Games: Oakland Athletics, June 2: Judging the Royals with Lee Judge

Games » Oakland Athletics

Jun2

A Bad Day

Six walks, three errors, a wild pitch, a passed ball, a blown call at home, the catcher getting ejected, the starting pitcher giving up six earned runs, the team going 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and eight runners left on base. Ned Yost called this a bad day for the Royals and I can’t see any reason to disagree.

Ned said when you play 162 of these things, some of them are going to turn out this way—but if the Royals are going to use June to get back to .500, this was not a good way to start.

Game notes

Before the game I asked Billy Butler about A’s starting pitcher, Brandon McCarthy. Billy said McCarthy mainly threw a cutter and sinker so the Royals DH would be dealing with pitches down and in and down and away. Billy said he wanted to avoid two strikes because McCarthy was 6‘6” (don’t know if that’s accurate—but he looked every inch of it). McCarthy’s height meant his curveball would drop straight down like it fell off a table.
In the third inning McCarthy struck Billy out on—you guessed it—a curveball.
In the 1st inning, with a runner on third and nobody out, the Royals played the infield back. That means the manager is trying to stay out of the big inning and feels he has time to make up a single run.
By the 3rd inning the Athletics were playing the infield in. That means the manager thinks the pitchers have settled in (wrong in this case) and a single run will be significant.
In the 4th inning, Yoenis Cespedes led off with a double, but Jarrod Dyson bobbled the ball and Cespedes went to third. A wild pitch then scored what looked like an important run—at the time. Kila Ka’aihue hit a pop fly down the left field line, Mike Moustakas and Alex Gordon converged and almost collided. Alex said he called for the ball because Mike was still coming (if the infielder is camped under the ball and the outfielder isn’t sure he’ll get there, the infielder should take it). Gordon said he called too late, Moustakas couldn’t stop, so Alex slid underneath him while Moose made one of the two outstanding defensive plays he’d turn in Saturday afternoon. (Once in a while, Moustakas will still launch a Sidewinder missile over to first base, but he’s really improved since last season.)
The line’s good enough to repeat: last year I asked Mike if he ever took Hosmer out to dinner for saving him errors on bad throws. Mike figured Hosmer owed him dinner because Eric could never win a Gold Glove if every throw was perfect.
The game got away in the 5th: Luke Hochevar gave up a single to Kurt Suzuki, Chad Pennington bunted him to second and a passed ball put Suzuki on third. Hochevar then walked Jemile Weeks. That set up a double play, but it also meant Hochevar had to worry about holding a runner. I don’t know whether Luke struggles more out a slide step than when he can take his time delivering the ball home, but he never got out of the inning. (On the other hand, he struck out Collin Cowgill from the stretch, so maybe it doesn’t have an effect.)
Before the game, Billy Butler and Eric Hosmer were talking with me about hitting the ball to the opposite field. It robs most people of power, but it allows a longer look at the ball and forces better hitting mechanics (the front shoulder stays as closed as a bank on Memorial Day). Jarrod Dyson was sitting there listening and being spectacularly silent. Jarrod then went out and got three hits—to the opposite field. I don’t know if the talk had an effect, but I’m guessing it didn’t hurt.
Hosmer also had a hit the other way, lining a shot over the left fielder’s head. (I wonder if Kevin Seitzer needs an assistant.)
Unfortunately, Kevin is very familiar with my swing and would probably pay me good money not to talk to any of his hitters.
In the 7th inning Humberto Quintero was ejected by home plate umpire, Paul Schrieber. I don’t know what Humberto said (I’ll find out tomorrow), but I do know he said it with his head turned back toward Schrieber. This is generally considered unacceptable behavior by home plate umpires: a catcher is supposed to keep facing the pitcher when complaining, that way fans don’t know what’s going on. Turning back and facing the umpire lets the crowd know there’s a disagreement and umpires then tend to get very short-tempered.
In the 8th inning Yuniesky Betancourt played a ball off to the side (most people think you need to get your body behind the ball—although I’ve heard arguments on the other side) and clanked one off his glove into right field. The Royals would end up with three errors on the day, about 2 and 3/5s more than you can get away with in the major leagues.

You can count on it

When Clint Hurdle was hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies I asked him what approach he wanted his power hitters (and he had a few) to take. Clint said he didn’t want them trying to hit the ball out of the park on every pitch. Instead, he wanted them to look to drive the ball in certain counts.

That’s what Billy Butler is doing.

