MLB 2013 Regular Season thread

[Piggly Wiggly 960]

A's 3-0 against Darvish/Iwakuma in the past week. Love beating the Japanese.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Starting pitching has been off the last week and a half. ERA near 5. Makes me sad, but there was no way we were keeping up the pace we were on. Hopefully this slump is only temporary.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Pedro Alvarez has homered in 3 straight games. Pirates are playing pretty great baseball right now.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

- Manny Machado is on pace to break the single season doubles record.

 

- Pedro Alvarez has homered in 4 straight games and leads MLB in slugging percentage in the month of June with .737.

 

- Jay Bruce leads all of baseball in the month of June with 10 home runs.

[Tridentdawgpound 1,043]

Chicago reacts to news of Carlos Marmol being DFA'd.

 

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Pirates have to be a favorite for one of the wildcards now. Even if they start from today and have the same record from here on out as they did last year, they're still right there. Feels good, man.

[Tridentdawgpound 1,043]

Went to the Braves game last night. Saw my favorite Brave ever go down in history and watched us win! Awesome day. Some pics from my seat:

 

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Pirates first team in MLB to 50 wins.

 

Wat.

[housemd 338]

So a 100-win season for Pirates maybe?

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Nah, they won't be this good in the second half. Still gonna make the playoffs though. Feels good, man.

[JetsFan4Life 542]

Indians are tied for first in the AL Central.

[Piggly Wiggly 960]

Indians are tied for first in the AL Central.

Shitty ass division lol.

 

A's took 2/3 from the Cards.

 

JD lawst.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

51-30...

 

[Piggly Wiggly 960]

Copped this Memorial Day digital camo authentic jersey for 75 bucks...

 

 

u mirin'?

[Sarge+ 3,436]

The Dominating Pirates and Whether It Can Last

 

by Dave Cameron - July 1, 2013

 

A month ago, I wrote that it was time to take the Pirates seriously, as their 33-20 record was a strong enough start to put them squarely in the playoff mix, even if we didn’t think they were going to keep playing like a .622 team going forward. Well, since that post was published, the Pirates have gone 18-10, which translates into a .642 winning percentage. Rather than beginning their regression to the mean, they’ve gotten better.

 

So, now, it’s July 1st and the Pittsburgh Pirates have the best record in baseball. They have a two game in the NL Central and a 10 game lead over the Washington Nationals for the second wild card. By pretty much any objective measure you want to use, it is now likely that the Pirates are going to make the postseason this year. At this point, wondering whether or not they’ll stay in contention is something of an outdated question; now, the real query now is just how good is this Pirates team?

 

Rather than starting with win-loss record to try to determine how much of that we should take seriously, let’s work our way from the bottom up instead. Here is the wOBA and wOBA allowed for every team in baseball, sorted by the difference between the two.

 

(You'll have to click the link to see the table).

 

Despite being tied for 19th in offensive wOBA, the Pirates are 6th overall in wOBA differential because of their run prevention, which has been the very best in baseball. An average offense and elite run prevention might not be as well received as other paths to success, but there’s no question that it works if you can pull it off. There’s also no question that the Pirates overall win-loss record has gotten some help from sequencing, as a 19 point wOBA differential matches up closer to a 90 win team rather than a 100 win team.

 

Sequencing is mostly randomness, but it’s not entirely random. A team with an excellent and deep bullpen is more likely to outperform their expected win-loss record than a team with inferior relievers. There’s a reason the Chicago Cubs record doesn’t match their wOBA differential, and his name is Carlos Marmol. The Pirates bullpen, led by Jason Grilli and Mark Melancon, has been absurdly good this year, and here’s where that shows up:

 

 

I’ll let you guess which of those marks represents the Pirates’ run prevention in high leverage situations. And yes, that is the Dodgers on the far right, giving up a .360 wOBA when the game is in the balance. That Brandon League contract sure is working out well. The Pirates, for reference, are at .216; no other team is below .270. Between their three best relievers — Grilli, Melancon, and the unheralded Justin Wilson — they’ve faced 144 batters in high leverage situations and allowed opposing hitters to hit .135/.206/.194, good for a .183 wOBA. Those three have faced 39% of the total batters that have hit against the Pirates in critical situations, and they’ve been basically unhittable.

