No Hits, No Runs, No Problem

Santana Celebrates with Catcher Josh Thole

On Friday night the Mets played the Cardinals in the beginning of a four game series.  This seemingly innocuous inter-divisional series turned into an historic one very quickly.  Johan Santana made sure that Mets fans, and baseball fans everywhere, would remember June 1st, 2012.  Santana threw the first no-hitter in New York Mets history.  For some perspective, think about this: The Mets franchise began in 1962, replacing those of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, who departed New York for Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively.  Half a century later, the 2012 Mets are an interesting team.   The Mets have stormed the 2012 season, thought to be a rebuilding year, with ferocity.  Now midway through the season, they find themselves tied atop the tightly packed NL East, a place which no analyst, pundit, or fan thought they would occupy.  They have won 31 games, doing so with mostly home grown players whom few thought would contribute sun flower seed shells to the dugout floor let alone 239 runs to the scoreboard (4th in the NL).  At one point this season, the Mets, starting lineup contained players all from their farm system, and daring feat.

Despite the 2012 Mets doing their best job to imitate the “Amazin's” of the past, nothing can overshadow Johan Santana's recent no-hitter.  Santana faced the Cardinals, the National League's best offense, making them look like a Little league team playing at PETCO Park.  Despite the no-hitte result, Santana wasn't at his best Friday night,  his control shaky at times, especially when throwing his fastball.  He walked 5, struck out 8, and threw a career high 134 pitches in the momentous effort.  Nonetheless, he was effectively wild to the point that hitters could not pick up his dynamic changeup, which he used early, often, and on any count.  Santana did a fantastic job keeping the St. Louis hitters <consider “sluggers” instead for alliterative effect> off balance, forcing them to swing at pitches out of the zone and keeping them guessing whether they would next encounter his incredibly deceptive changeup.

Santana's no-hitter did not occur without some controversy.  Former Met Carlos Beltran hit a line drive down the third base line that on instant replay clearly hit the line, making it a fair ball and thus a hit (video footage of the play can be seen here).  Not so fast, said third base umpire Adrian Johnson,who called the screamer a foul ball, thus continuing Beltran's at bat and keeping the no-hitter intact.  The Saturday morning St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports section prominently placed an asterisk next to "no-hitter", making an obvious reference to the hit that wasn't. <St. Louis is a town well accustomed to asterisks, eh?> While Cardinals fans may not be happy with the result Friday night, is this missed call such a big deal?  Certainly, Adrian Johnson made the wrong call, and it may anger some to see that call stand. However, until MLB incorporates instant replay into game decisions, fans must expect the human element to come into play.    In no way did Adrian Johnson's blunder fall in the same category as the missed call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game, but it does rekindle the on going argument in baseball concerning the a role for instant replay.   

Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson

In the end, the call on the field was foul ball, giving Johan Santana the first no-hitter of his career and in Mets history.  This leaves the San Diego Padres as the lone franchise in MLB history with no pitcher having thrown a no-hitter.  For comparison's sake, the Dodgers franchise has had 20 no-hitters, the most in MLB history.  As someone pointed out to me, the Padres also have never had a hitter hit for the cycle, but the latter event seems more of an aesthetic accomplishment than does a no-hitter.  Now that the Mets have the no-hitter monkey off from their backs, perhaps fans will take notice of their team's overall success.  The 2012 Mets have a bright future with minds like Sandy Alderson, Paul DePodesta, and J.P. Riccardi in the front office and a solid manager, Terry Collins, at the helm.  Watch out for the Mets: they exude a great attitude on the field, and in a tight and competitive NL East, anything can happen between midseason and the playoffs.

Ailing Arms

Roy "Doc" Halladay

Yesterday the Phillies received news that ace right-handed pitcher Roy Halladay will occupy the disabled list for 6-8 weeks.  Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee removed Halladay from his most recent start after only 2 innings claiming, "I know he's had a cranky shoulder and he hasn't looked right, and didn't look right today."  Prior to Sunday, Halladay had looked a bit off.  His fastball velocity has been lower than usual, down from 94mph to 91mph, and his other numbers have seemed subpar for a pitcher consistently in the running for the Cy Young award.  The news of his shoulder strain should come as little surprise to fans who have diligently followed Doc's season.  No matter how predictable, Halladay's trip to the disabled list comes at a time in which the Phillies find themselves in last place in the NL east.  The team continues have numerous offensive woes, partially due to the absences of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, and partially due to the lack of solid offensive threats throughout their current lineup.  

