I don’t care.

Keep in mind these words are coming from a person that has never done drugs, drank or smoke and was a really good athlete in his heyday. I take sports seriously, ask my wife. She once was winning in a game of horse and I kicked the ball to the playground side of the park and hit some kid with it. I also take cheating seriously shown by my straight C’s in high school. I don’t care though, I really don’t and you shouldn’t either. I’ll tell you why with a question.

Where do we draw the line?

This juiced-up chucklehead was forgiven the moment he admitted to being a cheater.

We have admitted steroids users such as Andy Pettite, Alex Rodriguez and now Mark McGwire and marked users by the media such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa in a big stew. Add in Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams (frozen head and all), Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and any other old guy my dad can mention. How do you separate this testosterone, drug and drunken infested stew?

For one thing you can’t. You can’t separate record books. You can’t have two Hall of Fames even though that would be sweet. Free program for one, free shots for the other. So what do we do about it? Not a damn thing because I don’t care.

It’s the changing ways of the sports realm and the world as we know it. 50 years ago doctors were in smoking ads and they said butter and eggs were good for you. Now they’re bad. Well not all of the egg just the yellow part is bad. What the hell are partially hydrogenated oils? I know what it isn’t. Tasty. And if you want to step it up a notch go organic. You know the definition of organic is: characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms. Isn’t that everything?

Years ago the drug of choice in the majors was beer and cigarettes, now it’s something else and 25 years from now it’ll be something else. You don’t separate it because deep down all athletes want an edge. All cheat legally, some cheat illegally. That’s right, all cheat.

You’ve played sports if you’re reading this, if you haven’t, buy a jock then have your friend kick you in the crotch. For those that continued reading without pain or fear of being sterile you know the guys (or gals for you that are pc) that pull on your jersey or push and shove to gain an edge. Call fouls when you don’t’ touch’m. Trip and fall over the ball then raise their hand for a call. What’s so different about a guy stealing signs? Or the roughnecks that come in to hurt a player? Or even roids? Nothing, because I don’t care.

My main question is are you seriously going to keep the home run king, the next home run king, two of the greatest pitchers of our time and a couple 550+ HR hitters out of the Hall? Seriously? Did you just hear yourself? Again, where do you draw the line? Who’s in and who’s out?

Former Cardinals strength coach, Jack Lalanne

Don’t athletes in today’s games have better training facilities and equipment? Science to back their every play, every move, every itch and scratch they get on the field. Medical procedures to keep them playing til they reach the apex of Jack LaLanne standards. Aren’t the old timers at a disadvantage there too? Do we have to boost their stats and take down present day ‘roided players? Don’t’ let computers into the mix then we’ll have the BCS all over again and you know how that’s going.

In the end we should let them all in. Big Mac, Rocket and Arod. It’s a changing world. Records will continue to be broken legally or illegally. No one can police it just do your best to slow it down. Just like the police hire the best criminals to help them in their work, they should do the same here. Put them in as a display of the history of sports and a statement to the future. No asterick. No changing of record books. I think enough has been said by deeming it the “steroid era”. It’s just a different era and they’ll be another to come.

You know why my flippant regard for not caring? For one, I’m usually just like this and secondly, it really doesn’t matter because I won’t be here anyway. A big dirty asteroid will probably take us out one day which will be in the shape of a baseball not a needle. Ironic eh?

Note: This is a guest post by Kevin Tyburski, aka “The Hoff”. You can read more from The Hoff at Sports With The Hoff.

This week 142 people lost their collective minds and should lose their collective jobs.

This week 142 people decided that Roberto Alomar was not worthy of being elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.  As a result, Roberto Alomar, needlessly, must wait until 2011 to stand at the podium at Cooperstown and tell John Hirschbeck how he… deliver a Hall of Fame speech.

Not bad Robby, not bad at all

If it was numbers that the 142 baseball writers wanted, Roberto Alomar had plenty of numbers.  The 142 people stupider than Gilbert Arenas should ponder the following:

Career Batting Average: .300
Career Home Runs: 210
Career Hits: 2,724
Career RBI: 1,134
Career Steals: 474
Career OPS: .814
Career Gold Gloves: 10 (most by a second baseman in history)
Career All Star Teams: 12 (consecutively)
Won a World Series: 1992, 1993
ALCS MVP: 1992
Dated Mary Pierce: Yes.  Yes.  Yes.
First Ballot Hall of Famer: What?

