Perhaps the oddest stat seen so far this year

Albert Pujols doesn't lead the Cardinals in HR-Lance Berkman does (17-15). If you'd predicted that this spring, people would've called you nuts.

Is Manny Ramirez a HOF'er? (the shortest blog post ever)

Yes.

J-Roll-better leadoff guy hitting third than first?

The Phils are defying expectations, I suppose you could say, scoring runs like crazy (2nd in the NL so far, with 6.3 RPG) while exhibiting so-so pitching (14th, 4.80 ERA). Of course, they're not exactly facing the cream of the league in the Astros and Mets, but still...the run production has to be a pleasant surprise, even if the pitching, especially Cole Hamels' first start, hasn't been.

But perhaps the most heartening thing about the early season results is how well Jimmy Rollins is playing. J-Roll is sporting a .478 OBP, good for 16th in the league among qualifiers. He's actually taking pitches-he's 11th in the league in P/PA, at 4.35. In the past Jimmy might see 4 pitches in three or four times up. He's looking like a better one hole hitter hitting third than his usual first!


In truth, though, this could be seen as a continuation of last year's pattern, where, despite an OBP of only .320, Jimmy had more walks (40) than strikeouts (32), putting him in an elite club typically occupied by the likes of Chipper Jones and Carlos Ruiz.

So, it looks like Jimmy is maturing as a hitter (finally). It also looks like he wants at least one more big contract. More power to him.


I don't know Amaro plans to do-the organization has at least two big glove/no hit guys to play SS, in current rosteree Michael Martinez, and Reading's Freddy Galvis. Neither of these two can touch Rollins' combination of strong SS play, great base-running, and elite power for his position. The key may well be whether the last great "tool" Rollins had typically shown-great durability-returns this year, along with the power. This will leave Reuben with a very tough call come this winter. My guess is that the brass will cut costs and go with Martinez or Galvis, but an outstanding year from Jimmy might well change some minds.

The rumors of Dominic's Brown's death are premature

Funny piece by "wet luzinski" at the Good Phight about Dominic Brown's struggles and how fast people are writing him off- Bang the Dom Slowly: Domonic Brown's Baseball Obituary.

Yes, Dominic is totally lost right now-he doesn't know what his stance is, where the ball is coming from, or maybe even his own name. And yes, he did poorly in winter ball, and in his (few) PA's with the Phils last year. But Dom is an uber-prospect for a reason-he can hit. And he is just 23 years old.


Late last year, Amaro and Manuel probably figured that keeping Dom on the bench in Philly was better than having him "prove" he could hit AAA pitching-an already settled question. Sure, this is not the typical strategy, and maybe it backfired here. But Brown will be fine. It might be a different story if he was 27. He may need a few months at LV to re-establish his swing, and identity, though.

Welcome to spring!/NL East predictions

Last year I had the order in the NL East exactly right in my March prognostications: Phillies-Braves-Marlins-Mets-Nationals.

While it may be a bit much to get things spot on two years in a row, I'm going to try again.


I basically see the East as running pretty much as it did last year, with the Nationals as the only team with a big change in its talent (major improvement). The Phils will miss (the Nats') Jason Werth, obviously, but I expect several players to have improved offensive years-Utley, Rollins, Howard-to make up for much of the loss. The Phils 'pen looks shallow as hell (beyond Ryan Madson, the setup guy but really the team's elite reliever, and closer Brad Lidge), but club GM Reuben Amaro (MLB's first really great Jewish/Hispanic executive!) has made a change or two in the rotation that you may've heard about recently, so bullpen depth won't be a huge issue, likely.

The Mets are still the Mets, a study in high-priced mediocrity, and, possibly, criminal malfeasance-team ownership is mixed up in the Bernie Madoff mess. The Marlins are finally behaving like a small-market team-I guess conserving cash till they finally get their new park built-so they don't figure to make much of an impact in '11.

The team to talk about in the East is the Braves-the Heyward-Freeman-Prado-Chipper-Hudson juggernaut. The Braves may well be good enough to knock the Fightins off their NL East perch. Consider that Jason Heyward will only get better-he was actually too patient a hitter last year, if you can believe that from a rookie-and arguably should've won the ROY. Freddie Freeman, the team's smokin' new first baseman, may win the ROY this year.

