The B-List: 4/20

FINAL          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R  H E

Indians (13-5) 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 0 1  7 11 0
Royals  (11-7) 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3  5  8 1
W: Masterson (4-0)  L: Hochevar (2-2) S: C. Perez (6)

Both teams’ pitchers combined to throw 144 pitches out of the strike zone for a 57% strike rate, which, on a scale from 1 to shitty, is shitty.

1) What an odd, smelly material you’ve chosen for your bookends!

I wrote briefly last time Justin Masterson pitched about the fact that Masterson hasn’t really faced a lot of adversity yet:

At some point, it will be necessary to see how Justin Masterson adjusts to adversity, whether this is not having his best stuff, falling behind early, having the defense fail behind him, an extraordinary performance from the opponent, a few flat pitches with rotten location, or a combination of all of them.

Well, let’s run down the list:

The B-List: 4/19

FINAL          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R H E

Indians (12-5) 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1  4 9 0
Royals  (11-6) 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 X  5 9 1
W: Chen (3-0)  L: J. Gomez (0-1) S: Soria (5)

Well, any time you have a chance to watch three straight strikes with the bases loaded, you pretty much have to grab hold of that opportunity with both hands.  Keeps ‘em off your throat.

1) Not in Kansas any more

Jeanmar Gomez may or may not be a rookie any more.  Frankly, I don’t really care.  He made some starts in the back half of last season and showed glimpses of being able to compete at the major-league level, but not enough to make you go, “Wow, that guy really needs to be in the rotation next year.”  And, sure enough, he was NOT in the rotation this year, getting passed up on the ladder by Josh Tomlin and potentially others as well.  Alex White is not really ready for this level, and Dave Huff is still plying his trade from the left side, which could potentially help if it made any difference whatsoever.  There are guys with higher ceilings, but Gomez had held his own at this level and certainly deserved the first shot after Mitch Talbot semi-Westbrooked his elbow.

To be honest, there’s not a whole lot of insight to offer past “Gomez has decent stuff but no real out pitch.”  Tony Lastoria pointed out on Twitter last night that Gomez’ lack of an out pitch has always led to relatively high hit rates in the minors, and that came to the fore last night as the Royals were able to string together several multi-hit innings off Gomez.  This included Chris Getz’ first triple of the season, an inside pitch that he was able to turn on and drive into the right field corner.  Alex Gordon and Melky Cabrera added doubles, and in all Gomez allowed at least one hit to seven different players in the KC lineup.  The only players we had trouble against him were Kila Ka’aihue, struggling mightily at .151 in the early going, and Brayan Pena, who hits .207 as the backup catcher.  It is worth noting that the Royals are swinging collectively-hot bats as a team, with their 3-6 hitters posting averages of .361, .367, .323, and .375, but I wouldn’t read too much into the numbers beyond “they have skill or they’re hot or possibly both.”  (Of the four players, Billy Butler is clearly an established excellent hitter.  Alex Gordon was a high draft pick that has disappointed, but everyone loved his swing out of Nebraska, and Wilson Betemit has shown elements of great offense in bursts in the past.  Jeff Francoeur is a fraud, but he is hot.)

The B-List: 4/18

FINAL          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   R  H E

Indians (12-4) 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0  4   7 13 1
Royals  (10-6) 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0  0   3  7 2
W: J. Smiff (1-0)  L: T. Collins (1-1)

Well, this is the sort of dogfight you expect from the 1^st and 2^nd place ballclubs.  And then you replace dogs with drunken seagulls, then with box jellyfish, then with irritated fiddler crabs, and finally bring one of the dogs back to face a kangaroo mouse with lumbago.

1) Picking nits for no fun and absolutely no profit

One of the obsessions of a baseball analyst is to try to determine what things that have happened suggest about the relative likeliness of something happening in the future.  For example, if Fausto Carmona induces double-digit groundouts in sixteen consecutive starts, and pitch f/X shows significant downward movement on his pitches, and you watch video and he’s throwing sinkers with late movement that guys are beating into the ground, it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that unless something significant changes, Fausto Carmona is likely to induce a lot of ground balls in his remaining starts.  You have to constantly update your data, as it were: if he begins losing velocity or starts throwing nothing but knuckleballs or gets a tattoo of Bert Blyleven with the caption “60 HR or bust!”, well, you have to adjust your expectations for such things.  But the guiding principle of analysis is that without new information, you expect things to go pretty much as you’ve observed them go.