Roberto Alomar is the definition of a Hall of Famer.  If dominance is the measure of a Hall of Famer, then 142 baseball writers failed to vote for the most dominant player on the most dominant team of the early 1990s.  If numbers define whether a player is a Hall of Famer, I directed to you to the numbers set forth above.  If dating hot chicks determines whether a player is a Hall of Famer, I direct you to Mary Pierce.

The 142 baseball writers who decided that Roberto Alomar was not worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame in 2010 cannot blame steroids—Roberto’s name is clean.  The 142 baseball writers cannot blame Roberto’s taste in women—as stated above it is fantastic (see, e.g., Mary Pierce).  The 142 baseball writers cannot blame Gilbert Arenas.  The 142 baseball writers cannot blame anyone or anything but themselves for the stupidity that they exhibited.

Nothing got by Roberto, until now

These 142 baseball writers (who likely never actually played baseball) are deciding who is inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Rather than receiving a ballot in the mail next year, these 142 writers should have received a pink slip in their mail yesterday.  When most of us commit an error that is so stupid as to be mind-blowing, we lose our jobs.  However, these 142 writers will lose nothing.  These 142 writers will receive their ballots again next year, and somehow Roberto Alomar will magically become more worthy.  Apparently being the best second baseman ever does not make you worthy of being elected to Cooperstown on the first ballot.  As long as these 142 writers continue to have their voting privileges, Cooperstown will continue on its path to becoming a bigger joke than home-field advantage being based upon who wins the All Star Game.

Roberto, you do not need the vindication of 142 idiots, you were a Hall of Famer the day you retired.

Vinh did some great work digging into teams finances and comparing the money each team brings in each year as compared to their payroll, resulting in what he’s dubbed their “Investment Rate”. According to his findings, on average MLB teams put 45% of their 2008 revenue towards their 2009 payroll. Vinh’s New York Yankees by comparison tied for the 4th-highest investment rate at 54%.

Data compiled by Khoi Vinh of subtraction.com

While I think he’s trying to show that an organization’s dedication to win and willingness to spend money is what the Yankees should be commended for, it still completely glosses over the fact that even if a team like the Florida Marlins had a 100% investment rate, meaning every single dollar they brought in was spent on their payroll, they could still only afford 69% of the roster that the Yankees have. A willingness to blow cash only gets most MLB franchises so far. In fact, there are only six MLB teams that had 2008 revenues that were greater than the Yankees 2009 payroll. That’s right, 23 of the 30 MLB teams had 2008 revenues that were smaller than the Yankees 2009 payroll. Meaning that without the assistance of a sizable loan, even with a 100% Investment Rate those 23 teams could not pay for the Yankees 2009 roster. Not surprisingly, four of those six wealthy teams made it into the playoffs this year.

And chastising other major league owners for taking profits instead of investing more money into their team is not a fair position either. By and large the majority of MLB franchises appear to spend approximately $100,000,000 less on their payroll than their revenue. For example, the Cleveland Indians brought in $181,000,000 in 2008 and their 2009 payroll was $81,579,166. Likewise, the Pittsburgh Pirates brought in $144,000,000 in 2008 and their 2009 payroll was $48,693,000. On the other hand, the New York Yankees had 2008 revenues of $375,000,000 and spent only $201,449,189, presumably netting ownership roughly $173,550,811 (this doesn’t account for other operating expenses). So while the Yankees organization spends more than any other team, and has one of the top five investment rates in the league, they also keep more revenue than any other team in the league.

The one bright spot in the data that Khoi uncovered was the comparison of the playoff teams. Their final position was almost a direct correlation to their comparative ranking on investment rate. The data appears to display that despite the amount of a team’s payroll, the greater amount of revenue they put back into their payroll the more playoff success they can expect. The sadder point is that with the exception of the Red Sox, total payroll amounts trended downward corresponding to the teams post-season success. Once again showing that the more you spend, the more you win.

