Bleacher Report - Articles by Tom Dubberke

They Don't Get Much Uglier Than Tonight's Game

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:40:35 -0400

Well, the Giants had a golden opportunity, and they pissed it away like too much beer.

Zito was terrific, allowing only one run in six innings of work, and the bullpen held until crunch time in the bottom of the 14th. The killer blow, more than Ryan Spillborghs’ homerun, was the walk to pitcher Adam Eaton immediately prior.

Eaton is a good-hitting pitcher with a career .194 batting average. However, he’s still a pitcher, and this plate appearance was his first of 2009. You have to make him hit the ball or strike out trying.

Teams that make the post-season don’t give away games like this. Of course, if the Giants had been able to score more than one run in the first thirteen innings, it might not have ended the way it did.

It was the same old story. Some singles, a couple of doubles, no homeruns, and only two walks drawn through the first 12 innings. eams that don’t hit homeruns and don’t draw walks can’t score enough runs to win consistently unless every position player hits at least .290, even with the pitching the Giants have had this season.

The unwillingness to take a walk is an organizational flaw. The Giants have long drafted on physical talent rather than proven ability to the play game. This works well for pitchers, who to a greater degree can be taught how to pitch (or can have the catcher or the manager calling all the pitches), but hitters who come into professional baseball as free swingers usually remain free swingers.

As a result, the Giants’ farm teams are loaded with guys who can hit a little, but don’t have enough plate discipline to ever become major league stars. Once they come up to the Show, major league batteries and advance scouts find the pitches these hitters can’t lay off of, and that’s all they see until they’re sent back down to AAA.

One thing that has really bothered me of late is a couple of recent articles in the San Francisco Chronicle recounting how Pablo Sandoval made an out or two in some crucial situation because he swung at a pitch way out of the strikezone, and then dumb-ass, old-school manager Bruce Bochy is quoted as saying, “We don’t want Pablo taking pitches. We want him to be aggressive. Blah, blah, blah.”

Here’s John Shea’s article for yesterday’s ballgame which gives a great example of what I’m talking about:

“Pablo Sandoval took some of the blame, admitting he swung at what would have been ball four in a crucial eighth-inning at-bat.

“The Giants were down 3-2 with Eugenio Velez at third and one out, and Sandoval worked the count to 3-2 (after falling behind 0-2), but swung at Ubaldo Jimenez’s curve that was about to bounce in the dirt.

“He hit a routine grounder to first, and Velez was forced to hold. Bengie Molina flied to left for the final out.

“Manager Bruce Bochy defended the free-swinging Sandoval, saying, ‘That’s Pablo. A 3-2 count there, the guy made a pretty good pitch. A lot of hitters would chase that pitch.’

“Catcher Chris Iannetta knew Sandoval would. That’s why he jogged to the mound and told Jimenez to bounce the 3-2 pitch with first base open. Jimenez tried, and Sandoval swung anyway.

“‘I didn’t get the job done,’ Sandoval said. ‘I have to be more patient at the plate in that situation. We have to get these wins, especially with the pennant race and wild-card situation. We’ve got to play the right way.’”

Good ol’ dumb-ass Boch defending Sandoval for swinging at a pitch nowhere near the strikezone, when even Sandoval realized he needed to be more selective. As this article flat out states, if a major league battery knows that a hitter will swing at pitches out of the strikezone, they won’t throw any pitches in the strikezone, at least not when it could cost them a ball game.

Sandoval has an amazing ability to hit bad pitches. There are probably few other hitters in baseball that could have put the bat on a pitch like that. However, putting the bat on the ball isn’t enough. Sandoval may hit .150 when he swings at pitches like that, higher than any other hitter in baseball now that Vladimir Guerrero’s best years are behind him, but that’s still pretty terrible.

The problem is that until he shows he can lay off those pitches most of the time, those are the only pitches he’s going to get in these situations.

Bochy’s not a bad manager for a young, rebuilding team, because he’s a players’ manager, who doesn’t put a lot of extra pressure on the young guys who are trying to adjust the pressures and stresses that come with playing in the majors. However, I’m not convinced that he’s smart enough or capable of pushing a team to perform at the level necessary to win in a pennant race.

Bochy had success in San Diego, winning the NL West four times and winning the NL pennant in 1998, so it’s entirely possible I’m wrong. However, he sure hasn’t shown much in his time in San Francisco, even taking into account the bad teams he’s had to work with.

What concerns me is that the Giants are continuing to make a lot dumb mistakes and not playing the kind of fundamental baseball where they move up runners and score men from third with less than two outs, the way a team with the Giants’ limited offense needs to do.

The Giants traded away two very talented young pitchers at the trade deadline to win this year. When a player makes bone-head plays, it’s time for Bochy to call a spade a dirty shovel and say, yes, it was a bone-head play, and the offending player needs to knock it off or he’ll find himself riding the pine until further notice.

If the Giants are going to trade aways some of their future to win now, then, dammit, they need to get serious about playing to win now. Unfortunately, after tonight’s game, it may already be too late.

Giants' Most Important Game of the Season Tonight

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:46:49 -0400

The Giants play their most important game of the season so far tonight in Denver. If they win, they are two games back in the wild card race with 37 left to play. If they lose, they are four games back.

Four games is not an impossible deficit to come back from, but given the Giants’ clear weakness on offense, even after the deadline trades for Freddie Sanchez and Ryan Garko, I don’t see them making up four games on the Rockies.

The Giants are in the middle of a brutal stretch where they play from New York to California every day for 17 days. If they lose tonight, it will be hard for them to get off the mat and play well for six games, even at home, against the Diamondbacks and the Rockies between now and Sunday.

Somehow it seems appropriate that Barry Zito will be on the hill for the Giants tonight in Colorado. The Zito deal was the worst free agent signing the Giants have ever made, and they’ve had a few stinkers over the years (Anyone remember Renny Stennett?).

It’s also one of the worst deals of any kind the Giants have made since the 1960’s and 1970’s, when they traded off countless great hitters for very little pitching in return.

Zito has pitched extremely well of late, with a 2.36 ERA in his last seven starts (eleven earned runs in 42 innings pitched). Nonetheless, he’s still Barry Zito, and after the way he’s pitched since the Giants signed him, he’ll still have to prove that he can win a big game as a Giant.

He’ll have his opportunity tonight. Of course, it’s even more likely to come down to whether the Giants can score more than three runs off Jason Marquis and the Rockies bullpen. No small task given how weak the Giants' offense has been this year.

Should the Giants Offer Bengie Molina Arbitration?

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:38:55 -0400

Andrew Baggerly of the San Jose Mercury News reports that Bengie Molina wants the Giants to offer him a two0year contract for 2010 and 2011. He’s enjoyed his time in San Francisco and wants to return.

Clearly, the Giants are unlikely to offer Molina a two-year contract given that they see Buster Posey as their catcher of the future, and Posey is hitting .319 with a .946 OPS in 26 games at AAA Fresno.

However, offering Molina arbitration after this season makes a lot of sense to me. Even if Posey is ready to play at the major league level coming out of Spring Training next year, the Giants will need a second catcher.

That second catcher should not be Pablo Sandoval. Sandoval has proven he can provide major league defense at 3B, and there is no good reason to move him back to catcher considering his offensive potential. Over time, the accumulation of injuries from catching takes a toll on a catcher’s offensive numbers.

In Sandoval’s case, his body type (5′11″ and already 245 lbs at age 23) pre-disposes him to knee, back and ankle problems if he plays catcher regularly. Given the offensive potential Sandoval has exhibited, his future should be at 3B and/or 1B.

Sandoval makes a good 3rd catcher, to be used in cases of emergency, and strictly limited to no more than 30 to 40 games a year at catcher.

Getting back to keeping Molina around, Posey’s defense at catcher is not getting rave reviews. In fact, poor defense has been the one rumor suggesting that Posey is not ready for prime time despite what he’s done this year with the bat. Molina is an excellent defensive catcher, who has a reputation for being generous with advice to young players, so if he sticks around for another year, he could help train Posey at the position.

Also, if Molina can get a multi-year deal somewhere else (and he probably can, since he can still hit) and he takes it, the Giants would get two draft picks for offering him arbitration.

A few years ago, the Giants had a string of incredibly poor first round draft picks. After great success from about 1983 through 1988 when they drafted Robby Thompson, Will Clark, Matt Williams and Royce Clayt0n with first round picks, the Giants had a spell where every first round pick was a washout, either due to injury or lack of talent.

The Giants’ lack of success with draft picks had got to the point where Giants GM Brian Sabean publicly stated he didn’t care about losing late first round picks by signing Type-A free agents because the signing bonuses on these players was just wasted money.

However, starting in 20o2, when the Giants took Matt Cain with the 25th pick of that Draft, the Giants luck has turned considerably. Of course, the Giants have also had better picks the last couple of years since they became a losing team starting in 2005.

However, given the crop of players the Giants have obtained in the first round of the draft since 2002, including Cain, Tim Lincecum, Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson, I think that Sabean has probably seen the light on the value of top 50 draft picks. Even if they don’t become stars for you, they have trade value, as we saw with the Tim Alderson for Freddie Sanchez trade in late July.

The only down side to offering Molina arbitration is that if he accepts, he will get a big one year contract from the Giants whether or not he actually goes to arbitration. This is money the Giants would save if Molina left. However, the Giants can afford a one year deal on Molina, and I think the reasons listed above would make it more prudent than not to offer Molina arbitration.

Finally, having two every-day catchers (assuming Posey makes the team out of Spring Training) is not necessarily a bad thing. Given that Ryan Garko does not look like the hitter the Giants were hoping for, the Giants could play Posey at 1B on days when a left-handed pitcher is starting. If Posey is really the hitter he looks like in his last year of college and this year in the minors, his future may ultimately be a first base, not catcher.

That's What the Atlantic League Is For

Tom Dubberke — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:50:27 -0400

I saw a blurb on mlbtraderumors.com today that Mark Prior still wants to pitch professionally, even though he has not done so since 2006. The Padres recently gave up on him because his arm wasn’t coming around this year as they had hoped it might.

Still, Prior thinks he’s got something left and claims he’s going to work hard to prove it. Well, that’s what the Atlantic League is for.

I can’t see another major league organization wasting its time with Prior at this point, but an Atlantic League team would, I’m sure, love to give him a shot. He’s still a name player, and the Atlantic League would be the ideal stage for Prior to show that he can still pitch professionally over the course of a season without having his arm fall off.

Speaking of good candidates for the Atlantic League, the Mets released former Giant (and former just-about-everyone-else) Livan Hernandez today to make room on their roster for Billy Wagner, who is finally ready to come off of the DL. Livan is still only 34 years old, but having pitched his way off three teams in the last two seasons (the Twins, Rockies and now Mets), there probably aren’t too many more major league teams willing to give him a shot.

Once again, the Atlantic League would be perfect. Livan’s still young enough that I suspect he still believes he can (and wants to) pitch. However, he’s old enough (and has pitched badly enough the last two seasons) that he may not get another major league shot, at least until he’s gone and dazzled Atlantic League hitters for a few months.

It sounds to me like two matches made in Independent A League Heaven.

Micah Owings Off the DL: Cincinnati Reds Should Develop Him

Tom Dubberke — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:17:09 -0400

Reds pitcher Micah Owings came off the Disabled List today as the Reds put Johny Cueto on the DL with shoulder inflammation.

Owings is a player about whom you really have to wonder if an enormous mistake wasn’t made when he first came into professional baseball and the Diamondbacks, who drafted him, decided that he should be a pitcher. Owings is almost certainly the best hitting pitcher in baseball, and everything about his numbers suggests that if he doesn’t have a breakthrough as a pitcher in the first half of 2010, serious thought should be given to converting him into a position player.

Owings has hit like a fool at every level. His last two years of college ball, he had OPS numbers of .943 and .1189. He was 22 his last year of college, a year older than most college players coming into professional ball, but a .1189 OPS is a .1189 OPS. By way of comparison, this year’s No. 2 draft pick and top hitting prospect Dustin Ackley had a 1.280 OPS this year (his junior year at North Carolina).

Owings was drafted by the D-Backs in the third round in 2005. A 1.189 OPS, even for a 22 year old, is great for a third-round pick. Again, by way of comparison, the Giants took 22-year-old 3B Chris Dominguez in the third round of the 2009 Draft (86th overall), following a .1142 OPS senior year at Louisville.

In the minor leagues, Owings hit .348 with an .847 OPS. Granted, it was only 66 at-bats. However, as a major league player, he’s hitting .293 with an .865 OPS in 164 ABs. Again, a small sample, but considering his college, minor league and major league hitting numbers together, it’s clear that Owings is a good hitter, likely as good as Rick Ankiel, another former pitcher who recently made the switch.

At the beginning of his professional career, making Owings a pitcher certainly looked like a smart move. He rocketed through the minor leagues, and looked awfully good as a 24-year-old rookie in 2007, going 8-8 with a 4.30 ERA for the D-Backs.

Since then, however, he’s had injury problems and has been, at best, a fifth starter.

2010 will be a big year for Owings. He’ll be 27 next year, which is an age at which it’s the best bet he’ll have a breakthrough season. If he doesn’t, however, the Reds should seriously consider trying to develop him as a hitter.

Frankly, I don’t understand why the D-Backs didn’t get him some more at-bats in the minor leagues. According to Wikipedia, minor league pitchers bat only in games in which both team are National League affiliates and only at the AA and AAA levels.

