2009 August « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

Charlie Haeger is Making Me Look Good

August 17, 2009 at 9:30 pm | Posted in Charlie Haeger | 4 Comments

I don’t completely want to toot my own horn here, but we’ve been talking about what a good idea it would be to give Charlie Haeger a start for a month now (including here, here, and here). And when he finally does, as the 10th Dodger to make a start this year, what do we get? An incredibly solid start of seven innnings and what amounts to two runs allowed.*

* This is not a typo. Big deal, he gave up a homer to Albert Pujols. Pujols isn’t human. That homer wasn’t knuckleball-related; that was Pujols being one of the 10 best players to ever live. Albert Pujols: good at baseball.

Remember, seven innings and three runs allowed is a pretty decent outing for most pitchers, but keep in mind that Haeger doesn’t have to be “most” pitchers. He’s just the latest contestant on “Who Wants to Be A Fifth Starter?”, and as such you’re not expecting an eight-inning shutout like you might hope for from an “ace”. You’re hoping for a guy who can keep you in the game and eat up enough innings to not have to make the bullpen throw seven, and Haeger did that and more.

No, it’s not lost on me that the Dodgers fell to the Cardinals, as the offense continued to struggle. I just think you have to think big picture here, because even as they lost a game they may have gained someone who can – as I’ve been saying for weeks – really contribute a solid amount of decent innings. Besides, it’s hardly an embarrassment to get shut down by Chris Carpenter, who’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball for a long time now. Though, seriously guys – what’s with both Ethier and Manny swinging at the first pitch in the 9th? At least Casey Blake gave it a ride.

Of all the things to point to about Haeger’s outing that were really impressive, the one that really stands out to me is the number zero. That’d be the number of walks he allowed, and with that thing dipping and dancing as a knuckleball does, the fact that he can keep it in the zone so consistently is noteworthy. Actually, this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise; Dodger farmhand Brian Akins has a blog he’s been updating chronicling his recovery from Tommy John surgery. In addition to being a surprisingly interesting daily read, Akins has this to say about Haeger:

A great deal of baseball players (pitchers and position players alike)
secretly think that they might be able to make it as a knuckleballer.
If you fall into this category, I have something to tell you: you
can’t. I’ll fool around with a knuckleball on occasion and will
typically throw about 3 out of 10 well. I have to admit that this was
enough to make me think I might have a chance. I played catch with
Haeger this spring and he threw about 100 out of 100 well. It was,
without a doubt, the most nerve-racking game of catch I have ever
played.

The best part is, Haeger really could have kept going, as he was only approaching 90 pitches. On the other hand, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to face Hong-Chih Kuo throwing heat from the left side immediately after floaters from the right side.

So what’s this mean – Haeger for Cy Young? Well, no. Not quite. But you figure that has to at least earned him another start, especially with Hiroki Kuroda out of the rotation the next time through, and hopefully allows him to stake a claim on the 5th spot going forward.

Thanks for backing up our support, Charlie.

We Should Probably Stop Overlooking Randy Wolf

August 16, 2009 at 4:25 pm | Posted in Randy Wolf | 8 Comments

For all the ink, pixels, and tears spilled over the trials and tribulations of the Dodger rotation (Billingsley hurt his leg! Kuroda missed two months and just took a liner off the head! Kershaw’s great but young!) it’s about time that we recognize the one member of the top four who really should have been the most likely to get hurt: Randy Wolf.

Back in January, it looked as though the Dodgers were going to sign one of Wolf, Jon Garland, and Braden Looper. At the time, my preference was actually for Garland, when I said:

Really, it comes down to the differences that Wolf and Garland can offer you. Wolf is probably the more talented pitcher, and if he’s healthy and on his game he’s a better option than Garland. But on the other hand, if these are the three guys you’re choosing from, you don’t need an ace. With the other questions in the rotation, you want a guy who you know can pick up innings. Between Billingsley’s leg and big innings increase, Kuroda’s shoulder, and Kershaw’s youth, there’s no one we can say will almost definitely give us 200 innings. Garland, by all accounts, can. They won’t be great innings, but league-average innings do carry value. So when one of those three hits the DL – and trust me, one will – I’d rather know we have a steady horse like Garland than a question mark like Wolf.

