Posts Tagged ‘Joey Votto’

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Cincinnati Reds: Hottest Team in Baseball, Don’t Tinker With Success

August 20th, 2010

Since the dreadful series against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Reds have reeled off six-straight wins, sweeping both the Florida Marlins and now the Arizona Diamondbacks.

In doing this, they have become the hottest team in the major leagues.

They are currently 19 games over .500 and have their biggest lead of the season in the National League's Central Division.

They aren't beating people with smoke and mirrors, but with old fashioned, hard-nosed baseball. They have played two suicide squeezes to perfection in the last few games.

Many people are calling for the head of Jonny Gomes, why?

Even with his less-than-stellar play recently, he is still third on the team in RBI, just two behind Scott Rolen at 66. His average with RISP is still fourth in the entire league. That is his job—drive in runs, not just get on base. Everyone knew he was a defensive liability from game one.

I have watched him get at least three infield hits in the last few weeks. He hustles every play (did you read that Brandon?).

Their are a couple of quaint sayings that certainly would apply here, right now.

First—if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Simple, but true and very self-explanatory. You don't have to be Einstein or even His Holiness Bill James to figure that out.

Second—dance with the one who 'brung' you. An adage with some Appalachian vernacular for your reading enjoyment. If Sadie brought you to the dance, don't go off dancing with the new girl because she is showing a little more cleavage.

Maybe the second is not as eloquent as the first, or even as understandable. The point remains the same: If the food is fit for a king, don't switch cooks.

All year long the substitutes have come through remarkably well. When someone goes down, another man steps up.

Miguel Cairo has been so valuable stepping in for Rolen or Joey Votto when he needed a day off.

Paul Janish filled in so well for Orlando Cabrera that the "O.C." may have difficulty getting his job back when he crawls off the shelf.

Ramon Hernandez and Ryan Hanigan have spelled each other behind the plate admirably. Hats off to Corky Miller while he was up in place of Hanigan earlier in the campaign.

I have fought all year long against Coco Cordero being lifted as a closer. It was actually to my delight that Dusty Baker pulled him from a game recently, while Nick Masset effectively cleaned up his mess.

The fact remains that Coco is still the closer and round and round we go.

I have to say that Baker and Walt Jocketty have done a tremendous job juggling the talent—especially the pitchers this season. I believe we have seven or eight starters here and at Louisville that could start for many other MLB teams.

Until the wheels start wobbling like they are about to give out, keep the course steady.

The Reds appear to have one of the best teams in the National League. Please don't tinker with success.

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Posted in Cincinnati Reds, Joey Votto, Laynce Nix, MLB, NL Central, Opinion, Scott Rolen, jonny gomes

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Cincinnati Reds’ Laynce Nix Deserves Nod Over Ice-Cold Jonny Gomes

August 20th, 2010

The Cincinnati Reds offense has been nothing short of spectacular this season. But it could be even better with one simple tweak.
 
The line-up has been excellent—first in the N.L. with 602 runs to be exact. It’s been a major factor in the Reds' '10 success.
 
Joey Votto, Scott Rolen, and Brandon Phillips have been the chief contributors. Ramon Hernandez, Miguel Cairo, Jay Bruce, Chris Heisey and recently Paul Janish have been solid if not extremely steady. Drew Stubbs as been up and down but he does have more RBI (57) than Derek Jeter, Jason Heyward, Ryan Ludwick, Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Jason Bay, and Jose Reyes.
 
But there is one part of the line-up that hasn't been producing for quite a while now. LF Jonny Gomes started the year in a platoon situation with Laynce Nix. As both players split time throughout the first two months.
 
Gomes blasted out of the gate as fast as a jackrabbit. He separated himself by hitting .364 with 22 RBI in the month of May. Manager Dusty Baker decided that was enough production to hand the reigns to Gomes for virtually every start since.
 
