Hello Win Column

Now Posting at Lone Star Ball

2010-08-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

Anyone who still checks this blog with some regularity has noticed that I fell into the trap that destroys many amateur bloggers such as myself: time committment. It was simply too much of a strain on my time to maintain this blog at the rate we were going.

Since I still enjoy writing (especially about baseball), though, I've come up with another outlet , where the infrequency of articles won't be an issue: I'll be making weekly FanPosts at Rangers mega-blog Lone Star Ball (fanposts aren't necessarily front-paged, you can find the links in a column on the right hand side). My username there is "John Paul" (I'm obviously not going for anonymity here).

Anyways, I'll keep a catalog of my LSB posts here for anyone who still stops by:

November 18th: A Statistical Look at Mitch, Ian, Elvis, and Michael

November 9th: Designated Ranger Killers

September 1st: Home Run Productivity

August 27th: Off Topic: Simulating the Monty Hall Problem

August 12th: There's No Place Like Home -- AL Edition

August 7th: The Eye of the Elvis

Enjoy!

John Paul

Friday Foto: My Birthday Present

2010-04-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

My birthday came and went recently, and I thought I'd share a "voucher" of sorts that my wife Regina gave me, which she designed herself:

I thought it was real at first.

Monday Movie / Former Ranger Great Update: Jason Botts Update

2010-04-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I made this post, an update of how our old buddy Jason Botts was doing over in Japan (I'm also somewhat proud of it, as the post was a hit over on Rangers mega-blog LoneStarBall). The highlight of the post was this video:

And until now, that was the last I had heard from him. In case anyone is still wondering, Botts had a stint with the White Sox in spring training this year, but was released on March 17th after going just 1 for 12. It will be interesting to see where he lands.

A Reason for Hope

2010-04-22T20:12:00.001-07:00

The Rangers are now 6-9 -- not exactly the hot start for which we had hoped, and perhaps magnified by the expectations levied upon this team. There may, however, be some hope in the fact that the Rangers have scored more runs on the season (62) than they have allowed (61), giving a Pythagorean W-L (expected W-L) record of 8-7.

A two game difference this early in the season doesn't mean much, which perhaps is exactly the point . . . they are certainly better than their current record shows, even if it's just by two games.

What a Difference 4.5 Years Makes . . . .

2010-04-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

In tonight's 3-0 victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park, CJ Wilson recorded the win as a starting pitcher. His last win as a starter came ... never. Compare the statlines from CJ's last 3 starts in 2005 with the statlines from CJ's first three starts this season:

2005:

IP -- ER -- BB -- SO

6.0 -- 4 -- 4 -- 6
2.2 -- 8 -- 2 -- 0
2.2 -- 5 -- 1 -- 1

ERA in these starts: 13.50

2010:

IP -- ER -- BB -- SO

7.0 -- 0 -- 0 -- 9
6.0 -- 3 -- 3 -- 5
6.2 -- 0 -- 2 -- 2

ERA in these starts: 1.37

Former Ranger Great Update: Luis Mendoza

2010-04-21T14:03:00.001-07:00

Everyone reading a blog like this remembers Luis Mendoza; mostly not for good reasons. His entrance into a game usually meant (1) a blowout situation, or (2) a game about to become a blowout situation. His parting from the Rangers was a joyous occasion, I imagine, for most Ranger fans (or at least for me). He's now giving up gopher balls for the Royals, and noted Royals blogger Rany Jazayerli offers this tidbit on what Mendoza brings to the table:

"Luis Mendoza has a career 8.32 ERA in the majors. He has a career 4.67 ERA IN TRIPLE-A. He has a career 5.06 ERA IN DOUBLE-A. I could pull out a host of more advanced statistics, but really, does anything more need to be said? He sucks. The Royals have nothing invested in him. Designate him for assignment, and if by some miracle another team claims him – count your blessings."

We Ranger fans are indeed counting our blessings in this regard.

Year in Review: Awards

2009-10-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Let's start first with the Rangers.

MVP. Marlon Byrd. I know Michael Young had better numbers in almost every offensive category, and yet I'm still picking Byrd. Without Byrd, the Rangers offense would have struggled mightily-more so than it already did, at least. Also, I lean towards Byrd because Young missed basically the final month of season. Byrd, now a three-year Ranger veteran, has proven to be a true leader for this team. I'm a huge fan of how he plays the game, and I think this year he deserved it.

Runner-up. Michael Young. Easy choice. Young was having a fantastic year before his injury and his numbers still looked terrific. No other Ranger came close to the status of Byrd and Young.

Pitcher of the Year. Scott Feldman. Feldman has now proven that he is an elite starter. If not for his bad finish he could have been the game's only 20 game winner. But that's irrelevant. Feldman saved the Rangers staff when he joined it in April and all but took over Millwood's spot as the Ace.

Runner-up. C.J Wilson. A lot of people don't like C.J. I've talked to him a few times and there couldn't be a friendlier person. He's also a great pitcher. From what I've heard, peoples' reasons for disliking Wilson are pretty arbitrary. One lady said on the radio that she didn't like C.J because she didn't like his personality when she got to speak with him at a public event. You get the picture. But the bottom line is that on the mound he was dynamite, especially in the first half. He came up huge in the bullpen for the Rangers this year.

Now, for the league awards. I'm running out of time here, so this will be brief.

AL MVP. I'm going with Joe Mauer. What else does he need to prove? He's a classic ballplayer who plays classic baseball the way it's meant to be played.

NL MVP. Albert Pujols.

AL Cy Young. Felix Hernandez.

NL Cy Young. Adam Wainwright.

AL ROY. Elvis Andrus.

NL ROY. Tommy Hanson.

AL Manager of the Year. Mike Scioscia.

NL Manager of the Year. Jim Tracy.

Note: Sorry if this week's recap of the season was a little stale. It happened that it landed right on the week that I had a boatload of tests to study for.

Year in Review: Month by Month

2009-10-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

April. C+
April began with a sweep, then went haywire, and then got good again to keep the Rangers at respectability. Ian Kinsler had the big 6-6 game, which included hitting for the cycle, and Michael Young proved to be the savior once again with a walk off homerun when the Rangers desperately needed one. Also, Derek Holland arrived, which was reason to celebrate, numbers notwithstanding. Final record: 10-11.

May. A-
May was about as perfect a month as the Rangers could have hoped for. Everything seemed to come together all at once, especially the pitching, which ended the month with a 3.57 ERA. It's hard to believe that the Rangers actually got swept by the Tigers in May, but then they followed that up with a sweep of their own against Houston. The most exciting stretch during the month was the sweep of the Mariners, followed by a sweep of the Angels. At the end of May Texas was in first place. Everything was looking great. Final Record: 20-9.

June. C-
June was a bad month for the Rangers, no doubt about it. I think everyone sort of saw it coming after the incredible May. While the pitching was solid, the offense really fell apart. The Rangers only averaged 3.8 runs per game. Ouch. Oh yeah, and they also lost sole possession of first place for good. Final record: 11-15

July. B+
July saw many improvements just when Ranger skeptics were ready to write the team off. First of all, the offense, while still not nearly as productive as the year before, saw its RPG go up a full run. Plus, the pitching was even better, with 3.59 ERA for the entire month. The big standout, I think, was Tommy Hunter, who went 3-0 during the month with a sparkling 1.11 ERA. Final record: 17-8

August. C+
The Rangers played well enough in August to stay alive, even though the month as a whole wasn't all that great. August provided one of the most exciting moments in the season when the Rangers won two of three from Boston to take brief lead in the Wild Card. But it vanished as the rain does in Texas and never came back. Two big members of the team in the final months, Neftali Feliz and Julio Borbon, arrived on the scene and created a great deal of buzz. Around that, Scott Feldman had a dynamite month, going 5-0. Final record: 14-15.

September. C
September was the month when it all fell apart. Ranger fans will be haunted by this month until the team makes it to the playoffs. Everything went wrong when it needed to be right the most. Well, you know the story. Final record: 13-15.

Year in Review: Offense and Defense.

2009-10-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Rangers have always been associated as being a power hitting team with very little pitching, thus explaining their ten year playoff hiatus. This year though, it was a different story. The power was there as far as homeruns go, but as a whole the offense disappointed, and ultimately letdown the Rangers. It's been a common plague that the Rangers have caught and that is that the offense suffers from a great deal of inconsistency. You know the story: one series they're absolutely dead at the plate, and the next they're scoring ten runs a game. The big problem is that they have too many homeruns and strikeouts, and not enough solid contact and patience. It's as if Rudy Jaramillo decided not to teach plate discipline this year.

Going into the season, the Rangers didn't really have any significant changes in the offense from last year. The only real difference was that Milton Bradley was gone and Nelson Cruz was a starting outfielder. Other than that, it was pretty much the same troop, and I think everyone expected the 2009 offense to be every bit as dominant as 2008's. It's not as if they lacked the proficiency that made the 2008 lineup so supreme. It's that some of the hitters suffered greatly for long periods of time, either due to slumps or injuries.

The first big problem was Josh Hamilton, who seemed to suffer injury after injury, limiting him to just 89 games. And when he did play, he was far from the force he was last year. Hamilton did compile 54 RBIs, which isn't terrible, but he only had 10 homeruns next to 54 singles--not exactly what you want from a premiere power hitter.

Another big difference was Ian Kinsler's sudden transformation from the next Ryne Sandberg to the next Adam Dunn. Kinsler had an amazing April (322/.384/.656) but suddenly dropped off in May. Well, okay, Ian's just having a bad month after a blazing start, I thought. But it didn't get any better. After dropping his average below 300 in May, it just went down and down, eventually settling in the 250/260 range for the final months of the season. The only thing that went up for Kinsler was the power numbers. But I, and just about every other Kinsler fan, would give up half of his 31 homeruns for a more consistent approach. Kinsler's final numbers weren't bad; he had 31 stolen bases and 100+ runs scored. But it's just that he could have been so much better. It seemed like he let the Rangers and the fans down this year, both with his numbers and his attitude.

The Rangers also suffered some severe damage at first base. The defense was nearly impeccable, but offensively, Hank Blalock and Chris Davis, the two primary first basemen this year, were almost insufferable. Blalock ended with a 234 average, and Davis with a 238 mark. Not exactly what a productive team is looking for. The power numbers were there for sure, but the high OBP was unfortunately not.

But the entire offense wasn't unproductive. Michael young was having perhaps his bet season yet before going down in September, and Marlon Byrd proved to be a leader on the team, both vocally and by example. Also, David Murphy was a huge hit once again, despite his monstrosity of a start. Another bright spot was the emergence of youngster Julio Borbon, who hit 312 in 157 ABs, as well running out 19 steals.

Though the Rangers finished second in the AL in homers, their lack of consistency, especially when it was needed the most, really took the team down. The pitching was almost always there. The offense only showed its face on the rarest occasions. Still, the hitting supplied some very memorable moments, such as walk off homeruns by Michael Young, Chris Davis, and Hank Blalock. Also, seeing that 11 run innings was as much fun I've had as a Ranger fan since I started following the team.

There's no denying that the Rangers have to do something to improve the lineup for 2010. Even if Marlon Byrd stays, they still need another bat. Someone who can hit for power and average and who gets on base a lot. Otherwise, it might be a while before we see that 2008 offense again.

Defense played a huge part in the Rangers success this year, which was refreshing to say the least considering how wretched it's been in recent seasons. Let's do a quick recap position by position:

Catcher: Between Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Taylor Teagarden, the Rangers had one of the best defensive catching tandems for the first half of the season. Then Salty went down, but Pudge replaced him and did a stellar job as well. Ranger catchers had one of the best percentages of throwing out base runners in the AL, but even better, they had terrific chemistry with the pitching staff.

First Base. Between Chris Davis and Hank Blalock, only eight errors were made at this position. Both players, while mediocre at best offensively, played terrific defense, saving errors-and runs-on a frequent basis.

Second Base. If there was an improvement in Ian Kinsler's season, it was his defense. He only made 11 errors in 711 total chances, with 451 assists.

Third Base. This position was a bit of a question mark considering Michael Young had never played the position before. Yes, he's good at adapting to new positions, but there is a big difference between playing at shortstop and the hot corner. As expected, his first month was a bit shaky, but after that he looked as if he had been playing the position all his life. He only made nine errors, as well as some dazzling gems.

Shortstop. Going into the season, this was the most exciting position on the team, for newcomer Elvis Andrus, at age 20, had arrived. I think we all expected Andrus to be good, but no one foresaw some of the plays he was able to make. He saved a handful of runs from scoring and made the pitching staff look even better. On the downside, Andrus made 22 errors. But most of them were just lazy pickups or throws that sailed. These are problems that time will fix. Nothing to worry about. Kinsler was the same in his first few years. Also, when Andrus did not play, Omar Vizquel took over and was, of course, just as impressive.

Left Field. This position was occupied by a number of players, including Marlon Byrd, Nelson Cruz, Julio Borbon, and David Murphy. There were plenty of nice plays all around. The entire outfield made less than 15 errors.

Center Field. Josh Hamilton made some terrific plays, but some of them resulted in injuries that spoiled his season. But happily, he was replaced by Marlon Byrd, who proved he was equal to Hamilton's capabilities.

Right Field. Nelson Cruz occupied this spot for most of the season. Yes, he made four errors, but his cannon of an arm proved useful once again.

Year in Review: Pitching

2009-10-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

Going into the season, it was pretty much taken for granted that the Rangers offense would there. The big question would be whether the pitching could carry the team to success. If the Rangers wanted to be in the race till the end, it was pivotal that the pitching improved, because 2008 was proof that even the best offense can't carry a team all the way. Well, as it turned out, the Rangers got almost exactly what they wanted.

The success of the rotation had hardly anything to do with how it began: Kevin Millwood, Vicente Padilla, Brandon McCarthy, Matt Harrison and Kris Benson (I'm wondering if Jon Daniels was somehow blackmailed into letting him pitch in place of Feldman). Not that these five made for an execrable rotation. It's just that what the Rangers had at the end was much improved: Kevin Millwood, Scott Feldman, Tommy Hunter, Derek Holland, and Brandon McCarthy (McCarthy only made a few starts at the end of the year). But it was a team effort, and all these pitchers are responsible for the team's first sub 4 ERA, a full run better than last year.

For the first few months, the bright spot was obviously Kevin Millwood, who was eating innings like a dog eats meat. He also compiled one of the league's best ERAs for the first half and it was looking like the Millwood from 2005 had returned. But, as we all know, he faded in the later months, making the choice for the Rangers best starter of 2009 clear: Scott Feldman. The fact that Scott spent most of April in the bullpen makes his 17 wins all the more impressive. Feldman's best month was August, during which he went 5-0 with a 2.89 ERA. Feldman's final numbers are somewhat deceiving, simply because his 4.08 ERA is due to his final three starts, all of which were filled with chagrin (and laid to rest any hopes of Cy Young consideration). Also, he had a terrific chance to get at least 19 wins, but lost his final three decisions. But overall, Feldman was brilliant, and easily deserving of the title 'Ace' on this team.

The other bright spot was Tommy Hunter, who won 9 games despite not making his first start until July 3rd. Hunter was plagued by a bad finish, in which his ERA rose above four and he failed to capture his somewhat coveted 10th win. But Hunter was a staple in the rotation during the second half, and his success definitely contributed to the Rangers staying in contention through September.

As for Kevin Millwood, his season still has to be acknowledged as a success, even though he was of almost no help during the team's most crucial games. But of the starters he had the best ERA at 3.67, and second most wins at 13. But if not for his dynamite finish (when any hopes of making the playoffs had all but vanished), Millwood's numbers would have been mediocre at best.

As far as the rest of the rotation goes, well, it wasn't exactly brilliant. Derek Holland was a disaster for the most part. Yes, he had a few games that were as dominant as any pitched in baseball this year, but coupled with those were some nightmarish outings that made his ERA (6.12) the highest among starters with at least 100 innings in the AL. Injuries put a damper on what looked to be a pretty bright rotation, as two of the keys, Brandon McCarthy and Matt Harrison went on the DL early. Harrison showed signs of brilliance, and McCarthy, who returned at the end of season, at least proved that he could make it past six innings. Now he has to prove that he actually stay healthy.

It seems like Vicente Padilla never even pitched for the Rangers this year. I think everyone has completely forgotten about him (though it was hard to ignore his recent 10 strikeout performance with the Dodgers), the players included. He wasn't terrible for the Rangers this year, going 8-6, but his attitude was inexcusable.

Overall, the rotation, though far from perfect, gave the team a chance, unlike last year. It was a year where pitching and defense was the real story, for once overshadowing the Rangers formidable, but slightly desultory offense.

When talking about the Rangers pitching in 2009, a lot of people will refer to the rotation. But to me, the real improvement was the bullpen, which had seven pitchers with ERAs below 4. For all the C.J. Wilson haters out there, you should take a look at his final line, which is nothing short of brilliant. Yes, he blew a few games, but his 2.81 ERA is one of the league's best, plus he ranked 5th in the AL with 74 appearances.

Also at the top of the line was Frank Francisco, who, despite several injuries, picked up 25 saves and was key for the Rangers during countless late innings.

But to me, the real hero of the 2009 bullpen was Darren O'Day, who ended up being one of the greatest finds in all of baseball this year. From his memorable first appearance in which he wore Kason Gabbard's jersey to his final glittering 1.94 ERA, O'Day was without a doubt a savior for this team.

The success of the pitching is attributed to many different things I believe, but none more than the arrival Mike Maddux, the tough, brilliant new pitching coach who looks like he came right out of the movie 'Tombstone'. I don't think it's a coincidence that a prized coach like Maddux arrives and suddenly the pitching shows drastic improvement. Maddux, a former big league pitcher himself, is about as knowledgeable about pitching as Roger Emrich is about high school football. I think it took Maddux a little while to get used to his new location, which could explain the team's pitching woes in April. But once he gained the trust of the players, and figured out how each of them played, he was able to instruct them on improving their game. And clearly, the results showed.

Finally, I'll leave you with my thoughts on one of the most exciting additions to the team this year, Neftali Feliz. Feliz was on fire when he first came up, striking out the first four hitters he faced and showing off with ease his 100 MPH fastball. All throughout August and the beginning of September Feliz put up staggering numbers. But then, he began to fade, losing some velocity as well as his control. Still, he finished with a 1.74 ERA with 39 strikeouts in 31 innings. Feliz will be battling for a rotation spot next year, which should be exciting. However, if he fails to impress and is put back in the bullpen, that won't exactly be a crime. Whenever Feliz came in this year, I always breathed a sigh of relief, despite the fact that he was only 21 and in his first months in the big leagues. As far as the drop in velocity, I wouldn't be too concerned. Feliz was clearly showing signs of fatigue over the long, grinding season in which he experienced a lot of things about the game, both physically and emotionally. Look for Feliz to be back next year with his fastball back in form, as well as improved off-speed pitches. Personally, I can't wait.

That's a Wrap!

2009-10-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Well, need I say, the 2009 season has officially come to a close with the Rangers losing to the Mariners in the finale 4-3. Finishing 12 games above 500, the Rangers had one of the best improvements percentage wise in baseball. We tend to gripe over the fact that the Rangers missed the playoffs. It's the ultimate goal going into every spring, right? Well, the Rangers have completed a hugely successful season, regardless of what the front-running Angles accomplished. The very fact that they stayed in contention until the later part of September is reason to celebrate. Plus, it sets up nicely for next year, though, as I made clear in my most recent post, I'm very dubious about how good they'll actually be. So as a farewell to what was a monster year here in Texas, I'll be recapping 2009 throughout this week. Here's a schedule for what you should find:

Monday: The highs and lows of the 2009 Texas Rangers pitching staff.

Wednesday: The ups and downs of the 2009 Texas Rangers offense. Also, a critique of the Rangers defense.

Friday: A brief month-by-month recap of the season.

Saturday: If I picked the winners: 2009 Texas Rangers player honors. Also, who should pick up the league awards around Major League Baseball.

2010 is the Year-or Not.

2009-09-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday was one gloomy day for DFW sports fans. The Rangers suffered another devastating loss, thus ending their playoff hopes, and the Cowboys lost a thriller in front of 105,000 screaming fans-well, since this is a baseball blog I'll stay away from the Cowboys. Anyway, as far as the Rangers go, Sunday answered our question that had been heating up all season: will the Rangers make it to the postseason? Well, now we know. Last week's collapse seemed almost inevitable, simply because all throughout the season when we thought Texas would collapse, they proved everyone wrong by coming back and staying in contention. They had to fall apart at some point, right? I mean, they're the Texas Rangers. Well, with that being said, it's now time to speculate over the 2010 season, which has been persistently advertised as "the year" by folks down in Texas. There is so much to cover and analyze with regard to next season, so for now, I'm going to discuss something pretty basic: will the Rangers really be better next year?

The first thing that comes to mind is "yes." Whether they go out and get a new arm or not, the Rangers will have considerably more pitching depth than ever before. There will be countless pitchers fighting for the rotation, all of whom are highly touted, young arms that will seemingly just get better as time goes on. Also, by contending through September this year, the Rangers have developed the experience of true competition, which will undoubtedly help them survive in 2010. Plus, players like Chris Davis should rebound nicely from the year before and be able to maintain more consistent production.

But these positive thoughts can only go so far, and they sort dwindle when you look at the big picture. Obviously we can hope that Texas will be there in 2010, but right now, partly because of my recent negativity surrounding this team, I am far from convinced. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before the Rangers can be considered a legitimate playoff team. First off, let's start with the offense: can Josh Hamilton stay healthy? He's played three seasons in the big leagues, and only one of those has he been able to stay off the DL. And these injuries he's experiencing are more like the ones that land 40 year olds on the shelf. Hamilton is obviously very susceptible to getting hurt, and with all these nagging injuries in 2009, who's to say they won't come back in 2010? Perhaps Hamilton, despite his exceptional defensive abilities, needs to spend more time at DH. Another player who is prone to injuries is Ian Kinsler. If you haven't noticed, he's spent time in the DL in each of his first four seasons. So Ian has two things to prove: one, that he can stay healthy (though a small injury like the one he had in August won't hurt too much) and two, that he can return to his 2008 form offensively. I like the Ian Kinsler that sprays line drives all over the field and hits for average much more that the one that either hits massive popups or massive homeruns. It's as if he started taking lessons from Hank Blalock (but I'm still a big Blalock fan, and I'll be sorry to see him go). Then there's Michael Young. My only concern with Young is that his hamstring injury might carry over into next season. Finally, the Rangers may need to add another bat. Someone who can get on base a lot, maybe a Kevin Youkilis-type player. I say this because as much as I like the Ranger offense, they simply can't afford to go into a deep hitting slump late in the season like they did last week. The Rangers have always been a team that for some reason goes into a deep rut offensively, and then they suddenly come out and score 10-12 runs. Take last night for example. I would much prefer a team that evens the scoring out. In the end, it all comes down to consistency. Look at the Ranger lineup: Michael Young is the only guy hitting over 300. Look at the Angel lineup: nearly everyone is hitting at or around 300. The Angels are the epitome of consistency.

