Beaneball

The A's didn't have nearly the easy time with the Devil Rays they were supposed to have yesterday, and that was, in fact, the story of the series. Come-from-behind wins, close games, walk-off homers: these aren't supposed to be the tools you need to break out when Tampa Bay comes to town. Nonetheless, a sweep is a sweep, and one can't get upset about that. The A's drubbed Scott Kazmir a little more than I figured they would, blasting off for six runs on nine hits in just three innings. I couldn't find any quotes where the A's praised Kazmir, but that's understandable after you smack a guy around. It's also understandable in the wake of Billy McMillon's game-winning three-run homer after Octavio Dotel blew another game, giving up consecutive home runs to tie it in the top of the ninth. Of course, Dotel never would have been in that position if Mark Mulder hadn't continued his long slide to mediocrity. He threw six innings, and labored, throwing 104 pitches while walking six batters and giving up seven hits. That this led to just four runs is largely because he tossed four double play balls, out of five twin killings the A's turned in the game. If Mulder's walk-tastic ways don't stop soon, though, the A's could find themselves in the delicate situation of having to push aside the potential Cy Young winner to make room for Rich Harden in the #2 starter spot if the team makes the playoffs. On the other hand, the way the A's bullpen has been pitching, four runs in six innings is still going to win a lot of games, so 60% of an effective Mulder could still be useful down the stretch.

The Competition

Anaheim got its own game-winning homer, as Adam Kennedy did his best Marco Scutaro imitation, hitting his ninth homer of the year to break a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the ninth for the Angels. Juan Rincon gave up the shot despite striking out four batters in 1.1 innings. At least my prediction held pretty true: Kelvim Escobar went seven innings and allowed just two runs on four hits while striking out nine and walking none, while Carlos Silva lasted just five innings despite giving up just one run. The bullpens decided the game, though, as Joe Roa blew the Twins's lead in the sixth, while Frankie Rodriguez held the Minnesotas down for the final two innings, allowing just a harmless single. Boston won by five, as I figured, but Tim Wakefield was better than expected, so the final tally was 6-1 rather than 9-4. Wakefield gave up just three hits and a walk in eight innings, with the one run coming on a Craig Monroe homer. Wil Ledezma, meanwhile, gave up four runs and was knocked out with two out in the fifth, and Craig Dingman gave up a two-run homer to Mark Bellhorn to seal things up in the seventh. Baltimore pulled out a close win over Texas, 7-6, in a game where both teams scored at least once in each of the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. The starting pitchers turned in their expected performances, with Ponson giving up five runs in seven innings and Chris Young allowing four in just 4.1 frames. All that late scoring by Texas came for nothing, though, especially as Young is concerned, because the three pitchers following him each gave up a run as well: it's like Zeno's Paradox or something, where the Rangers keep cutting down the deficit, but can't ever seem to catch up to the Orioles. That loss pushes Texas 3.5 games behind the A's, which is dangerously close to falling out of the race. I'd say if they get to four back, they're done.

Tuesday

All four teams are off today, though, so Texas won't be eliminated until at least Tuesday. The Rangers head to Minnesota, sending Ryan Drese up against Kyle Lohse, and you have to like Texas in that one, say 6-3. Anaheim and Boston square off in one of those series where everything's all good for the A's, though one team winning (Boston) would certainly make Oakland happier. In the opener, Curt Schilling goes for the Sox, while John Lackey takes the mound for the Halos. My upset-o-meter is on high alert, but I'll take the Sox anyway, 7-2. Finally, Oakland goes to Chicago and sends Rich Harden against former Marlin Jason Grilli, who's making his second start of the year. Grilli gave up six runs in five innings to the Indians in his first start, and I wouldn't expect too much more from him here. A's win, 7-5.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:08 | |

Oakland won two more games the last two days, though they're not the kind of wins you'd like to see over the Devil Rays. I predicted an easy 6-2 win for Friday; instead, the A's found themselves down 5-1 early, but came back and won 8-7, with a big boost coming from a four-run fifth inning that included Erubiel Durazo's 21st homer of the year. Mark Hendrickson got smacked around, as predicted, giving up seven runs on ten hits in just 4.2 innings, but Mark Redman got it worse, putting the A's in the aforementioned hole by giving up six runs on nine hits in just two innings. Fortunately for the A's, they've got one of the best long men in the game waiting in the wings, and Justin Duchscherer came on and pitched five scoreless innings, scattering four singles and a hit batter, to allow the A's to get back into the game. Arthur Rhodes and Octavio Dotel covered the last two innings, with Rhodes allowing an unearned run after Jermaine Dye dropped a ball in right field. Speaking of Dye, I think it's about time to drop him out of the fourth spot in the lineup. Yes, putting Scott Hatteberg or Erubiel Durazo there would create a three-lefty heart of the order (with Chavez hitting third), but Dye is a crappy hitter, with just a .324 OBP and .451 SLG. He's basically Bobby Crosby with three more homers (and, for those keeping count at home of Crosby's alarming strikeout rate, Dye has actually whiffed nine more times as well). As usual, lineup effects don't matter all that much in the long run, etc., etc. But I'd rather see Hatteberg, Durazo, and Chavez deal with a lefty reliever in a tough playoff situation than have Dye at the plate against any pitcher. Yesterday, Oakland overcame three errors and a four-run Tampa Bay fifth inning to win 5-4, largely on the strength of a pair of two run homers by Erics Chavez and Byrnes. Tim Hudson pitched another vintage game, throwing seven innings while allowing just two earned runs (four total) on four hits and a walk. He struck out four Devil Fish and got thirteen ground ball outs, compared to just four in the air. If this is the Tim Hudson we're going to see for the rest of the year and, potentially, in the playoffs, rather than the Hudson-in-pain we've seen the last two years, I think the A's might have their best chance yet at leaving the first round of the playoffs. Eric Chavez, meanwhile, is tearing it up. He's up to 27 homers now, which is 9th in the AL, his 71 walks rank him 6th, and his OBP and SLG put him seventh and 10th, respectively. Take an OBP fifty points higher than his previous best despite a batting average that's just five points higher than his career average and mix in what is probably still Gold Glove defense and you get what's been hoped for him all these years: an MVP-like season. He won't win it this year, as there are plenty of better candidates, especially because of his injury, but he should get some down-ballot votes.

The Competition

Texas beat Baltimore twice and Boston beat Detroit twice, as you might expect, but Anaheim finally took one on the chin, losing once to the Twins. Johan Santana continues to be unstoppable, and he'll get my Cy Young vote unless something extreme happens, while Bartolo Colon continues to be the worst ace in the league. This combination of events finally puts the A's in position where a bad day (a loss plus a win by their competitors) won't take them out of the first place: Anaheim is two games back, Texas remains at 2.5, and Boston is a half game behind.

