C.J. Wilson ... No. 4 Starter?

About a week ago, Mike Bacsik issued the following tweet:

My point on CJ is he is only a #1 starter in Texas. Any other team considered a playoff team he's a 2 or 3. In Philly he's in the pen.

My initial reaction to this was, of course, "No ... this doesn't sound right. And that bit about C.J. only being a reliever at best in Philadelphia absolutely CANNOT be right."

Well, today, Joel Sherman writes at length about the Yankees' rotation situation and their prospects of gunning for Wilson on the open market this winter:

The Yankees are not the only team showing a lack of fervor for C.J. Wilson, though he has gone 31-15 with a 3.14 ERA the last two years and is left-handed. In supply and demand, this should make Wilson the top free-agent starter on the market — and once the bidding begins, all the talk of caution usually vanishes.

But I have yet to find a baseball executive or scout who views Wilson as an ace and very few who even think he is a definitive No. 2. Heck, one member of the Yankees decision-making apparatus told me he thinks Wilson is a No. 4 on a championship-caliber team.

Wilson will start Game 1 of the World Series for Texas tomorrow and has pitched in Game 1 of every round of these playoffs. But there are concerns about his career postseason performance (1-4, 5.40 ERA, 10 homers in 40 innings) and his command of the strike zone.

Also, I thought Wilson would get more points for a likelihood of future durability based on that he was mainly a reliever his first five seasons and never exceeded 74 innings. However, most executives spoken to said there is plenty of stress being a high-leverage reliever several times a week. Also, a few evaluators voiced concerns about Wilson’s mechanics, noting he has a bit of the Inverted W in his delivery — both elbows pointing upward and above the shoulder before the release — though not as dramatic as those of, say, Stephen Strasburg or the young Mark Prior.

It led one NL talent evaluator to tell me this: “Is he a good bet to start without breaking down over the next five years and 1,000 innings? Well, no one really is. But I would say his chances are slimmer than others.”

I think that what you're going to find is C.J. ranking as a borderline No. 1 pitcher by the metrics (a No. 1.5 pitcher, perhaps), and as more of a No. 2 starter by scouts (with some apparently leaning closer to No. 3 territory), so I'm not surprised that he's not being viewed as a legitimate ace by baseball types. The notion that C.J. slots as a No. 4 starter on a championship-caliber team, however, is ludicrious, and smacks of some type of ulterior motive on the part of said (conveniently anonymous) Yankees executive.

As far as the talk about his durability ... well, I agree to the extent that I think those higher-leverage relief innings are more stressful, but I would still be inclined to think that there's a pretty substantial difference in the wear and tear created by 55-60 higher-leverage innings and the wear and tear created by 200-plus innings -- or more than 300 percent more pitches in an given season.

I may talk about this more tomorrow, if I feel so inclined.

Rangers: "Can Dirk Throw Out The First Pitch?" MLB: "No."

Via ESPN.com's Marc Stein:

The Texas Rangers nominated Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki to throw out a first pitch before one of their home games in the World Series, but sources with knowledge of the team's plans say that the recommendation has been nixed by Major League Baseball.

Unlike regular-season games, all first-pitch assignments in the World Series have to be approved from a list of candidates by the league office.

Sources told ESPNDallas.com that -- with the NBA in the midst of a lockout that has spanned 111 days -- at least some hesitation stems from the idea that MLB executives want to stand behind their basketball counterparts and have notified the Rangers that they can't bestow first-pitch honors on an NBA player.

Major League Baseball insists that the NBA's labor unrest had any impact on Nowitzki not being selected to throw out the first pitch.

"MLB absolutely denies that any part in selecting the first ball pitcher had anything to do with the current labor situation in the NBA," MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. "You want the club's input in what makes sense for them and then we talk about what makes sense for the team and a good broad-base national appeal."

I mean, I get that stuff like first pitches don't really matter in the grander scheme of things ... but, seriously, Major League Baseball? We're really going to turn this into a matter of cross-sport labor politics?

