Watched: Oakland @ Toronto - 8/4/08

I wanted to check out Sean Gallagher, one of the main pieces Oakland received when they traded away Rich Harden. At the time of the trade, some analysts insisted that Gallagher would win more games in the next five years than Harden and some others went so far as to claim that Gallagher might even win more games in the rest of this season than Harden will (of course, predictions like those are easy to make - if you are wrong no one remembers, if you are right you can quote yourself in a later column to show that you are a genius). So far Harden and Gallagher are even at 1-1 since the trade. Of course, wins and losses don't tell the whole story. Gallagher has made five starts since the trade (including tonight) and has thrown 25.1 innings in those five starts, and while he has struck out twenty seven men, which is excellent, he has also walked nineteen batters and has an ERA of 4.26. Harden, on the other hand, has made four starts since the trade, lasting 24.1 innings in those starts. He has only walked eight, while striking out thirty nine batters and he has an ERA of 1.11.

Anyway, I wanted to see what Oakland got in Gallagher and the numbers above were indicative of his performance. He clearly has good stuff, but he needs to learn to reign it in a bit. His fastball seemed to top out at about 92 and he had a good sharp slider, which was his strikeout pitch. He was very inefficient with his pitch count and only lasted three innings on the night. During his brief appearnace he was able to accumulate four strikeouts and four walks. He also hit two batters.

Clearly, Gallagher did not pitch well enough to win, and with an average of about five innings per start, he's really not giving his team much of a chance to win when he's on the mound. But Gallagher is only 22 years old and he seems to have the talent to become a solid major league pitcher. There are innumerable stories of pitchers with great stuff that never learned to harness their abilities and burned out without ever making an impact in the major leagues. Gallagher could easily become one of those guys, or he could mature into his talent and make himself into a solid #2 or #3 starter.

Daily Links - 8/4/08

The first game I attended at the most recent incarnation of Busch Stadium in St. Louis was a gem pitched by Chris Carpenter in 2006. It was against the Pirates on September 1 and it was the most dominating pitching performance I have ever seen. Carpenter allowed three hits and only struck out eight, but was just unbeatable that night, getting ground ball after ground ball (15 ground outs, 8 strikeouts and 4 fly outs). The game only took 1:54 to play. Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) writes about a similar experience watching Greg Maddux pitch in 1997.

Baseball Prospectus has some new reports for translated minor league statistics. Here is their explanation of what is available.

The Twins finally resolved the Francisco Liriano situation by calling him up to the big club. If healthy, he's probably the best starting pitcher that they have. It was a little strange keeping him down on the farm.

The Hardball Times looks at what the rest of the season has in store for the Cubs and the Phillies.

Now that we are past the non-waiver trading deadline, Keith Law looks at who he thinks might and might not make it through waivers to be traded this month.

Manny has certainly enjoyed Los Angeles so far, but Buster Olney thinks that he is miscalculating his value for his next contract.

Daily Links - 8/1/08

The trading deadline is over and Manny Ramirez is a Dodger. There is so much analysis out there about the trade already that I'm not going to bother with a whole post about it. I'll just say this: the marginal difference between Bay and Ramirez isn't that great and this trade is good for the Red Sox in the long run, bad for the Dodgers in the long run unless they win the World Series this year and pretty good for the Pirates both now and in the future. Here is Keith Law's analysis of the trade.

Every team has a bench guy that performs so well that fans clamor for him to start - then when he does start, the fans are sorry that he does. Here is Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA)'s take on the topic.

Hef, from Major League Jerk, has been writing a semi-regular piece on The Big Lead and takes on the differences between traditional and "new" statistics.

Was the trading deadline top heavy this year?

It's probably a little early to really tell, but what the hell: trade deadline winners and losers in two parts - Part 1 and Part 2. Without putting a lot of thought into it, I agree with the writer on the Royals, Yankees, Rockies, Mariners, A's, Brewers, Cubs, Marlins, Astros, Reds, Pirates, Rays, Indians, Dodgers and Red Sox and I disagree on the Angels, Tigers and Braves.

Daily Links - 7/31/08

The big news, of course, revolves around Manny Ramirez and the trading deadline. The Mill at Baseball Prospectus gives the details on the Yankees trade for Pudge Rodriguez and the overview on other rumors, while this blog entry by Will Carroll and this blog entry by Kevin Goldstein cover variations of the rumored Manny Ramirez/Jason Bay three way trade.

How about some non-deadline-related analysis? When Khalil Greene made his major league debut he was hailed as the next of the big shortstop superstars. He is a great fielder and it was thought that he would hit for average and power and quickly become one of the best shortstops in baseball. So what happened on his way to greatness?

Ok, back to the deadline: this post analyzes the potential Manny Ramirez trade from the Marlin's perspective. If before the season I had ranked the teams that might acquire a $20M/year player during the season, I think the Marlins would have been in the bottom four along with the Royals, Pirates and Twins.

Jon Heyman goes over all of the players that could get traded in the next several hours.

The breaking news is that Ken Griffey, Jr. has approved a trade to the Chicago White Sox. I have not seen what prospects will be headed back to Cincinnati.

Pitch f/x: Dan Haren

Dan Haren was traded by Oakland to Arizona this past offseason as part of the rebuilding effort of Oakland and the push by Arizona to solidify their chances in the National League West. His addition gave them a strong 1-2 punch at the front of their rotation with Brandon Webb, allowing Randy Johnson to slot as their #3 starter.

The conventional thinking was that Haren would thrive in the National League, which is traditionally more of a small ball league. However, there were some in the media that looked at the pitching-friendly environment in Oakland and the hitter-friendly environment of Arizona and believed that the difference in leagues would be evened out, or even overcome, by the ballpark differences and that Haren would pitch worse in the NL than he did in the AL.

Well, Haren has, in fact, been signficantly better for Arizona than he was with Oakland last year. His ERA so far is 2.56 compared to 3.07 last year for Oakland. That difference grows to more than a run when you compare his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, defined here): this year he's at 2.75, while last year he was at 3.70. He has improved his strikeout rate, his walk rate, his homerun rate and his WHIP this season.

The interesting thing is that the difference does not seem to be due to haren changing leagues. Baseball Reference has a great tool that neutralizes statistics to allow them to be compared across leagues and seasons (their explanation of how it works is here). According to Haren's neutralized statistics, his ERA is still more than half a run better this season.

So why is Haren better? Haren turns 28 years old this September, so the improvement could just be the natural progression of his talent; he is just entering his prime and he is learning how to pitch to major league hitters and how best to utilize his talents. By looking at his Pitch f/x stats we can see exactly what he is doing differently that may account for his improvement.

The first thing to note is that the changes in Haren's pitch selection have been gradual over the last few years. His first year as a starter with Oakland (and coincidentally, the first year that Pitch f/x data was available) was 2005 and he threw 59.2% fastballs. That number has gone down every year since then, to the point where this year he is throwing 50.3% fastballs.

Also, in 2005 Haren was throwing a small percentage of curveballs and changeups. He has gradually worked those out of his repertoire. In 2007 he increased the number of splitters that he threw from 19.5% in 2006 to 22.9%, but those have also decreased this year, down to 20%. So with the decrease in fastballs and splitters and the elimination of curves and changeups, what is he throwing more of?

Well, there aren't too many pitch types left. The answer is sliders and cutters. He has always relied on his slider, throwing it as often as his splitter in 2006 and 2007, but so far this year it has gone up to 23.9%. His cutter was a rare pitch in previous seasons, never even reaching 2%, but this year he has thrown it almost 6%.

I would suggest that this change indicates that Haren is figuring out what works best for him and is paring away all of the other unnecessary pitches. By removing curves and changeups from his arsenal, he can focus on the pitches that work well for him. I also wonder if being around two other dominant pitchers with limited arsenals has worn off on him. Brandon Webb throws about 75% fastballs and Randy Johnson is primarily a fastball/slider guy (with a few splitters mixed in). Regardless of the reasons, Haren continues to improve as a pitcher and is certainly everything the Diamondbacks hoped for when they traded for him this past offseason.

Daily Links - 7/30/08

Here is Baseball Prospectus' take on the Mark Teixeira trade. On the other side of the ledger, here is a post that calls the trade a mistake for the Angels.

This just wasn't the year for the Braves. Despite what I said yesterday about their acquisition of Teixeira being a failure, they were positioned at the beginning of this season to be a contender in the NL East. Then all of their pitchers got hurt, Jeff Francouer fell apart, Chipper kept getting dinged up (while in the midst of his best season), and now Tim Hudson might be out for the next 18 months.

This is a cool article that uses pitch f/x to visualize a platoon split for a batter.

Some teams (like say, the Astros) are in acquisition mode at the deadline and it really doesn't make a lot of sense. But what if the Astros have decided that the best way to truly rebuild their franchise is to amass draft picks. So to do this, they are trying to trade some of their mediocre talent to get veterans in the last year of their contract, hoping to get draft pick compensation when the veterans leave via free agency. If the veterans can lead them to semi-respectability at the same time, all the better. I'm not saying that I agree with this strategy (although the Astros farm system is horrible and could use an infusion of draft picks) and it is probably more likely that the Astros are just delusional, but what if acquiring expiring contracts becomes as fashionable as it is in the NBA?

This is a great article about why we should not be upset with players for making so much money, but rather the men that pay them.

Trade: Mark Teixeira to Angels for Casey Kotchman

Well, yesterday's rumored trade of Teixeira to Arizona did not come true. Instead he was traded to the Angels for Casey Kotchman and a AA relief pitcher. When taken in isolation, the Braves did ok in this trade. In Kotchman they got a big league caliber first baseman that is relatively cheap and under control until 2011. Kotchman is not quite the power threat that Teixeira is, but scouts believe that his power will develop.

The problem for the Braves is that the trade will always be looked at in combination with the trade from last year when they acquired Teixeira. The Braves gave up multiple solid prospects, knowing that he would be a free agent after this season. The trade did not result in a playoff appearance for the Braves in 2007 and it will not result in a playoff appearance in 2008. In that sense, the Teixeira era in Atlanta will always be considered a huge failure. He did not improve the team enough to get them to the playoffs and the package they ultimately received for him was far inferior to what they gave up to receive him.

For the Angels, Teixeira probably doesn't represent the difference between making the playoffs or not - in all likelihood they were already going to make the playoffs. What Teixeira does for the Angels is give them a secondary power threat in their lineup behind Vladimir Guerrero. They already had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and a very good defense, now they have an offense that rivals any in the league. The Angels have gone from being one of the players in the American League playoff picture to being the favorite in the American League. If they fail to win it all this year, they will have lost Kotchman, but will have two draft picks as compensation for Teixeira, who is almost certain to test the free agent waters. So, in essence they gave up Kotchman for two draft picks and the increase that Teixeira gives them in their chance of winning the World Series this year. I'd call that a good trade.