Dan Szymborski from ESPN was our guest to talk some baseball with us.

You can listen to the show I hosted here.

The post Check Out My Radio Appearance as Guest Host on KVCE 1160 AM appeared first on Free Lance.

We talked some basketball, baseball, and had Lee Lowenfish talk to us about the movie 42 and his books about Branch Rickey.

The post Did you miss my appearance on KVCE radio? appeared first on Free Lance.

Taking on the Tampa Bay Rays Tepesch appeared a little wild at times but he was effective. He pitched 7.1 innings and allowed just four hits, three walks, and struck out five. His arsenal features a low-90’s fastball, a sinker, a slider, a changeup (which he only used once last night) and a big curveball. His pitches certainly seemed to be working for him last night though, especially his sinker, as he managed to get 14 groundballs which led to 15 outs.

It wasn’t clear if he would even make it out of the second inning after he walked the bases loaded but ended up striking out Kelly Johnson on just three pitches to end the inning without giving up a single run. Tepesch threw Johnson a curveball in the dirt on 0-2 and Johnson just looked helpless against it.

Being treated to a starting pitcher making his major league debut is something you don’t get to experience very often, especially a game where said rookie becomes more effective as the game wears on. There were two things that stood out the most to me watching him pitch last night though.

First and foremost, his mechanics and release point were consistent all night. Rookie pitchers have a tendency to sometimes get out of sorts with their mechanics and are unable to find a consistent release point throughout the game, especially in the later innings. That wasn’t the case for Tepesch and you can see that by the chart below.

Finding consistency with your mechanics (wind-up, follow through, etc.) is difficult in and of itself, even for veterans from time to time, so for a rookie to stay as consistent as he was all night long finding that release point and consistently (there’s that word again) hitting the same point was impressive.

What veteran teammate, and catcher, A.J. Pierzynski, had to say about the start last night pretty much sums it up for me:

“He looked in control the whole time,” catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “As the game went on, he actually got better. He got some nervous energy out, settled in and pitched a great game for us.”

The other thing that impressed me quite a bit just from watching the game, and then later checking out the numbers to confirm what I believed I had witnessed, was his ability to induce whiffs with his slider and curveball. He didn’t throw as many curves as his other pitches, he was throwing his slider off of his sinker quite a bit, but when he did use it the pitch was very effective for him.

Granted, this is just one start for the rookie and there are many players who have come before him that had solid debuts only to fizzle out immediately after or become afterthoughts the following season, but the Rangers may have something in Tepesch. As long as he can continue to keeps his delivery and release point consistent with one another he could find himself in the big league rotation for years to come.

Check Out the Scouting Report on Tepesch at Lone Star Ball

The post The Debut of Nick Tepesch appeared first on Free Lance.

If Paul Bunyan were to have a love child with a woman then that offspring would have to be Chris Davis. This man is so strong that he managed to flick his wrists and murder this ball, even though it appeared as if he barely touched it with the bat, for an opposite field home run.

And even though it doesn’t seem like the ball would have traveled all that far with just a flick of the wrists like that it actually traveled 422 feet. Had it not been stopped by Predator, who was cloaked at the time, the ball likely would have gone an additional 40 feet or so. I should also mention that there was no body visibly found but I’m pretty sure that particular Predator won’t be causing trouble for any of us lowly humans again after the ball impaled the shit out of its face.

I’ve been following Davis’s career since he got his first taste of the big leagues with the Texas Rangers in 2008 and I’ve been waiting for him to become the best slugger in the game since. It seems like that time has finally come as he boasts a batting line that rivals that of someone playing MLB The Show on beginner mode – .636/.692/1.727.

Three games and just 11 at-bats is an insanely small sample size, one that I know I shouldn’t get too excited about, but he has this confidence at the plate and a look in his eye that seems to tell pitchers it doesn’t matter what they throw, or where they throw it for that matter, because he’s got the strength of Paul Bunyan and there’s nothing they can do about it.

He also doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously as he’s always down for a good chin scratching.

Then again, the serial killer stare he gets in his eyes immediately following said chin scratch could mean he’s imagining himself ripping that person apart with his bare hands simply because he can. But since there are laws against things like that and even though we haven’t quite gotten to the point of Minority Report just yet I would imagine a great deal of evidence linking Davis to the crime would be found.

He has to settle for murdering balls (ha-ha) instead.

The post Chris Davis Murders Balls appeared first on Free Lance.

My answer to those questions is a resounding yes, capital Y-E-S, YES!

The opportunity I speak of is the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award, and although it’s an award that some may be unacquainted with, it is certainly one worth remembering, because our goal is to bring appreciation to those who deserve it most.

The Bob Feller Act of Valor Award is a yearly award unlike any other because this American Award is the first crossover award between the United States Navy and Major League Baseball ever presented. It has been created to honor those who are worthy of special accolades and recognition within the United States Navy and one special player within Major League Baseball. These individuals chosen to carry such an award will do so with dignity and integrity — always.

Who was Bob Feller? Why name such a prestigious Award after a Major League Player and Chief Petty Officer?

There are multiple reasons why Bob Feller was the player chosen to honor an Exceptional Generation with the naming of this award. Bob Feller is widely recognized as arguably the greatest pitcher to have ever played the game, but he was also the first MLB Player to enlist in the military (U.S. Navy) after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bob Feller drew a line in the sand, like many Americans did on that fateful December day, even though his father was dying of cancer at the time, and he could have received an exemption from active duty, he chose to make an enormous sacrifice to protect our country. Bob Feller was decorated with six campaign ribbons and eight battle stars while serving on missions in both the Pacific and North Atlantic. He is the only Chief Petty Officer in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

When asked what the most important game he ever won was, Feller’s response was a very straight forward and meaningful “World War II”.

