Chipper Jones, Braves – Alright, I already wrote about Chipper. A few more things to say.
During the Braves/Phillies game on Opening Night, one of the announcers said that for the Braves to contend, Chipper Jones had to be healthy the whole season. It was Steve Phillips, I think.
Not to get caught up in semantics, but I’d like to offer a slightly different opinion: for the Braves to contend, Chipper has to play well. And it sure seems like he plays better when he misses 30-50 games a season.
In 2004, Chipper played 137 games. He was thirty-two then, and it looked like he was entering the decline phase of his career. His .248 batting average was the worst of his career, and he had the fewest extra-base hits since his rookie season.
In the four seasons since 2004, Chipper’s missed 167 games, or about forty-two games a season. Over that time he’s posted a batting line of .332/.430/.585.
He’s had an adjusted OPS of 162 over the last four seasons, second best total in the majors over that span. Before the four year stretch, Jones topped that mark exactly once in his career, when he won the NL MVP in 1999.
What’s my point? Efforting (is that a word?) to make Jones play more might limit how well he plays. Right now the Braves have a thirty-seven year old third baseman playing great baseball for 110-120 games a season. It might not be wise to push him to 140-150 games.
CC Sabathia, Yankees – That couldn’t have gone any worse, could it? Sabathia’s first, start for the Yankees, that is. He faced 25 hitters in his pinstripe debut, walking five and retiring only 13, none on strikeouts. His second start, against Kansas City, was far better.
Like T.S. Eliot, Sabathia finds April to be the cruelest month. In 35 April starts, Sabathia’s posted a 4.67 ERA and a pedestrian 11-11 record. C.C., as a few of you are aware, is a big fella. Which got me wondering if big guys generally struggle in the month of lilacs sprouting from dead land.
One of the challenges of looking into this is baseball’s reluctance to accurately weigh players. I did a search on pitchers who weighted 250 pounds and had 2000 career innings pitched. Only one player came up: Bartolo Colon.
-Bartolo Colon’s worst month was June. Then July. Then April.
-David Wells (listed at 225 pounds), had the most trouble in August, then April.
-Rich Reuschel, who most of you probably remember, posted his worst ERA in April. And Reuschel’s second worst month was July, just like Sabathia.
-Sid Fernandez, who was big and a lefty, had the most trouble in June, then April.
-Zambrano’s a big guy. August is his worst month, then April.
Six players is a small sample size of big players, but none of them pitched well in April. I wouldn’t state it as fact that big guys struggle early, not yet anyways, but there’s some evidence to suggest it.
Sabathia’s second start was excellent, but his third start was again rough: 5.2 IP, 5 hits, 5 walks. He threw 122 pitches in that third start, which is a lot of pitches for 5.2 innings.
Brandon Inge, Tigers – Has four homeruns in the season’s first seven games, which puts him on a pace for 92 homeruns. I’m confident he’ll maintain that pace and finish with seventy-eight homeruns.
Inge changed his batting stance during the off-season. It’s a shorter stance, and he’s conservative with two strikes; you don’t see too many hitters choke up on the bat when they’re behind in the count, but that’s just what Inge has been doing. One of his homers was on a two-strike count, when he was choking up on the bat.
It’s working well so far, though seven games isn’t anything to rely on. I hope he had a terrific season, though: baseball has gone pretty far in the direction of the ‘swinging-hard-and-hope-to-connect’ approach. I’d love to see the pendulum swing in the other direction; towards strategies that are geared towards contact.
Nick Swisher, Yankees – He’s making a case for himself, isn’t he? Six of his seven hits were for extra bases, which is tough to ignore.
Objectively, it’s tough to see why Swisher would be the odd man out among Matsui, Damon, Gardner, and Nady.
Think about it: Matsui and Damon are thirty-five years old, while Swisher is just 28. I’d sure as hell take age over beauty, health over injury.
Gardner might be a fine centerfielder, but he’s twenty-five, and his track record as a hitter can best be described as ‘marginal.’ Swisher’s always been a better hitter, and the Yankees have to score runs to win in the AL East.
Xavier Nady had a great year last year, which can’t be understated any. But Swisher’s had years just as good. And, again, Swisher is a few years younger.