Craig Kimbrel (sounds like a late night talk show guy, doesn't he?) is the new closer, replacing the now-retired (and much-loathed in Philly) Billy Wagner (pronounced Vagner). Kimbrel pitched a bit last year in The Show, and you wouldn't exactly say he failed to impress-he struck out 40 in 20 IP. Still, not to sound excessively old school, you do have to wonder at trusting the closer job to a rookie, no matter how talented.


Anyway, I see the Phils just barely hangin' on to the East, very possibly for the last year in this cycle:

Phils 95-67

Braves 94-68

Mets 83-79

Nationals 75-87

Marlins 74-88



UPDATE:

Baseball Prospectus has the division Phils (91 w), Braves (87), Marlins (84), Mets (79), Nats (69). I'll add those projections to the sidebar.

NL East predictions-not bad

Well, as you can see from the sidebar, I had the NL East teams in the proper order-Phillies/Braves/Marlins/Mets/Nationals, and was pretty close on records. In fact I got the Mets exactly right-79-83-and only missed by one win for the Nats.

The average discrepancy between actual wins and predicted wins was just 2.6 wins (in absolute value, that is-simply totalling wins above or below projection as positive numbers and dividing by the five teams in the division.)

I was very happy to see Bobby Cox make the playoffs one last time. Bobby's a class act-one of baseball's good guys, even if he is the ultimate bane of the umpiring crews. Bobby's split personality-nice guy to everyone not an umpire-may call for some fancy Freudian footwork, but he'll be missed. I haven't heard a word about who will manage the Braves next year.  Would Joe Torre be interested? Sounds like Joe wants to manage somewhere next year.

Burrell excelling with Giants

Despite what one foolish blogger wrote a few months back (who was that blogger, anyway?), Pat the Bat has played exceptionally well with the Jints, assuming you don't need a fly ball caught, that is-his .262/.370./.512 line betters his career numbers in all particulars (.254/.362/.475).

In fact PTB's 133 OPS+ with SF this year would be his best since 2002, if extended for a full season. We are, of course, ignoring Pat's disastrous final few months with the Rays.


I think Brian Sabean haters like John Perricone don't really understand modern baseball-player talent is so expensive now that nobody who doesn't play in the AL East can seriously strive for a great 25 man roster-you shoot for 90 wins and hope like hell that's enough to make the playoffs. The Giants have hellacious pitching and mediocre (if that) hitting-and that probably will get them to the post season.

Nyjer Morgan is my hero

All that personality, and the NL's lowest OPS (among qualifiers), .634?

What more could you ask for? The Nats sure seem to draw this type of player.


Then again, "character guy" Raul Ibanez is 43rd, among 73 qualifiers in the senior circuit, at .779. People are talking about Raulllll! as if he's had a good year, when it's just somewhat less miserable than you'd expect for a corner OF, since his second half has been a good deal better than the first, and because Raul is now older than infield dirt. But damn, what a good guy!

The soft bigotry of low expectations, I'd call it.

Who says Cubs' fans don't care if their team wins?

It's never been true that any team, including the Yankees, could be rotten and continue to draw.

And while the Cubs' attendance dropoff from last year (full season in '09, 74 dates this year)-1674/game- may not seem stupendous, it does show that the Cubs' franchise also isn't immune to fans finding other ways to amuse themselves when the local team sucks.

A few may even be going to see the Sox, who are still in the race, as sacrilegious as this shift in allegiance may seem to most Chicagoites.

Your first place Philadelphia Phillies!

I haven't seen the numbers, but I bet that the Phillies have lost as many, or nearly as many, player-days to the DL as the Mets did last year-and with comparable players-Utley, Rollins, etc.

Yet the Phillies are prospering, with a playoff spot now a 73% probability, according to Baseball Prospectus.

Maybe the acquisition of "character guys" by Pat Gillick and Rueben Amaro makes sense after all. It's not as if character doesn't matter, of course. That, without talent, won't buy you a latte' at Starbuck's. But with it, who knows?

There they go again

Yankees take 3:25 to play 2-1, nine inning game against White Sox.

I think the Yanks must think they're playing cricket.

So that explains it!

Dr. Boli tells us why the Bucs really, really suck:

Under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pittsburgh Pirates are required to hire players who are really bad at baseball.

Mark Reynolds not quite on pace to break his own K record

Reynolds still strikes out at an ungodly rate, to be sure. But his 161 whiffs in the Diamondbacks' first 119 games translates to "just" 219 for the season, falling just short of his record 223 of last year. It's not exactly Maris and Mantle in '61, but I'll want to keep an eye on the "race". (Yes, I'm pitiful).

