I don't doubt or minimize the Nolan Ryan factor in the ascent of the Texas Rangers over the past three years, but let's be honest: this ballclub is succeeding because of what Jon Daniels has done, not just in terms of talent aquisition, but in terms of building a front office and scouting and development team that is arguably the best in the business.
Losing Nolan Ryan would be bad for this organization to be sure, and that has become the focus (well, fear, really) of local media and Rangers fans as they suffer through these increasingly bizarre bankruptcy proceedings, but the fact of the matter is that losing Daniels could very well become a crushing blow to the organization.
And you better get ready to take that hit, Rangers fans.
Just about five years ago today, Daniels posed a question to Jamey Newberg and me over lunch at Texas Land & Cattle near the Ballpark: "Do you think that Tom [Hicks] would consider hiring a 28-year-old as his GM?" This was about two months before John Hart would announce that he was stepping down from the position, but by the time Jamey and I reached our car for the return trip to downtown Dallas on that early-August day in 2005, we sort of looked at each other and said "we just had lunch with the next GM, didn't we?" We knew right then.
Now, five years later, and without the benefit of having a conversation with the man, I record the day that I came to the realization that Daniels' tenure as the Rangers' GM will almost certainly come to an end before opening day, 2011.
It's not necesarily a matter of a new regime wanting to install their own front office, either. Even if Rangers Baseball Express (popularly known as "the Greenberg / Ryan group") somehow walks away from Wednesday's auction as the winning bidder -- and I'm now guessing they won't because they are under the quaint assumption that the purpose of this entity is to operate a successful baseball organization, and we now know that's simply not the case -- Daniels has put himself in a position to land his dream job and there's simply nothing that the Rangers (whoever that turns out to be, if anyone) can do to stop him from taking it.
As Daniels himself has put it, when he got this job people said "he's smart, but does have guts?" and a year or so later, they said "he's got guts, but is he smart?"
Now, there's no question he's both incredibly clever and has balls as big as church bells.
As the debacles of the Adrian Gonzalez and John Danks trades recede into history and he adds more and more successful (often wildly successful) deals to his resume, Daniels has now demonstrated a phenomenal ability to acquire premium talent through every means possible. He's built a powerhouse farm system with a scouting and develpment team that is the best in the business. He's hauled in massive talents from the draft, international signings, and trades that leave you wondering how his scouts seem to have a better grasp of other clubs' minor league talent than the clubs that have the players to begin with.
Forced to constantly pull rabbits from a hat (and the hat itself has, most of the time, seemed to be invisible to everyone but Daniels himself), the man's performance over the past month has been nothing short of dazzling. While the baseball world allowed themselves to believe that having no money, no owner and no flexibility would prevent the Rangers from making any substantial moves unless and until the ownership issue was resolved, Daniels did the unthinkable. And then he kept doing it.
And then -- just to show off, I think -- he executed one of the most astounding moves yet yesterday afternoon by taking one of the game's most successful GM's (and the original Ivy League wunderkind) to the woodshed for the second time in three years.
Having backed himself into a corner on roster space, Daniels didn't do what everyone else would do on July 31 -- stick a guy on waivers and cross his fingers. Instead, with not much in the way of bargaining power, he used that "problem" to add to his seemingly unending armada of power arms. I can't decide which is nastier: getting Engel Beltre for what was left of Eric Gagne or getting Ramon Mendez for what's left of Jarrod Saltalamacchia's "future". Almost certainly the former, but Mendez has the sort of electric arm that could make a horse race out of it.
Meanwhile in Queens, the Mets -- with plenty of money and plenty of needs -- were unable to do anything to make their club better. You can bet that Fred Wilpon is watching what the kid who grew up as a Mets fan is doing down here in Texas.
Omar Minaya has run his course in New York. Jon Daniels can become a free agent this winter. Do the math.
The problem with building an organization and putting together a group of people as talented as Daniels has here in Texas (with the deck stacked against him in many ways) is that there is going to be attrition. Thad Levine will move on to become someone else's GM sooner than later (and whether or not Daniels stays). A.J. Preller is likely to join Levine and Daniels at the helm of an organization too at some point. Maybe Don Welke goes with Daniels. Maybe Levine. Other scouts will move along with these guys, and losing Daniels will just accelerate the whole process.
It's next to impossible for me to envision the Mets not looking for a new GM this winter. And given what he's has done in Texas with one -- and sometimes both -- hands tied behind his back, it's hard to fathom that anyone could possibly be higher on their wish list than Daniels.
Even if Rangers Baseball Express becomes the owner of this franchise at some point before winter, it's hard to fathom how Daniels doesn't jump at the chance to run the club he loved as a kid, with a huge payroll in a beautiful new stadium.
Will the next regime know to go after Neftali Feliz? Engel Beltre? Will they be the folks who see Tommy Hunter as a first round talent who could come quickly when everyone else thought he was a third rounder at best? Will the next GM have the cojones to pull off the Cliff Lee trade? Who knows?
Whether or not the Rangers front office exodus that is almost certain to come -- one way or another -- cripples this organization in the next decade remains to be seen, but whoever the new owners install to run this thing is going to have a very tough act to follow.
1. The gun-to-your-head question of the week: Take a shot in the dark and predict how this next chapter in the Rangers' sale saga -- from this coming Wednesday's auction onwards -- will turn out. Don't hold back. It's speculation-driven, but somebody will probably hit on the right sequence of events.
2. Now that this past week's flurry of pre-deadline deals -- Jorge Cantu, Cristian Guzman and Jarrod Saltalamacchia -- have been completed, how would you grade the month-of-July efforts of Jon Daniels and company? Is there any doubt left that this is a World Series-contending team?
3. Is your opinion of Mark Cuban -- who is ostensibly now at or near the front of the pack in terms of likelihood of winning the auction -- diminished by the fact that he's (a) working with financial backing from Monarch Alternative Capital and (b) fighting to outbid Chuck Greenberg/Nolan Ryan despite his recent declaration that he didn't want to "undermine" them? Or is Cuban simply doing what he should be doing in order to try and purchase the team?
4. This question doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, because the Marlins aren't trading him, but would you have been ecstatic if Florida had bit on the Rangers' overture to send their three best prospects in exchange for ace right-hander Josh Johnson? Put another way, how high would you have gone to acquire him?
5. Just for the heck of it: Who's your favorite under-the-radar (or simply not ultra-mainstream) musician/singer/artist/etc.? Disclosing the genre might be helpful, as well.
And so the book has finally slammed shut on Jarrod Saltalamacchia's occasionally bright but oft-frustrating Rangers career, one which spanned four injury-fragmented seasons and just over 700 total plate appearances of .243/.309/.383-level offense. You figured a cashing-out deal of this sort was going to transpire at some point, but as he is wont to do, general manager Jon Daniels moved swiftly and aggressively to convert an ill-fitting piece into something of actual consequence -- high-upside talent.
The trade, consummated shortly before Saturday afternoon's 3:00 p.m. CDT non-waiver trade deadline, shipped Saltalamacchia to the Red Sox in exchange for a three-player package -- right-hander Roman Mendez, first baseman Chris McGuiness, and a player to be named later -- and cash considerations, confirmed by ESPN.com's Jayson Stark to amount to $350,000; this sum will reportedly be diverted towards the amateur draftee-signing budget.
Saltalamacchia has been thoroughly run into the ground already (see here, here and/or here if you'd like to relive this year's thrills), and McGuiness, while intriguing in the sense that he's clubbing the Low-A South Atlantic League to the tune of .298/.416/.504 with advanced plate discipline and decent power, is a bit old for this level of competition and doesn't boast much in the way of projection at this point; scouts' hearts generally don't skip a beat at the sight of old-for-their-league college hitters tearing up Low-A ball. No, the real key to this deal from the Rangers' perspective is Mendez, which is, by most accounts, a quality return for a player with no real future in the Texas organization.
