Jays Take A Walk on the Wild Side

Last night the Red Sox snuck by the Blue Jays by a score of 7-6.  The game was pretty unique in that Toronto’s starter, Brandon Morrow, walked 6 batters in just 1.2 innings of work.  As a team, the Jays surrendered 6 walks in the 2nd inning alone, with the 6th being issued by Josh Roenicke.  The game as a whole doesn’t rank anywhere near the top for most walks surrendered by one team, as they issued no more walks after the 2nd inning.   But Morrow’s 6 walks for one pitcher in a game has been bested only six times this season. All six of them had 7:

 

Rk Player Date Tm Opp Rslt App,Dec IP â–¾ H ER BB SO IBB HBP WP
1 Gil Meche 2010-05-08 KCR TEX L 2-3 CG 8 ,L 8.0 6 3 7 3 0 0 0
2 Mike Leake 2010-04-11 CIN CHC W 3-1 GS-7 6.2 4 1 7 5 0 0 1
3 Derek Lowe 2010-04-10 ATL SFG W 7-2 GS-6 ,W 6.0 4 1 7 4 2 0 0
4 Greg Smith 2010-04-18 COL ATL L 3-4 GS-6 5.1 5 2 7 5 1 0 0
5 Jake Peavy 2010-04-22 CHW TBR L 2-10 GS-5 ,L 4.1 7 7 7 5 0 0 0
6 Oliver Perez 2010-05-09 NYM SFG L 5-6 GS-4 3.1 2 3 7 2 0 1 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/11/2010.

I’ve sorted by innings pitched in an attempt to truly highlight Morrow’s ineptitude. As you can see, Oliver Perez had the shortest outing of the group at 3.1 innings. Derek Lowe managed to get credit for the win and Gil Meche pitched a complete game. Now here is Morrow’s line from his start last night:

 

Pitching IP H ER BB SO
Brandon Morrow, L (2-3) 1.2 3 6 6 4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/11/2010.

Morrow was able to record just 5 outs, and somehow managed to record 4 of those via strikeout while turning in what was probably the wildest start of the season thus far. In fact, Morrow is one of just 3 players in the years covered by Baseball-Reference’s Play Index (1920-1939, 1952-2010) to start a game, surrender 6 or more walks, and strike out 4 or more batters in 2 innings or less.

 

Rk Player Date Tm Opp Rslt App,Dec IP H ER BB â–¾ SO HR IBB HBP WP
1 Stan Bahnsen 1974-05-19 CHW OAK L 3-8 GS-2 ,L 2.0 2 7 6 4 1 1 0 1
2 Paul Rigdon 2000-08-09 MIL SFG L 3-9 GS-2 ,L 2.0 3 5 6 4 2 0 0 0
3 Brandon Morrow 2010-05-10 TOR BOS L 6-7 GS-2 ,L 1.2 3 6 6 4 0 0 0 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/11/2010.

I imagine this is a pretty rare feat because the walks clearly display the pitchers’ lack of control while the strikeouts would seem to indicate the opposite. One of Bahnsen’s walks was intentional, but he was the only one of the three to throw a wild pitch. And Rigdon allowed 2 homeruns – ouch. Morrow’s start just may be the best of these three.

AL April All-Stars

For what it’s worth (it’s not worth as much as most fans think it is), here are my American League All-Stars for the month of April.  

