By Jake, on February 8, 2010, at 10:25 pm |
I’m still on the road – thought I’d be home by now so short post tonight. Knowing I was going to still be traveling, I put the auto timer on one of my draft posts last night while under the influence. The good part was the Wordpress auto timer worked. The bad part was I setup the wrong post. One of the folks who help me with the blog noticed I had some spelling errors and other problems which didn’t set off a red flag because all my stuff is like that anyway, so I asked him to go ahead and correct what he could.
But then I received a couple of calls asking me to pull it and that’s when I realized I had tagged the wrong post (I have three drafts with the same title). I honored the requests. Sorry for the drama.
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The Super Bowl was FAB-u-LOUS and went down as expected [...]
Continue reading: Post Super Bowl Notes
By Jake, on February 6, 2010, at 9:08 pm |
– Yusmeiro Petit was DFA’d by the Mariners Saturday and Neal Huntington better be all over him like a fly on crap. He’s a 13%+ plus curveball guy who fits PNC to a tee. I’m not as strong on Donnelly’s arm staying attached so I could see Huntington grabbing him off the wire if someone doesn’t trade for him. However, I wouldn’t trade for him.
– Saints by 6
– One reader passed along an interesting thought about the Bucs spending for Johnny Damon, but I don’t see a match.
– Saints by 6
– Several readers have sent me links to discussion forums and blogs where the Pirate Nation are attacking each other left and right over “the plan” and its viability. That’s hilarious. How ironic is it that the apologists all want everyone to wait and see if Nutting starts coughing up some dough almost a half decade from now when McCutchen gets ready [...]
Continue reading: Quick Super Bowl Notes
By Jake, on February 4, 2010, at 6:49 pm |
The story of the hour seems to be a Post-Gazette editorial written as an open letter to Bob Nutting calling for him to sell the franchise. It was signed: “Sincerely, More than a few Pirates fans”
Dear Post-Gazette,
That was 100% bullshit.
Sincerely,
More than a few Post-Gazette readers
PS: why didn’t you have “We luv Mario and Ron” t-shirts on sale next to the article for us to buy? You’re slipping!
I could go on a 500 word rant about why the piece was ridiculous and meaningless but I hope I’ve opened your senses enough over the years here to figure it out on your own.
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Mike in Pittsburgh asks: if we don’t have any pitching worth a damn in Pittsburgh right now, and we have exactly one impact bat in our entire system in Pedro Alvarez, how can we possibly ever compete if the Nuttings won’t pony up for elite free agent talent?
Good question.
It all begins with pitching so let’s take a look at our [...]
Continue reading: First contending wave? Maybe in 2022. Maybe.
By Jake, on February 3, 2010, at 9:37 pm |
The Pittsburgh Pirates had the 7th highest number of quality starts in 2010. Remember now, a quality start is defined as a start where no more than three earned runs have been allowed by the starter through at least six complete innings. Backing our starters up was a bullpen which ended the year with the 5th worst ERA and the 3rd worst winning percentage in the game.
But was the bullpen really to blame?
Below I used a very basic stat Bill James invented called Game Score to evaluate starting pitching in the division. All you have to really know about Game Score is that 50 is the mid-point and any number above that is better than average with about 50% of all starts falling in the 40 – 60 range and 20% falling below 30 or above 80 range.
As you can see from the chart on the left side below, the Bucs starters produced the third highest [...]
Continue reading: We need grade A starters, not bullpen gurus
By Jake, on February 2, 2010, at 5:18 pm |
Some aspects of the game are unforgiving. I like to think of plate discipline as one of those — either you have the ability to recognize good pitches and then put them in play, or you don’t.
The chart below uses Bill James material which I think best illustrates the uphill battle our roster faces in 2010. Looking at the chart you will notice the players name, then the area of the game evaluated, then the player’s ranking in his primary position, and then their rank across the game as a whole.
If you remember your bell curve math about as bad as I do then you’ll probably remember that 68% of the entire population fits within one standard deviation either side of the 50th percentile (between the 16th percentile and the 84th percentile).
Obviously, we want to see our players ranking at least at the 50th percentile against all MLB players and would [...]
Continue reading: Bucs: no tools in the shed to complete with
By Jake, on February 1, 2010, at 9:06 pm |
One of the most bizarre statements of the winter that I heard came from one Pirates exec when he said something to the effect of:
Our young players tasted success in the second half that we believe will serve to be their catalyst in 2010.
The ‘taste’ the exec was talking about was the August 17th – 27th homestand where we ran off a 7-2 spurt by pounding out 5 runs per game while holding the Reds, Phillies, and Brewers to under 3 runs per game. Unquestionably, it was the roster’s finest hour over a very poor season.
I’ve talked numerous times this winter about the internal debate on Federal Street regarding this very issue – some believe they have enough pitching to compete even with below average offense. But how realistic is that thinking?
No matter what side of that argument you stand on, the fact remains that our roster limped down the stretch in their last [...]
Continue reading: Bucs headed for another 100 loss season