Today

Newly arrived from the minor leagues, with one five-inning, no run start against the Mariners under his belt, Scott Kazmir starts against the A's, who toss Mark Mulder out there to teach the rookie a thing or two about pitching. I don't mean to sound overconfident, but even in pitching well against a bad team, Kazmir threw 101 pitches in just five innings, and Tampa Bay's bullpen isn't all that good. Now, obviously, he's highly rated for a reason. The question is whether, at 20, he's going to fulfill that promise against a decent, patient offense while pitching against a guy who many (too many) believe is the Cy Young front runner in the AL. I think the A's will hand him his first major league loss, but praise him afterward and predict good things for him: 5-2. Detroit has one more drubbing coming against Boston, as Wil Ledezma starts against Tim Wakefield. Ugh. 9-4. Minnesota and Anaheim's rubber match pits Carlos Silva against Kelvim Escobar. Escobar hasn't had the super-ace year that the Angels hoped for, but he's been a pretty good pitcher, which is not something Silva can really say. The Angels bullpen holds up in a 6-4 win. Finally, Baltimore tries to avoid their 13th straight loss by sending Sidney Ponson, who's very big (listed at 266 pounds) and very disappointing (5.62 ERA) against Chris Young, who's also very big (remember, 6'10", 250), but had a semi-decent major league debut against the Twins earlier this week. Texas's offense takes this one, 8-5.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:18 | |

Did I call it or did I call it? Daniel Cabrera, in fact, has not figured things out under the tutelage of Ray Miller and walked five Athletics in 2.2 innings. The A's then walked twice more in the game, for seven total, one shy of the eight I half-predicted yesterday, on their way to a 9-4 win over the Orioles. I'm done covering my ass with half preditions, though. I'm going full out from now on, no more "if this, then this, or maybe this." Anyway, Barry Zito had a thing for fours yesterday, which isn't all that good: four hits, four runs, four walks, four strikeouts, though at least he pitched more than four innings. Zito had one bad inning (not the fourth), but put up zeros in the first, second, fourth, and fifth while the A's had six runs at the end of the fourth, so his mediocre performance was good enough to land him a win. Oakland's bullpen has been unusually strong of late, and Ricardo Rincon, Chad Bradford, and Chris Hammond threw threw the last 3.2 innings without giving up a run. The game was close (6-4) until Scott Hatteberg smacked a bases-loaded, bases-clearing double in the sixth against John Parrish. That hit capped the scoring for both squads, though the Orioles got close to a run in the top of the seventh when Tim Raines, Jr., ended up on third base after some wild pitches and passed balls. However, after an infield single by David Newhan that wasn't able to bring Raines home, Bradford came in and got a double play ground ball to end the threat. It's impossible to say too much about Eric Chavez. In this game, he hit his 16th double of the year, his 25th homer, and was intentionally walked, earning his 71st free pass on the season, which ranks him fifth in the American League. If he hadn't had his hand broken earlier in the season, he'd almost certainly be on top in that category. All around, this was a good game for the A's, and a great series. Oakland's on a run right now that has pushed them to the third best record in all of baseball, behind the Yankees and Cardinals and tied with the Dodgers.

The Competition

Chan Ho Park was revivified much more successfully than Terry Mulholland, so the Twins's starter allowed seven runs in just 3.2 innings, leading to an 8-3 drubbing by Texas and grenade in the gullet from old pal Bruce Campbell. Park wasn't great, but the A's have to hope he doesn't throw six innings with two runs allowed every time out, because any solidification of the Ranger rotation could spell trouble to the rest of the AL West. Bronson Arroyo allowed a few baserunners against the Tigers, giving up six hits, including four doubles, and two walks in 7.1 innings, but just one man came across the plate for Detroit, and even that was an unearned run. On the other side, Jason Johnson pitched five innings, allowing nine hits and three runs (two earned) while striking out five and walking two. Except for the hits, that's pretty much an average outing, isn't it? I wonder if Tiger fans are bored of Johnson or if they're excited to have someone so decent pitching for them. Either way, the Red Sox won this one, so they remain a half game back of Oakland. Texas's win keeps them 2.5 behind the A's. The Angels were idle, though, so the A's win pushes Oakland a full game ahead of Anaheim.

Today

Derek Lowe, who might have set a record from 7/15-8/6 by giving up exactly four runs in five straight starts, brings his 5.32 ERA to the park to face off against Mike Maroth. Maroth seems to basically be the same uninspiring pitcher that Jason Johnson is: 4.47 ERA, 4 K/9, 1.5 K/BB, 1.4 GB/FB, blah blah blah. The difference is who he's pitching against. Hope for another Derek Lowe implosion leading to a deficit that even the Sox offense can't overcome, but don't bank on it. Sox win 8-5. Baltimore visits Texas, with Erik Bedard leading things off for the Orioles. He was the first pitcher in the four-game sweep they put on the Rangers earlier in the month, so we can have some hope, especially when we check out the even-more-corpse-like-than-Chan-Ho-Park Scott Erickson, who's starting for the Rangers. Erickson's arm will probably fall off (or else Bruce Campbell, not really satisfied with Park's good outing yesterday, will blast him with his boom stick), while the Orioles gets hoisted by their own Bedard. Someone has to go home with a win, but it's going to come down to the bullpen this time. Call it for the Orioles, say 9-7. Minnesota sends Brad Radke to Anaheim to face Aaron Sele. I'll take Minnesota going away without even delving into bad puns or statistics. 5-2. Finally, Mark Hendrickson comes to town representing the Devil Rays against a fellow Mark for the A's: Redman this time around, though Mulder will pitch the series closer. Hendrickson's a big guy who's had three good outings in his last ten, and seven awful ones. Those good games came against the Orioles, Orioles, and Royals, and while he threw six good innings against the A's the last time around, I wouldn't count on it happening again. Look for Redman to avenge a 2-1 loss to the Satans in his last start. 6-2.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:31 | |

I got to watch the end of the A's game last night, from about the fifth inning on, and there were two blessings. As I noted yesterday, both starting pitchers have the capacity for brilliance, and both pitchers lived up to that billing in the evening. Rich Harden threw eight innings, giving up just four hits and a walk while striking out five and keeping the Orioles off the scoreboard. Bruce Chen, meanwhile, didn't allow a hit until the sixth inning and ended up pitching seven scoreless, giving up three hits and four walks. With both starters breezing, the game moved rather quickly, eventually ending in 2:25. The other blessing, of course, was Marco Scutaro's three-run game-winning homer with two men out in the bottom of the ninth. The hit came against a guy who's been one of the best relievers in the American Leauge this year, BJ Ryan. Ryan had struck out Scott Hatteberg and Erubiel Durazo already in the ninth, and made both look a little foolish doing it, before he gave up a sharp single up the middle to Damian Miller. Bobby Crosby then showed us all why he's so special, working a walk against a tough pitcher while he's in the midst of an atrocious slump. In his last nine games, Crosby's gone ofer seven times, and he doesn't have a hit against Orioles pitchers yet this year. So his walk was crucial and heroic, setting up little Marco (or, if you believe ESPN's announcers, "Mario") Scutaro to blast a high fastball well out of BJ Surhoff's reach in the left-field stands. The A's had almost broken the game open in the bottom of the seventh, when Miller and Crosby walked with two outs. Scutaro then hit a grounder toward the shortstop hole that Miguel Tejada made an excellent play on, but his throw short-hopped Rafael Palmeiro a little bit, and Scutaro was on with an infield single, loading the bases. Mark Kotsay then worked a 3-1 count and got a fastball down the middle that he smoked toward right, only to see Jay Gibbons run it down on the warning track. Kotsay stood at first with a bit of a thousand-yard stare, wondering whether anything was destined to fall in for the A's this day. The eighth was uneventful for both teams, as Rich Harden didn't let a batter put a ball in fair territory, getting a foul pop and two strikeouts, and BJ Ryan put the A's down 1-2-3, with Eric Chavez going down second on a fastball that looked to be about a foot off the plate and low. In the ninth, Octavio Dotel relieved, and I scooted forward to the edge of the futon. No, he hadn't given up a run in over 13 innings, but he's a typical Oakland closer: his nickname ought to be White Knuckles. Dotel got hot-hitting David Newhan to ground out to Scutaro, who made a pretty good throw without being able to get fully behind the ball, as Newhan was really hustling down the line. Melvin Mora then lined a base hit to center, setting up a tough confrontation with Miguel Tejada. The new Oriole shortstop ended up blasting a fastball high and deep that would have made me cry had it not settled into Eric Byrnes's glove just in front of the big out-of-town scoreboard the A's have in left field. With this tension relieved, of course, a professional hitter still loomed, and a ball in the gap was all BJ Surhoff would need to break the scoreless tie. Marco Scutaro, though, made an excellent play on Surhoff's ground ball, ranging far to his left, sliding to his knees to grab the grounder, spinning in the direction his momentum was carrying him, and making a timely and accurate peg to Hatteberg at first to get Surhoff by a step. Depending on how this AL West race pans out, Scutaro may be remembered as one of the heroes of the year for this team, which is rather sad given that Mark Ellis is due back next year and is almost a lock to put some distance between his line and Scutaro's .278/.303/.389 numbers. That's the way baseball goes, though: one year's heroes are another year's utility men.

