I’ve mentioned the group of Yankees’ righty relievers vying for several spots a few times. Well, Manager Girardi announced his 25-man roster today. And the winners are…
Losers, for now: Edwar Ramirez, Jose Veras, Darrell Rasner, and Scott Patterson, who came out of nowhere this spring training and dominated.
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: Brian Bruney, Jonathan Albaladejo, New York Yankees, Ross Ohlendorf, Scott Patterson
If you’re into relief pitchers and you’re into fantasy baseball, here’s a nice amalgamation by Eric Karabell over at ESPN. While the article is called “Rating the bullpens,” I’m pretty sure the rankings are based upon the closer (i.e. the Indians are ranked at #22, between the Marlins and Tigers), and then Karabell goes into more depth about the rest of the bullpen in his descriptions. Worth a read.
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: Eric Karabell, fantasy baseball
Exhibit 346: The Reds are regretting signing Mike Stanton, then 39 and now 40, to a two-year, $5.5 million deal.
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: Mike Stanton
Dodgers release Rudy Seanez. Score one for team “Signing Old Relievers is Not Wise.” At least Seanez’s contract with the Dodgers was mostly incentives-based, allowing them to kick him to the curb without much hesitancy. ‘Fraid I can’t say the same for some of the other absurd signings we saw this past off-season.
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: free agents, Rudy Seanez
There are always surprises over the court of 162 games, but heading into 2008, there appear to be two playoff-caliber teams in each American League division. I’ve ranked the bullpens of those teams below. While rankings are generally useless, particularly for bullpens, it’s fun to look back on them months later and realize how wrong you were.
(1) Cleveland Indians - Joe Borowski is still the closer, but I think Eric Wedge realizes that the Rafaels are so much more valuable as a righty/lefty relief tandem; there isn’t a better bullpen duo in all of baseball. The Tribe added a hot-dog-eating champion cum relief pitcher in the off-season, and I’m a fan of young Vanderbilt alumnus, Jensen Lewis.
(2) New York Yankees - Playing favorites, are we? Well, kind of, but I really do like the Yankees’ bullpen this year more than I have in several years. When Joba moves out in June, as reportedly planned, this ranking might not hold, but as we stand right now, the Yanks have Joba, Mariano, Hawkins, Farnsworth, and the winners of the Bruney/Dejo/Ramirez/Ohlendorf/Veras/Britton battle for innings. The Yankees ascribed to the relief-pitcher free-agent method I’ve generally espoused on this site. In some respects, their success or lack thereof this year will be a reflection on me.
(3) Boston Red Sox - to quote Mr. Kesuke Miyagi, “Daniel-San! OK to lose to opponent. Never OK to lose to FEAR.”
I think the Okajimer Steamer is going to get hit early this year, lose confidence, and be a shell of his 2007 self. And that’ll be the thing that separates the Yanks’ bullpen and Red Sox’s bullpen; Joba will be better than Okajima. Boston’s supporting cast — Delcarmen, Timlin, Tavarez, Lopez, Snyder, Aardsma — shows promise similar to the Yankees’ bullpen.
(4) Los Angeles Angels - the once-dominant Angels bullpen comes into the 2008 season with more question marks than in recent years. K-Rod should be fine, but Scot Shields showed signs of wear-and-tear last season. That’s what happens when a reliever goes close to one-hundred innings per season for several years. Justin Speier is pretty solid, but let’s hope his recent hard-core spat with semi-competent lefty-reliever Darren Oliver doesn’t carry into the season. The rest of the bullpen consists of Chris Bootcheck, who is hurt and not very good anyway, and several rookies. Look out for Darren O’Day to emerge from this group and play an important role in the Angels’ bullpen this year.
(5) Seattle Mariners - After J.J. Putz, who emerged last season as the best closer in baseball, this bullpen is not too hot. It lost George Sherrill to the Orioles in the off-season, leaving Brandon Morrow and Sean Green to pick up the slack. In 2007, Morrow walked 50 batters in 63 IP and opponents hit .298 against Green. Those numbers are scary. There is some promise, however, for the Mariners. Eric O’Flaherty is a decent lefty specialist, and several young guys could be in line for the job left open by Sherrill. I expect Ryan Rowland-Smith to be in the mix at some point this season, if not right away. Oh, the Mariners also have a knuckle-balling reliever with no ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. So they’ve got that going for them.
