The Mockingbird

Freed from having to explain why Baltimore is in first place for some unfathomable reason, the Toronto media has become downright giddy about the Jays after their recent run. First game with more than five runs (about league average) in three weeks? The bats are out of their funk! My man Cathal calls generously calls last night the “most complete victory of the season“, when the first 8 innings (until the Rays bullpen remembered for the first time this season it is the Rays’ freaking bullpen) were the same incredibly old story. Heck, Gibbons is even getting managerial prose written in his honour.

Still, the bats are still as flaccid as a bad dick joke- the only change has been heroic pitching and not losing every game by one run. The Jays scored 15 runs in the last five games of their 6-game losing streak, and then the exact same number over their recent 5 game winning streak. Overbay has started hitting the ball hard, but overall the team hasn’t even shown doubles power, which they ranked third in the majors last season and are now third last. I think a fairly decent number of people owe Mickey Brantley an apology for wildly overstating the damage his “swing for the fences and pull every pitch” mentality was supposedly having…

While we’re giving 90% of the credit for the performance of career performance to their current coaches, Brad Arnsberg is clearly a god because Marcum is pitching his face off. Not only is Marcum striking out a ton of batters, but the two-seamer he was working on in spring training is clearly working out for him. Last season, he was the only real flyball starter the Jays had, but he’s the other way around now (and last night induced a stunning 15 GB to 4 FB). Maybe he can have a talk with Burnett seeing that A.J. has ditched his sinking fastball for a mediocre cutter.

Unfortunately, the pitch f/x guys were sleeping last night (how often must I apply for that job?!), so this chart of Marcum is just a rerun of the beautiful rainbow of pitches that Marcum throws when he’s got his game.

People always get on the scouts and analysts (who were actually cautiously optimistic about what he did last season) for not being able to predict that anyone could ever make it without a 90 mph fastball. The truth is that while everyone loves the idea of the crafty righty getting by on guile and changing speeds, they are incredibly, incredibly, rare. Gibbons last night said: “A lot of guys have won in this game without overpowering stuff”. Ok, so name half a dozen in the majors right now who are above-average pitchers…occasionally strike out 9 in a game…ever, ever, have no and one-hit bids…are we down to one yet?

You heard it here first…A.J. has officially ditched his 2-seam fastball and now throws a cutter instead. Nobody knows why- he was a ground ball machine last year on the strength of his sinking fastball. If I can weasel it out of him tonight, the scoop will be over at Baseball Digest Daily…

The cutter wasn’t much of a factor tonight- he threw it 9 times for 4 strikes, 4 balls, and one single (far right at the belt in the image below) Tonight A.J’s problem was leaving his changeup and curve up in the zone, and grooving a 95 mph fastball about as down the middle as they come to Eric Hinske.

Catching up on some housekeeping here…During his last start on Saturday, Jesse Litsch surprised a few people (and possibly a few Chicago White Sox) by flashing up to 93 on the radar gun which he only did for one start last season (with lousy results).

He really can throw that hard, it’s just that he never, ever, throws his 4-seam fastball, relying instead on an endless stream of cutters. On Saturday, he threw about 9 pitches that averaged 92.2 mph (marked in red). There was also a difference between his slider/curve/cutter, instead of one bleeding into the next as earlier in the year when he was not as sharp. He also mixed an a sinking fastball and change.

I’ve opined before that Litsch should be in the minors right now, but it’s because of a lack of consistency, not potential. Litsch gets confused with a crafty soft-tosser just because the radar gun stays in the high 80’s, but he actually throws pretty hard and has a plus cutter. The only problem is that (as was the case last year), Litsch brings a totally different bag of tricks from one day to the next. His change, 4-seamer, even the ability to throw his breaking pitches come and go. When he has more than half of them working, he’s not as predictable and can put up starts like his last two.

As if to mock the ignorant masses clamouring for him to add another offspeed pitch to his arsenal (uhhh…don’t look at me, man. Chuck it. I have always said just chuck the ball. Yeah!). A.J. Burnett shut down the Red Sox last night with nothing but a four-seam fastball and the best curveball he has had all season (due to an almost-completely regrown nail). A.J. threw one changeup, a couple of 2-seamers, and yes, he tried out his infamous cut fastball again (the results: two balls and a swinging strike to Kevin Cash).

