Curt

Just for a little perspective... American League averages for 2012: [TABLE] [TD=width: 86]Lineup Position [/TD] [TD=width: 86]OBP[/TD] 1st .333 2nd .315 3rd .347 4th .345 5th .321 6th .318 7th .313 8th .302 9th .291 [/TD] [TD] All .321 [/TABLE] Who wouldn't want a .330 OBP guy batting 9th? Half the teams could use that in the 1 and/or 2 spot.

It is definitely Trout's to lose. At his rate of PA's, he will qualify in 22 games. Once he qualifies, he will need to play a lot and hit (relatively) poorly to come down much. If he plays all remaining games and hits .300 the rest of the way, he will end up at .330. For Mauer to beat .330, he will have to hit .355 the rest of the way (assuming he plays 48 of remaining 53 games with current AB/G rate). Obviously he is very capable of that and more. For Revere to top .330, he would have to maintain what he is doing. If the likelihood of Trout hitting .300 or less the rest of the way is 25% (pulled out of my butt) and the likelihood of Mauer hitting .355 or Revere hitting .331 is also 25% (pulled from same place), then Mauer or Revere have about a 6.3% chance of overtaking Trout. Stranger things have happened though. We know Mauer could hit .400 the rest of the way and (we suspect) Trout could hit .250. If that happens, Mauer hits .346 for the season and Trout ends up at .312.

These days, all it takes is a few million dollars to get your brand on a ball park. A few years later, we have to call it something new when someone coughs up a couple million more. I don't care much for Target Field as a name but my vote for worst one goes to: Minute Maid Park. Makes me think of a couple of seven-year-old girls selling lemonade by the side of the road. It could be worse I guess. It could be Tampax Field or Gardasil Park. Best names: Camden Yards would win but, according to Wikipedia, it's name is "Oriole Park at Camden Yards" which almost makes it suck. Therefore my choice is: Fenway Park

A prelude to The Three Coles: De Vries, Nelson and Johnson

He left that one up.

Even with his terrible slow start, he is pretty much on pace for 30 homers (18 homers in 100 Angels' games = 29.2 homers per 162 Angels' games). To get to 30, he needs to hit 12 in the final 62 games, a pace of 31.4 per 162. Unless he gets hurt, that would be a pretty good bet.

Talk about burying the lede.

How does Pujols compare to Trout and Trumbo since his turnaround? [TABLE] Player[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]G[/TD] PA[TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]AB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]R[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]H[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]2B[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3B[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]HR[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]RBI[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]BB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SO[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]CS[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]BA[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]OBP[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SLG[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]OPS[/TD] Pujols 62 272 233 43 76 18 0 17 49 32 29 7 1 .326 .404 .622 1.027 Trumbo 63 269 250 35 75 9 3 21 53 17 53 3 3 .300 .346 .612 .958 Trout 63 290 259 64 94 15 5 13 41 25 51 28 3 .363 .421 .610 1.031 [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Average[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6] [/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]277[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]247[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]47[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]82[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]14[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]17[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]48[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]25[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]44[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]13[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]2[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].330[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].391[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].615[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]1.006[/TD] [/TABLE]

Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo are having remarkable seasons for the Angels but what about Albert Pujols? His poor start was well documented. What has happened since his poor start? About the same time Plouffe began turning around his season, Albert Pujols was doing the same. In the past 62 games, Pujols has hit .326/.404/.622/1.027. If his final 62 games match the previous 62 here is how he'll end up: [TABLE] Split[TD=width: 44, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]G[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]PA[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]AB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]R[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]H[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]2B[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3B[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]HR[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]RBI[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]BB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SO[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SB[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]CS[/TD] [TD=width: 36, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]BA[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]OBP[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]SLG[/TD] [TD=width: 42, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]OPS[/TD] < May 16 36 153 146 10 31 8 0 1 14 7 18 0 0 .212 .248 .288 .536 >= May 16 62 272 233 43 76 18 0 17 49 32 29 7 1 .326 .404 .622 1.027 Projection 62 272 233 43 76 18 0 17 49 32 29 7 1 .326 .404 .622 1.027 [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Total[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]160[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]697[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]612[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]96[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]183[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]44[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]0[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]35[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]112[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]71[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]76[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]14[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]2[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].299[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].370[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].542[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6].913[/TD] [/TABLE] The Angels were 16-21 (.432) through May 15 and 39-24 (.619) since. If they continue at the .619 pace, they will end up with 94 wins.