C – Joe Mauer (MIN)
Pretty easy choice when you’ve got a once-in-a-generation talent like this guy.  Led the way with a .345 average and a .906 OPS, not numbers that are put up by catchers very often.
Honorable mention: Matt Wieters (BAL), Jorge Posada (NYY)
1B – Miguel Cabrera (DET)
Another familiar face.  Cabrera mashed the opposition, posting a .372/.450/.655 slash line (AVG/OBP/SLG) which is good for a monstrous 1.105 OPS.  Sure, Paul Konerko had 5 more home runs, but I can’t ignore the fact that he hit exactly 100 points less.  
Honorable Mention: Paul Konerko (CWS), Justin Morneau (MIN)
2B – Robinson Cano (NYY)
Cano has a significant edge over the others here, with a .362 average and a .695 slugging percentage.  I wouldn’t call him a regular in terms of all-star discussions, but I can’t say I’m too surprised either given the growth he showed last year.
Honorable Mention: Dustin Pedroia (BOS), Ty Wigginton (BAL)
3B – Evan Longoria (TB)
I would’ve loved nothing more than to give this one to Adrian Beltre, but Longoria’s .624 slugging mark compared to Beltre’s .467 was too convincing.  Longoria closed out the month with a .349 average and 7 home runs.
Honorable Mention: Adrian Beltre (BOS), Miguel Tejada (BAL), Alberto Callaspo (KC)
SS – Derek Jeter (NYY)
He somehow finds a way to do it year in and year out.  Jeter finishes April with a .310 average and 4 homers.  Asdrubal Cabrera doesn’t make the honorable mention here despite his .311 average because I can’t ignore his paltry 1 home run and 4 RBI.  Maybe its because he’s on the Indians, or maybe its because he’s lacking with runners on base.  He hit just .214 with runners in scoring position.
Honorable Mention: Marco Scutaro (BOS), Elvis Andrus (TEX)
OF – Austin Jackson (DET), Vernon Wells (TOR), Nelson Cruz (TEX)
Lots of good options here.  These fast starts, especially those of Jackson and Wells, have been well documented.  Jackson because he’s a rookie who hit .369 in April and Wells because of his notoriously bloated contract, which looks slightly better after his .325/.391/.640 April.  
Honorable Mention: Carl Crawford (TB), Scott Podsednik (CWS), Franklin Gutierrez (SEA)
Check out the balance of power early on in the American League this season.  Of course these are only my choices, but of the eight starters I’ve selected, the division breakdown is as follows: 
East- 4
Central- 3
West- 1
Including the starters and the honorable mentions, the breakdown is:
East- 12
Central- 7
West- 3
The West only has 4 teams compared to 5 in the other two divisions, so if you multiply their representatives by 5/4 the field is leveled, and they still trail 4 – 3 – 1.2 and 12 – 7 – 3.75.  These results are supported by the standings, which show the Yankees challenging the Rays for the East and the best record in baseball, while all four AL West teams struggle in the early going.  Here are the cumulative winning percentages by team through April:
East- .522
Central- .487
West- .489
The West is able to edge the Central here because while they are pretty pathetic, they have no truly terrible teams.  The four clubs finished April with remarkably similar records- 12-12, 12-12, 11-12, and 11-12.  

The 1928 AL MVP Race

A few days ago, on April 29th, John Buck of the Toronto Blue Jays hit 3 home runs in one game, which is a pretty impressive feat.  It is even more impressive that Buck did it while playing catcher.  Since 1920, no catcher has ever homered 4 (or more) times in one game, and Buck marks the 27th time a catcher has homered thrice.  It should be noted that with searches made on Baseball-Reference such as this one, the years 1940-1951 are not covered.  So these 27 games cover the years 1920-1939 and 1952-2010.  The last to do it was Victor Martinez for the Indians in 2004.  His current teammate Jason Varitek is in the club as well, having completed the feat in 2001.  

