… He’s thrown his curveball for a strike 58.9 percent of the time and hitters have swung at 41.1 percent of those curveballs. But opponents have swung and missed at just 11.0 percent of Floyd’s curveballs while fouling off 11.6 percent of them (as compared to 7.6 and 8.6 percent in the aforementioned eight-start groups of 2009). Floyd’s curveball hasn’t been as good as it was in 2010, but it hasn’t been bad by any means. FanGraphs rates Floyd’s curveball as 1.84 runs above average per 100 pitches, about a run lower than it was in 2009 but still pretty effective. So the curveball hasn’t been the big issue for Floyd. Instead, it’s his other three pitches. …
May 18, 2010
J.J. takes a look on Gavin Floyd’s 2010 season
Rob Steingall on Tyler Flowers
There have been some rumblings of an A.J. Pierzynski trade in recent days , which means a boost in Tyler Flowers futues. His line of .257/8/26 has been solid, and should be a good source of power and run production if promoted. I worry about his K% (31.7%), and could see it hover around the 40% mark he produced in his brief cup of coffee last September. Forgetting average, he should provide help to fantasy owners in AL-Only leagues.
Final 2010 update of BDD’s Top Prospect Compilation spreadsheet
I have uploaded and attached the new Top Prospects Compilation file … Prospect rankings from Baseball America, BP’s Kevin Goldstein, and MiLB.com are just some of those that you’ll find in the file. The Excel workbook contains several tabs at the bottom representing each of the league’s divisions as well as a tab for top 100 lists and the top 20 lists from Baseball America.
2009-2010-Top-Prospect-Lists.xls [217 KB]
if you prefer links to prospects lists go to fantasyrundown
Stop pulling off of the ball Carlos!
Q: What does Carlos Quentin need to do to get out of the slump he is in?
A: I truly believe if I knew that, much smarter baseball people than I would have already gotten him out of the slump. I just know what I see is from a pitching perspective. He is probably pulling off of the ball, trying to hit more home runs every time he hits one. Realistically you dig yourself out of a slump one bat at a time. For the Sox and Carlos’ sake. this will turn around sooner rather than later. We are getting to the point now where 47 games have been played and Carlos has really struggled. One day the light will turn on and he will start hitting again. I am sure because no one is more intense than Quentin and no one works harder than he does.
Fangraphs on Sergio Santos
He’s mixing three pitches – a mid 90s fastball, a hard biting slider, and a surprisingly good change-up. He’s been good against both left-handed and right-handed hitters. He’s throwing strikes, getting ahead in counts, and forcing hitters to chase nasty breaking balls in the dirt. … It’s a testament to how much improvement he made in spring training, the skills of White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, and, truthfully, how very easy it is to be a relief pitcher if you have a good arm. And Sergio Santos has a very, very good arm.
3 teams are interested in A.J. Pierzynski
The Texas Rangers are one of three teams who have inquired about the availability of Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski.
The White Sox have been in contact with Texas about trading for Pierzynski for the past two weeks. Although Texas and the Sox have had these discussions, nothing is imminent or extremely hot at this time.
Atlanta was the team (one of?) Buehrle was almost traded to
Buehrle said he’s not as stressed as three years ago, when he was nearly traded to Atlanta while his wife Jamie was expecting the couple’s first child. Buehrle got a four-year extension with limited no-trade rights, and son Braden was born about two weeks later — just before the July 31 trading deadline.
Freddy holds the Tigers to 2 runs over 6 innings. Sox win 6-2.
Carlos Quentin had 3 hits (2 singles and a double). Andruw drew 2 walks.
| Chi White Sox | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garcia, F(W, 3-2) | 6.0 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4.50 |
| Santos(H, 1) | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.63 |
| Putz | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4.15 |
| Jenks | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5.79 |
| Totals | 9.0 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 4.57 |
Garcia:
| Pitch Statistics | |||||||||
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % | Linear Weights | Time to Plate |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 87.49 | 89.7 | -6.00 | 10.47 | 24 | 18 / 75.00% | 0 / 0.00% | -0.2146 | 0.434 |
| CH (Changeup) | 80.49 | 83.7 | -6.48 | 5.99 | 31 | 16 / 51.61% | 2 / 6.45% | 1.5801 | 0.472 |
| SL (Slider) | 81.15 | 84.6 | 2.00 | 3.41 | 31 | 26 / 83.87% | 4 / 12.90% | -1.3669 | 0.466 |
| CU (Curveball) | 70.40 | 72.4 | 5.52 | -5.05 | 4 | 3 / 75.00% | 0 / 0.00% | -0.3832 | 0.539 |
| FS (Splitter) | 81.08 | 84.6 | -0.83 | 5.86 | 6 | 2 / 33.33% | 0 / 0.00% | 0.0420 | 0.470 |
| Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate.
Pitch Type LWTS correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a particular pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches. Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement. |
|||||||||
| Inning-by-Inning Pitch Totals | ||||||||
| Inning | Pitches in Inning | Strikes in Inning | Strike% in Inning | Cumulative Total Pitches | Pitch LWTS in Inning | |||
| 1 | 18 | 11 | 61.11 | 18 | 0.611 | |||
| 2 | 18 | 13 | 72.22 | 36 | 0.494 | |||
| 3 | 15 | 11 | 73.33 | 51 | -0.532 | |||
| 4 | 17 | 10 | 58.82 | 68 | -0.335 | |||
| 5 | 18 | 12 | 66.67 | 86 | 0.283 | |||
| 6 | 10 | 8 | 80.00 | 96 | -0.862 | |||
THT Fantasy on Paul Konerko and Alex Rios
Paul Konerko — It feels like a year much closer to 2004 when I see that Konerko is the MLB leader in home runs. It is now six years later and surprisingly that statement currently is valid. Don’t get fooled into thinking that his low .198 BABIP means that his average should rise quite a bit. When he stops hitting home runs at his current machine gun pace, the negative impact of those flyballs getting caught on his average will offset the gains by a higher BABIP. Just be happy he’s on your team if he is.
Alex Rios — Last year it felt like the Jays sent the ghost of Alex Rios over to Chicago and, well, if that’s true it seems the rest of his body made the trip this year. Rios is hitting the ball hard and stealing plenty of bases—two things he seemed to partially forget last year. If only Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Wells and Rios had synchronized their monster seasons, the Jays could have had an offense worthy of the AL East.
8 K / 0 BB for John Ely tonight (5/17)
| LA Dodgers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ely(W, 2-1) | 7.0 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 3.51 |
| Weaver, Jf(H, 2) | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4.15 |
| Sherrill(H, 1) | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6.92 |
| Troncoso | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.66 |
| Totals | 9.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 4.35 |
John Ely: 25 K (8.77 K%), 3 BB (1.05 BB%), 8.33 K/BB, 7.36 H/9, 0.94 WHIP, 3.51 ERA
Meanwhile Juan Pierre is posting a 53 OPS+
and he is fast!