Every year members of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award board, with the assistance from all 30 MLB organizations, will nominate one player from their respective teams and begin to vet each nominee and finalize a list before moving onto the voting process. The board will then vote to name three finalists on Memorial Day each year in Cleveland Ohio. Additionally, there will also be one member of the Baseball Hall of Fame nominated to represent a distinctive group that Feller himself was a special part of.

The United States Navy is the second element of this Award and will also nominate service men and women for the award and will go through a vetting process conducted through the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. A representative of the United States Navy will present the award to the Command as they see fit.

All Nominations on both the naval side and MLB side will be presented in Cleveland Ohio on or near Memorial Day. All Award Winners will be presented on Veterans Day in Washington DC at the Navy Memorial.

This award has been created with the support of Major League Baseball, the Cleveland Indians, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the USS Alabama with the unyielding support of the United States Navy, and of course the gracious courtesy of Mrs. Anne Feller.

Any Major League Player nominated for this award must:

• Display good character and humility in their achievements as well as their failures.
• Aspire to be better today than they were yesterday and better tomorrow than they are today.
• Put the needs of others before the needs or wants of themselves.
• Unyielding Support of the United States of America and fellow servicemen and women always.
• Above all else, prove to be beyond reproach in the manner in which they conduct themselves, treat others, and live their lives overall.

Now you see why I’m proud to be a part of such a prestigious award and involved with such an honorable concept. The idea that as an American anything is possible if you go  ‘Above and Beyond’ in life, and that you can do good in this world by doing right by others, and that standing up for what is right is worth fighting for are causes worth believing in.

Please help America  join me in support  of the US NAVY and MLB with the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award by talking about the achievements that made Bob Feller a true American hero, and please let others know how this award and all it represents is worth supporting.

The post Introducing the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award appeared first on Free Lance.

Sure, looking at those two metrics may tell us something about the players we’re looking at but it doesn’t actually tell us much in the way of how effective, or ineffective, they are in double play type situations (a runner on first with less than two outs). Take a look at what the top 10-ish players look like when we look at only total double plays hit into (only players with 500 or more plate appearances were considered for this piece).

We have 13 total players on this top 10 list because of a few ties at the bottom there but looking at this list you can see that Triple-Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera is the worst offender of them all, followed by Michael Young and a few other players that you may or may not have expected to be near the top.

What about if we view this issue from the perspective of percentage of double plays hit into? That seems like it would offer a more accurate representation of who does what with their plate appearances.

Well look at that, the order changes up somewhat and we introduce five new players to the top 10 and eight players (from the 13 originally) fall off completely. Those eight players on the top 10 total double plays hit into list that fell off were Joe Mauer, Robinson Cano, Carlos Santana, J.J. Hardy, Billy Butler, Ryan Zimmerman, Jhonny Peralta, and the one and only Delmon Young. The five newbies on our list, now that we’re using percentage of double plays hit into relative to the number of opportunities they actually had to hit into one, are David Freese, Ian Desmond, Dayan Viciedo, Mark Reynolds, and Brandon Phillips.

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure I’d want to change the order of my lineup just a touch if I knew which of my players were hitting into more double plays in those situations, not to mention pinch hitting situations where there’s a runner on first with less than two outs – can’t say I’d want Young or Jeter hitting in a situation where it’s bottom of the ninth, my team is down by a run, and a double play ends the game.

At this point you’re probably thinking “Wow Lance! You’re so smart, thank you for shedding light on using double play percentage as a tool that’s a better indicator of who the real double play artists in MLB are”. Okay, so maybe you weren’t thinking that because we all know that looking at a total number of anything can be fairly useless if not held in proper context, which is why using a percentage based metric is a touch better overall.

Dammit…I forgot my line.

But wait! There’s more!!

Yeah, there we go. Now you’re hearts are pumping faster and little sweat beads are forming over your brow due to the excitement and higher levels of interest I just piqued with that infomercial statement.

There’s actually a metric, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus (funny how those guys tend to get cited for various things), that is far more useful at determining which players are the worst when it comes to hitting in double play situations. That metric is called NETDP and this is what it is:

The number of additional double plays generated versus an average player with the same number of opportunities. Negative NET DP indicates that fewer double plays than average were produced.

Now using the NETDP metric to evaluate who the worst offenders are in double play situations (SIT_DP) we get a much clearer picture of who should be taken out of those situations in critical, late-game situations.

Two things stick out to me when looking at the data from this perspective; first, the players with the three highest double play percentages are also the top three in NETDP. Whether that’s due to the fact that they each had relatively the same number of double play situations they were hitting in or that they simply were tops in baseball as far as double plays hit are concerned I don’t know. That’s something that will require a bit more research on my part, separate from what we’re doing for this exercise.

The second thing that sticks out to me is that the number of SITDP each batter on this list encountered is not unusually high for any of them, with exception to Cabrera. He was actually fifth in all of baseball in total SITDP, but no other hitter on the above list for NETDP is in the top 10 for most SITDP. As a matter of fact, Prado is the next highest on the above chart but is actually 37^th overall for total number of SITDP.

At first thought it would stand to reason that the players who encounter the most opportunities to hit into a double play would also lead the league, or be among the immediate league leaders, in total number of double plays hit and also the percentage of double plays overall. Looking at the top 10 list of players who encountered the largest number of those situations in 2012 reveals that not to be true at all, except for in the case of our Triple Crown winner – he seems to be the exception to our dataset for the sample I’m looking at.

Matt Holliday had the most opportunities to hit into a double play and he actually hit in 2.51 less overall than the average hitter in those situations. Robinson Cano was only a few behind him and ended up hitting in just 3.85 more double plays last season than the average hitter in those situations. The rest of the list is fairly bunched up between 141 and 148 but Jason Heyward really sticks out as he hit in 10.13 fewer double plays than what was really expected.