The second of these 27 games was recorded in 1925 by Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane, who I am proud to introduce to this blog as a Boston University alum.  The conversation of BU alums in the majors really starts and ends with this guy, but I guess I can’t complain.  His 13 year career includes 2 MVP awards, 2 All-Star games (the first All-Star Game was played when he was 30 years old), and 3 World Series Championships.  Cochrane’s career is an interesting one for a multitude of reasons, so don’t be surprised if you hear his name on this blog again.
The most intriguing part for me is the quality of competition that he managed to beat out both times he came away with the American League MVP Award.  First let’s look at the leading vote-getters the first time he won in 1928:
Voting Results Batting Stats Pitching Stats
Rank ▴ Tm Vote Pts Share G AB R H HR RBI SB BB BA OBP SLG OPS
1 Mickey Cochrane PHA 53.0 83% 131 468 92 137 10 57 7 76 .293 .395 .464 .859
2 Heinie Manush SLB 51.0 80% 154 638 104 241 13 108 16 39 .378 .414 .575 .989
3 Joe Judge WSH 27.0 42% 153 542 78 166 3 93 16 80 .306 .396 .417 .813
3 Tony Lazzeri NYY 27.0 42% 116 404 62 134 10 82 15 43 .332 .397 .535 .932
5 Willie Kamm CHW 15.0 23% 155 552 70 170 1 84 17 73 .308 .391 .411 .802
6 Goose Goslin WSH 13.0 20% 135 456 80 173 17 102 16 48 .379 .442 .614 1.056
6 Earle Combs NYY 13.0 20% 149 626 118 194 7 56 11 77 .310 .387 .463 .850
8 Charlie Gehringer DET 12.0 19% 154 603 108 193 6 74 15 69 .320 .395 .451 .846
9 Buddy Myer BOS 11.0 17% 147 536 78 168 1 44 30 53 .313 .379 .390 .769
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/2/2010.

I’ve included the top 9 leading vote-getters, who were all hitters. As you can see, Cochrane barely eked out the victory over Manush- but how did he? Manush dwarfs him in nearly every relevant category, including a batting average that was 85 points higher despite collecting an extra 170 at-bats. I looked to defense for an explanation, and found that Manush posted a .992 fielding percentage in the outfield compared to a league average .966, while Cochrane posted a .966 fielding percentage behind the dish compared to a league average .976. Cochrane’s Athletics finished second in the American League while Manush’s Browns finished 3rd. But is that really enough to justify all his other “shortcomings?” Of course not.

In 1928, the AL MVP award had certain restrictions that are no longer in effect. The award was given to “the baseball player who is of the greatest all-around service to his club” and was voted on by a committee of just eight baseball writers. The three major differences from today were that you could not win if you were a player-manager (which was common then), you could not win if you had won before (this took Lou Gehrig, the 1927 winner among others out of the equation), and each of the eight writers had to vote for one player from each team. The first two rules have no effect on Manush, as he was eligible to win that year. The last sounds promising, but even that offers no help. Manush had no St. Louis Browns worthy of the title to compete with, while Cochrane played with a 41-year old Ty Cobb and a 20-year old Jimmie Foxx among other future Hall of Famers. Foxx even finished 11th in the voting, while none of Manush’s teammates finished in the top 25.

All this, and still no mention of Goose Goslin, who finished 6th in the voting. A quick glance at the table above, and it appears that he finished just 6 RBI short of the Triple Crown. This was not actually the case, since some ineligible players had him beat in home runs and RBI, although he did lead the league in batting average. He also finished the season with a Ruthian OPS of 1.056 (actually, Ruth’s OPS that year was 1.172, but he was ineligible to be MVP by virtue of winning the award in 1923). How did Goslin get overlooked? Maybe the teammate argument actually holds some weight here, since his fellow Washington Senator Joe Judge finished ahead of him at 3rd place.

I apologize if this post is unsatisfying, because I really have no answer to the question I have raised. I can’t find any justification for Cochrane winning this award over Manush or Goslin, unless the voters thought that he brought enough intangibles to the table to make up for his lack of statistical clout. Nevertheless, the 1928 AL MVP was the first awarded to a BU alum, and the second would come in 1934, also to Cochrane. This post is longer than I thought it would be so I’ll wrap up, but I would like to take a look at that MVP race eventually as well. And in case you are a particularly astute reader and you just noticed that Cochrane won twice despite there being a rule against it, the rules for the award were restructured in 1931 and have remained virtually the same since then. In conclusion, you can ask your friends and family the trivia question, “Who won the AL MVP Award in 1929 and 1930?” and then mock them as they attempt to answer before you inform them that no one did, because they discontinued it after 1928 due to the ridiculous rules and didn’t get it going again until 1931. Thanks for reading, and if you like the blog or if you have anything at all to say, I love comments and e-mails.