 

If you feel like we had this same story last year, you’re not wrong. The Baltimore Orioles bullpen basically carried them into the postseason last year, and even they weren’t as good at putting out fires as the Pirates relief trio has been this year. Last year, the Orioles relievers posted a +13.86 WPA, the highest mark of any relief group in baseball history. Through 81 games this year, the Pirates have a +7.42 WPA, which would prorate out to +14.84 over a full season. In other words, the Pirates bullpen has been more instrumental in winning games in the first half of 2013 than the Orioles bullpen was last year.

 

Of course, this is the kind of thing that isn’t all that predictive. The Orioles bullpen WPA is historically unique because relief pitcher performance is extremely volatile. After all, did anyone look at Jason Grilli, Mark Melancon, and Justin Wilson before the season started and say “hey, that’s an all-time great bullpen in the making”? The thing with surprisingly awesome performances is that they often end as suddenly as they started. The 2013 Baltimore Orioles bullpen has put up a +0.43 WPA. This is an unstable foundation to build upon.

 

But, also, the 2013 Baltimore Orioles are also still a good team, and still a playoff contender, even with their bullpen no longer dominating like they did a year ago. To counteract that regression, they simply turned Manny Machado and Chris Davis into superstars. It is too simple to look at a team’s performance based on great relief performances and predict that a crash is coming, because it ignores all of the players on the team that aren’t relievers, and their performances aren’t set it in stone either.

 

The Pirates bullpen is going to perform worse in the second half, if only because there’s no possible way for them to be any better. Regression is coming. But can the Pirates offset those losses by making up ground elsewhere, as the Orioles have done this year?

 

Well, it seems unlikely that anyone on their team is about to go all Chris Davis on the league, nor do they have any Manny Machados hanging out in Triple-A waiting for a promotion, but there are areas where this team can expect some improvement in the second half as well. The Pirates right fielders have hit just .227/.292/.366, so whether it is improvement from Travis Snider and Garrett Jones or a trade for a more competent outfielder, they should get a better performance from that spot on the field in the second half.

 

On Friday, Jeff noted that the Pirates pitchers have been historically terrible at hitting this yaer, posting the worst line of any group of pitchers in Major League history so far this season. Pitcher hitting doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that can make much of a difference, but in the NL, pitchers bat a couple hundred times in the course of half of a season. Going from a .092 wOBA to a .150 wOBA — roughly league average for pitcher hitting this year — doesn’t sound like it would be a big deal, but 58 points of wOBA over 175 PAs adds up to nearly nine extra runs, or almost one entire win in the current run environment.

 

There aren’t enough offsets here for the Pirates to keep this pace up, or even really keep up anything close to this pace. Our rest-of-season forecasts, which use the ZIPS/Steamer projection systems, still believe the Pirates are basically a .500 team over the rest of the season. Clay Davenport’s model gives almost the exact same result using different inputs, so it’s not just our projections being overly bearish. There’s a lot of room for regression in how the Pirates are currently winning games.

 

But at the same time, the rest of the season will not be played with the rosters as currently constructed. The Pirates .500 rest-of-season forecast does not include any July roster upgrades, and the Pirates have put themselves in prime position to make some additions to bolster their team for the stretch run. And perhaps most importantly, they’ve built a formidable cushion. Playing .500 ball the rest of the way would result in a 92-70 record, which would almost certainly be enough to capture one of the two wild card spots. And regardless of what the franchises record has been in recent second halves — seriously, any analysis that begins and ends by pointing to the second half record over the last two seasons is completely worthless — there is no objective reason to expect them to play worse than .500 over the rest of the year.

 

This Pirates team probably isn’t going to keep the Cardinals at bay, and they might even get passed by the Reds, who are a better team on paper as well. But, they’re a solid team that shouldn’t be expected to fall apart, and their roster construction could make them a very tough team to deal with in October.

 

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dominating-pirates-and-whether-it-can-last/

 

*Gronk spike*

Edited July 1, 2013 by Sarge

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Jeff Sullivan (also from FanGraphs) just picked the Pirates to end the year with 93 wins. If that happens or even a game or two less, they'll be in the playoffs easily. Someone pinch me and wake me up from this daydream.

