Category Archives: Baseball

David Wright is good

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David Wright missed Saturday’s game with flu-like symptoms, a nasty bug that has been going around the Mets’ clubhouse and a refreshing reminder that the team’s third baseman is at least vaguely human, still susceptible to contagious illness. Wright came back Sunday and went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and a pair of RBIs in the Mets’ 6-5 win over the Blue Jays.

That’s pretty much how it has gone for Wright this year, all year. Every time when it has looked like something might shake him from his torrid stretch, he has returned somehow stronger. After four good games to start the season, Wright broke his pinkie and the disable list loomed. But Wright instead sat out three games and came back to go 3-for-5 with a homer. When Wright endured a four-game cold stretch that dropped his OPS to a season-low (season-low!) .952 on April 24, he got eight hits in his next 16 at-bats with a homer, three doubles and seven walks to bring his on-base percentage back up over .500.

So what’s happening? Beats me. Knowing what’s going right for Wright in 2012 would require understanding what went wrong for him the last few seasons — beyond the broken back in 2011, of course. It sure looks like Wright is having less trouble with pitches on the outside half of the plate, taking them to the opposite field instead of flailing at them. And indeed, according to baseball reference, Wright has 13 hits to right field in 127 at-bats in 2012 after getting only 15 hits to right in 387 at-bats in 2011 and 17 in 587 in 2010.

It’s still only May, obviously, so this is all still small-sample-size stuff. But here are some other things that have happened over Wright’s hot start:

– Wright has walked more than he has struck out. This has never happened in a full season of his career. His walk rate — 18.1 percent — is well higher than it was in his best season in 2007. And at 14.8 percent, his strikeout rate is lower than it has been in any full season of his career and well lower than the 22.9 percent rate at which he whiffed from 2009-2011.

– Wright has not hit home runs at the rate he did from 2005-2008, but his extra-base hit percentage has been higher than it has been for any full season. This should not really come as a surprise, since he’s hitting .412.

– Wright has a .476 batting average on balls in play, which is more than 100 points better than his career norm. But his 30.3 percent line-drive rate is also way above his career average. You don’t need a stat to know this: He’s crushing the ball. Also, per Fangraphs at least, he has yet to hit an infield pop-up in 2012.

– Wright has swung at fewer pitches out of the strike zone and made contact with more of them than he ever has in a full season in the past. Only three hitters in the Majors have swung at a lower percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than Wright has in 2012.

– Wright’s 5.6 percent swinging-strike rate in 2012 would be by far his lowest for a full season. His career rate is 7.6 percent.

Whatever. I could point to a dozen other stats to say that David Wright has been awesome in 2012, and you don’t need any of them to know that. David Wright has been awesome in 2012. Just as he’s not likely to maintain his .412 batting average, he’s also not likely to maintain any of the above-listed rates. But the stats all seem to agree with what our eyes have been saying for weeks: He’s locked in, and it’s sweet.

Twitter Q&A

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A massive oversight, that’s how! I meant to mention when Thayer re-emerged in the Majors last month, then got distracted. Now he’s closing games for the Padres and has yet to allow a run. Dale Thayer! Mustache hero Dale Thayer!

He’s also on my fantasy team. Look at this glorious man:

Here’s what someone who’s better than me at Photoshop needs to do: Take the most over-the-top gory-looking Slayer poster or t-shirt image you can find, add an awesome mustache to one of the skulls, then change the text from “SLAYER” to “THAYER.” I’d totally buy that t-shirt.

I’ve always been partial to the Quebec Nordiques’ jerseys, but if I were in the market for a hockey jersey I’m not sure I’d be able to resist the urge to buy one with “SATAN” on the back, for comic value. And in that case, it’d have to be Islanders.

Alternately, I might just also wear a No. 57 Minnesota Wild jersey with “SANTANA” on the back like Johan Santana did, because Johan Santana would probably be my favorite hockey player.

Man. Oh man.

I think about stuff like this with some frequency, trying to assign monetary values to creature comforts. For example: I can’t wear jeans to work. This is a business environment, and up the chain someone decided everyone in my office needs to wear pants everyday except on very special occasions (i.e. the day after Christmas). I hate wearing pants and feel way more comfortable in jeans. I’ve thought about it, and determined that I’d probably give up about six to seven percent of my salary per year to be able to wear jeans to work. And I really need money, living in the city with my wife in school and all.

