Jeff Karstens is the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ fifth starter. Who would have believed that he could have held his own against the Phillies’ Cole Hamels in a pitching duel? But he did.
Both men gave up only one run while they were on the mound. Karstens managed to pitch for seven innings, a season high for him. Hamel lasted eight.
Jimmy Rollins scored the Phillies’ only run in the top of the sixth when he doubled, stole second and a single sent him home (two other batters on either side of him were caught in a double play). A replay showed that he might well have been out at second.
The Pirates retaliated in the bottom of the inning, when Ronny Cedeno walked, was sacrificed to second, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and was sacrificed home by Jose Tabata.
Then relievers Evan Meek, Joel Hanrahan and Dan McCutchen closed the door on further Phillies scoring. Rookie Danny Moskos got the save. That’s because following his outing, Xavier Paul singled, stole second and came on a single by Tabata, who got both of his team’s RBI.
The Pirates don’t score enough. This extra inning game was an example of this fact. But unlike the past, the team’s pitching is sometimes good enough to compensate for this fact. In fact, as fellow writer Paul Ledewski pointed out, the team had shown by far the greatest improvement in starters’ ERA in the National League from last season (as of June 2), 1.75 runs compared to 0.65 for the second-ranking Atlanta Braves.
It’s unfortunate to lose a game 9-8, as the Pirates did to the Mets the other night. It’s terrible to lose such a game after being ahead 7-0.
The game started off well enough for the visitors. They sent eight batters to the plate in the top of the first inning, all but Maholm. The result: a 3-0 lead. They added another three runs, mostly on a homer by Neil walker, then topped it off by an extra run in the top of the third, 7-0. The historical record says that the visiting team wins 97 percent of the time starting from this point.
Then the dam broke, as it had to at some time. Maholm gave up three runs in the bottom of the third,with two singles and a homer. Even from here, the Pirates had a 90 percent chance of winning, as the Mets had used up one-seventh of their remaining opportunities to score those three runs.
Things were fine, with a blank score, for two more innings. But then Maholm fell apart again in the bottom of the sixth. He has a “last inning” problem, which means that he will crater unless he is “pulled” before reaches his limit. That limit was reached earlier than usual in Citifield, at 5.2 innings. Worse Chris Resop had a blown save, as the Mets tied it 7-7 on a passed ball and an inherited runner scored.
The next Pirate reliever, Jose Veras, took the loss in the bottom of the eighth. It started off with Ronny Paulino, of all people, the former Pirate ne’er do well who’s now a Met, having gotten to New York City via Philadelphia and Florida. He singled to center, and was lifted for a pinch runner, Harris.
A balk and wild pitch sent him to third. Then FOUR walks loaded the bases and sent home a runner, with Harris having scored in the meantime. Now it was 9-7 Mets.
The Pirates scored a run in the top of the ninth, not enough to close the gap.
It was an epic victory for the Mets, who had not come from so far behind in two decades.
It’s only six games into the season, but the Texas Rangers look like repeaters for at least the American League pennant. Part of the reason is that they are 6-0 over those games. The other reason is who they won the games against.
The Rangers started with a sweep of the Boston Red Sox, early favorites to win the American League East. A strong offense just blew apart the Red Sox rotation, with Ranger scores of 12, nine and five runs in three games.
Next, the Rangers took three of three from the Seattle Mariners, probably the most robust challenger in the Rangers’ division (American League West). One of those games was against “King” Felix Hernandez, last year’s Cy Young winner.
The Mariners arguably have better pitching than the Rangers. But the Texans have MUCH better hitters.
Meanwhile, no one team is showing any particular strength in the American League Central, where a seesaw battle is raging for division standings.
The Rangers are the first team in eight years to come out of the starting gate 6-0. They’re also on the verge of reaching team milestones. Depending on what happens in the next series, this could be the first Rangers team since the 1990s with a 7-0 start and/or the first team since then to win its first three series.
