The Hardball Times Articles http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en jkbrattain@sympatico.ca Copyright 2008 2008-11-20T05:35:00-05:00 White Flag? http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/white-flag/#When:04:35:00Z Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum and the likely departure of A.J. Burnett it may be that absent a significant infusion of cash, there is no way the Jays feel they can compete with the still rising (and current AL champion) Tampa Bay Rays, the wealthy and organizationally solid Boston Red Sox and the major reloading of the New York Yankees.

On top of the yawing gap in the middle of the starting rotation there is no bona fide DH to speak of (too early to know if Travis Snider is ready to be a full time masher); the middle infield is uncertain while Aaron Hill continues to recover and the shortstop position still undecided; the infield corners could be excellent defensively and competent offensively or they could fall off a cliff; and while Rod Barajas occasionally wields a hot stick, nobody would consider Toronto catching to be upper-echelon.

Factor in the weak Canadian dollar and an uncertain economy it may be that the Jays decide to take a mulligan on 2009 and looking to 2010 and beyond to make a run. Indeed, while J.P. Ricciardi occasionally involves himself in the verbal version of the Calgary Stampede with his male bovine heaving exploits, his recent comments in the Toronto Star may be an indication that the Blue Jays are getting a head start on “wait ’til next year” proclamations.

Regarding the Jays futile attempts at retaining A.J. Burnett, Ricciardi opined: “If it doesn't work out, we're going to have to step back and see which direction we're going to go." Let’s consider the implications of this; there is (if the ol‘ torero is to be bull-ieved) that there is no back up or fall back position: make a run at Burnett and if that fails it’s time to rethink the strategy for 2009 since, "No, I don't think there's anything out there that we can get involved in at this point that makes any sense for us."

When one considers the following: A.J. is often injured and only pitches 200 innings if he’s pitching for a contract and he is the sole pitching target when there are three spots open in the starting rotation (two if David Purcey is given a job there).

Why?
We've got growing concerns about what's happening in the world … It would be foolish of us to stick our heads in the sand and say, `We're not affected by any of this.' Our payroll hasn't been adjusted, but everyone is aware of what's going on."

While every team in the AL has to deal with this I guess only the Jays are going to let it decide their chances next season.

I find it odd that they might be willing to pay $15 million a year for Burnett but not take a cheaper flier on Jon Garland. Some may turn up their nose at that option feeling he’d get shelled pitching against the beasts of the AL East regularly, but over the last three seasons Garland has a 4.40 ERA against the Red Sox, Rays and Yankees (slightly lower than league average amount of runs scored).

He was about the AL median in 2006 against the Jays' rivals, was roughed up a bit in 2007 but pitched superbly (3.18 ERA) against them last season. Garland has thrown at least 190 innings in each of the last seven seasons so he’s durable, he’s coming off a sub-par year so he’d be cheap(er) and require less compensation plus he gives up a lot of ground balls (better than Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch in that regard) and few walks (a BB/9 of 2.29 since 2006) which means the Jays infield defense gives him a huge boost and not insignificantly they’d never have to face him. Garland has only been beaten by Toronto twice in 11 career starts—he faced them three times last season and posted a 3.15 ERA in 20 innings.

The fact that Ricciardi has declared Burnett was the only option means that the front office has decided (if J.P. is being truthful) that if A.J. doesn’t re-sign then they're punting on aught-nine.

I suppose after 15 years of falling short, one more won’t hurt. After all, the Pittsburgh Pirates are working on year 17 and it hasn’t triggered the apocalypse.

However, this much is certain: 2009 should be Ricciardi’s final year as GM of the team.

Since he was hired in November, 2001 contraction candidates Minnesota Twins and Oakland A’s have combined for seven 90-win seasons and an equal number of postseason appearances; the Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, the Tampa Bay Rays and [insert name] Angels have won their inaugural pennants (Angels won it all in 2002); another contraction candidate (the Florida Marlins) won a World Series; a team that arrived in the league in 1998—the Arizona Diamondbacks—copped a pair of division titles; and even one of the most moribund franchises in major league history (Philadelphia Phillies) have won back-to-back division titles and their second World Series in over a century-and-a-quarter.

