TCB Community Projection #1: Roy Oswalt & Lance Berkman
by David Coleman on Feb 8, 2010 1:00 PM CST
in Stat Geeky
12 comments
You have already heard from HLP about his projections on the Astros win total for 2010 using WAR. Over the next few weeks, you'll be hearing from DQ and clack on what they came up with. Since I'm pretty horrible with predictions, I thought it'd be more fun to come up with something a little different.
In the spirit of FanGraph's community projections, how about we band together here and predict what each member of the 25-man roster will do this season? You can be as scientific or as spontaneous as you like. Feel free to add whatever numbers or forecasts you'd like. So we have something to compare, for hitters let's include total plate appearances, a slash line, stolen bases and SB percentage and extra-base hits. For pitchers, let's go with total innings, ERA/FIP (whichever you'd prefer), strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. Outside of that, you can put in whatever you'd like.
To get this done before the start of the season, let's go with a hitter and a pitcher each time with posts going up Mondays and Wednesdays. I'll keep track of what everyone projects and post the results each Friday. Sound like a plan? Good deal. Let's get to projecting!
First up, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman...
12 comments | 0 recs |
Astros-themed interview with Hotstove.com at 1 pm CDT
It's apparently a video interview where the viewer can see the interviewers asking me questions. I'll just be a melodious voice cascading over their studio, filling brains with Astro-knowledge.
How much stock should the Astros put in Tommy Manzella's glove?
by DyingQuail on Feb 8, 2010 6:00 AM CST
in Player Profiles
19 comments
This piece has to start with a strong preface: I don't know the answer to this question, nor will I by the end of this. All I can use is the information available, spotty, at best, due to the inherent shortcomings of defensive metrics and their required sample size. I can also rely on scouting reports and my own first hand account watching Manzella play defense in Round Rock. These, however, are all ways at getting the truth, but never actually arriving. It'll be an approximation, and that leaves plenty of room for error.
That said, I want to try and get to a general idea of how much probability we should be assigning to Tommy Manzella's glove. It's something we've discussed numerous times in the comments section this offseason, but it's something that hasn't receive the full attention of a front page article. It's something that's been brewing about in the back of mind for sometime now, but it's not something I've had the heart to actually sit down and quantify—or at least attempt to do so. That's the rub of being a blogger about your favorite team, you have to look at the ugly truth about your team far too often.
Now, I probably have a personal bias against Manzella's fielding because an un-scooped mis-throw of his almost took my head off back in April when I was in a camera well at Dell Diamond. But aside from the fear that either myself, or my friend's $600 camera, was going to get clobbered because of the errant throw, the rest of what I've seen of Manzella hasn't inspired a lot of confidence. My honest impression of seeing him play is that he has the range, but his arm isn't accurate enough; again, though, there's a huge potential bias on my end in terms of his throwing prowess.
I doubt you're reading this to read through my internal monologue about whether I'm being too harsh on Manzella's defense. So, we'll get to the numbers. We'll primarily be taking a look at TotalZone, a metric that was conceived of, and honed, by Sean Smith (the CHONE guy). Though not as advanced as UZR, its simplistic input allows for prevalent minor league data, which is what we need for this endeavor.
Obviously, as Astros fans, our logical benchmark for a great defensive shortstop is Adam Everett. Tommy Manzella is not the next Adam Everett just because I'm not entirely convinced we didn't watch the best fielding short stop ever in 2006. Failing to live up to the impressive glove work of Everett doesn't mean Manzella won't be a good, or even great, fielder. Just that I want to see if we can come to a more concrete way of predicting his success than what the Astros organization has touted about Mr. Manzella. So, after the jump, I'll give you my best effort at coming up with just that.
(If you're interested in what Manzella's bat might look like, relative to Everett's, click here for AstroAndy's excellent investigation of the subject last summer)
19 comments | 1 recs |
Pitching Mechanics/Terms To Look/Listen For
by baggs on Feb 7, 2010 2:46 PM CST
9 comments
Pitching mechanics have always been very interesting to me, and as a former pitcher I've paid much attention to the implications of pitching a certain way vs another. After much research and personal experience, these are the things that are of note when watching/listening to a ballgame.