Looking at it objectively, there was no good reason why the Yanks would choose Swisher as the odd-man out. But the Yankees don’t deal in objectivity. Swisher was the easy guy to put on the bench. It’s easier to bench him than Damon or Matsui, easier to bench him than Xavier Nady.
Anyway, (to quote Rick Springfield) the point is probably moot. Swisher’s hitting is too good to be ignored. He’s got a nice fastball, too.
Zack Greinke, Royals – I’m writing this as he’s pitching against Cleveland. It’s been something of a tightrope game: in the third, Greinke walked the first two batters he faced. He then struck out the third batter, before allowing Victor Martinez to single. So: bases loaded, one out. Greinke strikes out Hafner and Peralta to get out of it.
An inning later, the Indians have runners on second and third and Grady Sizemore up. Greinke strikes him out, keeping Cleveland off the board.
Through the first four innings Greinke has thrown 87 pitches, allowing two walks and five hits while notching eight strikeouts. It’s a fun to watch, frankly. I don’t think there’s a more interesting pitcher to watch than Zack Greinke.
Update: Zach got through five innings, which brings his scoreless innings streak up to twenty-five consecutive innings. The Royals held on through a grit-your-teeth ninth inning to win.
Update: Had a terrific third start: shutting out the Rangers in Arlington while striking out ten batters and walking none. He’s 3-0 to start the year, and is currently sitting on a streak of 34 consecutive scoreless innings.
Tim Wakefield, Red Sox – I’ve always rooted for Wakefield. I followed the Pirates closely in the early 1990’s, and I remember the excitement of Wakefield’s rookie season, when he went 8-1 in the regular season, and 2-0 in the NLDS.
Wakefield has a weird contract situation with the Red Sox, a ‘rolling contract extension’ where the Sox have agreed to pay him $4 million per year for as long as the team wants him. It’s a no-muss, no-fuss kind of deal: if the Red Sox decide they no longer want him, then he’ll retire.
That’s how he is, I think. That’s his personality. Wakefield has been a selfless contributor to the Sox, a guy who has done everything the team has asked him to do without complaint. Be a starter? Sure. Be a middle-reliever? No problem. Close games because Tom Gordon is injured? I’ll give it my best shot.
Wakefield gave up the Aaron Boone homerun. We Boston fans have a track record of remembering things like that, and certainly we’ve demonized a few players who have choked in key situations. But Wakefield never got any flack for that, which is a testament to the kind of player he’s been, the way he’s perceived by the fans in Boston.
As of now, Wakefield is the only true knuckleballer in baseball. A friend asked me the other day whether the knuckleball would ever come back in vogue. I said I’m not sure. It takes a lot of patience to bring up a knuckleball pitcher, patience and a commitment to it. The Pirates quit on him really quick, but the Sox have shown a real commitment to him, and it’s certainly paid off.
I told him I’m not sure, but I hope the knuckleball makes a comeback. Having knuckleball pitchers makes the game more interesting, more entertaining. I hope Wakefield isn’t the last.
One last observation: the Red Sox are probably the best team to commit to a knuckleball pitcher. Mostly, knucklers play on lousy teams, but Wake’s been with the Sox for fifteen years now. That’s a long time for a perennially strong team to stick with a knuckleballer.
I wish Wake had gotten the no-hitter, but maybe it’s fitting that he didn’t. Wakefield is one of those guys who is extremely underappreciated, a guy who will be forgotten ten years after he retires. He’s never made an All-Star team, never won twenty games, and never led the league in anything positive. If he had thrown the no-hitter, then people might have noticed him, which is probably the last thing he wants.
Erik Bedard, Mariners – Three starts is three starts, but he’s looked sharp: 23 strikeouts in 19 innings, 3 walks, no homeruns.
A good candidate to win Comeback Player of the Year. Should not be confused with the Canadian speedskater Eric Bedard.
Chris Carpenter, Cardinals – Speaking of Comeback Players…
His start against Pittsburgh was great to see, wasn’t it? Seven innings pitched, seven strikeouts, one hit, two walks, one run.
