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Nobody in baseball is playing better than Matt Kemp through 10 games. Dude must have felt snubbed by Braun's "MVP."
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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Nobody in baseball is playing better than Matt Kemp through 10 games. Dude must have felt snubbed by Braun's "MVP."
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Lol at bobby v starting problems with his own players.
This guy won't last more than a year as a red sox manager.
This guy won't last more than a year as a red sox manager.
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Lol at bobby v starting problems with his own players.
This guy won't last more than a year as a red sox manager.
This guy won't last more than a year as a red sox manager.
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he should.......he was robbed in broad daylight while talking to the police about security around his house.
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he should.......he was robbed in broad daylight while talking to the police about security around his house.
Valentine's odd Youkilis comments.
Spoiler [+]
The Boston Red Sox are nine games into the Bobby Valentine era and already the team's most popular and credible player has publicly rebuked the manager for something he said.
And the timing couldn't be more odd.
The Red Sox had a great weekend, flexing their offensive muscle and taking three straight games from the Tampa Bay Rays; David Ortiz had a big day Sunday.
But the conversation today at Fenway Park was about Valentine's remarks regarding his third baseman. From Alex Speier's piece:
And the timing couldn't be more odd.
The Red Sox had a great weekend, flexing their offensive muscle and taking three straight games from the Tampa Bay Rays; David Ortiz had a big day Sunday.
But the conversation today at Fenway Park was about Valentine's remarks regarding his third baseman. From Alex Speier's piece:
"I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason," Valentine said in the interview. "But [Saturday] it seemed, you know, he's seeing the ball well, got those two walks, got his on-base percentage up higher than his batting average, which is always a good thing, and he'll move on from there."
Youkilis, 33, is hitting .200 with a .265 OBP, .233 slugging mark and .498 OPS this year, though he's 6-for-18 with three walks and two doubles in his last five games.
Coincidence or not, Will Middlebrooks -- the heir apparent at third base -- is killing the ball, hitting .364 for Triple-A Pawtucket. Youkilis has a $13 million contractual option for 2013 that the Red Sox are not likely to pick up unless the veteran has a really good season.
What was Valentine's intent? Why did he say what he said? I don't know.
Kevin Youkilis spoke with Valentine, and then talked to reporters, saying, "The only time my emotion has ever been questioned is when I've been too emotional."
Dustin Pedroia, who came through last fall's chicken-and-beer collapse with his reputation fully intact, was blunt in his assessment this morning of Valentine's comments, telling reporters in Boston, "I really don't know what Bobby is trying to do, but that's not the way we go about our stuff around here."
Bobby V. has since apologized to Youkilis, but this can't be good for player-manager relations.
Where does it go from here? Stayed tuned.
[h3]Jeter's revival[/h3]
After Derek Jeter's first nine games last season, he was hitting .206, with a .300 on-base percentage and one extra- base hit. After nine games this year, he's hitting .366, with a .395 on-base percentage. He blasted a long home run on Sunday Night Baseball, and during the game we asked Yankees Manager Joe Girardi about the difference between last year and 2012, and he was pretty direct: He thinks the energy and attention required by Jeter to deal with this as he closed in on 3,000 hits was an issue.
Girardi might be onto something. In 1995, I was fortunate enough to cover Cal Ripken Jr. as he approached and passed Lou Gehrig's consecutive-game record. Everywhere the Orioles went, Ripken hosted a large media scrum with reporters, and as the major event got closer, the crowds got bigger. Cal made a point of spending a lot of time signing autographs that season, at the All-Star Game, sometimes late after Orioles' home games.
And immediately after Ripken passed Gehrig's mark, his performance basically collapsed. He hit .225 the final three weeks of the seaosn, and you got the sense that he was emotionally and physically spent, as he dealt with the attention and scrutiny. Jeter and Ripken are a lot alike in their day-to-day approach to preparing and playing, and they are both work extensively with endorsements.
In Ripken's case, his performance on the field wasn't really related to his milestone; he needed to just play on a daily basis, and it wouldn't have mattered if his batting average was .200.
In Jeter's case, he had to perform to get those last hits needed to reach 3,000. Since he got his 3,000th hit, he's batting about .330, and day by day, he's climbing the ranks of all-time leaders.
Jeter has 3,103 hits now, 20th all-time; he's seven hits away from passing his childhood idol, Dave Winfield.
He's got 1,774 runs, tied for 20th place with Charlie Gehringer. With another 75 runs scored this year, Jeter would move into 13th place all-time.
Jeter has cleared 1,200 career RBIs, and moved past Jim Edmonds. The Yankees broke out Sunday, writes Benjamin Hoffman. Ivan Nova's win streak reached 14 straight games. Joe Girardi is not worried about Mark Teixeira's slow start.
Before Sunday's game, there was a touching tribute to Jackie Robinson, writes Tim Smith. Mariano Rivera is the perfect person to keep Robinson's legacy alive.
[h3]Kemp can't be stopped[/h3]
Matt Kemp mashed another homer and Dee Gordon got a big hit as the Los Angeles Dodgers improved to 9-1. It's the second best start in franchise history -- the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers started the season 10-0.
According to Elias, Kemp is the fourth player to hit 6 homers, drive in 16 runs and hit .450 in his team's first 10 games. The others are Dante Bichette in 1994, Lou Brock in 1967 and Willie Mays in 1964.
[h3]Funky play[/h3]
The Dodgers' win on Sunday was not without controversy, and it would be interesting to hear from Dale Scott and the other three umpires about why they did not change the call on the triple play in the ninth inning that kep the game tied. Padres game. If you watch the play, it appeared that Scott signaled foul ball, or dead ball.
Chase Headley says Scott threw his hands up twice.
From Dan Hayes's story:
A day to remember No. 42.
Spoiler [+]Jerome Williams has played all over the world, and at almost every stop, he has angled to get the same number, not knowing for sure if he would get it. While playing in Puerto Rico, he was second in the pecking order for picking numbers, and the player who had first dibs chose No. 40.
Williams immediately grabbed No. 42, and the teammate who had picked No. 40 asked why.
"Jackie Robinson," said Williams.
"Oh, jeez, I forgot," his teammate replied, already regretting his choice.
The Angels' pitcher has worn No. 42 in Mexico, in Taiwan and while playing independent league ball. So tonight will be a big night for him.
"It's my first time pitching against the Yankees, the first time in Yankee Stadium," he said Saturday, sitting in front of his locker. "And it's the first time I'll wear 42 here [in the big leagues]."
Mariano Rivera is the last active player to wear No. 42, and once he's retired, the only day a player will wear it is April 15 of every season -- the day every player wears it in honor of Robinson. The first number that Rivera was assigned in Yankees camp, as a young pitcher, was No. 58. Rivera is not one to ask for anything; he was assigned No. 42, and didn't immediately make the connection to Robinson, he recalled.
But in 1997, Major League Baseball retired the number, other than for those players who already wore it, such as Rivera. A few years ago, Robinson's widow, Rachel Robinson, asked Rivera to participate in an event, and he remembers talking about Jackie, and the number. "For me to be the last to wear it is an honor," Rivera said. "But it also is a lot of responsibility. You have to wear it with a lot of pride."
As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Reggie Jackson can remember going to Shibe Park and watching Robinson play, never taking his eyes off the Dodger. Then, after the game, Jackson -- who guesses he was about 7 or 8 years old at the time -- remembers waiting outside the visitors clubhouse. "I was squeezing between legs, and then I looked up," Jackson said.
There was Jackie Robinson.
Two decades later, on Oct. 15, 1972, Jackson was on crutches, as the Oakland Athletics prepared to play the Reds in Game 2 of the World Series. Robinson was introduced and stepped to a microphone, and to this day, Jackson has a vision in his mind's eye of Robinson that day; Jackson remembers precisely what he said.
Nine days later, Robinson passed away.
This is a day to salute baseball's best pioneer, writes Martin Fennelly.
Years before Robinson played in the majors, Branch Rickey was moved by a catcher's tears, writes Chris Lamb.
• Williams was out of the majors in 2008, and he was thinking about walking away from baseball after pitching in just 11 games in 2006 and 2007 for the Cubs and Nationals. In 2008, there were no offers from major league teams, and he was staring into the abyss of the end of his career. His reality was that he had no education, no training in another field, and he had four kids, ranging in age from 2 to 9. He said he realized, "Baseball is my life, and I had to support my family."
Williams worked his way back, dropping the extra weight that had been a problem, and while pitching in Triple-A in 2011, he had no expectation that he would be called up. Williams just wanted to finish the minor league season well.
But he was summoned by the Angels in August, and on Aug. 21, he started against the Orioles, and won. It was the first time that his oldest child, Tre, had gotten to see him pitch in person. "Dad, that was amazing," Tre said, moving his father to tears.
• The Giants were hit by one of the season's first major injuries: Brian Wilson could be out for the year, Steve Kroner writes. San Francisco will need the rest of the bullpen to step up, writes Bruce Jenkins.
• Speaking of injuries: There is no timetable for Jacoby Ellsbury's return. Surgery remains a possibility.
• The Cardinals' championship rings include the Rally Squirrel, writes Derrick Goold.
• After Rivera's first outing of the season -- when his velocity was 3 or 4 mph lower than normal, and his cutter was flat -- the Yankees determined that he was bent forward too far in his setup. Rivera has been more upright since, and has regained velocity, as well as the movement on his signature pitch.
• The Cubs' new regime is determined to get better plate discipline out of its hitters as it rebuilds the team. So far, Chicago has been hack-happy. From Mark Simon of ESPN Stats and Info, the ranking of first-pitch swings through Friday's games, from highest percentage to lowest:
Highest
Texas Rangers: 34.7
Tampa Bay Rays: 31.5
Atlanta Braves 31.2
San Diego Padres 30.8
Cubs 30.1
Lowest
Kansas City Royals: 20.5
Los Angeles Angels: 19.3
Minnesota Twins: 18.9
Cleveland Indians: 17.2
New York Mets 17.1
A Starlin Castro error hurt the Cubs on Saturday.
• The Nationals' pitching continues to be overpowering; this time it was Edwin Jackson. The Nats' infield defense has been dazzling.
• Everything is going right for the Dodgers: They win every day, Matt Kemp seems to hit one or more homers every day and Vin Scully is expected back at work later today.
From Bill Center's story:
Kemp has 15 RBIs this season. From the Elias Sports Bureau: The last player with 15 RBIs in his team's first nine games is Albert Pujols in 2010 (the last player with more was Alex Rodriguez, 16 in 2007). The only other Dodger with 15 or more RBIs in his team's first nine games is Hall of Famer Roy Campanella, who had 16 in 1953.
- The Padres have six homers and 29 RBI on the season. After Saturday, Kemp alone has five homers and 14 RBI against the Padres. "Is there a better player in the game right now?" [Padres manager Bud] Black asked in his post-game remarks while discussing Kemp. "That'd be hard to imagine.
"He's the complete package, power, average and speed at a premier position (center field). He's matured into a guy who has taken the game by the throat."
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. With Rick Ankiel back, Davey Johnson will have to make some choices.
2. The Diamondbacks want to provide proper rest for Miguel Montero, writes Nick Piecoro.
3. Johnny Damon does not have an opt-out clause in his contract, writes Paul Hoynes.
4. Mark Reynolds is willing to play wherever the Orioles want him to play.
[h3]Dings and dents [/h3]
1. Ryan Vogelsong is ready to return, as mentioned within this notebook.
2. Kyle Blanks landed on the DL.
3. George Sherrill had an MRI, Larry Stone writes.
4. Brandon Phillips should be back in the Cincinnati lineup today.
5. The Rays put a catcher on the disabled list.
6. Mitch Moreland is dealing with a toothache.
7. David Freese is dealing with a finger injury.
8. Nick Blackburn is the latest Twins pitcher to get hurt. Storm clouds are forming early over Minnesota.
[h3]Saturday's games[/h3]1. Todd Helton hoisted the Rockies.
2. Oakland couldn't solve the king of popups, writes Susan Slusser.
3. The Giants won on an error.
4. C.J. Wilson shut down the Yankees.
5. Joe Wieland got knocked around in his debut.
6. Jesus Montero had a big day.
7. The Reds were shut down again.
8. Mike Minor (a Vanderbilt guy) shut down the Brewers. From ESPN Stats and Info, how Minor beat the Brewers:
A. Minor threw 41 off-speed pitches (22 changeups, 12 sliders, seven curveballs); Brewers went 0-for-8 with two strikeouts. This season, opponents are 1-for-16 against Minor in at-bats ending with an off-speed pitch.
B. Minor threw 37 two-strike pitches (second highest total in his career), but the Brewers went 1-for-16 with four strikeouts.
C. The Brewers went 0-for-8 with two strikeouts in at-bats ending with a pitch away. Minor had one start last season in which he did not allow a hit in an at-bat ending with a pitch away.
9. The Red Sox have busted out against the Rays, and they racked up 13 runs Saturday. From ESPN Stats and Info: Over the past two games, the Red Sox are 15-for-27 with runners in scoring position, more than twice as good as in their first six games. If you take out their loss to the Tigers in which they scored 12 runs, Boston had been just 6-for-35 with runners in scoring position prior to Friday.
The Red Sox have scored a dozen runs three times already this season. The rest of MLB has done so twice. Boston had the most such games (16) last season.
The Sox can finally smile, writes Michael Silverman.
10. The Marlins' rough start continues. Heath Bell blew a save Saturday, and he might not get the ball in a save situation today, Juan Rodriguez writes.