If designated hitters are the norm in the minor leagues and you have a pitching prospect who had a 1.189 OPS as an everyday player in his last year of college, why wouldn’t you at least occasionally play that player at DH, both to see what he can do with the bat against professional pitching and as a kind of insurance policy in case he hurts his arm?

An organization may want to give those DH at-bats to position prospects. However, the minor leagues are full of position players and designated hitters who came out of college and never came close to a 1.189 OPS. In this day and age, when major league pitching rosters are continuing to expand and players who can play multiple positions are of increasing value, it seems foolish not to try to develop a few more players like former Milwaukee Brewer Brooks Kieschnick, the last successful major league hitter/pitcher combo.

There will never be a lot of these kinds of players, but there will always be a few, and if you can develop one, he might prove to be of real value.

Cup Check

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:27:28 -0400

You know, I thought that every major league player wore a protective cup just as a matter of course. Turns out I was wrong.

Adrian Beltre went on the DL today with severely bruised testicles after a one-hop grounder to third off the bat of the White Sox Alexi Ramirez caught him where his cup should have been. He may need surgery due to testicular bleeding.

Apparently, Beltre wasn’t wearing a cup because he finds them uncomfortable to wear. I wonder how comfortable it felt getting hit flush in the stones.

In Jim Bouton’s classic Ball Four, he writes about how one of his minor league teammates used to go around conducting “cup checks” on unsuspecting teammates. In other words, he would sneak up on his victim unawares while the latter was sitting on the bench and punch him hard in the groin. Needless to say, it taught the victim to have his cup on any time he was out on or near the field of play.

Perhaps this is a tradition, as juvenile and sadistic as it was, that did in fact serve some greater purpose. If one of Beltre’s minor league teammates had done the same, perhaps Beltre wouldn’t now be on the DL and possibly facing the knife because he was too dumb to wear a cup.

Another thing this incident reminds us is that you don’t necessarily need to be a rocket scientist to be a major league ballplayer. Also mentioned in Ball Four is the age-old baseball expression “Stop thinking: you’re hurting the team!” The point of this adage was that a ballplayer can over-think out on the field instead of just letting instinct, honed by years and years of practice and play, take over.

One thing is for certain. If they hold a vote for “Dumbest Player of the Year,” Adrian Beltre’s got my vote.

Sidney Ponson a Free Agent Once Again

Tom Dubberke — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:12:50 -0400

Sidney Ponson has cleared waivers and been released by the Kansas City Royals. This leads to the question of the hour: is there still one more major league team dumb enough to give him yet another undeserved shot at a professional career at any level of their organization?

I doubt it. At this point, I think the independent A Atlantic League is only summer league where Ponson might get a look.

Ponson has worn out his welcome on seven teams in the last seven seasons. That leaves 23 remaining teams, some of whom might be desparate enough to at least consider giving Ponson a look.

However, you have to figure that eventually major league organizations will collectively realize Ponson has nothing to offer anyone in a professional capacity. Even a cat only has nine lives.

Every Once in a While, Things Break Right for an Old Guy

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:07:22 -0400

With Alex Rios heading off to the Windy City, the Blue Jays today called up 31-year-old first baseman/outfield Randy Ruiz rather than 21-year-old outfielder Travis Snider, almost certainly because the Jays are afraid that if they call up Snider, he might get enough Major League service time to become a super-two, eligible for arbitration a year earlier.

It’s a huge break for Ruiz, who is a classic 4A player, too good for the Pacific Coast League or the International League, but too old to get a call up to the Show except in circumstances like these.

Ruiz had a fine year at Rochester in the International League last year, and was rewarded with about a month on the Twins’ Major League roster. He hit a respectable .274 in 62 at bats and even hit his first and only (so far) Major League home run.

I doubt Ruiz will get much playing time with the Jays, and what little time he does get will almost certainly disappear once the September call-ups happen. However, it’s an opportunity for a guy who has played professionally for 11 seasons to get a chance to enjoy the feeling of being on a big league roster and earn a little more Major League service time for purposes of his pension.

It’s also a great opportunity for Ruiz to catch the attention of a Japanese team for 2010. In fact, I would wager that Ruiz’s chances of playing in Japan next year are greater than his chances of playing in the Major Leagues after this season is over.

Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo Clear Waivers

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:41:02 -0400

Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo apparently both cleared waivers and are available to be traded if the Reds can find any takers. I like Harang more than Arroyo, but neither is a great bet, given their ages and their remaining contract obligations. Harang is set to make another $18.5 million through the end of 2010 and Arroyo $16.5 million over the same period.

I can’t see the Reds moving either and getting anything in return unless they eat about three-quarters of their remaining salary obligations.

Harang was one of the NL’s best starters in 2006 and 2007, at ages 28 and 29, when he went a combined 32-17 with ERAs in the 3.7s, more than 200 Ks each year, and a roughly 4-to-1 Ks-to-BBs ratio.

Harang has actually pitched much better the last two years than his combined 12-30 record indicates. Rumor out of Cincinnati has it that Harang hasn’t been the same since he threw 63 pitches in his only relief appearance of last year on May 25, 2008, when he pitched the third day after a start in a game the Reds ultimately lost after 18 innings. He struck out nine in four innings pitched.

I’m not so sure I believe that that one outing did him in. His drop-off in performance the last two years may just be the result of advancing age and bad luck. Also, from 2005 through 2007, he averaged 226 innings pitched a season, which is a lot to throw over a three-year period in this decade. That extended workload may have had a bigger impact than any one single appearance.

One thing is for certain, however. Harang is not a good bet at this point in his career to have another season like 2006 or 2007.

However, Harang has pitched well enough that he could be a .500 pitcher on a good team, so if a team in the hunt needs a fourth or fifth starter, he wouldn’t be a bad bet, assuming the Reds keep paying the vast majority of his remaining contract.

I could see the Brewers, in particular, being interested. They are familiar with him playing in the same division, and with their offense, Harang could be another Branden Looper-type success story. In fact, I’d definitely rather have Harang than Looper for the 2010 season.

Bronson Arroyo’s 10-11 record is considerably better than Harang’s, but with a 5.04 ERA, Arroyo really hasn’t pitched as well as Harang. Five of Arroyo’s last six starts have been quality starts, so he may draw some interest, but again, only if the Reds eat most of his remaining contract.

I’d also rather have Harang than Arroyo in 2010. Arroyo is a year older than Harang and his strikeout rate has dropped from roughly 7.0 per nine innings pitched from 2006 through 2008 to 5.1 per nine innings so far this year without a similar drop in his walks rate. Definitely not a good sign.

If the Reds are looking to trade their two-top veteran starters, even with Edinson Volquez sidelined for at least a year after Tommy John surgery, it sure makes you wonder what the Reds were thinking trading prospects away for Scott Rolen, who by the way is back on the DL today with a concussion.

Tonight's Action

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:48:54 -0400

I noticed that Kyle Lohse won tonight to improve to 5-7 this year with a 4.34 ERA. He’s rounded back into form after last year’s 15-6 record.

Speaking of unexpected performances, Russell Branyan hit his 27th homerun tonight and David Aardsma picked up his 27th save. No surprise with Branyan really. He’s always had a ton of power, and his batting average, after a hot start, has fallen to .255, which is still high for Branyan (.234 career average), but certainly within the normal parameters of his career.

Speaking of Branyan, I have to decry the fact that so few teams seem to platoon at so few positions today, at least for any reason other than sheer desparation. Branyan should really see as little left-handed pitching as possible, but he’s been playing pretty much every day this year.

Over the course of his career, Branyan doesn’t have that big of a platoon differential (.750 OPS against left-handed pitchers; .839 against righties). However, he has been platooned most of his career, and only 17.5% of his ABs coming into this season were against left-handers.

This year, 35.4% of Branyan’s ABs have been against lefties. His OPS this year is .792 against lefties, but .937 against righties. From 2006 through 2008, his combined OPS was .630 against lefties and .855 against righties.

In short, Branyan is pretty clearly a pure platoon hitter and should get the day off in favor of a right-handed hitter when a lefty is starting for the other team. Instead, the Mariners (or someone else) will have to give Branyan a huge raise because of all the homeruns he’s hit; and his performance will likely drop off next year, given his age (33 this year) and the fact that he really can’t hit lefties well enough for a first baseman.

I still think David Aardsma is a bigger fluke than Branyan. Aardsma’s only 27 and he’s got good stuff, so it’s certainly possible he has turned a corner. However, I still don’t think he has the control to be a consistently effective closer no matter how good his 2009 ends up.

And speaking of flukes, Darin Erstad hit his second homerun of the season tonight, along with a double, as the Astros lost to the Marlins 8-6. I don’t quite understand how Erstad continues to play in the major leagues.

Even with the hits tonight, he’s now hitting .208 with a .643 OPS, playing mostly 1B and LF and pinch hitting. Now, a pinch hitter is going to have bad numbers some years given the limited number of ABs they get each year. However, Erstad hasn’t had a season with an OPS as high as .700 since 2004.

Even as a good-in-the-clubhouse, plays-a-lot-of-positions white guy, it still boggles the mind that he’s managed to hold onto a major league job for so long given what a consistently terrible offensive player he has been since his one great season in 2000. Nine years is a long time to keep your job when you just can’t hit.

No One's Too Old Nowadays

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:54:29 -0400

A couple of days ago when the Red Sox designated John Smoltz for assignment I suggested that it might be the end of the road for the 42 year old right-hander. However, it looks like the Rangers, and four NL teams, the Dodgers, Cubs, Brewers and Astros, may all have some interest in seeing for themselves whether Smoltz is really washed up.

Here’s an article from ESPN’s Buster Olney on Smoltz and his future prospects.

The Nationals’ shortstop Christian Guzman apparently cleared waivers, because although he is hitting .317 with a .774 OPS, he has another year at $8 million in salary following this one. If the Nationals are now checking out trade interest in Guzman, I wonder why they didn’t find a suitor before the July 31 trade deadline.

One report has the Red Sox showing some interest in Guzman, which seems kind of strange since the BoSox just traded away Julio Lugo.

Finally, the Pirates are serious about rebuilding their organization. Aside from trading away all of their veteran players, they were extremely aggressive this year in the amateur draft. They have now signed their sixth (high school pitcher Zack von Rosenburg) and eighth round (high school pitcher Colton Cain) picks for more than $1 million each to forego college ball.

The Pirates also signed their fourth round pick, yet another high school pitcher Zackry Dodson, for $600,000. The Bucs now apparently have deals agreed upon, at least orally, with all of their first ten picks in the 2009 Draft.

High school pitchers are the highest risk commodity in the draft, mainly because so many young pitchers hurt their arms before they are ready to pitch in the majors. Still, it’s good to see the Pirates trying to rebuild their system and develop players from within. It’s definitely the best way for a small market team like the Pirates to compete.

Meanwhile, the Pirates’ top pick last year (No. 2 overall), third baseman Pedro Alvarez has gotten red hot since being promoted to AA Altoona in late June. He’s now hitting .320 with a .947 OPS in 40 games in the Eastern League, substantially better than he played in the Class A+ Carolina League in 66 games starting the season (.247 batting average, .827 OPS).

If Alvarez plays well after his September call-up and has a good Spring Training next year, the odds are good that he will start 2010 as the Pirates’ starting third baseman. In fact, the thing most likely to keep him in the minors for the first couple of months of 2010 may be the fact that his arbitration and free agent eligibility can be pushed back a year by not calling him up until June or July 2010. For a poor team like the Pirates, that’s certainly major consideration.

Washington Nationals Ship Nick Johnson and Joe Beimel, Receive Prospects

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:31:51 -0400

I promise this will be my last post on pre-trade-deadline trades.

The Nationals sent first baseman Nick Johnson to the Marlins for pitcher Aaron Thompson and left-handed pitcher Joe Beimel to the Rockies for Ryan Mattheus and Robinson Fabian.

If any team needed desparately to sell off their valuable veterans for prospects, it was the Nats.

So what did they get for Johnson and Beimel?

Aaron Thompson is a 22-year-old left-hander who the Fish drafted with the 22nd pick of the 2005 Draft. However, a first round pedigree is about all he’s got going for him.

Thompson pitched fairly well in the Class A Sally League in 2006 and in the Class A+ Florida State League in 2007.

However, he apparently suffered an injury late in the ‘07, because his 2008 season was limited to 18 starts. Sixteen of those starts came in the AA Southern League, and Thompson was hit hard, posting a 5.62 ERA and terrible ratios.

This year Thompson is pitching better in AA ball.

His ERA is down to 4.11 after 20 2009 starts. In 114 IP, he’s allowed 121 hits and 43 walks and knotched 75 Ks. This is a big improvement on his ‘08 performance, but he sure doesn’t look like a sure thing.

The Nats should have gotten more for Johnson.

Thompson is no better than Scott Barnes, the pitcher the Indians received for Ryan Garko, and Nick Johnson is a better player than Garko. Johnson has a .412 OBP and an .816 OPS this year, while Garko has a .355 OBP and a .798 OPS. Over their careers, Johnson has a .399 OBP and an .847 OPS, while Garko has a .353 OBP and an .800 OPS.

One gets the impression that the Nationals way overplayed their hand with Johnson.

He was one of the first players talked about this year as a possible upgrade-trade candidate to a contender, but he didn’t get traded until almost the deadline. I tend to think that the Mets and Nats might both have been better off if they had pulled the trigger on a deal in late May or early June.

