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Links for April 11, 2012
Links for April 9, 2012
Yoenis Cespedes incident
Steve Delabar, shown left, was not greatly amused by kitty Cespedes' little strut.
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I/O: Here's the incident on video.
With two out in the 4th, and a 5-0 lead, Jason Vargas walked Jonny Gomes and then threw an 84 mph cut fastball to Terrell Owens, er, Yoenis Cespedes. His Bling-ship accepted the invitation, launching the ball 462 feet into the night.
CRUNCH: As you can see, Cespedes stood at home plate watching the flight of the ball ... no, actually, he goosenecked around the basketball court with his hand hanging up in there, giving Vargas an obvious "don't bring that slop into my house" facial.
The problem is that the American League is certainly not Cespedes' house. Mike Blowers' disgust was instant: "That is the second home run of his major league career."
Can you imagine, if a visiting white American player were in Havana, and he crushed a tape-measure homer, and stood and home plate with his arms up DON'T BRING THAT INTO MY HOUSE! YEAH BABY! Literally: do you think he'd get home safely? ... this was apparently explained to Cespedes, after the game, and he apologized and was clear that he would not do it again in the majors.
.... M's 7
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=== Sizzlers ===
Unlike in Japan, Chone Figgins swung the bat with authority. On his line drive single, check his leading hip, his golfer's lean into the hitting area, and especially --- > the way his bat hits his back on the followthrough. When Dr. D saw the bat come through like that, he's like Tigress. THAT was pretty hard core.
The melodrama here is always about the level of enthusiasm. Drayer asked Figgins about the game after and he's all like, "I tolja, when I got that phone call that I was gonna lead off, what I was gonna do..."
So do it. :- / Tonight he definitely did.
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Nomar gave us quite the game at shortstop. Tucking the lead shoulder, loading way up on the ball, he crushed a double into the power alley and smoked another fastball down into the LF corner. Ryan was Right. On. Everything. The ball looked like a volleyball to him.
For those wishing to dream ... you could always hope that he's acclimating to the AL. He did hit .292 with authority for St. Louis in 2007.
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Sea at Oak, Apr 6 - pregame notes
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Howard, I thought the Pineda, Fister, and Bedard deals had those 700 runs locked in for sure.
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The M's press box notes can be found here...
Jason Vargas has seen his offense get locked down in 11 of his last 16 starts, and 20 of his last 33. "Locked down" meaning that his team finished with 2, 1, or 0 runs. It's not at all unlikely tonight: Brandon McCarthy had the #1 FIP in the American League in 2011.
It turned out that the M's took Dr. D's advice and shed Kuo and Kelley. Remaining is George Sherrill and his $1.1M. The bullpen:
- CONTENDER CLASS: closer SrFrBoi43, setup Capt. Insano
- ROTATION CLASS: #6 SP Iwakuma, #7 SP Erasmo, both throwing well
- BACK UP TWO STEPS: LH Sherrill, LH Luetge, RH Delabar
Delabar and Luetge over everybody else, huh. That is quite an endorsement by Capt. Jack.
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=== Various and Sundry, Dept. ===
Over-writing the previous SSI pregame for the season opener...
Seattle-Oakland series: Starting Pitcher Rankings
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=== Game 1, Jason Vargas ===
Vargas started the year "ranked" 76th among 160 starting pitchers. After he smashed the A's lineup in Japan, his ranking heliumed to 67th.
Last August or so, Vargas was languishing a good bit below 80th, we're sure, but his rip-roaring Sept. 2011 and his start to this season have him nicely past the 50th percentile in MLB and threatening to encroach the top 50. This, by definition, would mean that he's performing as a #2 starting pitcher for a drone MLB team.
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In Japan, Vargas used a somewhat heavier fastball mix than he'd used in 2011: fastballs 55%, changes 25%, cutters 15%. In theory, he should be able to go back to his 45% fastball mix for Game Two and keep the A's off-balance and confused.
As before, M's fans would like to see Vargas (1) ahead in the count while (2) inducing arm swings from the A's.
