Baseball Nation: All Posts by Rob Neyer

Jimmy Paredes strikes again!

2013-05-18T03:22:19Z

Playing baseball is hard. Playing right field is hard. Playing right field is really hard if you've hardly played right field before.

Friday night, the Astros took a 4-2 lead over the Pirates to the bottom of the eighth, but the Corsairs scored twice to make it 4-4. It was still 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth when the Pirates loaded the bases with one out, thanks to a couple of singles and an error by pitcher Edgar Gonzalez.

Gonzalez fought back to strike out Neil Walker, then got Russell Martin to hit a pop fly into short right field. Where this happened (click on image to see video):

(source: MLB GIFS)

The right fielder who blasted through the second baseman was Jimmy Paredes. Yes, technically the second baseman's supposed to get out of the way if the right fielder calls him off, and we might assume that Paredes called him off. But if this all seems familiar, it's because it is. The same damn thing happened Monday night ...

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... when Jimmy Paredes knocked Jose Altuve out of the game with a jaw injury. Friday, Altuve was still on bereavement leave -- his grandmother died this week -- so this time it was second baseman Jake Elmore's turn.

Paredes has spent the vast majority of his professional career playing various infield positions, and maybe he should go back to that. You know, before somebody really gets hurt.

See Wrigley Field before they tear it down!

2013-05-17T21:21:19Z

In case you're wondering,

- this is a Lego version of Wrigley Field, and

- it took 640 hours to create.

It would have taken longer, but the creator left out the impending JUMBOTRON that's going to help restore Wrigley Field to its past glory ...

From the press release that arrived Friday morning:

Louisville, KY - An original exhibition at Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory features amazing sculptures, portraits, and stadium replicas all built with LEGO® bricks. Big Leagues, Little Bricks runs now through September 2, 2013 and the exhibit is included in the general admission price for the museum.

--snip--

The exhibition showcases renowned artist Sean Kenney, one of only 13 LEGO® Certified Professionals in the world. Kenney's pieces in Big Leagues, Little Bricks include hip portraits of baseball superstars, dynamic conceptual sculptures of iconic baseball moments and a show-stopping replica of historic Wrigley Field.

Another awesome piece on display is a replica of Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, built by Tim Kaebisch when he was a graduate student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The Miller Park creation utilizes over 35,000 LEGO® bricks and has a retractable roof that actually moves.

I've been the Louisville Slugger Museum, and it's a wonderful place to visit even without hundreds of thousands of little plastic bricks. So consider this my heartiest endorsement, if you're going to be within a hundred miles of Derby City this summer.

H.C.B.C. - Today in uninspiring blurbs

2013-05-17T17:50:40Z

I can't even remember what prompted this, but recently I was moved to acquire a memoir dictated by Ray Crump, for many years the Twins' clubhouse manager. I have to admit that I haven't read it yet, but I've read enough to realize that it's a deeply weird book.

The first thing you notice, though, is the cover blurbs. I am not making these up ...

Calvin Griffith: "It's great to read about interesting things."

Tony Oliva: "I'm curious about this book."

Was this someone's idea of a joke? If so, it's a pretty good joke. If not, those are the worst blurbs in blurb history.

In the book, Crump write about how crazy Mike Marshall was for wanting to replace the soda machine in the locker room with fruit juice. What a nut.

Worst. Pitch. Ever.

2013-05-17T16:52:40Z

Well, that's not literally true. Mitch Williams probably threw the worst pitch ever.

This might be the ugliest pitch ever:

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An outlier? Sure! But Felix Doubront's control was hardly stellar the rest of the time, either, as he walked six Rays in five innings. The good news was that Doubront gave up only two runs, and eventually the Red Sox actually won the game.

The other good news was that Doubront's ERA fell from 6.40 to 6.03. Baby steps.

Phil Hughes: Object Lesson

2013-05-17T16:14:21Z

On the 4th of May, Phil Hughes made his sixth start of this season and threw eight shutout innings against the Athletics. He earned just his first victory of the young season, his ERA falling to 3.60.

Just before Hughes' next start, Sports on Earth published Jorge Arangure Jr.'s piece about Phil Hughes' slider. It's a fine piece, well-written and -reported. Hughes has always thrown just the occasional slider, but this season decided to essentially junk his cutter and instead go with a refined slider. And yes, it seemed to be working for him.

Hughes had good reason to abandon the cutter. It sucked. Last season, according to data from BrooksBaseball.Net, hitters walloped Hughes' cutter for a .474 average and a 1.053 slugging percentage. In 2011 it was equally terrible: .500 average, .679 slugging percentage. The pitch was useless, except as a change-of-pace-pitch, but the only pace it changed was to go from getting outs to not getting outs.