Also of note, the Boston Red Sox won two world titles after an eight decade-plus drought and the Chicago White Sox ended a similar run of futility. The Detroit Tigers finally put it all together after a 20-year postseason hiatus, the Brewers just ended a quarter-century-plus absence and getting back to the Angels; there was a time when they were considered among the most inept teams in the sport (when Disney does a movie where divine intervention is required to win … well, that’s pretty bad) have only missed the postseason twice during the Ricciardi era.

The point is, a lot of these teams looked hopeless at various points, some so much so that they were targeted for extinction, yet all of them managed to put together a team that made it to October despite significant obstacles. Some of the teams had poor leases and stadiums, others were considered small (or poor) markets, still others rose from the unique challenges of expansion. Yet those obstacles were overcome and success achieved.

It is not that Ricciardi is incompetent; after all, he assembled the best pitching staff seen in the sport in two decades and a very solid defensive unit. He certainly has his strengths, yet those weaknesses negate them. At some point, a good GM has to recognize that the time is now yet Ricciardi is perpetually locked in “future” mode as in “he won’t mortgage/jeopardize the future.” At some point, a team looking to contend has to be able to discern a window of opportunity has opened and that there is enough talent on hand that it’s time to go for the gold.

2008 was the Jays window but Ricciardi was concerned about the future. Think about it: is there anyone that thought if A.J. Burnett had a good year that he wouldn’t opt out of his current contract? Burnett was red hot after the arrival of Gaston, Roy Halladay was having one of his best seasons and overall, as mentioned, the team had the best pitching seen in 20 years. What kind of damage could a one-two punch of Halladay and Burnett done in the postseason? Dustin McGowan was gone, Shaun Marcum not yet injured and the bullpen, while occasionally nerve-wracking was the best in both leagues and the defense was superb—all that was required was a bat or two.

However, the future had to be protected, Marcum becomes injured, Burnett opts out, the Canadian dollar drops, the economy is knocked off its moorings and the future is so bright that the club is talking about simply punting a season or two and possibly rebuilding.

When it’s time to pull the trigger, will Ricciardi be able to do it? Can he be trusted to discern that the iron is hot and it is time to strike? Arizona was vulnerable and the Dodgers made a move, the NL wild card was up for grabs and the Brewers took a shot, the Yankees were scuffling, the Rays inexperienced and the Red Sox in turmoil plus having an injured David Ortiz and Ricciardi worries about the state of the team in 2011.

He’s like Buck Showalter: he can get a team only so far but someone else needs to be put in place to get to the next level.

Ricciardi has done some good work for the Jays but his utility to the club has peaked. In a sense he was a lot like the lineup early last season—he couldn’t recognize that the first pitch of the at bat (the present) was the time to take his big cut instead preferring to work the count in hopes that sometime in the indefinite future the perfect pitch (perfect circumstance) would materialize.

It’ll be depressing if the Jays pass on 2009 but after last season, I hope Ricciardi will not be the man making the big decisions in 2010-11 otherwise that window will close while he worries about the Jays in 2016.



Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!]]> John Brattain 2008-11-20T04:35:00-05:00 Do experienced players perform better in the postseason? http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/do-experienced-players-perform-better-in-the-postseason/#When:04:28:00Z comment on Ballhype:

I'm still not buying your conclusion until I see “why?” At the very least, I want to see how players with lots of experience did in the postseason relative to their regular season as opposed to players with little experience. The assumption (if you buy David's conclusion) is that players with postseason experience will "outplay" their lesser experienced counterparts during he post-season[…]

For example, if it could be shown that players with more experience simply perform better than expected in the postseason, then our inquiry is pretty much over. If not, then we'd have to dig deeper on a team level, which has a lot more noise in it. David, you started with something very noisy (team-level win loss records, or series records, which is even more noisy).

