Archive for August, 2010

Let’s maybe throw something other than a fastball every so often.

(via Fangraphs) They’ve both thrown 8-inning, 2-hit shut outs. Blackburn threw an 8.2 inning gem in Seattle yesterday afternoon, walking two and striking out six, getting yanked after walking Chone Figgins to put the tying run on with two outs in the ninth. Brian Fuentes came in, made Russell Branyan look like a doofus, and the Twins now have a 4.5 game lead in the AL Central. Johan Santana, well, Johan set a new franchise record for strikeouts in a single game with 17, though he only lasted eight innings (Joe Nathan pitched the ninth, recording two more strikeouts). Santana’s [...]

No, Manny isn’t a Southsider yet, but it seems to be just a matter of time. The Dodgers sit 10 games out of first place, and 4.5 games out of the wild card, and they’ll need to sweep the Rockies this weekend and hope the Padres, Phillies, Giants, and Cardinals collapse and, yeah, they’re not going anywhere. Manny will be in Chicago by Tuesday. What this means for the Sox and the pennant race, after the jump.

By now you’ve probably heard the story that yesterday ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted about Trevor Cahill and his chances for the AL Cy Young and Keith Law’s replies about Cahill not being worthy based on advanced stats. Today Buster, who is generally a pretty smart guy, made some interesting strawman arguments comparing Cahill to Roger Maris and some other things that really don’t mean anything. The obvious question is: since FIP and xFIP are mainly predictive, what role do they play in awards vs. stats that are more results based? Personally, I think they all have semi-equal roles to play. [...]

The Twins claimed the 35 year-old off of waivers earlier this afternoon in an attempt to replace the injured Ron Mahay, who will miss the rest of the season with a torn rotator cuff.  Flores has a good 2.96 ERA this season, but ugly peripherals:  a 5.22 FIP, 5.12 xFIP, and 1.38 K/BB ratio.  His career numbers don’t suggest anything more than a mediocre middle reliever, with a 4.60 ERA, 4.36 FIP, 4.48 xFIP, and 1.92 K/BB ratio.  Career-wise, Flores has a pretty decent strikeout rate (7.31 K/9 rate in 246.1 IP), but walks too many batters (3.80 BB/9) and [...]

A little over a week after Ron Gardenhire made the controversial decision to pull Kevin Slowey in the midst of a no-hitter, Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington was faced with a similar dilemma. Rich Harden had held the Twins hitless through 6 2/3 innings, but he was coming off of a DL stint and had already thrown 111 pitches. Harden was dealing, though he did appear to labor a bit: walking five batters while striking out six.* He had just walked Michael Cuddyer, and the ever-dangerous Jim Thome was coming to the plate. In the end, Washington opted to pull [...]

I love MVP discussions. Everyone has his own idea of what constitutes the most valuable player on a team. Some people rely on more advanced statistics to evaluate player value, while others believe in intangibles like leadership and grit. Some people think that pitchers should not be included in these discussions, since there is a separate award for the best pitchers in both leagues, but others argue that pitchers do have value like position players and therefore have to be included in the conversation. Ken Rosenthal thinks Delmon Young is the most valuable player in the American League this year, [...]

A pain in his elbow and triceps has sent Kevin Slowey back to the DL. One start removed from 7 no hit innings, Slowey threw almost 70 pitches over 3 innings in the Twins loss today. He was placed on the DL after the game. In his stead, Nick Blackburn is being called back up. Blackburn has 4 starts with AAA Rochester, and although he is averaging less than 6 innings per start, he has a 1.15 WHIP and a 2.91 RA/9. His groundball rate, just 51% in the majors, was 67% in Rochester. He also doubled his major league [...]

Francisco Liriano is coming off one of his worst outings of the season, surrendering five runs on hits through five innings against the White Sox on Wednesday night. It wouldn’t really be worth mentioning, just a blip in what has been a fantastic season, except that Liriano had gone 94 innings without surrendering a home run: from May 20th in Fenway Park until Andruw Jones smashed a 3-run homer in the second inning. Liriano has given up just three home runs all year, and his 0.18 HR/9 rate is the lowest of all qualified starters in baseball, with Josh Johnson’s [...]

(via Fangraphs) Coming into tonight’s game, Carl Pavano posted a .274 batting average on balls in play.  I think that has regressed a bit closer to the league average now.