This Could Be The Year

September! 

Irradiated 20-year olds with perky breasts and perfect skin may be the only ones amongst us that do not appreciate September. Their sun-soaked bodies are slowly returning to a healthier, less cardboard-y tone and texture and they are not pleased. I can only imagine the mental struggles that accompany such an event. Life is hard.

For everyone else, September is the fucking best. September is when baseball and football share the profound experience of simultaneous orgasm. Maybe October's your thing, but October's bogged down with shitty sports like hockey and basketball. It's also getting cold in October. Fuck October.

Today, a few things will happen:

The Orioles will play the Tampa Bay Rays and the Chicago Bears will play the Green Bay Packers. I will also probably consume a large amount of nachos. September is the best.

The MLB Fan Cave Is Cool And All

But, this legitimately looks like the Always (w/o wings) Wall of Fame.

Los Angeles, Where Weird People Go.

Full Disclosure: I've never been to Los Angeles. Mind you, I'm not one to try things that I do not like. I'm not going to eat horse, despite President Obama's personal recommendation to me via the internet. I'm not going to read The Hunger Games despite the mad shout-out in Justin Bieber's take on "Call Me Maybe."

Seriously, are these kids not the coolest kids that you know? I'd hang out with Ashley Tisdale.

With all of this said, Los Angeles seems like an awful place to live and I have no intention of ever visiting that part of California.

But, it must be one hell of a time to be an LA Sports Fan.

The Kings are up 3-0 over the Blues and should make the Conference Finals as an 8 Seed.

The Lakers are up 2-1 over the Nuggets, and hell, even the Clippers are holding their own.

The Dodgers are the second best team in baseball (tied) and Matt Kemp is going God-Mode on opposing pitching. Twelve Home Runs is absurd.

Also, there's a fucking super moon tonight. SUPER MOON!

My Ubuntu Experience

I love linux. I really do. I used to be a Slackware nerd before discovering Gentoo. Having my computer act exactly as I intended with little bloat was probably an ego thing. I loved it. Then, I got lazy. I started using Ubuntu.

After leaving my phone at a friend's house, I had to install a computer alarm clock. Alas, the Alarm Clock application combined with Ubuntu has resulted in hilarity. What song would I choose?

T.G.I.F, T.G.I.F, T.G.I.F!

But, for some unknown reason, the alarm clock just kept replicating itself. NB: I'll always reference my own stupidity as 'some unknown reason.' I'm now blessed with a bunch of instances of the same alarm...


kristopher@kristopher-studio:~$ ps aux | grep alarm
1000      3407  0.0  0.1 387224  5332 ?        Sl   May01   0:00 /usr/lib/evolution/3.2/evolution-alarm-notify
1000      6935  0.0  8.9 1682960 363404 ?      Sl   May01   4:16 alarmclock
1000     15525  0.0  5.5 1287996 223228 ?      Sl   May03   1:33 alarmclock
1000     16979  0.0  4.7 1222552 193764 ?      Sl   May04   0:32 alarmclock
1000     17001  0.0  4.7 1222572 193732 ?      Sl   May04   0:32 alarmclock
1000     17015  0.0  0.5 870792 22240 ?        Sl   May04   0:10 alarmclock
1000     24884  2.8  0.6 812844 24504 ?        Sl   09:00   0:00 alarmclock
1000     24956  0.0  0.0   9380   908 pts/0    S+   09:00   0:00 grep alarm

Each alarm begins just milliseconds apart and makes sure to tell me that it is not happy about playing so many sounds at once.

It seems like only Ubuntu truly understands my love of Katy Perry.

Jason Grilli

I'll always remember Grilli's performance in the 2009 World Baseball Classic against Team Canada. It angered me.

Jason missed the entire 2010 season after surgery on his right knee (karma) and dominated AAA (karma) for the Phillies prior to signing with the Pirates (karma karma).

The 35-year old Grilli has been really, really good since signing with the Pirates though. Apparently he's paid his karma-bounty in full and is free to dominate the base and ball game.