Willingham hit his 25th home run last night in the Twins' 97th game of the season. That is the ninth fastest in club history. Where will he end up? So far, only Harmon Killebrew has hit more than 35 homers in a season in the Twins' history. He did it eight times. [TABLE] Game #[TD=width: 69]Year[/TD] [TD=width: 79]Player[/TD] [TD=width: 80]Pace @ 25[/TD] [TD=width: 56]Final[/TD] 70 1964 Killebrew 58 49 79 1961 Killebrew 51 46 81 1970 Killebrew 50 41 84 1967 Killebrew 48 44 84 1969 Killebrew 48 49 92 2006 Morneau 44 34 92 2007 Morneau 44 31 96 1962 Killebrew 42 48 97 2012 Willingham 42 ?? 99 2009 Morneau 41 30 [/TABLE]

If we get something real for him great. If not, I don't see his salary as a burden. He is really solid in the field (at three positions) and his OBP is average (.325 vs league average .322). There is value in those things. His current BA is thirty points below his career average and his BABIP is forty points below his career average. If that is because he is 38 and declining that is one thing. If that means he will be getting back to the mean, that is another. Carroll and his salary won't make the Twins contenders but he is not keeping them from it either. If he goes, someone needs to replace him and do those things or make up for it in other ways. To me he seems like a pretty reasonably priced stop-gap until someone steps up to take his job. I don't see anyone in the organization forcing that issue.

Revere swings too much? He has the 17th lowest swing percent in baseball. Revere swings too early? See above. When is he not swinging? The middle of the count? Late in the count? Revere swings at not very good strikes? Is that why he has the third lowest strike swing rate in baseball? Is that why he has the fourth highest contact rate? Is that why has has the highest rate of putting the ball in play? Is that why he is hitting over .300? Revere isn't waiting for the 1 pitch he can really drive? Maybe he is getting it and when he does, he swings, makes contact, puts the ball in play and hits over .300.

And... His contact%, 92.0%, would be fourth behind Marco Scutaro, 94.0%, Denard Span, 92.6%, and Michael Brantley, 92.6%. His ball-in-play%, 39% would be tied for first with Ichiro.

Trout, I believe is eligible. 135 PA last season but the qualification is based on 130 at-bats and he had 123 of those. It is ridiculous to base qualification of AB instead of PA but there you go. As for Japanese players, I think we may have established, based on numerous Nishioka-based discussions that NPB is not a major league. The most reasonable assessment I read was that it was somewhere between AA and AAA. Ichiro, Darvish and maybe a couple of others come over as mature, highly polished and very talented players but we occasionally get those from American minor leagues too. If it is their first year in the majors (or otherwise meet the qualifications) I believe they are rookies.

I've never understood why people don't like a player because of his salary. "No, I know you are offering $184 million but, really, $100 million is enough." Who does that? You? "Sorry boss, that raise is too big. Just give me half of it and save some for Ralph in Accounting, he really needs it." Why would he? If you feel a need to be angry with someone, how about the owner/GM? If it was a bad decision, it was their decision.

Nice. Carroll has many more full count opportunities... We can see that Carroll gets to more full counts (46% more) and walks more when he gets there (113% more). We can also see what happens when Revere gets pitches down the middle, an OPS of 1.336. [TABLE] [TD=width: 51] [/TD] [TD=width: 46]PA[/TD] [TD=width: 46]FC[/TD] [TD=width: 46]FC%[/TD] [TD=width: 46]BB[/TD] [TD=width: 46]BB%[/TD] [TD=width: 46]SO[/TD] [TD=width: 46]SO%[/TD] [TD=width: 46]BA[/TD] [TD=width: 46]OBP[/TD] [TD=width: 46]SLG[/TD] [TD=width: 46]OPS[/TD] Carroll 312 46 14.7% 17 37.0% 7 15.2% 0.302 0.408 0.368 0.776 Revere 227 23 10.1% 4 17.4% 0 0.0% 0.579 0.652 0.684 1.336 [/TABLE] Carroll sees more strikes than Revere (50.1% to 46.9%) but gets to 3-2 much more often because (?) he swings less, especially at pitches out of the strike zone (23.4% to 29.6%), hits more foul balls (23% to 19%) and puts fewer into play (31% to 39%).

