NL Wild Card open thread

Madison Bumgarner vs. Edinson Volquez

What a long, strange journey it's been for Edinson Volquez. After five years in which his best years were mediocre, teams continued to employ Volquez in hopes of the form he once showed, back in 2009. Sure, there were flashes -- 2012 wasn't half bad, and the peripherals in 2010 were solid -- but he was never the 4 win pitcher he was in 2009. In reality, he was only a 1 win pitcher at his best. Now, strangely, the peripherals have remained uninspiring with virtually identical FIP/xFIP to previous years, but an elavated strand rate and fortunate BABIP has him finishing up a 2014 campaign with a 3.05 ERA, the best of his career. He's done this with the worst strikeout rate in years, but he's also harnessed his previously wild control.

He'll take the mound for the Pirates in their second playoff appearance in the past three years after a long drought of their own, facing the Giants. The Giants turn to Madison Bumgarner, routinely overlooked in the NL West. Bumgarner has quietly and consistently been of the league's better pitchers for five years running, this year setting career highs in innings and strikeouts. The Giants have won the World Series each of the two times they've made a playoff appearance in the last ten years.

This is a harder one to choose rooting interest for -- the Giants have been my adopted NL team for a while, but they've had their moment in the spotlight, while Pittsburgh hasn't. Though the luster has worn off after they broke their winning season drought, it's still a city that's relatively new to baseball success, and that's always fun.

Besides, nothing can top last night, which was easily one of the most entertaining, maddening, and exciting playoff games in baseball history. Yost'd. Wait, they won?

Game info:

TV: ESPN, MLB.tv (domestic blackout rules apply)

Today's Lineups

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
Gregor Blanco - CF	Josh Harrison - 3B
Joe Panik - 2B	Jordy Mercer - SS
Buster Posey - C	Andrew McCutchen - CF
Pablo Sandoval - 3B	Russell Martin - C
Hunter Pence - RF	Starling Marte - LF
Brandon Belt - 1B	Neil Walker - 2B
Brandon Crawford - SS	Gaby Sanchez - 1B
Travis Ishikawa - LF	Travis Snider - RF
Madison Bumgarner - LHP	Edinson Volquez - RHP

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NL Wild Card Game: Giants @ Pirates, 8:07

The Pirates host the Giants for the NL Wild Card Game on Wednesday night, and because MLB is weird, the outcome affects the start time for Friday's Orioles game.

Travis Ishikawa is in the starting lineup of a winner-take-all baseball game. That's for real. I don't know what madness has brought the Giants to that point, but it was madness indeed. Fortunately for them, they've got Madison Bumgarner starting. That guy is pretty good - probably doomed to forever be measured against Clayton Kershaw in his career, but still pretty good.

Because Major League Baseball is weird, the outcome of this game affects the game time for Friday's Game 2 in the Orioles-Tigers series. If the Giants win the game, then Game 2 will begin at 12:07pm. If the Pirates win the game, then Game 2 will begin at 3:07pm. This makes rooting for the Pirates a fairly easy choice without even considering the fact that the Giants have won the World Series twice since 2010.

In any case, the winner of this series will take on the Nationals and hopefully beat them in the NLDS.

Today's Lineups

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
Gregor Blanco - CF	Josh Harrison - 3B
Joe Panik - 2B	Jordy Mercer - SS
Buster Posey - C	Andrew McCutchen - CF
Pablo Sandoval - 3B	Russell Martin - C
Hunter Pence - RF	Starling Marte - LF
Brandon Belt - 1B	Neil Walker - 2B
Brandon Crawford - SS	Gaby Sanchez - 1B
Travis Ishikawa - LF	Travis Snider - RF
Madison Bumgarner - LHP	Edinson Volquez - RHP

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Jason Vargas to start Game One of American League Divisional Series

Hold onto yer butts.

Jason Vargas will start Game One of the American League Divisional Series versus the Angels, according to the Star's Andy McCullough.