I have absolutely no clue how this came to be, though.

Prior to his knee injury, Grilli posted ERAs of 5.40, 6.08, 7.40, 3.38, 4.21, 4.74, 3.00, and 5.32. Basically what you'd expect from a journeyman.

Then, 2011 happened. Grilli was still throwing about 92mph on the heater. Grilli was still throwing a breaking pitch about a third of the time. So what the hell happened?

	Pitch	Count	Frequency	H. Mvt	V. Mvt	Mph	H. Rel	V. Rel	Spin Θ	RPM
2007	Slider (SL)	176	25%	6.18	-29.11	85.67	-3.07	6.69	123	708
2008	Slider (SL)	490	40%	7.46	-29.53	84.84	-2.94	6.74	119	861
2009	Slider (SL)	305	32%	5.76	-26.27	85.11	-3.08	6.61	144	939
2011	Slider (SL)	195	38%	12.48	-37.59	81.91	-3.04	6.4	79	1348
2012	Slider (SL)	58	36%	9.99	-33.94	83.04	-3.21	6.5	92	1041

Cool.

That's almost a brand-new pitch and batters have been having a hell of a time with it. Batters have went from swinging at about a quarter of the pitches that Grilli throws outside of the zone (league average) to swinging at 40% of 'em.

After posting a 10.19 K/9 in 2011, Grilli's sitting pretty with a 16.20 K/9 mark in 2012.

What The Hell Guys?

Chris Sale found himself privy to the council many of my fantasy starters receive upon being drafted to my make-believe baseball squad. I invested time in Chris Sale and I'm rewarded with.... this?

If this is an injury concern then, well, treat the injury. If this a move to lessen the wear-and-tear on Sale's left elbow then someone needs to remind Kenny Williams that according to the Mayan Calender, 2012 is the year of the Closer Apocalypse*.

Sale is an asset not a relief pitcher. Addison Reed is a relief pitcher. A really, really, really good relief pitcher.

Why doesn't Chicago limit the number of sliders that Sale hucks rather than limiting the pitches?

*Andrew Bailey, Mariano Rivera, Joakim Soria, Drew Storen, Brian Wilson, Sergio Santos, Kyle Farnsworth, Ryan Madson, etc.

Drabek On The Bump

My fascination with Drabek's stuff is well documented. Last night against the Rangers, a game that I unfortunately missed, Drabek looked sharp against a plethora of smash-killing bats possessed by the best club in baseball.

Again, according to someone that loves baseball and is probably smarter than you, the keys to Drabek's success are as follows:

1. Continued control over the change-up.
2. Improved control on the sinker.
3. Some whiffs on the bender.

And, how.

Drabek's control over the change wasn't astonishing, but he continued to use it as a swing and miss pitch. Opposing batters are swinging and missing 12.5% and Monday against the Rangers, he managed a couple whiffs on fourteen changes. Rarely was Drabek's change in the zone against the Rangers, but that's to be expected against a line-up featuring only one opposite-handed batter as Josh Hamilton was given the night off.

Furthermore, Drabek found himself going to the cutter 18 times against the Rangers; eleven of which resulted in strikes, and four ended in whiffs. As seen by the green triangles, Drabek located the cutter extremely well against both lefties and righties by keeping it down and away. Drabek made his name as a prospect on the back of his cutter, but had drastically decreased its usage to open the season. Drabek's increased reliance on the cut-fastball over the past two games is something worth monitoring.

As for Drabek's sinker, he managed to throw 23 of 36 for strikes, despite being a little wild. He kept most of them off the heart of the plate and worked the edges well, but elevated more of them than I'd like to see.

Finally, it was nice to see Drabek really go to his breaking pitch as a means of inducing whiffs. Drabek threw 12 curveballs and nine of them went for strikes. Furthermore, he managed five whiffs on the pitch. For the game, Drabek induced 18 swing and misses and looked incredibly sharp. Drabek's 1.73 K:BB Ratio certainly isn't stellar, but it's blowing the pants off last year's horrendous 0.93 K:BB rate.

Drabek's certainly out-pitching his peripherals with a shiny 2.40 ERA, but there's plenty of reason to believe in the kid. 

Free: Brandon Belt

Imagine you are a fly on the wall in the Giants front office.

Smack. You are dead. Brian Sabean hates flies. As the longest tenured GM in baseball, he's become rather adept at killing them.

But what comes after is marvellous. Not only does Sabean kill you (which he wouldn't have been able to do had you remained human) but he also turns Bruce Bochy into the Manchurian Manager.

"Hopefully going out there every day, he's going to get comfortable"

These are words that came out of Bruce Bochy's mouth.

Aero Bars

Lovely Lady #1 suggests, "Get the Aero Bar"

Lovely Lady #2 responds, "...but it tastes like soap!"

Lovely Lady #1 retorts, "It has all those air bubbles in it, so there's less calories."

Occasionally I overhear conversations and I smile. This was one of those moments.

Latin America: Cultural Hot Bed.

Regardless of subject, be it art, literature, or economics, I find myself perplexed by most references to the works of influential Latin Americans. Latin American names, you see, apparently coincide with the baseball portion of my brain. 

Without fail, any reference to Diego Rivera will illicit an impromptu scouting report: "Couldn't hit a change-up, but mashed the straight stuff. Got stuck in AA and never lived up to his potential"

MLB.com, Hrm.

I'm not really a Star Wars fan, but in Toronto, raising one's hand while forcefully lowering the other hand onto the head of a robot of the opposite sex signifies enjoyment whilst receiving a dirty gummer.

How this is the ultimate father-son experience is beyond me, but our boy C3PO looks to be having one hell of a time.

PS: I have Arizona (-1.5) parlayed with LAA (-1.5) and PHI (-1.5) for a pretty decent payout. Hopefully this turns out well. We'll see though.

Drabek on the Mound: Redux

Before Drabek's start, I posted words on the internet.

What I'd Like To See Today:

1. Continued control over the change-up.

1. Improved control on the sinker.

1. Some whiffs on the bender which he only threw five times against the Red Sox

Let's go ahead and peg Drabek for 7IP, 3ER, 6K, 3BB. You'd take that, right?

I would say that Drabek outperformed my optimistic guestimate with his 7.1 IP, 2R, 1ER, 1BB, 6K performance.

Now, to the points:

The Drabek Change-Up:

Hot damn. Drabek threw eleven change-ups and didn't disappoint. It again had terrific sink to it and managed a swinging strike rate of just under 45%. Dirty.

The Drabek Two-Seamer:

I would say throwing 40 two-seamers and getting 27 strikes aint all that shabby. Toss in an average velocity of 93.7mph and it's pretty gosh-darn good. Drabek only managed three swing and misses on the sinker, but the pitch was incredibly effective for him.

The Drabek Breaking Pitch:

Drabek only threw fourteen breaking pitches, but managed strikes on eight of 'em. Of course, he only got whiffs on two of those fourteen pitches, but he really didn't to use the bender as an out-pitch.

All and all, a pretty impressive outing.  Here's some brooks' data to sort through:

Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	93.41	95.3	-3.64	7.19	34	21 / 61.76%	1 / 2.94%	1.6453	0.402
CH (Changeup)	84.99	86.8	-6.80	1.19	11	6 / 54.55%	5 / 45.45%	-0.1644	0.439
SL (Slider)	80.64	81.7	4.39	-4.44	9	5 / 55.56%	2 / 22.22%	-0.9009	0.463
CU (Curveball)	80.42	81.6	4.06	-4.31	5	3 / 60.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.4157	0.465
FC (Cutter)	90.90	91.9	0.21	4.09	4	1 / 25.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.6174	0.408
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	93.76	95.2	-8.04	4.86	40	27 / 67.50%	3 / 7.50%	-0.7651	0.401

Kevin Gregg: The Worst.