I also suspect that the Giants traded for Garko because the Nationals wanted too much in return for Johnson. If Scott Barnes alone could have pried Johnson loose from the Nats, then the Giants made a big mistake. Johnson has a history of injury problems and he isn’t hitting with much power this year, but a .412 OBP is extraordinarily valuable to weak OBP team like the Giants who were getting little production out of first base, especially when considering that Johnson’s OBP so far this year is well within his career norms.

Garko, as a first baseman, is a player that most teams need to replace if they want to build a contending team, so the Indians were probably overjoyed to get Barnes for him, especially with Garko set for a big raise as an arbitration eligible player this off-season.

The Giants have been so weak at first base the last few seasons, that a first baseman with a career .800 OPS is an improvement. However, if he doesn’t play better in San Francisco over the last two months than he played in Cleveland over the first four months of ‘09, he isn’t worth the money in this economy that he’ll get as a result of his arbitration eligibility.

I like the Beimel trade better for the Nats. Beimel has value solely because he’s a left-handed relief specialist who’s having a decent year. He’s 32 this year, and he really doesn’t have any value except to face one or two left-handed hitters per appearance.

Because Beimel still does that one thing well, he’s good trade bait to a team like the Rockies trying to make the playoffs. He’s a luxury the Nats don’t need at this point in their rebuilding process, so any young players they get for him is a positive development.

Of the two minor league pitchers the Nats received, Ryan Mattheus looks better. He’s a 25-year-old right-hander from Galt, California (near Sacramento), who is currently pitching in the AAA Pacific Coast League.

Mattheus started his professional career as a starter and got hit pretty hard from 2005 through 2007. In 2008, he became a reliever and had a strong year at AA Tulsa, finishing the year with 17 saves and a 3.28 ERA with 27 walks and 56 K’s in 57.2 IP.

Since being promoted to AAA Colorado Springs earlier this season, Mattheus has made 13 relief appearances. His ERA is only 4.32, but he has 20 Ks against eight walks in 16.2 IP. He’s at least got a real shot to have a major league career.

The second pitcher the Nats received, Robinson Fabian, is a 23-year-old Dominican, who hasn’t done anything yet in his minor league career to suggest that he will one day pitch in the majors. He currently has a minor league career ERA of 5.64 and he’s never pitched higher than the Class A Sally League.

Fabian appears to have decent stuff with 249 Ks and 113 walks in 319 minor league innings pitched. However, he has been hit hard everywhere he’s played. At age 23 and pitching poorly in Class A ball, it’s hard to see him making it past AA ball, if he makes it that far.

Given that the Nationals have some other veterans who were obvious trade candidates and who would have brought a lot more and better prospects back to Washington (Dunn, Willingham and Christian Guzman to name three), it gives you an idea why the Nationals are as bad as they are.

Neither the Pirates nor the Indians are as bad this year as the Nats, but they were bad enough to realize they needed to rebuild in a big way. Meanwhile the Nats did very little, when the only players on their roster they shouldn’t have looked to trade are the two Zimmerman(n)s.

Cliff Lee and Jack Wilson: Big Deal

Tom Dubberke — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:32:14 -0400

Two more big trades so far today.

The Cliff Lee Deal

The Indians sent Lee and 27-year-old, right-handed hitting outfielder Ben Francisco to the Phillies for youngsters Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, Lou Marson, and Jason Knapp.

All things considered, it looks like a better deal for the Phillies than the proposal that the Blue Jays turned down for Roy Halladay. Mainly, the Phillies get to keep J.A. Happ, who’s pitched really well for them this year, while adding Lee. Since this is a “win now” trade for a team already capable of doing just that, getting Lee without weakening the major league squad is great.

Lee has had a 2.37 ERA for the month of July, and given that he’s a control pitcher going to a team that can pick it and score runs, he should win a lot of games in the next two months. As a right-handed hitter with some pop, Francisco is also a useful bench player for a team looking to go deep into the post-season.

I’ve already recently commented on Carrasco and Donald, so I won’t do it again here. Lou Marson is a 23-year-old catcher, who had a great season at AA Reading last year when he posted a .433 OBP. He’s hit .295 with a .384 OBP at AAA Lehigh Valley this year.

Marson’s only real drawback offensively is his lack of power so far in his professional career. However, he’s young enough to develop in the next few years, and a catcher who gets on base the way he does at his age has real potential.

Jason Knapp was the Phillies’ second round pick in the 2008 Draft (71st overall). He’s got a good, live arm (111 Ks in 85.1 IP in the Sally League so far this year), but he’s a long way from the majors. He’s only 2-7 with a 4.01 ERA in Class A ball this year, so it’s likely to be years before he’s ready.

Reports are that no cash will be sent to Philly to pay for the new acquisitions. This makes sense, since the Indians, who are listed with baseball’s 15th highest payroll, while having a bad year in a small market, badly need to dump salary.

The Jack Wilson Deal

The Pirates and Mariners swung a seven player deal that sends SS Jack Wilson and pitcher Ian Snell to the M’s in exchange for catcher Jeff Clement, shortstop Ronny Cedeno, and pitchers Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock.

Clement was the No. 3 player selected in the 2005 Draft. However, he turns 26 on August 21st and still hasn’t established himself as a major league player.

Clement looked extremely promising in 2007 and early 2008, but his 203 AB trial with the M’s last year didn’t go as hoped. He hit only .227 with a .655 OPS, which while not terrible for a catcher, isn’t good enough for a starter at the position.

Clement has been back at AAA Tacoma this year, and his .865 OPS there is solid, but it’s nothing to write home about either. At his age, you’d kind of expect him to be over .900, what with playing in the Pacific Coast League and all.

26-year-old Ronny Cedeno has substantial major league experience, mostly for the Cubs, but he can’t hit. His .618 OPS in over a 1000 major league ABs pretty much says it all.

Pribanic is a 22-year-old right-hander with a 3.21 ERA in the Class Midwest League. However, his strikeout numbers are not impressive for this level of the minors.

Brett Lorin is another 22-year-old right-hander pitching at Class A Clinton. His ERA is 2.44, and he has 87 K’s in 88.2 IP, so he’s a lot more promising than Pribanic.

Nathan Adcock is a 21-year-old right-hander who is currently overmatched at Class A+ High Desert in the California League. He has a 5.29 ERA and lacks control. He looked better last year in the Midwest League.

In short, the Pirates got five B-grade prospects for Jack Wilson and Ian Snell. Wilson plays great defense, but he’s overpaid for the offense he provides, and the Pirates were eager to unload Snell because he wasn’t happy in Pittsburgh.

Snell is pitching great after six starts in AAA Indianapolis, with an 0.96 ERA and 47 Ks in 37.1 IP. He’s 27 this year, and it’s still really anybody’s guess whether he’ll ever have a great season at the major league level.

The Pirates seem to make a lot of trades where they choose quantity of prospects over quality, apparently in the hope that if they get a lot of warm bodies a few of them will develop in major league stars, if only by the law of averages. The problem is that the Pirates constantly seem to be in a rebuilding mode, but never quite manage to get rebuilt.

Update on North American Players in Japan, Part X: “T” through “Z”

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:05:10 -0400

Ryan Vogelsong, Orix Buffaloes. Giants and Pirates fans will remember Vogelsong, a right-handed pitcher who’s 31 this year.

Vogelsong has more major league experience than most pitchers who go to Japan, but he didn’t have much success at the highest level in the States, finishing with a career major league 5.86 ERA in 315 IP. The Pirates gave him many opportunities to establish himself as a major league pitcher, but Vogelsong didn’t get it done.

Vogelsong was signed by the Hanshin Tigers, and he gave them one and half solid seasons as a starter before hurting his arm last year. In ‘07, he went 7-6 with a 4.13 ERA with 91 Ks and 41 BBs in 106.2 IP.

In ‘08, he was 3-4 with a 3.99 ERA before injuries ended his season.

Vogelsong signed with the Orix Buffaloes for 2009 at a roughly $300,000 pay cut, down to a little over $500,000 for the season. However, it has not been a good sign for the Buffaloes.

Vogelsong has made 17 appearances for the Buffaloes and has compiled a 0-3 record with an ugly 6.84 ERA in 25 IP. His other numbers really aren’t bad: 31 hits allowed, 2 HRs, 10 BBs and 33 Ks. He must be allowing the hits in bunches.

Vogelsong has been sent down to the Buffaloes’ minor league team for “readjustment”, as they say in Japan when they send someone down. He’s 4-3 for the minor league team with a mediocre 4.50 ERA. Unless he suddenly puts it together, this will be his last year in Japan.

Les Walrond, Yokohama Bay Stars. Les Walrond is a hard-throwing left-handed pitcher, who’s 32 years old this year. He started in the Cardinals’ system and got major league cups of coffee from the Royals in 2003, the Cubs in 2006 and the Phillies in 2008.

Walrond has good stuff, with 1.026 strikouts in 1202.1 minor league innings pitched, but he doesn’t have major league control. His career major league ERA is 7.07 in 35.2 IP with 28 walks and 39 K’s.

Walrond is the kind of American pitcher Japanese teams have had some success with, as their good stuff is hard for Japanese hitters to hit and the strike zone is larger in Japan.

Walrond has been a good pick-up for the Yokohama Bay Stars. Although he is only 5-7 with a 3.86 ERA, that’s not bad for on a team that’s currently 30-54 and in last place. Walrond has been the Bay Stars second best starter, after Daisuke Miura who’s 7-6 with a 3.65 ERA.

Walrond also has 71 K’s, which is currently tied for 8th in the Central League. He’s still pretty wild, and he’s already 32, so it’s no certainty that he’ll have a long career in Japan.

John Wasdin, Saitama Seibu Lions. MLB fans will remember John Wasdin. He had a long MLB career, pitching for the A’s, Red Sox, Colorado, Orioles, Blue Jays, Rangers and Pirates. He bounced around a lot, because he never lived up to his promise.

Wasdin’s best year in America was probably 1999, when he went 8-3 for the Red Sox with a 4.12 ERA as a reliever. He also recorded four saves for the 2005 Rangers. Wasdin finished his MLB career with a 39-39 record and a 5.28 ERA in 793.1 IP over 328 appearances.

Wasdin is 36 this year, and usually Japanese teams have more sense than to sign an American pitcher of this advanced age and marginal talent level. However, Wasdin had pitched briefly for the Yomiuir Giants in 2002; and, obviously, the Lions thought he might have something left.

It doesn’t appear that he does. Wasdin was demoted to the Lions’ minor league team after starting the season with a 5.48 ERA after twelve starts. Wasdin has pitched well at the minor league level, however. He’s only 1-3 after six starts, but has an excellent 2.65 ERA.

Jeff Williams, Hanshin Tigers. Jeff Williams is a 37 year old AUSTRALIAN (an Aussie wrote in and took me to task for identifying pitcher Adrian Burnside as a “North American” for purposes of this series, even though Burnside spent twelve years pitching professionally in the U.S., so I don’t want to make that mistake again), who played college ball at Southeastern Louisiana University (I wonder how he ended up there?) and spent six years in the Dodgers’ farm system.

Williams was undrafted and didn’t begin playing for the Dodgers organization until the year he turned 25, so I assume he was older than normal when he left college and that he pitched in one of the Independent A leagues before being signed by the Dodgers.

The Dodgers gave Williams cups of coffee every year from 1999 through 2002, but except for the first one in 1999, he never pitched well at the major league level. His major league career ERA of 7.49 in 57.2 IP pretty much says it all.

In 2002 Williams had a fantastic season at AAA Las Vegas, finishing the year with a 6-4 record, a 2.60 ERA and 28 saves. He also recorded 75 Ks and only 22 walks in 79.2 IP. He was probably ready to be a major league pitcher at this point, but he was already 30 years old and pitched poorly in his last, late-season cup of coffee in Los Angeles.

The Hanshin Tigers signed Williams for 2003, and he quickly won the closer role. He recorded 25 saves for the Tigers in ‘03 to go with a miniscule 1.54 ERA and better than 4-to-1 Ks-to-BBs ratio.

In 2004 Williams’ ERA jumped to 3.28, and although he saved 14 games that year, he appears to have lost the closer role and never won it back. A lot of that has to do with the rise of flame-throwing Kyuji Fujikawa in 2005. From 2005 through 2008, Fujikawa posted ERAs of 1.36, 0.68, 1.63 and 0.67 with a Ks per nine innings over the four seasons of 13.0 and a Ks-to-BBs ratio of better than 6-to-1. Wow! Those numbers put even Joe Nathan to shame.

Williams hasn’t been quite that good, but he’d probably close for a majority of the other teams in Japan. From 2005 through 2007, Williams posted ERAs of 2.11, 1.90 and 0.96 with a Ks per nine innings rate of 9.7 and a Ks-to-BBs ratio of roughly 3.75-to-1.

Williams’ ERA jumped to 3.09 in 2008, but his ratios were still great, and he went 5-4 with 5 saves, his highest saves total since 2004.

So far this year, Williams clearly seems to have lost something. His ERA is a respectable 3.58 at the Japanese All-Star break (the Japanese All-Star Series is being played as I write this), but he has allowed 20 walks, more than in any of the past three seasons, in only 27.1 IP. He’s notched 35 Ks to go with all the walks, so the walk total may be a fluke. However, for a guy with consistently great control for years and years to suddenly give up walks at a rate of more than 6.5 per nine innings hints that he’s nearing the end of his career. It’s been a good one, in Japan at least.