The Competition

The Angels still haven't managed to lose a game in awhile, beating the Royals 21-6 (ouch!) to win their eighth straight. While this is certainly disheartening, we can take the positive view and note that the A's are still in first place despite a strong second place team having gone on a great hot streak, including rolling right through the Yankees, who were supposed to be the ones to slow them down. Ramon Ortiz had the down day I asked for, giving up six runs in six innings, but Cal Pickering had just one hit, a single (his first single of the year!), and it ended up being ex-Athletic Jeff DaVanon pulling a Pickering, hitting for the cycle. Boston predictably beat Toronto as Josh Towers was as bad as advertised and Curt Schilling as good. Terry Adams did his best to sink the Red Sox, giving up four runs in 1.1 relief innings, but Boston was already winning 11-1 before those runs started pouring in. Texas nearly pulled out another win against Joe Nathan and the Twins, going to the ninth down three, but loading the bases with two out before Laynce Nix flew out to deep center to end the game. Ryan Drese got the ground ball outs that he's gotten all year (8-2 ratio), but he also gave up thirteen hits and seven runs in 3.2 innings. Kyle Lohse also got smacked around, though, giving up five runs in five innings, so this game was left to the bullpen. That's a battle the Twins will win every time. The standings, then, have the A's half a game up on Anaheim and Boston and 2.5 ahead of the Rangers.

Today's Games

First, look for me on ESPN at the Padres-Mets tilt at 1:10. I'll be there! Anyway, Daniel Cabrera goes up against Barry Zito today. Cabrera is young (23) and big (6'7", 230 pounds). That seems to be pretty much what he has going for him. He doesn't strike guys out (4.6 K/9), he's got just one more strikeout than walk on the year, and his ERA stands at 4.67. John Sickels and Baseball America paint the picture of a guy with amazing stuff (high-mid-90's heat, great break on his slider) who can't harness it. BA goes so far as to say, though, that his problems were due to mechanics. If that's true, and if Ray Miller has helped the young man figure things out, the A's could be in for a long night. If he hasn't figured things out, though, you could see an eight-walk game for Oakland. As much as Zito has struggled, he's still got a K/BB ratio twice as good as Cabrera's. Zito's trouble has been the gopher ball, as he's given up a homer every seven innings, or basically one per start. You'd think that playing the game in Oakland could help that, but he's actually given up one more homer in six fewer innings at home, so perhaps the Oakland home-run effect isn't so great. As with any game started by Zito, this one's a toss-up. Texas gets Minnesota again, with Chan Ho Park's rotting carcass going up against the re-animated corpse of Terry Mulholland. If I had to pick who wins this one, I guess I'd have to go with ... Bruce Campbell. Boston moves on from Toronto, heading home to face off against the Tigers. Jason Johnson goes against Bronson Arroyo in the opener. Johnson's been exactly what everyone figured him for: 4.5 ERA, middling strikeout rate, ok walk rate, a few too many homers, but nothing drastic ... pretty much the most boring, league average pitcher you could come up with. Of course, that makes him a superstar on the Tiger staff. Arroyo's much more interesting. He's got an ERA of 4.29, but that hides 17 unearned runs, so his RA is about 5.4. However, it's hard to see where those runs are coming from. He strikes out seven batters per nine while walking two and a half, gives up a homer every ten innings or so, and allows less than a hit an inning. He gives up more fly balls than you might like, but his GB/FB ratio is still a little bit over one. Here's something! Maybe it's the 120 point OPS jump when runners get on base. But maybe that's normal? Apparently not. The other four starters on the team average a drop of 8.5 points of OPS with runners on. The conclusion the Tigers have to draw from this is that they have to get runners on base if they want to score. Which is, happily enough, the conclusion that every team in the league came to a long time ago. Except Montreal, that is. Boston wins this game going away.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:27 | |

Mark Mulder had a pretty usual Mulder game last night against the Orioles, and, while that's not a good thing for the pitcher, it is a good thing for the A's. Even as he's struggling, he's pitching just well enough (and the offense is scoring just enough runs) to win games. Mulder again had more walks than strikeouts, by a 3-2 margin. He's had more strikeouts than walks just once in his last six starts. If there's any statistic of concern for Mulder, that one is it. He also hit two batters, bringing his season total to ten, which is one fewer than his career high and which, the way he's going, he's likely to easily surpass. While he didn't throw a wild pitch in this game, Mulder has also thrown ten of those this year, three more than in any other season. Of course, with all of that, Mulder still allowed just four hits (though three were doubles) in six innings, leading to two runs, and that was after being staked to a four-run first-inning lead. After the game, Mulder said, "My mechanics are a little off right now and I don't feel great out there. I'm battling. Things are going to click soon." (AP) What worries me is that it doesn't seem like A's pitchers had lengthy struggles with their mechanics when Rick Peterson was the pitching coach. Perhaps it's too much to expect Curt Young to be Peterson in all ways, but you've at least got to be able to correct your pitchers' mechanical flaws. With Zito struggling all year and now Mulder falling into a pretty enormous funk, I might start being a Peterson true believer, despite my early-season claims that things would be fine under Young.