The Rangers have started the season with a batting average in the .280s. That’s at the high end of what they have produced in the past and may come down into the .270s, which would still be a Ranger-like hitting performance.
What has distinguished this year’s Rangers from their predecessors is starting pitching. Old standbys such as C.J. Wilson, Derek Holland and Colby Lewis have proven their reliability.
But the real surprises have come from former relievers Alexi Ogando and Matt Harrison, who have given up all of one run between them in 13 innings.
The Rangers may have lost Cliff Lee last year, but the arrival of these two appears to have more than made up for it.
The next series is a further test. There will be a duel of promising young starters, Matt Harrison vs. Jake Arrieta. If only the Texans could take three of three from the other league leader, the rejuvenated Baltimore Orioles, then the Rangers would really be favorites to win the pennant.
In 2008, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded a “utility” third baseman named Jose Bautista to the Toronto Blue Jays for a backup catcher. It took him a couple seasons, but the former utilityman rocketed to become a team mainstay.
Earlier, the self-same Pirates also dumped a utility outfielder named Rajai Davis, who had a short stint with the San Francisco Giants, then went to a (the Oakland As) who appreciated his talents a little, before ending up with an As-like “moneyball” team, Toronto, who appreciated his talents a lot, and will put him, and his foot speed, in the leadoff position.
In predicting a “breakout Bautista” in the past, I would never have guessed that he would hit 54 homers in one season. What did not surprise me, however, was his .378 on base percentage (OBP) last year. Forget his power for a moment, and change all his home runs to doubles, and he would still be an immensely valuable hitter.
This kind of production characterized much of his minor league play, although the Pirates somehow managed to kill the goose that laid the golden egg when he made it to the major league team. He only “found himself” in Toronto as a home run hitter under Dwayne Murphy. Perhaps Murphy could do much the same for Davis.
But Bautista’s rise shows that there was a lesson to be learned from a formerly low average, low power, minor league batter named Jason Giambi, whose main virtue was his walk rate: Get OBP high enough, and other things, like batting average and power will fall into place.
Davis has a career OBP of “only” .330, which would still make his about fifth highest on the Toronto roster. But he posted Bautista-like OBP numbers twice, of .361 in 2007, and .360 in 2009. The second time, he did so with a respectable batting average (.305). Meaning that unlike others with an “average” OBP, Davis can produce a high one.
That’s not to mention Davis’ stellar .384 OBP showing in AAA in 2007 before he was called up to the majors, which exceeded even Bautista’s at that level. Again, I blame the Pirates for messing up his natural style, which includes speed on the base paths and walking from the plate. He’s beginning to find it again, first with Oakland, now Toronto.
In 2011 spring training, Davis’ OBP exceeded that AAA level. While he has never hit more than five home runs in a season, his spring training pace suggests that 20, or more likely, 15 home runs is not out of the question. (Davis hit four home runs in that 53-game stretch of AAA, which extrapolates to 12 for a season.)
Although his spring training .375 batting average overstates his potential, his minor league high average of .318 suggests that his batting average could find a home in the .315-.320 range. This would represent a gain of 10 to 15 points over his previous (2009) high of .305, which in turn was more than 25 points higher than his earlier high of .279.
Like Bautista, Davis had a walk rate of close to 10 percent of plate appearances when he joined the Pirates in 2007. Unlike Bautista, he let the Bucs (a non-walking team) beat it out of him, causing his rate to plummet to more like 5 percent. Only now is his walk rate headed back toward double digits, while Bautista’s has gone into the teens.
Altogether, I’m looking for a slash line of something like .315/.380/.500 from Davis this year, a level that would make him at least as productive as Bautista except for home runs. Further improvement in 2012 could enable him to rival Bautista next year (especially if the latter starts to regress.)
The Blue Jays have a tough row to hoe in the American League East, with the likes of the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees. But if they keep trading for “Bautistas,” they could make it to the top of the League anyway.
