Start of The Week

Okay so i'm sure you've heard of Phillip Humber's perfect game by now. He has been invading this blog with a post about his perfect game, earning MVP of the weekend, and now Start of The Week. Humber pitched last night and got roughed up by the Red Sox.  I guess he got lucky one time in his career, but that is all that matters. He achieved baseball's immortality, 27 up and 27 down. Phillip Humber will be in the history books forever next to names like Sandy Koufax, Roy Halladay, and David Cone as players to pitch perfect games. Although Humber never reached the caliber of excellence that the three pitchers mentioned did, he still shares something in common with them. Maybe Humber is more comparable with a guy like Dallas Bradon; two people not expected to ever pitch a perfect game.

Yu Got What I Need

Two stars from Japan went head to head last night. The game between the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers was practically broadcasted worldwide. The Rangers came out on top in a 2-0 win over the Yankees.

Yu Darvish was spectacular. He pitched 8 and 1/3 innings collected 10 strikeouts and didn't give up a run. Hiroki Kuroda gave up 2 run over 6 and 2/3 innings while getting 5 strikeouts. There was a lot of hype on this game and the end resulted in Yu Darvish proving that he can compete at at major league level.

Kuroda has the 5th most wins in Japan and Darvish is a superstar in Japan. There two going head to  head was a trill for people all of the world. Both performed well, but Darvish just baffled the Yankee hitters.

Pudge Retires

After a long and fantastic career Ivan Rodriguez retires. Collecting several honorable awards and a world series ring, Ivan Rodriguez is considered one of the best catchers of all time.

Ivan Rodriguez also known as Pudge by many is compared with catchers like Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra. I believe that's an excellent comparison. Pudge is a 14 time all star, a 13 time gold glove award winner, a 7 time silver slugger award winner, the 1999 AL MVP and a part of the 2003 Marlins world championship team. That's a nice resume.

The only thing Pudge couldn't get to was 3000 hits. It was a matter of time and perhaps 2 more seasons would have put him there, but there wasn't any teams requesting his service. He ends his career with 2844 hits, 311 home runs, and a .296/.334/.464 slash-line (batting average/ on base percentage/slugging percentage) over 21 seasons with 6 teams.

Most of Rodriguez's time was spent with the Texas Rangers, almost 60% of his games. He spent 5 seasons with the Tigers and was on the 2003
Florida Marlins. His 2427 games caught is the most all time.  

MVP of the Weekend

The MVP of the weekend is probably obvious. It goes to Philip Humber. Humber is just the 21st player in baseball history to reach baseball immortality. A perfect game is one of the most exciting things you can ever witness. 9 innings 0 hits 0 runs 0 walks and 9 strikeouts. 27 up and 27 down. Besides Humber, Nick Swisher had a pretty successful weekend collecting 7 RBI's and 2 home runs including a grand slam.

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

What a busy Saturday April 21, 2012. A perfect game, a 9-0 comeback win, a double header between two powerful teams, and several great pitching performances.

Lets start off with The Humber Games. The 21st perfect game in MLB history goes to the 29 year old Phillip Humber. Collecting 9 strikeouts against The Seattle Mariners Humber enters baseball history as another pitcher to complete baseball immortality. A very exciting game for baseball fans all over the country and congratulations to Phillip Humber.

The next thing to talk about is the greatest rivalry in sports history. The Yankees beat the Red Sox in the first game of a 3 game set 6-2. In game 2 of the weekend series The Red Sox looked dominant through the first 6 innings. Starter Felix Doubront pitched 6 innings and gave up just 1 run, a solo home run to Mark Teixeira. Doubront was taken out after the 6th inning with a 9-1 lead. The problem for The Red Sox this season has been the bullpen and yes they did not perform well. A grand slam and a 2 run double for Nick Swisher and a 3 run homer and a 2 run double for Teixeira lead The Yankees to  an momentous 15-9 victory over The Red Sox.

A double header between The Tigers and The Rangers took place on Saturday as well. In the first game Rick Porcello got rocked pitching only 1 inning while giving up 8 runs. The Rangers got an easy victory in that game. In the night game Justin Verlander took the hill for The Tigers and Neftali Feliz took the hill for The Rangers. Feliz went 8 innings giving up 3 runs and Verlander went 6 innings giving up only 1 unearned run. The two teams split the double header.

