Weekend Links: Acta, Attendance and More
by David Coleman on Oct 25, 2009 7:00 AM CDT
in Link Dumps
Here are a few of the more interesting links and stories from the past couple of days:
- Here is a nice piece on the three finalists for Cleveland's managerial job. Of interest is Manny Acta's views on a bullpen. The thing that's really interesting to me is his desire for a guy who can go multiple innings. That's unique in a world that has evolved into these specialized bullpens and makes him sort of the anti-LaRussa. Which I like immensely.
- File this under, 'Reason why I'm glad Drayton is our owner'. Granted, it's a short list.
- This is disturbing to me for reasons which I'll go into now. One, isn't Glen Barker supposed to be our Pacific Rim guru? Why aren't the Astros in on this kid? He's young, hasn't grown up in the Japanese professional style of baseball yet, and could be a good prospect if the money is right. Are we missing something here? Two, if we're not getting good players out of our Asian pipeline (two signings in two years does not a pipeline make), then why did we shut down our Latin American operations. Sure, we're starting an academy in the Dominican, but who isn't? We're a little late to that party, but we are still forging ahead. Three, the Rangers are there?? Seriously?? Their owner is in hock up to his eyeballs and they're about to auction off the team at the State Fair. Why are they in on this and the Astros are not? Methinks Drayton doesn't want to spend serious cash on international free agents, when the return is so small. Can I blame him? Maybe not but I'd sure like to.
- Speaking of our venerable owner, don't show him these numbers. We may never get another Texas A&M night at Minute Maid again. Not that I've actually gone to one before, but Minute Maid isn't as cold as the Great Canadian North all the time like Olsen Field is, so it's a better place to watch a baseball game with Aggies. For explanation, two of the coldest times I've ever spent at a baseball game happened at Olsen. Once, I was covering a game there, and it was so cold, I couldn't even keep score, my fingers were shivering so badly. I kept putting my hand in my pocket between pitches hoping to warm it up. This is with gloves on people! I'm slightly chilly just thinking about it.
- In an Astros context, I guess we could talk about how the Kids Watch for Free promotion must not have worked as well as planned, since those were some of the lowest numbers on the graph. I wonder if Drayton knew this and green-light it anyway so he wouldn't lose as much money. That sly devil...
- It may take you a little while to scroll down to this, but look at who is second on the all-time postseason saves list...none other than Brad Lidge! Who knew?? As bad as he can be, Lidge has been Lights Out more times in the postseason than Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley and is second only to future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera. Not pictured on this list: the fact that Michael Bourn is last on the list for postseason saves with zero.
Still a good trade, no?
Given Acta some credit for more specificity in the answers to the Cleveland media. He was also more specific in his comments on the Astros team weaknesses in Houston. I also found interesting his comment about lefthanders in the bullpen:
he would like to have two LHP in the bullpen, but he doesn’t want a LHP just to have a lefthander. The LHP has to prove he can get LHB out.
As an aside, I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but last year the Astros two LHP in the bullpen, Byrdak and Wright, had worse splits (OPS against) versus LHB than RHB?
clack - October 25, 2009
Re: Japanese lefty Yusei Kikuchi
- From NPBTracker, one of the best japanese baseball tracking websites in English (Sept. 30):
- With as many suitors as this kid had, the price wouldn’t have been right.
- It’s my understanding that he would have been the first ever Japanese player to skirt the Japanese draft and go straight to MLB. And this kid has been waffling on whether to play in Japan or America for something like 2 months. I wouldn’t blame Barker for not dedicating much in the way of scouting resources to the kid. Especially since he ended up deciding to stay in Japan.
- I agree with you that I’d like to see some more aggressive international signings, particularly from Japan.
AstroAndy - October 25, 2009
Thanks for catching that story on NPBTracker. I hadn’t seen that before. Kikuchi is a really interesting case, since the Japanese teams are pretty miffed that he’s considering jumping to the US. Apparently, there’s been a gentleman’s agreement in place for quite some time that US teams wouldn’t do that. Price is definitely a concern, but the biggest contract given to a Japanese pitcher so far was the Dice-K contract, which was only 25 million. Keeping in mind his contract will probably be lower than that since he’s technically an amateur and I don’t think his cost is prohibitive. I’d rather spend the money on him than on Aroldis Chapman…
David Coleman - October 25, 2009
Unless this kid is really, really special, I don’t see how you can justify paying more than you would give a 1st round draft pick. Of course that is, in fact, how the Yankees and Red Sox historically have felt that they can shorten the field for themselves. The purpose of the amateur draft is to limit the ability of rich teams to keep getting richer, in terms of talent. But the Red Sox and Yankees realize that, because there is no such limitation for international free agents, they have a monetary bidding advantage in the international arena.
clack - October 25, 2009
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