OK, I know I said I'd update yesterday, but I was feeling pretty sick all day, so I never really got around to it. Sorry about that.
So, with being sick and all, I've been doing a lot of reading lately (if you catch my drift), and one thing I've been plowing through is the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers. In it, Bill James proposes a formula for predicting the winner of the Cy Young award in any given league and season. The formula is amazingly accurate -- it predicted something like 81% of Cy Young winners overall and almost every one since 1990. So I figured I'd give the formula a spin and see how our very own Jon Lieber (and, why the hell not, Brett Myers too) stack up to the rest of this year's candidates.
First, though, the formula:
- Wins x 6
- Minus Losses x 2
- Plus Strikeouts / 12
- Plus Saves x 2.5
- Plus Shutouts
- Plus ((5.00 - ERA) / 9) x IP (note: this is basically the number of "Runs Saved" beyond what a pitcher with a 5.00 ERA would allow)
- Plus 12 points if the player's team finishes first in their division (note: I pro-rated the 12 points to the number of games the player's team has played this season)
The results for the National League thus far:
Player W L SV SHO IP K ERA RS-5 Bonus Score Josh Beckett 4 1 0 1 33.0 35 1.36 13.35 1.48 40.74 Dontrelle Willis 4 0 0 2 29.7 21 1.52 11.47 1.48 40.70 Mike Hampton 3 0 0 0 37.7 14 1.67 13.94 1.63 34.73 Jon Lieber 4 1 0 0 35.7 12 3.03 7.81 0.00 30.81 Chris Carpenter 4 1 0 1 33.7 27 4.01 3.70 1.48 30.43 Brandon Lyon 0 1 10 0 12.7 8 1.42 5.04 1.63 30.33 Mark Prior 3 0 0 0 19.0 22 0.95 8.55 0.00 28.38 Brandon Webb 3 0 0 0 27.3 17 2.63 7.20 1.63 28.24 Jason Marquis 3 0 0 0 26.0 23 2.77 6.44 1.48 27.84 Tim Hudson 2 0 0 0 28.0 19 0.96 12.57 1.63 27.78 Danny Graves 1 0 8 0 9.3 2 3.86 1.18 0.00 27.35 Chad Cordero 2 1 4 0 11.7 12 0.77 5.48 0.00 26.48 Jake Peavy 2 0 0 0 27.7 34 1.30 11.37 0.00 26.21 John Patterson 2 1 0 0 27.7 23 0.98 12.36 0.00 24.27 Brad Lidge 1 0 5 0 9.7 16 0.93 4.37 0.00 24.20 Roy Oswalt 3 2 0 0 36.0 27 3.25 7.00 0.00 23.25 Roger Clemens 1 0 0 0 28.0 32 0.32 14.56 0.00 23.23 Pedro Martinez 2 1 0 0 36.0 46 2.75 9.00 0.00 22.83 A.J. Burnett 2 1 0 0 30.0 27 2.40 8.67 1.48 22.40 Brad Halsey 2 0 0 0 28.0 18 3.21 5.57 1.63 20.70 Brett Myers 1 1 0 0 33.3 34 1.35 13.52 0.00 20.35 Mark Mulder 2 1 0 1 29.0 14 3.10 6.12 1.48 19.77 Giovanni Carrara 3 0 0 0 9.3 9 4.82 0.19 0.00 18.94 Billy Wagner 0 0 5 0 9.3 10 0.00 5.19 0.00 18.52
So, Lieber is 4th, Myers 21st and Wagner 23rd. Lieber's right about where I expected him to be, but I was surprised to see Myers so far down on the list. I guess that's because Cy Young voters have traditionally put such a high emphasis on wins. Give him Lieber's record and he'd be in second place (38.35 points). I was also surprised to see Wagner rank so high -- maybe because it feels like the Phils have had so few save opportunities this season.
OK, my girlfriend was up visiting for the weekend, so I sort of took the weekend off with regards to baseball. Unfortunately, it looks like the Phillies did the same thing, getting swept by the Braves pretty handily.
