6/12: Disabled List Reunions, Pitching Past 50 & More

The weekend is here and with that (even) more baseball. The last time I wrote a column was during a Manny Parra start and coincidentally i'm writing this now as Parra is making his next start.

Last time, I made an off-comment early in the game about a long night for the bullpen based on the short length of his prior starts.....granted he didn't pitch that long Sunday (5 2/3) but he had a nice start racking up 10 K's and the bullpen kept it together to beat St. Louis.

It's been a good stretch....winning 4 of the last 5 including an extra inning win in STL and two walk-off wins against the Cubs...on the off-chance the Brewers get into contention this year, the walk-off sac bunt by Counsell could be the catalyst to an extended run of good play.

This nice stretch of play has coincided with the end of the Jeff Suppan era. Probably should of happened before the season began. I thought I would have been happier about this development but the only reaction is relief that the experience of watching him pitch (whether it be as a starter or mop-up man are over and if I do see him pitch it will be with the Brewers bats going up against him as a member of the Cardinals. Apparently, the Cardinals are looking to give Jeff Suppan a chance in their rotation......which means they may have inadvertently increased the Reds chances of getting their first playoff appearance since 1995.

On a more disturbing note, the release of Jeff Suppan allowed the Brewers to lead the league in a category. However, the bad news is that category happens to be percentage of payroll going to players no longer playing for them.

So early today, I stumbled across ABC and some new show (it's been a couple hours but I forget the name already) where they had the plays of the week on a bracket (BTW in my humble opinion, this show is downright terrible and I don't see it lasting more than a couple months.....seriously I could feel my IQ dropping by the minute watching this.....the concept is good....the execution not so much).

Anyways they had a couple 16-seed brackets and the walk-off Sac Bunt was seeded 11 against Big Baby Davis drooling after celebrating a basket.

Needless to say, Carlos Gomez did not advance to the next round (BTW Strasburg's debut won their tourney). Granted Big Baby has the advantage of doing his thing on the stage of the NBA Finals.....but c'mon i'm pretty sure people drooling after a big play happens on a regular basis. Scoring from first on a Sac-Bunt hasn't happened since 1975. That was so long ago that I wasn't even born for 8 years and the Dharma Initiative was in its prime....this may involve two teams who won't be talking about the Playoffs?! but we're talking about History?! it hasn't happened in 35 years and your reducing it to an 11-seed....you kidding me?

In the it was a matter if when not if category, Rich Harden was placed on the Disabled List for what seems like the kajillionth time. If it was anyone else, there may be speculation about the DL trip being connected to performance (Harden throw a season high 120-pitches last night, gave up 6 runs (second highest total in 2010) and has seen his ERA reach a season high of 5.68.

However, this is Rich Harden we are talking about. Harden and the Disable List are total BFFs. When all is said and done, Rich Harden is probably in the top 5 of pitchers that we will be speculating on how much they could have accomplished if not for their frequent jaunts to the DL:

other pitchers w/in this discussion would be Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets and those are just the ones that come to mind at this point.

Thus far he's only had 4 seasons where he has pitched over 100 innings. His ERA+ for those years are 114, 173, 212 & 110.....a couple decent seasons and a couple seasons that would have been Cy Young caliber if extended to a full slate of 35 starts. To further the point, players on his top 10 similar's list on his Baseball-Reference page include Felix Hernandez, Matt Cain & Adam Wainwright.....in other words health is keeping the list of elite pitchers at least one pitcher too short.

In the you never know what your gonna see/i'm glad I decided to change the channel to this game department.......Daniel Nava. So, I was aimlessly flipping through the channels and the thought came to me to see which game was on FOX during their exclusive domain known as Saturday afternoon. At that time it was 2-1 Phillies and the Red Sox had two men on (they loaded the bases shortly after)......leading to an epic matchup between Nava and Joe Blanton. The broadcasters barely get a sentence out about it being his debut, etc, etc, etc.......and then BOOM grand slam....first pitch......history made. Honestly, didn't see it coming.....Grand Slams don't happen very much as it is but to see someone do it on the first-major league pitch that they see......not bad when you start your career with a rate of 4 RBI/Pitch Seen.

That makes it the second player to make history in this weekend tilt between Red Sox/Phillies.

Yesterday, Jamie Moyer set another age-related record becoming the oldest pitcher to give up 9+ runs in a start (well, technically he was breaking his own record that he set a few years back). Even the writers of this blog (Baseball-Reference) have little to no faith in this record being broken (by someone other than Moyer)....but the door is open for it to be broken within the next five years. While many of the pitchers on this list have since retired (Maddux, Clemens, Fassero, Sad Sam Jones, etc.).....the last active player to make this list (Tim Wakefield....who made it with his May 28th start against the Royals) happens to be 4th all-time on this list (2nd amongst pitchers not named Jamie Moyer. Wakefield isn't that much younger than Moyer (43 vs. 47) and knuckle ball pitchers are known for lasting forever, for all we know Wakefield could still be pitching into his 60s if he wanted......then again Jamie Moyer might be still be pitching keeping one-step ahead in all things related to age records.