Meanwhile, the lack of “Bautistas” has been holding back the Pirates, who signed a lesser former Jays’ corner infielder, Lyle Overbay. They might have done better to keep Bautista (and move Pedro Alvarez to first). Rajai Davis would probably have been better than what they now have in right field, as well.
This is the last full year of the Pirates club’s control of Paul Maholm.
True, they have a club option in 2012 for $9.75 million in what would be his first free-agent year. That compares to $5.75 million in 2011 and would be a payment that reflects free-agent, not “controlled” status.
Maholm is arguably the “ace” on what passes for a Pirates pitching staff. But that’s only on a team that’s perennially starved for good pitchers. On another team, he might be more like a third starter.
On that basis, Maholm would be (just) worth the $9.75 million in 2012. That would represent a barely above league-average compensation for a barely above league-average starter.
But the Pirates, a low-budget team, “never” pay market price for talent. And the $9.75 million would make Maholm the highest-paid player on the team, eating up roughly one-fifth of a normal annual budget.
For that kind of money, the Pirates would expect “lights out,” or “true” first-starter performance. Someone that could go against the likes of Roy Halladay or Johan Santana with at least a 50-50 chance of winning (as Zach Duke, in fact, did on his better nights out).
Even for the Pirates, $9.75 million would be a bargain for that level of production.
More likely, Maholm will run true to form and perform at a middle of rotation level. (His 2010 FIP, or sabermetric ERA of 4.18 supports this theory better than his actual ERA, which was nearly a whole point higher at 5.10.) That is, he will not be good enough for the money in Pittsburgh, but would offer an acceptable risk-reward profile to other teams. In this case, he would be traded, probably for prospects.
What’s left in the rotation would likely include last year’s star, James McDonald, a recovering Ross Ohlendorf and a re-emerging Charlie Morton. Kevin Correia, who figures to be a right-handed “Zach Duke” (although we don’t yet know which year’s), figures to fill a spot toward the back of the rotation, even though he, like last year’s Duke, was named opening day starter.
Candidates for the vacated fifth slot would include Jeff Karstens, Brian Burres and a re-started Brad Lincoln with the other two being long relievers or spot starters.
Trading Maholm and leaving a slot to be filled by the likes of the last three named players would not be pleasant. But unlike some of their predecessors (e.g.Oliver Perez), they are all legitimate fifth-starter options, which is to say that this is a more acceptable course of action than would otherwise be the case.
There are some ball teams that are genuinely strong. There are others that only look like they may be strong.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are beginning to fall into the latter category. That’s already a good bit better than where they have been.
The good news is that early results suggest that they are no longer a “weak” team. On a good day, they can post a blowout 10-3 win. Even against the former American League East division-winning Tampa Bay Rays. Just as important, they crushed the Florida community college defending champions, 21-1, that is, by a wider margin than many other professional teams would.
Noted standbys from late 2009, Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones, led the victory against the Rays. The Pirates posted their blowout against the college team without McCutchen. On these two days, Pirate pitching was reasonably good.
These results suggest at least isolated pockets of major strength, at least among the better elements of their lineup. The problem is that the Pirates also have major weaknesses, notably on the pitching staff, and at the back of the lineup.
This is likely to make for a certain lack of consistency. The Bucs can post big wins against relatively weak teams (or strong teams on a weak day). On such occasions, the team’s weaknesses “don’t matter” and the team’s strengths are magnified.
But the Pirates still have too many areas of weakness to consistently beat strong teams. On most days, those outfits have Cy Young winners on staff that can suppress the Pirate run tally and sluggers that can find “holes” in Pirate pitching.
As bad as they were otherwise, last year’s Pirates had winning seasons against the Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. A rejuvenated team might victimize a few more weak teams this season, say the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers, and either the New York Mets or Florida Marlins. Hopefully, they’ll also do better in Interleague play against some of the weaker American League teams than they have in the past.
