Kerry Wood

Sacks Juiced: May 24th, The Weekend.

Ryan Doumit of the Pirates went deep and continues to torture me for giving up on him.  Everything about Doumit’s early career pointed towards the loss of catcher eligibility and I cut bait — Needless to say, Doumit’s played 37 games at Catcher in 2010 after 71 and 106 in the previous two years.  In 2010, Doumit’s struck down 3 of 37 potential stolen bases.  I love where Doumit’s at when it comes to plate discipline, though:  The walk rate’s up to almost 10%, the O-Swing’s down to 2006-7 levels.  ZiPS has him at 13HR on the season, but he’s just a hotstreak away from a 20HR season.

Trevor Crowe continues to do an admirable job playing CF for the Tribe — 2 H, 2R and a SB.

Homer Bailey continues to play the roll of drunk flirty girl at a frat party that doesn’t put out: Bailey left in the 3rd with shoulder tightness.  Apparently, it’s not overly serious.

Kerry Wood finally got a save.  Good news.  As long as the heat’s there, and the health is sorta-kinda there, I’m buying.

Scott Rolen hit another homer (that’s 10!) and he finally appears to be healthy.  The evolution of Scott Rolen is just amazing –  He regularly struck out 20% of the time with the Phils and Cards before gradually cutting down on the strike-outs. Normally we’d celebrate this, but Rolen’s ISO took a nose dive.  In 2010, Rolen’s back to striking out 18% of the time and the ISO is back above .200 at .294!  Rolen’s HR/FB ratio is at 20% after a career of 11.1%; so regression is imminent but he should be able to outperform the projections provided he stays healthy.

Even on a bad Cleveland team, Shin-Soo Choo has cemented his spot as a top-50 fantasy player with a couple runs on three hits.

In Bizzaro world, Tim Wakefield goes 8IP allowing 0 ER and Roy Halladay goes 5.2 allowing 6ER.

Jacoby Ellsbury is back!  Keep an eye on his SB/CS.  Quite frankly, I’d imagine busted up ribs aren’t fans of headfirst slides.

Drew Storen pitched 1.2 innings and Matt Capps blew a save.  Storen’s averaged 94.3MPH on his fastball, thus far.

Kevin Millwood had another Kevin Millwood start:  6 IP, 3ER, 8K.  The Ks are intriguing and I even bet a pretty penny on Millwood yesterday but he’s still Kevin Millwood.  Same goes for Corey Patterson, he’s still Corey Patterson — 1 SB yesterday.

The White Sox got stomped by the Marlins:  Guillen, I just sunk your battleship. Ozzie Guillen arguably has the worst line-up management skills in the league. Basically every free swinger in the Marlins line-up hit a DINGER!  Cantu, Uggla, Ross — check, check, check.  Surprise alert:  Cameron Maybin had one AB and struck out.  You can have all the tools in the world but in the end, the game of baseball is still about hitting a baseball.

Josh Johnson went 6IP without allowing a run but he failed to strike out a White Sox batter.

Carlos Silva got another win.  Seriously?  He’s 6-and-0.  His 5.2K per 9 is the best of his career.

Speaking of wins, David Price got his 7th on the year in an outing where he only went 5 innings and gave up 5ER.  Price is still one of my favourites going forward but he was due for a couple flyballs leaving the yard.  I can’t make this clear enough;  David Price isn’t a sub-3.00 ERA pitcher.  The BABIP and BB% are quite worrisome and should result in more ER.  This may be the perfect sell high time on Price if you don’t think he’ll clean it up.

Kevin Gregg’s starting to implode:  4 ER in the past 1.1 IP.  You’ve got to hold onto him at this point because there’s no way in hell you’re getting any value out of him in a trade.

John Axford got the save for the Brewers and throws very hard (mid-to-high 90s) but walks too many and allowed 3 Hits last night.  While Axford struck out 3 in the 9th, it wasn’t pretty.

In case you forgot that I was a Canadian, Axford hails from my hometown (Simcoe, ON) and Jesse Crain, who pitched for the Twins, was born in my current city (Toronto, ON) — This is a pretty big deal.

Billy Butler went 4-for-5 with a single RBI — he’s hitting .346 on the season.  The BABIP is about 25pts too high but he’s absolutely punishing the ball.  Butler sure can hit the fastball.

Troy Tulowitzki hit another homer — that’s 3 in the past 4 games.  I’m confident in saying that Tulowitzki is no longer missing the sweet spot.

