By Jake, on July 22, 2009, at 8:01 pm |
Man, what a fab-u-lous series. Good pitching, good defense, and streaky hitting – but nothing was finer than Moss’ blast in the 9th Wednesday. Andy LaRoche – numerous defensive plays that made you think mini-Brooks Robinson; Freddy Sanchez – numerous offensive and defensive no-shows; 4.1 stellar innings of scoreless relief which is becoming the norm lately; and scoring more than 10% of the entire month’s runs in one game.
Oh, and knocking the Brewers out of third place in the division. That alone was worth the price of season tickets right there.
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But the talk of the day was the trade of Adam LaRoche for a couple of minor leaguers. First, about LaRoche – Dave Cameron summed him up at Fangraphs by saying:
Continue reading » Sweet revenge – walkoff series win
By Jake, on June 6, 2009, at 11:42 pm |
Ole’ Charlie Reliford sure squuuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeezed the corners on pitchers through the first few innings. I don’t remember ever seeing that from him but I might be mistaken. That resulted in a lot of squarely hit balls in play and that resulted in quite a few runs and a few errors, although none were ever called against us.
So you could say when our streakiness got going we even had a few nice clutch hits. McCutchen’s two-out single just under Berkman’s glove in the second scoring two was huge, as was Wilson’s two-out double in the third. Of course, in the second inning three runs were set up with a one out walk on strike three, a second out fly out, and then Maholm’s hit off Oswalt’s glove which got Cutch to the plate and the ball under Berkman’s glove. The third inning wasn’t much friendlier to the Astros – a ball off Kepplinger’s glove, a single, an rbi double into the corner, an rbi ground out for what should have been the third out, and then Wilson’s double scoring the third run.
At least only one of our errors, er blunders, came back to haunt us. In the first inning Tejada ground one to Sanchez who played it off his side and it shot past him for a single. Pence then crushed the next Maholm pitch halfway to the moon it seemed. Lee then doubled on a catchable line drive to right center that went off McCutchen’s glove, but thankfully he was eventually stranded.
But the most bizarre play of the day occurred in the 8th.
Continue reading » Maholm FINALLY gets a win
By Jake, on January 25, 2009, at 12:02 am |
I’ve been enjoying all your emails about Piratefest and the caravans. That’s good stuff. Sure the team isn’t quite where we want them to be but you still have to stand behind the organization. I’m glad to see many of you are participating.
Get out and feel gushy about the Pirates!
While you can.
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Numerous emails about media reports in San Francisco and other places reporting there is a trade in the works – Adam LaRoche for Jonathan Sanchez. And some reports even have us getting another player with Sanchez.
How bizarre.
I don’t know any possible way my post about that trade idea could have been construed as something I heard whispered in the circuit, which it obviously wasn’t. As it all unraveled I found out how the rumor started becoming a fact.. it was being pushed by someone in the Pittsburgh area who is a master at rumors. Needless to say, I’m learning from the seat of my pants how some folks in the media fraternity like to play hardball with others outside that good old boy network.
Live and learn.
And no, I haven’t heard any whispers about Adam LaRoche being traded. Or Matt McSwain either (you can rest at ease Rev. McSwain).
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Jack Wilson dissed Piratefest and the fans. Hilarious. Gee, I guess we can count on his great attitude helping the club in 2009. Huntington needs to wake him up by letting Bixler break camp with the team.
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The new jerseys are pretty kewl. Sleeves are a must – the players have been complaining about the sleeveless jerseys for way too long. And thank gosh all of McClatchy’s red is finally gone.
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I’m pretty involved in a swing-and-miss study right now and thought I’d post the Pirates rates for the last seven years.
The chart below shows how many opposing batter’s plate appearances had either 0, 1, 2, or 3 swing-and-misses over each year. 2004 is highlighted because it stands out as the Pirates best in the seven year span.
What you need to focus on is the consistent reduction of three swing-and-miss plate appearances.. from 0.9% in 2004 to 0.5% (it was actually 0.49% but is rounded in the chart) in 2008. As you can plainly see, as that rate fell, so did K/PA while the team ERA also rose.
