Kansas City Star: Royals notebook: Radar gun should tell story today on Meche

It’s no secret the Royals will be watching closely this afternoon to see if right-hander Gil Meche shows any signs of the “dead arm” that limited his effectiveness last Friday in Pittsburgh.

You can play along, too, by tracking Meche’s velocity on the radar gun in the 1:10 p.m. game against the Twins. If he is topping out in the high 80s, regard that as a warning siren.

“Everything else feeds off my fastball,” Meche said. “So if my fastball is not good, my curveball is going to be terrible. So on and so forth. I’ve never had to be a pitcher who completely relied on location.

“The other day, I gave up a couple of home runs right over the plate. If those pitches are 93-94 (mph), maybe they get fouled off. It makes the biggest difference in the world.”

plus, a Wednesday morning interlude…

Baltimore Sun/Schmuck: Orioles running Trembley out of a job?

Throughout his minor and major league coaching career, Dave Trembley has been known as a stickler for the little things. He wants the game played right, and he knows his future as Orioles manager depends on this year’s team taking a significant developmental step forward over the next three months.

So it has to be frustrating for him to watch his club reduced to one of the worst base-running teams in baseball at this critical juncture in the organization’s rebuilding process.

He took the job intent on putting the “fun” back in fundamentals, and now a long series of fundamental lapses is threatening to be his undoing.

“The decisions that have been made have not been good decisions,” Trembley said Tuesday. “When you make bad decisions, they stand out a whole lot more than when you do well.”

...

The strange irony of this particular situation is that this is a developing team that is assimilating a number of young players, but many of the most glaring mental mistakes have come out of the veteran nucleus of the club. Wigginton and Huff are just the most recent examples, but you can throw Brian Roberts and Melvin Mora into the mix, too. In a weird sort of way, the veteran blunders are a positive, because they indicate that the problem doesn’t stem from some flaw in the player-development pipeline.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: (Jack) Wilson says he is ‘beyond tired’ of such trades

The pattern has become familiar: The Pirates make a trade, a popular player leaves, and the remaining players complain. And, of the latter group, shortstop Jack Wilson invariably stands at the forefront.

So it was again yesterday, for the most part, after the two trades in which outfielder Nyjer Morgan and reliever Sean Burnett went to the Washington Nationals, utilityman Eric Hinske to the New York Yankees.

This time, Wilson, the Pirates’ most tenured player, described himself as “beyond, beyond tired” of such moves.

“We know that they’re looking to the future, which doesn’t say much about 2009,” he said. “That’s probably what’s so shocking. We’re five games out, and we lost two or three of our everyday players.”

That was a reference to the June 3 trade of center fielder Nate McLouth.

“That’s what hits us the most,” Wilson continued. “You can understand if it’s the end of July.”

plus, the Washington Times take on this last-day-of June blockbuster

Lead gets away from Boston bullpen | redsox.com: News

This is one game I’m glad I stopped watching early.

“Thirteen hits in two innings,” Francona said. “We just had no answer. We went through just about everybody. There were balls everywhere. We gave up 13 hits [in two innings]. That was as bad as we’ve seen. Nothing we did worked.”

By the time it was over, the bullpen had given up a total of 10 runs on 13 hits in four innings.

True Blue L.A.: Dodgers June In Review: Riding Out The June Swoon

Favorite Game of the Month:  In the span of one week, the Dodgers had three comeback wins in games they had no business winning (against the Diamonbacks, then the Phillies twice), and of course there was the Ethier three-dinger game, but my favorite game of June came on the penultimate day of the month.  The Dodgers trailed the Rockies 2-0, but scored the tying runs by a two-RBI single by pitcher Randy Wolf, after he induced a balk by trying to call time.  Then, the Dodgers used all seven members of their bullpen to pitch one inning apiece before Andre Ethier—who else?—ended the game with yet another walk-off home run.

Celebrity_jeopardy_connery_mediumThe Pen Is Mightier:  The Dodger bullpen was lights out in June, allowing only a 2.31 ERA and 1.018 WHIP.  Only three members of pen had an ERA above 2.16 for the month—two were optioned to the minors (Cory Wade, Travis Schlichting), and the other was closer Jonathan Broxton, who still struck out 21 batters versus 11 baserunners in his 11.2 innings.

Empty Bench:  Not counting the six games in which a bench player started at designated hitter, the eight active Dodger regulars in June started 195 of 211 possible games, or 92.4% of the time.  Perhaps that is a good thing, since the Dodger bench only hit .190/.257/.230, with six runs, five RBI, and six walks for the entire month.

Amazing Stat of the Month:  Russell Martin did finally hit his first home run of the season in June, but he managed to go through June without driving in another Dodger, in all of 94 plate appearances.  He has just the one RBI in his last 115 PA, since Memorial Day.

Minihane: Would Lou Gehrig Have Been a Hero in 2009?

Lou Gehrig: All the arguing in the world can’t change the decision of the umpire...yeah, but now that the umps have Instant Replay!

July 4th will mark the 70th anniversary of perhaps baseball’s most famous moment. (And maybe the most famous speech in sports history—is “Win one for the Gipper” close?) Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” farewell to roughly 60,000 at Yankee Stadium took place on July 4, 1939. Can any athlete ever again be as beloved as The Iron Horse was during his 277-word farewell? Is it possible? If Gehrig had to deal with the 2009 world back in 1939, would he have been looked at the same way when he stepped up to the microphone at Yankee Stadium?

How could he? Can you imagine one of the three or four best hitters of all time going through what Gehrig went through, but having it happen today? It would be disgusting, 50 times worse than Jade Goody. You’d have TMZ parked in the Mayo Clinic. Some guy who was teammates for an hour and a half with Gehrig 15 years ago would come out with a scandal-filled book (yup, my money would be on Wally Pipp, too). And yes, you’d hear the whispers. “Well, his power numbers really spiked in 1927. How does someone go from 16 homers to 47?” It would never end. Probably some girl he dated as a freshman at Columbia would wind up as “The Bachelorette.” And all because a guy could hit a baseball.

BLS poll: Derek Jeter vs. Mariano Rivera, who you taking?

In the wake of Mariano Rivera earning his 500th save on Sunday night, an interesting debate has been born in the blogosphere.

Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter?

There’s no doubt that both were the two biggest titans not named Joe Torre during the championship years and it’s hard to imagine the Yankees winning without either future Hall of Famer wearing pinstripes.

Rosenthal: Source: D-backs ‘can’t conceive’ of Haren trade

Not even an immaculate conception?

As the Angels recently discovered, the D-backs do not intend to trade Haren, who leads the National League in ERA.

“I almost can’t conceive of a package that would motivate us to move him,” one Diamondbacks official said.

The D-backs, viewing Haren as a critical part of their future, declined to engage in serious discussions with the Angels, who could have used their surplus of catchers and middle infielders to put together a blockbuster offer.

The talks could accelerate if the Angels overwhelmed the Diamondbacks with the right combination of players, one source said. But such a deal, for now, appears to be a longshot.

“Surplus of catchers and middle infielders?” Ken, put down the pipe! I’m sure the Dbacks can’t wait to jump on an offer of, say, Jeff Mathis, Sean Rodriguez and Howie Kendrick. Their combined OPS+ doesn’t even add up to Haren’s ERA+ this year…

craigslist: Ty Cobb home videos need director.

Please someone engage this man before Ken Burns or Norm Coleman get their hands on the tapes.

Rare never before seen footage of one of the greatest baseball players of all time.........TY COBB. I have 1923-1928 home movies shot by Ty himself as well as friends and family. Traveling through europe as well as japan and hawaii. Incredible quality for its age. I am looking for a producer with contacts in the sports entertainment world. I am also looking for anyone with access to a studio with HDSR tape machine to offload to hard drives for editing. This is no story or any way fake....... please dont email me unless you are interested in the project. Thanks

* Location: anywhere
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: TBD. Contract

Biz of Baseball: Inside MLB Attendance - Interleague 2009

I’ll bet my Palmer Vreedeez viewfinder...that the end is near.

With Sunday’s games in the books, Interleague Play for MLB in 2009 is nearly concluded (a June 16th rainout between the Cubs and White Sox still needs to be replayed), seeing average attendance drop from last year’s record setting pace.

The National League/American League match-ups drew an average of 33,351, down 6.66 percent from the 2008 record average of 35,573. Average attendance for the season was also down from 2007’s Interleague average attendance mark of 34,905, or down 4.66 percent. 2009 will mark the first time in three consecutive seasons that record attendance was not reached for Interleague Play.

