Friday Foto: Separated at Birth?

Is it just me, or does Michael Young bear a striking resemblance to actor Carlos Bernard (a.k.a. Tony Almeida on 24)?

Thursday: "Straight ball, I hit it very much . . . . "

Continuing the discussion that we've made about Chris Davis, I feel it's only appropriate to start out with this classic video clip from Major League. As it turns out, Pedro Cerrano (played by Dennis Haysbert, i.e. President Palmer on 24) has similar struggles at the plate:

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Here are Chris' pitch breakdowns from this year (courtesy of billjamesonline.com):

To date, Chris has seen 375 pitches this year; he has swung at 187 of them (49%), and taken 188 of them (51%). (In 2008, the percentages were 46% taken, 54% swung.)

Of the pitches that he has swung at, he has missed 43% of them. (In 2008, 32%).

Of the pitches that he has swung at, only 63% of them have been in the strike zone. (In 2008, 64%).

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The only noticeable discrepancy here is his contact rates from 2008-2009. As you can see, he is coming up empty at a much more rapid pace (43% in 2009 to 32% in 2008). When he actually makes contact, his BABIP is .275 (the league average is about .300), down from a monstrous .353 in 2008 (which I referred to in this post about BABIP several months ago). We can conclude that (1) he's not making contact as often, and (2) when he is making contact, he's not getting any breaks. We can expect his BABIP to approach league average over the course of the season, but his sharp contact percentage decline is certainly cause for some concern.

My first inclination would be to assume that he is being pitched much differently this year, i.e. as pitchers are adjusting to him, he hasn't been adjusting back. Perhaps this has been the case, but on the whole, he's being pitched exactly the same:

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Year--Pitch--% (courtesy of fangraphs.com)

2008--Fastball--55.3% 2008--Curveball--11.4%
2009--Fastball--56.5% 2009--Curveball--11.9%

2008--Slider--16.7% 2008--Changeup--9.8%
2009--Slider--13.9% 2009--Changeup--8.3%

There is an alarmingly high percentage of pitches for 2009 that have been termed as "unknown": 10.8%. This could possibly be skewing the data, or it could just be a data entry fluke. Or a secret new pitch that's being used to strike Chris out.
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Overall, it's not terribly surprising for a player like Davis to have a stretch like this. He's a power hitter who strikes out a lot but doesn't walk much. When players like this have a slump at the plate, they don't have the benefit of (1) walks (because they don't walk) or (2) BABIP/luck (because they don't make much contact). For instance, when a player like Michael Young is slumping, he still catches some lucky breaks by virtue of some well placed ground balls. When a player like Milton Bradley is slumping, he works his way onto the bases every now and then by virtue of walks and patience at the plate. Davis has neither of these going for him.

While this streak is worrisome, Chris will undoubtedly pull himself out of it. The truth is, with his low-contact, no-walk style, we should excpect to see stretches like this (though perhaps not as long) throughout his career.

Hello Win Column, Win #7: Michael Young Hits Another Clutch HR to lead Rangers Comeback Over Orioles

According to Bill James Online, Michael Young is hitting .500/.500/1.400 in 10 clutch at-bats this year. Unbelievable.

Game Recap, Boxscore

Before we hear from the angry Baltimore blogosphere, here was an interesting series preview:

(First of) Three Against Texas from The Loss Column

"One thing I’m confident of heading into this series is that Rangers fans feel our pain. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to tell their Coke from our Pepsi in a blind taste test. Their team ERA is 6.21, ours is 5.98. They’re hitting .271, we’re hitting .273. They’ve allowed 156 hits, we’ve allowed 179 . . . When the two teams met for three games last week in Arlington they combined for 56 runs. That’s an average of 9.3 runs per game — each . . . The good news is that since then the Rangers have lost four of six and averaged only 3.8 runs/game. They are, all things considered, not as good a team as the Orioles. We have every reason to be optimistic for another series win."

Needless to say, the losing locker room expresses some major concerns and frustrations about their All Star closer:

Rangers 6, Orioles 5: You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, Georgie you're no good (at closing) from Camden Chat

"George Sherrill is not a closing pitcher and they need to find one, fast. Sherrill gave up a two-run bomb to Michael Young in the top of the ninth inning which put the Rangers up 5-4, the score they would win by when the O's failed to get anybody on or in in the bottom of the inning . . . Sherrill would be an excellent LOOGy. He hasn't been an effective closer. He started OK last year but was struggling by the break, and after the break he collapsed. He's stunk this year. There's not much more to it than that."

