By Jake, on February 28, 2009, at 11:34 pm |
A win! A win! Anything for a win! But God Bless ESPN for planning an event at Disney which forced Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence and Miguel Tejada to exit the park after three innings leaving the Astros “B” squad to try and compete, and even as thin as they are they almost pulled it out late.
Still, it’s nice to see our BA climbing.. we’re now at .215 through game four. And thanks to an approaching cold front which propelled wind gusts to near 25 mph at times blowing out to left in Kissimmee, we hit four balls out of the park. Go Bucs Go! So that moved our slugging percentage ahead of our on base percentage by about .050 points.
We bad.. we bad.
Sure, pitchers are ahead of the hitters and will be for about two more weeks until their arms start feeling like they are going to fall off so we’ll wait until then to start looking a little closer at the offensive stats in earnest.
But boy-oh-boy, how about Andrew McCutchen? He’s at 5 for 10 (.500) so far in spring training. That’s five strikeouts in ten at bats and not one hit. Ouch. Maybe he’s doing too many late night chicken dances with Morgan and ole’ pop McCutchen needs to clamp down? So I hear.. so I hear.
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Bucco Blog’s first contest is up. Click the “CONTESTS!” link in the navigation bar under the top image to get involved or click this link. Perhaps you’ll take home some cold cash?
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Shhhhhhhhhh!!! Don’t look now but we’re the only team that has struck out more batters than we’ve allowed hits through four games. That’s right, now go pin your hope badges on.
While you still have a chest to pin it on.
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From the “Here We Go Again” reel, Part II:
“Otherwise, Karstens felt comfortable with his new arm slot — pitching coach Joe Kerrigan is trying to keep Karstens from raising his arm as high as he did at least season’s end — and a new sinker” Post-Gazette
Snell’s delivery tweak and now Karsten’s arm slot tweak.
BTW, I saw Karstens went two innings yesterday and the PG reported that was because his first inning of work was quick. But don’t forget, Karstens had elbow discomfort in January so I thought that sounded a bit much for him so early (30 – 40 pitches maybe?) just like Snell being allowed to throw two innings, with one a 33 pitch calamity. We’ll see where it all goes.
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I had heard at the end of January that Jarek Cunningham might get turned around and play second base in 2009 and so I posted a warning to Shelby Ford he better be watching over his shoulder on February 1st. Between the first and tenth of February I had it from a good source that may not happen, although the Bucs probably needed to be creative in finding him some at bats.
Now sixteen days after I posted that Cunningham wouldn’t get turned around, Pirateball.com is reporting the Pirates have changed their stance with him and he’s being asked to report to camp early because their plan is to have him play second.
Think I was running in circles? I was, but I don’t believe I’m the only one that was. But it’s a perfect move because that means the Pirates probably want him heading to West Virgina to open the year and it’s nothing but clear sailing up the ladder from there. It’s all up to him.
Now the question becomes, are the Pirates giving up on him at short? My guess would be no.. but he does have some health issues for the position that other players slotted for West Virginia don’t have so they will probably see how well he adapts, how his bat handles the transition, and at the same time keep an eye on D’Arnaud, Mercer, and Friday to see if they need to move him back.
I like the move. I’m not sure I understand why this decision was made in February and not November, but at least it was made.
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Here’s a nice little story about Al Oliver giving some of his time to the community. Good stuff.
By Jake, on February 28, 2009, at 12:18 am |
Well, another day, another six walks issued and shucks, what do you know, our first loss. Well, it didn’t take long to find the offensive basement.. after three games we’re hitting at the Mendoza line as a team averaging just six hits per game, our OBP is higher than our SLG, and only the Rangers and Marlins have more strikeouts.
How depressing.
The good news? Fielding behind our pitchers has been astronomical. In 120 total chances, we have a defensive efficiency ratio of .7887, third best in the game at this early point. Sure, that’s because we’re averaging 7 strikeouts per game, limiting opposing hitters to a ridiculous 5.7 hits per nine, and batters are pounding everything on the ground. Don’t expect that to continue but it’s still a nice trend to see.
Is Manny still available? Man we need some thump bad.
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All from this article at Pirateball.com:
Comedy Central:
“Snell’s stuff showing positive signs…. Snell threw a total of 49 pitches — 33 in the first frame — on his way to tossing two innings… “I thought he threw well,” manager John Russell said.”