Even though the data that I’m looking at is only accounting for the 2012 season and it’s not a very large sample size to make any significant findings on, at least not for my purposes, it’s still interesting to note that encountering more situations in which the “opportunity” of the double play presents itself doesn’t necessarily mean that players will hit into more double plays.

What’s the secret? Is there a particular hit tool or trait among those players that are simply able to avoid hitting into the double play? How much of it has to do with the spot in the lineup in which they hit? How much of it has to do with whether they are guys with above average or below average power, fly ball or ground ball hitters, etc.?

These are all questions that I need answers to and thus my quest for those answers begins. While I gather more research material and expand my data set you can check out this piece that John Walsh wrote about the matter back in 2009 for the Hardball Times.

The post The Art of (Hitting Into) the Double Play appeared first on Free Lance.

If we were to lower that requirement to be considered a “slugger” or true power threat to say 25 or more home runs then that gives us 44 players who hit that mark in 2012, 42 in 2011, and 44 in 2010. While it does seem readily apparent, at least in such a small sampling of seasons, that there seems to be more consistency with guys who hit at least 25 home runs in a season then it does with guys who hit 30 or more so I guess it does make sense that we draw that mystical line at 30 home runs instead of 25.

What I’m going to take a look at is which of those players who hit 30 or more home runs last season are most likely to hit that mark again this season and which likely won’t, as well as what percentage of players generally repeat such a thing from one season to the next.

Looking at data (taken from FanGraphs) there have been a total of 127 30+ home run seasons by players since 2008. Of those players, just 54 of them – or 43% – managed to repeat a 30+ home run performance the following season. What that tells us, small sample size and all (yes, I’m considering five years’ worth of data a SSS in this scenario – I should probably take it to 10), is that of the 27 players who hit 30 or more home runs last season roughly 11 or 12 of them will do it again.

Which 11 or 12 though is the real question, although a handful of these players are going to be fairly easy to pick out. Three such players are about as close to no-brainers as you can get in Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Prince Fielder as the three of them have hit 30 or more home runs since at least 2007. That right there whittles our field of most likely candidates to repeat down to eight.

At this point it’s probably best to use a little logic and process of elimination based on factors such as age, health, and luck – yes I said luck.

Curtis Granderson is very unlikely to repeat as a 30 home run man considering that he just fractured his forearm, after being hit with a pitch in his most recent spring training game, and it’s going to cost him at least 10 weeks before he’s ready for game action again. Never mind the fact that he will still need to get some rehab starts in the minors to get his swing and timing back.

Corey Hart is another player unlikely to cross the 30 home run plateau after having surgery just over a month ago to repair a torn meniscus and other damage to the join in his knee. He’s going to face the same issues as Granderson in terms of rehab starts and having to take the time to get his swing and timing back. An optimistic view of Hart’s situation is that he could be ready to go by the end of April. The damage to his knee, whether it’s fully healed and repaired or not, is going to sap some of his power this year.

I’m crossing Josh Willingham, Adam LaRoche, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran off of my list due to age. LaRoche had a career year at 33 years old and I just don’t trust that type of performance so late in a guy’s career. Call me discriminatory if you want but he’s unlikely to repeat his 33 home runs in 2013, especially considering – according to ESPN’s Home Run Tracker – nine of them had just enough juice on them to get out of the ballpark they were hit in anyway.

Beltran is 35 years old, eight of his 32 home runs had just enough on them to get out of the park and his positive contact, walk, and strikeout rates are all moving in the wrong direction. Soriano, the oldest of the bunch at 37 years old, likely had the last hoorah of his career in 2012 and I’m willing to put any amount of money down that he doesn’t touch 30 home runs or come close to it in 2013. His strikeout rate increased to 24.9% and his .262 batting average was helped out in part by a .303 BABIP.

Willingham is 34 years old and had the first 30+ home run year of his career, but 11 of those had just enough on them to get out which tells me he had his fair share carried out by the wind. He’ll likely be the most productive hitter of this age group though (not counting Adrian Beltre of course).

As it stands we have three players (Pujols, Cabrera, and Fielder) that are near locks to hit 30 or more home runs in 2013, which leaves us with eight spots left to fill. I’ve also already knocked off six additional candidates due to various concerns, which leaves our pool of eligible players at 18 with varying degrees of likeliness to repeat a 30+ home run performance.

Ike Davis and Chase Headley may as well go ahead and take a seat because Davis got incredibly lucky on 11 of his dingers, especially with that hardcore .227 average he was rocking, and Headley may have had a career year but I don’t think he’ll be surpassing the 30 home run plateau again and he sure as hell won’t be doing it in San Diego if he does – him and his 11 lucky dingers and all.

I’m also leaning on just the inside of the fence with Robinson Cano, Mike Trout, and especially Josh Reddick. I’m going on record as saying that I’ll eat a microwaved plate of horse shit if Reddick hits another 30 bombs in Oakland without making better overall contact at the plate. No offense to Reddick or anything because he showed tremendous hustle and ability in his breakout season, but I have my doubts that the Coliseum will allow that to happen once more.

Trout had an absolute monster year but he feels more like a 25 home run guy to me in 2013 as opposed to 30, especially now that there’s plenty of footage on him and his tendencies (HINT: he has trouble with the slider in pitchers counts).

Cano could get to 30 or more home runs but the Yankee lineup has become very unimpressive to me over the winter due to age, osteoporosis, and the loss of guys that help turn the lineup over to give Cano additional plate appearances every game. I just don’t think he gets there because of those reasons – especially the osteoporosis surrounding him in the lineup.