Oh well, this season is looking more and more like last year every day. I'm not really up for talking about it tonight, so I'm just going to listen to the rest of tonight's game -- they're up 3-1 to the Nats right now, I wonder how they'll mess things up tonight? We shall see...
So, how about that Jon Lieber? Yesterday's line:
IP H R ER BB K HR NP 8.0 9 3 3 0 1 1 99
OK, the 9 hits are a little troubling, but for the most part, he was pretty efficient. I hate to give Ed Wade too much credit, but I have to admit that Lieber was a pretty good signing. But how has he been as a replacement for Milton and Milwood? Well, obviously he's not replacing both, so let's look at how he and the Phillies other recent acquisition, Cory Lidle, have done this year:
IP H/9 BB/9 K/9 HR/9 ERA VORP '05$ Lieber 29.7 9.1 0.6 2.7 1.5 2.73 7.3 7.0M Lidle 16.3 11.6 2.2 2.8 0.0 3.86 1.1 3.1M Millwood 25.3 9.6 2.5 5.3 0.7 3.91 6.0 7.0M Milton 21.7 10.4 2.1 5.0 2.5 4.98 1.4 8.5M
As far as VORP goes, there's not too much difference here (8.4 vs. 7.4), but look at the money column and you'll see the Phils are paying about $5.4 million less. Not bad. Want to see some real money wasted? Have a look at the Yankees acquisitions:
IP H/9 BB/9 K/9 HR/9 ERA VORP '05$ Johnson 26.3 8.2 1.7 9.2 1.7 5.13 0.6 15.4M Pavano 22.0 11.0 1.2 5.7 1.2 2.86 0.7 10.0M Wright 14.3 15.7 5.0 6.3 1.9 10.05 -6.4 7.0M
Ouch. Think maybe they should have held on to Lieber?
OK, last night was ugly. Suffice to say, we did not see Happy Vicente. Nor did we see a very good Gavin Floyd, although his performance was a bit more excusable (more on that in a sec). The two pitchers' lines from the game:
IP H R ER BB K HR Score Padilla 3.0 8 8 8 1 3 5 13 Floyd 3.0 6 8 8 3 1 2 11
Ouch. Padilla struggled the whole game -- as Will Carroll pointed out, it wasn't a matter of him losing his stuff last night, as he never had it to begin with (that leadoff homer by Reyes was definitely an omen of things to come). I'm just wondering why he was left in for three innings when it was so obvious to everyone that he wasn't ready.
The answer to that question might be that his backup, Gavin Floyd, wasn't ready either. Asking a rookie to come back on 3 days rest and work out of the bullpen for the first time in who knows how long* seems like a little much. I had a feeling things weren't going to go well when Floyd started warming up in the third inning in the midst of 5 straight Mets hits (3 of which were home runs). By the time Diaz was getting ready to uncork his second homer, it seemed like there was panic in the clubhouse and there were visits to the mound by Dubee and Lieberthal that gave the impression that they were just buying time for Floyd to get ready. Eventually, however, Padilla struck out Zambrano and the inning was over.
So anyway, Floyd was still in the pen throwing when the TV broadcast came back from commercial break and he looked frustrated. My last professional baseball experience was in middle school, so I'm not totally familiar with what a major league starter goes through to get ready for a game, but I'm guessing it's not a few hurried tosses in the bullpen. Floyd did not look ready for middle relief last night and I think it was a mistake putting him in last night. When he entered the game, it was still just 8-4 and the Phillies, despite a few runners left on base in clutch situations, looked like they were still in the game.
Ah well, as painful as last night's loss was, it's only one game. A loss by 12 runs counts the same in the standings as a loss by 1, right? Yeah. The Rockies (and their 6.38 road ERA) come to town tonight, so hopefully we can beat up on them a bit and get some of our confidence back.
*Edit - OK, I checked Floyd's minor league stats and it looks like he made 4 appearances out of the pen for Clearwater back in 2003.
In cased you hadn't noticed, I redesigned the site a bit. There's still some work left to be done (like the individual entry and archive pages), but the front page has been spiffed up a little.