From the “Here We Go Again” reel:
“.. it’s been his work with Kerrigan, who suggested a mechanical change in Snell’s delivery at the start of camp…” — Pirateball.com
And last but not least from the “Catcher’s are Hell” page:
Manager John Russell said – “[Snell] threw some pitches down that were borderline and didn’t go his way.”
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Ever hear of micropayments? If not, there’s a good chance you’re going to by the end of the baseball season.
Daily newspapers in one-third of the cities where an MLB team plays have either shut their doors or could within the year. In fact, there’s a good chance entire markets could be without a newspaper by October. Closer to home, Richard Scaife’s divorce trial has a few folks on edge at the Trib.
And you probably didn’t notice but when spring training started, MLB quietly shut its door at its Pressbox site, a place that had been available to the general public for years and years. R.I.P free access to media guides, one-of-a-kind statistics, and a host of other goodies many bloggers and fans freely used. Gone. Vanished.. just like Bucco Blog’s accesss to the Pirates media pool feed.
The trend for online content delivery is in the form of a micropayment system where you pay like an eighth of a cent to read one article. It’s not a new concept in the online world because back in the late ’80′s as FidoNet mail hubs, many of us charged BBS owners by the number of newsgroups they wanted delivered before the Internet even existed.
And ironically, it is the very system I proposed to VP Mark Newman at MLBlogs two years ago, but they failed to integrate their core offerings into the product and now MLBlogs is a haven of beat writers, players, broadcasters, MLB employees, and front office blogs. Good luck trying to find any of the Pittsburgh Pirates fan blogs over there.. they exist, but they are buried so deep you’re not likely to find them.
You see, MLB has learned what drives the fans.. they want to get as close to the inside as possible and are willing to pay to do that. Newspapers are learning too.. why do you think the Post-Gazette spends money on bandwidth and employee time allowing 20 to 30 fans to post hundreds of comments daily in one or two threads at the PBC blog? Or why Ogden Newspapers hired John Perrotto away to write about the Pirates on a blog? Or why Yahoo just bought into the SB Nation blogger community.
Because they all see possible revenue streams.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this is heading.. a year from now you’ll probably have to pay to read the PBC and Pirates’ coverage at the Post-Gazette online, pay to read the Bucs Dugout and Perrotto blogs, and pay to read your favorite player’s content at MLBlogs.
Perhaps instead of blogging I should open a Bucco Pass site to handle every transaction these entities are going to want your micropayments for?
By Jake, on February 27, 2009, at 12:30 am |
Last year about this time we all heard Bob Smizik proudly proclaim the 2008 Pittsburgh Pirates were going to win more than they would lose.
Then he retired after the season.
This year we have Albert Chen over at Sports Illustrated suggesting the Pirates could be a surprise team because of all the “young” talent. Yet, the only young impact prospect he mentions we might see is Pedro Alvarez, he suggests that Ryan Doumit “might” hit 20 home runs, and then proudly explains that our young pitchers are throwing baseballs at dummy hitters to get ready for the season.
But despite all that weirdness, we’re on our way fulfilling Mr. Chen’s dream with our second spring training win today which came about with our “B” squad. And to top it off, Alvarez even got his first pro hit.
Chen might be on to something.
To get there, we’re going to need some help along the way. In Thursday’s MLB.com game recap we heard:
“Starter Ian Snell, victimized by a Bixler error in the first inning, gave up two unearned runs in his two innings of work.”
Unfortunately, Snell saw quite a bit of the same type of bad luck last year which fueled a .358 batting average allowed on balls in play and a bloated 5.42 ERA. Sure, his 24.8% line drive rate didn’t help one bit, but it was more than that.. his defense didn’t defend for him.
We know Snell as a two-pitch pitcher – fastball and slider. In fact, when MLB’s available PITCHf/x data is parsed we find that Snell threw somewhere around the seventh highest number of sliders in the game last year with 801 (disclaimer: not every game was recorded by MLB and their pitch classification system was in beta).
When we compare Snell to the other twelve pitchers who threw the highest number of sliders MLB classified in 2008, we find some pretty impressive company as you can see in the cart below which is ranked by OPS allowed. And as you might expect, the higher the OPS allowed, the lower the pitcher’s defensive efficiency ratio (DER) generally ran.
Snell saw just 62.1% of all balls in play available in the PITCHf/x database turned into an out which is generally very unlucky.