I think that point of view has been proven to be a fair one, considering the fact that we’re all still groaning over starting pitching innings. But the key point there is when I said, “Wolf is probably the more talented pitcher, and if he’s healthy and on his game he’s a better option than Garland.” That said, with his history of arm injuries and bizarre 2008 of “awesome in Houston/terrible in San Diego”, how could you possibly have counted on him?

Well, Wolf’s really been great beyond our wildest dreams so far in 2009, and he’s really done it very quietly – mostly, I would think, due to his pedestrian 7-6 record thanks to a criminal lack of run support. (Reason #1283901883 why wins are useless for pitchers!) It’s true that his fantastic outing today (7.2 IP, 10 K, 3 ER – 20 set down in a row at one point – plus 3 hits, including a two-run homer) is the impetus for this point, but let’s not shortsell him by only talking about his big day today.

I was shocked to see this, but Randy Wolf has become a horse. He’s tied for the NL lead in starts, and he’s gone at least 6 innings 10 times in a row and in 23 of his 26 starts in 2009. Believe it or not, Wolf, of all people, has now launched himself into the top 5 of NL innings leaders this year, and he’s 14th in the NL in strikeouts (giving the Dodgers 3 of the top 14, incidentally).

If Randy Wolf had done his normal “be decent for a few months, then go on the DL for a few months” routine, I honestly don’t know what the Dodgers would have done. You can talk all you want about “aces”, whether the Dodgers have any, and whether they should have gone after one before the deadline; Randy Wolf’s no ace, but he’s become a solid, effective, innings-eater, who you know will be available every 5th day and give you 6-7 innings of quality work. That is what pennants are built on. (And no, I still can’t believe I just called Randy Wolf “a horse”. Frogs, falling from the skies!)

Chris Young Was Just Demoted to AAA

August 16, 2009 at 4:18 pm | Posted in Matt Kemp | 5 Comments

Overheard just now on the Diamondbacks post-game radio show:

“Matt Kemp’s got crazy range. He’s got craaaaaaaazy range. And he had two hits and scored two runs.”

ESPN.com Is Having a Bad Day

August 16, 2009 at 3:08 pm | Posted in bad worldwide leader! | 5 Comments

This is what happens when you let the interns run the place! Not one, not two, but three spelling mistakes of Dodger names for the photo page from today’s game:

I don’t know who “Manny Rameriz” and “Endre Either” are, but they sure do look like fine ballplayers.

That Was Just a Bad Night All Around

August 16, 2009 at 8:46 am | Posted in Charlie Haeger, Hiroki Kuroda, Jonathan Broxton | 15 Comments

I’m not going to talk much about the Hiroki Kuroda incident last night; it’s simply one of the worst things I’ve ever seen on a baseball field. I didn’t see the game live last night, and I first heard about it on the MLB Network this morning. You know what scared me the most? When, before I’d seen the highlight or had any other info, one of the MLB Network guys invoked the name “Bryce Florie”. I was living in Boston in 2000 when Florie nearly lost an eye to a liner, and whenever you hear something being compared to that, you know it’s not going to end well.

Fortunately, Kuroda never lost conciousness and preliminary reports say that he’s got nothing worse than a concussion, which we can all be thankful for. So all signs point to good news there.

Of much less importance, of course, while we still don’t know how long Kuroda will be out, his injury really hurts an already patchwork starting staff. But with all bad news comes a silver lining, and here it is: after weeks of MSTI support, Charlie Haeger is getting the start on Monday against the Cardinals! As I’ve been saying for some time, he could be exactly what the clubs needs – an effective innings-eater. My only worry now is that he’s been sitting in the bullpen for a while, by the time he starts tomorrow it will have been 11 days since his last AAA appearance. After how hard I’ve been pulling for him, I really hope that the layoff plus the hot-hitting Cardinals don’t lead to disaster.

Speaking of disasters, Jonathan Broxton last night: woof. Here’s the thing, though. I usually don’t critique other blogs, just the “professionals”, but I saw something at LAdodgertalk that I simply can’t let go by. Nothing personal, guys, but your reasoning is completely flawed on your post saying that Broxton should lose his job:

How would you like to have the five wins that Broxton blew back right about now? The Dodgers would be looking pretty good with those 5 more wins. We’d be looking at a 9-1/2 gme lead instead of a 4-1/2 game lead!

Sure, but that’s assuming that he was perfect and had zero blown saves. That’s just unreasonable. What if Brian Wilson hadn’t blown six saves this year? Then the Giants have a half-game lead. Life is full of “What if’s” , and unless you’re talking about “completely hopped up on steroids Eric Gagne, circa 2003″, blown saves happen. These guys are human beings, not robots, and while I certainly can’t say I was happy with Broxton’s performance last night, he’s facing major league hitters, not Little Leagers. Some times 100 MPH fastballs get turned around. It happens.

Here’s the bottom line: Jon Broxton has a career 65% save percentage and George Sherrill has an 81% save percentage (by contrast, Mario Rivera has a 92% save percentage).

See, this is a completely unfair statistic. Yes, Broxton had 19 blown saves on his record coming into 2009, but that tells you absolutely nothing. You know why? Because he wasn’t the closer. As the setup man for Takashi Saito, Broxton could only blow the lead in the 7th and 8th inning. If he did his job and held it, Saito would step in for the save in the 9th. When you are put in a position where it’s literally not possible to get the positive number added to your stat line, that makes the percentage of times you fail utterly meaningless.

No, to really make that number mean something, you have to go from the time where Broxton actually became the closer – from when he actually had a chance to pick up the save. Saito’s last appearance of 2008, before his token games in September, came on July 12. From there through the rest of the season, Broxton saved 14 of 17 games, which is 82% – and even the last one is hard to pin on him, as it was largely due to a Russell Martin throwing error. So far this year, he’s saved 25 of 30, and the offense has managed to bail him out to get a win in two of those five games.

What all this means is that since Broxton became the closer, he’s saved 39 of 47 chances, which is an 83% success rate. That’s still pretty good, and while I’m not pretending it’s not worrisome that his ERA has risen each month of the year, it’s hardly prudent to throw him under the bus just yet.

Stats can be distorted to show just about any outcome you want; let’s not use them to to unfairly make a case that doesn’t exist.

What Did Doug Davis Ever Do to LA?

August 15, 2009 at 11:35 am | Posted in Doug Davis | 4 Comments

Because the Dodgers have been beating him senseless throughout his career. Just look at his stats against current members of the Blue:

Clearly, there’s the standard small sample size warnings at play here, but when all four members of your outfield have 1.000 OPS or better against a guy, that’s a pretty good sign – and it’s not like they have just 3 or 4 apperances against Davis, each outfielder has at least 19. One might also think that it’s a good time for Brad Ausmus to play over Russell Martin, considering Ausmus has a .907 OPS against Davis while Martin’s at just .649.

You know, from time to time we look at these “pitcher vs. a team” stats, and quite often there’s just not enough of a history to really determine anything. But these Dodgers have 245 plate appearances against Davis, and that’s enough to say that a .352/.416/.472 line is pretty damned impressive.

So, keep an eye out for the fireworks tonight. By which I mean, “Davis goes 7.1 allowing 1 run and 4 hits.”

Dodgers Serve As Giants’ Death Panel

August 13, 2009 at 8:40 am | Posted in Guillermo Mota, Justin Speier, Please friend MSTI | 8 Comments

That’s right, death panels do exist, and as far as the 2009 NL West race goes, the Dodgers just put down the Giants’ adorable little insurrection like the unimportant nuisance that it was. No, it wasn’t a sweep, which would have put the Giants 8.5 games out, but considering that neither Clayton Kershaw or Chad Billingsley went in this series and that the otherworldy Tim Lincecum wasn’t able to outduel Jeff Weaver and a cast of thousands by himself, it’s nearly as good.

Remember, there was a bit of worry going into this series, what with the Dodgers on an August slump, Billingsley injured, and the Giants on a nice run – if San Fran swept the series, that would have put them only 2.5 back and put the Dodgers into an official tailspin. (As opposed to Tale Spin). As I said, I welcomed the challenge, and going into a tough ballpark for road teams to enter, you couldn’t have asked for more. Considering that you nearly had to write off one game once “Billingsley vs. Lincecum” turned into “Corpsey McWeaver and His Fantastic Funtime Friends vs. Lincecum”, I’d almost have considered this a win if we’d gone up there and just avoided a sweep. Winning the series, though, and very nearly sweeping? That’s gravy, and when it’s done without your two best pitchers, proof that this team really has something going.

On another note, the Angels released Justin Speier recently, and when you’re being paid $6.5 million to leave town, that’s not generally a good sign for your performance. So why do I care? Well, three reasons:

1) The starting pitching is what it is, and it’s not going to change. You can complain all you want about the fact that the starters don’t go past 6 innings (though Randy Wolf’s 8 on Tuesday was huge), but that’s simply the group of pitchers we have. Whine that they don’t pitch deeper, angst over the inability to acquire a Roy Halladay before the deadline; it’s immaterial now. With so many teams still in the playoff hunt and so many of them desperate for starting pitching, the chances of anyone decent not being claimed long enough for the Dodgers to get a crack are somewhere between “you’ve won a date with Megan Fox!” and “Obama and Rush Limbaugh to bake s’mores at sleepover”. If you can’t get the starters to go deeper into games, then the only solution is to have a ton of good arms to pick up those extra innings, and with guys like Troncoso, Sherrill, Kuo, Belisario, and McDonald in front of Broxton, that’s a deep and talented crew. However…

2) If you’re counting on your bullpen so heavily, they could always use some help. Guillermo Mota’s quickly turning back into a pumpkin (9.95 ERA and 1.200 OPS against in his last 8 appearances), Ramon Troncoso’s coming off a Braves series in which he got 2 outs and allowed 6 runs, and Jonathan Broxton’s allowed runs in 3 of his last 6 appearances, blowing 2 saves - plus you can never, ever count on Hong-Chih Kuo to be healthy for more than the next pitch.

I’m not suggesting that any of this is due to overuse, nor am I claiming it’s not – it’s just the simple facts of the statistics. The point is, if you’re going to rely on your bullpen to get you to October, it’s never a bad idea to have as many quality arms as you can. So getting back to Speier…

3) Justin Speier’s better than his raw stats claim. A 5.03 ERA last year and a 5.18 ERA this year hardly inspire confidence, I grant you. But since the Angels unconditionally released him, he’d come at the prorated veteran minimum for the remainder of the year, and I don’t think he’s done yet. FanGraphs, hit me with some info:

Nearly three years ago, the Angels decided that Justin Speier was worth a 4 year, $18 million contract. Yesterday, they decided that he wasn’t worth keeping on the roster, as they chose to eat the remainder of the deal by giving him his unconditional release. The weird thing about those two decisions – he’s basically the exact same pitcher he was at the time of the deal.

His fastball averages 90 MPH, just like it always has. He throws it up in the zone, which serves to make him a guy who gets some strikeouts but also gives up a ton of fly balls. He throws his slider nearly as often as his fastball, which makes him a guy who is going to run an extreme platoon split – he’s death to RHBs but torched by LHBs. None of this is really new.

But while he was very effective between 2004-07, his ERA has exploded in the last two years. How do you explain that? Seems that it’s almost entirely due to his increased HR rate, which isn’t a very good indicator of skill.

HR/FB rate, as you may know, is not particularly predictive, especially among relief pitchers (due to sample size issues). Just like Speier’s low-ish HR/FB rate in 2006 didn’t mean he had a special skill that allowed him to rack up 380 foot outs, neither does his 2009 performance mean that he’s missing the ingredient that allows major league pitchers to keep the ball in the park. It’s likely just noise, and certainly shouldn’t be the kind of thing that would make the Angels take such a dramatic turn in their evaluation of his value.

Which means…

Speier was never worth $18 million, but an outright release is a bit over the top. He’s still a decent enough bullpen arm, and if the Angels need to get a tough right-hander out in a late game situation this October, they might wish they still had him around.