Originally signed by Boston for $150,000 during the 2007 international signing period (which also yielded $1.5 million Red Sox bonus baby Michael Almanzar, the son of former Rangers reliever Carlos Almanazar), the 20-year-old flamethrower has witnessed his strikeout rate grow incrementally during his level-to-level ascent, and it's not difficult to comprehend why this is the case. Mendez brandishes a mid-90s fastball -- one thrown with "lightning-fast, whippy arm action" that has reportedly flirted with triple digits at various times -- and inconsistent but promising secondary pitches, prompting Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus to tender this assessment: "Huge ceiling, huge risk, but a great pickup in a trade like this."
A team's success rate with high-ceiling, high-velocity prospects as far removed from the majors as Mendez can't be any higher than 10-15 percent (even that is likely overstating things), but these are the sorts of players that can not only justify the acquisition and development costs a hundred times over if/when they actually do hit, but also prove attractive in trade negotiations when you need pot-sweeteners to bolster your offer. Baseball people love projection. Hell, we all love it. And if you can supplement your organizational talent cache with a player (Saltalamacchia) that I view mostly as a backup-type catcher at this point, then I think you're doing something pretty right.
Another day, another round of bankruptcy-induced hand-wringing. It's maddening that we've spent so many months discussing the Rangers' Hicks-induced plight ad infinitum and yet know so little about the principal players involved. We still don't know anything. We can infer whatever we'd like to infer from Chuck Greenberg's impressive prose or Mark Cuban's NBA-side dealings, but none of it necessarily means anything in terms of their future ownership of a baseball team, and as much as we'd like to think that we know how next Wednesday's team auction will conclude, our best guesses amount to shots in the dark at this point.
Aside from Friday morning's strange developments on this matter, however, and the likely on-target speculation that this mess could stretch into the 2011 calendar year if the Chuck Greenberg/Nolan Ryan-led ownership consortium doesn't prevail, there's a newer wrinkle that has developed -- the forthcoming involvement of the News Corp.-owned FOX Sports, which has reportedly been preparing behind the scenes to obtain pre-approval from Major League Baseball to submit a bid next Wednesday. The apparent motivation? An overriding interest in ensuring that FOX Sports retains Rangers television rights beyond the 2015 expiration of the team's current television contract.
Of this latest twist in the Rangers' ownership narrative, Chicago-based sports consultant Marc Ganis stated the following: "It makes some sense to protect their broadcast but it's a bit like the tail wagging the dog. [...] Also Fox/News Corp. had owned the Dodgers at one point and that was not a positive experience." Indeed, this is the rare instance where we can point towards one of the Rangers' prospective owners, note that they have previously owned a major league ballclub, and analyze their previous M.O. ... and as Ganis alludes to, the precedent here is not particularly reassuring. In fact, one might go so far as to say that it's downright frightening.
In March 1998, long-time Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley sold the franchise to News Corp. for a then-record sum in the low-to-mid $300 million range, and soon thereafter resigned from his post of team chairman/CEO. Rupert Murdoch summarily installed FOX television executives with no baseball background into these high-level roles, laying the foundation for a significant payroll spike -- the Dodgers' team payroll rose from $47.9 million in 1998 (12th) to $90.3 million in 2000 (2nd) -- and a heaping dose of interference from the Dodgers' new overlords.
Then-elite catcher Mike Piazza entered the 1998 season with free agency looming at the end of the season, and was looking to re-sign for record eight-figure money; News Corp., however, had other plans, as they viewed Piazza as a "public relations problem" and, perhaps more disturbingly, wanted to position themselves to acquire the broadcasting rights of the then-World Champion Florida Marlins. News Corp. executives Peter Chernin and Chase Carey engineered a stunning seven-player May trade with the Marlins without the involvement of then-Dodgers general manager Fred Claire, who was dismissed five weeks after the trade's completion (as was then-manager Bill Russell), and the entire player personnel department was revamped.
Said Claire afterwards: "The trade of Mike Piazza was devastating to the Dodgers on a couple of counts, The Dodgers lost a great player who should have stayed with the organization forever. But also, the structure of the Dodgers got turned upside down, and that led to a number of other significant events, in my view. [...] Things that happened after that trade, it just turned everything upside down. It led to the firings of [coaches] Mark Cresse, Reggie Smith, Goose Gregson. It just had a tremendous impact on the entire organization. [...] It also made no sense. As bad as the deal itself was for the Dodgers, for a variety of reasons the timing of it was absolutely bizarre. It had nothing to do with the team itself or any type of normal move that's ever been made."
Remember that thing I said about us not knowing anything? Yeah, scratch that. I'm pretty sure we're not ready for something like this happening.
Cristian Guzman stands in against the Braves at Turner Field on Wednesday, June 30th.A few afternoon stories that are either (a) irrelevant in the grand scheme of things because they deal in the realm of impossible hypotheticals, or (b) are still developing as time marches by:
● Per a major league source, the Rangers have acquired .282/.327/.361-hitting middle infielder Cristian Guzman from the Washington Nationals in exchange for a two-prospect package (confirmed to be Double-A Frisco right-handers Ryan Tatusko and Tanner Roark); the deal was confirmed as of 4:30 p.m. CDT, but cannot be declared official until the accompanying paperwork goes through in the next 24 hours; Guzman agreed to waive his 10-and-5 no-trade rights to complete the deal (T.R. Sullivan, MLB.com)
[If you read/heard that the Rangers had pushed back the expected return date for Ian Kinsler (general manager Jon Daniels noted last night that Kinsler would be out beyond the minimum 15 days), you had to know something like this was coming. There's still a lot to be said for the whole "go big or don't go at all" mantra I've been harping about for more than a year now, but there's a pattern to the three non-Cliff Lee trades prescribed by the Rangers over the last 30 days: raising the production floor and increasing depth at sketchy positions while relinquishing little of real consequence. I'm still not a big fan of the Bengie Molina trade, but hey, whatever. I hope I'm wrong.
Guzman used to be something of a punch line around the Baseball Think Factory boards (think 2003-05), and it is for that reason that the two are inextricably linked in my mind, but the 32-year-old Guzman is a .297/.326/.403 (.319 wOBA) hitter in his last 1,514 plate appearances, spanning 2008-10; that's acceptable production from a starting middle infielder, and you can easily infer from that statement that Guzman, in his expected capacity (that is, the Rangers' top utility infielder, and probable fill-in at second base during Kinsler's absence), is a nice little pick-up. This is another low-impact move in the vein of the Jorge Cantu deal, but World Series-contending teams like Texas have good reason to pursue peace-of-mind trades. They have a lot more to lose.
In exchange for Guzman (and, per ESPN.com's Buster Olney, a $2 million subsidy from the Nationals that should cover all but about $650,000 remaining on Guzman's 2010 contract), Texas yields Double-A Frisco hurlers Ryan Tatusko and Tanner Roark. There's more to see in Tatusko, who has pitched well recently and works low in the zone with an 88-92 mph fastball and "solid" breaking ball, but Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus notes that he "doesn't have the stuff to miss bats," which is a little disconcerting for somebody whose upside is probably that of a middle reliever. Roark's acquired a reputation for pounding the strike zone, but is a "fringe" prospect with a decent fastball and inconsistent secondary pitches. Overall, it's the fair, low-dollar price you'd expect to pay in a deal such as this. Adios, Señor Arias.]
● In spite of a spirited attempt by the Chuck Greenberg/Nolan Ryan ownership consortium to circumvent next Wednesday's auction of the Rangers by upping the total cash in their bid by $40 million (achieved by stripping some, if not all, of the various and sundry side deals out of their proposal), Fort Worth bankruptcy judge Michael Lynn has denied their request to have the new CRO-approved bid approved, meaning that next Wednesday's auction will go ahead as planned (David McLaughlin, Bloomberg News)
[This "substantially enhanced" bid would have sufficiently nourished the coffers of the Rangers' most problematic creditors, including Monarch Alternative Capital, but they raised a huge stink about it, as did prospective bidder Mark Cuban, whose lawyer declared that a Cuban-driven bid could possibly topple even the most lucrative Greenberg/Ryan bid. The revised bid would have apparently not paid Tom Hicks for assets included in the original deal, such as the parking lots and the Ballpark's center field office building, but the bid will apparently be reverted back to its previous value as a consequence of Judge Lynn's rejection. Greenberg/Ryan's last -- and perhaps best -- chance to purchase the team may have just come and gone.]
