...And Down The Stretch They Come! MLB enters the home stretch

I just finished watching the Braves win with a walk-off home run from Justin Upton, and while baseball is still fresh in my brain, and before I switch my brain into English Premier League mode, I feel like I should type about baseball.  I think it's time to take a look around the leagues quick and see what's up.  

But before we look at the standings, remember Antonio Alfonseca?  That dude had six fucking fingers.  

Anyway...

 Fun.

Prediction for the AL?  I think it ends up being exactly as it is right now.  Perhaps Oakland will win the west, and Texas makes the wild card game, but that's about all I'd change.  

National League!!!!

Also fun, but maybe not as fun.  

The Dodgers and Braves have insurmountable leads.  The Reds are surging, the Cardinals are bleeding and the Pirates are hanging in there.  To me, the National League is a five team race already.  It will end up exactly how it is, and that's the way it should be.  Arizona has no business in the postseason this year. Neither do the Gnats.  

Three quarters of the season is over already.  I'm not one to advocate the watching of American League games often, but now I must do so.  There's just so much left to be decided out there.  Alright, have a good day, and go Arsenal! 

Probable Starters for MLB 7-21-13! Harvey vs Lee

So what happened here?  I'm allergic to posting in July or something?  I'll tell you what happened, I had my family visiting for the week of the 4th of July and didn't really have the boring downtime to write up the daily pitching matchups of the days.  Then the family left and I felt weird jumping back into it as if nothing happened, and now I'm sitting here wondering what went wrong after that?  I guess it was just an All-Star break.  Not much to write about there, except perhaps a recap, in my own opinion, of the first half of the season.  But I didn't do that either.  Now I'm here, back at the same spot before I had a week or two of posts that were not even that bad for once.  Oh well, let's just jump back into it.

Today there are many pitching match ups that you should be aware of, and some are better than others, as usual.  That's why I highlight one here and call it the Safety Squeeze Pitching Matchup of the Day ™

First off, a screen grab of those match ups from around the league.  (also I think I'll finally admit that matchup is two words starting now.)

For me, I have to choose Cliff Lee against Matt Harvey.  Matt Harvey had a bit of a coming out moment getting to start the All-Star game on Tuesday, which is nice for him.  I mean, he mostly got the nod because he's the home town hero right now, as much as the Mets have as far as heros go.  He's been solid, as many predicted.  Cliff Lee is absolutely no slouch, in fact, I'd say he's at least top five in the world.  Too bad he plays for the Phillies.  And too bad Harver pitches for the Mets, too.  Because I really want to like these guys, but man, I just can't do it too loudly because of the hats they wear.  I pick this one because I really don't know who's going to win this game.  I think the Mets are a better team than the Phillies (seriously) but Cliff Lee is too good to lose to the Mets.  What a quandary.  

Other notable match ups include Doug Fister against "Big Game" James Shields.  Did you know Big Game James gave himself that nickname?  YOU CAN'T DO THAT JIMMY.  It doesn't work that way.  Other people have to call you a name before it becomes a nickname that can be repeated,  

Enjoy baseball today.  

Starters and What to Watch For, 6-29-13 MLB Preview

I hope you guys managed to figure out who was starting all the games in the MLB the past two days without me.  Somehow, I know most of you struggled to figure out who would be the best matchups for each day, but honesly, I have company coming this weekend, so I had to spend a lot of time deep cleaning the apartment.  Also, I find it hard to sit down and type when my wife is home, and she took the last two days off work, so I was busy.  Is that okay with you?  It better be...

Here's today's starters.

As you can see, a full slate on a Saturday, per usual.  The trick is looking at these wonderful matchups and figuring out which ones are the ones to watch.  I've spotted a few, but I've not gone through all the trouble to figure out which ones are the most interesting besides the obvious choices...

So, the Safety Squeeze Pitching Matchup of the Day ™ ™is...