It is interesting to compare Revere to Carroll because, like Revere, he has little power, unlike Revere, Carroll walks a lot, 10.3%. WARNING: Data overload ahead. [TABLE] [TD=width: 86][/TD] [TD=width: 27][/TD] [TD=width: 51, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Carroll[/TD] [TD=width: 51, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Revere[/TD] [TD=width: 51, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]AL Avg[/TD] [TD=width: 25][/TD] [TD=width: 689, bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Definition[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Pit/PA[/TD] [/TD] 3.98 3.47 3.85 Pitches per Plate Appearance [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Str% [/TD] 62% 64% 63% Strike Percentage. Includes both pitches in the zone and those swung at out of the zone. Strikes / Total Pitches. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]L/Str [/TD] 40% 36% 29% Strikes Looking / Strikes. All strikes looking divided by all strikes. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]S/Str [/TD] 6% 6% 15% Swinging Strike Percentage. Strikes Swinging (w/o contact) / Total Strikes. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]F/Str [/TD] 23% 19% 27% Foul Ball Strikes Percentage. Pitches Fouled Off / Total Strikes Seen. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]I/Str [/TD] 31% 39% 30% Ball In Play Percentage. Balls put into Play / Total Strikes. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]AS/Str [/TD] 60% 64% 71% Swung at Strikes Percentage. (Inplay + Foul + Swinging Strikes) / Total Strikes. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]I/Bll [/TD] 0% 0% 1% Intentional Ball Percentage. Intentional Balls / All Balls. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]AS/Pit [/TD] 37% 41% 45% Percentage of Pitches Swung At. (Inplay + Foul + Swinging Strikes) / Total Pitches. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Con [/TD] 90% 91% 79% Contact Percentage. (Foul + Inplay Strikes) / (Foul + Inplay + Swinging Strikes). [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]1stS [/TD] 12% 10% 25% First Pitch Swinging Percentage. First Pitch Swinging / PA. [TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]L/SO [/TD] 38% 38% 24% Strikeout Looking Percentage. Strikeouts Looking / All Strikeouts. O-Swing% 23.4% 29.6% 29.7% The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone. Z-Swing% 50.8% 51.6% 63.9% The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone. Swing% 37.1% 39.9% 45.2% The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at. O-Contact% 83.7% 82.4% 68.1% The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat. Z-Contact% 95.5% 98.4% 87.4% The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat. Contact% 91.8% 92.1% 80.5% The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat. Zone% 50.1% 46.9% 45.4% The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone. F-Strike% 59.6% 58.6% 59.0% The percentage of first pitch strikes. SwStr% 3.0% 3.2% 8.6% [TD]The percentage of total pitches a batter swings and misses on. [/TABLE]

This is from FanGraphs.com as is much of the data I posted above. Zone% is the percent of pitches in the strike zone. I've included all Twins with 100+ PA. This shows Revere sees about 1.5% more strikes than the league average. [TABLE] [TD=width: 86]Player[/TD] [TD=width: 86]Zone%[/TD] Parmalee 38.20% Doumit 41.40% Morneau 41.70% Mauer 42.30% Willingham 44.60% Casilla 45.10% Span 46.40% Revere 46.90% Plouffe 48.30% Dozier 49.00% Carroll 50.10% Valencia 50.90% Twins Avg 45.60% AL Avg 45.38% [/TABLE]

Ben Revere draws very few walks. His BB% is 4.4% compared to the league average of 8.3%. That is a fact demonstrated by the data. I have read a number of comments that he has poor plate discipline or is overly aggressive. Do the stats support this as well? Does he swing at too many pitches? 1. His o-Swing% (swings at pitches outside of strike zone) is very average. 29.6% compared to league average of 29.7%. 2. His z-Swing% (swings at pitches inside the strike zone) is pretty low. 51.6% compared to league average of 63.9%. 3. Overall, his Swing% is 39.9%. League average is 45.2%. Then why doesn't he draw walks? Because he hits the ball and puts it in play. 1. His o-Contact% (makes contact with pitches swung at outside the strike zone) is 82.4%. The league average is 68.1%. 2. His z-Contact% (makes contact with pitches swung at inside the strike zone) is 98.4% (!). The league average is 87.4%. 3. His overall Contact% is 92.1%. The league average is 80.5%. 4. His foul-ball strike percentage is 19% while the league average is 27%. 5. His ball-in-play percentage is 39% while the league average is 30%. So, he doesn't draw walks because he makes contact at a high rate and puts the ball in play at a high rate when he does make contact. He literally is too good at putting the ball in play! Can he draw more walks. Maybe. How about this? 1. Improve o-Swing. As a low power hitter, he needs to be more selective than the average player. Plouffe 28.3%, Mauer 24.7%, Carroll 23.4 (18.4% for career), Span 21.9% and Willingham 20.5% all have better percentages than Revere. 2. Work at fouling off borderline pitches rather than put them in play. This will lengthen the at-bat improving the opportunity to get four balls.