● The Rangers are reportedly shopping both Rich Harden and Scott Feldman around; as an odd coincidence, Harden will supplant Feldman in the Rangers' starting rotation and start against the Angels on Saturday evening; Ron Washington cited Feldman's "experience" in the bullpen as part of the ballclub's motivation for the move (T.R. Sullivan, MLB.com)
[I wouldn't read too much into this, as teams dangle players on the market all the time -- sometimes with no serious intent of trading them right then, and sometimes knowing full well that they won't make a deal without being floated an outrageous offer. As far as the implications of the rotation switch-around, well, now is the time to figure out whether Harden can still salvage something from this horrendous 2010 campaign of his, and the opportunity cost of shunting Feldman to the bullpen for a while is minimal. At very worst, Harden implodes again and is released in mid-August, earning Feldman back his rotation spot back; at best, Harden ends up being a late-season/post-season asset of some sort. But I wouldn't count on it.]
● While the Rangers were hammering out yesterday's Jorge Cantu-to-Texas deal, they inquired about the availability of ace right-hander Josh Johnson and offered up their top three prospects; Florida declared that Johnson was untouchable, and no further conversations ensued (Joe Frisaro, MLB.com)
[Martin Perez, Tanner Scheppers and Engel Beltre? Considering that Johnson is (a) one of the best pitchers in baseball and (b) signed to a below-market deal through 2013, I think that's a virtual no-brainer, but it gets a little more interesting if you lob Neftali Feliz and/or Derek Holland into the basket. That said, Johnson isn't going anywhere, so does it really matter?]
Jorge Cantu clubs a first-inning double against the Rockies on Wednesday, July 21st.And so it was that the Rangers finally landed their right-handed reserve bat, more than seven months after the Mike Lowell-to-Texas trade was nixed (and two-and-a-half months after the Ryan Garko experiment crashed and burned), and all was right in the baseball universe. Too overwrought? Okay. Well, at least we can put an end to all of this trite speculation/rumor-mongering.
Neither party in this deal has yet declared it official (as of 5:30 p.m. CDT, that is), but multiple sources -- including Joel Sherman of the New York Post -- confirmed Thursday afternoon that Texas acquired corner-infielder Jorge Cantu from the Marlins in exchange for minor league right-handers Evan Reed and Omar Poveda; Florida is reportedly subsidizing the $2.1 million remaining on Cantu's 2010 contract to the tune of $600,000, bringing the Rangers' total accepted salary relief in their three mid-season trades to a grand total of $4.85 million.
What is Jorge Cantu? Well, what he's not is a second baseman in anything beyond an emergency, Andres Blanco-as-a-catcher sort of capacity; yes, he's logged more than 1,850 major league innings at the keystone, but grades out as a defensive liability at both second and third base to the tune of around 15-20 runs below average per season. His problematic range is one thing, but his recent penchant for errors earned him a one-on-one conversation with Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez and a day on the bench -- and that was earlier this week. Fortunately, the Rangers are acquiring him as a first baseman first and foremost, masking some of his defensive inadequacies.
The bigger issue, though, is that the Rangers acquired a .259/.308/.408-hitting first baseman who, frankly speaking, isn't much of a hitter at this point. Cantu directs the majority of his base hits towards left/center field -- although he's shown some ability to go the opposite way this season, particularly towards the right-center field gap -- and brandishes some decent pull power, but his walk-to-strikeout ratio is being undermined by a 37.3 percent out-of-zone swing ratio that's tied for the sixth-worst mark in the National League. He's also not hitting southpaws this year (.253/.295/.425; .311 wOBA), but actually did so at a respectable clip in 2008-09, so perhaps there's hope yet in that regard.
Neither Poveda nor Reed were significant prospects, although we shouldn't have expected that to be the case in a trade such as this one anyway. As a reported two-pitch guy with 93-95 mph velocity but unexceptional secondary pitches, the 24-year-old Reed found some success out of Double-A Frisco's bullpen and recently earned a promotion to Triple-A Oklahoma City; however, non-elite relief prospects are pretty fungible. Poveda, a rehabbing victim of elbow-ligament replacement surgery, touted the best change-up in the system -- described by Jason Parks as a "Bugs Bunny change-up" before succumbing to injury, and remains moderately interesting, but never projected beyond a No. 4-5 starter and will need some post-rehab things to break right for him if he is to remain relevant on the prospect map.
Cantu's projected rest-of-season wOBA (.326) is actually lower than that of Chris Davis (.329), but I think there's some reason to believe that (a) Cantu could beat that, particularly as a result of moving to a more hitter-friendly ballpark, and (b) that Davis will continue to flail and struggle, in which case Mitch Moreland's stay on the active roster may prove to be not all that temporary. If you squint your eyes hard enough and cock your head to one side, you can see this move possibly translating into a half-win upgrade through the remainder of the season, as well as some added peace of mind in the event that Moreland/Davis can't get the job done ... and if there's one thing we've learned in the post-Teixeira era, it's that first base offense shouldn't be taken for granted.
Prince Fielder strikes a pose after hitting a home run somewhere at some point in time.It's funny what a glaring offensive weakness and a few seemingly idle trade inquires can do to set the rumor mill churning into overdrive. Despite previous indications that the Rangers were financially handicapped in terms of any further trade-market splurging, the whispers have persisted, with SI.com's Jon Heyman reporting that the "very active" Rangers had joined the Angels and White Sox in pursuing the Brewers' Prince fielder, and ESPNChicago.com's Bruce Levine stating that the Rangers are among six teams bidding for the Nationals' Adam Dunn.
Less than 24 hours ago, I was heavily inclined to write all of this off as pure, unadulterated garbage, but I get it now. And maybe it never should have surprised any of us in the first place. If it looks, acts and hits like a replacement-level player over a long enough duration, it probably is one. That isn't to say that Davis is destined to remain saddled with such an ignominious label as "replacement level" for the remainder of his pro career, but regardless of whether he's being plagued by inconsistent hitting mechanics, an inability to develop good pitch-recognition skills or something tools-based (e.g. degradation of his power stroke*), it seems clear that the Rangers are looking for a more reliable/productive intermediate- to long-term solution to their first base dilemma.
[For what it's worth, resident scouting guru Jason Parks recently issued these statements on Twitter: "The future [first baseman] of the Texas Rangers is not currently in their system or on the 25-man [roster]. Chris Davis of '10 is not the same Davis as '08. ... His pitch recognition skills aren't very good (they were never great), but he doesn't appear to have the same strength/bat speed. ... At one point, I would have felt comfortable giving Davis a legit 80 grade for the present power. I can't say that now."]
Anything of significance I have to say about Dunn in the context of this trade market can be covered in a more interesting fashion by examining this Fielder-to-Texas notion; it almost certainly won't happen, but that never stopped anyone from talking about a trade rumor before, particularly those of the potential blockbuster variety. And before I can articulate my problem with this trade rumor, and why this isn't really akin to the Cliff Lee trade in terms of potential impact, we need to set about actually quantifying Fielder's trade value, using the same model we used to determine Roy Oswalt's worth.
Operating off the reasonable assumption that Fielder, if acquired by Texas, would amass two wins (above replacement) over the remainder of the 2010 regular season and approximately 5.5 wins in 2011, and factoring in other variables such as the market value of a single win ($4.5 million/win, in this exercise), salary ($3.5 million over the final two months of this season, plus $13-14 million via arbitration in 2011) and the value of post-2011 compensatory draft picks ($6 million, per Victor Wang's calculations, we find that Fielder's surplus value is around the $22-23 million mark; since the Rangers would likely require a cash subsidy to cover what remains of his 2010 salary, you can likely bump that upward into the $26-27 million range.
Is that enough value to justify relinquishing Martin Perez and/or Tanner Scheppers? Absolutely. And to be clear, I can't imagine any possible way in which such a deal would get done without including at least one of those two elite arms, or perhaps Derek Holland -- whose upside may still be bright, but whose trade value has also taken a hit as a consequence of his injury problems this year -- and a more talent-laden prospect package; it's just not feasible without employing at least one or two elite trade chips. Notice, however, that there's a distinction between the deal being justifiable value-wise, and me -- or you, or anyone else -- actually wanting to pull the trigger. Why?
