There aren’t many stats for measuring managers, aside from raw win-loss totals. This is largely because most of the effects that a manager has are either difficult or outright impossible to quantify.Well, I don’t have a stat to help you assess managers, but I have come up with a junk stat that I think will at least tell us something about managers’ personalities. I call it the Traditional Managing Index, or TMI*, and it’s very simple. It consists of two statistics that can largely be attributed to managers:
TMI = sac bunts by position players + intentional walks
The higher a manager’s TMI, the more “old school” his in-game managing style is. Take a look at the TMI results for 2011 so far: …
Sacrifice bunts and intentional walks; no wonder Ozzie comes second. And I hate both…
“To me he’s a feel hitter,” Sox hitting coach Greg Walker said Saturday. “I really think if you break down his swing it’s a fairly simple fix. We feel like he needs to get his foot down on time to be balanced.”
Walker has talked several times with Rick Eckstein, Dunn’s former hitting coach with the Washington Nationals. He said they agree on what Dunn’s major issue has been.”
He’s shown flashes — that game in Texas [Tuesday when he hit his last home run] he was real good getting the foot down and being balanced. When he gets that feel he’s going to be real explosive for us and do great things. Right now getting his big body in position to hit is the real battle.”
“Obviously [Tuesday] night he was awesome and he’s had days like that this year where he’s been unbelievable,” hitting coach Greg Walker said. “To me, the only issue so far this year is Carlos being late with the foot down, and we kind of corrected that a week, 10 days ago. Other than having a sore knee one day, he’s really been good ever since.
”Essentially, Walker has worked with Quentin to refine the timing of his swing. If Quentin can stride and get his foot down before the ball arrives, he is in a better position to cover the strike zone. His most impressive home run Tuesday came when he reached out across the plate and slugged a 400-foot-plus shot just inside the foul pole in right field.
“Going the other way is always a good sign for any hitter, especially being able to hit the ball in the gap and drive the ball,” Quentin said. “My push is to always stay up the middle and to the right side and to accomplish that, that’s something good.”
“Right now we’re a little confused,” Guillen chuckled Saturday morning. “We’re very confused. The six-man rotation puts a lot of load on Crain. If Pena goes out there and does what he should do, I don’t mind staying in a six-man rotation. We even talk about leaving it like that, but my worry is how much Crain will work. He’s the only right-hander we have with (Sergio) Santos. I use Santos as a closer, there is a very big gap out there to cover. Hopefully Pena comes on and does a better job.”
…
“I wish Pena could be used when we’re winning to help Crain, and we’d be fine. Everybody else is pretty young. We’re still talking about it every day. Every day we change our mind. (Pitching coach) Don Cooper comes up with good ideas. To make the right decision, right now in my mind, I don’t think what I have is the right decision. We have to wait and play around with it. You see this kid (Phil) Humber throw, and (John) Danks, and it’s kind of hard. We will work it out. But right now I’m between.”
“A lot of people in Chicago thought how crazy you are you were down by one and you brought in Pena,” Guillen said. “I don’t have anybody else. I used Crain the night before and it’s not fair for him to be out there every day to take care of somebody else’s job. I’m not going to do it. I don’t care what people say.
“I’m not going to make somebody suffer with somebody else not doing what they’re supposed to do. I’m not going to do it.”
Guillen said there have been no talks about possibly trading a starter.
“No, we don’t even talk about trade, no way,” he said. “The last thing we talk about is trade. We try to figure out how we’re going to play this and how we’re going to be a better ballclub. Right now we don’t have a close decision. We’re still talking to [general manager] Kenny [Williams] and Coop. We have ideas. The only thing is if Pena throws the ball better, then we’re set. We’re fine.”
The White Sox have dodged a bullet with second baseman Gordon Beckham, who will miss just a day or two after being struck under the left eye by a relay throw.The incident happened in the third inning of Friday’s 4-2 loss to the Blue Jays, when Alex Rios’ relay from center field took a high hop behind second and hit Beckham in the face. Beckham labored on the field momentarily before leaving the game and going to hospital with the team’s head athletic trainer, Herm Schneider, for X-rays.
The results of the X-rays were negative, and now the team will just wait for the swelling to go down around Beckham’s eye before he can rejoin the lineup.
