By Dalton Del Don
It sure was nice to see Tommy Hanson deliver seven scoreless innings Tuesday, because his start to the season was becoming a bit worrisome. Not so much the 6.00 ERA but the continued downward trend with his strikeout rate. After posting a 9.2 K/9 through July last year, Hanson fanned just 5.5 batters per nine innings over the final two months of the season. He recorded a 2.51 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP after the All-Star break, so it didn’t affect his performance, but it was an alarming drop regardless, only enhanced by the fact he totaled just three strikeouts over his first two starts in 2011. Hanson is clearly one of the game’s brightest young pitchers, but his velocity is average, and he’s now recorded more than five strikeouts just once over his past 17 starts, and he only struck out six during that outing. It’s something to keep your eye on moving forward.
This guy will laugh at getting tased multiple times, but that combined with a billy club to the face/neck is a line in which he won’t let crossed.
Josh Hamilton’s injury is obviously quite unfortunate, and it was interesting to hear him throw his third base coach under the bus afterward, although no one can blame him for being upset with the prospect of missing the next eight weeks. Hamilton’s on field game has become as volatile as his life off it once was, with his talent good enough to easily win the AL MVP despite missing an entire month last year. Forget the prodigious power, the guy hit .359 last season! He’s also a plus baserunner and very good defensively. But there’s no doubting Hamilton is also probably the single biggest health risk compared to what he’ll cost in fantasy terms. David Murphy is the obvious beneficiary, but he’s likely already rostered in your league. Despite no clear path to at-bats, Chris Davis should be grabbed in deeper formats. There remains legitimate power potential there.
This vacation didn’t go quite as planned.
I recently bet my friend, let’s call him Adam (because that’s his name) $100 that Tiger Woods wouldn’t finish with more majors than Jack Nicklaus. I don’t follow golf, but at even odds, I felt like he was being his usual clueless self. But after my buddy Scott Pianowski later gave Tiger 70/30 odds to do so (not to mention his Master’s performance), I’m now more than a little hesitant. Your guys’ thoughts?
I wrote a long paragraph recommending Brian Wilson as a buy-low Wednesday afternoon, which only looks lame now after two straight perfect innings. The gist? His horrible start (MLB-worst 33.75 ERA and a moderately subpar 5.25 WHIP at the time) could be partially blamed on missing the final couple of weeks of spring training, and while down a tick, his average fastball velocity has been fine (95.0 mph), and although it’s interesting he’s thrown his cutter (64.9%) far more often than his heater (35.1%), essentially the opposite of his career usage, that’s probably nothing to look into long-term. As a Giants fan I can tell you Wilson had been squeezed on a couple of close calls that turned an otherwise clean inning into a disaster, and while that doesn’t excuse his poor pitching after the questionable call, it reveals just how fickle relief pitching can be. After his first two appearances this year (totaling 1.1 innings), Wilson needed to toss 24 consecutive scoreless innings to match his ERA from last season. And seriously, dude looks like a completely different human being in his Yahoo photo.
Pretty good timing by the security guard when he finally reaches the cockpit of this runaway tractor.
Sticking with the Walmart theme, there’s also this.
With the season just underway, and nothing to talk about regarding upcoming drafts, yet barely any data to effectively discuss what’s happened so far in the season, this time of year is without question the toughest to write. It’s worthless discussing a player’s hot or cold start, but looking over how they got there is at least somewhat interesting, if not still possibly meaningless moving forward. For instance, Derek Jeter, Buster Posey, Carlos Gonzalez and Joe Mauer’s groundball tendencies. These four are all off to extremely disappointing starts, and we need not look further than their GB/FB ratios as to see why. Jeter “leads” MLB with a stunning 7.67 GB/FB ratio. For comparison, the highest GB/FB rate last season was 3.60 (also Jeter). Posey is currently sporting a 7.33 mark, so it’s no surprise he has just one extra-base hit on the season. With a 3.80 GB/FB ratio, it’s no secret why Carlos Gonzalez is still searching for his first homer of 2011, and Mauer’s 3.50 mark (combined with a 6.9 LD%!) is a big reason for his slow start. No doubt these are extremes that will all normalize, but it does help explain their poor performance thus far.