He’s on the DL now with a strained ribcage, which he injured swinging a bat. One of the dangers of playing in the National League, I guess.
Here’s a question, which I don’t have the answer to: how much do National League pitchers train at hitting?
If I had to guess, I’d speculate that they don’t get a helluva lot of training as hitters. Sure, they might have to lay down a few bunts, but how extensive is the training beyond that?
I’m surprised there isn’t an NL team that has tried to adopt new strategies for their pitchers. For instance: you have more bat control if you spread your hand out slightly on the handle of the bat, the way old-time players used to do it. Why not have your pitchers practice that, practice making contact?
Ian Kinsler, Rangers – We have three excellent second basemen in Kinsler, Utley, and Pedroia, three players who do just about everything right.
In a good year, Joe Morgan would hit around .300 with 25 homeruns, sixty steals, one hundred walks, and Gold Glove defense.
Morgan has his back-to-back MVP seasons when he was 31 and 32 years old, which isn’t unusual. Sandberg has his big years as a hitter when he was 29-31. Grich was a better hitter after thirty.
Utley is thirty this year; Kinsler is 27; Pedroia is 25. Which is to say the best is yet to come. All three of them have the same diversity of skills that Morgan has, the same broad range of talents. They hit for power and average, get on base, steal with high success rates, and field their positions well.
It’s a Golden Age for second basemen, maybe the best of my lifetime. In the early 1980’s we had some fine second basemen: Sandberg and Whittaker, of course, plus the tail ends of Grich and Morgan. But these three are in their prime.
Jack Cust, A’s – Has a streak of 40 straight games where he’s reached base, which is in jeopardy right now against Toronto.
He’s been batting fifth of sixth in the order, which is a tad strange. You have a player who a) sees a lot of pitches, b) rarely grounds into double plays, and c) has a great on-base percentage. Shouldn’t he be hitting high in the order, ahead of Giambi and Holliday?
The A’s have Ryan Sweeney and Cabrera going 1-2. Sweeney and O-Cab are fine players, but they have low on-base percentages. The A’s have had trouble in the first innings this year, posting a .261/.370/.304 line. Despite that, they’ve scored eight runs in the first, which is a good amount. But the A’s are useless in the third inning of games: they haven’t scored a third-inning run all season.
In 1986 the Red Sox had Dwight Evans hit leadoff. It was an unconventional move, but it made an intuitive sense: Dewey was a Cust-like hitter: he struck out a lot, drew tons of walks, and hit for good power. He wasn’t Rickey Henderson, but he did a fine job of it, posting a .378 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot. The Red Sox went 22-13 (.628) over those 35 games. But they chickened out: it was too weird having a guy like Dewey leading off, so they dropped him and went 66-51 (.564) the rest of the way.
Josh Johnson, Marlins – At this writing, the Marlins are 10-1 to start the season. How many teams that start 10-1 go on to the postseason?
The last time any team started 10-1 was in 2003, when the Royals and Giants started their seasons off with a bang. The Giants won their division. The Royals, a surprise team, finished in 3rd place.
-In 2002 the Indians started 10-1. They finished in 3rd place.
-In 1994, the Braves started 10-1. They finished second in their division and would have won the Wild Card
-In 1989 the Rangers started 10-1. They finished in 4th place.
-In 1987 the Brewers started 11-0. They finished in 3rd place.
-In 1984 the Tigers started 10-1. They won the World Series.
-In 1982 the Braves started 11-0. They won their division.
-In 1981 the A’s started 11-0. They won their division during the first half. It was the weird strike season.
-In 1980 the Reds started 10-1. They finished 3rd.
That covers thirty seasons, with eleven teams starting 10-1 or 11-0. Not counting the Marlins, that’s ten teams that started on such a blisteringly hot pace.
Of those ten teams, five made the playoffs, which bodes well for the Marlins. I don’t think that an objective observer would rank their chances of playing in October as fifty-fifty.
They have a ways to go, but it’s better to start ahead than it is to start behind. The Marlins have a lot of young and talented pitchers, Josh Johnson being the best. I still think the Mets will win the NL East, but the Marlins will put up a fight.
(Dave Fleming is a writer living in Iowa City. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com)