Balanced? Because he wrote that Perez has converted 24 out of 26 saves? This is an excuse to publish secondhand quotes about Valencia. Valencia has no phone? The only "new" information is that Valencia is, according to secondhand reports by someone not in Rochester, working his butt off and his head is in a good place. Wow, thanks. Valencia wouldn't confirm that? Important? No. Still, journalism standards at PP should be higher. This is gossip.

What a completely vapid article. I'm not sure what was worse: Shipley for writing and submitting it, PP for publishing it, or the editor that came up with the misleading headline. Bad form all around.

Here is what I see on that Baseball-Reference page... [TABLE] [TD=width: 86][/TD] [TD=width: 71]Hits – HR[/TD] [TD=width: 57]Pct[/TD] [TD=width: 16][/TD] [TD=width: 71]PO[/TD] [TD=width: 57]Pct[/TD] [TD=width: 16][/TD] [TD=width: 71]Total[/TD] [TD=width: 57]Pct[/TD] Left 10,221 26.6% [/TD] 9,449 29.7% 19,670 28.0% Center 20,125 52.3% 12,541 39.4% 32,666 46.5% Right 8,113 21.1% 9,810 30.8% [TD]17,923 25.5% [/TABLE] The "Hits - HR" include, as far as I can tell, infield hits. There doesn't seem to be a separation out of infield/outfield data by left/center/right. Infield hits make up 12 percent of all the "Hits - HR". I did not include outfielder assists or errors. Assists do not reflect a ball hit somewher and errors could be throwing errors. The numbers are small for each anyway. What is consistent here with the 1980-83 data I quoted earlier is that the percentage of hits to left field is significantly higher than the percentage of putouts by left-fielders in both sets of data. There is much more hit activity to center field in the Baseball-Reference (2009) data (52.3%) than in the 1980-83 data (32.7%). This may be due to differences in definition and collection. The 1980-83 data was explained by the author as defined by the fielder who fielded the ball. Not sure about the 2009 data but I wonder if it is by zone rather than fielder (that would indicate left and right-fielders fielding a lot of hits in the center-field zone).

In an earlier post, I stated that, using 2012 YTD data, 70% of plate appearances were against right-handed pitchers and 53% were by right-handed hitters. I just checked the data for 1982 and the split by pitching hand was 70%-30% just like 2012 but the split by batting-hand was 60%-40%. [TABLE] [TD=width: 99][/TD] [TD=width: 43][/TD] [TD=width: 50]1982[/TD] [TD=width: 50]2012[/TD] LH Batter [/TD] 40% 47% RH Batter 60% 53% LH Pitcher 30% 30% RH Pitcher [TD]70% 70% [/TABLE] This might go a ways in explaining a shift. I'm a little shocked at the difficulty in finding recent data.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/scholars/levitt/articles/fielding_opps.htm This article by Dan Levitt for BaseballThinkFactory.org is over ten years old and uses data from the Retrosheet files of 1980-1983. He includes both putouts and hits fielded by position. For our interests, here is the outfield breakdown: [TABLE] [TD=width: 59]Position[/TD] [TD=width: 17][/TD] [TD=width: 59]Outs[/TD] [TD=width: 59]Pct[/TD] [TD=width: 19][/TD] [TD=width: 59]Hits[/TD] [TD=width: 59]Pct[/TD] [TD=width: 19][/TD] [TD=width: 59]Total[/TD] [TD=width: 59]Pct[/TD] LF [/TD] 32,604 31.0% 38,592 36.7% 71,196 33.8% CF 41,471 39.4% 34,430 32.7% 75,901 36.1% RF 31,102 29.6% 32,210 30.6% [TD]63,312 30.1% [/TABLE] In the data he uses, there are more outs recorded by left fielders than right fielders and an even higher percentage of hits fielded by left fielders than right fielders.