The cops clearly assessed this situation correctly before leaving the scene.
Toddler drinking alcohol at Applebee’s? Toddler drinking alcohol at Applebee’s.
I’m intrigued by Chris Young (the pitcher). Sure, he remains one of the league’s biggest injury risk and is already dealing with a biceps issue, but he may very well prove to be one of the bigger bargains, as he was a mere pittance on draft day. There’s no denying Petco Park helped him, but Young has been respectable on the road throughout his career, with a 4.12 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and a .221 BAA. An extreme fly ball pitcher (which really helps his WHIP), Young no doubt benefitted from Petco when it came to homers, but his career HR/FB% on the road is a still strong 8.3%, as he’s simply difficult to hit. Besides, Citi Field actually ranked as a harder place to homer than Petco last season according to park factors, and while that’s obviously got some sample size problems, the new Mets’ stadium clearly benefits the pitcher. Young isn’t going to post elite K:BB ratios, and it’s also worth noting his fastball velocity remains down (84.7 mph) compared to the past, but he hasn’t averaged as high as 89.0 mph since 2006, and at 6-10, his release point makes his pitches deceptive, and he can be plenty effective even at modest speeds. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t thrown 105.0 innings in a season since 2007 and has never reached 180.0 during his career and is also sure to regress from his hot start, but Young can be useful even in shallow mixed leagues while healthy.
I’m going to go ahead and call the new Foo Fighters my favorite “rock” album over the last decade (and I don’t mean bands like The White Stripes, which right or wrong, I’d call more indie. Think Soundgarden mainstream). Really impressed.
In this lady’s defense, she was probably better than the mohel Elaine hired.
I’ve always been a big Howie Kendrick fan, so it’s going to frustrate me to no end if this is the year he truly breaks out when he’s somehow not on a single fantasy roster of mine. After matching his career-high with 10 home runs over 616 at-bats last season, Kendrick has clubbed four long balls over 12 games so far in 2011. And while it’s probably safe to say his 40.0 HR/FB% will drop, it took him only 374 ABs to hit 10 homers in 2009, and he’s just now entering his power prime at age 27. While his current .355 BABIP is on the high side, it’s not that far off his career rate of .339, and his 11.5 BB% is a career-best by a wide margin. In fact, Kendrick is showing real signs of improvement in the early going, as his O-Swing% (percentage of pitches swung at outside the strike zone) is 24.5%, which is about 10% better than his career average. His power/speed combo is limited, but as I’ve said too many times before, Kendrick is capable of winning a batting title one of these years.
This is a bit dated now, but I can appreciate a good April Fool’s joke. I like how she licked the iPad three seconds after she says “I’m not licking an iPad.”
It’s possible this is the worst article I’ve ever read.
I’m beginning to grow concerned about Francisco Liriano. After regaining velocity last season, his fastball has averaged just 91.6 mph so far this year compared to 93.7 mph in 2010, a significant drop, especially since that pitch has been a whopping 34.5 runs below average throughout his career, according to Fangraphs. He simply can’t be successful while throwing at that speed since he’s never had pinpoint command to begin with. His slider, which can be one of the best pitches in baseball, is also down 1.2 mph compared to last season. Pitchers typically pick up velocity as the year goes on, and that might absolutely be the case here, but after he dealt with an arm injury in spring training, we simply have no idea how close to full health he is. Anyone who throws a slider at that frequency is always at greater risk for injury anyway. I’m a big fan of Liriano, but while his 2.95 xFIP, which was the second lowest in all of baseball last year, suggests he could have won the Cy Young in 2010 had more luck gone his way, Minnesota currently fields what appears to be one of the worst defenses in the league (which makes this ridiculous comment by Ron Gardenhire even crazier), so his hit rate may not see the expected regression. Having Target Field as his home certainly helps, but Liriano’s nine walks over 13.0 innings this season combined with his decreased velocity may be a sign he’s dealing with yet another arm injury.
Follow me on Twitter.
Leave a Reply