Only one day game, but I’ve got nothing for it. I was sure I was going to squeeze in it somehow.
Best Game
NYM (35-36) vs NYY (45-25)
Al Leiter (2-2, 2.14) vs Brad Halsey (1-0, 3.18)
Page 2’s Daily Quicke rated this as the best interleague rivalarly (repeating the same thing in two different sections, so we know I’m not the only one proofreading here). Not that I have an anti-East Cost bias bias or anything, but this is a series between a first place team and a third place/below .500 team. The Chicago series (two seconds) and the LA series (a second and a third, but the third is much better) are much more meaningful then the Subway Series.
Someone must’ve gotten around to fixing the Questec system in Shea this season, because Leiter’s got some outstanding home numbers.
Home: 2W, 0L, 5GS, 32 IP, .221 SLG, .287 OBA, 1.13 ERA
Away: 0W, 2L, 6GS, 31 IP, .382 SLG, .341 OBA, 3.19 ERA
Unfortunatly, this is the AL home weekend.
Mets As A Staff
Home: 3.27 ERA (1st), .358 SLG (1st), .318 OBA (8th)
Away: 3.87 ERA (3rd), .391 SLG (3th), .323 OBA (3rd)
Worst Game
MON (24-46) vs TOR (31-41)
Zach Day (5-7, 3.30) vs Josh Towers (1-2, 5.33)
It’s the disappionting versus the disappionting! What a thrilling series. Obviously, there’s a work slow down in effect to protest labor unrest in hockey. Could spell tragedy for this game.
How far below expectiations has the hitting been for both teams?
excellent (> 90 percentile PECOTA forecast)
TOR F Menechino
TOR G Zaun
above average (60-90 percentile PECOTA forecast)
TOR O Hudson
MON E Chavez
average (40-60 percentile PECOTA forecast)
TOR V Wells (but a massive power drop)
TOR C Gomez
TOR F Catalanotto
TOR C Gomez
MON J Rivera
MON T Sledge
MON B Schneider
MON B Wilkerson
below average (10-40 percentile PECOTA forecast)
TOR T Batista
MON N Johnson
MON J Vidro
horrible (> 10 percentile PECOTA forecast)
TOR E Hinske
TOR J Phelps
TOR C Delgado (although this is putting it mildly)
MON O Cabrera
(Top 9 per team. BP didn’t forecast Reed Johnson, so I added in Greg Zaun)
You know, I love saying Franky Menechino as much as the next guy, but something’s gotten seriously screwed up when he’s the best slugging Blue Jay this season. Everyone’s going to have people who break out and those who fall back, but the Blue Jays unfortunatly have those people swapped around.
Expos, on the other hand, have no one breaking out. Endy Chavez is only considered above average because he’s just barely replacement level, and the predicitons for him weren’t nearly that kind. Vidro and Cabrera not hitting up to expectations, but no one else is picking up the load. Which is the difference between a bad team (Blue Jays) and a vulgarly bad team (Expos.)
Closest Game
SFG (41-32) vs OAK (40-31)
Jason Schmidt (9-2, 2.26) vs Barry Zito (4-4, 4.81)
Ooooooooh. And this series is better than Yankees/Mets too.
What was the Beane stratgy from Moneyball? Something like “you spend the first two months evaluating your team, you spend the second two months trying to make it later, and you spend the last two months letting it play out”? We’re solidly in the middle two months now.
Is Dotel the reliable missing piece for the bullpen? My recent memories of him are all biased because of the Cubs 4 game sweep in Houston, where Dotel a save. BP’s metrics rate him as average; similar runs protected to Amaury Telemaco, similair value over replacement player as Julian Tavarez, neither of which will be fetching Carlos Beltran in a deal this year or any other.
This does somewhat seem an experment to test a theory on the A’s part. There’s been talk about the A’s lacking a high speed fastball pitcher on the staff to balance out the guys who get by more on a location and break. Dotel obviously fits that description.
I think they’re going to end up doing okay on this deal, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.
Lopsided Game
STL (43-29) vs KCR (28-41)
Woody Williams (5-6, 4.66) vs Zach Greinke (1-3, 3.00)
This should be an intersting test for young Mr. Greinke, who really only owes the bad record to the 2.7 runs per game of support he’s getting. If he can get thru the Cardinals lineup, he may be as good as advertised.
Not to be pointlessly overdramatic here, but these six interleague games may end up playing a huge impact in the final NL Central standings and the future of our universe as we know it; the Cardinals are getting a huge break to play the Royals, while the Cubs and Brewers play the top two in the AL Central and Houston plays the top in AL West. There’s a slight different in quality of play, even before considering who just got shipped out of Kauffman Stadium.
Numbers on the prospects KC picked up
AAA: John Buck C .300/.368/.507 (11 E in 61 G)
AAA: Mark Teahen 3B .275/.381/.391 (0 HR in 69 AB)
AA: Mark Teahen 3B .335/.419/.543 (6 HR in 197 AB)
AAA: Mike Wood SP 2.80 ERA (4.20 ERA), .241 AVG, .298 OBA, 6.6K/9IP.
I don’t know. A catcher, a third basemen without power, and a pitcher with an inflated win total and not a lot of strikeouts. This could turn out to be yet another Royals/A’s trade yet. In Wood’s defense, there’s a lot of unearned runs on that stuff. Someone can’t field on the Rivercats.
There’s a good chance I’ll sleep thru doing this tommorow. We shall see.