Now that my list of candidates has been whittled down even further, we’re at 13 remaining now with eight spots to fill, let me mention that I believe Josh Hamilton, Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton, and even Jay Bruce will reach that glorious 30 home run mark again in 2013. Three of the four will be helped out by tremendous lineups and the one who won’t (Stanton) simply has tremendous power and isn’t the kind of person to go out and tank because he’s pissed off.

Even though one could argue that Encarnacion had one of those breakout seasons that he isn’t likely to repeat I happen to believe he will. Probably not to the tune of 42 home runs but that lineup is going to turn over quite a bit and that’s going to offer him a few more chances over the course of the season to knock a few more balls out of the ballpark. A 36 or 37 homerun season out of him isn’t out of the question and the scary thing is that his BABIP was only .266, a good 30 points lower than league average, so he likely has some positive regression in his future as well.

As it stands right now, our list of most likely to repeat their 30+ home run performances in 2013 is Pujols, Cabrera, Fielder, Hamilton, Encarnacion, Stanton, and Bruce. This is where it begins to get really tough because I’m left with four spots left to fill and nine players remaining from our pool of 30+ homerun guys.

These next three cuts are relatively easy ones to make though; Jason Kubel, Pedro Alvarez, and Mark Trumbo each had their fair share of moonshots in 2012 but Kubel isn’t your typical power hitter and managed to luck into a few extras in Arizona. Another thing worth mentioning with him is that he’s never once played in more than 146 games in a single season. He also set career highs in his strikeout (26.4%) and walk (10%) rates, but it’s the alarmingly high strikeout rate that concerns me the most. Again, he’s not a power hitter by any means and he should be somewhere around 22 or 23 home runs this season.

Alvarez finally put together a strong stretch of the season after getting off to an incredibly rough start through the first two months of it. However, he’s a high strikeout and low on-base guy and his splits are fairly well pronounced as he hit just .207/.270/.379 versus left-handed pitching last year. Playing more games in American League ballparks this season should help the Pirates put him in at DH but he’s also likely to sit more often than not against lefties. That will limit his opportunities and I can’t say with any confidence that he’s really put it all together just yet.

With regard to Trumbo, he has a ton of power potential and the only thing that’s really going to hold him back from surpassing 30 again this year is playing time. Before the signing of Josh Hamilton it appears as if Trumbo would split his time between right field and DH, but now it appears his only real spot in the lineup is at DH and a little closer to the sixth or seventh spot in the lineup as opposed to the fourth or fifth.

Given the fact that he’s a high strikeout and low on-base guy means his value is a bit diminished overall and it would be easier to replace him in the lineup if he hits a slump of any noticeable length. Being lower in the lineup and having the only spot left for him in the lineup being at DH his opportunities are more limited than they were in his previous two seasons.

While it may seem as if I’m not big on high strikeout guys I don’t want anyone thinking that I automatically discredit performances by players such as that. For example, I do believe that Adam Dunn will cross that 30 home run threshold once again. He strikes out a ton, doesn’t hit for a particularly pretty average but his swing carries such tremendous force that any ball he does make the least bit of contact with has the potential to go flying out of the park.

One guy I’ve been waffling back and forth on the entire time I’ve been writing this is Ryan Braun. He’s a tremendous talent and say what you want about his being linked to performance enhancing clinics, drugs, etc. he is still a complete talent on the field. Do I think that he will hit 30 more home runs again this season? Yes, I do. Do I think he’ll touch 40 again? No, I don’t think he does.

Andrew McCutchen hit 31 home runs last season, the first time he has done that in his career, and he also set career highs in various other offensive categories to top it all off. He’s still just 26 years old and is actually getting some comparisons to Barry Bonds at this stage of his career with the Pirates. I’m not sure how many people expect him to hit 30 home runs again this year, or in any subsequent year hereafter, but I do.

He’s a guy that’s just now coming into his prime, makes a great deal of quality contact, and is just a smart player all around. He doesn’t feel like your prototypical 30 home run guy but there’s magic in his swing and I don’t plan on betting against him doing it again this season.

So we’ve got three players left who drilled 30 or more home runs last year and really just one spot left, although two if we’re rounding up. Adrian Beltre hit 36 home runs and batted .321/.359/.561 for the Texas Rangers in 2012. Adam Jones belted a career-high 32 home runs to go along with his .287/.334/.505 batting line for the Baltimore Orioles. Jones’ teammate Chris Davis also “Crushed” a career high in home runs with 33 with a .270/.326/.501 batting line.

I feel compelled to round up and pick two of these three players to repeat because I truly do believe that two of the three will. The one player of this group that I probably have the utmost confidence in heading into this season is the one player who just genuinely got stronger and really smacked the hell out of the baseball – Adam Jones.

Jones may have just barely gotten over the 30 home run mark with 32 but of those home runs there were 19 of them that would have been home runs in every single ballpark in Major League Baseball. That actually tied him for the fourth most in baseball, something I like to call “True Home Runs”. That, to me anyway, is a display of a hitters ability to not only make solid contact with the bat but also the power they’re able to generate with their swing.

Adam has refined his game and his swing over the years to increase his power potential and ability to make solid contact at the plate. He comes into this season at just 27 years old and well in his prime and that means he’s only like to get stronger and smarter as a hitter. He’s going to be a perennial power threat at the plate for years to come in my mind.

In terms of True Home Runs Beltre has the edge in that department over Davis 15 to 10. Beltre has also been the better overall offensive player, making better and more efficient contact at the plate – also more often, and one could say his overall approach is one of the better ones in the game considering he can hit for average, power, and knows how to take a walk.

Davis is sort of the anti-Beltre given the fact that he doesn’t walk a whole lot, strikes out quite a bit, and you really count on him for his damage-to-contact ratio, which is his ability to drive the ball out of the park whenever he does make contact. The other big difference between the two of them though is age, as Davis is still well in his prime at just 26 years old (he turns 27 in March) and Beltre will be turning 34 the first week of April.