Well, in case you didn't notice, there's a flaw in that $26-27 million valuation. The impact (and value) of the two marginal wins that Fielder would supply during August/September is diminished, as the Rangers' chances of reaching the post-season are already very high; in other words, they almost certainly won't need those two wins to wrap up the division, which means that Fielder's primary value is in (a) any post-season contributions in 2010 and (b) his regular-season contributions in 2011.
And guess what? Somebody will probably lead you to believe that Fielder makes the Rangers significantly stronger in terms of contending for a world championship in 2010, but they'll be off the mark. In terms of wins above replacement in, say, a seven-game series, Lee's total expected value (0.23 WAR/game started) would be nearly double that of Fielder (0.04 WAR/game), and nearly triple that if things reached the point where Lee made three separate starts in a playoff series. That's an intuitive way of seeing how the presence of an elite starting pitcher is more important than that of an elite hitter in the post-season, but there's another consideration I'd like to highlight.
Sooner or later, people will get tired of me bringing up Nate Silver's "secret sauce," but it's relevant here in terms of how Silver assessed the importance of hitting in the playoffs: "More remarkably, all three of these characteristics [a power pitching staff, a good closer, and a good defense] relate to run prevention, rather than run scoring. That does not mean that offense is of no importance in the playoffs. But there is a lot of noise in the postseason record, and offense did not produce enough signal to emerge through it. The reasons are too complicated to get into here, but have to do with what happens when good offenses face good pitching. Pitching does have some tendency to dominate these match-ups, whether they occur in the regular season or in the playoffs. Because "plus pitching" versus "plus hitting" duels occur more frequently in the post-season, we tend to notice the effects more then."
It's one thing to implore the Rangers' front office to acquire Fielder while knowing full well that it would be a 2011-focused deal; it's quite another to regard Fielder -- or Dunn -- as the missing piece in the Rangers' inevitable march to the World Series and rely upon that perspective when lobbying for a major trade. I won't deny that either Fielder or Dunn would constitute a major short-term upgrade over Davis, and even give the Rangers a post-season boost; what I have a problem with is the belief that such a boost would be significant, which is really overstating the case. I can see Texas revisiting this over the 2010-11 off-season if Fielder's still on the market, but in the here and now, I can't see the logic behind paying a king's ransom to acquire Fielder. I just can't.
Cliff Lee delivers a first-inning pitch against the Athletics on Tuesday, July 27th.I thought I had all but eschewed the writing of individual game recaps/stories/reflections in favor of more broad-scale analysis, but there's still something about those special moments -- you know, the walk-off wins and/or brilliant individual performances -- that hit me hard on a visceral level and compel me to do otherwise. Those are the moments that serve as jolting reminders that we need to sit back and enjoy the present, because you just don't know if the future will ever measure up. Those are the moments that deserve a little more love than the run-of-the-mill regular-season game.
And to the great surprise of nobody, Cliff Lee was again the focal point of such a game, spinning nine innings of one-run, zero-walk, 13-strikeout baseball -- and coming away with the no-decision for his troubles -- before Nelson Cruz launched his 10th-inning walk-off blast into the left field seats. It's more than enough to make me wish that I had reserved my one major shot at an extensive Lee-centric Pitch f/x analysis for this start rather than his eight-inning effort last Thursday (although that was interesting enough in its own unique way), but it's no real setback, as we can paint a sufficient picture of what rendered him successful last night in far less than 3,000 words.
With the caveat that the Athletics "boast" one of the five worst offenses (.317 wOBA) in the American League (and thus never had much of a chance to begin with), I think Lee's approach against Oakland's righty-heavy lineup is worth highlighting; the locations of each of the 100-plus fastballs Lee threw last night are plotted on the below charts, and you'll notice that only 12-14 such fastballs found the middle third of the plate, an area of the plate where hitters tend to feast. Aside from this ratio being below his recent career norm, Lee clearly placed a strong emphasis on attacking away, away and then away some more, with even the majority of the balls either being chased or just eluding the strike zone:
[Legend: Red dots are hits, blue dots are outs, yellow dots are swinging strikes or foul balls, green dots are swinging strikes outside of the strike zone, and white dots are taken pitches. Data courtesy of ESPN.com's Inside Edge scouting service.]
The second thing I wanted to point out is Lee's cutter, which I already touched upon in some detail last week but wanted to revisit. The amount of lateral break -- or right-to-left movement from the catcher's perspective -- that he produces with the cutter is relatively extreme and a significant factor in the pitch's effectiveness, but it proved especially dominant last night, as he managed to induce seven swinging strikes out of 34 total cutters thrown (good for a 20.6 percent swinging-strike rate against a season average of 8.2 percent with the cutter) and generated nine total outs, including three swinging strikeouts, two strikeouts looking and four garden-variety batted-ball outs. Brilliant.
In the last significant pre-July 31st deal in which the Rangers were a buyer, the principal piece -- in this case, Carlos Lee -- generated 0.7 wins above replacement during his two-month stint in Texas before departing in free agency and signing an ill-fated $100 million contract with Houston. Through his first four starts with the Rangers, Cliff Lee has already surpassed his C.L.-initialed predecessor by generating 0.9 wins above replacement. That isn't intended as a straight-up comparison of the two trades, as the Rangers relinquished far more talent in the latter deal than in the former, but I suspect even the most vehement naysayers of the Cliff Lee trade have to be ecstatic about the results to date. What a damn fun ride this is turning out to be.
[Incidentally, only 26 left-handed pitchers in major league history -- including Lee, as of last night -- have logged 13 or more strikeouts in a single start while not yielding a single free pass. Among those names: Randy Johnson (12 times!), Sandy Koufax, Vida Blue and Steve Carlton. The only other any-handed pitcher in Rangers franchise history to do so was Nolan Ryan, once in 1989 and once in 1990. Furthermore, there have only been 20 individual game starts in the last 20 years where the starting pitcher logged at least 88 strikes while throwing no more than 118 pitches. Cliff Lee has now accomplished that feat twice in the last 35 days, including last night. Think about that.]
Matt Thompson - Photo courtesy of Scott LucasThis is the first in what promises to be a series of articles that will present a statistical oddity from the performance of a prospect in the Rangers’ system and a likely explanation. David will play the role of baffled sabermetrician and Jason Parks will play the role of sage scout. We hope you enjoy the performance.
Matt Thompson was drafted out of high school by the Rangers in the seventh round of the 2008 MLB draft. After a brief stint in the Arizona Rookie League in 2008, the right-hander spent the 2009 season pitching for Spokane in the Northwest League. Among the 32 pitchers in the short-season league who tossed at least 50 innings, Thompson ranked 22nd in strikeout rate at 6.6 K/9, 16th in ERA at 4.38, and 16th in WHIP at 1.36. Thompson did excel in two areas: He ranked first in walk rate among starting pitchers in the Northwest League at 1.2 BB/9, and he was among the league leaders with a 54 percent groundball rate. These data are consistent with a pitcher who has excellent command of relatively mediocre stuff.
The off-season was apparently a productive one for Thompson. During Spring Training 2010, Jason Parks made the following note on the Facebook page for BBTiA:
“RHP Matt Thompson looked sharp during live BP. With slightly altered mechanics, Thompson's fastball had more life that allowed him to miss bats. His curveball was good when I first saw it during the 2008 Fall Instructional League and it continues to improve. The pitch that has taken the biggest step forward is his change-up, giving him the arsenal to project as a solid No. 2-3 starter.”
Thompson began his 20 year old season in 2010 and destroyed the South Atlantic League in his first ten starts (10.8 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 2.79 ERA in 48.1 innings). Kevin Goldstein took notice and passed along the following quote from a scout:
"(Thompson’s) absolutely the perfect projection pitcher. We're talking 80 delivery, 80 arm action (on the 20-80 scouting scale), and it's easy to dream on. He's 88-92 mph now with sink, an average curve, and average change, but he could really move in the future."
Using the four stats that are most commonly used to evaluate the performances of pitching prospects (age relative to league, K/9, BB/9, and GB%), Thompson compares very favorably to three SAL pitchers who are generally regarded as top 100 prospects: Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino, and Jarred Cosart. Intriguingly, the eight starting pitchers from the last five years whose age, strikeout, walk, and ground ball rates from Low A-ball most closely resemble Thompson’s is replete with top 100 prospects and major league pitchers (see table below).