Data compiled by Khoi Vinh of subtraction.com

Vinh admits that one year’s worth of data isn’t really enough to identify a lasting trend. But I think in attempting disprove the point that they Yankees won the championship by buying more talent than most teams could afford, he also proved that very point. Pointing out that one teams willingness to spend the GDP of entire nations to pay their players may give the appearance that they’ll do anything to win. But it doesn’t mean that their ownership wants to win any more than any other team in the league. It just means they can afford to win at literally, any cost.

To me the more important question, which these numbers don’t really address, probably because the truth won’t fit the desired perception of Yankee greatness, is how well teams spend their money. Ben Fry has created a nice chart for each of the past few years correlating a teams record and their bankroll. But for me this falls short of the “dollars spent per win” that I think is the best measure. More to come on that at a later date.

Hurrah! Now your ballcap is ready to wear without advertising to everyone on the bus that you’ve got a size 7 5/8 head.

“When you tell me something I didn’t already know, I’ll be surprised,” Canseco told ESPN. “And I’ll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who’s used.”

That last part got me thinking a bit “a Hall of Famer who’s used”.  Is Jose saying that he knows of a HOF who has used PEDs?  If so, which one? While the 1970′s had rampant steroid use, especially in football (i am looking at you “juiced Steel Certain”) i would have to think the person he is speaking about played around the same time as Jose during the 1980′s and 90′s.  Lets look at a list of who is in the Hall & had significant playing time while Canseco was in the league:

• Jim Rice – ’74-’89
• Rickey Henderson – ’79-’03
• Goose Gossage – ’72-’94
• Cal Ripken Jr – ’81-’01
• Tony Gwynn – ’82-’01
• Bruce Sutter -’76-’88
• Ryne Sandberg -’81-’97
• Wade Boggs -’82-’99
• Paul Moliter – ’78-’98
• Dennis Eckersley – ’75-’98
• Eddie Murray – ’77-’97
• Gary Carter -’74-’92
• Ozzie Smith -’78-’96
• Dave Winfield -’73-’95
• Kirby Puckett -’84-’95
• Carlton Fisk -’69-’93
• Robin Yount -’74-’93
• Nolan Ryan -’66-’93
• George Brett -’73-’99
• Mike Schmidt – ’72-’89

There is one person that stands out more than anyone else.  Mr. Rickey Henderson.  Now, i am not saying that Rickey juiced.  I am just saying Rickey’s good.  Rickey does whatever it takes to make Rickey the best.  Rickey played with Jose and Mark McGwire and while i hate to make someone guilty by association, well you can make your own assumptions.  I actually liked Rickey as a ball player, and he is the single best lead-off hitter i have ever seen play.  It was pure joy watching him hit for power, and steal bases at an absurd clip.  His 126 stolen bases in 1989 still blow me away.

From the list above, let me know who you guys think Jose is referring to with his comments.

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.

As he toed the rubber to face the A’s centerfielder Bill North, 24,302 looked on. For a stadium that could hold 78,000 for baseball, the stands were far from full. North would ground to first unassisted and the game was underway. Bert Campaneris would strike out and Sal Bando would follow that by grounding out. Bosman returned to the dugout. He wouldn’t be there for long as the Indians went down in order.

The game would continue without much fanfare until the bottom of the third where Bosman would be staked to a two-run lead on a homer by Joe Lis. Bosman came out quickly afterwards to get back to work. Bill North struck out looking and Campaneris grounded out to third. Stepping into the box 0-1, Bando would hit what amounted to a swinging bunt to the third-base side of the mound. Bosman would quickly field the ball and fire to first. His throw would go wide of first baseman Tommy McGraw and Bando hustled to second on the error. Bosman buckled down and struck out Reggie Jackson to end the inning. The Indians would give their pitcher some rest as they went out and scored two more runs for their starter. At the end of the fourth inning, the Indians led 4-0.

As we fast-forward to the top of the 7th inning, Bosman strode to the mound having faced one more than the minimum through six. Campaneris would ground out to third to bring up Bando. Just like he had in the bottom of the third, Bando would hit the ball back to Bosman. However, this time he fielded the ball cleanly and fired to first for the out. He would get Reggie Jackson to ground out again and he left the mound after seven innings having faced only 22 men. The Indians would go down in order and Bosman would head out for the 8th inning. Two groundouts and a flyout would set our hero up for a dramatic ninth inning.