Going back to 2008 just 13 players 34 years of age or older have hit 30 or more home runs in a season, an average of 2.6 per year. I’m not saying that it’s not possible for Beltre to do it but given his age and a Rangers lineup that no longer offers him as much protection as Hamilton afforded him I’m inclined to say the odds are forever not in his favor at this point.

That is why I’m choosing Davis for my final spot for players who are most likely to repeat their 30+ home run performances from 2012 this year. I know, I know…this probably felt a bit like a fantasy draft the way it was drawn out for you but you’ve gotta admit – it was kind of fun.

The 30+ Home Run Repeat Contenders (totally useless HR total predictions in parentheses)

Giancarlo Stanton – 46

Edwin Encarnacion – 40

Miguel Cabrera – 39

Adam Dunn – 39

Chris Davis – 37

Prince Fielder – 36

Albert Pujols – 34

Adam Jones – 34

Jay Bruce – 34

Ryan Braun – 33

Josh Hamilton – 32

Andrew McCutchen – 31

The post The 30 Home Run Crowd appeared first on Free Lance.

That’s why I’m going to use Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system and their playoff odds report to determine which teams who have been given the lowest odds of reaching the playoffs this year will give the finger to their projection system and make it in anyway. So things don’t get too carried away I’m only going to look at teams that have been given a less than five percent chance of making the playoffs and explaining why they actually do have a shot. In total there are five teams that PECOTA has been incredibly unkind to in regards to their prospects for success this baseball season.

Baltimore Orioles – PECOTA Playoff Odds: 4.8%

The Baltimore Orioles were darlings of the American League, along with the Oakland Athletics of course, after finishing the 2012 regular season with 93 wins and then beating the Texas Rangers in the newly minted Wild-Card play-in game. They were also just one win away from knocking the division rival New York Yankees out of the postseason and advancing to the ALCS.

Even though they didn’t make any big splashes in the free agent market this winter they did manage to re-sign outfielder Nate McLouth, who performed well offensively and shored up left field defensively for the Birds, and are returning essentially the same team that won 93 games last year. Their lack of activity this winter seemed to surprise a good number of fans and media but they were also smart enough to not display the kind of knee-jerk reactionism that typically gets an organization in trouble a few years down the road.

PECOTA doesn’t believe in giving points for not making any dumb decisions though, if PECOTA even has feelings (which is a big fat no, hopefully – certainly don’t want PECOTA to be the dawn of Skynet), and has placed the Orioles playoff odds at just 4.8% and predicts the team to not even finish with a .500 record. Ouch!

While I won’t go so far as to call PECOTA dumb, mostly out of fear and the idea that it’ll come after me if I do, but it does make you wonder how it can give better playoff odds to 16 different teams that didn’t even make the playoffs last year than to a team that actually did.

No one is calling the Orioles World Series favorites by any means but they are sporting increased levels of depth on offense and defense as well as in their pitching staff. They may never repeat, then again no team may ever repeat, their success in one-run and extra-inning games again but that doesn’t mean they don’t boast a solid and deep bullpen, still capable of putting up a top 10 performance overall. Their starting rotation may not boast your traditional, clearly defined, number one and two starters but it does sport a collection of players who have far more upside than most teams whose rotations do consist of that typical ace.

They are returning key members of their lineup such as Adam Jones and Matt Wieters, who are entering their age 27 seasons, and will also have previously injured players such as Nolan Reimold, Nick Markakis, and even Brian Roberts healthy and ready to go once the regular season begins. Their offense was middle of the pack and did enough to support the pitching staff without two, or more, of them throughout all of last season. Are we supposed to believe that the offense is going to be worse upon their return?

Finally, their defense has finally been shored up with McLouth in left field and Manny Machado playing third base. Those two moves alone were enough to take them from one of the worst fielding teams on the left side in all of baseball to a well above average fielding team on the left side, and all over really, from August on. We should be able to reasonably expect that to continue as well.

These are the reasons why PECOTA is incorrect in its assessment that the Orioles will not only miss the playoffs but also play below .500 baseball.

Colorado Rockies – PECOTA Playoff Odds: 4.8%

It would be easy to see why the Colorado Rockies don’t have too many expectations to win this season; they lost 98 games last year, finished dead last in pitching nearly across the board, and have done absolutely nothing to substantially improve their team – on paper at least. That doesn’t mean this team and their fans should go ahead and bite down on that cyanide capsule before the season even begins though.

The Rockies offense was still as dominant as ever as they finished second in team batting average (.274), fourth in slugging percentage (.436), and sixth overall in runs scored (758) and OBP (.330). Say what you want about them playing half their games at home because every team plays half their games at home and if you don’t win the bulk of your games at home then you don’t stand a chance of making the playoffs anyway.

Part of their issue winning at home, though, has been their pitching staff getting clobbered there. They finished dead last in all of baseball in team ERA (5.22), WHIP (1.55), and BAA (.290). However, their ERA at home was an earth shattering 5.97 while it was just 4.41 on the road. I won’t go so far as to say that having a team ERA of even 4.41 is a great thing but with their offense it would’ve been far more manageable.

There is plenty of hope though, seriously. Their offense and defense is set as they are getting players back who were injured for parts of last season and they have finally found their catcher for the future in Wilin Rosario. There is even hope for the starting rotation to improve their overall performance, quite a bit actually, this year as well.

The Rockies top three starters in their rotation last were Jorge de la Rosa, Jhoulys Chacin, and Juan Nicasio. They combined for just 28 starts due to injury and that not only put a great strain on the pitching depth they had in the minors but also destroyed any real chance their bullpen had of being somewhat fresh for the second half of the season.

