The Drubbing

Throws Right, Bats Right, Farts Left

Joe Price, Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 5:48 PM Comments (0)

 

 

“_____ could throw a baseball through a lifesaver if you asked him.” -Joe Morgan

 

“One time, _____ was pitching for the Cubs, and all of a sudden I see him grimacing and limping around. I thought he popped a groin or something. I came to the mound and asked what was the matter. (the quote drops off here while the newspaper is politically correct, but _____ told Grace “I have a boner right now”)  Grace then responded to _______  “You know dude, you really do love pitching don’t you?”

 

“At one point, in midsentence and without warning, he winced like a man about to pass a stone, lifted his left cheek off the chair and let loose. “Whoa, wow, sorry about that,” he said, then continued with the eggs and the discussion and the golf pool. So add that to the ______ scouting report: bats right, throws right, farts left.” (source)

 
Continue reading “Throws Right, Bats Right, Farts Left” →

NFL Picks

Joe Price, Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 12:09 AM Comments (0)

First, I know I have been gone for awhile. Lets not dwell on it. Second, I have recently been asked by a nice lady friend to try and help her with an NFL picks pool. In pursuit of making this fair lady happy, I have actually done research and tried to pick well. So, I figured I would post those picks here. Their selections come out on Wednesday, and I am not even sure what lines they use. You have to pick every game with the spread and add a lock of the week and a point total for the Monday night game. Here goes (HOME TEAMS IN CAPS):

Continue reading “NFL Picks” →

The Red Sox are really smart (and yes, I am a Yankee fan)

Joe Price, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 11:37 PM Comments (1)

The Red Sox acquisition of Billy Wagner is brilliant. They acquired a fireball throwing left-hander for two yet to be named low minor leaguers. Their only exposure is the remaining money on his contract for this year. But to quote James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams: “For it is money that they have, and peace that they seek”.

The Red Sox are in no danger of losing money. They have a lucrative television contract, a stadium that they have sucked every revenue opportunity out of, and a nationwide legion of fans purchasing their merchandise. However, they did realize that there is one precious commodity in baseball that no amount of money can currently buy: draft picks.

If Billy Wagner is offered arbitration after the season and doesn’t take it, the Red Sox get draft picks. Not only are they draft picks, but they are high draft picks. When you add in Billy Wagner’s desire to close, it is almost a lock that he will be leaving.  The easiest way to see how much of a steal this was is to look at the three possible outcomes:

 

1) Wagner pitches terrific-For the cost of two low minor leaguers who barely qualify as prospects, the Sox get a veteran lefty that throws in the 90′s and has experience. Maybe he helps them win a game or two down the stretch and pitches some high leverage innings in the playoffs. When the season is over, Wagner wishes to return to closing as he has stated and rejects the arbitration offer from the Sox to seek a closing job. The Red Sox then receive sandwich round draft picks (which means they get some picks after the first round is over and before the second round starts)

2) Wagner pitches poorly- The Red Sox wasted a few relief innings on another Eric Gagne and they are probably no worse for it. If it’s just poorly, maybe they still offer him arbitration and he rejects it believing he can still close. The Sox still get the draft picks. If it is incredibly poorly, maybe the sox simply pay him his $1 million dollar buyout and let him go.

3) Wagner gets hurt-The worst case scenario, but here, the Sox would pay the buyout and send Wagner on his way.

Anyway you look at it the only thing the Sox have to lose here is money and (possibly) a game or two. Since they have a lot of money, the Sox basically just found a way to take a flier on a pitcher with upside and get two free draft picks at the same time. All of this begs one question: Why the hell wouldn’t the Mets just keep him?

July 19th, 1974: Dick Bosman starts in Cleveland

Joe Price, Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 11:54 PM Comments (0)

July 19th, 1974 was an interesting day in Cleveland. It was in the 70′s most of the day and there was some rain. When the day started, it was like any other day, but by the time it ended, it would be a day that many would soon forget. For one man, it would be day he probably can never forget.

As he strode to the mound, Dick Bosman was still a serviceable major league pitcher. His glorious 1969 season was well behind him. That 2.19 ERA was the pinnacle of his career, but he was not through. He had been struggling through a few years but still enjoyed the glory that comes with playing in the big leagues. His 30 year old body took the mound wearing the home uniform of the Cleveland Indians to face the Oakland Athletics. Later that year, these same A’s would go on to win the World Series.