The Hanshin Tigers are the wealthiest team in Japan after the Yomiuri Giants, and they have paid amply to have the best two-man reliever combination in Japanese baseball. Williams is being paid 230 million yen for the third year in a row in ‘09, which at current exchange rates means he’s making about $2.4 million this year.

This is an astronomical sum for a Japanese team to spend on a set-up man, even one as good as Williams. By way of comparison, Fujikawa made 170 million yen in ‘07, 280 million yen in ‘08, and a whopping 400 million yen this year.

By way of further comparison, veteran position stars Michichiro Ogasawara (.318 career batting average, 329 HRs) and Kazuhiro Wada (.314 batting average, 213 HRs) are being paid, respectively, 380 million yen by the Yomiuri Giants and 280 million yen by the Chunichi Dragons this year. If an American team, say the Mets, were willing to give their top relievers similar salaries to what the Hanshin Tigers have given Fujikawa and Williams, in terms of current MLB salary scales, K-Rod would be earning about $20 million a year and J. J. Putz about $12M a year, roughly double what they’re actually making this year.

Ryan Wing, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Ryan Wing is a 27 year old left handed pitcher, who pitched in the White Sox, Rangers and A’s minor league systems. He had a fine year last year at AAA Sacramento, the A’s top farm team, where he had a 2.33 ERA in 47 relief appearances.

Wing had a major arm injury in late 2005, and after signing with the Ham Fighters for 2009, he hurt his left shoulder. He has yet to pitch a game in Japan at either the major league or minor league level, and the most recent reports indicate that he will have shoulder surgery in the near future. His Japanese career may be over before it begins.

Jonah Bayliss, Saitama Seibu Lions. The Lions obtained Bayliss on July 23 from the Toronto Blue Jays AAA team. Bayliss is a 28 year old right-handed pitcher, who pitched briefly for the Royals and Pirates in 2005 through 2007.

Bayliss’ one extended major league opportunity came with the Pirates in 2007, and it was ugly. He appeared in 37 games, and posted a brutal 8.39 ERA coming from 51 hits and eight HRs allowed in 37.2 IP. His strikeout and walks numbers weren’t bad, but who cares when you get hit like that?

This year, Jonah was 7-2 with a 3.96 ERA and 5 saves for Las Vegas in the Pacific Coast League. He allowed 39 hits, 24 walks and recorded 48 Ks in 50 IP. He looks like a good player at this moment in his career for the Lions to take a chance on.

I think I have now covered every “American” player to play in Japan this year. If I’ve missed anyone, let me know.

As you can see, most of the American players who have gone to Japan and had success there have been just a hair below MLB-calibre regulars, developed at too old an age to be taken seriously in the U.S., had an injury or two at the wrong time, or got off to bad starts on their major league trials and so didn’t get into enough games to show what they could really do.

As you can see, there is a natural relationship between NPB and MLB in terms of the kinds of players who go back and forth. The very best Japanese players can make far more money in the U.S. than in Japan, so there’s a strong incentive, aside from the higher level of talent and the bigger stage, for the Icharo’s and Godzillas and Dice-K’s to come to the U.S.

Meanwhile, the 4-A minor leaguers, who are really too good to be stuck in the minors, but too old to get a shot for a major league team, can make a lot more money playing in Japan than in the Pacific Coast League or the International League or in any league outside the U.S. The Japanese teams seem to be getting better and better at identifying the best of these 4-A players to bring over at large salaries by NPB standards.

Certainly, the Japanese teams are bringing in fewer over-the-hill MLB stars than they once did. Like MLB teams, the Japanese teams are looking for stars who will last a few seasons.

Of course, like establishing one’s self as an MLB player, for most of the 4-A players going to Japan, it’s still something of a crap shoot as to which ones will develop into stars and which ones will be sent unceremonially packing. Even more so than in the U.S. major leagues (and they are not bastians of patience either), American players in Japan have to adapt quickly or be lucky enough to get off to good starts, or their Japanese careers are over.

I hope you have enjoyed this series. At the end of the season, I’ll provide briefer summaries of how all these luminaries finished out their Japanese league seasons.

Update on North American Players in Japan, Part IX: “S”

Tom Dubberke — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:08:54 -0400

Mike Schultz, Toyo Hiroshima Carp

Mike Schultz is a tall, 29-year-old right-handed pitcher, who played in the Diamondbacks’ organization and appeared in one game for the parent team at the end of 2007.

The D'Backs once thought highly enough of Schultz to draft him in the second round of the 2000 Draft (solely on stuff: his college ERAs were over 5.00), but he generally underwhelmed in his minor league career.

As a reliever at AAA Tucson in 2006 and 2007, he had ERAs of 3.59 and 3.92, and pretty much appeared to be a solid AAA pitcher, but not good enough to have a major league career, or even much likelihood of success in Japan, for that matter.

A scout or two for the Hiroshima Carp must have seen something they liked in Schultz, because they signed him to a contract for the 2008 season; and Schultz has had a very successful first season and a half in Japan.

In ‘08, Schultz pitched in 55 games, all in relief, and posted a 3.23 ERA.

This year, Schultz has improved dramatically. He’s become the Carp’s principal set-up man to closer Katsuhiro Nagakawa. Schultz is 2-1 with one save and 22 holds. His ERA is only 1.23, and he’s allowed only 29 hits and ten walks in 44 IP. He has 44 K’s.

He’s only making about $450,000 this year, so he’s likely to get a big raise in 2010.

Scott Seabol, Toyo Hiroshima Carp

He’s a 34-year-old 3B who played in the Yankees, Brewers, Cardinals, and Marlins organizations. His only real shot in MLB came with the 2005 Cardinals, when he hit .219 with no power in 105 AB’s.

Seabol had monster years in AAA in 2004 and 2007 and in half a season in 2006, hitting 80 HRs in those roughly two-and-a-half seasons, exactly the type of 4-A player on which the Japanese teams like to take a chance.

He had a solid year for the Carp in 2008, hitting .273 with 15 HRs in 400 ABs. However, he’s been having problems this year.

He got off to a slow start, hitting only .216 with four home runs in his first 125 AB’s and then he hurt his knee in late May. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t played for the Carp since, although it appears he has played in a few games for their minor league team, perhaps as part of a rehab assignment.

Meanwhile, another American import, Scott McClain, has taken over at 3B for the Carp and is beginning to hit. His average is up to .245, with nine home runs in 188 ABs.

In short, it looks like Scott Seabol’s Japanese career is in serious trouble. McClain and Seabol offer the Carp roughly the same thing, and McClain is healthier and playing better this season. I can’t imagine the Carp wanting to keep two of these guys around, especially when Seabol is making nearly twice as much as McClain for the same type of performance.

Fernando Seguignol, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

Montreal Expos fans (if there are any of them left; Montreal was once a great baseball town, now it doesn’t appear that there is even a minor league team playing there. If not, it’s a shame and an opportunity for some intrepid minor league operator) will remember Seguignol, a big hard-hitting first baseman from Bocas del Toro, Panama.

Fernando nearly established himself as a major league regular, but like a lot of 4-A stars, he developed late and was considered too old once he was really ready for the Show.

Fernando had his first break-out minor league season at AA Hartford in 1998, which earned him a well-played cup of coffee with the Expos at the end of the season.

In 1999 and 2000, he split time between AAA Ottawa and Montreal, putting up OPS numbers of .814 and .838 in 105 and 162 major league ABs, respectively. Pretty good, but not so much for a major leaguer starting at 1B.

Fernando split 2001 between AAA Ottawa and Montreal yet again, but that year his major league performance was terrible. He was used almost exclusively as a pinch hitter, and he didn’t get the job done, going 7 for 50 (.140 batting average) with no HRs.

Fernando signed with the Orix Blue Wave in 2002 and hit 23 HRs in only 280 ABs. Unfortunately, he also hit only .204 and struck out 104 times. He wasn’t resigned, and he played at AAA Columbus in the Yankees organization in 2003.

Seguignol had a fantastic season at Columbus in ‘03, hitting .341 with 28 HR’s and a 1.025 OPS.

And the Japanese teams came calling again.

He signed with the Nippon-Ham Fighters for 2004 and had a monster season, hitting .305 with 44 HRs, 108 RBI’s and 1.070 OPS.

Fernando has been living off that 2004 season ever since. He continues to be a solid player, but his numbers have declined a little almost every year since that golden season.

He had 31 HRs in ‘05, 26 HRs in ‘06 and 21 HRs in ‘07. That last year, his average dropped almost fifty points to .249.

Interestingly, however, his big bump in salary (from about $750,000 to over $2M) came not after the 44 HR season, but the season after his follow-up 31 HR campaign. $2M+ is too much to pay for his 2007 performance, and the Ham Fighters dumped him after the 2007 season.

Seguignol played 49 games for Tabasco in the Mexican League and 24 games for Toledo, the Detroit Tigers’ AAA team, in the International League in 2008, and played well in both places. This got him signed by the Rakuten Golden Eagles (at a greatly reduced salary from what he made with the Ham Fighters) to finish out the 2008 season.

Fernando finished out the 2008 season with some heavy hitting for the Golden Eagles, batting .328 with 13 HRs in only 39 games.

So far in 2009, however, Fernando is really showing his age (34 this year). In more at-bats than last year, he has only seven HRs and is hitting a feeble .196. Unless he gets red hot in the second half, it looks like this will be Fernando’s final season in Japan.

Rick Short, Tohoku Golden Eagles

Rick Short is a 36-year-old, jack-of-all-trades, who has played first, second, third and the corner outfield positions in both the U.S. and Japan. He’s another classic 4-A player who has had success in the Far East.

Rick has always been a high average hitter who lacked the power to be a major league player. He hit .331 in the AA Eastern League in 2000 and .356 in the AAA Pacific Coast League in 2002 without even receiving a major league cup of coffee for his efforts.

Rick signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2003 and put up a fine season, hitting .303 with 12 HRs and a .362 OBP. However, the Japanese teams want more power from their highly paid American players, and Rick did not return to Japan in 2004.

Instead, he went back to the States, and had a respectable season split between the Expos’ and Royals’ AAA teams.

In 2005, however, Rick led the PCL in hitting with a lusty .383 batting average, 23 points better than another great 4-A player, Joe Dillon (Dillon had a brief trial in Japan in 2006, played poorly and was shipped back to America. It’s worked out for Dillon, though, he’s played in 108 MLB games since 2007).

It was the second time Rick had led the PCL in batting average. The Rakuten Golden Eagles were interested, and Rick went back to Japan to play in 2006.

After hitting .314 in 2006, Rick led Japan’s Pacific League in batting average two years in a row, hitting .330 in ‘07 and .332 on ‘08. Rick is very popular in Japan, where he is known simply as “Rick” because the Japanese fans have trouble pronouncing his last name.

Rick has value because of his ability to play many positions, but he’s really not a particularly good hitter even with the batting championships.

He walks infrequently (his season high since coming back to Japan in 2006 is 29 times in 458 plate appearances), he hits with little power (a total of 20 HRs for the 2006 through 2008 seasons combined) and he hits into a lot of double plays (67 times in his first four seasons).

Rick was a bit better last year, clubbing 12 HRs and hitting into only 11 double plays, and he set Japanese career highs with 62 runs scored and 71 runs batted in. Despite leading the league in hitting in 2007, he scored only 31 runs in 458 plate appearances.

Wow!

In 2006, despite hitting .314 in 401 ABs, he scored only 33 runs and drove in only 34. The Golden Eagles’ offense was terrible those years, but other than hitting a lot of singles and a few doubles, Rick wasn’t contributing a whole lot either.

This will almost certainly be Rick’s last season in Japan. He’s hitting only .230 in 126 ABs, he’s scored only eight runs, and he’s driven in only five runs. He hurt his shoulder around June 10, and it appears he hasn’t played at the major league level since. He is hitting .391 in 23 ABs for the Golden Eagles’ minor league team, however.

With the two batting titles, Rick’s salary has climbed up to about $1.25 million this year, which is really too much, even when he was hitting .330. Without the league leading batting averages to cover up his offensive failings, his lack of production must be apparent even to the Golden Eagles.

Brian Sikorski, Chiba Lotte Marines

Sikorski is a hard-throwing right-hander who has had a long and successful career in Japan as a set-up man coming out of the bullpen.

Sikorski started his professional career as a starter with the Astros and Rangers. In 2000, at age 26, he pitched in ten games for the Rangers, recording a 5.74 ERA in 37.1 IP.

Sikorski was pitching great after 14 starts at AAA Oklahoma City in 2001, posting a 3.61 ERA with great ratios, but even though he only turned 27 on July 27, the Rangers didn’t think enough of him to prevent them from selling his contract to the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Sikorski appeared in 12 games for the Marines in 2001 and pitched poorly, recording an ERA of 6.43, apparently mostly as a starter. The Marines liked his stuff enough to keep him around, despite his poor showing and high salary. They converted him into a relief pitcher in 2002, and his career exploded.

In 2002, Sikorski pitched 96.2 innings over 47 appearances. Although his ERA was a not especially impressive 3.44, he allowed only 76 hits, 20 walks and recorded 102 Ks. In 2003, he lowered his ERA to 3.16.

In 2004, Sikorski was apparently traded to the Yomuiri Giants, where, surprisingly, he took a substantial pay cut.

Again, he was primarily used as a set-up man, but he did record five saves and lowered his ERA again to 2.67. In 2005, Sikorski pitched in 70 games for the Giants, and although his ERA rose to 3.29, he recorded 100 Ks in 87.2 IP.