With all three of them returning from injury and completely healthy to begin this season those 28 combined starts should, hopefully, turn into at least 28 starts apiece. At any rate, 80+ starts combined from the three of them will go a long way towards further stabilizing their starting rotation and keeping the bullpen fresh and effective all season long. The fact that De la Rosa is really only a year and a half away from having put up some pretty impressive numbers for pitching in Coors Field is pretty impressive if he’s able to get back to that.

The two pitchers with the most upside though, and upside that wouldn’t be surprising to see realized this season, is Chacin (who has already proven to be an effective starter in the Rockies rotation) and Nicasio who has some pretty impressive K/BB ratios under his belt already and experienced his own success in Colorado back in 2011. With a healthy starting rotation and a top five offense this is a team that could easily see their fortunes turn around and earn themselves a postseason berth.

Miami Marlins – PECOTA Playoff Odds: 1.7%

The Miami Marlins were the darlings of last winter when they signed Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Heath Bell but things went very bad very quickly once the regular season began. They went 8-14 in April to begin the season and all of baseball began to talk that perhaps all of their new acquisitions for their new ballpark just simply weren’t going to work out. Things quieted down a bit after posting a 21-8 record in May but it didn’t stay that way for long. They went 40-71 the rest of the way and finished 29 games out of first place.

The problem, surprisingly enough, was their offense as they finished 24^th overall in batting average (.244), 26^th overall in OBP (.308), 24^th overall in slugging percentage (.382), and 29^th overall in runs scored (609). Had their offense been able to put up at least league average numbers then they would have likely been no worse than a .500 team but more than likely competing for a wild card spot.

Given the crushing failure of their bid to spend big and make the postseason the Marlins did what they do best after spending a little money – they had a fire sale and everything and everyone went with exception of Giancarlo Stanton and the often cited “tacky” home run sculpture beyond the centerfield wall. So what exactly do the Marlins have left over from their fire sale and who exactly did they get in return that could help them win this year?

The answer to that question is that the Marlins will have a very young, but very athletically gifted team this season. They only have six players on their roster, that projects to be a part of their active roster once the regular season begins, 30 years of age or older. This is a team that has all of their starting position players under the age of 25 with exception to center and left field as well as third base, depending on the health of Placido Polanco.

Ricky Nolasco, the other remaining holdover from the fire sale, appears set to lead a rotation that will have plenty of youth in it as well. That youth is very talented though as guys like Jacob Turner, Henderson Alvarez, and Nate Eovaldi have high ceilings and appear very capable of proving they can hang at the major league level on a consistent basis.

When looking over their roster they appear to be a team that has the perfect mix of veterans and young players who simply don’t really know any better, and that whole not knowing any better could really serve this team well in regards to surprising the masses this season. Other than seemingly having that perfect mix of veteran leadership and youthful enthusiasm, this team’s real strength is defense and a speed/power combination that could prove very potent on offense.

Minnesota Twins – PECOTA Playoff Odds: 1.5%

Where it was the offense that prevented the Marlins from really taking off, last season it was the starting rotation that crushed the hopes and dreams of Twins fans. Their offense was in the upper half of most offensive categories but their pitching was at or near the bottom three in just about every pitching related category. It was so bad last year that they spent the entire winter retooling their starting rotation and come into spring training with potentially four new faces in the rotation this season.

The key to their starting rotation improving enough to keep the team in games long enough to win will be health. Vance Worley, the one with arguably the most upside in the rotation, had his 2012 season cut short after having surgery in September to remove a loose body and bone spur. Recent reports suggest he is healthy and ready to go and if that’s true then the Twins will have a guy that will help solidify their rotation.

Mike Pelfrey is coming off of Tommy John Surgery but he indicates that he will be 100% ready to go by Opening Day and that is certainly encouraging news. If he is in fact fully recovered, and effective, then he is someone that could feasibly pitch around 170 and 180 innings for the team and could become a solid number three starter in the rotation.

Then of course we have Rich Harden who has had shoulder and arm issues for about eight years now and hasn’t made 30 starts in a season since 2004. He says that he is now feeling the best he has felt, health wise, in nearly six years. That’s another bit of encouraging news for the Twins because when he’s on he is nearly unhittable and actually has more strikeouts (949) over his career than innings pitched (928.1) – impressive.

The final piece that the team added for the rotation through free agency was Kevin Correia, who has spent his entire career in the National League and has been fairly up and down performance wise. He’s recently become more of a groundball pitcher and if he can continue that then he should have some moderate success with the Twins. He’s a guy that has made 25 or more starts four seasons in a row now and there’s nothing to suggest he won’t have another healthy year in 2013.

One of the biggest bright spots in the rotation from last season, who should also continue to develop and improve, is Scott Diamond and he should already have his rotation spot locked up as he posted a 3.54 ERA over 27 starts and 173 innings pitched, but more impressive was his groundball rate (53.4%) and that will help him continue his success in the rotation. He’s someone that could legitimately pitch well enough to make 30 starts this season and hit 200 or more innings. I’m not sure if he’ll maintain an ERA as low as last year’s but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did hit the 200 innings pitched mark and put up another sub-4.00 ERA.

With an offense that should, once again, rank in the top half of baseball there is hope that the Twins could surprise many – especially their own division – with an improved rotation that could push them into the conversation for a wild card spot if nothing else. Twins fans and media alike would certainly be surprised as well but this team isn’t completely devoid of talent as some suggest and a playoff run isn’t entirely out of the question.

Houston Astros – PECOTA Playoff Odds: 0.4%

PECOTA Playoff Odds has the Astros chances of making the playoffs so low that it makes me wonder why they even bothered listing them at all. Better yet, if you think so little of this major league team then why not just ignore them in your projection system with the hope that they simply go away? Sure, it’s incredibly easy to dismiss this team as not having the slightest chance in hell to make the playoffs but then where would be the fun in pointing and laughing at PECOTA (and hopefully hurting its non-feelings) if the Astros prove the cold-hearted/coded thing wrong?

