Games » Baltimore Orioles
May17Walks and errors
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
Walks and errors. When they played the first baseball game — wherever that was — some coach was probably already warning his team about walks and errors. There are great many things baseball players don’t control, but — theoretically — they should be able to control walks and errors. In the 7th inning of Thursday’s game the Royals didn’t and it cost them the game.
Royals up 3-2, Wilson Betemit leads off the 7th with a single. Chris Davis follows that with a line drive single to center field. Jarrod Dyson charges in, decides at the last moment he’s not going to get there in time to make the catch and hits the brakes. So far, none of these decisions have been incorrect. It wasn’t charging in, it wasn’t deciding the catch could not be made — it was what happened after.
Dyson wants to play the ball for a single. Betemit is only going to get to second base because he had to hold up to see if the ball would be caught, but Jarrod fails to knock the ball down and keep it in front of him. Outfielders talk about keeping the ball in front of you and sometimes say you need to “get big.” That means square up to the ball and make your body as big as possible in an effort to knock the ball down. I’m not sure “getting big” is on Jarrod’s list of options, but an outfielder needs to be willing to let the ball hit his body in that situation.
The ball skips by Dyson, Betemit scores from first and Davis ends up on second. Score 3-3. Aaron Crow replaces Luke Hochevar, gets two outs and then walks Luis Exposito, the No. 9 hitter — as they say, he’s hitting ninth for a reason. That gets Crow gets back to the top of the order and he proceeds to walk the leadoff hitter, Xavier Avery. Avery’s walk pushes Exposito into scoring position, J.J. Hardy singles and the Orioles have the two runs they’ll need to win the game.
Courtesy of two walks and an error.
Dyson
Jarrod Dyson is going to get criticized — it’s already started — for the play in Thursday’s game. Combined with the ball he misplayed on opening day, plenty of fans will have the ammunition they need to say the Royals ought to dump him. (Wasn’t it just before the game that we were talking about how well he was playing and how tough it was going to be for Lorenzo Cain to get his job back?)
Smarter people than me will decide what to do with Jarrod Dyson. I just want to point out that fast outfielders will fool you. A ball goes up, it looks like trouble and the fast outfielder gets there easily, makes the catch and some fans think the play was routine. The only reason it looked routine is because of the player’s foot speed.
Dyson has definitely made some plays look harder than he needed to, but don’t forget the ones he made look easy.
Game notes
It’s going to get lost in the talk about the Dyson play, but Alex Gordon did an excellent job holding Wilson Betemit to a single to start the inning.
Billy Butler played well defensively: twice he came off the bag, snagged errant throws and applied the tag as the runner went by. Once he reached into the camera bay to catch a pop fly.
Take it for what it’s worth, but in this game and the previous game, the Royals went with Irving Falu over Johnny Giavotella defensively.
Falu was credited with a sacrifice bunt in the 4th inning, but I thought the scoring was wrong. There was already one out and Falu pushed it hard toward second. Both are clues that he was bunting for a hit.
Coming inside
Wednesday night Felipe Paulino kept coming inside on Nick Johnson. Felipe would make Johnson move his feet, then throw something away. Johnson struck out on three called strikes. Some hitters are really uncomfortable leaning out over the plate after the pitcher comes in. Next time you see a pitcher come in, watch where the next pitch is and how the hitter reacts.
BTW: there are tough guys who refuse to get out of the way when the pitcher comes inside. They just turn and let the pitch hit them. That’s why pitchers hate elbow pads, they think it allows the hitter to get away with this behavior without paying the price.
Rookie mistake
Here’s a helpful hint: if you’re ever watching a ball game around people who play, manage, coach, report on, serve food or have any other connection to professional baseball, never, never, ever say how quickly the game is being played — it’s considered a jinx.
Someone in the press box made that mistake Wednesday night and bang — extra innings. (I’m looking at you, Emily.)
The price you pay
Greg Holland says that most of the time, if he pitches two days in a row, he’ll need the third day off. Greg also said that if he pitches an inning and two thirds (got one out, sat, pitched an inning, sat, got another out) the time between innings will make him more stiff and sore than if hadn’t sat between innings. Getting hot, cooling down and getting hot again has an effect.
Another thing to think about when you see a guy pitch great and wonder why they don’t have him come back out: they can — and sometimes do — but there’s a price to pay.
Lefty/right/lefty
Speaking of paying a price: say you’re managing, the game is in the 7th inning and your starter is through. The opposition is sending a left-handed hitter, followed by a right-handed hitter and then another lefty to the plate. You have two left-handed relievers in the pen. You have the option of using both left-handed relievers, plus a right-hander in-between and getting matchups you like throughout the 7th inning.
If it works, fans will love it — you appear to be managing the hell out of the game. You’ve also chewed through three relievers in one inning and no longer have a left-handed reliever available.
Factor in who’s unavailable, ahead or behind, stage of the game and righties who can get out lefties and lefties who can get out righties and suddenly, managing the bullpen isn’t as easy as it appears from the upper deck after your fifth beer.
P.S. Here’s another pitching theory to keep in mind: if you bring in enough pitchers you’ll eventually find one who doesn’t have it that night. So sticking with a guy has its drawbacks, but so does changing pitchers. There’s a reason these guys get paid a lot to manage baseball.
Quintero
Hochevar
Butler
Jim Wilson
1 year agoAL managers have it easy compared to the NL. :)
Lee, how much time does Billy spend on an average day working at first base? I assume they are still trying to improve his defensive skills but with few off days, travel and him in the line-up every night, how much work can he get?
Jim Wilson
1 year agoAnd Hosmer getting most most (all) of the reps during warm-ups.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoLee, today’s game reminded me of a piece you wrote about just doing the routine things; throw strikes, don’t let a ball get past you to the wall.
Baltimore does look to be a better team than I expected.
Lee Judge
1 year agoJim: Agreed, managing in the AL is a breeze in comparison—but none of it’s simple.
Billy gets reps most every day, from what I’ve seen. With interleague approaching the starting pitchers are working on their bunting and base running in case—God forbid—they get on base.
The coaching staff’s main goal is to get the pitchers through interleague without an injury.
The position players think it’s pretty funny to watch the pitchers try to bunt and hit. Some of the pitchers were pretty good at one time, but it’s been a while for most of them.
Aaron Bailey
1 year agoLee, since you mentioned the difficulty in using the bullpen - it appeared that Hochevar and Crow weren’t getting many calls on the black and therefore struggled and walked guys; yet Matusz was getting the high strike with his curve ball fairly consistently. I’m not complaining (much) about the ump but am curious how much a manager might take into consideration the umpire’s strike zone when using his pen. More specifically, if Collins hadn’t thrown 3 innings in the last two games, would he have been a better option than Crow, regardless of who the hitters were?
Jim Wilson
1 year agoIt was just two games. We made Baltimore look good. And we made the best team in baseball look not so good for two games (+ 77 run differential, crazy!). I hope we don’t get a lot of negativity about the past two games. The Royals have played exceptionally well over the past three series (7 games and exactly one week) against three very good teams. From a business perspective, it would, of course, be better if they were winning at home and losing on the road. :)
Lee Judge
1 year agoJim: talking about the doing the routine routinely also takes me back to another piece: the one about Chris Getz practicing the same way he plays.
I know some people didn’t see the value in that, but most baseball coaches watch that stuff closely.
Alex Gordon has a reputation for taking practice extremely seriously. Most people out there think that’s why he won a Gold Glove.
And, yeah, Baltimore’s pen did quite a job on the Royals offense.
Jim Wilson
1 year ago“The coaching staff’s main goal is to get the pitchers through interleague without an injury.”
That gave me a good laugh. I’ve been in Houston since 1984. Before MLB TV came along, I mostly watched NL games. Your comment reminded me of when the Astros picked up the Big Unit at the trade deadline. It is impossible for me to describe how incredibly awkward Johnson looked at the plate. But he actually had a couple of line drives that got into the gap in the big ‘ol Astrodome. He you thought he looked awkward running, you should have seen him rounding first and “heading” towards second. We were all in the aisles praying he didn’t kill himself. Randy going to the plate to bunt was time to go get a beer or head to the restroom — it was unwatchable. But, despite how it looked, he was much better than you would expect.
Lee Judge
1 year agoAaron: I can see how an umpire’s zone affects the chances of a certain pitcher being successful—Bruce Chen needs a wide one—but it would sure complicate things even more if you tried to anticipate what the umpire was going to do.
According to the stats we were given before the game, Crow walked out there with a 2.50 ERA, lefties were hitting .083 against him, and righties .211.
Collins probably was unavailable. Any time you call the pen, it’s usually a gamble. makes you appreciate those guys who are almost automatic—they’re pretty rare.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoAaron, here’s Brooks Baseball’s charts for Hoch today:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php?month=05&day=17&year=2012&game=gid20120517balmlbkcamlb1/&prevGame=gid20120517balmlbkcamlb1/&prevDate=0517&pitchSel=460024.xml
Looks like the zone was fairly wide. I will note that Luke kept the ball down well, much better at staying low than the last two games. He also had some heat, staying around 94mph. If you want Crow, there’s a player search top right of the page, then scroll down to select a game on the left.
Jim Wilson
1 year agoI meant “awkward batting” not “awkward running.”
Lee Judge
1 year agoJim: I listen to talk radio on the way home from games and there were people already bailing on the Royals—not unanimous—but it was there.
Jim Wilson
1 year agoWell, at least they cared enough to call in. :) I hope you soon get to experience the most irrating type of fan. You haven’t had them in KC for more than 25 years. They are the fair weather fans who suddenly show up when the team’s winning or in the playoffs. They criticize everything that doesn’t go perfect even though they have invested zero in the team during all the years of losing. The guys who are calling in now complaining will be pulling their hair out.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoLee, some “fans” bailed long before the season started because the Royals didn’t trade Hosmer for Pineda and sign Roy Oswalt and his two degenerative discs. That’s just the talk radio niche and some blogs that follow their lead. Some of that is herd instinct and some of it is the need for vicarious victory in life, feeling justified by someone else’s efforts.
Jim Wilson
1 year agoHaving seen Roy pitch a lot and personally knowing a fair amount about Roy, criticizing the Royals for not signing him is silly. There’s no one in the game who will give you more effort but Roy’s body is in bad shape and has been in bad shape for a long time. He has gotten more out of it than most humans could but he’s not a good gamble. Frankly, it’s just not a close call.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoWe went through Mike Sweeney and his degenerative discs, really sad, a superb player and stand up guy betrayed by his body. Life is like that. I wish Oswalt well, thought he was a great pitcher, but compressed nerve roots aren’t something that even the greatest will power can overcome.
Luke Healy
1 year agoI kept thinking about something throughout the game today (and several others recently). You talk a lot about how the Royals have tried to emphasize decreasing walks, and fired their old pitching coach for that very reason. What drives me absolutely crazy is how they don’t seem to emphasize it on the other side of the game. Why is our team so bad at taking walks? It’s a free base. You preach about it for the pitchers, what about the batters? You might argue it’s been a good reason dyson has done pretty well so far, for his average and his obp—his pitch selection. On the other side you have frenchy and a few others swinging at everything they can possibly reach (and some they can’t). Is it just stubborn players not listening to coaches? Or “being aggressive” on the part of the hitters?
There were a couple occasions where their pitcher was having trouble locating, and our players go up there hacking on the next at bat. I just don’t understand some of the players approach at the plate at all. Is it a coaching thing or a player thing?
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago“Why is our team so bad at taking walks?”
Part of it is three of the big guys are hitting so poorly. Just throw strikes to Alex, Hoz, and Frenchy and let them get themselves out.
“On the other side you have frenchy and a few others swinging at everything they can possibly reach”
Francoeur’s K# is 13.5%, Alex is 20.7%, Moose 16.9%, Billy 15.6%, Dyson 14.8%. I don’t really see Frenchy as the poster child for Royals’ hitters striking out. Frenchy’s BB% is 7.4, Billy’s 4.5.
Curtis Ruder
1 year agoI saw Dyson try to make the right play and fail. It happens. I don’t have a problem with that play at all.
The point about relievers is a good one. It also highlights the importance of staggering the lineup with right handed and left handed bats. (Which is my only problem with batting Hosmer second. Since he is the guy we most want to get rolling offensively, putting him in the middle of a left-left-right-left portion of the lineup means that he will facing the maximum number of lefty relievers. I’d really like to get him back sandwiched between righthanded batters.)
Larry Tindle
1 year agoCurtis, I think their thinking is with Hos following Dyson, who has been pretty good at getting on base, Hos will see more fast balls. Don’t know if that is happening or not.
Kristen Fleharty
1 year agoQuite unfortunate that we jinxed Dyson I would say.
Luke Healy
1 year agoIt’s not just about k/bb ratio. Sure Frenchy doesn’t strike out as much as Billy or Gordon, but his numbers overall are much worse. Francoeur just makes contact on those bad pitches and rolls them over to the left side most of the time.
I’m fine with Billy not taking as many walks because his average is around 300 with a .348 obp. That’s still not great but his ops is .845. Frenchy’s is .636. It’s hard to hit for power when you’re reaching out of the zone. Of course Billy’s game could still be helped by taking more walks (as would the whole team’s).
And you say just throw strikes to those hitting poorly, but Gordon actually leads the team in walks with 19. Hosmer is actually in 2nd with 12. Number of walks doesn’t tell the whole story, and I’m not a huge stat guy. There are probably fangraphs or something that show when people are swinging at bad pitches and such. At least by the eye test it’s pretty clear this team doesn’t walk much—and it’s not just because pitchers throw strikes.
How about this example: Cleveland is leading our division. Why? Maybe this has something to do with it. Their team batting average is actually lower than the Royals at .249 vs .257. They’re OBP though? .341 Almost 100 points higher. The Royals is only .315. The Royals even have a higher slugging % too. Cleveland’s team ERA is only a few spots better than the Royals as well.
Walks matter. We talk about it with pitching, why not with hitting?
Lee Judge
1 year agoUnfortunately, there’s a certain element in the media that encourages the roller-coaster mentality: these guys are losing, they should all be fired or sent down, these guys are winning, where should we hold the World Series parade?
It’s probably good for ratings or sales of newspapers, but it’s not very realistic for baseball. (Watch the new Bogie video and he talks specifically about this.)
The complete picture takes time to develop.
Next up: walks. Jeff Franceour got sat down before the latest Detroit series to talk about being over-aggressive at the plate. Since then his average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage have gone up.
By my count he’s walked six times in the following 14 games, a lot for Frenchy. He told me he’s afraid he’s turning into Kevin Youklis. (Not much chance of that.)
Frenchy is so enthusiastic in his approach to the game that once in a while the team has to dial him back. (Frenchy told me he reads my stuff, so, Jeff, if you disagree come argue with me.)
I can’t tell you what the overall approach is—it doesn’t appear that the Royals take the Boston/New York approach, obviously—but I think they want the guys to be selectively aggressive.
Be aggressive when it makes sense, back off when it doesn’t. The team is going through growing pains on the base running issue for the same reason. These are young guys and they’ve got to learn when to do what.
If you read that LaRussa book (I think it was “Three Nights in August), you’ll see he was mad when a player didn’t show aggression in the right spot: bases loaded, 2-0 count, fastball down the middle.
Most teams don’t want their hitters always trying to work a walk. Knowing when to do that and when to strike early is part of being a good ballplayer.
Dyson: In the game story this morning he admitted he made a mistake by not putting his body in front of the ball. Clearly his fault for having 0% body fat. I can get my body in front of a ball even when I’m not playing.
And, Larry’s right: Hosmer in the two-hole was designed to get him fastballs whenever Dyson was on base.
I know we went around and around on the site about whether a fast runner helps the hitter. Clearly, the Royals believe it—doesn’t necessarily make it true, but that’s how they’re playing the game.
Lee Judge
1 year agoOne more before I get back to work: Luke, I think you’re entirely correct. If walks hurt pitchers, they help hitters—generally speaking.
I think the way walks are viewed is one of the success stories of the metric community. But that view can get pretty dogmatic.
There are times working around a hitter might make sense and there are times working a walk doesn’t. Knowing the difference is the trick.
When Frank White was still playing there was a time he was hitting behind George Brett. He told me George was a better hitter on a bad pitch than he was on a good one. he thought there were times George should expand his zone and not leave it up to a lesser hitter.
I think OBP is important, but it’s not the only number. As you point out, Cleveland has a comparatively good OBP and leads the division. Boston has the best OBP in their division and is dead last.
But you’re asking a good question and I’ll pass it along to Kevin Seitzer and see what he says.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago“And you say just throw strikes to those hitting poorly, but Gordon actually leads the team in walks with 19.”
And strike outs with 35, even with an OZ% of 25.4, about the same as Billy. If Ks are good for a pitcher, are they bad for a hitter? Alex’ K and BB% last year helped explain his high BABIP, he sat on pitches and didn’t offer on ones he didn’t like. Matt Treanor and Mitch Maier have a similar approach.
“Cleveland is leading our division. Why? Maybe this has something to do with it.”
Orioles have a much lower BB% and are leading their division. Looking at Cleveland’s batting, fielding, and BsR, I’ld say they were just getting lucky in a weak division and on a small sample size. Twins have a higher OBP than Chicago and Detroit.
“And you say just throw strikes to those hitting poorly”
Sure. Doesn’t make sense to work around a .180 or .250 hitter to get to Billy, does it? Billy’s high first half OBP last year went in the tank when he had the hot Hosmer behind him rather than Matt Treanor. The guy in the on-deck circle has something to do with OBP, which is why it isn’t a particularly independent stat.
Chris Campbell
1 year agoThere’s a solution to the “tough guys” that will let the ball hit them in their armor: Hit them somehwrre where there isn’t any armor. If you make getting hit hurt enough they’ll think twice about getting hit again.
I never understood why no one nailed Barroid in a place where it would hurt when he was hitting steroid aided (allegedly) home runs like it was going out of style. Barroid was on top of the plate, and his armor covered elbow was actually in the strike zone at times, yet seemingly NO ONE did much to back him off of the plate. That always bothered me.
Jeffry L Jack
1 year ago“I can get my body in front of a ball even when I’m not playing.”
Best line of the day.
Lee Judge
1 year agoJeffry: Just wish it wasn’t true.
Brian Robinson
1 year agoI knocked Jarrod Dyson early in the season when he misplayed a deep yet routine fly ball. The error yesterday against Baltimore was hustle combined with lack of playing experience. It looked to me like Dyson intially reacted like he was prepared to make a play but at the final moment realized the ball was going to drop too late to realign himself in time to field the single. It’s terrible the way it happened but he was going after it. I’m ok with that so long as the mistake gets logged into the memory banks for future reference.
Dyson has impressed me since his most recent promotion. He’s been patient at the plate and used the field to his advantage. Too many times in the past I would have to agonize over a speedster, including Dyson, try to crush the baseball. Every young outfielder who considers their best attribute to be speed should be forced to watch video on Ichiro Suzuki and Brett Butler. They rarely tried to kill the ball, opting instead for a level swing to open field or as the old adage goes, “hit it where they ain’t.”
Dyson is doing his best to imitate and I like it but he needs to continue to work on his bunting. Wow he crushed that bunt yesterday. Soft hands and pulling back on the bat as it meets the ball (or absorb the impact) allows it drop and stop in the grass. Then again that’s easy for me type into a keyboard versus actually doing it against major league pitching and in front of an anxious KC crowd.
Dyson needs to keep on keeping on. He’s on the right track.
Gaines Arnold
1 year agoAgree with you that the two local all sports stations are a bit hard to listen to right now. Recently one commentator suggested that ths Royals give up some key pieces to acquire Josh Beckett from the Red Sox. The issue with these comenters is that none of the seem to have any idea how to actually analyze baseball.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoThe “Josh Beckett” virus has filtered into the blogosphere, where signing Roy Oswalt and DFAing Hochevar are still kicking around. Just a matter of trying to fill a niche and get eyeballs and ears, I guess.
Erudite and reasonable are hard to understand while driving rush hour on I-70, much easier to handle sound bites and bumper stickers. As that particular niche is dominant in our market, it also gives a feeling of belonging to a large, powerful group, important to some people.
For what it is worth, Boston blogs are as interested in dumping Beckett on some poor sucker and willing to eat much of his contract to get rid of him:)
Good points, Gaines.
LaDonna Brown Campbell
1 year agoAn interesting “armor” proposal I heard once and kind-of like — Let any player wear any armor they want…but they have to wear it the entire game. No handing it off to the first base coach. Wear it for baserunning, on defense, all the time they are on the field.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year agoGood idea, LaDonna.
Lee Judge
1 year agoBest comment I ever heard on body armor: Bob Gibson was asked if it would bother him for a hitter to wear body armor and he said, “No, I think I could breake it.”
Luke Healy
1 year agoThanks Lee for the recent stats and info on franceour. that’s really good to know.
I’m not a dogmatic metrics guy by any means, and working walks should be situational. Billy worked a nice walk tonight in the ninth inning because they were down two and needed base-runners. Unfortunately it didn’t work out in the end, but it was the right idea. Other times it is certainly appropriate to be aggressive. Unfortunately I don’t think we have a George Brett right now who hits bad pitches better than other guys hit good pitches. So we should just swing at the good ones right? I’m sure it’s just that easy! :)
Jim: Yes, strikeouts are bad. The team should try to strike out less. Stikeouts are good for the pitcher—but I don’t think it’s on the same level as a walk being bad for the pitcher. An out is an out, to some degree I think. A rollover grounder isn’t all that different than a strikeout (except of course situational hitting and all that can happen when the ball is in play and all those arguments). A walk is a guaranteed base runner though. They are both important though of course.
Yes the Cleveland example is a small sample size and there are other teams that say other things. You can make stats say pretty close to anything you want in baseball—there are so many factors. I don’t think you’re really trying to argue that obp isn’t a good thing though, are you?
And yes you should attack hitters who are struggling. My point was that even those hitters you listed as struggling have managed to work some walks—the most on the team. The on deck circle certainly matters, and that’s why it’s even more impressive when a struggling hitter gets walks, because the guy behind him is probably the better hitter at the time. Of course you also then have to look at if they are pitching around the lefty because the pitcher is a righty and on and on. So many factors it’s hard to be really definitive about any particular stat I guess. And isn’t that something this blog is trying to show?
A walk is still a good thing 80% of the time at least, right? We don’t take the New York and Boston approach yes, but those are a couple of teams with some success to say the least (of course the payroll differential may have something to do with that as well. maybe.)