And are we really going to buy this explanation that the reason why MLB nixed Dirk throwing out a first pitch was because Dirk doesn't have "good broad-base national appeal?" You know, the same Dirk that basically emerged as something of a national hero for finally triumphing over the playoff bogeyman and downing the hated Miami Heat?

Edit: So, you know that bit up there about Dirk ostensibly not having enough "broad-base national appeal" for MLB's liking? Well, guess who's throwing out the first pitch for Game 2?

A central Ohio man will throw the first pitch in Game 2 of the World Series after winning an online contest.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Tim Wisecup won the honor after his video received the most votes in the PepsiMax Field of Dreams contest.

Wisecup and three other finalists posted videos online suggesting why he should win the contest. He beat out 2.5 million others to be selected as a finalist.

That's right. According to MLB, a no-name online contest winner has more "broad-base national appeal" than Dirk.

Now, obviously, I'm not out to denigrate Tim Wisecup. I'm sure he's a genuinely nice guy, and, in isolation, I don't care that he's throwing out the first pitch at a World Series game.

But don't try to run out some garbage excuse about Dirk not having enough national appeal, and then have a no-name contest winner -- a contest sponsored by one of your biggest sponsors, of course -- throw out the first pitch, and expect people to believe any of the B.S. that you're peddling. MLB's agenda is so laughably transparent here.

As usual, Major League Baseball completely fails at public relations. I shouldn't be shocked by it at this point, but this is still absolutely mind-blowing.

The Degeneration Of Mitch Moreland ... In Heat Map Form

So, I'm continuing the heat maps analysis series today, and, per a request from the thread the other day, I want to take a more nuanced and visual look at what has been killing Mitch Moreland's production. I don't want to run these posts into the ground, because (a) if I do, you'll begin tuning them out, and (b) if I don't seek to make hard points with these heat maps, they're basically just further contributing to everyone's crippling cases of information overload

Here, then, is the point that I want to make, and the point that I think is supported by the graphics below: Moreland is losing the battle within the outer third of the strike zone. Badly. As was the case yesterday, you can click on each individual heat map to enlarge it to full size:

Moreland until 6/29/11: 485 PA, .284/.362/.481, .359 wOBA, 21 HR, .315 BABIP

Moreland from 6/29/11-present: 273 PA, .218/.280/.335, .267 wOBA, 6 HR, .250 BABIP

These numbers/heat maps do include post-season plate appearances.

Why June 29th, you ask? Because that appears to be a significant inflection point where his offensive performance really began to crater ... he had already been in the process of falling off for the better part of June, but after collecting three hits in seven at-bats on June 26th and 28th, Moreland began a 4-for-38 slump (beginning June 29th) that signaled the onset of a larger-scale second-half slump.

What's especially interesting is that the league appears to have caught onto the fact that Moreland has lost his way against pitchers on the outer half of the plate ... embedded below are two more heat maps, with the heat map on the left showing the distribution of "hard pitches" (fastballs, cutters, sinkers, and splitters) against Moreland from the beginning of his career up until June 29th, and the heat map on the right showing that same distribution from June 29th to present:

As Moreland has lost his capacity for hitting outside fastballs, opposing pitchers have attacked that area of the zone more aggressively while eschewing the middle-in fastball. Now, obviously, there's more to Moreland's struggles than merely his emergent difficulties against outside heaters, and we still don't know exactly why he's faltering against such pitches now ... but at least we're getting closer to solving the puzzle.

And that's the entire purpose of utilizing these heat maps: solving puzzles.

A couple of additional bonus time-lapse .gifs after the jump, for those who want to watch Moreland's decline in visual form.

* * * * *

[All data and graphics courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information.]

World Series Roster Changes

Nothing too fancy, here, as Koji Uehara -- who was an utter disaster during the first two playoff rounds, and who doesn't appear to be close enough to getting the wheels back on and in working order to help the Rangers in the World Series -- and Yoshinori Tateyama get whisked away to make room for Mark Lowe and Matt Treanor.