From ESPN Stats and Info: Logan Morrison muffed a fly ball with two outs in the ninth that would have kept the game tied.
Morrison's play in left field ranked last in the majors last season in defensive runs saved, which measures a fielder's ability to turn batted balls into outs and his other tools, such as his throwing arm. He cost the Marlins 26 runs.
11. The Rays' pitching got hit around again, Marc Topkin writes.
12. The Astros said they battled, and it paid off.
13. Yu Darvish was not smooth, but the Rangers won again. He tends to alter his delivery, writes Evan Grant.
14. The Royals were unable to cap off a big comeback. The benches cleared, twice.
15. The Indians held on to win; Shin-Soo Choo says he remembers when Jonathan Sanchez hurt him last year.
16. The Phillies need to pull it together after their latest loss, writes Bob Ford. To repeat: The Phillies have a pillow-soft schedule in the first 39 games of the year. After that, it gets much tougher.
17. Nolan Reimold was The Man for the Orioles.
18. The Pirates have no margin for error these days, and they made a late mistake.
19. With David Wright back in the lineup, the Mets won.
20. Phil Hughes got hit hard. Before the game, Joe Girardi acknowledged that this is a time when some members of the rotation are auditioning for a spot, given the impending returns of Andy Pettitte and Michael Pineda. The patience for Hughes is waning, writes Ken Davidoff.
21. The Tigers had a weird day.
22. The White Sox won again, getting more great work out of their bullpen; they are enjoying the calm atmosphere, writes David Haugh.
The Nationals' Strasburg decision.
Spoiler [+]When Nationals GM Mike Rizzo speaks of possible innings limits for Stephen Strasburg, as he did over the phone Friday, you're reminded of your parents' use of the word "maybe."
As in, maybe they'll let you have the keys to the car. Or maybe not. By saying "maybe," they weren't boxed in by their own words, and there was nothing hard and definitive in place.
This is the situation with Strasburg's innings this year. Maybe he'll be shut down at about 160 innings, or maybe not. "It could be a few more innings, it could be a few less innings," Rizzo said. "A lot of things will go into it."
In the big picture, the Nationals are cognizant of the general innings guidelines for young pitchers, especially for someone like Strasburg, who is about 20 months removed from Tommy John surgery. Rizzo intends to protect Strasburg, as he protected Jordan Zimmermann at the end of last season, by holding him to 161 1/3 innings. "It'll probably be in that neighborhood," Rizzo said.
But you don't have to be a Las Vegas oddsmaker to see that any innings restrictions for Strasburg are on a collision course with the practical realities of the big-picture needs of the organization. The Nationals are off to a good start, with a good team, and already Strasburg appears to be one of the best pitchers in the majors, with four plus-plus pitches -- a four-seam fastball that approaches 100 mph, a two-seamer that veers sharply, a breaking ball that locks up hitters, and a changeup that might be the best in the sport.
The other day, Strasburg was throwing his changeup in the 88-90 mph, and to call it a Bugs Bunny changeup would be a disservice. Bugs' changeup was straight, albeit effective, as described in this legendary breakdown of his matchup against the Gas House Gorillas. Strasburg's changeup against the Mets the other day seemed to reach a stop sign and then take a right-hand turn. Ron Darling, who worked the game on SNY, laughed a couple of times at the pitches, and the reactions of the Mets' hitters to them.
"It had as good of a depth and movement that I've ever seen," said Rizzo.
Strasburg has thrown 105 innings in the majors, and opposing hitters have a .529 OPS against him, with a .249 on-base percentage. He's got 130 strikeouts while issuing 23 walks, your basic 6-to-1 strikeouts-to-walk ratio. Since returning to action last year, he hasn't allowed a home run in 37 innings, which tells you a lot about the quality of swings against him.
So what happens this summer if Strasburg has 110 innings by the All-Star break, and the Nationals have a chance to win their first division title since moving to Washington? What happens if they have a chance to break through in their market?
It's not as if every pitcher who soared beyond the artificial innings guidelines has fallen apart. In 2005, the 22-year-old Justin Verlander threw 130 innings in his first year in pro ball. The next season, his innings total soared to 207, as the Tigers won their division and played into the World Series. Verlander has survived, and thrived; he's currently the best pitcher on the planet.
Cole Hamels' innings count soared from about 190 to 260 from 2007 to 2008, and he was a Cy Young candidate in 2011 and is about to get one of the richest paydays in history, either from the Phillies or as a free agent in the fall.
Strasburg doesn't say a lot, like Roy Halladay, and like Halladay, he's incredibly competitive. "He walks around like a choir boy, but he's ornery," Rizzo said.
If the Nationals have a chance to win this year, Strasburg will want to pitch; he always wants to pitch. Rizzo knows this. He is well-aware, too, that there will be a lot of pressure from a lot of corners to allow Strasburg to go beyond 160 innings.
So Rizzo answers questions about it the way your parents used "maybe."
"We're not going to reinvent the wheel on this," he said. "We're not going to be fancy. We're going to work him on a regular routine, and if we have a chance to skip him, we could. There are no pitch limits in his games, no innings limits [in individual games].
"We're going to use our eyes to see how he feels."
I remember talking with Phillies manager Charlie Manuel about Hamels' innings in the spring after Philadelphia won the 2008 World Series, a year which represents a turning point for that organization. Their ballpark has been filled since then, their payroll has skyrocketed; the franchise has become one of baseball's superpowers.
He nodded about the concern over Hamels' innings, and answered the question this way: "You don't get too many chances to win."
Maybe it'll be 160 innings for Strasburg this year. Maybe not.
The Nationals have won four straight, including two straight walk-off wins, after Jayson Werth's single late Friday night.
The Nationals will activate Rick Ankiel today, as Adam Kilgore writes.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
• It had been a good day for the Red Sox on Friday. The weather was beautiful, Fenway Park was full of good feelings as Johnny Pesky, Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield were honored, and Josh Beckett was pitching well, leading the team to its second win of the season.
But then Jacoby Ellsbury was hurt and everything changed. You cannot overstate the importance of Ellsbury to the Red Sox lineup, and as Gordon Edes writes, he has a dislocated right shoulder.
From ESPN Stats and Info: Ellsbury ranked second in wins above replacement last year in the American League, meaning that without him, the Red Sox would not even have flirted with the postseason (as opposed to suffering through that September collapse).
Most wins above replacement in American League last season:
Jose Bautista -- 8.5
Jacoby Ellsbury -- 7.2
Miguel Cabrera -- 7.1
Adrian Gonzalez -- 6.9
Dustin Pedroia -- 6.8
The injury looked painful, David Ortiz says, within this Scott Lauber story. It looks like Cody Ross could get a lot of playing time in center field. The Red Sox called up an outfielder, as Alex Speier writes.
Rarely has there been the same kind of urgency for a win, writes Dan Shaughnessy. We learned something about Beckett Friday, writes Bob Ryan.
• The Dodgers' bankruptcy reorganization was approved. MLB objected, and a fierce battle ensued.
• Matt Cain was almost perfect, as John Shea writes. When he pitches that well, it takes you back to 2010, writes Tim Kawakami.
From ESPN Stats and Info, how Cain shut out the Pirates:
A) Cain worked his fastball in the middle of the zone and above (48 of 60 fastballs); the Pirates went 1-for-14 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a fastball.
B) The fastball success set up his off-speed pitches. The Pirates went 0-for-14 with seven strikeouts in at-bats ending with an off-speed pitch (seven with sliders, six with changeups, one curveball).
C) Of Cain's 11 strikeouts, eight were on pitches out of the zone. The Pirates swung and missed at 58 percent of Cain's pitches out of the zone, tied for third-highest for Cain since 2009.
• The Dodgers' Aaron Harang broke a 50-year-old record.
• Alex Rodriguez tied Ken Griffey Jr. on the list of career homers, and he is now within 30 of Willie Mays.
By The Numbers, from ESPN Stats and Info:
9: Consecutive strikeouts by Harang vs. Padres
67: Runs scored by the Red Sox in home openers since 2005
96: Cain's Game Score; tied with Chris Capuano for highest since start of 2011
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Andrew Bailey is close to having his cast taken off, writes Tim Britton.
2. Lorenzo Cain was placed on the disabled list, as mentioned within this notebook.
3. Daniel Murphy will move to third if David Wright has to go on the disabled list, a decision that will come today.
4. Charlie Morton is getting the ball today, after being activated from the disabled list.
5. Jeremy Hellickson passed a concussion test and will get the ball today.
6. Chipper Jones is hurting, and he was scratched from Friday's lineup.
7. Jed Lowrie was back in business.
8. Justin Upton is bothered by a bad thumb.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. It seems like everybody is trying hard to say that Mark Reynolds is not being moved off third base, and yet he was the DH Friday and is taking grounders at first base.
2. Brandon Inge was activated, as Tom Gage writes.
3. The Indians have not confirmed the signing of Johnny Damon.
4. The Phillies signed Mike Fontenot.
5. It appears Tyson Ross will be the fifth starter for the Athletics.
6. Mike Cameron retired as a Mariner.
7. Jerry Dipoto says it's too early to fret about the Angels' bullpen.
[h3]Friday's games[/h3]
1. The Orioles won a slugfest.
2. Jake Peavy shut down the Tigers and demonstrated his pit-bull mentality.
From ESPN Stats and Info, how Peavy beat the Tigers:
A) Tigers hitters were 1-for-15 with eight strikeouts in at-bats ending with a two-strike count, including 0-for-9 in the zone.
B) Peavy threw 45 fastballs out of 94 pitches (48 percent); the Tigers went 1-for-12 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a fastball.
C) The Tigers went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a pitch up in the zone or above.
3. Hiroki Kuroda was The Man for the Yankees.
How Kuroda beat the Angels, from ESPN Stats and Info:
A) Angels hitters were 0-for-10 in at-bats ending with a pitch out of the middle of the zone up or down.
B) The Angels' five right-handed hitters went 2-for-14 with five strikeouts. Righties are 3-for-24 against Kuroda this season.
C) He held the Angels to 1-for-11 with two strikeouts in at-bats with runners on. The Angels left four on base.
From Elias: The Yankees have the best winning percentage in home openers in the league since 2000, going 12-1 during that span. The White Sox are in second at 11-2 and three teams (Orioles, Red Sox, Giants) tie for third at 10-3.
Kuroda earned the great feeling he had, writes Bob Klapisch.
4. Max Scherzer left his glove in Detroit and used a teammate's glove.
5. Luke Hochevar struggled early, and he got hurt. With a bad half-inning, the Royals drained a well of optimism, writes Sam Mellinger.
I'd respectfully disagree with that. A rival executive gave the prevailing view on the improving Royals over the phone Friday: "If they go in and take two of three from a team like the Angels or Yankees now, nobody is going to be surprised."
They're a better team than they have been.
6. Adam Wainwright's stuff was missing, but he made no excuses, writes Bryan Burwell.
The Cardinals lost, but Opening Day was still special.
7. The Indians broke out, big-time.
8. R.A. Dickey had a solid outing.
9. The Pirates were shut down again, as Karen Price writes. Pittsburgh has mustered 11 runs in seven games -- most of its games have been against frontline starters -- and the Pirates' pitching has allowed just 20 runs.
10. From ESPN Stats and Info, how Beckett beat the Rays:
A) Beckett threw 20 first-pitch strikes in 30 at-bats (67 percent). The Rays went 1-for-10 in at-bats ending with Beckett ahead in the count.
B) Beckett had success throwing to the glove side as the Rays went 0-for-7 in at-bats ending with a pitch to the glove side. Opponents are 0-for-12 against Beckett to the glove side this season.
C) The Rays had trouble moving runners along, going 1-for-10 with runners on base.
11. Bronson Arroyo was terrific, but the Reds lost in extra innings, as John Fay writes.
12. Randy Wolf had a bad inning, as Tom Haudricourt writes.
13. The Cubs' offense hoisted Jeff Samardzija.
14. It continues to be a rough year for Pennsylvania offenses.
15. David Price lasted three innings.
16. Gaby Sanchez got a big hit.
17. Brian McCann had a big day.
18. J.D. Martinez hit the first home run in his hometown park.
19. This week, a rival hitter described Matt Harrison's primary pitch as a "turbo-sinker." And now Harrison is 2-0. For a left-hander who throws a sinker, he couldn't be in a better place, with Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus playing on the left side of the Texas infield. It's a very small sample of statistics, but there are only two pitchers with a greater groundball/flyball ratio than Harrison so far this year.
20. The Diamondbacks played a sloppy game.
21. Oakland faced King Felix for the third time in eight games, and won, as Susan Slusser writes.
22. The Mariners were shut down.
23. The Padres had their guts ripped out.
24. The Angels were 2-5 after Ervin Santana's rough outing Friday.
The Angels' offensive issues.
Spoiler [+]Heading into their Saturday afternoon game against the New York Yankees in the Bronx, the Los Angeles Angels were 2-5. They had scored only 30 runs over their first seven games, tied for 17th in the league, and nine of those runs came in Thursday's 10-9 loss to the Minnesota Twins. The offense has sputtered, even with the addition of Albert Pujols and the return of Kendrys Morales.
The Angels' bats awoke on Saturday, pounding out seven runs on nine hits, including three home runs, matching their season total to date. And while Pujols has yet to hit one out of the yard, he smacked a single and a double, for his second two-hit game of the season. C.J. Wilson pitched well and the Angels beat the Yankees 7-1.
Even with Saturday's offensive performance, the Angels have exhibited some early-season tendencies that are likely to hamper the offense in the long term if not corrected. The most pressing issue is lack of patience at the plate.
