Strikeout Percentage

We analyzed Strikeouts from the pitcher?s perspective and explained why they are so important for[...]

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http://blog.lovemyteam.com/2012/07/09/strikeout-percentage/

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Baseball Card Show Purchase #6 Lot Of 4 Modern
Johnny Bench Cards

Baseball Card Show Purchase #6 – Lot Of 4 Modern Johnny Bench Cards I am very,  very excited with this purchase!!! Typically, I will load all four cards onto my scanner at one time and then just comment on them … Continue reading →

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http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/baseball-card-show-purchase-6-lot-of-4
-modern-johnny-bench-cards/

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With the 2012 Home Run Derby set to take place on
Monday night in Kansas City, SB Nation takes a...

With the 2012 Home Run Derby set to take place on Monday night in Kansas City, SB Nation takes a look at this year's contestants, some of the longest derby dingers in recent history, and whether or not the field will be able to put on a show at a stadium[...]

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http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/7/9/3146685/with-the-2012-home-run-derby-se
t-to-take-place-on-monday-night-in

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As youre aware, Kansas City will host to this
years State Farm Home Run Derby on Monday, July 9....

As you?re aware, Kansas City will host to this year?s State Farm Home Run Derby on Monday, July 9. To kick off the Derby we are hosting the fourth annual Go to Bat Media Event with local Boys and Girls Club kids and Phillies Slugger Ryan Howard.

The event pairs local media celebrities (some how I made the cut) with local Boys and Girls Club kids to swing for the fences. State Farm will make donations for each big hit you and your Boys & Girls Club teammate make during the Go to Bat Media Event.

To ensure plenty of long balls are hit (and donations to the local Boys & Girls Clubs are made), Hall-of-Famer Ryan Howard will be on-hand to give you and the kids batting tips, and will also be available to talk with media

I will be taking my swings with a local kid around 10:45 at the Home Run Derby cages around 10:45. It will be a nice time to make fun of me.

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Orioles close out first half with a loss to the
Angels

The Orioles finished up the first half of the season losing to the Los Angeles Angels, 6-0, on Sunday afternoon. They are now 45-40, and now trail the New York Yankees by seven full games in the division hunt.

As we all know, it has not been good for the Orioles this month, and they lost their second straight game yesterday as Wei-Yin Chen only lasted four innings, and gave up five runs ? all earned, plus off of three homers (from Erik Aybar, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout). Obviously, Chen took the loss in a performance that was pretty sloppy, and he was pretty much unable to get his pitches over to be effective.
Luis Ayala would serve up another homer to Mark Trumbo in the fifth inning.

For the Orioles, they only mustered five hits and made Angels? starter, Brad Mills look like an ace. He went five shutout innings before their bullpen took over.

The Baltimore offense struggled again, and maybe a break will do them some good. They just look awful, are taking poor at-bats, seemingly have no plan and made a soft-tosser like Mills look simply amazing.

>>> Read More

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http://oriolepost.blogspot.com/2012/07/orioles-close-out-first-half-with-loss.htm
l

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Baseball Card Show Purchase #5 Lot Of 2 2011
Topps Lineage Cal Ripken Jr. Cards

Baseball Card Show Purchase #5 – Lot Of 2 2011 Topps Lineage Cal Ripken Jr. Cards I know that the Topps Lineage set was not as well received as Topps would have hoped.  Personally, I really like the set and … Continue reading →

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-2011-topps-lineage-cal-ripken-jr-cards/

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The Solution to the All-Star Representation Issue

Giancarlo Stanton, the Marlins lone All-Star had successful knee surgery yesterday.  But the[...]

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http://blog.lovemyteam.com/2012/07/09/the-solution-to-the-all-star-representation
-issue/

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Monday Rockpile: Fire Under Dan O'Dowd's Seat
Fanned By Denver Post

Sunday morning, most Rockies fans turned straight to the Denver Post for their morning reading over coffee. Likely, these fans went straight to the sports page - as well they should - to see the latest All Star coverage from Troy Renck or the Game 3 preview from Patrick Saunders. Then comes the laptop/iPad, and perhaps a visit to the Rockies homepage to see Thomas Harding's previews and beat notes. Like all good Rockies fans should, Purple Row is likely in that news-getting procedure as well, reading the minor league recaps, seeing what Rox Girl had to say about the rotation, and then getting prepped for the rubber game of the Rockies-Nationals series.

What a lot of fans, including myself, may have missed, however, was a nice little piece on the editorial page of the Denver Post.

Editorial: Colorado Rockies need to dump Dealin' Dan O'Dowd - The Denver Post

My first reaction upon seeing this piece was "oh boy, Woody Paige and Mark Kiszla sat down over a bottle of Old Grand-Dad and sewed together their tired 'Can Dan the Man' piece, woo hoo". Upon reading it, this piece itself still didn't seem like something to get all knotted up about.

But why an editorial?