With Treanor in the fold, Ron Washington is bestowed more tactical flexibility in terms of being able to use Yorvit Torrealba as a right-handed pinch hitter in at least two (and possibly as many as four) World Series games played under National League rules. Lowe, meanwhile, was said to be throwing well and was said to have recovered well from his hamstring, and while I don't think he's somebody you want Ron Washington and Mike Maddux turning to with the game on the line, he's a far more capable middle relief option than either Uehara or Tateyama figured to be at this point.

I would anticipate that both Uehara and Tateyama are back next year and playing reasonably important roles in this bullpen hierarchy -- but as far as the remainder of this season is concerned, I don't have any problem with seeing them parked on the sidelines.

Per Gerry Fraley, the Cardinals have added second baseman Skip Schumaker and right-hander Jake Westbrook to their World Series roster in place of right-hander Kyle McClellan and outfielder Adron Chambers. Schumaker returns to the Cardinals' lineup in a starting 2B/CF capacity, while the sinker-hurling Westbrook replaces a more fly bal-prone McClellan. I don't think either of those roster moves are particularly significant, given that both Schumaker and Westbrook are fairly mediocre players on the whole ... but, well, there you go.

Hot Streaks And Logic Fail

Steve Henson has a piece up -- well, I guess that's what you would call it -- right now over at Yahoo! Sports examining the positional matchups between the Rangers and Cardinals, and conferring a nice little check mark to one team or the other at each position to signify a team holding an edge at that position. It's a fun little exercise, but these binary position-comparing exercises also tend to leave something to be desired more often than not.

Anyway, Henson rattles through the positions (he says that Mike Napoli and Yadier Molina are "tied" at catcher, which I find difficult to believe, but okay), and then comes up on third base, where he compares Adrian Beltre and NLCS MVP David Freese:

Adrian Beltre. One of the most underrated players in the game because of his four-year disappearing act in Seattle from 2005-2009, Beltre is a premier fielder and dangerous hitter. His presence batting fifth enables Josh Hamilton and Michael Young to get pitches to hit in front of him. Even though he seems a young 32, Beltre has 14 seasons and more than 2,000 hits and 300 home runs on his resume.

David Freese. The emergence of Freese as a dangerous bat in the middle of the lineup is a major reason the Cardinals are in the World Series. Can he continue to deliver? He batted .545 in the NLCS, with three home runs among his 12 hits. The production isn’t totally unexpected – Freese has hit .298 in parts of three seasons. His defense is average, but his hot bat makes him as much an asset as Beltre.

And his final assessment?

Tied.

Now, I don't want this to be intended as a slight towards Freese; he has, after all, evolved into a pretty decent little ballplayer, with some pop and some ability to hit for average, and he beat the living hell out of the ball during the NLCS. The Rangers pitching staff should absolutely regard him as a credible offensive threat. With that disclaimer out of the way, though, I have to wonder out loud ... really? Freese is elevated to even ground with Beltre -- who is both a superior talent and producer in virtually every category across the board -- because he posted 25 great plate appearances during the NLCS and has a "hot bat?" Is this really what we've come to?

There's a funny little thing about that, too. Once again, courtesy of The Book: "Knowing that a hitter has been in or is in the midst of a hot or cold streak has little predictive value. Always assume that a player will hit at his projected norm (adjusted for the park, weather, and pitcher he is facing), regardless of how he has performed in the very recent past." In other words, expecting Freese's white-hot hitting to continue onward into the World Series is doing it wrong. So, too is expecting Nelson Cruz's white-hot hitting to continue onward into the World Series ... except that Cruz's projected norm is actually still pretty damn good. Freese's is good, as well ... but it's certainly no Adrian Beltre.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you stumble across a commentator trying to project a player forward in part from his current hot streak. That's just not the right way to do it.

