One of my favorite non Yankee sites is BBTIA, otherwise known as Baseball Time in Arlington. I’m going to completely rip off their wonderful leader Joey Matschulat here and post some questions of my own.
1. Although many games are televised during spring training, we still miss out on a lot of action, even more if you’re not around for 1pm games. So, who in camp have you not been able to see that you’re most looking forward too? For me, it’s Ryan Pope. He’s only pitched in two innings so far and was in camp last year as well, but I’m curious to see him now. He was converted to a reliever this year, throws a mid 90’s fastball and supposedly has a nasty slider. He figures to be in AAA for the start of the year meaning if all goes well, he could show up in the Bronx at some point.
2. One of the things I really love about spring training are the roving national columnists, traveling from camp to camp filling up my RSS feed with stories from each stop. My favorite column every day is Buster Olney’s. Sure he can swing and miss with analysis stuff, but he’s a great writer, is open to new ideas and always has good stuff to share. Out of the national columnist group (Olney, Heyman, Gammons, Rosenthal etc) who do you like reading the most? I place the odds at roughly +600 on Heyman getting any votes at all.
3. Which current starting Yankee are you watching the closest in camp outside of the obvious choices (cough AJ/Derek cough)? I’m watching Nick Swisher. As RLYW pointed out this morning and Joe Paw before him, Swisher cut down on his walks in 2010 but posted a very productive year none the less. He benefited from some BABIP luck however and it’s unlikely he’ll get the same bounces this year. So will he return to the selective 2009 version of Nick Swisher? Will he fall off from his 09/10 production? Will something else entirely happen?
4. In an interesting turn of events, we’ve seen a few columnists portray Alex Rodriguez in a positive light in the past few days (Gasp!). First it was Ian O’Connor with his LeBron James comparison and now Peter Gammons, much to the chagrin of Peter Abraham. I can also remember positive stories from Buster Olney and Joel Sherman in the recent past. This is in great contrast to how the beat writers handle Alex. Many of them clearly dislike him a great deal. What is that about? My theory is that after Arod rolled out his new “I’ll no longer put my foot in my own mouth” campaign, he does a lot less interviews which maybe rubs them the wrong way. I’m open to all your theories.
UPDATED- One more question.
On Friday, after watching Banuelos look terrific against the Red Sox, John Harper from the Daily News tweeted this:
“Russell Martin after catching Banuelos: his stuff is as good as kershaw. And he’s more polished than kershaw.”
I cannot tell you how ridiculous that is. It seems like Martin just taking a shot at the team he got cut loose from. Being able to watch Clayton Kershaw pitch frequently is a fantastic treat as a baseball fan. He’s 21 years old, has a 3.31 career FIP, a 9.26 career K/9 rate and throws a plus plus fastball, slider and curve. He’s one of the best young pitchers in baseball without any question. I think he gets overshadowed a lot because he’s on the west coast and in the national league. Plenty of east coast writers talk about him like he’s some prospect on the rise. Look at his numbers- he arrived two years ago. Any other candidates for most overlooked player in baseball?
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1) I haven’t seen Russell Martin yet. Really curious to watch him, particularly defensively. Among prospects, I missed Banuelos the other night, and I wanted to see Suttle bat.
2) I don’t loooove any of them (I think Sherman does more than local stuff, but I assume he doesn’t count), but Rosenthal has been quite good lately. That said, I’d probably go with Olney as well because he is the best writer of the four.
3) Russell Martin again, and AJ Burnett.
4) Yeah, the locals ho deal with him every day do not seem to like him. Seems like he can get along with the national guys but might be a bit dismissive of the guys asking him the same questions every day.
5) I found those comments to just be the traditional prospect puffery. And maybe Choo for overlooked player?
I’ll throw in a vote for Choo, he is a pure beast on the field and people are only starting to talk about him since the whole army exemption game thing.
A-Rod’s quote as reported by Peter Gammons
“Rodriguez insists on telling Banuelos’ story. “You should know the kind of kid he is,” says A-Rod. “He was making $600 a month last year and sending $350 of it home to his mother and grandmother, who are poor. He cares about them, not himself. He’ll be a favorite of yours for years.””
