Baseball Notes, 2-18-21.Qxp Layout 1
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Clips for 7-12-10
MEDIA CLIPS – July 24th, 2018 Inbox: Should Rox pursue reliever at Deadline? Beat reporter Thomas Harding answers questions from Colorado fans By Thomas Harding MLB.com @harding_at_mlb Jul. 23rd, 2018 DENVER -- The most likely way the Rockies will pick to keep their surge going is to improve the bullpen by the July 31 non-waiver Trade Deadline -- or at least that's the way I'm answering the first question in the Edward Jones Beat Reporter's Inbox. Thomas Harding ✔@harding_at_mlb Please tweet me here with your questions for the next @EdwardJones #Rockies Beat Reporter's Inbox. Eric Swanson@Eric_C_Swanson With all the money spent on the bullpen this offseason, yet it still seems to be a need for this team; is there any chance they make a move to acquire a reliever at the deadline? 7:08 AM - Jul 23, 2018 This question is the biggest one that the Rockies are likely to address. In doing so, let's address exactly what the need is. First, I'll determine what's pertinent, and any stat for any reliever that takes into account the season is not. I'm going to look at the Rockies' bullpen starting June 28, the beginning of the club's current 15-4 run. The full bullpen is 7- 2 with a 3.34 ERA over that period, but even that doesn't tell us the exact areas of strength and need. 1 Let's zero in on key individuals, working from the ninth inning to earlier innings (more or less), starting June 28: • Closer Wade Davis: nine innings pitched, 1.00 ERA, .129 batting average against, 11 strikeouts, two walks • Righty Adam Ottavino: 10 2/3 IP, 3.38 ERA, .318 BAA, 14 SO, 5 BB • Righty Scott Oberg: 10 IP, 1.80 ERA, .278 BAA, 10 SO, 1 BB • Righty Bryan Shaw: 4 1/3 IP (since his return from a right calf strain), 2.08 ERA, .188 BAA, 6 SO, 2 BB • Lefty Chris Rusin: 7 1/3 IP, 6.14 ERA, .323 BAA, 4 SO, 3 BB • Lefty Jake McGee: 5 2/3 IP, 6.35 ERA, .273 BA, 6 SO, 3 BB (.905 OPS against) So this gives the Rockies two ways to shore up the back end of the bullpen. -
Wind-Blown Cubs Triumph Turns Into a Bunch of Hot Air in Game 3 Witnesses to ‘45 Series Should Be Allowed Into ‘16 Gala
Wind-blown Cubs triumph turns into a bunch of hot air in Game 3 Witnesses to ‘45 Series should be allowed into ‘16 gala. See story below... By George Castle, CBM Historian Posted Friday, October 28, 2016 A ground ball cannot be hit for a home run. And mix in key strikeouts, including Javy Baez’s whiff on a high Cody Allen fastball for the final out, and the result was the second shutout thrown by the Cleveland Indians against the Cubs in three 2016 World Series games. The Indians got a form of hoodoo, or mojo, or something dropped from the sky with their pitching staff. They have shut down the offensively robust Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays. Now they are working on the Cubs, and they throttled their hosts 1-0 in the first World Series game at Wrigley Field since Oct. 10, 1945. Josh Tomlin was With a seemingly short starting rotation, Cleveland has tossed five hardly home-run shutouts in 11 postseason games. prone as he was in the regular season. The result has been witnessed before, but rarely catalogued in me- dia accounts. The wind blows out at Clark and Addison, a home-run barrage is pre- dicted, and a Cubs shutout is the end product. The outblowing flow was described as “brisk,” fitting for a vintage 1970s Cubs-Phillies- Mike Schmidt slugfest ending in a football-sized score. Yet the pitching tag team of Josh Tomlin, Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw and closer Allen kept the Cubs well-grounded when they weren’t executing a clutch K. -
How Baseball's Arm Whisperer Fixes Broken Pitchers
How Baseball’s Arm Whisperer Fixes Broken Pitchers Ivan Nova’s unexpected resurgence marks yet another successful reclamation project for the Pittsburgh Pirates under the tutelage of pitching coach Ray Searage. By: Jared Diamond- The Wall Street Journal Pittsburgh In today’s data-driven, power-centric version of baseball, starting pitchers tend to follow a similar formula: They throw as hard as they can for as long as they can, racking up strikeouts until they reach the 100-pitch mark, usually around the sixth inning or so. The days of one man owning the mound for 27 outs ended long ago. But it seems Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Ivan Nova never received that message. Upon arriving here in a trade with the New York Yankees last August, he has emerged as the ultimate throwback, dominating opposing lineups in a manner hardly seen for decades. In his first 15 outings for Pittsburgh, Nova completed four, more than anyone else during that span. Even more improbable, in 91 2/3 innings of work, he has issued just four total walks. That means when Nova pitches, he is equally likely to go the distance as he is to miss the strike zone four times to a given batter. “A lot of guys like to strike out everybody,” said Nova, who is scheduled to start Saturday night in Miami. “I like seeing all those ground balls and quick outs. It makes me more happy than getting 10 strikeouts.” Nova’s unexpected resurgence marks yet another successful reclamation project for the Pirates, who, under the tutelage of pitching coach Ray Searage, have reached the playoffs in three of the past four years. -