AJ Burnett made his first start of the season after recovering from an injury in spring training. He pitched 7 shutout innings against The Cardinals. He was acommponied by Justin Verlander, Stephan Strasburg, Clayton Kershaw and Phillip Humber as starters to not allow a run on Saturday.





What will Sunday hold?

Start of the Week

Matt Cain making another appearance on this blog. 

This weeks start of the week goes to Matt Cain. No not Matt Cain's shutout against The Phillies, but his Shutout against The Pirates. One week ago today Matt Cain pitched a complete game shutout against The Pittsburgh Pirates.

On April 13, 2012 Matt Cain's performance was the best of the season so far. He gave up only 1 hit and 0 walks while striking out 11 batters. The one hit came from the opposing pitcher. Matt Cain's next start should be against The Reds.

A Good Ol' Pitching Duel

In San Francisco last night 2 aces went head to head. Cliff Lee and Matt Cain are both racking up the big bucks now, but who will come out on top. Cliff Lee came into the game coming off a rocky outing against The Mets in his past. Matt Cain is coming into the game to follow up a shutout against The Pirates.

Matt Cain was going hard giving up just 2 hits and 1 walk while racking up 4 strikeouts. He did the preceding over 9 innings of scoreless ball. As for Cliff Lee what could I say about his performance? Lee gave up 7 hits but no walks and collected 7 strikeouts over 10 scoreless innings of work. Yes you read it correctly; a 10 inning shutout. Both pitchers would get a no decision, but The Giants would win in the 11th inning on a walk off single by Melky Cabrera scoring Brandon Belt.

The Giants win 1-0 in a great game!

Jamie Moyer

Moyer 2012

Yesterday Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher to ever win a major league game. At the age of 49 years and 150 days old Moyer got the win against The San Diego Padres in a 5-3 victory. Moyer pitched 7 innings and gave up 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. His season statistics are as follows: 2.55 ERA, 1 win and 2 losses, and 6 strikeouts.

Moyer 1986

Moyer has led a very long and accomplished career making it to the big leagues in 1986. I wasn't even born in 1986. Moyer had the most success with The Seattle Mariners collecting 145 wins with an ERA of 3.97. During his time with the mariners he had a 20 win and a 21 win season along with many other successful seasons. Moyer finished April 17th with 268 wins for his career.

What is Wrong With Lincecum

Tim Lincecum has had 3 rocky starts this season. This is not the Lincecum that won 2 Cy Young awards and led the league in strikeouts in 3 out of 5 seasons with The Giants.

In his 3 starts this season Lincecum has pitched 13 2/3 innings and given up 16 runs on 22 hits and 4 walks. Lincecum's velocity on his fastball has drooped to 90.3 in 2012 and that is bad because his change up velocity remains the same. This makes a smaller gap between the velocity of his fastball and change up, therefore making his change up more hitable. This is also very bad because his change up is his out-pitch.

Lincecum's pitch percentage

The percentage of fastballs thrown has also decreased dramatically. In 2010 Lincecum threw his fastball only 37.9% of the time and his ERA was a career high 3.43. This season Lincecum is throwing his fastball 36.7% of the time and his ERA is 10.54.

Another thing that may be causing Lincecum's troubles may be the person who calls the pitches. In 2010 Lincecum had his worst season to date and he had a new catcher in Buster Posey. In 2010 Popsey caught 75 games and in 2011 Lincecum had a bounce back season and posted a 2.74 ERA. Also in 2011 Posey was injured and only caught 41 games. In 2010 Posey caught about half of Lincecum's games and in 2011 Posey only caught about a forth of his games. This may be a problem along with the velocity drop.

Lincecum's unorthodox delivery 

Lincecum had his best 2 seasons when Bengie Molina was the starting catcher and when he was traded to the Rangers in 2010 his stats began to decline. Lincecum has to continue to work to get his velocity back. In the first few starts of the season the velocity of pitchers isn't where it will be mid season, but this is actually something to be concerned about. I think Lincecum will have a bounce back start in the series against The Mets this weekend.

MVP of the Weekend

Matt Kemp rounding 3rd after his home
 run on Jackie Robinson Day

Matt Kemp connecting for a
home run on April 14th

The MVP of the weekend goes to The Dodgers' Matt Kemp. Kemp has been hot this season hitting with a .487 batting average and nothing changed over the the past weekend.