After establishing himself as top relief pitcher in Japan, Sikorski tried going back to the States in 2006. He signed with the Padres’ organization and started the year at their AAA team in Portland. He pitched well there, posting a 3.14 ERA with seven saves, and recording 44 Ks and only seven walks in 28.2 IP.

This earned him a call-up to the Padres, but he didn’t get the job done, posting a 5.65 ERA in thirteen relief appearances. As has often been the case for Sikorski in both the U.S. and Japan, giving up the long ball was his one great weakness.

The Padres then traded Sikorski to the Indians where he actually pitched pretty well. His ERA was only 4.58, again due to too many HRs allowed, but he racked up 24 Ks and only 4 walks in 19.2 IP for the Tribe.

Sikorski started 2007 back in AAA, pitching for the Indians’ farm team in Buffalo. He had a 3.52 ERA with good ratios, when the Yakult Swallows purchased his contract.

Since returning to Japan, Sikorski has become one of the best relievers in Japan. His ERA in half a season in 2007 was 2.29, his ERA in 2008 was 2.23, and his ERA in 32 appearances so far this year is down to 1.89.

Sikorski returned to the Marines in 2008, and they’ve used him mainly an inning at a time, initially as the set up man to the Marines’ young closer Tadahiro Ogino. However, Ogino has pitched poorly this year, and in the last month Sikorski has been moved into the closer role. He now has four saves.

Terrmel Sledge, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters

North American fans will remember Terrmel. In the Expos’ last year in Montreal (2004), Terrmel got into a 133 games mostly at the corner outfield positions and mainly out of desperation of the Expos’ part.

However, Termel was 27, the age at which ballplayers tend to peak, and he had a good year. He hit .269 with 15 HRs and a .798 OPS in 398 ABs.

The next year in Washington, Sledge began the season on the Nationals’ roster and hit the Nationals’ first HR ever on Opening Day, but he tore his hamstring on May 2nd and didn’t play again that year.

Terrmel was traded to the Padres during the offseason, and in 2006 and 2007, he got a combined 270 ABs at the major league level. However, Petco Park is a tough place to hit, and Terrmel couldn’t hit there at all. In 2007, for example, he hit .168 with a .531 OPS at home and .253 with an .804 OPS on the road in roughly equal numbers of ABs.

Due to his significant major league experience, Terrmel signed with the Nippon-Ham Fighters for a large first-year contract of approximately $1.5 million for the 2008 season.

He had strong rookie campaign in Japan that year, hitting .289 with 16 HRs and an .834 OPS in 395 ABs.

Terrmel has had a harder time of it this year. He’s hitting only .240, although he has a dozen home runs and 16 doubles in 217 AB’s. Because he’ll take a walk and is hitting for more power than last year, his OPS is .820 so far in 2009, very close to what it was at the end of the season last year.

I think that Sledge will have a few more solid seasons in Japan. The only knock on him really is that he’s already 32 years old.

Brian Sweeney, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters

Brian Sweeney is a 35-year-old right-handed pitcher from Yonkers, New York. He was not drafter as a senior playing at small-time Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY, and he got his start in 1996 pitching in a now-defunct Independent A league. He went 6-0 with a 2.20 ERA, and the Mariners signed him.

Sweeney toiled for years in the Mariners’ system, finally getting a cup of coffee in 2003 at age 29. He pitched well, recording a 1.93 ERA in 9.1 major league innings.

Sweeney was then traded to the Padres in 2004, and he got a cup of coffee with them that year in which he got hit hard. He spent all of 2005 in the minors, and after an unimpressive start there in 2006, the Padres called him up and stuck him in their bullpen, presumably out of desperation.

Sweeney pitched surprisingly well for the Padres in ‘06. He appeared in 37 games, posted a 3.20 ERA, and even picked up two saves. His other numbers were mediocre, and he was already 32 that year, so the Padres didn’t object when he signed a roughly $675,000 contract with the Ham Fighters for 2007.

In ‘07, Sweeney was primarily used as a starter. He went 6-8 with a 3.70 ERA in 21 games.

Sweeney had a far better year in 2008. He went 12-5 with a 3.48 ERA, making him one of the top ten starters in Japan’s Pacific League. However, he also led the league in walks with 72 and struck out only 90 in 163 IP.

Guys with ratios like Sweeney’s tend to be inconsistent, no matter what league they’re playing in, and Sweeney’s 2009 season is a good demonstration of this fact. He’s 2-5 this year, and his ERA has jumped to 5.58.

He’s 35, so some of his poor performance may also be age-related.

One thing is almost certain, however: 2009 will be his last season in Japan. At least, he’ll be able to walk away with earnings of more than $2 million for his three years of work there.

Indians Don't Get Much for Rafael Betancourt

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:37:44 -0400

The Indians traded relief pitcher Rafael Betancourt to the Rockies yesterday for minor league pitcher Connor Graham. It seems to me the Indians should have gotten more.

Graham is 23 years old and pitching fairly well in the A+ California League this year. He has a 3.14 ERA and good stuff. However, his control (41 walks in 80.1 IP so far this year) needs a lot of work.

The Indians save about $1.35 million if the Rockies are assuming all of Betancourt’s remaining 2009 salary, but given the fact the Rockies are in a race for the NL Wild Card and desperately need another arm in the bullpen, I think the Indians should have gotten someone who’s closer to being a sure thing to develop into a Major League player.

Well, That's More Like It

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:14:41 -0400

I’m slightly saddened as a Giants’ fan that Jonathan Sanchez’s “pitcher’s perfect game” (the only baserunner in his no-hitter came on an error) has so quickly been overshadowed by Mark Buehrle’s true perfect game, but I’m obviously happy for baseball and for Buehrle, who’s a great pitcher.

If, at the beginning of the season, you had to list the 10 pitchers in MLB most likely to throw a perfect game, Buehrle would certainly have been on my list. This was the 133rd win of Buehrle’s career, and he’s always had the kind of control that would make a perfect-game a possibility.

Someone recently asked me if Randy Johnson would be the last pitcher to win 300 games. I, of course, said no. It’s possible that none of the current generation of pitchers will reach 300, but someone will do in the next 40 years.

Of the players currently in their prime, Buehrle is one of the leading contenders. He’s got a long way to go, but he’s only 30 this year, and several factors make him a good candidate.

First, he’s won a lot of games already.

Second, he’s shown a tremendous ability to stay healthy: he’s pitched at least 200 innings eight years in a row, and is on pace to do so again this year.

He’s also a big-bodied pitcher listed at 6′2″ and 230 lbs. Everything else being equal, solidly built pitchers tend to last longer.

The only thing I don’t like about Buehrle, in terms of his potential long-term success, is that his strikeout numbers are a little low.

Oh, and one thing to be said for Jonathan Sanchez’s near perfect game — he actually pitched better than Buehrle did tonight. Sanchez struck out five more hitters (11 to 6) and threw fewer pitches (110 to 116). You can’t blame Sanchez for Uribe’s error; it was a play Uribe should have made.

Mildly Interesting Trade

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:50:31 -0400

The Orioles traded jack-of-all-trades backup infielder Oscar Salazar to the Padres for relief pitcher Cla Meredith. It’s one of those small-time trades I often find kind of interesting.

Salazar is already 31 years old and has only played in 59 major league games so far in his career, so it’s unlikely he’ll ever be a star. At the same time, he hits awfully well for a guy who can play all four infield positions and the corner outfield positions. Right now, he clearly should be a bench player for some major league team, given his versatility and his ability to hit and pinch hit (he’s 9 for 22 as a pinch hitter the last two years for the O’s). Looks like the Padres will give him that shot.

The Orioles apparently didn’t have roster space for Salazar and he is reportedly out of minor league options, so trading him to the Padres for more than a warm body was a real break for the O’s.

The pitcher the O’s got, Cla Meredith, has pitched worse every year since he took the NL by storm in 2006. His ERAs since then have gone from 1.07 to 3.50, 4.10 last year and 4.17 so far this year.

That’s not a good trend, and it looks even worse when you look at his ratios and remember that in San Diego, he pitched in one of the best pitchers’ parks in baseball.

However, Meredith is only 26 this year, and the O’s, as always, are desperate for pitching. If Meredith is not successful right away, he’s apparently still got one minor league option left, so the O’s can send him down to work his problems out, rather than just dumping him right away.

On balance, I think this is a good move for the O’s, since Meredith has had major league success in the past, and the O’s had no room for Salazar anyway.

Will Giants Trade for Freddie Sanchez?

Tom Dubberke — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:10:12 -0400

The Giants salvaged the final game of their three game series with the Pirates in Pittsburg today, winning 4-3, after scoring all of one run in 23 innings in the first two games of the series and losing the two games by a combined score of 4-1.

The series really showed the Giants' offensive weakness. Losing a series in which their three starters had a combined ERA of 1.77 (20.1 IP, 16 hits allowed, four earned runs, three walks and 22 Ks) is pretty pathetic, especially against an als0-ran like the Pirates.

Meanwhile, the Pirates made patently ridiculous contract extension offers to SS Jack Wilson and 2Bman Freddie Sanchez. I don’t think much of Jack Wilson. He's now 31-years-old, and has really had only two good seasons with the bat in a nine year career. He's good with the glove, but with a .690 OPS, he’s way overpaid for what he give you in the current economy.

Sanchez, however, is legitimately a strong-hitting 2Bman, who's having a good year. The offer the Pirates made him is downright insulting. The Pirates offered Sanchez a two-year extension worth about $10M total, but only if he agreed to void his current 2010 option for $8M, which vests if he gets 600 plate appearances. If he stays healthy, the option almost certainly vests, because he’s over 350 plate appearances already.

In my opinion, the extension offers made by the Pirates reflect poorly on the team. It's clear to anyone paying attention that the Pirates made the extension offers solely as a face-saving move, so that management could go to the fan base and say, "We tried to re-sign our two biggest stars, but they weren't interested."

However, the offers were so palpably bad, that it should be clear to everyone that they weren't legitimate offers. In fact, Wilson and Sanchez, through their agents, have already flatly rejected the offers.

If I were a Pirates fan, I'd be insulted that the team thinks so little of my intelligence that they think I'd be tricked by such a shallow ruse. It would have shown a lot more class just to say that the team can't afford these guys, is playing poorly and needs to continue rebuilding, and send the players on their way in exchange for prospects in an above-board manner. If you're going to do it anyway, why play games?

There's no doubt now that Wilson and Sanchez will be traded by the deadline, so long as the Pirates can get something in return.

Neither Sanchez nor the Giants' 2Bmen did much in this series. Sanchez went three for thirteen with a double and a walk; and Juan Uribe and Kevin Frandsen went two for twelve with a double and a walk.

At the end of the day though, Freddie Sanchez is hitting .313 with an .824 OPS, while Juan Uribe is hitting .293 with a .774 OPS. More importantly, Sanchez is a much better bet to continue hitting in the second half. Uribe hasn't finished a season with an OPS higher than .713 since 2004.

The pressure is on the Giants to make a deal. They've got a real shot at making the post-season for the first time since 2003, and GM Brian Sabean is trying to hold onto his job after four consecutive losing seasons. You can bet that there was more than one conversation between Sabean and Pirates GM Neal Huntington about a possible trade for Sanchez this weekend.

Update on North American Players in Japan, Part VIII: “R”

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:36:43 -0400

Alex Ramirez, Yomiuri Giants. 34-year-old left fielder Alex Ramirez is one of the biggest Gaijin stars in Japan right now. Ramirez is originally from Venezuala and played in the U.S. mostly in the Cleveland organization and briefly for the Pirates.

In 1998 at age 23, Ramirez hit .299 with 34 HRs for the Indians’ AAA team, the Buffalo Bison, and his MLB prospects looked great. The Indians had a great team then, and there wasn’t a lot of room for Ramirez on the major league roster.

Ramirez played well for the Tribe in 89 games in 1999 and 2000. The latter year he was traded late in the season to the Pirates, where he played poorly, hitting only .209 with a .637 OPS in 43 games.

Ramirez was already 26 years old at this point, and the Pirates obviously didn’t think he had a future with them, because they allowed him to sign with the Yakult Swallows for the 2001 season.

He hit .280 with 29 HRs that first year for the Swallows and has never looked back. He now has 267 career HRs in Japan to go with a .303 career average.

He hit .333 with 40 HRs, driving in 124 runs and scoring 105 in 2003. He hit .343 in 2007; and last year he set Japanese career highs with 45 HRs and 125 RBI’s. It was the third time he had driven in at least 120 and sixth year in a row he had driven in at least 104.

2008 was Alex’s first year with Yomiuri. It was a classic case of a big, highly paid star moving from the Swallows, who couldn’t afford him, to the super-rich Giants, who could.

Alex is beginning to show his age this year. After 79 games, he’s hitting .301 with only 11 homeruns. At his current pace, he’ll set a Japanese career low for homeruns this year. He has 56 RBI’s so far, so there’s also a chance he won’t collect 100 for a seventh consecutive season. Of course, one has to remember that foreign players in Japan generally play better in the second half, so there’s still hope.

The biggest knocks on Ramirez are that he rarely walks (39 is his season high), he strikes out a lot (at least 100 seven times) and he grounds into a lot of double plays (138 times in 8.5 seasons).

Darrell Rasner, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. This was a signing I thought highly of this past off-season, based on Rasner’s age (28 this year) and past MLB success. It hasn’t worked out that way, however.

