Oakland Athletics

Rick Porcello & Trevor Cahill: Past, Present, Future.

Heading into 2009, Baseball America did everyone a favour and ranked the top-100 prospects. After dominating Olympic competition, Oakland’s Trevor Cahill and his heavy fastball jumped into the top-20 as the 11th overall prospect, just behind super-prospect Neftali Feliz. Twenty-year old Rick Porcello wasn’t all that far behind as Baseball America ranked him the 21st overall for the second year in a row.

It’s Porcello, one year removed from his 7-million dollar prep-bonus, that’s adapted to the level of competition quicker — or so it appears. Porcello’s currently 6-and-2 with a sparking 3.48 ERA which is head and shoulders above Cahill’s 4.48 ERA and 2-and-5 record. Their Fielding Independent Pitching ERAs aren’t nearly as pretty, but Porcello once against bests Cahill with a 4.67 to 5.61 advantage. Neither Porcello nor Cahill has been as dominant as expected; both posted painfully low strike-out numbers, especially given their pure stuff.  Porcello posted surprisingly low strike-out totals in his first professional season, failing to tally 6-K per 9 in High-A.  Porcello’s continued to post mediocre strike-out totals in the show, notching only 5.57 K per 9, thus far.  Porcello’s succeeded on the strength of a ridiculous 54% ground-ball rate and by limiting free passes.

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Oakland Athletics

Flashback Friday At The Rogers Center: Food, Photos, and Blue Jays.

It’s Flashback Friday, and I’m back at home to watch the game after the Utopia that is April baseball in Toronto, came to a rip-roarin’ end.

During my trips to live-blog hell, I’ve yapped about my ridiculous nicotine dependence.   At the Rogers Centre, there’s no designated smoking area, nor is there in-and-out privileges; basically if you’re a smoker, you’re screwed.

In 2008 however, the fine people at Nicorette decided to give away free samples of their nicotine gum — Problem Solved!  If you’re a smoker, try sitting through 2 hours of batting practice, and then a 4 hour game — it’s not pretty. Read more

Oakland Athletics

High Impact Youngster: Brett Anderson

I’ve been blessed with the responsibility of making sure the cat doesn’t die.  The cat is Mr. Oliver P. Fucker, or Pussy Fucker for short.  He’s nutless now, but at one point I thought he’d be knockin’ up all the neighborhood kitties.

Alas, I was excited to check out the Athletics / Mariners Game on Sportsnet Pacific (Friday Night), but then shit hit the fan in the Blue Jays / Indians game.  A 3-hour rain delay, and a high scoring game meant the Jays game went from 4pm until 11:20.

I missed Brett Anderson’s first 4 Innings, and I was less than pleased.  Needless to say, I didn’t catch Anderson’s 5 earned run blow-up in the second Inning.

At first glance, there’s really nothing in Anderson’s pitching line that screams ‘waiver-wire-add’, but the potential is there — it’s definitely there.

For reference, Anderson’s full line was 6IP, 5ER, 7H, 2BB, 2K.

After Anderson’s big second, he retired 8 of the next 10 batters he faced — (Chavez Singled – Erased by DP, Griffey Walked).

Anderson threw 85 pitches of which 50 were strikes,  and induced 12 grounders to 9 fly-balls. All and all, other than the big inning, Anderson had a stellar debut.

Anderson’s 5 Run, Second Inning: After Beltre flied out to Cust, the problems started.  Anderson had been consistently hitting 92mph on his fastball, and was locating it adequately. Anderson and Suzuki pitched around Griffey, and was consistently out of the strike-zone after a first pitch strike.  Lopez and Branyan both singled on high-fastballs, that were by no means mistakes, to load the bases.  With Kenji Johjima at bat, it’s clear that Anderson started overthrowing as he was hitting 93+, and leaving his fastball way up. Eventually, he toned it down and Johjima hit a solid curve that Anderson couldn’t have placed any better on the inside corner. After a mound visit, Betancourt managed to double off another high-hard one by Anderson.  At this point, Anderson’s thrown three good fastballs that barely brushed the top of the strike-zone and each one’s been hit hard.  Anderson finally made a mistake, hanging a slider to Thank-God-It’s-Endy-Chavez, but promptly got Franklin Guetierrez to chase a nice change-up and ground into a double-play.

Not nearly as bad as the 5ER would lead you to believe.

Anderson’s Stuff:

Anderson’s stuff is great, and he isn’t hesitant to throw any one of his four pitches. Unfortunately, MLB Gameday Data and Other Pitch Classification systems, have decided to break my head.

What I know for sure, is that Anderson has a big-breaking curve that normally comes in at 75mph and’ll buckle your knees.

Unfortunately, he only threw that pitch twice, both times to Mike Sweeney– and the rest is a mess.  It’s easy to pick out Anderson’s fastball and change, as both have distinctive movement.  The problem’s coming with what GameDay classifies as both a Curveball and a Slider.

Without spending too much time on this, I’d have to assume that all of the 84mph Curveballs were actually sliders which would validate Fangraphs.com Data of:

• 59 % Fastball averaging 91mph
  
• 27.4 % Slider averaging 83mph
  
• 2.4 % Curveball averaging 75mph
  
• 10.7% Change Up averaging 83mph

With that said, Anderson’s fastball has terrific movement and he should induce plenty of groundballs.  In Anderson’s brief minor-league career, he posted high strike-out rates topping a strike-out per inning at each level. In 31 Double-A innings, Anderson improved his strike-out rate to 11K/9.

