The Weekly MLB Rundown 06.27.08
Posted by A.J. Stevens on 06.27.2008
It's another week of interleague play in the books! With a little over two weeks left until the All-Star Break, we've got a slightly abbreviated edition while we prep for the big Independence Day spectacular! Come inside and join us, won't you?
LEADING OFF
It's another week of interleague play in the books! With a little over two weeks left until the All-Star Break, we've got a slightly abbreviated edition while we prep for the big Independence Day spectacular! Come inside and join us, won't you?
YOU SPOKE, WE LISTENED
Pinto writes in about Junior Griffey: Griffey is a help to any team, sure he is a tad older but he is still a contributer
This sounds like a reasonable statement. I crunched some numbers to see exactly what teams he would be helpful to. I looked at the average BA/OBP/SLG for RF for all 30 teams, and DH for the AL teams. I used the completely arbitrary judgment that Griffey would be a help if he could improve upon at least two of these stats. (All stats current as of 9:15 PM EST Wednesday night.)
Griffey is at .245/.353/.395. The average NL RF is .274/.348/.445. The average AL RF is .270/.337/.448. The average AL DH is .250/.337/.422. (Ed. Note: I'm disappointed wiht how AL DHs are doing this year. They should be hitting over .250, right?)
Here are the teams that Griffey can help: Nationals, Oakland (RF/DH), Seattle (RF/DH), Minnesota (RF), Rays (DH), Blue Jays (DH), Indians (DH), Detroit (DH), and the White Sox (DH).
So while Griffey can be an asset to some teams in some positions, it would be lunacy for him to go anywhere else in the NL right now, and the only two teams that have a realistic shot at using him would be Tampa Bay or Cleveland. The Jays aren't interested in winning this year, the Tigers are underperforming all around, and who would you rather bench in Chicago: Thome or Dye? My bet is that Griffey finishes the season in... Cincinnati. He's lost a lot of his upside that other teams would conceivable benefit from. I wouldn't want to shake up Tampa Bay right now; they're on too much of a roll and I don't think Griffey is the best fit for them.
THE EDWAR RAMIREZ CHALLENGE
My challenge: "Let's make a deal: if Edwar Ramirez finishes at a certain level in ERA+, BAA, or WHIP, I'll let you have a guest section of the final column. You get to pick at least two of the stats, and the threshold. Sound good? Good."
Remy's reply: "Well I'm done playing around with #s...so here I go.
These are the #s I'd like Edwar to at least come close to by seasons end:
ERA-2.85 WHIP-1.25 BAA-.280
Being that I'm not a stats guy what so ever, and these numbers were taken from about average of about 25 relief pitchers who I felt were either similar to Edwar with amount of innings I expect him to pitch for the season, or style of pitching."
Ramirez' stats as of 11 PM EDT Wednesday 6/25/08: 3.09 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, .207 BAA.
The challenge has begun!
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Shawn Chacon loses his head, wants to rip off Ed Wade's
Well, we all know that there are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. The facts that have been established so far are: Chacon has been pitching poorly enough to earn him a trip to the bullpen. Chacon has publicly displayed contempt for criticism and suggestions from his coaches. Management wanted to meet with Chacon behind closed doors to discuss this.
After that, the stories naturally diverge. Chacon was in the lunchroom when Houston GM Ed Wade approached him. Chacon said Wade was shouting. There hasn't been much dispute over the words said, just how they were delivered. It culminated with Chacon attacking Wade and throwing him to the ground. Chacon was restrained and pretty much immediately suspended.
Chacon was placed on waivers by the Astros on Thursday, and by many accounts has thrown his last pitch in the major leagues. While professional sports generally look the other way (relatively) for top performers' indiscretions, I'm afraid that Chacon isn't good enough to fly under this particular radar. I don't agree with the double standard - athletes need to regulate their behavior on and off the field - so I hope that this sets a precedent for other athletes that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.
Arroyo-ly bad performance
I'm just going to quote the majority of a blog post, as it's a pretty funny interpretation of what was going through Bronson's head the other night. He should probably put the guitar down for a while. (NOTE: I've edited the original post for language.)