Billy’s hitting for more power and he says it’s because he’s looking to drive the ball in certain situations. If Butler gets the pitch he’s looking for, he’s letting it rip. This can also lead to some bad looking hacks. One of our very first videos (still available under “Lee TV”) features Kevin Seitzer, talking about hitters getting fooled in 2-0 counts.

Kevin said he wanted hitters looking to drive the ball in fastball counts and if the pitcher was skilled enough to fool the hitter with a slider that looked like a fastball most of the way to the plate and then moved off the plate, tip your cap—you got fooled by a good pitch.

The alternative to looking foolish was to protect against the slider in a fastball count, but then you might get the fastball you’ve been waiting for and take a weak hack. (Game’s kinda complicated, aint it?) Kevin would rather see the hitter load up and try to do some damage when he has the pitcher at a disadvantage.

So here they are, the counts in which you can expect to see Billy Butler take a shot at driving the ball: 2-0, 2-1, 3-0 (if he gets the green light) and 3-1. If Kevin is able to supply Billy with more specific information (like this pitcher throws a fastball every time he misses with an off-speed pitch) you might see the Royals DH come out of his shoes in a few other counts as well.

You can count on it, Part 2

OK, so I walk past Billy and ask if I have this right: is he loading up and trying to drive the ball in fastball counts. The answer is yes and no. Pitchers in the major leagues don’t always throw fastballs in fastball counts. The ones that do, might not stay in the major leagues very long—or they’ve got a dynamite fastball.

So I paid attention to Bartolo Colon Friday night to see what he threw in fastball counts. The first thing that jumped out at me is Colon avoided fastball counts. Pitching ahead is a good part of why he gave up two runs in the first and shut it down after that.

But when Colon was in these fastball counts—2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1—he was not afraid to throw his fastball. According to my scorebook he was in one of those counts only eight times (I could be wrong, writing late at night after having a couple of post-game beers will do that to you). But in those eight instances he threw one slider, the rest were fastballs.

Why?

Because Bartolo had a really good fastball going and he was locating with consistency down and away. Jason Kendall once told me pitchers who are obsessed with multiple sign sequences and fooling hitters don’t trust their stuff. Guys who do trust their stuff (or their defense) are much more likely to say, “Here it is, try to hit it.”

So—pay attention to hose fastball counts and what the pitcher does when he’s in one. Check the scoreboard: if the pitch was over 90 miles an hour, it was probably a fastball, under, something off-speed. If the pitcher has a fastball anda slider over 90, the hitters are in trouble.

Comments

Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Good piece.

Checked Brooks Baseball and Hochevar was throwing 94-96 and his velocity held up, but about half the pitches were above centerline and it looked like a lot were toward the middle of the plate. Didn’t look like he had a lot of movement on the heat, may have been overthrowing, as his velocity was up.

Checked Paulino’s from last night and he was down probably 2/3rds of the time and fat pitches in the middle he was getting called and swing and miss strikes on, fooling people.

Luke has the tools, all a matter of execution. BTW, strike zone looked fair for Luke, got a couple of strikes low and out of the ‘zone, lost about the same number low and in the ‘zone.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“But equally to their credit, when they decide to Royally defecate the bed against an awful team like the A’s, they go all in and the wheels come all the way off, like they did in stunning completeness today.”

I saw that as a positive, just about everybody screws up, including the umps. 8-3, 4-3, still just one loss. Nice thing about baseball is tomorrow’s another day.

Good luck picking on Frenchy, up to .280/.325/.446 after a horrible start. Within 0.7% of Billy on walk rate with a 0.4% lower K%. But blaming Frenchy for Hos is clever and creative:)
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“making a 9-3 melt-down/beat-down to a team that’d lost 6 in a row and not scored in 19 innings a “positive”.”

We went through the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth the other day with Cleveland and a few days before with Baltimore. Games like this happen. The Cardinals got no-hit. Verlander got blown up the other day. These things do happen.

“Thankfully, to that point, the Yunitard is back, wielding that skillet and holding down the starting 2B gig.”

Getz will be back, so 2nd base will be competently managed a little more often.

“It was a true Hochevar Classic”

Already addressed the details of the start, typical of his bad ones in that he’s overthrowing, which leaves the ball up with little movement. May be time to do what was suggested last year, move him to the ‘pen, for awhile or permanently, as the rotation demands. He is reminding me a lot of pre-Royals Paulino at the moment, so no, the team won’t throw him away.

“the 10 errors they’ve made in the last 5 games”

For our readers, Yuni has only been back for two games:)
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“what, exactly, are we hoping to learn that we haven’t in 638.0 IP (all but 4 career games of it as a SP) thus far?”