The distinction in recent times is what you mean by “things” has become more nuanced.  Instead of expecting a pitcher to collect Wins, you gain an appreciation for just how OTHER-dependent a thing like Wins are and instead make predictions based on things that are more INdependent.  As long as you’re trying to predict something that is actually kind of predictable, you’ll probably make some reasonably good predictions.  Predicting that Jack Hannahan will hit fastballs thrown at more than 90 mph to other way is pretty reasonable: predicting that Jack Hannahan will always produce extra-base hits in extra innings is not.

The B-List: 4/15 - 4/17

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R  H E
Orioles  (6-6)  0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1  2  8 0
Indians  (9-4)  0 0 4 0 0 1 3 0 X  8 12 0
W: Masterson (3-0) L: Britton (2-1)

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Orioles  (6-7)  0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 1
Indians (10-4)  0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 6 1
W: Tomlin (3-0) L: Guthrie (1-2)

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E

Orioles  (6-8)  2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 6 11 0
Indians (11-4)  0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 4  5 1
W: Carmona (1-2) L: Bergesen (0-2) S: C. Perez (5)

 

The latest the Indians were ever TIED in a game was the bottom of the THIRD.  The latest they ever trailed was … never.

1) A Lack of Adversity

At some point, it will be necessary to see how Justin Masterson adjusts to adversity, whether this is not having his best stuff, falling behind early, having the defense fail behind him, an extraordinary performance from the opponent, a few flat pitches with rotten location, or a combination of all of them.  We won’t mention the other thing that can go wrong because it already has with another, similar pitcher.

The fact is that the complete absence of such things is not something that’s going to cause me a lot of lost sleep.

All Masterson did was saw through the Baltimore lineup with roughly the difficulty of Charles Barkley faced with a quarter-pound hamburger.  Consider this: in the spirit of C.C. Sabathia’s Inning of Crap™, Masterson’s worst inning by FAR was the 4^th, in which he allowed a single, an infield single, and an RBI single.  Of course, no two of the hits were consecutive, and between them he induced a routine groundout, a swinging K, and another routine groundout.  Outside of this inning, Masterson retired 18 of 20 hitters, allowing a single and a walk in 6 (other) innings of work.  Both other baserunners came in one inning, meaning that fully five of Masterson’s innings were 1-2-3 affairs.  He threw 66 strikes in 90 pitches to complete the 7 innings, and was lifted more to take advantage of a more favorable matchup against left-handed hitters than any sort of fatigue or ineffectiveness.  His last inning was perfect with a pair of groundouts.

The B-List: 4/13

So much squandering … such bursts of “Gah!” ...

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  R H E

Indians (8-4) 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0  0  0  0  3 7 1
Angels  (7-5) 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0  0  0  1  4 6 0
W: Takahashi (1-0)  L: Durbin (0-1)

0) Administrative Note

This is one of those times when Real Life intervenes: between a work rush and having to run my son home from school with a fever, this column will be shorter than normal.

1) Hopeful Hope, or One Bad Pitch II

As with Fausto Carmona, Carlos Carrasco’s first start was a Thing of Not Beauty.  I will stop short of calling it Ugly, insofar as Carmona’s set the standard so inachievably “high,” but it sure wasn’t any good.  Carrasco returned with a wonderful outing against the Mariners, although the 10-run outburst from the offense coupled with the truly astonishing ineptitude of the Mariners’ offense made it rather difficult to effectively evaluate his performance.  He had good stuff, and he had good results: beyond that, well … the saying is that if you have two watches that say different times, you don’t actually know what time it is.  You had to figure he wasn’t as bad as his first start (based on his late-2010 run of moderate success), but past that, you didn’t know.

Well, really, except for one pitch, there is virtually nothing to complain about from last night’s start.

The B-List: 4/12

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R H E

Indians (8-3) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 1 0
Angels  (6-5) 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 X  2 4 1
W: Haren (3-0)  L: Carmona (0-2)

Sometimes, the other guy is just better than you are.

1) Righted Ship

Is it fair to say that the memory of Fausto Carmona giving up 10 runs in 3-plus (the plus stands for Extra Fail!) innings on Opening Day is simply a Data Point of Badness and we can all move on with our lives now?

This game wasn’t quite as good as his previous start against the Red Sox, but it was still damned good.  Instead of 2 hits, he allowed 4, and of course, instead of 0 runs, he allowed 2.  On the other hand, he actually threw more strikes and struck out more batters (6 to 4) while getting more swings-and-misses (14 to 9).  It’s going to be hard to top a scoreless outing when giving up a home run to Peter Bourjos, and of course he lost the game, so there is no argument for this start being “better.”  Still, it’s equally hard to argue that it wasn’t high-quality.

