When Access Is Detrimental To The Truth
I’m going to disagree with Geoff Baker’s most recent blog post in a second, so let me begin with the standard caveat; I like Geoff, he’s a good guy, he’s a good beat writer, and the Times baseball coverage has improved dramatically since he was hired. This isn’t anything personal against him – he just wrote another post that lacks reality, so I’m going to add a little truth to the discussion.
After last night’s game, Baker talked to Carlos Silva about why his results were so much better than his first couple of months as a Mariner. Silva pulled out the trusty old mechanical change, which, as we’ve noted before, pitchers use all the time to take credit for positive results they have nothing to do with. Here’s the whole quote:
Silva has been working all year to figure out why his sinker isn’t working the way he’d like. It isn’t sinking much. That’s a big reason why he needed 100 pitches to get through five innings against the Tigers last Thursday.
It turns out, Silva made a between-starts mechanical adjustment. Pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, an ex-sinkerballer himself, felt Silva was squeezing the ball too hard. So, instead of holding his hands up near his chest as he began his windup — which Silva felt caused his arms to press together and his fingers to grip the ball tighter — he held them at waist level tonight.
“We’ve been trying so many things,” Silva said of the work he’s done between starts with Stottlemyre. “We’ve been working so hard.”
Silva had even apologized to Stottlemyre after one recent loss, figuring all his hard work had been wasted by a poor outing.
Silva needed a few innings to get used to the mechanical change tonight. Unfortunately for him, that’s when all the game’s runs were scored. But a team needs to score to win. That’s not his fault. By the middle innings, though, he felt as relaxed on the mound as he has all season.
As always, Baker took what Silva said at face value and printed it as fact – remember the “Silva learned a split-finger” stuff that he was pushing during the off season, which was complete crap, as Silva hasn’t thrown a single splitter as a Mariner – laying the blame for Silva’s early season struggles directly on the lack of movement on his sinker and giving credit for the mechanical change to helping his sinker dive more tonight, which was the cause of his improved performance.
Unfortunately, it’s just not true. Thanks to Pitch F/x data, we can quantify just how much Silva’s pitches move both horizontally and vertically, and we have the data for both 2007 and 2008. The vertical movement is “movement in z” in PFX terminology, with a lower number indicating more vertical movement (thinking of it as an axis helps). The sink on his fastball is virtually identical to what it was last year.
In fact, if you go game by game, you’ll see how the reality just doesn’t match the theory – Silva had far more sink on his fastball in games he got shelled (May 4th vs NY, July 3rd vs DET) than he did in games where he got outs (June 28th vs SD, July 8th vs OAK).
You don’t even have to look at Pitch F/X data if you want to explore whether Silva had more sink than usual last night – just look at where Oakland hitters put the ball. He got all of 8 groundouts against 11 flyouts. Apparently, all that extra sink helped the A’s hit the ball in the air, except that runs completely against everything we know about sinking fastballs.
And what about his April performance, where Baker wouldn’t stop talking about how great an acquisition Silva was because he worked deep into games and was a true seven inning pitcher? In April, he ran a 47% GB%. Since then, when he’s been routinely pounded, his GB% has fallen all the way to 46%. Oh, wait, that’s the same.
And, for all this talk about how his sinker hasn’t been working, in his three starts from June 10th to June 22nd he racked up GB% of 64% (vs TOR), 60% (vs FLA), and 63% (vs ATL). He was getting groundballs left and right for that three game stretch, and with the sinker working, he posted a 5.02 ERA during those three games, not even getting out of the 5th inning in two of those starts.
I’m sure Carlos Silva actually did make a mechanical adjustment – I’m not accusing him of lying. I am saying that trying to draw a correlation between the mechanical adjustment, increased movement on Silva’s sinker, and the results he got tonight is total crap, and the kind of completely wrong analysis of pitchers we’ve come to expect from the M’s and most of the local media. Silva didn’t get a bunch of outs tonight because he lowered his hands – he got a bunch of outs tonight because the A’s have a bad offense, and as we’ve been telling people for years, pitch to contact strike throwers are wildly inconsistent from game to game, as the results of their performance are almost completely in the hands of their opponents.
Now, maybe it’s not as good of a game story to say that Silva got a bunch out outs because he faced a line-up where Emil Brown was hitting cleanup, but Geoff, can you stop accepting whatever people on the team tell you at face value and printing it as fact when it’s easily refuted by actual evidence? If Miguel Batista goes out there on Wednesday and throws a no-hitter, then explains in the post-game interview that the success was due to a new found secret that will revitalize his career and make him an ace at age 37, are you going to print that too?