Close Calls & DMac

Before tonight’s 2-0 victory over Toronto, check out the last time the Red Sox won by more than 1 run:

Gm# Date Tm Opp R RA W-L GB Win Loss Save
8 Wednesday, Apr 14 boxscore BOS MIN W 6 3 4-4 1.5 Lackey Slowey Papelbon
9 Thursday, Apr 15 boxscore BOS MIN L 0 8 4-5 2.5 Liriano Wakefield
10 Friday, Apr 16 boxscore BOS TBR L 1 3 4-6 3.0 Cormier Delcarmen Soriano
11 Saturday, Apr 17 boxscore BOS TBR L 5 6 4-7 4.0 Shields Buchholz Soriano
12 Sunday, Apr 18 boxscore BOS TBR L 1 7 4-8 5.0 Garza Lester
13 Monday, Apr 19 boxscore BOS TBR L 2 8 4-9 6.0 Niemann Lackey
14 Tuesday, Apr 20 boxscore BOS TEX W 7 6 5-9 5.5 Papelbon Francisco
15 Wednesday, Apr 21 boxscore BOS TEX W 8 7 6-9 5.5 Okajima Nippert
16 Thursday, Apr 22 boxscore BOS TEX L 0 3 6-10 6.0 Wilson Buchholz Oliver
17 Friday, Apr 23 boxscore BOS BAL W 4 3 7-10 5.0 Delcarmen Albers Papelbon
18 Saturday, Apr 24 boxscore BOS BAL W 7 6 8-10 5.0 Lackey Albers Papelbon
19 Sunday, Apr 25 boxscore BOS BAL L 6 7 8-11 6.0 Johnson Atchison Meredith
20 Monday, Apr 26 boxscore BOS TOR W 13 12 9-11 5.5 Schoeneweis Camp Papelbon
21 Tuesday, Apr 27 boxscore BOS TOR W 2 1 10-11 5.5 Buchholz Downs Ramirez
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/29/2010.

That’s right, not since April 14th, 2 weeks ago. The BoSox may have gotten back to .500 with tonight’s win, which is always good to see, but the fact of the matter is they still have a lot of work left to do if they want to contend this season. I am encouraged by the way Clay Buchholz has been pitching and by Jon Lester‘s last two starts. If John Lackey and Josh Beckett can pick it up, then the rotation will be in good shape even if #5 remains a mystery with Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Don’t look now, but Lester hasn’t allowed a run in his last 13.1 innings.

One of the more interesting and surprising bright spots for the Sox thus far has been Darnell McDonald. Carrying a .286 average and 2 home runs through just 25 plate appearances into tonight’s contest, many fans are wondering where the heck this guy came from. That’s where I come in.

McDonald is 31 years old and in his fourth major league season. He made his major league debut back in 2004 at the tender age of 25 with the Baltimore Orioles, who selected him with the 26th overall pick in the 1997 amateur draft. Since then he’s been all over the majors and the minors, logging just 147 big league at-bats coming into this season. During that time he posted a below average slash line of .231/.276/.333.

So where is this new found success coming from? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can tell you one thing. He’s not the young prospect that some interpret him as, and for this reason he doesn’t have a legitimate chance of staying with the team long term. He may be a fan favorite already, but something’s gotta give when both Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury (remember them?) return from the DL. The team can’t afford to carry more than four outfielders at a time, and there’s just no way that McDonald can play himself ahead of Ellsbury, Cameron, J.D. Drew, or Jeremy Hermida. Thanks for the memories DMac, but I’m afraid your time is almost up.

Couldn’t Resist

Ok, so I said I wouldn’t come back to this until my paper was done. But I’ve got about 5 pages written and I’m sitting in a Macroeconomics lecture, so you can’t blame me. Plus, I wanted to try out a couple of new features from Baseball-Reference. With the click of a button, their new tool will search my post and link all players names that it finds to their B-Ref page. Pretty cool right? Check it out- Ryan Howard. Manny Ramirez. John Lackey. Amazing.