The Flyest Mike Napoli Heat Maps You've Ever Seen

So, yesterday I introduced some of the heat map technology that I now have the ability to access, and one of the first requests was for heat maps comparing Mike Napoli in April 2011 and Mike Napoli in September 2011.

The only problem? Napoli hit very well in both months, so there really wasn't a visually impressive difference.

As a compromise, I put together first-half and second-half heat maps for Napoli, and I think you'll find the results rather impressive (click on each map to enlarge to full size):

Mike Napoli, first half 2011: 183 PA, .232/.344/.529, 12 HR, .226 BABIP

Mike Napoli, second half 2011: 249 PA, .383/.466/.706, 18 HR, .427 BABIP

This is absolutely insane. Look at the bottom-left heat map for a moment. There are absolutely no weak spots. More than half of the strike zone is shaded in red. I don't quite know how you explain the fact that he decimated down-and-in pitches during the second half (a developed willingness to shorten up his stroke, perhaps), or the fact that he expanded his effective plate coverage to such a great extent, but this is really cool stuff to be able to lay your eyes on.

As a special bonus, I've included a couple of animated time-lapse .gifs showing the progression of his in-play batting average and slugging percentage as the season progressed ... but they're both after the jump.

Click to read more ...

And The Beat Goes On: October 18th (The Fired-Up Edition)

You know, it's been far too long since we did one of these. Let's do it right this morning, with a little Funkadelic:

● C.J. Wilson is your Game 1 starter, but the rest of the starting rotation order has yet to be decided. In other news, the Rangers are weighing the relative merits of a seven-man vs. an eight-man bullpen, are considering adding a now-healthy Mark Lowe to the World Series roster, and are going to stick with their same lineup against the Cardinals. Shockingly, Michael Young will play first base in Busch Stadium rather than ride the pine. Nelson Cruz may or may not like batting seventh.

Jeff Wilson says that the Rangers' starting pitchers want to work deeper into games going forward. Mac Engel writes about the greatness of Jon Daniels.

● The best link I saw yesterday? Richard Durrett's interview with co-owner Bob Simpson:

Q: This is a top media market, can Rangers fans expect the club to have a top-5 budget?

BS: Maybe eventually as we transition. I think rather than have a payroll goal, we have a talent and level of play goal. Money can’t buy success by itself. That’s been proved over and over again. What I would recommend to the owners is support this management, support this talent and if we have to step up from time to time financially, we will. Unlike some other teams, there’s been no money taken out by the owners. We expect to put money in every year for several years until we get to the sustained big-time and also until our TV contract steps up in 2015. We are committed and want to keep this level of play. You can’t ever guarantee it because it’s a competitive world. But our philosophy is to sustain this level of play and we know it’s going to cost more money. We’ll do everything within reason to keep it there and keep this going. 

For what it's worth, the fifth-highest Opening Day payroll in baseball this season was in the $127-128 million range. Make of that what you will.

● Beyond the Box Score's latest World Series projections have the Rangers winning in five games. Conversely, FOXSports.com's Tracy Ringolsby says that the Cardinals are going to win the Series in five games, because even though the Rangers have been playing well, the Cardinals have been playing well "under pressure." Yeah. Because, you know, the Rangers faced absolutely no pressure whatsoever in either the ALDS or ALCS. Obviously, they faced no pressure when they fell behind 0-1 in the ALDS after a humiliating Game 1 blowout loss at home. And, obviously, they faced no pressure in Game 4 of the ALCS when they fought for their lives to avoid the very real possibility of going back to Arlington down 3-2 in the series.

You know what? I don't care what people want to predict. You want to say Cardinals in four games? Fine. I don't have a problem with that. Want to justify it with your gut feeling? Fine, no problem with that either. What I do have a problem with, though, is justifying your pick with some fallacious garbage about the Cardinals being the favorites to win because they've had to play well under pressure, whereas the Rangers apparently haven't. Give me a freakin' break.