Vargas was a pleasant surprise this year, after signing a four-year $32 million deal in the off-season. The left-hander was 11-10 with a 3.71 ERA (3.84 FIP) in 30 starts despite missing a few weeks with an emergency appendectomy. Vargas did worry Royals fans with a lackluster September that saw him give up 18 runs in 18 innings over his last four starts. Still, Shaun Newkirk reminds us that Vargas was a BABIP-creation this year, and that he probably wasn't as good as he seemed at the beginning of the year, and not as bad as he seemed at the end.

Jason Vargas, flyball pitcher, in his career at Angel Stadium: 2.86 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 129 IP. It’s one of the reasons #Angels traded for him.

— Alden Gonzalez (@Alden_Gonzalez) October 1, 2014

Vargas faced his former teammates, the Angels, twice this year. On May 25 in Anaheim, he gave up just three hits and one run over six plus innings, but the Royals fell 4-3. He gave up six runs in four innings, including a mammoth Mike Trout home run on June 27 in Kansas City as the Royals rallied to win 8-6.

Vargas will face Angels ace right-hander Jered Weaver.

Jered Weaver and Jason Vargas while at Long Beach State. Game 1 mound opponents in the ALDS (photo @LBSUAthletics) http://ift.tt/1wZF7V1

— Robert Brender (@robertbrender) October 1, 2014

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Royals win wildest Wild Card in 22 photos

Soak in the most pivotal moments of the Royals defeat of the Athletics in the 2014 MLB AL Wild Card with these 22 awesome photos and save yourself thousands of words in the process.

The stage is set:

Shields reacts after giving up the 1st-inning homer:

Billy Butler wanders off first in broken 'chaos on the basepaths' play:

Moose and Cain both score in the 3rd:

Shields is pulled after putting 2 men on in the 6th

Ventura brought in on 1 day of rest, gives up 3-run homer:

Shields, man. Shields. #YOSTED

~ The game is now 7-3, Athletics over Royals in the 6th ~

That magical 8th inning

Nori Aoki ties it up in the bottom of the 9th:

Suddenly, Brandon Finnegan:

Josh Reddick scores in the top of the 12th, all hope is lost:

Gomes and Fuld collide on a Hosmer triple in the bottom of the 12th:

Christian Colon hits Hosmer in with an infield single, game tied:

Salvador Perez, 0-5 on the night, does this:

... and utter, glorious madness ensues.

All photos USA TODAY and/or GETTY

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Astros quick hits: Chris Carter may not have taken the leap you think he did

Carter had a nice season. It also lined up pretty well with what he did in 2013.

Ed. note: Once again, this is an attempt to get more content out despite limited writing time. Think of these as what could be a single item in a normal 3 Things. You'll get used to it eventually.

Quick. What did Chris Carter hit in 2013?

How many home runs did he have a year ago?

During the course of a season, it's hard to judge sample sizes. We all get caught up in it. We know not to trust things until bigger samples reveal themselves, but we get caught up in Carter's majestic second half all the same.

To answer those questions, here are Carter's numbers in 2013 and 2014.

2013 - .223/.320/.451 with 29 home runs

2014 - .227/.308/.491 with 37 home runs

Bet you didn't expect that Carter, in the year he made the leap, to have hit just four points better in average and 12 points lower in on-base percentage.

His strikeout rate fell by five percent to a marginally-respectable 31 percent this season, but his walk rate also fell. His second half numbers proved good, but hardly revelatory. He hit .252/.338/.521 in the second half with a 31 percent strikeout rate.

Whatever changes he made in his approach made a difference. But, a bigger difference between Carter in the first half and second could be something as simple as batting average on balls in play. After posting a meager .237 in the first half, Carter had a .301 BABiP in the second half.

In 2013, he posted a .311 BABiP for the season.

If Carter was a more productive player for Houston, it wasn't because he suddenly tapped into his monster potential. It's because his adjustment caused him to make better contact, raising his BABiP. Being a full-time designated hitter limited his defensive liability, too.

Carter had a good season. But, when viewing 2014 as a whole, it doesn't look like Carter had a markedly different season from a year ago. He won't hit .300 like he did in July.