A lot of comments I received were similar to this one. Now, I do think that the team numbers might show us some effect that won’t appear in individual statistics, but I will admit that if experienced teams win more often in the postseason, experienced players in all likelihood perform better in the playoffs as well.

We’ll start with hitters, for whom my metric of choice is weighted on-base average (wOBA), a statistic which expresses a player’s total offensive output on a scale that resembles on-base percentage. Here is, since World War II, the average drop-off from a player’s regular season wOBA to his post-season wOBA, based on the number of times that player had previously been in the playoffs:

Experience   PA         wOBA_Diff
       0        22928     -0.033
       1        15505     -0.032
       2        10402     -0.031
       3         6355     -0.036
       4         3361     -0.047
       5         2083     -0.019
       6         1254     -0.026
       7          727     -0.016
       8          407      0.019
       9          179     -0.123
      10           76     -0.044
      11           47      0.081
      12            4      0.071
      13            1     -0.361

What this table tells us is that 22,928 plate appearances, players with no prior post-season experience saw a 33 point drop-off in their wOBA in the playoffs. That number holds true for the next few years, but you may notice a sort of inflection point at five years, where the drop-off falls to just 19 points. Here is the data broken out by whether a player had five or more years of playoff experience, or less:

Experience   PA         wOBA_Diff
<5              58551     -0.033
5+               4778     -0.021

Players with 5+ years of postseason experience see their wOBA drop by 21 points between the regular season and playoffs, whereas players with fewer than five years see a drop-off of 33 points. That difference is statistically significant.

It is also cherry-picked. Since I only picked my cut-off point after running the numbers, traditional concepts of statistical significance go out the window. Instead, all I can truly say about this gap is that it’s interesting. Actually, I’ll say a bit more in a moment, but first let’s look at the pitchers.

Here is a table similar to the one I just presented for hitters, but using runs allowed per nine innings (RA) instead of wOBA.

Experience   IP         RA_diff
       0         6549       0.42
       1         3847       0.28
       2         2289       0.31
       3         1396       0.42
       4          821       0.37
       5          436       0.10
       6          320      -0.71
       7          138       0.48
       8          150      -0.47
       9           90       0.00
      10           30       4.68
      11           27      -1.63

Here, a negative number is good in that it means that a pitcher allows fewer runs in the playoffs than in the regular season. Pitchers with no playoff experience, for example, see their RA rise 0.42 points in the playoffs. Again, five years of experience looks to be an inflection point, and here’s what happens if we split the players up into two groups: Those with less than five years of playoff experience and those with five or more.
Experience   IP         RA_diff
<5              14902       0.36
5+               1191      -0.08

Again, there is a significant gap between the two groups—whereas pitchers with less than five years of playoff experience see their RA rise by 0.36 points, those with five or more years actually see their RA decrease by 0.08. In all, that’s almost a half-a-run gap.

But once more, the numbers are cherry-picked, and so there is no statistically valid conclusion to be made. Still, I have to ask, what does this all mean?

It is not, for sure, proof that players with a lot of postseason experience do better in the playoffs (relative to their regular season performance that is) than players who do not have all that much experience. It is, however, evidence.

It might be weak evidence, and for many, it will likely be unconvincing. Certainly, I wonder why it would take five years worth of postseason experience for this effect to show up. However, the effect is there: Players with five or more years of playoff experience perform significantly better in the postseason than their less-experienced counterparts. That is a fact.

It may be cherry-picked, and maybe in your opinion it is worthless, but it’s all I’ve got.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!]]> David Gassko 2008-11-20T04:28:00-05:00 TUCK! sez: File under “Duh” http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/tuck-sez-file-under-duh/#When:05:05:00Z

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!]]> Tuck 2008-11-19T05:05:00-05:00 BOB:&nbsp; Mark Cuban’s Troubles and MLB Network News http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/bob-mark-cubans-troubles-and-mlb-network-news/#When:05:03:00Z

Mark Cuban Charged For Insider Trading


The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban for insider trading earlier this week. It seems he got a tip from someone inside the company Mamma.com and sold his shares before the stock dropped nearly 10 percent the next day. In the process, Cuban avoided losing nearly $750,000 by getting out early.