● Michael Young dislikes the ASG/World Series home-field advantage tie-in:

"I've never been a big fan of it, even when the American League was winning all those years in a row. An exhibition game that happens in July, with about 95 percent of the guys who aren't even in this [Game 1], dictate where it's played. I have a tough time wrapping my arms around that."

Thank you. THANK YOU. What an asinine system this is. Not that HFA really matters all that much, mind you -- rather, I'm more interested in the Rangers winning the title at home, and being home for Games 6 and 7 would likely give the Rangers a better chance of doing so.

On a tangentially related note, I understand that this Craig Calcaterra post triggered quite the contentious Twitter battle between CC and Evan Grant yesterday. You can make of that what you will, as well.

● The Rangers are heavy World Series favorites in Vegas. Nolan Ryan thinks the Rangers will win in six games.

● The Professor recaps the ALCS over at Baseball Prospectus. John Perrotto talks about the rise of the Rangers, and also includes this interesting take from a scout on Nelson Cruz:

"I'm not surprised by what he's doing in the postseason because when he gets hot, he gets unconsciously hot. The best way to attack him is to try to beat him with inside fastballs, but he's on that pitch right now. Pretty much the best thing to do if I'm the Cardinals in the World Series is just pitch around him and let (David) Murphy try to beat me."

● There are a bunch more stories out there this morning about the World Series matchup, but they all say pretty much the same thing and bore the hell out of me and I'm too lazy to link to them all. To make up for it, here's a fox hunting in the snow:

Some Conflicting Reports On Chris Carpenter's Health

A couple of hours ago, the Rangers formalized C.J. Wilson as their Game 1 starter, and announced that they were still undecided as to what order they wanted to deploy Colby Lewis, Derek Holland, and Matt Harrison in.

Meanwhile, the widely held assumption has been that Chris Carpenter will start opposite Wilson in Game 1, with Derrick Goold reporting the following early this morning:

The righthander has received treatment for soreness in his right elbow, a source familiar with the situation said. Carpenter said he felt fine and that the added workload of October wasn't wearing on him.

When asked about the elbow, he said, "It's nothing; I'm all good."

La Russa rejected the description of Carpenter as "sore."

A little while ago, however, we got this report from ESPN 1220's Twitter account:

Cards ace pitcher Chris Carpenter has a sore elbow and may not be available to start game 1 of World Series Wed.

Now, to be clear, I regard Goold as being more reputable than a regional ESPN affiliate ... but if there's anything to this report about Carpenter possibly not being able to go in Game 1, he'd be looking at starting either Games 2 and 6 or Games 3 and 7 rather than Games 1 and 5 -- and be pitted against either Derek Holland or Colby Lewis, instead of C.J. Wilson.

I don't yet know how much of a good thing that would be.

Fun With Heat Maps

So, it turns out that we've gotten our hands on some really cool heat map/batted ball-tracking technology, and I think Nelson Cruz serves as a good starting point for the utilization of that technology. Here is Cruz's slugging percentage heat map/batted ball map for the ALDS (click to enlarge; do note the scale being used here):

And now, for the ALCS:

It's an exceptionally customizable platform, to the extent that you could look up Neftali Feliz's swinging-strike heat map in 1-2 counts against right-handed batters during the month of July 2011 if you really wanted to (although you'd have a pretty narrow sample of pitches, I suspect). The reason I bring this up is because I'm curious as to whether anyone has some good ideas for heat maps that they'd like to see ... I'd be happy to try throwing one per day out here in the Clubhouse, although do bear in mind that a restrictive sample with only a couple of pitches/batted balls is going to result in a lower-quality heat map.

Today's Poll Of The Day

I have a new poll up on the left-hand sidebar this morning concerning the outcome of this year's World Series, if you're seeking a halfway serious poll question.

Otherwise, though, here's my biggest question of the day:

Eric Nadel Calls The Final Out Of The ALCS

Well, this is kind of a no-brainer:

Separated At Birth

Notorious plagiarizing producer Timbaland:

Joaquin Benoit: