Interesting Series for the Weekend

Kansas City @ Pittsburgh

These two teams seem a bit like polar opposites.  Kansas City came into the year as a trendy pick to challenge the White Sox Tigers for the A.L. Central.  Pitching was supposed to be an issue for the Royals but the narrative seemed to hint at a maturation of the offense into a formidable force.  For KC, the pitching has been an issue but so has their offense which has scored the second fewest runs in the American League.

Speaking of not scoring runs, the Pirates came into the season seemingly battling Houston to avoid relegation (woops… too much futbol).  However, Pittsburgh is only two behind Cincinnati in the N.L. Central hot off taking two of three from the Reds in Cincinnati.  They have been riding an unexpected wave of incredible pitching.  They Pirates have allowed the second fewest runs this season at 201 (second to Washington at 182).

For no particular reason other than to create my own shitty narrative, it seems like this will be the start of some better baseball for Kansas City.  Playing one of the N.L. Central’s lesser teams seems like a good enough reason for me.   It also seems like the Pirates might be about to face a “coming back to earth” (or a “back to giving up runs because we have friggin’ Pedro Alvarez paying 3B”).

Phil Hughes Leads us Down the Rabbit Hole of Game Score (GSc)

Phillip Joseph Hughes

Who is Phil Hughes one might say?  Who fucking cares one would probably answer.  But not this one!  Not today.  We’re going to look at a bunch of under-understood stats and maybe some inane social issues to learn absolutely nothing about Phil Hughes.  To prove this, the first thing I looked at was Game Score (GSc).  Here’s how you figure GSc if you care:

·         Start with 50 points.

·         Add 1 point for each out recorded, so 3 points for every complete inning pitched.

·         Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th.

·         Add 1 point for each strikeout.

·         Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed.

·         Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed.

·         Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed.

·         Subtract 1 point for each walk.

In his last start (6/3/12 v Det), Hughes earned a GSc of 80.  For no real reason I went back to see if he had any other GSc’s of 80 or better.  He had achieved that mark twice before:

4/21/10 @ Oakland (GSc: 80).  Useless game info: Joba Chamberlain came to earn a hold with two inherited runners.  Joba was awesome in holds leagues that year (25).

5/25/09 @ TEX (GSc: 81).  Hughes gave up three hits and a walk over eight scoreless.  Useless game info: Alfredo Aceves came into the game in the 9^th up 11-0 and gave up a run.  Useless game info take two:  I totally forgot Marlon Byrd (LF-CF) played for the Rangers.

I suppose you could say 80+ Game Scores are an outlier for Mr. Hughes.  Just for shits and giggles I ran the career Game Scores of six other pitchers chosen at random to see how many each starter had at and over 80:

                Clay Buchholz:        3

                Gavin Floyd:           5

                Brandon Morrow:   5

                Stephen Strasburg:  0

                Roy Halladay:         32

                Jamie Moyer:          16

So with this information we find that Phil Hughes and Clay Buchholz are absolutely identical pitchers with nary a difference.  Oh yeah, and don’t forget that Stephen Strasburg stinks.

You Wanna Bet?

Just Some Lighthearted Illegal Internet Gambling

I've been making some wagers in an offshore account and have had some fairly good success this season.  It seemed apt to post those best here mostly because it's been interesting to me (winning helps).  Personally, I think that over-thinking a bet is a bad so I made the choices first and then looked into why these were good or in most cases poor bets.  I have two rules that I generally stick to when betting on baseball, don't go below (-110) on the money line and never bet on or against a knuckleballer.  I've included brief incite into what I thought while making the bet in the "first take" at the end of each match-up. Today picks go as follows in the order of most confident to least confident as the bets were made: 

New York Mets (Even) v Arizona Diamondbacks

Why would you go against a pitcher who has allowed three hits, three walks and 13 strikeouts over his last 12.1 innings?  Geez… now that you put it like that, I don’t know.  Here’s hoping that Diamondbacks LHP Wade Miley was just lucky with drawing the Phillies and Marlins in his previous (and only) two starts this season since they are both pretty terrible against LHP.  Now, the Mets are not a ton better but it will be interesting to see if they have started to work up a “book” on Miley.  Dillon Gee has not been superb at home, giving up 20 hits over 12 innings.  Okay… that didn't make me feel too awesome either.  Basically, Gee is pitching at a fairly high level with a FIP of 3.39 and a xFIP of 2.99 and it seems like the game should match up to be a pretty close affair.  

First take: Dillon Gee seem to be pitching pretty well and Wade Miley is a rookie and David Wright crushes LHP.

Toronto Blue Jays (+112) @ Anaheim Angels

Why would you take a pitcher who is touting a 2.51 strikeouts per nine innings and 2.51 walks per nine innings?  Because he is facing Ervin Santana and a struggling Angels offense.  Henderson Alvarez seems like he might be holding on for dear life with a a FIP of 5.93 and an xFIP of 4.91 but Santana is coming in with an ERA of 5.58, a FIP of 7.04 and an xFIP of 4.62.  In Alvarez's short season, it seems he can hold his own against the lesser offenses.  He beat Baltimore twice, improving in his second start and he held the Mariners to one earned run over six innings.  I’d put the Angels closer to the Orioles but wOBA and wRC+ say otherwise (they actually would put the M’s in the lead against RHP).  I’m assuming we can chalk up the struggling stars Albert Pujols and Jose Bautista to a draw, the two pitchers to a draw and what is left is a marginally better Blue Jays offense.  Since they are getting the points, they seem like a strong bet.  Don’t think I’m not worried this will be the game Pujols blows up.  Or that I'll feel confident if Coco Cordero comes out to close the game.  Let’s just move on.

First take:  Ervin Santana has been all over the place and Henderson Alvarez has been consistent.  The Jays have a pretty good offense where as the Angels have been struggling.

Milwaukie Brewers (+101) @ San Francisco Giants

Let’s hope Brandon Belt doesn’t play again.  Wouldn’t that be fun!  All kidding aside, this should be a pretty good game.  The anemic Giants’ offense will be without Pablo Sandoval and rumor has it that the Brewers will most likely be without Ryan Braun and the underrated Mat Gammel.  The Giants will be trotting out Tim Lincecum and his 1.58 WHIP.  For what it’s worth Lincecum had his best start in his last appearance going eight innings and allowing three hits and one unearned run.  However, this tends to happen when you face the Padres and four walks are not exactly ideal.  He will be facing Zack Greinke who has played well but also has a couple games that one might consider concerning.  He gave up eight earned runs to the Cubs on 4/12 and on 4/23 he allowed eight hits and waked two over six innings against the Astros.  It seems like a low scoring toss up and when in doubt, take the points (all .001 of 'em...).  

First take:  Not going to lie, I didn't know Braun would be out.  But it's saying something that I still felt comfortable taking the Brewers even after the book adjusted their line.  ... doesn't it??? 

Chicago White Sox (-102) @ Detroit Tigers

I got burned the last time I bet against the Tigers (it was on accident and yet another time when a line from John Wooden seemed apt, “Be quick, but don’t hurry”).  It seems like White Sox’s starting pitcher Jake Peavy is locked in this year and one would hope to ride the wave.  His nerd stats are way down right now.  He’s walking fewer batters per nine innings, he’s giving up less home runs per nine and he’s carrying an unsustainable .206 batting average for balls in play.  He is doing all of this while inducing ground balls at an all-time low 24.5% compared to his career 41.1% which seems counter intuitive.  It seems like these should all kind of even out to make Peavy’s results fairly consistent with what he has produced.  But I’m no scientist. 

