Thursday, June 30, 2016

100 Home Runs for multiple teams.

Through 2015 100 career Home Runs (HR) have been hit by an individual for a team 588 times, including multiples for some players.

56 players hit at least 100 HR with at least two teams.

5 players did it with three teams, the maximum.

qryBatting100HRTeam
LastOfname FirstOfnameFirst FirstOfnameLast SumOfHR MinOfyearID MaxOfyearID SumOfAB
Los Angeles Dodgers Adrian Beltre 147 1998 2004 3462
Texas Rangers Adrian Beltre 135 2011 2015 2838
Seattle Mariners Adrian Beltre 103 2005 2009 2823


qryBatting100HRTeam
LastOfname FirstOfnameFirst FirstOfnameLast SumOfHR MinOfyearID MaxOfyearID SumOfAB
San Francisco Giants Darrell Evans 142 1976 1983 3728
Detroit Tigers Darrell Evans 141 1984 1988 2349
Atlanta Braves Darrell Evans 131 1969 1989 2896


qryBatting100HRTeam
LastOfname FirstOfnameFirst FirstOfnameLast SumOfHR MinOfyearID MaxOfyearID SumOfAB
Kansas City Athletics Reggie Jackson 269 1967 1987 4686
New York Yankees Reggie Jackson 144 1977 1981 2349
California Angels Reggie Jackson 123 1982 1986 2331


qryBatting100HRTeam
LastOfname FirstOfnameFirst FirstOfnameLast SumOfHR MinOfyearID MaxOfyearID SumOfAB
New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez 342 2004 2015 5352
Seattle Mariners Alex Rodriguez 189 1994 2000 3126
Texas Rangers Alex Rodriguez 156 2001 2003 1863


qryBatting100HRTeam
LastOfname FirstOfnameFirst FirstOfnameLast SumOfHR MinOfyearID MaxOfyearID SumOfAB
Cleveland Indians Jim Thome 337 1991 2011 4711
Chicago White Sox Jim Thome 134 2006 2009 1770
Philadelphia Phillies Jim Thome 101 2003 2012 1341

Fred McGriff had 130, 125, 99 with the Braves, Jays, Rays.

No player has hit at least 100 HR for more than three teams.

Baseball is committing suicide.

I'm watching the Yankee game and also some Wimbledon tennis matches. Baseball is a team game and tennis is for individuals. Tennis players have personal coaches. Baseball has team coaches during games, who appear far too often, especially the coach for the pitchers who are performing something that's pretty similar to what tennis players do, standing there all by themselves.

But tennis coaches are forbidden to not even flash signs during a match much less speak to a player, not even between games or sets when the players are resting.

Eliminate all on field coaching during baseball games and get those silly base coaches the heck off the field. Football and basketball players do not have coaches on the playing areas. Baseball is beyond ridiculous.

And the batters are now walking away from the plate between pitches again. Remember way back to the beginning of the 2015 season when new commissioner Manfred, the A-Rod Slayer, made his wimpy attempt to eliminate the dreaded dead time between pitches? It never really happened and the pace of play is as bad as ever.

Baseball is a dying sport because it is committing suicide.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Seven hours, 39 minutes for nine innings.

Rain. Last night's game at Yankee Stadium was scheduled to start at 7:05 PM but started late because of fear of rain. Then much of the late innings were played in the rain. Finally, the game was stopped in the top of the 9th inning at 10:40 PM and did not resume for a few more hours. It was completed at 2:44 AM this morning. That's seven hours, 39 minutes from the scheduled start time for nine innings. Oh, Texas won 9-6.

Constitutional amendments for team sports. Friday, June 8, 2012

Team sports really means baseball, football and basketball, the only sports that count.

Why constitutional amendments?  Obviously, the dominant professional organizations (MLB, NFL, NBA) have not understood the urgent need for fundamental reform.  Constitutional amendments will provide the much needed framework for the reforms.  The professional leagues will then need to change their rules to conform.

1. Regular season games must end within two hours.  Playoff games may have an additional 30 minutes for overtime.

2. No overtime in the regular season.

3. No trades during the season.

4. Arenas must be dry.

5. Temperature must be reasonable for the sport.

6. Teams in a division must play the same opponents the same number of times.

7. Teams must play at least 66% of games in division.

8. Divisions must have at least six teams.

9. Replays must appear on the large screen in the arena at the same time they are broadcast.

10. Players may not unload on other players.

11. Playing areas must be uniform.

12. No pre-season games.

13. The entire season including playoffs may not exceed 180 days.

14. No common player draft.

15. Playing rules must be the same for all teams in a league.
___________________________________

Monday, June 27, 2016

Pitching has devolved to nibbling at the knees.