Cliff Lee and Hyun-Jin Ryu...wow way to branch out, Blogger.  Yeah, just take two guys who were already featured here this past week and rehash that shit.  Well, let me tell you, it's the best matchup.  The Dodgers got housed at home last night by these Phillies, but today is a new day.  The only reason that Dodger Stadium didn't empty out faster than **insert pop culture reference about substance abuse here** is because there was a fireworks show after the game.  Or, as Vin Scully would have had you believe if you were listening to his broadcast last night, to witness one more at bat of Yasiel Puig.  Ha, no Vin, you're the best, but they wanted to see the fireworks they already paid for.  Should be a good one.  

Another matchup that caught my eye is Chris Archer and the Rays against the Tigers and Justin Verlander.  Verlander's stats aren't that far out of line from what he's done throughout his career except his BABIP.  I expect Verlander to turn that around, as BABIP is a determination of luck, and his BABIP is elevated.  Once that BABIP evens out, expect Verlander to appear to be the guy he used to be, which he technically already is.  He's just been unlucky. Plus, it's not like the Tigers have the greatest defense.  I imagine a lot of the line drives that are being hit off him would be caught if the defense behind him was better.  

Okay, that's all.  Go watch the Tigers Rays game then the Phillies Dodgers game late, and you'll be a happy baseball fan of you make these choices.  

Jhoulys Chacin has an Unsustainable HR to FB ratio! My first sojourn into the world of Advanced Stats

Okay, here's my first go at taking a good look at a guys advanced stats to figure out what kind of pitcher he really is. Hang on tight, because it's probably going to be ugly and wrong.   The subject is Colorado Rockies pitcher Jhoulys Chacin.  I have heard his name pronounced properly a number of times by now, and I still don't know how to pronounce it, so to me he's Jew-Hoolies Cha-Seen.  I know that's not correct, but that's what I'm going with in my head.  I've decided to use Mr. Chacin because I stumbled across a number that shocked me.  Jhoulys Chacin leads the majors in HR/FB ratio.  And his home park is Coors Field.

The basic, standard stats suggest a middle of the road, perhaps slightly above average pitcher, which is something that is required if you're going to have any pitching success with the Rockies.  Obviously pitching in that ballpark is not ideal, so they have to overpay guys and take chances on others to get anyone to pitch there.  The overpay part is dedicated to Mike Hampton, the take a chance on him guys include Roy Oswalt and Jamie Moyer.  Two of those three haven't worked out so good and the other, it's too early to tell.  Good luck Mr. Oswalt.  Anyway, they can also draft and sign young pitchers who want to make it to the majors and test fate by coming up in the Rockies organization.

Jhoulys Chacin, let's get into it.  Homeboy didn't win a single game in the month of May.  That's not good.  However, he has won his previous three starts, two against the Nationals and one against the Phillies. He has an overall record of 6-3 in 14 starts. Okay, getting better, but we all know that wins is not a good stat to judge a pitcher on.  Okay, lets continue on.  His ERA currently sits at 3.92, and some of that is inflated by his horrible month of May where his ERA ballooned to 5.87.  He's pitched better as of late, so that'll bring that down to earth.  1.24 WHIP is not great, but not terrible.  The number that stood out to me is his home runs given up, which is TWO!  A Rockies pitcher that has only given up two homers.  One on opening day against AT the Brewers and one on June 1st at home against the Dodgers.  So that means one home run given up at Coors Field in nine starts.  Yes, a mediocre Colorado Rockies pitcher has the major league's best HR/FB ratio, at 2.5%.  Yeah, that's not sustainable, is it?  He does boast a nice 48% ground ball percentage, which ranks him 35th in baseball.  So it's not like he's getting all grounders, which would explain the lack of homers, but the league leader in ground ball percentage, Trevor Cahill at 58%, has a HR/FB of 10.7%.  So what gives?  Shouldn't these two numbers correlate?

In fact, in the top 10 of guys for GB%, there are only two guys who have HR/FB rate under 10%, and none of them are below 5%, and that's Doug Fister and Jon Niese.

And that's when I scroll a little further down the page and realize that another Rockies pitcher, Jorge de la Rosa also has a HR/FB ratio that's shockingly low, he's at 7%,  Alright, is this what all the pitchers are doing out there in Colorado?  Let's have a look.