Angels batters have walked in only 6.5 percent of their plate appearances, ranking them 24th in the league (the average is 8.1 percent). Vernon Wells, Peter Bourjos and Morales haven't walked yet this season.
To be sure, walk rates have been trending downward in the American League, dropping from 8.8 percent in 2009 to 8.1 percent in 2011. And the Angels have not been a high-walk team in that time period, averaging a walk in only 7.9 percent of plate appearances. That's hurt the team. The last time the Angels made the playoffs, in 2009, their walk rate was 8.7 percent. In 2010, it dropped to 7.7 percent and decreased further in 2011 to 7.3 percent.
The Angels' low walk rate is particularly troublesome in light of the number of first-pitch strikes they've seen. Through their first eight games, opposing pitchers had thrown first-pitch strikes to Angels hitters only 54.3 percent of the time, ranking the Angels 26th in the league. The Padres, by contrast, had seen first-pitch strikes in 65 percent of their plate appearances, the second-highest rate in the league. And yet the Padres walk rate is 12.5 percent, more than twice that of the Angels. The Padres are working the count; the Angels are not.
Instead, the Angels are swinging at too many pitches outside the strike zone. Their o-swing percentage is at 33.8 percent, second only to the Philadelphia Phillies, who are at 35.1 percent. The New York Yankees and New York Mets are at the other end of the spectrum, swinging at only 23.4 and 24.1 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, respectively. Not surprisingly, with walk rates trending downward since 2009, o-swing numbers have headed in the other direction, increasing from 25.1 percent league-wide in 2009 to 30.6 percent in 2011. But so far in 2012, the average o-swing rate across the league is 28.6 percent -- well below the Angels' number.
The Angels' impatience at the plate may also be sapping the team's power. After eight games, the Angels have hit only six home runs, two by Wells, one each by Mark Trumbo, Chris Iannetta and Howie Kendrick, and an inside-the-park home run from Bourjos. They've hit only 15 doubles and one triple, resulting in a .129 ISO, ranked 20th in the league. In 35 plate appearances, Pujols has three doubles, no triples and no home runs. Yes, Pujols got off to a slow start in 2011, but by the end of April he'd hit seven home runs and had a .208 ISO. He'll have to hit a home run in one out of every two games the Angels have remaining in April just to match that output.
Through the first full week of the season, the Angels haven't taken walks and haven't hit for power -- yet they have a team on-base average of .306. How have they done it? Some combination of poor defense by their opponents and luck.
After Saturday's game against the Yankees, the Angels' batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is .306, tied with the Detroit Tigers for fourth highest in the league. Through Saturday's games, the league-wide BABIP is .278. And while that is likely to rise through the season, BABIP has been declining since 2009, when the league-wide average was .300. It fell to .295 in 2010 and further to .294 last season. Those numbers suggest that over the course of this season, the Angels will see their team BABIP decline.
The Angels added Pujols expecting that it would jump-start their 17th-ranked offense, which scored only 667 runs in 2011. Instead, Pujols is off to a slow start, as are many of his new teammates. To improve on last year's production, the Angels need to show more patience, better plate discipline and more power than they've shown in the first week of the season.
Breakout year for Longoria?
Spoiler [+]In almost every circumstance, April performance means little or nothing. Last year's April stars included Placido Polanco, Brett Wallace and Sam Fuld, each of whom would see their numbers come crashing back to reality as the season wore on. Over the course of 100 plate appearances, nearly any player can produce good or bad results.
However, there are some statistics that have some predictive value, even in limited quantities. Velocity, for instance, stabilizes extremely fast, as you'll never see Jamie Moyer fluke his way into throwing a 95 mph fastball. On the offensive side of things, the closest equivalent to pitcher velocity is contact rate.
Adam Dunn swings and misses a lot, while Juan Pierre puts his bat on the ball nearly every time he swings. You don't need to see many games before it becomes clear which guys make contact regularly and which guys do not. In fact, contact rate has the strongest year-to-year correlation of any offensive metric, and it is the most consistent skill possessed by any hitter. Sustained significant changes in contact rate are rare and can generally be identified much faster than a change in some other skill set.
To show how quickly contact rate begins to matter, I looked at 125 batters who were full-time players in 2010 and 2011 and played nearly every day last April. As noted in the previous link, the correlation of contact rate between years is 0.9 (where 1.0 means that the two data sets would be exactly the same). By adding in (at equal weight) the contact rate of these hitters in April 2011 to their 2010 contact rate, the correlation with their 2011 contact rate rose to 0.96.
In other words, you could come close to precisely predicting a player's full season contact rate by just taking the average of his previous year contact rate and the mark he posted in the first month of a given season. Using this model at the beginning of May last year, you could have accurately projected the significant improvements of guys such as Prince Fielder and David Ortiz while picking up on worrisome trends from Bobby Abreu and Shin-Soo Choo.
While we don't yet have a full month of data for 2012, we are seeing a handful of players who are making more contact than they ever have before. It is too early to make any definitive declarations, but these improvements in contact rate are more likely to be real than any other April performance and could signal that these hitters have made legitimate steps forward at the plate.
Evan Longoria: 2011 Contact Rate: 79.6 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 88.4 percent
Longoria
After striking out in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances as a rookie, his strikeout rate has been trending down every season since. Last year, he struck out only once every six trips to the plate. Through his first six games, Longoria's keeping up with the trend, as he's struck out just twice in his first 26 plate appearances.
In general, the only players who can sustain a contact rate over 90 percent are guys who slap the ball on the ground with regularity, but if Longoria can push his contact rate to the 80-85 percent range, he could be in for a true breakout season. Few players can be both elite contact hitters and still drive the ball over the wall, and Longoria has the chance to put himself in that category.
Josh Willingham: 2011 Contact Rate: 75.4 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 77.8 percent
Willingham
From 2008 to 2010, Willingham was the epitome of consistency when it came to making contact, posting marks between 80.2 percent and 81.1 percent in all three seasons. Last year, his contact rate dropped to just over 75 percent, and the resulting spike in strikeouts at age 32 led to questions of whether he was headed for a steep drop-off in productivity.
Instead, Willingham has come out of the gates thumping the baseball for the Twins. He's not just swinging for the fences either; he's showing he can still cover the plate at the same time. Given the Twins' investment in him and their need for offense, his strong first week is as positive a performance as they could have hoped for.
Kyle Seager: 2011 Contact Rate: 84.5 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 93.8 percent
As a diminutive infielder with moderate power who doesn't draw many walks, the only way for Seager to be a productive hitter is to put the ball in play as often as possible. During his rookie campaign in Seattle last year, he swung and missed about as often as an average hitter, and given his lack of other strengths, it looked like it could be a long-term problem.
However, he's showing premier contact skill in the first week of 2012, and his performance is likely going to force the Mariners to keep playing him even after Mike Carp returns from the disabled list. Given the Mariners' lack of offense in general, they can't afford to bench any productive players, and Seager is giving some reason for hope that he can perform better at the plate than he did a year ago.
Making them count.
Spoiler [+]Every fantasy baseball owner has felt the temptation to pick up that waiver wire player who is hitting .400 early in the season with the hope that he's figured something out and will take the league by storm. Modern research, however, has taught us not to trust such small samples and to expect that a hitter's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) will tend to stabilize near the league average over the long haul, when factors like opposing pitchers and defenses presumably even out.
There are, however, two primary ways to beat this theory, even over the long haul: hard contact and speed.
The better hitters tend to hit the ball harder and on a line more often. These batted balls are more difficult to field and go for hits more often. Using Baseball Info Solutions' hit location and batted ball timer data, we can approximate the number of hits we could have expected given the characteristics of each hitter's balls in play.
For example, let's look at ground balls. Miguel Cabrera hit the hardest groundballs in 2011, averaging 57.8 mph through the infield compared to the major league average of 50.6 mph. Based on the velocities and trajectories of his 215 ground balls, we would have expected him to get about 59 hits on grounders (a .274 average, compared to the league average of .231), which is exactly how many he had. Of course, Cabrera does the most damage on line drives and deep fly balls, but getting hits on ground balls helped him maintain a lofty batting average and win the American League batting title.
Extending this analysis to all balls in play, we find certain hitters get more out of their balls in play. Hitters like Adrian Gonzalez, David Freese and Joe Mauer put the ball in play with authority and it leads to extra hits and a higher batting average.
[h4]Expected BABIP leaders, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Batter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][/tr][tr][td]Adrian Gonzalez[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]0.350[/td][/tr][tr][td]David Freese[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.364[/td][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.338[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jack Cust[/td][td]0.354[/td][td]0.366[/td][/tr][tr][td]Alex Avila[/td][td]0.352[/td][td]0.331[/td][/tr][/table]
Speed can also boost a hitter's BABIP, especially on ground balls. Ichiro Suzuki is the best example of a hitter who makes the most of his speed on balls in play. Considering the velocities and trajectories of his 361 grounders last year (65 more than anyone else), we would have expected 72 hits from a player with average speed. Ichiro actually had 94 ground ball hits in 2011, enough for a .260 batting average. Because Ichiro leverages his speed by hitting the ball on the ground so often, he can consistently beat the league average BABIP, even in a down year like 2011.
Even after adjusting for the velocity and trajectory of the batted balls, some of baseball's fastest players tend to top the list of expected BABIP overachievers.
[h4]Expected BABIP overachievers, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Hitter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][th=""]Hits above expected[/th][/tr][tr][td]Ichiro Suzuki[/td][td]0.286[/td][td]0.320[/td][td]39[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jose Reyes[/td][td]0.285[/td][td]0.318[/td][td]32[/td][/tr][tr][td]Austin Jackson[/td][td]0.329[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]30[/td][/tr][tr][td]Ian Desmond[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]0.313[/td][td]29[/td][/tr][tr][td]Drew Stubbs[/td][td]0.296[/td][td]0.335[/td][td]27[/td][/tr][/table]
The biggest expected BABIP underachievers, on the other hand, include a number of fly ball hitters and slower runners. Jimmy Rollins might be the odd name on the list, but the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop has never done well on balls in play because he hits a relatively high number of fly balls. Rollins might be better off hitting balls on a lower trajectory and taking advantage of his speed.
[h4]Expected BABIP underachievers, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Hitter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][th=""]Hits above expected[/th][/tr][tr][td]Aaron Hill[/td][td]0.264[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]-19[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jose Lopez[/td][td]0.276[/td][td]0.242[/td][td]-18[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jimmy Rollins[/td][td]0.288[/td][td]0.259[/td][td]-17[/td][/tr][tr][td]Casey McGehee[/td][td]0.301[/td][td]0.280[/td][td]-16[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Lee[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]0.258[/td][td]-16[/td][/tr][/table]
Though there is still plenty of luck that goes into a hitter's BABIP, the numbers show a level of sustainability over multiple seasons. It's still better to be skeptical of early season batting averages, but for players who can drive the ball consistently hard or who leverage their speed (like Freese and Ian Desmond, respectively), a higher batting average is more sustainable.
Buxton shows tools worthy of No. 1 pick.
Spoiler [+]Center fielder Byron Buxton of Appling County High School in Baxley, Ga., seems to be on top of most scouts' personal "pref" lists at the moment because of his explosive tools, an incredibly athletic body and the frame to put on more muscle and end up with plus tools in all five categories. He's got some risk attached, but all things considered, he's the best prospect in this draft class.
If you want raw tools, this is about as good as it gets. Buxton is an 80 runner on the 20-80 scouting scale with a 70 arm and a chance to be a 70 defender in center. He's not just fast, he runs easily and effortlessly and is even faster underway than he is in short spurts like home to first. Buxton threw three innings in Tuesday's game and hit 93 mph several times with a decent curveball, so while he's not a top prospect as a pitcher, he did show arm strength and even more evidence of his athleticism.
He's earned physical comparisons to all manner of players; the one that came to my mind when I first saw him was a young Eric Davis, who had that speed/power combination that should lie in Buxton's future.
Buxton has quick wrists and gets good rotation in his right-handed swing and also squared up several balls in the game I saw, although I also saw his swing get long on balls he probably should have taken. He starts with his hands set up by his back shoulder almost fully loaded at the start, and then takes a long stride forward in the box before he gets his hands started.
He rotates his hips well and should hit for at least above-average power down the road, especially once he fills out physically. One odd note in his swing: His back foot actually comes off the ground briefly as he rotates, which isn't good for balance or for power (unless you're built like Frank Thomas).
His at-bats during Monday's game -- an important game against rival Pierce County High School -- were generally very good, save one at-bat where he chased the first pitch with two outs and the tying run on second. He fouled off several pitches but didn't swing and miss, and he put four balls in play -- two singles (one a ground ball), a double and a hard fly ball to right. The double was the most impressive, as it was well struck and he seemed to reach second before the ping of the bat reached our ears.
The concerns on Buxton are pretty straightforward. He hasn't homered this year, so despite homers earlier in his high school career, there are questions about his present power level. He'll be 18½ at the draft, which is old for a high school prospect. He hasn't faced a lot of advanced pitching in his life, since he didn't do much on the showcase circuit and has split time between baseball and football. And his swing can get long.
On the other hand, this kind of tools package doesn't come along very often, and if you believe he'll hit -- meaning he can adjust to better pitching and make some small mechanical tweaks -- he could be an offensive and defensive force in the middle of the diamond, a faster Andrew McCutchen with more value on defense. That's worthy of the No. 1 overall pick, but the team drafting there, the Houston Astros, would have to be sold on his bat first.