As for the pitching, well, it could either be stellar or catastrophic (and I use this harsh word simply because young pitching is so unpredictable). I'd say Scott Feldman is the real deal. I wasn't convinced after last year. Now, I completely am. But what about Tommy Hunter? He's been one of the best starters for the Rangers this season. But could his success be a fluke? I'm leaning towards no, but we'll have to wait and see. Then there's Neftali Feliz, who almost transcends the definition of 'power.' But, these sort of pitchers sometimes have trouble surviving the hype. Will Feliz fade after his great start? Plus, if he's in the rotation, we have no way of telling how he'll fare. As for the bullpen, I still don't trust Francisco or Wilson, despite the fact that they almost always deliver. I'm pretty happy with the rest of the bullpen, though another lefty needs to be added to replace Guardado. And finally, the biggest mystery coming into 2010 is...Derek Holland. Holland is the sort of pitcher who makes one utterly jubilant when he does well, but also incredibly frustrated when he fails. Of all the pitching on this team, Holland is my greatest concern. Obviously he has great talent, and you have to like his mental approach (for more, read this tremendous article from the Dallas Morning News. Yet, Holland has been awful of late, which does not bode well for his success next year. If he's inconsistent, as most young pitchers are, then we may have to wait until 2011 until we see the "real" Derek Holland. Remember when Felix Hernandez first came up in 2005? Well, it took him several years, but now he's one of the most coveted pitchers in baseball. Based on Holland's lack of consistency, it may take him a while, like Hernandez, to fully blossom.

I have written this from a negative standpoint, but it's the most honest method of looking at the Rangers next year. They are not guaranteed to make the playoffs, as so many seem to be taking for granted. Is there a lot of promise for this team next year? Absolutely. As far as pure talent is concerned, they may have the best club in baseball. But it takes more than just talent to make the playoffs. It takes a winner's mentality, which the Rangers don't quite have yet. Oh yeah, and one other thing: experience. The question is, do the Rangers have enough of it to make it all the way in 2010?

Over?

2009-09-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today, a talk show host on one of the daily shows on 105.3 the Fan was rambling about the Rangers and their recent tribulations. He finished by saying, "it ain't over till it's over, but it's over." I think that's the mindset that most fans are falling into now, myself included. From my perspective, rationalizing says that the Rangers probably are done, but my inner fan spirit is still hanging on for dear life. The Rangers cannot bend much further without breaking, and, as I said before, they can't keep up these inconsistencies.

It's pretty simple what the Rangers have to do if you look at the big picture. However, for now, while there's still 19 games left, let's focus on just winning the next two games. If the Rangers can beat Oakland tonight and tomorrow, they have a guarantee of gaining ground in either the West of the Wild Card because the Angels and Red Sox are opposing each other now for a three game series. Perfect timing.

I'm banking on the Red Sox winning 2 of 3 simply because the Rangers still have seven games left with LA. We'll see what happens. If the Rangers can't gain ground before Friday, then it's pretty much completely over. The next two games are vital. Go Rangers.

Unreliable Mayor

2009-09-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here patiently, waiting to see if the Rangers will finish their games with the Mariners. My expectations aren't high that they'll continue in this atrocious weather, and if they do, I don't see them winning the game. But my thoughts aren't really focused on the result right now. Rather, I'm thinking about tonight's starter, Kevin Millwood, and how enervated he's looked on the mound of late. I'm tired of watching him go out time after time and allow hit after hit, run after run. Tonight was no exception, as the final line on Kevin was 3 2/3 IP, 5 ER, 8 H, and 2 BB. Still want to call Millwood this team's Ace? I'd say it's time for him to move over and let the ascending Scott Feldman take his place.

Kevin Millwood, who only has two wins since July, is the type of pitcher who makes the fan extremely angry when he underperforms in key games. Maybe it's his veteran presence, or his poise on the mound. He seems like the type of pitcher who should be able to come through every time. And yet, he looks extremely tired and vulnerable these days. He reminds me of one of those grumpy, worn out former ace pitchers who you might find in a movie like "Rookie of the Year." In that movie, which is nothing short of awful, the old former star pitcher grumbles his way through the season. At one point he says in a deep, gruff tone: "I don't do autographs," when a kid asks him for a signature. Now, Millwood isn't quite as flinty as that, but when he responds to his rough outings, his tone is similar, deep, short: "I didn't find my spots. Walked too many guys. I expect myself to do better." So do we, Kevin, but words cannot mend terrible performances. Going out and throwing a gem can. I'm not sure that Kevin Millwood has realized that yet. If you listened to Mike O'Gulnick last week, he did a great impersonation of Millwood, and he too expressed an annoyance with the pitcher's vague answers to his bad starts.

So what might be causing this very untimely collapse? Millwood, who generally performs very well in September, looks like a completely different pitcher. One has to wonder: did those extra innings thrown by Millwood back in April and May affect his arm? It's definitely a possibility. I certainly wouldn't expect Millwood's poor pitching to be a result of pressure, because he's been in playoff situations before. Whatever the problem is, Millwood needs to sort it out. I believe that if he was pitching like Scott Feldman right now, then the Rangers might be tied with the Red Sox. Instead, they're about to be three games back, a deficit that needs to be made up fast, before the season is out. It's up to the pitching, especially Millwood, to make sure that happens.

Hello Win Column, Win #79: Rangers Sweep Series, 10-0

2009-09-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 10, Indians 0
Game Recap

Did anyone else notice that, with this win, we've matched the Rangers' win total from last season?

Game 140: Rangers 10, Indians 0 from Let's Go Tribe

"It took the Texas Rangers less than 24 hours to sweep the Indians . . .

The only upside here is that the Rangers are only 1.5 back of Boston now."

Hello Win Column, Win #78: Rangers Sweep DH 10-5

2009-09-12T12:09:00.001-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 10, Indians 5
Game Recap

There wasn't much chatter in the Indian's blogosphere about this game, so we'll have to settle for just posting the FanGraph, which shows how this game was really over a long time before it was really over:

Hello Win Column, Win #77: Rangers Take Game 1 of DH, Series

2009-09-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 11, Indians 9
Game Recap

Game 138: Rangers 11, Indians 9 from Let's Go Tribe

"After the Indians were quickly down 5-1, the offense scored eight more runs, but today the bullpen couldn't keep the Rangers down. Carlos Carrasco again couldn't throw strikes, and had to be pulled after five innings. The right-hander allowed 11 baserunners and two more home runs.

The lineup, meanwhile, solved Tommy Hunter. In his last start against the Indians, Hunter threw 7.2 scoreless innings. Tonight the Indians tagged Hunter for eight hits in 5.1 innings of work. Rangers manager Ron Washington pulled Hunter in the sixth, replacing him with young phenom Neftali Feliz, who in his short career has dominated opposing hitters. But tonight's results seemed to go against the grain, and the Indians plated both of Feliz's inherited runners in the sixth, and scored a run off him in the seventh.

But the Rangers kept scoring runs, and although the Indians tied the game in the sixth, they never relinquished the lead. Marlon Byrd ended Chris Perez's long scoreless streak by blasting a three-run homer in the top of the seventh."

Hello Win Column, Win #76: Manage to Beat Baltimore Only Once, 5-1

2009-09-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 5, Orioles 1
Game Recap

Cognitive dissonance: Texas Rangers at Baltimore Orioles from Camden Chat

"Ahh, who to pull for? I can't actively root against the Orioles—it's just not in my blood—but given that the Rangers are the only team standing between the [Red Sox] and a wildcard berth, I will have no problems, no problems whatsoever, if we get swept by the Rangers.

The Rangers haven't made the postseason in ten years—their last visit was under the great Johnny Oates in 1999 . . .

Rangers (76-58) at Orioles (54-81) from Camden Chat

"Nothing beats the excitement of September baseball, huh?

The Rangers continue in their quest to secure the AL Wild Card, while the Orioles are...what are they doing again? Oh, that's right. They're shutting down young pitchers, they're tinkering with the lineup in ways that don't really make sense, they're playing without one of their best players in Adam Jones, and they are shredding whatever useful semblance of a bullpen they used to have.

There are positive moments to be had the rest of this year. The Orioles can beat the Red Sox in their upcoming series and help deny the Red Sox a playoff berth."

Labor Day musings

2009-09-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

For me at least, Labor Day has always been the unofficial end of summer. As a kid I always hated this holiday because it marked the imminent trade of lazy summer days for the drudgery of school (and my dreaded math classes). To this day I still find it dislikeable - only now because it means the baseball season is entering it's home stretch.

In recent years past, that of course meant it was time time to start looking ahead to next season and get a look at the September callups. There wasn't much to immediately look forward to in Ranger-land besides whatever possibilities the winter meetings might offer. That's why, as I sit here waiting on the rain delay in Cleveland, I realize just how big a deal it is for this team to be playing meaningful games this time of year. There's a chance, that for the first time since 1999 this team could be playing beyond the 162nd game of the season.

That chance, , however seems to be a bit of a double edged sword. Thomas just got done talking about the mood surrounding this team, and right now it's definitely a negative one, one that I fear could wind up shrouding the end of this season if the Rangers do indeed miss the playoffs (as is seeming increasingly likely). Personally, that's not how I want to feel about the end of our best season since 2004.

I think it's important to remind ourselves that this isn't it - this isn't the best this team is going to do for another 5 years. It's my belief that there's just too much talent in this organization, both breaking in at the major league level and still in the minors for this team not to be at this point again soon, and remain there for years to come as well. If this is what this team can do this season with a multitude of underperforming and frustratingly inconsistent players (Hamilton, Davis, and Kinsler among the most notable), I think you have to believe this team is capable of better.

Perhaps I'm babbling a bit at this point, but what I'm driving at here is there's 26 scheduled games left in the Rangers season and there's absolutely no reason not enjoy them, no matter the outcome. This time, there's no shame in "maybe next year".

Shifting Moods

2009-09-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

I think the Rangers are starting to miss Michael Young. It didn't take long-not that I expected it to. I accepted yesterday's loss partly because it was a close game, but more so because the suddenly decrepit Boston Red Sox fell victim to the White Sox, meaning the Rangers didn't lose any ground in the Wild Card. Going into Sunday, I suspected that the Red Sox would come out with a win, but I fully expected the Rangers to do the same. Jeremy Guthrie, one of the worst starters in baseball, against Derek Holland, who would almost undoubtedly bounce back from his disastrous outing last monday. Instead, Holland looked incredibly vulnerable for the third consecutive start, while Guthrie held the incompetent Ranger lineup in check for seven innings.

To add to the misery is the fact that both LA and Boston won today, dropping the Rangers back even further in the races. I'm far from putting up the flag on the season, but I said a few days ago that the Rangers needed to sweep or take the series from both Baltimore and Cleveland. So far, they're 0 for 1. I don't want to sound like I'm asking too much, but the Rangers need to sweep the Indians. They did it in April, they can do it in September.

It's funny how moods change so often in a pennant race. Just yesterday, before Texas fell to the Orioles 5-4, the Rangers seemed to be unstoppable. They had won four straight, they had Kevin Millwood on the mound, and it looked like a Baltimore sweep wasn't out of the question. Now, just over 24 hours later, the outlook is one of oppressive despair and vexation. And now, if the Rangers go and sweep the Indians, we'll be back to where we were yesterday, feeling very good about the Rangers. But they can't keep doing this. They can't keep shifting the mood. They need to win, win, win. They need to make us feel great, because in truth it's the only way they'll catch Boston or LA. They had a great chance to get within one game of the Red Sox this weekend and they passed it up. If they want to be a playoff team, they can't waste opportunities. Playoff teams take advantage of good situations. Look what the Angels are doing to the Royals. The Rangers are yet to prove that they are worthy of being considered equal or superior to the Angels. Let's hope that changes soon. Very soon, before it's too late.

Hello Win Column, Win #75: Rangers Win Rubber Match over Jays 6-4

2009-09-03T23:46:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 6, Blue Jays 4
Game Recap

Did anyone realize that this win matches our 2007 total?

Scott Richmond and Jays lose to Rangers from Blue Bird Banter

"Scott Richmond did not have a good night. No one really bad inning but he gave up a homers to Nelson Cruz and Elvis Andrus. 5 innings, 7 hits, 4 walks isn't going to do the job very often . . .

For the second day in a row the Rangers had a star injured, Josh Hamilton left the game with back spasms and will be day to day . . ."

Hello Win Column, Win #74: Rangers Bring Out Brooms for Blue Jays

2009-09-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 5, Blue Jays 2
Game Recap

Game 2 Recap: That wasn't good either from Blue Bird Banter

"Yesterday we scored 18 runs in 1 game, today we struggle for 4 in 2 games. Tough to believe that Brandon McCarthy could hold us to 3 hits in 6.1 innings, but then that's the way we've played the season . . .

Offensively we did nothing. The only guy to have a good game was Joe Inglett who had 2 hits and a walk, giving Aaron Hill the game off at 2B. John McDonald had a double as well. In interest of fairness I'll mention Kevin Millar took 2 walks . . .

Michael Young left the game with a strained hamstring and likely will be missing a few games for the Rangers. I'd rant and rave about Millar playing while Ruiz sits or Millar being on the team while Brian Dopirak is still in Vegas, but I'm too tired to rant. Just mentally add a thousand words whining about it . . . "

Hello Win Column, Win #73: Rangers Take Game 1, 5-2

2009-09-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 5, Blue Jays 2
Game Recap

Game 1 Recap: We Used to be Able to Catch the Ball from Bluebird Banter

"Marc Rzepczynski pitched great but got beat by his defense . . . Offensively we scored on a ground ball with the bases loaded that Michael Young booted . . . Our other run was a Adam Lind homer, number 28 for him. We only got 6 hits, two for Lind . . .

Game two is about to start, Millar is playing, Ruiz is not. Cito, what the hell are you doing?"

Michael Young Injured

2009-09-02T16:57:00.000-07:00

That Michael Young will be absent for 2-3 weeeks with a hamstring injury seems like old news almost based on all the attention that local writers and talk show hosts have been giving it throughout the day. And that's a good thing, because the loss of Young is without a doubt the biggest blow the Rangers have suffered this year. Losing Josh Hamilton was painful, but Young is the guy who carries this team, and his injury is magnified about ten times because the Rangers are now entering their most crucial stretch of the season.

As far as replacments go, Ron Washington has said that Omar Vizquel and Esteban German will platoon at third. As for tonight, Chris Davis is playing third and Hank Blalock will take over at first. This is only for this game though, which is further proof that Ron Washington is a mannager who relies heavily on his own instict rather than reason and logic. That's rather unnerving for the fan, but if it means being 16 games above 500, then I'm all for it.

As far as the Vizquel-German platoon goes, my preference is obviously Vizquel. I admit I'm biased, because Vizquel has always stood for what's great about the game. But also, Omar's numbers this year to me warrent significant playing time: 299 AVG and a 348 OBP. Granted, that's only in 155 plate appearances, but based on his career numbers, Vizquel is a guy who consitently gets on base and makes things happens once he's on. Also, though Vizquel admitted he's not completely comfortable at third, I think he's close to impeccable just about anywhere in the infield. Now this is no knock on German, but you have admit Vizquel is the easy favorite.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be completely against the idea of keeping Davis at third and giving Blalock one last shot at first. I think it would mean a lot to Hank seeing as he's come this far with the Rangers and if he's given the chance again I think he might get hot (he hit very well in the last two Septembers). Also, Blalock is in his final year with the Rangers (he's been with them since 2002) and it would be sort of sad to see him leave as a utility man. But, the Rangers have to go with what's best, and right now, it seems like Vizquel is the answer at third base. Mere feelings can't decide if Blalock gets to play again. Statistics decide that, and right now, Omar's are significantly better than Hank's.

Michael Young said that he'd love to be back in time for the series against the Angels. That would be ideal, but hamstring injuries tend to be very nagging, so we just have to wait and see how quickly Young progresses. In the meantime, the Rangers have two series coming up against two very beatable teams, the Orioles and the Indians. The Rangers' tendency to lose to poor teams could hurt them once again. But it's mandatory that they take at least four or five against Baltimore and Cleveland. The Rangers can only lose a handful of games this month, and it would be a disgrace if they did bad against the teams no longer vying for a playoff spot.

Wednesday: Remember This Guy?

2009-09-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

Poor Joaquin Benoit. If you remember, the Rangers lost him to a rotator cuff tear in January. He's been a Ranger for so long, yet in the midst of the success of the Rangers this season, it makes you wonder if anyone remembers he's still on the team . . .

Monday: Commentator Query: The Enigmatic CJ Wilson

2009-08-31T07:01:00.000-07:00

During Saturday night's victory over the Twins, Dave Barnett (switching to the TV side of the broadcast in the absence of Josh Lewin) said:

"[CJ] Wilson's gotten stronger as the season has progressed."

There are several ways to interpret this statement, and I'm mostly just using Barnett's comment as an excuse to show off CJ's impressive numbers this year, rather than point out a flaw in something he said. Thus, a disclaimer is in order: make no mistake about it, CJ has been absolutely outstanding this season; his 2.90 ERA in 59.0 innings speaks to that.

However, his ERA hasn't exactly improved (on a month to month basis) since his stellar month of May, as this month by month look displays (though his season ERA, until this month, has been steadily decreasing since his forgettable month of April, which may give the illusion that he's been improving his monthly ERAs):

Month -- ERA -- Innings

April -- 6.52 -- 9.2
May -- 0.00 -- 11.0
June -- 2.38 -- 11.1
July -- 2.51 -- 14.1
August -- 3.55 -- 12.2

Perhaps Barnett meant to convey CJ's consistency this year, which is inarguable. He may have also been referring to CJ's dominance of opposing hitters (in other words, since ERA is such a fickle stat for relief pitchers, it may not be as reliable as we had hoped). If this is what Barnett meant, he was correct, as this post-April month by month look at CJ's strikeouts per inning shows:

Month -- strikeouts/inning

May -- .36
June -- 1.24
July -- 1.26
August -- 1.66

Wow. In case you need some reference for that, Nolan Ryan's career strikeouts/inning ratio was 1.06 . . .

Good News-maybe.

2009-08-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

In their desperate attempt the squeeze into the playoffs, the Rangers have been battling against two teams: the Red Sox and the Angels. The Rangers are only 2 1/2 games behind Boston for the Wild Card, but I'm still banking on them catching the Angels. So, with that in mind, let's bring in some good news about this formidable foe. One of the most frustrating aspects of the 2009 season has been the Rangers' inability to catch LA since they took over first place back in June. Or, to put it in other words, the Angels' inability to lose when Texas is hot. It seems as if the Angels have been on a winning streak coupled with an occasional loss ever since early July and since then the Rangers have done little to make a serious push at first place. They've been hanging around 3, 4, 5, games behind for a while. Despite their solid play, the Angels have been just a little bit better than Texas. The big question was: Can this team (LA) slow down? Well, it looks like perhaps they might be doing so. Finally. It's only a short stretch of time, but in their last ten games, the Angels are 3-7. It's been a while since we've seen those numbers. Unfortunately the Rangers haven't exactly been playing dynamite ball, going a mediocre 5-5 in that same stretch. That's why they're still 4 games out. But, that 3-7 mark for the Angels may be a sign of what's to come in September, which would then give the Rangers a golden opportunity. Another breath of light is that Texas is 9-3 against the Angels this year, and they still have seven game left against them. Certainly doesn't bode well for LA. On the downside, the Angels just acquired Scott Kazmir, who, despite his calamitous 5.92 ERA this year, has been pitching much better of late.

Hello Win Column, Win #72: Fourteen for Feldman

2009-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Scott Feldman is now 14-4. What were the preseason odds on that?

Final Score: Rangers 3, Twins 0
Game Recap

Pavano Good, Feldman Better, Rangers Blank Twins from Twinkie Town

"That was frustrating.

It was an early strike by the Rangers that did all the necessary damage on Saturday night. I'm glad I fell asleep during the fifth inning, because I'm pretty sure my frustration wouldn't have let me sleep . . .

The offense blanked itself last night as much as the Rangers did it to them . . ."

Friday: What Have You Done For Me Lately?

2009-08-27T22:23:00.001-07:00

**Nelson Cruz the past 7 days: hitting only .167, but his patience at the plate has made up for it at a .167/.444/.417 clip.

**Chris Davis in the New York series (his first 3 games back): .333/.385/.583

**Josh Hamilton before the All-Star Break: .243/.298/.428; Josh Hamilton after the All Star Break: .304/.350/.405 (still waiting for the power stroke to return . . . )

**Dustin Nippert in the month of August: 4.39 ERA in 26.2 innings; not so bad. Take a closer look: 16 BBs in those 26.2 innings; pretty bad.

Hello Win Column, Win #71: Kinsler, Davis Go Deep in 7-2 Rout of Yanks

2009-08-27T22:19:00.001-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 7, Yankees 2
Game Recap

How the other side lives: long ball kills Yanks in 7-2 headscratcher from Pinstripe Alley

"The Yankees lose 2-7 on August 27 on Game 127. Should have seen that one coming.
But it's difficult to predict these types of things when your starter whiffs 12 in 6 and lets up only 2 hits, while the opposing hurler walks 7.

My buddy texted me "Why isn't Texas better? They're [expletive] good. They should be running away with the division." Baseball's a funny game.

And now cue the frantic talks about the Yanks' records against playoffs teams despite our 5-game division lead.