The basic definition of an editorial is as such:

noun
1. An article in a newspaper or other periodical presenting the opinion of the publisher, editor, or editors.

via Dictionary.com

I liked this description of an editorial from Alan Weintraut, Journalism teacher at Annandale HS:

An editorial is an article that presents the newspaper's opinion on an issue. It reflects the majority vote of the editorial board, the governing body of the newspaper made up of editors and business managers. It is usually unsigned. Much in the same manner of a lawyer, editorial writers build on an argument and try to persuade readers to think the same way they do. Editorials are meant to influence public opinion, promote critical thinking, and sometimes cause people to take action on an issue.

What this is saying is that this call for Dan O'Dowd's job isn't just coming from an overly excitable Paige or Kizsla swinging the hatchet. Columns and tweets can be easily dismissed or overlooked as just one person's opinion. This is different, though. This is a piece that was signed off on by the Denver Post, from top to bottom, representing the stance of the newspaper. That stance has been very clearly stated:

O'Dowd has failed. He needs to go.

The Denver Post Editorial Board reviews and approves editorials for publication. The most prominent name on that board is William Dean Singleton, publisher and CEO of MediaNews, the company which owns the Post.

Over the years, the Denver Post has generally been one of the more loyal outlets to the Colorado Rockies, along with their former competition, the Rocky Mountain News. This is undoubtedly in part due to the fact that the Denver Post is part of the ownership group of the Rockies, which very well might give this piece more weight. The fact is thought that the Rockies are losing support for this management group not just from the fans and the pundits, but from a longstanding member of the ownership group as well.

Off Topic

The same argument remains, though: is Dan O'Dowd merely the victim of the most difficult competitive environment in Major League Baseball and some bad luck as far as player regression and injury go, or do the losing record and mere radar blips or success speak enough to seriously warrant an immediate management change? I personally can't say that I disagree with the latter. The case remains for the former as well, and obviously shouldn't be dismissed completely.

The issue is that we had a comically bad May and June in terms of starting pitching. Starters weren't getting out of the 4th inning without allowing at least 5 runs, leaving the entire burden on a tired bullpen and a strong-but-streaky lineup. There's not much that manager Jim Tracy can really do with a pitching staff like that, which then led to the announcement of the new pitching philosophy for the Rockies.

One month later, the rotation seems to have stabilized and even improved from "worst in MLB history" to "bad, but promising, and in moments, even decent, and do I spot flashes of 'good'?" While a very intriguing idea (and I completely acknowledge my own waffling on this subject), the new pitching philosophy seems to be a bizarre pipe dream brought to life by a combination of overreaction to a miserable stretch of baseball and a management group completely on tilt.

Beyond what's been said, all I can really add is what I've said before: the Rockies need fresh eyes to reevaluate our strengths and weaknesses. Somebody separated enough from the current roster so that if times grow dire again, tough decisions can be made without the looming fear of having to dismantle that which required so much work to arrange.

I don't envy Dan O'Dowd's position. The Sword of Damocles is hanging by a mere thread, and now one of the biggest supporters of the organization has entered the throne room with scissors. Knowing the Rockies' ownership in general, we won't begin the 2nd half of the season with a corps of new faces at the helm. I'd be surprised if any immediate change comes as a result of the Denver Post's declaration. But when the Denver Post itself is demanding change, and not just from an overzealous columnist, it speaks to a very interesting conclusion to the 2012 season.

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2012 Miami Marlins Midseason Review: Offense

By reaching the All-Star break, the Miami Marlins have reached the official (if not mathematical) halfway mark for the season. The midseason mark find the Marlins in an uncomfortable situation given their goal in 2012 of a playoff run. The Fish suffered through three months of strangely one-sided play, sandwiching a dominant May between a poor April and a second straight horrific June month. As a result, the club sits three games under .500 and a good ways away from the playoffs, though their chances are not completely eliminated.

At the midway point, I usually put up a series of reviews that discusses the Marlins' play up to this point of the season. I usually discuss it in terms of offense, pitching, and fielding, and once again we will take this approach here at Fish Stripes. Without further ado, let us look back at the first 84 games of the Miami Marlins 2012 season in the 2012 Miami Marlins Midseason Review.

Overview

Record: 41-44
Runs Scored: 334
Runs Allowed: 390
Pythagorean Record: 36-49

As you can see, just from a superficial glance at the numbers, it is easy to tell that, despite the disappointment of the Marlins season right now, the team is even lucky to have this record. The Fish have scored and allowed runs like a team with a .420 winning percentage, The horrific month of June brought a good number of blowout games that skewed the Marlins' Pythagorean record to as poor as it is there. Surprisingly, the Marlins have not had a skewed mark on one-run games, as teams that often outperform their Pythagorean often do; the Fish have more or less split one-run affairs with a 16-15 record. Their primary problem is the 3-13 mark in games decided by more than five runs, as clearly the Marlins have not been the winning end of those.

Offense

Runs Scored: 334
wOBA Runs: 335
wOBA: .306
wOBA Rank: T-21
wRC+: 88
wRC+ Rank: T-26

The Marlins' offense has been as bad as advertised. The Fish are struggling to score runs due to a large array of underachieving players, from Jose Reyes right down to John Buck. In fact, a look at the lineup shows all but two players underperforming his projections from before the open of the season. A good number of these players have since recovered from that issue and are on their way up, but some concerns remain about many of the Marlins' top positions players and their work with the bat.

