July 28, 2010

Trades!

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Finally some real trades to discuss on Warmup Wednesday.

Let’s start with the first one that went down Wednesday afternoon—the Tigers acquired Jhonny Peralta from Cleveland for minor league pitcher Giovanni Soto (Yeah, different Soto from the Cubs catcher). Detroit has been decimated by injuries the past month and Peralta will fill in at third base in Brandon Inge‘s stead. This deal doesn’t exactly thrill me for the Tigers. Peralta is in his eighth major league season with his best year coming in 2005 when he belted 24 homers with a slash line of .292/.366/.520, but has progressively declined each year since then. Get it? Progressively declined…Progressive Field in Cleveland. Ah, forget it. Anyway, this year Peralta has just seven homers, 43 RBI and a line of .246/.308/.389. On the other hand, it’s better than throwing a rookie out there which is what the Tigers have been doing, and while Soto is enjoying a nice season at low-A ball, he’s only 19 years old and is years away from the majors. The Indians also sent cash to Detroit to most likely cover the rest of Jhonny’s contract, plus the Tigers will hold a $7.5MM option for 2011, which barring some dramatic improvement from Peralta, I don’t see the Tigers picking up. This deal doesn’t change the fact that I think the Tigers are done. Losing Zumaya and now Ordonez is just too much for this team to overcome.

The other trade on Wednesday involved the Dodgers acquiring Scott Podsednik from the Royals for two minor leaguers (Lucas May—Triple-A catcher and Elisaul Pimentel—right-handed pitcher in Low-A). Podsednik is in his 10th season and will join his sixth team of his career. Podsednik is having a nice season, hitting .309/.352/.400 with 30 steals, eight doubles, six triples and five homers. He really became the Royals only appealing trade piece once David DeJesus was lost for the season due to injury. This trade will give the Dodgers some outfield depth with Manny Ramirez on the DL, but this is another deal that isn’t going to change the NL West landscape.

So three days from the deadline, Wednesday was a nice warmup to the big deals that are sure to be just a few days away.

 

July 26, 2010

Matt Garza throws first no-hitter in Rays history

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The Rays sure have been on the other end of these types of games lately, but tonight on July 26, 2010 the Rays found themselves on the fun side of a brilliant pitching gem as Matt Garza fired the first perfect game in Tampa Bay Rays history. I guess they knew what to do after watching it so many times before. It’s the fifth no-hitter thrown within the first four months of the 2010 season (sixth if you’re still counting Armando Galarraga‘s perfect yet no so perfect game).

How good was Garza? Pretty damn good. The former Fresno State Bulldog allowed only one walk and faced the minimum by getting a double play following the walk. He struck out six batters and threw 120 pitches, 80 for strikes. This game actually started out with Garza and Tigers starter Max Scherzer matching each only with no hits across through five innings until Scherzer ran into a wall in the sixth. Garza is having a better season than last year record-wise as he improves to 11-5 on the year after going 8-12 in 2009, but his ERA is right on line with last year’s after this shutout.

Garza joins Ubaldo Jimenez, Dallas Braden, Roy Halladay and Edwin Jackson in the no-hitter category this season. It’s the most no-hitters since 1990 when Bret Saberhagen, Wilson Alvarez, Dennis Martinez, Tommy Greene and Nolan Ryan also tossed no-no’s. Martinez’s was the only perfect game that year while we’ve enjoyed two this year with Braden and Halladay. With two full months left, I would not be surprised to see another one by year’s end.

Not to take anything away from Garza’s performance tonight, but how watered down is that Tigers lineup now with the injuries to Carlos Guillen, Brandon Inge and now Magglio Ordonez? They ran out a lineup that featured a rookie still looking for his first ML hit in Will Rhymes, then Ryan Raburn, Don Kelly, Gerald Laird and Danny Worth. The bottom of that order is hitting .204, .206, .182 and .250. Terrible is the word that comes to mind. The Tigers then pinch-hit Ramon Santiago for the final at-bat of the game. Not exactly Chase Utley. Brennan Boesch was the only player to reach base against Garza and while he’s had a great first half, he’s still another rookie.  There’s no one there to protect Johnny Damon and Miguel Cabrera in the lineup anymore. To make matters even worse, former Tiger Matt Joyce hit the grand slam in this game to put the Rays up 4-0.

Jim Leyland also got ejected from the game pretty early and seemed overly angry for a missed call on a steal by BJ Upton. The Tigers appear to be falling apart, and I think they are done. This game could lead to a massive collapse and knock them completely out of the AL Central race. Three more games in Tampa Bay won’t help matters either.