[h3]Notes[/h3]
• Parkview High School, the alma mater of Jeff Francoeur, has a solid prospect for each of the next two drafts. For this year, first baseman Matt Olson is attracting some interest from clubs who like his bat enough to ignore (for now) his commitment to Vanderbilt, with a lot of buzz around the Boston Red Sox having strong interest in him. When he puts a good swing on the ball, it's a really good swing, a smooth left-handed stroke with lots of rotation and great follow-through. But his swing can get very long because he loads his hands deep, and his bat control isn't great. He has an above-average arm, but his lack of speed limits him to first base.
• Center fielder Josh Hart is a junior right now but is already on the radar for next year's draft thanks to a live body and good bat speed. He's very linear at the plate, slapping the ball but not really driving it, and I had him as an average to above-average runner based on his run times in this game. He met a few balls out in front of the plate when he was fooled by an off-speed pitch. He's worth remembering for next year as a potential center fielder who should make a lot of contact if he recognizes secondary stuff better.
Gausman flashing top-5 pick ability.
Spoiler [+]LSU right-hander Kevin Gausman, who was sixth on my most recent ranking of the top prospects for this year's draft, threw at Alex Box Stadium on Friday night against a largely overmatched Alabama team, and was clearly a different pitcher from the one I saw when he was in high school, and even different from the pitcher he was a month ago.
Gausman was 94-97 in the first few innings, and still 93-96 in the 8th, with better command than he'd had in the past; he still gets too much of the middle of the plate at times, but showed that he could attack the corners successfully at least some of the time. Gausman had been using a curveball as his primary breaking ball until his last outing, at which point he switched to a slider that is a much better weapon for him now and in pro ball. At 82-86, it has a hard mostly downward dive that should be tough for pro hitters to pick up in time to lay off it. Gausman's changeup, described earlier this spring as his best off-speed pitch, lacked its usual action, with just fair arm speed at 84-86, and he didn't have any feel for it.
Courtesy of Keith LawGausman's high leg kick was on display Friday.
Gausman's delivery starts with the highest possible leg kick -- he looks like a flamingo at its peak -- leading to a fairly long stride where he drops his pitching arm quite low behind his body, although it's not as severe as a stab and doesn't plunge enough to drag his pitching shoulder down. He stays over the rubber well, just slightly drifting forward through the balance point, but finishes strongly out over his front side. It's much cleaner and more powerful than it was in high school, where he didn't have the same body control, drifted forward off the rubber, and didn't land as squarely over his front leg. Gausman also starts his warmups with a single crow-hop throw to the plate, much as Trevor Bauer does, and last night his first such throw came in at 102 mph.
There's a fair amount of industry speculation that Gausman is Kansas City's target with the fifth overall pick, although I assume that's based on the assumption that the first four picks are, in some order, Byron Buxton, Mark Appel (who was 97-99 early last night, but threw an arm-numbing 149 pitches), Kyle Zimmer (who was rained out) and Mike Zunino. The Royals did want a college starter last year, only to have their top four choices (including Dylan Bundy, the high school pitcher who was as polished as a college guy) taken in the top four spots. This year, they should get one of those three college arms if that is indeed still their goal.
• The new CBA will make college seniors, who have less leverage than a broken fulcrum, particularly attractive to clubs looking to shift money to high school players without going over their overall draft bonus caps. Alabama outfielder Taylor Dugas should be one of the first such seniors off the board, as he's better than your typical "senior sign" (a college player who signs for $1,000 to go fill out a minor league roster) because of his long-demonstrated ability to square up good pitching, including plus velocity. At 5-foot-7 (if that), he's hard-pressed to profile as a big league regular, but I feel very strongly that he'll at least hit his way to some role on a major league bench.
• Alabama right-hander Ian Gardeck was drafted in the eighth round last year by the White Sox out of Angelina Junior College, but didn't sign, and after a brief flirtation with the University of Dayton ended up in Tuscaloosa. He was 92-95 in one inning last night with a hard low-80s slider, but doesn't command either pitch and needs some delivery cleanup if that's ever going to improve.
• Tide starter Trey Pilkington was 89-90 with a short, fringy slider in the 78-84 mph range; he's got a very short arm action that prevents hitters from picking up the ball until late, but the stuff is ordinary enough that the deception can't really help him, and that delivery won't hold up in a rotation in either healthy or command. I'd like to see what he could do as a right-on-right reliever, since the ball appears so late and once through the order he might have more success, but that probably puts him after the 10th round.
• Finally, that was my first LSU home game in the new or old stadiums, and I wish every more colleges had that kind of local support and atmosphere at home games. Outside of the SEC, few schools draw at close to this level, but LSU has remarkable facilities and the fan base to maintain it going forward. For college baseball to escape its niche status, we'll need another dozen LSUs and South Carolinas across the country.
Florida's Johnson impresses against LSU.
Spoiler [+]Brian Johnson is a left-handed starter and first baseman for Florida that has a nice lefty stroke and some raw power at the plate but is a better prospect on the mound. I've seen two outings the junior from him this season and while the stuff and command varied some, the overall package was the same.
Johnson will sit 89-92, touching 94 mph with his fastball and can command the pitch well most of the time, but had some trouble later in his outing against LSU last weekend. He has a slider (80-83 mph, occasional hard horizontal bite gets under the hands of righty hitters), curve (75-78, most consistent off-speed offering that he commands well) and change (81-83, occasional late sinking action with good deception) that he will use based on which he has feel for that day.
All three pitches flash 55 potential (on the 20-80 scouting scale, where 50 is average) as does his command and fastball, making for an enticing polished lefty package that could be a number three starter if everything works out.
This is a low-risk, low-upside package with just a few concerns. One is that Johnson is a thick 6-foot-3, 235 pounds and a little stiff as an athlete, but he has a simple delivery that works for him. His stuff and command can waver at times, but his pitching IQ and four-pitch arsenal give him the weapons to adjust. In addition, he has very good deception by coiling his body in his delivery and an arm stroke that he hides very well behind his body. There isn't anything to blow you away here, but the likely result of an innings-eating lefty starter could get Johnson looks as early as the middle of the first round.
Other 2012 draft notes
• Kevin Gausman is a long-limbed, 6-foot-4, 185-pound hurler with a deceptive delivery and a fastball that hit 98 mph as part of a four-pitch mix that will likely land him in the top 10 picks in June. He comes at hitters with an all-arms-and-legs delivery, a pause at the bottom of his arm stroke and a high three-quarters arm slot that creates great downward plane.
Gausman works at 94-95 mph with a fastball that had some run and sinking life down in the zone. His main secondary pitch was an 83-85 mph changeup he didn't use much until the second time through the lineup, but relied on heavily late in the outing as his command wavered. At its best the pitch darts late, down and away from left handed hitters. It's an above-average present pitch with plus potential that could be a 65 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) at maturity.
The question mark with Gausman's potential is his breaking ball. He had trouble getting consistent break and command on his 79-83 mph curveball that flashed above-average potential as a downer with 11-to-5 tilt, depth and some late bite, whereas his slider was just average at best with a short break and inconsistent location. Gausman also will lock the knee on his landing leg, causing him to throw against his leg rather than over it. This causes inconsistent command, usually leaving the ball up, and creates more effort in the delivery, manifested in a more pronounced spin-off to first base after release. This is very fixable and isn't a long-term concern.
• Florida backstop Mike Zunino helped his draft stock by looking especially comfortable against Gausman, including a key two-run double to right-center on a fastball Gausman left up that produced the game's only runs until the 7th inning. I'm slotting Gausman just behind the slightly more impressive Zunino on my pref list, and Gausman could go just a few picks after Zunino, as high as the top 5 picks on draft day.
• Nick Goody is a righty reliever for the Tigers that sat 91-94 mph with a clean arm action but with enough effort that he's a bullpen-only fit in the pros. He had an inconsistent slider that flashed solid-average potential at 81-82 mph and solid command. He's performed well this year and should go in a single digit round, possibly sneaking into the top 5 rounds after being popped in the 21st round by the Yankees last year from a Florida JC.
Looking Ahead To 2013
• Oscar Mercado, a shortstop from Tampa's Gaither High School, has been hyped as one of the top high school juniors in the country and after a quick one game look, I'm on board. He's 6-foot-1, 170 pounds with room to add weight, but his skinny frame already has plenty of quick-twitch. He's very smooth with the glove and his above-average speed gives him plenty of range to let his true shortstop actions take over.
Mercado's ultimate upside will be determined by how much muscle he can add, but there's plenty of bat speed to work with. Having seen a number of well-paid 16-year-old Dominican shortstops in the past, I would put Mercado's package of tools next to any of them; he would easily get a seven figure bonus in that market. If he doesn't make any progress in the next year, he's a solid sandwich pick option as a glove with some offensive upside but a lot can happen from age 17 to 18 and the upside here is top 10 pick. I have him slotted just behind Atlanta-area center fielder Austin Meadows in the 2013 prep class.
Scouting Red Sox and Rangers prospects.
Spoiler [+]I stopped in Greenville on Wednesday night while en route from Macon to Charlotte, making my first visit to Fluor Field, one of the nicest minor league ballparks I've seen. It's located right in a revitalized downtown area, not far from a row of bars and restaurants that was still busy at 10:30 that evening. Greenville, Boston's low-A affiliate, hosted Hickory, a Rangers affiliate, in a game that featured several high draft picks and international bonus babies.
• Hickory starter Luke Jackson was mostly 92-95 mph early in the start, 90-93 later, and was fine the first time through the order but lost his release point in the third inning, narrowly avoiding disaster by throwing his curveball when he needed a strike. The curve was anywhere from 74-79 and was very inconsistent, some showing good depth and others hanging up in the zone, while his changeup at 79-84 had excellent arm speed and was more consistent than the breaking ball. His warmup was unconventional, with a very long delivery, but in the game he was much shorter, very short for a starter, and didn't have great success repeating it.
• Greenville starter Luis Diaz was less impressive, sitting 89-92 without much life, showing a straight change and a downer curveball that was his best pitch. He gets on top of the ball well but hasn't learned to drive it down in the zone yet. His fastball command was just fair but he threw strikes and was generally aggressive. I don't see a ton of physical projection here, but at just 20 years old he has time to refine his command and feel for setting up hitters.
• Greenville catcher Blake Swihart was the best prospect on the field, although he struggled receiving for much of the night. He's an outstanding athlete with quick hands and a sound swing, but Jackson was able to beat him with fastballs up. Third baseman Garin Cecchini had two ugly strikeouts on breaking balls down before finally getting a pitch up and driving it to left; he has good bat speed but turns his front leg outward instead of striding, causing him to pull off the ball. Shortstop Jose Vinicio, who looks like he's around 14 years old, looks like a future plus defender at short and has a good-looking swing, although I wonder if he'll ever be strong enough to make use of that hip rotation, and at just 18 was overmatched by Jackson's raw stuff. (He's 7-for-16 with four extra-base hits and two walks outside of that game.)
• A few of Hickory's better prospects, including Luis Sardinas, didn't play, but second baseman Rougned Odor hit second and went 0-for-5, guessing incorrectly on several pitches throughout the night. His swing is pretty compact, with his hands traveling a very short distance to get to the ball, but he wraps his bat slightly and his pitch recognition was poor. Catcher Jorge Alfaro did what he usually does -- he swung at almost everything he saw and hit a couple of balls hard -- and showed off his arm strength when he could. His approach isn't going to work at higher levels, although you could argue that, with one walk so far, he's already reached 1/3 of his 2011 season total. Centerfielder Chris Grayson was 4-for-4 and is now hitting .464/.516/.786 through seven games, but he's old for this level and has all kinds of issues with his swing, from barring his front arm to a soft front side. He can run, but if he's challenged the way a player his age should be, I think he's struggle.
Valentine's odd Youkilis comments.
Spoiler [+]
The Boston Red Sox are nine games into the Bobby Valentine era and already the team's most popular and credible player has publicly rebuked the manager for something he said.
And the timing couldn't be more odd.
The Red Sox had a great weekend, flexing their offensive muscle and taking three straight games from the Tampa Bay Rays; David Ortiz had a big day Sunday.
But the conversation today at Fenway Park was about Valentine's remarks regarding his third baseman. From Alex Speier's piece:
And the timing couldn't be more odd.
The Red Sox had a great weekend, flexing their offensive muscle and taking three straight games from the Tampa Bay Rays; David Ortiz had a big day Sunday.
But the conversation today at Fenway Park was about Valentine's remarks regarding his third baseman. From Alex Speier's piece:
"I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason," Valentine said in the interview. "But [Saturday] it seemed, you know, he's seeing the ball well, got those two walks, got his on-base percentage up higher than his batting average, which is always a good thing, and he'll move on from there."
Youkilis, 33, is hitting .200 with a .265 OBP, .233 slugging mark and .498 OPS this year, though he's 6-for-18 with three walks and two doubles in his last five games.
Coincidence or not, Will Middlebrooks -- the heir apparent at third base -- is killing the ball, hitting .364 for Triple-A Pawtucket. Youkilis has a $13 million contractual option for 2013 that the Red Sox are not likely to pick up unless the veteran has a really good season.
What was Valentine's intent? Why did he say what he said? I don't know.
Kevin Youkilis spoke with Valentine, and then talked to reporters, saying, "The only time my emotion has ever been questioned is when I've been too emotional."
Dustin Pedroia, who came through last fall's chicken-and-beer collapse with his reputation fully intact, was blunt in his assessment this morning of Valentine's comments, telling reporters in Boston, "I really don't know what Bobby is trying to do, but that's not the way we go about our stuff around here."
