THT Awards

Welcome to the awards.

All stats are for Monday, April 30th through Sunday, May sixth. Please see the week one column for award definitions and explanations.

This week’s proof that assigning wins and losses to a pitcher is an arcane practice that must stop

Good luck division

Clay Buchholz went six and two thirds, allowed six runs on seven hits and five walks, still got the win against Oakland.

Drew Hutchison yielded six runs on seven hits and two walks, striking out six. The Rangers blew the save, taking him off the hook and setting the table for Francisco Cordero to get a blown save/win combo in the ninth inning.

Ricky Romero admirably lasted eight innings, but less admirably allowed eight runs to the Rangers of Arlington. He still got the win as Yunel Escobar, Kelly Johnson, and Edwin Encarnacion punished Matt Harrison and Scott Feldman.

When you write this column and you’re watching the ticker at the bottom of the screen on ESPN or the MLB Network and you see a final score of 15-13, you know you’re going to be talking about it in one capacity or another. Well, Wednesday’s Atlanta/Philly tilt had a lot of notable things. Roy Halladay was shelled for eight runs but still managed to stay in the game for five and a third. Tommy Hanson didn’t make it out of the fourth, allowing four on eight hits and two walks. Neither starter got the loss as the teams traded blown saves. 12 relievers took the mound and only one hold was recorded compared to a win, a loss, and two blown saves. Three relievers gave up a combined to give up nine runs and because the score was so lopsided at that point, they didn’t get a blown save.

Tim Hudson and Guillermo Moscoso combined to allow 13 runs in 10 and a third on 13 hits and six walks, striking out 11. Neither got the loss.

Josh Johnson and Anthony Bass combined to yield 12 runs in eight and two thirds. Bass was in line for the win when Luke Gregerson blew the save.

Mike Minor and Jamie Moyer went 10 frames, yielded 14 runs in Coors on 20 hits and five walks. Neither was saddled with the loss.

Lost in the “Hey look, two position players pitched! Crazy game! 17 innings!” excitement was the fact that the starters allowed 10 runs in eight innings but neither Tommy Hunter nor Clay Buchholz got the loss.

Tommy Milone got the win despite getting touched up for five runs in five frames on five hits and four walks, striking out only one. Matt Moore is really scuffling.

Bad luck division

Shaun Marcum and Edinson Volquez combined to throw 14 scoreless innings. Even in San Diego, that is a pitcher’s duel. Neither got the win.

Justin Verlander posted a game score of 68 against the Royals and got a no-decision.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

Felix Hernandez and Jeremy Hellickson combined to allow two runs in 15 frames on 11 hits and four walks, striking out 16. Each walked away with no decision.

Ryan Dempster threw eight scoreless innings, allowing only three hits and one walk, striking out six. His work was erased by Carlos Marmol and Rafael Dolis, who combined to blow the save.

Max Scherzer posted a game score of 74, going seven frames, allowing one run on four hits, striking out nine and walking none. Jose Valverde blew the save and Scherzer got a no-decision.

I don’t usually put seven inning, two run allowed performances here, in order to keep the column from taking an hour and half to read through. But Matt Cain held the Brewers lineup to those two runs in seven innings, striking out 10 Milwaukee batters along the way, walking only one, yielding only six hits. But the Giants pen blew the save and he walked away with nothing despite a 66 game score.

Vulture Award

Chad Qualls blew the save in spectacular fashion. With a three run lead, Antonio Bastardo induced a groundout from David DeJesus, then walked Tony Campana. Qualls entered the game with one on and Campana on first. Campana stole second. Then Starlin Castro singled, plating Campana as an inherited runner. Then Bryan LaHair homered to tie the game. He allowed another single sandwiched between outs from the impotent Alfonso Soriano and the forgettable Blake Dewitt to end the inning. Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco, Juan Pierre, Scott Maine, and Rafael Dolis all worked to make Qualls a winner, and it happened. Qualls was terrible, blew the save, still got the win.

Rafael Betancourt’s first blown save of 2012 ended up being his first win of 2012.

Steve Cishek blew the save by allowing a base runner inherited from former closer Heath Bell to score. Giancarlo Stanton homered to give Cishek the win.