Who needs deception when you’re pumping 98mph gas? (For the first few innings at least). He even threw his curve for strikes occasionally.

Not to get too excited one win after what was a unbelievably disgustingly terrible road trip, but the last three days are why there’s still hope for the Jays’ doing great things this year if they can figure out how to hit their way out of a paper bag. Boston hasn’t been swinging the bats well lately, either, but those were three legitimate masterpieces from the Jays top three starters- a trio that should be the best in the league after some April jitters if they (read: A.J.) can stay healthy.

3 runs in three games! If I’d told you that’s what the Red Sox were going to be held to before the season started, how many games would you have guessed the Jays would come away with? Ok, how many games would you have NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS limp home with?

Joanna from Hum and Chuck recently opined:

Papelbon hasn’t looked that sharp. Yes, he is getting outs and that’s clearly what counts. But he is getting ridiculous strike calls (one on Rolen was clearly up and in) and isn’t quite as precise as I remember him.

And asked me to investigate…First the movement on his dirty, dirty, splitter. Yeah, it’s still pretty good…

Ugh….8+ inches of drop on a 90 mph pitch. I don’t even understand that. Now for his location:

Splitters diving out of the zone and a lot of fastballs middle/up. I’m not sure if the Jays saw his best control to the corners, but he does tend to pitch up in the zone. Here’s where his location was last season:

As for the umpire calls, he got a few gifts off the outside corners for sure. Rolen’s double came off a pitch that was up and out of the strike zone (probably supposed to be a lot higher- is one mistake an inning enough to get excited about when facing a guy hitters hit under the Mendoza line against?), and Matt Stairs’ single was off probably the best pitch to hit from either night. Unfortunately, some genius turned off the pitch f/x machine for Vernon’s shot that was stabbed by Pedroia…

Another day, another one-run loss…The way they’ve been “swinging” the bats so far this year I thought the Jays would get a hit or two and about 10 walks against Matsuzaka, but he didn’t walk (2) or strike out (3) that many batters, and instead just induced a ton of weak contact over 7 innings from the predictably punchless Jays offense by pounding the zone and getting groundballs low and away:

After the game, J.P. was talking to blissfully uninformed callers on Wilners show. The first time Bonds Bonds was mentioned, he sort of danced around the issue by saying he might not help anyway and implying that management might be holding him back. But then someone implied that he had to sign him in order to save his job, and he dropped his usual “I respect your frustration” veneer and spat some venom:

I will never do anything out of fear. I’m going to trade my integrity to bring people here that don’t stand for what we stand for. It’s almost laughable that the fans are willing to sell their soul. For a guy we don’t even know if he has anything left. We think he is because we haven’t seen him, but…I don’t know. I don’t even want to talk about it any more.

I find it odd that this is probably the first time I have ever heard the “selling your soul” argument against signing Bonds. It usually stops at whether he’s enough of an “distraction” (read: asshole) to counteract what is probably a still potent bat. And eventually the conclusion comes around to the bottom line that he would have to stalk and kill about one key bullpen member a month (in stat circles, this is known as his Reliever Runs Murdered per Nine Innings, or RRM/9) in order for signing him to be a bad baseball decision.

But is it really so ridiculous to choose character on your team for some other reason than the intangible effects it supposedly has on your ballclub? It may sound preachy by J.P. to bring it up, but I guarantee the casual fan is more likely to feel this way. I ambivalently sympathize- we constantly hear the old chestnut “baseball is a business”, but I like to feel good about the band of millionaires I have chosen to support. I like that there are other things about Roy Halladay I admire other than his cut fastball. I’m glad Scott Rolen is on the team even if Troy Glaus marginally outplays him this season because he’s @#$@#$ hilarious. No matter how much you like his OPS, there’s not one thing to like about Barry Bonds other than his OPS.