Note that the pitchers in the table below were not selected based on name recognition, but were in fact the eight most statistically similar pitchers from the past five years:
And then you look at the batting line for Thompson’s opponents: .306/.333/.416. The average batting line for hitters in the South Atlantic League this season is .255/.322/.376 Despite striking out significantly less (7.7 K/9) and walking significantly more (3.0 K/9) against other pitchers in the league, SAL hitters have been far more productive against Thompson. The key difference between Thompson and the rest of the league’s pitchers is Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP). Thompson’s .388 BABIP is nearly 30 percent higher than the league average. One might brush that off as bad luck until taking note of the 24.3 percent line drive rate that Thompson has given up this year and the .301 BAA (batting average against) and .349 BABIP that he gave up in the Northwest League in 2009.
The startling dichotomy between Thompson’s peripherals and the hitting line of his opponents becomes more apparent when you compare the BAA for the pitchers who were discussed in the table above:
M. Thompson -- .306 BAA J. Cosart -- .224 BAA D. Delgado -- .237 BAA J. Cruz -- .256 BAA J. Parker -- .251 BAA F. Doubront -- .260 BAA T. Herron -- .240 BAA J. Cueto -- .191 BAA P. Hughes -- .192 BAA
And therein lies the mystery. How can Thompson miss enough bats to strike hitters out at a 25 percent clip, have the control to walk just 4.5 percent, have the command/stuff to induce nearly two times as many ground outs as fly outs, and still allow hitters to bat .306 and slug .416 against him? To answer this great riddle and to discuss whether Thompson is likely to develop the ability to make hitters less comfortable at the plate, I present the good Professor.
JASON PARKS
Thompson is still developing as a pitcher, and sometimes the side-effects of lower-level development can scar the stat sheet. At this stage of the game, Thompson is working to refine his fastball command, and to continue the maturation of his secondary offerings. His fastball has some natural weight to it, but he has to keep it down the zone in order to be effectve. When he elevates the pitch, and offers the hitters a flat-plane view of the ball, he is susceptible to hard contact; right-handed batters have taken advantage of this so far in ’10. His average fastball velocity doesn’t afford him the luxury of getting away with many mistakes, especially when he is throwing too many bad strikes*. This is certainly reflected in the statistical record.
Another thing to remember is that when a pitcher is trying to work in a specific sequence or off of a script, the results aren’t always indicative of the developmental progress being made. If Thompson is trying to focus on his change-up against left-handed batters (for example), he might go away from his regular sequence and throw the pitch early in the count, or he might throw a first-pitch curveball to a left-handed batter with runners on base in order to refine his ability to use the pitch in any situation. There are always developmental factors at play.
You mentioned Thompson and the ability to make hitters uncomfortable; this is very important. Making hitters uneasy in the box is one of the most important aspects of pitching. The ability to offer up controlled unpredictability is what makes pitchers with good stuff great. Being able to execute a deep arsenal, that you can manipulate and command, is the key to making hitters uncomfortable.
Matt Thompson is a talented pitcher with a bright future, but he is still in the early stages of his development. I can’t say for sure that he will develop the ability to make hitters uncomfortable, especially at the higher levels, but he has a natural feel for the mound, and the intelligence to utilize his arsenal. He has a long way to go, and the stats might not always show the progress being made, but I think he has the talent to become a mid-rotation starter down-the-line.
[* Bad Strikes: Showing control by locating the pitch in the strikezone, but lacking the command to put the pitch in the desired location, away from the hitter’s wheelhouse.]
Scott Feldman throws a pitch in a game in which he took the loss on Saturday, July 24th.Well, that was awesome, if not a tad bittersweet. The first-place Rangers largely performed as they should have performed, particularly on the pitching side in their first two tilts against the Angels last week, and again find themselves perched atop the division by a formidable seven-game margin ... and yet, even though there's not a single player in baseball that could pull Anaheim even with Texas insofar as 2010 is concerned, I think most astute baseball observers will ultimately conclude that Sunday -- which produced the Dan Haren-to-Anaheim trade -- was a banner day for the Angels organization.
To be clear, there are some aspects of this deal which we're not yet clear on (such as why no other cash-flush organizations, e.g. the Yankees, submitted a better offer, and whether that reflects some sort of industry-wide concern about Haren's long-term health), but in viewing this through the day-after prism, it seems that the Angels divested themselves of a mediocre -- and increasingly expensive -- veteran southpaw in Joe Saunders, a pair of mid-level prospects, and a good but not great pitching prospect (Tyler Skaggs) in exchange for a perennial All-Star-level pitcher signed to a below-market deal through 2012. That's not a good thing for the post-2010 Rangers' post-season odds.
But I'd prefer to divert the conversation away from what the Angels are doing for their future and towards what the Rangers aren't doing in the present, which is not jerking Scott Feldman out of his precariously-held rotation spot after an abortive 5.1-inning, three-run effort against the Angels on Saturday. Per manager Ron Washington, Feldman remains scheduled to make his next start this coming Friday in Anaheim, which would, I suppose, constitute a far more questionable decision if the Rangers actually had a viable -- and healthy -- stand-in waiting nearby. Alas, they don't, unless you'd like to watch Matt Harrison fumble around as a starter again. More on that in a few moments.
Since my intrepid cohort Josh Garoon last checked in on Feldman three months ago, a few aspects of his overall pitching performance -- namely, his left-on-base percentage and still-hefty BABIP -- have improved, but just about everything else has either remained static or worsened. His strikeout rate has again dipped below the 5.0 K/9 mark, his swinging-strike rate (5.8 percent) is the fourth-worst of its kind in the American League, and his fielding-independent ERA (4.71 FIP) has quietly drawn closer to total congruence with his bloated ERA (5.46), all of which has prompted both myself and others to ponder the wisdom -- or lack thereof -- underlying his lucrative pre-season contract extension.
The thing about that extension, though, is that Feldman is what we should have expected him to be going into it -- a pitcher in close proximity to a true-talent 4.75 FIP baseline, which is exactly what the PECOTA player-forecasting system projected him to be not only in 2010, but 2011-13 as well. Contrary to popular belief, that sort of mediocrity has value, and arguably enough value to justify what he's being paid, but that doesn't answer the question of whether the extension should have been granted in the first place. They're two separate and distinct matters. And despite my then-approval of the extension, there are a few things I don't believe I caught in my initial analysis.
Again glancing at Feldman's pre-season PECOTA forecast, you find that even his 60th- and 70th-percentile projections had him pegged for a 4.60-plus FIP, as well as an ERA north of 4.50. Knowing what we know about how quantitative factors such as ERA are weighed in salary arbitration hearings (which directly influences the out-of-court arbitration settlements), and considering his present salary ($2.425 million) and then-likely regression from last year's performance, I think one could pose the argument that the Rangers, given the most likely scenario, could have secured Feldman's services in 2011-2012 at far less than $11.5 million by simply sticking with year-to-year arbitration. The potential two-year savings could have conceivably amounted to $3-4 million and simultaneously kept the non-tender option available if things took a turn for the worse.
Now, obviously, part of the reason for that extension was some motivation on the Rangers' part to show that they're eager to reward good performance, and making that clear to their younger talent by putting their money where their mouths were. I suspect the value in sending that sort of message is not remotely equivalent to $3-4 million of sacrificed financial flexibility, but hey, it is what it is. However, what if the Rangers could escape from that extension by virtue of making him available via waivers (and hoping some team was inclined to take a flier), or cutting a salary-dump deal in the next week for a marginal, Matt Hernandez-esque return?
Dealing Feldman -- and I'm not convinced any team would assume the entirety of his contract right now -- whittles down the Rangers' rotation depth to practically nothing, and as I noted late last week, the only real upside in doing so is if you can allocate the $11.5 million saved in such a way that it offsets the loss in pitching depth (e.g. a significant upgrade at catcher/first base), or take that money in the off-season and use it as a pot-sweetener in the pursuit of a front-line starting pitcher that you otherwise couldn't sign, or financial flexibility to accommodate a trade you otherwise couldn't afford.