Yankees’ fans will remember that Rasner went 5-10 for them last year with a 5.40 ERA. The Yankees gave Rasner as much work as they did primarily because their pitching last year was awful and their staff was plagued by injuries.

Still, at the end of last season, Rasner had a MLB career 5.00 ERA, largely as a starter, with 93 Ks and 54 BBs over 165.2 career innings, which suggested he was good enough to have success in Japan.

However, Rasner went 3-4 after his first ten starts for the Golden Eagles with a brutal 6.62 ERA, and they sent him down to their minor league team. He served up eight gopher balls in 51.2 IP, which will really rowdy up the old ERA.

At the Golden Eagles’ minor league outpost, Rasner has pitched well after five starts. He’s only 1-2, but his ERA is 3.49, and he has 23 Ks and 9 BBs in 28.1 IP. The Golden Eagles probably won’t give up on him just yet.

Chris Resop, Hanshin Tigers. Chris Resop is a 26 year old right-handed pitcher who appeared in 57 major league games, all in relief, for the Marlins, Angels and Braves between 2005 and 2008. He had an ugly 5.61 ERA for his MLB career and almost as many walks and strikeouts.

After pitching poorly for the Braves last year, they sold his contract to the Hanshin Tigers on July 7, 2008. He appeared in eight games for the Tigers last year and pitched poorly. He had a 6.75 ERA and had only six Ks and 7 BBs in 21.1 IP.

This year Resop has appeared in twelve games for the Tigers’ farm team, and he hasn’t pitched much better than he did last year. He has a 5.21 ERA in 19 IP, but does have 21 Ks and only six walks allowed.

Resop’s still listed on the Tigers’ roster, but so is Kevin Mench, who has long since been released. My educated guess would be that the Tigers have already released Resop as well.

The Japanese teams don’t have much patience with American players playing badly on their minor league teams for big money. According to japanesebaseball.com, Resop’s contract with the Tigers calls for a $650,000 salary this year, which is a lot of money for no performance.

Tuffy Rhodes, Orix Buffaloes. I’m sure that most of you already know that Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes has probably had the greatest Japanese career of any player from the Americas.

Tuffy was originally a hot prospect in the States who failed despite quite a few opportunities in MLB. He’s originally from Cincinnati, and he was taken by the Astros in the 3rd Round of the 1986 Draft (68th player selected.)

When he started in organized baseball, Tuffy was originally a speed demon with no power. He stole 65 bases in the A+ Florida State League in 1988, and in his first seven professional seasons through 1992, he hit a grand total of 16 HRs. The Astros gave him looks each year from 1990 through 1992, but he wasn’t a major league hitter yet, and he played poorly.

Tuffy suddenly developed power at age 24 at AAA Omaha and Iowa in 1993. He .318 with 43 doubles and 30 HRs in 490 AB’s.

Tuffy played well as a late season call-up and started the 1994 season as the Cubs every-day centerfielder.

On Opening Day 1994 (4/4/94), Tuffy went four for four with three homeruns, all hit off the Mets’ Dwight Gooden. That was pretty much the lone high-light of his major league career, though.

He hit five homeruns in 265 ABs the rest of the season and finished the year with a .234 batting. After another slow start for the Cubs in 1995, he was traded to the Red Sox and spent most of the year playing at AAA Pawtucket.

Tuffy didn’t hit in a brief late-season call-up by the Sox and signed with the Kintetsu Buffaloes to play the 1996 season in Japan.

He wasn’t a great player in Japan right away. He hit .293 with 27 HRs in 1996, .307 with 22 HRs and 102 RBIs in 1997, and only .257 with 22 HRs in 1998.

He had his first great season in 1999, hitting .301 with 40 HRs and 101 RBS’s. He regressed back to what appeared to be his norm in 2000, hitting only .272 with 25 HRs and striking out 134 times. (Good year or bad, Tuffy has struck out more than 100 times every single full season he’s played in Japan.)

Tuffy had the year that made him legendary in 2001. He hit 55 HRs, becoming the first player to tie Sadaharu Oh’s single season Japanese record, at which point the Pacific League’s pitchers stopped pitching to him. At least, they let Rhodes tie the record; when Randy Bass reached 54 in 1985, the Central League’s pitchers stopped throwing him strikes. Of course, the same happened yet again when Alex Cabrera reached 55 in 2002, the very next season.

Tuffy also hit .327 that year, drove in 131 runs and scored 137 runs. It wasn’t a fluke. Tuffy hit 46 HRs in 2002, 51 HRs in 2003 and 45 HRs in 2004.

After the 2003 season, Tuffy wanted a multi-year contract, which the resource-poor Buffaloes couldn’t give him, so he signed with the Yomiuri Giants for 2004 and 2005 at roughly $5 million per year.

After a great year in 2004 for the Giants, he had a difficult, injury-plagued season in 2005. He hit only .240 for the year, although he still hit 27 HRs in 379 ABs and drove in 70 runs.

However, Rhodes made the cardinal sin in Japan of publicly criticizing Yomiuri’s management when they criticized him for having a down year. Rhodes felt it was unfair given his past performance and his present injuries, but criticizing management doesn’t go over well in Japan, particularly when you are making the big money, and he took a lot of flack for it in the Japanese media.

Late in the 2005 season, Yomiuri released him, and no other Japanese team would offer him a contract for 2006. Tuffy came back to the States in 2006 but was cut by the Reds, his home town team, in Spring Training, and he ended up not playing anywhere that year.

In 2007, his old team (or what remained of it after the 2004 merging of the Orix Blue Wave and the Kintetsu Buffaloes) the Orix Buffaloes resigned Tuffy for less than a tenth of what Yomiuri had last paid him in 2005.

Still, it beats just about any other kind of work, and Tuffy proved he still had an awful lot left, clubbing 42 HRs, hitting .291, his highest batting average since 2001, and drawing 88 walks in ‘07.

In 2008, he hit 40 HRs and drove in 118, his highest RBI total since 2001. Tuffy was off to a great start this year, hitting .327 and being one of the first player, I believe, in the Pacific League to reach ten homeruns. Alas, 40 year old ballplayers have a hard time staying healthy, and Tuffy broke a bone in his right hand, apparently by getting hit with a pitch, on May 13 and hasn’t played since.

Rhodes now stands at 453 HRs hit in Japan, far and away the most by any American player. I also assume that that he’s also the all-time American leader in runs scored (1,079), RBIs (1,230), walks (928) and strikeouts (1,608). He’s sort of the Reggie Jackson of Japan, and he’s extremely popular there, now that the 2005 brew-haha with Yomiuri is water under the bridge. Everyone’s entitled to one mistake, right?

He’s played in Japan for so many years now (2009 is his 13th season) that he is no longer considered a “foreign” player for purposes of the cap on foreign teams on Japanese major league rosters.

San Francisco Giants: At Least One Team Wasn't Colluding Last Off Season

Tom Dubberke — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:06:33 -0400

Recent reports say that baseball player agents have been pushing the Players’ Union to file a grievance, alleging that the owners were up to their old collusion tricks again this past off season.

The Union’s leadership doesn’t seem to be convinced, however, because there haven’t been any rumblings indicating that the Union is seriously considering bringing such a grievance.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Bud Selig stridently denies that collusion has occurred. However, Selig’s pronouncements on a subject such as this are about as believable as Dick Cheney’s statements about the rock-solid intelligence showing Saddam Hussein’s connections to Al Qaeda.

The owners’ best argument against collusion in the 2008-2009 off season is the Giants and their GM Brian Sabean. Sabean this past off season did the same thing he does every off season: race to sign the players he wants right away before the market goes up.

Most years this is a good strategy. As the off season progresses, the market prices for top free agents generally goes up, and Sabean ends up signing the guys he wants for relatively reasonable prices; the Barry Zito signing being a particularly notable exception.

This off season, Sabean raced to sign shortstop Edgar Renteria and pitchers Jeremy Affeldt and Bob Howry at the beginning of the free agent signing period. The market then dropped precipitously, and it turned out that Sabean way overpaid.

There isn’t a whole lot of difference between Renteria and Orlando Cabrera, except that the Giants gave Renteria about $14 million more in guaranteed money than the A’s gave Cabrera. Sabean also gave Affeldt and particularly Howry more than they would have gotten if Sabean had waited.

Sabean has his modus operandi, and in most years it works for him. However, I was none too impressed with Sabean this past off season, when the economy crashed in September before the season had even ended, and he still went out and paid top dollar as if the baseball player market would still operate as it does in boom times.

Obviously, the Yankees weren’t colluding either. As always, they spent like drunken sailors to get the three free agents they wanted most.

Finally, I don’t think the Braves were colluding either, given the ridiculous four-year $60 million contract they gave Derek Lowe.

It’s so rare that the owners act like rational business men when it comes to signing free agents, that it’s a little hard to believe when they do act rationally.

However, anyone in his right mind was spooked when the banks nearly collapsed in September, and once the owners began to act with caution, and the market for free agents fell, most of the teams waited on the sidelines to see how far prices would fall before getting back into it.

At the end of the day, though, the top free agents still made a boat-load of money.

San Franciso Giants Minor League Update

Tom Dubberke — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:05:32 -0400

Now that we’ve reached the All-Star Game, it’s a good time to find out what the youngsters are doing down on the farm.

Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies

The Grizzlies are presently 45-45 and in third place in their four team division.

The Giants recently called up John Bowker, and he hit a HR in the last game before the break, so he should stick around for a while, unless the Giants trade him.

His final numbers in 285 first-half ABs: 17 HRs, .347 batting average, .448 OBP and 1.062 OPS.

First baseman Jesus Guzman’s OPS fell below .900 briefly, but it’s back up to .921. He’s hitting .330 with 11 HRs.

Middle infielder Kevin Frandsen, who’s back up with the Giants as Juan Uribe’s back-up, finished his half season at Fresno with a .304 batting average, a .355 OBP and .810 OPS. Second baseman Matt Downs, who’s back in Fresno, is very similar at a .289 batting average, .337 OBP and an. 803 OPS.

Third baseman Ryan Rohlinger had a solid first half. He hit .283 with a .358 OBP and a .789 OPS. He’s not ready for prime time, but he’s getting close.

As you probably know, Emmanuel Burriss is out with a broken toe and won’t be back for a couple of months. Eugenio Velez is playing mostly centerfield for the Grizzlies. He’s hitting .279 with a .338 OBP and a .757 OPS.

As for the pitchers, Kevin Pucetas is still the ace of the rotation. He got hit hard on Saturday, however, and his ERA has jumped to 3.57. He still has an 8-2 record with 30 walks and 63 K’s in 108.1 IP.

Ramon Ortiz is still pitching well, although his ERA has climbed to 3.36. This is mostly a result of him being used as a starter again. He’s only 1-2, but he has 57 K’s and 21 BB’s in 61.2 IP, so it looks like he’s jumped back in front of Pucetas as the guy mostly likely to get the call if the Giants need another pitcher.

Osiris Matos has had a solid but unspectacular first half. His ERA is 3.38 with 25 K’s and eight BB’s in 32 IP. Unless he picks it up in the second half, I doubt he’ll get a call-up until the rosters expand in September.

Alex Hinshaw has turned his season around. Before giving up two earned runs in his last appearance, he’d had seven consecutive outings without allowing an earned run. He’s still wild as a march hare, with 28 walks and 42 K’s in 34.2 IP, though his ERA is down to 4.15.

Felix Romero has had a strong first half, recording 48 K’s and only nine walks in 51.1 IP. Unfortunately for him, at age 29 and sporting a 3.86 ERA in relief, he’s probably low on the Giants’ totem pole. Similarly, Geno Espinelli’s ERA is at 3.89, which won’t get him a call-up any time soon.

Billy Sadler is having a lost season. The Giants made him a starter this year at Fresno, and after 13 starts, he has a 5.34 ERA. He’s also been battling injuries that he limited him to two starts in the last five weeks.

Joe Martinez, after his skull fracture, is pitching again. After two starts at Fresno, he has a 3.27 ERA, so he’s in the mix for a Second Half promotion.

A Grizzlie newbie worth mentioning is 24-year-old Steve Edlefsen. As the name perhaps suggests, he’s from Minneapolis. He’s made two successful starts for the Grizzlies; and pitching at three levels (mostly A+ San Jose), he’s got a combined 1.48 ERA with 50 K’s and 22 walks in 42.2 IP. He doesn’t have major league control yet, but he’s got the stuff to be a good dark horse candidate.

Double-A Connecticut Defenders

The Defenders are 53-37 and in first place of their six-team division by a whopping seven games.

Second baseman Brock Bond has quietly put up a big first half at a very difficult place to hit. In 278 AB’s, he’s hitting .342 with a .432 OBP and an .842 OPS. These numbers are terrific for a 23-year-old middle infielder playing at home in Norwich.

The Defenders’ home park Dodd Stadium is listed as 309 feet down the lines, but 401 in center. Apparently, the ball does not carry well at all there, because it is reportedly an extremely difficult place to hit home runs from power alley to power alley. Pitchers pitch power hitters there middle-away and hope they hit it into the center of the outfield.

At this moment, Bond looks like a better prospect, at least with the bat, than either Matt Downs or Kevin Frandsen, who are two and four years older respectively. Too bad that he probably won’t be promoted to AAA until late in the season, given the solid performances by Downs and Frandsen at Fresno.