Their roster is a who’s who of prom night and a large number of other players who probably haven’t spent a whole lot of time away from home. They have a new manager, a new owner, and are in a whole new league and division. That new league being the American League, a tougher league overall because of the DH rule, and one of the (now) toughest divisions in all of the American League, but most likely all of baseball. So what’s not to like with this team?

Well, right off the top of my head what’s not to like with this team is their performance from last season which had them finish at the bottom in offense and pitching. But we’re not here to talk about the past, now are we? Nope. And that’s why I’m going to talk to you about what this team has going for them this season and why they could shock everyone, including my wallet in a good way by placing a crafty bet or two.

After having played .500 ball from September through the end of the season in 2012 this team comes into the 2013 season with, essentially, all of their pieces settled firmly into place. They may be incredibly young and largely inexperienced with the game at the major league level but they are a gritty and talented bunch. As long as they don’t buy into the negativity surrounding them and remain positive and confident in their ability to perform up to their talent level then all should go fairly smooth for Houston.

Even though this Astros lineup lacks any real speed outside of second baseman Jose Altuve they do boast some great power potential. Five players that should see regular playing time in the lineup could easily hit 20 or more homeruns this season, and moving to the higher run scoring environment of the American League West should only help facilitate that even more. The long-ball will help keep them in, or get them back into, more games this season and that means we should expect to see some late-inning excitement.

The starting rotation, while not exactly filled with household names, does have two pitchers in Bud Norris and Lucas Harrell that should be able to eclipse the 200 innings pitched mark and another two in Jordan Lyles and Philip Humber that should be able to get to around 170. As long as they can cover those innings then their bullpen should stay rested enough to perform well enough to not blow any late inning leads the team has throughout the season and that would be a huge improvement over last year.

Even though they are now in a division with the AL West champions, and one of the two biggest surprise teams of 2012, Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers and truly back on the map Los Angeles Angles the beauty of this scenario is that no one will see them coming. What usually happens when someone underestimates their opponent on a regular basis? That’s right, they get knocked around a little bit and by the time they’ve realized they got punched in the mouth and are bleeding a little bit the damage has already been done and it’s likely too late to come back from it.

The post Screw You PECOTA and Your Silly Playoff Odds Too! appeared first on Free Lance.

It’s something I happen to believe in the real world, meaning the world that we non-athletes live in. The world in which we play out our everyday lives and some like to call it fate, or chance, or luck – I tend to believe that as a person and someone who is effectively in control of my own life that I can create my own “luck”. Can baseball players do the same?

When I began to really think about this and of all the statistics and metrics that we often use to really break down a hitters performance overall there was one thing that stuck out to me – contact rate. All of a sudden I had the idea that, perhaps, an above average contact rate would produce an above average BABIP and thus the player effectively creates his own luck by putting more balls in play.

So essentially my hypothesis is this:

Does an above average contact rate correlate to an above average BABIP?

In order to effectively answer this question I had to find out two key pieces of information; first I had to find out what the average BABIP was for the 2012. Second, I then had to find out what is considered to be an average contact rate.

I decided to pull data from Fangraphs for this exercise and found out that the average BABIP for all of baseball in 2012 was .297. I then looked at the information pertaining to contact rates and discovered that the average contact rate for all of baseball in 2012 was 79.7%, or roughly 80%.

The filters I put in place for my sample were any players who had 500 or more plate appearances during the 2012 season, which left me with 148 total players to analyze data from. 59 of those players had a BABIP of .297 or lower and the remaining 89 were at .298 or higher. In regards to contact rate, there are 86 total players with a contact rate higher than the 79.7% average mark, leaving the remaining 62 at or below it.

With the chart above what I did was sort the data from highest to lowest BABIP, with the highest coming in at .390 by the mighty Dexter Fowler and the lowest coming in at .233 by the can’t-catch-a-break kid Casey Kotchman. As you can see, there’s a strong correlation tied to batting average and BABIP – which is something we already knew. There’s a slight increase in the average contact rate for those with an above average BABIP but nothing that appears to be incredibly significant. I even went as far as to calculate the R-Squared value to determine how meaningful this data in regards to predicting whether a higher BABIP correlates to a higher contact rate.

It doesn’t, at all really. The R-Squared value from the above chart and data for those that had above average BABIP in 2012 was just 0.01 and the R-Squared value for those that had below average BABIP was just 0.03. Even for my entire sample size the R-Squared value is even less meaningful, coming in at a whopping 0.001.

For those that aren’t familiar with the statistical term R-Squared or only have a vague understanding of it you can check this link out for an explanation beyond me telling you that an R-Squared value closer to one indicates correlation and predictability, whereas a result that is further away from one means there is less correlation and predictability when comparing sets of data.

Now I should let you in on a little secret. The chart above, when I sorted the data from highest to lowest BABIP – I shouldn’t have sorted it that way. Granted, the R-Squared results are the same whether I sort from highest to lowest BABIP or contact rate but my doing that really makes the resultant averages of data in that chart pretty pointless because we already know that a higher BABIP will typically lead to, overall, a higher batting average by that group of players.

Okay, here is how the data should have been presented to you in the original chart. This right here shows that there is absolutely no correlation between contact rate and BABIP – I simply used the above chart first so I could further illustrate this to you (and in the process really, really disprove my little theory). However, an interesting thing happened on the way to the market.

Is that even a real saying? If it is then could someone let me know where my subconscious mind pulled it from because it just popped in there?