Sherrill Serves It Up from Baltimore Sports Report

"Man, Texas has the Orioles’ number don’t they? I don’t get it . . . "

Orioles' Bullpen Can't Hold On Against Rangers from The Baltimore Sun

"Kinsler reached on a line single to left field, allowing Young to come to the plate and hit his third game-tying or go-ahead home run in the ninth inning in the past five games. Those factors made the Rangers' 5-4 victory before an announced Friday night crowd of 24,319 especially difficult for the Orioles to swallow . . . 'It was a good battle with Kinsler, and you just have to put that behind you and get the next guy,' said Sherrill, who blew his first save in four chances this year. 'I just made a bad pitch. I showed him too many pitches in the same spot.' "

Thursday: Deep Thoughts . . . .

I don't really have a theme in mind for today's post. What I've mostly done is taken a few things that I've been thinking about this week and posted them all in one article.

1) According to Bill James Online, Ian Kinsler is the hottest hitter in baseball right now with a temperature of 104 degrees (for an explanation of temperatures, go here). Certainly not much of a surprise given his offensive play as of late, but to see that (according to this "temperature" system) he is the hottest hitter in the game, that's pretty cool. Following Kinsler are Victor Martinez, Ryan Braun, Matt Kemp, and Kevin Youkilis.

2) Jamey Newberg, in one of his patented newsletters, remarked about Kinsler in his recap of the Rangers 5-4 win over the Blue Jays: the game included "Ian Kinsler’s first opposite field home run since birth." Not knowing whether this was actual fact or a metaphor to articulate Kinsler's propensity for the left side of the diamond, I decided to check it out. Of course, Newberg is correct. Here is the career data for the location of Kinsler's home runs (chronologically from left to right, from 2006 to 2009):

Homers to Left: 12+19+16+4 = 51 total
Homers to Center: 2+1+2+0 = 5 total
Homers to Right: 0+0+0+1 = 1 total

(source: billjamesonline.com)

3) While it's a little bit too early to start playing the Pythagorean W-L game, the Rangers have scored exactly as many runs as they have allowed: 85. This gives them a Pythagorean record of .500 (which doesn't truly translate into a record if the team has played 13 games). Given the trouble that the Rangers have had on the mound thus far, to know that the team breaks even is a nice thought. Their 85 runs scored is 4th in the bigs, and their 84 runs allowed is 4th from the bottom. Symmetry seems to be the name of the game here, since the Rangers finished 1st in runs scored last year, and last in runs allowed.

4) Until I played around with baseball-reference.com this week, I had no idea how little players put the ball into play on a 3-0 count over their careers. I was looking at Marlon Byrd's page and saw that, over his 2,406 career PA and 111 PA with a 3-0 count, he's only put 1 ball in play. Less than 1%. I imagined the number being low, but not that low.

Perhaps, I thought, it's only because Byrd isn't a tremendous power hitter and doesn't get the green light on 3-0 from the dugout very often, and when he does swing he takes a big rip which is less likely to make good contact. A look at some of the other Rangers (which have decent, but not prolific power), as well as some prolific power hitters around baseball somewhat supports this theory (despite the lack of thorough research and my small sample size). My primary point, however, is that hitters (especially the listed bona fide power hitters below the list of Rangers) make contact on 3-0 a lot less than I thought.

Michael Young: 2 balls put into play in 60 3-0 counts (0 HR)
Ian Kinsler: 3 balls put into play in 30 3-0 counts (1 HR)
Hank Blalock: 4 balls put into play in 75 3-0 counts (o HR)

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Matt Holliday: 10 balls put into play in 61 3-0 counts (0 HR)
Ryan Howard: 12 balls put into play in 137 3-0 counts (1 HR)
Alex Rodriguez: 12 balls put into play in 271 3-0 counts (1 HR)

5) The Rangers are ranked 27th in walks taken in the majors. In 2008 they finished with the 6th highest walk total. The main culprits:

**Marlon Byrd has walked 0 times this year in 36 PA. Of course, no one cares when you are hitting .361/.361/.667. When this hot streak dies down, however, let's hope that Byrd remembers how to be selective (a great asset of his last year when he walked in roughly 10% of his PAs en route to a .380 OBP).