This is important because the new regime has preached about swing-and-miss rates since taking over and have continued that theme by trying to add “power” arms ever since.
Obviously it will be next to impossible for the 2009 staff to go any lower than 0.49%. Not only is that the worst performance by a Pirates staff since 2002, it was also second lowest in the game to the Orioles in 2008 who had a ridiculous 0.27% — the lowest of all 210 team staffs since 2002.
Now granted, the overall number difference between a 0.9% and a 0.5% rating isn’t very many batters.. about 20 fewer strikeouts on three swing-and-misses over the entire year. That doesn’t sound like much at all, does it? It’s not.. you’re right. But the significance is enormous, as I’ll show you when I post the study.
Also you should know that three swing-and-miss strikeouts are declining year-by-year anyway. I assume that has more to do with improved video, the push for moneyball’ish type of contact hitters, and probably the growing lack of experience in catchers. The Reds had the highest rate in 2008 with a 0.83% and they just broke the 85 percentile of all 210 staffs since 2002.
But interestingly, we’re not seeing more and more clubs at the bottom of the pile, although the 2008 Orioles were quite the exception to the rule. Instead, the game is seeing less fluctuation between staffs and more hovering around the median since 2002. It’s pretty fascinating stuff.
Lastly, I think it’s important to recognize the value of an experienced catcher. I can’t emphasis it enough – Ryan Doumit’s presence behind the plate has hurt our staff a lot more than any of you could ever imagine. And it’s getting worse instead of better, contrary to public opinion.
Look at the huge decline in our stats from 2004 to 2005. Jason Kendall was handling the staff in 2004 and Ryan Doumit caught about 50 games in 2005. Sure, we had a pretty rough pitching staff in 2005.. I agree. But so did we in 2006 with all the rookies but we still improved some. Right, Doumit only caught a hand full of games.
And no, it wasn’t all Ryan Doumit’s fault.. but when you see how much the stats tilted when he was in the game vs. when he wasn’t, you’ll get a better picture. This isn’t an anti-Doumit thing because I realize like you do we’re stuck with him back there no matter what now. But it is what it is.. some offensive catchers don’t hold much positive value when it’s all said and done.
As I narrow down the performances across numerous stats by catcher experience in the league like the percentage of called strikes, value of balls put in play, number of runs allowed by the battery, and the like, you’re going to be rather shocked how much a catcher actually plays into a team’s defense.
We’ll monitor stats like these to evaluate Neal Huntington and his field staff over time. Right now there isn’t any place to go but up so expect to see a rebound in pitching performances. If the bats come around and we see more Baseball God luck than not during the year, we might be able to make a run for the Astros and fifth place.
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Nate the Great a bit dissappointed the Bucs didn’t come running with a long term deal? I think he’ll get one but they will wait him out to see if he was a one-year wonder or not. That’s good for Nate and good business sense.
By Jake, on January 20, 2009, at 11:41 pm |
Adam LaRoche inked on a one-year for $7MM. That’s about right in his last year of club control and considering his defense has really tumbled since hitting Pittsburgh. And I’m glad to see the Pirates didn’t wrap him into a two-year deal expecting to keep him around.
So, who takes his place in July when he’s dealt?
Steve Pearce? Highly doubtful.
Ramon Vazquez? Naw.
Adam Boeve? Hmm, doubtful.
Andy Phillips? Hmm, slight chance but doubtful too.
Garrett Jones? Hmm, mayyyybe.
Jason Delaney? Even more doubtful.
How about Brandon Moss? Yep, Brandon Moss.
I assume he hasn’t played any infield since high school days, but with his knees, our lack of depth at first in the organization, and a few corner outfield potentials starting to line up, why not? And if you noticed anything about his defense last year in Pittsburgh, you probably saw he isn’t the slickest cover guy there is. But boy could he handle balls on the turf, even as big as he is.
Just thinking out of the box.
(Edit – I was just doing my normal rounds of the baseball sites for possible news inclusion and noticed the ZIPS projections for the Pirates were out and they listed Moss at 1B. Maybe everyone but me knew he played infield in high school?)
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Zack Duke.. $2.2MM first year of arb.
** Jake scratches his head and wonders where “Mr. Arb” Frank Coonelly was in all this **
Wow. Now that’s what I call a severe overpay despite his numbers down the stretch.
Grabow and Yates got ok money for their craft.
And for Maholm and McLouth, I think Maholm will settle in the $3.3MM range – he’s paid his dues and earned the right to be in the top half by taking the hard starts and pressure off the rest of the staff the last two years. But Nate the Great will probably end up going to arbitration and losing, be my guess. He’s not a $2.75MM guy by any means (yet), but I wouldn’t sulk if he settles at $3MM.
Maholm needs to stand pat because if they don’t give him the upper end, he’d seriously have to think hard about any multi-year offer down the road that takes away free agent years.
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I hate to throw out more pessimistic rhetoric but if you really sit down and analyze everything from our schedule to the division to our players and their experience and injury histories to the fact our 25-man know they will be going into the annals of sports history as the guys who didn’t get it done in the 17th consecutive losing season, and, man, we are really, really not looking good on paper this year.
I mean, I’m coming up with 101 losses in my strat-o-matic modeling runs (first time in a decade over 100) and I’ve been +/- 4 losses each year since 2003 at pirateball.com’s discussion forum and here at the blog.
That means this could just as easily be a 106 loss club (for glass half-full fans, 97 losses).
The problem? An average of 645 runs scored to 855 runs allowed. In most model runs I have LaRoche, Wilson, and Grabow dealt in July leaving the balance of the season with Pearce, Vazquez, and fill-in-the-blank in the pen. I have to tell you, it’s downright ugly. And no, I don’t have any prospect being brought up this year to hear the jeers and boos of the fans.
If we can reduce the 210 run difference to 145, we’re still looking at 95 losses. But if Gorzy and Doumit go down like I think they might, oh man, we could be talking about as much as 250 run difference.
Ugly, ugly, baseball. The kind that saps a player’s motivation, and the fans, right out of the gate.
I’ll finish my runs by next week and post the results.
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“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1858
That seemed more appropriate today than an “I have a dream” paragraph.
By Jake, on January 19, 2009, at 11:51 pm |
Why not send Adam LaRoche to the Giants with a few bucks for Jonathan Sanchez? Talk about a win-win deal. LaRoche has mauled NLWD pitching (204 AB, .294 BA) and AT&T Park is one of his favorite hitting holes (43 AB, 1.227 OPS).
Sanchez has two plus pitches and can miss some bats, although he lacks any other average pitches. He had a rough second half last year probably mainly from an increased workload from 2007 (+83 innings due to biceps tendinitis and ribcage injuries in 2007).
One of his major problems has been an inability to repeat his mechanics leading to too many walks. He’s high risk, no question about it.
I hear you asking, why do we need another southpaw? We don’t. What we need is a pitcher who can miss bats. Any pitcher, southpaw or not.
LaRoche on the other hand will probably come out of the shoot wailing the ball in the NLWD giving the Giants the middle of the order guy they need. More importantly for them, he adds plus defense, although some stat heads are sure to argue LaRoche’s glove has been MIA since hitting Pittsburgh.
To fill the hole we could sign Minty again and let Pearce get some at bats as well. I realize we’ll be yanking some runs scored off the board in 2009 doing this, and we’ll be adding more runs allowed as well. But if we can give Sanchez one easy year of 160 innings without a lot of stress, plus the year with Kerrigan, we might end up with a very solid #4 guy (#3 upside maybe?) in 2010 and on.
The Giants will argue Sanchez is worth more than one year of LaRoche and they are probably right, but they have to remember he projects to be a 30+ HR guy in that division. Plus, maybe LaRoche would ink for two years at a home town discount before being dealt?
It’s win-win.. they get rid of a risk, we take on risk with higher upside plus reduce payroll. If they want an arm back, we can send them a lower level arm like Matt McSwain (I can see his pop’s eyes lighting up) in the deal too, but reduce the cash we send.
Just an idea.
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‘”There’s no question that my expectation in 2009 is that we have a better team than we did last year,” he said. “Even as we continue to build for the long-term success of the franchise, a real, championship-caliber organization that can compete on a sustainable basis, we have to have a better team in 2009 and better than what Pittsburgh has seen lately..
“As an organization, we have to continue to hold people accountable for improvement on the field at the major league level, as well as organization-wide. You saw it last year with Matt Morris. We’re not going to accept an inferior performance.”‘ Bob Nutting as quoted in the Post-Gazette, January 19, 2009
hmm..
”And now, really, the responsibility, the accountability, is shifting onto the field. It’s time for everyone to perform.” — Bob Nutting, February 21, 2008
hmm..
‘”Nutting said he believed the Pirates can contend in the Central Division, though he stopped well short of a firm prediction.
“I certainly believe that,” he said. “I’ve never professed to be an evaluator of baseball talent, so I trust the guys we have in place to make those decisions. But the optimism I’ve heard, the enthusiasm I’ve seen, certainly gives me a wonderful feeling.”‘ — Philly.com, February 21, 2008
Remember that song called Dizzy?
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Every year I put together a risky list of potential Sleepers and Foolers for the Pirates. This is my beta list for 2009:
Sleepers
1. Andy LaRoche. It all finally comes together.
2. Jimmy Barthmaier. Something about him.
3. Freddy Sanchez. He knows the Bucs will pass on his ‘10 option.
4. Robinzon Diaz. The surprise of the year with Doumit down.
5. Jeff Karstens. Kerrigan’s poster boy.
Foolers
1. Ryan Doumit. Do they have a “he’s stoned too much” DL entry?
2. Tom Gorzelanny. 2007 was just too much on his shoulder.
3. Brandon Moss. It just isn’t there.
4. Nate McLouth. The little engine that could just can’t find holes.
5. Craig Hanson. Club commits him to one-year of anger management.
Here are previous years: 2006 Sleepers and Foolers, 2007 Sleeper’s and Fooler’s, and 2008 Sleeper’s and Fooler’s.
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Evidently this is being talked about at various discussion forums from the emails I’ve received:
“Ogden Newspapers has eliminated several positions at its Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register papers in West Virginia. True to the spirit of full disclosure, the publisher isn’t revealing any more information.” Newspaper Death Watch
Internet research suggests they are eliminating 50 positions, but don’t hold me to that. Ironically, this action came two days after RBC Capital slashed United Bankshares target price from $28 to $22, but that’s a coincidence more than anything.
United Bankshares, which is one of Ogden Nutting’s larger financial holdings, took it on the chin the last week with the rest of the market (chart below). Remember now, Nutting sits on the Board plus the Bank was just approved for about $200MM in federal bailout funds. I don’t know if UB COB Richard Adams is of the same Adams family which are limited partners in the Pirates, but I assume that he is related.
Banks are going to take a hit over the next year so it’s only logical Ogden Nutting is tightening his purse strings. That’s just smart business, plus you can’t look at this stuff short-term or you’ll have a heart attack every other day right now.
And they can’t be the only partners wondering what 2009 is going to bring.. metal prices are down and that probably hurt the Brenners who are limited partners with Don Beaver as well, but they are majorly loaded anyway.
Still, we have to take Bob Nutting at his word and he stated the club is financially sound. If we start seeing a rush to dump high priced players for bags of peanuts, then maybe we’ll revisit this stuff. But as a fan you need to know what’s going down.
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More than one person asked how John Perrotto could take a job with Ogden Newspapers when people who have worked for them more than 20 years are getting canned. What a tough position to be in for Perrotto but it’s actually quite simple - his services were desired.
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Maybe there is more to the movie 2012 than we know?
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Get out and see the caravan! Go buy Piratefest tickets! Air fares have dropped.. I saw AirTran had a few $69 tickets to Sarasota in March. Get out and celebrate the Pirates.
Good stuff.