Also, if you're using Firefox, you can check out the alternate stylesheets I've created for the page. Just go to View, Page Style and choose from the options. The skin you're currently seeing is based on the classic 70s away uniforms, but there are also ones based on the "modern" Phillies look, the infamous 1979 all-maroon uniforms and the Tug McGraw-inspired green St. Patrick's Day jerseys. So, yeah, check them out.
At some point I'll figure out a way for those of you using Internet Explorer to check out the alternate styleseets as well, but given my opinion on MSIE, that's not high on my list of priorities.
Looks like I picked the wrong day to pick on Pat Burrell yesterday, huh? Last night he was 2-4 with a home run, a walk and two RBIs. Oops.
Anyway, tonight Vicente Padilla returns from the DL and gets the start. My guess is it'll either go really well for Padilla or really poorly. Over the past two years, it's almost seemed like there are two Vicente Padillas -- the ace with amazing stuff that easily fools hitters and the frustrated hurler who struggles through counts and gives up a ton of runs in a short amount of time. It's weird, too, because his demeanor can change so quickly -- it's like a bad call or a missed location or a lucky hit can send him quickly in a tailspin from which he can't recover.
At least that's how it has appeared to me. I decided to test this hypothesis by looking at his starts in 2003 and 2004 and breaking them down into two categories: those with a game score above 55 and those with a game score below 55 (I chose 55 only because it broke the stats up into two almost even-sized samples) and then averaged the numbers. Have a look:
GS IP H R ER HR BB K Record Happy Vicente 25 7.0 4.8 1.3 1.2 0.3 1.7 4.8 15-4 Sad Vicente 27 5.5 7.1 4.4 4.1 1.1 2.0 3.4 6-15
So there's a pretty big difference. What surprised me, though, was that his strikeout rates (6.2 vs. 5.6 K/9) and walk rates (2.2 vs. 3.3 BB/9) didn't vary too much. The big difference here are the gopher balls -- 0.4 HR/9 for Happy Vicente vs. 1.8 HR/9 for Sad Vicente. Sad Vicente also allowed nearly double the amount of hits per 9 -- 11.7 against just 6.2 H/9 for Happy Vicente.
Let's hope we see Happy Vicente tonight -- with the bullpen pitching the way it has lately, if Sad Vicente makes an appearance instead, we may be in for a very long night.
We took 2 of 3 from the Braves this weekend, which is good, but I think the real story the past week has been the team's hitting struggles. Have a look:
Opponents AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG WAS & STL 220 43 69 9 0 6 41 24 45 2 0 .314 .387 .436 FLA & ATL 191 14 40 6 1 2 12 21 27 6 0 .209 .291 .283
The team has indentical records in each week, though, so maybe it's too soon to worry. More troublesome, however, are Pat Burrell's trends:
Opponents AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K AVG OBP SLG WAS & STL 25 5 12 3 0 3 15 2 6 .480 .519 .960 FLA & ATL 23 1 5 0 0 1 2 3 5 .217 .308 .348
The worry here is that Burrell enters one of his trademark funks and, like in years past, is unable to recover. I guess we'll see what happens in week 3 (and week 4, and week 5, etc...)
June 8th, 2004 and April 15th, 2005. What do these two dates have in common? Well, let's look at the starters' lines for each game:
IP H R ER BB SO HR NP 6/8/04 0.2 6 6 6 1 0 3 37 4/15/05 3.1 5 8 8 5 1 2 71
If you're reading this, you probably know who the starter was for last night's game (it was Gavin Floyd). The other game I've highlighted was the starting debut of Ryan Madson who, despite his stellar job coming out of the pen over the past year, has not been given another shot at starting. Will Gavin Floyd suffer the same fate? Vicente Padilla is slated to come off the DL this week and Charlie Manuel has said that he will be taking Floyd's spot in the rotation, with Floyd to be sent to the pen.
So what's a team to do with seven potential starters? To tell you the truth, I don't know. I do think that Madson and Floyd should be given a shot at starting somewhere. Should one of them be traded? Should we keep them and move one of the vets to the bullpen? Do we trade one of the vets? Do we send them down to AAA so that they can get experience starting games? Or is Manuel doing the right thing by putting both of them in the pen?
If you've got an opinion, please share...