**Josh Hamilton has walked 3 times in 57 PA, but his struggles as a result of his lack of selectivity have been well documented.

**Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who took a big step forward in the walks category in 2008 (despite his lack of power), has only 1 walk in 39 PA

**Chris Davis, never one to take advantage of many free passes, is characteristically low in the BB column with 2 in 46 PA, and leads the league with 21 strikeouts. So he's been striking out (roughly) once every two times he steps up. Yikes.

6) Hank Blalock's middle name is Joe. Not Joseph, Joe. Weird.

Tuesday: What the Tuesday Morning Box Score Won't Tell You (and Some of What It Will)

Despite the fact that I usually leave game recaps to Jon (who is much better at them), for particularly interesting games I had an idea about writing an article entitled "What the Box Score Won't Tell You (and Some of What It Will)". I'm going to reserve these articles for games in which the box score just doesn't do the game justice (which, if you want to get technical, is every game, but I'll save this for the extreme circumstances). This game, though the Rangers' fourth loss in a row, was certainly exciting and had a multitude of notable moments. For those who haven't had the chance to read-up on the game yet, here are the links: Recap, Boxscore

So, without further delay, here is the first edition of . . . .

What the Tuesday Morning Box Score Won't Tell You:
**Marlon Byrd got away with a defensive miscue in the first inning (that was not ruled an error) and led to a run
**Aubrey Huff, a Texas native from Mineral Wells, reached base all 5 times even though he struck out once
**On a similar note, Jason Jennings struck out 3 in the seventh but didn't strike out the side
**Koji Uehara (Baltimore's starter) collected the first three strikeouts of his American baseball career
**Elvis Andrus and Taylor Teagarden had key RBIs on groundouts to key a 3-run 6th inning
**The ever-so-atheltic Eddie Guardado fell down while fielding a comebacker in the 8th yet still threw the runner out
**Home plate umpire CD Bucknor upheld his notoriety for a consistently inconsistent strike-zone, frustrating pitchers and batters alike (especially Ian Kinsler, who was nearly ejected)
**Ian Kinsler led off the ninth inning with a clutch double, but followed with a not-so-clutch baserunning blunder on Michael Young's lineout to the wall
**Nick Markakis saved the game for the Birds when he slammed into the wall catching Michael Young's 9th inning screamer with Ian Kinsler on second base and no outs
**Marlon Byrd struck out to end the game with the tying run on third and the winning run on second

And Some of What It Will:
**Chris Davis busted out of an 0 for the season slump with a 3 for 4 performance and 1 HR
**Michael Young slugged his first HR of the year en route to a multi-hit night
**Andruw Jones had a double and a HR in a solid offensive outing as the DH/cleanup
**Rangers pitchers had 9 strikeouts
**There were only 12,184 fans in attendance
**Vicente Padilla and Scott Feldman soiled the sheets

Tuesday: The Curious Case of Michael Young, Part II

In a follow up to last week's post about the state of Michael Young's career and his chances for a rebound (The Curious Case of Michael Young, Part I), I wanted to demonstrate exactly what kind of trend in which Young is entrenched. Fortunately, http://www.fangraphs.com/ provides exactly the kind of visualizations that we need. Aside from the commentary I've made, notice how drastic his ascent was, offset only by how steady his decline has been. The symmetry of his graphs is pretty remarkable, if you think about it. How many players have careers like this? My guess: not many. If you can find one, post it in the comments!

Batting Average

It's not terribly surprising that Young's BA has taken a tumble. Batting average is usually one of the first statistics to take a hit as a player ages. The problem here with Michael Young is that most of his value was in his ability to hit .315 every year. I think we'll see Young's batting average teeter between .280 and .300 (a lot of which may depend on his BABIP) for the next several years.

On-Base Percentage

On the surface, this looks just about as bad as batting average. However, when examined along with his BA, we can see that more and more of Young's OBP has been made up of walks, hit-by-pitches, etc. We can see this by subtracting Young's BA from his OBP (which will tell us the part of his OBP that is independent from his BA). I'm not sure if this stat actually has a name, so I'm just going to call it OBP-BA**.

