Homerun Review

Baseball has finally come up with a system to review homeruns to be sure they’re over the wall and in fair territory. In a way it’s the end of an era and the start of a different one. Most people assume that some replay will inevitably lead to more replay. An interesting point made by Morneau and the Twins about fair and foul balls in general, not just homers. Obviously for the Twins, homeruns aren’t as much of their game, but doubles down the line certainly are, and if it’s called foul when it’s not that could easily cost them (or any team) runs. And the reverse is clearly true as well.

I generally approve of this new replay implementation because it’s important to make the right calls, which can be especially tough on plays where umps don’t have a great view, but it is an extremely slippery slope. I wonder how long it’ll be before review finds its way into more plays. Fair and foul calls make some sense to me, and maybe calls on whether an outfielder trapped the ball on a catch or not. As soon you get into safe or out calls it makes me a little uncomfortable though. It just doesn’t feel right. For the most part umps make the right call on those, they’re right there, but sometimes they don’t and I suppose you want to get it right, because they could very easily change the outcome of the game.  Part of what I fear is that it’ll turn into the replay mess that is football. That system is annoying and really does delay the game. I just don’t get people arguing that this new system will delay that game, it’s so rarely that it’ll even be necessary and usually the right call is pretty clear from the replay. But there are tons of close plays in baseball and if you start reviewing all of them, then it does delay the game, and I don’t see a simple way to do it without really losing some of the integrity of the game, as well as the umps. I think football has lost that, as have the refs there. They aren’t even expected to be right anymore; they don’t have to be. As far as using cameras and computers to call balls and strikes goes, I think that must never happen. The human element of the umpire is key, they game entirely changes without it.

One thing is for sure, we are on the cusp of something here, how far it goes I’m not sure, but I wonder if this may mark the beginning of a new era, and may one day be referred to the way we now refer to the DH era or the deadball era.

Twins Add Guardado

The Twins have brought back Eddie Guardado, most likely hoping that he’ll provide a little relief to the currently beleaguered relief corps. I think it’s a nice move as he’s proven veteran who had some great success with the orginization previously. His numbers aren’t as impressive these days, but I think he’ll be a help nonetheless. This is a short, fully un-researched post as I’m doing it from my phone (isn’t technology neat?) but I just thought I’d mention the move. Here’s do Everyday Eddie successfully reliving his glory days.

Jeff Kent Doing Well in Front of Manny

As I previously proposed, hitting in front of Manny can provide a big lift for a player. I wondered what might happen in LA. For most of the time since then Jeff Kent has been hitting in front of Manny, and he’s done quite well. In fact, he’s hitting .481 in 13 games since moving to the three spot. I’d say that’s increased performance. His average has jumped from .256 to .285 in that time. Obviously Manny’s been doing pretty well since then too, hitting .403 with a 1.204 OPS with his new team. I think the Dodgers are pretty satisfied.

Are the Twins Just Lucky?

So once again it’s been questioned whether or not the Twins are just lucky. People frequently cite the impressive .312 average with runners in scoring position. This is of course higher than expected, but I don’t think it’s clear proof that it’s just them being lucky. I have a few different thoughts on the matter.