Apologies for the lack of posts these past few days, but I've been dealing with some computer issues. Anyway, they're fixed and I'm now sporting a nifty new AMD Athlon 64 processor, so I can't complain too much. Or maybe I can...
So, is anyone surprised that after putting up 28 runs in 3 games against the defending NL champion Cardinals, we get our asses handed to us by the Marlins yet again? OK, we did take the first game, but the offense completely fell apart in the second and third games of the series. Perhaps that was due more to Burnett and Willis, but still, the Phillies of the past couple days remind me a little too much of last year's squad.
Anyway, the Phils didn't play tonight, so I took in what I could stomach of the Red Sox-Yankees game on ESPN. I swear, Chris Berman has to be the most annoying baseball announcer ever. Worse than Tim McCarver even -- at least McCarver has Joe Buck doing play-by-play to keep things moving. With Berman, he is the play-by-play guy, in theory at least, with Rick Sutcliffe providing color. It's really like having two color guys in the booth, though, because rarely does Berman actually announce the game. Instead, he's usually going off on some stupid tangent (with Sutcliffe willfully in tow). They're perfect for ESPN, though, since their opinions are usually consistent with the crap spewed forth on Baseball Tonight by the likes of Harold Reynolds, John Kruk and (new this season!) Larry Bowa. Hearing Berman and Sutcliffe go on and on about what a great hitter Tony Womack is, or what great pickups Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano were, or, yet again, what a great baseball player Derek Jeter is just makes me want to turn off the TV. So I did.
Today, four of the five NL East teams showcased their #1 starters -- Josh Beckett, Jon Lieber, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz -- and the results were impressive. If you're reading this, you probably already know about Jon Lieber's excellent performance, but take a look at what his peers did as well (I've also included the Nationals' John Patterson, even though he's not their #1):
Name IP K H ER R BB HR NP Score Beckett 9.0 11 5 0 0 1 0 110 87 Lieber 8.0 4 4 2 4 1 3 92 65 Martinez 9.0 9 2 1 1 1 0 101 87 Patterson 7.0 6 6 2 2 1 0 103 62 Smoltz 7.1 15 8 2 2 0 1 113 69
"Score" is the pitcher's Game Score -- you can check out this page at ESPN for more on Game Score, including how to calculate it. Beckett and Martinez are currently tied for the best Game Score so far this year. Smoltz's 69 would be the 10th best, tied with Gavin Floyd's effort yesterday.
I think Lieber's performance was better than his score indicates -- he was efficient today, but he spent a lot of time on the bench because the offense had a number of big innings, so I'm guessing that he was pretty tired at the end even though his pitch count was still pretty low (at the start of the 7th, it was still only something like 60). That said, I'm definitely not going to complain about the offense scoring 13 runs.
Bottom of the 8th, two out, bases are loaded, you're up by one run and the heart of the Cardinals order (Walker, Pujols, Rolen) is due up -- what do you do? That's right, you bring in Aaron Fultz, a journeyman reliever who's never had an ERA below 4.56 and is on his 4th team in 4 seasons.
Geez, if there's ever a situation that screams BRING IN YOUR BEST RELIEF PITCHER, we saw it this evening. Leaving Wagner to sit on the bench to "save him for the 9th" is, pardon my French, a load of bullshit. There's a reason you're paying the guy 9 million bucks a year, and that's to pitch in high-leverage situations.
Of course, Fultz blew it and walked in the tying and winning runs. (on 9 pitches, how efficient!) And the Phillies lost. Whoop-de-do.
According to Baseball Prospectus' Win Expectancy Matrix, the Cards had a .429 win expectancy in this situation (home team, 8th inning, 2 out, bases loaded, down by 1), which essentially means they had a 42.9% probability of winning the game. So let's say Fultz gets out of the jam with the lead intact and Wagner comes in to pitch the 9th -- in this situation (home team, 9th inning, 0 out, nobody on, down by 1), the Cards had just a .165 win expectancy (or a 16.5% probability of winning). That's a .264 difference, which is pretty huge.