Ian Stewart had a good game with a couple hits and 3 RBI and has settled into the 25% K-Rate.  With Stewart, the doubles have been there but the homers haven’t quite kicked in.  I’m not sure if we’re dealing with a new approach but Stewart’s hitting 27% (up 12%) LD and and only 36% FB (down 9%).  I’m sure owners want the DINGERS! but this ratio is nothing to frown upon.

That’s it for now — I’m missing LAA/STL, SF/OAK, TOR/ARI, SD/SEA, DET/LAD, and NYY/NYM.  They’ll get taken care off shortly, as there aren’t many games on tonight.

Happy Victoria Day.

Kerry Wood

Sacks Juiced: May 22nd.

Excuse me if this is brief, I’ve always had a long-standing mantra when it comes to sports that affected last night:  The Playoffs Rule.  If there’s a playoff game on in any of the four major sports leagues, it takes precedence.  As a Canuck, I probably should be more of a hockey fan but I’m not; it’s baseball and football for me.  With that said, I was pretty excited that the hockey team that plays in a market with winter beat the hockey team that plays in California in an overtime bonanza.  Today, the Canadian team will face the American team at 3:00PM as to not disrupt the 8:20PM Basketball game.

Shin-Soo Choo hit a couple of dingers in the CLE/CIN game.  Choo has a freaky way of maintaining a ridiculously high BABIP, so don’t worry about his .355 BABIP.  The LD% is down but remember that Choo had a .367 and .370 BABIP over the past couple years.  With Choo’s walk-rate up and K-Rate down, he should have absolutely no problem posting a 20-20 season in Cleveland.

Kerry Wood gave up a homer in a non-save situation but also struck out a couple of batters.  Wood’s probably an injury risk and Chris Perez has been solid but at this point, the stuff is there.

Joey Votto stole a couple bases — that’s 6 on the year.  I think Votto’s finally entered the “elite” category of first basemen, but keep an eye on his 50% GB-Rate.

Lefty J.C. Romero retired two batters to get the save for the Phillies against the Red Sox.  Romero relieved Baez, who’d put a man on first and second, in a 4-run game.  Romero got J.D. Drew to ground-out (advancing the runners) before plonking Beltre.  Finally, Romero got David Ortiz to fly out to deep-center.  Romero was more than likely brought in to deal with the lefties and did just that; even if it wasn’t pretty.

Jimmy Rollins was back atop the lineup with Victorino hitting behind  Ibanez.

Tim Hudson shutdown the Pirates.  Hudson has a 2.09ERA and a 3.88K/3.43BB rate — guh.  Obviously, Hudson’s gawdy 66% GB-Rate has been keeping him elite but at some point, the .213 BABIP and 87% LOB-Rate will abandon him.  I don’t see this ending well.

The Orioles are actually starting to hit:  Adam Jones had his first homer since April 24th.

Javier Vazquez got well against the Mets.  Takahashi pitched a very solid game for his first start: 6IP, 5H, 1BB, 0ER, 5K.  Takahashi is now striking out over 10 batters per 9 IP with a 2.91 tERA and a 3.56 xFIP.  Definitely someone to take a look at in deeper leagues (even with a Mets’ bullpen that has WHIPs that resemble ERAs)

Colby Lewis shut down the Cubs even though he walked 3 in 6 IP.  Lewis is striking out a batter per inning and is a solid bet to post a sub-4.00 ERA on the year.  Lewis is going to his Slider quite a bit more than previous years — it’s up to 30% and the Curve’s down to 8% versus last year’s 13% SL/23% CU split.

That’s 12 Saves on the season for Neftali Feliz.  I don’t understand why Texas gave up so soon on the dream of Neftali being a starter but to each his own, I guess.

Brett Myers is now (3-3) on a 15-27 Houston team.  Seven strike-outs in seven innings certainly doesn’t hurt his value.  Myers allowed a single unearned run in the first inning.  Myers is still a grade-A douchebag but his O-Swing is up 5% and his contact-rate is down 5%.  Myers also hasn’t seen his Swinging Strike percentage at 9 in a couple of years.  Myers has been going to his slider more often which has the best downward movement in his career.

Matt Lindstrom picked up his 10th save of the year and has his BB-Rate below 2.  A 3.75 K:BB Matt Lindstrom is a very useful Matt Lindstrom.  He’s left 93% of runners stranded but every other indicator shows that Lindstrom is just better.