Kevin Gregg is the worst pitcher in the entire history of ball sports, including but of course not limited to, baseball.

Thanks, Buddy.

Old-Timey, New Timey.

Multitasking is something that my generation does remarkably well. Sure, old-timey housewives could manage a family while smoking, cleaning, and drinking copious amounts of red wine, but it's my generation that reigns supreme in the realm of multitasking.

The objects that we interact with are built for multitasking. My broom, specifically, acts not just as a sweeping tool, but also as an air guitar. It is currently functioning quite well as I've recently discovered Katy Perry. Also, my apartment is very dirty. I may be embracing Katy Perry's hit anthem Last Friday Night a little too much.

With that said, my television seems to be built as a single purpose device and is certainly unsuitable for baseball. Unsuitable at best! 

Baseball deserves nostalgia. Baseball deserve analysis. The television offers neither. Hint: Buck Martinez is stupid.

As such, I'll continue to crank the radio to the Fan 590 AM while viewing the Blue Jays pfx data via MLB Advanced Game Day. I'll do both these things while typing up a blog post and listening to Katy Perry's artistic masterpiece, Teenage Dream.

Over 99 million people watched this video on youtube before me and I sincerely hope that you were one of them.

Drabek On The Mound

So Kyle Drabek's set to take the mound against the O's later today and I'm cautiously optimistic. Drabek's currently sitting pretty with just a single earned run against in five and change innings, but the secondary statistics are still reason for concern.

Drabek's first start against the Red Sox was an intriguing one. Only righties were able to snag hits off him (Youkilis, Pedroia, Ross) and only lefties managed walks (Ortiz, Sweeney, Ellsbury.) Drabek finished up with a WHIP of 1.125, but the K:BB ratio of 1.33 wasn't exactly...ideal. With that said, Boston's fairly patient and Drabek showed some serious improvements.

First, he felt comfortable going to his change-up against lefties. He had pretty solid command and control over the pitch, and really only made one blunder. Against Boston's big lefties, I incorrectly assumed that Drabek would go cutter-heavy. Brooks Baseball listed two pitches as cutters, but you could probably argue for a handful more after viewing the pfx data. Drabek's change-up looked decidedly major-league level. There was added sink, further velocity separation, and quality arm-side run.

The only real issue Drabek had against the Sox was locating his sinker. The pitch had terrific velocity, sink and arm-side run, but was all over the zone. Drabek went to it about a quarter of the time, but almost 61% of the pitches went for balls. Against lefties, Drabek somehow managed to toss almost 70% of his two-seamers for balls. On the plus side, the Red Sox just couldn't do anything with the pitch when they swung. They'd miss it, foul it, or pound it into the dirt.

Now, for the phrase that you've heard a thousand of times:

Kyle Drabek needs to trust his stuff.

Drabek looks primed for a break-out sometime soon if he can just trust his stuff. He may never be the 8K-per-9 pitcher that everyone expected, but he's got the arsenal to be a very good player.

Baltimore's a righty-heavy squad so Drabek should fair well. Only Markakis, Davis and the switch-hitting Wieters will have the platoon advantage. If Drabek pitches a good game, we could see some solid strike-out numbers. If Drabek tries to get too fancy and makes mistakes, the Orioles certainly have the power in their bats to make him pay.

What I'd Like To See Today:

1. Continued control over the change-up.
2. Improved control on the sinker.
3. Some whiffs on the bender which he only threw five times against the Red Sox

Let's go ahead and peg Drabek for 7IP, 3ER, 6K, 3BB. You'd take that, right?

Travis Snider. Again.

I will not dub Travis Snider a AAAA player. I just can't do it. Currently, he's the Jays best option for LF, and possibly even CF. Tell me if you've heard this one before, but Travis Snider's pummelling AAA pitching:

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	Lev	Aff	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB
2012	24	Las Vegas	PCL	AAA	TOR	8	39	35	8	15	4	0	3	15	0	1	4	5	.429	.487	.800	1.287	28	1	0	0	0	0

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/15/2012.