Also notice that, of all the balls put in play against Snell, 29.2% were sliders, 61.1% were fastballs, and 9.7% were other pitch types. That’s important I believe because only Santana and Cueto had a lower percentage of other pitch types put in play and both of those pitchers have fastballs that run consistently two miles per hour faster, not to mention break off a bit better as well.
Yet Cueto didn’t get away with relying primarily on his fastball in the division any better than Snell did, nor were his defenders able to help him much better either.
Now if you click on the chart above a second chart will pop up for you to look at which has a lot more information like the total number of sliders thrown by each pitcher, home run, extra base, and total bases allowed per ball in play at bat, as well as batting average allowed. And don’t forget that those numbers are against MLB’s PITCHf/x database and not all games may be included.
In almost every category Snell had trouble.
Last year I focused heavily on Ryan Doumit’s poor game management skills and how badly I felt that was hurting us defensively, so I was pleased to see this week that Joe Kerrigan is going to take more responsibility in that role this year:
“But it is a bit of a change in philosophy from a year ago, when Doumit had more responsibility in creating the game plan for pitchers. This year, Kerrigan will create the plan, and Doumit will be asked to implement it.” — Pirateball.com
I never understood why Neal Huntington had allowed a rookie catcher in Doumit to create the game plans last year for a rookie pitching coach in Jeff Andrews, but that seems to be behind us now. It’s a great start and one we shouldn’t expect to see immediate results from because, don’t forget, Joe Kerrigan was out of the game and focused on another division last year.
Another factor that might help to increase Snell’s defensive efficiency is if he throws fewer four-seamers. Last year when Snell’s velocity exceeded 93 mph and a ball was put in play, right hand batters crushed him to a 1.080 OPS tune with 42% going for hits, compared to a .907 OPS for left hand batters with 35% going for hits. The rest of the time the result was in the 37% range overall.
But that 1.080 OPS is odd for Snell who has historically been tougher on right hand batters. I suspected the difference came as a result of his new overhand windup or faster motion to the plate he implemented during the season, but there wasn’t much of a change statistically. Obviously right handers were just seeing the ball out of his hand earlier than in previous years so Kerrigan has his work cut out.
Still, you don’t drop .200 points off OPS allowed without significant changes in your defensive schemes and once again in 2009 we’ll have two rookie corner outfielders and one of those with questionable knees, a near rookie in center, a rookie at the hot corner, we might as well call Doumit a rookie since he’s yet to play a full season, Freddy Sanchez who isn’t the most adept at turning double plays although Perry Hill could have a dramatic affect on him if his shoulder is indeed healthy, and Jack Wilson who has lost his first step greatness.
Nor do we know how long this core will be together because let’s not forget we’re still rebuilding and in acquisition mode.
So we have to be realistic.. we have to understand 2009 is yet another developmental year where field staff that has been out of the game get their bearings back, our younger players get some developmental innings under their belt, our GM and his troops correct their freshman mistakes, and everyone starts all over learning to play together as a team.
If indeed Albert Chen’s vision is to become a reality, we’ll probably need a little extra push from the baseball gods.
By Jake, on February 26, 2009, at 12:27 am |
Nice win for the Bucs on the opening day of spring training. And hey, how about that guy named Shelby Ford? Good stuff. I also saw Alvarez struckout swinging on three straight pitches and Capps walked three.. don’t read too much into early spring training events. But it is worth noting that Alvarez is going to have a harder road to hoe because of his projection, as well as the way he held out before signing.
The key to early spring? Stay healthy. Oh, and have fun dreaming about the kids.
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John Perrotto mentioned at BP today that the Nats were looking at replacing Jim Bowden with Tony LaCava. Perrotto went on to say:
“Commissioner Bud Selig reportedly has given Nationals president Stan Kasten permission to hire LaCava without interviewing minority candidates because of the special circumstances of a change of GMs being necessitated after spring training has started.”
Perrotto’s report caused Rob Neyer, the Seattle Times, Baseball Musings, AOL Fanhouse, MLB Trade Rumors, SI, and a host of other blogs and media sources to bite.
But the Washington Post came out a couple hours after Perrotto’s release and basically said Perrotto’s article was “crap” .. parts were untrue.. there was no merit.. whatever.
And for those that have emailed, I have zero clue about the Nat’s problems and don’t know anything about LaCava heading to Washington. But it makes sense.