As he walked to the mound to face Dick Green, Bosman said to his catcher John Ellis: “Catch me on your belly if you have to, but make me keep the ball down.” (Source). Rusty Torres joined him in the field replacing John Lowenstein in left field as a defensive replacement. Dick Green would groundout to third. Before catcher Larry Haney could get to the plate, A’s manager Alvin Dark would pull him back and send designated hitter Jesus Alou up in his place. Like 25 of the 26 men before him, Alou would prove unsuccessful and ground out to second. One out to go.

That last batter would be Bill North. After a brief battle, Bosman would strike out North swinging. Dick Bosman, one of the more unlikely pitchers to ever throw a no-hitter, had just accomplished baseball mortality. As you may have realized, Bosman had done something that day that no pitcher had done before and no other pitcher has done since. He missed a perfect game because of an error, and the error was his own.

In an interview a week or so ago after Mark Buehrle’s perfect game, Bosman said: “I had more time than I thought” “It’s one of those things. It was a play I made many times, I just didn’t make it that particular day” (Source) After the game he was also quoted as saying: “It wasn’t McCraw’s fault, this was may night all the way-even the throwing error.” (Source)

I decided to write this short little story to remind us all that there are some great stories out there that are either forgotten or rarely told. Bosman’s near perfect game is one of them. After his career he would have a second career restoring and selling classic cars. Since 2002, he has been a coach in the Rays farm system. Although I could not find a ton of other information on Bosman and his near perfect game, I get the sense that he is a pretty good guy from this quote about his brush with perfection and a quote about baseball itself:

“This is the culmination of everything I’ve worked for and dreamed about. I almost feel like I am dreaming”

“When you shut the door on baseball, you have to keep it shut or it will never let you go.”

Thanks for having some great perspective Dick. Let’s just hope that someone doesn’t convince Kevin Costner to play you in some terrible baseball movie that doesn’t need to be made.

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.

I decided to look at relief pitchers under Joe Torre since 1990 when he started managing with the Cardinals. More specifically, I looked at the relief pitchers with the top two innings totals in each year that Joe managed. I also looked at how many innings those pitchers threw the following year as well as whether or not they ever pitched that many innings again in their career. Here is what it looks like:

Now, some explanation of what we see. There are 37 pitching seasons on the list and 14 of those 37 seasons saw the pitcher throw 40% or less innings in the following year. I did some searching on the internet and of those 14 pitchers, 12 of them missed time the following season due to arm injuries (Ken Dayley suddenly developed serious vertigo after the 1990 season and eventually retired and Ron Villone had lower back issues in  2007). That means that 32% of pitchers in this analysis had arm injuries the year following being one of the top two pitchers utilized by Torre.

Before drawing any conclusions, lets delve a little deeper. Of those 37 cases, only 7 of them ever pitched that many innings again. Of those seven, 3 cases were Mariano Rivera. The entire list of pitchers who ever threw that many innings again is Rich Rodriguez, Mike Stanton, Jason Grimsley, Mariano Rivera, and Omar Olivares (who became a starter). Only three times did a pitcher ever throw more innings in the following year, and two of those cases were Rivera (and before you think that Rivera is throwing off the numbers, eliminating him from the analysis only increases the injury rate to 34%)

So what are we to think? Well, with the usual caveat that this is not perfectly scientific, I think these numbers are somewhat compelling. A 32% injury rate is quite high when you factor in what a pitcher throwing 70-90 innings out of the pen means to a team. You don’t get that many innings if you are not effective. If nearly one out of every three highly used pitchers are going to break down, there is certainly an issue that any diligent team should investigate. If we wanted to be really critical of Joe Torre’s abuse of pitchers, we could also mention that Scott Proctor and Tom Gordon broke down after the second year of abuse.

The numbers tell us that you don’t want to be one of Joe Torre’s favorites. They tell us that you have a nearly 32% chance of getting injured the next year. If the pattern holds that means that Chan Ho Park and Cory Wade are on the clock from last year. I wish them both the best of luck in avoiding the 32% chance. That leaves us with only one question for Mr. Troncoso…are you feeling lucky?