Aren't you tired of watching your batters taking most of their swings at pitches at or below their knees? It's even annoying to watch opposing batters do it against your pitchers. Who finds that interesting? They're not golfers, who swing at a stationary ball on the ground. And we've let ourselves become brain washed into thinking that this, along with other nonsense, is an integral and essential part of the game.

Catchers: squat to give signs, then stand to receive the pitch? Is that the evolution? Sunday, April 6, 2014

Why isn't the strike zone shoulders to belt? Thursday, May 26, 2016

The current strike zone is basically belt to knees. If you were going to cut it in half, why not use the top half, which is also closer to the eyes?

_______________

Watching from the only live perspective shown in recent decades, we now take for granted that the catcher must get as low to the ground as inhumanly possible and that the plate umpire will follow along.

In the 1950s and into the 1960s the default camera orientation for live (this was before replay) pitches was from behind and above home plate. Then cameras were placed in center field at differing angles to provide a different perspective. Gradually, the center field view became the default and finally the view from behind the plate disappeared.

This change influences our understanding. As much as pitching has evolved into a high power activity with velocities in excess of 95 miles per hour (mph) common, even these flame throwers try to throw at or below the batter's knees. They nibble at the knees.

Touch your body at the top of the strike zone. Tuesday, October 20, 2015

A couple of months ago Alex Rodriguez told teammate Nathan Eovaldi that throwing his 98 mph fastball at the knees was like throwing 92, that the batter could simply drop the bat head. Eovaldi ignored Rodriguez.

______________________

Nathan Eovaldi; high velocity, low strike outs. What, if anything, do the Yankees have in mind? Thursday, December 25, 2014

Aside from whether batters would have more difficulty hitting high v. low pitches, the point here is that until the strike zone is automated, it makes more sense for it to be high rather than low. It should be much easier for the plate umpire to call strikes from belt to shoulders, than belt to knees. After all, the umpires eyes are also up there. And batters may now have trouble with high pitches because:
- they are not required to swing at them
- they must protect against those ridiculous low pitches.

With the belt as the bottom, not the top of the strike zone, if the pitch is low, the batter still has a fighting chance of hitting it anyway, instead of flailing away as we see far too often now at pitches diving down into the dirt from the knees. Who likes that?

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Cut Alex Rodriguez? What minor league batting stats justify major league playing time?

Bring them up.

Give the kids a chance.

We'll never know about them until we try them.

You hear that kind of stuff often. It's usually vague and unfocused. It's late June, so replacing a major league player in the starting lineup with a minor league player suggests either:
- the team is so far out of contention even for the second wild card spot in the tournament that it doesn't matter
- the player to be replaced is doing so poorly that the minor league guy can't be much worse.

That second scenario has been voiced recently by a Yankee fan I know. The idea is to cut Alex Rodriguez and replace him in the lineup with 24 year old minor league outfielder Aaron Judge, who has zero major league PA. Current Yankee right fielder and top hitter Carlos Beltran would make room for Judge by replacing A-Rod as designated hitter (DH).

Yankee fans started wanting Judge on the team last year, without bothering to even check his stats.

Judge had good numbers in the lower minor leagues but I require a Candy Gram informing me that a player has done well for a season at AAA to take that player seriously. Unfortunately, Judge flopped in his first exposure to AAA pitching. In the second half of 2015 Judge had OPS .680 in 260 AAA plate appearances (PA). OPS is On base plus Slugging averages.

In 2016, thanks to a recent surge, Judge has OPS .812 in 310 PA, boosted by his 14th home run last night. That gives Judge about a full season at AAA: OPS .752 in 710 PA. Good but not anything special.

Maybe the most weight should be given to his most recent performance. But that greatly reduces the sample size.

But there is also the common sense factor: won't his performance suffer batting against major league pitching for the first time? Probably. But how much?

I'm not a statistician and do not have the data to even try a detailed analysis. But I'm guessing that teams consider all that. This post will take an anecdotal look at four prominent recent Rookie of the Year batters: two from 2012, two from 2015.

Mike Trout: Trout's highest minor league level of a substantial amount of PA was AA. Trout started his 2012 rookie season at AAA but had only 93 PA before being called up. At AAA Trout's OPS was 1.091. For this analysis, Trout's AA numbers from the previous year will be used. Trout has a tiny performance improvement over his AA numbers in his rookie season.

Bryce Harper: Like Trout, Harper started his rookie season with his first exposure at AAA: 84 PA, OPS .690. Harper was called up anyway.