Mark Buerhle pitched a great game: 8IP, 3H,  3K.  Buerhle does this from time to time before reminding the world that he’s spectacularly average. Sergio Santos pitched the ninth and struck out a couple batters.  This is me tooting Carlos Quentin’s horn for the third straight day.

Nick Punto was the only Minnesota Twin to not touch home plate and score a run last night.  Nick Blackburn is now 5-and-1.  That’s that for that 15-3 rout.

Jose Guillen hit a couple more DINGERS!  Twenty-two percent of his fly-balls are going for a long ride over the fence.  Unless you’re a baseball purist, there’s absolutely no reason to dislike the hilarity that follows Jose Guillen.

Colby Rasmus tripled for his lone hit of the day.  As a Rasmus owner, I’m absolutely terrified.  Rasmus is striking out 35% of the time and has a .368 BABIP.  Rasmus has a .930 OPS and has been graded AAA by Moody’s, S  & P and Fitch — Obviously, it’s buying time. Banking Sarcasm!

I can’t believe I turned off the Blue Jays / Diamondbacks game last night.  The Diamondbacks (397K) are number one in strike-outs and the Blue Jays (361K) are number 2.  Almost as if these two things were connected, the Blue Jays are number 1 in DINGERS! (72) and the Diamondbacks are number 3 (56 HR).

Here’s the DINGERS! from last night’s game:  Fred Lewis, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind, Adam LaRoche, Chris Young.

In six and two-thirds innings, Trevor Cahill struck out four and only walked one.  Walks will be the biggest factor in Cahill’s development.  I love the kid.

Cliff Lee got the win after giving up 7ER?  The weird part is that the Padres didn’t take a single walk, they just aimed and fired en route to 15 hits.

Mike Sweeney hit a couple of DINGERS! but really doesn’t deserve too much attention at this point.

Austin Jackson had two more hits and is still hitting 36% line-drives.

Kerry Wood

Cleveland Bullpen: Perez and Betancourt

In 2007, no team had a better lefty/righty one-two punch than Cleveland and their two Rafaels.

The left-handed portion of the equation was Rafael Perez, who dominated in his first full big league season. In just over 60 IP, Perez compiled 1.78 ERA and 0.92 WHIP to go along with his 9.2 K/9 and 4.13 K/BB rate.

From the other side of the mound, Rafael Betancourt was equally as dominant at age 32. Betancourt posted a 1.47 ERA, 0.76 WHIP in nearly 80 IP. Betancourt posted guady strike-out numbers as well, striking out 9.08 batters per 9 while only walking just over 1 batter per 9.

Perez and Betancourt were simply dominant as set-up men for the Tribe and their dominance would continue into 2008, even if their luck drastically changed. Perez, who had posted a .248 BABIP and 84% Strand Rate in 2007;  found his numbers at .313 BABIP and 74% Strand Rate by the time 2008 came to a close. Betancourt regressed in a similiar manner, seeing his .246 BABIP in 2007 translate into a .323 BABIP in 2008. Betancourt’s 2007 Strand Rate of 86.4% also took a mighty hit, as he ended 2008 with a strand rate of a measely 70%.

While both players had great luck in 2007 and terrible luck in 2008, Perez’s skill level remained consistent.  Perez posted a 3.01 FIP in 2007 which only moderately increased to 3.22 in 2008. Betancourt, on the other hand, saw his FIP nearly double from 2007 (2.22 FIP) to 2008 (4.40.)

Thus, one would expert Betancourt to continue a slow age-induced decline while Perez, age 26, to continue his dominant ways. In 2009, this has been half true as it appears as though Betancourt is declining but Perez has been down-right awful.

Other than awful ERA’s, Perez (15.19 ERA / 6.27 FIP) and Betancourt (5.14 ERA / 4.40 FIP) share one devastating trait.  The stuff is still there, but neither one can avoiding walking batters.

Betancourt who owns a career average of 2.29 BB/9 is currently walking twice that number, at 4.50 BB/9.  Perez who’s career average sits just shy of three batters per nine, is currently walking an astonishing 7.59batters per nine.

Betancourt, whose strength has always been pounding the zone with his 92mph fastball, threw less than 60% of his pitches in the strike-zone last year for the first time since entering the league. In 2009, Betancourt’s continued to miss the zone, now throwing less than 50% of pitches inside the strike zone.