Even if Speier isn’t one of the top 7 Dodger relievers worth giving a playoff spot to – he likely wouldn’t be – he could still be useful enough in eating up some innings for the last 6 weeks of the season, while saving the more valuable arms for October. (Yes, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that instead of signing the possibly-dead veteran, any number of young minor league arms could come up and serve the same purpose. I think we all know that’s not going to happen, so this is another alternative.) Even in this, the lousy year that got him released, he’s still killing righties, keeping them under .700 in OPS, so he’s clearly got something left – and that’s in the tougher league.

If he wants to stay close to home, yet stay in the playoff race and join a team that could always use bullpen reinforcements, it’s the perfect fit.

**********

Finally, apparently this whole “social media” deal is here to stay, so I’ve fired up an MSTI Facebook page. Want to see our new posts in your Facebook feed? Of course you do. Become a fan!

Manny Was Safe

August 12, 2009 at 1:07 pm | Posted in Bruce Bochy, Manny Ramirez | 4 Comments

Shut up, Bruce Bochy. Bet you’re going to be glad you got kicked out of the game in the second inning when you see the replay!

Who Doesn’t Love a Knuckleballer?

August 11, 2009 at 8:20 pm | Posted in Charlie Haeger, Eric Stults, Jeff Weaver | 6 Comments

Per Dodgers.com, our wishes are coming true:

With Weaver unavailable for long relief, the Dodgers purchased the
contract of 25-year-old knuckleballer Charlie Haeger from Triple-A
Albuquerque and optioned back to Albuquerque left-hander Eric Stults.

Which is great, since we’ve been giving Haeger the big MSTI boost around here lately. If he gets into a game, Haeger will be the first knuckleballer in Dodger blue since Tom Candiotti in 1997. And really, there’s absolutely no reason that he shouldn’t be thrown into games early and often. As I detailed in our last post about him, he can throw a ton of innings and he’s been fantastic this year. What’s not to like?

Early prediction: Weaver goes 3.1 innings on Wednesday, and Haeger follows with 4.2 innings of relief.

This Is A Good Thing

August 10, 2009 at 2:43 pm | Posted in 2009 rules so far | 17 Comments

No, I’m not talking about the extended slump. Not the pitching issues (though why anyone would get on Eric Stults for allowing 3 runs in 5 innings two days after throwing 60 pitches in AAA is beyond me), nor the fact that most of the bats have been quiet.

I’m talking about the impending series in San Francisco, which some have painted as exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Look, I don’t want to say this year has been boring, because that’s not the right word. I know we’ve all enjoyed the run with the best record in baseball a hell of a lot more than we did the death march to the end in 2005, right? It’s just that this team hasn’t been challenged by any competition so far. They lost their Opening Day starter, and it didn’t matter. They lost their best hitter for two months in a storm of controversy, and it didn’t slow them down. Other than Kuroda’s time on the DL, they haven’t had one serious injury – and no, I’m not counting Hong-Chih Kuo, because as much as his loss hurt the bullpen, to have ever depended on him was folly with his history. With the exception of Juan Pierre stepping into Mannywood for 50 games, it’s absolutely unbelievable how stable the lineup has been. There’s no platooning, no injury replacements, and no job sharing – other than the usual rest, it’s been the same eight guys night after night. I can’t ever remember a Dodger club with a lineup like that. It’s why you can get away with a 13 man bullpen, when that’s usually a foolish decision.

Up until the last week or so, this team has been on cruise control since about April 5. We all knew they were the most talented team in the division, and they knew it too. If losing Kuroda and Manny didn’t stop them, if not having a 5th starter or an “ace” (blerg) didn’t stop them, well, what did they really have to worry about Colorado’s adorable hot streak behind *guffaw* Jim Tracy, or the strong pitching of San Francisco being weighed down by an offense so punchless it reminds you of the 2003 Dodgers?

It’s August, and they’ve had a big lead the entire season. I like that they’re facing adversity, and I like that they’re being confronted with going into a hostile environment for a big series, because you don’t want to ride into October on a six month streak of complacency.

It’s not just the teams with the most talent that win pennants; it’s the teams with the guts to come through in big spots. Well, for the first time all year, this is a big spot. Let’s see what they’ve got.