In fact, if I had to project him into 2015, I'd say Carter will hit .230/.320/.480 with 32 home runs.

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Let's Go Tribe Fan Recognition Day: Who led the game threads?

Today is LGT Fan Recognition Day, where we honor those who gamethreaded their way through the 2014 season.

While the season has culminated without a consecutive playoff run, the LGT faithful made this a great season. This post is to honor all of the LGT participants who talked about the games, the beers, the pop culture topics over the course of 162 games.

Before we get to the gamethreads though, I'd like to also honor the writers who diligently provided the game recaps. Our diligent managing editor, Jason did almost half of them with 79 on the season. USSChoo wrote 29, Ryan authored 26, Phil Kehres penned 25, Ash Day completed 10, and westbrook made 1 guest appearance on the recaps. Thanks a lot guys!!

For the season, there were 46,784 comments in the 162 gamethreads, which averages out to 288.79 per game, with a median of 223.50. The season high happened Opening Night, when 1,513 comments supported the Tribe in its 2-0 win in Oakland. Second on the list was the home opener on April 4 when 1,203 comments were made. There were two other games that cracked the 1,000 comment barrier, the May 21 balk-off win against the Tigers, and finale of the four-game series in Houston on September 18. The opening series versus the A's had the biggest total as both games of the doubleheader on April 2 cracked the Top 10 list.

There were 14 games that failed to make it to the century mark, with the low being the July 4 tilt against the Royals. July was the least popular commenting month as six of the bottom ten came during that month. Maybe people were distracted by LeBron.

Wednesday was by far the most commented day, with a 392.92 average over those 26 games. Saturday was the lowest day of the week, with an average of 199.30 comments, a bit behind and Sunday, which averaged 235.65 comments.

There were 260 different commentators over the course of this season. The average number of commentators was 28.22 and the median was 25.50. On eight different occasions were there 50 or more people involved in the gamethread, with 72 different people on Opening Day being the high. The June 9 game in Texas when Lonnie Chisenhall went nuts with 3 homers and 9 RBI also stands out. The 395 comments that night weren't especially high, but 52 different people made at least one comment, for the best commenter/comments ratio of the season.

Anyone who happened to log into LGT for a gamethread needs no introduction to the person who made the most comments for the season. That honor belongs to PyoKinesis who racked up an impressive 4,591 comments this year. The table below tabulates the top 16 commentators:

PyroKinesis	4591
westbrook	2872
Vachos	2055
Danieldelamaiz	1740
USSChoo	1622
LosIndios	1520
tgriffith1992	1483
Phil Kehres	1430
ZeCarioca	1427
BuenosAires_Dawg	1108
supermarioelia	1026
Jason Lukehart	1022
Julio Bernazard	1007
Zaza Braggins	978
mjschaefer	857
palcal	819

There were 82 commentators who made 100+ comments. There were 30 commentators who made exactly 1 comment on the season, and another 16 who made 2 comments. Picking their moments.

The most consistent (valuable?) poster was our own westbrook, who made an appearance in 148 of the 162 gamethreads. Thirteen of the 260 made appearances in over half (81) of the games this season:

westbrook	148
Vachos	126
palcal	115
ZeCarioca	107
Jason Lukehart	101
PyroKinesis	101
tgriffith1992	101
Zaza Braggins	100
LosIndios	94
Danieldelamaiz	89
mainstreetfan	88
Denver Tribe Fan	86
Phil Kehres	86

And 58 of the 260 commentators made just one visit to a gamethread.

Finally, we will look at who had the best average of posts per game. Again no surprise to see PyroKinesis in the top spot, as accumulating that huge total obviously helped fuel a huge average. He took a gamethread break midseason, making his total number of comments that much more impressive.

Here is the top 10 in average comments per game thread (minimum of 10 games participated):

PyroKinesis	101	45.46
talonk	15	32.67
USSChoo	64	25.34
Gradyforpresident	22	24.73
Ockus_NYC	19	24.42
rolltribe	10	22.20
gte619n	11	20.27
Danieldelamaiz	89	19.55
westbrook	148	19.41
DocNo	10	18.80

Hey, who let that talonk guy into this list? A special shout out to InMyLifetime?, who commented in only one game thread, but left an impressive 36 comments that day. On the other end of things, Tribe015 made 14 comments in 12 games, good for a 1.17 average, and krisroxxfoxx made 102 comments in 49 games for a 2.08 average.