The 2012 Phillies have the second highest payroll in Major League Baseball at $173,953,939.  In 2008, the year the team won the World Series, the Phillies payroll was $98,269,880.  In 4 seasons the team has added $75,684,059 in payroll and 0 world series titles.  Admittedly, the team has made the playoffs each of the last 4 seasons, but with no more rings to show for the added expenditures.  In addition to adding significantly to the payroll, the Phillies have traded away many of their top prospects in order to acquire veteran players.  Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro traded Travis D'arnaud and Kyle Drabek for Roy Halladay, Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villar for Roy Oswalt, and Jared Cosart and Jonathan Singleton for Hunter Pence.  All three trades contributed to the depletion of the farm system, to the point at which Baseball Prospectus writer Kevin Goldstein describes it as "An unbalanced, shallow system bolstered by some big arms, both in terms of size and velocity." So, in conclusion, the Phillies mortgaged the future in order to win now.  Thus, if the team concludes that the team will not make the playoffs this season, the only logical decision is to trade away certain older parts in order to regain a lower payroll and better farm system.  

The question is, if the team decides to turn the 2012 season into a fire sale, who do they trade and who do they keep?  Veterans Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jonathan Papelbon are most likely untradable with their current contracts, ages, health, and production, while catcher Carlos Ruiz would not garner a great return despite putting up All-star numbers this season.  Tradeable players include Shane Victorino, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Hunter Pence, and Cole Hamels.  Of these select few, the Phillies might have most trouble getting good value in return for Halladay and Lee because of Halladay's age and recent arm troubles and Lee's large contract.  Even without the possibility of trading Halladay and Lee, a number of other players might give the Phillies a chance to replenish an ugly looking farm system.  

Hunter Pence, for whom the Phillies traded in 2011, has underperformed this season, but still remains extremely valuable.  He provides above average fielding in right field with solid hitting.  Pence has compiled at least a 3.2 WAR every season he has played, while making 3 All-star teams.  At 29 years old Pence has one more year of arbitration and then becomes a free agent in 2014.  He is a perfect candidate for a trade except that the Phillies may not receive as much for him as they gave away to Houston.


Shane Victorino is a versatile outfielder who plays hard, can hit in multiple spots in the order, provides speed and some power, while playing outstanding defense.  Victorino's lone blemishes include his contract, which expires at the end of this season, and his age, 31.  A team needing to add some speed and experience to their outfield would love to add a player like Victorino.  Like Pence, Victorino may not garner a great bounty, but I would not be surprised to see a team trade 2 B level prospects or 1 A level prospect for the veteran (the Twins did trade Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps....Matt Capps).

Will Hamels wear Phillies red in 2013?

The golden goose is Cole Hamels.  Hamels is young, 28, and extremely talented,  8-1 with a 2.43 ERA, 2.93 FIP, 1.01 WHIP, and 9.29 K/9.  Above all else, he has post-season experience (see 2008 NLCS and World Series MVP awards) and he has been improving his pitching acumen by adding the cutter and curveball to his repertoire.  Hamels lone problem is his contract situation.  Hamels current deal expires at the end of this season and he will most likely command a huge amount of money this off-season.  This situation might scare off some potential suitors who are unwilling to trade the type of prospects needed to land Hamels in order to have him pitch for only half a season.  Nonetheless, the Phillies could demand and receive a team's best hitting and pitching prospects for Hamels.

Ruben Amaro Jr. next to Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel

While I do not foresee the Phillies trading Victorino, Pence, or Hamels, the best decision may be to abandon ship and sell the cargo for as much gold as possible.  Ruben Amaro has never been the General Manager during hard times, as he took over for Pat Gillick after the 2008 season.  Although he may not want to admit defeat, especially after putting so much effort into compiling the 2012 squad, becoming sellers as the trade deadline nears may become the most optimum choice for the future of the Phillies ball club.  Most analysts agree that Amaro has built the Phillies to win now, and not to win in the future.  There is a reason why winners of the lottery decide to be paid their winnings over a long period of time as opposed to all at once, people like consistency.  It was Joseph who foretold Pharaoh of 7 plentiful years followed by 7 lean year, but is was also Joseph who advised the Egyptian king to store food from the first 7 years in order to feed the country during the next 7.  This story illustrates the need for consistency.  Fans want to watch a winning team, and unless the Phillies make some moves, their future may be riddled with losses.  This is the time in which we find out if Ruben Amaro has true greatness as a General Manager because leaders need to know when to go all-in just as much as they must understand when to walk away and cash out.

Hello Again

 I haven't updated Summer Pastime in a little while, but I plan to get back into it soon.  In the meantime, I leave you with this article,Jose Altuve, written by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.  I like his stuff, and this article is a perfect example. 