The Yanks aren't used to losing series, and I'm not used to watching them do so. But since Game 1 of this set, they were killed, above all else, by 2-out hits--a stat that overshadowed any pitching implosions or offensive explosions. The Rangers did what the Yanks have had trouble doing all year: hit with 2 outs.

And yet at the same time, they won the Yankee way: by going deep."

Hello Win Column, Win #70: Rangers Survive 9th Inning Scare To Top Yanks, 10-9

2009-08-25T21:35:00.001-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 10, Yankees 9
Game Recap

Rally falls short in 10-9 loss from Pinstripe Alley

"Down 10-5 heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Yanks rallied valiantly for four runs, and just when it looked like they would tie the game, poor luck and poor execution doomed them.
Joe Girardi had Nick Swisher (try to) bunt with runners on first and second with no outs . . .

Joba experienced all his trouble with two outs. Texas scored in two innings off him, but each rally miraculously began with two outs and no one on base. He just could not record that third out in the second and fourth, ruining his night."

Hello Win Column, Win #69: Scooter Feldman Salvages Rays Series For Rangers

2009-08-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 4, Rays 0
Game Recap

Rays Offense Falls Totally Flat In Loss To Rangers from D-Rays Bay

"The Rays needed to win this game to help close the gap in the wild card race, instead they were completely shutdown by Scott Feldman and Co. Feldman went seven innings while striking out 11 Ray batters. On the day the Rays would strike out 15 times, two shy of the team record . . . "

Hello Win Column, Win #68: Rangers Crush Twins To Split Series

2009-08-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

So, there's been a bit of a break between these HWC posts, but I like doing them, and they are fairly popular, so we're going to start it up again . . . .

Final Score: Rangers 11, Twins 1
Game Recap

We've Seen This Script Before: Twins Lose 11-1 from Twinkie Town

"The Texas Rangers drove another nail in the coffin of the Minnesota Twins 2009 season, beating the Twins 11-1 last night in Arlington . . .

Studs:
1. Marlon Byrd: 2 HR, 4 RBI, Byrd put Texas up for good in the third.
2. Neftali Feliz: Ended the Twins threat in the 6th, allowing only a Redmond single in 1.2 innings.
3. Julio Borbon: 3 for 5, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI. Showed some pop for a speedster.

Duds:
1. Bobby Keppel. Three batters, three doubles.
2. Joe Crede. 0 for 3 with the key GIDP in the 6th.
3. Jeff Manship: 5 hits in 1.2 innings. Some of the hits were quite unlucky (grounder that Cabrera could have had, etc.), but he may have been lucky to give up only 2 runs."

Feliz: Starter of Reliever?

2009-08-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

The more volatile the Ranger's relief pitchers have grown the greater my anxiety upon their entrance to the mound has become. I no longer have faith in C.J Wilson the way I did earlier in the year, Frank Francisco seems to be a hit or miss, and for the first time, the stalwart in the bullpen, Darren O'Day, seems to have weakened ever so slightly. The decent of the bullpen raises much concern, but one thing is for certain: I hold a steadfast conviction that Neftali Feliz is most trustworthy pitcher in the pen right now. And that raises a major question: will the Rangers consider keeping Feliz as a relief pitcher? Personally, I want to see him start. I want to see if this kid can mow down hitters for an entire game rather than just an inning or two. But going into next year, let's say hypothetically the Ranger rotation has Ben Sheets as the ace, Kevin Millwood, Scott Feldman, Tommy Hunter, and Derek Holland. And even if the Rangers don't acquire Sheets or someone else, they may still want to see what Brandon McCarthy and Matt Harrison have to offer. I know the Rangers envision Feliz as a starter, but with so much depth in the rotation already, and with arms like Blake Beavan and Kasey Kiker on the rise (though Beavan has been mediocre to say the least while Kiker has been solid but not brilliant), it's certainly a possibility that the Rangers will keep Feliz in the bullpen, perhaps as the closer, for next year.

In eight games, Feliz has a 0.63 ERA and an astounding 19 strikeouts in 14.1 innings. Almost as impressive is the fact that Feliz has only walked one batter. There's nothing better than a strike throwing machine with a 100 MPH fastball. It also looks as if Feliz' off speed pitches have improved greatly since he was moved to the bullpen in AAA. Now, as a young pitcher, Feliz is liable to make mistakes. He will undoubtedly have a bad outing eventually. But for now, I feel relief rather than angst when he comes in to pitch. I take it for granted that he will issue the shutdown inning when he's called upon. These numbers are the reason we may see Feliz still in the bullpen next year, perhaps as a closer. Frank Francisco is nice to have, but can he really stay healthy for a whole season? And what about C.J Wilson? I know the Rangers see him as a potential closer, but when he's been ain that role he's reminded me of Mitch Williams, which scares the heck out of me. And so, going into 2010, the best choice for the closer role may be Feliz. If the Rangers could keep Francisco and Wilson as setup men, then I think Feliz would definitely solidify the back end of the bullpen.

In the end, what I think will happen is Feliz will be given a chance to start in Spring Training. He'll likely be battling for a spot with Hunter, Harrsion, McCarthy, and maybe Holland. If the Rangers love what they see from Feliz, then I think he starts, if they don't feel impressed, then Feliz goes to the bullpen. But one things for sure: Feliz isn't going back to the minors. His arm is too valuable.

He's baaaaaack...

2009-08-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

Well, this is almost as if it where on cue, isn't it? Not 24 hours after John Paul's timely post chronicling his performance in AAA Oklahoma, Chris Davis is apparently "expected" to rejoin the big league club on Tuesday for their 3 game set with the NY Yankees.

He's of course going to replace the increasingly lifeless Hank Blalock, who after an 0-4 Sunday is hitting .199/.213/.342 since the All-Star break and .238/.274/.473 on the season.

As noted by JP in the last entry, Davis has turned his game around at the AAA level since being sent down (after putting up a .202/.256/.415 line in his first 77 games of the year in the majors), hitting .327/.421/.540 with 35 strikeouts in 150 ABs. Perhaps most impressive though are the walk totals he's put up since going down: 28 in 178 total PA's, good for a 13.8% BB rate. That, along with the nearly halved strikeout % (23.3) gives Davis a 0.69 K/BB ratio, the best he's posted at any single stop in his career (sample size aside). The test of translating those improvements to the majors still awaits him, of course, but suffice it to say that Davis has done everything the Rangers could've possibly hoped for in his performance since being demoted. He's probably not going to be in any better position than he is right now to salvage something from the ashes of his disappointing 2009 MLB campaign.

A roster move to make room for him on the 25-man roster will be forthcoming - optioning Doug Mathis to AAA would seem the most logical choice, though that would leave the Rangers with a 6-man bullpen (rather than the 7 they've been accustomed to using most of the season) going into a series with the top team in the MLB in wOBA.

Should they not want to give up that extra pitcher however, it's not entirely inconceivable that the Rangers could either waive or DL Andruw Jones or even Blalock. Davis's presence probably forces those two back into some sort of platoon at DH, And while Blalock starting a game as the designated hitter seems by definition a slightly hilarious prospect at the current juncture, Jones has been pretty worthless himself since the all-star break. He's hitting .184/.326/.368 for the second half and though he's taken grounders there recently, he doesn't provide the security of being a long-term backup at first base in the event of an injury.

Personally, I'd be slightly surprised (though I might prefer it) if either one went anywhere - Blalock due to his contract, Jones because of Rudy Jaramillo's attachment to him - but it's worth pondering.

(A quick footnote to close out the entry here - I will be indeed back on a part-time basis to support JP and Thomas here at HWC, though my posts will likely be ~~more~~ just as infrequent as before.)

Sunday: Battle of AAA First Basemen

2009-08-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick thought for today . . . .

For all those who were calling for Chris Davis' head early in the season in favor of Justin Smoak, check out their stats at AAA this season (as of Friday morning):

Chris Davis: .327/.421/.540 with 35 strikeouts in 150 ABs
Justin Smoak: .239/.354/.356, 36 with 36 strikeouts in 163 ABs

Smoak will be a great player eventually, but for now I think it's unfounded to suggest that he needs to replace Davis. One thing I think we can all agree on: it's time for Davis to come back and replace Blalock . . . .

Friday: Pudge Then vs. Pudge Now

2009-08-21T02:00:00.000-07:00

In their annual publication the year after Pudge left the Rangers in 2002, Baseball Prospectus wrote this quip under Einar Diaz's stats in 2003 (which, confusingly enough, appeared in the 2004 edition):

"It's not too often that a team replaces one of the best catchers in baseball history with one of the worst."

He's without a doubt one of the best catchers to play the game. If you're like me, you didn't really follow Pudge closely in his post-Rangers days. When we reacquired him, I found myself wondering, "How has Pudge been doing since he left?"

Here's a quick summary of some important stats which give a partial answer to the above question (along with Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Taylor Teagarden's performances this season for comparison):

AVG/OBP/SLG:

Pudge with the Rangers (1991-2002): .305/.342/.489
Pudge with everyone else (2002-2009): .291/.328/.442
Pudge the last 2 years (2008-present): .265/.302/.389
Salty this year: .236/.293/.375
Teagarden this year: .194/.264/.364

Average Games Played:

Pudge with the Rangers (1991-2002): 123.25
Pudge with everyone else (2002-2009): 125.86
Pudge the last 2 years (2008-present): 104
Salty this year: 83
Teagarden this year: 39

CS%:

Pudge with the Rangers (1991-2002): 49.8%
Pudge with everyone else (2002-2009): 38.5%
Pudge the last 2 years (2008-present): 32.3%
Salty this year: 24%
Teagarden this year: 41%

Note: What would make this more interesting would be how the all the Rangers catchers from 2003-present have done in his absence. I've scoured the internet, but can't seem to find this data. If anyone knows where I can find it, let me know.

Source: Pudge's baseball-reference page

Wednesday: I'm Back

2009-08-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a hell of a summer. For those who have been checking the page for the past month or so hoping to see new articles . . . lo siento. Because of the tenacity of wedding preparations that took place this summer, I was left with very little time to do much more baseball-wise than listen to the Rangers on the radio (usually while doing things like stuffing invitations, or reserving hotel rooms, or renovating the house). But there are two things we may celebrate: (1) I got married, and (2) Hello Win Column is back.

Since the upcoming semester (my 4th in graduate school) looks to be a busy one, I won't be updating every day like I had been. Instead, I'm going to aim for 3-4 posts per week. If I'm lucky, I will be able to convince my co-writers to join me once again. Because the truth is: Rangers baseball is too exciting right now to not write about (at least for me).

So I apologize to anyone out there who was disappointed with the lack of posts the last couple of weeks (especially to Matt, who harassed me about it constantly). But, as of this moment, Hello Win Column is officially back in business (or maybe just back, since we don't make any money).

Go Rangers!

John Paul

Wednesday: The Trade Deadline

2009-07-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Now that the All Star Game and all its glitter and glamour has become a subject of the past, we can now focus once again on the regular season, as well as one of my favorite times of the year, the July 31st trading deadline and the thrilling days preceding it. Obviously this year won't be quite as big as last year as far as blockbuster trades go, but I wouldn't be surprised if some major deals are at least being discussed by GMs around Major League Baseball.

The most significant name that has surfaced the headlines is Roy Halladay, who, in all his power, deserves better success than what the Blue Jays are able to give (not completely the Jays fault, as they're stuck in the league's most challenging division). I know Halladay loves the paycheck, but he wouldn't be human if he said he wasn't tired of packing up his bags at the end of September year after year. That raises the big question: Is Jon Daniels talking with JP Ricciardi about a possible deal? The answer is most likely no, but the players hypothesizing about having Halladay on the team a few weeks ago certainly raises a few eyebrows.

Halladay is signed through 2010, so if the Rangers were in fact to make a move for him, they'd have the assurance that it wouldn't just be a rental deal. However, the Blue Jays will be looking at the cost of players like CC Sabathia and Rich Harden last year and be asking for the same, if not more. That means the Rangers would for sure have to give up either Holland or Feliz, Smoak, and at least one other prospect. If I was Jon Daniels, I would keep a good distance from the trade market this year. Halladay is the only big name that is being offered who could really help the Rangers, but the problem is that he's already 32 years old. If the Rangers really wanted to make the deal worth it, they would have to sign Halladay to another contract, but by then he'll be moving out of his prime. Sorry, not worth it. The other option would be to go after a young prospect, but that would really be more like a substitution than a trade.

Another possibility, and I touched on this a few weeks ago, would be for the Rangers to get another arm in the bullpen. That probably wouldn't cost the Rangers any more than Marlon Byrd, Hank Blalock, or Andruw Jones. I wouldn't mind seeing Jones or Byrd leave as much as I would seeing Blalock depart. I said back in March that this is the year for Blalock to prove that he's still a major force in the lineup, and so far, I've been impressed. Blalock already has 19 homeruns in only 258 ABs. His batting average is decent at 260, and it'll likely continue to climb as he gets more playing time. I also happen to be a big Blalock fan, despite his woes in recent years. As for Jones, he's been valuable too, but I'm not too excited about his 231 AVG. And for Byrd, well, I'm a big fan, but I think in the long run he's the odd man out in the outfield with Cruz and Murphy looked upon as major weapons in the lineup. As far as getting rid of pitchers, I think it might be time to say goodbye to Eddie Guardado. To put it simply, I no longer trust his arm.

As the deadline looms and the suspense begins to mount, one can only assume that Jon Daniels is talking on the phone about possible deals. But though a trade certainly wouldn't hurt, in the end I'd rather see the Rangers try to make a run with what they already have. After all, they're nine games above 500 with their current roster. Would the addition of one player in exchange for the loss of several future stars really help?

Wednesday: ASG: Young, Hamilton in, Kinsler snubbed

2009-07-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

My main dislike for the All Star Game isn’t the event itself, but that the outcome of the event affects the World Series. The reason this is frustrating is because there seems to be a competitive spirit lacking at the All Star Game. It’s more like a show than a game. If it was truly competitive, then the managers wouldn’t take out a superstar and replace him with a guy who’s on the roster because he's put up 'solid numbers.' Ben Zobrist certainly comes to mind. Still, I, like almost anyone else, take sheer delight in the fact that I get to see the game’s leading talents all on the field together. Two of those talents will represent the Texas Rangers, namely Josh Hamilton and Michael Young. The biggest disappointment for most Ranger fans is that Ian Kinsler is not present on the AL roster. Kinsler appeared to have a solid shot at making the starting job at 2B, but in the end, Dustin Pedroia, who was picking up steam with the votes during the last few weeks, won out. Kinsler was then snubbed as a backup as well. But in truth, Kinsler (he still has a chance at making the roster with the final fan vote) didn’t really deserve to make the All Star team. After his prodigious start to the season, Kinsler has merely been mediocre. He has been stuck around the 260's in batting average for over a month now, and though his power numbers have gone up, his OBP has dipped to a meager 331. My guess is that he’ll really heat up during the second half (assuming he stays healthy) and become the offensive producer he’s capable of being. But for now, I think it’s a good thing that he stays out of the game, because one: he didn’t deserve it, and two: he needs a physical rest.

Michael Young made the team as expected. He’s helped represent the Rangers every year since 2004, and there was no reason to believe that this year would be any different. He’s having a terrific season, as it looks like he’ll reach 200 hits again after sort of taking last year off in that department. I’d like to see Young start the game one of these years, but as long as Derek Jeter is around, it seems unlikely. Plus, I think Young is happy just to be at the game, regardless of whether he starts or not.

Finally, Josh Hamilton was helped out by the fans and will be one of the starting outfielders for the AL (another reason why I don’t like the All Star game, seeing as other players deserve it much more than Hamilton, who has been injured much of the season, does). Josh just came off the DL and he’ll surely be ready to play in the game. The question is: should he play in the game? I definitely don’t want to see him play in the Homerun Derby, even though most fans around the country do, and I’m uncertain as to whether he should even play in the game. The chances of him getting injured are slim, but taking that chance could potentially mean losing Josh for the most important part of the season. Hamilton will tell you that he wants to play, and he most likely will, but since he’s barely been playing at all this year, I can hardly say he deserves it.

As much as I like the All Star Game, I’ve never been one to look forward to it. The three-day break means that I’ll have to endure the longest stretch of baseball hiatus during the season. But then I think about the NFL and I realize I can't bleat about a meager 3-day break. I’m always eager for the All Star break to end so that teams can get back to playing again, and even more, because it marks the beginning of the trades, a subject which I addressed earlier, and will talk about once again on my next post.

Note: As of today, Ian Kinsler and Pablo Sandoval are leading the final vote ballet. So it's looking like Kinsler may end up in the game after all.

Monday thoughts: Chris Davis and Julio Borbon

2009-07-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know it's been awhile since I've written anything here at HWC. Truth is, till now I haven't had a whole lot to say about the Rangers, at least not anything worth chronicling here.

Suffice to say that fortunately, the Rangers seem to have finally shaken off the muck they where floundering in during June and gotten themselves back on track here at the start of July. They've won 5 in a row after taking two more from the hated "Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim (whom they now have a 5-1 record against on the season) and setting off their own fireworks this Fourth of July weekend with a sweep of the reigning AL champs, the Tampa Bay Rays (who, until encountering the Rangers, had entered the weekend as the Major League Leaders in wOBA).

Now they head into a week that could very well set the tone for the second half this season: three games against our co-division leader Angels and four against the third-place Seattle Mariners. It's a golden opportunity for the Rangers to snatch the division lead and make the Mariners less of a factor in the division race heading into the all-star break... with the alternative being coughing up the lead to LA and possibly drawing the Mariners in to make it a three-team battle after the break.

Back just in time for the last hurrah of the second half is Josh Hamilton, who comes off the DL tomorrow against the Angels... while perhaps leaving just in time is Chris Davis. As confirmed last night by Evan Grant, the Rangers have finally pulled the plug on their struggling young first baseman, sending him down to share time at DH and first base with fellow first base hotshot Justin Smoak at AAA Oklahoma.

The all-to-familiar Davis debate has raged all season, it would seem: for every kneejerker who wanted to send him down in mid-May there appeared someone to preach patience with Davis, pointing out his age and his first base defense. As you might know, I was in the latter camp for much of the first half, but even I'll admit at some point you've got to run out of leash (which for me was probably when he broke the 100 strikeouts barrier back in mid-June).

The numbers tell the story all too well: he ends his first half with a .202/.256/.415 slash line (a 671 OPS) and a mere .288 wOBA. The young slugger did show the occasion flash at the plate, such as at the end of interleague play a week ago when he had a short 7-for-14 stretch. Those all-too-infrequent lightning strikes always seemed to actually make matters worse by instilling hope that maybe Davis was figuring things out... only to be followed by another week or more of 0-for's. Whether it was timing, mechanics, strike zone judgment, lack of confidence or all of the above (and it did seem like all of the above) it has become painfully clear Chris Davis's problems weren't going to be fixed in the majors.

Furthermore, at the time of this long-awaited demotion, Davis' UZR (the one saving grace about his game early in the season) had even declined to below replacement level: -0.6 in standard UZR and -1.1 runs in UZR/150. Whether that was just increasing sample size showing us the real Davis or his poor play at the plate influencing his play in the field, he wasn't even offering the major league team anything of defensive value anymore, and the Rangers wisely chose to demote him before his -0.8 WAR dipped to a full game or more below replacement.

Obviously, Hank Blalock will take over first base in Davis's stead for now - and for those of you who would point out his platoon inadequacies (he has a .247/.298/.526 slash line against lefties this year) and call for the premature promotion of Justin Smoak, please note that Smoak hit an even worse .196/.268/.314 against AA-level left-handers this year. He'll get his turn, but for now lets see how he handles his recent promotion to Oklahoma first.

Speaking of promotions... here's one I've got a bit of an issue with. As you may have forgotten, unless you pay careful attention to the dugout shots during Ranger broadcasts, Julio Borbon has been in the majors for about a week now. When he was called up last Monday, he DH'd, and for some reason hit 6th (which was eyebrow-raising in and of itself, but we won't get into that) and it was proclaimed the next day that Ron Washington didn't intend for him to "sit and watch games".

Here we are almost one week later, and Borbon has made exactly zero starts and collected exactly two plate appearances since his debut. And the two plate appearances he did get (one of which netted him his first big league hit and RBI) only came in a game that Nelson Cruz was removed from in the 6th inning due to back stiffness. The only other time he's even stepped on the field was a token inning as a defensive replacement in the 9th during the 12-4 thrashing of the Rays on Saturday.

Now the story apparently is that Borbon is a pinch runner off the bench:

Washington said Julio Borbon was kept up because “he gives us some speed off the bench. I have another guy on this team that can go up and bunt if I need."

I have a huge problem with this, myself. I understand that Murphy and Byrd have really picked up their game over the last week, but Julio Borbon is your top outfield prospect, and quite possibly the #2 position prospect in this system right now, behind Justin Smoak. And now you're relegating him to a marginal bench role that could easily be filled by a player who matters less in the long run like Greg Golson? So much for "not here to sit and watch games" I guess.

To me this is just robbing Borbon of AB's he could be putting to better use further refining his approach in OKC, and could very well stunt the progress he was making down in the minors if he's going to be relegated to the bench for an extended period of time. One would think that there has to be another roster move coming sometime this week, otherwise this premature waste of a promotion will become more of glorified demotion for young Julio.

One last order of business for today: thanks to the might of the evil Red Sox nation, and likely the general stupidity of those who don't look past batting average when trying to determine a players value, Ian Kinsler not only got snubbed from starting at second base in St. Lous, he might get snubbed from the all-star game entirely if he doesn't win "The Final Vote". Part of me really can't believe I live in a world where Dustin "I'm short and gritty!" Pedroia beats out Ian Kinsler while Josh Hamilton gets voted a starting spot for basically doing nothing in the first half, but I suppose I expect too much logic out of All-Star voting sometimes.

The good news is, the Giants fans from the SBN blog The McCovey Chronicles have made Lone Star Ball a proposal... they'll try and help get Kinsler in if Rangers fans try and help get Pablo Sandoval in. I say they've got a deal... what about you?

Moday Movie: George Carlin on losing stuff

2009-07-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

No, nothing about baseball here, but this is one of my favorite George Carlin bits... one we can all relate to, I think.