In other words, there's some sense to the idea of trading Feldman, but it only makes sense if you make productive use of the money saved by means of bankrolling further roster upgrades; trading Feldman just because he's struggling like hell this year accomplishes little, and very well could hurt Texas down the road, given that the only locks for next year's Opening Day starting rotation are Colby Lewis, C.J. Wilson and Tommy Hunter. Somebody's going to have to eat the rest of those innings, preferably while pitching at a few ticks above replacement level, and Feldman remains a pretty decent bet to do that, even if his rotation spot might be better employed through the remainder of the 2010 season as a place for Derek Holland and/or Rich Harden to audition for the Rangers' impending post-season run.
All that said, the safest bet of all for Feldman might be placed on his ability to keep us perpetually on the edge of our seats. That's just what zero-margin-for-error pitchers like Feldman do.
[Credit goes to Lone Star Ball's Adam Morris for inspiring this post. In tomorrow's edition of "Things I Hate," I'm going to write a 2,500-word post about why I still hate Dean Palmer for committing the game-ending error in Game 2 of the 1996 ALDS. Or something.]
Josh Hamilton laces a double against the Angels on Thursday, July 22nd.1. With Scott Feldman's rising fielding-independent ERA (4.71) not-so-quietly catching up to his traditional ERA (5.46), is it just about time to find a different use for the Rangers' Opening Day starter? Furthermore, is it too early to call his contract extension a mistake?
2. A gun-to-your-head hypothetical (courtesy of A. Stephens): If the Rangers could afford to sign only one of Josh Hamilton -- who will likely command something in the vicinity of $10 million via arbitration next year, but is still a candidate for a multi-year extension -- or Cliff Lee, which would you choose and why? [Assume that the Rangers would have a semi-realistic shot at re-signing Lee.]
3. Do you feel Neftali Feliz should be groomed as a starter after this season -- a move which would likely entail keeping him in the minors during the early months of the 2011 season? Perhaps more significantly, would his median projection as a starter be good enough to justify switching him out of the closer's role?
4. This has been asked here before, but just for the heck of it: What is the first thing Chuck Greenberg/Nolan Ryan -- or any other incoming ownership group -- should do to improve the Ballpark experience? Cheaper parking/concessions? New scoreboard(s)? An overall face lift?
5. When was the last time you were excited by any sports team as much as you are by Rangers baseball right now?
It's funny how so much hype can be generated in the span of 48 hours without an earth-shattering trade and/or news story being the instigating source. Two days, two enormous home wins in front of near-sellout crowds, and a newfound seven-game lead -- the largest enjoyed by Texas since the end of the 1999 season, as well as the highest post-season odds percentage (90 percent), which is rather odd in that the 1999 iteration of the Rangers also sat at 57-40 with a seven-game lead on the evening of Saturday, July 24th, 1999.
Of course, the two teams couldn't be more dissimilar in terms of starting pitching, a facet of the game in which the Rangers yet again dominated by means of silencing the less potent bats of their most prominent divisional rival. C.J. Wilson's second superb effort of the week (8.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 104 pitches) was so understated that one might not have fully grasped the significance of it until his swinging punch-out of Maicer Izturis to end the eighth inning, a moment that sent a triple-digit decibel count reverberating throughout a jam-packed Ballpark. That was in no way, shape or form your typical courteous round of applause after a good performance. That was a stadium full of people who could taste playoff fever.
Of particular interest in this start was Wilson's heavy reliance upon -- and corresponding success with -- the fastball; against the Red Sox last Sunday in Fenway Park, Wilson employed his fastball variants less than 80 percent of the time, but that figure jumped to nearly 90 percent last night ... and yet, this tactic paid off handsomely, as the Angels managed just three well-hit balls all evening. The league-average well-hit ratio against fastballs is .233; last night, Wilson suppressed that figure to a meager .130 (3-for-23, which really seems to tie into his stated emphasis on maximizing hitter discomfort and suppressing opponents' slugging percentages to the maximum extent possible.
In the grand scheme of things, Wilson isn't going to get away with striking out merely 3-4 batters per nine innings, and the Wilson-related concerns I mentioned at the outset of this week haven't gone away, but ... hell, what can I say about two brilliant back-to-back pitching performances? When was the last time we had the privilege of enjoying something this special? And if this really is the beginning of Wilson tapping into his more walk-averse side, and he proves capable of sustaining that -- and his health -- the rest of the way, there's going to be a very interesting post-season discussion about the merits of trying to lock him up through 2013-14 with a big-money contract at, say, three years and $33 million with a fourth-year club option.
Cliff Lee fires a second-inning pitch against the Angels on Thursday, July 22nd.One of the less desirable consequences of this daily baseball-writing grind is that I usually find myself more emotionally detached from the individual pitches, at-bats and games than I'd like to be. I often wish that wasn't the case, but it's the nature of the "business" -- not that what we do here is a business, mind you, but you get my drift. There are days when only my unbridled passion for baseball, and that passion alone, keeps me writing. If I quit writing tomorrow, there's no question that I'd find myself more emotionally involved in the ebbs and flows of the beautiful game again.
I'm telling you all of this because it makes what happened last night all the more remarkable, at least from a personal standpoint -- frankly, I haven't been that tense or anxious about the outcome of a baseball game in a very long time, and even more frankly, I haven't been that invigorated by the energy of a home crowd since perhaps 2004. There were definite playoff vibes in the house that Tom Vandergriff built, vibes with which we're still not all that familiar, and to a large degree, they originated from the efforts of the pitcher whom the Rangers are supposed to ride all the way into early October and beyond -- Cliff Lee. This is the story of his performance.
Below is an exhaustive pitch-by-pitch dissection of Lee's 8.1-inning, 99-pitch effort, which utilizes a slightly modified version of the pitch-recording system popularized by Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus:
Basically, each notation has three pieces on information: TYPE-VELO-RESULT. Under Type, FB is fastball, CU is curveball, CH is changeup; FC is cutter; Velo is simple enough. Under Result, 'b' stands for ball, 's' for swinging strike, 'c' is a called strike, 'f' a foul ball, and 'x' is a ball in play. So, an 85 mph cutter taken for a strike is FC-85.0-c.
Included after every pitch is a parentheses-encased number -- or a question mark, in the event that it couldn't be recorded -- signifying its Pitch f/x-derived "nasty factor," which, according to MLBAM, evaluates several properties of each pitch (including its velocity, sequence, location and movement) and rates the "nastiness" of the pitch on a 1-100 scale. For the sake of context, the average Nasty Factor appears to reside in the low- to mid-40s; for Lee last night, it was a hair above 45.
All that said, the "nasty factor" seems to correlate most significantly with pitch location, as evidenced by work done on the matter by Pitch f/x guru Dave Allen; in general, pitches at or near the corners of the strike zone are going to generate the highest numbers, whereas pitches well out of the strike zone or near the heart of the plate will produce lower numbers. This isn't a perfect proxy for good pitch location, of course, but if you see a strike with a sub-30 NF, you can be pretty certain that it found the heart of the plate ... and, conversely, pitches with 50-and-up NFs are going to be right on the margins of the strike zone and, generally speaking, more difficult to make quality contact with:
FIRST INNING
SS Erick Aybar: FB-90.7-c (?), FB-90.8-x (?) [ground out]
Notes: Lee made a clear and emphatic statement in his first Arlington-located inning since making his Rangers debut nearly a fortnight prior, but perhaps not so much in his execution as in his game plan. After easily disposing of Aybar, Lee attacked both Kendrick and Abreu with a steady diet of outside fastballs and cutters, ultimately smashing Kendrick with a 2-2 fastball inside -- inducing a weak fly out -- and barely recovering from a three-ball scare against Abreu when the ensuing drive to left-center field was run down by Julio Borbon just in the nick of time. A somewhat wobbly inning to begin the evening, but good enough against a not-very-good Angels lineup.