(6) Detroit Tigers - We’ve gone over the Tigers bullpen before with our friend, Michael Rosenberg. While I disagreed that the bullpen was the Tigers’ biggest problem — the starting pitching sucks after Verlander — it certainly is a problem. And it’s even more of a problem now that Fernando Rodney is out to begin the season. The Tigers are going to need a breakthrough performance from someone, because Tim Byrdak, Denny Bautista, Jason Grilli, Zach Miner, and Bobby Seay is not going to hack it all season. At least the city of Detroit has hope for the bullpen…
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: 2008 Preview, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, New York Yankees, predictions, Seattle Mariners
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: Joba Chamberlain
Good news in Grapefruit land. The Phillies return the Sox’s middle-relief prospect, Lincoln Holdzkom, whom they had selected in the Rule 5 Draft:
The Red Sox were prompted to make the move with Schilling [placing him on the 60-day DL] on Thursday because they needed to clear a roster spot for right-handed reliever Lincoln Holdzkom, who was brought back to the organization as a free agent.
Holdzkom was selected by the Phillies in last December’s Rule 5 Draft. However, the Phils — as is their right — offered him back to the Red Sox.
But Holdzkom opted for free agency, as was his right, and the Red Sox have signed him to a Major League contract. He reported to Fort Myers on Thursday.
Holdzkom split his 2007 season between Double-A Portland (4-1, 3.47 ERA) and Triple-A Pawtucket (1-0, 1.59 ERA).
Categories: post by Gnopple
Tagged: Holdzkom, Red Sox Caliphate
Its been awhile. You look great. Here are some links as a reward for your patience.
- Ross Ohlendorf: Yankee reliever second, cattle rancher first
- Didn’t realize that Byung-Hyun Kim was on the Pirates. Despite the fact that his team won in 2001, I’ve actually always felt some pity for BK.
- George Sherrill is off to a good start in Baltimore.
- Man, I hope Armando Benitez makes the Blue Jays’ roster. He’d be absolutely destroyed in the A.L. East.
- Juan Rincon is hoping to bounce back this year. He’s only had one good year in his seven-year career; I’m not so optimistic.
That’s all for now. AL Preview coming soon…
Categories: post by johnstevens
Tagged: Armando Benitez, Byung-Hyun Kim, FJM, George Sherrill, Juan Rincon, links, Mike Celizic, predictions, Ross Ohlendorf
You often show that conventional baseball statistics aren’t as important as they appear. In the book, you write “every year that passes, the ERA (Earned Run Average) becomes a little more irrelevant.” Why is that?
The reason the ERA is becoming a little more irrelevant every year is that pitchers don’t pitch whole innings anymore. Relief pitchers anyway. If you go back to 1915, 1920, really, all pitchers pitched full innings 99% of the time. And you could measure a pitcher’s effectiveness by how many runs he allowed in those whole innings. But modern pitchers, in particular modern relievers, pitch portions of an inning. And in a situation where each pitcher pitches a portion of an inning, who you charge the run to becomes critical. And the rule on whom we charge the run to is so careless and sloppy that it doesn’t work. It often leads to pitchers having ERAs that do not reflect how they really pitch, either because the reliever allowed a bunch of runs to score that were charged to somebody else, or because the starting pitcher who left guys on base got hurt by it.
He also proposes a new rule on replacing pitchers in the middle of innings to help speed the game along:
If you were to be named commissioner of baseball tomorrow, what would be first change you make?
Well, the commissioner can’t really make changes. He can organize the process leading to change. That’s a petty answer. To give you the real answer, I’d try to do something about the game dragging in the late innings. We need to make the games snap along a little better, particularly in the late innings. There are more than six times as many pitching changes in a game now than there were two generations ago. That’s a huge change in the game. And it’s not a change for the better, in my view. Maybe it’s a change for the better in terms of trying to win. But in terms of its impact on the fans, how the fans enjoy the game, I don’t see that as a change for the better. So I’d probably try to organize some kind of move to see if we couldn’t get an agreement to limit the number of pitching changes in the late innings.
This is the rule that I would adopt. I’ve thought about this for a long time, and I don’t see why this doesn’t work. One time per game, you get a free pitching change without restriction. Otherwise, when you put a pitcher on the mound to start an inning, he has to stay in the game until he’s charged with a run allowed. In other words, you have a limit on how often you can put a pitcher out there, let him face one batter and “let’s bring in somebody else.”
Bill James has balls.
Categories: post by Gnopple
Tagged: Bill James, stupid stats