Since then Gomes has fallen off in a big way. He hit a mere .244 in June, followed by a .288 OBP and a .240 clip the next month—while starting all but three games in July.
 
In his last 54 games he's hitting a miserable .222 with four home runs and 19 RBI. Since the All-Star break (31 games) he has hit .218 with two homers and six RBI. He is one for his last 19.
 
Do these numbers look like starter material? I haven't even mentioned his dreadful defense that is amongst the worst for outfielders.
 
Yet it's not as if Gomes isn't valuable to the team. He is a great presence in the clubhouse and keeps the team's energy at a high level. But let's face it: Gomes is a career .245 hitter and the back of his baseball card is starting to show.
 
Enter Nix.
 
He had a tortoise-like slow start to the season, but has been great in limited action of late.
 
Pinch-hitting is as tough as it gets for baseball players. Sit for eight innings while trying to stay mentally ready, grab a bat—while having sat for three hours—face the other teams top relievers and deliver in the clutch.
 
Nix has made it look easy. He's 18 for his last 37 with seven starts over that period of time. He has raised his average 60 points since mid-July to .291.
 
His defense isn't gold glove caliber, but it's much better than Gomes. Nix has a cannon for an arm and has made his fair share of run saving catches.
 
So the question remains...why does Dusty keep neglecting post-May Nix? He deserves to be playing more—especially with Gomes struggling so much.
 
The Reds need to give Nix a shot at playing everyday again and see what happens. Imagine how much better the Reds offense would be with a guy NOT hitting .218 since the break? Imagine a stronger left field defensively?
 
If Gomes is the hare than Nix is the tortoise. We all know who wins the race in the end.

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Posted in Baseball, Cincinnati Reds, Laynce Nix, MLB, NL Central, Opinion, jonny gomes

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Adam Wainwright: Five Reasons He Deserves Cy Young and MVP in 2010

August 19th, 2010

There are many arguments as to why a pitcher deserves to win both the Cy Young award and the MVP award, but perhaps the most important issue revolves around what a pitcher brings to a ball club.

What I mean by that is if you had to put a franchise tag on one individual on a baseball team, a majority of the time (if not all the time), that nods goes towards a starting pitcher.

There’s a reason for that, but we'll get to that later.

Today, we’ll be debating whether or not the St. Louis Cardinals most dominant pitcher—Adam Wainwright—deserves both awards.

And with the only offensive candidates appearing to be Joey Votto, Carlos Gonzalez, or Cardinals teammate Albert Pujols, this year may be the season for a pitcher to bring home both the Cy Young and MVP hardware.

But will it be Wainwright, a pitcher who has the possibility of taking home both the wins and ERA crowns in the National League, and will it happen in 2010?

Let’s discuss five reasons why he deserves both awards come season’s end...

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Posted in Adam Wainwright, MLB, MLB History, Rankings/List, St Louis Cardinals

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Small Market Success: Six Small MLB Clubs (and the Yankees) in First

August 18th, 2010

The New York Yankees’ 2010 payroll is $206,333,389 with the average player making over $8.25 million this season. New York has more than double the payroll of 22 of the remaining 29 ballclubs and more than triple the payroll of seven other teams. Not one of the other seven clubs who has a salary of over $100 million currently sits atop their division.

The Minnesota Twins are the biggest spenders, besides the Yankees, that lead their division. How much are the Twins spending this season you ask? $97 million which ranks them eleventh in the majors. As a matter of fact, the only other division leader that can come close to the Twins payroll is the Braves and they have shelled out $84 million this season ranking them right in the middle of the pack at fifteenth in the bigs.

The NL Central leading Reds are next in line with a payroll of $72 million ranking them nineteenth. Following the Reds is the club that is tied with the Yanks atop the AL East, the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are twenty-first in MLB with a payroll just under $72 million, more than $134 million less than their AL East counterpart New York.