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2003 OBP-BA: .35 2004 OBP-BA: .40 2005 OBP-BA: .54

2006 OBP-BA: .42 2007 OBP-BA: 51 2008 OBP-BA: .55

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Thus, aside from Michael's MVP-calibre 2005 season, he's been taking more walks and working the count more, which is a good sign. Many of you will be quick to notice that this has also resulted in more strikeouts, but an increase in walks and pitches per plate appearance always results in more strikeouts, and is part of any player's transition from what Bill James called "young player skills" to "old player skills." As long as more and more of his OBP is made up for by walks (assuming his BA stays mostly where it is and doesn't plummet any more), this is a sign for hope.

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**Side note: For the other math nerds out there like me who realize that you can't truly subtract these two statistics because they have different denominators (at bats for BA and plate appearances for OBP), I chose to sacrifice rigor for simplicity, which works well because this stat is easier to understand and exemplifies the same pattern as a more complicated hybrid stat.

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Slugging Percentage

Sometimes, as players age, they are able to keep their power numbers up by transitioning into a Jim Thome-type hitter. Most of these players had pretty impressive power to begin with. Michael Young, however, never was a tremendous power hitter, and what power he did have for the four years that he was above average (see graph) left him pretty quickly. It's hard to say why his home-run power and patented rightfield-gap power left him so briskly. We won't see any more than 10-12 home-runs from Young ever again, but if he emerges as a more patient, selective hitter (as his OBP-BA above suggests), we could see his doubles climb. All in all, however, I see Young's SLG% staying around the .410-.420 range.

Summary/Prediction

To summarize this mini-analysis, I believe that Young's batting average will stay about the same (improving very slightly), his OBP-BA will will continue to rise (thus increasing his OBP), and his slugging will slightly improve. This year (and most likely in subsequent years as well), I predict that Young will post a BA/OPB/SLG line of .291/.353/.421. Not spectacular for a third baseman, but good enough to ensure him a spot in the everyday lineup (as long as he keeps it up).

Friday: The Curious Case of Michael Young

We all know the deal about Michael Young, in part because it was shoved down our throats during this past offseason when the whole "moving to third base" controversy surfaced: the Rangers are paying him a lot of money (an average of $16 million per year), and over the past four seasons (2005-2008), his vitals have substantially, if not continuously, decreased:

Year AVG/OBP/SLG
'05 .331/.385/.513
'06 .314/.356/.459
'07 .315/.366/.418
'08 .284/.339/.402

You don't have to be a statistical analyst to realize that this is not a great trend. The general consesus is that Young's glory days are behind him, and the general consensus may very well be right. However, I don't believe that all hope is lost.

Why? First of all, as Jamey Newbery wrote in an article previewing the 2009 season: "Ten unbroken fingers, rather than eight. Count on the numbers bouncing back."

Secondly, players similar to Michael Young have bounced back before. By "similar", I mean that I think they are similar. When I think of Michael Young, I think of an infielder with a team-first attitude that makes his living more by hard work and grind than natural talent (the other end of the spectrum being a player like Josh Hamilton). The most notable player who (mostly) fits this description is the Evil Empire's Derek Jeter. (Also of note, but not included here, is former Astros great Craig Biggio):

Granted, Jeter has played in the majors for much longer than Young and is certainly the superior of the two, and even during his "slumps", he was still pretty damn good. He was once mired in a steady downward slope from 1999-2002 and bounced out of it the year after:

Year AVG/OBP/SLG
'99: .349/.438/.552
'00 .339/.416/.481
'01 .311/.377/.480
'02 .297/.373/.421

Rebound Year:
'03 .324/.393/.450

I don't mean to imply that "Jeter did it, so Young is going to do it" or imply that Jeter's performance will affect Young's in any way. It is certainly possible, however, and not entirely unheard of, for a player like Young to come back strong. I wouldn't expect him to return to his 2005 batting champion levels ever again, but perhaps something splitting his last 3 seasons is more reasonable to expect.

On the other hand, Young's most similar players, according to Baseball-Reference, are (in order): Jose Vidro, Todd Walker, and Placido Polanco. What do these guys have in common? A few great years, followed or surrounded by slightly above average years.