The festivities outside Toronto's Rogers Centre

Saturday, June 6th Rodney, Nate and myself all took in a Blue Jays vs. Royals game at the lovely Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome).  Yes, that is Centre with an “re” not an “er”.  Let me first say that for the most part, Canadians are very nice.  Throw in a french accent and its downright joyful to talk to the locals.  The stadium itself is right downtown near the lake.  There were a lot of festivities going on outside, and since the weather was in the mid 80′s and sunny, we got to enjoy the dome roof being open.  All and all a great day to catch a game (would have been better if we were not so hung over, but that is for another post).

The stadium itself is very nice, and extremely clean.  Since the Royals and Jays do not exactly have a huge following we were able to get tickets the day of, and sat about 20 rows directly back of home plate.  Good times all around.  I purchased an old school Blue Jays hat to add to my collection of hats from stadiums visited (its up to 9 stadiums and 8 hats.  Sorry old Yankee stadium, i think an NYY hat will burn in my hands if i purchase it) and we then hit up the food vendors.

Since i am showing my age and was still recovering from the previous night i did not sample as much of the local stadium cuisine.  Instead, i handed that duty over to Rodney.  While Nate, Rodney and myself thoroughly enjoyed the hot dogs, Rodney went the extra effort and raved about the nachos.  The beer on tap was the local brew of Rickards, which is sort of like Blue Moon.  Prices were on par with typical US stadiums, about $7 per beer.

Salty.

To make the game a bit more interesting, we decided to play the “hat game”.  I actually have no idea what the game is called, but for the purpose of reference that is what i am referring it as.  The game is simple.  To start, everyone puts a dollar into a hat.  One person holds the hat throughout the entire at bat.  If a run occurs during the at bat (the run can happen by any means; balk, home run, error, etc.) the person with the hat in their hands gets all the money, and every one re-antes $1.  If there is no run during the at bat, the person gives the hat and money to the next person over.  Now, at the beginning of every inning, everyone has to put in another dollar.  So, the longer the game goes without a run the larger the pot.  Again, simple game, but fun if you have no rooting interest in the game with the exception of your fantasy baseball players doing well.  Good times all around, i think i ended up about $10, while Rodney went through some excruciating moments.

Unfortunately for us, we missed seeing Roy Holladay pitch by one friggin day.  He was due to pitch Sunday and we had to all catch flights back to the States of America.  So our starting pitchers on Saturday were Luke Hochevar versus Scott Richmond.  Lots of scoring, mostly by Kansas City, made the normally polite locals a bit on edge.  I don’t know whether it is the sudden drop in the standings, or Rodney’s saltyness behavior spreading to those around him, but by the end of the 6-2 loss the fans were giving it out.  Their focus of attention was to the one and only Vernon Wells.  At the time of the game, Vernon was hitting .254 with 5 home runs.  The home fans greeted him with a chorus of “boo’s” each and every at bat, and he did not disappoint them going 0-4 at the plate.  The economy was the main focus for the Canadians, as the guy behind us constantly reminded Vernon that he was making $111,000 during this game and he expected more than weak hit balls.

While you shouldn’t boo your own team, i’d rather hear that than cheering for other teams (see the Nats and O’s).  Its good to see a team without a very strong fan base at least become emotional over their team.  If Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowen ever come back healthy, the Blue Jays could actually do some damage in the tough AL East.

Like we did with the hitters, let’s review each pitcher and see how they are doing and whether or not I was right about them or completely wrong.

David Robertson-He’s 24, right-handed, and still pitching for the Yankees. He is one of four players on the list who have improved their K/9IP. His walks are up more than 1 a game and he is facing almost the same number of batters per inning. My first article said that most 23 year olds have control problems. Well, now David is 24. He is still a decent part of the Yankee bullpen, but that walk rate will haunt him unless he can bring it down. Last year it was high, now it is really high. His ERA is 2.5 runs lower, but won’t stay that way unless that very high strikeout rate persists. Lastly, his ERA+ is 154 (which means that all things being equal, he has been 54% better than the average pitcher).

Alex Hinsaw-Let’s not get too detailed here. He has been in the minors since April 22nd and he only pitched 5.1 innings while he was up. In those innings, he was not good, at all. His ERA+ was 51, which means he was 49% worse than the average pitcher. Still some rabid Giants fan going under the name “ripvan” wrote this on Alex’s cbssportsline message board:

…A solid lefty with great control at 26 years old. He should be sent back down to the minors and converted into a starter.

Which obviously means ripvan doesn’t pay attention to anything.