SABR Conference: Day 2

The conference moves on.  Day 1 of the Society for Baseball Research (SABR) conference in Mesa, Arizona proved both exciting and humbling.  When you last left me I had attended a number of panels, speakers, and presentations.  Thursday, day 1, sported (pun intended) a number of interesting panels and speakers, but Friday's lineup (again pun intended) featured some big names in the baseball world.  They included, Jerry Dipoto, Angels GM, Chris Antonetti, Cleveland Indians GM, Doug Melvin, Brewers GM, and Tom Ricketts, Cubs owner. 

Due to my inability to integrate into pacific standard time with the speed of the flash, I awoke on Friday morning bright and early and went down to the complimentary breakfast provided by the hotel.  I walked in only minutes before the General Manager's panel began and thus grabbed something quick and sped to get a good seat.  Due of course to my punctuality, the panel began late.  Nonetheless, in strode the three GM's, walking into a room full of baseball minds like the winners of the Nobel prizes in physics appearing before an undergraduate mechanics class.  Antonetti and Dipoto displayed athletic physiques, toned and tanned bodies with faces that showed intelligence, confidence, and intensity.  Doug Melvin, the elder statesman of the group, wears a bushy grey mustache that perfectly matches his age (60).  The three men took their seats and almost immediately the room fell silent.  Next, the exuberant FOX Sports writer and commentator Ken Rosenthal stepped to the podium.  Rosenthal would be moderating this panel probably because he has interviewed all three GM's at least once in his career. 

Doug Melvin

Chris Antonetti

Following a number of well thought out, yet not incredibly difficult to answer questions by the moderator, the session opened up for questions from the audience.  A number of the older gentlemen who always sit in the front row asked questions with a surprising number of younger attendees swallowing any bit of nervousness they possessed in order to ask three kings of the industry a few solid questions.  Eventually the session faded, but before it ended Ken Rosenthal, considered one of the best insiders in baseball, had some breaking news for everyone in the ballroom.  Andy Pettitte, recently retired NY Yankees left-handed pitcher, just signed a one-year contract with the Yanks for $2.5 million.  This is news that most of us sitting in the room usually discover this information reading Rosenthal's twitter feed, but instead on this day we found out from the horse's mouth without any electronic go between.

 What struck me about the three GM's on the panel occurred after the session ended.  Following the obligatory and well-deserved applause some of the crowd dispersed while others sped to the front of the room to ask one of the three men some questions.  The longest line of suitors appeared in front of Jerry Dipoto, who made splashes this off season by signing top free agents Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson.  As seen above a few attendees surrounded Doug Melvin and one or two walked up to Chris Antonetti.  While Melvin and Dipoto answered questions, I watched Antonetti.  As the GM of the Cleveland Indians, Antonetti works with a smaller budget than most, using that money in an attempt to ameliorate the ailing hearts of all Cleveland sports fans by bringing a world series to Cleveland.  He specifically spoke to younger conference attendees while Dipoto and Melvin took questions from mostly older ones. 

Following the star studded GM panel came Tom Ricketts.  Ricketts recently bought the Chicago Cubs, and even more recently lured Theo Epstein away from Boston to run baseball operations in Chicago.  He is a fairly plan looking yet polished man in his late 40's.  Vince Gennaro, president of SABR, asked him numerous questions concerning Ricketts' business background, the process involved with buying a major league team, the hiring of Theo Epstein, as well as Rickett's plans for renovating Wrigley Field.  Although Ricketts spoke well, this session paled in comparison to the one that preceded it. 

Moving right along, the next speaker, Greg Rybarczyk, presented some fascinating findings.  His talk was titled, "Integral Baseball: Comprehensive Performance Valuation via Player Tracking."  Essentially he went through the process of creating a metric that assigned value to all parts of a typical defensive play using new proprietary technology dubbed field F/X.  Field F/X uses a number of cameras strategically placed around a baseball park that capture the movements of the ball as well as all of the players.  This is an analogue of pitch F/X, which tracks a pitch when it comes out of the pitcher's hand as it crosses the plate and either finds the catcher's mitt or the batters bat.  Most fans see the results of pitch F/X at the bottom of their TV screens in the form of a strike zone.  Pitches come in and using pitch F/X every fan can see where exactly the pitch cross the plate and at what speed it did so.  Field F/X looks at similar dynamics but instead of pitching, it focuses on defense.  His research was complex yet fascinating, but due to it's complexity I will not delve into it now, but ask me any time and I would be glad to discuss it.

Ichiro Suzuki warming up

Chone Figgins and Ichiro stretching

Well, apparently I am running behind schedule, so I will, once again, cut this post short.  In short, my Mom and I went to an A's Mariners spring training game at night and enjoyed it immensely as we had seats just in front of the Mariners bullpen.  I leave you with a few photos from the game and bid you farewell until tomorrow when I will recap today's events and talk about the conference as a whole. 