One of the interesting things about Carmona’s pitch location was that he started only 9 of the 30 hitters he faced with a first-pitch strike.  Usually, I would complain about this: it seems like one of the easier things to control about an outing.  However, given his overall numbers, I wonder if maybe there wasn’t some Method to the Madness involved.  The Angels of the 21^st century have been an aggressive team at the plate, taking the character of their manager and hitting coach.  While statheads tend to deride such things, the fact is that it has generally worked for them, and they went through a stretch where they routinely “out-performed” their “Pythagorean Projection” of how many games they “ought” to have won based on a simplistic calculation based on run differential.

The B-List: 4/11

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R H E

Indians (8-2) 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  4 6 0
Angels  (5-5) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 5 0
W: Talbot (1-0)  L: Chatwood (0-1)

The only two hitters in the lineup with OBPs under .300 hit 3^rd and 4^th.

 

1) Destination Semi-Known

I have loaned my copy of Jim Bouton’s seminal work, “Ball Four,” to my father for a while, so I am spared the effort of trying to find the exact quote, but for all the alcohol and underpants and ill-conceived behavior, the thing that sticks with me from the book is when Bouton talks about control.  I can’t remember the quote verbatim, but broadly put, he said the idea of “pinpoint control” is nonsense and a myth.  “You can’t hit a spot on the outside corner, exactly where you want it,” I paraphrase him saying.  “I aimed for the middle, knowing I’d be off 6 to 8 inches in some direction, and that would make it a good pitch.”

This might be exaggerating a bit, but I do think that it is the exceptional pitcher who has what we’d consider great control.  It bears remembering that while Bouton had an injury-shortened, unspectacular career, in his early days he was a high-effort high-quality high-velocity pitcher.  He wasn’t just some journeyman, even if he career ended up there after he was hurt.  The way I’ve always read this is that sure, there are a small percentage of pitchers who can hit a spot more often than not, the majority of pitchers settle for “quadrants” and leave it at that.

I was reminded of this last night watching Mitch Talbot pitch, because I swear I never saw him throw a pitch that ended up precisely where I predicted it would.  He would throw a pitch, and I’d see in my mind’s eye a “path,” maybe bending down slightly from the middle toward the outside knee area, and all of a sudden at the end of the flight, the ball would “voop” somewhere else (often bending in to right-handers).  He would throw a slider, and it would be singing along, and then at the end, “voop,” it wasn’t there any more.

The B-List: 4/8 - 4/10

FINAL           1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8 9  R  H E
Indians  (5-2)  1 0 0 10 1 0 0 0 0 12 17 1
Mariners (2-5)  0 0 0  0 1 0 0 0 2  3  6 1
W: Carrasco (1-1) L: Vargas (0-1)

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Indians  (6-2)  0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 1
Mariners (2-6)  0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 6 1
W: Masterson (2-0) L: Fister (0-2) S: C. Perez (3)

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E
Indians  (7-2)  2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 6 11 0
Mariners (2-7)  0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 4  5 1
W: Tomlin (2-0) L: Bedard (0-2) S: C. Perez (4)

Consider this: the Indians had as many hits on Friday as the Mariners managed for the WHOLE SERIES.  And we scored 50% more runs … in that one game.  Then we had two more games worth of offense.  Seattle had two more games of Brendan Ryan and Ryan Langerhans.

1) Son of Rebound

Fausto Carmona’s debut was worse, but this says more about Carmona’s performance than Carlos Carrasco’s.  Carrasco’s first outing against the White Sox was nothing to write home about either, unless it was to write home to say, “Boy, that wasn’t very good, was it?”  Granted, the White Sox have a better offense than the Mariners, which is a bit like saying that jackals are more fearsome than banana slugs armed with salt shakers.  Still, Carrasco looked lousy, and his performance Friday was in no way guaranteed.

All Carrasco did was throttle the Seattle “offense” soundly, getting three swinging Ks in the first two innings and facing one over the minimum through three because he inexplicably walked Ryan Langerhans on four pitches.  After an interminable wait through a half-hour top of the 4^th, Carrasco was able to retain enough concentration to toss another scoreless inning before giving up a run in the 5^th, but was able to end that frame with another swinging K before collecting one last forwards-K in a scoreless 6^th inning of work.