So Uh. Snider went 4-for-5 on Friday with a double and a grand-slam. Pretty okay.

As long as Snider can right the ship and not look awful against fastballs, he'll be fine. I have trouble attributing Snider's inconsistency and ineffectiveness against fastballs over the past two years to anything except a lingering injury. I understand his problems with sliders, but there's no reason why he should look so foolish against the high heat.

Henderson Alvarez: Opening Night

Alvarez still isn't striking batters out, but he was once again quite effective. The dip in velocity was to be expected, I suppose:

--

The pfx camera for this game was a bit whacky and gave Alvarez one hell of an arsenal.

Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	93.01	96.5	-6.16	-3.08	32	21 / 65.63%	1 / 3.13%	0.0918	0.397
CH (Changeup)	84.62	86.9	-4.10	-6.08	13	8 / 61.54%	0 / 0.00%	-0.7318	0.435
SL (Slider)	85.45	89.4	2.77	-3.36	19	11 / 57.89%	1 / 5.26%	-0.5762	0.432
FC (Cutter)	94.75	95.4	-1.53	0.30	2	1 / 50.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.0135	0.389
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	93.24	95.9	-9.07	-4.35	29	18 / 62.07%	0 / 0.00%	-0.4403	0.398

Those are some pretty heavy pitches, and should probably be adjusted about six-to-seven inches upwards on the vertical axis (this set doesnt include gravity).

Even still, Alvarez got quality movement. I was strangely surprised by his cutter last night, it's not a terrible pitch and gets pretty solid movement compared to his two-seamer. Definitely, the biggest problem is Alvarez's lack of swinging strikes: Two combined swinging strikes is a bit of a problem, even if you are getting tonnes of groundballs.

Furthermore, it is just one game, but it was nice to see Alvarez go to the slide-piece fairly often.

The fans also turned on the Blue Jays quick-fast. It's too be expected given that this is Maple Leaf country.

Revisiting The Nolascos

I'm back from the Jays home opener, although this'll certainly get posted tomorrow morning. Sergio Santos has blown two saves in a row, but his stuff is still filthy. The BB% will make this year very, very interesting.  Let's revisit my case of the Nolascos:

Ricky Nolasco: 8IP, 6H, 3R, 3ER, 6K, 0BB, 0.75 WHIP

Brandon Morrow: 7IP, 1H, 2R, 0ER, 3K, 3BB, 0.57 WHIP

Zack Greinke: 7IP, 4H, 0R, 0ER, 7K, 0BB, 0.57 WHIP

Chad Billingsley: 8.1IP, 3H, 0R, 0ER, 11K, 1BB, 0.48 WHIP

Matt Garza: 6IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, 5K, 1BB, 1.00 WHIP

Daniel Hudson: 6.2IP, 5H, 4R, 4ER, 4K, 2BB, 1.05 WHIP

Derek Holland: 6IP, 3H, 3R, 3ER, 5K, 3BB, 1.00 WHIP

James McDonald: 6IP, 4H, 2R, 2ER, 3K, 2BB, 1.00 WHIP

Josh Johnson: 6IP, 10H, 3R, 3ER, 4K, 2BB, 2.00 WHIP

Mike Minor: 5IP, 6H, 6R, 6ER, 6K, 4BB, 2.00 WHIP

Josh Johnson and Mike Minor ruined a perfectly good first week. Boo-urns.

A Case of the Nolascos.

Yup, I've got 'em. There's no known cure for the Nolascos. Penicillin doesn't do a thing. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation or RICE just makes 'em worse. If you've been playing fantasy baseball more than five years, I bet you've got 'em too.