On Friday April 13 Kemp went 1-2 with 3 walks, a home run, 2 runs scored, and 2 RBI's. The home run was off of pitcher Clayton Richards. On Saturday April 14 Matt Kemp went 3-4 with 2 home runs, 4 RBI's, and 2 runs scored.Both of Kemp's home runs were off of Joe Wieland. On Sunday April 15, Kemp wore number 42 for Jackie Robinson Day and again he hit a home run while going 3-4 with 1 run scored and 1 RBI. He also had 1 walk. Kemp has been a major part of The Dodgers' early success. The Dodgers have a 9-1 record and Kemp has a 53% run production probability over the 10 games. This means that when he steps in the batters box The Dodgers have a 53% chance of scoring a run that inning. This is an outstanding number for the young season. Kemp is a serious contender for the MVP in 2012.  

Start of the Week

This is a new segment on Hayes Craze Baseball in which I will evaluate the best performance by a starting pitcher since the previous Friday.

Barry Zito pitching against The Rockies

This week the start of the week goes to Barry Zito of The San Francisco Giants. The 34 year old Barry Zito pitched a complete game shutout against The Colorado Rockies. Zito only allowed 4 hits and did not allow a walk. Zito also got 4 strikeouts over his complete game. This was the first time in 9 years that Barry Zito threw a shutout and that was when he was on the Oakland Athletics.

Koufax-Kershaw Comparison

                 KERSHAW
                       VS
                  KOUFAX







Clayton Kershaw is just 24 years old and has already impressed a lot of people around baseball including myself. He has 3 consecutive seasons of a sub 3 ERA, but it was 2011 with a 2.28 ERA and 248 strikeouts that made him separable from other starters. Some believe Kershaw may be the next Sandy Koufax.


Koufax hit his prime much later than Kershaw. When Koufax was 23 his ERA was 4.05, but Koufax would kick it into high gear at the age of 26 with a 2.54 ERA and would never post an ERA lower than that. Kershaw and Koufax also have extremely similar strikeout per nine inning rates.

Koufax obviously pitched in an era that was pitching dominant and the MLB is slowing shifting back to pitching dominance, but to this day Koufax is still one of the best pitchers ever. Kershaw has a lot of promise for his future and even Sandy Koufax says he likes the way he pitches.

Graphs courtesy of fangraphs.com

MVP Of The Weekend

This is a new edition of Hayes Craze Baseball. Every Monday I will write about the MVP of the weekend. This week the MVP of the weekend is Miguel Cabrera.

Miguel Cabrera is putting on a show batting in front of Prince Fielder. In the first game of The Red Sox-Tigers series Cabrera drew 3 walks (1 intentional.) He had only 1 official at bat in that game.  In the second game of the series Cabrera had 5 at bats and hit 2 home runs, Prince Fielder did as well, so I guess the 3-4 punch is paying off. With the two home runs Cabrera hit he earned 3 RBI's. In the third game against the Red Sox Cabrera hit another home run along side with 2 singles. He scored 3 runs and drove in 5 RBI's. Cabrera finished the weekend with a .533 on base percentage, a .455 batting average, 3 home runs, 8 RBI's and 5 RBI's scored.

Miguel Cabrera goes yard against The Red Sox

Where's The Bats?

Opening day around the majors was very pitching dominant. Three shut outs and and one one run game. Great pitching performences were turned in by Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander, Johan Santana, Jon Lester, Stephan Strasburg, Ryan Dempster, Erik Bedard, Tommy Hanson, Ryan Dempster, Johnny Cueto, Mark Buehrle, and just 3 innings by Kershaw. Kershaw left due to illness.

In recent years the average ERA in the major league has gone down significantly and offensive statistics have risen. It would take way to long to give an evaluation on all of the above pitchers so ill post their lines.

 Roy Halladay: Win 8.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 0 BB, 5 K
Justin Verlander: ND, 8.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 BB, 7 K
Johan Santana: ND, 5.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 BB, 5 K
Jon Lester: ND, 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 1 run, 3 walks, 4 K
Stephan Strasburg: ND, 7.0 IP, 5 hits, 1 run,1 BB, 5K
Ryan Dempster: ND, 7.2 IP, 2 hits, 1 run, 3 BB, 10 K
Erik Bedard: Loss, 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 1run, 1 BB, 4 K
Tommy Hanson: Loss, 5.0 IP, 4 hits, 1 run, 3 BB, 4 K
Johnny Cueto: Win, 7.0 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 2 BB, 4 K
Mark Buehrle: Loss, 6.0 IP, 7 hits, 2 runs, 2 BB, 5 K
Clayton Kershaw: ND, 3.0 IP 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 BB, 3 K

As you can see  there was a lot of great pitching, but also a lot of bad bullpen work. A lot of these great performances resulted in no decisions due to the inability to score runs or the inability to not give up runs by the bullpen.

