Knick-Knack Notes
June 20, 2005
I flipped through most of the games this evening hoping something would
stand out that was worth writing about. Other than the fact that
Casey Fossum seems to be on his way to realizing the potential the Red
Sox though he had when they held on to him so tightly a couple of years
ago before finally relenting to trade him, there really wasn't anything
that required any real analysis. You don't need me to tell you
Jake Peavy is awesome or that Vlad Guerrero can hit. That said,
despite playing on a bad team Fossum is a guy to target for the second
half and definitely someone to try to snag in a keeper league.
Say what you will about the D-Rays, but Chuck Hernandez is a pretty
good pitching coach. If a guy has any talent, more often than not
he's going to make it work. Fossum struck out better than a
batter per inning over the course of his minor league career with a
WHIP of 1.19. He's not going to pull a Johan but he should be a
nice addition especially in strikeout leagues.
Back to Peavy for a second... his 13-strikeout, two-hit performance was
the best of his brilliant young career but not dramatically so.
Last September he 3-hit the Dodgers over 8 innings while striking out
11. He now has 10 career starts against the Dodgers and is 4-1
with a 2.26 ERA against them, easily his best mark against any team
against which he's had at least 5 starts. Teammate Adam Eaton has
also put up his best numbers against the Dodgers, going 9-3 in 18
career starts with a 2.51 ERA. Ironically enough, Oliver Perez,
who began his career with the Padres before being traded to Pittsburgh,
also has done some of his best work facing the Dodgers with a career
ERA of 2.57 against LA.
The D-backs called up Brandon Medders to help out their bullpen.
Brandon Lyon will probably resume the closer's role if/when he ever
returns. After Lyon, only one other D-back reliever has an ERA
under 5 and that's Lance Cormier who gave up 4 runs against the Giants
last night to push his ERA to 3.35. If Arizona stays in the race
for a while, they will probably make a trade for a closer although the
ranks of eligible quality closers has thinned with Hawkins and Urbina
off the table already. But if they collapse in June - a strong
possibility with a rotation that depends on Shawn Estes, Russ Ortiz,
Brad Halsey and possibly Claudio Vargas - they're not likely to part
with one of their top prospects for a rent-a-closer. Without a
healthy Lyon or a legitimate hired gun brought in, Medders could get an
audition. After posting a 1.80 ERA and striking out 11+ batters
per 9 innings in the hitter friendly PCL at Tucson this year, he
deserves a shot.
Chris Carpenter exacted a bit of revenge this weekend when he one-hit
the Blue Jays. It was just two years ago they released him after
he struggled with injuries in 2002 that led to surgery and missing the
2003 season. As good as he's been for the Cardinals this year and
last, he really hasn't made any quantum leaps forward. Cardinal
pitching coach Dave Duncan has been influential, but probably the most
significant change has been pitching in the NL and in front of a better
infield defense than he had in Toronto. Like Roy Halladay,
Carpenter is an extreme groundball pitcher (1.99 G/F ratio; Halladay is
2.63) who gets a good number of strikeouts (Carpenter is currently at
8.68 per 9 IP). That's a nice combo of skills to have pitching in
front of exceptional glovemen like Scott Rolen.
Greg Maddux tied Tom Seaver for 17th on the all-time wins list, but
after tonight's game he's only 27 strikeouts away recording 3000
strikeouts with fewer than 1000
walks. Interestingly enough, Ferguson Jenkins, the only pitcher
to finish his career with those same marks, accomplished the
feat as a Cub also. Maddux is still over 100 walks away from 1000
(Jenkins finished his career with 997 to go along with 3142 Ks) so
unless Maddux's control completely deserts him over the next couple of
years, he'll finish with a better control rate than Jenkins. The
feat sounds a little more impressive than it is - Sandy Koufax would
have likely been the first one to accomplish it had he pitched two more
years at the same K/BB rate as his last couple of years before he
retired. When Roger Clemens passed 3000 strikeouts in 1998 he
also had fewer than 1000 walks. Obviously, he's pitched a little
more since and thus passed the 1000 walk mark for his career.
Speaking of Clemens, he won career number 333 on Friday. If the
Astros
would ever give him some run support, he could pass Tim Keefe this year
for 8th on the all-time wins list. But that really doesn't do his
accomplishment justice because Keefe pitched when the mound was
ten feet closer to home plate plate and it wasn't unusual for a starter
to make more
than 50 starts in a season. For a better comparison, only Warren
Spahn has more wins
(363) since the
advent of the live ball in 1920. Pete Alexander and Walter
Johnson pitched after 1920 and
also finished with more wins, but they pitched most of their careers
during the deadball era. So since baseball began playing by the
same measures we use today, Clemens is second overall in wins to go
along with being second all-time in
strikeouts.
Pedro Martinez currently has a 2.76 ERA, which is good for 7th best in
the NL, 9th best overall. However, that's actually higher than
his
career average (2.71). More notably, when one compares him to
league average he has the best ERA in history (ERA+ of 167) by a wide
margin. The second place pitcher in ERA+ is Lefty Grove at
148. Shea has historically been one of the most favorable parks
for pitchers in baseball and it's conceivable Pedro could finish his
career as a Met. So given his current lead and the park he's
pitching in, it's almost certain that Martinez
will finish his career with the best ERA ever when comparing his
numbers to league average.
Another pitcher who fares well when comparing to his contemporaries is
Randy Johnson. The 4th pitcher ever to pass 4000 strikeouts, he's
not far behind Grove for career adjusted ERA at 144. Coming back
to the AL won't help him there, although Yankee Stadium has played
favorably for lefties historically. But he's also within hailing
distance of 300 wins, which is probably the primary reason he was so
adamant about coming to the Yankees in the first place. He's won
a World Series already plus netted his fair share of Cy Young
awards. The only thing missing from his "greatest ever" resume is
the 300 wins. With the run support he'd get in New York and
Mariano Rivera at the end to assure wins in games he didn't complete
himself, he must have thought that 20 wins a season for the remainder
of his contract was assured. It's too bad he didn't know about
defensive efficiency; Anaheim might have better suited his purpose.
Of course all sorts of issues arise when comparing players across eras,
but there's legitimacy to the argument that we have been witness to
four of
the top twenty starters ever during the past decade or so. Given
the incredible number of amazing young pitchers - Johan Santana, Jake
Peavy, Mark Prior, Oliver Perez, Carlos Zambrano, Josh Beckett, Ben
Sheets, Roy Oswalt, Dontrelle Willis and Mark Beurhle are all 26 years
old or younger - has there ever been a better time to be a fan of
pitching?