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Speaking about BP, here’s another fab-u-lous article by Joe Sheehan. Focus on the message, not the team. Joe gets it.. the Bucs clearly don’t, at least, not yet.
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Isn’t it “neat” to watch fans of other teams go through the same PR misery we did? It took us five years to understand front office PR lingo.. M’s fans will learn it soon too. Should we feel sorry for them?
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By golly, CHONE has the Pirates at 73-89 and then owning the 5th pick in the 2010 draft. Amazing considering that’s only about a -70 run difference (710 runs scored, 780 runs allowed, for example).
Oh, but wait, they also have us listed with the 29th best power ranking.
Hmm..
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Lots of PITCHf/x requests have been coming in and I’ll try to post a couple each night. I’ll start tonight with the breakdown of pitch locations that went for hits by left and right hand batters. As I move through the series I’ll eventually get to each pitcher as some of you want.
Here’s left hand batter hit locations from ’08:
And right hand batter hit locations in ’08:
Focus on the quadrant corners which are pretty much bare except low and inside to right hand batters. In a few days I’ll be posting balls/strike calls and you’re going to see one reason why those quads might seem a bit empty.. we’re more apt to see a squeezed zone in Pittsburgh and it appears the other clubs know that.
You might also notice all the middle/middle-in extra base hits. Ouch.
Lots of meat down the pike in ‘dem photos.
By Jake, on February 25, 2009, at 12:29 am |
Over the last four years, pitchers developed in our farm system graduated to Pittsburgh and then became test subjects for our pitching coaches. Jim Colborn wasn’t satisfied with some of the mechanical traits 3A pitching coach Jeff Andrews installed, so he changed them, Andrews moved up and de-tweaked Colborn’s work, didn’t get good results so he attempted new tweaks, and now Joe Kerrigan has a new tweak of his own in mind..
.. to pitch more inside.
Before we go any further I think it’s critical to understand the Pirates have three potential “power” starters who have demonstrated in the bigs they can throw a better than average fastball (91 mph or better) inside consistently: Ian Snell, Jason Davis, and Ross Ohlendorf. Everyone else is in the average to below average range, or they haven’t thrown enough above 3A to qualify here.
“Throwing inside to a hitter is at the heart of aggressive pitching… If you teach a hitter that you’ll throw inside — if he knows that — then his whole approach to facing you is quite different… A lot of young pitchers in the big leagues right now are afraid to throw inside. This fear invites a hitter to dig in and dominate the outer part of the plate.” — Nolan Ryan’s Pitcher’s Bible
As we all know and Ryan suggests, pitching inside simply adds another element to the batter’s conscious level while in the box.. one that typically makes him uncomfortable. Back in Bob Gibson days we would generally see an 0-2 pitch thrown high and tight and then followed up with a slider low and away for the strikeout because the batter was still sweating from the 0-2 close call.
But times have changed. Joe Torre said not too long ago that “we’re more sensitive” about inside pitches today. Next time you see someone throw under a batter’s chin, watch and see if that batter doesn’t come up with glassy eyes staring the pitcher down with a murderous glance. And if the pitcher throwing the ball happens to be on a 90+ loss type team going nowhere, you can expect benches to clear.
So before we go any further, let me answer the most asked question since Kerrigan was hired: do the Pirates actually throw less frequently inside, and if so, to what degree.
To answer that question I had to first make a decision on what “inside” really meant. As we all know the plate is 17″ wide and jumps to 20″ because any part of the ball that crosses over the white part of the plate is theoretically a strike. John Walsh found umpires calling a 24″ wide zone and I suppose that means they are including “the black” area around the plate as part of the zone, but that isn’t rulebook correct.
So for this post we’ll use Walsh’s 24 inch width finding and use all pitches that are 3.6 inches (0.3 * 12 inches) or closer on the side of the plate closest to the batter. In PITCHf/x terms that means all pitches less than -0.7′ to right hand batters and all pitches greater than 0.7′ to left hand batters on the px line.
Now to answer the above question, yes, the Pirates did throw 9.0% (304) fewer inside pitches in 2008 as compared to the average number thrown by all other 29 teams. That’s equivalent to 1.8 fewer per game. The issue doesn’t sound like such a big deal when you think of it across 162 games, does it? But don’t let that fool you because there is too much bias floating around that 1.8 figure.
Better yet, let’s take a look at what happened last year when we did throw inside versus the MLB league average:
(Notes: LHB is against left hand batters, RHB is against right hand batters, and BiP is balls in Play.)