Buster Olney's Top 10 Teams
Buster Olney's top 10 teams: Are the Astros and Dodgers still baseball's best? Buster Olney Postseason performances have outsize value in Major League Baseball, and this is why David Freese shares emotional space with Bob Gibson in St. Louis, why several generations of New Englanders can deftly imitate Carlton Fisk’s frantic wave of a baseball, and why Kirk Gibson is better known for a fist pump than for his lifetime average. The executives who run front offices should divorce themselves from that romanticism of October and November results, and instead be wedded to the large sample size, before those nights when Brad Peacock and Charlie Morton were the best pitchers in baseball. And for the sake of ranking the best teams, we should probably do that too, giving greater weight to what was accomplished April through September. With that in mind, here are the top 10 teams, based on the input of evaluators, with help from ESPN researchers Mark Simon, Paul Hembekides and Sarah Langs. It’s subject to change before the start of spring training, of course, with so many veteran free agents still unsigned. 1. Cleveland Indians It’s important to remember a couple things about the Indians: (1) When the regular season ended, before anybody knew that Corey Kluber would pitch hurt against the Yankees, Cleveland was regarded as the favorite to roll through the postseason, after compiling a 22-game win streak that stretched over the better part of a month. (2) Among all contending teams, the Indians again appear to have the easiest road into the playoffs because most of their division is rebuilding -- the Tigers, the White Sox and the Royals. -
African-Americans Players Now Standouts in Baseball for Negative
African-Americans players now standouts in baseball for negative reason By George Castle, CBM Historian Posted Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017 A light should have gone on in Commissioner Rob Manfred’s head as he handled the fallout from the racial slurs and physical attacks on Baltimore Orioles’ Adam Jones on May 1 at Fenway Park. Jones was the sole African-American player on the field for the Orioles at that moment. Second baseman Jona- than Schoop of Curacao was the only other player of col- or for the Orioles, but Jones is his team’s standout star. Once-a-year casual fans with no emotional or historical investment in baseball likely were the guilty parties. No enlightened individual who loves the game, and who has been sated with three Red Sox World Series titles since 2004 is going to give Jones the kind of grief that Jackie Robinson and early black baseball pioneers endured. Idiots spending hundreds of bucks on tickets and beer, among other inflated ballpark expenditures, would be- By his singularity in the out- have like fools let loose at Fenway. If you put them back field, Adam Jones attracted the in time, say, 48 years, no way would they try to get on an lunatic fringe in Fenway Park. Orioles outfield of Don Buford in left, Paul Blair in center and Frank Robinson in right. Robinson in particular would have given back tougher than he received. You could not single out one or even all three African-Americans, even in a supposedly less enlightened, than miscreants did Jones. -
SF Giants Press Clips Sunday, August 19, 2018
SF Giants Press Clips Sunday, August 19, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle Hunter Strickland rejoins Giants, tries to regain groove John Shea CINCINNATI — Reliever Hunter Strickland not only hurt the Giants when he punched a clubhouse door on June 18, he hurt his future earning power. Strickland, who was reinstated from the 60-day disabled list Saturday, said he’s looking forward to helping the Giants win games and accepting any role manager Bruce Bochy throws at him. It won’t be the closer’s gig. Strickland lost that during his two-month absence. Left-hander Will Smith is the closer, and Strickland joins the setup contingent somewhere in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings. “Missing the whole year last year and coming back and pitching the way he is, it’s been a huge lift for the team,” Strickland said of Smith, who rehabbed from Tommy John surgery last year. “I think it’s been remarkable. Keep doing it.” After the season, Strickland will be eligible for salary arbitration for the second time. He’s making $1.55 million this year and seemed on his way to a much bigger payday, thanks to his 2.84 ERA, 8.2 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio and 28 finished games, which were most in the National League at the time he broke his right hand. 1 Strickland, who still leads the Giants with 13 saves, has six weeks to show his value by serving as a productive setup man, basically pitching as he did before the injury. He had won the closer’s job, which was supposed to go to Mark Melancon , who missed the season’s first two months. -