Max Scherzer-Max has performed pretty well so far this year. His strikeouts are down, but still almost one an inning and his walks are up just slightly. He is giving up homeruns at about the same rate as last year (which is a little high at nearly 1 every 10 innings). Overall, Max has continued to impress. He has had his struggles, as all young pitchers do, but he has still been showing the good stuff that made him a top prospect. The Diamondbacks will probably shut him down around 150 innings to avoid injury, and since they are not in contention, it won’t be a problem.

Garret Mock-Again, lets not get too detailed. He was sent down by the Nationals as part of the great purge of May 21st. Before the season I wrote that he probably would not be pitching for any team except for the terrible Nationals. Now, it turns out he can’t even pitch for them. Let’s move on.

Shairon Martis-First, the Nationals just sent him down to the minors on June 28th. Second, he has an interesting set of statistics. His strikeouts are way down, by nearly 7 per 9IP. However, his walks are down by over 1 a game. He’s giving up an additional hit per inning, but his ERA+ is 5% better (but still just 82, which means he is 28% worse than the average pitcher). The Nationals believe in his future because he is still just 22, but he needs to get the strikeouts up to be successful. He doesn’t need to reach the 10 a game he saw in his short stint last year, but 3.5 isn’t going to cut it. Let’s hope this kid can find a bit more control, strike a few more guys out, and make it back to the majors. God knows the Nationals could use him (and thankfully the abysmal Randy St. Claire is no longer his pitching coach).

Wesley Wright-Another guy no longer in the majors. He was sent down on June 30th so the Astros could activate Mike Hampton. Let’s be kind and simply say that that isn’t a good sign. However, his stats tell an interesting story. He was striking out 2.5 more batters a game and walking 1.5 less batters a game (4 walks a game are too much, but at least he was moving in the right direction). Since he was facing slightly more batters per inning, he must be giving up more hits, which he is. He was giving up more than 4 additional hits per game than he did last year. At first glance that makes no sense. If you strikeout more and walk less, it seems like you should be pitching better and facing less batters a game, not more. Well, the problem is that batters were hitting .429 on balls that were put into play. The major league average is around .300. Mostly that can be attributed to bad luck. Now before you go and say maybe he is chucking meatballs up there, stop. There are really smart people over at the Hardball Times that have been working on this. The short answer: they are not yet sure if pitchers have any control over whether or not a ball put into play is a hit or not. I know it doesn’t make sense, but let’s move on.

Chris Perez-This is the guy that was traded to Cleveland and had an inauspicious debut. He is striking out 2 more batters a game (nearly 11 per 9IP), but walking an additional batter a game. It doesn’t matter which league you are pitching in, if you walk 5.7 batters a game you are not going to do well. His STL ERA+ was 100, which is exactly average. His 1.2 CLE innings leave a much more dismal ERA+ of 21. Before the season I said that if this kid could be nurtured and get his walks down he could be a very good reliever for some team. He hasn’t gotten the walks down yet, and he just got traded to a better hitting league (the effect of which is slightly less as a reliever since he probably faced the opposing pitcher less often than a starter would). He needs to get it together, and get it together quickly.

Ramon Troncoso-So far this year, his performance on the field has been impressive. His statistics are down a bit though. He is striking out 3.5 less batters a game and walking about 1/2 a batter more than last year. However, his walk percentage is almost exactly the league average. He is giving up an additional hit a game, but his ERA+ is 225, which is phenomenal. (The reason he is doing so well with apparent worse numbers has to do with a whole bunch of peripheral stats we won’t go into here). 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.

Gio Gonzalez-Before the season I said that his walk rate was staggering and that he was facing too many batters per inning. Well, the walk rate is down nearly a run, but still way too high, and he is actually facing more batters per inning. If he was on a good team, he would not be starting. As it is, the A’s are skipping his last turn in the rotation before the All-Star break. However, there are some reasons to be optimistic. His strikeout rate is still very impressive, his homerun rate has dropped nearly 1.5 a game, and he has suffered from almost historically bad luck. He is giving up nearly 14 hits a game (6 more than last year). The reason that number has gone up so much is that opposing hitters are batting .481 on balls put in play. That’s 230 points higher than last year and 180 points higher than the league average. That number has to come down and when it does, so should his ERA. Plus, he is a lefty.