TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, August 23, 2003

Another Night at the Park
At the game last night I sat behind a father and son. The kid was in his young teens, and had wild "I told you to get a haircut!" hair. By their body language, you could tell that the two weren't very happy with each other at the moment. The kid was a little bored, and at one point got up to get some food.

Bad timing. His dad erupted. "I can't believe this! I take you to a Giants game, and you get up to leave when Bonds is coming to bat! You don't want to see Bonds?! Why did I even bring you?!"

The kid did a microscopic eyeroll. Yeah, he had screwed up. And probably in his dad's eyes, had screwed up yet again. The kid decided to choose his battles, shrugged, and sat back down next to his father. When he did, he put his hand on his father's shoulder. The tension evaporated from both their frames.

That was the last chance for anybody to see Barry for a while. His father Bobby passed this morning. Everyone knew it was coming, but it's still a shock. If you haven't done it in a while, take your family to a ballgame. It will be good.

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I think that everyone who writes about baseball is required to have a Dontrelle Willis column this year. Here's mine, I saw the rookie last night at Pac Bell Park. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed. A good part of that has to do with the fact that I'm putting a lot of weight on a sample size of one game, and this was one of the worst he's put out at the big league level. He threw a lot of pitches early, and lost effectiveness in the sixth. With a kid with a big leg kick like Dontrelle, that might be the proper strategy - wait on pitches and let him tire himself out - the baseball equivalent of the Rope-A-Dope. Note that after watching Tony Phillips for a few seasons, and reading Ted Williams on hitting, I would recommend this strategy 90+% of the time, I just think it would be even more effective against a pitcher with an involved motion. Mechanics get sloppy when you are tired, and that's when you can really go to town.









A few more thoughts about last night… Dontrelle left several hundred tickets for family and friends (he grew up across the bay in Alameda). Where do you find a few hundred extra seats in Pac Bell Park? Dontrelle faced Barry Bonds three times, giving up two walks and a hit. But he got two strikes on Barry on each occasion. How hard must it be to be a rookie pitcher trying to get the benefit of the doubt from the umpire when Barry is at the plate?

Barry has 119 walks this year, so who do they stick in the five hole behind him? Edgar Alfonzo and his .362 slugging percentage. When you look at 3-4-5 hitters, do you ever see a guy with HALF the slugging percentage of the guy in front of him? Do the Giants really need to do this? Let's look at some other players on the Giants:

Galarraga	.508
Grissom	.470
Santiago	.442
Cruz	.419
Snow	.413
Young	.413
Aurilla	.401

In fact, the only Giant with any real number of at bats with a lower slugging percentage than Alfonzo is Neifi Perez at .331. For crying out loud, the opposition is itching to walk Barry anyway, why make it more inviting? Bonds has a .523 OBP and projects to 152 walks. I don't think those are going to decrease in the stretch drive. The OBP would clock in at #5 in the Modern Era and the walks would be #8. It would be his fourth 150+ walk season. Ted Williams had three and Ruth two.

posted by David 1:10 PM

Friday, August 22, 2003

Huge loss for the A's tonight, as they learned that Mark Mulder might miss the rest of the season. Besides the fact that they're going to miss Mulder's presence in September in the middle of a pennant/wild card race, one of my thoughts reached back to the Jose Guillen trade. Don't they wish they didn't trade Aaron Harang in that deal? I think he's a much better option than depending on a pitcher like Ted Lilly or John Halama (yes, I noticed Harang's 5.34 ERA with the A's this year, but he's 3-0 with the Reds - give the kid some time to develop, Billy Beane!).

I was also intrigued by the St. Louis Cardinals moves in their attempt to shore up the bullpen situation, which is getting ridiculous. They acquired Mike DeJean and Stearling Hitchcock, who aren't exactly the most dependable bullpen arms. But I think they're getting desperate, considering they're right in the NL Central and NL Wild Card hunt. I don't think the moves will hurt their chances, but their pitching situation (both bullpen and starters) is a mess, with only Woody Williams as their most consistant arm. However, when you've got Albert Pujols (sad to see the streak end) in a very strong lineup and a weak division, there's hope for the Cards

posted by Charles Curtis 10:26 PM

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There have been some interesting headlines in baseball over the past few days. Early in the week "Trachsel tosses third career one-hitter" caught my eye. I wonder how many pitchers have three career one-hitters. Not too many is the guess here. There isn't an obvious list of career one-hitters popping out at me with a few different attempts with Google, but my guess is that if you take all the pitchers who have at least 100 career starts there won't be 1% with three or more career one-hitters.

There's a little fun to be had with the Astros' recent success against Kerry Wood, which the folks at espn.com and cnnsi.com have taken full advantage of. David reports seeing the headline "Astros beat Cubs' Wood -- again" at ESPN and I've seen a link with the hypertext "Astros pound Wood in 9-3 win" at CNNSI. Thanks for the imagery there, folks.