The Competition

The Rangers pulled one out against the Twins's closer, Joe Nathan, after Minnesota broke a tie in the top of the ninth with a double by Justin Morneau. Nathan has been mortal of late after not allowing a run from June 9th to August 18th. In his last three games, he's given up seven runs, just one of them meaningless, and cost the Twins two games (and, in effect, cost the A's one game as well). Chris Young was making his major league debut last night for the Rangers and had a mediocre outing: 5.2 innings, three runs, two homers, three walks, four strikeouts, and twice as many fly-ball outs and ground-ball outs. Anaheim beat Kansas City, 7-5, as Cal Pickering finally had a hit that didn't leave the yard. Unfortunately for the Angels, it went for a three-run triple in the top of the first. I'm hereby starting a Pickering Watch to see whether Cal can end his season with no singles and still hit .360. Anyway, too bad for the A's, Jimmy Serrano, the other rookie pitcher mentioned in yesterday's column, couldn't hold up even as well as Chris Young did for the Rangers. Serrano gave up eight hits and four runs in just three innings, and while he didn't take the loss (big ol' Dennys Reyes did for allowing three runs in his three innings), he certainly didn't take advantage of the run support he was given (four runs in the first two innings). Finally, Boston beat Toronto 5-4 as Tim Wakefield overcame ten hits, two walks, two hit batters, and a wild pitch to allow just three runs to score. That's a pitiful offensive output by the Blue Jays, who now have both Alexis Rios and Gabe Gross in their lineup. More and more I wish the A's had kept Frank Menechino. He looked done in his few games with the A's, but he's really turned it on north of the border. He was the DH last night and went 3-3 with a triple, improving his line to .317/.423/.539. The A's don't have a single player hitting that well, though the difference between Menechino and Eric Chavez is basically batting average (Chavez's isolated-patience and -power are both better than Frankie's, but he's hitting just .278). It's true that Menechino's doing most of his damage against lefties, but when the two Oakland options at second against those guys are Mark McLemore (we won't even mention his splits) and Marco Scutaro (.330 OBP vs. left-handers), it'd be nice to have a guy around who can both hold his own against right-handers and crush lefties.

Today

The standings remain exactly where they were yesterday, so let's look to today. Boston sends Curt Schilling against Josh Towers, and if Toronto had trouble with Tim Wakefield, you can bet they'll go down hard under the buzz-saw of the second-best pitcher in the AL. Not that Towers has been bad, mind you, as he's got a 4.30 ERA and seven of his last ten starts have been Quality, but he's skating a thin line with very few strikeouts (3.99 per nine innings). If he were Mark Mulder, this might be less of an issue, but his GB/FB ratio is 1.33, which is fine (and a significant improvement over his 0.77 from 2002), but not overwhelming enough to be a solid bet for a continued ERA below 4.75. Minnesota sends Kyle Lohse against Ryan Drese for Texas. As surprisingly bad as Lohse has been, Drese has been that good. He's third in the AL in ERA (ahead of Mulder now by about 0.4 runs) and he's keeping the ball in the park (just 11 homers allowed in 166.2 innings). His peripherals are uninspiring, but, like Mulder, he's keeping the ball down: a 2.40 GB/FB ratio will win you a lot of games when your dominating stuff isn't with you. Look for more bad news for the A's in this one. Ex-Athletic Mike Wood starts for the Royals against ex-bullpenner Ramon Ortiz of the Angels. Wood's been mediocre in ten starts and is giving up too many bombs, while Ortiz has been up and down as a starter. Oakland's best hope is for Ortiz to have a bit of a down day and for Cal Pickering to rock a couple of homers. Finally, in ESPN2's second game, Bruce "Ramblin' Man" Chen goes against Rich Harden. Chen's on his 43rd team or so and hasn't pitched this year, so, as always, it's impossible to really get a read on him from the outside. He's obviously talent, but his bouncing around results from a frustrating inability to get him to harness it, so the A's could run into an 8-inning, one-run game, or they could find themselves with a 7-0 lead after two frames. On the flip side, that describes Rich Harden as well. Harden had a nice seven game run of four-runs or fewer from 7/15 to 8/14, but had that snapped with an ugly performance against the Devil Rays of all teams, though he got the win anyway. His ERA now stands just a hair over four, so he should be personally motivated to make himself just one of eleven starters in the American League with an ERA under four. I'm guessing the A's pick up a game on the Angels and remain steady with regard to the Red Sox and Rangers.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:09 | |

Since Oakland was only half a game ahead of the two second place teams in the AL West and half a game behind the Red Sox (in case they fall out of the first place and have to try to get in the playoffs via the wild card), every day seems like a must win. The A's finally got some good news with their win last night, as Boston and Texas both lost (though Anaheim beat the Royals), which pushes Oakland a half game ahead of Boston and 1.5 in front of the Rangers. One would like to see the A's beating the Orioles by more than one run, but Rodrigo Lopez, the Baltimore starter last night, has been good this year. He began the game with a 3.73 ERA and has 29 VORP on the year, behind only stellar reliever BJ Ryan on his team. For context, the players immediately around him on the big pitcher VORP list are Rich Harden (just ahead) and Joe Nathan (just behind). In other words, it's excusable to only score four runs, especially because Tim Hudson was in the process of only allowing three (with just one "earned," since the other two came after a second-inning error by Eric Chavez). Hudson, in fact, had a very nice game. He gave up eight hits in 7.1 innings, six singles and two doubles, had one runner caught stealing, walked two, and struck out five while getting eleven ground ball outs to just five in the air. It wasn't one of the gems that he sometimes spins, but it's pretty much vintage Tim Hudson anyway. Mark Kotsay was out of the game with the flu, which may have pushed Jermaine Dye back in the lineup a little earlier than anticipated after sitting out three games with a sore thumb. Or maybe he was planning on coming back today anyway. Oakland does have Billy McMillon on the bench, so it's not like they were short an outfielder. Adam Melhuse has been hitting well recently, and he added two singles and a walk in four trips to the plate last night. He's hitting .259/.318/.457, so he's getting on base less than Damian Miller, due mostly to Miller's career-best .290 batting average, but he's hitting for better power (.198 ISO vs. Miller's .153), which is entirely expected. Despite batting from both sides of the plate, Melhuse has been used almost exclusively against right-handed pitchers this year, although Miller's right/left splits aren't anything to write home about.

A look to tonight

The A's throw Mark Mulder against Sidney Ponson tonight, which is a matchup the A's have to like. Meanwhile, Carlos Silva goes for Minnesota against Texas, who have 6'10", 250 pound rookie Chris Young making his first major league start. Baseball America had Young as the #19 prospect in the Expos's system, from whence he came in the Einar Diaz trade early this year, and John Sickels gave him a B-. He doesn't throw as hard as his body might suggest, but both sources seem to believe that he should end up as a decent pitcher with average stuff. You can read between the lines of BA's paragraph and figure he should top out as a useful bullpen arm, while Sickels just comes out and says so. Anyway, that game should be a tossup, due to the "never seen him before" factor. Anaheim sends John Lackey against Jimmy Serrano of the Royals, who's making his fourth major-league start. Serrano was left out of the BA book, but John Sickels included him and gave him a C. Serrano's a short (5'10") right-hander with a decent minor league track record that suggests to Sickels that he could be a useful middle-reliever, but his size has prejudiced front offices against giving him a real shot. In the shot the Royals have given him, Serrano's not pitched all that well: 17.2 innings in three starts, three homers, eleven strikeouts and eight walks, but just one decision (a loss) to show for all that. Since John Lackey hasn't lived up to his very good 2002 callup season, you can't immediately call this one for the Angels, especially since the Royals have added a Barry Bonds-like presence to their lineup. Since Cal Pickering was called up on the 22nd of this month, he's played two games in which he's collected three hits in seven at-bats. All three of those hits were homers. If Pickering had been called up, say, at the midway point of the season, which would have been reasonable considering how he was tearing up AAA, he'd be on pace for about 118 homers (which is, of course, not so reasonable, but whatever). It seems like Pickering's been around forever, but he's still only 27, which means he's probably got 3-5 good years left in him, assuming he can actually build on this year and that it doesn't represent the most extreme age-27 peak I've ever seen.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:46 | |