“I feel fine, other than the bruise. The bruise is the only thing that hurts,” Beckham, who is sporting a black eye, said on Saturday. “I can see fine. I think that once the swelling goes down, I’ll be back in there. I don’t know if that’s [Sunday] or Monday.”
Beckham continued to receive treatment on Saturday morning in order to relieve some of the swelling that is preventing him from fully opening his injured eye. He said he hopes to take batting practice and maybe even play on Sunday, but Monday might be a more realistic target.
He’s got a little bit of funk in his arm swing which I think results in him throwing uphill on occassion. He does have some fast-twitch arm speed, although he occassionally short-arms the ball and leads with his elbow. He’s much better when he’s full circle and on top of the ball. I don’t really care about the funk in the trunk (by that I mean the arm swing, and if I were writing for a team, I might include that phrase to see if my boss was paying attention) as long as he’s on top of the ball with proper extension as his arm and shoulder passes over the rubber. No windup, 3/4 slot, fair arm action and delivery at this time. Fastball 92-93 in this look. Late life, occassional hard sink or ride. Long, lean, loose and physically projectable. Still growing into his own body in this clip, which is part of the reason he falls off to the first base side. Overall sound foundation for the next level.
Michael Kelly
Rank: 49
West Boca Raton HS (Fla.), Sr.
Height: 6’4″, Weight: 185
Position: RHP
DOB: 09/06/1992
Bats: R, Throws: R
Commitment: Florida
After a very strong summer and solid fall, Kelly looked primed to be one of the more intriguing high school arms in the class. There’s still a lot to like about Kelly, but his performance this spring has been a little inconsistent.
At 6-foot-5, he’s got a great pitcher’s frame, but he has a tendency to drop and drive in his delivery, taking away that angle. He has a great power arm, with a plus fastball and the chance to improve it with some work to his mechanics. He also has a hard breaking ball that is more of a slurvy curve, and he doesn’t throw a changeup much. His command is a little up and down, though he’s shown some ability to command his fastball at times.
With good mound presence and his size, he has the chance to be not just a hard thrower, but someone who can use his size and stuff to his advantage.
Michael Kelly is a 2011 RHP with a 6-5 195 lb. frame from Boynton Beach, FL who attends West Boca HS. Tall athletic body, long arms, projectable strength. Standard leg raise delivery, some drift and backside collapse, 3/4′s release point, very fast arm coming through repeats very well. 91-94 mph fastball, lots of 94′s, outstanding FB life even at 94 mph, ball disappears at times, can pitch + effectively with just fastball with movement. Big breaking curveball, tends to sweep at times, some feel for change up. Plus command potential, especially with fastball. Very high ceiling. Good student, verbal commitment to Florida. Selected to the Aflac All-American team.
and
Michael Kelly is a 2011 RHP/IF with a 6’5”, 190 lb. frame from Boynton Beach, FL who attends West Boca. Kelly has a tall, excellent pitchers build, very loose projectable arm, circle arm action, fast arm, 3/4′s arm slot, lively fastball with sink, creates good angle, mixes in curveball and change, has good feel for all pitches, highest level pitching prospect, solid actions in the infield with a quick release, quick hands at the plate with bat speed, has pop, leverage in swing.
47-Chicago White Sox-Chris Reed-LHP-StanfordReed is the closer for Stanford but some scouts think that he could end up starting at the next level. He is another guy who has gained some helium lately and should be a sandwich round pick.
Reed pitched sparingly as a freshman in 2009 and struggled with his control as a sophomore at Stanford, going 2-0, 6.10 with 15 walks and 14 strikeouts in 21 innings of relief this spring. But he turned a corner this summer in the ACBL [Atlantic Collegiate League], going 2-2, 1.23 with 23 strikeouts and 13 walks in 22 innings, mostly in relief. Reed has a projectable pitcher’s frame at 6-foot-4, 205 pounds. This summer he showed good command of a 90-92 mph fastball and a sharp slider in the low 80s. He has significant upside but must continue to refine his feel for pitching and command.
Chris Reed
Rank: 46
Stanford, Jr.