It’s not even that Bonds took steroids, it’s that I’ve watched him lie and snarl and be an unbelievably arrogant jerk over the issue (and in general) for years, and recently received a good deal of Schadenfreude over the fall and eventual indictment of such a terrible human being. There’s just no way I could turn that around and wholeheartedly cheer for him. I mean, if Roger Clemens announced tomorrow that he’d put his doping, lying, entrapping, statutory raping days behind him, found his Cy Young stuff, and was ready to come back to Toronto and lead the team into the playoffs, would you really want him on the team? Really? Are we that desperate?

Ok, in the middle of an unbelievable drought at the plate might not be the best time to pose this particular hypothetical, because there’s also something to be said for watching good baseball. But I’d rather watch these losers try to figure out how to hit than try to feel good about hoping Barry can silence the Fenway crowd that is quite rightly throwing syringes and waving asterisks at him- because naive or not, that used to be me…

I think it’s safe to say that Roy Halladay was just outdueled by his own offence. Ugh. I don’t even want to think about that game, let alone delve into it. But the show must go on…Just when you think that the Jays couldn’t lose another brutal 1-run game in disappointing fashion (they now fall to 2-7 in one run games and 11-16 in disappointing ones), or waste another complete game gem from Halladay, they get one-hit by a struggling Jon Lester- and just to drive the dagger home, on the last play of the game Wells bobbles the ball and doesn’t even get a throw off that might have cut down David Ortiz at the plate.

But forget about Vernon continuing to put his gold glove further and further in the rear view mirror (he is now a very distant last in balls both in and outside of his zone) this team is supposed to kill left-handed pitching, and they didn’t square anything up against Lester over 8 innings. I’m not going to graph his movement. It was his normal stuff, a nice mix of 5 pitches but nothing special. So maybe he came out with pinpoint command? Well, no…

If you see anything that looks like a 1-hitter here, let me know. Lester threw two fastballs, a 4-seamer and a 2-seamer with good sink down and away (as shown - 100% of the contact outs came off his fastballs), and a bunch of cutters in on the hands. But he also enough pitches left up and over the plate to do something with.

For lefties he stayed away from the middle of the plate nicely, but also gave up the only hit to Lyle Overbay on a meatball cutter high and right down the middle.

Halladay

Just to prove that I wasn’t making this stuff up, here’s the Doc’s movement on the night:

As predicted, his sinker wasn’t diving any more than his cutter, but the had the curve working and the cutter was aces. On days like this it looks more like Rivera’s pitch that he throws hard and it goes straight sideways, as opposed to Jesse Litsch’s- which could easily be confused with a slider. As mentioned on the TV broadcast, Roy was having problems with his Changeup in the cold (and supposedly he got together in the offseason with Trevor Hoffman to work on it by applying more pressure with the pads of his fingers) so it wasn’t dropping much.

Now for some location- first against righties:

Beauty. Roy painted the outside corner all night with his cutter, and either floated the curveball in low or dove it way off the plate. Sinkers were mostly tailing in on the hands, but the game winning hit was left low and down in the zone, which as I mention every second post, down and in is the secret pitcher killer. DON’T DO IT, ROY! Especially the two seamer will just start out down the middle of the plate and then dive where hitters really like it.

Unlike a lot of pitchers Roy still throws the curve to lefties, down and in. Tough pitch to lay off. His changeup may have been flat, but it was nicely placed on the outside corner.

Anyway, this has become a long attempt to distract myself from what just happened that doesn’t do much but confirm what you probably thought anyway: Lester was solid but hittable, and Halladay brought his best stuff to the mound except for one pitch that it shouldn’t have come down to. Doesn’t it seem a lot less like a greek tragedy when reduced down to dots, squares, and the occasional squiggly line??

I sent an email to Cathal Kelly of the Star the other day, applauding him for letting numbers into an argument without getting huffy and defensive about it. To my amazement, he read, responded, and then decided to post my email (sans the gushing) on the Star’s blog.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Star’s blogging software hasn’t quite been dragged into the modern internet of era of pictures and all that, so I just look like a bit of a self-promoting blowhard with nothing to back my claims up. The shoe fits, but here’s the pretty pictures to go along with my claims that:

• Halladay’s sinker drops less in the heat:

• Halladay throws more strikes in cold weather:

As you’ve no doubt caught on a highlight reel by now (everyone loves watching a giant or fat man trying to run all the way to third in one go), Frank Thomas had a huge night on the Jays’ day off, going 3 for 3 with a walk, a double and a triple. Of course it’s way too early to say anything, but every time Frank gets a extra base hit it’s got to strike a little fear into Jays fans that 60 AB might not have been such rock-solid evidence that he career is totally done. So far with Oakland, he is 5 for 16, with 5 walks- an OBP of .476! And for anyone who has swallowed the media “base clogger” that getting on base half the time might be a bad thing, try this:

Watch this clip of Frank Thomas chugging around the bases like a two-toed sloth. Get out a stopwatch and time him from contact to sliding into third. About 14 seconds. Wow that’s slow, isn’t it?

Now watch this clip of Alex Rios zooming around the bases at the speed of light. Do the same thing.

Of course Alex slows up coming in to second when he thinks the ball has been caught, so this is really just comparing Rios’ laziness to Frank’s sloth. But by my watch they end up getting there in pretty much the exact same time of 14 seconds. And we’re comparing the hands down fastest guy on the team here to this behemoth who apparently will never advance any more than one base on a pitch that doesn’t roll to the wall. Hear this- he’s not that slow. Even Shannon Stewart takes about 12 seconds to get around. 2 seconds over 270 feet does not make getting on basea huge number of times worthless.

Scraps

Speaking of Jays castoffs who can still get on base, Reed Johnson pulls into his 83rd at bat for the Cubs with a .410 OBP, and looks a lot more like the guy who had a breakout 2006 than the impostor limping around left field last season. The Drunk Jays Fans are arguing that since Stewart has gone 4-11 against lefties (and that’s who Reed was supposed to bat against in a platoon situation), then it doesn’t make sense to argue that Reed would have been the better option.

I beg to differ. If you’re going to dismiss Reed’s start as a “hot month”, then surely you see how ridiculous it is to call 4 hits from Shanny solid in the platoon role you signed him for (update: I should have held off this post…after going 0/3 against Lester, Stewart now has a lower AVG and OBP than Reed against LHP). It’s not how he has been used, or Johnson would have been. And If Reed loses points for not killing lefties over his career, then he gains them for being the more balanced hitter (like he seemed to have figured out in 2006) that the team has needed.

The “party line” that closed the book on Reed in spring training was that Shannon could step up and play left field full-time if the need arose, but he has given the Jays zero reason to give him a shot, even with Adam Lind nursing a sore neck. Other those micro splits against LHP, Stewart been making incredibly weak contact, and shown zero sign of the power that he hasn’t had for the last three years for crying out loud. Without it, he’s no better full-time than anyone except an injured Johnson (*chuckle*).

Meanwhile, Reed is raking against both RHP and LHP like he did in 2006. He’s getting on base like he did in 2006. He’s not getting embarrassed by inside fastballs like he did in 2007. It’s early, but the preseason shenanigans of comparing Shannon’s career numbers to Reed’s 2006-less stats (fluke!) is looking more and more dubious every day. Just watch them play! Stewart is clearly not that guy any more. Reed is clearly not the disaster he was last year. Sure he’s going to get tired and cool off (or kill himself by diving head first into a wall), but so far the team would have been much, much better off with Reed as a fourth outfielder, even without comparing his web gems to Stewart’s noodle arm.

Going forward? We’ll see…but I think it’s fair for “Reed Fanboys” to call this a bust so far and miss Dougie with a passion. As I waxed on endlessly preseason, Shannon is just not the player he used to be- the Jays chose him to save money and get some predictable mediocrity. They haven’t even got that, and Reed has found that step scouts were mumbling was gone for good and shown he can still get on base at a ridiculous rate for a while.

According to Mike Wilner, the Jays are now 11 for their last 100 at bats with runners in scoring position. Theories abound, but what are the chances that could happen by luck alone? If you assume that their season average of .256 is their real level of performance, according to the binomial distribution function that chance of 11 or fewer hits is 0.000246%, or 1 in 4064*. Yikes. Tomorrow I calculate the exact number of minutes the 2008 Blue Jays have taken off my life.