By Jake, on January 11, 2009, at 3:01 pm |
Quick, you make the call - you are the Pirates GM, your reworked club took it on the chin in the second-half of 2008 and now you have to make a decision.. stand pat or add free agents in 2009. What would you do?
Any answer is fuzzy logic until you peek at the Pirates 2009 schedule.
Each winter I do an analysis on who we play and when and where we play them trying to make some sense of the upcoming season in terms of expected wins and losses. Last year’s analysis was done in February after all the rosters were pretty much set but this year I’m looking earlier because of the critical importance of upcoming roster management choices and the continuing potential for trades and/or acquisitions.
One thing became crystal clear after breaking it all down this year more so than in any of the previous five years – we’re facing one of the hardest schedules in quite awhile. To give you an idea of what I mean:
– 28 of the first 48 games are on the road. Of those 48 games
– we have a winning record last three against just one (Nats); and
– we have less than a .400 winning percentage against five of the sixteen series opponents.
– 14 of the first 17 series (April and May), and 22 of the first 29 series (to the break), are against teams that had a .500 or better record in 2008. Worse yet, 71% (37) of the 52 series we play this year are against teams that were .500 or better in 2008 (it was 52% in 2008).
– the Pirates median winning percentage across all 162 games, based on the last three years, is .405 (it was .402 overall in 2008 and .432 after the break).
– from May 22 when we enter interleague play thru the end of June, a total of 37 games, the Pirates are projected to win just 12, a .324 run.
Folks, it doesn’t get much uglier than that. But there is some good news too, by the end of the year things trend back to the mean and we’re projected to end up with a normal’ish 67-95 record.
Here’s the overall breakdown:
Note: the bottom four rows give you some sense of where things break out looking at the schedule a different way – based on a .465 winning percentage at home and .350 on the road which my research suggests we’ll be close to. Interestingly, both ways (unregressed historical win/loss records and expected winning percentage at home and on the road) showed almost exactly the same results. For those interested, when I regressed the historical three years using 50% for year one, 30% for year two, and 20% for year three the results were even a tick worse. And yes, some columns appear to add incorrectly but that’s because of rounding.
So if you answered the opening question by saying you would add free agents, you probably just spent unwisely because without adding a Manny Ramirez type of player, the end result of the acquisition would be negligible at best.
And so goes Neal Huntington.. he’s standing pat as he should. Even Ramon Vazquez was a mistake because he probably could have spent that $3MM toward a corner outfielder for one year instead of taking at bats away from Bixler and Walker who can handle the left side of the diamond like Vazquez does, albeit not as flashy. Plus, we all know we need more power – not more utility.
So it’s pretty easy to see what the Pirates 2010 slogan could be – ‘look how well our youth did at the end of 2009′ because we’re expected to play .424 baseball from the break to the end of the year vs. the first-half’s .393.
And if the first-half looks so dismal on paper, what possible reason can the Pirates extend for holding on to the likes of Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, Ian Snell, Paul Maholm, Ryan Doumit, and Adam LaRoche? Remember now, the Pirates have had the tentative 2009 schedule since September 2008.
Just clearing LaRoche, Wilson, Doumit, and Snell wipes at least $41MM off the books. If we assume Wilson and LaRoche are gone after 2009, and Snell and Doumit retained through 2011, that means we would lose about 8 wins in 2009, 4 wins in 2010, and 3 wins in 2011. That’s around 15 wins for $41MM or a cost of $2.7MM per win.
Considering those four players are part of the team’s core, that cost per win ratio doesn’t appear to be too bad. But on a 90+ loss club, $2.7MM per win in any combination is extremely inefficient. And even if you double Doumit and Snell’s projected contribution for 2010 and 2011, from seven wins to fourteen, and then add the four player’s total of eight wins for 2009 making the grand total twenty-two wins overall, that is still $1.9MM per win and still much too high for a rebuilding club.
In other words, just think what player development and scouting could do with just 20 of that $41 million. Right, probably hire away some extremely good scouting evaluators by paying them stupid money for the next three years, not to mention the dollars that could be spread all the way down the pipe to associate scouts.