First, Hughes began messing around with different grips for the slider. Eventually, Hughes settled on a grip that he had used in high school. Hughes actually had thrown a slider in high school, but Yankees coaches soon after he was drafted told him to swap the pitch for a curveball. The Yankees believed that as a pitcher who throws over the top, Hughes would better benefit from a pitch, like the curve, that tilted downward. Sure enough, the curve became an important pitch in Hughes' development.

But the slider might become an even more important pitch for him. Since adopting the slider, Hughes has become a vastly different pitcher. He is finally living up to the potential placed on him, and he's setting himself up for a possible big pay at the end of the season when he becomes a free agent.

The slider is now arguably Hughes' best pitch...

--snip--

Again, the slider has made all the difference. This season Hughes has upped his slider usage to 21 percent. Batters swing and miss at Hughes' slider 32 percent of the time and have hit just .111 with a .222 slugging percentage.

The slider has made all the difference.

Perhaps it has. But it's funny, isn't it, how quickly things can change in May? Mere hours after Arangure's piece was published, Hughes got hammered by the Royals. Five days later, Hughes got hammered by the Mariners. One moment he was 1-2 with a 3.60 ERA, and the next he was 1-4 with a 5.88 ERA. And suddenly his slider doesn't seem like such a fantastic pitch.

The slider has made all the difference.

Perhaps it has. But you know, it's really difficult for a pitcher to fundamentally change what he does, at least in terms of the statistical results. Maybe Hughes does look like a different pitcher at the end of the season, statistically speaking. But right now? Last season he struck out 3.6 times more batters than he walked (which is excellent). This season he's struck out 3.4 times more batters than he's walked (which is excellent). Last season he gave up 35 home runs in 191 innings (which is lousy). This season he's given up 8 home runs in 41 innings (which is lousy).

The slider has made all the difference.

Perhaps it has. Hughes has thrown almost exactly the same percentage of fastballs this season as last season, but he's thrown a ton more sliders while eliminating the cutter and throwing many fewer curveballs and change-ups. In one sense, he's become a different pitcher, but in the other sense he's exactly the same.

Yes, the ERA's actually much worse this season. But that's a statistical fluke. Last year his xFIP was 4.35, and this year it's 4.30; he's simply been victimized by a ridiculously high (.354) batting average on balls in play and (I suspect) poor relief support.

The slider has made all the difference.

Assuming that Phil Hughes is healthy, he's probably going to remain the pitcher that he's been. Yes, his ERA will continue to be subject to the vagaries of Fate. But as long as Hughes is pitching for the Yankees, he should continue to give up "too many" home runs while otherwise controlling the strike zone. Hughes, a right-handed fly-ball pitcher, is distinctly unsuited to pitching in the new Yankee Stadium; in his career, he's given up 65 homers at home, and just 31 on the road. That doesn't mean the Yankees should dump him; it means he would look like a somewhat better pitcher if he pitched for almost any other team.

It's possible that I'm wrong. It's possible these last two games were just a momentary hesitation on Hughes' path to a new, better, slider-fueled sort of career. But history suggests otherwise.

What do Hillsboro Hops look like?

2013-05-17T15:36:03Z

Thursday afternoon in cold and rainy suburban Portland, Oregon, the brand-new Hillsboro Hops unveiled their brand-new livery, and I was there. We also got a ballpark tour -- more on that later -- but the highlight was the unveiling, with three local high-school stars modeling the batting-practice jersey, the road uniforms, and the home livery.

This image is not the local high-school stars. This image was released by the Hops shortly after the unveiling. I know know who these guys are, or where this photo was snapped. But it's better than anything I took with my phone, so I'm sharing this one:

(photo courtesy of Hillsboro Hops)

These are plenty slick enough, I think. No frivolous bells and whistles. I'm not a big fan of the Nike branding, but that's minor-league baseball in 2013. Especially when Nike's main campus is just a few Giancarlo Stanton blasts away. One thing you might notice: the numbers, both front and back, are displayed in what seems to be a unique font. And one that I happen to like.

I'm not so wild about the H on the road caps; it just doesn't look quite enough like an H for my tastes. Also (and I wish I'd thought to ask about this at the unveiling) ... what about stirrups? Will stirrups even be an option? Because I haven't seen livery yet that doesn't look better with stirrups. In fact, stirrups are among the key ingredients in a classic uniform. And one of the great things about the minor leagues is that you can actually make players do things. Unlike the majors, where the guys just do whatever the hell they like. Stirrups-wise, anyway.

Quibbles. This is going to be a good-looking squad, and Opening Day's less than a month away.

_{but seriously, stirrups please}

MLB's 10 worst hitters, and optimism

2013-05-17T14:39:19Z

It's still early, but it's not so early that most of the good hitters have stopped hitting poorly, and most of the poor hitters have stopped hitting well. Which doesn't mean that every hitter's statistics accurate reflect his skills. Even the hitters with the worst numbers still have time to turn things around, and some even have the skills.