A-Rod’s quote as reported by Peter Abraham
“He was making $600 a month last year and sending $350 of it home to his mother and grandmother, who are poor. He cares about them, not himself. He’ll be a favorite of yours for years.
‘Yours’? Is Alex saying he doesn’t care about his own mother and grandmother?!?”
Yeah, Pete Abe is a joke with his ARod hate.
Those comments were all by Russell Martin, not Harper just to avoid any confusion.
MOSHE NO CHEATING I SAID NO AJ. But yeah, Martin is a good choice.
I like Sherman too but he’s more local. I like Rosenthal also, I think he’s pretty open with his acceptance of new idea and stuff like that. He seems like a good guy too.
Rosenthal interacts on Twitter, is up front when he makes a mistake, and as you said tries to learn/accept new ideas. His writing is not great, but I have plenty of respect for him.
The player I’m following most closely is Joba. If he’s rediscovered his old velocity, that fundamentally changes the entire equation with him.
Which leads me to my big question. If Joba’s throwing 98-99 MPH on May 1st, and Freddy Garcia is pitching like Freddy Garcia, do they look to solve their rotation problem from within? Why trade Joba for a starter when you could just stretch him out and have him start? Leaving him in low leverage work when he’s blowing away batters makes no sense whatsoever.
I know the Yanks have closed the door on this, but they’ve re-thought their position on him a few times. Once more can’t be out of the question.
Just to elaborate, the Yanks banished Joba to the pen saying his stuff played up there and he was a diminished pitcher after the shoulder injury. If that’s not the case, they have to rethink their position on him. That entire basis no longer exists.
How would they stretch him out? They have not given him the innings to suggest he would be able to start even if they suddenly wanted him too. He would have to be sent down, start getting stretched out and be called backup as a starter after basically just having ST again in the minor leagues, this time as a starter. Meanwhile we have a pitcher we don’t want in his place in the rotation waiting for Joba to be ready, then once he is ready we have to hope his fastball is still playing well in the rotation and he hasn’t reverted to throwing low in the first few innings and having to build his velocity over the course of the game.
I would love for Joba to have a chance but with all that in the way I don’t see anyway Cashman decides to overrule himself.
Steve I totally agree with you, I just have given up all hope on that shit. I don’t understand and the only way I can stay sane is just repeating “The Yankees know more than I do so I’ll trust them” over and over. Nothing else makes sense.
Why is the default answer for fans always the guys in charge know more than us? I mean yeah it’s their job too but it doesn’t make it so, the guys in the NFL are suppose to be the best football players in the world but there are kids all over the country with more talent and ability who end up in gangs, jail or dead but it doesn’t mean they weren’t better.
Pros mess up all the time and just because someone is a GM, manager or whatever doesn’t mean they deserve it.
I’m not bashing anyone in the Yankee FO I just think that cliche is way overused and have never believed just because someone works in baseball he is better than some fan who doesn’t, he may have more info to gather from but it doesn’t mean he can do the job better all things equal.
I dunno if it’s true or not, its just what I tell myself in order to stay sane about this Joba disaster.
I understand, in this situation I understand what you mean but just in general too many fans take a “they do it for a living so you cant question them” attitude with other fans, I’ve never believed that just because you are doing a job doesn’t mean someone else can’t do it better.
Isn’t it safe to assume that since Swisher was taking less walks and therefore swinging at better pitches and putting more balls into play his BABIP would be better and it wouldn’t be a lucky fluke?
If you take a walk you get to first but your BABIP doesn’t go up, and if you are so focused on walking that you pass up hittable pitches to keep working the count you will end up not putting balls into play you could and get forced into putting balls in play defensively deep in the count. For these reasons I think Swisher can maintain his new production, he simply changed how he was getting on base by changing his focus from walking at all cost to simply getting on and swing at the best pitch you see.
I’m pretty sure that’s been proven to not be true. I’d have to ask Larry or Matt though, but I’m fairly certain that’s not true.
I’m going to need more than your pretty sure… Not that I don’t believe you I would just need to see stats or facts one way or the other to believe for sure either way.
You’re*… Wouldn’t let me edit my post for some reason even though it still has time.
Swisher’s IFFB% dropped from 12.3% in 2009 to 7.8% in 2010, while his LD% went up from 16.3% to 19.6% and his GB% dropped from 38.1 to 35.5.