Anyway, the results from my R-Squared formula are 0.1011 which tells us that there is a 10.11% correlation/predictive value when associating contact rate with batting average. Generally speaking, if a player has a higher contact rate than he is likely to have a higher batting average than those players who have a lower contact rate and that players’ odds of having a higher batting average is better by 10.11%. That may not seem like a whole heck of a lot but when you run a professional baseball team you look for any advantage that you can get.

I’m certainly not going to say that these results are groundbreaking by any means because I sincerely doubt that front offices all across baseball weren’t already aware of this. I only make note of it because it’s something that I noticed while in the midst of disproving my original theory.

The post Can Baseball Hitters Create Their Own Luck? appeared first on Free Lance.

In an effort to give their rotation a complete facelift the team signed starting pitchers Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey to major league contracts, signed Rich Harden to a low-risk minor league contract, and turned a surplus in the outfield into Vance Worley and two solid pitching prospects Trevor May and Alex Meyer (both of which could be ready within two or three years). If there’s one thing that general manager Terry Ryan understands it’s how to rebuild the major league roster by finding and acquiring promising talent that could help the team in a relatively short amount of time.

The key to their starting rotation improving enough to keep the team in games long enough to win will be health. Vance Worley, the one with arguably the most upside in the rotation, had his 2012 season cut short after having surgery in September to remove a loose body and bone spur. Recent reports suggest he is healthy and ready to go and if that’s true then the Twins will have a guy that will help solidify their rotation.

Pelfrey is coming off of Tommy John Surgery but he indicates that he will be 100% ready to go by Opening Day and that is certainly encouraging news. If he is in fact fully recovered, and effective, then he is someone that could feasibly pitch around 170 and 180 innings for the team and could become a solid number three starter in the rotation.

Then of course we have Harden who has had shoulder and arm issues for about eight years now and hasn’t made 30 starts in a season since 2004. He says that he is now feeling the best he has felt, health wise, in nearly six years. That’s another bit of encouraging news for the Twins because when he’s on he is nearly unhittable and actually has more strikeouts (949) over his career than innings pitched (928.1) – impressive.

The final piece that the team added for the rotation through free agency was Kevin Correia, who has spent his entire career in the National League and has been fairly up and down performance wise. He’s recently become more of a groundball pitcher and if he can continue that then he should have some moderate success with the Twins. He’s a guy that has made 25 or more starts four seasons in a row now and there’s nothing to suggest he won’t have another healthy year in 2013.

Obviously a lot has to go right for the Twins rotation, and it all has to do with health, but as long as these four guys are able to stay healthy for the duration of the season then this Twins rotation, and team for that matter, will be far better than the 66-96 record they posted last year would otherwise indicate. There’s also a matter of finding someone that could step in and handle that final spot in the rotation and there are a handful of guys that have shown some promise to be able to do that.

Scott Diamond should already have his rotation spot locked up as he posted a 3.54 ERA over 27 starts and 173 innings pitched, but more impressive was his groundball rate (53.4%) and that will help him continue his success out of the rotation. He’s someone that could legitimately pitch well enough to make 30 starts this season and hit 200 or more innings. I’m not sure if he’ll maintain an ERA as low as last year’s but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did hit the 200 innings pitched mark and put up another sub-4.00 ERA.

Cole DeVries is a guy who stepped up and pitched pretty well for the Twins last season as he posted a 4.11 ERA over 16 starts and 87.2 innings of work. However, the thing that concerns me with him is that he’s a fly-ball pitcher and his BABIP of .258 tells me that he’s likely due for some regression in that category. I can’t say that I’m sold on him just yet but if he continues to walk a minimum number of hitters then perhaps he’ll be able to limit the damage when hitters get a hold of a pitch left up in the zone.

Samuel Deduno is another pitcher that performed relatively well for the Twins in 2012, he had a 4.44 ERA over 15 starts and 79 innings pitched, but like DeVries he seemed to be aided by a below average BABIP (.266). His groundball rate of 58.3% is very impressive and we’ll see if he can repeat that but his walk rate of 6.04/9IP is the most concerning thing to me though. He’ll also be starting his season off in Triple-A so he has some work ahead of him if he’s going to get another crack at the major league rotation anyway.

The most interesting candidate for the rotation in 2013, to me anyway, is probably Liam Hendriks. Even though he had surgery in October to remove bone chips he appears to be fully recovered and ready to go this spring. He’s a guy that won’t overpower you with a blazing fastball or anything, his fastball tops out around 90 mph, but he has plus command of his pitches and the movement he is able to get on his slider, changeup, and curve is a huge plus. His changeup is widely considered his best pitch and he was able to use it to keep hitters off balance in Triple-A last year before getting called up.

It’s doubtful that Hendriks ever becomes a true shutdown pitcher at the big league level but I could see him developing into a solid number three or four starter in another year or two. He’s just 24 years old and has the right mindset to succeed in the majors.

As it stands right now this is how I would order the Twins rotation:

1. Vance Worley
2. Scott Diamond
3. Kevin Correia
4. Mike Pelfrey
5. Rich Harden/Liam Hendriks

That’s not half a bad rotation as long as guys stay healthy and you don’t have to dip into your system for guys that may not be ready just yet. The good news is that they still have a little depth at the Triple-A level in case someone does go down or just isn’t getting the job done. I know that Twins fans are largely pessimistic about this upcoming season because the team was relatively quiet on the free agent front and traded away Denard Span and Ben Revere for Worley and a couple of players that can’t help for another year or two, but be patient and have some faith.

This Twins team isn’t one that looks like, at least on paper, they’ll lose 90 games this year and while I won’t go so far as to say they’re going to snag a playoff appearance I also don’t believe that 75 to 80 wins is out of the question either.

The post Winter Review/Looking Ahead: Minnesota Twins appeared first on Free Lance.