The answer is no, they've been terrible.  Jeff Francis, Juan Nicasio and John Garland have all been pretty not great.  Jeff Francis had a HR/FB of 20.4%, for crying out loud, but he did have a 7.44 K/9, which was best on the team.  He also got sent to the minors four days ago, and in came Roy Oswalt.  Of the five Rockies starters I'm talking about here, they've all got FB ratios between 27%-33%, but it's only Chacin and de la Rosa that are managing to keep those fly balls in the park.  They weren't hitting line drives off Francis (18,1%) but they sure were hitting the home runs (11).  They are hitting line drives off de la Rosa (26.5%), but not many home runs (five, 7%, as I mentioned before).  And Chacin has a line drive rate of 23.5%, which is pretty good.  5.26 K/9 for Chacin as well...I don't really get how this is happening.

So what am I trying to say here?  I guess I'm trying to say that Jorge de la Rosa and Jhoulys Chacin have been pretty good, but I don't know if it's sustainable with that park.  If this is what has driven some of their success, I would be worried.  I wish I had time to go back and look at the history of the Rockies starting pitchers and see if any of these numbers have ever been sustained by anyone.  Like I said , I'm really only getting started in this crazy world of advanced stats (something I just a few weeks ago wrote a post rallying against as a regular old fan of the game) so I don't know if comparing HR/FB ratio to GB% is even something I should be doing, but as a fan of baseball, it would make sense to me that if you induce a lot of ground balls, they're not going to go for a lot of home runs, unless everyone is really fast base runners who get inside-the-parkers. I don't think that's ever going to be the case.  And it would also make sense to me that if you are giving 28.5% of the balls hit off you are going for fly balls, more than one at Coors field should have left the park by now.  The other starters have similar fly ball numbers and theirs ARE leaving the park.

So despite Jhoulys Chacin's pedestrian 6-3 win-loss record and 3.92 ERA, he's actually pitched pretty good so far because he has avoided the long ball.  But how long can that be sustained with a fly ball rate at 28.5%?  I would guess that whatever mediocre stats he's put up thus far, be it ERA, wins, WHIP, BABIP what-have-you, will only get worse once the unsustainable HR/FB ratio evens out and he starts giving up dingers at a more acceptable clip.  It should REALLY be noted here that he has a career HR/FB ratio of 9.5%...so expect regression.

All this work, and I'm sure any Rockies fan that has actually watched their games would tell me, NO SHIT.  I guarantee that what I'm writing does nothing to change the experience of the average Rockies fan, nor educate that fan.  I put in all this work and now I'm thinking "so what?"  So they haven't given up home runs, have they won games in which they've pitched?  Yeah, sure they have.  It's a crowded west, with the Padres suddenly finding life.  It's just something to keep in mind the next time you're watching a Rockies game.  Jhoulys Chacin has the lowest HR/FB ratio this season in all of baseball and he plays for the Rockies.  That's just interesting.  

Starters for 6/23/13 Around the MLB

I'd like to do this daily, but I doubt I will.  I will do this as often as I can, because I think it's interesting, at least.

It's Sunday, and you know what that means!  That means every team in all of Baseball is in action today.  Looking at the schedule, I noticed that there is only four games on the schedule tomorrow, so set your fantasy rosters accordingly.  But lets not get ahead of ourselves here, let's focus on today's games.

Here's the starting pitchers for today, as of this writing:

 As you can see here, there's a few interesting match ups today, but mostly I see a lot of mismatches.  Samardzija vs Jordan Lyles, perhaps?  But then you stop and realize it's the Astros vs the Cubs, so that's not interesting.  The one that pops out to me is Mat Latos and the Reds against the (still) first place Diamondbacks and Randal Delgado.  Former Atlanta Brave Delgado was part of the Justin Upton trade.  I've been to three Braves games in my life.  The starting pitchers for those Braves games were John Smoltz, Tim Hudson...and Randal Delgado.  You can imagine which one the Braves lost, right?  Yeah, but anyway, he's made two appearances and one start for the Diamondbacks this season.  That one start was this past Tuesday evening, where gave up eight hits and two runs while striking out six over seven innings against the suddenly resurgent(?!) Miami Marlins.  By all accounts, a solid outing.  He was given a no-decision but the DBacks won on a Paul Goldschmidt walk-off home run.  Delgado was a top prospect in the Braves organization before sputtering out in his chance in the majors, and ultimately dealt to Arizona along with a number of other prospects and my beloved Martin Prado for Justin Upton, a trade that at this point has been won by Atlanta, I think.  But Delgado has an upside.  At first, it seemed to be a trade of Prado for Upton, but who knows?  Maybe Delgado will thrive in Arizona and somewhere down the line, we'll be asking ourselves "They traded him for HIM?!?"  I guess a lot of that future began last Tuesday, and continues today against the Reds and their highly touted offense, led by my fantasy hero, Joey Votto.  