Mostly, I would recommend taking the White Sox because the Tigers are trotting out Drew Smyly.  Smyly seems like he has been a pretty consistent strikeout pitcher in his brief career in the Tigers system (27 games including minor leagues).  However, of those runners who have reached base on Smyly, he has stranded 100% of them.  That should probably come down a bit.  His current ERA is 1.23 with a FIP of 3.96 and an xFIP of 3.62.  In the 14 games Smyly played in high A ball his ERA was 2.58 and in AA it was 1.18 over eight games.  So his numbers look legit, he has a better offense, he’s playing at home and I’m taking the other guy… It’s not called gambling for nothin’.

First take: Peavy is hot and Smily is young.

Thanks for taking a look.  If it happens that I lose all of these you can bet that you'll never see me delve this deep into my bets again!

Two Ridiculous Rangers

Miggy Wants the Ball Back

Just because I thought it was hilarious, let’s start with Tuesday night when Miguel Cabrera broke a 0-22 streak by singling off of the Royals’ Bruce Chen.  After the hit, Miggy asked for the ball.  Guess he must have really been scuffling.   

Diamonds in the Rough

Ian Kinsler and Mike Napoli are ridiculous.  I was doing a little research last night to find some diamonds in the rough for the fantasy team and went to Fangraphs to use their amazing search tools to see who might be flying under the radar.  I’ll explain the process for those interested but if you don’t give a duce then skip the following paragraph.

As always, we like our fantasy players to play so I set the minimum plate appearances to 40 and then searched BABIP (batting average of balls in play) to sort as worst to first.  I was hoping to find some players who have been getting “unlucky” with hits but maintain production in hopes that said player would soon experience a jump in batting average.  I used wRC+ which basically takes a nerd version of OBP (wOBA) and factors in parks and what league one plays in to give you a number.  The league averge is 100 so anything over 100 is good and anything under 100 is bad.  I limited the count to anyone with a BABIP under .260 which gave us 59 players to look at.  I cut the wRC+ off at 110 as well.

There were a lot of interesting names on the list which seem like they are playing well even though they may have been unlucky over their first 40+ plate appearances.  This list includes:

                                         BABIP   wRC+
Miguel Cabrera                 .257        121

Dustin Pedroia                  .256        133

Brendan Ryan                   .250        117

Mike Napoli                   .250        171

Ian Kinsler                      .244        170

Alejandro De Aza             .242        139

Dexter Fowler                   .240        112

Jose Bautista                     .219        113

Aaron Hill                         .188        119

It is an interesting list but what really jumped out at me was the wRC+ of Kinsler and Napoli.  While maintaining a BABIP of below .250 they are both in the top 25 of wRC+ (min 40 plate appearances).   No other player has a BABIP below .290 in these top 25 players.  I’ll take a further look at both players.

Ian Kinsler

Kinsler’s career BABIP is .282 which would mean that one would expect to see more hits out of him in the future with his current BABIP being at .244.  However, in 2011 and 2009 he had BABIP’s of .243 and .241 respectively.  It seems like his increase in wRC+ is most due to an increase in power.  His ISO (a measure of power) is at an incredible .375 compared to his career .196.  His line drive percentage is at 36.4% compared to a career mark of 19.5 percent.  So it seemd like his BABIP should but won’t necessarily increase while his ability to continue crushing the ball will probably regress to the mean a bit.  Where I originally thought Kinsler was an example of a player ready for a breakout, it seems like he has been playing a bit over his skis.

Mike Napoli

Napoli’s career BABIP is .303 and the lowest marks of his career came in at .279 in 2010 and .276 in 2006 (99 games) when he was with the Angels (currently at .250).  Like Kinsler, his ISO is a superb .394 but just last year he had an ISO of .312.  His line drive percentage is at a sustainable 20.8% which is pretty close to his career mark of 18.4%.  He seems to be walking and striking out at similar rates to his career (K% - 25% to 24.5% & BB% 10% to 11.6%).  Going in I thought Kinsler would be the one who would prove to be the good buy but it looks like Napoli might be more likely to continue and possibly even improve on his torrid pace.  The one downside is that he seems to be hitting far more fly balls compared to ground balls so one would expect Napoli to hit more ground balls but with a depressed BABIP, could we conclude that he may see more of those ground balls sneak through for hits?  Probably not but the sustainability of the rest of his numbers makes Mike Napoli look like he might improve on last season’s career year.

