Ozzie Guillen

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.