(no one cares about my or your fantasy team...remember that in the future.)

Other pitching highlight today is the next start from the electric Matt Harvey.  It's against the Phillies, so you never know how that will go.  

Highly touted pitching prospect TBD (awful parents for naming their child that!) gets the start for Baltimore

I'm very interested to see what Matt Cain does today against the Marlins.  His starts have all kinds of inconsistent numbers lately.  We'll have to see which Matt Cain shows up today.  He has a 7.22 ERA in day games, but I don't know how many day games he's pitched.  I know he got lit up by St. Louis in a day game, and I'm sure that's probably throwing that number off.  Anyway, We shall see. 

Joe Blanton will go for his 11th loss today.  Cole Hammels got his on Friday night.  At least Hammels has more than one win, however.  Ouch.

Adam Wainwright pitches tonight. Not a good pitching match up though, so it don't get featured here.  It just gets mentioned at the end.  

So enjoy the games today and mostly, enjoy the pitching.  

If a Tree Falls...

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it actually make a sound?

If I craft a baseball blog in the woods, would anyone read it?  What about in a city?

Welcome everyone to Safety Squeeze, a baseball blog no one bothers to read.  I could write the greatest baseball post of all time, with sweeping coverage and analysis, written with the grace of great poets, covering of all 30 major league teams with in-depth coverage of all the results and stories from each game, previews of all the next days action and perhaps the stories that might otherwise fall through the cracks, but it matters not; no one will be reading.  Why do I write anyway?  Because I don't care if no one reads it.  I just want to write it.

With that being said, let's talk about baseball.  Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers has debuted this week with a splash, hitting four homeruns in four games.  That's special, but I wish he wasn't hitting clutch homers against the Braves.  He grand slam on Thursday night to extend the games lead to 5 runs, and he broke a 1-1 tie in the late innings on Friday night to set up extra innings, where the Dodgers won on a walk-off wild pitch.  Great.  I know that baseball is a marathon not a sprint, and losing two games in Los Angeles in early June is nothing to cry about in the long run, but as a competitive fan, I don't like to see my team lose. It's going to happen, and they say that if you don't like losing, you shouldn't be involved with baseball, but I sure wouldn't mind it the Atlanta Braves would go 162-0.

Last time I wrote here I wrote about Jeremy Bonderman and his return to the majors after a three year absence due to many horrible health ailments.  I wrote about how wonderful it would be if we all watched to see how the man performed.  Well, I didn't watch the game.  I watched Bonderman record one out, to end an inning, and I don't even remember how that out was recorded or what inning it was.  I got busy when I got home, okay?  The Mariners got beat that day, I don't know, something like 10-1 and Bonderman seems to have pitched like someone who hasn't pitched to big leaguers in three years.  I don't know for sure, like I said, I didn't watch the game.  I read the line, and it seems as if that was the case.  Anyway, he got another start on Friday, and he beat the slumping Yankees, so that's cool.  Good job, Jeremy.  I didn't watch that game either, or even watch any highlights yet, because it's just hard for me to watch Mariners baseball.