Some of you may wonder what this has to do with baseball. Well, Cuban was one of the people bidding to buy the Chicago Cubs. My guess is that with the looming charges, Cuban is now out of the running. Word was that the league wasn’t going to let him buy the team anyway, but this provides a convenient excuse to push him out.

Coming This January


Baseball fans will get their baseball fix early in 2009 because on New Year's Day, the MLB Network goes live on high-definition television. In an interesting interview the MLB Network senior vice president of distribution, affiliate sales and marketing talked about how the current economy would affect the network. He also discussed briefly how the network hopes to expand the number of televised games from the initial 26 it’s already got on its schedule.

I’m interested to see how the network does. The debut of the station will take place in over 50 million homes; that will be the biggest debut ever. There are usually growing pains as new networks weed out what works and what doesn’t, but I’m looking forward to how everything develops.

The MLB Logo Debate


Two years ago, a Wall Street Journal article gave credit to Jerry Dior, a 76-year-old graphic designer, for creating the current MLB logo. MLB has failed to confirm whether Dior was the man behind the design, but since the time the article ran, another person has come forward and taken credit for the design. James Sherman, a comic-book artist, has since said that the credit should go to him.

In an interesting interview at ESPN.com, Paul Lukas caught up with Sherman and Dior. In the interview, Sherman was taken out of the equation and confirmed that he didn’t design the current logo, but that he worked on something similar about 10 years after the logo was designed not knowing that the current logo existed. The discussion with Dior was a lot longer and while there’s no way for sure to prove he’s the designer, he definitely makes an interesting case.

Dodgers Reach For the Moon At Glendale


At historic Dodgertown, the team’s highest-priced spring training ticket was $20. Now that the Dodgers are moving into their new Glendale, Ariz. facility in 2009, they’ve decided to raise their prices a little. OK, make that a lot.

Of the top seats, 692 have a $90 price tag. Fortunately, you get more than just a great view. If you pony up for the $90, you get free parking which would normally cost $10, a $20 coupon for food, beverages and merchandise, a premium souvenir as well as complimentary sunscreen, water and fancy towels. The cheapest in-stadium seat is $18, but if you want to rough it and sit on the lawn, you can get in to watch the game for $8.

It’ll be interesting to see how many of these seats they sell with the state of the economy. While things could turn around before March, it’s not likely and my opinion is, spring training revenue is going to take at least a marginal downturn in 2009.

Salem Avalanche Changes Name


The Salem Avalanche recently became a Boston Red Sox affiliate and with the change in affiliation comes a name change. Now, the team will be called the Salem Red Sox and the hope is that the Red Sox brand gives the team a boost as far as revenue is concerned. Prior to their affiliation with the Red Sox, Salem was the Carolina League affiliate for the Houston Astros.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!]]> Brian Borawski 2008-11-19T05:03:00-05:00 Another look at Tim Lincecum http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/another-look-at-tim-lincecum/#When:05:05:00Z
image
Tim Lincecum throwing his two-seam fastball (Icon/SMI)



During the last offseason, I gushed over Tim Lincecum and his incredible tools. Now that Lincecum has taken home the Cy Young award, I want to do my first rewrite of a player, to look at Lincecum's evolution this year and how he went from an excellent pitcher to the best pitcher in the National League.

First, though, a small correction to the previous article. Tim Lincecum's fastball is actually a two-seamer, not a four-seam fastball. Despite being able to throw his fastball in the mid-90s and with a ton of vertical "rise," Lincecum does not use four seams. Big thanks to Icon for this excellent picture showing Lincecum's fastball. You have to look closely, but once you see the seams, it is easy to tell this is a two-seamer. For more on fastball grips check this site.