Holy Moly, no wonder we weren’t pitching inside as much.. we were absolutely smoked when we did. In fact, we were so scared to throw inside strikes to right hand batters we ended up throwing/having called about 8% more balls when we tried.
But perhaps that is Kerrigan’s real goal? Not to get them to throw more inside per se, but to get them comfortable throwing more strikes inside? I can just see our opposing team’s licking their chops as I write that.
Obviously pitching inside isn’t going to be the answer across the board. As I noted above, Snell, Ohlendorf, and Davis are the only starters who have enough heat to throw inside effectively because major league batters can easily turn on an 88 mph heater up and in. And they did, as evidenced above.
And look at that insane .937 OPS left hand batters enjoyed feasting off our inside pitching. We could probably start a high school pitcher and get better results than that. Ok, maybe not, but you get the idea. That’s embarrassing and clearly demonstrates the lack of “pitching inside” tools our collective pitching roster has.
Now don’t think for a second our pitchers don’t have these stats at their disposal.. they do. They know if they get mauled coming in or not so I doubt seriously anything Kerrigan tries to push on them is going to make a difference one way or another. See the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse culture book, Chapter 16: ”We run the show and do what the hell we want, and dang if you are going to devalue us even more” on page 63.
Don’t expect more inside pitching overall except, perhaps, early in the year, and even then probably only from Ohlendorf, Snell, Davis, and maybe Gorzelanny. Oh, but watch them all try their best throwing inside during the spring.. and get away with it to boot.
Here’s the location of every ball in play by a left hand batter against Snell last year that resulted in runs scored:
By Jake, on February 24, 2009, at 12:20 am |
I’ll be on a camping trip with my five year old when this posts so if anything interesting has happened in Pirate Land since 3 PM, I won’t be covering it tonight.
Fast tidbits..
Lots of email asking about Neil Walker and the comments here have also questioned where he’s going to land. The Bucs keep saying they want the extra depth at as many positions as possible so don’t look for him to be moved anytime soon.
I did see Moskos’ blog – thanks to everyone that left a shout. He’s opened a can of worms over there so tip your hat to him for at least trying to get past all the fan disappointment that he’s a Buc. Funny thing about him, I believe I was the only person on planet Earth that suggested we’d take Detwiler or Moskos over Weiters if the Bucs weren’t going to pony up for high school talent like like Main, Porcello, Parker, or Harvey. Funny how things turn out sometimes.
It sure is erie quiet on the Doumit front. Hmm..
This early start to spring training isn’t good. I wonder what the toll will be in September on the younger players?
Ouch.. the Dow crashed again Monday, but even more than I expected. Ogden Nutting’s stock in United Bankshares is taking a major beating, now down below $15. Considering they are spending like mad at 7-Springs, trying to stay afloat in the newspaper business, and just finished buying out McClatchy, you can’t help but wonder if USBI stock continues to slide under $10 if Nutting will immediately call for major cost cuttings on Federal Street. And if we take that one step further, what happens if ticket sales go below the magic 1.4M range? Even worse, if they go below 1.4M AND lose 90+ in ’09, there might be some butts headed out the door not to mention little money spent in the draft. Very depressing for a club in major rebuilding stages. Should we start expecting a high number of high school draftees in rounds 3 – 50 in ’09? Maybe. Maybe.
By Jake, on February 23, 2009, at 12:47 am |
Question: When a Pirates’ pitcher threw a curve that was put in play, did it result in an out more or less frequently than the MLB league average?
Answer: 3.4% more likely to be an out overall. Funny thing, the split on that is 4.2% away from PNC and 0.8% at PNC, yet the pitch was called more often at PNC.
Go figure.
Considering Duke and Maholm combined to throw 58.6% of all curves last year, and considering the 3.4% higher out rate, you would think the front office would be looking high and low for some more southpaws with plus curveballs.
Something to think about.