Bobby V. has since apologized to Youkilis, but this can't be good for player-manager relations.
Where does it go from here? Stayed tuned.
[h3]Jeter's revival[/h3]
After Derek Jeter's first nine games last season, he was hitting .206, with a .300 on-base percentage and one extra- base hit. After nine games this year, he's hitting .366, with a .395 on-base percentage. He blasted a long home run on Sunday Night Baseball, and during the game we asked Yankees Manager Joe Girardi about the difference between last year and 2012, and he was pretty direct: He thinks the energy and attention required by Jeter to deal with this as he closed in on 3,000 hits was an issue.
Girardi might be onto something. In 1995, I was fortunate enough to cover Cal Ripken Jr. as he approached and passed Lou Gehrig's consecutive-game record. Everywhere the Orioles went, Ripken hosted a large media scrum with reporters, and as the major event got closer, the crowds got bigger. Cal made a point of spending a lot of time signing autographs that season, at the All-Star Game, sometimes late after Orioles' home games.
And immediately after Ripken passed Gehrig's mark, his performance basically collapsed. He hit .225 the final three weeks of the seaosn, and you got the sense that he was emotionally and physically spent, as he dealt with the attention and scrutiny. Jeter and Ripken are a lot alike in their day-to-day approach to preparing and playing, and they are both work extensively with endorsements.
In Ripken's case, his performance on the field wasn't really related to his milestone; he needed to just play on a daily basis, and it wouldn't have mattered if his batting average was .200.
In Jeter's case, he had to perform to get those last hits needed to reach 3,000. Since he got his 3,000th hit, he's batting about .330, and day by day, he's climbing the ranks of all-time leaders.
Jeter has 3,103 hits now, 20th all-time; he's seven hits away from passing his childhood idol, Dave Winfield.
He's got 1,774 runs, tied for 20th place with Charlie Gehringer. With another 75 runs scored this year, Jeter would move into 13th place all-time.
Jeter has cleared 1,200 career RBIs, and moved past Jim Edmonds. The Yankees broke out Sunday, writes Benjamin Hoffman. Ivan Nova's win streak reached 14 straight games. Joe Girardi is not worried about Mark Teixeira's slow start.
Before Sunday's game, there was a touching tribute to Jackie Robinson, writes Tim Smith. Mariano Rivera is the perfect person to keep Robinson's legacy alive.
[h3]Kemp can't be stopped[/h3]
Matt Kemp mashed another homer and Dee Gordon got a big hit as the Los Angeles Dodgers improved to 9-1. It's the second best start in franchise history -- the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers started the season 10-0.
According to Elias, Kemp is the fourth player to hit 6 homers, drive in 16 runs and hit .450 in his team's first 10 games. The others are Dante Bichette in 1994, Lou Brock in 1967 and Willie Mays in 1964.
[h3]Funky play[/h3]
The Dodgers' win on Sunday was not without controversy, and it would be interesting to hear from Dale Scott and the other three umpires about why they did not change the call on the triple play in the ninth inning that kep the game tied. Padres game. If you watch the play, it appeared that Scott signaled foul ball, or dead ball.
Chase Headley says Scott threw his hands up twice.
From Dan Hayes's story:
A day to remember No. 42.
Spoiler [+]Jerome Williams has played all over the world, and at almost every stop, he has angled to get the same number, not knowing for sure if he would get it. While playing in Puerto Rico, he was second in the pecking order for picking numbers, and the player who had first dibs chose No. 40.
Williams immediately grabbed No. 42, and the teammate who had picked No. 40 asked why.
"Jackie Robinson," said Williams.
"Oh, jeez, I forgot," his teammate replied, already regretting his choice.
The Angels' pitcher has worn No. 42 in Mexico, in Taiwan and while playing independent league ball. So tonight will be a big night for him.
"It's my first time pitching against the Yankees, the first time in Yankee Stadium," he said Saturday, sitting in front of his locker. "And it's the first time I'll wear 42 here [in the big leagues]."
Mariano Rivera is the last active player to wear No. 42, and once he's retired, the only day a player will wear it is April 15 of every season -- the day every player wears it in honor of Robinson. The first number that Rivera was assigned in Yankees camp, as a young pitcher, was No. 58. Rivera is not one to ask for anything; he was assigned No. 42, and didn't immediately make the connection to Robinson, he recalled.
But in 1997, Major League Baseball retired the number, other than for those players who already wore it, such as Rivera. A few years ago, Robinson's widow, Rachel Robinson, asked Rivera to participate in an event, and he remembers talking about Jackie, and the number. "For me to be the last to wear it is an honor," Rivera said. "But it also is a lot of responsibility. You have to wear it with a lot of pride."
As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Reggie Jackson can remember going to Shibe Park and watching Robinson play, never taking his eyes off the Dodger. Then, after the game, Jackson -- who guesses he was about 7 or 8 years old at the time -- remembers waiting outside the visitors clubhouse. "I was squeezing between legs, and then I looked up," Jackson said.
There was Jackie Robinson.
Two decades later, on Oct. 15, 1972, Jackson was on crutches, as the Oakland Athletics prepared to play the Reds in Game 2 of the World Series. Robinson was introduced and stepped to a microphone, and to this day, Jackson has a vision in his mind's eye of Robinson that day; Jackson remembers precisely what he said.
Nine days later, Robinson passed away.
This is a day to salute baseball's best pioneer, writes Martin Fennelly.
Years before Robinson played in the majors, Branch Rickey was moved by a catcher's tears, writes Chris Lamb.
• Williams was out of the majors in 2008, and he was thinking about walking away from baseball after pitching in just 11 games in 2006 and 2007 for the Cubs and Nationals. In 2008, there were no offers from major league teams, and he was staring into the abyss of the end of his career. His reality was that he had no education, no training in another field, and he had four kids, ranging in age from 2 to 9. He said he realized, "Baseball is my life, and I had to support my family."
Williams worked his way back, dropping the extra weight that had been a problem, and while pitching in Triple-A in 2011, he had no expectation that he would be called up. Williams just wanted to finish the minor league season well.
But he was summoned by the Angels in August, and on Aug. 21, he started against the Orioles, and won. It was the first time that his oldest child, Tre, had gotten to see him pitch in person. "Dad, that was amazing," Tre said, moving his father to tears.
• The Giants were hit by one of the season's first major injuries: Brian Wilson could be out for the year, Steve Kroner writes. San Francisco will need the rest of the bullpen to step up, writes Bruce Jenkins.
• Speaking of injuries: There is no timetable for Jacoby Ellsbury's return. Surgery remains a possibility.
• The Cardinals' championship rings include the Rally Squirrel, writes Derrick Goold.
• After Rivera's first outing of the season -- when his velocity was 3 or 4 mph lower than normal, and his cutter was flat -- the Yankees determined that he was bent forward too far in his setup. Rivera has been more upright since, and has regained velocity, as well as the movement on his signature pitch.
• The Cubs' new regime is determined to get better plate discipline out of its hitters as it rebuilds the team. So far, Chicago has been hack-happy. From Mark Simon of ESPN Stats and Info, the ranking of first-pitch swings through Friday's games, from highest percentage to lowest:
Highest
Texas Rangers: 34.7
Tampa Bay Rays: 31.5
Atlanta Braves 31.2
San Diego Padres 30.8
Cubs 30.1
Lowest
Kansas City Royals: 20.5
Los Angeles Angels: 19.3
Minnesota Twins: 18.9
Cleveland Indians: 17.2
New York Mets 17.1
A Starlin Castro error hurt the Cubs on Saturday.
• The Nationals' pitching continues to be overpowering; this time it was Edwin Jackson. The Nats' infield defense has been dazzling.
• Everything is going right for the Dodgers: They win every day, Matt Kemp seems to hit one or more homers every day and Vin Scully is expected back at work later today.
From Bill Center's story:
Kemp has 15 RBIs this season. From the Elias Sports Bureau: The last player with 15 RBIs in his team's first nine games is Albert Pujols in 2010 (the last player with more was Alex Rodriguez, 16 in 2007). The only other Dodger with 15 or more RBIs in his team's first nine games is Hall of Famer Roy Campanella, who had 16 in 1953.
- The Padres have six homers and 29 RBI on the season. After Saturday, Kemp alone has five homers and 14 RBI against the Padres. "Is there a better player in the game right now?" [Padres manager Bud] Black asked in his post-game remarks while discussing Kemp. "That'd be hard to imagine.
"He's the complete package, power, average and speed at a premier position (center field). He's matured into a guy who has taken the game by the throat."
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. With Rick Ankiel back, Davey Johnson will have to make some choices.
2. The Diamondbacks want to provide proper rest for Miguel Montero, writes Nick Piecoro.
3. Johnny Damon does not have an opt-out clause in his contract, writes Paul Hoynes.
4. Mark Reynolds is willing to play wherever the Orioles want him to play.
[h3]Dings and dents [/h3]
1. Ryan Vogelsong is ready to return, as mentioned within this notebook.
2. Kyle Blanks landed on the DL.
3. George Sherrill had an MRI, Larry Stone writes.
4. Brandon Phillips should be back in the Cincinnati lineup today.
5. The Rays put a catcher on the disabled list.
6. Mitch Moreland is dealing with a toothache.
7. David Freese is dealing with a finger injury.
8. Nick Blackburn is the latest Twins pitcher to get hurt. Storm clouds are forming early over Minnesota.
[h3]Saturday's games[/h3]1. Todd Helton hoisted the Rockies.
2. Oakland couldn't solve the king of popups, writes Susan Slusser.
3. The Giants won on an error.
4. C.J. Wilson shut down the Yankees.
5. Joe Wieland got knocked around in his debut.
6. Jesus Montero had a big day.
7. The Reds were shut down again.
8. Mike Minor (a Vanderbilt guy) shut down the Brewers. From ESPN Stats and Info, how Minor beat the Brewers:
A. Minor threw 41 off-speed pitches (22 changeups, 12 sliders, seven curveballs); Brewers went 0-for-8 with two strikeouts. This season, opponents are 1-for-16 against Minor in at-bats ending with an off-speed pitch.
B. Minor threw 37 two-strike pitches (second highest total in his career), but the Brewers went 1-for-16 with four strikeouts.
C. The Brewers went 0-for-8 with two strikeouts in at-bats ending with a pitch away. Minor had one start last season in which he did not allow a hit in an at-bat ending with a pitch away.
9. The Red Sox have busted out against the Rays, and they racked up 13 runs Saturday. From ESPN Stats and Info: Over the past two games, the Red Sox are 15-for-27 with runners in scoring position, more than twice as good as in their first six games. If you take out their loss to the Tigers in which they scored 12 runs, Boston had been just 6-for-35 with runners in scoring position prior to Friday.
The Red Sox have scored a dozen runs three times already this season. The rest of MLB has done so twice. Boston had the most such games (16) last season.
The Sox can finally smile, writes Michael Silverman.
10. The Marlins' rough start continues. Heath Bell blew a save Saturday, and he might not get the ball in a save situation today, Juan Rodriguez writes.
From ESPN Stats and Info: Logan Morrison muffed a fly ball with two outs in the ninth that would have kept the game tied.
Morrison's play in left field ranked last in the majors last season in defensive runs saved, which measures a fielder's ability to turn batted balls into outs and his other tools, such as his throwing arm. He cost the Marlins 26 runs.
11. The Rays' pitching got hit around again, Marc Topkin writes.
12. The Astros said they battled, and it paid off.
13. Yu Darvish was not smooth, but the Rangers won again. He tends to alter his delivery, writes Evan Grant.
14. The Royals were unable to cap off a big comeback. The benches cleared, twice.
15. The Indians held on to win; Shin-Soo Choo says he remembers when Jonathan Sanchez hurt him last year.
16. The Phillies need to pull it together after their latest loss, writes Bob Ford. To repeat: The Phillies have a pillow-soft schedule in the first 39 games of the year. After that, it gets much tougher.
17. Nolan Reimold was The Man for the Orioles.
18. The Pirates have no margin for error these days, and they made a late mistake.
19. With David Wright back in the lineup, the Mets won.
20. Phil Hughes got hit hard. Before the game, Joe Girardi acknowledged that this is a time when some members of the rotation are auditioning for a spot, given the impending returns of Andy Pettitte and Michael Pineda. The patience for Hughes is waning, writes Ken Davidoff.
21. The Tigers had a weird day.
22. The White Sox won again, getting more great work out of their bullpen; they are enjoying the calm atmosphere, writes David Haugh.
The Nationals' Strasburg decision.
Spoiler [+]When Nationals GM Mike Rizzo speaks of possible innings limits for Stephen Strasburg, as he did over the phone Friday, you're reminded of your parents' use of the word "maybe."
As in, maybe they'll let you have the keys to the car. Or maybe not. By saying "maybe," they weren't boxed in by their own words, and there was nothing hard and definitive in place.
This is the situation with Strasburg's innings this year. Maybe he'll be shut down at about 160 innings, or maybe not. "It could be a few more innings, it could be a few less innings," Rizzo said. "A lot of things will go into it."
In the big picture, the Nationals are cognizant of the general innings guidelines for young pitchers, especially for someone like Strasburg, who is about 20 months removed from Tommy John surgery. Rizzo intends to protect Strasburg, as he protected Jordan Zimmermann at the end of last season, by holding him to 161 1/3 innings. "It'll probably be in that neighborhood," Rizzo said.
