Archive for October, 2009

Cliff Lee pitched one of the best games in the history of the World Series last night, throwing a complete game and allowing just 1 run. Lee threw 21 changeups last night, 18 for strikes. His curveball had tons of bite. He was exhibit 1A on why radar gun readings aren’t the be all end all for pitchers: his fastest pitch was 93 mph, and he only threw it a handfull of times. Cliff Lee had 10 strikeouts last night, but even more impressively in my book had 0 walks. The Yankees, as a team, had a .362 OBP this [...]

I forgot to do this last week. Please forgive me. Aaron Crow makes his professional debut. (Kings of Kauffman) Some interesting discrepancies involving the value of Ricky Nolasco (Marlin Maniac) Wanting to play Young over Gomez? Wanting Placido Polanco? I’m a huge fan of the blog, but this is all kinds of fail. (Twins Geek) Gardy for AL Manager of the Year? (Nick’s Twins Blog) On Glen Perkins. (Over The Baggy) I have to be honest, this top prospects list boggles my mind. (Seth Speaks)

Charlie Manuel announced that Pedro Martinez will start game 2 of the World Series in Yankee Stadium. It will be his seventh career appearance in the playoffs versus New York. The main question everyone should be asking is: why? Supposedly Manuel is worried about Hamels’s recent struggles in the playoffs, whereas Pedro pitched reasonably well. That analysis is foolish. Cole Hamels is basically the same pitcher he was last year when he was named World Series MVP. His 2009 and 2008 FIPs are equal, but his BABIP rose from (an admittedly lucky) .270 in 2008 to .325 in 2009. He [...]

I’m too hard on Gardy apparently. Let’s go through a couple mistakes Girardi made: 1. Bringing in Rivera almost too late. You never ever ever ever under any circumstances (sans fatigue) give your team a chance to lose without its best reliever getting into the game. 2. Not letting Mo hit. First of all, Damon shouldn’t have been removed to get rid of the DH. That aside, the average pitcher as a hitter is about -.15 runs. As a pitcher he is worth about .2 runs. The Leverage Index (courtesy of Tango) to start the bottom of that inning was [...]

The Yankees won game 2 of the ALCS on Saturday partly because of a good outing by AJ Burnett, partly because of some solid bullpen work, partly by some good hitting by ARod, and partly cause of one of the dumbest errors of all time. With one out in the bottom of the 13th inning, a slow ground ball was hit to Maicer Izturis’s left. He was not going to be able to turn a double play, but rather than taking the easy out at first, he turned and fired to second, throwing the ball away and allowing the Yankees [...]

As a UND student, I am all sorts of pumped for Sioux-Gophers this weekend. (TCHB) An AL Central predictions review. (Kings of Kauffman) Can I link two posts from the same blog? Yes I can, this is my site damnit. (Kings of Kauffman) Some discussions of a salary cap. (Nicks Twins Blog) Should the Phils have pitched around Manny last night? (Twins Geek) Get to know a Twins blogger (Curve for a Strike) Rush Limbaugh dropped from the bid to buy the St. Louis Rams (Niner Noise) Why being a Broncos fan is better than being a Chargers fan (Predominately [...]

Nick Punto has been called the (or chief) goat of the Twins ALDS loss to the Yankees. Fangraphs had a post saying Punto didn’t do the little things all that well. Twins fans notoriously chide Ron Gardenhire for his insistence on playing Nick Punto every night, citing him as a big reason for the team’s early season struggles. I’m here to say this to Twins fans: Stop. Just stop. Nick Punto doesn’t hit for a lot of power, this is true. His career high ISO is .098 in a year when the league average was .152. Nick Punto however, makes [...]

The situation: Huston Street on to close. Ryan Howard at the plate. Runners on 1st and 2nd, two outs. The question: why is Street in the game? Ryan Howard this year hit .279/.360/.571. Vs lefties however, he hit .207/.298/.356. Joe Beimel is very good against lefties, but more importantly he throws with his left hand. That’s all you need to do to get Ryan Howard out. But because managers treat the job of closer as some magical role, the best pitcher didn’t come into the game. Jim Tracy will likely be the NL Manager of the Year because of the [...]

I tried to delay it as long as possible, but the time has finally come to put the 2009 season to bed. The Twins fought gallantly to win the Central without their best starting pitcher for 4 months, and their 2nd best hitter for basically half the season. but they just ran into 200 million dollars. Not much you can do about that. The fact that Delmon Young and Alexi Casilla had 2 of the 6 lowest WARs in the majors makes me optimistic for the future. If they’re an 86 win team with two of the worst 6 seasons [...]

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Rick Porcello is only 20 years old. (Twinkie Town) Handing out Cubs team awards (Cubbies Crib) A sad day for baseball and Reds fans everywhere (Blog Red Machine) Who would be the perfect outfielder for the Marlins? Read and find out, damnit. (Marlin Maniac) A preview of tonight’s game 2 (Nick’s Twins Blog) Great post about the one game playoff and the pivotal inning in said game. (Over The Baggy) 12 Memories from the one-game playoff. (Twins Geek)