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Talking about something to think about, let’s look a bit deeper into Andy LaRoche’s current condition with a couple of media reports:
“Slowly but surely, Pirates third baseman Andy LaRoche is making his way back onto the field … [t]hough LaRoche did not take part in full-squad workouts for the fourth straight day Sunday…
As for the initial injury, LaRoche said that he is hopeful that prescribed exercises will be enough to prevent any further spasms… A doctor gave LaRoche a list of exercises to prevent similar issues from arising down the road, and LaRoche stuck with those exercises through the 2008 season. When he didn’t have any further back issues during ’08, though, he stopped doing the exercises.” – Pirateball.com
“The younger LaRoche was diagnosed with a protruding disk in 2007 and spent much of the next two years doing an exercise regimen patterned strictly to alleviate and prevent further problems. He admitted that he got away from the exercises, though now — after battling spasms and taking anti-inflammatory medication late last week — he is returning to the regimen, he said.” – Post-Gazette
“My back felt great and this offseason I didn’t really stick with (the exercises) like I should,” LaRoche admitted. “I guess the doctors were right when they said I’ll have to stick with them for the rest of my career.”‘ — TribLive
Hmm.. now let’s see if we understand this correctly.
The Pirates accepted LaRoche in the trade last year knowing he had a back problem, they knew LaRoche passed on surgery to repair the disc, LaRoche certainly had to have told them in his intitial physical that he was using a prescribed exercise routine to prevent future injury, they had to have known he continued the exercises all through 2008, and then the young man just stopped doing the exercises on his own accord.
And now he’s broken down.
All this caught my attention and so I immediately emailed Dan Fox for an interview who was brought in to assist the Pirates in turning ”the mountains of data at their disposal into information that is actionable” (Dan’s quote from the Glass Eye blog at GantDaily.com.).
But Dan wasn’t available.
Too bad, because one of the questions I had for him was – how far along are you in replacing Lotus Notes? Laugh all you want, but that’s what the Bucs had in place a few years ago and what I assume Dan found when he checked in to the Pirates motel.
But anyway, unless you happen to keep a book on the players and team like I do, some of the things recently reported in the media might skip right past you like these tidbits:
“The team’s offseason conditioning program has included more face-to-face visits from strength coach Frank Velasquez and his staff than during new management’s first offseason. “We’re not just giving everyone a plan and calling them,” president Frank Coonelly said. “We’re more proactive.”‘ – Post-Gazette
“LaRoche and hitting coach Don Long worked out a plan: They would meet regularly through the offseason, including LaRoche flying to Long’s home near Seattle to spend a few days there, to address a timing issue between LaRoche’s upper and lower body during his swing.” — Post-Gazette
What was missing, of course, was the timing issue between the Pirates and LaRoche’s medical condition.
I mean, either the Pirates failed to stamp LaRoche’s winter plan with bright red ink on the front page that said: “WARNING.. report all proposed changes to your prescribed exercise program before implementing the same”, or they did and Long and Velasquez, if he even visited LaRoche, knew about it.
Or they even cared to look in Fox’s new and improved data warehouse to see if anything was there.
So much for Frank Coonelly’s proactive BS as it appears the Pirates failed Andy LaRoche much like they did in the past with Freddy Sanchez, Matt Capps (nice article in that link by the way), Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Oliver Perez, and the list goes on and on…
Sure, he might only be down a week or so.. maybe he plays the rest of the year. Who knows. But he slipped through a crack in the Pirates “accountability” system that shouldn’t have been there and, if he slipped, you can bet a lot of other things are slipping through too.
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“Russell also said today that Phil Dumatrait, who is scheduled Monday for his third mound appearance (35 pitches or more) since shoulder surgery last August, will be built up the same as a potential starter through spring.” — Post-Gazette
Damn red flags flying everywhere.
It’s good they are stretching him out, but it sure seems to me that they are letting Dumatriat pull a Sean Burnett (I wanna start, I gotta start, I’m gonna prove I’m ok). They need to slow down with him before they lose the kid. See Tom Gorzelanny in ’08.
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And yes, I heard Perrotto posted some garbage statistics about the Pirates winning percentage when the pitcher batted 8th last year, and then he stated that made a strong case for doing it again this year.
Goodness gracious John.
It must have been done for attention because Perrotto knows better. I like the guy’s work, I just don’t like Nutting hiding behind him. I’m not going to plug his site until Nutting finally puts a disclaimer up over there stating Perrotto is being paid indirectly by the Pirates majority owner.
But you know what was even funnier about the entire thing? Smizik then picked up Perrotto’s garbage and ate it, then Dejan fed Smizik’s regurgitation to his masses.
The Larry, Moe, and Curly circle of dysfunction. The only thing missing now is Paul Meyer and a dose of Robbie boy.
In a related note, the publisher of the The Philadelphia Inquirer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If they have as many personal agenda articles over there that we are seeing in Pittsburgh print, it’s no wonder.