In his Historical Baseball Abstract of 2000 or so, Bill James wondered why no one had yet broken Bobby Bonds' 1970 record for K's, considering the steady trend towards more strikeouts.  The obvious answer was that when guys got close, managers would start playing them less.

Now, there is little stigma attached to whiffing, which may be fine for someone like Reynolds, who is 5th in the NL in homers (26), and seventh in walks (61). But when rotten hitters strike out a ton, a common occurrence with so many teams having 3, 4, 5 100-K men, a little stigma might be order.


And of course, today's preponderance of aggressive swinging and missing probably accounts for the current rash of no-hitters, a trend we can expect to accelerate.


UPDATE: I haven't looked up anybody else, but Reynolds must be leading, or nearly leading MLB in Three True Outcomes-his 162 K, 62 BB, and 26 jacks in 467 PA amounts to a TTO rate of .535 (through 8/17).

Tony the whiner

Redleg Nation on Tony LaRussa and the recent unpleasantness between the Reds and Cards:

I love this,  from ESPN’s story on the brawl: “La Russa wasn’t happy with Phillips’ comment and mentioned it to Reds general manager Walt Jocketty, who worked with him in St. Louis.”

Let me translate that for you: “LaRussa wasn’t happy with being called a whiner, so he went and whined to Walt Jocketty.”

Three hours, 33 minutes to play a 2-1, nine inning game?

Yep, last night the Yanks and Red Sox managed to dawdle their way to a 3 and a half hour plus, low-scoring, nine inning game.

I've always been of the opinion that game lengths aren't really all that important-if you don't like baseball, it won't much matter to you whether games go three hours or two and a half-it will seem tedious either way.


But a line has to be drawn somewhere. It really shouldn't take that long to score three runs in a game with only twelve hits and eight walks. Bud Selig likes to say what matters is not game length so much, but the pace of the game-there couldn't have been much "pace" last night in New York. I'm sure the Yankees were happy to have the crowd of 49,000 plus on hand as long as possible to buy concessions and guzzle beer, but this is ridiculous. And it does seem to be a Yankees-Red Sox thing-the Astros and Braves, for example, played a 14 run,  8 1/2 inning job last night (Houston won, 10-4) in 2:53.

I don't have any answers, other than saying nobody should be allowed to call time when the pitcher's already in his motion. Plus there should be only one mound conference per pitcher per half inning, regardless of who initiates said meeting. Plus limiting replay to so-called boundary calls.


Plus the Yankees and Red Sox should be limited to seven innings, like high school games. Maybe they'll be able to keep things under three hours then. 

My NL East predictions, vindicated

My March 2010 NL East calls (see sidebar) are looking remarkably prescient, no?

Mind you, the Braves are still in first, and, by Baseball Prospectus' lights, have about twice the chance of making (86.8%, v. 46.3%) the October Show, compared with the Phillies. But right now, pretty much everybody looks to be within six games or so of what I projected.


My calls/BP's current projections:

Phillies 91 wins/90

Braves 88/93

Marlins 83/81

Mets 79/81

Nats 68/74

Phillies' hitting follies

No, I didn't write "Phillies' Phollies". I hate that.

The Fightins are now 11th in the NL in runs scored, possibly the best determinant of how good a team's offense is, other than "productive outs" (kidding.)

How fast the mighty bats have fallen! Is it just due to Rollins and Polanco being out? I'm sure the Phils brass would like to believe that, but you shouldn't, though playing the third string SS and C, and second string 3B, for a while hasn't exactly helped.


Mega-million dollar baby Ryan Howard is on pace for just 28 homers, and doesn't walk much any more. He pretty much defines "albatross of a contract."

Rollins' absence has hurt, no question-his stand-in as lead-off hitter, Shane Victorino, is showing unusual power (ISO of .191), but ain't gettin' on base-his OBA is an unacceptable .308. Jimmy, for all his faults, usually exceeds this, and in fact has a mark of .462 in limited duty this year.

The guys added in the off-season to spruce up the bench have, in a word, sucked-Gload, Schneider, and Castro have done little-and Greg Dobbs is having his second rotten year in a row.

I'm with Beerleaguer-time to dump Dobbs and add John Mayberry from the IronPigs, and/or Andy Tracy. The Phils have stopped hitting the long ball, and stopped hitting in general, and they could use the sluggers on the bench these move (-s) would provide.