First off, I wonder whether they’re just getting runners in scoring position with the right men up. Clearly if men are in scoring position with your best hitters up the team will have a higher average with runners in scoring position. In the Twins case, those hitters are Mauer and Morneau. Based on the fact that Morneau is racking up the RBI’s it’s safe to assume he’s getting plenty of chances with men on. The top of the order for much of the year was Gomez and Casilla, while Gomez has a pretty feeble OBP for a leadoff man, his speed often allowed him to advance into scoring position rather than just being on first, of course what aided this was Casilla’s success in the two hole. He actually has a higher average with men on first only (.333) rather than in scoring position (.322). Of course behind him is Mauer who has an excellent OBP of .409, which frequently pushed Casilla into scoring position. So now is when Morneau comes up and there may very well be someone in scoring position, and his average in that situation? A beefy .374. He also has the most at bats with runners in scoring position, which makes sense based on what I just laid out. Alright, well how does this compare to last year, a year where the Twins as a team only hit .276 with RISP and missed the playoffs? Morneau hit .291. The huge increase can perhaps be explained by Morneau’s maturation as a hitter. Morneau himself said he felt his lower level of success last year was due to the fact he was trying to hit homeruns more, and this year he isn’t. And it could well be assumed he tried to hit them more with runners on. So perhaps one reason the Twins are doing so well with runners in scoring position is Justin Morneau and his possible development as a better clutch hitter. The rest of the Twins lineup’s RISP average is closer to their overall average.

Another possible explanation is their style of play in combination with the Metrodome. When there are runners in scoring position the opposing infield will many times be brought in to try and cut down a runner at the plate. With the infield in they have less range on grounders, this becomes amplified on the fast Metrodome turf, and additionally by the groundball hitters the Twins have in their order. As a team they have a groundball-flyball ratio of 1.4, well above the league average.

I guess the final matter is whether or not any of this is important. Even if the Twins are getting quite lucky and they shouldn’t be doing as well as they are, the fact is they have been pretty consistently good with RISP, and it’s not as if we’re looking at stats from a month or two, 118 games is a reasonable sample size, so even if they’re just lucky, who’s to say they can’t keep being lucky?

The Trading Deadline and how Big Papi will fare

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s been some pretty big names switching cities this week. I’m very interested to see how these trades pan out, because only time can tell who gets the better end of a trade.

One of the most interesting things for me will be the various effects of the Manny trade. Obviously no one can replace Manny in a lineup, and I think one of the forgotten elements of that is the protection he offers the hitter in front of him. Everyone knows that David Ortiz is a great hitter, but I wonder how much of his success is due to the guy hitting behind him. When Ortiz was in Minnesota he wasn’t a star by any means, and obviously a lot of his turn around in Boston came when they explained to him that he’s not a small-ball, Minnesota Twins type player. He’s a slugger and he should be driving guys in from first rather than getting them over to second. Opening him up to do that made a big difference, but I’m guessing it didn’t hurt that he had a phenomenal hitter behind him in the order.

Some level of evidence can be seen in the stats. Ortiz wasn’t consistently the number three hitter (in front of Manny) until his second season with the Sox (2004). His first season with them he was certainly better than he was with the Twins, but his second season is when he really took off. In 2003: .288/.369/.592 and in 2004: .301/.380/.603. That obviously doesn’t prove anything, but I do think it’s interesting to note. The other main piece of evidence to show there is value hitting in front of Manny is how well JD Drew did with it this year. Other than his post season performance last year, Drew has been a bit of a bust in Boston, until they plopped him in front of Manny when Ortiz was hurt. Again, I’m not saying this was the only reason for the turn around, I’m just saying it couldn’t have hurt.

The point of all this being that it will be interesting to see not only how Ortiz and Drew do now that Manny is playing on the other end of the country, but it will be interesting to see how Russell Martin or whoever hits in front of Manny does. Keep your eye out, see if there’s any legitimacy to my claims.

The others thing that will be interesting to watch, and even harder to evaluate is Griffey’s impact. He should help White Sox offense a bit, assuming he essentially bumps out Konerko, but his defense in center field could have a negative impact. In general, I’m curious how many games may be sacrificed due to the White Sox lousy defense in the outfield. It’s not hard at all for one fly ball to determine the fate of a game, and if it’s one that the old legs out there can’t quite catch up to, it’s going to result in a few games not going the way of Chicago. Of course as a Twins fan, I like the sound of that, and given the Twins relatively strong outfield defense I feel secure there. Unfortuntely the Twins are not without their fair share of problems, and in general I would have to imagine the addition of Griffey will slightly help the White Sox.