Next Up: The Colorado Rockies

On Monday, I wrote, previewing the Pirates' next ten games:

With the Pirates playing ten games against three of the worst teams in the league at the same time the Cardinals play ten against teams with winning records (the Diamondbacks, Giants, and Nationals), there's an opportunity for the Pirates to pick up ground heading into a Labor Day weekend matchup in St. Louis.

Well, that plan's been only half successful. The Pirates did indeed take three of four from the Miami Marlins, but the seemingly unstoppable Cardinals went to Phoenix and took four straight from a Diamondbacks team that had been on an 18-9 run. The Pirates now host the Rockies, with the third worst record in baseball, for three games while the Cardinals face the Giants, who trail the Dodgers by 2.5 in the West and the Cubs by 5.5 for the second wild card.

How Are They Doing Lately? Over the last 30 days, the Rockies are 8-19, tying them with the Braves for the worst record in the National League. Despite playing in the best hitters' park in the majors, they've scored only 4.1 runs per game over the last 30 days, the sixth lowest total in the league, while giving up 6.0 per game, easily the most. They're 9-19 since trading shortstop/franchise icon Troy Tulowitzki to the Blue Jays on July 28.

What's Going Right? Rockies pitchers are never as bad as their raw numbers, as they have the handicap of playing half their games in the most hitter-friendly ballpark in the majors. Adjusted for their home park, their starters' ERA is fifth worst in the league over the past 30 days, and the relievers' ERA is second worse. That's not good, of course, but it's better than their unadjusted ERA.

What's Going Wrong? One Rockies batters are in the middle of the National League pack in slugging percentage over the past 30 days, at .417, but they've been hurt by an inability to get on base. The team's .295 on base percentage is the worst in the league over the past 30 days, the only team below .300. They've walked the least frequently and struck out the second most frequently in the league, swinging at 34% of pitches outside the strike zone, the second most in the league. The starting pitchers' ERA over the past 30 days is 5.89. Only the Phillies have been worse. Sort of the mirror image of the hitters, Rockies starters have struck out batters at the third-lowest rate and walked them at the sixth-highest rate. The relievers have been worse, with a league-worst 6.24 ERA, the lowest strikeout rate in the league, and by far and away the highest walk rate. Rockies relievers have issued free passes to 15% of the batters they've faced over the last 30 days. The next worst  team, the Marlins, are below 10%. The Rockies bullpen has four saves and six blown saves in the past 30 days. 

Who's Hot? Right fielder Carlos Gonzalez has put on a slugging show of late, leading the Rockies with ten homers, 20 RBI, 18 runs scored, a .337 on base percentage, and a .630 slugging percentage over the past 30 days. The Pirates will face the Rockies' most dependable starter of late, Jorge de la Rosa, on Sunday. Over his past five starts, he has a 3.41 ERA. Highly-touted rookie Jonathan Gray has his fifth start tonight. In his first three starts--all no-decisions--he compiled a 2.40 ERA with 14 strikeouts in 15 innings, but he was lit up for seven runs in an inning and two thirds against the Mets last Friday.

Who's Not? The Rockies got shortstop Jose Reyes in the trade for Tulo, and he's struggled with a .258 batting average and .284 on base percentage since coming over. He's also been caught stealing in half of his eight attempts. The team's most successful base stealer is center fielder Charlie Blackmon, with eight steals over the past 30 days, though he's been successful in 62% of his attempts, negating his swipes. Slick-fielding third baseman Nolan Arenado, first baseman Ben Paulsen, and catcher Nick Hundley join Reyes among regulars with on base percentages below .300 over the past 30 days. Over the past 30 days, the team's six most frequently used relievers have combined for a 7.30 ERA and have walked 16% of the batters they've faced; the league average is a 3.91 ERA and an 8% walk rate.