Carlos Correa: Correa started his rookie season with 246 PA in the minors with these OPS:
AA 1.185
AAA .794

So far in 2016, his OPS has dropped from .857 as a rookie to .811.

Kris Bryant: The oldest of the four, Bryant dropped the most from minors to rookie. So far in 2016, his OPS has improved from .858 as a rookie to .887.

The minor league level is the highest in his final "full" season.


minorminorminorminorrookierookie
agelevelPAOPSPAOPSdif%dif
Trout19AA410.958639.963-.0050.52%
Harper18A-AA452.894597.817.077-8.61%
Correa20AA-AAA2461.007432.857.150-14.90%
Bryant22AA-AAA5941.098650.858.240-21.86%
penalty %101520
JudgeAAA5700.752.677.639.602
201624AAA3100.812.731.690.650

It would seem that the best that Yankee fans could hope for in the first major league season of Aaron Judge would be OPS .731. But lower than .700 seems more likely. Here are the OPS for the current Yankee outfielders and Rodriguez:

Brett Gardner .726
Jacoby Ellsbury .745
Carlos Beltran .900
Alex Rodriguez .666

Judge might hit better than Rodriguez in 2016 but I doubt it. Plus, there is no way that the Yankees would eat A-Rod's contract for this season and next. Oh, and A-Rod is only five home runs short of 700. Who in his right mind would rather see Aaron Judge in 2016 than Alex Rodriguez?

Friday, June 24, 2016

Big Boppers so far in 2016 ... and some notable absentees.

David Ortiz is the biggest bopper so far in 2016. Offensive WAR should probably not be included but it's is, which puts the diminutive Jose Altuve among the big boys. Below the top ten lists for oWAR, SLG, TB, HR is a matrix with points for prominent batters: rank 1 gets 10 points, 2 gets 9 points, etc.


Offensive WAR  s c a p y
1.Altuve (HOU)3.9
2.Trout (LAA)3.8
3.Bogaerts (BOS)3.8
4.Donaldson (TOR)3.4
5.Ortiz (BOS)3.3
6.Machado (BAL)3.2
7.Carpenter (STL)3.2
8.Cano (SEA)3.1
9.Ozuna (MIA)3.0
10.Bradley (BOS)2.9


Slugging %  s c a p y
1.Ortiz (BOS).697
2.Machado (BAL).605
3.Duvall (CIN).600
4.Arenado (COL).588
5.Saunders (TOR).586
6.Bruce (CIN).585
7.Cespedes (NYM).584
8.Ozuna (MIA).578
9.Murphy (WSN).575
10.Beltran (NYY).573


Total Bases  s c a p y
1.Ortiz (BOS)168
2.Cano (SEA)166
3.Machado (BAL)164
4.Betts (BOS)162
5.Arenado (COL)161
6.Trumbo (BAL)158
7.Ozuna (MIA)156
Altuve (HOU)156
9.Bogaerts (BOS)154
Murphy (WSN)154


Home Runs  s c a p y
1.Duvall (CIN)21
Frazier (CHW)21
Trumbo (BAL)21
Arenado (COL)21
5.Beltran (NYY)19
Encarnacion (TOR)19
Cano (SEA)19
8.Ortiz (BOS)18
Cruz (SEA)18
Cespedes (NYM)18
Longoria (TBR)18
Story (COL)18
Carter (MIL)18


batteroWARSLGTBHRpointsrankpoints
Ortiz511829110
Arenado4512329
Machado6232238
Cano8251847
Altuve171456
Cespedes751065
Ozuna987974
Beltran105783
Murphy99492
101

Notable by their absence:
Chris Davis: 10th in Runs & BB but 3rd in SO; OPS+ 118, 16 HR; signed big free agent contract before 2016 season.
Jason Heyward: OPS+ 79, 4 HR; signed biggest free agent contract before 2016 season; never a big bopper.
Miguel Cabrera: OPS+ 150, 16 HR; just not among 2016 big boppers. 2012 & 2013 AL MVP.
Mike Trout: OPS+ 156 (8), 0WAR 3.8 (2) behind Altuve, 14 HR. 2014 AL MVP.
Bryce Harper: OPS+ 135, 15 HR, 57 BB (2). 2015 NL MVP.
Andew McCutchen: OPS+ 93, 10 HR. 2013 NL MVP. Could be great value in mid season trade.

And for some additional perspective, top ten in Isolated Power:

ISO ranks of some others: Ozuna 20, Cano 21, Chris Davis 25, Cabrera 27, Harper 30, Murphy 37, Trout 38, McCutchen 97 with .162; Heyward has .098 but not enough PA to be ranked.