Bottom of 1st: Bronson Arroyo pitching for Cincinnati (I wonder what song I should start my set with at The Java Hut later? Maybe some Clapton? Wow, Marco Scutaro still has a job?)
M Scutaro reached on infield single to second.
J Inglett walked, M Scutaro to second.
A Rios singled to left, M Scutaro to third, J Inglett to second. (Argh, this is not going well at all. I've never even heard of that Inglett kid. And I think Dusty's sound asleep right now.)
V Wells struck out swinging. (Yeah...maybe I'll start with "It's In The Way That You Use It")
M Stairs hit sacrifice fly to left, M Scutaro scored. (Dude, not cool.)
S Rolen homered to center, J Inglett and A Rios scored. (Ugh. I might hate Rolen even more than LaRussa.)
L Overbay doubled to right.
G Zaun homered to right, L Overbay scored. (Can someone call down to the pen for me? Obviously Dusty isn't gonna do it.)
A Lind singled to center.
M Scutaro singled to center, A Lind to second. (Seriously, Scutaro's up again? I wonder if Votto and Bruce will like the silk shirts I got them?)
J Inglett grounded into fielder's choice to third, M Scutaro out at second. (Hallelujah. And get me the heck out of here.) 6 Runs, 7 Hits, 0 Errors
Bottom of 2nd: Bronson Arroyo pitching for Cincinnati (I don't want to go back out here. Dusty sucks. Man, here comes that anorexic Rios again. Someone feed this guy a sandwich.)
A Rios homered to left. (Not a steroid sandwich. Dang it. I wish I had my guitar.)
V Wells reached on infield single to third.
M Stairs doubled to deep right center, V Wells scored. (I think I'll go with "Pretending" instead.)
M Stairs to third on wild pitch by B Arroyo. (Hey, anyone watching? I did that on purpose. Earth to Dusty, get someone out here NOW!)
S Rolen doubled to left, M Stairs scored. (Duuuuuuuuuuuude, not cool at all. Wait...wait...is that Gary warming up? Darn right it is. I can't wait to rock some acoustic guitar later.) G Majewski relieved B Arroyo.
Interleague play brings a new feature: PITCHERS HITTING HOMERS
C.C. Sabathia
Felix Hernandez
WALKOFFS OF THE WEEK
Mike Young, Rangers, vs. Atlanta
Kurt Suzuki, Athletics, vs. Florida
Elijah Dukes, Nationals, vs. Texas
Jason Michaels, Pirates, vs. Toronto (walkoff E-6)
Aramis Ramirez, Cubs, vs. Chicago (AL)
Gabe Gross, Rays, vs. Houston
Brian McCann, Braves, vs. Seattle
Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox, vs. St. Louis
Gary Sheffield, Tigers, vs. St. Louis
Jesus Flores, Nationals, vs. Los Angeles (AL)
And finally, wrapping up this week with: ALL-STAR VOTING LEADERS
Regular readers of this column know that when I do tables, the site breaks hard. So... you get somewhat-readable text formatting instead!
All votes as of 6/23/08 - because with technology how it is, there's no reason why they can't give us a running total online. Sheesh. (Then again, this is the group that banned ESPN/Baseball Tonight from the All-Star game last year because they gave out the rosters early.)
Leader (Runner-up) - as of 6/23/08 1B AL Youkilis (Morneau); NL Berkman (Lee) 2B AL Pedroia (Kinsler); NL Utley (DeRosa) 3B AL Rodriguez (Lowell); NL Jones (Aramis Ramirez) SS AL Jeter (Mike Young); NL Hanley Ramirez (Tejada) C AL Mauer (Varitek); NL Soto (McCann) DH AL Ortiz (Matsui); NL N/A OF AL Ramirez, Hamilton, Ichiro (Vlad Guerrero); NL Soriano, Fukudome, Griffey (Braun)
CLOSING IT OUT
That's it for this week! As always, comments and general baseball talk are always welcome either below or through e-mail at 411baseball@gmail.com. Be sure to show your support for your favorite players by voting for them for the All-Star game. We'll see you next week, same time, same place for our Independence Day Spectacular! -AJS