Thanks again to everyone who participated this season. Let's propose we all strive for an average of 330 comments per game next year. That would be a modest 15% increase. Hope to see you all this offseason as well as next year when the Tribe makes a triumphant return to the postseason and go for that ever elusive World Series flag.

from Let's Go Tribe - All Posts

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Measuring my feelings about Dayton Moore and the Royals

Is it time to give him credit?

Last night was an exceptional event, both for the team and for the city. There hasn't been a lot of catharsis for this fan base throughout the past three decades. Last season's winning season was tempered by asinine remarks regarding how it should make us feel. 2003 was such a shadow play that even optimistic Royals fans admit there is no reason they should have won eighty-three games.

The Wild Card game, however, could come to represent a first step on moving forward for the Kansas City Royals, both in terms of how the team is perceived on a national level, but also how we as a community measure our responses to their successes and failures. Billy Beane gets the benefit of the doubt because his teams are successful in spite of serious financial impediments. The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, and Cubs can buy their way out of long stretches of repeated failure, so any seasonal shortcomings are perceived as blips rather than signifiers of a larger, systemic issue.

Which brings us around to Dayton Moore, and more broadly the franchise he works for. While we can all point to issues of varying severity about this organization's past decisions, is it now fair to say that, on the whole, it worked out? That Dayton Moore had a plan, and recognized a course of action that perhaps we didn't really notice?

I'm not sold on either of those points. I doubt he expected Mike Moustakas to be a train wreck, nor do I think he expected Eric Hosmer to be a replacement-level player in his fourth full season. But doesn't it mean something that the Royals were able to overcome those two great failings and make it to the ALDS anyway? Again, I'm not sure, but I do know that, for the first time in three or four years, I have to tip my hat to Dayton Moore for the team he put together.

There were many, many things that went wrong about this season. Bruce Chen, Moustakas, Hosmer, Infante, Perez in the second half, the front-end of the bullpen, and all of them amounted to a series of bumps in an otherwise beautiful stretch of highway.

There are also many, many questions that will need to be addressed when this season ends. The fan base has sorted and stacked a vote of no confidence regarding Moustakas for months now. James Shields will be gone. Billy Butler will, in all likelihood, be gone. Norichika Aoki, who until mid-September was seen as being a disappointment, hit .285/.349/.360 with a 103 wRC+, making him one of three regulars to be an average or better hitter. That's production that will need to be replaced. Josh Willingham is considering retirement, and his combination of power and on-base skills are a rare occurrence for the team. Is there faith in one of Aaron Crow, Louis Coleman, or Tim Collins being a serviceable reliever next year? Can you afford to pay both Greg Holland and Wade Davis?

For so long, my entire life really, I have lived in a world where the eyes of my baseball team have been locked in focus on the season ahead of me, as opposed to the season I am currently in. Even now, I find myself wondering about the off-season, who will be available, what moves might be made, what the roster might look like after the All-Star break, which prospects to keep an eye on. I can't find my focus in the present, even though that is where it belongs.

Dayton Moore has everything to do with that.

from Royals Review - All Posts

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The historically low strand rate of the 2014 Mariners bullpen

Not many men reached base against the M's bullpen this year and those that did were stranded at a very high rate.

I don't know if any of you guys have heard this before, but the Mariners bullpen was pretty good this year.

A quick look at some of their accomplishments in 2014:

• First in ERA (2.60)
  


• Fifth in FIP (3.24)


• First in xFIP (3.32)


• Second in SIERA (3.01)


• Fifth highest K% (24.4%)


• First in groovy dance moves (2 gold medals)


• Fourth lowest WHIP (1.15)
  


• Lowest strand rate (80.7%)
  

I could go on, but you get the idea. The Mariners bullpen was a pretty big deal. Not only did they do a good job of limiting the number of baserunners and runs allowed, they did an exemplary job of stranding those men who were fortunate enough to have found their way on base. In fact, their strand rate (or left-on-base %; LOB%) of 80.7% qualifies as the ninth best strand rate for a bullpen in the live-ball era. (Ninth! Out of 2072 bullpens.)