But you don't have to be a Las Vegas oddsmaker to see that any innings restrictions for Strasburg are on a collision course with the practical realities of the big-picture needs of the organization. The Nationals are off to a good start, with a good team, and already Strasburg appears to be one of the best pitchers in the majors, with four plus-plus pitches -- a four-seam fastball that approaches 100 mph, a two-seamer that veers sharply, a breaking ball that locks up hitters, and a changeup that might be the best in the sport.
The other day, Strasburg was throwing his changeup in the 88-90 mph, and to call it a Bugs Bunny changeup would be a disservice. Bugs' changeup was straight, albeit effective, as described in this legendary breakdown of his matchup against the Gas House Gorillas. Strasburg's changeup against the Mets the other day seemed to reach a stop sign and then take a right-hand turn. Ron Darling, who worked the game on SNY, laughed a couple of times at the pitches, and the reactions of the Mets' hitters to them.
"It had as good of a depth and movement that I've ever seen," said Rizzo.
Strasburg has thrown 105 innings in the majors, and opposing hitters have a .529 OPS against him, with a .249 on-base percentage. He's got 130 strikeouts while issuing 23 walks, your basic 6-to-1 strikeouts-to-walk ratio. Since returning to action last year, he hasn't allowed a home run in 37 innings, which tells you a lot about the quality of swings against him.
So what happens this summer if Strasburg has 110 innings by the All-Star break, and the Nationals have a chance to win their first division title since moving to Washington? What happens if they have a chance to break through in their market?
It's not as if every pitcher who soared beyond the artificial innings guidelines has fallen apart. In 2005, the 22-year-old Justin Verlander threw 130 innings in his first year in pro ball. The next season, his innings total soared to 207, as the Tigers won their division and played into the World Series. Verlander has survived, and thrived; he's currently the best pitcher on the planet.
Cole Hamels' innings count soared from about 190 to 260 from 2007 to 2008, and he was a Cy Young candidate in 2011 and is about to get one of the richest paydays in history, either from the Phillies or as a free agent in the fall.
Strasburg doesn't say a lot, like Roy Halladay, and like Halladay, he's incredibly competitive. "He walks around like a choir boy, but he's ornery," Rizzo said.
If the Nationals have a chance to win this year, Strasburg will want to pitch; he always wants to pitch. Rizzo knows this. He is well-aware, too, that there will be a lot of pressure from a lot of corners to allow Strasburg to go beyond 160 innings.
So Rizzo answers questions about it the way your parents used "maybe."
"We're not going to reinvent the wheel on this," he said. "We're not going to be fancy. We're going to work him on a regular routine, and if we have a chance to skip him, we could. There are no pitch limits in his games, no innings limits [in individual games].
"We're going to use our eyes to see how he feels."
I remember talking with Phillies manager Charlie Manuel about Hamels' innings in the spring after Philadelphia won the 2008 World Series, a year which represents a turning point for that organization. Their ballpark has been filled since then, their payroll has skyrocketed; the franchise has become one of baseball's superpowers.
He nodded about the concern over Hamels' innings, and answered the question this way: "You don't get too many chances to win."
Maybe it'll be 160 innings for Strasburg this year. Maybe not.
The Nationals have won four straight, including two straight walk-off wins, after Jayson Werth's single late Friday night.
The Nationals will activate Rick Ankiel today, as Adam Kilgore writes.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
• It had been a good day for the Red Sox on Friday. The weather was beautiful, Fenway Park was full of good feelings as Johnny Pesky, Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield were honored, and Josh Beckett was pitching well, leading the team to its second win of the season.
But then Jacoby Ellsbury was hurt and everything changed. You cannot overstate the importance of Ellsbury to the Red Sox lineup, and as Gordon Edes writes, he has a dislocated right shoulder.
From ESPN Stats and Info: Ellsbury ranked second in wins above replacement last year in the American League, meaning that without him, the Red Sox would not even have flirted with the postseason (as opposed to suffering through that September collapse).
Most wins above replacement in American League last season:
Jose Bautista -- 8.5
Jacoby Ellsbury -- 7.2
Miguel Cabrera -- 7.1
Adrian Gonzalez -- 6.9
Dustin Pedroia -- 6.8
The injury looked painful, David Ortiz says, within this Scott Lauber story. It looks like Cody Ross could get a lot of playing time in center field. The Red Sox called up an outfielder, as Alex Speier writes.
Rarely has there been the same kind of urgency for a win, writes Dan Shaughnessy. We learned something about Beckett Friday, writes Bob Ryan.
• The Dodgers' bankruptcy reorganization was approved. MLB objected, and a fierce battle ensued.
• Matt Cain was almost perfect, as John Shea writes. When he pitches that well, it takes you back to 2010, writes Tim Kawakami.
From ESPN Stats and Info, how Cain shut out the Pirates:
A) Cain worked his fastball in the middle of the zone and above (48 of 60 fastballs); the Pirates went 1-for-14 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a fastball.
B) The fastball success set up his off-speed pitches. The Pirates went 0-for-14 with seven strikeouts in at-bats ending with an off-speed pitch (seven with sliders, six with changeups, one curveball).
C) Of Cain's 11 strikeouts, eight were on pitches out of the zone. The Pirates swung and missed at 58 percent of Cain's pitches out of the zone, tied for third-highest for Cain since 2009.
• The Dodgers' Aaron Harang broke a 50-year-old record.
• Alex Rodriguez tied Ken Griffey Jr. on the list of career homers, and he is now within 30 of Willie Mays.
By The Numbers, from ESPN Stats and Info:
9: Consecutive strikeouts by Harang vs. Padres
67: Runs scored by the Red Sox in home openers since 2005
96: Cain's Game Score; tied with Chris Capuano for highest since start of 2011
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Andrew Bailey is close to having his cast taken off, writes Tim Britton.
2. Lorenzo Cain was placed on the disabled list, as mentioned within this notebook.
3. Daniel Murphy will move to third if David Wright has to go on the disabled list, a decision that will come today.
4. Charlie Morton is getting the ball today, after being activated from the disabled list.
5. Jeremy Hellickson passed a concussion test and will get the ball today.
6. Chipper Jones is hurting, and he was scratched from Friday's lineup.
7. Jed Lowrie was back in business.
8. Justin Upton is bothered by a bad thumb.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. It seems like everybody is trying hard to say that Mark Reynolds is not being moved off third base, and yet he was the DH Friday and is taking grounders at first base.
2. Brandon Inge was activated, as Tom Gage writes.
3. The Indians have not confirmed the signing of Johnny Damon.
4. The Phillies signed Mike Fontenot.
5. It appears Tyson Ross will be the fifth starter for the Athletics.
6. Mike Cameron retired as a Mariner.
7. Jerry Dipoto says it's too early to fret about the Angels' bullpen.
[h3]Friday's games[/h3]
1. The Orioles won a slugfest.
2. Jake Peavy shut down the Tigers and demonstrated his pit-bull mentality.
From ESPN Stats and Info, how Peavy beat the Tigers:
A) Tigers hitters were 1-for-15 with eight strikeouts in at-bats ending with a two-strike count, including 0-for-9 in the zone.
B) Peavy threw 45 fastballs out of 94 pitches (48 percent); the Tigers went 1-for-12 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a fastball.
C) The Tigers went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with a pitch up in the zone or above.
3. Hiroki Kuroda was The Man for the Yankees.
How Kuroda beat the Angels, from ESPN Stats and Info:
A) Angels hitters were 0-for-10 in at-bats ending with a pitch out of the middle of the zone up or down.
B) The Angels' five right-handed hitters went 2-for-14 with five strikeouts. Righties are 3-for-24 against Kuroda this season.
C) He held the Angels to 1-for-11 with two strikeouts in at-bats with runners on. The Angels left four on base.
From Elias: The Yankees have the best winning percentage in home openers in the league since 2000, going 12-1 during that span. The White Sox are in second at 11-2 and three teams (Orioles, Red Sox, Giants) tie for third at 10-3.
Kuroda earned the great feeling he had, writes Bob Klapisch.
4. Max Scherzer left his glove in Detroit and used a teammate's glove.
5. Luke Hochevar struggled early, and he got hurt. With a bad half-inning, the Royals drained a well of optimism, writes Sam Mellinger.
I'd respectfully disagree with that. A rival executive gave the prevailing view on the improving Royals over the phone Friday: "If they go in and take two of three from a team like the Angels or Yankees now, nobody is going to be surprised."
They're a better team than they have been.
6. Adam Wainwright's stuff was missing, but he made no excuses, writes Bryan Burwell.
The Cardinals lost, but Opening Day was still special.
7. The Indians broke out, big-time.
8. R.A. Dickey had a solid outing.
9. The Pirates were shut down again, as Karen Price writes. Pittsburgh has mustered 11 runs in seven games -- most of its games have been against frontline starters -- and the Pirates' pitching has allowed just 20 runs.
10. From ESPN Stats and Info, how Beckett beat the Rays:
A) Beckett threw 20 first-pitch strikes in 30 at-bats (67 percent). The Rays went 1-for-10 in at-bats ending with Beckett ahead in the count.
B) Beckett had success throwing to the glove side as the Rays went 0-for-7 in at-bats ending with a pitch to the glove side. Opponents are 0-for-12 against Beckett to the glove side this season.
C) The Rays had trouble moving runners along, going 1-for-10 with runners on base.
11. Bronson Arroyo was terrific, but the Reds lost in extra innings, as John Fay writes.
12. Randy Wolf had a bad inning, as Tom Haudricourt writes.
13. The Cubs' offense hoisted Jeff Samardzija.
14. It continues to be a rough year for Pennsylvania offenses.
15. David Price lasted three innings.
16. Gaby Sanchez got a big hit.
17. Brian McCann had a big day.
18. J.D. Martinez hit the first home run in his hometown park.
19. This week, a rival hitter described Matt Harrison's primary pitch as a "turbo-sinker." And now Harrison is 2-0. For a left-hander who throws a sinker, he couldn't be in a better place, with Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus playing on the left side of the Texas infield. It's a very small sample of statistics, but there are only two pitchers with a greater groundball/flyball ratio than Harrison so far this year.
20. The Diamondbacks played a sloppy game.
21. Oakland faced King Felix for the third time in eight games, and won, as Susan Slusser writes.
22. The Mariners were shut down.
23. The Padres had their guts ripped out.
24. The Angels were 2-5 after Ervin Santana's rough outing Friday.
The Angels' offensive issues.
Spoiler [+]Heading into their Saturday afternoon game against the New York Yankees in the Bronx, the Los Angeles Angels were 2-5. They had scored only 30 runs over their first seven games, tied for 17th in the league, and nine of those runs came in Thursday's 10-9 loss to the Minnesota Twins. The offense has sputtered, even with the addition of Albert Pujols and the return of Kendrys Morales.
The Angels' bats awoke on Saturday, pounding out seven runs on nine hits, including three home runs, matching their season total to date. And while Pujols has yet to hit one out of the yard, he smacked a single and a double, for his second two-hit game of the season. C.J. Wilson pitched well and the Angels beat the Yankees 7-1.
Even with Saturday's offensive performance, the Angels have exhibited some early-season tendencies that are likely to hamper the offense in the long term if not corrected. The most pressing issue is lack of patience at the plate.
Angels batters have walked in only 6.5 percent of their plate appearances, ranking them 24th in the league (the average is 8.1 percent). Vernon Wells, Peter Bourjos and Morales haven't walked yet this season.
To be sure, walk rates have been trending downward in the American League, dropping from 8.8 percent in 2009 to 8.1 percent in 2011. And the Angels have not been a high-walk team in that time period, averaging a walk in only 7.9 percent of plate appearances. That's hurt the team. The last time the Angels made the playoffs, in 2009, their walk rate was 8.7 percent. In 2010, it dropped to 7.7 percent and decreased further in 2011 to 7.3 percent.
The Angels' low walk rate is particularly troublesome in light of the number of first-pitch strikes they've seen. Through their first eight games, opposing pitchers had thrown first-pitch strikes to Angels hitters only 54.3 percent of the time, ranking the Angels 26th in the league. The Padres, by contrast, had seen first-pitch strikes in 65 percent of their plate appearances, the second-highest rate in the league. And yet the Padres walk rate is 12.5 percent, more than twice that of the Angels. The Padres are working the count; the Angels are not.
Instead, the Angels are swinging at too many pitches outside the strike zone. Their o-swing percentage is at 33.8 percent, second only to the Philadelphia Phillies, who are at 35.1 percent. The New York Yankees and New York Mets are at the other end of the spectrum, swinging at only 23.4 and 24.1 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, respectively. Not surprisingly, with walk rates trending downward since 2009, o-swing numbers have headed in the other direction, increasing from 25.1 percent league-wide in 2009 to 30.6 percent in 2011. But so far in 2012, the average o-swing rate across the league is 28.6 percent -- well below the Angels' number.
The Angels' impatience at the plate may also be sapping the team's power. After eight games, the Angels have hit only six home runs, two by Wells, one each by Mark Trumbo, Chris Iannetta and Howie Kendrick, and an inside-the-park home run from Bourjos. They've hit only 15 doubles and one triple, resulting in a .129 ISO, ranked 20th in the league. In 35 plate appearances, Pujols has three doubles, no triples and no home runs. Yes, Pujols got off to a slow start in 2011, but by the end of April he'd hit seven home runs and had a .208 ISO. He'll have to hit a home run in one out of every two games the Angels have remaining in April just to match that output.
Through the first full week of the season, the Angels haven't taken walks and haven't hit for power -- yet they have a team on-base average of .306. How have they done it? Some combination of poor defense by their opponents and luck.