Erubiel Durazo blew up against the Orioles yesterday, providing the A's all five runs they needed on three homers, the last a tie-breaking solo shot in the eighth inning that Mark Mulder and Octavio Dotel made stand up. This is what A's fans have been waiting for from Durazo since the beginning of last year, but, while his 2003 season was disappointing, he's back to normal this year, quietly putting up an excellent season. He's top-10 in the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging, and he's well on his way to a career-high in homers (he's got 18, compared to 21 last year) doubles (25 this year, 29 last), and hits (123 to 139). One worrisome thing about his performance is that his walk rate has tanked. His BB/PA this year is .088, compared to a previous low of .135, in 2001. Also, while his slugging percentage is good, his Isolated Power is still well down from his huge Arizona years. There's probably a lot to be said for park effects, though. What do BP's metrics say about this performance? Durazo is 20th in the AL in EqA, though he's actually down the list a bit among full time DH's. Travis Hafner, David Ortiz, and Frank Thomas are all quite a bit ahead of him, and among guys who haven't been around all year, David Newhan and Bucky Jacobsen are also outperforming him. There's some big disagreement between RARP and VORP on this, though, since Durazo is sixteenth in the AL in VORP, despite his position, but finds himself about five runs out of 20th by RARP. I suspect this may be due to different handling of the DH position.

Pitching

Mark Mulder continued his rather unimpressive ways, giving up four early runs, though he held the Orioles down after the third. Let's continue in that vein: Mulder gave up just six hits, and only one for extra bases (a double by Miguel Tejada), but he also walked three batters and threw a wild pitch. He threw just 91 pitches to get through eight innings, but he didn't strike out a single Oriole. Actually, I think I've found all the bad. Two runs scored on ground ball outs, one on a Jay Gibbons ground out to second with BJ Surhoff on third, and one the next inning on a double play where Scott Hatteberg stepped on first base before throwing to second for the tag. Since the last out wasn't a force out, if Melvin Mora came home and touched the plate before Tejada was tagged at second, the run would count, and, indeed, that's what happened. Let's be clear: I'm not disparaging Hatteberg here or saying he made a bad play. I'm just saying that the A's needed a ground ball double play to get out of the inning, and that's exactly what Mulder got them, though it would've helped his cause more if the ball had gone to someone other than Hatteberg. As those two ground balls attest, Mulder was, as usual, giving balls to his infielders like they were kids in a cancer ward: an 18/5 GB/FB ratio will win you a lot of games. With all the recently discovered need for an emphasis on pitcher strikeouts, though, Mulder's plumbing the depths of his strikeout rate while trying to maintain his success could turn into an alarming situation rather quickly. That's one of the striking things about Brandon Webb: he's an absolute ground ball maniac, getting 3.38 wormballs for every flyout, but he's still striking out 6.6 guys per nine innings (though it ought to be said that his walk total is also a little high).

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:45 | |

I put together some stuff on "competitive balance," related to the ideas I was looking at in the article yesterday. Let me just throw some graphs at you and see what happens. One way to see how competitive the league has been is by looking at how far back the second place teams have been at this stage (August 17) in the season. I took the mean deficit all the second place teams were facing as of this date, with a tie for first counting for zero games back. The graph looks like this: This year, the average second place team is a little less than seven games back of the first place team. Historically (since 1920), that average is about five and a half games, and there are plenty of teams above that. This year's number is well within a standard deviation of that mean. Next, I defined a "division in play" to be one in which there were teams four games back of the leader as of the date in question. Now, since the number of divisions has changed from two to four to six, we'll look at the percentage of those divisions that have been in play historically. There seem to be some problems with this, but this whole exercise is rather quick and dirty, so we'll just have to be satisfied. Since 1920, 122 of the 260 division-years in baseball have been in play on this date, about 47%. This year, we've got two out of six, or about 33%. Here's the chart. Notice that we haven't had a zero since 1986, while they were fairly common before the 1950's, after which they started spacing out to only two or three a decade. In those divisions, though, were there a lot of teams involved or did we have situations like the AL Central now, with only one team even marginally in the hunt? We can count up the number of teams in play in any given year, but since the number of teams has changed just as the number of divisions has, this number needs to be adjusted, so we'll look at the percentage of teams in the league still in play. First, the global view: since 1920, there have been 1828 team seasons, and 307 of them were within four games of first place (or in first place themselves) as of August 17th, or about 17%. This year, we see five teams involved, which is as close as you can get to that 17% number with thirty teams in the league. Here's the graph showing the percentage of teams still in the hunt for a division title. There was definitely a low period through the thirties and forties, but the leagues made up for that in the late seventies and early eighties with some very high numbers. See in particular 1973, where over 45% of the teams were still in reach of first place at this point. Even the number of teams in play doesn't tell the whole story. If the majority of those teams are three or four games back, we might see less turnover in the standings. What I have now, then, is the average deficit for teams still in play on this date. By definition, this number is capped at four. We could go as low as zero, which occurs when only the first place teams themselves are in play, or, a subset of that situation, when there are ties for first place but no other challengers. We've already mentioned that there have been 122 division-seasons still in play since 1920, and that there have been 307 teams involved in those divisions. Subtracting those numbers gets us the number of challengers to the throne: 185. Those 185 teams were a collective 408 games out of first place, an average of about 2.2 games. Note that in the case of a tie, one of the teams is counted as a challenger with a deficit of zero. This year, we see three challengers an average of two games behind the leaders. In the chart, blank spots will indicate years in which no divisions were in play. With the occasional and expected outlier aside, most of these years hover right between one and a half and three.

Conclusion?

In the end, it looks like this year is really not so remarkable in the lack-of-competition department. While that's a little disappointing, it also means we can pre-empt any wild declarations by baseball establishment types of needing to make any more changes (six more wild cards!) in order to ensure hope and faith. It's always been like this, and people have come out to the park to enjoy the games (and make the owners and players very wealthy indeed) regardless. Again, since I'm someone without terribly much money to throw around, thanks to Baseball Reference for being available free for all my research needs.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 00:12 | |

It's striking how five out of six of the divisions in baseball are basically wrapped up. The Dodgers have a 5.5 game lead over the Giants (with both teams leading their games by three in the top of the eighth as this is written), and the Padres are 6.5 back (and leading Atlanta by 10 in the bottom of the seventh). St. Louis has parlayed baseball's best record and some disappointing foes (particularly Houston) into a fifteen game lead over the Cubs. Atlanta, after beginning the season down in the standings where everyone thought they'd be, has run its lead over Florida to eight games, with Philadelphia nine back and the Mets down eleven despite adding players at the deadline. Minnesota has opened up a 3.5 game lead over the Indians (with 2.5 of those games accounted for by their 53-58 advantage in losses) and a five game lead over the White Sox despite scoring the fewest runs of any division-leading team, including the Dodgers (who passed them tonight). They've done it by allowing the fewest runs of any team in the AL, leading the A's by three. Finally, the Yankees, of course, have ridden the AL's best record to a nine-game lead over the ever-hapless Red Sox, despite the Sox's lead in runs scored, 671-652, and in runs allowed, 566-574. Oakland's West is the only division that's really still in play, though Cleveland could (but won't) push in the Central. With the A's and Rangers winning tonight and Anaheim losing, we have Oakland in front of Texas by a half game (a win ahead), with the Angels two games back. The division has been a three-team dogfight all year, as it was supposed to be, though it was going to be Seattle hanging around all year, while Texas was supposed to be 20+ games behind the leader at this point. As it's playing out, though, this thing should go down to the wire. As an A's fan, I'll point out a few of their advantages: by offensive and defensive components, the A's have been better than their opponents this year by more than the small margins their actual records are showing; the Rangers have 8 pitchers on the DL, and Scott Erickson in the starting rotation; and the Angels have had one consistent starter this year, Kelvim Escobar, while seeing their vaunted offense get outscored by Oakland's.