So if he popping way less balls up in the infield, grounded less balls into the dirt and he is hitting more line drives doesn’t that mean he is making better contact? If he is making better contact wouldn’t that result in more balls being put in play and more balls being put in play hard which should result in a higher BABIP?
Yeah in theory but we can’t assume that isn’t the result of a small sample size. It may be true because he’s switched his swing with all that K-Long work, but it’s kind of tricky to tell what will happen at this point.
It also seems that his O-Swing% went from 17.3 to 25.7 and as you would expect his O-Contact% went up from 55.5 to 61.4, he also had a rise in both his Z-Swing% (from 57.0 to 68.4) and his Z-Contact% (85.7 to 88.1) so overall he was taking more swings at balls both in and out of the strikezone and as a result making contact on more balls both in and out (especially out) of the strikezone which would therefore increase the number of balls in play and likely mean he would have more balls land in play.
There is at least some circumstantial evidence that he can maintain similar production with this new swing and mindset allowing him to swing and make contact on more pitches.
Yeah I think there is. Also I wouldn’t get too wound up in those contact numbers- as Colin Wyers pointed out, most of them aren’t very accurate. Here’s a link to the discussion about all that- http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/indeterminate_quality_of_data/
We’ll see what happens, I think the evidence isn’t conclusive either way.
At this stage in the game I think most of our advanced stats have many holes in them and most if not all need further study and testing of the years before we get them down all the way, UZR is a great example of this, that doesn’t mean we can’t look at the numbers and use them as a part of a larger overall picture gathered with our eyes.
I think at the very least any jump of 10% would be able to show at least some increase even if it isn’t the exact increase shown. As I said circumstantial evidence but enough I think to not just dismiss Swisher’s numbers as “luck”.
Swisher’s xBABIP (expected BABIP based on th batted ball day you mentioned above) was .305. So you are correct that due to him hitting the ball with more authority, he wasn’t as lucky as raw BABIP tells you, but he still had a healthy dose of good fortune that might lead to a bit of regression.
Yeah I figured he wouldn’t maintain the .335 BABIP he had last year but for a guy who has only been above .300 once and in 2009 was at .275 I think there is reason enough to believe he can be at .300+ again this year.
“Russell Martin after catching Banuelos: his stuff is as good as kershaw. And he’s more polished than kershaw.”
How is this not an apt comparison? At no point in time did Martin say “He is better against major league hitters than Kershaw” or “he is a better major league pitcher right now than Kershaw” so I really don’t see why it’s so ridiculous.
Kershaw is one of my favorite youngsters in baseball right now and he is one of the nastiest lefties in the game but he isn’t throwing Strausberg like, he sits at 93-95 MPH with the ability to reach back and throw harder when he needs too (Kershaw averaged 92 MPH last year on fangraphs) which is a very similar scouting report to our own Banuelos.
The real difference between the two is that Banuelos has a changeup as his best offspeed offering (and his best overall pitch) while Kershaw has a nasty slider as his best breaking pitch but even in this Martin is correct because Kershaw while a very good pitcher isn’t a “pitcher” in the truest since of the word, he is a thrower who hasn’t had to learn to be a pitcher yet because of his overwhelming stuff. Banuelos on the other hand has just recently added his velocity and as a result he had developed his ability to pitch as a finesse pitcher long ago and this has lead to his extremely advanced changeup (a pitch Kershaw threw 1.5% of the time in 2010).
I would describe Banuelos as a young lefty with very good velocity and pitch-ability well beyond his years, Kershaw would be described simply as a young lefty power pitcher with a very good fastball and overpowering slider but at no point would I say he is an extremely polished pitcher or possesses pitch-ability well beyond his years.
Martin didn’t say Banuelos would be better than Kershaw this year against major league batters he simply said they have similar velocity (which they do) and while Kershaw is more of a thrower with a power slider Banuelos is way more of a pitcher with an excellent changeup.