Besides the great pitching The Tigers' Austin Jackson hit a walk off single to win the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. The lead in that game was given up by Jose Valverde. Also The Blue Jays played 16 innings with The Indians when finally JP Arencibia hit a three run home run to give The Jays a 7-4 lead. This was the longest game in opening day history.

What A Performance By Kyle Lohse

What a performance indeed. Kyle Lohse surprised all baseball fans with a great start for the St. Louis Cardinals. It looked like Josh Johnson and The Miami Marlins would have an easy victory once word that Chris Carpenter wouldn't be the opening day starter for The Cardinals. Kyle Lohse pitched 7 and 1/3 innings giving up just 1 run on 2 hits and collecting 3 strikeouts.

Kyle Lohse pitching in The Marlins home opener

Perhaps the most interesting part of this game was the suspense of a possible no hitter from Kyle Lohse. Lohse kept the hit column at 0 for the Marlins through 6 innings when eventually Jose Reyes would get a hit off of the right hander. Another interesting part of the game was how Josh Johnson would perform coming back from an injury. Johnson didn't perform terribly, but he performed at league average: 3 runs over 6 innings with 10 hits and 2 walks. The elevated WHIP is what eliminated Johnson from pitching into further innings, because he had to use more pitches.

Another important part about this game was how The Cardinals performed without Albert Pujols. The combination of Beltran, Holliday, Berkman and Freese made up for the absence of Pujols. These four players flow nicely in the lineup. Beltran got two base hits and scored one runs, Holliday went 0-5, Berkamn had 1 hit, 1RBI and was also intentionally walked 2 times, and Freese came through with 3 hits and 2 RBI's. Freese is the dark horse in The Cardinals' line up.

The Cardinals will play the Brewers in Milwaukee on Friday and The Marlins play The Reds in Cincinnati today.

Marlins Ballpark didn't see much excitement from The Marlins on Wednesday night. 

Extensions, Extensions, Extensions

On Monday Matt Cain and Joey Votto signed extensions with their teams. Joey Votto's extension was colossal, a 10 year 225 million dollar extension. Matt Cain's deal was 5 years 112.5 million dollars with a club option for 2013.

Matt Cain has pitched effectively for The Giants over his 6 complete seasons. He averages 212 innings every season with an average ERA of 3.39. Although he pitches a lot of innings and gives up few runs he has a losing record due to The Giants' ineffective offense. This contract will have Matt Cain signed through the prime of his career. His average war by season is 3.9. If you put 5 million dollars per win Matt Cain is earning just about what he deserves. Through the years where he is expected to be at his best The Giants win with this contract.

Joey Votto will be playing with The Reds for a very long time. Votto has 2 all star appearances an MVP award and a Gold Glove Award in just four full seasons in the MLB. Votto is destined to be a star. With a 152 OPS+ over that time period Votto is in a category with players like Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard and Adrian Gonzalez. In recent years Votto's WAR has been through the roof, with a 6.5 WAR last year and a 5.9 WAR in 2010. Votto will be signed until he is in his late 30's. He will be signed through the prime of his career, but also well after that. Will Votto be effective later in his career we don't know, but most likely he wont be. The important part is The Reds have a player locked up for a long time like Barry Larkin.

Best Players by Position

The Following players listed under their respected position are in no particular order. They are my picks as the top 3 players for every position. If you can make an argument for someone else write in the comments.

Catcher

• Brian McCann
• Buster Posey 
• Joe Mauer

First Base

• Albert Pujols 
• Joey Votto 
• Prince Fielder

Second Base

• Robinson Cano
• Dustin Pedroia
• Ben Zobrist 

Third Base

• Evan Longoria
• Pablo Sandoval 
• Miguel Cabrera

Short Stop

• Troy Tulowitzki
• Jose Reyes
• Derek Jeter 

Left Field

• Ryan Braun 
• Josh Hamilton
• Matt Holliday 

Center Field

• Jacoby Ellsbury 
• Curtis Granderson
• Matt Kemp

Right Field

• Jose Bautista
• Ichiro
• Carlos Gonzalez