(Warning, lots of pics after the jump)
9 comments | 4 recs
Pitching Mechanics, Brad Arnsberg and the Letter W: The effect of all three on the Astros pitching staff
by HighLeveragePerformer on Feb 7, 2010 6:00 AM CST
in News
9 comments
Even though the Super Bowl is today, this blog is Astro-centric, so baseball is still the National Pastime! Before I get to the good stuff though, here is the definitive Super Bowl 44 preview.
Now then, back to our regularly scheduled blogging.
The SBN blog, DrivelineMechanics, our baseball scouting blog, had a post earlier in the week concerning the Toronto Blue Jays' pitchers and how they were a "pitching coach's nightmare". Well, it just so happens that their old pitching coach, Brad Arnsberg, is our new pitching coach. David wrote an extremely well done piece last year about Arnsberg, and I'm not going to try to add to it. That being said, this most recent post about the Jays links to a pitching mechanics web page that is extremely, extremely interesting in my opinion.
The author, Chris O'Leary, does a fantastic job of explaining one of the more common mechanical flaws that face pitchers: the "Inverted W". As someone who has never played organized baseball, I love to find articles and studies like this because frankly I like to learn about areas of the game that are not readily accessible to the common fan. O'Leary states his case thusly:
I believe that pitchers who make the "Inverted W" are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing shoulder -- and in some cases also elbow -- problems.
At first blush, one would assume that if this motion causes significant injuries to pitchers, it would most likely be a bad habit that pitchers pick up during their formative years, while they play for managers and coaches who lack the expertise to teach them otherwise. Rather, this is a motion that is taught with regularity and as O'Leary notes, is praised by those in the pitching mechanics industry. John Smoltz, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior are three of the bigger name arms that have this inverted W motion and have suffered serious elbow injuries. Whether this is coincidence or causation is left up to interpretation.
The preferred, in O'Leary's estimation, motion for a pitcher is for the hurler to keep his elbows below his shoulders, thus creating the inverse of the Inverted W, a "Regular W". In getting into position to throw the ball, this motion reduces the amount of strain of the ligaments of the throwing shoulder, and lessens the force with which the pitcher's upper arm rotates outward. Essentially, this motion is 1) more compact, and 2) alleviates pressure on the upper arm and shoulder.
While the DrivelineMechanics post was made in January 2010, O'Leary's post was made in July of 2007. This is important to me because at the end of his post, O'Leary discusses the pitcher's whose motions he thinks are less prone to creating arm injuries, and those whose mechanics could potentially damage their pitching arm.
Pitchers whose mechanics were positive included veterans Mike Mussina and Roy Oswalt, a young pitcher named Dan Haren, and a pitcher who was in his first season of major league ball- Tim Lincecum. Exactly one year before SI writer Tom Verducci penned his now famous article about Tiny Tim and his ridiculous mechanics, Chris O'Leary had seen enough of Lincecum to believe that he had the sort of motion on the mound that would allow him to not only remain healthy, but perhaps generate the high velocity that a man his size possibly couldn't muster if he was an Inverted W style pitcher.
Anthony Reyes and Joel Zumaya were two other pitchers who O'Leary thought injuries may be in their future. In all both cases he was right.
Now, can Brad Arnsberg be blamed for the Blue Jays' problems, or could it just have been an organizational wide problem? After all, it isn't as if a pitcher is drafted and immediately dumped on the pitching coaches' doorstep. Most guys go through at least four pitching coaches before he reaches the bigs, so perhaps these negative habits developed long before these problem arms went north of the border. If nothing else, this is something to keep an eye on in our own pitchers this season, especially our young starters.