Of course, one player stands out above them all, and unfortunately he will start the second half a little late.

Prior to the season, Giancarlo Stanton was expected to do big things. ZiPS projected a very good .267/.361/.549 slash line (.385 wOBA). Before this season, we guessed a similar .381 wOBA. And you know what? He has not disappointed, as Stanton has hit an impressive .284/.364/.554 (.392 wOBA) on his way to a three-win season by the end of the first half.

How did Stanton pull off such a strong year? The best part about Stanton's season is that it has gone almost exactly as expected. The projection systems and the fans figured his numbers could only go up as he aged a little more into his age-22 season, and sure enough we all nailed it. He improved in the categories you expected him to improve in order to better himself. He decreased his strikeout rate once more, down to a 24.9 percent rate from 27.6 percent last year. He maintained an absolute steady diet of home runs, as his 23.8 percent HR/FB rate is almost exactly equal to his career 24.0 percent rate. In order to take advantage of that massive power, he decreased the number of ground balls he has hit, down to 38 percent from a career 42.5 percent mark. As a result, 5.9 percent of his PA have ended in a homer this year, up a bit from his career rate of 5.7 percent.

Earlier in the year, Stanton was being challenged inside the zone, as pitchers went after him looking for him to swing through those in-zone pitches. But in May, he tore up that strategy to the tune of an amazing .343/.432/.769 batting line (.495 wOBA) and pitchers quickly abandoned that strategy. It is telling that, after seeing more than 50 percent of pitches inside the zone in April, Stanton has finished up the first half with the 23rd-lowest rate of pitches in the zone among qualified players. To get an idea of the sort of respect he is earning, note that he is seeing pitches in the zone at a level akin to that of Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira. Stanton's swing selection could improve, but even with his paltry skills of recognition, he is still drawing walks in 10.3 percent of his PA just from the fear of pitchers.

The Bad: Gaby Sanchez

Much has already been said about Gaby Sanchez's horrific season thus far. His .202/.250/.306 batting line (.244 wOBA) speaks for itself. The fact that he has been demoted twice, with the latest send-down likely to be for much of the remainder of 2012, also speaks for itself. Sanchez has been awful this year, and the Marlins had to, at some point, find an alternative (whether the alternative they found was worth what they paid is a different story).

Sanchez has looked lost all season, and it is particularly frustrating to see how bad he has been this year. This is not just a BABIP extended fluke; all of his peripherals are way down from career marks.

Nothing looks correct, and that extends even beyond these numbers. Part of the reason why Sanchez's BABIP is so low is that he is making such meager contact. He has hit pop ups on 17.4 percent of his fly balls; among players with at least 180 PA, that is the 11th worst mark in baseball. And while the determination of line drives versus fly balls is a pretty subjective one, it is also telling that, according to Baseball Info Solutions' classficiations, Sanchez has the third lowest line drive rate at 13.5 percent among those same players. The only two players with fewer line drives are Ryan Raburn (.171/.228/.251, .214 wOBA) and Juan Rivera (.251/.289/.343, .251 wOBA), which shows you just far Sanchez has fallen.

Going forward, it was difficult to say whether Sanchez could have made real improvement on whatever is ailing him or if it was just a terrible extended slump. In either case, the Marlins had no patience with his black-hole bat in the lineup and did not wait to see if it was going to get better on its own. Hopefully, Sanchez can improve and fix his swing issues in the low-pressure Pacific Coast League.

Bounceback Candidate: Hanley Ramirez

I have already mentioned enough about Jose Reyes and his obvious upwards trend, so I chose to tackle a more difficult topic. Ramirez has underperformed what we thought he would do heading into 2012. We expected something closer to his 2010 edition, but that has been a pipe dream compared to what we have gotten. But look at the ZiPS projection from before the season began for various Ramirez peripherals.

So ZiPS did not miss by much honestly. The only place where Ramirez has severely underperformed was in batting average on balls in play. Of course, before his season ended in 2011 with the shoulder injury, he was hitting .275 on balls in play, meaning that we have almost seen a full season of him performing at this low level. But with everything seemingly in line, though still underwhelming, it is reasonable to suspect that Ramirez can improve on that average and thus bring up the rest of his batting line.

We certainly saw glimpses of that in May. In fact, before the season many said that this team would go as far as Ramirez would take, and indeed the Marlins' performance has mimicked Ramirez's. He hit .322/.364/.525 (.379 wOBA) in May and the Marlins won 21 games in the month. In his poor April (.207/.316/.390) and June (.227/.312/.381) months, the Fish were awful. This month has not started well, but hopefully it can end well for Ramirez, who may still be a useful part to the Marlins in 2012, provided he can start finding some holes in the infield and gaps in the outfield.

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Baseball Card Show Purchase #4 Don Mattingly
2002 Topps 50 Years Of Baseball

Baseball Card Show Purchase #4 – Don Mattingly 2002 Topps ’50 Years Of Baseball’ Amazingly, I still do not have the original version of this legendary baseball card. I do have a few alternate, and modern, versions though. And now … Continue reading →

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ingly-2002-topps-50-years-of-baseball/

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