MVN - Most Valuable Network

Moss undergoes arthroscopic surgery

The Pirates received some encouraging news earlier this week. Brandon Moss, who was thought to need microfracture surgery on his left knee, instead underwent arthroscopic surgery. Moss was expected to miss several months after the original procedure, but now should be completely healthy well before the beginning of spring training in February.

This is very good to hear, as Moss will likely join Nate McLouth as the only outfielders sure to start in 2009. The Pirates would have been very thin in the outfield if he missed any substantial time.

Who Ya Rootin’ For? The Ex-Pirates Factor

For what seems like the millionth straight season, I am relegated to rooting for either:

1. a good story in the post-season or
2. a former Pirate to do well in the post-season

With the Cubs gone and the Brewers gone, the good stories shake out like this:

1. Tampa Bay in the post-season and worst to first
2. Joe Torre’s escape from New York
3. The Phillies going for just their second World Series title ever
4. The Red Sox becoming the new version of the Evil Empire

So, let’s look at all the ex-Pirates remaining in the playoffs.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Jason Johnson and Joe Beimel are in the bullpen. Johnson’s ML tenure with Pittsburgh was a meager three games back in 1997 before he was taken in the expansion draft. Beimel has come back from the edge of being out of baseball to becoming a rubber armed stud in the Dodgers bullpen. Over the last two seasons, he has pitched in 154 games, tossed 116-1/3 IP and allowed just one home run. His three seasons in Pittsburgh were quite a bit less successful. He never posted a better than league average ERA for the Buccos, but has done so in each of the past three years in La-La Land.

Philadelphia Phillies
The Phils have Matt Stairs and a couple of almosts. The Pirates almost traded Kris Benson for Ryan Howard all those years ago. And the Buccos almost signed Chad Durbin this past off-season. Stairs had a solid single season in Pittsburgh.

Tampa Bay Rays
Al Reyes and his 15 games pitched in 2001 are it.

Boston Red Sox
Tons of ex-Pirates here. From the brief - Sean Casey and Dave Ross - to the long ago in Tim Wakefield to the painfully, recently removed in Jason Bay.

Clearly when looking at the crop of ex-Bucs on post-season rosters, the Red Sox have a huge upper hand.

So, who am I pulling for?

1. Tampa Bay - hard not to pull for a team that blindsided me and most everyone else
2. Boston - if the Sox beat the Rays in the ALCS, I’m hoping Bay puts up MVP numbers in the WS
3. Philadelphia - I was born there
4. LA - Torre already has his and so does Manny Ramirez

Pirates again lacked patience in 2008

In May, I took a look at the Pirates’ plate discipline in 2007 and 2008. In that small sample size, the team had slightly improved from the previous year. Now that the season is over, I figured it would be a good time to revisit this topic.

Here is an excerpt from my original post to get us started:

FanGraphs has some wonderful statistics that quantify a hitter’s plate discipline. Using O-Swing% (“the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone”), we can determine whether certain players are fishing outside the strike zone on a regular basis. In 2005-2007, the average O-Swing% was around 23%. Let’s see how the Pirates are doing this year compared with 2007. (Note: pitchers are not included.)

To start, let’s take a look at the 2007 Pirates. Jose Castillo (35.11%), Matt Kata (35.11%), Freddy Sanchez (33.43%), and Xavier Nady (30.19%) were all major free-swingers. Castillo and Kata were sent packing after the season, but Sanchez and Nady returned to the starting lineup for 2008. Jack Wilson (26.24%) was slightly above average, while Ryan Doumit (24.96%), Cesar Izturis (24.50%), Adam LaRoche (23.36%), Chris Duffy (23.05%), Jason Bay (22.12%) and Ronny Paulino (21.54%) were all about average. Nate McLouth (18.95%), Josh Phelps (18.95%), Jose Bautista (17.85%) and Rajai Davis (16.82%) were the most disciplined Pirates. Overall, the 2007 Pirates swung at 24.58% (EDIT: My numbers were slightly off at that time. The correct O-Swing% in 2007 was 24.61%.) of pitches outside the strike zone, just slightly higher than average.

McLouth, Sanchez, LaRoche, Doumit, Bay, Nady, Bautista and Wilson received the most at-bats for the Pirates in 2008. Sanchez and Nady continued their wild swinging, staying very close to their 2007 numbers. Sanchez chased 33.33% pitches, while Nady swung at 30.47% balls outside the strike zone before being traded. Doumit (30.60%) also became a very impatient hitter in 2008. Wilson (26.94%) was very consistent with 2007, while LaRoche (22.55%) and Bay (20.65%) both improved slightly. McLouth’s patience regressed this year with increased playing time (21.87%), and Bautista also fell off from last season (21.19%). However, both remained slightly above average. New additions to the team’s bench received a moderate amount of playing time. Doug Mientkiewicz (17.15%) was the most patient player on the team, while Chris Gomez (23.35%) and Jason Michaels (23.71%) were right around league average. Luis Rivas (25.42%) was a bit aggressive off the bench.

Several younger players began receiving playing time after the trades of Bay and Nady. Andy LaRoche (25.30%), Brandon Moss (26.93%) and Steve Pearce (24.77%) displayed a bit below average patience. Nyjer Morgan, the oldest of the group, chased 27.65% of pitches outside the zone. One of the main reasons I remain optimistic about the futures of LaRoche and Moss is their history of patience in the minor leagues. These numbers will have to improve soon as they adjust to Major League pitching. The fact that Pearce was right in the same neighborhood in O-Swing% as these two is somewhat encouraging, as he seemed to swing at everything at times this year. In reality, he was much better in 2008 than he was in 2007 (29.27%), although both were very small sample sizes. I’m not convinced that Pearce can be a quality Major League hitter, but I think he has shown enough to get the same opportunities as Moss and LaRoche in 2009.