The 2009 Interleague average is 16.1 percent higher than this season’s current

intraleague average of 28,727 per game.

Since its inception in 1997, Interleague Play has drawn 12.0 percent more fans than intraleague games; Interleague Play has averaged 33,260 fans per game, compared to the intraleague average of 29,706 fans per game during the same span.

THE PETER GOLENBLOG: Matt Silverman can Kiss My Ass !

Woo-Hoo! Even Golenblock is getting the hang of this blogging/non-blogging thing!

Matt Silverman, who I consider a friend, can kiss my ass.  But his ######## about the attendance at the Trop was beneath his usual class act.  The Phillies were in town, and he was bemoaning the fact that there were only 20,000 or so fans there for each of the three games against a team that the Rays had faced in the World Series.  He speculated that the place should have been packed.  But why?  Rays fans don’t give a crap about the Phillies, who clobbered the home town in the series.  What Silverman should have said was, “Last year we drew an average of 13,000 fans, and this year we’re averaging close to 20,000 fans a game.  If we continue to play as well as we have been, I expect that next year attendance will go even higher.” But commissioner Bud Selig has a bug up his ass about the Rays getting a new stadium—even though there’s no good reason to build one—and so even though he denied he was doing so, Matt was blackmailing the politicians a little bit—either you build us a new stadium or we’re going to move to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Which only served to infuriate Rays fans who are tired of Stuart Sternburg complaining he doesn’t have enough money to buy another player for the stretch run.  Hey Stu, you made $500 million dollars in the market.  If you can’t buy another player, maybe you need to find another investor so you can.

...As I said in the spring, the Rays are going to win 90 games this year, the mark of a top team.  The question remains whether they can catch the Yanks or the Sox.  I’m still betting they will.  And as they march toward the playoffs, attendance will rise.  So Matty, shut the f*** up. 

Verducci: My All-Star team: Youth is served and popularity means nothing

Happy just to be away from the chair-adjusting smugidocity of Mitch Williams...the Dooch offers.

With only three days left before polling closes, it’s time to recognize the players who should be going to the All-Star Game, as if Ben Zobrist and Aaron Hill have any chance of catching Dustin Pedroia in the balloting. My All-Star team is based purely on merit, not on popularity or some archaic rule that every team must send a representative.

Indeed, after picking 62 deserving All-Stars, I discovered five teams were shut out: the A’s, White Sox, Nationals, Cubs and Reds. The Mariners, Rays, Blue Jays, Dodgers and Brewers put the most players on my team, with four apiece. Fourteen picks come out of the beastly AL East.

But what struck me most of all about this group of players is the youth. Forty-four of the 62 All-Stars were 30 and younger. I picked 15 starting pitchers, and 11 of them were between 23 and 28 years old, including my picks to start the game, Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum.

What about the old guard? They’ve moved on to retirement (not always voluntarily) or decline. Alex Rodriguez had made nine straight All-Star Games. Manny Ramirez had a run going of 11 straight selections. No more. Only four players are older than 35: outfielder Raul Ibanez, 37; and three relief pitchers, Ryan Franklin, 36; Mariano Rivera, 39; and Trevor Hoffman, 41.

So here are my All-Star picks that from Aardsma to Zobrist are full of new faces (starters are marked with an asterisk).

Harlan: Nats, Bucs Closing In On Deal

The Nationals are close to finalizing a deal that would send Lastings Milledge to Pittsburgh in exchange for Nyjer Morgan, a team source said. I’m still trying to uncover the final wrinkle in this trade, though. It probably includes one other player that the Nats will send to Pittsburgh.

Morgan, who turns 29 on Thursday, represents that sort of player that Washington previously overlooked. He excels defensively, steals bases, and hits for adequate average but minimal power. Here’s his baseball reference page. He has played mostly in LF for the Pirates this year, but also has the tools of a natural center fielder.

Mariotti: Steroid Guessing Is Bad Journalism

Lipstick traces on a cigarette…

I am one of the fortunate ones. Twelve months a year, I’m paid to dispense information and opinions on a major Web site read by millions, not to mention a major TV network watched by millions. I don’t have to STRRRRRETTTTCCH THE TRUTH or make something up to be noticed as a columnist.

But in this changing media sphere, where everybody and his pet tarantula has a blog, many do have to compromise facts and fair play to turn heads and maintain some sort of living. And in the sports end of that sphere, the easiest path is to take liberties with the steroids crisis and randomly drop names of so-called users based on nothing more than unfounded speculation, whim and guesswork. For all the fine work done by legitimate journalists who continue to uncover the smut in what inarguably is sport’s biggest scandal ever—T.J. Quinn, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Selena Roberts among them—the sports writing business is rife with too many reckless idiots who don’t hesitate to publish or post a name without the slightest bit of corroboration.

...Predictably, Morris made a fool of himself during a panel discussion on ESPN’s Outside The Lines. Like many bloggers, he came off as someone who hasn’t been properly trained to grasp libel law. Of course, the Internet is the Wild, Wild West and doesn’t punish abusers for libeling people.

Yet.

Meanwhile, the real professionals will keep pounding on the amateurs.

Thanks to Tyler Hissey.

Why is Bucky Dent in my Mailbox?

So I opened my mail last night … and there he was.

Bucky Dent. 

Well, at least a three and a half inch cardboard facsimile of him in near-Mint condition.

Someone is anonymously sending baseball cards to baseball bloggers and writers ... including David Pinto, Will Carroll and Craig Calcaterra

Rob Neyer: Is Ellsbury the new Pierre?

It’s true that Ellsbury’s been disappointing, and it’s not apparent that he’ll ever be not disappointing. Last season he batted .280/.336/.394; this year it’s .297/.345/.388. Ellsbury’s 25 going on 26; when Fred Lynn was 25, he’d won an MVP Award and been an All-Star three times. When Ichiro was 25 ... well, he was still starring in Japan, so it’s hard to make a comparison. Johnny Damon took some time to develop, but when he was 25 he batted .307/.397/.477.

So, yeah: Ellsbury’s behind those guys.

Juan Pierre, though? Ellsbury’s playing in the tougher league, and those extra 30 points of slugging percentage (career-wise) do count. Plus, Ellsbury’s a better basestealer, and by most accounts a better fielder. Even leaving aside the small matter of the large difference in their salaries—$10 million for Pierre, $0.5 million for Ellsbury—it’s exceptionally easy to understand that Ellsbury is right now better than Pierre, and still has a pretty solid chance of being a much better player than Pierre.

Chicago White Sox down Cleveland Indians, 6-3

Perez, who joined the team Monday from St. Louis in exchange for Mark DeRosa, took the mound in the ninth with the Indians trailing, 2-0. In rapid fashion, he hit Alexei Ramirez in the head, Jermaine Dye in the hand and walked Jim Thome to load the bases.

Paul Konerko popped out to second, and A.J. Pierzynski sent a grounder between first and second that Ryan Garko stopped with a dive. Garko, from his knees, threw to second to force Thome, but Perez was late getting off the mound, and shortstop Luis Valbuena had to hold the ball at second because first base was uncovered as pinch runner Jayson Nix scored.

Chris Getz followed with a run-scoring double to bring in Dye. Then Perez threw a wild pitch to score Pierzynski and send Getz to third. Finally, Gordon Beckham singled home Getz as Perez was removed.

YANKS OBTAIN HINSKE

The Yankees New York Yankees acquired veteran lefty hitter Eric Hinske from the Pirates for two minor leaguers not considered significant prospects, righty pitcher Casey Erickson and outfielder Eric Fryer.

Rivera or Jeter? Who’s the greatest?

ariano Rivera or Derek Jeter? Which of these two current New York Yankee icons is higher on the franchise’s list of all-time greats?

For me, the answer is simple. Rivera. No contest.

As great as Jeter is, and as much as he has meant to the Yankees, the last 15 years of Yankee baseball have been about one thing, and one thing only. Get the ball to Rivera with a lead, then wait for John Sterling to start screeching “Yankees win ... Theeeeeeee Yankees win.”

Jeter is the Captain. Rivera has been, and still is, the Most Important Yankee

Jenkins: Pitching to Pujols

Attention geeks that never played the game (this means you Amsinger!)...scroll down for some pitching/life tips by Jenkins

One of the really tired laments of recent years—“Why does anyone pitch to Barry Bonds?—has been resurrected in the case of Albert Pujols. Yo, all you geeks who never played the game: They pitch to Pujols (watch Tim Lincecum tonight) because athletes compete. Will they make terrible mistakes? You bet. Will they regret throwing Pujols a 3-1 fastball when they could have just pitched around him? Absolutely. It’s just that big-league baseball isn’t about quitting, wimping out, taking the easy route. Runners at second and third, one out? Of course you walk Pujols, or Bonds, or Willie McCovey. But when you can change the momentum of a ballgame, making it clear that you and your team matter, you go right after the guy. He’s not hitting .831. He makes outs, a good deal of the time, just like everyone else. Play the game hard, or just quit. And don’t listen to the idiots who, if they had their way, would see not a single strike thrown to Pujols all year . . .

WFAN: Murti: Ruthian Impact

Sometimes when you are constantly cut off when speaking by the aorta-boiling King of All Beige Dockers...mindless pyramidal off-track oozing like this can happen.

I’ve written before in this space that you can make the case Mariano Rivera is the most important Yankee since Babe Ruth. Think about it.

The Yankees don’t win four World Series titles in five years if Mariano Rivera is not their closer. If the Yankees don’t win four World Series titles in five years they don’t draw 3-4 million fans every year for the last decade. If the Yankees don’t win four World Series titles in five years and draw 3-4 million fans every year for the last decade they don’t erect that shiny new building that in the Bronx.

Almost ninety years ago the Yankees imported Babe Ruth from Boston and the fortunes of the franchise changed forever. They built a spectacular new stadium that came to be known as the House That Ruth Built. Mariano Rivera’s arrival was less heralded, but has his status as the greatest closer in history been any less important to this franchise?

The game has changed over the years, so much so that the lockdown closer is as important as the big slugger. Ruth used to make opposing teams quake when he came to bat. How do you think teams feel when they see Rivera come into a game?

Here’s another important aspect to Rivera’s greatness. By nature of the position he occupies, every one of the 500 saves he’s racked up obviously resulted in Yankee victories. The math is a little fuzzy from the Ruth era, but I’m quite certain he hit plenty of home runs in games the Yankees lost.

Crashburn Alley: Talkin’ Braves with Craig Calcaterra

Woo-eeee! There’s more plugging going on here than a Visconti Triplets filmfest!

If you live under a rock, you probably haven’t read Craig’s work at Shysterball and NBC Sports. At Baseball Think Factory, I called him the AC Slater of the blogosphere. He’s super cool, popular, and gets stalked (note: I have no idea if Mario Lopez has ever been stalked, but I’d imagine he has). He can probably dance, too.

You might not know it from his overall coverage of Major League Baseball, but Craig is a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan. Yeah, I know — he loses major cool points for that. However, the way the Phillies have been playing, they may want to listen to what a keen observer thinks about the series.

3. There are currently very few statistical methods that even come close to measuring the effectiveness of a manager. Being a Braves fan and having watched Bobby Cox-managed teams for a while, do you think he is really as good as everyone claims?

Actually, Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times has a book coming out this fall that goes a long way towards quantifying managerial effectiveness and he spends many pages on Cox in particular. I won’t even pretend to explain it (mostly because I don’t understand a lot of it) but Cox fares very well among the all-time greats in getting the most out of what he has.  That aside, I think Cox is a very good manager, mostly because he tends to (a) create a drama-free environment that allows his players to relax; and (b) otherwise gets the hell out of the way.  It’s amazing how many managers can’t accomplish even one of those things.  All in all, if you look at the failures of any given Braves team over the past 20 years, you have to point at five other things before you can identify anything that was of Bobby Cox’s doing, and to me, that’s the definition of being a successful manager.

S.I.: Posnanski: Talkin’ about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

Shot at age 33? Definitely, in Ray Vitte’s case.

Joe: This amazes me… you know from 1983 to 1990, Alan Trammell put up a 124 OPS+. Over those same eight years, Cal Ripken Jr. put up an OPS+ of ... yes, 124. I personally believe Trammell is a Hall of Famer, but I don’t think he will get elected and the reason seems to be that he never played a full season after age 32.

Bill: Maturity in a player is the development of talents; not the development of NEW talents, but the development of those talents that the player has always possessed.