Notes: The looking punch-out of Hunter was interesting in several respects; he was chewed up by the inside cutter and struck out moments later by a routine fastball, but I'd really like to focus on the cutter. Left-handed cutters are rare enough as it is, but according to research conducted by Dave Allen last year, cutters with more than two or so inches of horizontal break away from the pitching hand -- such as this one did -- are quite effective against both left- and right-handed hitters. Granted, this conclusion was drawn from a sample comprising solely right-handed cutters, but it makes sense intuitively that the same would hold true for left-handed cutters as well.
Napoli quickly snuffed out any aspirations of a no-hit bid by poking a down-and-away change-up into center field, but Lee maintained the "pound 'em away" philosophy against both Matsui and Rivera, with any balls amassed in those plate appearances being just barely off the plate and the final strikes producing satisfactory results. This was the first time I explicitly mentioned in my notes that Lee was "hitting his spots," or consistently putting it right on Bengie Molina's glove. The up-and-away fastball thrown to Rivera on 3-0 could have proven dangerous if he had taken it the opposite way, but the ensuing line out hung up in the air long enough for Borbon to make the play.
C Jeff Mathis: FB-90.5-s (60), FB-90.3-b (42), FC-85.6-f (45), FB-91.1-b (25), FB-91.1-f (59), FB-90.6-s (?) [strikeout swinging]
SS Erick Aybar: FB-90.1-x (55) [pop out]
Notes: Izturis was eaten alive by another up-and-in cutter, whereas Mathis found himself perplexed by the first real instance of widely varied pitch locations; Lee worked away, down, in and up before disposing of Mathis with a 2-2 fastball well above the strike zone, inducing a weak check-swinging strike. Aybar became the third and final victim of Lee pitching up in the zone in this frame, popping an up-and-in fastball behind home plate to complete a nine-pitch frame.
Notes: Shortly after the conclusion of World War II, a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force by the name of Richard Gillett explained, after a series of fortuitous events, that "it's better to be lucky than good." One gets the sense that Lee took this famous maxim a bit too literally in the fourth inning. After Kendrick walloped a 1-1 fastball that barely curled around the right field foul pole, Lee missed badly with a 1-2 fastball that was intended to be buried down and away. This pitch, arguably the first truly bad pitch thrown by Lee all night in that it was thrown right down the heart of the plate, was blasted to right field and only precluded from extra-base hit status by Nelson Cruz's fine running catch up against the wall.
Lee's flirtations with danger were not over, as his command again broke down against Abreu and culminated in another fastball being hung up and down the heart of the plate; only Ian Kinsler's diving snag-and-throw at second base prevented a base hit. Hunter became Lee's third strikeout victim of the night after backing himself into a 1-2 corner and being finished off with another up-and-in cutter.
LF Juan Rivera: FB-88.6-b (71), FB-89.7-x (65) [fly out]
3B Maicer Izturis: FB-92.1-x (45) [double]
C Jeff Mathis: FC-83.8-c (26), FB-90.6-f (66), FB-90.3-b (21), CU-73.6-s (7) [strikeout swinging]
Notes: After chewing up yet another hitter (Napoli) with the up-and-in cutter, Lee went almost exclusively away against Matsui ... and finally paid for it, with a 2-2 fastball right on the up-and-away corner of the strike zone being blasted into the left-center field gap. Izturis ripped a fastball that was above the strike zone -- yet down the middle of the plate -- off the tip of Josh Hamilton's glove for the Angels' second double of the inning, knotting the game at 1-1. Mathis could have expanded the lead when Lee threw a terrible first-pitch cutter over the middle of the plate, but kept the bat on his shoulder and soon thereafter swung through a curveball that, yet again, caught too much of the plate. Am I getting redundant yet?
SIXTH INNING
SS Erick Aybar: FB-89.1-f (58), FB-90.0-x (45) [single]
Notes: This inning might serve as an example of the consequences of extreme aversion to throwing balls. Three of the four pitches hit in this inning were hit relatively hard, and not surprisingly, all three of those pitches caught entirely too much of the middle of the plate. Now that I've committed the scandalous act of criticizing Lee's command, allow me to mix things up a bit with a statement I don't make too often, if ever: Michael Young's defense here was exceptional.
I've issued my fair share of disparaging remarks about Young's lateral range and such in the not-so-distant past, but he ranged nicely to his right and made a strong, accurate throw to complete the 5-4 force out, then successfully fell to his left and snared a rocket off Torii Hunter's bat in one fluid motion. A splendid defensive inning from a player who has taken a lot of heat for his deficiencies in that regard.
SEVENTH INNING
1B Mike Napoli: FB-89.8-f (55), FC-84.9-x (20) [home run]
Notes: That 20-grade "Nasty Factor" pretty well sums up his location on the 0-1 cutter to Napoli. Talk about a no-doubt homer. Another up-in-the-zone pitch to Matsui nearly produced another hit, but Lee managed to snag the grounder before it snuck into center field. Neither of the out-inducing change-ups were well-located, but then nobody ever said that Lee was going to be a heavy grounder-inducing pitcher. He has a tendency to work up in the zone, largely owing to the rising action of the fastballs and change-ups which represented 92 of the 99 pitches he threw last night, and it works out well enough when his command is functioning at optimal levels. When it's not, you're going to deal with a litany of near-misses and such. It happens.
EIGHTH INNING
PH Kevin Frandsen: FB-91.2-b (52), FB-90.3-x (52) [ground out]
Notes: Still clinging to a 3-2 lead, Lee nailed down his first 1-2-3 frame since the fourth inning. Not very much to see here, although it's worth noting that Lee managed to hold his typical 91-92 mph velocity beyond the 90-pitch mark. Mind you, this hasn't been cited as a concern with Lee at any point in his career (or at least as far back as I can recall), but self-witnessed assurances are always a good thing.
NINTH INNING
RF Bobby Abreu: FB-89.8-x (36) [fly out]
Notes: There was a short but frenzied discussion in last night's chat about whether the Rangers should stick with Lee throughout the ninth inning or summon closer Neftali Feliz, and after waffling for a few minutes on the issue, I decided that I was fine with whatever decision Mike Maddux and Ron Washington elected to render. Lee's one of the best pitchers in baseball, and had still yet to breach the 100-pitch mark when Washington conferred with Lee and the rest of the infield after the Abreu at-bat, and Feliz has certainly not been infallible lately ... but Lee's elite-level command wasn't there last night, it was hot in Arlington, and two right-handed batters were coming up.
In retrospect, that was one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type situations; that is, if the Rangers had stuck with Lee and he had sacrificed the lead, a great deal of second-guessing would have ensued (particularly after Lee came within one out of winning in Fenway Park last Saturday). Conversely, if they had gone with Feliz and he had blown it, the "you can't take your ace out of the game" argument would have been employed and the parties responsible for the decision summarily called out. I'm exaggerating a little here for dramatic effect, but you know I'm not far away from the truth. We're just fortunate that things didn't have a chance to reach that point.
Final Pitching Line: 99 pitches (68 strikes, four swinging strikes), 8.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HR, ground-to-fly ball ratio of 7-to-15
Before I say what else I have to say about Lee, first consider what he had to say to ESPNDallas.com's Richard Durrett regarding his effort: "I had to battle a little more tonight, to be honest with you. My location wasn't as good as it was in Boston. I felt like I was locating fastballs really well the other night in Boston, and that's the reason I threw so many fastballs. Tonight, I had to mix it up a little bit more. I found myself behind in the count a few more times and was able to get some outs. I threw more balls than I would have liked to, but it was a game I had to battle and make some pitches when I was behind in the count."
Here's the awesome reality of Cliff Lee -- even when pitching at merely 85-90 percent of his full effectiveness (the level at which I think most people will agree he pitched at last night), Lee is still better than around 85-90 percent of the starting pitchers in the league. Perhaps a better lineup on a slightly windier night would have punished his mistake pitches, and I'm certainly not going to refute the notion that there was a significant element of luck in his performance, but we're still talking about a pitcher who performed quite well holistically and bought another valuable day of rest for the Rangers' treasured relief corps. He could have been better, but no pitcher is dominant 100 percent of the time.