So, what could this year’s Pirates look like if I’m right about them? In the worst case, they might look like the 2006 Cleveland Indians, who had a losing record despite scoring 88 more runs than they gave up; the result of blowout victories against weak teams and narrower losses against stronger ones.
In the best case, the Pirates could look more like football’s Atlanta Falcons that went 13-3 by beating (mostly) weak and intermediate teams, but lost to other contenders such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints, then to the Green Bay Packers in the postseason (after having eked out a victory during the season).
Don’t count on the Pirates to make it to the World Series in 2011. But another trip to the cellar doesn’t seem to be in the cards, either.
One of the telltale signs that your spouse or significant other may be planning to leave you is when that person loses weight. In the case of the New York Yankees, that “spouse” may be CC Sabathia.
To carry the “marriage” analogy further, most marriages are made “for life,” a construct honored more in the breach than the observance. But some cultures allow “term marriage” for a specified time period, meaning that relationship would automatically terminate after a specified period of time, unless renewed.
The Yankees might not have thought about this angle when they signed a contract that committed THEM for seven years, but Sabathia for only three, with an opt-out at HIS discretion after that term.
In 2009, this seemed like a match made in heaven; a World Series won by a hard-hitting team, led by a Cy Young winning pitcher at the top of the rotation, with the prospect of more to come. In 2010, this match became attenuated as both hitters and pitchers took a step backward and the Yankees made it to the playoffs, but only as a wild card, and only through the wild card round.
The test of a marriage occurs when reality sets in, and this “marriage” was no different. The one “spouse” Sabathia, loses weight in order to be more effective, while the other one, the Yankees, tries to “get younger” (with new players) and fails to do so. “Real” marriages are often strained when one partner succeeds in this endeavor, and the other doesn’t.
The test will come this season, when the effects of Sabathia’s weight loss are felt. If he continues to produce at his 2010 level, he might not command more as a free agent than he would be making from the Yankees. But if his weight loss makes him more “attractive” (by pulling him back up to his 2009 performance level), he’s gone, or at least in a position to negotiate a new, more lucrative contract in the Bronx.
The Yankees got into this bind by giving Sabathia a one-way option. According to news reports, this was part of General Manager Brian Cashman’s “courtship” of Sabathia, without anything being asked in return. It was like saying “Marry me, and I’ll let you out at the end of three years with no penalty if it doesn’t work for you.”
In fact, the writer (seller) of a option USUALLY gets “paid,” up front, but loses a lot of flexibility down the line. It’s the holder of such an option that stands to profit it a big way, if it makes sense to “opt out.” His position is “heads I win, tails I don’t lose.” That person is CC Sabathia.
The Washington Nationals have been adding players to their team who the cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates have rejected at one time or another. These are players there were among the most volatile, but also among the most promising ones on their original team. And their specific quirks, plus those of Washington, make them particularly useful to the Nationals.
As I believed at the time, the Nats got the better of the Burnett and Nyjer Morgan for Joel Hanrahan and Lastings Milledge deal in the summer of 2009.
It’s easy to see why the Pirates preferred the “sabermetrically” superior Hanrahan over Burnett. The former looks better on the “sabermetric” variables of home runs, walks and strikeouts, and on FIP (a “synthetic” ERA using these variables).
But Burnett gives up fewer hits on balls in player (BABIP) and therefore has the lower actual ERA. Maybe he’s been “lucky” in this regard. And maybe he knows something we don’t.
The Pirates rightly feared the Morgan would collapse in 2010. But so did Milledge, in a much bigger way.The Bucs wanted Milledge because his minor league record suggested that he had a higher ceiling.
But Morgan usually has a high batting average and on-base percentage (lacking only power) and can also defend well. The fact that both offense and defense suffered in 2010 suggests that he was having a bad year for pyschological, not physical reasons. His year-end outburst suggests that.