That’s certainly one way to rebuild, but not the way we’re heading.
Instead, we’re bloated at the top with players who don’t want to be here, a few are being paid more than they are generally worth, and a couple who are taking playing time away from some youth we need to evaluate before they become minor league free agents like Wilson instead of Bixler or Cruz; and LaRoche instead of Pearce. I think Ronny Paulino fit in that case as well as a backup catcher but he was dealt for even less than we got for Torres last year.
I understand that in some cases like Pearce future value decisions appear pretty easy to make, but that’s not the point. We clearly need every advantage we can reap from the first year draft while rebuilding this ship and if we put ourself in a position to lose 100+ games to gain that advantage, so be it.
Obviously 2009 is a perfect year for that scenario considering our schedule.
Huntington needs to stand pat adding free agents as he has. Even adding a corner outfielder isn’t worth it on paper because those at bats could go to Neil Walker instead no matter how bad he would look learning the position. Just imagine.. could he potentially be our 4th OF in 2011? Or even Pearce could get ABs even as slow as he will be covering the ball in left.
I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, we’re not going anywhere. It’s nice we have developed a plan in the farm system, and it’s nice that Stark feels it’s starting to take root, but without more tools in that system, we’re spinning our wheels. We need to take more risk dealing our core players.
It’s way past the time this ship should have blown up and it’s a shame we’re going to lose a second year because we hired a front office that needed two years to get organized instead of hiring a GM who would have walked in the door with men in his pocket that knew what they were doing from day one.
The fans and the City deserve more.
(Update: the rational I used in this post became murky when I finally unveiled the Pirate blueprint later in the week. The wins chart above remains accurate, but why the Pirates aren’t dealing became more obvious in the blueprint post which you should read.)
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For those interested, here’s the 2008 schedule analysis and results:
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Thank you kindly to everyone who emailed about Corey. His fever broke and I’ve yet to see a rash develop but he’s finally eating good again so whatever it was must be passing.
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I saw where Dejan answered the question we first posed a week ago here about Huntington’s plans with Andrew McCutchen where he indicated he wasn’t going to jump start Cutch just because he’s the best option. Instead he’s going to wait for McCutchen to show he’s ready.
And that is exactly what we said needed to be said – let Cutch know immediately he’s not in the plan to head North regardless of what he does in the spring. That’s a positive step forward.
Now it’s up to McCutchen to head to spring training and use it as a springboard for his 2009 3A season and, if he works hard and overcomes the few remaining obstacles in his way, we very well might see him in September. Otherwise, probably not until September 2010.
Also another good note about Huntington’s plan for ST:
“The Pirates will invite fewer players to spring training, Huntington said, expressing regret about the 65 in camp last year, especially the 38 pitchers. “It was too many, and that’s my fault,” he said.”
A lot of players were upset about last year’s ST so it’s good Huntington got this right. But in the meantime, everyone is paying a price for him to learn on the job. Everyone. But as long as he finally puts his foot down one day after he finally gets it all figured out, it will be worth it.
Or so we all hope.
By Jake, on January 4, 2009, at 9:50 pm |
.. a great fish tale evidently while inhaling from a huge holiday bong: Master Ross Ohlendorf has more of a chance to be in the rotation than Tom Gorzelanny, Phil Dumatrait, or Jeff Karstens.
Someone must have been smoking some Mexican rag weed.
Forget for a second Mr. Ohlendorf was +43 innings last year over 2007 where he was -100 innings from 2006 where he was +25 innings from 2005 where his arm took a jolt being +61 innings from 2004.
And forget for a second he only packs two pitches with a fastball running a tick above average but with so little movement up in the zone batters crushed it all over the diamond last year – even for outs. His slider is a better pitch but, unfortunately, he can’t throw it for strikes so batters sit on his heat and crush it, not to mention our catcher doesn’t know which way to turn his mitt when he blocks balls in the dirt so half his sliders end up at the backstop.