What's the Outlook? Playing the Rockies at altitude in Coors Field is said to mess up visiting hitters' and pitchers' timing. Hosting Colorado at PNC Park entails no such risk. (The Pirates visit Denver in September.) Picking up ground on the division-leading Cardinals, whom the Pirates trail by 4.5 games, is a tall order, though, as long as the Redbirds keeping winning every damn game they play.

Sweet Play of the Day - July 2

Your basic 4-6-3 double play turned by the Rockies, DJ LeMahieu to Troy Tulowitzki to Justin Morneau. Except...that's usually second baseman's glove to throwing hand, to shortstop's glove to throwing hand, to first baseman's glove. They skipped a couple steps.

At The Kind-Of Halfway Point

I missed this, because the schedule this year has been more uneven than usual. There are 162 games in the regular season, meaning that 81 games is halfway through. Most teams are now past that point, though not all:

• 85 games played: Dodgers, Tampa Bay 
• 84 games played: Arizona, Houston, Milwaukee, Toronto 
• 83 games played: Atlanta, Boston, White Sox, Colorado, Mets, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Texas
• 82 games played: Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Miami, Oakland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington
• 81 games played: Cubs, Minnesota, Yankees
• 80 games played: Angels
• 79 games played: Detroit 

If the season were to end now, at the kind-of halfway point:

• The wild card games would be Mariners at the Angels and Nationals at Giants.
• The wild card winners would play the A's in the American League and the Brewers in the National League. The other playoffs would be Blue Jays vs. Tigers and Braves vs. Dodgers. The A's, Brewers, Tigers, and Dodgers would have home field advantage.
• The batting leaders would be Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies (.353) and Adrian Beltre of the Rangers (.332). Home run leaders would be Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins (21) and a three-way tie among the White Sox's Jose Abreu, the Orioles' Nelson Cruz, and the Blue Jays' Edwin Encarnacion (25 each). RBI leaders: Cruz (66) and Stanton (60). 
• ERA leaders would be Johnny Cueto of the Reds (1.88) and Masahiro Tanaka of the Yankees (2.10). Saves leaders would be Francisco Rodriguez of the Brewers (27) and a tie between the Dodgers' Kenley Jansen and the Braves' Craig Kimbrel (25 each). 
• MVP: Hard to argue against Tulowitzki in the NL, as he plays a key defensive position (shortstop) well and leads the league in batting, on-base, and slugging. In the AL, Mike Trout is seventh in batting, second in on-base percentage, second in slugging, and first in on-base plus slugging.
• Cy Young: It'd probably be close between Tanaka (first in ERA, first in wins) and the Mariners' Felix Hernandez (second in ERA by .003, second in strikeouts, second in wins) in the American League. The NL is more wide open, as Cueto, the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright, the Braves' Julio Teheran, the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, and the Marlins' Henderson Alvarez would all get votes. 
• The American League Rookie of the Year race is between Tanaka and Abreu and will likely remain so. The NL race so far is between Diamondbacks shortstop Chris Owings and Reds centerfielder/speed demon Billy Hamilton. 

But, of course, the season isn't ending. We still have half the year to go, kind of.

Sweet Play of the Day: Father's Day Edition

No, not because Troy Tulowitzki is a father:

Sweet Play of the Day - May 13

What makes Troy Tulowitzki amazing isn't that he makes plays like this. It's that he makes plays like this while also leading the league in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, home run frequency, total bases, and runs scored. 

Nolan Arenado, Ball Magnet

This morning I was scrolling through baseball stats at the mlb.com mobile site, and I noticed something curious. This is the list of major league leaders for assists: 

Rk		Tm	G	Inn	A ▾	Pos Summary
1	Troy Tulowitzki	COL	27	234.0	101	SS
2	Aaron Hill	ARI	29	260.0	92	2B
3	Starlin Castro	CHC	26	230.0	91	SS
4	Alexei Ramirez	CHW	29	260.0	90	SS
5	Brian Dozier	MIN	26	238.2	87	2B
6	Jimmy Rollins	PHI	24	204.1	87	SS
7	Nolan Arenado	COL	30	267.0	83	3B
8	Marcus Semien	CHW	29	251.0	83	2B-3B
9	Jose Altuve	HOU	28	249.1	81	2B
10	Ben Zobrist	TBR	30	237.2	80	2B-OF-SS

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/2/2014.