Anyway, congratulations to Garza for the fifth no-hitter of the season and what will be one of the most memorable moments in Rays history.

 

July 25, 2010

Sunday Links

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Everyone can always use a little Calvin and Hobbes, especially on a Sunday. This is just one of my favorite baseball comics in the series. Anyway, let’s get into some links on this lazy Sunday.

In what was looking like a must-win game for the Angels, Ervin Santana mowed down the Rangers for a huge Halos win. I’m not sure the Angels will have enough in them to catch the Rangers at this point, currently down six games in the AL West, but they certainly couldn’t afford another loss to drop eight back. You can consider tonight’s game just as big.

The Braves rallied to defeat the Marlins 10-5 Saturday and hold a 6.0 game lead on the Phillies in the division. I guess it’s only fitting that in Bobby Cox’s last hurrah and what is probably Chipper Jones last year of his career, the Braves would find themselves making one more run at the NL East pennant and postseason. Six games or more leads just don’t get blown very often once you reach August, so we’ll see if the Braves continue to roll on ahead of the Phils and Mets.

Speaking of pennant races, this could be the straw that broke the Tigers back. Magglio Ordonez broke his ankle sliding into home plate tonight and is out 6-8 weeks. Magglio has been a Godsend to the Tigers offense this year as he was enjoying a great bounce back year. First, it was Joel Zumaya, then Brandon Inge and now Ordonez. This loss will  hurt immensely, leaving only the rookie Brennan Boesch to protect Miguel Cabrera in the lineup. I’m not sure that’ll work too well. The Tigers are in the thick of a three-team race in the AL Central, and I just don’t see how they continue to keep up with the Twins and White Sox. Also, it will be interesting to see what Dave Dombrowski does at the deadline and see if he panics and trades away too much to acquire a hired gun in the outfielder. This is obviously bad news for the Tigers, but even worse for Mags, who is on the hook to lose his $15 million option.

Rolling right along in the terrible time for an injury department, it’s time to go ahead and mark down the A’s pick up of Ben Sheets in the offseason for $10 million a horrendous idea. Sheets, whose name was swirling around in trades this past week, will miss the rest of the season for elbow surgery. The only fallback investment for Billy Beane in the Sheets signing was that they weren’t in contention, they could deal him at the deadline for a couple of prospects. Well, scratch that idea. The A’s will just have to eat this move. Sheets didn’t provide much help all year, going 4-9 with a 4.53 ERA in 20 starts for the A’s.

Before you Cubs fans out there jump on the “We’ll have to win when Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg is managing the team” train, consider what could go wrong and already has for that particular scenario via Big League Stew.

And last, but not least—ladies and gentlemen, your 2010 Hall of Fame inductees. John Kekis writes about the Class of 2010 on Yahoo Sports as well.

 

July 12, 2010

Breaking down the AL Central race: Is there a great team here?

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We’ve reached the All-Star break of the 2010 season, and I wanted to post a breakdown on the crazy division that is the AL Central.

In my preseason predictions for each division, the AL Central was one that I labored over the most. Wanting to pick the Twins, but scared of the injury to closer Joe Nathan and thinking the Tigers were relying on too many rookies at once, I opted for the White Sox to win the division. I immediately regretted that decision about a month into the season when Chicago looked awful and off to a 14-21 record in mid-May. The AL Central had suddenly turned into only a two-team race as the Sox were fading fast. Well, as it turns out, the division is still pretty much whatever everyone thought it would be—a three-team race that most likely will be undecided into the final week of the season.

Only a little over a month ago, the White Sox were nine games below .500 and the Central standings looked like this on the morning of June 9:

Minnesota   34-24     —
Detroit          30-27    3.5
Chicago         24-33    9.5

The White Sox pounded the Tigers that evening 15-3 and went on an absolute tear to force themselves back in the picture. The Sox went on a blistering 25-5 pace in the next month that included winning streaks of 11 and a current one of eight to find themselves in first place at the break. A big reason for the turnaround has been (as usual) the home run for Chicago (third in the AL with 100), including the resurgence of Carlos Quentin, who is hitting .529 (9-for-17) with six home runs in his past five games. Whoa. Today, the standings read:

Chicago          49-38       —
Detroit            48-38      0.5
Minnesota      46-42     3.5

As I write this on July 12, I honestly have no clue how this division will eventually play out. The White Sox will have to come back down to earth after this ridiculous 25-5 run, but they’ve made up for their poor start and are right back in the hunt. All three teams are ranked in a row in the AL in ERA with the Sox having the slight edge with a 4.01 ERA over the Twins (4.09) and Tigers (4.29). On the other hand, the Twins and Tigers both have a higher batting average and on-base percentage than Chicago, but the Sox make up for it with the long ball and pitching. Head-to-head, the Twins have the advantage going 10-7 against the Tigers and Sox in the first half while the Tigers have not fared well against their two division rivals with a 6-10 record. The Tigers and Twins have already met a lot in the first half, but the Tigs and Sox still have 13 games remaining against each other.