Wes Littleton Award

Chris Perez was protecting a three run lead in the ninth inning for Cleveland. He faced Alex Rios, Dayan Viciedo, and Kosuke Fukudome. Viciedo and Fukudome have done nothing but struggle this season and while Rios has hit fairly well this year, I trust him to start a rally about as far as I can throw Bartolo Colon. I don’t even care if that analogy made sense. Rios is reliably unreliable and Colon is the shape of the fat suits they use for the sumo wrestling between inning promotional contests during minor league games.

Cristhian Martinez entered the game with some leverage. There was only one out, the bases were loaded in Denver. Tyler Colvin and Marco Scutaro were due to come up. There was a four run lead, but Colvin has some pop. Martinez allowed one inherited runner to score on a groundball out before ending the frame, then proceeded to throw two scoreless before ending the game with a final score of seven to two for Atlanta.

As funny as it is to see a save in a 7-2 final score, the more ridiculous might just be Edward Mujica’s second save of the season against the Padres. With a three run lead, the three batters he retired were John Baker, Andy Parrino, and Nick Hundley, the seven-eight-nine spots in the Padres lineup.

Please hold the applause

Wesley Wright entered the game against the Mets with two out, nobody on in the bottom of the eighth, protecting a three run lead. He induced a grounder from Davis that was turned into the third out. He was lifted for closer Brett Myers at the top of the ninth. He threw one pitch with a three run lead against a hitter who held a .548 OPS at the end of the game. And he got credit for a hold. In order to get a hold or a save, you should at least have some combination of batters faced and base runners inherited sufficient enough to tie the game.

Any sufficiently advanced defense is indistinguishable from pitching

Brandon Beachy struck out two of the 25 Phillies he faced, allowing 12 fly balls against only 6 grounders, but was only touched up for two runs on five hits in seven frames.

Ricky Nolasco struck out only one Giants batter out of the 30 he faced and his only run allowed was to a solo home run. Only six balls in play found pasture in seven and a third and Nolasco got the victory.

That’s just stupid

Can we just reflect for a moment how stupid it was that Wilson Betemit got caught stealing in the top of the 17th inning of Sunday’s marathon game with Boston? Darnell McDonald was on the mound for the Sox. That’s corner outfielder Darnell McDonald. That’s Darnell McDonald who walked Betemit in six pitches, all of them clocked between 81 and 84 miles per hour by Pitch f/x to lead off the inning. This is the Darnell McDonald who yielded a double on the very next pitch after Betemit failed to take second base. McDonald ended up allowing three runs in the inning to take the loss.

When the guy on the mound isn’t a serious pitcher, playing conservative station-to-station baseball is the best move. I don’t know whether Betemit just decided that McDonald being on the mound would amount to an easy steal so he took off on his own, or if the order came from the Orioles dugout, but it was a stupid idea. When the guy on the mound is busy demonstrating that he can’t get hitters out, don’t ask the fielders to do his work for him. Let his terrible pitching hand you easy runs instead of tempting fate. It worked out in the end for the Orioles as McDonald’s novice pitching gave the Orioles a win while Chris Davis’ novice pitching sealed the game (really, that guy can pitch a little bit), but it doesn’t erase the idiocy of getting caught stealing when the guy on the mound is an outfielder screwing around with stuff weak enough that Pitch f/x doesn’t classify anything he throws as a fastball because it’s slow enough that it looks like a changeup or a cutter.

Joe Carter Award

I’ll open this up for debate. Which one is the best illustration of the Carter?

Mike Aviles drove in six, but hit .219/.242/.375 with two caught stealing in two attempts for a .617 OPS.

Hanley Ramirez drove in one more than Aviles, but was successful in his two steal attempts and hit a little better at .250/.294/.438 for a .732 OPS.

Mike Cuddyer drove in six, hit slightly better than Hanley at .261/.320/.435, didn’t have the bad judgment to attempt a steal, but plays a corner outfield spot and was at Coors Field all week.

So how do you weigh the extra RBI, the positional adjustment, the overall suckiness of the batting line, and the stolen bases or failure thereof? As the dude would say, this is a complicated case. There are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-you’s, a lot of strands to keep in my head, man.

Sanchez Award

Will Rhymes put up an ideal Sanchez line of .294/.294/.294 in 17 plate appearances.

Harmon Killebrew Award

Matt Joyce only collected six hits in 29 plate appearances, but one of those was a triple, another was a home run, and he chipped in three walks to bring him up to .231/.355/.423.