Here’s another neat tool: posting tables of data. I don’t think this is new, but I haven’t tried it before, so here goes nothing.

Year Age Tm Lev Aff W L ERA G GS IP H ER BB WHIP
1987 21 Billings Rk CIN 4 0 3.43 17 1 39.1 33 15 20 1.347
1988 22 Billings Rk CIN 1 3 4.90 14 10 64.1 72 35 31 1.601
1989 23 Cedar Rapids A CIN 5 1 2.66 38 2 81.1 50 24 41 1.119
1990 24 Cedar Rapids A CIN 0 0 3.68 4 0 7.1 9 3 4 1.773
4 Seasons 10 4 3.60 73 13 192.1 164 77 96 1.352
A (2 seasons) 5 1 2.74 42 2 88.2 59 27 45 1.173
Rk (2 seasons) 5 3 4.34 31 11 103.2 105 50 51 1.505
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/27/2010.

Any idea who those stats belong to? You guessed it- Scott Economy. Look at that, I’m studying. Unfortunately the player linker only works for active players. But here’s the link to Mr. Economy’s page anyway in case that fantastic table of minor league dominance was not enough for you.

Vincent Van Go

One part of the game that has always fascinated me is how a player’s speed can affect his value.  If someone can routinely steal second after a single, isn’t that just as good as having a big bat who hits doubles more often?  One stat that I like to look at to isolate these types of players is to see which guys finish the season with more steals than RBI.  Of those with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title, 3 guys accomplished this in 2009: Nyjer Morgan, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Michael Bourn.  Bourn had by far the largest discrepancy with 61 steals and just 35 RBI.  He and Ellsbury both accomplished the feat in 2008 as well, in addition to Chone Figgins, Ichiro Suzuki, and Willy Taveras.  

How common is such a season?  From 1920-2009, 99 different players had such seasons.  In the same time period, just 19 players had seasons where their stolen bases were more than DOUBLE their RBI.  By far, the king of this stat is Vince Coleman.  Remarkably, he was able to pull it off in each of his first five years in the big leagues.  Over that span from 1985-1989, he totaled 472 stolen bases and just 178 RBI, good for a 2.65:1 ratio.  His 1985 rookie season featured a career high and league leading 110 steals as he won the NL Rookie of the Year Award, finished 11th in NL MVP voting, and led his St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series.  He would go on to lead the NL in steals every year after that until 1991 when he played in just 72 games (and still managed 37 steals).  He was even speedy enough to earn the supremely cool nickname “Vincent Van Go.”
Unfortunately, Coleman was unable to play in that 1985 World Series.  Before Game 4 of the NLCS that year, Coleman was on the field when the decision was made to roll out the tarp for a rain delay.  He didn’t realize that it was happening, and he was run over by the tarp roller and suffered a chipped bone in his knee, enough to end his season.  He did, however steal 6 bases as a member of the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.
After he left the Cardinals for the Mets in 1991, he never was quite the same.  He was still a speedster but he never got as much playing time as he did with the Cardinals, mostly due to his notable lack of RBI and hitting skills in general.  As a career .264 hitter, there were usually better offensive options for left and center field, where he primarily played.  In 1993, he was even suspended by the Mets for tossing a lit firecracker into a crowd of fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot who were awaiting his autograph.  Go figure.
After writing this post, I am vowing to not come back to this blog until my 10 page research paper is complete.  So don’t be shocked if there aren’t any new posts this week… or maybe next.  But I will be back as soon as this semester comes to a close- only a couple more weeks.

Where Were You on May 1st, 1920?

Since I’m fed up with the Red Sox (except for Darnell McDonald who just clubbed his 2nd homerun in as many games), I’ll do a post on baseball at Boston University.  I’m pretty obsessed with varsity athletics here on campus, whether it be men’s or women’s basketball or hockey or anything else they put out on the field/ice/court.  It’s a little disappointing that there is currently no varsity baseball team on campus, but it wasn’t always that way.  I’ll do a post like this whenever I’m in the mood because writing about BU baseball is like combining my two biggest passions- BU sports and baseball (I realize this is sad).

