Bottom of the Ninth: That Heath Crunch for Razzball: http://razzball.com/bottom-of-the-ninth-that-heath-crunch/. Check out a roto and fantasy baseball analysis of the bullpen and closer situations for the Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals.
Posts Tagged ‘chicago white sox’
19 Apr
Any Player/Any Era: Ed Walsh for Baseball Past and Present
Any Player/Any Era: Ed Walsh for Baseball Past and Present: http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2012/04/19/playerany-era-ed-walsh/. A look into how the spitballer would have faired on the 1970 Baltimore Orioles.
5 Apr
Bottom of the Ninth: What to Look for in the First Week for Closers for @Razzball
Bottom of the Ninth: What to Look for in the First Week for Closers for Razzball: http://razzball.com/bottom-of-the-ninth-what-to-look-for-in-the-first-week/.
A look at the bullpen situations of the Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Washington Nationals.
23 Mar
Last Fantasy Baseball Debate Me of the off-season: Alejandro de Aza and Carl Crawford for @FP911
Last Debate Me of the off-season: Alejandro de Aza and Carl Crawford for Fantasy Pros 911: http://fp911.com/debate-me-alejandro-de-aza-and-carl-crawford/. I take Carl Crawford as having the more fantasy baseball and roto value, but this argument might be too close to call.
7 Feb
Baseball Daily Digest Radio with me & Joel Henard from 2.6
Baseball Daily Digest Radio with me & Joel Henard from 2.6: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thefantasyinsiders/2012/02/07/baseball-daily-digest-radio-with-joel-henard-and-albert-lang.
We discussed Jeremy Guthrie, the Baltimore Orioles, Manny Ramirez, Jeff Francis, Freddie Freeman, Gaby Sanchez, Mike Stanton, Ike Davis, Paul Goldschmidt, Brandon Belt, Yonder Alonso, Anthony Rizzo, Mat Gamel, the Miami Marlins, Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros, baseball cards, Ken griffey Jr, fantasy baseball, dynasty leagues, Jorge Posada, Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, Andrew Bailey, Justin Verlander, Jaime Moyer, Prince Fielder, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Ryan Howard, Jay Bruce, Jason Heyward, Mike Trout and much more
9 Dec
The Future of Mark Buehrle
The Future of Mark Buehrle for The Platoon Advantage
The good: since 2001, when Buehrle began 11 straight seasons of 200+ innings, Buehrle is first in the majors in innings, 21st in BB/9 (min. 400 IPs), and seventh in WAR (Fangraphs edition) behind only Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, Roy Oswalt, Javier Vazquez, Randy Johnson and Johan Santana. You can’t quibble with that consistent usefulness.
To date, Buehrle has a 3.83 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 2.48 K:BB rate and 45.9% ground ball (GB) rate. However, there are some chinks in the armor. He led the league in hits four times and, as Dave Cameron pointed out, his ERA likely benefited from some subjective ground ballness and how they are classified/scored as errors. As Cameron discovered, 10.1% of Buehrle’s runs allowed have been unearned. While his ERA puts him in great company, if you look at runs allowed, he seems more like Al Leiter, Barry Zito, Randy Wolf and Jarrod Washburn. You certainly can’t just assume all his unearned runs were a product of his insane amount of ground balls, but it is certainly possible he’s getting a little help from those scoring the games.
Another issue with Buehrle being the savior is that he’s old and has a tremendous amount of innings on his arm. Buehrle will be 33 years-old next year and has already pitched 2,476.2 innings in the majors. I wrote the majority of this before he signed, with the assumption that he would get a four-year deal, just based on the fact that every single team wanted him. I just don’t think he’ll stay productive that entire time, i.e., until his age 37 season. And I’m not sure I can find a pitcher similar to Buehrle who has.
Full article at TPA: http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2011/12/future-of-mark-buehrle.html
18 Nov
h2h Corner ~ Check You out on the Flip Side: Tim Lollar
I don’t know if I want to see a little bit of Ron Swanson in everyone, but clearly, if you major in Forestry, you have a bit of Swanson in you. According to the College Board, “If you go into forestry, you’ll have to balance growing trees for wood products with preserving the variety of living things in an area.” Apparently 119 colleges offer degrees in forestry, including SUNY Morrisville, which is near my alma mater.
Lollar had a meandering career for a guy who spent just seven years in the majors. He was drafted in the fourth round in 1978 by the New York Yankees, made his major league debut two years later and was traded the subsequent year to the San Diego Padres in a deal that brought our man and fellow flip sider, Ruppert Jones to the Pads.
He did his best and worst work for the Padres. By far, his two best seasons were 1982 and 1984. Unfortunately, his 1984 post-season experience was horrible. He started one game in the NLCS and World Series. In the NLCS, he pitched 4.1 innings and gave up three runs. He’d be mightily worse in the Series, going just 1.2 innings and giving up 4 runs.
After the season, he, Ozzie Guillen, Bill Long and Luis Salazar were traded to the White Sox for LaMarr Hoyt, Kevin Kristan and Todd Simmons. This wasn’t a particularly good trade for the Padres. Guillen was worth 14.9 WAR for the Sox and Long was worth 2.1 WAR. Salazar (-0.5 WAR) and Lollar (0.4 WAR) cancelled each other out. Meanwhile, Hoyt was worth 1.7 WAR and pitched for the Padres for just two years. Neither Kristan nor Simmons made the majors.
Aside from being part of the deal that brought Guillen to Chicago, Lollar is likely remembered for his hitting acumen. He finished with a .234/.286/.377 line, but hit 1.000/1.000/1.000 in his last year in the majors.
He did hit eight round trippers in just four seasons in the NL. And, somewhat bizarrely, he pinch hit for position players twice in the American League. The first was August 13, 1985, when he hit for Jackie Gutierrez (who finished with a .237/.261/.285 line).
The second was on August 12, 1986, when Lollar hit for Rey Quinones (another no-hit shortstop who finished with a .243/.287/.357 line). Lollar actually singled off Dan Quisenberry, but that no-hit slacker Wade Boggs grounded out afterward to end the game.
At least Lollar went out on top, singling in his last MLB at bat.
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14 Nov
h2h Corner ~ Check You Out on the Flip Side: Ray Searage
I understand that baseball is the national pastime so someone probably thought it was cute to equate most leisure activities to pastimes for the 1987 Topps set, but scuba diving? A pastime? How is that possible? I mean the majority of equipment required for scuba diving are generally more modern inventions.
Now, carpentry, that’s truly timeless. People been building stuff with wood and whatnot since opposable thumbs.
Searage’s career wasn’t exactly timeless. He was drafted in 1976 and wouldn’t make the majors until 1981 at 26 with the New York Mets. He pitched 36.2 innings and posted a 3.68 ERA and 1.39 WHIP. Not bad, eh? Well, he had a 0.94 K:BB rate, yikes. Still, he finished the year 1-0 and went 1/1 at the plate. The Mets traded Searage to Cleveland in 1982 for Tom Veryzer. This made Searage the only Met in history to have a spotless record and 1.000 batting average.
After 1981, Searage would toil in the minors, not reaching the majors again until 1984. He was now 29 and pitching for Milwaukee. He again had success (0.70 ERA and 0.94 WHIP) in limited innings (38.1). However, his success wouldn’t continue, as in the same basic amount of innings, Searage had a 5.92 ERA and 1.05 WHIP the following season.
He performed similarly poorly in 1986, so the Brewers traded him to the White Sox for Tom Hartley and Al Jones. He pitched well for the White Sox to wind down 1986, but showed very little in 1987. He was out of baseball in 1988, but came back in 1989 with the Dodgers at 34.
He pitched two season and 69 innings for the Dodgers, finishing with a 3.18 ERA and 1.28 WHIP for the club. He called it quits after 1990, arguably his best year.
With all the shuttles from the minors to the majors, it was good Searage could find work as a carpenter, maybe he even worked on erecting billboards in minor league parks. Anyway, I think he’s moved on to better pastures. And we also got more facts about Hoyt Wilhelm with this one!
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h2h Corner 