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7000 Dow? Easily. 6500? Probably the bottom. Buy time? 6750. What to buy? Damn good question, but it won’t be bank stocks for me.
By Jake, on February 21, 2009, at 10:57 pm |
Quick – Snell has a 3-2 count on a right hand batter with a man at third in the 9th, ahead by one run and with one out. What does he throw needing a strikeout.. a change, a fastball, or a slider?
Sure, a slider.. his “plus-plus when it spins” pitch.
Second quick question.. of the three main pitches that Snell throws, slider, fastball, and change, which one does he get the fewest swing and misses on regardless of which side of the plate the batter stands?
If you said fastball, you’re right. Imagine that, a 7% swing and miss rate against RHB and 4% against LHB. Not what I expected to find.
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“I can’t believe you’re spending all this time and effort on analyzing the Pirates. All you need to do is analyze the trades of Jason Bay and Nady/Marte for which we got absolute garbage in return. And, in the cases of Bay and Nady, those weren’t trades of players whose contracts were expiring at the end of 2008, as Bay was still to be under contract for short money in 2009 and Nady was due arbitration money for 2009. And still we got nothing.
That shows that we have about as inept a new GM as anyone in the history of MLB. Therefore, any attempt to analyze the team or support the team will only result in complete and utter frustration. No thanks. Baseball is dead to me, as it should be for anyone who might otherwise have followed the Pirates, the laughingstock of this country’s baseball fans. My condolences to any player who has the misfortune of playing in this “organization”.
Andre’s comment here the other day.
Obviously it’s much too early to call the Bay trade a disaster since Morris and Tabata have huge upsides and are still in development, and even LaRoche and Hansen have chances at being impact players.
But what I believe I hear Andre complaining about is more that the Bucs had an offensive power machine working for them before making the trades, they had the ability to continue at least another year with that same cast at still reasonable costs, and had the same pitching core the front office today claims should be good enough to win with.
In that regard, Andre has a point.
Personally, I didn’t like the Bay trade, didn’t like the Nady deal, didn’t like the Torres dump, didn’t like losing Todd Redman for Yates, haven’t liked any of the contract extensions expect for Maholm’s, (I could keep going but won’t) and I keep questioning the direction of our short-term plan.
But I want to make it perfectly clear about something, before Neal Huntington was brought in I talked to some folks in Tony LaCava’s camp, I talked to some folks around Frank Wren’s camp, and I talked to numerous others around the game during Bob Nutting’s one-year evaluation sabbatical.
And they all said the exact same thing, albeit with different visions – the club had to shed payroll by getting younger, had to rebuild, and had to put more emphasis into scouting and player development.
Now we could split hairs on whether LaCava might have been able to wrestle more for Bay, or whether Wren might have pushed a different short-term goal, or for that matter if Chuck Greenberg’s vision would have been different.
But the reality is, we have Coonelly and Huntington with Coonelly pushing his plan down Huntington’s throat, we have a club that is trying to get on track in scouting and player development, the short-term plan allows for a few tickets to be sold, and we have a couple of upside guys acquired in the trades that might be able to help the club in the long-term.
Instead of rooting for Littlefield’s 289 Ford Falcon in the quarter-mile each game day, we now have a sleek Corvair with a Chevy 327 missing on three of it’s cylinders. Now, can our pit boss and his camp ever determine if it’s the rings, cap, wires, plugs, or rotor causing the misses?
Andre seems to believe they already blew the engine up and out of the race for good, and he’s refusing to look back as he walks off. I think Andre had to know we didn’t have a contender in 2007, nor in 2008 even with Bay, and won’t have one in 2009 or even 2010 without a ton of cash thrown into the ring on top of a Bay or two.
So why is he here complaining? He’s frustrated at the Pirates short-term plan which isn’t going to yield anything but more frustration for him. He’s not drinking the Kool-Aid.. he knows the score. Yet, he obviously wants something more immediate or he wouldn’t be wasting his time on this rinky-dink blog expressing himself.
Andre is a perfect example of the remaining fan base.. long on patience but needing gratification to justify the years and years of eternal hope wasted on too much talk, and too little action.
He’s earned his right to do the talking now.
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John Russell extended. That’s a no brainer as GM’sand managers are typically tied at the waist. And it was a smart move because he was coming under fire inside with folks wondering if Kerrigan or others might only be around because they had been promised more of a role down the road.