After Saturday's game against the Yankees, the Angels' batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is .306, tied with the Detroit Tigers for fourth highest in the league. Through Saturday's games, the league-wide BABIP is .278. And while that is likely to rise through the season, BABIP has been declining since 2009, when the league-wide average was .300. It fell to .295 in 2010 and further to .294 last season. Those numbers suggest that over the course of this season, the Angels will see their team BABIP decline.
The Angels added Pujols expecting that it would jump-start their 17th-ranked offense, which scored only 667 runs in 2011. Instead, Pujols is off to a slow start, as are many of his new teammates. To improve on last year's production, the Angels need to show more patience, better plate discipline and more power than they've shown in the first week of the season.
Breakout year for Longoria?
Spoiler [+]In almost every circumstance, April performance means little or nothing. Last year's April stars included Placido Polanco, Brett Wallace and Sam Fuld, each of whom would see their numbers come crashing back to reality as the season wore on. Over the course of 100 plate appearances, nearly any player can produce good or bad results.
However, there are some statistics that have some predictive value, even in limited quantities. Velocity, for instance, stabilizes extremely fast, as you'll never see Jamie Moyer fluke his way into throwing a 95 mph fastball. On the offensive side of things, the closest equivalent to pitcher velocity is contact rate.
Adam Dunn swings and misses a lot, while Juan Pierre puts his bat on the ball nearly every time he swings. You don't need to see many games before it becomes clear which guys make contact regularly and which guys do not. In fact, contact rate has the strongest year-to-year correlation of any offensive metric, and it is the most consistent skill possessed by any hitter. Sustained significant changes in contact rate are rare and can generally be identified much faster than a change in some other skill set.
To show how quickly contact rate begins to matter, I looked at 125 batters who were full-time players in 2010 and 2011 and played nearly every day last April. As noted in the previous link, the correlation of contact rate between years is 0.9 (where 1.0 means that the two data sets would be exactly the same). By adding in (at equal weight) the contact rate of these hitters in April 2011 to their 2010 contact rate, the correlation with their 2011 contact rate rose to 0.96.
In other words, you could come close to precisely predicting a player's full season contact rate by just taking the average of his previous year contact rate and the mark he posted in the first month of a given season. Using this model at the beginning of May last year, you could have accurately projected the significant improvements of guys such as Prince Fielder and David Ortiz while picking up on worrisome trends from Bobby Abreu and Shin-Soo Choo.
While we don't yet have a full month of data for 2012, we are seeing a handful of players who are making more contact than they ever have before. It is too early to make any definitive declarations, but these improvements in contact rate are more likely to be real than any other April performance and could signal that these hitters have made legitimate steps forward at the plate.
Evan Longoria: 2011 Contact Rate: 79.6 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 88.4 percent
Longoria
After striking out in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances as a rookie, his strikeout rate has been trending down every season since. Last year, he struck out only once every six trips to the plate. Through his first six games, Longoria's keeping up with the trend, as he's struck out just twice in his first 26 plate appearances.
In general, the only players who can sustain a contact rate over 90 percent are guys who slap the ball on the ground with regularity, but if Longoria can push his contact rate to the 80-85 percent range, he could be in for a true breakout season. Few players can be both elite contact hitters and still drive the ball over the wall, and Longoria has the chance to put himself in that category.
Josh Willingham: 2011 Contact Rate: 75.4 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 77.8 percent
Willingham
From 2008 to 2010, Willingham was the epitome of consistency when it came to making contact, posting marks between 80.2 percent and 81.1 percent in all three seasons. Last year, his contact rate dropped to just over 75 percent, and the resulting spike in strikeouts at age 32 led to questions of whether he was headed for a steep drop-off in productivity.
Instead, Willingham has come out of the gates thumping the baseball for the Twins. He's not just swinging for the fences either; he's showing he can still cover the plate at the same time. Given the Twins' investment in him and their need for offense, his strong first week is as positive a performance as they could have hoped for.
Kyle Seager: 2011 Contact Rate: 84.5 percent, 2012 Contact Rate: 93.8 percent
As a diminutive infielder with moderate power who doesn't draw many walks, the only way for Seager to be a productive hitter is to put the ball in play as often as possible. During his rookie campaign in Seattle last year, he swung and missed about as often as an average hitter, and given his lack of other strengths, it looked like it could be a long-term problem.
However, he's showing premier contact skill in the first week of 2012, and his performance is likely going to force the Mariners to keep playing him even after Mike Carp returns from the disabled list. Given the Mariners' lack of offense in general, they can't afford to bench any productive players, and Seager is giving some reason for hope that he can perform better at the plate than he did a year ago.
Making them count.
Spoiler [+]Every fantasy baseball owner has felt the temptation to pick up that waiver wire player who is hitting .400 early in the season with the hope that he's figured something out and will take the league by storm. Modern research, however, has taught us not to trust such small samples and to expect that a hitter's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) will tend to stabilize near the league average over the long haul, when factors like opposing pitchers and defenses presumably even out.
There are, however, two primary ways to beat this theory, even over the long haul: hard contact and speed.
The better hitters tend to hit the ball harder and on a line more often. These batted balls are more difficult to field and go for hits more often. Using Baseball Info Solutions' hit location and batted ball timer data, we can approximate the number of hits we could have expected given the characteristics of each hitter's balls in play.
For example, let's look at ground balls. Miguel Cabrera hit the hardest groundballs in 2011, averaging 57.8 mph through the infield compared to the major league average of 50.6 mph. Based on the velocities and trajectories of his 215 ground balls, we would have expected him to get about 59 hits on grounders (a .274 average, compared to the league average of .231), which is exactly how many he had. Of course, Cabrera does the most damage on line drives and deep fly balls, but getting hits on ground balls helped him maintain a lofty batting average and win the American League batting title.
Extending this analysis to all balls in play, we find certain hitters get more out of their balls in play. Hitters like Adrian Gonzalez, David Freese and Joe Mauer put the ball in play with authority and it leads to extra hits and a higher batting average.
[h4]Expected BABIP leaders, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Batter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][/tr][tr][td]Adrian Gonzalez[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]0.350[/td][/tr][tr][td]David Freese[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.364[/td][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.338[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jack Cust[/td][td]0.354[/td][td]0.366[/td][/tr][tr][td]Alex Avila[/td][td]0.352[/td][td]0.331[/td][/tr][/table]
Speed can also boost a hitter's BABIP, especially on ground balls. Ichiro Suzuki is the best example of a hitter who makes the most of his speed on balls in play. Considering the velocities and trajectories of his 361 grounders last year (65 more than anyone else), we would have expected 72 hits from a player with average speed. Ichiro actually had 94 ground ball hits in 2011, enough for a .260 batting average. Because Ichiro leverages his speed by hitting the ball on the ground so often, he can consistently beat the league average BABIP, even in a down year like 2011.
Even after adjusting for the velocity and trajectory of the batted balls, some of baseball's fastest players tend to top the list of expected BABIP overachievers.
[h4]Expected BABIP overachievers, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Hitter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][th=""]Hits above expected[/th][/tr][tr][td]Ichiro Suzuki[/td][td]0.286[/td][td]0.320[/td][td]39[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jose Reyes[/td][td]0.285[/td][td]0.318[/td][td]32[/td][/tr][tr][td]Austin Jackson[/td][td]0.329[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]30[/td][/tr][tr][td]Ian Desmond[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]0.313[/td][td]29[/td][/tr][tr][td]Drew Stubbs[/td][td]0.296[/td][td]0.335[/td][td]27[/td][/tr][/table]
The biggest expected BABIP underachievers, on the other hand, include a number of fly ball hitters and slower runners. Jimmy Rollins might be the odd name on the list, but the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop has never done well on balls in play because he hits a relatively high number of fly balls. Rollins might be better off hitting balls on a lower trajectory and taking advantage of his speed.
[h4]Expected BABIP underachievers, 2010-11[/h4][table][tr][th=""]Hitter[/th][th=""]Expected BABIP[/th][th=""]BABIP[/th][th=""]Hits above expected[/th][/tr][tr][td]Aaron Hill[/td][td]0.264[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]-19[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jose Lopez[/td][td]0.276[/td][td]0.242[/td][td]-18[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jimmy Rollins[/td][td]0.288[/td][td]0.259[/td][td]-17[/td][/tr][tr][td]Casey McGehee[/td][td]0.301[/td][td]0.280[/td][td]-16[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Lee[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]0.258[/td][td]-16[/td][/tr][/table]
Though there is still plenty of luck that goes into a hitter's BABIP, the numbers show a level of sustainability over multiple seasons. It's still better to be skeptical of early season batting averages, but for players who can drive the ball consistently hard or who leverage their speed (like Freese and Ian Desmond, respectively), a higher batting average is more sustainable.
Buxton shows tools worthy of No. 1 pick.
Spoiler [+]Center fielder Byron Buxton of Appling County High School in Baxley, Ga., seems to be on top of most scouts' personal "pref" lists at the moment because of his explosive tools, an incredibly athletic body and the frame to put on more muscle and end up with plus tools in all five categories. He's got some risk attached, but all things considered, he's the best prospect in this draft class.
If you want raw tools, this is about as good as it gets. Buxton is an 80 runner on the 20-80 scouting scale with a 70 arm and a chance to be a 70 defender in center. He's not just fast, he runs easily and effortlessly and is even faster underway than he is in short spurts like home to first. Buxton threw three innings in Tuesday's game and hit 93 mph several times with a decent curveball, so while he's not a top prospect as a pitcher, he did show arm strength and even more evidence of his athleticism.
He's earned physical comparisons to all manner of players; the one that came to my mind when I first saw him was a young Eric Davis, who had that speed/power combination that should lie in Buxton's future.
Buxton has quick wrists and gets good rotation in his right-handed swing and also squared up several balls in the game I saw, although I also saw his swing get long on balls he probably should have taken. He starts with his hands set up by his back shoulder almost fully loaded at the start, and then takes a long stride forward in the box before he gets his hands started.
He rotates his hips well and should hit for at least above-average power down the road, especially once he fills out physically. One odd note in his swing: His back foot actually comes off the ground briefly as he rotates, which isn't good for balance or for power (unless you're built like Frank Thomas).
His at-bats during Monday's game -- an important game against rival Pierce County High School -- were generally very good, save one at-bat where he chased the first pitch with two outs and the tying run on second. He fouled off several pitches but didn't swing and miss, and he put four balls in play -- two singles (one a ground ball), a double and a hard fly ball to right. The double was the most impressive, as it was well struck and he seemed to reach second before the ping of the bat reached our ears.
The concerns on Buxton are pretty straightforward. He hasn't homered this year, so despite homers earlier in his high school career, there are questions about his present power level. He'll be 18½ at the draft, which is old for a high school prospect. He hasn't faced a lot of advanced pitching in his life, since he didn't do much on the showcase circuit and has split time between baseball and football. And his swing can get long.
On the other hand, this kind of tools package doesn't come along very often, and if you believe he'll hit -- meaning he can adjust to better pitching and make some small mechanical tweaks -- he could be an offensive and defensive force in the middle of the diamond, a faster Andrew McCutchen with more value on defense. That's worthy of the No. 1 overall pick, but the team drafting there, the Houston Astros, would have to be sold on his bat first.
[h3]Notes[/h3]
• Parkview High School, the alma mater of Jeff Francoeur, has a solid prospect for each of the next two drafts. For this year, first baseman Matt Olson is attracting some interest from clubs who like his bat enough to ignore (for now) his commitment to Vanderbilt, with a lot of buzz around the Boston Red Sox having strong interest in him. When he puts a good swing on the ball, it's a really good swing, a smooth left-handed stroke with lots of rotation and great follow-through. But his swing can get very long because he loads his hands deep, and his bat control isn't great. He has an above-average arm, but his lack of speed limits him to first base.
• Center fielder Josh Hart is a junior right now but is already on the radar for next year's draft thanks to a live body and good bat speed. He's very linear at the plate, slapping the ball but not really driving it, and I had him as an average to above-average runner based on his run times in this game. He met a few balls out in front of the plate when he was fooled by an off-speed pitch. He's worth remembering for next year as a potential center fielder who should make a lot of contact if he recognizes secondary stuff better.
Gausman flashing top-5 pick ability.
Spoiler [+]LSU right-hander Kevin Gausman, who was sixth on my most recent ranking of the top prospects for this year's draft, threw at Alex Box Stadium on Friday night against a largely overmatched Alabama team, and was clearly a different pitcher from the one I saw when he was in high school, and even different from the pitcher he was a month ago.
Gausman was 94-97 in the first few innings, and still 93-96 in the 8th, with better command than he'd had in the past; he still gets too much of the middle of the plate at times, but showed that he could attack the corners successfully at least some of the time. Gausman had been using a curveball as his primary breaking ball until his last outing, at which point he switched to a slider that is a much better weapon for him now and in pro ball. At 82-86, it has a hard mostly downward dive that should be tough for pro hitters to pick up in time to lay off it. Gausman's changeup, described earlier this spring as his best off-speed pitch, lacked its usual action, with just fair arm speed at 84-86, and he didn't have any feel for it.
Courtesy of Keith LawGausman's high leg kick was on display Friday.
Gausman's delivery starts with the highest possible leg kick -- he looks like a flamingo at its peak -- leading to a fairly long stride where he drops his pitching arm quite low behind his body, although it's not as severe as a stab and doesn't plunge enough to drag his pitching shoulder down. He stays over the rubber well, just slightly drifting forward through the balance point, but finishes strongly out over his front side. It's much cleaner and more powerful than it was in high school, where he didn't have the same body control, drifted forward off the rubber, and didn't land as squarely over his front leg. Gausman also starts his warmups with a single crow-hop throw to the plate, much as Trevor Bauer does, and last night his first such throw came in at 102 mph.