Height: 6’4″, Weight: 195
Position: LHP
DOB: 05/20/1990
Bats: L, Throws: L
Previous: Never draftedReed might be the best arm few knew about heading into this year. The Stanford lefty hadn’t pitched that much prior to this season and was serving as the school’s closer. He’s got the pure stuff for the role, with a fastball that he can get up to 96 mph, sitting typically anywhere from 91 to 95 mph, with good arm-side run. He complements the plus fastball (mainly a four-seamer) with an outstanding slider, giving him enough right there to excel in short relief. But while his command is average at best, he does have the stuff — his changeup could be a plus pitch in the future as well — along with a strong, durable frame. He’s still a bit of an unknown quality, but the stuff is there, and that kind of power from the left side doesn’t often exist. At worst, the team taking him has a lefty setup man who could move quickly. But there might be more there.
Dunn 1st player 2 have 4 k's in 1 game, then have 4bbs in 4 plate apps since Dick Allen May 1-2, 1968, according to Elias— Mark Gonzales (@MDGonzales) May 28, 2011
“The reality is that we have a lot of guys on this team that just absolutely refuse to take walks,” Steve Stone said on the Boers and Bernstein Show. “I mean, you’ve got Brent Morel, who’s going to be a very good player, but he hasn’t had a walk this year. You can get to three balls on [A.J.] Pierzynski, but he’s going to swing at it if it stays in the ball park. Juan Pierre is a swinging leadoff hitter, he’s not a walking leadoff hitter. [Alexei] Ramirez is very difficult to walk.
“So we have a lineup full of guys that swing the bat. When they’re hitting the baseball and they’re finding holes, then the team, you know, will put together a lot of hits and a lot of runs. But the teams that have consistently a lot of runs scored, are patient teams who get the starters out of there around the sixth inning because they’re up to 100 pitches because they’ve taken some walks, because they’ve run the counts deep, and our guys, historically, have not taken walks. And when you’re hitting that’s fine. When you’re not hitting, you’re putting a lot of pitchers-pitches in play.”
“Right now we’re in a six-man rotation and everyone is throwing well,” Cooper said by phone before Friday’s game in Toronto. “We haven’t thought about ‘who’s out?’ And we may not even do that. We might not do that. If they continue to throw the ball well, it’s working right now, so why would we change anything?” … “There’s nothing being considered. We’re not there yet,” Cooper said. “There’s been nothing like, ‘This guy’s throwing the ball a tad less than this guy so it’s got to be him.’ None of that is going on here.”
Jared Mitchell, OF, White Sox (High-A Winston-Salem): 2-for-3, HR (6), R, 2 RBI, 2 BB. 2009 first-round pick who missed all of 2010 has been mostly a disappointment in return, by 5-for-7 with two home runs in last two games for .220/.273/.415 line.
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.
“Obviously [Tuesday] night he was awesome and he’s had days like that this year where he’s been unbelievable,” hitting coach Greg Walker said. “To me, the only issue so far this year is Carlos being late with the foot down, and we kind of corrected that a week, 10 days ago. Other than having a sore knee one day, he’s really been good ever since.”
Essentially, Walker has worked with Quentin to refine the timing of his swing. If Quentin can stride and get his foot down before the ball arrives, he is in a better position to cover the strike zone. His most impressive home run Tuesday came when he reached out across the plate and slugged a 400-foot-plus shot just inside the foul pole in right field.
“Going the other way is always a good sign for any hitter, especially being able to hit the ball in the gap and drive the ball,” Quentin said. “My push is to always stay up the middle and to the right side and to accomplish that, that’s something good.”
Top alternatives: Alejandro De Aza, Dayan Viciedo, Jordan Danks
The weirdest part of this season for Pierre is how little he’s changed as a hitter from last season, and yet his overall performance has totally polarized. His walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, and isolated power are all similar… but slightly worse. Toss in a nearly 20-run shift in his defensive work (+12.4 in 2010, -7.4 in 2010) and a 43% success rate on 14 stolen base attempts, and you have the worst player in baseball so far. If you ever wondered what Juan Pierre would look like without the elite range or base-stealing skills, well, now you have it. And it’s very, very ugly. It’s going to be hard to ignore Danks (.262/.349/.546) and Viciedo (.309/.356/.488) all season.