This probably isn't quite as impressive as it might seem, as the average LOB% over the years has increased significantly (as bullpens have become more specialized and as strike out rates have increased), but it is still a fairly noteworthy accomplishment. For comparison, the second highest strand rate by a Seattle bullpen was 77.8% back in 2001 (which ranks as the 99th best strand rate since 1920), and last year this was a team that ranked last in bullpen strand rate, with an LOB% of 70.1%.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that strand rate is notoriously variable and that most pitchers who post a LOB% far above (or below) the average generally regress towards a less extreme number as their season/career progresses. (This statistic is much more descriptive than it is predictive.) Nonetheless, the Mariners bullpen posted strand rates well above the league average (which was 73.9% in 2014) for every month this season; their lowest LOB% came in April when it was 76.7%.

But what was it that made this team so proficient at stranding runners? It's hard to say definitively, but we can make some educated guesses. Below is a table of potentially-pertinent data that might help explain what made the M's bullpen particularly good at leaving men on base.

	K%	BAA	BABIP	HR/9	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	LD%
Mariners (rank)	24.4 (5)	0.216 (2)	0.277 (4)	0.65 (7)	47.5	30.9	10	21.6
MLB average	22.2	0.238	0.294	0.78	45.3	34.2	10	20.5

One of the few variables that is generally accepted to dependably increase a pitcher's strand rate is his strike out rate. (A player's ability to comfortably pitch out of the stretch can also be a contributing factor, but that's much harder to measure quantitatively.) With this knowledge, the relatively high K% of the M's bullpen seems likely to be a contributing factor to their high LOB%. This is fairly intuitive; a pitcher that strikes out a lot of batters should be able to extricate himself from sticky situations more easily than his peers. Additionally, by not allowing the opposition to put the ball in play as often, the likelihood that runners will advance into scoring position via "productive outs" is minimized, making it more likely that any potential runners will be stranded.

Moving on to the batted ball data (which doesn't correlate as strongly with strand rate), we see that Mariners relievers had an elevated ground ball rate. Generally, pitchers who give up more ground balls have a tendency to allow more hits; however, these hits do not typically go for extra bases. Again, runners who start out standing on first base are much more likely to be stranded than men who are standing on second or third (assuming that you don't give up a boatload of home runs, which the Mariners were successfully able to avoid doing this year). It should also be noted that the batting average on balls in play against the Mariners is quite low (despite the increased ground ball rate, which should generally lead to a higher BABIP), suggesting that the Mariners relievers benefited from an above-average infield defense. Looking at Fangraphs, the M's infield defense (even with 100+ innings of Kendrys Morales at first base!) was more than 12 runs above average. Finally, the line drive rate of M's relievers was actually significantly higher than the league average. This suggests that the bullpen may have also benefited from a bit o' luck (line drives hit right at fielders) in maintaining such a low LOB%.

All in all, it seems that the Mariners low strand rate seems to have been driven by a delightful combination of luck, skill, and solid defense. While they didn't really excel at anything in particular to generate such a high strand rate, they were good at just about everything.

- - -

In 2014, the Mariners bullpen gave us something very valuable: relative piece of mind. Once a game was in the hands of the M's relievers, they probably weren’t going to allow very many men to reach base. And if they did, those men probably weren't going to score. In past years, there's been somewhat of a feeling of gloomy fatalism that the Mariners were doomed to defeat once an opposing runner reached base late in a close game; that feeling (for me, at least) was largely diminished this year, and for good reason. Although most of us liked to joke about the Fernando Rodney Experience, and how our closer has a propensity to "always" make the ninth inning "interesting", Rodney is actually a pretty good pitcher who had a good season, and the rest of the bullpen followed suit. There were no black holes in the M's relief corps this year, which made it much easier for Lloyd to mix and match as he saw fit and employ a quick hook whenever it was necessary. All of these things came together to help produce a very high strand rate for this team's bullpen.