BU’s Nickerson Field, which still stands today, is home to a fair amount of baseball lore.  It was called Braves Field from 1915-1952 while the Boston Braves, who later became the Atlanta Braves, called it home.  In addition to hosting 3 World Series (including Red Sox victories in 1915 and 1916), it also hosted the 1936 all-star game.  But perhaps most interestingly, baseball history was made there on May 1st, 1920.  The Brooklyn Robins, who would eventually become the LA Dodgers, tied the Braves 1-1 in a 26 inning battle.  With the games 90th anniversary just a couple weeks away, it remains the longest game ever played in baseball history.  
Baseball Reference lists the attendance at 4,500 and the duration of the game at 3 hours, 50 minutes.  Imagine how long such a game would take today?  And I wonder how many of those 4,500 were there for the final pitch.  There are a number of noteworthy stats in this game, which was the epitome of a pitcher’s duel.  Both teams used exactly one pitcher.  Brooklyn’s Leon Cadore faced 96 batters and allowed 15 hits while Boston’s Joe Oeschger faced 90 batters and allowed just 9 hits.  Oeschger even collected a hit of his own hitting from the 9th spot.  The most pathetic hitting performance was turned in by Boston’s 2B Charlie Pick, who finished 0-11 with a strikeout.  He saw his season batting average drop from .324 to .250 in under four hours.  Brooklyn’s lineup featured slugger and future hall of famer Zack Wheat, who escaped the game with a .385 season batting average despite a 2-9 showing.  There was no offense to speak of after the 6th inning, when Tony Boeckel tied the game at 1 for the Braves.
But this game is just the beginning of the real story.  For Brooklyn, it was day 3 amidst a 5 day stretch during which they had a game each day.  After this marathon, they traveled back to Brooklyn and lost to the Philadelphia Phillies the next day, 4-3 – in 13 innings.  Then they traveled back to Boston for a rematch with the Braves on May 3rd and lost 2-1 – in 19 innings.  They played a remarkable 58 innings of baseball over 3 games in 3 days.  And they had nothing but a 0-2-1 record to show for it.  Burleigh Grimes pitched all 13 innings in Brooklyn, and Sherry Smith got through 18.1 against the Braves before allowing a walk-off single in the 19th inning.  But don’t feel too bad for the Robins, who would win the NL pennant that year before dropping the World Series to the Cleveland Indians.  
Both starting pitchers entered May 1st with two wins on the season.  Leon Cadore would wait 20 days after the record setting game before recording his third win of the season, and wrapped up the season with 254.1 innings pitched.  Boston starter Joe Oeschger didn’t record another win for 30 days after the marathon game, and finished the season with 299 innings pitched. Starting pitchers just aint what they used to be.
When I began writing this post, I intended to write about BU alums in the big leagues, but this was too interesting to pass up.  But if that interests you, then be on the lookout for a post like that in the near future.

Should You Fire the Manager?

Well, the Red Sox are off to a horrific start.  At 4-9, they sit 4th in the AL East and are tied for 12th in the American League.  Is it time to panic?  Trick question- it’s always time to panic in Boston.  If we were 12-1, we’d be wondering how in the world we were going to fix that glaring problem that caused us to lose a game.  That being said, the Sox clearly do have some problems that require attention.  Today I want to look at what many teams do when they are faced with either innumerable or unidentifiable problems- fire the manager.  To be clear, I’m not calling for Terry Francona’s head or even validating the level of panic that is running through Red Sox Nation right now, I just thought it would be interesting to see how much firing the manager actually effects a team’s performance in the short run.

