Today’s Gams

The rule is – or, let’s be honest, Jim Baker’s rules, since I’m just using the template for his old e-mail newsletter and occasional BProspectus column – is that you don’t neccesarly do the same matchups the same day to avoid boredom. (This handly lets me write some of this the night before instead of squeezing it in around my normal schedule!) I’ll try to note when I’m skipping around from what’s mathamatically correct.

Also, unless I have a tremendous amount of fun or massive support or lots of free time, I’m only doing this gig for this week. (Regularly?) Don’t worry, I’ll talk about silly wrestling things eventually!

Best Game Of The Day
CHC (40-30) vs STL (41-29) – did it
MIN (38-31) vs BOS (36-31)
Carlos Silva (7-4, 4.13) vs Derek Lowe (6-5, 5.25)

5.25 seems pretty bad, but 5.25 after an 18 inning streak without an earned run seems even worse with a nice upside. What’s the amazing reason for his turnaround?

H/9 IP
2003 9.6
APR 12.7
MAY 13.3
JUN 5.6

Less hits = less runs, who’d thunk it. (He’s getting more groundballs too.)

Worst Game of The Day
DET (31-38) vs KCR (27-40) – sure why not
Gary Knotts (4-1, 4.25) vs Darrell May (4-8, 5.96)

I’d like to admit right now I have no idea who Gary Knotts is. It happens.

There comes a point in every season where, despite what they may read in Gammons columns or hear from Bud Selig, there are not really 30 teams do not have a chance for a World Series. There’s really like 15 who have a chance without some sort of miracle happening. Kansas City has realized they’re not one of those teams and have started to jettison those they can. Compartively, Seattle may get clued in sometime in Novemeber. Tampa’s going to enjoy their current ride, but hopefully even they’ll realize when it’s over, it’s over.

I think in most situations, I’d think the Tigers should take that same perspective; enjoy your surge towards averge-ness which this Kansas City series will undoubtly provide, but be ready to move anyone who’s worth anything in the very near future. The point is win now, or do whatever you can to win soon, and playing for 3rd doesn’t work.

There might be a exception here, given how completely horrible they were last year (although, oddly enough the worst team in the last 25 years wasn’t good enough to make ESPN’s list of the worst teams of the last 25 years). If you trade away players for prospects, aren’t you also trading any new regained credibility with them? There needs to be more some semblance of a plan here if anything that’s been gained is to be kept, rather than routine rebuilding.

Trying to make sense of my thoughts here: if you can talk the A’s into Urbana or whatever, good. But instead of going after B or C level prospects (getting an A level guy for a rent-a-player seems a thing of the past), the Tigers would benefit greater from trying to move one of their (other) bigger albatrosses.

Higginson $8.85mil this year, $11.85mil next year
D. Young $7.13mil this year, $7.13mil next year
J Johnson $3mil this year, $4mil next year
(Outside of Pudge, everyone else is just for this season or low for next year.)

It hasn’t taken a high salaried team to win in the AL Central the last few years, and there’s no reason to think that’ll change next year. They’ll only be carrying $37mil in salary for next season if they don’t make any moves, but if they do clear off the roster some more this season, they’ll have room for another free agent driven improvement next season.

Closest Game of The Day
LAD (37-31) vs SFG (39-32)
Jeff Weaver (5-7, 4.53) vs Jerome Williams (6-5, 4.59)
SF’s win last night moved them into first place; it’s all wacky percentages because the Giants have played 3 games more at this point.

MLB.com has a pitcher matchup preview page. Usually, they’ll give you 20+ words about the pitcher’s last start and his season so far. Here’s what they put for Jeff: “Weaver got his revenge by beating the Yankees.” There’s not quite the personal subtext for this one.

You could have a long debate if Jerome Williams or Dustin Hermanson is the second best starter on this team, but either way you look at it, they’re not close to Jason Schmidt.

VORP of the five guys with the most starts
Schmidt 33.0
Hermanson 6.6
Williams 5.7
Rueter 2.0
Tomko -10.2

Hmm, one guy very much better than the rest of his colleagues on the Giants, how familiar.

Highest Position Player VORPs
Bonds 56.6
Tucker 16.3

Oddly enough, even though Bonds is worth more than one and half Schmidt’s, Bonds is only 347% better than his next closest, while Schmidt is an even 500% better than his next closest. (I suspect those numbers might be different if compared the players vs the team average, but I’m not sure.)

Lopsided Game of The Day
NYY (44-24) vs BAL (28-38)
Jon Lieber (5-4, 4.83) vs Erik Bedard (1-2, 4.33)

I’m thinking Baltimore might be making frequent apperances in this category; two good teams and one really bad in the same divison don’t make for a great combo.

I didn’t think Lieber would be a great fit for the Yankees; he’s a guy who will create lots of defensive chances while keeping the ball in the park, but this isn’t a team built around taking advantage of lots of defensive chances. ESPN.com has recently added DIPS to their sortable stats, and it’s always fun to play with a new toy.

Leiber’s actual ERA is 4.83, but indepedent of defense, you’d expect it to be 4.38. That’s about a half a run on the bad side, but still not as bad as I expected it to be.

Erik Bedard is another AL guy I’m not familair with, but the notes indicate this may be a make or break start for him. I’m not sure why, because he’s got decent numbers the last couple times out.

06/04 3IP, 5R, 86Pitches
06/12 5IP, 2R, 99Pitches
06/17 5IP, 1R, 86Pitches

Obviously, going deep into games has been a problem for him (longest outing of the year is 6 2/3rds), and he’s shown the inconsistency you might expect from a young pitcher, but it’s not like the O’s have a surplus of good pitchers at the moment or are contending for anything but draft position already. Might as well give him the full season to figure if he can consistenly make it to 100 pitchers before bottoming out.