Jason Heyward was even more extreme in 20 PA. He went .231/.500/.462 with seven walks. He also got caught stealing twice so that means that he isn’t the best example.

Andre Ethier went .238/.370/.429 in 26 PA.

His teammate Matt Kemp went .222/.375/.500 in 23 PA.

Going .208/.406/.375 with a home run and eight walks in 32 PA is just what Carlos Pena does. It’s his thing.

Nobody’s going to throw parades for a .775 OPS, but with third base being in the state that it is in, David Freese’s high degree of difficultly .190/.346/.429 has some value.

Steve Balboni Award

Michael Saunders struck out 12 times in 27 PA, which is informative when you hear about his .115/.148/.231 line this week. Also note this amusing Saunders moment from this week.

Saunders’ teammate Brendan Ryan fanned 10 times in 17 PA, which is atrocious. Also atrocious is his .188/.211/.188 line.

Adam Lind walked three times, smacked a home run, and still had one of the worst performances in the league this week. How did he do that? Well eight whiffs in 21 at bats are a good start. .095/.208/.238.

Colby Rasmus had a similar week with a .143/.217/.143 line and eight strikeouts in 23 PA.

Hey, Andruw Jones is still doing Andruw Jones things! .267/.313/.267 with seven strikeouts in 16 PA.

Three true outcomes

Jose Bautista is having a bad year thus far. But with two home runs, three walks, and nine strikeouts in 28 PA, at least he has this.

Kelly Johnson went two-three-nine in 30 PA.

Giancarlo Stanton has a lot of TTO potential. This week he went four-five-nine in 32 PA.

Did you expect to not see Adam Dunn here? Four-three-eight in 25 PA gets you on the list.

Carlos Gonzalez gave the Rockies some nice performances. He gave the rest of us a three-four-seven in 27 PA week.

Carlos Pena is as much an expected sight here as Dunn. One-eight-five in 32 PA qualifies.

Heyward went one-seven-two in 20 PA.

The anti-TTO

For the second week in a row, somebody posted a zero-zero-zero. This week it was Angel Pagan in 24 PA.

Michael Brantley posted a zero-zero-two in 25 PA.

Scutaro went zero-one-one in 25 PA.

This week’s MVP

AL: Jason Kipnis smacked 10 hits in 26 PA this week. Half of those hits went for extra bases. He also walked four times, only struck out twice, and went two for two on the bases. .455/.538/.909.

NL: I put Jed Lowrie on here not just because he and Kipnis are on my fantasy team, but because he had a similar week to Kipnis, going .476/.560/.857 in 25 PA with 10 hits and four walks.


6 Comments
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Paul G.
11 years ago

On the Joe Carter, I vote for Aviles.

Hanley slugging is actually fairly good and his batting average is, well, average, so a good RBI total is not totally surprising.  His OBP is genuinely terrible but how many runs get driven in by walks?

As for Cuddyer, it is Coors Field.  Players get RBIs for getting off the bus without injuring themselves.  You have to get more than 6 of them before getting consideration or half the Rockies team would qualify each week!

Mitch
11 years ago

I’ve always associated low OBP with the Joe Carter award, so I’d like to nominate Aviles.

David
11 years ago

Didn’t you rip Soriano enough last week, without having to mock his bedroom failures this week?

John M Barten
11 years ago

I just assume Alfonso Soriano is as bad at everything as he is at baseball. I should make a new Tumblr and call it Alfonso Soriano Facts.

I could make up stuff like “Alfonso Soriano doesn’t mind doing laundry for his family, but his family hates it because he puts bleach in the Downy ball and the kids always end up with mismatched socks.”

And

“Alfonso Soriano always keeps a pad of paper and a working pen in his car because he is so incapable of parallel parking that he dents all of the cars around him.”

More

“Alfonso Soriano has never once remembered his wedding anniversary or his wife’s birthday.”

“Alfonso Soriano always writes a check in the express lane at the supermarket.”

“Alfonso Soriano still hasn’t figured out that Rachel from Cardholder Services is a recording and that his credit card company isn’t the one that calls him twice a day, every day trying to lower his interest rate.”

Mitch
11 years ago

“Alfonso Soriano stole the period from John Barten’s middle initial.”

John M Barten
11 years ago

Well played, Mitch.