The only knock on Bond that I can see is that he has no power. However, teams generally don’t look to their middle infielders for power. If a middle infielder gets on base (and Bond has a career minor league OBP of .418 so far), that’s enough.

First baseman Brett Pill is hitting .303 and leads the Defenders (by five) with nine HR’s (Dodd Stadium really is a tough place to hit home runs). He has an .816 OPS.

Rightfielder EddyMartinez-Esteve is stuck at Connecticut for a second season. He hit .298 last year, but didn’t get promoted to Fresno because he doesn’t have a enough power, which may be unfair given the park he plays his home games in.

This year he’s hitting .310 with a .372 OBP and an .813 OPS. He’s 25 this year, which is getting old for a Double-A player.

Catcher Tyler LaTorre is hitting .286 with a .767 OPS, and CF Mike McBryde is hitting .296 with a .764 OPS. Both are a little old to be good prospects.

Shortstop Brandon Crawford, who hit so well at A+ San Jose the first month of the season, is finding out how hard it is to hit AA pitching in a pitchers’ park. He’s hitting .254 with a .653 OPS, after hitting .371 with a 1.045 OPS at San Jose. At 22-years-old, he’s still a real prospect, however.

As you would expect in an extreme pitchers’ park, the Defenders have a lot of pitchers with fine numbers. To start with the most important prospect there, Madison Bumgarner now has a 6-1 record and a 1.74 ERA in 57 AA innings with 44 hits allowed, 15 walks and 45 K’s.

The strikeout total is perhaps not quite as high as you might expect for a pitcher with Bumgarner’s pedigree, but you can’t complain about any of the other numbers at all. If he continues to pitch this way at Connecticut, I expect he will be promoted to Triple-A Fresno around Aug. 1.

For what it’s worth, the photos of Bumgarner that I’ve seen all show him with an expression which suggests he’s troubled by life. If players were still regularly received nicknames, I could see him one day being called “Sad Mad” Bumgarner.

After a hot start at Connecticut, Tim Alderson has found that there’s a big jump in talent between A+ and AA ball. His ERA is now 2.97 in 60.2 IP. He’s allowed 12 earned runs in 21 IP over his last four starts.

He’s allowed 58 hits, 12 walks and has 41 K’s. These are excellent numbers for a guy who’s only 20 this year, but he’s now clearly behind Bumgarner (who’s 19 this year) for the first time in their professional careers.

Third starter Henry Sosa is 6-0 with a 2.36 ERA, but his ratios aren’t impressive.

The Defenders’ three top relievers are Dan Otero, Joe Paterson and Matt Yourkin. Their ERA’s are, respectively, 1.29, 1.37 and 2.13.

Of the three, I still like Joe Paterson the best. He’s the youngest at age 23, and he’s got 43 K’s in 39.1 IP to 24-year-old Otero’s 27 K’s in 35 IP. Otero leads with 17 saves to Paterson’s 10, but that has more to do with opportunities than ability.

Matt Yourkin has 49 K’s and 16 walks allowed in 42.1 IP, but he turned 28 last week, which is getting up there for a prospect at any level of the minor leagues.

High-A San Jose Giants

As well as the Defenders are playing, the SJ Giants are even better. After winning their division with a 42-28 record in the first half, they are now 16-3 in the second half and already hold a 5.5 game lead on their five-team division.

I’m sure you’ve heard that Buster Posey was promoted today to Triple-A Fresno. He finished his California League career with a .326 batting average, a .967 OPS and 13 HRs and 23 doubles in 291 AB’s.

Posey isn’t the best hitter at San Jose this year. That title at present belongs to 21-year-old left fielder Thomas Neal, who’s hitting .344 with a 1.042 OPS. Granted, a catcher with Posey’s numbers is more valuable than a left fielder with Neal’s numbers; but just the same, Neal has played well enough that it’s time to promote him to Double-A or Triple-A.

RF Roger Kieschnick (he’s third cousins with former major leaguer Brooks Kieschnick) had a red-hot June, and although he hasn’t hit in the first half of July, his numbers at the half-way point are a .295 batting average and an .877 OPS. He leads the SJ Giants with 18 HRs and is tied for the team lead with six triples. He’s 22 this year.

After these three, it’s more a matter of who isn’t hitting than who is. Super 18-year-old Dominican prospect first baseman Angel Villalona is struggling at the A+ level. He’s hitting a respectable .267 with nine HRs, but his OPS is a feeble .704, and he has nine walks and 73 strikeouts in 292 AB’s.

He’s still a super prospect, but he isn’t going to progess until he can develop some plate discipline.

Former first-round pick third baseman Connor Gillaspie is hitting .276 with a terrific .370 OBP, put he has shown no power and has a .741 OPS. He turns 22 in three days, so he’s got time to develop, but he’s no way going to get fast-tracked like Posey.

Former first-round pick second baseman Nick Noonan has a .696 OPS, and former major league Brian Bocock has a .623 OPS. Noonan is only 20 years old this year, so his future is still bright. Bocock is 24 this year, and I rather doubt that he will ever play in the major leagues again, barring a run of injuries.

Even after the promotions of Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson, the SJ Giants still have loads of pitching. Their top three remaining starters, Craig Clark, Scott Barnes and Clayton Tanner, are a combined 26-8 with ERA’s of 2.96, 3.07 and 3.36 (remember the California League is a hitters’ league).

Of the three, I like Barnes the best at this moment. All three have great ratios, but Barnes’ numbers are a little better than Tanner’s, and both Tanner and Barnes are 21 this year, while Clark is 24.

24-year-old Daniel Runzler was recently promoted from Class A Augusta, and after 12 appearances and 13.2 IP, he has yet to allow a run at San Jose. He has a combined 0.45 ERA, with a ridiculous 12 hits allowed, 16 walks and 59 K’s in 40 IP.

His control has improved dramatically since 2008 and appears to be improving as this season progresses. If that trend continues and he stays healthy, he’s got a great future.

22-year-old Daniel Turpin has a 1.38 ERA after 46.1 IP, although his other numbers aren’t quite so impressive. 24-year-old Wilmin Rodriguez has a 1.86 ERA in 38.2 IP.

By the way, Ryan Sadowski, who was sent down to San Jose, so he could get a start over the All-Star Break, pitched six shutout innings, allowing five hits, a walk and racking up eight strikeouts. Presumably, he’ll be called up on July 19, the first day the Giants can recall him.

Single-A Augusta Green Jackets

After finishing fourth with a 35-34 record in the first half in their eight team division, the Green Jackets are currently third with a 11-9 record in the second half.

Most of the players playing well at Augusta so far are at least 23 years old already, and it’s hard to get excited about a 23-year-old playing well at this level.

19-year-old Venezualan shortstop Ehire Adrianza is looking good. He’s hitting .282 with a .353 OPS, and his defense gets good reviews. I doubt he’ll be ready by the time Edgar Renteria’s contract expires at the end of 2010, but it would probably be a good time to promote Adrianza to San Jose, based on his current performance at Augusta.

The only pitcher at Augusta who excites me is Eric Surkamp, who turns 22 tomorrow. His ERA is a solid, but not particularly impressive 3.55, but his 105 K’s and only 22 walks in 83.2 IP are exactly what you want to see from a young pitcher. With all the pitching the Giants have at San Jose, there really isn’t room for Surkamp at this moment, but he deserves a promotion to San Jose no later than August 1st.

Maybe There Is Something Wrong With Johan Santana

Tom Dubberke — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:26:29 -0400

A few weeks ago, I commented on a Buster Olney piece on ESPN.com which suggested that Johan Santana had lost something on his pitches. I’ve been paying attention to Santana’s starts ever since to see whether or not Olney was really on to something.

Santana won today as the Mets beat the Reds 4-0, pitching seven shutout innings and improved his record to 10-7.

Santana also had five strikeouts in today’s game, the first time he has had as many as five in a start since May 27. In his first ten starts this year, Santana had ten or more K’s four times, had at least seven K’s nine times, and the tenth time he had six K’s. Today’s five strikeouts was Santana’s highest total in his last eight starts.

The prolonged drop in his strikeout numbers is certainly cause for concern. Santana is still winning games because he really knows how to pitch. He doesn’t need his best stuff to keep teams in check.

However, when a strikeout pitcher suddenly has a big and prolonged drop in his strikeout numbers, it is often a sign that there’s something wrong with his arm and that an injury is on the way.

It’s still too early to predict Santana’s imminent demise. Even great pitchers have ten-start funks at times in their careers.

Hopefully, the Mets are monitoring the situation closely and are regularly communicating with Santana to see if he’s feeling any pain.

It might be a wise move to skip a start or two now and give Santana a chance to rest and regroup rather than face a more serious injury later.

A's Trade Jack Hannahan to the Mariners

Tom Dubberke — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:47:56 -0400

The A’s traded Jack Hannahan to the Mariners today for Double-A pitcher Justin Souza.

This is a real money ball trade for the A’s, where they got rid of one money ball player who didn’t pan out for a second, younger money ball player.

The A’s originally obtained Hannahan from the Tigers because of his high on-base percentages at Triple-A Toledo. He was good player in limited time in 2007, but in 2008 the A’s were forced to use him regularly at 3B due to yet another Eric Chavez injury, and AL’s pitchers quickly proved that Hannahan had no business as an everyday player.

He’s a better than average defensive thrid baseman, but he just can’t hit enough, even with the walks to justify playing him regularly.

The Mariners apparently wanted Hannahan to platoon with right-handed hitting Chris Woodward until Adrien Beltre returns from surgery on his left shoulder in mid to late August.

Souza is a 23-year-old, right-handed pitcher who the Mariners apparently didn’t regard highly, but he’s got great K/9 and K:BB ratios, which is almost certainly why A’s GM Billy Beane wanted him.

This year, used mostly as a starter for the Double-A West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx, he has a 3.35 ERA with 73 hits allowed, 18 walks and 62 strikeouts in 78 IP. Over his minor league career, his numbers are 280 IP, 306 hits allowed, 64 BB and 264 strikeouts.

Souza is something of a local boy. He’s from the Central Valley (born in Stockton, high school in Galt and college in Sacramento). That’s more or less A’s territory, so Souza is probably thrilled about the trade.

Of course, he’ll be sent to Double-A Midland, Texas to start his A’s career.

This is obviously an excellent move for the going-nowhere A’s. They trade a 29-year-old marginal major leaguer for a legitimate young prospect. The odds are probably less than 50 percent that Souza will be a solid major league contributor for the A’s, but considering the cost to obtain him, even a 20 percent chance that he will develop into a star is a good move.

At age 23 and pitching well in Double A ball, Souza’s got at least a 20 percent of being a solid major league contributor for the A’s down the line.

Derek Lowe Contract Already a Bust?

Tom Dubberke — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:30:47 -0400

When the Braves signed Derek Lowe to a four year $60M contract this past off-season, I thought it was an incredibly stupid move. Lowe is 36 this year and coming off a season at age 35 that was his best since 2002. In short, the odds were very strong that in 2009 Lowe would regress toward his mean performance level, not even taking into account his advanced age.

When you also weigh in the fact that he was moving from Dodger Stadium, one of the best pitchers’ parks in baseball, to Turner Field, which I assume is one of the better hitters’ parks in the NL, if only because it is in Atlanta (because of the relatively high elevation and hot weather, Atlanta is a good place for hitters), you could see that Lowe was not going to be worth $15M per for four years.

Lowe lost today and now has a 7-7 record with a 4.56 ERA. This seems right about where his numbers should be based on the factors listed above.

So why do teams do this to themselves when they certainly ought to know better?

A big part of it is the way that free agency has been set up. When major league players first won the right to become free agents by arbitrator Peter Seitz’s interpretation of the standard player contract’s reserve clause back in 1976, Marvin Miller, the head of the Players’ Association was thinking several moves ahead of the owners.

Once the arbitrator’s ruling came down, Miller saw that the issue of free agency would have to be collectively bargained, and that the owners would be predisposed to holding onto players as long as possible before they could become free agents. Being an economist by training, Miller saw that the owners would jump at a system that allowed them to hold onto their best players for six or seven major league seasons, without thinking ahead to the effect on the market for those players who eventually did reach free agency.

The vast majority of men who play in the major leagues don’t last six full seasons on a major league roster. The number of free agents in any given year is thus limited in number and also limited to the best players. With now thirty major league teams, and only a few really good free agent players available at each position in any given off-season, the market always wildly favors free agents.

Part of the allure of free agents, is that they are proven, veteran stars who are “free” to their signing team, in the sense that the signing team doesn’t have to give up any talent (with the exception of a single draft pick for certain of the most talented free agents offered salary arbitration by their former teams).

Thus, a free agent can be signed without weakening the signing team at all (in theory at least). With not enough free agents to go around, teams get into bidding wars to sign the top free agents.

Miller and the members of the Players’ Association, once Miller had explained it to them, were willing to a agree to a system that provided for free agency for such a small percentage of the Association’s membership, because the Players’ Association had negotiated binding salary arbitration for players with at least three seasons of major league service time starting in 1973, a concession the Association received as a result of the 1972 players’ strike. The more money owners threw at a relatively small number of free agents, the more the much larger class of arbitration eligible players could request, provided of course that their numbers were comparable to the overpaid free agents (often, not a particularly hard thing to do).

To this day, the owners hate salary arbitration far more than free agency. No one puts a gun to the owners’ heads and makes them overspend on free agents. They do so based on their own calculus. However, thanks to salary arbitration, they are forced to give young players massive raises after they reach approximately 2.8 years of major league service time.