Tulo, Hill, Castro, Ramirez, Dozier...all make sense. They're middle infielders, and middle infielders get a lot of ground balls. But there's the Rockies' Nolan Arenado tied for seventh. He's a third baseman. That seems out of place.

Arenado is in just his second year, but he's already won plaudits for his glovework. He won the National League Gold Glove last year as a rookie, and he hasn't let up this year. Still, how unusual is it for a third baseman to rank in the top ten in assists?

Really unusual, it turns out. As in, it hasn't happened since baseball expanded in 1961. The only third basemen in the 53 seasons since then to have finished in the top 20 in major league assists were Brooks Robinson (No. 13 in 1967), Ron Santo (No. 15 in 1967, No. 20 in 1966), Brandon Inge (No. 19 in 2006), Clete Boyer (No. 19 in 1962, No. 20 in 1961), and Graig Nettles (No. 20 in 1971). Nobody's been close to the top 10 until now.

Is this a fluke? I figure there are three things that could give Arenado a big advantage. First, handedness. Right-handed batters hit grounders to the left side of the infield more than left-handed batters, and managers load up on right-handed batters in order to gain a platoon advantage when they face lefties. Do the Rockies feature an unusual number of southpaw pitchers, resulting in opposing lineups full of right-handed batters, hitting grounder after grounder to third?

This year, lefties have pitched 37% of Colorado's innings. That's a lot. But it's not extreme: The Rangers, White Sox, Angels, Rays, Phillies, and A's all have had a greater proportion of innings pitched by lefties. So Arenado's pace isn't because he plays behind a steady stream of left-handed pitchers. 

How about the pitchers' tendencies themselves? Do Rockies pitchers, in an effort to keep batted balls out of the thin air at Coors Field, generate tons of ground balls? 

Again, yes, but it's not dramatic. Rockies pitchers have induced grounders on just under 49% of balls in play. That's high, but not highest: The Pirates, Phillies, Giants, and Dodgers have all gotten more. So that's not the explanation.

Finally, how about games played? Have the Rockies played more games than others, giving Arenado a chance to see more balls hit his way? Again, kind of yes. The Rockies have played 30 games so far, second-most in the majors. But other than the Tigers, every team's played at least 26. Maybe when the games even out, two of the players below him on the list above, Marcus Semien and Jose Altuve, will pass him. But that's probably it, at least on that basis. (And no, Arenado's assists aren't inflated by shifting, because, as Rockies Zingers points out, the Rockies do relatively little shifting.)

More likely, he just slows down. When a player's on pace early in the season to do something that's never been done before, the easy answer is to assume that he won't do it, either. But for a while here, I'm going to keep track of Arenado's assists and see if he can keep hanging with the middle infielders.

2014 Predictions: NL West

As Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. These predictions for upcoming season are going to be pretty quick and dirty. You don't want to spend a lot of time reading them anyway, do you? Unlike other prognosticators, though, I'll revisit these to see how badly I did.

Since baseball games are the product of runs scored and runs allowed, I'm going to focus on those two metrics in developing my 2014 predictions. The NL Central is here. The NL East is here. And here's the American League West, Central, and East.

Los Angeles Dodgers - 92-70 in 2013, 4.0 runs scored per game (15th in MLB), 3.6 runs allowed per game (3rd in MLB): They're returning pretty much the same lineup as last year, with Cuban import Alex Guerrero taking over at second at some point and Dan Haren added to the rotation. This could be a really strong team if Hanley Ramirez and Matt Kemp can stay healthy and Juan Uribe and Yasiel Puig can be as good as last year. Do you think that's possible? I don't. Prediction: More runs scored and allowed, 94-68.

Arizona Diamondbacks - 81-81, 4.2 runs scored per game (14th in MLB), 4.3 runs allowed per game (21st in MLB): Can they keep their streak of finishing with an exactly .500 record, where they finished in 2012 and 2013 intact? I don't think so. They were lucky last year (as I pointed out here, their 34-21 record in one-run games was the best in the league last year, and that figure tends to drift toward .500). They're moving their best defensive outfielder, Gerardo Parra, to the bench in order to get Mark Trumbo's bat in the lineup. And their big free agent pickup, Bronson Arroyo, has a bulging disk. Prediction: Same number of runs scored, more allowed,  78-84.

San Diego Padres - 76-86, 3.8 runs scored per game (23rd in MLB), 4.3 runs allowed per game (20th in MLB): I don't have a great feeling. 1B Yonder Alonso has hit 11 HR per 600 plate appearances in his career. LF Carlos Quentin and SP Josh Johnson are trips to the disabled list waiting to happen. Here are 3B Chase Headley's home run totals the past five years: 12, 11, 4, 31, 13. Can you spot the fluke?  At least they presumably won't lose their shortstop, Everth Cabrera, to the Biogenesis scandal again this year. Prediction: Fewer runs scored and allowed, 77-85.

San Francisco Giants - 76-86, 3.9 runs scored per game (21st in MLB), 4.3 runs allowed per game (19th in MLB): The Padres and Giants both play in pitchers' parks, so their below-average rankings in runs allowed says a lot about their key problem, pitching. The Giants added Tim Hudson, who's 38 and coming off a gruesome ankle injury, but he's been healhty in spring training. The rest of the team's unchanged other than the addition of Michael Morse in left. Morse was terrible last year (.215/.270/.381 slash line) and his best position is probably DH but he spent most of the season in Seattle, where everybody's bat seems to turn to mush, so he's a bounceback candidate. Prediction: Same number of runs scored, fewer allowed, 80-82.

Colorado Rockies - 74-88, 4.4 runs scored per game (9th in MLB), 4.7 runs allowed per game (28th in MLB): The team's offense will depend in large part on Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, clearly the two best players on the team, staying healthy, and 35-year-old Michael Cuddyer, the 2013 NL batting champ who had the best year of his career at the plate (yes, even taking Coors Field into account), not getting old. Brett Anderson, acquired via trade from Oakland, would seem to be a good candidate for success at Coors, as he throws a lot of sliders (a good Coors pitch) and generates tons of grounders, but he's in his sixth year and has topped 100 innings in a season only twice. Prediction: More runs scored, same number allowed, 77-85.

Robinson Cano and the Yankees

I hit up the Mariners' $240 million, 10-year free agent contract with Robinson Cano earlier. There are two implications of this deal for the Yankees, as I see it.

• The Bombers have a somewhat unfair reputation for "buying pennants." There was a time when they signed high-priced star free agents by the armload. But there really hasn't been that much of that recently; the last two splurges were CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, and that was five years ago. (Yes, I know, Brian McCann and Jacoby Ellsbury signed big contracts, but they are not stars like CC and Tex were.) What the Yankees have done, though, is retain their key players, most famously Jeter, Rivera, Pettite, and Posada. Can you remember the Yankees losing their best hitter, in his prime, to free agency? I can't.
• The Yankees' window for buying pennants has probably closed, anyway. As Joe Sheehan pointed out in a brilliant piece in his newsletter Thursday (subscription required, and it's worth it), top young stars hardly ever hit free agency in their prime anymore; their teams have them locked up. Think of Evan Longoria, Andrew McCutchen, Troy Tulowitzki--all have long-term contracts with their teams. So even if they wanted to, the Yankees can't buy a pennant anymore by waiting for young stars to hit free agency after six years. So they need to keep core players like the one who just got away.