A Breakdown of Justin Morneau

Is Justin Morneau Back?

Justin Morneau made headlines yesterday by clubbing a two run home run in the bottom of the eight to give the hometown Twins a lead over the Angels they would not relinquish (despite two runs given up by closer Matt Capps).  These were his first two RBIs on the season.  Hearing Morneau and home run in the same sentence again lead me to do the first Daily@Bats breakdown.

Taking a look at Morneau’s Fangraphs profile, he has a career K% of 15.1 and it currently sits at 20.8.  During his peak WAR years of 2008 (3.5 WAR), 2009 (3.6) and 2010 (5.1) he recorded  K% rates at 11.9, 14.6 and 17.8 respectively. Striking out a bit more than one would hope to see.

His career BB% is 9.8 and  currently sits at a measly 4.2.  He recorded a BB% of 12+ in both 2009 and 2010 so it will be interesting to see if he can still draw the same amount of walks as the season progresses.

Morneau’s career BABIP sits at .293 which is fairly close to his current .313 but one would assume there to be a bit of regression.

All of these beg someone to shout "small sample sizes" (especially the BB and K percentages) but it is interesting to notice that he is one two walks or a strikeout free game away from being similar to the 3+ WAR player we saw before he suffered his concussions. 

Who’d he Hit?

Now because we don’t have anything better to do, let’s take a look at who we got his hits off of this season.  We’ll go from most recent to his first.

Hit #6

Morneau homered off of Rich Thompson who most likely was one of the last players to make the Angels and may have made the team simply because he was out of minor league options (as mentioned in the second paragraph of this piece).  No offense to Mr. Thompson but this is probably a home run off a replacement level player but I suppose this is what you get paid to do when you are Justin Morneau.

Hit #5

Facing Jared Weaver, unquestionably a top of the rotation pitcher for most MLB teams, Morneau struck out in the bottom of the 2^nd (looking) and in the bottom of the 4^th (swinging) but in the bottom of the 6^th he connected on a single to right center.   A hit off of Jared Weaver is a good sign for any player, especially one who is trying to establish oneself after an injury plagued season.

Hit #4

Facing the Oriels’ Jason Hammel, Morneau drew what is still his only walk in the top of the 5^th.  He went on to double in the top of the 8^th.  Hammel, a pitcher with 116 starts, has a career HR/9 of 1.05 and a K/9 of 6.24.  Hits are hits but Hammel is no stud.

Hit #3

Hit number three was a single against 26 year old relief pitcher Pedro Stropp who came into the season with 39.2 innings pitched over the last three years.  Another scrub hit but you take what you can get.

Hit #2

This hit came in the earlier innings of the Oriels game we saw hit #3.  After striking out in the first against former Rangers pitcher Tommy Hunter, Morneau doubled a ball off the warning track in the top of the 4^th.  Hunter is a legitimate MLB starter so this was a quality hit.

Hit #1

Morneau got his first hit of the season off of Oriels’ starting pitcher Jake Arrieta (a single to left).  Arrieta only gave up two hits over seven innings so one would think that this was also a quality hit unless the Twins are truly terrible.  Morneau also struck out twice in this game, once to Arrieta and

But What Does it All Mean?

All in all it seems like it is too early to tell what to make of Justin Morneau.  He is striking out at a higher clip and walking at a lower clip but it is most likely too early to take anything from these numbers.  He has accumulated some hits against pitchers who are burred deep in bullpens but has also had some quality at bats against above average MLB pitching.  It will be interesting to see how he fairs in the next two series while facing the Rangers and Yankees, two squads with good starting pitching and bullpens.