Wednesday: Trade With Caution

2009-06-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

In his article for the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday, Kevin Sherrington expressed his opinion that the Rangers should keep their prized prospects away from the trade market. As for me, I’d be thrilled if the Rangers make the playoffs, and I wouldn’t mind if they made some acquisitions, just so long as Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz are left alone.

It’s been said that the Rangers need to find a bat to help keep this offense alive. But to me, the offense, despite its recent tribulations, will be fine, because Josh Hamilton should be back in a few weeks. Right now, I think that offense is really missing Josh. No, what the Rangers need is some bullpen help, someone they can depend on consistently. One name that lights up the radar is Joel Zumaya, the coveted Tigers reliever. If the Rangers could bring in Zumaya and get rid of a guy like Guardado, then I would feel much better about this team, because to be frank, I no longer trust ‘Everyday Eddie.’

As for the rotation, it could use an addition, though right now I think it would only help if a major star were brought in, which seems unlikely.

Again, the Rangers should make a trade only if they don’t have to give up Feliz, Holland, and maybe Blake Beavan. As for players I wouldn’t mind seeing go: Kasey Kiker, Michael Main, and Chris Davis.

Note, next week, due to a conflicting schedule, I won't be putting any posts up for HWC.

Monday Movie: Bugs Bunny Baseball

2009-06-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a classic Bugs Bunny episode. Seen it a million times, still love it.

So...I wonder why any balks weren't called?

Monday: 'Roid Rage

2009-06-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

It’s a subject that that isn’t fun to talk about, but talked about nonetheless. Steroids. They can’t be ignored any more than paying the monthly electric bills can. I tend to linger away from the idea for a steady period of time up until the next name comes out. This time it’s Sammy Sosa. Now I think everyone knew that Sosa most likely used steroids before the news flash arrived a few weeks ago, but now that his name and steroids are officially making the headlines, people have to stop and think about it.

Though the topic of steroids and who used them is surfacing newspapers and websites frequently, it’s not because players are using them now. It’s because players did use back in the 1990s, and now the truth about their mistakes is finally being released. True, some players still are caught using drugs today, but they are generally young, naïve players who believe that they can only succeed by enhancing their bodies. Those players are often caught and rightfully suspended. The sad thing is that back in 1990s (and I suppose early 2000s for some) star players who already had the talent took steroids and were never caught until now. It’s become a mess, as more and more players are becoming subjects of this controversy, and most of them are players who were having Hall of Fame careers before the drugs entered their lives.

So that leads us to the major question surrounding the steroid scandal: should star players who used drugs be allowed in the Hall of Fame? It’s a tough question, and even tougher to answer. If Barry Bonds is not allowed in the Hall of Fame, then does that mean he’s not allowed to have the homerun record? In 100 years, if someone sees that he has the record, but is not in the Hall of Fame, they will know that he made a mistake somewhere along the line that prevented him from entering the Hall. If that’s the case, then Bonds will never be looked upon as a baseball hero. My answer to the question is this: For steroid users, all records should be dismissed, and no one should enter the Hall of Fame. That means that Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and guys like Rafael Palmeiro would not be going into the Hall. Right now, it may sound a bit inequitable, but in 100 years, it will be looked upon as simply a small glitch in baseball history, a span of a few years when there were major hitting stars who were lost in the spotlight because of what they did with steroids. People will continue to write books about it, and talk about the records that were taken away, and they probably will simply find it intriguing rather than unfair. Because the truth is, there will be so many more great players to come, that a small portion of them left out won’t really matter. After all, punishment must be given for those who make mistakes.

There is still hope for these players. They can still go down with dignity, even if they don’t make it into Hall of Fame. What they can do is admit their mistakes. Alex Rodriguez did it (though we’re not sure how much he left out) and Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte did as well. If one admits their mistakes, they can go out with dignity. If they live in denial, then they go out with a black shadow cast upon them. A few years ago, Mark McGwire said at a hearing involving steroids, ‘I’m not here to talk about the past.’ If he had only admitted his mistakes then maybe he’d be getting more votes on the ballet.

I still think players who used steroids will make it into the Hall of Fame. My opinion is pretty much irrelevant. I just think that since it’s such a small group of players compared to the amounts that will be eligible in years to come and that in the future, people won’t care if Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds aren’t in the Hall of Fame. However, I don't worry about this, because even though these players likely will still be eligible for the Hall of Fame, it will still be up for the the voters to decide. If the voters don't select these players, then the players can't say they were cheated.

Some say that the mess is happening right now, as more and more names are coming out. It's hard to tell if the mess is now, or yet to come when these players who took steroids become eligible for the Hall of Fame. Then what's going to happen? There's a great line in 'No Country For Old Men' that fits this situation perfectly: "it's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?" "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."

Wednesday: Ice Cold

2009-06-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last year, the Rangers based their chances of winning on how good the offense was. This year, at least for now, it’s been the pitching, because right now this offense is not one to be relied on. People haven’t really noticed the slumping offense because the pitchers have been such stalwarts all season long. The Rangers began this home stand 2-4, thanks especially to the scuffling offense of this team. That’s when it really started to occur to people that this offense was mired in a deep slump.

With the exception of David Murphy, none of the hitters are producing like they’re capable of. Of course, Ian Kinsler comes to mind first. It’s hard to believe that not too long ago he was hitting over 350. Now, thanks to a month long downturn, the Ranger’s second baseman is hitting 268. Nearly every other Ranger hitter has seen their batting average plummet in recent weeks. Nelson Cruz, after his stunning offensive outburst back in late May, has fallen down to 276. It wasn’t long ago that Elvis Andrus was leading all rookies with a 280 AVG. Now he’s hitting 256. And what happened to Andruw Jones? He hung around 300 for so long, and now he’s suddenly hitting 248. 248! How did that happen? Jarrod Saltalamcchia is batting a meager 247, and of course Chris Davis is still hovering just above 200. The only starter who is hitting in the 300s is Michael Young, though he too has been the victim of recent offensive ineptness.

Last night was pleasing, as the Rangers hit three homeruns and chased Wandy Rodriguez early, but they didn’t do much scoring after the fourth inning. For once I can honestly say that I eagerly await the next fifteen run outburst from this offense. The last time the Rangers scored ten or more runs in a game was on May 30th. So it’s been over two weeks since we've witnessed a slugfest from the Rangers. And though it’s slightly irrelevant, the Rangers have only had two 10+ run games since April 15th.

As nice as it’s been to see the Rangers in first place, it’s clear that this team has not had both the pitching and hitting clicking at the same time. The only question is this: when the hitting starts, will the pitching stop? If the Rangers really want to win this division (and I say this partly because the Angels look like a driving force on a mission) then they’ll have to put everything together, especially in July and August, when in the past the Rangers have notoriously started to fade.

Every single hitter on this roster will honestly say that this offense is not producing to the best of its abilities. These hitters can punish a team like no one else can, and as the weather in Texas gets hotter, let’s hope that the offense can do the same.

texasrangers.com

One mans All-Star Ballot: Part II

2009-06-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it's taken me long enough, but here it finally is... part two of my look at all-star voting by the numbers. At this point this might be a bit ill-timed in comparison to part one - undoubtedly changed on the AL ballot since last time - but considering it took me three nights of writing and rewriting this, I think it's still time to soldier ahead just so I can get on with other things (like looking for some bright spots in our suddenly painfully inept offense).

It's been awhile since the National League has actually won an All-Star game, so this year it might be more important than ever to make certain they have the best players from their league representing them... unless of course you secretly enjoy seeing them fall flat on their faces year after year.

I'll admit, I kind of like to think of the NL's 12 year ASG drought as retribution for making us AL fans put up with this silly business of watching the pitchers hit during interleague (and even spring training) every year.

Just kidding.

Okay, maybe only sort of kidding.

Anyway, now that I've offended several million purists and NL fans, we might as well get on with this:

First Base

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The NL has some excellent first basemen - I think an argument could be made that deepest single position as far as raw talent goes on the all star ballot is NL first base, and has been for some time. This year however, two guys stand out above the rest, and that's the insanely talented Albert Pujols and one-time Ranger Adrian Gonzalez.

Pujols is of course on of the best, if not the best pure hitter in baseball so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that he leads NL first basemen in wOBA, OPS and just about everything else. In fact, been the most valuable offensive player in all of baseball this year if you go by Wins Above Replacement. His overall WAR has been hurt somewhat by his defense - he's kind of having an off-year at first base weighing in at almost 3 runs below replacement in UZR (first time he's been in the negative since 2005). So his overall WAR is 3.2 - only tied for fourth best in baseball with Ryan Zimmerman. I say only because his bat has been worth an even 30 runs above replacement this year, almost 6 runs better than second-best Raul Ibanez. Just imagine what his overall WAR would be if he had his usual stellar defensive numbers to back all that offensive value up.

Gonzalez (or as I like to refer to him, the real reason why the Adam Eaton for Chris Young deal stung) hasn't quite been the offensive beast Pujols has... but he's been close. The casual all-star voter might dismiss that notion looking at his batting average (.276, versus Pujols' .324) but beyond that veneer he's having a truly special season himself. Thanks to the fact that he's tied with Adam Dunn for the best walk rate in the NL (at 18.7 BB's per 9) he sports a .414 OBP, 8th in the NL. More importantly, he's third in the NL in slugging percentage and ISO (isolated power), which as you might have guessed means he's up there in homers - tied with Pujols and Ibanez for the NL lead with 22. Not too bad, as evidenced by the 24.2 runs above replacement Fangraphs has his bat valued at. Where's that rank compared to Pujols? Third in baseball, as a matter of fact, and a half win behind second place Ibanez.

That brings us to Gonzalez's advantage, and that's his defense. He's been worth 2 runs even at first base, tied for second among NL first sackers with Atlanta's Kasey Kotchman. Even though his D is a bit less impressive if you project it over 150 games (UZR/150) he's still been a lot better than Pujols this year, and as a result he's only 0.2 points behind big Albert in overall WAR at 3.0.

Pretty tough final decision here, for me at least. WAR-wise, it's pretty much a wash, although Pujols does have a slight edge. Albert's flat out been the most valuable offensive player in baseball this year, but A-Gon isn't far behind in offensive value himself, and his defense makes him the more rounded player. I really like Gonzalez a lot, but considering Pujols has long been considered a great glove at first (and has the numbers in the recent past to back it up) it's hard to penalize him too much for his D this year. And the easter egg is it would admittedly be kinda cool to see him starting the ASG in his home park considering the year he's having. It's close, but Pujols has my vote (for now at least).

Second Base

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From one of the closest individual position races on that ballot, we now go to one of the biggest no-brainers. There's really only one name you need to know among NL second basemen, and that's Chase Cameron Utley.

If that name doesn't strike fear, it should. His .441 wOBA (which happens to be fourth in all of baseball) is 67 points higher than the next-best Orlando Hudson and he's one of just 5 players in the NL (and 9 in baseball) who still have an OPS over 1.000 (none of whom happen to be second basemen). He seems to have backslid a bit from his stellar defensive seasons in 2007 and 2008 (just over a half run above replacement at second so far this year) but his 3.4 WAR is still nearly a win and a half better than second-place Brandon Phillips (2.0).

Shortstop

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The two NL middle infield spots really aren't to competitive this year, numbers-wise. At second base it's because Chase Utley can just mash, but at shortstop it's because Hanley Ramirez has finally learned to play defense. And because HanRam can mash too.

As usual, the cornerstone of the Florida Marlins franchise leads NL shortstops in wOBA, OPS and almost all the other offensive metrics. By now, pretty much anyone who follows the baseball should knows what Hanley is capable of with the bat. What's new however is he may be starting to overcome his reputation as an abhorrent defender - so far this year he's on the plus side in UZR and UZR/150 for the first time in his career. And this year that's what distances him from Miguel Tejada, who ranks second to Ramirez in wOBA and is tied for second in the NL in BA.

Tejada has been almost as bad, if not worse than Hanley has been in the past, ranking 7 runs below replacement this year and almost 16 runs below in UZR/150. In fact, both Tejada and the third-place man in wOBA among NL SS's, Yunel Escobar (4 runs below replacement in UZR) have been so bad defensively, the ever mediocre Ryan Theriot (just a .337 wOBA) actually beats them both out for the distant second place to Hanley in WAR at 1.6. Tejada has a 1.5, Escobar a 1.1. Oh, and Hanley? 2.8.

Third base

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This is was one of the more interesting positions I looked as far as options and offense vs. defense goes. On one hand you've got New York's David Wright, who happens to lead the majors in batting average and the NL in OBP, which helps him to a .431 wOBA, tops among NL 3B's.

As for the rest of the field, second among NL 3B's in wOBA is Mark Reynolds (whose name you've probably heard tossed around in discussions about Chris Davis as the guy who struck out 204 times last year) at .412, who has been bouncing back and forth between third base and first base since mid-May. Outside the 400+ wOBA stratosphere, we have Chipper Jones, still kicking it at 37 (and putting up a 918 OPS and a .389 wOBA), and Ryan Zimmerman (.388 wOBA). Though Wright is the clear leader of the pack offensively, there's a lot of pretty good third base options this year in the NL.

Defensively is where it gets interesting, because Jones, Wright and Reynolds have all been terrible defensively this year (well, Chipper and Wright have been, Reynolds has just been below average) whereas Ryan Zimmerman has been absolutely brilliant. Chipper has been the most suspect, ranking 3.6 runs below replacement in UZR (and almost a whopping 13 in UZR/150) and Wright isn't too far behind at minus 3 even. Reynolds is only about a half-run below replacement, although if you go per 150 games he looks a tad worse - but still nowhere near as bad as Wright and Chipper.

Zimmerman on the other hand not only leads NL third basemen in UZR, but has been the second-best defender in the NL (well, in terms of UZR, anyway), behind only Pirates OF Nyjer Morgan with an UZR of 8.0 and an UZR/150 of 19.9. The result is that Zim's actually leads the NL third base pack with a 3.2 WAR, David Wright trailing at 2.9 and Mark Reynolds third at 2.3. Jones defense has him at upper-mid pack with 1.5 WAR.

This leaves me with pretty much the same dilemma as with Pujols vs. Gonzalez at first base: the amazing offensive player, or the more well rounded (and in this case stellar) defender who's still more than holding his own offensively? It's another tossup, but this time I think I'll go with the complete package in Zimmerman.

Catcher

Leaderboard

As the guy who's pretty much NL's best offensive catcher Brian McCann has made the all-star squad as a backup three years in a row. He still has yet to start however, and if Yadier Molina's lead in the actual voting so far is any indication, he may still not get there this year. Which is really too bad, because he's pretty much been head and shoulders more valuable than any other NL catcher so far.

Despite spending time on the DL this year with an eye issue, McCann has been a terror at the plate this this year, posting a .953 OPS and a .412 wOBA. His 2.1 WAR is almost a full run better than any other NL catcher, and the only other starting catcher to even approach his offensive production is Carlos Ruiz with a .380 wOBA (well, Washington's Jesus Flores does too, but he might be out for the rest of the year).

As was discussed last time, there's no real defensive statistics for catchers, so I really couldn't tell you if McCann is costing his team any runs with his glove or not, but if the offensive stats are any indication it'll be a shame if he's beat out by Molina (whose .319 wOBA is uninspiring, to say the least). In fact, on an unrelated note, why in the world do people think that Yadier Molina is good?

Outfielders

Leaderboards

There's plenty of good choices to fill out your three outfield votes in the NL this year, lead by a somewhat surprising contender: Raul Ibanez. Most people felt that the Phillies where taking a definite downgrade when they replaced free agent Pat Burrell by signing an aging Ibanez over the winter, but so far the Phils have enjoyed surprisingly ridiculous production out of Ibanez's bat, and even more surprisingly, good defense from a guy who's been a noted butcher in the past. Not only does Ibanez's .444 wOBA lead NL outfielders, it's second to only Albert Pujols in the entire NL. And he's actually plus 2.3 runs in left field so far, after being minus 15 and 20 runs there the last two years in Seattle. Who'd a thunk it, but he actually leads the NL in WAR so far at 3.3.

Among the other options, Carlos Beltran (.430 wOBA) Ryan Braun (.427 wOBA) Brad Hawpe (.424) and Justin Upton (.414) are the rest of the top 5 among NL OF's in wOBA. Hawpe's awful defense (-6.6 runs in UZR) however separates him from the rest of the pack in WAR however, dropping him out of the top 10 while Matt Kemp's awesome UZR of 8 vaults him into a narrow second in overall value at 2.9. Braun is just one point behind at 2.8, while Upton and Beltran sit tied at 2.6. You can pretty much throw a couple darts at those four and come out with an appropriate choice, but I'll go with Beltran and Kemp to get the respective best of the rest in offense and defense.

Monday: A Different Kind of Week

2009-06-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday ended what was a bizarre week in baseball-for the Rangers in particular. There were four strange occurrences that come to mind, and they started on Wednesday, when the Rangers were set to play against the Blue Jays. Now of course, the game was canceled due to rain, and for most that doesn’t seem too strange, but for me, it was because I happened to be in attendance. That was the first game I had ever been to that had been rained out. When we got to the game, the skies looming overhead looked ominous and threatening. It was nice because the sun was gone and the overcast sky kept us from having to deal with the sun, but it was also slightly unnerving, because rain seemed evident. It wasn’t until we were in the confines of the stadium that the wind picked up and clouds grew ever darker. We knew that the game wasn’t going to be on time. Then rain started sputtering from the sky, as the large open windows of the park allowed water to spray in, forcing everyone to move back against the wall. Looking out at the storm I was reminded of something from ‘Shutter Island.’ The upper deck was closed, so all the fans (I’m guessing it was around 25,000) crammed together in the lower concourse. By the time I caught a glimpse of the field, it was pouring, and I knew that the game would probably be delayed. Standing under cover and looking out at the field as the rain came down in rapid sheets was a sight to behold, even though we ended up not getting to see the game played.

The next two instances that piqued my interest took place on Friday. The first, as most know, concerned Milton Bradley. He actually had a pretty good game offensively, but that was overshadowed by his blunders on the base paths and the in the outfield, with the latter being the only people really cared about. In case you didn’t hear, Bradley caught a fly ball for the second out, thought it was the third out, posed, and then fired the ball into the stands. There are plenty of embarrassing things a player can do in a game, but is there one worse than that? Bradley just stood in the outfield as if nothing had really happened, but it was obvious he was humiliated. However, as Tom Grieve said, Milton came up with a very solid comeback after the game. The next instance came the same day, when the Indians were playing the Royals. Shin-Soo Choo hit a line drive single to center and it looked as if Coco Crisp would field it as normal. But it just so happened that a flock of seagulls had decided to camp out in center field, and the ball ended up ricocheting off one of the birds and getting past Coco Crisp, allowing Mark DeRosa to score. That’s not as classic as Randy Johnson hitting a bird with a pitch, but it’s pretty darn close. I’m just glad that the seagull wasn’t killed.

Finally, perhaps the most bizarre event of all was when the lights failed on Saturday night at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Tom and Josh spent about ten or fifteen minutes talking during the delay, and it was obvious they were struggling to find things to say. Thankfully, when it was announced that the delay might be a while, they were able to go off the air. According to T.R. Sullivan, (on the humorously titled ‘light delay theatre’ on KRLD) that was the first time a game had been delayed due to light failure in the history of the ballpark. However, he did say that it happened once during a game at the old stadium. Unfortunately the game didn’t end with a win, but results aside, one has to admit that this was one of the more unusual weeks of the baseball season.

Friday Foto: Another Romo . . . .

2009-06-12T13:47:00.001-07:00

This really isn't relevant to the Rangers at all, I just thought it was funny to see the name "Romo" on the back of a baseball jersey. This guy's name is Sergio Romo, relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Wednesday: Overshadowed

2009-06-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

The news of Ron Washington’s contract being exercised (cheered by some, begrudged by others) was somewhat overshadowed by Josh Hamilton’s surgery and Brandon McCarthy going to the DL. Despite his tendency to disappoint Ranger fans, I’ve always been a McCarthy fan, and I was really hoping that he could stay healthy and produce this season. Well, that’s not happening exactly the way I had wished, though his injury (a stress fracture in his shoulder blade) could have been much worse. Of the starters, Padilla, Benson (who has been assigned to AAA to make room for the newly acquired Jason Grilli), Harrison, and now McCarthy have been on the DL this year. The good news is that it hasn’t taken a toll on the team—at least for now. Kevin Millwood is the only pitcher from the original rotation who hasn’t suffered an injury. I wrote a while back about how keeping a healthy team will be vital for the Rangers this year. Well, so far that hasn’t been the case, which leads me to the offense side of the injuries, namely Josh Hamilton. Hamilton has missed more games than he’s played this year, and with the surgery, he likely won’t be back till around the All Star break. So much for the predictions, folks. But it doesn’t seem like Hamilton’s presence has been missed, thanks mainly to the production that Nelson Cruz has provided. So, injuries have riddled the Ranger’s season, and yet they’re still in first place. That’s because the Rangers have depth on their roster, something the Angels did not have when they struggled early on due to their excessive injury list.

After losing the first two games to the Blue Jays, the Rangers may have a tough time climbing back, especially since they play the Dodgers over the weekend. But if the Rangers could take 2 of 3 from Boston, then there's no reason they can't do it against LA, too.

Hello Win Column, Win #33: Two Outta Three Ain't Bad

2009-06-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

Game Recap and Box Score

Game 57: Dice-K gets hit, Sox lose from Over the Monster

"Daisuke Matsuzaka certainly didn't pitch well on Sunday.

He took the hook in the 6-3 loss, but here's something nice: he walked zero batters. That's right. Not once did he throw a ball four. He struck out eight and allowed five runs in his 5.2 innings of work.

Blame the offense, too. The Nos. 1 through 5 hitters went a combined 1 for 16. If we want to win ballgames, that can absolutely not happen . . . "

This site recaps games with catch phrases and headlines:

It's Time to Bury the National Treasure from Boston Dirt Dogs

"Losing Two Out of Three Ain't Good

Nelson Cruz Was in Control

And It's 4 Hits for the Former Vaunted Red Sox Offense

Good News: Look Theo, No Walks for The $100 Million Man

Papelbon Checks with Official Scorer to See If That Was Save Opportunity

Rock, Paper Shoulder: Jacoby Joins J.D. Drew on Banged-Up List

At Least the Runners Looked Sharp on the Bases..."

"I thought he missed over the middle and up on a team that can really make you pay when you throw the ball in the middle."-- Red Sox manager Terry Francona like a needle on a broken record

Hello Win Column, Win #32: Fun in Fenway, Finally

2009-06-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

Game Box Score and Recap

Game 54: Penny knocked around, Sox lose from Over the Monster

"It just wasn't in the books for the Red Sox Friday night.

Penny ended up going 5.2 innings, allowed seven hits, five runs, two walks and struck out five. He looked good the first four innings. Then a big three-run home run by Ian Kinsler did him in.

Penny and the offense was "the ugly," while the bullpen was the "good" . . .

J.D. Drew did get on base four times, but that was the only bright spot of the Sox offense . . ."

This site recaps games by a series of catch-phrases and headlines:

It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Wrong from Boston Dirt Dogs

"Maybe the Sox Should Head Back Out on the Road Again?

A Penny Flip, and Two Lugo Slips, Millwood Had Zip, Plus Kinsler's Roundtrip

Lugo's Lost a Step or Two, and You'll Find Green in the Lineup Tonight

No Double Vision: Ortiz Looked Focused, Dropped in a Seeing-Eye Single

Ian Kinsler, 14 HR, 41 RBIs, and Why Pedroia Is Grabbing Pine at the All-Star Game

Millwood Is Just the Latest Has-Been-Turned-Cy-Candidate By Sox Lineup

Good to Know: David Murphy Is What We Thought He Was

More Days in First Place for Nolan Ryan's Rangers Out West"

"His first four innings were as good as we've seen. He was throwing the ball really, really well. Then the next two I think he threw 50 pitches." -- Tito's thoughts on Penny

Hello Win Column, Win #31: Rangers Win in the Bronx

2009-06-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Game Recap and Box Score

Let's hear from the losing locker room:

A-Rod, oh A-Rod from Pinstripe Alley

"[oh A-Rod] . . . you giveth and you taketh away.

"He drove in half the Yankee runs, yet accounted for the single most damning play of the evening: grounding into an inning-ending double-play with the bases full in the third inning (on a 3-1 pitch no less); that one play decreased the Yankees chances of winning by a whopping 16 percent. He came up with runners on in each of his next two at-bats and struck out both times (once with a runner on third and one out). The boos were raining down hard after that. You'd have to be blind to see he's not pressing . . .

Who knew Brett Tomko would pitch lights-out while Andy Pettitte would struggle mightily? Actually, we had an idea, since Pettitte has always struggled against Texas (5.50 career ERA before tonight). He gave up four runs in the first two innings (and was probably saved a few by Melky Cabrera's assist at third-base), and that was all Texas needed; Pettitte lasted just five innings due to throwing 104 pitches (including six walks!). Tomko threw three, allowing two hits, no walks and three K's."

Yanks can’t overcome Pettitte’s problems, lose to Rangers from River Avenue Blues

"Futile as the offense was, Andy Pettitte let the Rangers take control early. The first inning was particularly disastrous, with walks and some bad luck contributed to the Rangers’ three run rally . . .

The Yanks got a few chances to plate some runs, but were 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position. The one hit came from Alex Rodriguez in the first, plating Nick Swisher. But then A-Rod grounded into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in the third, and struck out with a runner on third and one out in the sixth. He heard the boos, which is always irritating. He didn’t deserve applause, but the guy who had driven in the Yanks sole run to that point doesn’t deserve the boos. Few, if any, Yankees do."

Monday Movie: Rotten Tomatoes Show-Baseball Edition

2009-06-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

If you follow film critics, you probably know about Rotten Tomatoes, one of the most popular film sites on the web. Rotten Tomatoes also features video episodes, and I managed to find one about baseball movies that is quite amusing.

Monday: No More 300?

2009-06-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, Randy Johnson, as we all know, picked up his 300th victory, a milestone that when achieved all but guarantees a spot in the Hall of Fame. How rare is this feat? Extremely rare. Only 24 pitchers in history have achieved it, and only 4 in the last ten years. It’s hard to believe that Cy Young, who holds the record for most career victories, has over two hundred more wins than Randy Johnson does now in the exact same number of seasons, 22. Obviously, the big question doesn’t have anything to do with the past or present, but rather the future. Will there be another pitcher who wins 300 games? I had always taken it for granted that there would be, but when I started hearing sports writers and talk show hosts talk about the slim chances of this happening, I began to rearrange my thoughts and consider the options myself.

The first name that came to my mind was Jake Peavy. I’ve always considered him to be a premiere pitcher. He’s young, 28, and he’s been around for a long time. But then I looked at his career wins, and saw a somewhat substandard total 91. This is already Peavy’s eighth season with San Diego, and though he’s had some seasons with an exceptional ERA, his win-loss record has averaged around the 12-10 mark. He’s only made it over 15 wins once when he picked up 19 back in 2007. So unless Peavy can put it together and start consistently winning 18-20 games a season, he’s pretty much out of the question.

The next name that probably comes to everybody’s mind is Johan Santana, who has been ranked among the game’s best starters the last several years. Though a possible candidate for 300, the chances are more out of Santana’s favor because he really didn’t put his career in order until 2004. Now he’s 30 years old, and he only has 116 wins. Though he’s been plagued by low run support, I think Santana doesn’t have much of a shot, simply because it would be extremely difficult to attain nearly 200 wins in the next ten years, if he’s even playing then. He would basically need to average 20 wins a season. It could happen, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

Since he rose to prominence in 2003, Carlos Zambrano has been the front-runner for 300 win candidacy. Like Peavy, he’s only 28, and he just recently picked up his 100th career victory. But now Zambrano is saying that he’s done after his current contract, so, unless he decides otherwise, he no longer seems to be in favor.

There are other names like Jamie Moyer (46 and still chugging), Brandon Webb, and Roy Oswalt that are worthy of mention, but not serious contenders. Then there are young guns like Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez who could make a run at it.

The bottom line though is that pitchers aren’t trained like they used to be. In the old days starters went deeper into games and pitched more often. Also, now it isn’t such a necessity for a starter to pick up a win. Managers look for the starter to go six innings, keep the team in the game, and let the bullpen do the rest. Though stats and history indicate otherwise, I still hold true to my belief, though it’s diminished in light of recent speculation, that there will be another pitcher who wins 300 games. Of all the great athletes that are coming through the system, I believe that one of them will still seriously contend for that record spot of 300 wins. If that’s not the case, well, I guess pitchers can start looking at 200 wins as the new great plateau. Just kidding.

One Man's All Star ballot: Part I

2009-06-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, as you may have noticed, the HWC weekly stattracker has taken a couple weekends off now. Don't worry, I intend to get that little feature back on track soon enough - given the time that's elapsed, there will hopefully be some interesting trends to muse over by then. For now I've decided to tackle what I feel is another timely issue: the 2009 MLB All-Star voting, and more specifically, how I've gone about putting together my 2009 All Star ballots this year (so far).

I must admit, I don't put too much stock into the "All Star" label anymore when looking to judge a players talent or season performance. Between the fan voting, the player voting and the requirement of each team to have it's a representative on the All-Star roster no matter what, being awarded the label doesn't always necessarily mean that you where one of the league's best players.

That said, it's still a big event for the baseball community (or at least Bud Selig tries hard to keep it that way) and last year's ASG starting lineup wasn't too bad merit-wise (and I don't say that just because three Rangers got in) so flaws or not, lets not go writing the event off completely. It may not be voting for the hall of fame or anything, but as a baseball fan I still take a some degree of pride in at least trying to get it right, so tonight will be the first part of my retrospective on how I've voted thus far, starting with the American League.

Before I dive in, a quick listing of the stats I've been looking at in making my voting determinations is in order: along with the good old fashioned AVG/OBP/SLG trifecta and OPS, I've also started looking at wOBA (weighted On-base Average) as a good overall indicator of a players offensive performance, UZR for defense and to help put the entire picture together, a glance at Fangraphs' value numbers, which will tell us how many wins above replacement (WAR) a guy's been worth. Trust me, it sounds a lot more complicated and brainy than it really is. Especially considering Fangraphs has really cool leaderboards where you can look all those things up by league and position.

First Base

Leaderboard

The AL has a pretty good crop of first basemen worth considering this year, but this decision wound up being fairly easy for me. Kevin Youkilis leads the AL in every offensive category I mentioned above except batting average (and he's second in that), with an AL-leading .468 wOBA. He's third among 1B's in UZR and he leads in WAR a 2.5 (technically Victor Martinez is tied with him on the Fangrapghs leaderboards, but he's listed as a catcher on the ballots).

If you don't want to vote for a Red Sock though, Russel Branyan has turned out to be a better pickup than the Mariners had even fantasized so far and Justin Morneau is having quite a season for the Twins. Both are on Youk's heels in every offensive category, and as a result just 0.2 points behind their Boston counterpart with a 2.3 WAR. Defensively is where they differ however - Morneau has been a butcher in the field, ranking 3 full runs below replacement, and while Branyan is only just slightly below replacement himself, their deficiencies in that department is what makes me go with Youkilis (even though he's #2 on my top 5 most hated Red Sox list).

Second Base

Leaderboard

Welcome to the Ian Kinsler show, folks. Despite his noted road struggles this year, Kinsler's overall numbers still have him pretty much head and shoulders above the second base competition right now. He's got 19 points on Dustin Pedroia in wOBA, and is the only AL 2B slugging over .500 (at .549). He's worth 5.6 runs above replacement at second (third on the defensive leaderboard), and overall he's good for a 2.7 WAR, which not only leads the second basemen but is tied for third among all AL position players. On a side note, looking this up really makes me realize I'd forgotten how good Ian has been this year of late - which is really, really freaking good.

Toronto's Aaron Hill and last years ASG starter Dustin Pedroia are both having extremely good seasons as well - Pedroia's .412 OBP leads AL second-sackers, but other than batting average that's the only kind of edge either of them have on Kinsler.

Shortstop

Leaderboard

As is par for the course, there's probably not much chance of any AL shortstop not named Derek Jeter winning the vote at this position. At least he has a legit case, though, with the second-bast wOBA among AL SS's and a positive UZR for the first time in his career since... well... as far back as UZR goes.

Thanks to Jason Bartlett and Marco Scutaro though, two light hitting defensive wizards who are having shockingly good offensive first halfs however, Jeets has got some serious competition, to say the least. Offensively Bartlett has been rather insane this year, posting a .373/.418/.596 line, good for a .451 wOBA. Crazy stuff from a guy with a .329 career wOBA. Only problem is, he's currently on the DL with an ankle sprain, and though I believe he's due to come off the DL sometime soon, we'll have to see how that affects his numbers once he comes back.

That brings us to Marco Scutaro, who the Rangers will get to see this week in Toronto. Not only has he been crazy good offensively this year himself (.376 wOBA, just two points below Jeter) but he's got the second-best UZR among AL shortstops at 5.1 (second only to Elvis Andrus, by the way). That's what differentiates him from Jeter and Bartlett, who are quite a ways behind with UZR's of 1.5 and 1.2, respectively. In terms of WAR, the defensive angle tied him and Bartlett at 2.7, with Jeter trailing at 2.2.

Bartlett's insane offensive season would get him my vote if he weren't DL'd, but since he is it kind of makes it a crapshoot - and in this crapshoot I'll go with the most well rounded player, and that's Scutaro. And even if he wasn't, well... he's still better than voting for Jeter.

Third Base

Leaderboard

Now for the biggest no-brainer on this half of the ballot. Allow me to introduce Evan Longoria, whom you might remember as the 2008 AL rookie of the year. I don't know if it's possible to shatter your own hype when you've been hyped as one of the very best hitting prospects in the game, but that's pretty much what Longoria has done this year. Might as well get the big stat out of the way first: that would be a 3.2 WAR, which not only leads AL third basemen, but all qualified AL players. He's been good for a .320/.392/.611 line (1.003 OPS), a 424 wOBA, and plus 5.7 runs UZR-wise. You lucky, lucky Tampa bay Rays.

For you Ranger fans who want to tow the party line and vote Michael Young based on his .400 wOBA (which is "just" 24 points behind Longoria) you should know that defensively Young is -7.7 runs below replacement however, which isn't just dead last among third basemen, it's 6th worst in the entire AL. That drags his WAR all the way down to 1.3, 4th among the 3B's. Pesky little Brandon Inge has actually been the second-best AL third sacker thanks to his defense - which is 7.6 runs in the right direction - and a .374 wOBA.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Seriously? Brandon Inge has a .374 wOBA?

Catcher

Leaderboard

Well, according to the Fangraphs leaderboard, there's only 3 qualified catchers (Victor Martinez, Jason Varitek and Kurt Suzuki), so if you want to get the whole picture you have to open it up to all catchers period - which means having to skip by some extremely small sample size wonders if you do. Catcher is also the one defensive position you can't really judge statistically (at least to my knowledge) since there's also really no such thing as UZR for catchers and range factors and such don't really mean much in this case.

So having to rely on offensive stats, I'm torn between Victor Martinez (.344/.412/.555 line, .417 wOBA and a 2.5 WAR and 257 PA's) and Joe Mauer (.410/.497/.795, 528 wOBA, 3.1 WAR, but just 149 PA's). Normally I'd lean toward the larger sample size, but since V-Mart has had 117 of his PA's at first base, I think you've gotta go with Mauer's video game-crazy numbers.

Outfield

Leaderboards

Nelson Cruz is the new Josh Hamilton. No, really. I'm serious. In fact, he might be better. Because as of right now, Nelson Cruz is the best outfielder in the American League.

Yeah, I know Jason Bay is kind of having a bat-guano crazy offensive season. So is Adam Jones, the kid the O's stole from the Mariners for Erik Bedard. And, grudgingly enough, Torri Hunter as well. But hey, so is Nelson Cruz. Those four are the top four among AL OF's in wOBA. And unlike the three above him, Nelson Cruz is also the best defensive outfielder in the AL. In fact, forget the outfield, Cruz's 10.3 UZR is the highest of any position player in the AL. Which, actually is a bit of a novelty, considering all four of the other top 5 AL OF's in wOBA (Johnny Damon being #5) are all on the negative side in UZR. Bay and Jones are actually third and fourth to last, in fact.

What that defensive wrinkle means is that Nellie Cruz rocks a 3.0 WAR - second only to Evan Longoria in the AL. And what that means is that if Nelson Cruz does not go to St. Lous, it will be a crime (so vote harder, people!).

Cruz aside however, there's still two slots to fill in the outfield, and plenty of guys to fill it with. Once could reward one of or both of Jason Bay or Adam Jones for basically being the best offensive OF's in the AL and ignore their terrible defense - or you could vote for Carl Crawford and Torri Hunter who are the only other OF's besides Cruz with WAR's above 2.0 (2.2 and 2.1 respectively). Cases could even be made for guys like Ichirio, Johnny Damon, and Shin SooChoo of the Indians.

I think I'll compromise and go with Adam Jones (whose WAR is still 1.8) and Crawford - which, as you may have noticed, means I can avoid voting for the Red Sock and the Angel, while rubbing it in the face of the poor Mariner fans.

Next time I'll run through the choices on the National League half of the ballot - if I have time, maybe I'll even do it midweek so I can get the weekly scoreboard rolling again next weekend.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear how you, the reader are filling out your all-star ballot this year.

Thursday: The Rangers' Record

2009-06-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most telling statistic about the stretch of baseball the Rangers are about to play against the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Dodgers, which are all teams with above-.500 records, is:

Team Record Against sub-.500 teams: 25-10
Team Record Against .500+ teams: 5-11

As Evan Grant pointed out after a series loss to the Yankees in May, the Rangers don't play like contenders against other contenders. This is a bit worrisome, given the stretch of baseball that lies ahead.

On another note, the Rangers seem to be due for a slight regression record-wise. The Rangers have a Pythagorean Record of 28-23. Pythagorean Record is a concept developed by Bill James; A team's Pythagorean Record is the record that a team should have, based on the amount of runs they have scored and allowed; any deviance from this record is generally thought of as luck, which is prone to even out over the course of a season. If you want to know more, I actually gave a talk to the Applied Mathematics Seminar at OU on the Pythagorean Records, you can read my notes here.

For example, last year on August 4, the Rangers had a record of 59-54. Their Pythagorean Record, however, was 54-59. Their "luck" did indeed catch up to them, as they finished the season at 79-83.

So, as I said above, the Rangers are due for a slight regression: only 2 games. However, so are the Angels and Mariners. It's all relative.

Wednesday: Gone But Not Forgotten

2009-06-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

Usually, ‘gone but not forgotten’ refers to someone who left a lasting impression in his or her particular field of work. In this case though, the phrase refers merely to a nagging recollection that I can’t get out of my head. Does anyone remember Tony Mounce? There have been plenty of terrible pitchers who have gone in and out of the Rangers’ system and most of them I cannot recall by sheer memory. For some reason though, Tony Mounce, who fits right into that category of pitchers, always comes popping into my head at random intervals throughout the year.

Mounce had an abortive big league career to say the least. The Rangers were the only team he ever pitched for. That was during the 2003 season. He was called up on June 13th and, after a trip to the minors, Mounce was recalled and pitched his final game on September 22nd. Mounce only had one victory in his short-lived baseball career. His final record was 1-5, with an ERA of 7.11. I seem to recall that Mounce always began his games with a no-hitter through the first few innings, and then he seemed to fall apart after that. I think that’s about the only semi-good thing I can say about his career, though he did have one game where he pitched six innings and only allowed two runs.

Mickey Mantle would be the epitome of someone who is gone but not forgotten, and Tony Mounce exemplifies someone completely the opposite. So the fact that I still remember this forgettable pitcher is a perfect example of the irrelevant and mysterious lasting impressions that some people give off.

Baseball-reference.com.

Welcome to the New Site!

2009-06-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our new URL! Don't worry -- we're going to pick up right where we left off.

Thomas, Jon, and I are grateful for your interest in our site thus far, and we hope that you continue to enjoy our work.

Go Rangers!

John Paul

Tuesday: Team Splits

2009-06-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

"Splits", for those who don't know, is the term given to how players perform in different scenarios. For example: lefty/righty, day/night, home/road, etc. Let's take a look at the interesting splits that the Rangers have formed as a team:

Author's note: all statistics are current as of 5/30 (when this post was written)

Home/Road:

The Ranger hitters at RBiA are slamming a .285/.357/.521, but away from home they only manage a meager .249/.294/.447.

The Ranger pitchers at RBiA have allowed a modest .277/.346/.448, and on the road they improved to .259/.332/.413.

April/May:

The Ranger hitters have been extremely consistent throughout both months of the young season so far, hitting .269/.329/.497 in April and .266/.326/.475 in May. However, over the last two weeks, they have only managed a weak .228/.300/.446.

The Ranger pitchers in April were 10-11 with a 5.70 ERA, but in May completely reversed course to 19-8 with a 3.61 line. They went from allowing .287/.365/.479 in April to .253/.318/.393 in May.

Number of Outs:

The Ranger hitters' performance worsens as the inning progresses (I don't know enough about this stat to know if this is normal or not):

0 outs: .288/.342/.555
1 out: .272/.326/.516
2 outs: .241/.313/.377

Strangely, the Ranger pitchers' performance also worsens as the inning progresses (measured by line of opposing hitters):

0 outs: .247/.320/.426
1 out: .294/.341/.415
2 outs: .265/.358/.456

Source: baseball-reference.com

Monday Movie: Ryan beats Ventura

2009-06-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Of course everyone, even non-Ranger fans, know about this, but some baseball moments are meant to be shared time and time again.

Monday: A May to Definitely Remember

2009-05-31T22:10:00.000-07:00

Though the month didn’t end on a high note, the Rangers leave May in jubilee, as they finish with a record of 20-9. In fact, May was only the second time the Rangers have had a 20-win month in franchise history. The other was way back in 1978, when they went 21-10 in September. They go into June 10 games over 500 and with a nice 4 game lead over the enervated Angels, who were on the verge of falling behind the Mariners before their comeback win on Sunday.

May began with a loss, as the White Sox took down the Rangers by the score of 4-3. Then the Rangers went on a tear, winning 13 of their next 15 ballgames, bringing them into first place in the AL West. The only real dark spot on the month was when the Tigers swept the Rangers in Detroit. It seemed like a coincidence that the Rangers had suddenly lost ten in a row at Comerica Park, but after they went down to Houston and promptly swept the Astros, I began to reconsider my thoughts. The Rangers then lost two of three to the Yankees before taking three of four from the Athletics to close out the month.

The success during May was a team effort for the Rangers. No individual seemed to have their own glimmering moment in the sun. The hitters collaborated to give the pitching enough support, and the results were triumphant—most of the time. The Rangers’ hitters actually had a bit of a down month compared to April. Ian Kinsler lost it a little bit, Chris Davis got worse and worse, and Hank Blalock saw his average slide a little. On the other hand, Nelson Cruz really got going over the final weeks of May, and Michael Young stayed consistent. What I liked most about the hitters was that each one of them, regardless of their struggles, always seemed to pick up a hit in a vital situation: Hank Blalock with the game winning double, Chris Davis with the walk-off homerun, even Jarrod Saltalamacchia with the 2 RBI double in yesterday’s game despite the fact that Texas didn’t win. I can’t go further without mentioning how impressed I have been with the rookie Elvis Andrus. He’s been everything we could have hoped for and then some.

But it wasn’t the offense that carried the Rangers through May. It was the pitching. I was watching a game and one of the broadcasters reported that the Rangers had the fewest amount of bullpen innings for the month of May in all of baseball. That’s because the starters were going so deep into the games and they were going deep into games because they weren’t allowing very many runs. Here’s a nice stat: In 15 of the 20 wins, the Rangers’ allowed 3 runs or less, including three shutouts. To me the two key pitchers this month were Scott Feldman and Brandon McCarthy. Feldman, after filling in and then taking the place of Kris Benson (which is what I thought would happen), has gone 4-0 and lowered his ERA down to a comfortable 3.91. McCarthy has been equally outstanding, with the exception of a few rough starts. The most important achievement for McCarthy during May was that he was finally able to climb over his 6 inning barrier. On May 13th versus Seattle, McCarthy pitched seven innings for the first time as a Ranger. His next start he went seven innings again. Then he pitched a gem against the Astros in his next start, going nine innings and allowing 0 runs. On Saturday, he pitched six innings and only allowed one run. So in his last four starts, Brandon as pitched 29 innings and lowered his ERA down to 4.35 (it would be much lower if it wasn’t for one very bad start against Oakland earlier in the month).