I wouldn’t expect Anderson to repeat those numbers this year, as he’ll more than likely pitch to contact until he gets comfortable.  Anderson would be wise to take advantage of Oakland’s solid defense: forcing opponents to pound the ball into the ground.

Anderson’s Immediate Fantasy Impact

I’d expect Anderson to induce plenty of ground balls rather than attacking hitters full-bore, at least to start the season.  This should result in a K-Rate of about 6-7 Batters per 9, rather than the High-8’s you’d expect.

This should result in Anderson also posting a useful ERA and WHIP.  Anderson’s control is above-average, but he’ll have to avoid the big inning. Like almost all young players, once Anderson learns to trust his stuff, he’ll be successful.

Pitching in a great pitchers park, with a solid defense behind him, should give Anderson some extra fantasy leeway.

I’m not comfortable predicting final stats for Anderson until I see another start, but he should be at least as valuable as any rookie currently in the bigs. I’d have no problem rostering Anderson in deep leagues, as his upside is tremendous.  If Anderson was rostered prior to his 5ER performance but was dropped — he’s worth a look.

There are a lot of good things you can pick out from Anderson’s start against Seattle, but in the end they are Seattle. The one thing I cannot stress enough is Anderson’s lack of experience. He’s got the make-up to succeed and he’s more major league ready than just about any young pitcher, but he’s only pitched 225 innings of pro-ball.  The Athletics may be very cautious with Anderson, and I wouldn’t expect to see him come close to a full season.

Anderson along with Cahill are the Athletics’ future, and if they’re not in contention; I doubt they’d risk injuring either of their two future stars. Both are capable of epic 110-pitch, 10-K, 8-inning games, but I wouldn’t expect to see them anytime soon.

Adam, over at Project Prospect, has put together an in-depth look at Anderson’s start against the Mariners.  It’s definitely worth a read, probably even more-so than this little diddy — That’s why I linked at the end, so you’d have to read this sucker first.

Oakland Athletics

Brad Ziegler and the Athletics ‘Pen

Joey Devine, who was appointed the Athletics’ closer during Spring Training was placed on the 60-Day Disabled List on Saturday, and will probably require surgery on his elbow ligaments, essentially ending his season.

In steps Brad Ziegler, one of the genuinely nice guys in the big leagues.  Ziegler came to fame during his record setting streak of 39 scoreless innings to start a career. Ziegler throws from a side-arm, not quite submarine, delivery and was ridiculously effective in 2008.

…but maybe it was just luck, Ziegler had a lot of things working for him:

1. Batters hadn’t seen Ziegler’s unconventional delivery
2. Ziegler’s strand rate of 92.3% was unbelievable
3. Ziegler’s BABIP of .246 was equally as insane
4. All of this resulted in Ziegler’s FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of 3.72 grossly outpacing his actual ERA of 1.06

So what’s the deal with Ziegler?

He’s a ground ball pitcher (67% GB) that pitches in an incredibly pitcher friendly park, in front of a very solid defense. The A’s home stadium rated as the 5th most favorable park for pitchers according to ESPN’s park factors. Mind you, Ziegler’s ground ball tendencies don’t benefit quite as much from the spacious foul territory that makes McAfee Coliseum a pitchers-paradise.

Even with these things working for him, Ziegler still isn’t a prototypical closer. In 2008, Ziegler didn’t miss bats (4.53K/9), and in turn, posted a terribly mediocre BB:K rate of 1.36.

Ziegler’s splits are terribly concerning, as is generally the case with submariners. Ziegler allowed 2 HR all year, and both came against lefties. Ziegler’s WHIP against lefties was 1.52, compared to his 0.88 WHIP against righties. His batting average against echoed these sentiments as Righties hit .198 compared to the .280 that lefties hit.  In addition to Ziegler having issues with lefties, you should expect his LOB% and BABIP to regress towards the mean.

This isn’t good news for Ziegler owners, and I’d ship him as soon as he gets a couple saves under his belt.

Who Steps In?

Santiago Casilla was nearly un-hittable until a May 15th elbow injury forced him onto the DL.  Upon his return, his ERA slowly rose from a May 11th mark of 0.47, all the way to his season-ending number of 3.93.

Unlike Ziegler, Casilla does have your typical closers stuff: 94-95mph fastball, 87mph slider, and a mid-80’s change-up. His change seemed to be incorrectly categorized quite a bit last year, as it was clocked at an average of 88mph.

Casilla has better splits, and has predicted stats of: 8-9 K per 9, 3-4 BB per 9 and 2.00-2.50 K:BB

25 year old Jerry Blevins is another solid option, as the tools are there but he tops out at about 92mph.

Journeyman Russ Springer has nice peripherals, and a nice mix of pitches but they’ll probably be best served earlier in the game. Like Blevins, he tops out at about 92mph.

Andrew Bailey also has high strike-out potential, but his control doesn’t bode overly well for his status as a closer.  He’s best suited for mid-to-long relief.

In the end…

The saves will be spread around, but I think Casilla ends up with better save totals than Ziegler.

There’s really only one conclusion that I’d be willing to stake my name on, and that’s Brad Ziegler doesn’t succeed as a closer.  Unless everyone else falls flat on their face, he wont Brian Wilson or Kevin Gregg the situation either.

Ziegler’s a solid pitcher, and a nice weapon to have, but he’s best suited as a situational pitcher.

Whoever wins the closers gig, will benefit from the stadium, defense, and improved offense of the Athletics.

Photo Courtesy of Ztil301 & Kimberly*, Flickr