But Morgan, not Milledge, is the one with the five win above replacement (WAR) ceiling. If he rebounds in EITHER of these two categories in 2011, his value rises from one to three WAR. He could go back to five WAR if he fully regains both attributes. Of the two, the offensively competent Nationals could benefit more from Morgan’s defense, which is easier to recover.
Adam LaRoche is a replacement for Adam Dunn at first base. The two Adams both hit around .260, and both drive in about 100 runs in a year. Dunn gets there with more power, i.e. with about 50 percent more home runs. But LaRoche is a MUCH better defender, meaning that his overall value is about one game higher than Dunn’s. And this for a saving in salary.
LaRoche’s problem? He plays a lot better in the second half of the season than the first, a pattern exhibited by only 3 percent of all baseball players. He is a replacement level producer in the first half and a star in the second half.
That pattern might be an advantage for his new team. Washington played relatively well in the first half in 2010, flirting with .500, then crumbled in the second half. La Roche might give the Nats a lift when it is most needed.
The salary savings were used partly to sign Jayson Werth. I don’t like his SEVEN-year contract for $126 million, or $18 million per year.
But Werth has been producing at the $20 million level for three years now. A FOUR year contract for $18 million per would probably be okay. But the likely overpayment for the three “back” years are a problem for a new (six-year) baseball “generation.”
The most recent acquisition is Tom Gorzelanny, at one time the Bucs’ No. 2 starter, who might be “No. 2” caliber in Washington, behind Livan Hernandez but ahead of John Lannen and Craig Stammen.
Gorzelanny was a confusing, frustrating pitcher who the Pirates never understood. I’ll make things simple by noting that his ERA, over the years, seems to converge on 4.00.
But Gorzelanny gets there in a strange way. Part of the time, he is a pitcher with a 2.50 ERA, and part of the time, his ERA is more like 6.50, so his “4.00” is a weighted (toward the good side) average of the two extremes. As a Pirate fan, I have a recollection of him pitching well every OTHER game (or just a bit more).
Suppose he pitches 10 good games out of 20. The Nats hit well enough to win most (perhaps nine) of them. They will also be able to win a fraction (say three) of the 10 bad games he pitches. If Washington can win 60 percent of the games started by Gorzelanny, they will have gone a long way to becoming a winning team.
And even future stars like Steve Strasburg and Bryce Harper can be considered Pirate “rejects.” That’s because the Pirates lost the “race to the bottom” for the first overall draft pick in 2008 and 2009.
If these players make a big impact in 2012, just when the others mentioned above might be hitting their stride, the Washington Nationals might be a team to contend with next year. And early signs of this might be apparent even in 2011.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have made a number of offseason moves, thereby adding depth in key spots. That’s true, even though none of the newly acquired players figure to be stars, meaning that the Pirates aren’t likely to be contenders anytime soon.
Kevin Correia is where Zach Duke should have been, but for less money than Duke would have received in arbitration, and probably less downside. Correia started about the same time as Duke, but improved steadily, eventually “crossing” Duke, who was on his way down, so that Correia is now half a game or so better. With luck, the Pirates will in 2011 get the “Zach Duke” of 2009, or more likely, 2008, for the kind of money that Duke has been paid recently.
With this replacement, plus the fortuitous trade for James McDonald last summer, the Pirates have the makings of a rotation that could include McDonald, Paul Maholm, Correia, and Ross Ohlendorf for starters. The fifth spot is a question mark, with the likely candidates being Charlie Morton, Brian Burres and Jeff Karstens.
But note that for a change, the Pirates have a shot at a full, if inferior, rotation. Both Karstens and Burres are legitimate fifth starters, with Morton being the high-risk, high-reward prospect of the bunch.
Even if there were a situation like last year where Morton and Ohlendorf BOTH had to be removed from the rotation simultaneously (one for injuries, one for underperformance), the Pirates have identified adequate replacements at the back end. For a change, the weakness will be at the front end.