There's a fair amount of industry speculation that Gausman is Kansas City's target with the fifth overall pick, although I assume that's based on the assumption that the first four picks are, in some order, Byron Buxton, Mark Appel (who was 97-99 early last night, but threw an arm-numbing 149 pitches), Kyle Zimmer (who was rained out) and Mike Zunino. The Royals did want a college starter last year, only to have their top four choices (including Dylan Bundy, the high school pitcher who was as polished as a college guy) taken in the top four spots. This year, they should get one of those three college arms if that is indeed still their goal.
• The new CBA will make college seniors, who have less leverage than a broken fulcrum, particularly attractive to clubs looking to shift money to high school players without going over their overall draft bonus caps. Alabama outfielder Taylor Dugas should be one of the first such seniors off the board, as he's better than your typical "senior sign" (a college player who signs for $1,000 to go fill out a minor league roster) because of his long-demonstrated ability to square up good pitching, including plus velocity. At 5-foot-7 (if that), he's hard-pressed to profile as a big league regular, but I feel very strongly that he'll at least hit his way to some role on a major league bench.
• Alabama right-hander Ian Gardeck was drafted in the eighth round last year by the White Sox out of Angelina Junior College, but didn't sign, and after a brief flirtation with the University of Dayton ended up in Tuscaloosa. He was 92-95 in one inning last night with a hard low-80s slider, but doesn't command either pitch and needs some delivery cleanup if that's ever going to improve.
• Tide starter Trey Pilkington was 89-90 with a short, fringy slider in the 78-84 mph range; he's got a very short arm action that prevents hitters from picking up the ball until late, but the stuff is ordinary enough that the deception can't really help him, and that delivery won't hold up in a rotation in either healthy or command. I'd like to see what he could do as a right-on-right reliever, since the ball appears so late and once through the order he might have more success, but that probably puts him after the 10th round.
• Finally, that was my first LSU home game in the new or old stadiums, and I wish every more colleges had that kind of local support and atmosphere at home games. Outside of the SEC, few schools draw at close to this level, but LSU has remarkable facilities and the fan base to maintain it going forward. For college baseball to escape its niche status, we'll need another dozen LSUs and South Carolinas across the country.
Florida's Johnson impresses against LSU.
Spoiler [+]Brian Johnson is a left-handed starter and first baseman for Florida that has a nice lefty stroke and some raw power at the plate but is a better prospect on the mound. I've seen two outings the junior from him this season and while the stuff and command varied some, the overall package was the same.
Johnson will sit 89-92, touching 94 mph with his fastball and can command the pitch well most of the time, but had some trouble later in his outing against LSU last weekend. He has a slider (80-83 mph, occasional hard horizontal bite gets under the hands of righty hitters), curve (75-78, most consistent off-speed offering that he commands well) and change (81-83, occasional late sinking action with good deception) that he will use based on which he has feel for that day.
All three pitches flash 55 potential (on the 20-80 scouting scale, where 50 is average) as does his command and fastball, making for an enticing polished lefty package that could be a number three starter if everything works out.
This is a low-risk, low-upside package with just a few concerns. One is that Johnson is a thick 6-foot-3, 235 pounds and a little stiff as an athlete, but he has a simple delivery that works for him. His stuff and command can waver at times, but his pitching IQ and four-pitch arsenal give him the weapons to adjust. In addition, he has very good deception by coiling his body in his delivery and an arm stroke that he hides very well behind his body. There isn't anything to blow you away here, but the likely result of an innings-eating lefty starter could get Johnson looks as early as the middle of the first round.
Other 2012 draft notes
• Kevin Gausman is a long-limbed, 6-foot-4, 185-pound hurler with a deceptive delivery and a fastball that hit 98 mph as part of a four-pitch mix that will likely land him in the top 10 picks in June. He comes at hitters with an all-arms-and-legs delivery, a pause at the bottom of his arm stroke and a high three-quarters arm slot that creates great downward plane.
Gausman works at 94-95 mph with a fastball that had some run and sinking life down in the zone. His main secondary pitch was an 83-85 mph changeup he didn't use much until the second time through the lineup, but relied on heavily late in the outing as his command wavered. At its best the pitch darts late, down and away from left handed hitters. It's an above-average present pitch with plus potential that could be a 65 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) at maturity.
The question mark with Gausman's potential is his breaking ball. He had trouble getting consistent break and command on his 79-83 mph curveball that flashed above-average potential as a downer with 11-to-5 tilt, depth and some late bite, whereas his slider was just average at best with a short break and inconsistent location. Gausman also will lock the knee on his landing leg, causing him to throw against his leg rather than over it. This causes inconsistent command, usually leaving the ball up, and creates more effort in the delivery, manifested in a more pronounced spin-off to first base after release. This is very fixable and isn't a long-term concern.
• Florida backstop Mike Zunino helped his draft stock by looking especially comfortable against Gausman, including a key two-run double to right-center on a fastball Gausman left up that produced the game's only runs until the 7th inning. I'm slotting Gausman just behind the slightly more impressive Zunino on my pref list, and Gausman could go just a few picks after Zunino, as high as the top 5 picks on draft day.
• Nick Goody is a righty reliever for the Tigers that sat 91-94 mph with a clean arm action but with enough effort that he's a bullpen-only fit in the pros. He had an inconsistent slider that flashed solid-average potential at 81-82 mph and solid command. He's performed well this year and should go in a single digit round, possibly sneaking into the top 5 rounds after being popped in the 21st round by the Yankees last year from a Florida JC.
Looking Ahead To 2013
• Oscar Mercado, a shortstop from Tampa's Gaither High School, has been hyped as one of the top high school juniors in the country and after a quick one game look, I'm on board. He's 6-foot-1, 170 pounds with room to add weight, but his skinny frame already has plenty of quick-twitch. He's very smooth with the glove and his above-average speed gives him plenty of range to let his true shortstop actions take over.
Mercado's ultimate upside will be determined by how much muscle he can add, but there's plenty of bat speed to work with. Having seen a number of well-paid 16-year-old Dominican shortstops in the past, I would put Mercado's package of tools next to any of them; he would easily get a seven figure bonus in that market. If he doesn't make any progress in the next year, he's a solid sandwich pick option as a glove with some offensive upside but a lot can happen from age 17 to 18 and the upside here is top 10 pick. I have him slotted just behind Atlanta-area center fielder Austin Meadows in the 2013 prep class.
Scouting Red Sox and Rangers prospects.
Spoiler [+]I stopped in Greenville on Wednesday night while en route from Macon to Charlotte, making my first visit to Fluor Field, one of the nicest minor league ballparks I've seen. It's located right in a revitalized downtown area, not far from a row of bars and restaurants that was still busy at 10:30 that evening. Greenville, Boston's low-A affiliate, hosted Hickory, a Rangers affiliate, in a game that featured several high draft picks and international bonus babies.
• Hickory starter Luke Jackson was mostly 92-95 mph early in the start, 90-93 later, and was fine the first time through the order but lost his release point in the third inning, narrowly avoiding disaster by throwing his curveball when he needed a strike. The curve was anywhere from 74-79 and was very inconsistent, some showing good depth and others hanging up in the zone, while his changeup at 79-84 had excellent arm speed and was more consistent than the breaking ball. His warmup was unconventional, with a very long delivery, but in the game he was much shorter, very short for a starter, and didn't have great success repeating it.
• Greenville starter Luis Diaz was less impressive, sitting 89-92 without much life, showing a straight change and a downer curveball that was his best pitch. He gets on top of the ball well but hasn't learned to drive it down in the zone yet. His fastball command was just fair but he threw strikes and was generally aggressive. I don't see a ton of physical projection here, but at just 20 years old he has time to refine his command and feel for setting up hitters.
• Greenville catcher Blake Swihart was the best prospect on the field, although he struggled receiving for much of the night. He's an outstanding athlete with quick hands and a sound swing, but Jackson was able to beat him with fastballs up. Third baseman Garin Cecchini had two ugly strikeouts on breaking balls down before finally getting a pitch up and driving it to left; he has good bat speed but turns his front leg outward instead of striding, causing him to pull off the ball. Shortstop Jose Vinicio, who looks like he's around 14 years old, looks like a future plus defender at short and has a good-looking swing, although I wonder if he'll ever be strong enough to make use of that hip rotation, and at just 18 was overmatched by Jackson's raw stuff. (He's 7-for-16 with four extra-base hits and two walks outside of that game.)
• A few of Hickory's better prospects, including Luis Sardinas, didn't play, but second baseman Rougned Odor hit second and went 0-for-5, guessing incorrectly on several pitches throughout the night. His swing is pretty compact, with his hands traveling a very short distance to get to the ball, but he wraps his bat slightly and his pitch recognition was poor. Catcher Jorge Alfaro did what he usually does -- he swung at almost everything he saw and hit a couple of balls hard -- and showed off his arm strength when he could. His approach isn't going to work at higher levels, although you could argue that, with one walk so far, he's already reached 1/3 of his 2011 season total. Centerfielder Chris Grayson was 4-for-4 and is now hitting .464/.516/.786 through seven games, but he's old for this level and has all kinds of issues with his swing, from barring his front arm to a soft front side. He can run, but if he's challenged the way a player his age should be, I think he's struggle.
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The Marlins are going to be a beautiful train wreck
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The Marlins are going to be a beautiful train wreck
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Originally Posted by JumpmanFromDaBay
Over or Under 200 strikeouts by Yoenis Cespedes. Dude looks like Pedro Cerrano on the curve ball right now
This year over, next year under.
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Does Lincecum have to pitch well tonight?
Is another bad or good start still too early to worry?
Is another bad or good start still too early to worry?
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Does Lincecum have to pitch well tonight?
Is another bad or good start still too early to worry?
Is another bad or good start still too early to worry?
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- Feb 17, 2007
It's come to this: the A's are putting the potential move to San Jose on the agenda for next month's owners meetings for a vote. If the vote passes, the team will have to wait on a November local ballot to pass in order to officially begin preparing the move to San Jose, with a 2015 Opening Day timeframe in mind.
susanslusser
The San Francisco Chronicle has learned #Athletics plan to put stadium issue on agenda for owners' meetings next month. http://t.co/lul0T63u
Ken_Rosenthal
Athletics trying to force issue. If they lose a vote, at least they will have a resolution. They then can plot their next step.
EDIT: the vote being placed onto the agenda is ultimately up to the commissioner, not the A's, meaning that they are proposing the item and hoping it will be placed onto the roll.
susanslusser
The San Francisco Chronicle has learned #Athletics plan to put stadium issue on agenda for owners' meetings next month. http://t.co/lul0T63u
Ken_Rosenthal
Athletics trying to force issue. If they lose a vote, at least they will have a resolution. They then can plot their next step.
EDIT: the vote being placed onto the agenda is ultimately up to the commissioner, not the A's, meaning that they are proposing the item and hoping it will be placed onto the roll.
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- Feb 17, 2007
It's come to this: the A's are putting the potential move to San Jose on the agenda for next month's owners meetings for a vote. If the vote passes, the team will have to wait on a November local ballot to pass in order to officially begin preparing the move to San Jose, with a 2015 Opening Day timeframe in mind.
susanslusser
The San Francisco Chronicle has learned #Athletics plan to put stadium issue on agenda for owners' meetings next month. http://t.co/lul0T63u
Ken_Rosenthal
Athletics trying to force issue. If they lose a vote, at least they will have a resolution. They then can plot their next step.
EDIT: the vote being placed onto the agenda is ultimately up to the commissioner, not the A's, meaning that they are proposing the item and hoping it will be placed onto the roll.
susanslusser
The San Francisco Chronicle has learned #Athletics plan to put stadium issue on agenda for owners' meetings next month. http://t.co/lul0T63u
Ken_Rosenthal
Athletics trying to force issue. If they lose a vote, at least they will have a resolution. They then can plot their next step.
EDIT: the vote being placed onto the agenda is ultimately up to the commissioner, not the A's, meaning that they are proposing the item and hoping it will be placed onto the roll.
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Not sure if great throw or Kendry just slow
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Not sure if great throw or Kendry just slow
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Verlander
131 pitches, and his final one is a 100 mph heater to ring up Gordon. Wow.
And how odd is it that the best player in the AL East might just play for the Orioles?
"Joe Mauer with power"
If you love great fielding, do yourself a favor and watch Rick Ankiel's prevent throw from CF. Just sublime:
http://ht.ly/ak7Yo
131 pitches, and his final one is a 100 mph heater to ring up Gordon. Wow.
And how odd is it that the best player in the AL East might just play for the Orioles?
"Joe Mauer with power"
If you love great fielding, do yourself a favor and watch Rick Ankiel's prevent throw from CF. Just sublime:
http://ht.ly/ak7Yo
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Verlander
131 pitches, and his final one is a 100 mph heater to ring up Gordon. Wow.
And how odd is it that the best player in the AL East might just play for the Orioles?
"Joe Mauer with power"
If you love great fielding, do yourself a favor and watch Rick Ankiel's prevent throw from CF. Just sublime:
http://ht.ly/ak7Yo
131 pitches, and his final one is a 100 mph heater to ring up Gordon. Wow.
And how odd is it that the best player in the AL East might just play for the Orioles?
"Joe Mauer with power"
If you love great fielding, do yourself a favor and watch Rick Ankiel's prevent throw from CF. Just sublime:
http://ht.ly/ak7Yo
- Status