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January 04, 2012

Melvin Mora career highlights

As 2011 came to a close, former Baltimore Oriole Melvin Mora announced his retirement. This isn’t too surprising since Arizona (his last team) cut him midseason and no one picked him up. Still, Mora’s recent decision to out-and-out retire makes it official.

Mora had an impressive career for someone who was such a late bloomer. Only seven men who debuted in their age-27 season or later have ever played in over 1,500 games: Jimmy Austin, Bob Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Davey Lopes, Bill Bruton, Earl Averill and Mora.

Many of those guys had circumstances delay their start. It was the race line for Bruton, the Pacific Ocean for Ichiro, and Averill was a Pacific Coast League star before the minor leagues were fully tamed. Mora was just a late bloomer.

Now that he’s gone, let’s look back on his career with the Mets, Orioles, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. Listed below are his career highlights—his best and worst performances, the greatest and most important games he played in, as well as incredible and unusual occasions he was on hand for. Here’s the list:
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Posted by: Chris Jaffe

October 27, 2011

How good has Mike Napoli’s World Series been?

With the World Series having shifted to St. Louis for good, we won't be able to hear the catchy "Na-Po-Li!" chant echo throughout Arlington anymore. However, Texas' catcher will still be heard and felt in a big way for the rest of the series and will likely be named series MVP if the Rangers close out their first world championship.

Mike Napoli has been so strong offensively in the eighth spot in the Rangers lineup that he's outperformed every player in this series except, perhaps, Cardinals hitter Albert Pujols. Even Pujols' batting average, RBI and slugging percentage don't match up to Napoli's production over the first five World Series games. In fact, if we look back at the cleanup hitters in the past five Fall Classics, it seems like Napoli has out-produced them all.

	             Slash Line	HR	RBI	R	XBH
Napoli 2011	.308/.389/.846	2	9	2	3
C. Ross  2010	.235/.381/.471	1	2	5	2
Guerrero 2010	.071/.125/.071	0	2	0	0
A-Rod 2009	.250/.423/.550	1	6	5	4
Howard 2009	.174/.240/.391	1	3	3	3
Howard 2008	.286/.375/.762	3	6	3	4
C. Pena 2008	.118/.250/.176	0	2	1	1
M. Ramirez 2007	.250/.333/.313	0	2	3	1
M. Holliday 2007.294/.294/.471	1	3	1	1

Posted by: Shlomo Sprung

August 23, 2011

The Rockies claim Wandy

After failing to deal Wandy Rodriguez during the trade deadline, the Astros decided to put their 32-year-old left hander on waivers to see what kind of last-minute deal could be struck. The Rockies pulled his name, and now the two sides have 48 hours to come to an agreement.

The Rockies made a big splash by trading Ubaldo Jimenez in the much-discussed deadline deal last month. The team is looking to test its crop of young pitchers in 2012 but is expected to be in the market for an established starter this coming offseason.

If they acquire Rodriguez, the 2012 Rockies rotation would include two left handers in him and Jorge de la Rosa along with Jhoulys Chacin and Juan Nicasio. Colorado still has enough talent to be formidable next season, but the pitching staff will have question marks as de la Rosa and Nicasio return from serious injuries.

Rodriguez will not add a lot of payroll next season as he is due $10 million in 2012 and $13 million in 2013. His contract was scheduled to have a club option attached for another $13 million, but if he is traded it becomes a player option.

Rodriguez doesn’t give up a high frequency of fly balls, with an average around 35 percent, and should be a good fit with the Rockies in that category. This season he has been plagued by a poor defense in Houston that has registered a -5.0 team UZR/150 as well as a DRS of -32.

In comparison, the Rockies have performed substantially better, with a team UZR/150 of -0.9 and a DRS of 19. Next season, the Rockies are expected to have new additions at the corners as the team isn’t expected to pick up Todd Helton’s $23 million club option.

During this trade season, Astros GM Ed Wade has been busy. Both the Red Sox and Yankees were interested in acquiring Rodriguez, but a price was never close to being reached. The Astros will be looking to add more prospects, and with Rodriguez’s contract still considered “team friendly,” one should expect a few high-profile names to be mentioned.
Posted by: Vince Caramela

February 05, 2011

Michael Young to the Rockies, revisited

Yesterday, reports came out that the Rangers are (again) exploring the idea of trading Michael Young to the Colorado Rockies. Since his role became diminished this offseason, Young’s current contract and unwillingness to play as “Super-Utility Man” could become a problem for the Rangers as next season plays out. Of course, this is mere speculation, since no public comments have come from the Michael Young camp, but it is obvious that some frustration has emerged internally.