The B-List: 4/7

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R H E

Red Sox (0-6) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 4 0

Indians (4-2) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 X  1 3 0

W: R. Perez (2-0)  L: D. Bard (0-1)  S: C. Perez (2)

At the beginning of the year, had you told me we’d be 4-2 after playing Chicago and Boston, I’d have taken that.  After the first four innings of Game One, I would have been pretty pleasantly surprised that the team had not all been sold to a cosmetics firm for scientific experimentation.

1) ¡Fausto!

What a difference a week makes.

Granted, I’m pretty sure no one out there thought that Fausto Carmona was a 30.00 ERA pitcher, or that Opening Day was anything but an exaggerated pratfall by the nominal Ace, but I’m equally sure that yesterday’s performance was not something many fans would have laid serious money on, either.  All Carmona did yesterday was:

a) Held the Red Sox to 2 hits over 7 innings
b) Allowed only 4 baserunners total
c) Posted four 1-2-3 innings
d) Allowed more than one baserunner in an inning one time

Carmona certainly wasn’t flawless: he threw too many balls and too many overall pitches to get through 7 innings.  He walked two more hitters and only posted a 9:8 GO:FO ratio, which is very low for Fausto.  He had nine three-ball counts before he retired his first batter in the 6^th inning.  And he was the beneficiary of a couple of fine defensive plays, notably a catch of a Youkilis liner by Orly Cabrera in the top of the 2^nd.

The B-List: 4/6

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H  E
Red Sox (0-5) 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 4 7 "0"
Indians (3-2) 2 1 0 0 0 4 0 1 X 8 8  0
W: R. Perez(1-0) L: Matsuzaka (0-1)

You might say that Asdrubal Cabrera’s homer barely cleared the wall, but was it really that much shorter than Adrian Gonzalez’?

1) Managerial Back-Patters

Mitch Talbot was fine last night, with flashes of real goodness (I still love his change) and a surprising 7 Ks. I normally start with the starting pitcher in the first List item, because he normally has the most material to delve into, and there’s plenty to talk about there. We’ll get to it shortly.

To me, it seems like it would be terribly unjust if the first focus didn’t go on Manny Acta’s handling of the 5th inning before anything else.

One thing I didn’t mention about Tuesday’s “save” by Chris Perez was the point at which Acta came out to talk to Perez with a 2-0 count on David Ortiz with two men on base. I called this a “mature, gentle Tony Pena head slap” in a conversation on Twitter (follow me at @stevebuffum) last night. Whereas Pena’s will always live more fondly in Cleveland Lore, especially since it resulted in physical abuse to Jose Mesa, Acta’s was equally effective in that it got Perez to focus, throw quality strikes, and retire the batter.

With this backdrop, Talbot ended up in a bit of low-wattage trouble in the top of the 5th by walking Carl Crawford, watching him steal second, and then getting Dustin Pedroia on a runner-advancing groundout. After falling behind Adrian Gonzalez, the one Boston hitter who has resisted the Global Newtification Process, Talbot decided to use the better part of valor and finished the walk intentionally.

The B-List: 4/5

FINAL         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Red Sox (0-4) 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 1
Indians (2-2) 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 X 3 5 1
W: Tomlin (1-0) L: Beckett (0-1) S: C. Perez (1)

Joe Tait: It's a beautiful night for baseball!
Everyone else: You're totally lying, dude.
Joe Tait: So I am.

1) All he does is win

Last season, spent a good portion of my time trying to figure out exactly what it was that Josh Tomlin did WELL as a starting pitcher.  His ERA was solid enough, but seemed a little lucky.  He wasn't a complete puffball, but his 5.30 K/9 rate wasn't anything to write home about.  (Not that I ever actually write home.  Look, I'm 46: I *am* home.  I guess I text home fairly frequently.  I wouldn't text Josh Tomlin's strikeout rates home, either.)  He had good enough control, sporting a K:BB ratio over 2, so that's good (especially compared to yoots like David Huff and Aaron Laffey).  He just didn't seem like he had some singular, signature skill on which to hang his hat.  Like a monocranial Zaphod Beeblebrox, he was just this guy, you know?

One thing he most certainly did NOT do well is keep the ball on the ground.

The B-List: 4/1 - 4/3

FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R  H E
White Sox (1-0) 2 0 4 8 0 0 0 1 0 15 18 0
Indians (0-1)   0 0 0 0 0 4 3 2 1 10 17 0
W: Buehrle (1-0) L: Carmona (0-1)


FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R  H E
White Sox (2-0) 1 4 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 8 11 2
Indians (0-2)   0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3  7 0
W: Ed. Jackson (1-0) L: Carrasco (0-1)


FINAL           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H  E
White Sox (2-1) 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1  7 0
Indians (1-2)   0 0 0 0 0 2 2 3 X 7 11 1
W: Masterson (0-1) L: Danks (0-1)

I’m not sure which was more exciting: the Indians turning a triple play, or me punching a hole through my monitor in the 4th inning on Friday.