Continue reading “July 19th, 1974: Dick Bosman starts in Cleveland” →

Are the 2009 Nationals the worst team ever?

Joe Price, Monday, July 27, 2009 at 12:01 AM Comments (1)

Through the first half of the season, there has been a lot of talk of whether the Nationals are bad or historically bad. Currently (6/26/09), their winning percentage was .306, which is within shouting distance of the 1962 Mets all-time record of futility of .250. Inevitably, if the Nationals continue to play as poorly as they have been, there will continue to be discussions of whether or not they are the worst team ever. So let’s see if we can find some statistical way to look at this question.
Continue reading “Are the 2009 Nationals the worst team ever?” →

Quick Baseball Trivia

Joe Price, Friday, July 24, 2009 at 8:00 AM Comments (3)

Since 1980, these three players are the only ones to do something. First one to name the connection wins points in my new random and sporadic trivia game.

Bill Russell, Charlie Hayes, Juan Uribe

Does Joe Torre ruin relief pitchers?

Joe Price, Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:13 AM Comments (0)

I want you, not the guy next to you, you. Stop acting like one of the Night at the Roxbury guys and get out here

Near the end of my last column on the pitchers I have been tracking since before the season, I wrote the following about Ramon Troncoso:

“In the article before the season, I said that Ramon’s worst enemy was Joe Torre. I worried that he might blow out his arm. Currently, he has pitched 53 innings in 82 Dodger games. That’s on pace for more than 100 innings. Here is my prediction: Either Troncoso gets injured in August or he gives up a devastating hit in the Division Series because his arm is shot. Write it down, its a lock.”

After writing that, I got to thinking about whether or not Joe Torre was bad on relief pitchers. Everyone seems to say that he is, and as you know all to well now, once I start thinking about something I have to know if it is true. So, once again, lets start with an explanation, show you a chart, and then talk about what it might mean.
Continue reading “Does Joe Torre ruin relief pitchers?” →

Last year’s rookie pitchers revisited

Joe Price, Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 11:30 PM Comments (0)

A couple of weeks ago, I looked back at the article I wrote about last year’s rookie hitters. So for today’s treat, we’ll check in with those rookie pitcher’s from last year that I previewed before the year. If you missed last year’s article, you can find it here. So without further ado, here we go first with the chart I included in the first article, followed by the chart showing this year’s stats:
Continue reading “Last year’s rookie pitchers revisited” →

A look back at the rookie pitchers we previewed before the season

Joe Price, Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 11:04 PM Comments (0)

 

May 2010 “Mr. Torre, it looks like you broke another one”.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I looked back at the article I wrote about last year’s rookie hitters. So for today’s treat, we’ll check in with those rookie pitcher’s from last year that I previewed before the year. If you missed last year’s article, you can find it

here. So without further ado, here we go first with the chart I included in the first article, followed by the chart showing this year’s stats:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “A look back at the rookie pitchers we previewed before the season” →

Does speed force more errors?

Joe Price, Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 7:22 PM Comments (0)

Would this man force more errors if he could make contact with the ball?

Perhaps more than any other sport baseball is subject to the cliché. With so many games a year and so many hours of radio/television coverage for each of those games, things get repeated a lot. As with anything else, once something gets repeated enough people begin to accept it as true. It is an amazing thing about the human mind, once we hear something a few times, as long as it seems logical, we accept it. One of them has been bothering me for a while, and until now I didn’t have a way of looking at it. Thanks to the magic of baseball-reference.com, now I can.

Whenever someone like Ichiro, Torii Hunter, or Jose Reyes reaches first on an infield error one of the announcers will inevitably say “That shows you how speed forces defenses to rush which creates more errors”. This sounds perfectly logical. If I am at shortstop and Usain Bolt is running to first I know that I have to hurry the throw. However, because I tend to overthink things I always wondered if it was true.

Before I explain the methodology I used, let me first admit that it is not perfect. I took two different sets of data and looked at the statistics as best as I could. It is rudimentary statistical analysis at best, and would not qualify to be published in any scholarly journal. However, it can give us some illustration of what is going on So here goes.
Continue reading “Does speed force more errors?” →