To me it seems as if May has been a very long month, which is nice, because it’s made the Ranger glory all the better. It seems strange, but this has been the greatest month statistically for the Rangers since I started following them. It’s hard to fathom just how well they’ve played. And they still believe they can get better. June, as we all know, will be a challenging month. Right now though, I’m just savoring the moment, because the Rangers are in first place and it’s June 1st, meaning that 'early' is an adverb that can no longer be used.

Hello Win Column, Win #30: Rangers Hang 14 on Oakland

2009-05-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

What an outburst . . .

Game Recap and Box Score

Is Anyone Still Watching? from Athletics Nation

"The first inning should tell you all you need to know about the A's offense. It is nearly impossible to receive three walks and follow that up with a double and manage to only score a single run, but that's just what the A's did. And what was a promising start to the game was immediately snuffed out.

Luckily, it wouldn't matter. Here's the A's pitching line:

Anderson: 4 IP, 8H, 6ER
Cameron: 2 IP, 4H, 4ER
Springer: 1 IP, 3H, 3ER
Bailey: 1 IP, 2H, 1ER"

Hello Win Column, Win #29: Let's Play Two: Rangers Take Nightcap 5-2

2009-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Game Recap and Box Score

Two wins in one day, that's a pretty swell deal . . . . The first excerpt from the losing locker room today has some love for Ron Washington . . .

Geren's Ineptitude Exposed Again In Doubleheader Sweep from Athletics Nation

"This double-header was painful for me to watch, but not because the A's lost twice, not because the A's fell 10 games under .500, not because the A's dropped to 10 games out of 1st place. The most painful part was the occasional shot in the dugout of Ron Washington, whose intelligence, intensity, and high expectations cannot be denied by anyone who has followed his career. The A's aren't going to win the West, so I hope the Rangers do - they were smart enough to hire Ron Washington to manage their team and they deserve, as he deserves, some success.

Chris Davis had struck out all four ABs in Game 1, and finished the double-header 0-7 with 6 Ks. He has now struck out a major league leading 77 times, including 23 times in his last 34 ABs. He is batting .194 and will likely be optioned to AAA. In sum, he is essentially, this season and especially right now, the equivalent of a pitcher batting. I was truly in disbelief when I saw this move [Davis being intentionally walked in the first inning] being made.

I'm sorry. Bob Geren is simply not fit to manage a major league baseball team. Even stupid managers don't make some of the decisions he has made - and it's not like his team plays good fundamental baseball, or exudes any noticeable intensity or joy in the dugout or on the field. A's players - who are both young and limited in talent and need every advantage they can get - and A's fans, deserve better."

Un-freakin-believeable; First of two goes as usual, second one looking worse from Athletics Home Plate

"*UPDATE TO THIS COMMENT* A’s lose second as well, 5-2
Game two’s fault goes 95% to Geren for intentionally walking a sub .200 batter who strikes out the most in the majors and 5% to pitcher, Gonzalez who gave up the tw0-run single that followed."

Hello Win Column, Win #28: Rangers Ride Late Power Surge to Victory Over Oakland, 6-3

2009-05-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

Game Recap and Box Score

Let's hear from the losing locker room:

Open Thread: Game 46 - A's at Texas (Game 2) from Athletics Nation

"Josh Outman pitched great in Game 1, striking out a career high 9 in 6.2 IP and allowing just 3 hits, but was pulled after 101 pitches because Bob Geren saw a game that was becoming dangerously close to being an A's win and took swift and decisive action."

Un-freakin-believable; First of two goes as usual, second one looking worse from Athletics Home Plate

"Another wasted pitching performance by Josh Outman who got the no decision. Outman went 6 2/3 and allowed three runs but was pulled by Geren because there was a runner on first and two out… Oh no, not the ninth place hitter who is 0-2! Quick get Outman out of there! The best reliever (aside from Bailey) was used instead, for a third of an inning, nice management. Next inning of course the A’s get lit up, and eventually lose 6-3.

Two home runs off Santiago Casilla gave the Rangers a three-run lead in the bottom of the eighth. Casilla looked bad, barely able to find the strike zone. Why not use Casilla instead of Wuertz for one batter in the seventh and use the much better reliever for a whole inning? I know what Geren was doing, he was planning ahead for the second loss of the day."

Friday Foto: Do YOU Recognize This Team?

2009-05-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

Look at how different this team is after just 2 years . . . . I count at least 4 players that are no longer in the big leagues . . . .

On an unrelated note, I still think Mark Teixeira looks like he's 14 years old.

Thursday: Hambone's First Pitch Hackin'

2009-05-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

During yesterday's broadcast, after Josh Hamilton took the first pitch of one of his 4 at bats, Josh Lewin said:

"Josh is doing such a good job laying off those first pitches now."

Of course, this prompted me to check. Since returning from his mini-injury sustained by crashing into the wall in the Angels series at RBiA, here is how The Hambino has handled first pitches:

5/22 at Houston: Swung at 2 of 5 first pitches
5/23 at Houston: Swung at 4 of 4 first pitches
5/24 at Houston: Swung at 2 of 4 first pitches
SERIES TOTAL: Swung at 8 of 13 first pitches

5/25 vs. New York: Swung at 1 of 3 first pitches
5/26 vs. New York: Swung at 1 of 4 first pitches
5/27 vs. New York: Swung at 2 of 4 first pitches
SERIES TOTAL: Swung at 4 of 11 first pitches

Conclusion: In Houston, not a "good job". In New York, a "good job". Overall: still has a ways to go.

Something worth noting: when Josh actually puts the ball in play by swinging at the first pitch, he's hitting .350/.350/.714. This certainly suggests that, to a certain degree, swinging at the first pitch isn't alltogether a terrible idea.

What about all the other times that he swings and doesn't put the ball into play? He's already put himself down in the count at 0-1. In 77 plate appearances starting with an 0-1 count in 2009, Josh is hitting a paltry .225/.286/.380. (I realize that and 0-1 count doesn't imply that he swung at the first pitch, but I believe it is a reasonable approximation; if anyone has the data specifically for 0-1 counts after a swing, please let me know!)

The times when he hasn't swung at the first pitch and it has been called a ball (in other words, when he starts with a 1-0 count), Hamilton has hit .256/.333/.512 in 45 plate appearances.

It appears that being a little more patient can't hurt . . .

Hello Win Column, Win #27: Rangers Bite Yankees Back 7-3

2009-05-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Game boxscore and recap

This was the highlight of my research for today's HWC post: a contrast between Lone Star Ball's game report and Pinstripe Alley's game report:

Adam Morris (of LSB): "That was worth the wait."

Travis G (of PSA): "I can't believe I stayed up for this."

But wait, there's more from the losing locker room:

Wrapping it up from Texas from The LoHud Yankees Blog

"It would be nice if the conversion of Joba Chamberlain from wunderkind reliever to dominating starter was a smooth one. But he is a 23-year-old in his first full year as a starter. There are going to be bumps and that’s what you saw tonight."

After a long delay, frustration through the night from River Avenue Blues

"After sitting through a 145-minute rain delay in anticipation of a Joba Chamberlain start, Yankee fans on the East Coast sat through another three hours of frustration as the Rangers topped the Yankees 7-3. It was only appropriate that the last out would come on a called strike three . . ."

All Joba, All The Time… Well, For 4 Innings from The Yankee Scrolls

"Good morning Yankee fans, though I suppose it only will be if you didn’t stay up to watch last night’s debacle — a 7-3 loss to the Rangers . . . ."

Wednesday: Kinsler Down, Murphy Up

2009-05-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Ian Kinsler, who indubitably has a large ego, has looked embarrassed every time he comes up empty at the plate these past few weeks. The Rangers’ second baseman, who got off to a brilliant start, has gone off track to the point where we don’t believe he’ll come through each at bat anymore. Now of course we know Kinsler will snap out of it, but for now, with his average all the way down to 283, Ian is not a lot of fun to watch.

Last year Kinsler remained pretty consistent up until his injury. His recent struggles are bringing back memories to the 2007 season, when Kinsler had a few weeks in May and June where he looked like he was caught in a fog. That's reminiscent to how Kinsler looks now, too. I mentioned a few posts ago about how the Rangers are winning so many games despite their struggling offense. It’s because of the pitching, which right now has the AL’s lowest ERA for the month. It’s interesting how when the pitching is good, a struggling offense is often overlooked. I myself didn’t really notice Kinsler’s struggles until last week, when his average dipped below 300. Even now, as long as the Rangers keep winning, his slump isn’t a major concern.

The psychology of a struggling player is intriguing. When I was in Little League and I’d go in a slump, my coach would bench me so I could relax and take my mind off the game. To miss a game is like an ordeal, but when that ordeal is over, the reward of playing again is great. The situation for a slumping big leaguer is exactly the same. They don’t want to sit out. After all, how could sitting around sitting on the bench or playing video games in the clubhouse help improve the player’s game? The answer is easy: mind rest. It’s what everyone needs during hard times. Kinsler had one for himself on Saturday, and he hit a homerun on Sunday. Of course he’s still not hitting to ball to his fullest potential, but the rest still helped him in some way or another.

Ian Kinsler is undoubtedly one of the top five talents in all of baseball, an assertion that has been made by countless other beside myself. He has been highly touted by esteemed experts in the game, meaning that we really have nothing to worry about, especially if the good pitching continues.

The bad times of Ian Kinsler have been matched by the good times of David Murphy, who, since his 0-23 start to the season, is looking like the David Murphy we cherish. His average is only at 226, but if you consider the fact that it was at 0 for most of April, then it seems more like he's hitting 326. I also like the fact that Murphy is showing patience at the plate. In only 84 at bats, Murphy already has 14 walks (but it’s not as impressive as Andruw Jones, who has 18 walks in 69 at bats) where as Ian Kinsler, who in over 100 more at bats, only has taken 19 free passes. I’m still disappointed that Murphy isn’t getting a lot of playing time (though it’s increased greatly since he found his swing), but I also understand Ron Washington’s situation in that he wants to get Jones and Byrd as much playing time as possible. In David’s mind, he just needs to think that he’ll be getting much more playing time in 2010 because both Byrd and Jones will be free agents. There have been talks that Murphy could be used as trade bait during July. This is based off of his early slump and the success of Byrd and Jones. But since both Byrd and Jones will indeed be free agents next year, then dealing Murphy would be a major mistake (though I would like to see what Julio Borbon can bring to the table). Trade debates aside, right now we just need to be glad that Murphy is actually hitting the ball with authority again. Pretty soon we’ll be saying the same about Ian Kinsler, too.

Tuesday: Jarrod Saltalamacchia

2009-05-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

One of the cornerstones of the Mark Teixeira trade, Jarrod Saltalamacchia was (and still is) expected to be a star. As we all know, however, he's had his share of growing pains and has yet to really produce a "breakout" season. His struggles are demonstrated in Baseball Prospectus' scouting reports:

2008: "Ignore the sub-par showing. Saltalamacchia is still a future star."

2009: "Salty might have not blossomed like the fully-finished prospect you might wish he was, be he's still relatively young . . . "

If you take a look at it, Saltalamacchia is a bizarre hitter. Why?

**He has been able to sustain a ridiculously high BABIP throughout most of his career: .388 in 2008 and .352 so far this year. How does he do it?

**His line drive rate is also quite impressive: 27.2% of his batted balls in 2008 were line drives, quite similar to 27.6% so far this year. Now, the question is, why is he batting .252 with his high BABIP and LD%? Read on . . .

**His strikeout totals are staggering. Not quite Chris Davis staggering, but still somewhat troublesome. In 2008 he struck out in 37.4% of his plate appearances, and 36.1% this year. When he does make contact, he's likely to hammer the ball, but he doesn't make contact often enough to do much damage.

**Last year, Salty's OBP was a respectable .352, largely due to his high walk total. However, he (along with every Rangers hitter) seems to disdain walking in 2009, as demonstrated by his .305 OBP so far. This makes a little more sense when examining his contact rates: in 2009, he has swung at 35.4% of the pitches he's seen outside the strike zone (up from 26.2% in 2008). In other words, he's swinging at bad pitches more often.

Overall, I think it's important to keep in mind that Salty has only had 687 career plate appearances (roughly 1.5 seasons worth for a catcher), and he's still only 24 years old. His improved defense has been well noted this year and gives the Rangers more reasons to be optimistic and hang on to him. Perhaps all he needs is some more time . . . .

Monday: Fearsome Foes

2009-05-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t just the rarity of the sweep over the Angels--rather, It was that the Rangers went 6-0 on their last home stand. The force of the team was a like hurricane, sweeping through everyone and blowing them away. Then onto Detroit, and the Rangers get swept away themselves in three games that came and went in a flash. So, was it back to the pit of death for the Rangers, who suddenly seemed flat and anxious? Logic might tell you yes, as the Rangers have a propensity to be very inconsistent, but fact tells us the opposite, as the Rangers ended up sweeping their next opponent, the Houston Astros. So now, heading into the big Memorial Day game against the Yankees, the question remains: are the Rangers going to falter against good teams? Because there are plenty of them coming up.

Interleague Play officially began last Friday, but it only really gets going in the middle of June, when AL and NL teams oppose each other regularly. For the Rangers, their opponents will be teams from the NL West. Normally this wouldn’t sound very harrowing, as the NL West has traditionally been a weak division, but this year Texas has to play the Dodgers, baseball’s best team. Luckily they won’t have to face LA at home, where they thrive, and thankfully they won’t have to face Manny Ramirez (though the Dodgers seem to be doing just fine without him). But the Dodgers are just one of several challenging teams the Rangers must face in the near future. As I said, they play the Yankees at home starting today, and the next week they play New York again at their stadium (I can't wait to see what the Ranger hitters can do in that park--Mark Teixeira actually hit a broken bat homerun there today). Then comes the Red Sox, who are always a difficult opposition for Texas, despite the fact that the Rangers have a better record than Boston does. And then comes the first place Blue Jays, who may or may not be playing good baseball again when the series comes. Then Interleague action begins, as the Rangers play the Dodgers. Then to wrap up the month, the Rangers play the Angels, who will probably be playing with a chip on their shoulder. Then in early July, the Rangers play Tampa Bay, a definite threat, even though they’re not playing as good as last year.

After taking a look at the Rangers’ formidable opponents, it becomes clear that June will be most telling month of the season, because it will let us know if this Texas team is for real, or just a team that loves to beat up bad ball clubs. Even though they got swept in Detroit by three terrific pitchers, I'm slowly beginning to lean toward the former.

Hello Win Column, Win #26: Lone Star Sweep!

2009-05-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 5, Astros 0

Game box score and recap

Swept, Shut Out, Shamed from Astros Daily

"As is their modus operandi, the Rangers used the long ball to score runs. Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler and Jarrod Saltalamacchia took Mike Hampton deep in the first five innings. Hamilton was 3-for-4 to pace their offense."

This is Why We Call the Blog Disastros from The Disastros

"Ugh. I planned my afternoon around this game… And what happens?

Blanked by the Rangers.

Let me put that in context. Swept by the Rangers.

It was one of those games when we didn’t hit and we didn’t make any miraculous fielding plays either. It was one of those games when our starting pitcher gave up hit after hit and then our hitters countered with one pitch pop fly outs. "

Hello Win Column, Win #25: Rangers Seize Series from Houston

2009-05-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Final Score: Rangers 6, Houston 3

Game box score and recap

Interleague play boosts attendance from Spikes and Stars

"The way I knew this [series] was a sham was the FOX broadcast featured Josh Lewin . . . My experience featured the mute button . . . "

Rangers Swat Moehler, Astros from Astros Daily

"There was a time when Astros fans went crazy whenever a guy named Cruz hit a home run. But that was back when they wore bright orange shirts and played under a Dome. Now, it is Rangers fans than can yell CRUUUUUUUZ as they did twice on Saturday after Nelson Cruz belted his 10th and 11th homers of the season, leading Texas past Houston by a 6-3 count. "

The HWC weekly stattracker: take two

2009-05-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

I had originally thought about attempting a write-up on Derek Holland's illustrious beginning to his major league starting career for this weekend's post... but a multitude of far more established (and intelligent) others, such as Jamey Newberg and Evan Grant are way ahead of me there. At this point I'm pretty sure there's nothing left that I could tell you that hasn't already been said, other than the fact that Derek Holland's transition to the majors has for the most part been awesome beyond my wildest dreams.

So instead I'll just roll out another edition of the Hello Win Column weekly stattracker, as I continue to try and tweak this idea further. (Bear in mind that as with last week, all the stats are a day behind (as of Friday) since Baseball Reference won't update with Saturday's #'s till extremely early Sunday morning.)

WHO'S HOT

Elvis Andrus
Season: .292/.331/.458 (105 OPS+)
Since 5/16: .389/.421/.722 (5 G, 20 PA)

Of all the pleasant surprises on this team in 2009, Elvis Andrus continues to be the biggest one. The eye-popping defense, all the balls in the hole and up the middle that would've been singles in 2008 (and for pretty much the last 4-5 seasons) being turned into outs, the second-among-MLB-shortstops 4.2 UZR... that was predicted, if not expected by many, myself included (okay, so maybe not the second-best UZR part, but you get the idea). But if you had told me before the season started that Elvis Andrus was going to be this teams second-hottest hitter for the month of May, I probably would've laughed.

Granted, his .328/.368/.547 line over the first 18 games this month is somewhat inflated by the dazzling 4-5 performance he turned in on Friday (that one game added over 100 points to his May OPS - and 60 to his season OPS) but that doesn't take away from how stunning it is to see a 20 year old shortstop who skipped AAA entirely is putting up a .915 OPS in just
his second month in the majors (it's still over .800, even without Friday's performance). And while you obviously can't expect him to put up insane numbers like that over the long haul, the thing to take away from this kind of a performance is that Andrus has yet to look overmatched against major league pitching - meaning the biggest, and perhaps only real reservation about his insertion into the lineup this year (and in the future) is fast being laid to rest.

Michael Young
Season: .345/.386/.564 (146 OPS+)
Since 5/16: .320/.346/.360 (6 G, 26 PA)

Another pick from the "pleasant surprises of 2009" category would have to be Michael Young suddenly mashing like it's 2005 again. Though Young's reputation may not make it seem as such, MY is having just the second truly great offensive season of his career so far, leading all starters in OBP and SLG (only Andruw Jones, who has just over half of the number of PA's has bettered him in either category so far).

He's been the kind of awesome you kind of wonder will continue - and hope and pray that it does. And if it's going to, hope and prayer might indeed be necessary. I mentioned last time how his acchilies heel has been hitting with RISP and men on base, which continues to be the case - turns out that might not be his biggest fault. Delving a little deeper, a couple things that raised my eyebrow: not only is he rocking the highest BABIP of any regular (.382) on the team, while he's also third worst in P/PA (3.54, which is 22 points below even his career average). His walk rate (6.3%) isn't really too far out of line with his career norms, but it's still his lowest since 2004 (and his career walk rates aren't that great to begin with). So don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm trying to hate on Michael Young - it's just that as great as it's been, most of what he's done so far has been driven by a high BA, which in turn is driven by a ridiculous BABIP, and the 7th-highest line drive rate in the Majors. Which makes me worried we're going to see him on the other side of these posts before too long (which, in turn, people will probably blame on his bum foot instead of his unsustainable peripherals regressing).

David Murphy
Season: .231/.326/.359 (80 OPS+)

David Murphy is a guy I probably should've gotten to in the previous week's stattracker, but didn't. Not to worry though, that just gives me more of a sample size to work with this time.

Yeah, the season numbers don't look like much. An 0-23 streak to start the season will do that to your numbers. Many a Rusty Greer comparison fell victim to that streak as well. Which is kind of amusing, because thanks to that streak, they actually might be realistic for the first time in Murphy's career. It appears being unable to hit the ball 23 straight times might've actually been a good thing for Murph, because it's allowed him to add a new weapon to his arsenal: discipline. His 12.8% BB rate is second on the team to only to Andruw Jones, and more importantly it's almost double what it was his first two seasons here in Texas. He actually leads the team in P/PA with 4.32.

And oh yeah, since that 0-23 streak ended, he's hitting .321/.375/.500.

That's right folks: the Murphinator is back, and he's reloaded. With walks. I never thought I'd say this in regards to a Ranger team whose biggest problem has been getting on base, but... David Murphy needs more playing time. If for no other reason than to see if this newfound patience is for real.

WHO'S... NOT

Ian Kinsler
Season: .287/.358/.556 (135 OPS+)
Since 5/16: 0.87/.222/.130 (6 G, 27 PA)

So yeah... I guess at this point Ian is no long "maintaining a torrid pace". In fact, he's gone careening into a brick wall - he sat yesterday, and I'm told you could almost see the little cartoon-style stars circling his head down in the dugout.

So what's happened? What was the name of that brick wall the size of the Hoover Dam? Well, as you may have heard by now: road trip!

For whatever reason, Kinsler has not hit very well away from the Ballpark in Arlington this year. In fact, with the exception of last season, not ever, really. He's a career .249/.319/.409 hitter on the road, and so far this year the split has been at it's most extreme: .165/.224/.308 in the road greys.

Truth was, Ian was doing fine up until our latest road swing - he was still hitting .302/.387/.556 for the month, and had 7 walks in his last 7 games. Since hitting the road for Detroit however, he's gone on a 1 for 18 bender that's sent those monthly numbers plummeting to .247/.330/.444. Our next homestand can't come soon enough.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Season: .252/.308/.405 (86 OPS+)

Saltalamacchia is really beginning to frustrate me. Last year he forgot how to hit for any sort of power and was terrible against lefties - but he learned how to walk and that, coupled with his numbers against righties boded well for the future. This year, he's forgotten how to walk and stopped hitting righties, leading to a small plummet of his OPS+. But hey, he's been great defensively... so one step forward, two steps back.