Instead, remember we’re rebuilding this ship and we need guys like Ohlendorf and Duke to step up to the next level of suckatude so we can, finally once again, claim the #1 draft slot because, hey, that’s all we’ve got going for us right now.
Move over Jack Z.
So hey, non-tender Adam LaRoche while we’re at it, put Pearce at first, and give Burnett a slot in the rotation.
Just why the heck not?
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I saw an article today somewhere about another dream – Oliver Perez pitching for the Yankees. Wow. If anyone could ever keep Ollie focused, I believe Cash(man) could.
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New fad: clubs starting anew hiring Internet statistical gurus (Dan Fox Pirates, now Tom Tango with the Mariners).
I don’t always agree with Tango’s thinking where Fox was a bit more mainstream, but it’s nice to see the front doors open for different thought processes just the same. Take yesterday’s piece where Bill James told me there was a 19% random chance of a .416 club going .376 in 141 games. That’s called the glass is half-full thinking. Me? I looked at the other 81% having watched every game Doumit played.
Baseball needs new blood – it’s getting stale.
And I still think catcher’s can inluence the quality of balls in play more than we all realize.
By Jake, on December 12, 2008, at 11:58 pm |
I was asked by a few readers why I felt the Vazquez signing was outragous and the answer to that is obvious – he isn’t an +0.5 WAR player and isn’t worth $2M per year. But even more importantly, he completely blocks prospect Neil Walker.
Walker is entering his sixth minor league year and, if nothing else, would have been an excellent choice for Huntington to use as a utilityman in 2009 letting him get time with Perry Hill to see if he could also handle second and, potentially, have at least a shot to become a utilityman down the road.
But not now.
Vazquez’s signing is apparently Walker’s death warrant and he now becomes probable trade bait to entice some other team to take him on in an expanded Wilson or Sanchez deal. And I realize Huntington is calling Vazquez a complete infield utilityman, but that’s ridiculous. His range at short is below average and his glove at first is marginal at best.
Walker has strung together some impressive ISO periods in the system the last couple of years and generally drives everything back up the middle. It appeared to me last year he needed to learn how to add more loft to his swing and to be taught more plate discipline, but I realize there’s more to him than all that. Still, even though his numbers don’t jump out at you, the young man has certainly earned the right to get 100 – 150 AB’s in Pittsburgh to see what he can offer.
But not now.
Then there is also the case that Bixler and Cruz now get blocked, assuming Huntington is thinking Vazquez is going to try and play short more than a few games per year if Wilson is dealt (Dear God, let’s all hope not). We have to remember that both Bixler and Cruz were asked to come up and play in hostile circumstances last year and both performed as expected – they forced everything. Now I’m not suggesting either player will ever rock our socks off, but they are both younger middle of the diamond guys who have at least average gloves and are worth another 100 AB’s to see what they can do once the intimidating Wilson has vanished.
But not now.
Poor signing in my book. Worthless signing. For a 90+ loss team to take on $4M in debt blocking even marginal prospects is senseless.
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Clay Hensley non-tendered? I’d be all over him.
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Bautista? I’d let him go (I see the Post-Gazette reported the Pirates did let him go). Adam LaRoche? Since we didn’t plan very well over the last 12 months, we don’t have a replacement player and we’re stuck with him. My readers know I never liked the LaRoche/Gonzalez trade but I also realize it was one the club had to make. Deal him in July and try to pick up a solid corner utilityman when everyone drops players off their roster before the season starts.
Oh wait, we have Vazquez blocking a corner utilityman’s need since he’s a true 3B/2B guy. Ughh.. So we need a utilityman who can play first and short of all things. Good luck trying to find that Neal.
I guess that means we’re stuck with LaRoche all year too now. We just keep spinning our wheels.
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Is anybody else worried that we dealt Paulino and probably let Chavez get away? I would think you should be.
Yes, we picked up Jaramillo and we had Diaz sitting around since late last year, but neither of these guys are pro receivers, only Diaz has but a few weeks of work with our staff, neither are known to be plus catchers, and both are known to be below average bats.
Essentially we don’t have an offensive or defensive replacement for Doumit – we have marginal replacements.