History

In any case, the point was not to talk so much about this year, but to see how the past couple of years compared to this one in the standings. Have the division titles usually been this much in the possession of a few teams, or, as my very faulty memory hints, are we seeing something unusual this year? As usual, Baseball Reference is one of my favorite sites on the whole Internet. We can look at the standings after the games of August 17th going back to 1901. I don't think we'll go back that far, but let's get a start on some anecdotal evidence, and then maybe I'll see if I can put together something more quantitative and exhaustive later. I'll use the four games cutoff to see how many divisions are in play, and how many teams are in the running in those divisions. That means that this year, we actually have two divisions still up for grabs, though the Indians are very near the cutoff. Last year, we had the A's four games back of the Mariners, Minnesota and Chicago both three back of Kansas City, and Chicago and St. Louis within a game of Houston. That's three divisions with eight teams involved. Ultimately, none of the three divisions ended up in the hands of their owners on this date. In 2002, Houston was four back of St. Louis, and Anaheim and Oakland were in the hunt for Seattle in the West. This season looks a lot like 2002, actually. In the end, St. Louis only increased its lead while the A's surged late again to take the West. In 2001, Philadelphia and Atlanta were tied atop the NL East, Houston and Chicago were virtually tied (Chicago had one fewer win and one fewer loss), and San Francisco and Los Angeles were within reach of Arizona. The AL was locked up, with the smallest lead being Cleveland's 4.5 game advantage over Minnesota. The ties were broken, of course, with the wins going to Atlanta and Houston, but no division changed hands. In 2000, the Mets were chasing Atlanta, Arizona was close to the Giants, Boston was four back of the Yankees, and Oakland trailed Seattle by three. That's four divisions up in the air, but only one team in each division was involved, and two of those were sort of on the fringes of involvement. Of course, Oakland ended up closing from the fringe and winning the division, but every other team held its lead. In 1999, the NL East and Central were again tied (with the Central again being a virtual tie, with Cincinnati having played four fewer games than percentage leader Houston), but every other division was locked up. Oakland held the smallest disadvantage, 5.5 games behind Texas. There were no surprises down the stretch. Finally, in 1998, things were even worse than they are today. Texas was a game back of Anaheim, and they eventually won the West, but take a look at the other division leads: 14.5, 7.5, 14, 20, and 12.5. That's incredible. and it puts today's "disparity" to shame.

Results?

Over the last six years, then, we've seen one year remarkably less competitive, one less competitive, but not remarkably so, one about the same, and three more competitive. I guess the answer to my question is that this year is somewhat out of the ordinary, but not remarkably so. After all, compare this year, when only St. Louis has a double-digit lead over their closest competitor, to the numbers I listed above for 1998.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 02:09 | |

Big surprise! The A's won a game with pitching! My comment yesterday about Mark Redman's effectiveness being in question was clearly used as bulletin-board fodder, since the pitcher threw eight innings of one-run ball, allowing just six hits and a walk, before turning the game over to Octavio Dotel (who should also be considered a question mark, by the way) for the save. The A's got just enough runs to win by staging a three-run rally in the fifth, started, as usual these days, by Mark Kotsay, who drew a walk ahead of an Eric Byrnes double. Meanwhile, Eric Chavez missed his second straight game with a tight back. These back injuries are like a plague on the A's. Just as Arthur Rhodes gets ready to come back to help out in a lower-pressure (than his closer spot, anyway) setup role, Eric Chavez goes back down with a much more worrisome owie than his broken hand was. Backs recur, backs sap power, and backs can nag. On the other hand, Scott Rolen's looking fine in St. Louis after dealing with back troubles for a few years in Philadelphia. If I had to play for Larry Bowa, I might have some back troubles, too.

The Kid

Bobby Crosby's been struggling of late. His last multi-hit game came almost two weeks ago, and he's three for thirty-seven since that game, with no power and four walks, two of the walks coming last night. Let's look at the bright side, though. Crosby is showing some in-season development of major-league strike zone judgement. He'd shown the propensity to draw walks in the minor leagues, but he was not trotting to first with great frequency in the early part of this season. Crosby's plate-appearances per walk on the season have progressed like this: 13 in April, 13.6 in May, 11.1 in June, 7.7 in July, and back up to 10.8 in this half-month. I think it's no surprise that Crosby's slump has come with a regression in his walk rate, but even that 10.8 is still respectable and much better than his numbers in the first two months of the season. Crosby's had other protracted periods of trouble this season, so I fully expect him to break out and really earn the Rookie of the Year trophy over this next month and a half.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 07:52 | |

What's to be said about this series with the Royals? The offense got shut down (ten runs in three games), the pitching got blown up (seven runs against Mark Mulder, a bad bullpen outing last night), and the lead in the West is narrowing (just a half game over the Angels and Rangers, with the A's having one more win than Texas and one fewer loss than Anaheim). Over the last month or so, Mark Mulder really hasn't been the kind of pitcher the A's need, especially since Tim Hudson is still recovering from his injury and Barry Zito only now appears to be getting himself straightened out (though we've said that before). Mulder's ERA has risen over a run since a June 24th complete game victory over Anaheim, dropping his ranking to 7th in the American League. While he's still getting ground balls (13 ground ball outs to 5 fly balls in this latest game, for example), Mulder is giving up home runs at an alarming rate: of the eighteen homers he's allowed on the year, exactly half of them have come in the last month (from July 18th through last night). Worse, he's walking batters frequently: since 6/24, he's had just one game where he's walked fewer than two batters (a one-walk performance in which he gave up seven runs in six innings to Texas), and, overall, he's walked 28 batters in his last 75 innings, or 3.36 per nine innings. The walks are nothing new, though, at least not for this year. He's already given out more free passes in 2004 than he did in this last three years, and he's only eleven behind his career-high, set in his rookie 2000 season. With around ten more starts to make this year, he'll break that number easily. Rich Harden's turned up his game of late, but with the effectiveness of Barry Zito and Mark Redman always in question, and the health of Tim Hudson on the top of everyone's worry list, the A's need Mark Mulder to get back to his ~2.7 RA form if they're going to hold off the Anaheim and Texas squads.

What's next?