With the Rangers' ownership situation seemingly (hopefully?) rolling towards resolution on August 4th, there's assuredly going to be some debate as to whether the Rangers should be the team that swallows hard and tenders a seven-year, $140 million contract -- or thereabouts -- after the season in a presumed attempt to fend off the Yankees. It sounds very nice in the abstract, but even if Lee is of the elite-level persuasion, would you really feel good about his chances of maintaining his current level of performance and remaining healthy all the way into his late-30s?
Lee's a dominant pitcher right now, to be certain, and pitchers whose success relies heavily on rock-bottom walk rates seem to have a tendency to retain that skill very late into their careers, but I'm always very leery of throwing huge money at any pitcher, simply because it generally seems like a great way to end up with an albatross of a contract on your hands 4-5 years down the line, if not sooner. And if re-signing Lee to a monstrosity of a deal isn't a good idea, but the Rangers miss the playoffs and there's a post-defeat mindset that Texas must then retain Lee to justify the original trade, well, that's flawed logic. You don't exacerbate a failure with another potential mistake.
Ron Washington describes the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to John Hirschbeck on Monday, July 19th.One day -- and hopefully one day soon -- we can stop talking about this thing that's hanging over the Rangers' heads, but until that day arrives I think it's worthwhile to take a step back and really look at the cacophony of feelings experienced during yesterday's 24-hour emotional roller coaster: disappointment -- but not that of the excessive type -- over the Rangers' lifeless play in their series finale against Detroit, despair over several alarming statements conveyed in bankruptcy court, and, ultimately, excitement over Cliff Lee making a home start against the Rangers' most dangerous opponent.
Among those statements were a series of declarations from team president Nolan Ryan, who cast doubt upon the Rangers' ability to offer salary arbitration to the .357/.399/.638-hitting Josh Hamilton (?!), confirmed that Texas has reallocated its international signing budget towards major league payroll and had to cease operations of one of its two Dominican Summer League teams, and warned that the Rangers are losing scouting talent -- and risking the loss of additional personnel -- to other organizations. In response, Judge Michael Lynn gave assurances that the bankruptcy process would in no way inhibit the Rangers' on-the-field operations.
Now, as far as the extent to which Ryan's statement on Hamilton was true, I'm not certain. There seems to be an element of hyperbole in his language there, but maybe I have that sense simply because we cannot begin to wrap our heads around the notion that a World Series-contending team couldn't afford to tender a contract to its arbitration-eligible, MVP-caliber outfielder. To quote a legendary Maverick-turned-Wizard, "It's crazy, man." And it was certainly in Ryan's best interest to paint as bleak a portrait of the situation as possible without resorting to outright lies, as doing so might incrementally better the odds of the team auction date remaining on August 4th.
But what perplexes me at some level was Ryan's -- and, for that matter, the entire Rangers organization's -- seeming ignorance that Judge Lynn could order Major League Baseball to provide greater financial assistance, and that the team's major lenders are willing to pump money into the team if the league refused to comply with that mandate. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how were the Rangers not aware of this aspect of Judge Lynn's power? If the Rangers had taken advantage of this, would it have enabled them to preserve their international signing budget, or reduce the talent lost in the B. Molina/C. Lee deals, or retain a greater number of front-office personnel?
Of course, receiving another infusion of cash from one of those two sources would have deepened the team's debt obligation, and perhaps there's some pragmatic reason why that simply wouldn't be a prudent road to take ... but there's an enormous difference between the option not being good, and not actually knowing about your ability to invoke that option in the first place. It just strikes a very strange and discordant note to my ears, and makes me wonder about what else has not been fully disclosed during the course of this bankruptcy case.
Before I break away from this subject for another day, I feel it worth noting that one local newspaper seems to be attempting to spearhead a movement against Judge Lynn, his court-appointed restructuring officer and the Rangers' creditors, with all parties being referred to as "idiots" repeatedly and talk of a letter-writing campaign and park rally being presented. This is my cynical side coming out, but I have to ask: What is the end game here, really? Because if it's something along the lines of striving for a Disney-esque ending where Judge Lynn reads a touching letter from a seven-year-old Rangers fan and sheds a single tear during a touching violin solo and then commences doing everything within his power to aid Greenberg/Ryan, well, that's both ridiculous and unrealistic.
But then again, most of the unrelenting vitriol aimed towards those parties during this case has been misguided from the start. These are people simply attempting to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, and that's the sort of opinion that's not going to sit well with somebody who has been whipped into a rage against, say, the creditors, but that's pretty much how it is. And if you do decide to participate in this campaign (which I suspect will be futile, but then I've been wrong about things before), I hope you'll keep in mind that the true antagonist here is not any party other than Tom Hicks -- the man who put the Rangers here in the first place.
[I guess this can dually function as an open bankruptcy hearing thread or something. Go hog wild, go Cliff Lee, etc.]
Above: Tommy Hunter makes some hitter look foolish at some ballpark at some indiscriminate point in time.Before you ask ... well, no, the addendum to the title really isn't anything more than a cheap and shameless way to work in an ATCQ-conceived song title while still catching your attention, but I guess a sub-three hour game started by Tommy Hunter really is quite relaxing relative to some of what we've endured lately:
● Chris Davis -- who did, to his credit, go 2-for-4 last night, including a visually pleasing rocket to the left-center field gap -- on his pre-Tuesday .138/.212/.138 performance since being recalled: "[My offense] is something that I constantly have to challenge myself every day to get better. I have to have a better idea of what [pitchers] are going to do. When they make a mistake, I've got to jump on it." (Jeff Wilson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
[A couple of interesting nuggets I unearthed while fooling around in Baseball Reference's Play Index: Since baseball integrated in 1947, there have been 96 major league first basemen who logged at least 800 plate appearances combined in their first three seasons. Davis's career batting runs total (-8) is the 10th-worst mark among that sample, albeit curiously wedged between two All-Stars in Jim Spencer (-7) and Justin Morneau (-9). What's exponentially more startling is that if you use those same parameters, but look at all post-1900 first baseman and use total wins above replacement, Davis (-1.7 WAR) has had the second-worst three-year start to a first baseman's career in baseball history.]
Now, I'm going to choose to take that latter figure with an disproportionately large grain of salt, mostly because of its reliance upon suspect fielding data. Davis is still young, he's still has enormous raw power, and the argument can be made that he was, to some degree, rushed to the majors before he was truly "ready." But it's not often these days that well-regarded prospects -- such as Davis was at the time -- are promoted under truly optimal conditions, and there's probably an argument to be made that a good number of the prospects whose early-career struggles are attributed to being "rushed" were never going to make it in the first place, or were always going to end up requiring 3-4 years in the majors before figuring it out.
I still intend to write about the Chris Davis vs. Justin Smoak debate (perhaps after the tireless Jason Parks runs through Smoak in his 'Highest Ceilings' series), and I can't promise it will be that much more interesting than my mid-March missive on the plate discipline demons plaguing him, but at some point people -- and certainly Rangers personnel -- are going to grow sick of hearing about adjustments and what Davis "has to do" to attain success. They're going to want results. It's too early to say whether this season will also be a lost cause, and there are a few encouraging signs to suggest it won't be, but whether it's his faulty batting eye or kinky swing or bad foot positioning or him simply being locked up in his own mind, the clock's ticking.]
● A lawyer representing Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan's ownership group confirmed in Fort Worth bankruptcy court on Tuesday that Mark Cuban is a "serious" prospective bidder for the Rangers, with Jim Crane, Jeff Beck and a fifth undisclosed bidder also being in play; among the other interesting developments was a statement from court-appointed restructuring officer William K. Snyder that he could sign off on a Greenberg/Ryan-exclusive deal if Tom Hicks made a large enough "monetary concession," and the fact that manager Ron Washington will be summoned to the witness stand on Thursday morning for unclarified reasons (Barry Schlacter, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
[As far as I can tell, the main point of contention right now is when the auction should be staged, as multiple reports have indicated that the Greenberg/Ryan financing commitments expire on August 12th, and the creditors would prefer to postpone the auction long enough -- reportedly 70-90 days -- to permit Crane, Beck and Cuban to get their houses in order. So, there's that. There's no point in rendering predictions on this deal anymore. For what it's worth, Maury Brown recently attacked the notion of Cuban joining any other ownership group, although I don't concur with his speculative reasoning on why his presence would be bad in a financial respect.]
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