There are just some players out there that you cannot avoid. Every year, you pick 'em. They're like scabs that just won't heal.  If Doctor Gregory House (who's finally back to my internet tv tomorrow) were my doctor, his white board would read as follows:

Ricky Nolasco: Every year he posts a FIP in the 3.50 range, a walk rate under 2.00 batters per 9, and a half-decent K-Rate. Every freakin' year. Last year Nolasco posted a WHIP of 1.40 and I still can't avoid taking him in deeper leagues.

Brandon Morrow: Since joining the Blue Jays, he's struck out more than a batter per inning and posted back-to-back xFIPs of 3.50ish.

Zack Greinke: It's not a bad thing to have Greinke on your roster, but I've spent years assuming he's probably the best pitcher in the game. I was rewarded in 2009, but since then random chance has decided that another Cy Young award just isn't in his cards.

Chad Billingsley: Just when I thought he was on the verge of making the hump to 8.00 K/9 and lowering his BB/9 to under 3.00, 2011 happened and he sucked. It's not like that'll stop me from drafting him, though.

Matt Garza: Hrm. His playoff performances really made a name for him, but up until last year, he was routinely average. Finally his fastball-slider combination lived up to the hype and he had a pretty solid year.

Daniel Hudson: Hudson has actually looked pretty sharp and I think 2012 is the year he gets that K-Rate above 8-per-9 while maintaining a BB-Rate of under 2-per-9. Should make the jump from good to great this year.

Trevor Cahill / Brett Anderson: Cahill got traded and while the move out of Oakland will hurt, facing a pitcher rather than DH will certainly help. He's a ground-ball pitcher, but there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to get Ks with his slider, curve and change. They all have respectable whiff/swing rates. Could be in for a break-out year.  As for Anderson, he's hurt and hasn't been able to ever put it together. I love the former Oakland duo and maybe Anderson comes back strong. I've been stashing him on my DL in a handful of leagues.

Derek Holland: He broke out in last year's playoffs, but I fear he might be overvalued because of it. I still think that Holland's five pitch arsenal is one of the better ones in the game and his control is only going to get better.

James McDonald: Still Waiting. McDonald was awful to open the season and awful to close it, but everything in between was stellar. Remove his 7.66 ERA in March/April and his 4.95 ERA in Sept/Oct and you've got a pretty solid pitcher.

Josh Johnson: I'm sure you can guess why.

Mike Minor: I've got a feeling that he'll be a mainstay on this list. With Atlanta's current rotation he's already undervalued. Toss in Delgado, Teheran and Vizcaino and Minor will be overlooked for the next ten years.

A few more and then guys that'll probably be on this list next year: Jon Niese, Phil Hughes, Brian Matusz, Kyle Drabek, Nathan Eovaldi.

Yah, this basically accounts for the majority of my pitching staffs in almost every league that I'm in.

Brett Lawrie's April Fools Joke.

Upon reading this...

And it was a April Fools joke I'm not guna be a Padre ahah #Suave
— Brett Lawrie (@blawrie13) April 1, 2012

I was left contemplating what outcome would be more terrifying(ly awesome) for Blue Jays fans:

A) The 22-Year old Lawrie bridled with the responsibility of parenthood

or

B) The 22-Year old Lawrie playing for the Padres.

....

In the end, I decided that I would be okay with either. Brett would almost certainly post numerous irresponsible parent photos to twitter. If anyone's going to paint a Jose Bautista beard on a baby, it's going to be Brett Lawrie. If anyone's going to challenge their infant to a game of Edward 40-hands, it's going to be Lawrie. Plus, as an added bonus, we'd get to listen to Lawrie talk about how being a father forced him to mature overnight in an overtly sarcastic tone.

On the other hand, the only team with a farm system as deep as Toronto's is San Diego. It'd probably take Yonder Alonso, Rymer Liriano, Jedd Gyorko, and Robbie Erlin to get Brett Lawrie and Toronto would be absolutely posed for a run in 2014-2015. Oh yah, we'd get Jaff Decker too (because he's fat, coming off a sub-par year, and would make a solid DH.)