Looking forward to next year, it's tempting to get (overly) excited about what the Mariners group of relievers might look like in 2015 (with a full year of Brandon Maurer! And Carson Smith!). They could be even better than they were this year! This is true, but it is important to remember that relief pitching is one of the single most volatile components of baseball, especially when a good deal of a team's success can be tied to a low strand rate. Although the Mariners bullpen appears to be one of their strengths, it is far from a given that they will continue to improve going forward. That being said, go ahead and appreciate the hell out of how good they were this year. There were lots of bright spots about the Mariners in 2014, but the performance of their bullpen was definitely one of the brightest.

from Lookout Landing - All Posts

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Go Ex-stros!

Having trouble deciding who to cheer for this postseason? This list of former Astros playing in October might help you out.

One of the greatest myths in all of sports fandom is that you should cheer for every single ex-player who's ever passed through your team or program. I've tended to reject this way of thinking throughout my short life. I attend the University of Texas at Austin, but I despise Vince Young. I'm an inveterate Houston Rockets supporter, but I don't want Kyle Lowry or Luis Scola to play well. It's about the shield, the logo, the name on the front, ya know?

But in this year's postseason, it's different. There are some duds and some fan favorites, but check out the list of ex-Astros who will be playing in October. (Minus those that are on the A's, since apparently they lost last night.) These were names pulled off of the active roster, so they obviously may or may not actually be on their respective teams for the World Series chase.

Washington Nationals

• Xavier Cedeno, RP- Cedeno tossed 1.2 innings of relief for Houston in 2011 and 31 innings in 2012. His numbers were completely mediocre. But there's probably somebody out there somewhere with a CEDENO jersey on. Oh wait, that was for Cesar? Oh...

Baltimore Orioles

• Bud Norris, SP- Well, we all know Bud, the slightly chubby, mostly likable Cardinals destroyer from days gone by. Though he ended his tenure in Houston with some sour grapes and has spoken out against the Astros' front office multiple times since his shipment to Baltimore, it's hard not to want to go hang out with this guy. As long as he doesn't find out that I'm an Astros fan, of course.


• Jimmy Paredes, 3B- I always thought Paredes would turn out to be a good player, but alas, his time in Houston was met mostly with unfulfilled expectations. The lanky dude from the Dominican has never spoken out against the Astros, so far as I know anyway. That's good, right?


• Steve Pearce, OF- Pearce was a 21 game rental in 2012. So I'm not sure if he really even counts as an ex-Astro. But hey, you can cheer for him if you want.

Detroit Tigers

• J.D. Martinez, OF- Oh sheesh, can we please stop talking about this guy? Like David Coleman, I'm just scared he's going to have a monster postseason and I'll have to listen to all the friends I don't have rag me about how the Astros should have kept him and how he's got such a great power bat and bla bla bla


• Brad Ausmus, manager- If I have to pick an AL team that's not the Royals though, I want to see the Tigers win one for Brad.

Pittsburgh Pirates

• Mark Melancon, RP- I miss Mark. Especially seeing as he was traded for Jed Lowrie. Yuck. But the guy does look good in a Pirates jersey, and he's racked up 33 saves. So I'll try and glean some joy from his present success.


• Clint Barmes, SS- I never liked Clint Barmes. Not then, not now, not ever.

San Francisco Giants

• Juan Gutierrez, RP- Gutierrez made his major league debut with the Astros in 2007. I was 15 then, so I was probably too busy picking out food from my braces to watch him pitch.


• Hunter Pence, OF- Captain Underpants is probably the only reason why I have converted into a lover of all things ex-Astros not named Cosart. The man with the high socks and the goofy everything makes me proud to claim him as a son of the Houston nine. God bless Hunter Pence, and may his swing be always be as weird as his running stride and throwing motion.

from The Crawfish Boxes - All Posts

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