Oh, wait, I’m sorry, you already did that a few months ago.
Silva’s off season splitter, Batista’s magical discovery, Washburn’s phone call to his college coach, and now Silva holding his hands lower… how many explanations are we going to have to sit through before everyone just says “hey, wait, this stuff is crap and never amounts to anything”?
Carlos Silva is what he is – a guy with a mediocre sinker and no outpitch whose entire approach to pitching is throw-the-ball-over-the-plate-and-pray-it-doesn’t-get-whacked. On those nights where it doesn’t get whacked (and he will have those, just like Washburn will, simply due to the randomness of balls in play), we don’t need to be given a new excuse for why this time it’s actually something they can continue to do.
Just call a spade a spade – a bad pitcher threw a bunch of mediocre sinkers to a bad offense, and tonight, they hit a lot of flyballs that the outfielders could catch. That’s it – that’s the game story.
What in the world is going on?
Is there some reality-distortion field around Vidro that makes him appear like a major league hitter when you get too close? Does he emit some delicious pheromone that makes managers drool? Does he have pictures?
He is the worst designated hitter in the American League. He batted fourth tonight. Here’s Vidro against the next-worst designated hitter with over 200 PA, Billy Butler:
Butler: .263/.325/.347
Vidro: .216/.263/.315
That’s a big gap. That’s the Huff-Thome gap, or the Thomas-Butler gap.
Just over .200 with some walks and the once-a-month extra-base hit from the team’s designated hitter, batting cleanup.
And yet we’ve seen two supposedly sane managers bat him cleanup not out of necessity or
If you want to see the team try and climb back to respectability this season, you should be incensed every time Vidro is in the lineup, angrier still the higher up he bats.
It makes no sense, absolutely no sense.
Also, what Dave said.
Uhh, Yeah
I am shocked, just shocked, that a line-up that had Willie Bloomquist’s .632 OPS hitting second, Jose Vidro’s .578 OPS hitting fourth, and Miguel Cairo’s .568 OPS hitting 9th could only manage two hits against Justin Duchscherer. I mean, really, who could see a team that starts three of the worst hitters alive struggling to score runs?
This organization is still dumb.
Game 90, Mariners at Athletics
Silva v. Duchscherer.
One of those two was last year’s free agent sweepstakes winner.
A’s Trade Harden
Subheadline: Establish Market Value For Good Pitchers With Injury Problems.
Subsubheadline: It Isn’t Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, and Kam Mickolio.
The A’s punted the 2008 season, giving the Angels the A.L. West, by trading sometimes healthy Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Cubs for a pu-pu platter of interesting players with limited upside. In return for two good arms with bad injury histories, they got RHP Sean Gallagher, OF/2B Eric Patterson, OF Matt Murton, and minor league C Josh Donaldson.
Gallagher is a decent 22-year-old who isn’t that far away from being a useful #4 starter. He commands three pitches and throws an occasional change-up, and while he’s got slightly better stuff, he’s probably going to have a Joe Blanton career. Useful, but not much star potential, and he’s the main guy in this deal.
Murton, we’ve talked about as a potential M’s target – solid role player, good defensive corner OF who can hit lefties. Could be a league average player if given the chance, but not enough power to be more that that.
Eric Patterson is Corey’s younger brother, but not the same type of player – gap hitter, decent idea of what to do at the plate, but can’t really field second base well and was moved to the OF to try to find a spot he could fit in with Chicago. The A’s probably move him back to second base and groom him as Mark Ellis’ replacement next year. That’s some kind of defensive drop off to go from Ellis to Patterson, but the bats are similar.
Donaldson was a second round pick last year who hasn’t hit in his first year in the pros, but he’s got some long term potential. A nice gamble, but not a guy you want to count in your plans anytime soon.
So, the A’s get a mid-rotation starter who isn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon, a part time outfielder, a guy who might be able to keep second base warm for a few years while not killing them, and a catcher who is years away from the show.
That’s about what an injury prone, talented pitcher a year and a half away from free agency should command in a trade. It’s a fair return for both sides, and it continues to illustrate just how ridiculously stupid the M’s offer to Baltimore was. If you’re in favor of trading Bedard before the deadline, you should expect to get back a package worth a little less than this deal, since Harden is currently pitching circles around Bedard and the A’s gave up Gaudin as well.
Current GM Handicapping
A semi-random gauge of who’s likely to get the job. Based on current press coverage, rumors, substantiated and un, educated guesses, and so on. We claim no insight into front office machinations. Please, no wagering.