With 45 games remaining, we're to the point in the season where remaining strength of schedule can really make a difference. How do the A's match up with the Angels and Rangers? One nice thing about the imbalanced schedule is that it makes these kinds of comparisons late in the season easier, because all four West teams play each other frequently and evenly down the stretch, so that the difference in schedules comes down to a fairly small number of games. Out of the division, the A's play Tampa Bay home and away (six games), Baltimore home (four) and away (three), the White Sox in Chicago (three), the Blue Jays in Toronto (three), the Red Sox in Oakland (three), and Cleveland in Oakland (three). A quick breakdown: that's 16 games against bad teams (seven at home, nine away), six against average teams (three home, three away), and three against a good team, all at home. That's a pretty favorable schedule, though it could be even better: unfortunately, the Tampa Bay and Baltimore series are coming up next, and the later in the season you play against bad teams, the more they're going to be playing young kids who are not necessarily ready (especially in the case of those two farm systems) to be facing off against Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson. Texas has the Indians in town for three contests, three at Kansas City, home (four) and away (three) against the Twins, three at home against the Orioles, three in Boston, four at home against the White Sox, and finish up with three at home against the Blue Jays. That's nine games against bad teams (six home, three away), seven against average teams (all at home), and ten against good teams (four home, six away). That Twins series, if Minnesota brings its A-stuff and the Rangers get a heavy dose of Johan Santana, could really help the A's out. That the Rangers have to play in Boston (where the Red Sox are 37-21) while the A's get them in Oakland (the Sox are under .500 on the road) is also a boon. The Angels, meanwhile, go to Tampa, then to the Bronx before coming home to face KC and Minnesota, followed by a jaunt to Boston and Cleveland before finishing up at home against Toronto and the White Sox. Unlike the Rangers and A's, these are all three-game series. That's nine games against bad teams (six home, three away), six against average teams (all at home), and nine against good teams (six away, and in Yankee Stadium and Fenway, to boot, three at home). Again, that's a tougher-looking schedule than the A's have to face, largely due to the trips to New York and Boston, plus a home series against the Twins.

For what it's worth ...

It should also be noted that, by BP's Adjusted Standings, while the A's are remarkably close to their predicted record (they're less than half a win lower than they should be based on the third-order calculation), while the Rangers and Angels are both about three games over their "true" records.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:13 | |

What the hell's the matter with Octavio Dotel? This guy was supposed to be the savior of the bullpen, and he's put up a 5.53 ERA since coming over. His strikeout rate is still prodigiously high (38 in 26 innings) but he's giving up home runs like it's 2000 again. That's 5 in 26 innings for the A's, and it was 26 in just 125 innings in 2000. In other words, about every week and a half or so, Dotel's going to give up a homer. When you're a closer, and those homers are tying or winning ballgames for the other team, that's a really bad thing. On the other hand, I saw the homer he gave up to Justin Morneau this weekend. It looked to me like the ball was in the middle of the plate, but it was down. Morneau really had to golf it to get it out of the park, and when a big strong kid goes down and gets a pitch like that, sometimes there's not a lot you can do about it. On the other hand, the tying homer he gave up to the Yankees the other night was a terrible hanging slider, I think, that Sheffield just smoked, and rightfully so. With the A's bullpen basically being one big back problem (Bradford joined Rhodes on the DL yesterday), forcing them to bring up Jairo Garcia, who started the year in A-ball, it would be really nice to have a reliable guy sitting out there whose name isn't Duckschsr ... whatever. The Duke, by the way, has moved into 22nd in the big leagues in ARP. On the other hand, as much as A's fans seem to hate Ricardo Rincon, he's been effective this year, posting 3.5 ARP in his one-batter role. Justin Lehr has also made a positive contribution, at 2.0 ARP in his 21 innings. The problem has been Bradford (-2.8), Hammond (-2.8), and Rhodes (-2.1), and, to a certain extent, the mediocre work of Jim Mecir (-0.1). Mecir's excusable: he's not helping the team, but he's not really hurting it, either, and I don't think anyone expected him to be the Mecir of old this year. Look at those three names with negative contributions, though, and you see a common factor. Rhodes has been on the DL a long time with a back injury, Bradford just went on the List, also with a back, and Chris Hammond was on the DL for a little over a month with a strained shoulder. Now, perhaps the A's are engaging in some of that infamous Yankee chicanery, sending guys down with owies to work on their mechanics and get right for the playoffs. More likely, though, a small part of each guy's bad pitching may have been due to throwing through a little more pain than they should have been. We'll see what happens with the other two, but since Hammond's been back, he's thrown seven innings in four games (including three big ones in that crazy 18 inning game), giving up three hits, two walks, no runs, while striking out seven. Will he pitch this way the rest of the year? I doubt it. But if he's better than he was before the injury, it'll be a pretty big boost. Can we talk about Eric Chavez for a second? First, let's discuss his walks. He's got 64 for the year, which is just one off of his previous career high, set in 2002. Since we're only in August, that's pretty impressive. Indeed, his BB/PA mark of 0.177 is significantly higher than any he's posted before, .063 higher than 1999's previous high. For the first time in his career, he's walking more than he's striking out, with 1.14 BB/K. There's no intentional walk effect here, either, with just six of his walks coming from the opposing manager, compared to 13 of his 65 in 2002. And he's doing all this while hitting for the best power of his career. His odd lack of doubles means that while he's posting his highest ISO ever, it's actually tied for the top spot with 2001. But his homerun rate has shot to one ever 14.7 at-bats, two and a half at-bats better than his previous best, 2002. The walks don't appear to be a fluke, either, since he's seeing far more pitches than he ever has, increasing from a prior career high of 3.88 per plate appearance to 4.10 this year. Chavez's injury earlier in the year are holding down his counting numbers, but let's check out his rates compared to the rest of baseball. He's 13th in OBP (13th! Eric Chavez! 13th despite batting .276!), almost .200 points behind the leader (you know who), but just .053 off the pace of the mortal top man, Lance Berkman. His .527 SLG ranks his 31st, but if he can get some outs to turn into doubles, we could see that number rise. Chavez has hit six more homers than doubles this year, in 294 at-bats. That's .0204 HMTDPAB (homers more than doubles per at-bat). The only players with a higher HMTDPAB above him on the SLG list are Gary Sheffield (.0224), Paul Konerko (.0346), Adam Dunn (.0339), Adrian Beltre (.0224), Jim Thome (.0214), and Barry Bonds (.0431, who, as usual, blows everyone away, even when it's some made up number like this). All of these guys are big slow sluggers; only Bonds and, to a certain extent, Adam Dunn, have decent speed. That 20% of the guys ahead of him on the SLG list are even more homer prone than Chavez is indicates that his lack of doubles may not be as odd as it first appeared. On the other hand, Chavez hasn't been a doubles avoider in the past: his previous career-high HMTDPAB was .0059 in 2000. Sheffield has done this before, putting up three crazy years in Los Angeles (.0255, .0379, .0155) as well as three nice ones in Florida (.0342, .0376, .0173). Konerko's like Chavez, having never put up more homers than doubles in a full season before. Dunn has history, smacking .0394 last year. Beltre is like Konerko, in that he's never done this before, and like Chavez, in that he's enjoying a breakout season at third base, but it's more noticeable with Beltre because he's so far above where he's ever been before, finally living up to everything he was supposed to be all those years ago. Thome, as you might expect, has a Sheffield-an history here: starting in 1996 and skipping just 1998, when he set a career-high with 34 doubles (and, "incidentally," his worst homer year from 1996 to today), he's put up .0198, .0302, .0121, .0072, .0437, .0688, .0294. That 2002 number is ridiculous. He hit 52 homers with just 19 doubles that year, a gap of 33 in just 480 at-bats. With a break for 1998, when he smote a career-high 44 doubles, Bonds has been hitting more homers than doubles since 1993, much earlier than I would have expected, because while his stolen-base numbers have declined precipitously in the last few years, he still stole at least 28 bases every year from 1993 to 1998. Bonds's numbers are going to be fun, especially his record-breaking 2001. Here they are, then, from 1993 to 2003, skipping the aforementioned 1998: .0148, .0486, .0059, .0290, .0263, .0394, .0438, .0861, .0372, .0589. What this looks like for the guys without a history of hitting like this before is career progression. Some guys smack the hell out of the ball but don't get doubles out of it. Chavez could be on his way to being one of those guys. If he ends up hitting like Barry Bonds over the rest of his career, I won't complain too much about it. Back to the original point, Chavez is 25th in RC/27, 22nd in ISO, 5th in BB/PA, and 13th in BB/K. Be honest. Did you really think you'd ever see the day when Eric "If It's Within a Foot of my Head, I'm Swinging" Chavez would be fifth in walk rate in the major leagues?

