Stephen Strasburg left the mound during the fourth inning of today’s Giants/Nationals game with an injury in his left side. The Nats ace wanted to keep pitching but “given his season, so far, I don’t want to take a chance there,” manager Matt Williams told reporters, including MLB.com’s Bill Ladson. Strasburg has already had one extended DL stint to recover from a strained left trapezius and he’s been dealing with neck and back soreness all year, which has undoubtedly contributed to his 5.16 ERA over 61 innings (though an ungainly .365 BABIP also hasn’t helped). Here’s the latest from around the senior circuit…
- Cardinals GM John Mozeliak tells Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he’s targeting starting pitching depth and a left-handed bench bat. While the Cards’ rotation has been one of the best in the game this season, it’s also a pretty young staff with some pitchers who have had checkered injury histories, so Mozeliak said he has to “be aware of the potential hazards” and that “my job is to make sure if it doesn’t last, then how do you answer it?”
- Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch looks the July 2 prospects already signed by the Cardinals (righty Alvaro Seijas and shortstop Raffy Ozuna, both 16 years old) and how the team has evolved its forays into the international market.
- Scott Boras tells Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that he sees no reason why the Marlins couldn’t afford to keep Jose Fernandez, even with Giancarlo Stanton already locked up on a historically large deal. “With TV rights and the general fund contribution and everything — every club, before they sell a ticket, they’re making $120 million,” Boras said. “There’s a lot of revenue in this game to pay a lot of players and keep players at home.” The Marlins believes that Fernandez and Marcell Ozuna both declined to pursue extensions last winter under Boras’ advice, but the agent said that his players make those decisions.
- Cubs president Theo Epstein cautioned that his team may not make any huge moves at the trade deadline, telling reporters (including Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune) that “if you look at the history of teams that go on and play in the World Series, very rarely is it (because of a) deadline deal. We know what we’d like to do, but we’re realistic about what we might be able to do.” Epstein also noted that some teams who are solely in the wild card hunt may not favor making a big push just to get into a one-game playoff; while he was “just speaking generally,” Epstein’s comments could relate to the Cubs themselves, who are 8.5 games back of the Cardinals in the NL Central.
If every team makes 120mil….before they sell any tickets….I wonder how much the Rays or Indians make after 81 home games considering they are last in total attendance…..
$119M?
I paid $20 for the upper deck in St. Pete in April…half of which is tarped off. I’m hoping in the future something is done about game day pricing… It’s incredibly expensive given 81 home dates. Many teams generally have plenty of tickets go unused.
Your $20 has nothing on the Rogers Centre
When Theo joined the Cubs, he stated that the team’s objective was to put a winner on the field every season. To do this, they would be committed to developing prospects. He has stuck to his guns on this. The stable of top tier talent at all levels of their system have remain protected, despite the rumors about the various late contract, expensive starters that likely will move before the deadline. Theo also stated that there is no shortage of decent pitching now that PEDs have been eliminated for MLB. That would seem to indicate that the Cubs won’t be adding a Cole Hamels or any other big dollar pitching that will surely cost a team top prospects.
All true, but they might be wise to selectively deal talent. At some point they can’t possibly play everyone and some might not pan out. Of course, I say that and they deal Baez and he goes on to the Hall
If there was a way to do it, I would have “liked” your comment.
yes, that’s what Theo has said. Whether his belief that you can find pitching anywhere is accurate has yet to be proven.
And I’m not sure he really believes that, as per 140mill for Lester.
I believe its a general opinion in the Cub’s organization that every rotation requires an ace and they don’t come cheap. I personally believe they like Lester’s leadership, World Series experience and relationship with Cub brass from their days with the Red Sox. Beyond Lester, the Cubs have done pretty well on the cheap in their rotation with Arrieta (2.80 / SO9 9.3 / SO/W 4.78), Hammel (2.89 / SO9 9.1 / SO/W 5.78) and Hendricks (4.15 / SO9 7.3 SO/W 4.31). These three will earn $13.1 mm in 2015. Pretty good value.
Cubs look to have the inside track on the second wild card right now. I don’t see them going after a rental, it will come down to whether they want Hamels or Greinke or Zimmerman next year.
Or Price.
I think they’ll wait for Price to hit FA. Won’t cost them prospects.
“The Marlins believes that Fernandez and Marcell Ozuna both declined to pursue extensions last winter under Boras’ advice, but the agent said that his players make those decisions.”
Does he really think he’s fooling anybody?
why would we doubt him? i don’t think even Scott Boras could make a player want to stay in Miami any longer than they had to…
Why wouldn’t you doubt him?
You may recall that Jered Weaver signed an under market value contract to stay with the Angels.
thats true but Weaver is prolly the only player in the game that is a boras client that would take a pay cut to stat with his home town team, If Fernandez hit the open market right now , he could get maybe more then greinke but less then lester.
Greinke is the best pitcher in the NL this year, he will get more than Lester next year.
Sounds like the exception, not the rule, no?
He probably advises them to free agency however at the end of the day, it is the player’s decision. If they want to stay on a particular team, he is going to do his best in getting them a great contract on that particular team.
All Boros can do is give his clients all the information possible and list the pros and cons. But he’s right.,…ultimately, it’s the players that make those decisions for many reasons. It could be money—short and long term—-, weather, manager, ownership, chances of winning a ring, family, friends. Boros has to give his players all the options available. Do they sign early and trade huge bucks for security? But Boros has proven himself to be an incredible agent over the years.
It’s true, players leave the contract situation up to him. They basically follow his guidance. If he thinks it’s a good deal, they’ll go with him, if he doesn’t, they’ll follow his lead.
People on here are giving too much “freedom of thought” credit to the player… especially with a guy like Boras’s reputation.
I think people are severely misusing BABIP, not to necessarily criticize this usage, but rather to bring up a talking point. If a hitter hits 0.250 on the season and has 600 ABs with 120 strikeouts, 15 HRs and 10 Sac Flies lets say. That means his BABIP is 135/475, which is 0.284. This series of figures is very attainable, and this BABIP is pretty reasonable. But if a hitter has an identical stat line but he is hitting 0.300, his BABIP is 165/475, which is 0.347. Now most articles/posting I read will say that his 0.300 average is aided by an elevated BABIP of 0.347… when the reality is that is a conservative BABIP for a 0.300 hitter. So if Strasbourg is pitching poorly, for whatever reason (in this case injuries), and has a BABIP of 0.365, it just means his opponents are hitting 0.300 on him, if he is pitching THAT poorly then 0.300 isn’t really unreasonable, and therefore his BABIP isn’t unreasonable. I’d appreciate any insight into my thoughts, but I think BABIP has become overused, overvalued and misinterpreted.
Well the whole point of BABIP is that it generally stays around .300 for most hitters and pitchers. There are, of course, aberrations – good hitters hit lots of balls hard/for line drives and will have a higher BABIP, fast players beat out weaker grounders, good pitchers can induce weaker contact (Gray, Keuchel come to mind) and bad pitchers will give up hard hit balls and line drives. So while some pitchers or hitters will have higher or lower BABIPs, it shouldn’t be low for a hitter/high for a pitcher that isn’t bad, and it shouldn’t be high for a hitter/low for a pitcher that isn’t good. That was kind of a convoluted way to say it, but I hope you get the point.
Your understanding of BABIP is severely flawed. You cannot hit 0.300 with a BABIP of 0.300. Unless you literally never strike out. Your BABIP can almost never theoretically be greater than or equal to your average. The formula is as follows: (H – HR) / (AB – K – HR + SAC FLY). So unless you literally get more SAC FLYs than you have strikeouts and HRs combined, your BABIP is always greater than your average. So anyone that hits greater than 0.300 has a BABIP greater than 0.300.
It is not flawed in the slightest. As I stated, good hitters and fast players can sustain high BABIPs, leading to batting averages over .300. But bad hitters usually can’t sustain those high BABIPs which is why a high BABIP is usually a sign of luckiness. There’s a reason not many players maintain batting averages over .300 over the course of a season. It’s because you must have some combination of a) power (since HRs up batting average but not BABIPBABIP), b) speed, c) high line drive rates, d) high hard-hit rates, e) high contact rates (low k rates), and/or f) luck.
In your original comment, you seemed to imply that batting average is what affects BABIP. That is ‘severely flawed’ and not the correct way to look at it. BABIP is not a result of batting average. Rather, batting average is a result of BABIP, once you account for HRs/SFs/KsKs.
These are some good points that I actually agree with, my issue with the way BABIP is used is that people seem to think that for good and bad hitters BABIP values are supposed to be similar. BABIP will definitely influence batting average more than the opposite, this I agree with. What I’m essentially getting at is that good hitting results in a high BABIP, this is really obvious but almost never taken into account. Someone with a BABIP of 0.330 who is hitting 0.240 is extremely lucky. Someone with a BABIP of 0.330 who is hitting 0.300, are pretty unlucky. Yet people with 0.330 BABIPs are almost all tagged as lucky. If you take offense with the word luck then replace it with some variation on expectations/expected outcomes.
You *almost* have it. Players hitting .300 with a .330 BABIP can be lucky. Matt Duffy has a .333 BABIP and is hitting .289. He hasn’t shown in his career that he can maintain that BABIP, nor do I think he is that great of a hitter, so it can be blamed on luck. Players with the “true talent” of a .300 hitter can maintain those higher BABIPs. But Duffys and Hechavarrias and Lemahieus generally can’t.
Guys who hit lots of dingers certainly can. Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays all had higher career batting averages than career BABIP.
Because of different contact skills or speed, hitters have more control of their BaBIP than pitchers do. You will find larger career spreads among hitters compared to starting pitchers who tend to group closer to the mean. Over the last 25 years, the average BaBIP is .293. There were 144 pitchers who have thrown at least 1500 IP during that span. Out of the 144 pitchers, 121 pitchers(84%) fall between .278 and .308. During that same time there were 260 hitters with at least 5000 PA. Out of the 260, 138 hitters(53%) fell between .278 and .308 BaBIP.
Generally speaking, there are 3 things a pitcher can truly control; strike outs, walks and HRs. While Strasburg has been slightly worse than his career norms, his 9.42 K/9, 2.51 BB/9 and 1.10 HR/9 are still good. This is indicated by his 3.57 FIP and 3.37 xFIP. Out of 140 pitchers with at least 50 IP that ranks him 52nd in FIP and 34th in xFIP. Strasburg has a career BaBIP of .304, which places him right in line with what you would expect a SP to have. However, this year he has a BaBIP of .365 which is abnormally high. His peripheral stats tell us that Strasburg has been pretty good, but his abnormally high BaBIP helps to explain why his ERA is so much higher than what you would expect given his peripherals.
Speaking of hitters, a .347 BaBIP is not a conservative BaBIP for any hitter. Over the last 25 years, Derek Jeter(.350) and Miguel Cabrera(.348) are the only hitters with career BaBIP of at least .347. Also, your scenario of a hitter with a .300 avg, 10-20 HR and a 20% K rate is very uncommon and has only happened 4 times sine 2010.
BAPIP is a circular statistic. It starts with the assumption that the only thing a pitcher can control are Ks and BBs. That assumption has never been statistically proven. And it lacks credulity as well. Am I really supposed to believe that a tap back to the mound = a line shot nabbed at the wall? Am I really supposed to believe that whether any batted ball is converted into an out is sheerly luck? That hasn’t been proven. It’s an assumption from which other statistical analysis is driven.
And if Ks were completely under control of the pitcher, then the reason Adam Dunn Kd so much is that he just faced great pitchers. had little to do with his own skill set.
Ks are a predictive stat. They are best used to predict whether a pitcher at one level will succeed at the next level.
Actually, no. BABIP can also show pitchers who outperform their K/BB numbers. Certain pitchers, like Kershaw and Cueto to name the two most notable cases right now, have career BABIPs well below the .300. In those cases, it’s also important to note that fWAR will underrate their performance since it uses FIP, which assumes all pitchers give up about the same level of hard contact which you’re right – isn’t true. But it’s mostly true most of the time.
Cards have expressed an interest in a left handed bench bat. OK, There may be a place in St. Louis for Terdo. That is the team he made the UDP against in the spring. Maybe a striaght up deal Joey for Steve Bean.