Really, whether it is a four-seamer or two-seamer doesn't matter because of the excellent action of the pitch. Here is a look at the movement of Lincecum's pitches.

image

Lincecum's fastball averages 95 mph, which is overpowering, but he combines that with 11 inches of vertical movement and only three inches of horizontal movement. The small horizontal movement is because Lincecum throws his fastball from almost completely over the top. Because his fastball has little horizontal movement, it is effective against both right- and left-handed batters. Pitchers who throw more sidearm generally specialize in similarly handed batters. The overpowering speed is great, but the movement of the pitch makes it so much better.

For off-speed pitches, Lincecum throws a change-up, slider and curveball. While the change-up and curveball were holdovers from last year, Lincecum added a slider this year—about two sliders in 100 pitches. Lincecum had thrown a slider in college, but it was scrapped when he was drafted. You can see why Lincecum didn't use his slider often—it has almost no horizontal movement, which is important.

Lincecum's curveball is a very hard one, averaging 80 mph, similar to Ben Sheets'. Also like Sheets, he gets good vertical drop, and that combination is absolutely deadly. Here is a look at Lincecum's average fastball and curve from the side.

image

Because of its speed, Lincecum can hide his curve extremely well. His curveball's hump is absolutely tiny and he is letting it go from exactly the same release point. That gives a hitter no clue that the pitch is coming. But fooling hitters is only part of the equation. You then have to have the pitch drop enough so the hitter is swinging over the curve. That is where the vertical movement comes in; you can see the result with the huge differential when the pitch reaches home plate. That combination is what makes the pitch so effective.

As good as Lincecum's curve is, I don't feel it is his best off-speed pitch. That pitch is his change-up, which has identical horizontal movement to his fastball with about half a foot less vertical "rise." In addition, Lincecum has an excellent speed differential of almost 11 mph. That is extremely strong. When you look at his change-up and fastball, you see an even more devastating combination than his curveball/fastball.

image

There isn't any way for a hitter to identify the change-up here until the ball is right on top of him. If his change-up had different horizontal movement than his fastball, hitters could use that, but again, Lincecum's change-up has identical horizontal movement. This is one of the best change-ups in the world right now and you hear almost nothing about it. The scary thing is Lincecum just started throwing this pitch when he signed with the Giants. Whoever taught Lincecum his change in the Giants organization deserves a huge raise.

Usage

While Lincecum's pitches are electric, plenty of pitchers have electric stuff. What made Lincecum the best pitcher in the National League this year was how he used those pitches. Last year, he used his curve a little more than his change-up and used it mostly as his strikeout pitch. This year, Lincecum used his change-up more often and with two strikes much more frequently. As I mentioned last week while writing about Brett Myers, breaking pitches that move away from the hitter tend to be more effective than breaking pitches that move toward the hitter. For a right-handed pitcher, this means more change-ups to left-handed batters and more curveballs to right-handed batters. Lincecum absolutely followed that pattern this year.
Type     RHB  LHB
Curve     18  7.5
Change    11  27

(all values in percent)

Notice that Lincecum still throws some curves to left-handed batters and some change-ups to right-handed batters. He can get away with that more than other pitchers because he throws over the top and his change-up and curve have less horizontal movement. Pitchers like Myers who have more horizontal movement with breaking pitches need to be more careful about this. This means that right-handed batters can't just forget about Lincecum's change-up and focus on his fastball and curveball. Just another thing for hitters to worry about when facing Lincecum.

Conclusions

I hope this article has convinced you that Tim Lincecum is far more than just his 95 mph fastball. While speed is great, Lincecum's movement on his pitches is also excellent. Lincecum's off-speed pitches mesh incredibly well with his fastball and this year he threw the right pitch for the situation time and time again.

Not only is Lincecum blessed with great stuff, but clearly knows how to pitch and that is a deadly combination. Expect him to be one of the best pitchers in the league for many years to come.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!]]> Josh Kalk 2008-11-18T05:05:00-05:00