9 comments | 0 recs |
The Crawfish Boxes' Obligatory Super Bowl Poll
by HighLeveragePerformer on Feb 7, 2010 5:45 AM CST
in News
2 comments
2 comments | 0 recs |
Power, Power, Bats Y'all: Astro Farmhands Topping the Charts
by HighLeveragePerformer on Feb 6, 2010 6:00 AM CST
in News
10 comments
While Astro fans wait with bated breath for the release of the team's ZIPS projection next week, CHONE has given us a morsel of clairvoyant thought to nibble on in the mean time. The results are not what you would call good. Or even "ok". I'll stop beating around the metaphorical bush and just come out with it...every team that is supposed to have a better record than the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2010, raise your hand. Not so fast, Houston Astros. A 73-89 record is worse than Baseball Prospectus' prediction of 76-86 and a whole lot worse than my optimistic 85-77 record that I threw out earlier in the week.
Breaking the list down player by player, it's clear that CHONE isn't all that high on either Felipe Paulino or Brett Myers. That's to be expected in a way. Myers is coming off an injury plagued 2009 season, and gives up an inordinate amount of home runs. Paulino is a young guy with very few major league innings, and less than stellar minor league credentials.
Still, both have the ability to out produce their projected lines. For instance, I look at Brett Myers projection and think, If Brett gives up 21 home runs in only 126 innings pitched, good for a home run every 16.66 innings he pitches I will type a thousand words about my love for Jim Edmonds. It's well known that Myers has a propensity to allow the home run ball (that's a nice way to put it!), but it's not like he's trending upward in that category. 70.2 innings of work last season aren't really a fair representation of his talents. I realize that the Projectatron 3000xi or whatever is used to spit out these numbers doesn't know that, but we do. So beware the low balling of our record, or least as far as Myers is concerned.
The other side of the coin doesn't have the same upside as the pitching staff. Our offense by and large is a very fair representation of what could happen in 2010. Definitely on the low end of what I think will happen, but there were no egregious projections in my estimation.
What is really lacking with the offense is power hitting. A patient approach at the plate, high contact rates, avoiding the dreaded ground ball double play and savvy base running are all important characteristics that a hitter should strive to exude. Above and beyond these traits, the ability to hit for extra bases can do wonders for a club's propensity to score more runs than they allow on a night to night basis. Outside of purely statistical reasons, just think about how much a double down the line, or an out of nowhere three run homer can swing games around, forcing the manager's hand in utilizing his bullpen. In the war of attrition that is a 162 game baseball season, extra base hits are the heavy artillery.
Help, perhaps, is on the way. Kellen Clemens and Collin DeLome have made proven themselves to be proficient power threats while minor leaguers. Caveats abound though, as both have played in either the hitter friendly California League or the hitter friendly Texas League.
DeLome's opposite field power stroke is promising if only because recognition of pitches, patience and strength are all crucial to the ability to hit to the opposite field. He isn't going to be knocking on the door of the majors in 2010, but a steady ISO% from High A to AA is promising nonetheless.
With Jonathan Gaston and Jay Austin making their way into at least one top ten Astros' prospects list, there is definite power potential down low on the organizational totem pole. As with all minor leaguers, it's a fine line between potential major leaguer and career minor leaguer. What really interests me, is the supposed "lowish ceiling, high floor" prospects at the top of the Astros' prospects pecking order such as Jio Mier, Jason Castro and Jordan Lyles, and the perhaps higher ceiling, lower floor outfield prospects like Austin, Gaston, and TJ Steele. Combine these players with the aforementioned DeLome and Clemens, and our other offensive draftees from 2008 and 2009, and more pop may be in the offering sooner than we think.
10 comments | 0 recs |
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
St. Louis
|
91 | 71 | .561 | 0 | Lost 6 |
|
Chicago
|
83 | 78 | .515 | 7.5 | Lost 1 |
|
Milwaukee
|
80 | 82 | .493 | 11 | Won 3 |
|
Cincinnati
|
78 | 84 | .481 | 13 | Won 2 |
|
Houston
|
74 | 88 | .456 | 17 | Lost 3 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
62 | 99 | .385 | 28.5 | Lost 2 |
(updated 2.8.2010 at 11:43 PM CST)
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
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