First of all, I didn’t see anything about velocity in Martin’s comments, maybe that was another part of the quote. Kershaw has dialed down his fastball if you’ve noticed, he used to SIT 94 but doesn’t need to do that anymore bc, as Rick Honeycutt has noted, he’s learned to PITCH MORE and saves some of his stuff for later in the game. His stuff is WAY better than Banuelos’s stuff. He just started throwing the slider a lot this year and it was one of the best in the league. His curveball when he was throwing it more was one of the best pitches in baseball, a true 12-6 tumbler with a ton of swing and misses. And his fastball has been in the top 10 of weighted runs above average since 2008. In 2008 he threw 100 innings on the Dodgers at the same age Banuelos is this upcoming year.
I have no idea what “he’s not a pitcher” means- when you have a K/9 above 9, a 3.12 FIP and a top 15 finish in WAR among pitchers, you are a complete pitcher. He has the 11th best FIP among pitchers since 2008. I mean, it’s a RIDICULOUS thing to say from Martin. He cannot possibly be less polished than Banuelos who has thrown 15 TOTAL innings in AA. Banuelos only has 215 TOTAL professional innings thrown!
Look I’m as big a Manny Banuelos fan as you can find. The thing is, you cannot possibly compare him to one of the best pitchers in baseball. If you want to compare the two at the same development point, that’s okay. And I still bet if you asked any scouts to compare the two overall, it would be a fairly one-sided conversation in favor of Kershaw.
You are right I was thinking of velocity instead of “stuff” and while there is no data on Banuelos’ fastball it probably isn’t as valuable as Kershaw’s, however with as good as Manny’s change is and the fact Kershaw doesn’t throw one it’s hard to compare a change with no data on it to a slider already mapped. The curves don’t even belong in the same class so overall stuff is definitely Kershaw.
So you are denying Kershaw is a thrower first? Then we need go no further because when comparing the 2 Kershaw is a thrower and Banuelos is a pitcher and in that regard he is a more polished “pitcher”. Just because you come in with one of the best fastballs and sliders in the game doesn’t mean you know how to really pitch instead of throwing, Randy Johnson did it for years before he ever grew into a really knowing how to pitch.
I think the problem you have is you think he is talking about performance and that is simply not what he is saying, of course he isn’t going to go out and out pitch Kershaw this year but Martin never said that, you said he said that. He said Banuelos is a more polished pitcher which I take to mean he knows how to pitch, as in how to string together a sequence and have the ability to throw his 2nd and 3rd best pitches while behind even 2-0 in the count. I have personally never seen Kershaw drop pitch curveball, pitch 2 changeup and finish it with pitch 3 fastball, that doesn’t mean he isn’t a better pitcher than Banuelos right now since Kershaw can go out and throw with the best of them and has done so, even you said he learned to PITCH MORE but he hasn’t gotten to the point where he is finesse pitcher with his sequences and command, a year and a half ago Banuelos was a finesse pitcher.
I just think it’s the way you took that quote Vs the way I took the quote that is making the biggest difference, you have it in your head that he is saying he can go out and out pitch Kershaw 0 for 0 right now, while in my head I just took it to mean that they both have very good stuff for lefties and while Kershaw is more of a thrower because he has always had velocity, but Banuelos has the control and the highly developed changeup because he recently got ticked up some.
Well that may certainly be possible. Banuelos does have good command and control. But one sequence in the 5th inning of a spring training game does not mean he’s some amazingly polished pitcher. Believe me, I’m ecstatic about his ability and his potential- but I’ve seen Kershaw strike out 12 batters in 8 innings with no walks in an actual major league game.
I see what you’re saying though. Banuelos is a very different pitcher from Kershaw. But there really is just no way to fairly compare them right now- lets wait until Banuelos throws one pitch in the majors.
I personally wouldn’t have made the comparison for the simple fact that Kershaw is a 6’2 or 6’3 beast of a man with a lot of room to grow and add body weight while Babuelos is a 5’10 to 5’11 (maybe, one day, growth sport *fingers crossed haha) finesse guy who started working out and strengthening his core and added a 5 MPH+ of velocity.
The two of them are in every way possible except handedness the opposite of one another and they go about the game in two totally different ways. However in a superficial I just caught the kid for the first time way of thinking the comparison isn’t as off base as you made it sound, however know that I know that you took it the way you did it’s understandable. Like I said though when you look at 2 pitchers who both live in the 93-95 range and can reach back for a little more on occasion each featuring a sick secondary offering (maybe better than their fastballs) and a third pitch that is plus (or in Banuelos case a possible plus) you can draw the line to one another.