Although he doesn’t rely on location nearly as much as Betancourt, Perez has suffered the same fate. Perez has only been able to locate 45% of his pitches inside the zone thus far and needs to be much closer to 50% to be effective.

The PFX Data reveals that Betancourt and Perez both still have their downright nasty stuff.  The sample size is still relatively small, but both pitchers have eclipsed the 200 pitch mark, so it’s not completely useless. Both Betancourt and Perez have actually increased their average velocities, which could well be a result of overthrowing:  Perez is up one full mph across the board, while Betancourt is about half an mph faster than his career averages.

As you can see, Betancourt generally increases velocity as the season progresses. Below is a fastball velocity chart for the last two years, and is courtesy of fangraphs.com. I’d highly recommend checking out all of their graphs and trend-stats.

Rafael Perez’s velocity chart echos the same sentiments:  a slow and steady velocity increase over the course of the season.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to label both Perez and Betancourt as warm-weather pitchers, or second half pitchers.

In addition to the consistent velocity, the movement on both Betancourt’s and Perez’s pitches seems close enough to the mean that drawing any conclusion would be premature.   If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, feel free to scoot over to Perez’s fangraph page or to Rafael Betancourt’s fangraph page. They’ve both lost about half an inch of horizontal movement off their sliders, and you can take from that what you will.

The final piece to this puzzle of ineffectiveness is the hitters that they’re facing, obviously.  Perez has seen his overall Swing-Percentage drop almost 9 pts, from 49 percent to 40 percent. The main component of this decline is Perez’s O-Swing Percentage.  Perez’s swing percentage on pitches outside the zone has dropped from a 2007/2008 average of 35 percent, down to an awful 22.6 percent in 2009. In turn, hitters are making unbelievable contact on the pitches that they do make contact with, both inside (96% Z-Contact / up 10%) and outside of the zone (52% O-Contact / up 12%).

Betancourt is actually inducing more swings, and has returned his  Overall Swing Percentage (57%) to the level of his most dominant years.  Batters are making slightly better contact with all of Betancourt’s pitches, but the percentage falls well within the margin of error at this point.

At this point, Betancourt seems much improved from 2008 although his current ERA of 5.14 and WHIP of 1.64, don’t show it.  With Betancourt’s BABIP sitting at an ugly .364 and his strand-rate at a god-awful 60% — It’s a safe bet to invest in Betancourt to regain his form.  A Strike Out Per Inning, an ERA around 2.90, a 1.20 WHIP. Hopefully his BB / 9 will regress, but many of pitchers have been effective with a 2.00 K:BB ratio.

Rafael Perez on the other hand is a mess.  Perez has a higher ceiling and the potential to be lights out, racking up K’s, HLD’s and great ratios. Until Perez starts finding the strike-zone however, he’ll be useless. Perez’s BABIP is .418 and LOB% is 39.9% but that’s almost expected given that batters are either walking, or crushing a Perez mistake (27% of hits off him are LD.)

I’d venture to guess that Perez is either injured, or out of shape.  Either way, his mechanics are off and it’s going to take a while for him to get back on track.  I’d definitely keep an eye on Perez though, as his ERA is going to take forever to come down and all he has to do is start locating.  If you see Perez go a couple of games without a free pass or you’ve noticed him exhibit better control, snap him up.

The problems unfortunately do not end with Perez and Betancourt, as Kerry Wood (4.50 BB/9, 7.20 ERA, 4.08 FIP) and Jensen Lewis (3.95 BB/9, 5.93 ERA, 8.30 FIP) are both having the same issues. The Indians bullpen has infinite potential, and the back-end of it contains 4 players that are all capable of notching a strike-out per inning.

Until the relievers get their control issues sorted out, I’d be quite worried if I was expecting W’s from any of the Cleveland Indians starting pitchers. With such a small sample size, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the Weather was the prominent factor in the bullpen’s control issues. It realistically could be anything, but it’s definitely an organizational issue.

At the very least, keep in mind that Cleveland has managed to run into all of their opponents at the wrong time. They opened the season in Texas, and went on to play two over-achievers in Toronto and KC. From there, they played New York, KC, MIN, BOS, Detroit and then Toronto again.  The schedule definitely doesn’t get easier with a series against Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Tampa, KC, Cinci, TB, and then NY.  While it’ll be tough for things to get worse for Betancourt, Perez, Lewis and Wood, it’ll probably be just as tough to improve upon their number with their upcoming schedule.