Last but not least we go to the 27th highest payroll and the 29th highest payroll. That would be the Texas Rangers and the San Diego Padres. Yes, they too sit atop the AL and NL West respectively. These two clubs combine for a payroll of just under $94 million. That $94 million would make up just 46% of the Yankees payroll and couldn’t even pay the salaries of Rodriguez, Sabathia, Jeter, and Teixeira. Those four overpaid stars combine for a salary of over $100 million in 2010.

So why all the success? Why can’t the Cubs or the Mets have this kind of success with a combined payroll of $278 million? First of all, K-Rod isn’t helping things for the Mets and we saw what the Cubs did with Derek Lee trading him and his $13 million salary to Atlanta Wednesday.

The reason for the success is a farm system approach of grooming players and making the right moves when it was time to clean house.

Teams like the Cubs and Mets are littered with players such as three $19 million men in Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, and Carlos Beltran. That’s almost $60 million that has gone to waste this season between those two ballclubs with all three players in extreme decline.

The press has applauded the Twins for years now as they have been able to have much success mainly through their two minor league products, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer. The new M&M Boys each have their own AL MVP award and just recently the Twins were able to sign Joe Mauer to an eight year extension for the hometown discount of $23 million a year. That may not sound like much of a discount but that’s $10 milliona year less than A-Rod for a 27-year-old catcher with triple crown potential.

Teams such as the Reds and Rays have built up their team through their farm system as well and have refused to overpay free agents.

The Reds best pitcher and best hitter were both brought up through the farm system and because of it, Cincinnati is only paying Johnny Cueto and Joey Votto under $1 million combined in 2010. Moves like this have allowed Cinci to acquire key pieces to a championship such as 3B Scott Rolen and closer Francisco Cordero who makes more dough than anyone on the big red machine with a 2010 salary of $12 million.

The Rays are the best example of developing players through the farm system in order to obtain a smaller payroll. Arguably the three biggest stars on the team, (Evan Longoria, David Price, and B.J. Upton), all made their MLB debuts in Tampa Bay and in 2010 they will combine to make only $5.8 million.

The Padres and Rangers were fortunate enough to trade coveted, high-priced players in order to obtain the pieces that make up their success today.

At the trade deadline in 2007, the Rangers traded 1B Mark Teixeira to the Atlanta Braves for four prospects and C Jarrod Saltalamacchia . While Saltalamacchia’s stay in Texas wasn’t half as long as his name, the Rangers did acquire Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, and Elvis Andrus in the deal. In 2010, Harrison and Feliz have anchored a great Texas bullpen and Elvis Andrus is so good that he’s moved Gold Glove winner Michael Young over to 3B and the 21-year-old is batting .276 doing it.

Arguably the Padres’ two most important players, P Clayton Richard and 1B Adrian Gonzalez, were acquired through the trades of P Adam Eaton to Texas in ’05 and the trade of Cy Young winner Jake Peavy to the White Sox at the trade deadline last season.

Clayton Richard, who was involved in the Peavy trade, is 11-5 this season for San Diego with a 3.69 ERA and a measley salary of $423,700. Peavy is currently 7-6 with a 4.63 ERA and a $15 million salary. Advantage: San Diego.

This small market success is not uncommon. The Yankees and the Red Sox are the only two teams of the past decade to win a World Series title with a payroll over $100 million.

In 2003, the Florida Marlins and their miniscule payroll of $48.7 million were able to defeat the New York Yankees and their payroll of $125.9 million. I am not saying that the Padres or the Reds can do the same thing as the Marlins, but stranger things have happened. Money sure doesn’t hurt, but it also doesn’t guarantee a thing in today’s game of baseball balance from top to bottom of the payroll rankings.

-scf

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Posted in Derek Jeter, MLB, Stats, new york yankees

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Ryan Zimmerman: Can the MVP in the NL Get Some Attention?

August 18th, 2010

The race for Most Valuable Player in the AL looks to be dominated by Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton. But what about in the NL?