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=== Game 1, Brandon McCarthy ===
Seattle-Oakland series: Starting Pitcher Rankings (Prognosis)
Picture in Webster's beside "Short-Arm"
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=== PROGNOSIS ===
If you looked at FIP, focusing on 2011 as people usually do, you'd conclude that Oakland's two starters (2.86 and 3.83) have a nice edge over Seattle's (3.13 and 4.09).
If you looked at Starting Pitcher Rankings, you would reverse that, and take Seattle's pitchers in a heartbeat: Oakland 78/160 and 102/160 vs. 8/160 and 67/160.
In any case it's clear that Starting Pitcher Rankings give us a fresh way to break down a weekend series. Bravo, Mr. James.
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The offenses are another question. In 2011, Oakland outscored the Mariners 645 to 556: almost a hundred runs. How much do you like the M's fresh wave of rookie hitters? You wind up with these picks, depending on your paradigms:
| M's offense = as in 2011 | M's offense = much improved | |
| SP's = 2011 FIP | OAK big | Oak slightly |
| SP's = James Rankings | Coin flip, or Oak slightly | SEA clearly |
Felix' Career Transition 3 - His Health Is Fine
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Okay, so now we've gotten a visceral feel for the fact that it is normal, almost inescapable, for a great young pitcher to lose the great fastball.
Matt Cain is throwing free and easy, and the Giants obviously just CT-scanned his shoulder tissues six ways from Sunday. Have you seen a cat scan in the year 2012? Dr. G will (we think!) confirm. My mom just had this done, and they let me watch the bank of monitors. They can isolate vessels, small muscle fibers, ligaments, render anything they want in 3D and they can see EXACTLY what's going on in there -- better than if they sliced it apart.
Yeah, Cain's feeling great, but he's also thrown 1,300 innings in the bigs, and his muscles just aren't as fresh as they used to be.
Same with Lincecum. He's got the same pop in his step that he ever did, the same sparkly to his movements, but the arm muscles just ain't quite what they were when he was 21. They never will be again. The Giants gave him the NASA physical before they gave him $40M for two years. It showed that the new 91 MPH velocity was not a result of physical damage whatsoever.
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Add to that, this. Felix' demeanor is completely different from what Michael Pineda's was, before he revealed his shoulder was hurting. Felix is completely happy-go-lucky. He got hit in that pre-Japan game and he was laughing... "I dunno, man. I really don't. Whatever."
Carter Capps, Alexi Ogando, and Daniel Bard
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=== Driving a Wedge Through The Issue, Dept. ===
No idea why you would pay any more attention to Eric Wedge's pronouncements than to mine, but if that's your persuasion, you're in luck. At noon yesterday, Mr. Wedge made some pointed comments toward the issue that we shticked on, the night before. Of course, it's conceivable that he was more answering Rick Rizzs' questions than ours.
Here's the rough recollection of the tape. But we (and anybody else who listened) can vouch for the fact that the spirit is faithful to the interview.
Rizzs: What did you think of Capps and Pryor? Wow, Capps at 98-99 and Pryor at 96.
Wedge: We had actually sent an e-mail over from Japan telling them to get those two guys ready. We'd heard a lot about these two guys and wanted to see them for ourselves, well actually, we'd seen Pryor but wanted to see Capps. They acquitted themselves very well.
Obviously they're young guys, Capps drafted last year, Pryor the year before. But they're going to be Mariners sooner rather than later.
The guys in the locker room right now, they're going to have to produce and contribute, or these young guys are going to be pressing for their jobs.
Skip-O-Vision translation: Sherrill and Kelley and Iwakuma, I gotta give them a fair chance to get blasted first. It's MLB(TM) code that there are no takebacks, once you tell a guy he's going North. But as soon as they are -- blasted, that is -- we reserve the right to swap them out for players who can throw baseballs that are hard to hit.
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=== Cape Cod League ===
Bat571 points out that Capps relieved in the Cape Cod League which immediately follows the draft. Shows you how much I pay attention to ammy baseball. Then Capps went to the Midwest League, and the Mariners started him four games.
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