Aging is a narrowing of talents, and the narrowing of talents begins long before the player reaches the major leagues. Players, as they age, don’t run as well, don’t throw as well. They continue to develop those talents that they have, but the range of talents continues to narrow. What I’m trying to get to ... I don’t think that “maturing” as a player is one thing and “aging” is a different thing. I think it is one continuous process, that helps the player up to some point, and hurts him beyond that point.

Joe: You will hear players say, all the time, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” There’s no doubt that David Ortiz is a smarter hitter now than he ever was. No question that Alex Rodriguez knows more about how pitchers are trying to get him out now. No question that Lance Berkman knows more about the game than he did at 26 when he mashed 42 homers and drove in 128 runs.

That’s the cruelty of 33 for so many players ... and every player eventually hits that age. The brain is sharper than ever, but the body can’t quite get them there.

Bill: It’s like baking bread, or cooking an omelet. The baking of the bread helps the bread up to a point, and then, if you leave the bread in the oven beyond that point, the same things continue to happen, only they don’t HELP the bread any more; they begin to ruin the bread.

Amazin’ Avenue: UZR Hates The Mets Outfield

Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It’s that million dollar bosch

The Mets have the 2nd worst Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) in baseball, at -20.1 runs.  Only the embarrassing Nationals measure out worse.  This number jumps off the page because the Omar Minaya Mets have been strong defensively.  They were worth +27.1, +6.8, and +9.8 defensive runs in 2008, 2007, and 2006, respectively. Team ERA outperformed team FIP in each of these seasons, consistent with a team that plays above average defense.  We’ve seen that UZR correlates decently with FIP-ERA.  Based on how poorly UZR rates Mets defense this year, one would expect team ERA to underperform team FIP.  This is not the case, as ERA is once again better than FIP by 0.11.  Compare to the Nationals, whose ERA is worse than their FIP by 0.52.  It’s always prudent to seek another opinion on defense statistics, so I looked at plus/minus (+/-) and Revised Zone Rating (RZR) to maybe figure out what the heck is going on here.

...The disparity between UZR and RZR regarding outfielders once again stands out.  R.J. Anderson noted at Fangraphs that UZR is still using Shea Stadium park factors for its calculations.  He proposed that this might be having an effect on Carlos Beltran’s poor UZR this season, but ultimately decided that such a small sample isn’t enough to make any conclusions.  Still, the 4 players who have played the most outfield innings for the Mets this season all rate worse per UZR than +/-.  It would be useful if a home/away UZR breakdown was available at Fangraphs, but it isn’t (yet).  Also useful would be an analysis of these stats for all team’s outfields to provide some context, but teamwide +/- data is not readily available.

Defense stats are inexact but always improving.  I agree with R.J. that less than half a season’s data is not much to go on either.  However, it might be wise to take Mets OF UZR with an even larger grain of salt than usual, atleast until Citi Field park factors are used in its calculation.

Riverfront Stadium Debut Dugout

I did like the type of game those cookie cutter stadiums created even if they were a tad sterile.

Hochman: Logos say a lot about teams

Stan Hochman...hey, at least he dislikes Frank Crosetti.

They talked softly because Manny Ramirez totes a big stick. They patiently explained that the team was called the Isotopes, and that an isotope is any of two or more species of atoms of a chemical element with the same atomic number and position in the periodic table and nearly identical chemical behavior but with differing atomic mass.

Manny was OK with that, especially when they told him the air was thin and the fences cozy and the pitching mediocre. And yo, testosterone-breath, the team logo was cool, an abstract A with no crossbar. Just two of those slanted circles featuring an atom or a proton or a neuron, whatever.

It is a cool logo because it refers to the secret place outside of Albuquerque where scientists perfected an atomic bomb that blew away huge chunks of two Japanese cities and brought a swift end to World War II, making the world safe for democracy once again.

...We’ve had our share of woeful logos in the city. Take the A’s symbol, an elephant perched on a ball with a bat in its trunk. Ugh.

It was bad, but not as awful as the Red Sox, represented by a pair of red sawx, appropriate for a laundromat but not a big-league baseball team.

Memories of Kevin Malone: Guillermo Mota’s new self real or fake?