I believe all three teams will be right there, because the Twins, Tigers and White Sox are all good teams. The problem is, none of these three teams are great teams. While the division race will be fun to watch down the stretch, none of them are a great team, and therefore whichever team wins the pennant, I don’t see them doing much damage in the playoffs when facing powerhouses like the Yankees, Red Sox or the Rays.

 

June 23, 2010

HBP gone wild

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Tigers relief pitcher Jay Sborz, a career minor leaguer with eight seasons in the minors, made his ML debut Tuesday night against the Mets. Hopefully it was not his only appearance ever because it was a horrid…and historic one.

Sborz relieved Justin Verlander in the bottom of the third inning at Citi Field for his first appearance in the show. Just eight batters later, he was finished for the night with a line of three hits, five earned runs in just 0.2 innings. The thing that stuck out to me was the way he started as he promptly hit the first two batters he saw (Rod Barajas and Jeff Francouer). My first thought was this has to be a major league first. So I quickly went to my best friend, the Baseball Reference Play Index, and believe it or not, I was wrong though I was close. Sborz’s feat was actually the second ever in major league history. Well, at least since 1950 since the play-by-play is not available for games prior to 1950.

Toronto reliever Justin Miller hit the first two batters he saw in his career on April 12, 2002 for the Blue Jays against the Devil Rays. Even more bizarre is that Miller picked up the win in that game. Weird stuff.

Also, Phillies reliever Andy Carter came close to being the first in 1994 when he hit two out of the first three batters he faced.

Just another fine example of “you never know what you’re going to see in any baseball game” moment. And for the sake of Sborz’s sanity, I’m praying to the baseball gods that Sborz gets more opportunities to lower his current 67.50 ERA before being sent back down.

 

June 2, 2010

Another perfect game?

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Wow.

Wow.

Words can’t describe what just occurred in the ninth inning at Comerica Park. Austin Jackson makes the catch of the year for the first out in the ninth to keep Armando Galarraga’s perfect game in tact. Then for the final out—what should have been the final out—first base umpire Jim Joyce blows the call and says Jason Donald is safe at first base. There were multiple things to break down on this final play.

I’m not quite sure where Miguel Cabrera was going to run over and field the grounder that would have been an easy out for the second baseman. Instead of staying on first and allowing Carlos Guillen to get ground the ball, Cabrera ran over, scoop up the ball and fired to Galarraga covering first base. And they still had Donald by a step. Unbelievable. Jackson’s catch won’t be talk about as much as it should be, but making that catch in that pressure situation is unreal. Very Willie Mays style too.

No matter who you were rooting for in this one, you have to feel horrible for Galarraga. He pitched an incredible game that will not go down in the books as a perfect game even though it was one.

I even feel bad for Jim Joyce. You know he will see the replay and feel the worst of anyone. There’s nothing he can do now. That’s the human element of baseball. He made the call and will have to live with it. He’s going to be known as the guy that screwed up the perfect game.

I honestly can’t find any other words besides wow.

 

May 21, 2010

Breaking down the Miguel Cabrera deal

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There have been some horrible, one-sided trades throughout MLB history. For time purposes, I won’t go into details on some of the other ones, but every time I watch a Tigers or see Miguel Cabrera’s stats continue to rise, I can’t help but be reminded of how the Tigers deal with Florida is getting more and more lopsided by the day.

Let’s break this trade down. On December 4, 2007 the Marlins sent said slugger Cabrera along with pitcher Dontrelle Willis to Detroit for a handful of talent minor leagues that included Cameron Maybin, Mike Rabelo and pitchers Andrew Miller, Burke Badenhop, Dallas Trahern and Eulogio De La Cruz.

I’ll be blunt—Cabrera is a beast. He’s a perennial MVP-candidate every season as he hits for average, power, and middle-of-the-order production. He was a 24-year-old stud when the Marlins traded him, and he continues to amaze and improve every year. Cabrera has averaged 33 home runs since 2004, and so far this year, he’s hitting .340/.428/.603 with nine homers and 38 RBIs. Then there’s Willis, who seemed like a lost cause after two horrendous years, but the Tigers have stuck with him and he’s actually pitching middle of the road at the back-end of their rotation. Willis is 1-1 with a 4.68 ERA through seven games this year. If Willis even ends up being somewhat decent and stick in the rotation this year and possibly more than this deal will just look worse for the Marlins.