But how shaky is the foundation for this extension?
I’ve assumed all along Huntington had a three-year deal which would mean his contract would be up after the 2010 season. I’ve also assumed from what I heard that Huntington is going to get an extension this spring to take him through the 2011 season, but that’s a long way off for Nutting to be granting anyone carte-blanche rebuilding control in my book.
Here’s hoping we revisit the extension idea next year at this time.
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Hey, Kris Benson caught a ride with the Rangers. Good for him. I think there is more in Kris’ tank this year than many believe, but it’s going to take time for it to come out. Look for him to be up helping that club by June or July.
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Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. I mentioned to an ex-scout that I saw some video on Jordy Mercer pitching and walked away impressed. I wondered aloud if the Pirates ever had a plan to make him a closer and was told I’ve been following a losing team for too long to even consider that.
He was right, of course. But I tell you, that young man has an impressive arm.
I also had a chance to review some film on Robbie Grossman and Wesley Freeman and I have to tell you, I don’t understand why Grossman is getting top billing in the prospect charts over Freeman.
He’s got bat speed to die for, envious big-man foot speed, he crushes the ball like Eldred did, decent plate discipline, and he can really cover some ground defensively considering his size.
Color me impressed. Grossman’s tools are obvious and why everyone can project him.. Freeman has sneaky tools few others will ever get sold on, but from what I saw from early last year he’s waaaayyyy better than Grossman. Of course, 20 innings of video or so isn’t a whole lot so don’t write home to mom just yet.
But put this in your book – I believe Freeman is going to walk past Grossman from what I saw. Give him two years.
Both prospects are impressive (B quality potential).
By Jake, on February 21, 2009, at 1:04 am |
Bucco Blog is going to have monthly contests between March 1st and the end of the season where you can win monthly prizes and the top ten winners each month will accumulate points toward the grand prize of no less than $500 at the end of the season.
That’s right, cold hard cash.
The idea is simple.. each monthly contest will have one grand prize (like game tickets or gift cards) that can be won. If more than one party qualifies to win the prize, they each get equal shares of that prize, not an equivalent prize. Sorry, you guys would bankrupt me if I did that.
The winner also will get a higher number of points (for instance, 50 points) added to their Bucco Bank, second through tenth place finishers will also get points (for instance 20 – 40 points), and everyone who participates will receive like 10 points.
At the end of the year the person who has the most points in the bank will win the grand prize which will be no less than $500 cash. I suspect the grand prize might grow over the season since a couple of business owners have already said they would like to participate.
More later this month.
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Over the next few weeks I’m going to be pushing a lot of stats at you since fantasy baseball is heating up and I’m getting more and more requests for data.
To get you going, here’s a query against the MLB PITCHf/x data set which shows the percentage of fastballs thrown by four of our starters inning-by-inning last year as against the MLB average:
Get used to these type of charts because I’m going to be using them a lot. For instance, using your mouse you can identify any value by pointing your mouse at an anchor (one of the dots in any of the lines above).
We can readily see from the chart above that our four main starters last year threw a fastball three out of every four pitches in the first inning. That’s pretty typical as the MLB league average was 78.4% as you can see. But look at Gorzelanny’s line.. that’s quite an overreliance and we’ll see how that hurt him down the road. At the same time, Snell had an underreliance but that’s somewhat expected as he only has two better than average pitches and he throws his slider a lot.
At the end of this post are charts showing our projected starting five pitchers and their percentage of pitch types thrown inning-by-inning for you to look at. Eventually I’ll have one page per player so you can view all of their material a lot easier. And during the season I’ll be updating each player’s page after each game.
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You know, if season ticket holders pay their way to get down to Bradenton the Bucs should provide them spring training tickets for free. Heck, every team should be doing that right now.
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Pedro Alvarez’s new nickname floating around the circuit: Chung King. I guess a few folks still think he’s a bit slippery.
I heard an interesting scouting report on him today from a scout who had broken him quite a few times since high school days and he said the Pirates will probably eventually move him to left. Not first, not third, but left. He said it shouldn’t happen right away because he believes Alvarez has more than enough range and glove to handle the hot corner right now, but he thinks left is where he will eventually land down the road. Oh yeah, and he said his bat will play right now in Pittsburgh.. he doesn’t see him riding buses very long.
Interesting stuff.
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Here’s the charts:
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