But giving up bacon? Man… man. It’d be a lot. It’d have to be at least enough to buy a house, and even then I’m not sure. What’s the point in owning a house if I have to live in it knowing I can’t ever wake up to the smell of delicious bacon?

Here’s the question: Is this a no-backsies situation? Because I’d be way more inclined to do it if I could just pay the other guy back at a later date and start eating bacon again — though I guess in that case it’s more like a loan in which the interest is just that I can’t eat bacon.

But I’m pretty confident in my awesomeness, and any price I name feels like undercutting my earning potential. What if I say $2 million right now? That seems like a reasonable price to get me to give up bacon forever. But what if you pay me $2 million to give up bacon for the rest of my life, and by some coincidence, shortly thereafter suckers finally recognize. And now all of a sudden I’ve got book deals and record contracts and a TV show and $2 million I made on my own, and I can’t spend any of it on bacon. Total monkey’s-paw scenario.

So I’m not settling for any less than $5 million. For $5 million, I’ll give up bacon for the rest of my life. Possibly.

Yeah, it’s probably time to see what McHugh can do in Triple-A, huh? Toby says he’s waiting for an injury or an opening in the Triple-A rotation, and it always seems like there’s a lot more that goes into these decisions than I ever consider. But Garrett Olson hasn’t been spectacular in the Triple-A rotation and might have some value to the big-league club as a lefty in the bullpen. Maybe McHugh gets promoted to the Triple-A rotation and Olson transitions to a relief role?

 

The Dickensian aspect (of trolling)

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In celebration of its 175th anniversary, the Baltimore Sun named the Top 175 Maryland athletes, culminating with No. 1…. Babe Ruth.

Ruth is a Baltimore product and his role in popularizing (and just being awesome at) baseball is unimpeachable, but Ruth was a Yankee and the Orioles play in Baltimore. Readers, based on the comments at least, seem upset with the choice.

I say it’s a fine one, and hardly even trolling. If you’re including guys born in Maryland on your list, you’ve got to include Babe Ruth. And then, what… you’re going to put Babe Ruth somewhere other than No. 1? C’mon.

Via Ian.

 

Sandy Alderson on Jenrry Mejia’s future

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Well right now, Jenrry will be going to Binghamton for a couple of starts; he’ll probably go to Buffalo for a couple of stars. We’re still in a sense in a rehab phase with Jenrry. He’s only a year out from surgery. I did talk to the doctors as recently as a couple of days ago. He’s a very quick healer and he’s done very well. But as the same time, we need to continue to allow him to pitch on four-five days rest so he has a routine, work on all his pitches so that he has better mastery of them, and then when we get to the end of that, say, two-to-four-start cycle, then we’ll decide what he’ll do in terms of role and where he’ll do it. You know, we have other guys that are coming along — Beato should be ready by the time his disablement ends — and others that are also performing pretty well at the Minor League level that aren’t on the roster. Right now we want to preserve that roster space and see how our guys at the Minor League level develop over the next three or four weeks.

– Sandy Alderson.

There has been a lot of speculation and some anticipatory hand-wringing over what the Mets will do with Jenrry Mejia once his rehab from Tommy John surgery is done and he’s ready to re-join the big-league club. Alderson doesn’t sound overwhelmingly sure he’ll make Mejia a big-league reliever just yet, plus the situation is a bit different than it was a couple years ago for a variety of reasons.

Which is to say: I’ll wring my hands when it feels appropriate. This front office seems pretty committed to handling its prospects with the requisite care and it’s not on the thin ice the last one was when it made Mejia a Major League mop-up man at 20. Plus, though the Mets should try to get the best from all their prospects, they do have more than just one well-regarded pitching prospect in the high Minors now. So it’s not — to re-use a metaphor I used at the time — putting all your eggs in one basket then vigorously shaking that basket.

Today in burying the lead

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So this rather limber walk-off steal of home in a high-school game is pretty awesome, and made Deadspin and Last Angry Fan:

But you know what neither of those blogs spent much time on? This walk-off steal of home came on behalf of Lick-Wilmerding High School. There’s a Lick-Wilmerding High School! Every weekday morning from September to June, legions of giggling teenagers and tortured teachers show up at Lick-Wilmerding. Dan the Automator is a Lick-Wilmerding alumnus.