Overall, the Pirates chased 25.11% of pitches outside the strike zone in 2008. That number increased slightly from the team’s 24.61% in 2007. Accordingly, the Pirates were 27th in baseball in on-base percentage, and 26th in walks. It seems that the Pirates’ strong early-season focus on patience was mostly forgotten as the season progressed. Another likely reason was the increased playing time for younger hitters after the deadline deals, although the loss of the free-swinging Nady probably offset that line of reasoning a bit. Hopefully, as players like Andy LaRoche, Moss and Pearce mature at the plate, these numbers will become more respectable.

One other note. The Pirates Z-Swing% (“The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone”) dropped from 66.62% in 2007 to 63.16% in 2008. The 2005-2007 average was about 67%. I don’t think we can take as much from this statistic as we can from O-Swing%, as swinging at strikes is much more situational than swinging at balls. A batter should virtually never chase a pitch out of the strike zone, while there are many instances when swinging at a strike is the wrong decision. However, when examined along with the team’s O-Swing%, this may further indicate a lack of strike zone management.

Lanny Frattare retires

Pirates’ play-by-play announcer Lanny Frattare is retiring after 33 years in the booth. He took over for the legendary Bob Prince in 1976, and was the longest tenured broadcaster in the franchise’s 122-year history. There was no immediate word on a potential replacement.

This news really caught me off guard. I have never known a world in which Lanny’s words did not bring Pirate baseball into my home. Most of my best Pirate memories have his voice in the background. Lind to Bream in St. Louis to clinch the division in 1990. Mark Smith’s blast to cap the Cordova/Rincon no-hitter in 1997. Etc.

Pirate games will not be the same without Lanny in the booth. I wish I could have heard him call one more playoff game in my lifetime. Good luck, Lanny. Thank you for providing the soundtrack for my memories.

Under the Radar - Doumit’s lack of patience

Ryan Doumit had an exceptional year at the plate in 2008. He hit .318/.357/.501 with 15 home runs, a WPA of 1.90, an EQA of .302 and a VORP of 35.7. He was one of the top offensive catchers in all of baseball. But let’s take a look into the future, and speculate as to whether this success will continue.

Doumit walked only 23 times this season, good for 5.1% of his plate appearances. This percentage ranked near the bottom in Major League Baseball. He chased 30.64% of all pitches outside the strike zone, also near the bottom of the list. Most of his production came from a high batting average and some pop, although it was hardly the result of any unusually positive luck. Doumit’s .338 BABIP was perfectly reasonable considering his 23.4% line drive percentage. Despite chasing so many pitches, he struck out in only 12.8% of his plate appearances. That is well below his career total of 19.2%, and could indicate that he is developing at the plate. Simply put, there was nothing cheap about Doumit’s season. He just raked all year.

But his low walk numbers are worrisome moving forward. At 27, he is right in the middle of his peak years. He should continue to post solid numbers for the next few years, as his average remains high. However, unless he makes some adjustments, he will have little to fall back on when his bat speed begins to slow with age. As he approaches 30, it will become more and more difficult to keep that average, and thus his overall production, high. Also, if he is forced out from behind the plate somewhere down the road, his offensive value will decrease further.

Taking this into account, along with his injury history, I am a bit nervous about approaching Doumit with a long-term contract offer. I wouldn’t mind a deal to buy out his arbitration years, but I don’t think I would go much farther than that. The Pirates should expect to be shopping Doumit around 2010, meaning the minor league catching depth needs a huge upgrade.

Boy, Matt Wieters would look very nice in the system right now. Sigh.

Stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.

Did Madlock Sit in Pursuit of Batting Titles?

This was published a couple of years ago on the old Buried Treasure website on MVN. Reposting it now in its original form.

Bill Madlock won four batting titles and finished second one time. On two other occasions he finished in the top five in hitting but was well behind the leader.

Madlock was an intriguing guy. He was suspended for shoving his glove into the face of an ump (my brother made a painting of that for a school project when that happened back in 1980. Probably a better painting than what I could do, but it is safe to assume that my sister got every last ounce of artistic talent in my family). He fought opponents, sometimes teammates and sometimes management. Though he won four batting titles, he never once collected 200 hits in a season and barely reached 2,000 hits for his career.

I have read two sources that claimed that Madlock would pick his spots down the stretch - sitting out against tough pitchers - in order to improve his chances of winning the silver bat. Bill James, in his most recent Historical Baseball Abstract, openly mocks Madlock stating that there was a running pool in the press box in September on whether Madlock would be sitting out or playing. Joe Morgan, in his autobiography, claimed Madlock sat out games in 1976 in order to wrestle the batting title from Ken Griffey.

Is that true? In my anal retentive, the truth must be known, baseball obsessed mind, it is worth finding out.

Here’s the methodology, thanks to the amazing Retrosheet, I can determine which games in September Madlock chose not to play in. So, I’ll examine which pitcher’s he didn’t face. I’ll also look at the batting averages of Madlock in comparison with his closest competition at the beginning of September and also at the end of the season. Additionally, I’ll check the limited sources of biographical information on Madlock that I have or that are available on line.

The seasons in question are 1975, 1976, 1981, 1982 and 1983.

Read the rest of this entry »

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By Randy Linville | Hype it | Bark it | 1 Comment »