Who said Lou Piniella is a fool?
Remember when the Rays were having such a hard time winning ballgames with their starters in 2005? Piniella joked what was needed was to start the games with his relievers. He never did and he eventually left the Rays later that year.
Fast forward to the Bucs Friday night game against the Dodgers and six relievers combined to hold LA to seven hits and one run. Ok, maybe it was because they didn’t get to their hotel until 3 AM Friday morning? Or maybe it was because they came in expecting to win?
Naw, it was because our mighty bullpen (8.20 ERA last five games). Right? Yeah, right.
The odds? The Bucs went off at 185 at Bodog where I hang my hat. No, I didn’t jump on it. I wanted to, but I didn’t.
So how about Moss – a little two-out flair that drops in at Manny’s feet scoring the two go-ahead runs in the third? LOL, talk about some luck especially since the inning should have been already over except for Loney’s misplay on Doumit’s ground ball. Stuff happens, huh?
And how about Donnie Veal? Two innings and three big K’s. You know a team is offensively challenged when Veal causes them some distress. Or Capps, for that matter.
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I’ve been hammering the defensive play of Lastings Milledge in left field for a couple of months now and today I received an e-mail asking me to review a few plays. They also outlined why they felt Milledge was doing an average job defending left, if not better. So I looked at the games and reviewed their data and then did some additional research. I already knew that zone based statistics like Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) had Milledge about one win above average for us but I’ve long learned that defensive metrics are pretty much pookie other than for comparing the average Joe to the league average guy since that doesn’t tell me if the league average guy is any good or not.
What I did know was that my fan-based scouting senses (video only) told me Milledge gets poor jumps, runs below-average routes, has a below-average arm, and is occasionally slow to the ball.
The chart below shows two types of events for our left fielders over the last two years – an opposing at bat where the ball in play was hit to left field (and fielded by the left fielder) and it resulted in at least one run batted in, or an at bat to left which resulted in at least one total base. Both are broken down into sub-events like 1 rbi or total base, 2 rbis or total bases, and 3 rbis or total bases.
Read the chart like this (first row) – there were 348 balls in play against Pirate pitching in the Bay era which resulted in 1 RBI and 86 of them were fielded by Bay which gave him a 24.7% rate. As you can see, the Morgan era was by far the best in reducing opposing rbi’s on balls fielded in left as he had a 15.5% rating, which was well below MLB average in left. Milledge, on the other hand, rated better than Bay but not as good as the Morgan or Moss/Morgan/Michaels eras.
Milledge also rates better than every era except the Morgan era in the reduction (is it really reduction??) of 2 RBI plays and is well below the combined average of 22.1% for all other 2 RBI eras. There isn’t much data available to look at for 3 RBI plays but you can see Milledge is taking a beating there by a longshot. Funny, there never was a 3 RBI play with Bay in left (2008 and 2009 data), or with Morgan.
You can also see Milledge is fielding a higher rate of singles than anyone else did except Bay, where he’s nearly identical. The same is nearly true on doubles and triples.
(edit 09/26 in the AM: I added the MLB average column to the chart below since a few asked for the numbers.)
Realize that there are numerous differences in each of the era’s like positioning, pitchers, parks, time in the season, and a whole lot more. I don’t even try to account for those in this – it’s a raw look.
But raw as it is, it still tells us a story - whatever the reasons why, balls in play fielded in left the last two years which resulted in at least one rbi or total base suggest that the Milledge era is seeing average results across the board as compared to the other three Pirates’ eras. The Morgan era was clearly the best.
Other research I did also suggests the same thing – so far he is a league average defender. Does that mean the range based stats are off suggesting he is almost a +1 win defender in left? Well, I don’t see it and the numbers don’t support it on my end. His numbers are improving but the sample size for just September are a bit too low to get a good handle on.
So I stand corrected Mr. Milledge.. we are not bleeding runs in left because of your poor defense. However, your not exactly helping us save runs either as I expect from your speed so in that regard, I’m moving you down a tick to below-average because I expect more. Morgan did a hell of a job and I’d bet a dime to your dollar Neal Huntington probably wishes he hadn’t made that deal.
I’ll put up center and right field numbers over the weekend or first of the week.
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Pedro Alvarez was named Minor League Player of the Year and Rudy Owens Minor League Pitcher of the Year Friday by the Bucs. Owens I understand, but Alvarez after all the grief we went through with him???
Puh-lease.
Jonathan Lucroy, Eric Fryer, and Chase D’Arnaud all had solid offensive years. Neither did what Alvarez did with the bat but, then again, none of them were expected to either. Matt McSwain (sub-3 xERA) also had a great year.
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Team USA won again and Alvarez went 2-4. They play Cuba Sunday in the gold medal game.
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The Pirates minor league system finished 23rd in the win-loss column for the year. I see Tom Kotchman’s Orem Owlz had the 5th best record overall (51-25) and won the Pioneer League Championship. Huntington needs to get serious and go after Kotch.. if it’s not too late.
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Hey, hey, hey, I’m winning my first round playoff in MLB’s fantasy challenge.
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