Let's hope that all hope is not lost, and that Young responds to his current situation more like Jeter.

Tuesday: Home/Road Splits (Hitters)

It is well known that Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is a "hitter's park." I was curious as to which Ranger hitters benefited the most from the Ballpark in 2008:


Those who benefited the most were Milton Bradley, Josh Hamilton, and Hank Blalock. What do all of these guys have in common? They are all sluggers who log most of their ABs hitting left-handed:

**Milton Bradley ripped a .358/.466/.679 line at home, but still hit a solid .290/.410/.462 on the road.

**Josh Hamilton punished visiting pitchers at a .345/.408/.611 mark, but was a much meeker .263/.331/.448 on the road.

**Hank Blalock did his best Hamilton impression of .343/.415/.610 at home, but hit an abysmal .248/.282/.438 away from the right field jet stream.


Michael Young also enjoyed a moderate advantage, but not much to brag about. In the same line of thought as above, Young is a right handed hitter who pushes the ball consistently to right field. In fact, Young put the ball into play 228 times to right field, 178 to center, and 136 to left (according to billjamesonline.com):

**Young looked like his old self at home, logging a .305/.362/.441 line; his splits away from the Ballpark are an uninspiring .264/.317/.364.


Using this trend, i.e. that left-handed power hitters on the Rangers in 2008 seem to have reaped the benefits of the Ballpark more than anyone else, I figured that Chris Davis would surely have joined in the fun. It turns out that Davis was mostly the same hitter no matter where he played: he hit .293/.333/.541 in Arlington and .275/.329/.558 elsewhere. He actually slugged more on the road . . .


There were only two (regular, or semi-regular) players who turned in notably better performances outside Arlington:

Gerald Laird turned in a .258/.322/.379 at home but improved to a more respectable .299/.337/.422 on the road.

Frank Catalanotto mustered a weak .254/.319/.365 in the Texas heat, but was a productive .295/.365/.434 in more mild climates.

Around the Horn: Thursday (Night)

Just a couple of things of note out there today . . .

USA Today wrote a nice article about Michael Young's move to third base. Despite all the criticism out there about Michael Young, he has been my favorite player for almost his entire tenure with the Rangers. This excerpt reminded me why:

Although he originally asked to be traded, Young said his heart wasn't in the request."One reason why I wanted to come back is I wanted to see this through," Young said. "I'm going into my ninth year with the Rangers so when this team turned it around I wanted to be there for them. I want to be one of the main contributors."

Also of some interest, the Indians designated Andy Marte for assignment. Adam Morris of Lone Star Ball wrote:

You have to wonder if, as a Dominican who was terrific at the lower levels at a young age but seemed to have plateaued, he isn't really 28 or 29. At ages 18-21, while being young for his levels, he consistently put up 800+ OPS numbers, but simply hasn't hit in the majors (and, really, hasn't hit that well in AAA the past couple of years).

Why is this of interest? Nelson Cruz is also a Dominican with great minor league numbers and not-so-great major league numbers . . .

And TR Sullivan has some fun facts and quotes posted on his blog . . .

One week until Spring Training!

Around the Horn: Tuesday (Afternoon)

We already knew that Eddie Guardado was going to skip out on playing for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic. Yesterday, TR Sullivan posted that Luis Mendoza will not play for Mexico in the Classic either. Too bad for Mexico, they could have used someone who posted an 8.67 ERA and a 3-8 record last year in the majors. Also too bad for Team USA.

Hank Blalock and Marlon Byrd will be introduced to new roles: Blalock as the DH, Byrd as the self proclaimed "I don't know -- fifth outfielder?". Baseball Time in Arlington revisits exercising Blalock's club option, and TR Sullivan thinks that Byrd's knee surgery may be more of an issue than previously let on. Kason Gabbard will also try out new digs in the bullpen, as the starting rotation is already set to be Millwood, Padilla, Feldman, McCarthy, Harrison. I imagine we will have Jason Jennings sighting in the rotation at the first hint of the need for a sixth starter to step in.

Michael Young is sure that "Andruw is going to have a monster year." To be honest, I'm not going to be impressed with anything less.