[Bay 2,003]

Calling it right now; Scherezer takes his 1st loss of the year vs. Toronto. I actually have been thinking about this for a few days now. A feeling.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

Pirates

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Woah. We won a game yesterday! Yayyyyy. lol

[Bucman 891]

Indians pitching makes =

[Bay 2,003]

commenter 19 minutes agoI am personally so damn sick of watchin the two overpaid worthless pieces of s**t ball players.(Ug and Melvin "BJ" ) They are big time rally killers. In a playoff game they will be the weakest link. If the team continues to play these guys and Braves fail to make post season that will be the end of season tickets for me. Tonite was pathetic and they suck!

 

Hate fans like this who are fucking crybaby sissies like this. Boo hoo your team lost. Throw a tantrum.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

How did you find Trident's account on another site?

[Bay 2,003]

Players with a negative WAR:

 

Carlos Pena - 0.1

Albert Pujols - 0.1

Mark Reynolds - 0.1

B.J. Upton - 0.2 (should be worse)

Lucas Duda - 0.3

Juan Pierre - 0.3

Jon Jay - 0.3 ( really?)

Melky Cabrera- 0.4 (lolMelky)

Placido Polanco - 0.5 (Always hated this guy)

Mike Moustakas - 0.5 ()

Martin Prado - 0.6

Matt Dominguez - 0.6 (I don't even remember who the Marlins got in this deal)

Adeiny Hechavarria - 0.6

Victor Martinez - 0.8

Jeff Keppinger - 1.0

Paul Konerko - 1.2 (White Sox are lolbad, man)

Starlin Castro - 1.2 (lolCubs)

 

Marlins lead the list.

[BLUE 1,026]

MLB Rosters for the All-Star Game at Citi Field:

 

NL

 

Starters

 

C: Yadier Molina, Cardinals

1B: Joey Votto, Reds

2B: Brandon Phillips, Reds

SS: Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies

3B: David Wright, Mets

OF: Carlos Beltran, Cardinals

OF: Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies

OF: Bryce Harper, Nationals

 

Pitchers

LHP: Madison Bumgarner, Giants

LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Reds

LHP: Patrick Corbin, D-backs

RHP: Jose Fernandez, Marlins

RHP: Jason Grilli, Pirates

RHP: Matt Harvey, Mets

LHP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers

RHP: Craig Kimbrel, Braves

LHP: Cliff Lee, Phillies

LHP: Jeff Locke, Pirates

RHP: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals

LHP: Travis Wood, Cubs

RHP: Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals

 

Reserves

C: Buster Posey, Giants

1B: Paul Goldschmidt, D-backs

1B: Allen Craig, Cardinals

2B: Matt Carpenter, Cardinals

2B: Marco Scutaro, Giants

SS: Everth Cabrera, Padres

SS: Jean Segura, Brewers

3B: Pedro Alvarez, Pirates

OF: Domonic Brown, Phillies

OF: Michael Cuddyer, Rockies

OF: Carlos Gomez, Brewers

OF: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates

 

AL

 

Starters

C: Joe Mauer, Twins

1B: Chris Davis, Orioles

2B: Robinson Cano, Yankees

SS: J.J. Hardy, Orioles

3B: Miguel Cabrera, Tigers

OF: Mike Trout, Angels

OF: Adam Jones, Orioles

OF: Jose Bautista, Blue Jays

DH: David Ortiz, Red Sox

 

Pitchers

RHP: Clay Buchholz *, Red Sox

LHP: Brett Cecil, Blue Jays

RHP: Bartolo Colon @, A's

RHP: Jesse Crain *, White Sox

RHP: Yu Darvish, Rangers

RHP: Felix Hernandez, Mariners

RHP: Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners

RHP: Justin Masterson, Indians

RHP: Joe Nathan, Rangers

LHP: Glen Perkins @, Twins

RHP: Mariano Rivera, Yankees

LHP: Chris Sale, White Sox

RHP: Max Scherzer, Tigers

RHP: Justin Verlander, Tigers

 

Reserves

C: Jason Castro, Astros

C: Salvador Perez, Royals

1B: Prince Fielder, Tigers

2B: Jason Kipnis, Indians

2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox

2B: Ben Zobrist, Rays

SS: Jhonny Peralta: Tigers

3B: Manny Machado, Orioles

OF: Nelson Cruz, Rangers

OF: Alex Gordon, Royals

OF: Torii Hunter, Tigers

DH: Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays

 

You should probably get your wish for Alvraez in the Home Run Derby now, Sarge.

Edited July 7, 2013 by BLUE

[Sarge+ 3,436]

I hope so. He would probably have a pretty great showing in front of all his family and friends.