MLB Baseball Weekly --- Friday, April 14Th, 2006 by MATTHEW HATFIELD
MLB Baseball Weekly --- Friday, April 14th, 2006 BY MATTHEW HATFIELD Welcome to our first edition of MLB Weekly for this season on Good Friday. I’m very excited that spring has come, the temperature is beginning to warm up on a more consistent basis and baseball has begun. A lot has already transpired early on in this 2006 baseball campaign so lets get to it…. Bonds, Barry Bonds: No Laughing or Lying Matter: It never ends with Barry Bonds, does it? Third on the all-time home run list, trailing only Babe Ruth and Henry ‘Hank’ Aaron, Bonds has been the center of attention for the baseball media and sports media. No surprise either. Just look at all the stuff revolving him; he’s a human lightning rod for public interest. The latest thing in the Bonds timeline: a federal grand jury investigating whether or not he committed perjury in 2003 when he testified in 2003 that he never used steroids. The news was first broken on Thursday night by CNN. What’s it all mean? That spotlight is only going to shine brighter, and maybe not all for the better. Barry Lamar Bonds is still stuck on 708 home runs for his career, an illustrious one at that I might add. (AP) Lets take a closer look at all the happenings surrounding the man chasing the Babe as well as Aaron’s mark of 755 career dingers. Before the season, Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul, garnishing more than a few laughs. However, the steroid allegations and the release of the book ‘Game of Shadows’ was no laughing matter for the Bonds party. -
* Text Features
The Boston Red Sox Tuesday, December 1, 2020 * The Boston Globe MLB Draft League launching wooden-bat league for top draft prospects Matthew Doherty Major League Baseball is launching a wooden-bat league for top prospects who are eligible for the MLB Draft, it announced Monday. The MLB Draft League, which will be operated by the scouting service Prep Baseball Report, has five member teams and is discussing adding a sixth team in the coming weeks. Teams will play a 68-game regular season from late May to mid-August, split into two parts. The first half of the season will showcase the draft-eligible high school, college, and junior college players. After an All-Star break centered around the MLB Draft (July 11-13), teams will restock their rosters with the top undrafted players for the second half of the season. Paul Toboni, the Director of Amateur Scouting for the Red Sox, said he’s unsure whether top prospects will choose to play in the MLB Draft League. The pandemic’s effect on the spring season will also play a factor, according to Toboni. “I think it’s too early to tell,” said Toboni. “It’s tough to predict the caliber of prospect that will choose to play in this league. And I’m stating the obvious here, but how the pandemic affects spring seasons will ultimately have an impact on prospects’ willingness to play as well.” The college baseball regular season ends in mid-May and the College World Series is scheduled from June 19 - June 30 this season. -
* Text Features
The Boston Red Sox Monday, March 25, 2019 * The Boston Globe It’s a little house, it’s a man cave, it’s a private lab Alex Speier Who would want to go to a cage? For the Red Sox, the answer is just about everyone. As the Red Sox prepare to begin their title defense, the effort will start not on the field in Seattle at 7:10 p.m. EDT on Thursday but instead about 40 minutes prior to that, as players start filtering into the breeding ground of the team’s offensive culture. The batting cage, traditionally a venue whose emphasis was repetition, instead transformed into something else in the eyes of many members of the team. How do members of the team describe the cage? “A little house,” said infielder Eduardo Nunez. “A man cave,” said first baseman Steve Pearce. “Our private lab,” in the words of hitting coach Tim Hyers. It’s all of those things – and an essential part of where the Red Sox created a foundation for 119 victories in 2018. It’s worth considering all of those views of the batting cage to understand how the Red Sox formed their offensive identity and developed a top-to-bottom approach that forged the most prolific lineup in the game. Our private lab Historically, the batting cage represented an area where players simply went to loosen their muscles and to hone their swing through repetition. But those repetitions lacked purpose and detail. “There were just a lot of mindless reps taken in there,” said assistant hitting coach Andy Barkett. -