On the bright side, he is showing a little better eye of late... he has 7 walks this month after taking just two the entire month of April. That's still not nearly enough to fix his on base problems however, as his average has plummeted to .226 in May (from .276). Despite a crucial homer Friday, his slugging has plummeted too, down to .358 (from .448).

The problem appears to be that while he's maintained most of his patience (4.03 P/PA) he's lost his batting eye. His contact rate on pitches in the strike zone (z-contact% of 83) is actually up slightly, but the problem is he's swinging at 35% of everything out of the zone (career high o-swing%) and only making contact 41% of the time (career low o-contact%). In some cases, there is a difference between just being patient and being selective, and lack of selectivity is what's killing Salty right now.

Chris Davis
Season: .209/.272/.453 (86 OPS+)
Since 5/16: .000/.100/.000 (6 games, 20 PA)

So much for Chris Davis's May rally. Since we looked at him last time, Davis has dropped into an 0 for 18 (it's actually up to 0-22 after yesterday) slump that has dropped him back to square one, and people back to questioning his ability to hit major league pitching. I don't really know what to say about Davis at this point except you still have to stay the course with him for the time being, IMO - he's still been stellar defensively at least, and Hank Blalock still sucks at getting on base too (although his 3-4 yesterday will have helped that some).

I'm just going to to stay patient, and enjoy wincing in pain at those mind-bending splits he does on the receiving end of Elvis Andrus throws for now. Either Davis will break out of his sophomore slump over the summer, and we'll have one helluva young 1B/DH combo with him and Justin Smoak... or Smoak will simply arise to the throne himself once he's ready. Either way, the outcome doesn't seem like a bad one.

Hello Win Column, Win #24: Rangers End Losing Streak in Extras in Houston

2009-05-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

Derek Holland looks good in his first major league start, Elvis Andrus goes 4 for 5. Is the future here already?

Game boxscore and recap

I didn't find many recaps of the game in the Astros blogosphere, but there were a multitude of humorous game previews (I'll update as game recaps are posted, if at all):

(Game Preview) Texas Rangers at Houston Astros, May 22, 2009 7:05 PM CDT from Crawfish Boxes

"Paulino is facing off against one of the best offenses in MLB, so run prevention will be of the utmost importance. A few of these games each year turn into ridiculous football type score games, so it'd be nice to start off with a well pitched game from our young righty."

(Game Preview) I Shot JR, Bitch: Rangers @ Astros Preview from Spikes and Stars

". . . Since Dallas always shows such great hospitality (cough), it’s high time that we hospitalized them . . . .

They stole Nolan Ryan. F*ckers."

Hello Win Column, Win #23: Rangers in the Outfield: SWEEP!

2009-05-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

The story of this game? Josh Hamilton's unbelievable catch at the wall.

Game box score and recap

Halos Lose and Swept by the Rangers from Halos Heaven

"Halos got swept by the Rangers. What a bummer, total bummer. Clearly, the Rangers were the better team . . .

In the past we were able to get by with small ball and keep the game close and trust our bullpen, but Scioscia clearly does not trust the pen anymore and has abandoned his own philosophy, in regards to this. The starters have not been the problem. The problem; the Angels Achilles heal, their offense and now compounded by their bullpen. What can we do to fix this? I don't know . . .

We got beat by the Rangers this weekend who both played small ball and hit for power and to pour salt in our wounds, they showed every glaring weakness this Angels roster has."

Friday Foto: Executive Privilege

2009-05-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

From a purely non-political standpoint, I always loved that the President of the United States was a Rangers fan.

Wednesday: From Bad Times to Good Times

2009-05-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

One has to admit that it is a ton of fun sitting around at a table with a group of friends and dirt talking about how terrible the local sports team is. But in our inner selves, we all know that what feels truly wonderful is being able to examine the ingredients that make a star team so special. In the past, we would be talking about the former, but as of right now, only the latter can come to mind for the assiduous Texas Rangers. With the exception of last night’s slight debacle (though Brandon McCarthy gave us hope for the second start in a row), the last few weeks have perhaps been the greatest showcase of great baseball we’ve seen from the Rangers in recent history.

It wasn’t even that long ago that we were feeling frustrated about this team, and then, like a blot from the blue, they came out and surprised everyone. “Shocked” might actually be a more appropriate word. What’s really incredible is that the Rangers seemed to have such a degrading morale during the middle weeks of April. I think what turned them around was confidence. Confidence is what made this team come to life. The talent was there; it’s just that they (and I know this is one of the most painful clichés in history) didn’t believe in themselves.

With a lead as high as 41/2 games, the Rangers have begun to generate a buzz around the Metroplex, as fans are beginning to assemble into the stadium at great speed. If my calculations are correct, the attendance during the Angels series over the weekend was highest total since 2004. Funny how this year is beginning to look a lot like that magical 2004 season, too. Not are the local fans recognizing the Rangers, but I think they’re beginning to make a national presence as well. Many know about the Rangers’ farm system seeing as they were ranked number 1 in all of baseball, but now people everywhere are beginning the see what is actually on display on the big league field.

There have been numerous moments of utter joy while watching this amazing Ranger run, and of all of them, I think the best has been listening to Eric Nadel’s voice on the radio. Eric, the most underappreciated broadcaster in the game, has always done a great job of covering up his disappointment when the Rangers don’t fulfill certain expectations. Well right now, he is letting the world know how thrilled he is to be a part of this team. The exuberance in his voice is electric, and he sounds happier than ever before, well, at least since I’ve become a Rangers fan. Hey, even Dave Barnett sounds excited.

Of all the Rangers that have been thriving during this hot streak, the most fun to watch has been Michael Young. He is having a monster of a month, and could very well end up with the player of the month honors if he keeps up his hot hitting. The only thing I lament over is that I traded him away on my fantasy baseball team. However, with the exception of Young, not a lot of the Rangers are hitting like they’re capable of during this spurt of great baseball. Ian Kinsler is playing solid, but not great, Chris Davis is still mediocre, Josh Hamilton has missed most of the games, David Murphy has been so-so, and Hank Blalock is hitting in the 230s, despite his 10 homeruns. Also, Nelson Cruz seems to have forgotten how to hit a long ball. But it actually feels nice to talk about something else than a blazing offense. That something else is the pitching. The team ERA has plummeted down to sixth in the league, and everyone seems to be going at least six innings. The bullpen has also been terrific. Frank Francisco unfortunately landed on the DL, but CJ Wilson has done a very nice job of filling in. Also, Darren O’Day has been one of the better stories of the bullpen this year, as he’s done everything the Rangers could want. And then there’s Derek Holland, who, despite one rough spot, has been pitching like a veteran All Star.

I said before, I want to see the Rangers keep this good baseball going through June before I accept the fact that they really are going for a spot in the playoffs. But for now, since it’s still May, I’m just enjoying this stretch of pure gold, chatting with friends about the glory of it all, and hoping that the Rangers can refute Benjamin Button’s line.

Late Monday Movie: Stephen Rannazzisi and Softball

2009-05-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

JP told me about this video, but unfortunately I couldn't get the whole thing. But it's enjoyable nonetheless.

Jokes.com

Stephen Rannazzisi - Softball Team

dians.comedycentral.com

Joke of the Day

Stand-Up Comedy

Free Online Games

Monday: The Draft

2009-05-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

The placement for the MLB draft couldn’t be at a better time. June is the month of the draft, which is when teams begin to truly realize if they’re really good, or if they just got sort of lucky during the first two months (our Rangers come to mind?). It’s a good time for the draft not only because June is sort of in no man’s land in relation to the other months (April and May are the “beginning” months, July is the half way point, and August and September are the “thrilling” months) but also because it gives the bad teams something to get excited about. I myself have never really gotten too keyed up about the draft, mainly because I know that it will still be quite a few years before I get to see the players who come out of High School. But in spite of my slight aversion to this anticipated event, I still find it marginally exciting, especially waiting to discover who will be chosen as the first round pick. So, for today, I have two pieces lined up. The first is a basic look at some of the Rangers’ draft choices, and the second is a look back at where the Rangers’ first round picks since 2000 are at now.

If I could select anyone for the Rangers’ to draft as their first pick, it would obviously be Stephen Strasburg, the endowed right-hander from San Diego. Actually, endowed might not be the proper adjective for this 20 year-old phenom. It might be more suitable to say he’s been extremely blessed by the baseball gods, and by extremely, I mean more than anyone in the history of the game. Now that’s just going by reports that Strasburg, who throws over 100 MPH, might be the one of the greatest pitchers in history. Strasburg also features an incredible changeup, as well as a tight slider to fool hitters after they see his fastball. Strasburg is 6’5,” which should make his mound presence all the more domineering. But enough of him, since we know that Washington will probably get the pick (luckily the Rangers likely won’t have to face him in the AL). So, as of right now, the projections have the Rangers potentially getting 3rd baseman Matt Davidson from Yucaipa High School in California, or Mike Leake, from Arizona State. According to the MLB draft report, Davidson is mainly a power hitter with an above average cut that should send balls over the fence on frequent basis. Davidson plays an average 3rd base and has okay speed on the base paths. To me he sounds like an archetypal power hitter, and not really someone I want to see in a Ranger uniform. Leake on the other hand sounds like a good fit for the Rangers. He doesn’t have an overpowering fastball (though it will occasionally reach 94-95 MPH), and he’s not a big guy (6’0,” 180 lbs), but he has four solid pitches on his arsenal: fastball, slider, curve, and changeup. And the best part is that he seems to have good control over all of them, which definitely makes him a potential asset to the Rangers in the future. Another name that piques the Rangers’ interest is Brooks Raley. Raley, a 6’3” lefty, is from A&M, which gives the Rangers even more reason to pick him. He doesn’t have a tremendous fastball, but his off-speed pitches are good enough to make him a sure bet in a Major League rotation before too long.

There’s just a little less a month before the draft, and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. The Rangers don’t seem to have anyone who they desperately want, which makes this year’s draft not as interesting as ones in years past. But it will still be intriguing to see who gets chosen first, though whoever it is probably won’t generate the same sort of buzz as the Blake Beavans and Justin Smoaks of the world.

Now for part two, let’s take a look at where the first round picks made by the Rangers since 2000 are at in their current state of affairs:
2000. Scott Heard. Catcher. I don’t know what ever happened to Heard. The last I heard he was playing for Stockton, but that was several years ago. Let’s just say that he didn’t work out for the Rangers, or anyone else for that matter.

2001. Mark Teixeira. First Baseman. Need I say more?

2002. Drew Meyer. Second Baseman. Meyer put up some nice minor league numbers, but never really got a chance to play at the big league level. Ian Kinsler probably had something to do with that. I think Meyer came up once in 2006, but only for a few games. He’s since left the Rangers’ organization and joined the Astros’ minor league system.

2003. John Danks. Pitcher. Oh, the days of the DVD. Now that we have Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz in the future, it doesn’t hurt so bad, but man was it painful to see Danks flourish with the White Sox while Brandon McCarthy sat on the DL. Danks of course is still in Chicago, and probably the White Sox’ best pitcher.

2004. Thomas Diamond. Pitcher. Diamond, the only remaining member of the DVD package, has been battling injuries for the last few seasons. He’s still trying to make a comeback, though I don’t really see him fitting into the Rangers’ plans for the future.

2005. John Mayberry. Outfielder. Mayberry was one of those players who had the talent, but was never able to fully put it to use. He was recently traded to the Phillies for Greg Golson, a speedy outfielder.

2006. Kasey Kiker. Pitcher. Kiker is a small guy, but looked upon as one of the bright spots for the Rangers in the future. He’s currently pitching for AA Frisco.

2007. Blake Beavan. Pitcher Of all the Rangers’ first round picks, Beavan, an immensely talented right-hander, excites me the most (part of it might have to do with the fact that he’s from my hometown. My neighbor actually went to high school with him). Hopefully we’ll get to see him pitch sometime next year.

2008. Justin Smoak. First Baseman. We’ve talked about this guy a lot of late, so there’s nothing really more to say here.

The HWC column weekly stattracker

2009-05-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

First of all folks, my apologies for last weekend's absence. I'm afraid I was a bit under the weather... watching this team this past week though has made for a nice cure, however. Good defense cures a lot of ills... just ask Darren O'Day.

I'm honestly not sure how much of a success my weekly game recaps have been though John Paul tells me they've done well... but honestly, their production has just been getting to be a bit much to handle (too much when you've got a fever and a freight train parked in your sinuses). So in the interests of keeping myself in rhythm every week, I've decided to look for some different directions to take my weekend posts, and today I'll be debuting the Hello Win Column weekly stat tracker.

As the title suggests, the idea was for me to keep an eye on the individual players instead of the games, and write about who's up and who's down each week. Since then however, I've come to realize there's a minor kink in the plan: Baseball Reference, home to the only sortable gamelogs I know of, doesn't update it's tables with the latest results until 5 am the next freaking morning. Which means every single one of these I would write is going to wind up being a day behind stat-wise. But hey, it can't hurt to experiment... so I figure I'll still do a few breakdowns of some select players this week who's recent results piqued my interest, and see how this goes - I don't mind being a day behind if my readers don't. So feedback's welcome... feel free to let me know if this is a feature you like (or hate, as the case may be).

Trending upward - Chris Davis

Overall line: .240/.298/.521

A lot of Ranger fans freaked over Davis's staggering strikeout totals and low contact rates that have pockmarked of a slow start to his sophomore campaign, but as was noted last week he's actually been pretty darned palatable since the first week of the season ended. Now, over the last week - in fact since the start of May, period - he's beginning to find his stride.

As of Friday, Chris is hitting .294/.333/.647 (15 for 51) for the month of May, with 8 of his 15 hits being for extra bases. 5 of those 8 XB hits are homers, and 4 of them have come in the last 7 days. And for those of you that dread the strikeouts, he's improved there, too: 19 strikeouts in 14 games on the month so far, as opposed to 34 over 20 games in April. That's lead to just three multi-strikeout games so far this month, as opposed to the staggering 11 he had April.

Bottom line is, Chris Davis' bat is finally coming around. And if he can keep socking homers to go along with the major league-leading 4.3 UZR he has at first base he's going to meet any rational expectations we could've had for him, strikeouts or no strikeouts.

Maintaining a torrid pace - Ian Kinsler

Overall: .318/.380/.622

After putting up a 1.422 OPS in his first 13 games of the season, it appeared Kinsler had cooled off in Aprils last week, OPSing just .477. Turns out that was just a temporary breather for opposing pitchers. Since May 1st he's hit .310/.373/.569 (good for a 942 OPS), and over the last week has shown some incredible patience (for a Ranger this year anyway) walking 6 times in 7 games (although 5 of those where split among 2 different games).

Overall, Kinsler has basically picked up right where he left off last year, and that's putting up near-MVP-type production - his 21.7 VORP is tied for 5th in major league baseball (with Marlins phenom Hanley Ramirez), which consequently means it's also tops among all major league second basemen right now.

The rookie surprise: Elvis Andrus

Overall: .275/.315/.412

I was absolutely stoked this offseason when we learned Elvis Andrus would be displacing Michael Young from shortstop - but I don't think even the most optimistic of us could've predicted that a 20 year old jumping from AA to the majors would be holding his own like this come mid-May.
Not only has Andrus been a defensive wizard at short, apparently ranking in the top 5 among shortstops in plus/minus according to Bill James online (to which I have no subscription, otherwise I'd give you more details than that admittedly vague endorsement) but he's shown more than just about anyone expected him to at the plate, so far blowing his .245/.299/.329 ZIPS projection out of the water.

And the thing is, he only seems to be getting better: after hitting .250/.288/.357 (645 OPS) in April (which honestly I would've been happy to see him simply maintain) he's rocking an 825 OPS so far in May (.304/.347/.478) and has been good for a .417 OBP his last 7 games. The result is his 4.2 VORP is currently first in the AL among all rookies with at least 50 PA's (and Elvis by the way also leads all AL rookies with 111 PA's).

Not to pull a Jim Knox moment, but if Elvis keeps icing the cake with that kind of unexpected offensive production... I think I might be in love.

I'm really not as clutch as I looked In April: Michael Young

Overall: .350/.393/.600

Okay, so maybe the above headline is kind of harsh for a guy who holds the third-highest OPS on the team and has hit a scary .442/.463/.615 in May. Don't get me wrong... I'm really impressed with what Michael Young has done this year (especially after two consecutive seasons of pretty mediocre offensive results). But as awesome as he's been so far, Michael Young was hitting 0.97/.200/0.97 with RISP as of Friday, and .220/.303/.475 with men on base overall. Which is... really odd, considering he's still money in a close game.

It's a nice consolation (a really, really nice one in fact) that he owns the team's second best OBP, which is great to have in that 2-slot... but the #2 guy still comes to bat in some of the games most important situations, and having a guy who's struggling this mightily to drive in runners in that #2 slot can't be helping this teams already meh efforts with men in scoring position this year.

*****

A couple of quick unrelated notes as I close things out tonight: Saturday's win made it 6 straight for the Rangers - if they can somehow make it 7 tomorrow against noted Ranger killer Jered Weaver, they'll not only have a 4.5 game lead in the AL West, they'll be the only team in the division over .500. Trivia question of the week: when was the last time that happened?

Feel free to cheat on that one, I'm sure you'll need to - I know I do.

Hello Win Column, Win #22: Rangers Beat Lackeyless Angels 5-3

2009-05-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

Story of the game: John Lackey, ejected after two pitches. Also of note: Nelson Cruz's double was the only extra base hit of the entire game.

Game boxscore

John Lackey, Angels Bumped in Texas from Halos Heaven

"The Texas Rangers play in the nation's 4th largest media market and it is obvious that MLB wants to get the ratings going to bring in baseball dollars amidst Footballville. They have the umps completely getting in the way of player's establishing their game and a first inning ejection of John Lackey was the most obvious indicator that baseball intends to hand a mediocre organization a competitive edge thru treachery in order to more firmly take on the NFL deep in the heart of Texas . . .

May the farce be with you, MLB, the Rangers are 6 games over .500 for the first time since steroids were banned by baseball and are one urine specimen and a Tim Donaghy-style investigation away from their rightful place... and that would be fighting for third with Seattle.

Lackey was ejected after hitting Ian Kinsler. The plate-crowding cheat ended up scoring that inning to tie the game 1-1."

Editor's response: I understand that the whole purpose of a blog is to write your own opinions, but the writer of this article just comes across as an elitist, sore-loser Angels fan. I don't doubt that MLB would love to have a greater media presence in the DFW area, but insinuating that the umpires are slanting the game the Rangers' way is just ridiculous (even commenters on the same site agree). Especially for the Lackey ejection: Kinsler hit two home runs yesterday, and then gets thrown at (twice) to begin the game. Anyone looking at that situation rationally would at least suspect that it was intentional. In my opinion, Lackey wasn't thrown out because he threw at Kinsler. He got thrown out because he was stupid and made it too obvious; he didn't give the umpire much of a choice but to do something about it.

Hello Win Column, Win #21: Rangers Dominate Angels (except for 9th inning)

2009-05-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Everything looked good until Derek Holland had a meltdown . . . .

Game box score, recap

Rangers Send Angels Deep in the Red from Halos Heaven

"Angels fans will tell themselves that It was just one of those games where nothing went right, and they better hope this is the case, because if the Texas Rangers are as dominant as they were Friday night at home, the division will be all theirs . . .

All Star Joe Saunders was lit up by the Texas bats and Texas Semi-Ace Kevin Millwood benefited from two of the three Angel double plays in the game. Saunders didn't have to worry about his pitch count as he was delivering meatballs on the first pitch to Texas hitters who mashed them into spaghetti RBIs."

Hello Win Column, Win #20: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Believe it.

Game box score, recap

16-19, Game Notes from Lookout Landing

"Today's hockey games were good . . . .

Chris Davis, by the way, has the lowest contact rate of any regular in baseball. If ever there were a good time for Morrow to take something off of his heater, that was it. Instead he played right into Davis' hands, going to the same spot with the same pitch four consecutive times . . .

You can be as mad at Morrow as you want to be for effectively giving our season the ol' Tanya Harding. Keep in mind, though, that this heavily right-handed lineup managed all of two runs and five hits off of the mediocre left-handed Matt Harrison . . . "

Oh Baseball, You So Crazy! from Section 331

"I dated this guy for like 3 years. When we first met, it was all whirlwind and fun . . . Eventually, I found out that he had a HUGE meth addiction all along, and that was where all our money was starting to disappear to.

That was basically today’s game, in a nutshell."

That Was Far Too Predictable (Comments Section) from Bleeding Blue and Teal

"Morrow can blow 90% of the league away with his fastball, but the Rangers are loaded with prolific fastball mashers so he has to adjust his game plan."

Friday Foto: Separated at Birth?

2009-05-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does Michael Young bear a striking resemblance to actor Carlos Bernard (a.k.a. Tony Almeida on 24)?

Hello Win Column, Win #19: Rangers 'Hammer' Through Mistakes in Walk-Off Win Over M's

2009-05-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hank the Tank got in on the walk-off act. We beat the M's. We were able to overcome several key mistakes in the process. What a great win.

Game box score

Backbreaker from USS Mariner

"That’s a tough loss. Just like with Vargas last night, Washburn should get a medal for surviving Texas’ offense and ballpark. The offense was able to get a few longballs off of McCarthy, whose up-in-the-zone pitching style makes him the kind of righty we can actually score runs against, but the flaws of the offense got exposed late in the game.

Morrow… what can you say? His command sucks and he’s heavily dependent on the fastball. That doesn’t work against good hitting lefties, and the Rangers have a lot of good hitting lefties."

Washburn: no win, but no loss, either from Section 331

"The only thing that made the top of the 9th remotely inspiring was the fact that I like Darren O’Day; I can’t help it.

Morrow came in to face Texas’ finest, and while he was pitching fast, he was not pitching well . . .

I will be glad when we get out of Texas (which is something I have said pretty much every time I’ve physically been there, even). Even Felix starting tomorrow doesn’t instill confidence in me. Not today."

Hello Win Column, Win #18: Hambone Hammers Homer in 7-1 Win Over M's

2009-05-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Josh Hamilton is back, and he made his presence known.