The most heartbreaking moment came in the 8th with the bases loaded, two out, and Adam Lind at the plate. He seemed to have placed one between the third baseman and shortstop, but Tony Pena Jr. slid into the hole and threw from his knees (video)- a move blatantly ripped off from John McDonald. Incidentally, if the gold gloves were actually based on, you know, the best fielder at every position, the numbers say they would be a competition between Mac and Pena Jr.

*That’s a little misleading because there are so many AB so it should happen about once every 3 seasons, but isn’t it a cool number??

Just a quick look at the calls tonight- pretty decent. Marcum was painting the outside corner, but he should be getting those calls (about 2 inches off the edge of the plate is the league average call by umpires). I also marked the pitch Guillen hit out with a big yellow dot- it’s probably not possible to throw a slider in a worse spot. What a shame, otherwise that was artistry all night on the mound.

For the Jays, just one minor monstrosity to Zaun in the 9th (maybe he was farting all night or something?). The strange thing is two pitches later, he got one that was two inches closer and called a ball. Maybe the ump told him he made a mistake? The big red circle is the fringey first pitch to Lind in the 8th.

Also marked are the 13 @#$#@$ grounders that Hochevar induced (as compared to only 2 fly balls). That’s some excellent sinker control- down, or in on the hands (like the double play ball that sawed off Vernon’s bat). Why do the Jays always seem to find raw kids with great stuff on the one day they put it all together?!

A.J. Burnett was clearly a different pitcher last night, and if not for an absolute clanker of a play by Eckstein (you knew the whole “we paid 2 million dollars for the best defensive replacement in the league but aren’t going to play him because that might show up Eckstein” ridiculousness was going to come up eventually, but in such dramatic fashion??), you’d probably be hearing nothing but how the Jays are ready to turn things around now that he’s found his curveball and we have at least one player who can hit with RISP. Anyway, here’s what pitch f/x says about his latest outing:

Pretty standard stuff, really. Burnett had his curveball both curving and dropping for the first time this season. He also had very good definition between his 2-seamer and 4-seam fastball, which is another sign he’s going to have a good day. Only one changeup, but he also mixed in his cut fastball-

Wait a second. A.J. Burnett does not have a cut fastball. A.J. Burnett has never thrown a cut fastball in his life, (let alone all of 2007). Something’s got to be wrong here. *Rustles through papers*.

Nope, that’s a textbook cutter. At 84-85 mph it’s not his curve, and it sure isn’t his normal heater. It moves the wrong way to be a changeup. But ok, I guess he never really felt comfortable with his changeup but still wants to add something different to his arsenal so he was mixing it in throughout the game…*Rustles through papers*

Oh, lord. I’m just going to blurt it out. After throwing his first cut fastball of his life in the 6th inning, A.J. Burnett decided it was time to experiment with it in the 8th after the Jays took a two run lead with a thrilling 3-run rally for the first time in ages. The first one he threw (2nd lifetime), Alex Gordon popped up, even though it was a terrible pitch right down the middle.

Then with a runner on first, Burnett started Mark Teahen with another cutter (3rd lifetime) way inside, falling behind in the count. Then he bounced a curveball in the dirt and missed with a fastball to get to 3-0, and threw threw another cutter for a strike (4th lifetime). Finally, with the count 3-2, in probably the most crucial moment of his otherwise-brilliant game so far, Burnett threw his last cutter (5th lifetime). It that was not even close to the strike zone and walked the tying run on board.

I actually chuckled when I heard Fletch call that 3-2 pitch a cutter, but it doesn’t sound so funny now. Get down on Eckstein all you want for want, but at least he just blew the play in incredibly obvious fashion. Burnett started the Kansas rally with an unbelievable series of bonehead moves, getting cute with a pitch he obviously has neither enough experience with or the feel for.

While I hate, hate, people who just mindless roll off A.J.’s W-L record as some kind of proof of his eternal mediocrity, if there’s a way to be less effective than your numbers would otherwise indicate, it’s messing around in high-leverage situations. Not since Ted Lilly throwing sidearm to give away a 7 run lead has something so unprofessional happened on the mound for the Blue Jays, and we didn’t even get a rumble out of this one. And I’m not even sure anyone noticed but an old catcher and your friendly neighborhood pitch geek.