For names and brief resumes, check our potential GM candidates post.
| Who | Percent |
| LaCava | 30% |
| Woodfork | 20% |
| DePodesta | 10% |
| Pelekoudas | 7% |
| Antonetti | 5% |
| Avila | 5% |
| DiPoto/Hinch/Hoyer | 5% |
| Ng | 5% |
| White | 1% |
| Evans | 1% |
| Forst | 1% |
| Towers | 1% |
| Field | 10% |
“Field” is everyone not listed.
MLB Trade Value: Top Fifty
For the last few years, I’ve done a ranking of my interpretation of the fifty most valuable assets in MLB, taking into account a player’s current and future value as well as contract status. I just finished this year’s list, which was published over at FanGraphs over the last week. In case you missed them, here are the posts:
And here’s the list in its entirety. I wrote commentary for all fifty guys in the fangraphs posts, so if you’re wondering why I ranked someone where I did, check out those posts. They might answer your questions.
1 Evan Longoria
2 Hanley Ramirez
3 Grady Sizemore
4 David Wright
5 Albert Pujols
6 Brian McCann
7 Chase Utley
8 Felix Hernandez
9 Tim Lincecum
10 Troy Tulowitzki
11 B.J. Upton
12 Josh Hamilton
13 Cole Hamels
14 Brandon Webb
15 Joe Mauer
16 Justin Upton
17 Jay Bruce
18 Russ Martin
19 Jose Reyes
20 Ryan Braun
21 Roy Halladay
22 Miguel Cabrera
23 Scott Kazmir
24 Josh Beckett
25 Chad Billingsley
26 Justin Verlander
27 Dan Haren
28 Geovany Soto
29 James Shields
30 Prince Fielder
31 Joba Chamberlain
32 Clayton Kershaw
33 Adrian Gonzalez
34 Ian Kinsler
35 Lance Berkman
36 Curtis Granderson
37 Edinson Volquez
38 Dan Uggla
39 John Lackey
40 Alex Rodriguez
41 Jake Peavy
42 Chipper Jones
43 Dustin McGowan
44 Jacoby Ellsbury
45 Robinson Cano
46 Ryan Zimmerman
47 Carlos Zambrano
48 Clay Buchholz
49 Johan Santana
50 James Loney
Platooning, Riggle-style
Bloomquist/Reed, centerfield.
Bloomquist plays against lefties, Reed against righties.
Bloomquist career against lefties: .272/.332/.362
Reed career against lefties: .169/.247/.228
Now, in terms of where they are and how they’re hitting this year, if you played Reed all the time you’d probably be just as well off — Reed’s better than where he was back in 04/05, and while I don’t have access to his minor league splits off the top of my head, it seems unlikely that he’s quite that helpless against lefties that his hitting would be reduced to Bloomquist levels. Still, this is defensible at least.
Anyway, so there’s data point one.
What really makes no sense though is Vidro. Historically, Vidro hits the same from both sides (seriously, the lines are within points of each other) — about a 800 OPS.
This year, he’s hitting almost equally badly from both sides — .215/.269/.312 vs RHP, .226/.250/.340 vs LHP (small sample size here, obviously) — and both Jose and Pepe are equally done. He is among the worst hitters in baseball against both left and right-handed hitting. Being a switch hitter just means he sucks from both sides of the plate.
Nearly everyone else playing baseball is better at hitting left or right handed pitching compared to Vidro. Clement qualifies as “nearly everyone else”. He’s a hugely talented hitter and even if you believe that he’s not as good against left-handed pitchers he cannot possibly be worse than Vidro in any situation at this point. Ever. Vidro’s done, he’s toast. Clement has a pulse. There is no situation you’d ever want Vidro over Clement, because in every situation of the other four hundred something hitters currently on major league rosters at least four hundred of them will be better than Vidro, and many of the three-hundred-some pitchers will too.
So beyond why you’d run a pseudo-platoon at DH with those two, it entirely baffles me why Riggleman would pinch-hit for Clement against lefties with Vidro.
Mariner GM watch: Kim Ng article
Lots of hand-wringing but also a good summary of Ng’s resume in this Yahoo Sports article.
Game 89, Mariners at Athletics
The Bus vs. Eveland, 7:05 our time.
I’m watching the Tour de France while I wait for the game to come on. Woooooo!
Pretty normal lineup, Johjima catches, Clement DHs and is protected in the order by Willie Boom-Boom Bloomquist.