That’s scary.
At least Paulino could throw out some runners, knew the staff and they felt comfortable with him, and he would even punch a clutch hit here and there to help win a contest or two. And Chavez was a master at reading a batter’s body language and calling a game, plus he had a plus arm few teams would run on.
I’m here to tell you that if Ryan Doumit takes a few body shots that knock him out of action for a week or two or more, you’re going to wish Huntington had spent part of the $4M from Vazquez on keeping Chavez around. It’s going to be very ugly.
This is a major gapping hole.
By Jake, on November 8, 2008, at 11:57 pm |
We all know Adam LaRoche slept on his feet in the batter’s box the first half of the season. Everyone seems to have a theory why he just can’t get going but so far nothing’s worked for him. My suggestion was that Neal Huntington should start his season early by sending him to play in Puerto Rico during December and January.
Maybe there’s another reason he’s a slow starter – maybe he just needs to get pissed off? Consider this… of the pitches that were tracked using PITCHf/x data in 2008, LaRoche saw 22% of first pitches called a strike on him in the first half. That’s very high – MLB average was about 17%.
But in the second half LaRoche’s first pitch called a strike jumped to an obscene 29%. If you watched a lot of games last year then you probably saw the same thing I did – LaRoche became highly animated with the home plate umpires in the second half and, sure enough, his contact rate jumped. Funny thing about that contact though, it came partly as a result of not putting the first pitch he saw in play even though he saw 4% more strikes in the first pitch.
Ok.. ok.. I agree, there’s so much bias in those first pitches it isn’t even funny. For instance, he was fed a diet of fastballs by several teams in the second half because so many games were blowouts it wouldn’t have mattered how many home runs LaRoche hit.
But sure enough, roll back the film of his first half games and dang if you can find any animation at all other than the occaisional twisted grin look every player throws at an ump here and there. He was limp and passive. In the second half it was as if he’d had enough and started to fight back. All just a coincidence? Probably. But since nothing else has cured him of his early year blues, maybe a stint over Christmas in Puerto Rico is just the ticket to get LaRoche fired up for early season? I mean, down there you get mauled.
I’m sure he appreciates the suggestion.
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On the surface it seems Jeff Karstens has earned a shot at one of the starting slots in 2009 despite less than an 8% swing-and-miss ratio. But when you look a bit closer at some of his stats, you have to wonder if his 4.03 ERA is sustainable.
In the 50+ innings he pitched, Karstens generated 43% of all balls in play on the ground which is nearly 10% higher than his pro average (farm and bigs). And, of course, the higher the groundball percentage the lower the line drive percentage which has a tendency to shoot a pitcher’s ERA through the roof in a hurry. Ask Ian Snell with his 23% (ouch) line drive rate in 2008.
And with so few batters striking out (less than 11% of all plate appearances – Maholm, Snell, Capps are all 13 – 14% as examples) and just average stuff at best, look for a long hard year for Mr. Karstens.
One thing that jumped out at me about him though was that when Chavez caught Karstens (3 games vs 5 for Doumit), opponent batting average on balls in play averaged less than the Mendoza line (.194). I assume Raul was catching a lot of Karsten’s side work so it made me wonder how much was a coincidence and how much was because Chavez just had a batter handle on Karsten’s stuff?
I guess we’ll never know.
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You probably read where Chris Duffy walked away yet again. This time after a few games in Mexico while declaring free agency. Someone will pick him up and sign him to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training I’d bet.
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Great question from a reader today – could Ryan Doumit be another Troy Percival in hiding? Naw… he doesn’t have a clue where the ball is going when he releases it now so putting him on the mound would create a suicide mission for any batter that stood in the box. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing?
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Pirates winning percentage in 2008 when the wind was blowing 10 mph or more at game time: .365 (19-33).
Ouch.
When the wind was blowing 6 mph or less: .509 (28-27).
Hmm.
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Talk about an award losing some credibility in my book. Has Dewan sold out?
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The kissing duo? They played at Dodger Stadium Saturday night.
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