1) CFL All-Star

One of the exciting things about the Canadian Football League is that there are only 3 downs. Instead of third-down conversions, there are second-down conversions, meaning that you really pretty much have to get 5 yards a play in order to move the ball. Other exciting things include 12 players per team, a wider, longer field, scoring points on tremendous punts, occasional yetis devouring unwary cornerbacks, and teams owned by Meat Loaf.

It takes some getting used to, though, realizing that an incomplete pass on second down pretty much means you have to punt, so the game is fast-paced, pass-oriented, and completely devoid of interest. Still, you could imagine this kind of innovation being carried over to baseball: you could see, for example, an effort to squeeze an entire baseball game into the 4 hours of daylight Canadians are rationed in Spring Training by going to 3 balls for a walk and 2 strikes for a strikeout. We’ll call this sport Canadian Rules.

In Canadian Rules Baseball, Fausto Carmona was AWESOME.

Contractural Obligation and Chanelling the Stooges in the N.L. West

No fun to hang around
Feelin' that same old way
No fun to hang around
Freaked out for another day
-- J. Osterberg et al, "No Fun"

This seemed like such a reasonable thing.

In retrospect, I should have targeted say, five teams and looked at who was blocked.  Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Evan Longoria, maybe Kung Fu Panda.  But since I've given every other Division a comprehensive look, I guess it seems silly to stop one short.

In any event, there are teams in the N. L. West, one of which actually won the World Series.  I go to bed before N. L. West teams finish playing a lot of the time, and Cleveland's in the A. L., so my familiarity with these teams is ... dilettantish (meaning 1).

Ordering a Short Stack in the A.L. West

From the majors' only 6-team division to its only 4-teamer, the move to the A.L. West would be 33% easier to write, except that the N.L. Central was so paltry that it doesn't work out that way.  At least in terms of third base targets, that is.

As an administrative note, I will not be writing over the holidays, so this is my last post until November 29th.

In any event, in looking around the A.L. West, we see a variety of ... gunk.  Do you realize that the Very Best Starting Third Baseman in the Division was Michael Young ... who is a third baseman in name only?  Defensively, Chone Figgins could play third, but his bat was well and truly execrable in 2010.  He is back on the ESPN "Depth Chart" as a 2B for 2011.  His replacement will be Matt Tuiasosopo, who was converted to 3B from QB.  The Angels boast any number of horrifying choices at third (although they're rumored to be a prime suitor for Adrian Beltre), and the A's feature the kind of cast-offs and patch jobs you expect from a team like ... well ... the Oakland A's, I suppose.

And these guys are the STARTERS.  Maybe they have some hotshots on the way?

Maybe not.

Snipe Hunting in the N.L. Central

Look, someone who roots for a team in the A.L. Central should probably not be throwing Wasteland Rocks™ at another Division.  I understand this.  There are more good teams in the N.L. Central (and a higher proportion thereof) than in the A.L. Central.  The Indians' Division features one truly good team (Minnesota), two average-but-flawed teams in Chicago and Detroit, and two crummy teams in Cleveland and Kansas City.  Of course, KC's farm system looks like it will produce a pretty good team in a couple-three years, Cleveland may join them, and Chicago and Detroit have innovative general managers, but in 2010, it wasn't a very good Division top-to-bottom.


In the N.L. Central, Cincinnati won the crown with a good young team that looks to stay in contention for the foreseeable future (in baseball, this is two years), and St. Louis still has the finest player on the planet and some excellent pitching when healthy.  Chicago and Milwaukee have what chicken magnates one termed "pieces-parts," while Pittsburgh and Houston ... well ... look, let's not mince words.  They stink.  Those are bad baseball teams.  Projecting the next playoff run by the Pirates or Astros is truly an exercise in "asteroid hits Earth" probability theories.  Still, the N.L. Central has two good teams making up 33% of the Division, while we have one good team making up 20%.  Of course, you could argue that St. Louis isn't REALLY an order of magnitude better than the Sox or Tigs, or that the N.L. is a Silly Place from the start, but the point remains: my Division is bad, so who am I to complain about the quality of someone else's?


I dunno ... a sentient biped?