well. A weird first pick, a guy who I could not understand why went number 1 (Billy Bean would have a lot to say on that) and embodied a lot of what I felt was a change (bad) and the start of the disparity in baseball -of the have and have nots. He played for Kansas and Pittsburg. Also King seemed the poster boy for that impossible HR surge of '96, hitting a career high '30. In '96, King, Benito santiago, Bernard Gilkey, Barry Larkin, John Jaha*, Terry Steinbach, Geronimo Berroa, Henry Rodriguez*, Ed Sprauge, Brady Anderson and Ken Caminiti, would all have their first and only 30+ HR season. Most of the players I just listed, had never hit above 20 before. It was also Todd Hundley's record breaking year, and he was out of baseball in a few years. Ellis (21 HR playing in Fenway) Burks first, not 30, but 40 season. McGwires first 50+ season, and about twelve other one dimensional power hitters' best years.
Also you have neglected, once again, Mark Reynolds, who with two walks, has reached base in 21 straight games. Every June game thus far.
I wonder the Orioles' record for consecutive games with a TOB.
@ 4 Stephen,
Just because the Phils line-up was starters, doesn't mean they were sober, well rested or motivated.
My only Giant home game, was the day after they clinched. And I was treated to replacements and call-ups. Bonds and Kent weren't even in the dugout.
@ Mustachioed Repetition,
You need two things:
1. Let me know who you are/were, and
2.Work Brian Matuz into your routine.
June 26th, 2011 at 11:42 am
@5, Dr. Doom -- FIVE-comment penalty on me for not coming up with Gibby '88 -- probably the most famous free-agent MVP (or 2nd to Dawson). Perhaps I'm still in denial....
June 26th, 2011 at 11:55 am
@10 -- Heavy lies the heart that disappoints the Duke!
FWIW, my point in listing those '93 Pirates was not to impugn them, but only to reference how long ago it was.
As for the '93 Phillies having pretty much their regular lineup in that Wakefield shutout: Where is it written that a lineup led by Lenny Dykstra could never take the field with a collective hangover? Or that a lineup thus affected wouldn't struggle to hit a butterfly?
June 26th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Whoops, the Duke already made my 2nd point. Thanks! I guess the disappointment wasn't lasting. 🙂
June 26th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Well, I guess I am not giving the Lenny crew a fair deal. I'm sure after church and eggwhites, they all studied tape on Wake's flutter and just were over matched... or perhaps...
Any thoughts on Reynolds. I wish he'd get moved up in that order.
June 26th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
@10
Gee, Duke, thanks. ~~blushes~~ But I'm still trying to learn to write like JA.
Yeah, you're write about not bringing up Zambrano. I didn't think about the consequences. I just reacted quickly to the blog. TPARC could become a much-used phrase here.
Duke, I assumed that Mustachioed Repetition was Johnny Twisto posting under a pseudonym. He challenged us to unmask him by his "verbal tics" in another thread did he not? Mustachioed Repetition, that is.
So much good stuff in the last part of your post ...... it'll take a while for me to absorb it all. Thanks for baring your Mets' soul. 🙂
June 26th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
@14, Duke -- I would agree, generally, that Reynolds should be higher in the order. It is worth noting that Bronson Arroyo (whom Reynolds faced last night from the #8 hole) does have a larger-than-average platoon split for his career, and especially this year.
It could also be that Showalter wants to "shelter" Reynolds a while longer. Let's see what happens after the break, if Reynolds is still hitting while Vladdy and Derrek are still singles hitters.
June 26th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
P.S. to Duke -- You did see my "Hardy & Reynolds" post from Friday, right? 🙂
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/12045
June 26th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
@10, @12, @14 - you all are remembering that team correctly. Still one of the few Phillies WS teams, so thankful for them 🙂
June 26th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
With the 4 MVPs mentioned in the post, and the 4 more mentioned by Dr. Doom @5, I noticed a trend of less-than-deserving MVP wins. Andre Dawson and Willie Hernandez being the most egregious. Turns out only 2 of the 8 led their league in WAR (Bonds '93 and Gibson '88). Bonds was undeniable, but Gibson barely beats out Brett Butler and Will Clark. Could there be a voting bias in favor of guys on new teams? These 8 were easy to do manually, but how could we do the reverse - determine how many WAR leaders in their first year with a new team did NOT win the MVP? Thoughts?
June 26th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
@19
" ......Willie Hernandez being the most egregious."
Stephen, no direct thoughts yet on your last question, but also scrambled to look up Willie Hernandez's 1984 season after Dr. Doom's post.
I was amazed at how "low" his WAR was in 1984, 4.8(?), (don't have the window open right now) relative to my memories (as a Jays' fan that season) of what a lead pipe cinch he was to lock down a lead when he entered the game.
Why is his WAR so low?
June 26th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
@ Stephen,
I admittedly have a soft spot in my heart for the gritty, tough, dirty, late night, devil may care, rakish, bunch of ballplayers that the '93 phils embodied.
Not coincidental that Lenny was the leader of not just that group but of also my boyhood idols and greatest rapscallioned wagon of misfits, the '86 Mets.(well maybe not leader).
reading WHEN THE BAD GUYS WON a few years back, only solidified that group of guys in the little boy section of my brain as immortal.
So sad to see that '86 club today. Carter with cancer, lenny in jail, Doc and Darryl... well... and Backman and his issues (only him and Bellycheck [coach] were coaches for a day [literally].
The only other teams I could think of that were as crazy as those Phils and those Mets that still won, were the 90 Reds and the 76-78 Yankees.
Two must reads, THE BRONX ZOO and WHEN THE BAD GUYS WON.
I admittedly only made it through half of ball four. It seemed tame compared to the other two, which I read first.
June 26th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Neil L,
Maybe the "first year MVP" phenomenon, is that it just seems that a team is better because of a 'new' guy, hence MOST VALUABLE, when in reality they are not.
As far as the low WAR of Gibby, I think his votes came from changing the teams' attitude, not necessarily his onfield play. There is a famous story, where the loose and carefree attitude of the Dodgers bothered Gibby so much, that during a spring training prank, pulled on him, he took the team to task, and converted much of a lackadaisical clubhouse into hungry players.I don't know how true that is.
There may also may be a misconception, that since he had been in the middle of two great Tiger teams, leaves them, and suddenly is on a team that is playing better, he must be the cause...
June 26th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
I'm not sure what is shown by the fact that Kirk Gibson "barely" led the NL in WAR when he won the '88 MVP. To hold that against him would seem like a bias against guys on new teams.
When a guy wins the hearts of both the "impressionistic" and the "scientific" communities, how can there be any question that he completely deserved the MVP?
As for Willie Hernandez, I, too, am surprised at his low WAR value. I'm not surprised that he didn't lead the league in WAR, but that he has barely half the WAR value of the leader (Ripken) does surprise me. Willie certainly had a great year; he led the league in games, games finished, Win Probability Added and WPA/LI, relief innings (140); had the best ERA+ and WHIP of any AL pitcher with 100+ IP; and blew only 1 save in 33 tries. He pitched 2 innings or more in 38 of his 80 games.
I know that a reliever is almost never near the top of the WAR leaders, even among pitchers. But it was a hell of a year.
June 26th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Niel L. @20,
The short answer would be because a closer pitches so few innings compared to a good starter.
The long answer: Let's look at how pitcher WAR is calculated. Replacement level is set at 1 over league average RA/9 (for starters), then adjusted for park factors and the teams defense. The pitcher's runs allowed is then subtracted from replacement level and the difference is RAR. The league/park scoring levels will determine the conversion factor from RAR to WAR.
For a reliever there are 2 differences; replacement level is 1/2 run over league average, and we have to figure in Leverage. Obviously a closer pitches mostly in late and close situations, allowing runs or not will have a much greater effect on the probability of winning than the same number of runs allowed/prevented early in a game, or in a blow out. LI (Leverage Index) measures the importance of the situation, so a run allowed/prevented when LI = 2 is equivalent to 2 runs in an average situation. But should the closer get all the credit for pitching in high leverage situations?
This brings up the issue of chaining. When a starter goes on the DL he would often be replaced by a replacement level starter from the minors. When a closer goes down his roster spot would taken by a replacement level reliever, but his closer role would be taken by the next best reliever, and everybody else would move up to the next most important role. So the setup man who averaged a LI of 1.6 would replace the closer who was averaging 2.0.
In many situations we would do just as well to rate players vs average rather than replacement level. But the area where it is most important to use replacement level is personnel moves; trades, drafts, free agent signings. In this context, you want to use chaining. RAR is multiplied by (1 + average LI)/2 before being converted to WAR. So a closer with an average LI of 2.0 gets a multiplier of 1.5 and his RAR are increased by 50%. In figuring actual results it may be better not to use chaining and to give the pitcher full credit for pitching in high leverage situations.
Since this post is so short, I'll give some numerical examples. Take RA/9 = 4.5, assume park and defense are average. A great starter might allow 2.5/9 with 243 IP. This would give him RAR = 81 and WAR = 8.1. Now take the closer with RA/9 = 1.5 over 81 innings with average LI = 2.0. RAR = 31.5. (Remember replacement level is 5.5 for the starter but 5.0 for the reliever). Full leverage raises this to 63 while chaining gets to 47.25.
I don't think that any closer season ever has deserved the MVP, and the Cy Young is very questionable.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.
June 26th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Jeff Samardzija is part of the Cubs' strategy of luring away from the NFL guys who fit the following profile:
1. Played college football, as well as baseball.
2. Come from New Jersey originally.
3. It is not clear how to pronounce their last names just by looking at them.
Along these lines, they also have Matt Szczur, an outfielder who is good enough right now to be selected for this year's Futures Game.
June 26th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
@24
"We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging."
Actually, Kds, I think a post like yours is part of the regularly scheduled blogging in here. WIll digest it later after a barbecued supper.
June 26th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
@21 Duke - Thanks for the book tips. I have read Bronx Zoo and Ball Four, but not When The Bad Guys Won. As a Phillies/Red Sox fan, I don't think I could stomach revisiting '86 in that much detail. Also think the 70's A's need a shout out for misfit teams.
June 26th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
@23 John Autin - I didn't mean to disparage Kirk or Willie, but the 8 MVPs listed here just didn't strike me as the strongest winners. I'm with @24 Kds, and don't think relievers can ever get to deserving the MVP. They just don't pitch enough.
June 26th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
@28, Stephen -- I agree on the inherent limits of reliever WAR. The highest WAR season ever by a reliever was 7.0 by Rich Gossage in 1975; he ranked 5th among AL pitchers that year (high was Tanana at 7.8), and 7th among all players (high was Carew at 8.2).
June 26th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Regarding first-year MVPs, it was obviously before the FA era, and thus a trade, but someone definitely needs to mention Frank Robinson's monster first year in Baltimore, featuring a 1.047 OPS and the Triple Crown!
There. It's been mentioned.
June 27th, 2011 at 11:31 am
@30, Shping -- Well done. Your "Get Out of Frank Robinson's Doghouse Free" card will be mailed shortly. 🙂
June 27th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
@5/ Dr. Doom Says: "... Fred Lynn, as we all remember, won in his rookie year, thus his first with a new team (1975)..."
Actually, Lynn was in his _second_ year with the Red Sox; he came up at the end of 1974 for a cup of coffee. Also, "new team" implies that he moved from one major league team to another, but the Red Sox were his original team.
@19, @22 - the "New guy on a team wins the MVP" affect; I've mentioned this before on other discussions, but this is a part of the larger trend of writers favoring the player who is the Big New Story, in MVP voting.
For example, in 2006, Ryan Howard emerged as the great new power hitter in the NL (58 HR/149 RBI), and won a close MVP vote over the previous year's winner, Albert Pujols (49 HR/137 RBI). Never mind that Pujols had the better year, unless you ignore everything but HR/RBI. Pujol's team even won the division, while the Phillies were 12 games out of the East.
It appears to me the writers went with the Big New Story in selecting Howard; or maybe they just didn't want to give the award to Pujols again.
June 27th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
I may need to support the Brewers more than the Cubs at this point, though as a non-Milwaukee resident of Wisconsin, I still think we should just give Milwaukee to Illinois and let them deal with it.
June 27th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
What's the record for being the final out in the most consecutive games?
My guess is that one or two players has done it three times in a row.
Two players have made the final out in three consecutive games so far in 2011: Michael Bourn, May 8-10, and Buster Posey, April 22-24.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
According to the Play Index, the record for the most final outs made in a season is (drum roll, please): Javier Valentín, 20, for the 2008 Reds.
Runner-up is Ed Charles, 19, for the 1964 Kansas City A's.
That is one seriously obscure stat.
June 27th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Jiffy, Jiffy, Jiffy... so many confusing flaws in your thinking!
Milwaukee has the best baseball tailgating atmosphere in the western hemisphere -- esp. with Uecker on the radio!
And maybe the Brewers don't need your support (just a stronger bench), but the Cubs sure need something, hee hee!
June 28th, 2011 at 12:49 am
@33 @36
Jiffy, Green Bay would take the Brewers in a heartbeat to prevent them from going to Chicago. 🙂
June 28th, 2011 at 4:19 am
Anyone think Sabathia is underrated by the ESPN crowd? Your info on wins, Innings pitched, and strikeouts seems conclusive to me.
June 28th, 2011 at 10:14 am
@38, Y.F. -- Yeah, it sort of seems as though Sabathia has entered a zone where everyone knows he's superb, and so he doesn't get much "play" unless he has a brilliant game or reaches some milestone.
And for as consistently good as he's been with the Yankees, he has yet to top 10 strikeouts in a pinstriped performance, or an 86 Game Score. His high Game Score this year is 78.
There aren't many pitchers whom I would believe capable of "pitching to the score," but CC might be one of them.
July 5th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
This was a very interesting read. I will definatly come back to your site and read more. Thanks