In all seriousness, I am rooting for Moyer to stay in the bigs and effective into his 50s. Seeing a pitcher be able to get hitters out this deep into his 40s and beyond is very rare and something we don't see all the time. Since Julio Franco barely missed this threshold (probably) Moyer/Wakefield may be the last hopes of seeing someone playing past 50 as MLB has been on a league-wide youth movement.

Till next time.......

6/6: The Sunday Night Column: ESPN, Brewers-Cards & My Dislike Of The Super-2 Rule

The Brewers are facing off against the Cards on Sunday Night baseball. In the I knew this year was bad but can it get any worse......the Brewers need to win tonight to avoid dropping to a tie for last-place with the Houston Astros.......ouch.

In the I feel a bit old already category, ESPN used music that I actually grew up with (Tumble In The Rough-Stone Temple Pilots). The reward for national tv...the Brewers get to go up against the buzzsaw that is Jaime Garcia.....counterting for the Brewers......Manny Parra.....if his last couple starts are any indication, we could be seeing a lot of the not so vaunted bullpen tonight.

In terms of imagery, Jon Miller was talking about the Cardinals going for a sweep as they cut to an image of a groundspeople sweeping dirt off of the right-field foul line.......yes it's been that type of year when even the groundspeople.

I haven't watched very many ESPN broadcasts this year and i'm getting a refresher course on listening to Joe Morgan. They brought up the fact of the lead-off man changing....prompted by Rickie Weeks leading the league in strikeouts amongst lead-off men and a conversation about how back in their day the lead-off man role was to bunt their way on to base. While I would prefer Rickie Weeks to play closer to his hype......its not like he's been that terrible despite the strikeouts despite the strikeouts and a .248 average he has a passable OBP (.340) and an okay OPS+ 104...in other words a lot better than your stereotypical light-hitting middle infielder leadoff man from back in the yesteryear.

Another thing to note is the broadcast team mentioned Macha and Melvin having a conference call discussing the rest of the season (primarily seeing if they can improve the pitching staff).....on the speculative side, it does trigger my thinking to what else (that they're not going to tell the public) that they are thinking about doing (i.e. will Suppan (finally) get released? what about Hoffman? does Macha get to finish the year or will they go in another direction? are they thinking about trading one of their hitters (i.e Hart to upgrade the pitching staff?). These questions and many others are likely to at some-point (maybe tomorrow maybe in a couple months, maybe in the off-season, who knows).

Taking a shot in the dark but it's safe to assume ratings for tonight's games are probably going to be lower than average.....even if the Brewers weren't south of .400, this would still be the case as this game has the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final games (despite the Onion constantly bashing the NHL for having no fans) going on at the same time.....but hey, ESPN is showing the crew Wednesday against the Cubs.

So, Weeks just went deep for the 10th time this year leading to more discussion revolving around Weeks in the context of his spot as the lead-off hitter, leading to a couple backhanded compliments. Joe Morgan praises his power (despite him being on base less than you'd like from the leadoff position. At this point I would like to note that Weeks has a higher OBP (.340) than the two Brewers players who typify the stereotypical "traditional" lead-off hitter (lack of power coupled with lots of speed) those being Carlos Gomez (.297) and Alcides Escobar (.297).

Jon Miller counters by saying Rickie Weeks has the batting line of a #5 hitter.....in other words if Weeks keeps his average in the .250-.260 range, i ain't too worried about it because he draws enough walks to keep his OBP/OPS within a respectable range (even if he isn't a "traditional" lead-off man).

OMG!!!!!!! Strasburg is making his big league debut on Tuesday. I find it a bit ironic that ESPN is going to be covering this story pretty much all day Tuesday but they weren't even able to pull off getting the broadcast for the game (which went to MLB Network instead). On a side note, this indirectly led to me making some tweaks to my Razzball team as i've ridden Craig Stammen's 5.88 ERA as far as I could as he was the pitcher who got sent down to make room for him on the roster (I also had to find someone to replace Oliver Perez who went on the DL with an inflated ERA).

As we are into June (i.e. far enough into the season to avoid the Super-2 arbitration rule) means one thing.....super-prospect call-up season. Strasburg isn't even the only mega-prospect from the NL East getting the call this week as the Marlins are calling up Mike Stanton. While he hasn't gotten the hype of Strasburg, the way Stanton has absolutely killed the ball in the minors has a better chance to be a game-changer than Strasburg.

Even if Strasburg is as good or better than advertised, the Nationals are slowly but surely coming down to earth after a better than expected start and even with a strong performance from Strasburg, there's only so much he could do every 5 days to cut into the 6 1/2 game hole the Nationals have dug (thus far).

The Marlins, while they aren't much better (28-29 5 1/2 games out) get an impact bat in the line-up every day. Stanton should give a nice jolt to the Marlins line-up and replacing him with whoever goes to the bench (probably either Chris Coghlan or Cameron Maybin). Either three things happen in the context of the playoff race. A) This isn't enough to get the Marlins into contention B) It's enough to get them in contention but not enough to get them in the playoffs C) It helps put them over the top and into the playoffs.

If options A or C happen, 2 months in the minors isn't going to be that big of a deal. However, option B seems to be the most likely at this moment. The Marlins have done enough with their hitting and pitching wise to indicate that they have at least a shot. If this happens, this (should) and likely will bring in more discussions of the "merits" of working around the Super-2 rule (i.e. would two more months of Stanton versus two less months of Coghlan or Maybin) would this have been the difference between playoffs and no playoffs.

Seriously, the yearly manipulation of the Super-2 rule is one of the things that is wrong with the game. One of these years, some GM is going to mis-calculate the 17 percent rule and have the combination of a partial season for an uber-prospect but still having to go to arbitration as a Super-2. You, know how i'm going to react? I'm going to sit back and laugh at this act of karmic retribution.

Seriously, this super-2 loophole needs to be eradicated. It doesn't benefit the prospects as they have to toil around in the minors for a couple of months even though their game is major-league ready. It doesn't benefit the fans as they are usually stuck with a less than optimal (i.e inferior product) as less-talented players like Maybin, Stammen, etc. are filling roster slots and contributing little to their teams success (versus what Stanton and Strasburg) are expected to do. Seriously, most of the time this happens it is pretty clear that the GMs are under-mining their teams chance of a playoff spot in an attempt to delay arbitration.

6/3: My Take On The Jim Joyce Incident

It's definitely been an interesting few days in Baseball. Roy Halladay threw a perfect game on Saturday night in a 1-0 win over the Marlins. Even though this happened less than a week ago, it still feels like a distant memory in the context of what has happened this week. It turns out, its pretty easy to do well in Fantasy Baseball if you happen to have the pitcher who threw a perfect game......it's even better when you also have a pitcher who threw a 1-hit shutout the night before. However, tonight I am not here to talk about what happened last weekend.

Speaking of 1-hit shutouts. Armando Gallaraga threw one last night. Unless you have been under a rock for the last 24 hours, you would already know that it could have (and should have been) a lot more than a 1-hit shutout. Of course, Gallaraga's game should have been much more (being the third perfect game in 2010 joining 209 Braden and Doc Halladay).

A few thoughts on this matter:

1) If nothing else, Jim Joyce has conducted himself like a pro:

In a season where many umpires have called teams disgraces to baseball and charged after pitchers, Jim Joyce showing some common sense has been a breath of fresh air. He manned up to his mistake, admitted he was wrong and has said/done all the right things in the aftermath (just imagine how much uglier this situation would be if Joe West would have been the umpire.)

2) This is likely to bring instant replay to baseball on a full scale:

This seems to fulfill (to most people) the doomsday scenario that having instant replay in baseball would avoid. While it would have been nice to have another perfect game on the record, its not like this call cost the Tigers the game.

Anyways, having instant replay on a full scale would be bad for baseball. This would open up a pandora's box of when replay is applied and when replay isn't. Is it going to get to the point where its used to dispute every ball that is on the fringe of the strike zone? Is it used to validate each and every play? Will it be possible to finish a game in under 10 hours to satisfy all the replay advocates?

3) Reversing the ruling to change it to a perfect game would have set a DANGEROUS precedent:

As much as I dislike Bud Selig and as reluctant as I am to say anything positive about him ever, I do have to concede that he made the right call by holding up the ruling. Seriously, if this call would have been reversed it would give the perception that you could arbitrarily re-write the history of the game.

Take this unrealistic scenario for example: Joyce's blown call was compared to the blown call in the 1985 World Series. What if in the aftermath of this reversed call, they decide to reverse the Don Denkinger call that was seen as the turning point of the World Series. Seriously, would they have them replay the rest of Game 6 (and Game 7 if need be 25 years later?).

Seriously, it would take at least a couple years to convince people that the Royals were a respectable team once (let alone play in and win a World Series). When you look at the Royals these days George Brett ain't walking through that door, Bret Saberhagen ain't walking through that door, Frank White ain't walking through that door.

Going down I-70 to St. Louis.....while the Cardinals are still competitive the likes of Todd Worell, Terry Pendelton and Jack Clark have one thing in common? They ain't walking through that door.

In all seriousness though, if last night's call gets reversed, we'll be stuck with more re-plays, re-dos and mulligans that we won't get to the playoffs till January. If the 1990s have the black eye of Steroids, this reversal would have ushered in the 2010s era of the mulligan.

Does this sound like fun? I didn't think so. I already made the next point but i'll do it again, while we did get deprived of some history and that is disappointing the big picture is that ULTIMATELY WINNING THE GAME IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HOW IT IS WON AND THIS MISTAKE DID NOT COST THE TIGERS THE GAME. Now all I can do is sit and hope that the reaction over this mistake is not used to have the machines (instant replay) become a disgrace to the game.