4 teams opted to switch managers in the middle of the 2009 season: The Diamondbacks, Rockies, Astros, and Nationals.  Before the switch, skippers Bob Melvin, Clint Hurdle, Cecil Cooper, and Manny Acta were a combined 126-185, good for a .405 winning percentage.  New managers A.J. Hinch, Jim Tracy, Dave Clark, and Jim Riggleman went a combined 169-168, good for a .501 winning percentage.  So, the four teams performed nearly 24% better under their new managers.  The Rockies even made the playoffs after an 18-28 start to their season under Clint Hurdle.  Rockies manager Jim Tracy was the only one of the four new managers with a winning record in 2009, closing out Colorado’s season at an impressive 74-42.  He was rewarded with the National League’s manager of the year award as a result, and deservingly so despite not starting the season as skipper.  It should also be noted that Houston’s situation is unique in that Dave Clark took over with only 13 games remaining, and was essentially just an interim (Former Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills is currently the manager in Houston).  
This is a small sample size, so let’s look at 2008 as well.  The Brewers, Mets, Mariners, and Blue Jays made the switch mid-season in 2008.  Collectively, they improved from 177-188 to 149-134 and increased their winning percentage from .485 to .527, or 8.7%.  A less dramatic increase than 2009, mostly due to Jim Tracy’s uncharacteristic success.  Jim Riggleman appears again, as he relieved manager John McLaren of the Mariners in 2008 before relieving Manny Acta and the Nationals in 2009.  Milwaukee’s situation in 2008 was similar to the Astros of 2009, as Dale Sveum replaced Ned Yost just for the season’s final 12 games.  The Brewers did manage to make the playoffs.  
So, the numbers from 2008-2009: Before the manager switch, 303-373, .448 winning percentage.  After the switch, 318-302, .513 winning percentage.  The 8 teams that switched managers mid-season in 2008 & 2009 experienced a 14.5% increase in winning percentage.  When does Francona get the axe?  I’m sure if this level of play continues from the Red Sox, there will be rumblings.  He is in his 7th year with the team, which is the longest period of time that Boston has gone with one manager since Joe Cronin held the position for 13 straight years (1935-1947).  And he only stayed that long because he was a player-manager who is now immortalized in the Hall of Fame and whose #4 is hanging from the right field deck in Fenway Park today.  Francona’s contract extends through 2011 with club options through 2013.  How much longer will he stay?

What a Day…

I don’t remember a day in recent baseball history as memorable as today, my lovely girlfriend Holly’s birthday no less.  Thanks to her for permitting me to use the better part of her birthday’s final hour to write this post.  A quick rundown of the events of April 17th-

  1. Ubaldo Jimenez pitches the first no-hitter in Colorado Rockies history.  More on that later.
  2. Pat Burrell hits a 2-run walk off HR in the 12th inning to win the suspended game from the night before over the Red Sox, 3-1.
  3. The Cardinals and Mets play a marathon 20-inning game that was finally saved by Mike Pelfrey, 2-1.  A total of 652 pitches were thrown by 19 pitchers.  This would absolutely be blog worthy on any other day.  
But today, let’s talk about young Ubaldo.  128 pitches, 72 strikes, 7 strikeouts, 6 walks, 1 balk, 0 hits, and 1 final fastball-heard-round-the-league clocking in at 97 mph.  The two things that jump out at me immediately are his strength at the end of a 128 pitch journey and his control, or relative lack thereof.  I’ll focus on the latter since that is easier to search for.  Most statheads will agree that one name comes to mind when they hear walks mentioned in the same sentence as no-hitter- A.J. Burnett.  
A quick search of Baseball Reference’s gamelogs reveals a list of every no-hitter, sorted by most walks.  Jim Maloney of the Reds leads the way with a 10 inning, 10 walk no-hitter in 1965.  Burnett ranks right behind him with his 9 walk no-hitter from 2001 with the Marlins.  After them, there have been two 8 walk efforts, and six 7 walk efforts.  That puts Ubaldo’s effort at tied for 11th all-time.
Another search yields a more interesting result.  Ubaldo becomes the first pitcher from 1920-present to pitch a no-hitter and commit a balk in the same game.  Before today, the most IP logged by a starting pitcher who left the game with 0 hits allowed and 1 balk, was 6 innings, by the late Darryl Kile in 1991.  Of course this is a pretty obscure stat since most pitchers throwing no-hitters don’t leave the game until they allow a hit, but it is pretty cool nonetheless.  
There are a couple more interesting tidbits surrounding this no-hitter.  Firstly, Ubaldo becomes the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter with a first name starting with a U, and the first with a first name starting with a vowel since Anibal Sanchez accomplished the feat with the Marlins in 2006.  More interestingly, Sanchez’s no-hitter was caught by Miguel Olivo, and the home plate umpire was Jeff Kellogg.  Behind the plate for Ubaldo?  None other than Olivo and Kellogg again.
So, Ubaldo has already made history for the relatively new Rockies franchise.  Is he the best pitcher in franchise history at the tender age of 26?  The verdict: not yet.  With only 518.1 career innings logged, he is already on the top 10 leader boards in nearly every relevant category.  Barring a setback or a trade, he should be at the top of them in no time.  Congrats Ubaldo.