Behold! This season's every-day players with the worst wOBA's (via FanGraphs before Thursday night's action):

.169 Jeff Keppinger
.223 B.J. Upton
.230 Danny Espinosa
.233 Aaron Hicks
.236 Ike Davis
.244 Greg Dobbs
.244 Brian Dozier
.245 Pedro Alvarez
.245 Miguel Montero
.248 Jeff Francoeur

Again, behold! Those same 10 players, ranked by the likelihood that they'll actually reverse course and hit significantly better than they've been hitting ...

1. B.J. Upton
He wins this one easily, if only because he's just begun serving out his new five-year, $75-million contract. The Braves just couldn't have been this wrong, could they?

2. Miguel Montero
In his first four seasons (2009-2012) as the Diamondbacks' regular catcher, Montero was arguably the best-hitting catcher in the National League. In the absence of some injury, there's just no reason to think that Montero's suddenly gone from being good to being terrible.

3. Danny Espinosa
First thing's first: Espinosa is not a good hitter. He entered this season with a 727 career OPS, which is good only for a middle infielder. Which, fortunately for his professional future, Espinosa is. At 727, he can play for as long as he likes. But this season he's well below that mark, and has drawn exactly three walks in 34 games. Right now, the best thing Espinosa's got going for him is that Junior Lombardozzi hasn't hit at all, either. Actually, what Espinosa's really got is a track record, and youth. There's every reason to think we've not seen his best, and what we've seen already was decent enough.

4. Ike Davis
He's never really been the same since suffering that season-ending foot injury in 2011, but on the other hand he was actually pretty decent last season. I'm not going to suggest that Davis will turn his season around tomorrow, and at this rate he's going to wind up in the minors for a spell. But I gotta think he's going to find his stroke eventually.

5. Pedro Alvarez
Almost exactly the same as Espinosa, except a) Alvarez plays third base, and b) while Espinosa has been uniformly decent before this season, Alvarez was good as a rookie in 2010, terrible in 2011, and good again in 2012.

6. Aaron Hicks
Even after hitting two homers (and saving another) the other night, Hicks' 2013 statistics remain unacceptable for an every-day outfielder. Still, he entered the season as a solid prospect, and the men who run the Twins ... well, okay, so they've made a few mistakes lately. But Hicks still profiles as a good major leaguer, if maybe not quite this soon. After all, he's never played a single inning of Class AAA ball.

7. Jeff Keppinger
Thursday night was a big night for Keppinger. In his 141st plate appearance this season, Keppinger drew a walk. Not just a walk. His first walk of the entire season. It was starting to become a thing. When your batting average is higher than your on-base percentage, it's a thing. Well, it's a thing no more; Keppinger's on-base percentage is now three points higher than his batting average. Both of which are still putrid but, you know ... baby steps. Keppinger's been a decent hitter before, and probably will be a decent hitter again.

8. Jeff Francoeur
Hey, nobody's been more skeptical about Frenchy than I. And it's going to be difficult for him to get out of this hole, considering he's actually lost his every-day job (unless Jarrod Dyson's ankle injury is serious). But as poorly as Francoeur's hit this season, and as poorly as he hit last season, he did perform well in 2011 and there might still be some ability there. Probably not. But hey, a guy can dream a little.

9. Greg Dobbs
Greg Dobbs was never really supposed to be an every-day player. In his long career, Dobbs has only 205 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers, and he's hit exactly zero home runs in those 205 plate appearances. But he's playing for the Marlins this season and the Marlins are just a little short on talent, so Greg Dobbs is playing almost every day, even against lefties. He's been terrible against the lefties, and pretty terrible against the righties, too. Dobbs will improve, but only because eventually they'll stop letting him play every day.

10. Brian Dozier
At this point, it's real hard to figure why Dozier's still in the majors. I mean, leaving aside the fact that the Twins are obviously real desperate. Dozier's now got 466 major-league plate appearances, and he's batting .230/.267/.323 ... and his 48 Triple-A games went almost as badly. Essentially, Dozier's in the majors because he played well in Class A and AA ... when he was 24. He might yet surprise us. But he probably won't.

Ian Kinsler and the Slide of the Year

2013-05-17T01:19:30Z

It's still May, and it's a long season so it's completely possible that we'll see an uglier slide than Ian Kinsler's third-base wipeout Thursday night. For example, at some point a player might start his slide way too early, come to a complete halt before reaching the base, and then break his nose while trying to crawl the rest of the way.

On the other hand, we might never see anything else like this in our lives:

He's fine, folks. So it's perfectly okay to LYAO.