Overreactions To A Sweep (Part II)
Rich Harden struggles through a 3.2-inning effort against New York on Sunday, April 18th.We're now at the one-sixteenth point of the still-young season, a rather awkward time for ballclubs in that enough games have been played to pick up on some disturbing early trends and warning signs, but generally not enough games to actually do anything about them. With the Rangers still reeling from their weekend slaughter in the Bronx, here is your latest round of Texas-flavored overreactions that the organization may or may not be inclined to address in the next several weeks:
● When frenzied whispers and worried glances began shooting around the room after Rich Harden's fastball sat in the mid-80s through his first several Cactus League starts, he did his part to mollify the growing unrest by insisting that there were no physical issues, that he was primarily focusing on changing speeds and working on his off-speed pitches, that this was his usual spring M.O., and that he would sit at a far more comfortable 88-96 mph once "the bell rang," so to speak.
Furthermore, there was some precedent for Harden being accurate; after similarly sitting in the mid-80s during 2009 spring training with the Cubs and eliciting cries that he should be placed on the disabled list coming out of the gates, he went out and started routinely posting regular-season average fastball velocities (AFV) of 92-93 mph, peaking at 95-97 mph and delivering monster strikeout numbers in the process. And so the panic was quelled.
What happened last year doesn't appear to be holding true this year, though, or at least not to a similar extent -- through his first three regular-season starts in 2010, Harden has posted up a 90.4 mph AFV which has been progressively trending downward (90.6-90.5-90.2), which becomes all the more alarming when you recall David Brown's study in which he established that a 91 mph AFV is a significant inflection point for starting pitching performance. Sit below that, and your chances of being an elite-level pitcher sharply decline. Moreover, he's generating far fewer swinging strikes with his fastball relative to last year, as is the case with both his slider and change-up.
While some of that statistical divergence stems from his (huge) early-season control problems, understand that swinging-strike rate is a key predictive indicator of how many batters we can expect him to strike out in the future; in other words, if his velocity remains problematic and his control remains below average, he's not going to be a high-level strikeout pitcher for Texas, and since strikeouts are the only thing he has going for him right now ... well, do I really need to spell out the rest? I don't know what's wrong with him (e.g. wonky release point, "stiff" mechanics, elbow/shoulder pain and/or a pure mental block), but it's getting serious, and the Rangers aren't positioned so advantageously that they can roll with him indefinitely. Something's just not right.
● Nobody is going to castigate Vladimir Guerrero so long as he's posting a .340-plus batting average, but as with Harden, there are some early-season red flags: he's swinging at -- and missing -- more out-of-the-zone pitches than he has at any point dating back to 2002, is converting only about half as many of his fly balls into homers as usual and has rock-bottom walk rate and isolated power ratios working for him. What does this all mean? Not a whole lot, unless he maintains these numbers beyond the benchmarks when certain statistics stabilize and become, in a sense, statistically reliable. Guerrero's still a good 200-250 plate appearances away from those thresholds.
The upshot is that even though Guerrero has crafted a sturdy .366 wOBA thus far, it's almost entirely batting average-driven -- he's not walking and he's not hitting for power, so if that continues and a few less ground balls start squeaking through the infield for base hits, how much of a lineup asset do you really have in your possession? The Rangers' safety net here is presumably some combination of David Murphy/Ryan Garko/Max Ramirez, which isn't bad, but also isn't anything to write home about, nor worth inserting in the clean-up spot. Texas obviously won't pull the plug on Guerrero unless he goes down to injury, but that we're already having to worry about the ballclub's two biggest off-season acquisitions just two weeks into the season doesn't exactly induce a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
● Exactly one week after (temporarily?) extricating Frank Francisco from the closer's role, manager Ron Washington has rattled the cage housing his batting order by flip-flopping Julio Borbon and Elvis Andrus, placing his smoking-hot, .324/.419/.405-hitting shortstop in the lead-off spot and dropping his center fielder to the nine-hole. A defensible, if not downright smart move; there's making a move just for the sake of making a move, and then there's making a move to actively improve your team, and it's not as though Borbon is simply being betrayed by lady luck -- he has zero walks in 36 plate appearances and a 3.7 percent line drive rate, markers indicative of just how bad he's going right now.