As you may or may not know (depending on whether you’ve read any of my articles), I’m pretty fond of a stat called "wins above replacement," or WAR. WAR is is a stat that takes a players offensive and defensive numbers and determines how many wins a player has been solely responsible for over a replacement player. Conceivably, we can use this stat to get an idea of who should at least be in the running for NL MVP.

So, after a quick search at Fangraphs, we see the National League’s leaders in WAR. The Top 20 is littered with All-Stars, from Martin Prado to Carlos Gonzalez, Power Padre Adrian Gonzalez to Bespectacled Backstop Brian McCann, and so on.

The Top Five is what’s particularly interesting though.

Fifth is Matt Holliday, who has so far amassed 4.7 WAR (WAR is a counting stat, not a rate stat, so a higher number is better). Second through fourth place is a virtual tie between Everyone’s Favorite All-Star Snub Joey Votto, center fielder for the Giants and surprise player of the year Andres Torres, and dual-reigning MVP Albert Pujols, in that order. However, they are separated by only .3 Wins (5.5, 5.4, and 5.2, respectively), so it’s likely that we’ll see some change there. However, this leaves one rather large question-who is first?

The answer is none other than slick-fielding Nationals third basemen Ryan Zimmerman, with 6.0 full Wins to his name. 

Some of you may be rather incredulous. You may be thinking “How can someone be the Most Valuable Player in the league if he wasn’t even an All-Star?” Well, first, I would say remember how we pick All-Stars; that should answer that question (for those who may wonder, Zimmerman’s spot on the roster went to Omar Infante, according to MLB.com, in case you were worried that it wasn’t filled wisely). 

In all seriousness, though, why is Zimmerman calculated as the most valuable player in the league?

Well, if you aren’t quite sure, you may first want to check how well Ryan’s done this season. At 25, the third baseman is having his second career year in a row; 24 home runs, 24 doubles, a .302 average, a .388 on-base percentage, and a .549 slugging percentage. His .937 On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) is third right now, behind only Votto and Pujols. OPS+ is a stat that compares a batter’s OPS to league average to determine how much better he’s been, even accounting for home field differences.

By this measure, Ryan Zimmerman’s posted an 150 OPS+ (meaning he’s been 50% above league average), good for third in the NL, tied with Adrian Gonzalez and behind only Joey Votto (169) and Albert Pujols (166). If you want more traditional measures, Ryan’s eighth in home runs and eleventh in average. He’s even managed to get 68 RBIs (tied for eighteenth), despite playing for a Nationals team that ranks fourteenth in runs and thirteenth in RBIs in the NL.

So, how does he rank above Pujols and Votto, and even Gonzalez in WAR? Well, there are two major reasons. One; WAR accounts for position. The more good hitters there are at one position, the easier it is to replace them. You may notice that Pujols, Votto, and Gonzalez are all first basemen, which just demonstrates the depth of quality first basemen. Basically, they provide a lot of offense, but they do so while playing a position that’s expected to provide a lot of offense. 

Second, however, is his defense. Zimmerman is possibly the best player manning the hot corner this season, according to Ultimate Zone Rating. or UZR. UZR is a fairly complicated defensive stat that is determined by breaking down every play that occurs in a year, and grading a player based on how far the away the ball was, how hard it was hit, and so on (if you want more information, I would recommend this Boston Globe video as a good intro). Zimmerman has the best Ultimate Zone Rating for the year at third, with 12.2 runs saved (his nearest competition, Chase Headley, is at 10.9, followed by Kevin Kouzmanoff with 10.6 and Placido Polanco at 10.2).

So, basically, Zimmerman has the most WAR for the year because his been both a strong defensive player at a difficult position and a major offensive threat at a position that is comparatively weak this season.

Is Zimmerman the National League MVP for the year? WAR is by no means the end-all-be-all, but he definitely deserves some of the MVP talk.

 

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Posted in MLB, Opinion, Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals

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