As of this writing, 5 of the top 6 teams in the two Central divisions have 61 losses, with the Astros having 60 Ls. I'd like to think that the Cubs power pitching will carry the day for them in the NL Central, but I'm not sanguine about the way in which the Cubs have tried to upgrade their offense. Aramis Ramirez has shown some signs of life recently, but bringing over Randall Simon was sort of dubious. Steve Stone actually used the phrase "neck-to-toes strike zone" in describing Simon's pitch selection. Tony Womack has been having some serious OBP problems this season in a part-time role; we'll see if a few weeks of filling in for Grudzielanek will help him right the ship, but I'm skeptical. Kenny Lofton and Tom Goodwin are merely adequate offensively, though dangerous on the base paths when they do get on (and in fairness to Womack, he's similarly a threat if he can manage to get on).

The biggest thing going for the Twins in the AL Central is their soft September schedule. Teams like Detroit, Texas, and Cleveland figure prominently down the stretch for the Twins. The foursome of Santana, Radke, Lohse and Rogers have shown signs of stabilizing their performances after the break. I'd like to see Torii Hunter pick it up if I were to actually go so far as to say the Twins will win the division. He's squandered the opportunity to be in the thick of the AL MVP race. Had he hit as well with runners on as he's hit with the bases empty this season, he'd be looking at a stat line of something like .275/25/100 right now. Think a season of .275/30/125 would have gotten Hunter some votes for MVP? Chicago is the team playing the best right now, but the Twins might be able to win the title by simply mopping up on the weaker teams in the league, especially if Hunter can turn it on down the stretch.

(note -- originally I had Tampa Bay and Baltimore on the Twins remaining schedule. I should have had Texas and Cleveland in there. Oops.)

posted by Tom Renbarger 12:19 AM

Thursday, August 21, 2003

MVP
Over on ESPN they are having an NL MVP Poll. Pujols is outballoting Barry by more than 2:1. Now I can see arguments for Albert over Barry (based mainly on playing time and RBIs), but not by a two to one margin.

I think we've become used to Barry as Superman, and if he isn't breaking one of Ted's or the Babe's records, he's just slacking. But right now he's got an OPS of 1.267. Where does that place him all time?

A quick visit to baseball-reference.com gives us the answer: Barry is having the seventh best OPS season on record (Albert chugs in at #58 all time). The seasons in front of him:

Bonds 2002
Ruth 1920
Bonds 2001
Ruth 1921
Ruth 1923
Ted 1941

He's having a better season than Ruth 1927 (1.2582), and probably will collect his third #2 finish for MVP. Three second place finishes are rather amazing in their own right (Pete Rose finished above 5th five times: a first, a second, a fourth and two fifths), but that's a topic for another day.

posted by David 8:29 AM

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

What A Return!
After Barry's return to baseball last night, I was going to sit down and write. But Mark Kreidler beat me to the punch. Note that it was written before Bonds came back from his father's side at the hospital to clout a walk-off homer last night. The man is amazing.

posted by David 8:45 AM

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

I've decided to make my first bold prediction as we get closer to September: I watched the White Sox-Angels game on ESPN yesterday, and as Frank Thomas tied and won the game on two magnificent home runs, I thought that the AL Central title will belong to the White Sox. I know the Royals have shown heart and surprised everyone with their small market success (much like the Twins have recently), but they don't have the pitching to last them through a division title battle in September. Here's why the White Sox can do it: They have an extremely dangerous lineup now that the Big Hurt has picked up his game and gotten hot. Carlos Lee will reach 100 RBIs as he finally proves himself. Let's not forget that Paul Konerko is starting to pick it up, along with Magglio Ordonez's usual great numbers. They're choosing the right time to gel as a lineup.

Their pitching has also gotten hot, with the biggest surprise in baseball, Esteban Loaiza, showing Cy Young-like numbers. And now Mark Buehrle is showing flashes of his last two years. In the long term, this is the team to pick in September (if they do get into the playoffs, that's a different story). I think the Twins will make a run at the title if they can get their starters to pick it up a bit, but when it comes to big games, everyone will always pick the best pitching, and that's what Chicago has that the other AL Central teams don't have.

posted by Charles Curtis 10:21 AM

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Head in a Can
All of the recent Ted Williams news has been very sad. But what strikes me is how bad the freezing people are. One of the early reports had it that Ted's head had been cracked about ten times by accident. You get a picture of a guy dropping the head ten times. "Thud. D'oh! Thud. D'oh! Thud. D'oh!..." It turns out that the head has been cracking due to temperature fluctuations.

These guys are supposed to make sure that the temperature stays constant and low. And it looks like they aren't doing a very good job. Now I'm not a low temperature physicist, but I've dealt with my fair share of cryogenics. For one, they should just have a LN2 level sensor in Ted's headcan. Wire the up to an alarm, when the alarm triggers, Gus goes out and refills Ted's can. Of course, with a few dollars worth of piping and valves, you can just have a huge LN2 dewar outside your building, and when the level sensor triggers you automatically top off the headcan. It's very simple to do, and yet these people don't seem to be doing it.

When it comes to preparing for eternity, don't go with the low bidder.

posted by David 8:42 AM