Mota’s current ERA (4.36) and WHIP (1.39) are very similar to the numbers he has posted in the past 4 years. Furthermore, his FIP of 4.54 is nearly identical to his past 2 seasons. So while Mota was never as bad as he was at the start of the season, he’s certainly not as a good he has recently shown either.

When I went looking for signs of improvement, I found it hard to find legitimate reasons. Mota’s release points have been consistent throughout the year, his fastball was thrown harder at the beginning of the year, and his slider was sharper before the resurgence as well. However, I did find a more legitimate and quantifiable reason for his improvement: a plummeting Leverage Index. In other words, he’s being used in situations that hardly affect the outcome of the game at all.

Last year with the Brewers, Mota’s Leverage Index was 1.33, this year it’s a mere 0.70, which is in the bottom 20 of all qualified relievers in the majors. If a quick peek at the Leverage Index play log isn’t enough to convince you that this matters, then consider that his OPS against in low leverage situations (.679) is almost half of what it is in high leverage situations (1.211), so it’s pretty obvious that Mota has benefited from the unimportant situations he has been thrown into.

OC Register: Chone Smith Can See The Future

Forget Miss Clio… Call CHONE now!

SAM MILLER/OCR: Before I go to some players outperforming or underperforming projections, though, this is quoting you… you were asked which Angel could collapse, which would break out: “If I have to pick one maybe Howie Kendrick. I’m worried about the injuries and inability to lay off the slider outside stalling his development. With his lack of patience, he has to hit .300 to be an asset, .270 would be a disaster. … Weaver will take the step forward to become an ace, like Lackey, Santana, and Saunders have before him. My projections see him as the equal to Lackey and Santana.” You’re a witch!!!

Chone Smith: That looks pretty good. But I take no pleasure in Kendrick’s struggles.

SAM MILLER/OCR: Do you think our projections will get any better, or have we reached the limit of what we can feed into them?
Chone Smith: I thought they had reached some kind of limit, and actually hoped that I’d have a stable system so I could focus on other projects, but there is a lot more I can do. David Wright has taught me that in the past week. (Editor’s note: Wright has an unheard of batting average on balls in play this year, so he’s hitting for high average despite setting new personal highs in strikeouts and lows in home runs.)

The developer of the CHONE projection system, Sean Smith, on his way to fame and fortune. Or at least fame.

Gonzalez: Can the Florida Marlins win with Emilio Bonifacio?

If you anagramp-up Bonifacio..."Can Boo If I” spits out.

To Bonifacio...for all the buzz about Gaby Sanchez moving from first to third at Triple-A New Orleans, it’s looking less and less likely Bonifacio is going anywhere. Are the overall numbers still disappointing? Yes. Even aftera 1-for-3 performance with a triple and sacrifice fly that knocked in the deciding run in the eighth, Bonifacio’s OPS remains .601. His on-base percentage (.298) has been south of .300 since May 22. He’s been error-prone at third, a position he hadn’t played before this spring.

Yet for all that, I thought manager Fredi Gonzalez had a telling quote about him afterthe game: “ Boni, even through all the stuff he’s been going through, at the beginning of the year and hitting .900 and people expecting him to hit .970, he comes every day to work and he’s getting better. He’s got a nice little hitting streak going. He’s hitting a little over .300 from the right side...He’s doing fine. He’s one of those guys you characterize as a winner because he’ll find something to do during the course of a game to help you win a ballgame.”

Can’t really disagree with Gonzalez here. We haven’t seen many games from Bonifacio like he had that first week, but for all his shortcomings—and he has his share—he does seem to do at least one thing a game that makes you say, ‘Ok, let’s keep him in there a little longer and see what he can do.’ If nothing else, I’m impressed by the fact he’s shown no signs of being a “me” player.

THT: Jensen: Using HITf/x to measure skill

Ever watch a ballgame and see three fielders converge on a pop fly before it ends up dropping for a base hit? Did you think that batter didn’t deserve a hit? Or perhaps the second baseman dove to the shortstop side of second base to catch a screaming line drive and your first thought was “that hitter was robbed.” Well HITf/x was designed for you. Because we now can have measures of a hitter’s or a pitcher’s ability based not on the vagaries of the plays that the fielders did or did not make, but on the quality of the batter’s hit ball.

HITf/x is the future. Now it’s here.