 

SABR Analytics Conference: Day 1

So, for those of you who don't know, I am currently at the 1st ever SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) analytics conference in Mesa, Arizona.  The event is held in the Hilton hotel beginning Thursday March 15th ending Saturday the 17th.  This is obviously a niche event.  Great baseball minds who believe in and continue to progress sabermetrics.

The conference began at 1:30pm Thursday afternoon.  Unfortunately, hotel registration began at 3:00pm so most of us attendees left our luggage behind the front desk and scurried off to the conference registration table.  After receiving my "official" badge and conference schedule I walked into the ballroom for the opening event.  I walked into the ballroom noticing the oddly decorated carpet and (performing quick multiplication in my head) determined that the hotel had set up about 220 chairs with a podium, stage, and projector screen in the front of the room.  Knowing nobody, I moved along the aisles trying to find an open seat with some room for my backpack.

 I sat down and took in my surroundings.  The average age of the conference participants had to be around 35 years old.  It surprised me to see a significant number of older men, some of whom I assumed had been fans of sabermetrics since the 1970's when the guru of the craft, Bill James, began publishing his findings.  On the other hand, with information becoming so rapidly available, many of the older attendees might have recently picked up the analytics side of baseball because of its growing importance to the game.  In addition to the "dinosaurs"of the room scattered around, like sprinkles on a cupcake, were younger participants like myself.  I checked them out, figuring that most of them attended the conference in order to participate in the case competition in which a number of college age student teams compete against each other regarding a hypothetical baseball operations decision.  Going along with the demographics theme, I also noticed one or two female attendees, not something a bunch of baseball nerds would expect, but a welcomed sight amidst a room full of men.

The first panel featured John Dewan, Dave Cameron, and Cory Schwartz.  Dewan works for Baseball Info Solutions and has been a sabermetrician since the founding of the movement in the 1970's.  To his right sat Schwarz, a middle aged goatee sporting guy who wouldn't have been recognizable on any street in any city save his official MLB.com polo shirt.  Cameron, the youngest of the three, sat to Dewan's left.  The moderator for the panel, which focused on the "Changing Face of Baseball Data" was none other than Sean Forman, creator of www.baseball-reference.com.  Search any MLB player and almost assuredly the first link will be to Forman's website.  I won't bore you with the details of the panel, but overall I found it fascinating.  The highlight of the discussion occurred during the question and answer portion when a women in her 40's stepped up to the microphone to ask a question.  She prefaced her query by saying that she trained as an astrophysicist but loves baseball and attempts to use her background in physics to perform research on baseball.  I can't even remember her question, mostly because her presence at a meeting such as this astounded me.

Following this panel I remained glued to my seat waiting for the next talk.  In this discussion, Vince Gennaro, the president of SABR, spoke about his top 10 value plays for building a roster.  He spoke about inefficiencies in baseball and ways to exploit them in order to build the cheapest and most productive roster possible.  Although some of his analysis sounded like statistical mumbo jumbo, two points of his resonated with me.  First, he explained that some teams use a platoon advantage when building their roster.  The best players cost the most money, so when replacing the value of a top player, the cheapest option may be to sign two players to the same position and have them switch off different games.  A current example of this phenomenon is the Phillies attempt to replace Ryan Howard for the first few months of the 2012 season (see Cory Seidman's article on the issue).  Gennaro demonstrated that often times it can be cheaper and more efficient to sign two players to play a position, one left-handed and one right-handed, instead of doling out large sums of cash to a bigger name player.  Gennaro's next point concerned looking at players as assets.  Why shouldn't a team, Gennaro explained, sign/draft a player and convert them to a position that the market overvalues in order to then trade them for a player(s) that the market undervalues.  He gave examples such as Oakland recently trading closers Andrew Baily and Huston Street as well as the Padres trading Matt Latos.

Following Gennaro's talk I listened to economist J.C. Bradbury speak about pitch counts and days of rest for starters.  His paper demonstrated that a pitcher who throws more than 99 pitches in an outing is not likely to have those extra pitches affect his performance the next time out.  On the other hand, he did find that a pitchers' earned run average will rise if said pitcher throws more than 99 pitches in at least 5 and then 10 consecutive starts.  In other words, consistent overuse causes performance and sometimes medical issues, while sporadic overexertion has little effect.  Having recently written about young arms and overuse I found his findings concerning adult pitchers interesting and pertinent.  To give you some perspective, Bradbury looks like a middle-aged college professor, who speaks with a southern drawl.  At times he spoke too quickly, but he also recovered well and repeated anything in his presentation that had extra significance.

Currently it is 8:10am on Friday morning and the first panel of the day (the GM panel) begins in 20 minutes.  I leave you to digest some of yesterdays events.  Later today I will rehash yesterday evening's events including a presentation by Bloomberg Sports and the player panel including Oakland A's starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy.