After starting the month of July on a 5-game win streak, the Clippers have hit a little bit of a rough patch and have only won 3 of their past 8 games. Last night continued the trend as the Clippers were blanked 4-0 by Zach Britton and the Norfolk Tides. Josh Tomlin posted a quality start but the offense could never get it going.
Team Offense: 6H, 1XBH, 1BB, 5SO, 3 GIDP
Not too much to analyze here. It was a pretty bad day at the plate all the way around. However, tonight’s game did afford the opportunity for the Indians organization to flaunt their sudden wealth of talent at Second Base. Cord Phelps and Josh Rodriguez (your State Farm “Down on the Farm” player from Friday’s STO broadcast) each had a pair of hits and where as Josh added a double to his tally, Cord added the Clippers only base on balls.
Currently, Josh’s OPS stands at 896 which is even more impressive when you consider he’s not getting the lofty OPS through an outsized SLG component. His OBP is 407 and while his BABIP stands at an unsustainable 406, his batted ball profile suggests a relatively high xBABIP (expected BABIP) and his regression will eventually come to bear, but it might not be as severe as one would expect. His bat seems to be able to play in Columbus and though he is striking out in almost 20% of his PA’s, he is drawing a fair number of walks and driving the ball as can be seen by his 14 XBH’s out of 47 total hits.
Cord (Robert) Phelps has an even shorter AAA track record than Josh Rodriguez with only 95 AB’s, but he has made the most of him. Cord’s triple slash is a monster 376/437/624. He has 10 2Bs, 2 3Bs and 3 HRs paired with a 10:12 BB:K ratio and his 410 BABIP is high, but not that high considering his career BABIP of 341. Even with regression, his bat seems to be handling AAA very well.
Josh’s defense has gotten better reviews from the limited exposure he has in the minors and while he is below average at SS, his numbers indicate he is slightly above average to well above average at 2B. If he keeps hitting, he is more than a depth option at second, he could be a bona fide starting candidate. Cord’s defense has never been seen as spectacular, but rather he is known as a technically sound and proficient defender. His numbers bear this out as he has a neutral TotalRuns score of 0 indicating that he is right at the league average for second basemen. Sprinkle in some Jason Kipnis at AA, a 24-yr old Luis Valbuena and a better-suited for 2B prospect in Jason Donald and all of a sudden the Indians organization is flush with viable options at the keystone.
Team Pitching: 4(3) R(ER), 7H, 3HR, 0BB, 6K, 63.9% strikes, 41.7% GB
Anytime a pitcher only gives up 6 base runner’s in 7 innings and yields 4 runs, you can assume that bad luck on fly balls and/or some sloppy fielding were the result. Josh Tomlin was the victim of both as he pitched well enough last night to earn the win on a normal Columbus offensive night and on a luck-neutral night on the mound. But, things go wrong sometimes and Tomlin was the victim. He yielded only 3 singles, 2 of the infield variety, outside of the three long balls.
Former Tribe farmhand, Michael Aubrey, abused his old organization by going long twice in back to back at bats to leadoff the 2nd and 4th innings. Jess Todd struck out two in his inning of relief work. Todd has quietly put together a great stretch in Columbus by posting a 3.44 FIP and 3.1 xFIP. Which indicates that his 2.75 ERA isn’t too far off from his real performance level. He is striking guys out at a monster 10.24 K/9 rate and looks like a good prospect return as the 2nd part of the Mark DeRosa deal.
The Clippers finish up their set at Norfolk tonight at 6:15pm and will look to avoid the sweep and get back on track to maintaining their healthy 7.5 game lead in the IL West. [Ed. Note: Say goodbye to Jeanmar Gomez for the time being as he is in Cleveland making a spot start. Good Luck Gomez!]
*TotalRuns and park-adjusted numbers taken from www.minorleaguesplits.com
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Clip & Dirty: 7/17
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3 comments:
Charlie ~
Thanks for the notes on the Clippers while Tony is vacationing (you ARE taking a break, aren't you, Tony?). Just asking a small favor....could you lighten up on the fantasy/Bill James stats? Thanks
Haha, sure thing. I'll pull back on those, but as engaged and passionate fans I believe it is our responsibility to slowly transition away from the traditional stats (ERA and AVG, etc etc) that more often mislead our perception of baseball players and begin to look deeper at the SABRmetric stats that are a truer indication of actual performance.
For anyone interested in learning a little more about some of the non-traditional stats, here is a quick clarification:
The BABIP stat regarding Josh Rodriguez essentially says that he is getting lucky on the balls that he is hitting that aren't home-runs (balls in play).
The xBABIP portion refers to his career BABIP which is related to the number of line-drives, ground balls and fly balls they hit. Generally faster players that hit a lot of ground balls have higher BABIP's than those that hit fly balls. In this case, Josh Rodriguez hits a fair number of line drives and ground balls and has decent speed so he can beat out a handful of infield singles as well. Hence, his xBABIP (or career BABIP) is pretty high, relatively speaking. His BABIP in Columbus is a good deal higher than his xBABIP, so we can expect a regression in both his BABIP and along with that goes his AVG, OBP and SLG as more of his balls in play get converted into his outs and fewer drop for hits.
As far as FIP and xFIP are concerned, they are basically measures used to check the validity of a pitchers ERA. If a guy has a FIP of 5 and an ERA of 3.5 then you can assume that the pitcher has gotten a little lucky when it comes to actual runs crossing the plate compared to how many home runs, walks and strikeouts he has been posting.
So yes, I will be using fewer advanced stats, but will look for any chance I get to slowly introduce a few new advanced stats.
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