It was brought to my attention last weekend that there is a treasure trove of classic baseball games on a YouTube page called MLB Classics.  I've included a hyperlink there to the page.  Anyway, I decided to check it out this past Monday, since there were no day games and I had watched most of the previous day's Braves game so I needed some sort of baseball to watch.  There are many old, black and white games, mostly from World Series' and such.  But the one that caught my eye was the first ever game for the Florida Marlins against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 5th, 1993.  Chris Berman was on the mic doing play-by-play for the game that aired on ESPN that opening day.  One thing I noticed is that a younger Chris Berman was a lot more...how do you say...uniform in his delivery as a play-by-play man.  I mean to say, he sounded more formulaic than what he is these days, which is Schticky, and gimmicky. That was nice.  Anyway, I couldn't help but notice and comment on Twitter about the Marlins horrible (in retrospect) decision to wear teal.  There was this fascination of new pro sports teams to use new, rarely seen color schemes when debuting in the 90's.  Not just in baseball, but in all sports.  Teal was exceptionally popular a color, with the Jacksonville Jaguars, San Jose Sharks and the Marlins all debuting in the 90's with that color.  The Jaguars have since shifted to a dark green, and the Marlins are primarily orange and black these days, but the Sharks are still riding high, wavin' the flag of team teal, and I got to respect that.  Also, purple was popular.  The Rockies and Diamondbacks wore purple.  Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a rant on color choices of teams, it's about the Marlins.  The thing that stood out about the teal color is their weird teal batting helmets.  They looked so weird, like an eraser head or something.  They made everyone's head seem bigger and more cumbersome.  I also liked that the first opening day pitcher for the Marlins was 45 year old veteran knuckleballer Charlie Hough.  Seeing a 45 year old man wear a teal hat throw a knuckleball at a young Mike Piazza or Eric Karros, truly something to behold.  Another thing, I know they've only been out of the football stadium for one full season now, but watching them play there that day, it had this temporary feel to it, like they would play in Joe Robbie stadium for a couple seasons and then get their own park like a lot of other expansion teams have done (Mets, Nationals for example) yet it took almost 20 years to get it done. I'm not going to make any sort of sweeping analysis of baseball in Florida (or any sports in Florida for that matter) but as long as I've been watching baseball, Marlins baseball has always felt the weirdest.  Their opening day game in 1993 was no different.  I only watched the first three of four innings, and then went off and did other things, but I'd seen enough to know that it felt awkward, and would feel awkward for the rest of my baseball watching life.  I guess that's a sweeping analysis, isn't it?  For some reason, even though they played in that mammoth stadium as recently as 2011, it was strange to see baseball being played in what is obviously a football stadium, even though teams like the A's do it 82 times a season.  I don't know, it felt off.

Okay, that's all.  Enjoy today's games.  Enjoy that YouTube page.  Have a good day, and let's all hope for a no-no this weekend, eh?  Or a cycle?  Both?  For the Padres?  By the same guy?  After all, it is the National League, the one league where a guy could conceivably pitch a no-hitter and also hit for the cycle in the same game.  Anything is possible in the National League!

Ballparks are the Best

I love ballparks.  It's one of the unique things about baseball I love.  Hockey used to have unique home ice advantages, but all that got taken away some time ago.  Like for example, the ice surface at the Boston Garden was actually shorter than "regulation" because of the smaller size of the old arena.  That's cool, but it's all gone now. In baseball, you can have weird demensions in ballparks for a home field advantage.  Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.

Like when Houston builds a stupid, gimick mound in centerfield, I don't like that.  You only did that to get attention.  But like, the ivy and the shape of the outfield wall of Wrigley.  That's cool.  It's uniquely Wrigley.  Green Monster, obviously is another.  I don't want to just say the weird walls are only allowed in ballparks 100 years old or older, but it's sort of just always been there that way, so that's cool to me.  If there is a usefull reason for a quirky jut in the outfield fence in a ballpark, I'm okay with it.  If it's there so that people will talk about the fact that it's there, that's not okay.

Like, if a team wants to make their park tough to hit in for righties, but a bandbox for lefties and then load up the roster with left-handed batters, that's a good strategy and that makes sense.  You can do that in baseball, and I love it.

Also, I was trying to think of teams that really need a new ballpark, and I could really only come up with one.  Oakland plays in a football stadium, and I can't wait for that era to officially be over.  When the Reds, Cardinals, Phillies, Pirates, Astros, Mariners, Padres, Twins, Nationals, Marlins and Giants all moved out of the gigantic, cookie cutter, multiuse, soulless stadiums in the 90's and 2000's, it was just all-around better for the game of baseball.  The only teams still playing in giganic stadiums like that are the Blue Jays and the A's.  For some reason, I don't really have a problem with the Jays still playing in SkyDome, AKA Rogers Centre, is that dispite it being 25 years old, it still has this cutting edge, newness to it.  It was the first time I'd ever heard of a retractable roof.  What a marvel of engineering.  Plus it's the Blue Jays, Canadians don't deserve our game up there.  (signed, bitter Nashville Predators fan)

But when you look around, there are some wonderful ballparks built around baseball, and that matters a lot to me when I'm choosing what teams to watch.  I don't mind watching the A's play in that football stadium, actually, despite everything I'm saying here, because I like the team. But normally, I don't like that atmosphere.  So like I said, I was thinking about what teams need a new park, and there really isn't anyone besides Oakland and perhaps the Rays.  Everything I hear about Tropicana Field is that it's a dump.  I imagine it is, maybe that's why no one goes to Rays games?  Must be.  But at least it doesn't feel like there's 672 people in the stands because the building is too large for baseball crowds, like it was in Miami for Marlins games.  And when the Marlins were bad (were, lol) and it was really empty, it was like watching the empty arena match between the Rock and Mankind during the halftime of Super Bowl XXXIII (I think). Just a weird atmosphere for those watching at home.

When a building is full and everyone is hanging on every play, it's so much more engaging for the person at home to watch.  That's why I like watching San Francisco Giants games.  That place is always packed, it's a cool, modern stadium with a throwback feel.  It's great.  Many teams have done the right thing in the past 10-15 years to upgrade their home ballpark experience, and I think it benefits all of baseball as a result.

I've only visited four MLB ballparks.  Wrigley, Miller Park, Turner Field and Fenway, in that order.  I've got 26 to go. Easiest for me to get to would be Cincinatti and St. Louis.   Let's get on the road, Caleb.  We've got baseball to watch.

-BJP

Baseball Needs More Day Games

Baseball needs more day games.  I mean it.  More more more day games.  Of course, this is a pretty selfish request.  As a subscriber of MLB.tv, I have the privilege of watching whatever baseball game I want (except for the Braves and Reds whom are blacked out in my area) whenever I want.  When I want it is in the early afternoon.  As a stay at home dad, when the wife is away at work until 4:30 pm, I get to stay home and watch baseball...er the kids.  I watch the kids...and baseball.  I think there should be a baseball game on every day.  After all, baseball is supposed to be a lazy afternoon pastime anyway, right?  So I end up with a lot of Cubs games, which would be fine if they were a better team.  I mean, this week they certainly looked like quite the contender for the pennant, but let's be serious for a minute, they were playing the White Sox, after all.  It's not like they were beating up on any first place teams... Oh, except the first place Arizona Diamondbacks.  But let's not get carried away with that.  Watching the Cubs all the time is okay...but you know, I'd like a little variety.  A little bit of everyone every day would be really nice.

I usually look forward to Wednesdays, because that's when a lot of series' wrap up with day games so the teams can hit the road early for their next town/series.  I win there. A whole bunch of day games. Saturdays and Sunday's provide excellent day game action.  I can watch them.  I'm not in charge of any kids when those games happen but...I'm at work.  Don't tell my employer but I watch a lot of baseball while on the job.  Sorry, boss, I have an addiction to feed.  So that's good.  Day games on the weekend are good.

This little story comes about because I've become a baseball consuming monster.  I did this last May/June as well.  The big difference is that this season I've been watching baseball regularly since the day the season began.  Last year, it was only at about this time of the year that I started paying any attention to the season at all (thanks Stanley Cup Playoffs).  So I've gotten the same increase in baseball consumption as last year, but this time it's on top of my previous obsession.  This means I'm staring at clocks waiting for games to start.  This means that on days where there is no day games, I get sad and lost and lonely.  Thankfully, as I write this all down, there are games set to begin in about 15 minutes.  Indians - Rays, yo!  And they just finished up playing each other at like, two this morning because of rain delays.  Love it.  I just love it.  So lets watch some baseball, and preferably when the sun is high in the sky.