Game boxscore, recap

Something Has to Change from Bleeding Blue and Teal

"There is no way that management hasn’t noticed that their ballclub cannot hit pedestrian right handers even if their collective lives depended on it. When will an adjustment be made to get some lefties in the lineup?"

The Bright Side from USS Mariner

"Yea, that sucked, but it wasn’t all that hard to see coming. As we’ve noted repeatedly, the Mariners roster is structured incorrectly, which leaves them essentially incapable of hitting pitchers like Scott Feldman . . .

. . . The Rangers are a great fastball hitting team, and [Vargas] has a below average fastball, so he didn’t even bother trying the whole “establish the fastball” crap. He went with his off-speed stuff, disrupted timing, mixed speeds and locations, and used the fastball as a complementary pitch . . . Just a smart, well pitched game by a guy who really had no business succeeding in that environment."

Wednesday: Excited? Hmmm...

2009-05-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

The Rangers recently finished a 5 and 2 road trip (they did the same about this time last year) and the talk of the town (including local sports shows) is that the Rangers are in first place. So is it too early to get excited? Well there’s no harm in holding high hopes for the Rangers, but take a look at this time last year. The Rangers were only one game below 500 and only four games behind the Angels. This year, they’re three games above 500 and only a 1/2 game ahead of the Angels (though right now the Red Sox are leading the Angels in the 9th). This isn’t to take anything away from the Rangers, it's just that we have to consider the fact that the Angels are only now starting the really heat up and their team will only get better once they get some key players off the DL. That being said, I think it’s obvious that the Angels are a considerably weaker team than the ones we’ve seen in years past. Vladimir Guererro is no longer the player he once was (it’s hard to believe watching him now that he stole 40 bases one year), John Garland is gone, and most importantly, Francisco Rodriguez has left the American League, meaning we will no longer have to see him again. Mike O’Gulnick had a good line a few nights ago, saying that the Angels were like the Spurs: old and worn out. The ‘Ranger Era’ definitely is beginning to appear, and I think two years from now they will officially be leaving the rest of the West in the dust. But apparently they’re starting early, and though it’s May, are already making a case for a spot in the playoffs. Now that’s a bit of a contradiction, because I just said that the Rangers aren’t incredibly better off than they were this time last year. But the truth of the matter is that it’s hard not to feel extremely pleased and eager about this Ranger team, not because they’re hitting homeruns all the time, but because they’re getting the pitching that makes baseball teams winners. This time last year, it was the relentless offense that really carried the team. This year, it’s the pitching, both the rotation, led by Kevin Millwood, and the bullpen, by AL Saves leader Frank Francisco. So though I think that the Angels are going to have a great run pretty soon, I feel very optimistic right now. However, the mindset of the players is probably more realistic. I can guarantee you that everyone on the Rangers’ club, though aware of the standings, is just focused on winning one game at a time, staying focused, and trying not to think about the future. In the end that’s really the perspective to take, because not only is it reasonable, but it takes away some of the disappointment if the team ends up coming short.
Coming into the season, I don’t think anyone really expected the Rangers to be where they are now. The Athletics were said to be a contender this year, but so far they’ve looked terrible, especially offensively. Kurt Suzuki is their only real productive hitter at the moment, and the high hopes for Jason Giambi are beginning to dwindle. I think Oakland is due for a long winning streak later in the season, especially if they get Matt Holliday to start hitting like he usually does. But in the end I think it will be down the Rangers and Angels. I know the Mariners were in first place for a while, but I don’t really see them contending for the whole season.

I’ve heard a lot people, mainly typical, excited fans, say that this is the Rangers’ year to win. They say that because of the Rangers’ current hot streak. If they suddenly begin to struggle, then those people will suddenly quiet down. So, with all the hype surrounding the Rangers, my overall view is this: Traditionally, May is still considered ‘early’ in baseball season. So, to prove that this streak of good baseball isn’t bogus, I want to see the Rangers in this exact position or better by the end of the June. If they can do that, then I too will be taking out my rally cap and cheering them towards the postseason. Sorry if this post isn't very coherent. Been a long day...dead tired...time for sleep...

Hello Win Column, Win #17: Padilla One-Hit-Wonders AGAIN

2009-05-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the pun in the title. I stole it from Josh Lewin. Sorry for that too.

Game box score, recap

And now to hear from the losing locker room:

Let's start off with this amusing game preview from South Side Sox:

"Vicente Padilla is a douche bag who has been teetering on the brink of "meh" for a few years now. He's off to a terrible start and nothing would make me happier than if we got to keep that going. The odds of him not throwing a pitch at A.J. are about as good as the odds of A.J. throwing someone out."

Fun times in Cleveland tonight! from Sox Machine

"Texas' staff boasted a 5.27 ERA before coming to Chicago. Now it's 4.90.

There's a good chance the Sox offense is the cure for bad pitching more than the other way around."

Colon has rare struggle vs. Rangers from WhiteSox.com

"The burly right-hander also carried a 12-game winning streak against the Rangers, the longest active winning streak for a Major League pitcher over one team, which quietly ended after he allowed five runs on five hits over 4 2/3 innings while walking three and striking out four . . .

'Very boring day -- very no-life day,' White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said."

Tuesday: Chris Davis Since April 13

2009-05-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Something I read in TR Sullivan's recent mailbag is an interesting addition to the ongoing Chris Davis conversation . . . . see his numbers since April 13: .268/.326/.598.

In fact, since April 13, Chris has hit safely in all but 5 games (pinch hit appearances notwithstanding). He has reached base safely via hit or walk in all but 2 games.

Not too shabby, except for the strikeouts.

I know that Chris is struggling in the strikouts department, but .268/.326/.598 and reaching safely in all but 2 games since April 13th is hardly enough to justify his benching or demotion to AAA.

(Author's note: I just realized that this is noted on LSB as well, but I'm going to post this anyways since we've been following Chris pretty closely here at HWC)

Monday Movie: Who's On First?

2009-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Even though the act isn't actually that funny, you have to admit that Abbott and Costello were a crazy talented comedy duo. It's fun just to watch their talent on display, especially when they're talking about baseball.

Monday: On Umpires

2009-05-10T22:48:00.000-07:00

When I worked on the staff at a Boy Scout camp a few years ago, I sometimes helped out as the umpire in the wiffleball games that the campers participated in. It wasn’t a difficult job and it wasn’t very arduous either (partly because these were kids playing, and many of them didn’t care about the game), but at same time, I had my share of tricky moments. Though the ball was plastic and moved pretty slow, sometimes there would be a play at first base where I had difficulty making an accurate call. The angles had to be just right, and my sense of timing had to be extremely precise. This experience made me think about professional umpires in MLB. Not only do they have to deal with the high velocity of the ball, they also have to be prepared to take heat from the players and managers when they make a controversial call. And the worst part is that when they make a call that brings out tantrums from the players, often they know they probably got the call wrong (unless the player is someone like Eddie Milner, who argued what seemed like every call that went against him).

I think one of the most difficult elements in the life of an umpire, besides having to make the close calls, is the positioning on the field. If you watch a game, you’ll find that the umpires have a set pattern for the calling plays depending where the ball goes. If there’s going to be a close play at third base, the umpire must watch what’s happening, find his set position, and not get in the way of the play. And that’s not even the hard part, as he still has to make a difficult call if the play happens to be close.

Another difficult part of this job is studying and learning the MLB Official Rulebook. I own a copy of the text, and looking through it, I was amazed at how intricate it actually is. The book takes every possible scenario and has a complex explanation for each one. It is obligatory that the Umpires memorize these rules though, because there’s no telling when one of these plays might happen to occur.

Focus is another key element in an umpire’s job. The first and third base umpires must be mentally prepared to make a call at any given moment. What’s even more difficult though is that they must always watch the pitches to make sure if a hitter checks his swing or not. Imagine if a player tried to check his swing, but the umpire was wandering and didn’t pay attention. Never seen it happen, meaning their focus remains steady for all nine innings.

Another factor, mainly for the home plate umpire, is the risk of getting injured. Foul balls often hit umpires, and though they wear masks, the suffering they go through is always perceptible. But that’s not the worst of it. We recently saw Kerwin Danley get hit by a bat broken bat by the Rangers’ own Hank Blalock. Danley was taken off the field and hospitalized, though luckily not seriously injured.

With all of the demands and difficulties umpires face, what’s probably most discouraging about the job is that they’re never cheered, and when they make a good call they’re ignored, and when they make a bad call, they’re booed ad infinitum. But there must be some love for the job because otherwise people wouldn’t do it. I think the central reason for pursuing it is for love of the game. People love the sport of baseball, and by becoming a great umpire they’re helping the game out, because great umpires are what make it all work.

Also, though the average fan does not hold much respect for the umpires, any real fan of baseball will recognize names like Jerry Crawford, Joe West, and Mike Reilly, all of whom have served at least 25 years in the Major Leagues. These umpires are important members of the game, and will leave an inevitable legacy.

I admire every single umpire, because not only is their job extremely strenuous, but also they possess great skill, which unfortunately isn’t appreciated as much as it should be. If you want a good story on what the life of umpires is really like, MLB.com published a terrific article that can be found here.

Hello Win Column, Win #16: Dirty Harry: Harrison Shuts Out Potent Chi-Sox Offense

2009-05-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Game Boxscore, Recap

Now let's hear from the losing locker room:

Matt Harrison is a Left-Handed Sonnanstine from South Side Sox

Jose Contreras is broken from Sox Machine

"I can pinpoint the exact moment where I threw in the towel for Jose Contreras' near future -- and nothing even happened on the play.

In the second inning of Friday night's 6-0 loss to the Texas Rangers, two outs, Omar Vizquel at the plate, and runners on first and third, Contreras screamed:

"I AM AFRAID OF PITCHING!"

...by trying one of those fake-to-third, throw-to-first deals.

Then, add in these two factors:

Two outs!

Two outs and Omar Vizquel!

He stalled despite that hitter being Vizquel, the one guy on the field who might be older than Contreras, and the guy who slugged .267 last year. He was trying to figure out another way to get out of the inning besides pitching his way out of it."

Friday Foto: The AL West

2009-05-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

And . . . . THAT happened.

Thursday: "Straight ball, I hit it very much . . . . "

2009-05-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

Continuing the discussion that we've made about Chris Davis, I feel it's only appropriate to start out with this classic video clip from Major League. As it turns out, Pedro Cerrano (played by Dennis Haysbert, i.e. President Palmer on 24) has similar struggles at the plate:

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Here are Chris' pitch breakdowns from this year (courtesy of billjamesonline.com):

To date, Chris has seen 375 pitches this year; he has swung at 187 of them (49%), and taken 188 of them (51%). (In 2008, the percentages were 46% taken, 54% swung.)

Of the pitches that he has swung at, he has missed 43% of them. (In 2008, 32%).

Of the pitches that he has swung at, only 63% of them have been in the strike zone. (In 2008, 64%).

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The only noticeable discrepancy here is his contact rates from 2008-2009. As you can see, he is coming up empty at a much more rapid pace (43% in 2009 to 32% in 2008). When he actually makes contact, his BABIP is .275 (the league average is about .300), down from a monstrous .353 in 2008 (which I referred to in this post about BABIP several months ago). We can conclude that (1) he's not making contact as often, and (2) when he is making contact, he's not getting any breaks. We can expect his BABIP to approach league average over the course of the season, but his sharp contact percentage decline is certainly cause for some concern.

My first inclination would be to assume that he is being pitched much differently this year, i.e. as pitchers are adjusting to him, he hasn't been adjusting back. Perhaps this has been the case, but on the whole, he's being pitched exactly the same:

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Year--Pitch--% (courtesy of fangraphs.com)

2008--Fastball--55.3% 2008--Curveball--11.4%
2009--Fastball--56.5% 2009--Curveball--11.9%

2008--Slider--16.7% 2008--Changeup--9.8%
2009--Slider--13.9% 2009--Changeup--8.3%

There is an alarmingly high percentage of pitches for 2009 that have been termed as "unknown": 10.8%. This could possibly be skewing the data, or it could just be a data entry fluke. Or a secret new pitch that's being used to strike Chris out.
*******************************************************

Overall, it's not terribly surprising for a player like Davis to have a stretch like this. He's a power hitter who strikes out a lot but doesn't walk much. When players like this have a slump at the plate, they don't have the benefit of (1) walks (because they don't walk) or (2) BABIP/luck (because they don't make much contact). For instance, when a player like Michael Young is slumping, he still catches some lucky breaks by virtue of some well placed ground balls. When a player like Milton Bradley is slumping, he works his way onto the bases every now and then by virtue of walks and patience at the plate. Davis has neither of these going for him.

While this streak is worrisome, Chris will undoubtedly pull himself out of it. The truth is, with his low-contact, no-walk style, we should excpect to see stretches like this (though perhaps not as long) throughout his career.

Hello Win Column, Win #15: First Place!

2009-05-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

The Rangers are in first place at a time other than the first week of the season. It's a good feeling.

Game box score, recap

Let's hear from the losing locker room:

What's Good for Giese, is Not Good Enough for the A's from Athletics Nation

"Well the A's got all they could ask for from spot starter Dan Giese, who gave the Green and Gold 5-2/3 solid innings, but it wasn't enough . . .

The second inning epitomized the A's woes at the plate this season. Rangers' hurler Scott Feldman sandwiched two outs around a Jack Cust single. With Travis Buck at the plate, Cust broke for second, only to see Buck hit the ever-popular inning-ending single after the ball struck his teammate . . .

Not once did Giese retire the Rangers in order but kept his club close by working out of minor trouble in the second, third, and fifth. He exited with two out in the sixth having given up three runs on eight hits. He walked none, and struck out three . . .

Ugh . . . for the A's, it was another case of so close, yet so far."

Wednesday: Is there Smoak on the Horizon?

2009-05-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

In the comments on Monday’s post, there was a little debate over whether the clock is ticking on Chris Davis’ time with the Rangers. The speculation is due largely to the fact that Davis is striking out at a meteoric pace (he struck out three more times in today’s game) and that his approach at the plate seems slightly lackadaisical. He takes big sweeping cuts and seems to either strike out or hit homeruns. However, I agree with both of the arguments presented. The first is that Davis’ lack of production will cause the Rangers’ to replace him with hot prospect and first round pick Justin Smoak, who is also a first baseman. The second is that Davis is only in his second big league season, and that he needs a little more time to adjust before the Rangers close the curtain on him (plus Smoak needs time to prove himself in the minors).

The reason Smoak, despite his aptitude to hit like a machine, is being talked about as “major league ready” is because he was drafted out of College rather than High School. Smoak is already 22 years old, and almost ready to hit Major League pitching. Smoak’s situation and style of play bears much resemblance to Mark Teixeira’s. Teixeira was around the same age as Smoak when the Rangers drafted him, and he ended up only needing one season in the Minors before he was ready. Obviously there is a lot of expectations coming from this kid, but the same can be said for Davis. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Tom Hicks predicted that Smoak will be an All-Star. But USA Today predicted that Davis will be among the league leaders in homeruns this year. So there’s a lot of high hopes coming from both of these kids, and though Davis’ situation is slightly frustrating right now, I think he’ll get the rest of this season to prove himself worthy. Smoak is in a similar boat, as his offensive production this season will be telling as to whether he’ll be considered for the club in 2010. If Davis’ struggles carry out through the entire season, and Smoak destroys the ball in the minors, we may hear Chris’ name come up in trade talks during the off-season. But if Davis can somehow ease up on the strikeouts and raise his average, then the Rangers may wish to keep him at first next year and put Smoak in at DH, assuming Hank Blalock is gone.

I’m a fan of Chris Davis, and we all saw from last year that he is better than what he’s showing right now. Right now Chris Davis looks a lot like Adam Dunn. But when there’s a smoaking prospect heating up the minors, and just waiting to come up the big leagues, Adam Dunn-like baseball is not enough. Chris Davis needs to 'up' his game a few notches if he wants to stay in Texas. Then again, I don't know what's going on in Jon Daniels' mind. Maybe he's scheming something completely different. But regardless of the plans in the front office, it’s still a challenging situation for Davis, and I’m sure he’s just as aware of it as I am. But I myself am not ready to write him off until I see more of Smoak and what he’s really capable of doing.

Note: for those of you who have just recently started reading HWC, I'm Thomas Lowery, under the pseudonym 'the author,' which I mean to change if I can.

Hello Win Column, Win #14: Padilla is Masterful as Rangers Top M's in Extras

2009-05-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

Vicente Padilla, he of the 7.20 ERA at gametime, badly needed to pitch well tonight. And he did -- 8IP 1H 3BB 4K. Padilla is now he of the 5.71 ERA -- not exactly eye candy, but much better.

It's not everyday you see a pitcher -- much less a Rangers pitcher -- much less Vicente Padilla -- allow only 1 hit through 8 innings (and leave with no decision).

Also, tough day for Michael Young on the bases: 1 pickoff (by Bedard), 1 out at home (assist by Balentien).

Here's the link for the box score, game recap.

But enough about the Rangers, let's hear from the Mariners fans:

15-12, Game Notes from Lookout Landing

"The only thing worse than having to bring in a replacement-level reliever to face the Rangers in the tenth inning of a tie ballgame is having to bring in a replacement-level reliever who's fatigued . . . . There's no way you can turn to a below-100% Denny Stark against the Rangers in a tie game with any kind of confidence, and we wound up taking it straight on the chin . . . . Bedard was virtually flawless today . . . Bedard isn't going to face many better lineups than the one he saw today, and he destroyed it."

Game 27: Rangers at Mariners from USS Mariner

"You know how I keep harping on the roster being too right-handed and how it’s costing us wins?

Padilla, career vs RHB: .241/.300/.370
Padilla, career vs LHB: .299/.381/.484

The Mariners are starting seven right-handed bats and two left-handed bats today. Yea."

Hello Win Column, Win #13: A "Team Win": Rangers Down Division Rival M's 6-5

2009-05-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

Michael Young summed the game up better than I could have:

“It was a great team win. It was a fun game to play in. We just played really well. Our starter did a great job of battling, Our bullpen did a great job. The defense did a great job.”

(from Inside Corner)

Did you know that King Felix is 4-9 against the Rangers now in his career? Probably just a fluke, but it's nice to know we've had some success roughing him up.

Now let's hear from the losing locker room:

15-11, Game Notes from Lookout Landing

"Let's just get this out of the way now - yes, I feel pretty confident in saying that Kenji Johjima was safe, and his being called out by Paul Emmel did a number on our odds of winning . . . umpires don't have the benefit of instant replay on plays like this, and the fact that it's so difficult to get a good screengrab of Johjima touching down before the ball gets to Davis goes to show you how quickly everything happened. That was as close to a tie as you can get without it actually being a tie, and in the eyes of professional umpires, it's a coin flip . . . Paul Emmel made the wrong call. I won't say he made a bad call . . .

The Rangers' plan of attack was to go up against Felix guessing pitches and swinging from the heels. And it's hard to be critical of them given the results. Yeah, they struck out nine times and didn't draw a walk, but they guessed right often enough to make this a frustrating night for The King. When you have an order that potent, the runs tend to stack up in a hurry.Blalock's double came on an outside changeup that Felix left elevated. Young's homer came on a slider that stayed up at the belt. Davis' homer came on an inside curve that he was looking for after Felix used breaking balls against him earlier with great success."

You Gotta Take An Aspirin With These Guys from USS Mariner

"I know it’s tempting to draw conclusions about the character/mental strength/will to win after a bunch of close games, but hopefully the last four days have illustrated the reality of baseball - the winner of one run games often has little to do with the moral fiber of the guys on the field, and a lot more to do with random chance."

And perhaps the best part of all this was Lookout Landing's win probability chart:

Tuesday: Commentator Query

2009-05-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's time for another Commentator Query, a piece I do whenever I hear something questionable said on a baseball broadcast. You can read my last Commentator Query on a comment made about Kevin Youkilis during the World Baseball Classic broadcast on ESPN here.

The commentator in question is Steve Phillips from a comment he made during ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball broadcast of the White Sox - Rangers game. He stated that (slightly paraphrasing) "only one team since 2000 that has led the league in home runs has made the playoffs," his implication being that teams who hit a lot of home runs are less likely to make the playoffs.

Let's break down this argument:

1) First of all, the statement is slightly inaccurate. There have been 2 teams since 2000 that have led the league in homeruns that have made the playoffs: the 2008 White Sox and the 2004 Yankees.

2) Regardless of the truth of Phillips' claim, his argument alone is not enough evidence to assert his claim that home run hitting teams are less likely to make the playoffs. Why? There are 30 positions on the "most home runs" list. The (theoretical) probability that any one of those positions makes the playoffs is slim, whether it's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 15th. So the fact that only 2 teams who have hit the most home runs in all of baseball have made the playoffs is not at all surprising. For instance, the fourth place team on the home run list has made the playoffs 3 times since 2000. Does it make sense to assert that coming in fourth in home runs makes a team less likely to make the playoffs? Of course not, even though it is a statement logically equivalent to the statement made by Phillips. Needless to say, this does nothing to support his claim.

3) Now let's check Phillips' original claim: teams who hit a lot of home runs are less likely to make the playoffs. Instead of looking at each rank in the home runs list, we divide the rankings into thirds:

Since 2000, 35 teams in the Top 10 in home runs have made the playoffs.
Since 2000, 28 teams in the Middle 10 in home runs have made the playoffs.
Since 2000, 9 teams in the Lower 10 in home runs have made the playoffs.

It appears that there is some (though not strong) correlation between hitting a lot of home runs and making the playoffs. Regardless of strength of correlation, there is certainly no evidence to suggest that hitting a lot of home runs lessens a team's chances of making the playoffs.

4) Disclaimer: I realize that commentators have to talk for 3-4 hours about baseball, and (as many of us often do in conversation) find themselves speaking without thinking in depth about what they have said. Most of the time it works just fine, but occasionally they will make an assertion (such as this one) that requires more research. I imagine the argument that Steve Phillips meant to make was that offensively lopsided teams (such as our Texas Rangers) are less likely to make the playoffs, i.e. teams with monster offenses and no pitching are less likely to make the playoffs. As we Rangers fans know, this is much more likely to be true (but that's a study I'll save for another day).

(source: http://www.fangraphs.com/)