Getting back to the Braves’ decision to overpay Lowe, it was a classic case of the free agent market in action. The Yankees, the team with by far the greatest resources and with the most to gain in terms of revenue by fielding a winning team every year no matter the cost, quickly signed the two free agent pitchers they considered the best, C. C. Sabathia and A. J. Burnett, to enormously high contracts.

Once the Yankees had sated themselves, that left Lowe as the generally regarded best free agent pitcher still available. Someone from the remaining 29 teams was going to overpay Lowe, it was just a question of which lucky team it would be.

Back in 1976, the only owner who saw the effect of free agency only after six years of service time was A’s owner Charlie Finley. He proposed that all players be allowed to become free agents after every season. While the best players would get huge contracts, the vast majority of major league players would find themselves competing with each other for a limited number of major league jobs.

This is, in fact, what we have now in a limited way. Many, many players in recent years have been non-tendered when they reach the service time requirement for salary arbitration. This way, teams don’t have to give these players a guaranteed big raise, and can then pick and choose among the players non-tendered by all the other teams who are competing for a more limited number of major league jobs.

Teams that are good at this process can staff the back half of their bullpens, their benches and even the odd starting slot at bargain prices. For example, the Giants have Justin Miller pitching for them this year, probably for less than $500,000, solely because the Marlins didn’t think Miller was worth what he certainly would have gotten in arbitration had the Marlins kept him.

However, the other owners thought Finley was a kook and ignored him. The owners wanted to hold onto their stars as long as they could. It now turns out Finley was right after all.

Who knows? It’s certainly possible that Derek Lowe could go 10-2 in the second half of ‘09 and lead the Braves deep into the post-season. I highly doubt it, however.

At least one thing can be said in favor the Braves’ decision to sign Derek Lowe: no matter how badly it turns out for the Braves, it will not be nearly as big a mistake as the Giants’ decision to sign Barry Zito for seven years and $126M in December of 2006.

Some Teams Don't Know What They're Doing

Tom Dubberke — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:28:48 -0400

Not only did the Washington Nationals trade off 24 year old Lastings Milledge for Nyjer Morgan, who turns 29 tomorrow, but the Nats have now sent Elijah Dukes down to AAA Syracuse to make room for Morgan on their roster. Wow!

The Nats have taken their top two young outfielders from 2008 and turned them into Nyjer Morgan. Dukes was only hitting .244, but his .723 OPS is 16 points better than Morgan’s, and Dukes is four years younger.

It might not hurt Dukes to play every day in AAA to get his stroke back. However, the odds are just as good that he will be alienated by the decision to send him down in the same way Lastings Milledge was, thus forcing the Nats to trade him for less than his full value.

Nyjer Morgan is under control for probably four more years after this one, but so what? He’s done nothing in his major or minor league career to suggest that he’s got the kind of upside Milledge or Dukes has.

Even if the Nats successfully sign Stephen Strasburg, and he lives up to the hype, and Jordan Zimmerman continues to develop (Zimmerman BTW really is good: although his ERA is currently 4.65, with 69 K’s and only 20 BB’s in 69.2 IP as a 23 year old rookie, he’s obviously extremely talented), the Nats aren’t going to be able to build a pennant-contending team if they aren’t willing to develop young players at the positions, aside from Ryan Zimmerman.

Teams simply don’t get enough high first round draft picks to build an entire team around.

Giants Scouting Jermaine Dye?

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:35:34 -0400

Rumors have been abounding that the Giants are scouting White Sox OF Jermaine Dye and the Indians C/1B Victor Martinez as possible trade candidate for the end of July deadline.

Frankly, it’s a stupid thing for the Giants to be doing. Dye and Martinez are certainly proven hitters and reliable commodities, but the cost of either player (if, in Dye’s case, the ChiSox are out of the race in the AL Central at the trade deadline, which I doubt) in terms of prospects and salary is just too high, when the Giants have low-cost options at home.

John Bowker, who plays the corner outfield positions and 1B, went 3 for 3 in last night’s ball game in Fresno, hit his 15th HR, and is now hitting .354 with a 1.075 OPS for the year at AAA.

At 1B at the major league level, Travis Ishikawa is finally starting to hit. He has hit four of his five HRs this year since June 17, and he has an .886 OPS for the month of June. Finally, the Giants need another catcher about as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

In a previous post about how the Giants should promote Bowker, I got some responses to the effect that Bowker got his chance at the major league level last year, and didn’t cut the mustard, so the Giants should look somewhere. This argument fails to take into account the fact that young players get better each year, generally until the year in which they hit 28.

I will agree that Bowker didn’t hit enough for a first baseman last year, the position where the Giants had an opening. However, Bowker was not terrible, and his performance at AAA Fresno this year suggests that he has improved considerably between 2008 and 2009. At age 25 this year (he turns 26 on July 8), he’s still young enough to have a major league career, provided he gets another chance to show what he can do.

The Giants should give Bowker that chance before wasting talent and money on the likes of a Jermaine Dye or Victor Martinez.

100th Anniversary of Forbes Field's Opening and More Recent Events

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:08:37 -0400

Here’s a terrific AP article about the opening of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field 100 years ago today.

Forbes Field had some of the deepest outfield fences in major league history, which made it a tremendously difficult place to hit home runs. But it was a great place to hit for line drive-hitters with alley power like Roberto Clemente, Paul Waner and Arky Vaughn, who between them won seven batting titles and led the NL in triples six times.

Because of the huge outfield expanse, no no-hitter was ever pitched there in the 61 seasons it was the Pirates’ home (1909-1969). It’s also no surprise that Owen Wilson, who set the single season record with 36 triples in 1912, was a Pirate that year.

In more recent Pirates’ news, they traded Eric Hinske to the Yankees today for two 23-year old prospects, pitcher Casey Erickson and OF Eric Fryer. Neither has played above A+ and both were 10th round draft picks.

I like Erickson better of the two because he has 169 K’s and only 43 BB’s in 182 minor league innings pitched. Fryer had a fine year in the Class A Sally League last year, but at age 22, that’s not particularly impressive.

It’s still a good trade for the Pirates, however. A 31-year-old role player like Hinske (he turns 32 in August) is a luxury a going-nowhere team like the 2009 Pirates don’t need. Better to move him along and improve their minor league talent base.

The Pirates have been busy.

The website mlbtraderumors.com reports that the Pirates and the Nationals have agreed in principal to trade Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett with Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan. These are two teams with not a lot to suggest they have any idea what they’re doing, but I like the Pirates’ end of this deal much more than the Nats'.

Lastings Milledge is having a terrible, injury-plagued season, but he’s only 24 this year. He had a fine year for the Nats last year and was the 12th player selected in the 2003 Draft.

When the Nats signed Adam Dunn this offseason, the best argument of the people who criticized the signing was that signing Dunn was a mistake if it meant that the Nats failed to continue developing Milledge and Elijah Dukes.

It turns out the critics were right.

In less than half a season’s time, the Nats have turned Milledge, who appeared to be a budding star, into Nyjer Morgan, a 28 year old back-up outfielder with a career major league OPS of .727.

Morgan runs well and will help the Nats right now with defense, but there’s no way in the world he’s worth a Lastings Milledge to a team that will almost certainly finish 2009 with the worst record in baseball.

I don’t see a lot of difference between Hanrahan and Burnett. Burnett is pitching better this year, was once a first round draft pick (19th overall in 2000), and at 26 is a year younger than Hanrahan.

However, Hanrahan has better stuff. Burnett has 95 K’s and 77 BB’s in 160.2 major league innings, while Hanrahan has 171 K’s and 94 BB’s in 168 major league innings. Even assuming that Burnett is a ground ball pitcher and the fact that Hanrahan has been terrible this year, I’d rather have Hanrahan going forward.

It’s good to see the Pirates apparently doing something right for a change.

I read an article by Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday in which Pirates GM Neal Huntington said that signing Ian Snell to an $8.6 million multi-year deal before the 2008 season was probably a mistake. Yes, Snell has been sent down to the minors (where he struck 17 batters in seven innings in his first start at AAA), but given his age two years ago (25) and Snell’s strong seasons in 2006 and 2007, it was a good move to make at the time—the kind of move the Pirates should make in similar circumstances in the future.

Also, the $8.6M Snell was guaranteed over several years is really peanuts for a starting pitcher nowadays. He’s still got a year-and-a-half and $5.8 million left on his contract. If he can get himself straightened out at AAA, he might yet earn his salary as a Pirate.

It just seems like bad policy to be blasting your players before you can be absolutely sure that the signing was a mistake. I mean, it’s not like the Pirates are paying Barry Zito money to Snell for a similar level of performance.

Perhaps the Giants can swing a trade for Snell in exchange for Randy Winn. Both players have big salaries, and the Pirates were a god-send a few years ago when they took all of Matt Morris’ remaining contract and gave the Giants a major league player (albeit a mediocre one) in Rajai Davis back in 2007.

Watch Out for Those Small Right-Handers

Tom Dubberke — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:58:46 -0400

Tim Lincecum completely shut down the Cardinals today, throwing a 2-hit shutout in only 95 pitches while striking out eight and not allowing a walk. One of the Cardinals’ two hits was a double by Pujols, the best hitter in the National League, if not baseball.

The thing that made Lincecum so tough tonight, I suspect, is that the Cardinals have seen very little of him. This was only his third start of his career against the Redbirds and the first since April of last year. With his unusual motion, his stuff and his ability to mix pitches, he’s got to be extremely tough on any team that hasn’t faced him in well over a year.

If you’re the Cardinals in these circumstances, your best hope is that Lincecum’s control isn’t sharp that night. If he can locate his fastball and keep his change-up down, there’s pretty much no hope.

Speaking of small right-handers, Roy Oswalt also pitched a two-hit complete game victory against the Padres in San Diego. Oswalt never fails to amaze me. The last couple of years, I have expected Oswalt’s arm to give out, given his small size and all the innings he’s pitched for the Astros. Similar to Tim Hudson last year.

After a rough first four months of the season last year, Oswalt was dominating in August and September. After a slow start this year, his pitching in June has been better than either May or April. After being worked like a dog in 2004 and 2005 (a combined 478.2 IP), his innings pitched totals have fallen each of the last three full seasons, and his ERA has risen. He’s too good of a pitcher to write off just yet, but the trend is certainly not good.

Sunday Night Musings

Tom Dubberke — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:49:40 -0400

I’m back from a weekend trip to Feather Falls (Falls lovely, weather too hot). Now that I’m back I see that the Indians traded Mark DeRosa to the Cardinals for Chris Perez and a player to be named later.

Looks like a good move for both clubs. The Cards get a player who can play four or five different positions and can hit. The Indians, who were going nowhere, trade a 34-year old player for a young pitcher with talent who turns 24 next Wednesday.

Chris Perez looks like the real deal. He was the 42nd player selected in the 2006 Draft, and after 64.1 big league innings, he has a 3.78 ERA with 71 K’s. He has a minor league career ERA of 2.71 with 151 K’s in 113.1 IP. The only real concern with Perez is his command. Given his age and performance so far, it’s likely that in two or three years, he’ll be the Indians closer or top set-up man.

Seven year minor leaguer Ryan Sadowski got called up by the Giants and pitched six shutout innings against the Brewers in Milwaukie to get the win in his first major league appearance. In all honesty, however, I’m not convinced that he’s got much of a major league future. He’s 26 already (turns 27 in October), and his minor league numbers haven’t been particularly impressive.

Sadowski only got the call-up because Kevin Pucetas, who is two years younger and has been pitching better than Sadowski at Fresno, pitched in the last couple of days. The Giants put Rich Aurillia on bereavement leave in connection with the death of Aurillia’s father, so I doubt that Sadowski will be around long enough to get more than one more appearance, if that.

I suspect that Sadowski’s success in today’s game was in large part due to the fact that no one at the major league level knows anything about him. He allowed three walks and had only to two K’s, which does not suggest that he’s got great stuff.

The Yokohama Bay Stars of Japan’s Central League recently inquired about obtaining the right to negotiate with Sadowski, but were rebuffed by the Giants. It would not surprise me at all if Sadowski ultimately has more success pitching in Japan than in the majors. Japanese teams love 4-A players with at least some major league experience, and now Sadowski has that.

In the Blind Squirrel Finds Nut category I noticed that Matt Palmer improved to 7-1 today, and former Giant David Aardsma picked up his 16th save. Palmer got the win despite allowing six earned runs in five innings pitched, and his ERA jumped to 5.16. He’s a guy with a lot of heart, but not so much talent, and one has to think his luck could turn on him at any time. However, the Angels are good team, and Palmer may yet squeeze 10-13 wins out of this season.

Aardsma has a lot more talent that Palmer, but I’m not really convinced that Aardsma has finally turned a corner in this career. The problem is that, as well as he’s pitched this year, his control, which has always been his Achilles’ heal, still sucks.

Aardsma has a 1.49 ERA after tonight’s game, but he has allowed 22 BB’s in 36.1 IP. His ERA is so low because he’s only allowed 20 hits and has struck out 46. His walks per nine innings pitched rate is 5.5, almost equal to his career rate of 5.6 coming into this season.

Pitchers with Aardsma’s strikout stuff usually turn a corner when they develop control. Aardsma hasn’t done that this season. Instead, he’s given up far fewer hits and struck out even more hitters than he has in the past. If his control hasn’t really improved, I’m doubtful he’ll be able to keep pitching the way he has so far this year, at least not with the consistency you want from a closer.