In Better News
I’m back on KJR tomorrow at 3:35 pm – Groz is filling in for the day, so they’re pulling me back out to issue a post mortem on this horrible, awful team.
Game 48, Mariners at Tigers
Batista vs Bonderman, 10:05 am.
Jeremy Bonderman has the second highest walk rate of any pitcher in the AL this year, putting 14.3% of all batters he faces on via the free pass. Miguel Batista has the fourth highest walk rate in the AL this year, putting 13.5% of all batters he faces on via the free pass.
This game is going to be torture, but slightly less torturous than usual – Reed in left, Ibanez at DH. Yep, they actually did something that we like. Turbo sits down, the defense gets better… I mean, really, this is pretty obvious, right?
Baek designated for assignment
Because someone has to take the fall for the awful pitching and God knows it can’t be Silva, Washburn, or Burke, personal catcher to the immature and poor interviews.
Because boy, is this bullpen exhausted!
| Who | Today, May 21 | Day -1, May 20 | Day -2, May 19 | Day -3, May 18 | Previous |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baek | 38 | 35 | off | May 12 | |
| Green | off | 20 | May 14 | ||
| Lowe | 16 | off | May 16 | ||
| Morrow | off | May 16 | |||
| Putz | off | 14 | May 17 | ||
| Rhodes | off | 3 | May 16 | ||
| Rowland-Smith | 35 | 16 | off | May 16 |
Oooooooooooooor not.
My Favorite Pitch Sequence Ever
You know what you haven’t tried yet, Jarrod? That 85-87 MPH fastball. I bet that will fool them. Try it again.
It could be worse
Imagine how badly Washburn would have pitched if McLaren didn’t give him a catcher he felt comfortable working with, who could communicate well with.
Game 47, Mariners at Tigers
Washburn vs Rogers, 4:05 pm.
Before the game, McLaren announced that Jamie Burke is now going to be the personal catcher for both Jarrod Washburn and Erik Bedard, meaning that Johjima and Burke will split the catching duties 60/40.
“You’ve got to look at it two ways,” McLaren said. “If a guy is having success with one guy, you’ve definitely got to really weigh that heavily. That doesn’t lie. We’ve got kind of that situation with Burke and Bedard. It’s been a good combination and so we’re going to stick with it for a while.”
In this paragraph, John McLaren reinforces that he doesn’t have any idea how statistical analysis works. He sums up about 34 logical fallacies in a few sentences. He demonstrates ignorance of all the research done on the relationship between a catcher and a pitcher’s performance (there’s almost none), his inability to understand that the “hot hand phenomenon” is a horrible way to make decisions, and his remarkable lack of leadership.
Jarrod Washburn sucks. He’s a replacement level starting pitcher, not much better than guys sitting in Triple-A riding buses from Toledo to Durham. Jarrod Washburn doesn’t like pitching to Kenji Johjima, who the team is committed to as their starting catcher through 2011. A real manager, one with some semblance of authority and a willingness to do whats best for his team’s record, would tell the replacement level starting pitcher to learn how to like throwing to Kenji or sit in the bullpen and not pitch.
No other team in baseball would let a replacement level starter dictate the benching of their starting catcher. Not one.
John McLaren doesn’t deserve to be fired because this team is 18-28 or because they’re losing ugly. He deserves to be fired because he’s massively unqualified for a job that requires both real leadership and an understanding of how baseball works. Those are his two jobs; motivate his players and put the best team on the field. He’s incapable of motivating grass to grow and has no idea what his players can and can’t do. He neither leads nor understands, and it’s only in a backwards organization like this one that this guy could have ever been hired in the first place.
Go M’s.
Quote of the day
“”We’re happy with our defense in the outfield,” he replied.
— McLaren, to Baker
Normally, I’d shrug this off — I mean whatever, he’s not going to slag Ibanez publicly. But there’s every reason to believe this is what he actually thinks. Despite the team’s ineptitude at getting outs, they don’t sub out for Ibanez regularly and last year (as pointed out earlier in comments) they would sub for Jose Guillen and not Raul. There’s no evidence at all that they’re just trying to protect his reputation while making accomodations for his near-total immobility.
No, the M’s really are happy with their outfield defense.
They’re happy with a league-worst defense. I’m not.
Tracking the new call-up Vidro
So Clement didn’t work out so well and got sent down for this new guy, Vidro. Over the next 55 plate appearances, assuming he gets that long, I’m going to track how this call-up does compared to the guy he replaced.
So far: Clement, in 55 plate appearances, hit .167/.286/.250
Starting from May 16th, Vidro’s been red-hot, hitting .500/.500/.667 in six plate appearances. Only 49 more to go, but right now, you have to wonder why this kid wasn’t called up the first time.
A brief return to the Clement decision
I don’t buy that Clement deserved to be sent down because he wasn’t producing and you never know with these rookies, they’re so unreliable, it’s sink or swim or whatever blah blah blah.
Clement hit .167/.286/.250 in his time here. How did those reliable veterans you can count on do? Check a couple out:
Turbo hit .167/.167/.167 with his back spasm-y self
Betancourt hit .190/.190/.259
Sexson hit .161/.188/355
Beltre hit .156/.217/.250
Bloomquist hit .125/.300/.125
Cairo hit .222/.300/.259
Once again proving that over any arbitrarily selected time period, veterans are no more reliable production sources than your rookies.
There was no reason to send Clement back down. He was a good bet to hit better than the alternatives over that span of time, and he’s a good bet to hit better than them for any stretch after that.
Also, Cairo has no business being on this roster, and we’re reminded of that with every move.
Hey, Look At That
The spirit of Regression To The Mean decided to inhabit an overweight Venezuelan!