I'm not saying Wagner would have definitely gotten out of the situation, but he probably wouldn't have walked two batters in a row either. I don't know, so far, Charlie Manuel has not impressed me much.
Was there something familiar about yesterday's game? It seemed strangely reminiscent of Wednesday's loss...
- A fairly decent outing from our starter
- Poor production from the starting lineup (although Burrell had a big clutch hit again)
- Tim Worrell unable to hold a lead
- Brad Freaking Wilkerson
Argh. Again.
Brad Freaking Wilkerson. Of course he hits for the cycle the one night I have him on the bench for my fantasy team. Oh, and he also happens to do it against the Phils. Argh.
And he's killing us again this afternoon -- 3 for 3 with an RBI and run scored as I write this in the 5th inning. Oh well, at least today I've got him in my fantasy lineup. Heh.
I meant to post this last night, but some computer issues prevented it. Oh well, the Phils are off today, so it's not like I'm falling behind. Yet...
A somewhat frustrating (yet ultimately successful) opening day for the Phils today. Some observations:
- How about Pat Burrell? 3-3 with a walk, sac fly, 2 RBI and 2 runs scored. Not bad, although he looked good in last year's opener too.
- Ryan Madson, on the other hand, looked awful.
- The Phillies left the bases loaded 3 (or was it 4?) times. Not good.
- Pladico Polanco was a surprise start at 2B but, as one of the announcers pointed out, if they're going to platoon the two, starting Polanco when Lieber pitches isn't a bad idea because he's such an extreme groundball pitcher.
- Kenny Lofton's career line against Livan Hernandez - 3/10, 3HR.
- Several times the announcers called the Nationals either the Expos or the Sentators, which was amusing. The Nats road uniforms do kind of look like the Expos', so I don't blame them.
- I wonder which marketing genius was responsible for the game being broadcast on KYW 3, meaning the only people able to catch the game on TV were those in the metro Philly area. It wasn't even on MLB Extra Innings. At least the games on Comcast Sportsnet reach a good portion of Eastern and Southern PA, even if they don't make it to Extra Innings. Oh well, good thing my brother has a satellite descrambler (uh, for educational purposes only, of course).
- The last time the Phils played in an opening day game at home and won? 1980. I'm just saying...
With hours to spare, here are my predictions for this season. Actually, I wrote this up a couple days ago, I just never got around to posting it here...
AL East
Boston Red Sox (98 - 64)
New York Yankees (90 - 72)
Baltimore Orioles (81 - 81)
Toronto Blue Jays (75 - 87)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (62 - 100)
I'll probably end up being wrong, but it feels damn good picking the Yankees to not make the playoffs. They've got a hell of an offense, but no bench and I think their pitching will fall apart. And Steinbrenner won't be able to buy the team back into contention at the trade deadline because they don't really have anything to deal. The Red Sox should dominate the division, especially once their rotation get healthy. If the Orioles had better pitching (or, more accurately, any pitching), I'd be tempted to put them at #2. Sosa will have a big year and Tejada will contend for the MVP. Toronto will continue to struggle, but I like Halladay to make a comeback. Tampa Bay will be a good punching bag for the rest of the division and that's about it.
AL Central
Minnesota Twins (91 - 71)
Cleveland Indians (83 - 79)
Detroit Tigers (75 - 87)
Chicago White Sox (73 - 89)
Kansas City Royals (60 - 102)
The Twins should walk away with the division again this year as the White Sox will take a tumble and I think Cleveland and Detroit are both still a year or two away from contending. If Santana stays healthy, I could see him taking the Cy Young again easily. Magglio Ordonez will have a big year back for the Tigers, although unfortunately that means they'll have to eat the rest of his huge contract. I don't think the Tigers owner cares, though, since he's been willing to spend tons of money to win with the Red wings in the NHL. Combine that with some good young pitching and they could surprise people in years to come. The White Sox will succeed in their pledge to play "small ball" and will get small results. Definitely a dumb strategy for a team playing in a hitter's park like Comiskey.
AL West
Oakland Athletics (93 - 69)
Los Angeles Angels (91 - 71) *Wild Card
Seattle Mariners (80 - 82)
Texas Rangers (72 - 90)
The A's could completely tank this year with their revamped rotation and I'm sure plenty of people would love to see that happen, but I don't think it will. The Angels look pretty damn good too, so I see both teams making the playoffs despite this being the strongest division in the AL. The Mariners will improve this year, but not enough to contend. I don't see the Rangers' pitching repeating their success of last year, so they'll bring up the rear despite their offensive strength.
NL East
Philadelphia Phillies (95 - 67)
Atlanta Braves (92 - 70) *Wild Card
New York Mets (83 - 79)
Florida Marlins (80 - 82)
Washington Nationals (65 - 97)
The Phillies should win this division. Last year, their rotation fell apart and their manager drove the team into the ground. They didn't do much to improve in the offseason, but they did fire Larry Bowa, so that should help. The Braves shouldn't do as well as I'm predicting but, well, they're the Braves. The Mets did a lot to improve this year, but I don't think Pedro will hold up under pressure in NY this year. I do like Beltran, though, so if the team does better, I think he's an MVP candidate. The Marlins could be a factor too. I don't see the Nationals doing anything, however.
NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals (97 - 65)
Chicago Cubs (88 - 74)
Milwaukee Brewers (83 - 79)
Houston Astros (83 - 79)
Pittsburgh Pirates (75 - 87)
Cincinnati Reds (70 - 92)
I'm not as high on the Cardinals' pitching as most people are, but their offense is awesome. The Cubs, on the other hand, are the opposite. The difference between the two teams is that the Cards' offense shouldn't have too many problems staying healthy, while the Cubs' pitching is already hurting. I'm picking the Brewers as the team that will surprise people this year -- I like the pickup of Carlos Lee and Ben Sheets is terribly underrated. The Astros will tank this year after losing Beltran. The Pirates and the Reds will battle for the bottom of the division.
NL West
Los Angeles Dodgers (90 - 72)
San Diego Padres (89 - 73)
San Francisco Giants (81 - 81)
Arizona Diamondbacks (70 - 92)
Colorado Rockies (65 - 97)
Probably the weakest division in baseball, especially now that Bonds is out for who knows how long. My pick of the Dodgers over the Padres is only because I think Paul DePodesta will take after Billy Beane and add the talent at the trading deadline he needs to win the division. The Giants are too old to do anything this year and I don't see the Diamondbacks' offseason moves putting them back into contention.
Playoffs:
ALDS:
Red Sox over Angels in 4 games
Twins over Athletics in 5 games
ALCS:
Boston Red Sox over Minnesota Twins in 5 games
The Red Sox pull it out again, although without the Yankees to contend with, they have a much easier time in the playoffs than last year.
NLDS:
Braves over Cardinals in 5 games
Phillies over Dodgers in 4 games
NLCS
Braves over Phillies in 6 games
It pains me to pick the Braves here, but they have the pitching to win short series. Also, I'm a Phillies fan and therefore doomed to see my team beaten by their closest rival.
World Series:
Red Sox over Braves in 5 games
This is a pretty easy one -- the Red Sox have the best team in baseball this year. Now that the curse has ended, winning again shouldn't be much of a problem.
AL MVP: David Ortiz
AL Cy Young: Johan Santana
AL Rookie: Dallas McPherson
Ortiz won't be the best player in the league (that honor goes to either Tejada or Vlad Guerrero), but he'll get the MVP votes because of Boston's big year -- watch as the media's bias shifts from the Yankees to the Red Sox. Santana seems like a lock for the Cy Young, assuming he doesn't get hurt. The ROY is sort of a shot in the dark -- it's always a tough award to pick.
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
NL Cy Young: Jake Peavy
NL Rookie: Gavin Floyd
Pujols is the obvious choice, and for good reason, although if the Mets do well this year, Beltran could win the award (undeservedly). Pujols is a legitimate triple crown contender, assuming his foot problems don't get to him. Peavy is helped by the Padres success -- Ben Sheets will probably be the best pitcher in the NL, but his team won't get him the wins. If Floyd lives up to expectations and if he can stay in the rotation and if the Phillies do well, he'll win the Rookie of the Year. But that's a lot of ifs.