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:47 | |

When Jorge Posada hit that (weak) three-run homer in the first inning of last night's A's-Yankees tilt, I declared the game over and turned off the TV. Clearly, I'm a psychic. The A's, needless to say, came back with a crazy hit barrage against Jon Lieber and assorted memebers of the Yankee bullpen, eventually winning the game 13-4. You get the sense that if they'd played a few more innings, it only would have gotten worse for the New Yorkers. While the AP recap says that "[t]he A's began teeing off on Jon Lieber (7-7) in the third" and while that's when Oakland got its first runs, the first two innings hadn't really boded well for the Yankee starter, either. Mark Kotsay knocked a base hit to start the game, but Mark McLemore grounded into a double play to erase him. Then, in the second, Jermaine Dye led off with a walk (apparently, this is an incredibly rare occurrence for Lieber) before Scott Hatteberg hit a smash down the right field line. Unfortunately, with Tony Clark holding the runner on, he was playing near the line, and he made a fine play from his knees, grabbing the ball, tagging first base, and making a very difficult throw to second to get Dye by about 15 feet. How many times have we seen the throw that Clark made (from his knees!) either hit the runner or go into left field because the first baseman was afraid of hitting the runner? Clark's throw did neither of these things and extinguished a potential A's rally, especially since Erubiel Durazo doubled to left center immediately after. Eventually, though, things started dropping for the A's, and they got a couple of great defensive plays of their own (Jermaine Dye at the right-field wall, leaping to make a catch, and Bobby Crosby apparently made a few hot plays of his own), helping Mark Mulder, on a day when it was clear in the first inning that his stuff and location were pretty far off, settle in and get himself through seven innings. By the time he was done, it was 10-4, so the A's turned to Chris Hammond and Justin Lehr, who got through their innings with six and eight pitches, respectively. All six of Hammond's pitches were strikes, and the three outs were a strikeout and two ground balls. That's a nice inning. Scott Hatteberg is my offensive star of the game, as he hit two homers, the second one a three-run shot off of lefty Felix Heredia in the eighth inning. Hatteberg's line for the year now stands at .293/.372/.463, good for a .300 EqA and eleventh in baseball in RARP at first base. That's basically a nice solid player at first base, one you can count on, and a vast improvement over last year's ugly performance. His semi-surprising improvement (he's performing right around his 90th percentile PECOTA) and Mark Kotsay's killer offensive year are probably the two biggest reasons for Oakland's increased offensive output. That's not to say the A's have a good offense or anything, but they're tied for tenth in baseball in runs scored, an improvement of four spots over last year. In other words, as much as this is a pitching-and-defense team (second in the AL in runs allowed, though there are nine teams ahead of the A's in the NL), the offense is, when you consider that run-prevention, a playoff-capable offense. Does that mean this is the year the A's get out of the first round? Don't count on it until it happens.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:52 | |

It was, of course, Deal Weekend, but the A's were apparently not involved. That's sort of odd, because it seems like Billy Beane usually has his fingers in every pie around the league. Of course, when your team doesn't have any areas in obvious need of upgrade, or where there isn't an upgrade really available (second base), it's understandable that you might stand pat. The A's made their big move awhile back, when Carlos Beltran became available, and, since he wasn't traded again, it looks like Beane's abilities as a deal facilitator weren't needed. Of course, we have to not only look at whether the A's got stronger, but also at whether their competitors did. We'll work from the bottom up in the standings in the AL, beginning with the White Sox (who could compete with the A's for a wild card spot if it came to that). Chicago traded away Esteban Loaiza and got back Jose Contreras. This looks like a money deal, as any trade with the Yankees will, and, on the talent side, it'll be at best a wash for Chicago. No help. The Angels couldn't pull off the big trade to get Randy Johnson, which is almost too bad for the long-term chances of the A's, because they'd likely have to have given up a couple of their Dallas McPherson / Casey Kotchman prospects, and not having those guys to slot in for their older players in a year or two could hurt them. In terms of short-term impact, of course, no help. The Red Sox made a splashy deal as well as a minor one, ending up with Orlando Cabrera, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Dave Roberts, giving up (of the players who matter now) Nomar Garciaparra. There's a lot being made of Nomar's "fragile psyche," the fact that he had a day off during that wild and crazy Sox-Yankees game of about a month ago, and so on. The thing is, pop psychology has no place in baseball analysis. If you want to talk to a real psychiatrist and ask him/her what (s)he thinks of Nomar, based on a very limited observation, perhaps they can venture a guess about what's going on in his head. More likely, they'll scoff and tell you to leave them alone. What we do know is that from Nomar's offensive value to Cabrera's, there's a step down, even if we take into account that Cabrera's likely better than the .223 EqA he's posting this year. Defensively, who knows? Caberera had a huge year with the glove a few years back, but is he still that good? Even if he is, the Sox still have capable defensive caddies around if they're really that concerned. Buster Olney thinks that Minky is a good guy to add because he improves the team's defense. I wonder when on earth the guy is going to get to play. I guess with Trot Nixon down again, Kevin Millar becomes the every-day right fielder, so perhaps Mientkiewicz becomes the every-day first baseman, with David Ortiz DHing? Perhaps this is a defensible part of the deal, but overall, you have to think the Red Sox are a weaker team than they were on Saturday, giving the A's a leg up, plus a 2.5 game lead, in case Texas overtakes Oakland again. And how about Texas? They picked up Scott Erickson from the Mets. Brilliant! This seals the West for the A's. Then there are two teams that aren't likely to come into direct competition with the A's in the regular season, but youneverknow. Minnesota sent away their first baseman, clearing room for a real hitter to play there (finally!). The minor league pitcher they got doesn't matter this year, so we won't concern ourselves with him. This is addition by subtraction and, coupled with the White Sox's five game deficit as of today, call the Central for the Twins, meaning that they're not going to be competing with the A's for the wild card (again, if it comes to that). Finally, the Yankees: Esteban Loaiza for Contreras is, as I mentioned for the Sox, likely a push. The Yankees would rather have a guy who'll consistently throw 7 innings and give up four runs than a guy who'll sometimes go nine innings, one run, and other times go four innings, six runs. Since New York's already got a playoff spot locked up, this doesn't really help or hurt them in the regular season, and I'm frankly not sure whether two starts of Loaiza or two starts of Contreras is more favorable for the A's in a seven-game series (I'm assuming a seven-gamer because, as of right now, the A's would play the Twins in the first round, not potentially meeting the Yankees until the second). All in all, then, there's really no change. The A's got better a month ago and nobody else really helped themselves, so Oakland's got to be considered a strong bet to win the West yet again.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:57 | |