Quintana-For-Quality Kids Could Be
Quintana-for-quality kids could be biggest – and best-ever – Cubs-Sox trade By George Castle, CBM Historian Posted Thursday, July 13, 2017 Jose Quintana promises in the short run to be more impactful to the Cubs than Sammy Sosa was in 1992. Eloy Jimenez could be as valuable to the White Sox as Jon Garland was for the long run. What likely was the biggest trade in Cubs- White Sox history on July 13 – the 15th be- tween the teams involving big-league players – will be one of the uncommon deals that works out for both franchises. Jose Quintana (left) should stabilize the Cubs ro- tation for years to come, while Eloy Jimenez The Cubs have a lefty starter in Quintana (right) enlarges an impressive White Sox cache of who should rank No. 3 in the rotation, if position-player prospects. not higher as the years progress that he is under control for the North Siders. Meanwhile, outfielder Jimenez is rated in the same ballpark as top position-player prospects Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert in a Sox farm system that was almost totally barren of impact youngsters a few years ago. Sox general manager Rick Hahn played poker expertly in initiating the Quintana talks, completed late on July 12, to counterpart Theo Epstein on the final day before the All- Star break. With the July 31 trade deadline still three weeks away, Hahn took advantage of two an- gles in moving Epstein off square one. A southpaw like Quintana would likely be the subject of a numerous serious trade inquiries, including one from a revived Milwaukee Brewers team the Cubs now must catch in the NL Central. -
A's News Clips, Monday, February 1, 2010 Michael Wuertz Agrees to Two
A’s News Clips, Monday, February 1, 2010 Michael Wuertz agrees to two-year, $5.25 million contract with A's By Joe Stiglich, Oakland Tribune 1/30/2010 Michael Wuertz's stellar relief work last season didn't create much buzz, but it didn't go unnoticed by the A's brass. The team rewarded the right-handed setup man Friday with a two-year, $5.25 million contract that includes a $3.5 million club option for 2012. Wuertz, 31, was the A's last unsigned arbitration-eligible player. "I'm relieved to have a little bit of security here," Wuertz said in a phone interview. "It's just a big thing for me and my family. We really enjoyed Oakland last year, and I'm ready to be part of something special, with some of the new guys we brought in." Wuertz, acquired from the Chicago Cubs last February, was asking for $2.9 million in arbitration, while the club offered $1.9 million. A source confirmed he'll get $2.2 million in 2010 and $2.8 million in 2011, with a $250,000 buyout if his option isn't exercised. Wuertz went 6-1 with a 2.63 ERA last season in a team-high 74 appearances. His 102 strikeouts led AL relievers. That was enough for the A's to extend a multiyear offer, though they typically stick to one-year deals for arbitration- eligible players. Oakland awards Wuertz with rare multi-year deal Susan Slusser, Chronicle Staff Writer 1/30/2010 It isn't often that Oakland offers multi-year deals to its arbitration-eligible players, but Michael Wuertz's impressive performance as the A's set-up man in 2009 has earned him a two-year contract with a club option for 2012. -
Cast Off Twice by Yankees, Lincolnwood's Kontos Finds His
Cast off twice by Yankees, Lincolnwood’s Kontos finds his heart in San Francisco By George Castle, CBM Historian Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2013 In the end, it didn’t matter that George Kontos did not get to achieve glory with the New York Yankees, his original or- ganization. “I’ve always been very fortunate,” said the personable 27-year-old Lincoln- wood resident and alum of Niles West High School and Northwestern. “My goal has always been to get to the major leagues and stay there. I first I thought it was going to be with the Yankees. Then I was traded. You have to roll George Kontos addressed the Pitch and Hit Club with the punches.” banquet after receiving his award. Not even little taps on the chin the way it has turned out – given that right-handed re- liever Kontos will soon be receiving his World Series ring. Timing and location are eve- rything. Kontos could not continue with the Yankees, who fizzled out in the American League Championship Series in 2012. No problem. He was the cherry on the sundae in the San Francisco Giants’ pitching-rich Fall Classic triumph. Everywhere he went in the Chicago area during an off-season just concluded, Kontos was approached and recognized. He greeted all comers with enthusiasm. Same as he handles Giants fans, who might travel better than any other rooters of any baseball team these days. When you see fans donned in orange and black going home from Wrigley Field on the Yellow Line (Skokie Swift) L after a Cubs-Giants game, you know you’re a nationally-popular team.