During the winter meetings, the Rockies looked to be the favorite in acquiring Young as their everyday second baseman and lead-off batter. Eventually, talks stalled and the teams went their separate ways. However, the recent acquisitions of Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli could gum up Young’s playing time as their third baseman/DH hybrid, despite what manager Ron Washington says.

The Rockies may still be interested but with recent extensions given to Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, their budget may not be as flexible. Unless another team comes forward and is willing to do the Rangers a favor and take on Young’s three-year/$48 million contract (similar to the generosity the Angels graced upon the Blue Jays) then the Rangers will have to concede and help pay some of it.

On the Rockies side, Jose Lopez is the projected starter at second and will be owed $3.6 million next season. Colorado also has a bit of a logjam at second with Eric Young Jr., Chris Nelson, Jonathan Herrera and even Ty Wigginton (don’t laugh, he did it last season with the Orioles) all slated as possible options.

Depending on how much the Rangers decide to absorb, this could work in making Young much more attractive to other teams, but will it help to increase his return value?

Despite a slight power surge in 2009, most will agree that Young, entering his age 34 season, is on the decline. Always considered a free swinger, gradual declines in his power, speed and fielding along with a slight bump in his strikeout rate aren’t the most attractive signs when agreeing to take on an aging player at a premium price.

If the Rockies do rekindle trade talks, I’m sure current Rockies second baseman Lopez would be mentioned, but would that make sense? I guess it would depend on the other parts included in this trade, but if the Rangers are expected to pick up some of this check, then gaining a $3.5 million utility player in exchange doesn’t seem like the best way to free up a budget. We’ll see.

Recently, Ken Rosenthal reported that a deal between the Rangers and Rockies could be completed by this Monday.
Posted by: Vince Caramela

April 20, 2010

Does the stretch cost a pitcher fastball speed?

Earlier today, Rob Neyer wrote about Ubaldo Jimenez's no-hitter at his Sweet Spot blog at ESPN. He linked to an article by Thomas Harding about Jimenez's switch of pitching deliveries mid-game:

It was after the fifth-inning leadoff walk that Apodaca mentioned the idea that saved the game and set up Jimenez for history.

At the start of innings, Jimenez, like every starting pitcher, was throwing with a full windup. Throughout his career, Jimenez has been far more effective from the windup than from the stretch, the side-to-the-plate stance pitchers use with men on base. But Saturday, he was more effective from the stretch. That meant less of a leg kick and, on Saturday, more control of his body.

"I talked to him between innings and he said he just felt lost," Apodaca said. "To me, it was night and day the way he was executing pitches. His timing, as far as getting the ball out of his glove, and his delivery to the plate were all sharper out of the stretch.

That's certainly fascinating to me, but what struck a researcher's nerve with me was Rob's comment about this all:

It's often said that the stretch costs a pitcher 2-3 miles an hour off his fastball, and (considering how easy that is to check) I'll assume that's roughly accurate.

It is very easy to check, and it turns out that it's not accurate at all. A pitcher's fastball speed turns out to be almost identical with runners on base as compared to his average fastball speed with the bases empty. If anything, the average starting pitcher throws about 0.1 mph harder with runners on base.



Of course it could be that a typical pitcher bears down more and tries to throw harder when there are men on base in order to get the batter out and keep them from scoring. But if pitching from the stretch was a significant hindrance to fastball speed, you'd think we'd see it reflected in the data anyway, even if the pitcher was trying to throw harder. I doubt that the baseball adage that Rob mentioned was merely saying that pitchers end up throwing the same speed from the stretch as from the windup because they're trying harder.

I realize that runners on base vs. bases empty does not correspond exactly to pitching from the stretch vs. the windup for every pitcher, but it should be close to enough to reveal any major differences between the two. I looked at the time period 2008-2009, first at all pitchers who had thrown at least 1000 fastballs, which would include quite a few relievers, and then those pitchers who had thrown at least 2000 fastballs, which should be mostly starting pitchers. The results were not markedly different between the two groups.

What about Jimenez in particular? He has averaged 95.7 mph with the bases empty and 95.6 mph with runners on base.

The two starting pitchers who really crank it up with men on base? That's Justin Verlander--94.1 mph with the bases empty and 95.4 mph with runners on--and Ted Lilly--86.2 mph with bases empty and 87.7 mph with runners on. And a virtual cookie (your favorite kind, of course) to the first person who can pick out Jamie Moyer's dot on that chart.
Posted by: Mike Fast


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