And what about the players Florida acquired? Well, De La Cruz has been in the Padres organization since last year, and Rabelo is back in the Tigers farm system after he was cut and resigned by Detroit. Miller, who was the top pitcher prospect in the deal, has had little success in 70 career major league games (5.50 ERA) and currently pitching at Double-A Jacksonville. Trahern has never made it to the bigs, and I can’t find him to have pitched anywhere this season according to Baseball Reference. Badenhop is the only pitcher in the deal to pitch for the Marlins this year, but he’s 0-4 with a 5.49 ERA in 13 games out of the bullpen.

Basically, these guys aren’t anything to write home about. Maybin was the key prospect in this deal, and his success or lack thereof will eventually be the verdict of this trade. The Tigers received a lot of criticism for dealing their potential star in Maybin, but two and half years later Maybin has done almost nothing with plenty of opportunities. He went back and forth between Florida and the minors in ’08 and ’09, but heading into Friday’s game he has three home runs with a line of .241/.303/.340 in 37 games with Florida. Not exactly the stud player the Marlins expected they were getting in the trade. His power has never really developed as he’s been very inconsistent. He is only 23 years old still, but the more he continues to struggle while Cabrera continues to produce, the gap in this deal widens.

People will argue that the Marlins did this deal to dump payroll on another one of their fire sales, but I’m not going into that aspect of it and will just look at it as a baseball deal. Even the Marlins keep franchise players around every once in a while (see Hanley Ramirez), so I find it hard to believe they couldn’t have kept Cabrera to a big deal or acquire more in return for him.

It’s only been two and half years so it’s still not enough time to fully dissect the trade, but man does it look heavily lopsided right now and has the potential to be one of the worst deals of all-time if the Tigers and Cabrera win championships or reach the World Series during his career.

 

April 12, 2010

Weekly Recap

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I wanted to kick each week off with a recap of the recent happenings around the league throughout the last week. I’m not sure what day this will end up on from here on out—Monday makes the most sense since it’s by the beginning of the week and a lot of teams have an off day on Mondays, but depending on my schedule the day may fluctuate.

Let’s start off with the Tigers rolling out to a 5-1 start. What happened to everyone who said they wouldn’t be a good team without Curtis Granderson or Edwin Jackson? Well it looks like the Tigers benefited from some nice scheduling to start the season starting off with the Royals, Indians and now the Royals again for a three-game series. The Tigers rotation will be crucial to their hopes this year. Let’s see where they end up at the end of April after they get the Angels, Rangers and Twins the rest of the month.

Speaking of Jackson, now a member of the Diamondbacks rotation, want to know how shitty the 13-run 4th inning against the Pirates yesterday got? Jackson recorded two hits in the fourth inning, a single and even a home run. This from a guy that had four hits in eight major league seasons even though a bulk of that was spent in the American League.

With Cliff Lee out for probably all of April, the Mariners cannot afford to get in a hole early as they are struggling out of the gate already to a 2-5 mark. Someone in that rotation not named Felix Hernandez needs to step up for the M’s to stay even close to contention until Lee gets back. It’s still early, but after all the additions Seattle made in the offseason it will be an interesting trade deadline if they fall out of it early.

The Houston Astros are the only team yet to win a game in 2010. Not a real surprise here, but I’m curious to know if the Astros are 0-fer at the trading deadline does the brass still make moves to go for it as if they were in a pennant race?

Roy Halladay seems to be enjoying the National League very much so. He’s already 2-0 with 0.56 ERA in 16 innings with one CG, 17K’s and only two walks. Yikes to the rest of the NL East! We knew Halladay was a beast and now in the NL, if he stays healthy I’m predicting at least 15 CG from him this year.

The 5-2 Twins will open Target Field this afternoon against the Red Sox on ESPN. This will mark the first time the Twins have played outdoors in Minnesota since 1981. Anyone have the weather forecast for Minneapolis? Actually, it appears to be in the 60s today so that shouldn’t be much of a problem, but the weather channel’s website actually did an interesting feature on the typical weather to expect in April and October at Target Field. It’s safe to say at some point soon we’ll see some snow at the new ballpark.

The Giants ran off a nice 5-1 start thanks to a 2.79 ERA, good for fourth best in the major leagues. The pitching was expected, but they are also fifth in the league with a .289 average. I doubt they will hold that average and score runs, but they have a chance to extend their solid start with three upcoming home games against the Pirates.

 

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