Having some technical difficulties here…but I thought I would shoot this rumour that Lind is being kept in the minors for economic reasons while I beat by modem into submission and look at what made Burnett click last night. A player becomes a “super two” if he is in the top 17% of all players with between two and three years of service:

http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/info/faq.jsp#arbitration

…a player can be classified as a “Super Two” and be eligible for arbitration with less than three years of service. A player with at least two but less than three years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if he has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season and he ranks in the top 17 percent in total service in the class of Players who have at least two but less than three years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season.

It doesn’t make any sense that the Jays would think that holding him back a week is going to be the difference in him being in the top 17 percentile of service time down the road. It makes a lot of sense that he is still not 100% and they don’t want to risk him pushing himself because he’s geeked up to be in the majors or losing confidence because he can’t get the bat around against big league pitching yet.

Lind missed 4 games last week, then then pinch hit on Thursday, and sat yesterday. Why would you give a guy one at bat in two games right when you desperately need him to come up and start mashing? Gibbons is almost certainly not lying when he explains the decision to hold him back like so:

“He may be here in a few days,” Gibbons said. “He has had the neck problem, but he’s getting beyond that.”

Last night, halfway during the 8th inning that shall never be spoken of again, with runners on first and second and one out, Jamie Campbell started a very promising sentence:

Well, A.J. is generally considered a fly-ball pitcher, but…

My ears perked up! Maybe Fletcher was rubbing off on him (I love Fletch. Sorry Rance. Anyone who groans on live TV as a terrible, terrible inning unfolds is my kind of announcer. And he doesn’t just make shit up, either) was rubbing off on him, and he was about to deliver the head-turning nugget of information that A.J. actually got a higher percentage of outs in play on grounders last year than sinkerballer extraordinaire Roy Halladay.

But no. As usual, general consensus trumps actual investigation, and he read meekly from his scorecard:

…on three occasions tonight he’s induced ground balls out of Butler.

But that’s nothing compared to Paul Godfrey, who thank the good lord is not a member of the BBWWA (although Rosie DiManno is and will be getting her vote in 2017 (hat tip: Cox Bloc). To see how many seconds you have to get to Cooperstown before it becomes no longer worth visiting, click here (about 274521600 seconds for all you read-no-click types. Start walking!). In a gracious nod to the best player ever to play for the Jays, he said:

“I’m at every game or watch on TV and right now Frank was not one of our best nine,” Jays president Paul Godfrey said. “He’s probably — not likely — a Hall of Famer.”

Now I know that he’s not really saying that Frank Thomas is “not likely” to make the HOF, but give me a break. No player with 500 home runs has ever not made the hall of fame. Add to that a .300 lifetime average (which voters actually care about as opposed to his much-more-impressive .420 OBP), and I would say he’s a lock for making it in on the first ballot. I guess it’s not THAT important to have a president who actually knows the first thing about the history of baseball, but isn’t he supposed to be a politician, too? The politic thing here would be to be nice and shut up even if you think Thomas might be snubbed.

Last night’s scouting report against Dustin McGowan on TV was:

• Overpowering Fastball & Curve
• Mixes in Slider
• Matured Into Consistent Starter (uhhh….thanks)

#2 is is 100% incorrect and no real scout would ever tell you that. Dustin has thrown almost twice as many sliders this year and last- they have been in the zone more often and a far more effective pitch.

I would also like to call attention to this Yahoo scouting report on A.J. Burnett for tomorrow, which is really far better than I would ever bother to do with pitch f/x.

Toronto Blue Jays starter A.J. Burnett’s curveball has not been the same this season after he broke a nail on his pitching hand while slamming it in a door during spring training. Opposing batters are hitting .313 and slugging .438 against his curve after only batting just .107 and slugging .151 against it last season. Hitters have missed Burnett’s hammer just 30 percent of the time, as opposed to missing on 52 percent of their swings last season. Burnett starts against the Royals tonight.

That pretty much wraps it up in a neat little package. I wholeheartedly encourage you to subscribe to this daily, free, scouting service, and/or send large amounts of money directly to whomever could be devoting such highly intelligent insight and endless effort to provide this sort of priceless information. I commend you, whomever you are, extremely talented and unheralded sir.