That’s because “back end” now refers to an ERA of about 5.00. That would be a far cry from say, 2006, when back-enders Ryan Vogelsong, Oliver Perez and Kip Wells all had ERAs over 6.00, or 2008, when there was a similar situation with Matt Morris, Tom Gorzelanny, Yoslan Herrrera and John van Benschoten, with Phil Dumatrait and Ian Snell not much better.
Likewise, the addition of veteran infielders Lyle Overbay and Matt Diaz reinforces the lineup after a fashion. Overbay is a one to one-and-a-half win above replacement (WAR) player, much like the other corner outfielder, Jose Bautista, that the Pirates thought they traded to Toronto in 2008. Overbay was signed for about the money such a player might be making in his final “arb” year.
Overbay could surprise his new team on the upside, like Bautista did. More to the point, he might play just well enough so that some contending team might try to grab him before trade deadline, giving up one or two good prospects, as the Los Angeles Dodgers did last year with James McDonald and Andrew Lambo for Octavio Dotel.
Diaz, moreover, is a right-handed batter who can platoon with lefties Garrett Jones and John Bowker in right field, and (potentially) Andrew Lambo. If Diaz and the left-handed platoon partners can EACH be a one (WAR) producer playing part time, the sum could be the equivalent of a full-time league average player. Together, Overbay and Diaz bolster the lineup on the right side of the field, where it is weakest.
The Pirates are still a low-budget team that won’t soon acquire the talent it will need to get to the top. But it is beginning to do what other similarly constrained teams have been doing, trying to lift itself out of the cellar by its bootstraps, step by step. The result won’t be a championship team, but it could be a pleasant surprise after 18 consecutive losing years.
Rarely is it the case that one baseball player can change the entire fate of his division. But it could happen when a star player leaves one contender for another, as Carl Crawford did, from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Boston Red Sox.
We can start by looking at the 2008 and 2010 Rays. In 2008, the team had a bunch of “stars,” including Crawford, and a few superstars. But just about every everyday player was “league average” or better, except for Ben Zobrist (who has since become a star) and Willy Aybar, still a “utility” player.
It was different with the 2010 contenders. Here, there were two superstars, Crawford and Evan Longoria, and two stars, BJ Upton and Zobrist. Other players, like Carlos Pena, Jason Bartlett, and Dioner Navarro had declined to league average or worse.
This means that in theory, the Rays really had little to lose with the departures of Pena, Navarro, or Bartlett because they can be easily replaced. (In reality, Bartlett, in particular, will be missed—not because he was objectively good, but because he and the Rays, “punched above their weight” in 2010, meaning that they were lucky to win 96 games, given their level of talent.)
According to FanGraphs, Crawford (and Longoria) are worth 6.9 wins above replacement (WAR) or nearly five wins above league average. Longoria and Zobrist are signed to long-term contracts, and Upton has two more “arb” years to go. Crawford, however, is GONE.
If you start Tampa Ray with a base of 94-96 wins and subtract Crawford’s five extra wins, you get about 90 for the Rays—a good number for only third place in the American League East.
In the meantime, Boston ADDS Crawford’s five extra wins to its 2010 base of 89, meaning that he brings the Red Sox to 94 wins BY HIMSELF.
And Boston traded four prospects for Adrian Gonzalez (about five WAR, three above league average), who probably takes the Red Sox above the Yankees‘ 95 wins in 2010. Assuming that players like Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, and Jacoby Ellsbury have fewer injuries in 2011, Boston could approximate 100 wins.
Once again, it should be a tight race in the American League East in 2011. But next year’s standings will likely flip from 2010 to the order of Red Sox, Yankees, Rays, with Carl Crawford being the single largest factor in that flip.
With some luck the Rays’ best shot could be for the wildcard, if they edge out the Yankees for the number two spot in their division.
Jeff Karstens is the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ fifth starter. Who would have believed that he could have held his own against the Phillies’ Cole Hamels in a pitching duel? But he did.