Frankie Francisco is heading into camp as the top choice the closer's role, from which he will receive considerable competition from CJ Wilson. I like this move, Francisco was dominant when took on that role last year. I was never comfortable with Wilson as the closer anyways; he is much more powerful as a setup/LOOGY type.

Spring Training Updates: TR Sullivan, Jeff Wilson

Last, but not least, one of the highlights of my day yesterday was reading Jamey Newberg's article on why the Rangers are going to be better in 2009. I have to admit that I wasn't too terribly optimistic about our chances for this season, but this article changed my mind.

Around the Horn: Valentines Day Edition

Morning post today because I'm taking my fiance out for Valentine's Day tonight . . .

Yesterday I commemorated the first "milestone" for this blog. I calculated that to match LoneStarBall's impressive 15,000,000 page viewings at this rate, it would take approximately 1,154 years. Still, we have something to shoot for. Maybe the Rangers will have won the World Series by then.

Jeff Wilson runs down the biggest questions for the Rangers this season, including, but not limited to: Nelson Cruz, Taylor Teagarden, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Brandon McCarthy, Frank Francisco, CJ Wilson, Elvis Andrus. I'm going to throw another one out there: Michael Young. He is definitely one of the players to watch to see how he returns from a sub-par offseason and how he performs at his new position.

Jim Reeves writes about Andruw Jones and his role on the team, referring to him mostly as an insurance policy. It's good to know the Rangers aren't putting too much stock in Jones, but my question is: Insurance policy for what? The densely populated outfield already insures against all basic problems and injuries. Even if, God forbid, we had serious injuries in the outfield, even if Nelson Cruz returns to his AAAA-hitter form, there are players on this team and in this organization that I'd rather see fill that role over Jones.

Mike Hindman at the DMN Blog shows the similarities between Michael Main's delivery and . . . Nolan Ryan's. A bit of a stretch, but you can see where he's coming from. Includes cool graphics!

TR Sullivan has a great rundown of memorable moments from Spring Trainings past.

12 days until Spring Training!

Around the Horn: Saturday

In yesterday's "Around the Horn" I discussed whether Varitek's resigning with the Red Sox makes a trade for one of our catchers more or less likely, leaving the question open ended. Today in the news, there are three at least two notes (from Jim Reeves and Jeff Wilson) voting strongly in favor of less likely. Given that Boston never seemed terribly excited about trading away Clay Buchholz anyways, I would have to agree.

Jim Reeves at the Star Telegram discusses Ian Kinsler's invaluable role in Michael Young's decision to accept the third base move. Good article; its nice to hear about Kinsler's dedication to the Rangers and his willingness to help Young figure everything out. It smooths over a multitude of worries I had concerning this situation and how it might be a recurring issue.

And that is all for today . . .

Around the Horn: Wednesday

It appears that, while we are mired in the offseason funk between the Michael Young scandal and a possible Ben Sheets signing, the only Rangers news out there is just more of the same about the Michael Young scandal and a possible Ben Sheets signing.

Since I started this blog after and during these events, instead of "weighing-in" on them, I can just link to articles that I agree with:

Despite what I just said, I was thinking about writing a post weighing-in on the Michael Young situation, since I didn't quite agree with any assessment I had read. But then I found this article written by Evan Grant several days ago which saved me from writing the next article in a series of articles on this subject that scream "this offseason has been way too boring." The gist of the article is that both the Rangers and Michael Young reacted appropriately and in the best interests of themselves and the team. Check it out.

Also, Cal Ripken talks about Michael Young's transition to third base in the Dallas Morning News today. Ripken was one of my favorite players back in the day, so I particularly like this one.

Most of us know the pros and cons of signing Ben Sheets. Still, this article by Richard Justice of Yahoo Sports lays them out pretty clearly. Good article, and I agree with just about everything he wrote except the first line:

"Ben Sheets is about to make some general manager look really, really smart or really, really dumb."

In general, for teams with already semi-solid pitching staffs, this would be true. The Rangers are not this type of team, as we know. After many failed attempts to woo pitchers of Sheets' caliber, the fact that Sheets is "damaged goods" should be viewed more as an opportunity than a risk for the Rangers. Even if the worst became true and Sheets flops in a Chan Ho Park-like fashion, taking the chance at bringing a true ace to Arlington will not have been "really, really dumb" for GM Jon Daniels.

That is all. For now.