Guess Who’s Back

You can all stop holding your breath now- that’s right, I have returned from my nearly two-year blogging hiatus.  So much has happened since my last post, in the baseball world and in my own.  I’m now close to completing my freshman year at Boston University and the New York Yankees are now reigning world champions.  Go figure.

No promises on how often I’ll update this time- but hopefully it won’t be two years until my next post.  I’d like to add a new spin to the blog as well.  Since my last post I’ve developed more of an affinity for the number behind baseball- sabermetrics for those familiar with the term.  I spend much of my free time on www.baseball-reference.com which, by the way, is an incredible site for anyone with even the slightest interest in baseball or anyone trying to settle any baseball related argument.  They have an overwhelming amount of data over there, and one of these days I’m going to get around to giving back to them either via donation or volunteer work.
One of my favorite features on the website has to be the similarity scores.  At least a few of my posts in the coming weeks will be about these specifically, because quite frankly I think they’re awesome.  To put it simply, similarity score is an advanced stat created by Sabermetrics God Bill James that is designed to show how similar two given players careers have been.  Every player has not only a list of his top 10 similar players for his career numbers, but also the top 10 most similar careers through a given age.  I encourage you to read the quick primer here if you’re interested at all: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/similarity.shtml
Today I want to talk about Josh Beckett.  While perusing his page the other day I noticed that his most similar player is none other than brand new teammate, John Lackey.  The way similarity score works is it starts at 1000 and points are subtracted for each “unsimilar” thing. Lackey’s score is 971, so they actually have had remarkably similar careers.  Beckett has a record of 107-68 compared to Lackey’s 103-71, and a lifetime ERA of 3.81 compared to Lackey’s 3.79.  
One of the trends in baseball today is general managers and front offices leaning towards new age statistics such as WAR, UZR, and ERA+ to determine a player’s value.  This may be part of the reason why a Jermaine Dye who is coming off a 27 HR, 81 RBI season is still unemployed, but that’s a story for another post.  I only mention this trend because I wonder if any agent or GM has tried to use these similarity scores in negotiations.  Much was made this winter about John Lackey’s brand new 5 year, $82.5 million deal.  GM Theo Epstein had previously set a precedent of not signing starting pitchers to contracts longer than 4 years, but he broke that rule for Lackey.  When it came time to extend Josh Beckett this spring, he told Beckett that he would not do the same for him, and Beckett accepted a 4 year, $68 million extension.  Now of course similarity score does not take expected performance into account, which is at the forefront of contract negotiations.  Beckett has more injury questions than Lackey, which is the reason Theo & Co. are reluctant to sign starting pitchers to long-term deals in the first place.  But it seems to me like Beckett and his agent Michael Moye could have pushed harder for a 5 year deal, given its proximity to Lackey’s and the near identical careers of the two pitchers.  
From here on out, you can assume all data is coming from either www.baseball-reference.com or Cot’s Contracts at http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com.  Both are fabulous resources and I am forever indebted to them.  So credit to them.  Drop me a comment if you enjoyed this post and I’ll try to post again soon.
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