But what happens when Andrus inevitably falls back to earth? Obviously, the hope is that Borbon will have found his offensive stride by then, enabling Washington to simply flip-flop the two again, but there's a pretty decent chance that neither one will post a seasonal on-base percentage greater than .340. In that sense, neither may be a truly ideal lead-off option, at least as far as this season is concerned. The only other viable lead-off option would be Ian Kinsler, an idea I could readily support if he can revert to something close to 2008 form, but he's almost more of a wild card at this point ... and that fact is rather troubling in and of itself.
16 Comments | in Analysis, The Season
Reader Comments (16)
Out of all the guys offensively to "pick on" you choose Guerrero; no one in their right mind will not say he's a free-swinger nor would they have dismissed that notion coming into the season. We all realize he's not going to get on base via BB 50+ times. But the man has produced and has even shown some wheels. Seems to me he'd be the last guy you'd want to point out.
Pick on Michael Young who, despite his 2 home runs has been unclutch and a close-boob in the field. Or Taylor Teagarden, who makes Chad Kreuter look like Johnny Bench. Or Chris Davis who really hasn't done much of anything against left-handers. Nor Julio Borbon, who can't seem to get the ball on the ground and utilize his speed.
Josh Hamilton has been bad too - however, the walks that he's taken saves his butt from my commentary.
And let's not even talk about the manager. His one good move was putting in Francisco when the game was on the line in Cleveland - just hours after he said he wouldn't do so. Shrug..
Vlad, Cruz, Elvis and Arias are the only real positives you can make about the offense. Period.
"Knee Jerk Reactions" by Pablosque
- Fire Wash/hire Bobby V.
- Bring up Smoak/send Davis down
- Bring up MaxRam/send TT down
- Bring up Holland/send down Mathis
- Call up Scheppers/trade Frankie
What's a close-boob?
Out of all the guys offensively to "pick on" you choose Guerrero; no one in their right mind will not say he's a free-swinger nor would they have dismissed that notion coming into the season. We all realize he's not going to get on base via BB 50+ times. But the man has produced and has even shown some wheels. Seems to me he'd be the last guy you'd want to point out.
Pick on Michael Young who, despite his 2 home runs has been unclutch and a close-boob in the field. Or Taylor Teagarden, who makes Chad Kreuter look like Johnny Bench. Or Chris Davis who really hasn't done much of anything against left-handers. Nor Julio Borbon, who can't seem to get the ball on the ground and utilize his speed.
I already took Young to task for his defense. Teagarden is such a blatantly obvious offensive cipher right now -- and the discussion about the crappy catching situation is so old -- that to rip him and Salty some more is effectively redundant. Borbon's issue isn't a lack of ground balls, per se -- it's that he's making virtually no good contact, which is reflected in his abysmal LD%. Davis, I don't know what to think, but great defense or not his days might be numbered.
Understand that I'm not suggesting Guerrero has been bad in any way thus far; a .366 wOBA is very solid. He is producing right now; hell, this team might be 4-8 without him. The problem is that he can't maintain this no-walk, no-power profile and expect to remain even a solid-average DH. Yes, he's a free-swinger who won't walk much, but even by his diminished standards he is not delivering in this department. It's 50 PA and we can't draw anything definitive from such a small sample, but we CAN highlight the stuff that he's going to have to do better to be an asset to this team, because nobody can rationally expect him to uphold a .348 batting average through the long haul.
tball: What's a close-boob?
Young has not exactly been Brooks Robinson in the field this year. As a matter of fact, he's been pretty ordinary.
One of the hardest things I would ever have to do is call MYoung a boob; thus, I chose the second hardest. (I may have called him a boob during the 'Elvis to SS campaign' last year...which makes me really wonder about MY in a faraway kind of way. That "leadership" still haunts me. A real leader would not have done that, me thinks.)
RE: Joey: I took you to task basically because I felt like arguing. :) No, I doubt Vlad is going to hit .350 (he could!) but I think more than anything, someone should get on a stump and say, "Hey, Vlad can run. WTF, I didn't think Vlad could run? And hey, Vlad can still smoke the ball! I thought Vlad was a broken-down old man!"
Conversely, he's been the most dependable person in a Rangers' uniform this year.
I'm not all that worried about Vlad. He's a pro and even though he's not the player he was in 2004 his numbers will be fine at the end of the year. THey certainly will be better than any of the other alternatives that were available and gives SOME measure of concern to left handed pitchers pitching to this lineup.
Harden right now is a lesson to organizations seeking number 1's on the cheap. Good luck with that.
I do think Borbon will eventually hit, but dropping him is a good move. But nothing makes a team appear more lifeless than a teamwide batting slump. More moves to come I'm sure as you can't carry players who post zeroes.
@Rich P - was thinking earlier this morning what kind of shape the Rangers would be in if Blalock were the DH or Andruw and Vlad still n California doing his usuals?
People are panicking way too soon over Harden. Look at his stuff. It's still great. He generally has one bad inning. He'll come out of it and will be a stud again. Unless he's hurt -- and everything written about that so far has been pure speculation.
One thing I have noticed is that the Rangers always seem to start slow under Wash. They have had several train wrecks and never a winning April. This appears to be yet another losing April.
Wash is doing what he can such as replacing FX2, switching lead off, catcher and 1B but unfortunately most of it is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They just didn't get themselves ready during Spring training.
It was said of the Roman army that they trained like they were at war and fought war like it was training. I remeber thinking that when reading Harden's excuses during Spring Training about he would be ready when the bell rang. Right.
They established a losing habit this Spring and it shows across the entire team starting with The Face.
So now maybe the Rangers get lucky against an atypical Red Sox team after being exposed and completely dominated by the damn Yankees..
It's Time........................................................................
Um, no, jd21, Harden's stuff has NOT been great. Check the PitchFX numbers. His velocity is down about 2 mph, which means his fastball isn't a plus pitch this year. His changeup movement has gone straight to pot, which means it's not the plus-plus pitch it used to be, it's below average. Sure, he may shape up, but there are no guarantees from a guy who hasn't hit 180 innings since 2004.
I'm almost of the mind that what Texas needs to do as soon as possible is the following:
1. Sign Jermaine Dye to a 1 year deal to play LF; move Hamilton back to CF; let Borbon keep working on his OBP in AAA.
2. Replace Davis with Smoak.
Getting Kinsler back and having a hitter like Dye in there would really pump up this lousy offense, and even if Smoak just hits for average (with no power) but can get on base like he's been doing in AAA, that would be a huge upgrade there.
The other thing is this: At some point, Texas needs to try to get a long-term answer to their catching problem. Castro in the Hou system is probably untouchable, but if Texas offered them a 5 player package of BMac & Main + 3 other lesser players - maybe they'd bite, since they desperately need some pitching prospects. Overwhelm them with sheer numbers without giving up Holland, Perez, Scheppers, or the other top tier pitchers.
By the way, for the record I am a big fan of the close-boobs.
Well, Geo, I watch the game with my eyes, and what I see indicates to me that he still has great stuff. I won't defer to you or PitchFX. Many pitchers have velocity that's down a few ticks in April. If you want to panic, fine, but it's premature. His problem has been location, not stuff. A poorly located changeup or breaking pitch looks nothing like a properly located changeup or breaking pitch.
jd21, I watch the game with my eyes too, and I won't defer to yours. The PitchFX data just substantiates what I see. I've been a fan for a long time and have watched him a lot with both the As and the Cubs, and he stuff does not look near as good. No, I'm not panicking, but it's something to keep an eye on.
I'm no pitching expert but one thing seems to stand out about Harden: his velocity is down a couple of MPH. That doesn't seem like a big deal but it must be.
Speaking of which, in Cleveland, when Feliz was hitting 102 and Frankie Francisco was hitting 95 - rumors are rampant that the gun in Cleveland is 2-3 MPH faster than most guns in baseball.
And another thing while I'm thinking about it...the scorekeepers in NY gave infield singles out to the Yankees like they were Halloween candies - the Rangers could have easily been charged with 2-4 more errors in that series. It's hard to win when your defense is terrible and half of your offense is non-existant, no matter how hard Harden et al are throwing.
Looks like ol' Edison Volquez is in trouble:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/04/20/heyman.volquez/index.html?eref=sihp
Funny how that trade has worked itself out -
Year 1 - they both killed
Year 2 - Hammy got caught with a bunch of ho's at a bar, and Volquez tore up his arm... so neither was particularly useful.
Year 3- who knows... it sounds like 1 player just lost 50 games of his career and the other is struggling to PULL the cotton pickin' ball. Neither one is distancing himself from the other.
Don't get me wrong, I'd way rather have Josh than E.V. but both seem to be going nowhere fast.