What we’ve learned is that Luke pitches well the first time or two through an inning. That coupled with 94mph heat and what was ranked the second best slider in the game last year is worth a look. I can see him as a closer if Broxton is flipped.

“But, don’t look now…there’s help on the horizon. Chris Getz will be back soon with his average range and sub-zero-pop bat(.606 OPS, 25 extra base hits in three YEARS in KC)”

Careers don’t take the field, otherwise you would agree with trading Melky, except you’ve already called that a dumb move. Getz plays an average 2B and is carrying his weight with the bat this year, so is the best option til someone better comes along.

“It’s almost a statistical CERTAINTY that it’d do the ROYALS good for him to have a change of scenery, as explained above.”

Luke’s inconsistent, bad start, good start. when he’s good he’s very good, when he’s bad he can be awful. He vacillates between being a #2 starter and a #7. That’s 4.5, so will have to do until someone else comes along.

“He’s proven he can do it.”

I preferred sending Gio down and keeping Falu. But .278/.328/.426 is what is seen and means something on a team having a hard time scoring runs.

“It’s the salad days alright…with a side of Gritz!…errrrr, Getz!!!”

But of course, reality never intrudes on radio generated talking points.

“ANY other starter”

The great failure of average and aggregate stats. Bill James’ Game Score gives a much better feel for a pitcher. If Luke actually blew up every game he would be long gone, but he doesn’t. Luke’s trend this year is one above average, one horrible, two above average, two horrible, one that was the highest game score for a Royals’ starter this year, one a little below average, one a little above, one a little below, and today’s horrible. Martin Manley provides the charts:

http://sportsinreview.com/blog/?p=1602

They show why the Royals don’t just dump him.
Lester Frost
11 months, 3 weeks ago

This is a really great site… I no longer read for the information per se. I just totally enjoy the writing you guys provide, and I’m being serious here.

We have some really good posters here and most are witty enough to provide a chuckle or two with each column.

Keep up the good work guys. I for one enjoy the entertainment value.
Gary Brennan
11 months, 3 weeks ago

I’ve read the column since it began but, I now I just can’t hold back. With a 6.63 era and a 1.54 whip, why would a professional baseball club keep sending this pitcher out every 5 days? If this truly wasn’t Dayton’s pick, then time for some tough love. I don’t know what his status for options is but, if he has some let’s get to optioning. They did it to Gordon and Butler why not Hochever? At the very least a trip to the bullpen would be in order. It’s a shame to cross your fingers and close your eyes when LH takes the mound. This is not the production of a 1/1 pick. Pathetic. I’m sorry, did I say Pathetic, I meant PATHETIC.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“why would a professional baseball club keep sending this pitcher out every 5 days?”

Because of the chance of getting a good start about half the time and the occasional dominant start and because a better starter is hard to find and expensive. I covered Luke’s trends above, something folks won’t hear on talk radio:)
Joel Kallem
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“At the very least a trip to the bullpen would be in order.”

Who do you suggest the Royals put in his place? Have any of our long relievers shown us anything more than Hoch?

I hate his bad starts as much as anybody, but just dumping him doesn’t solve anything. Until we have someone who can push him, we are stuck with the wild fluctuations we get when he takes the mound.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

A ray of hope for the distraught, JaKKKe Odorizzi pitched last night for Omaha, five innings, no runs, two hits, four walks, four strike outs.

Another ray, Yordano Ventura beat Dylan Bundy with a line of 5 innings, no runs, three hits, three walks, six strike-outs.

http://www.pinetarpress.com/royals-diamonds-rough-62/

Thanks to the good folks at Pine Tar Press for keeping tabs on the minors. Greg also has good stuff on the upcoming draft looking at possibilities.
Thayne Griffin
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Hochevar and the 5th inning dooming us again aside, I was hoping Myers’ bat would get him a call up. Now, I think Dyson’s defense will get him a callup. Dyson is good for a few boneheaded plays a week it seems and his error yesterday was the start of the horrific defensive game (and game in general) we had. I just can’t overlook his generally poor defense and routerunning to the ball anymore.

Also, his UZR/150 of -15.4 proves what my eyes tell me. He is also below average in terms of errors and RANGE! RANGE!!!!!!!! With his speed you would think this impossible!

He is also a -3 in DRS.

This all leads me to SMH…..
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Thayne, with Myers there are probably two issues, one that Lorenzo Cain is starting to get some game action in his rehab and two, that there are contract considerations. The FO is likely going to sit on Myers until they get a chance to see Cain for awhile and until past any Super 2 possibilities.

On Dyson, my eyeballs kind of agree with yours. I expected him to be a plus-plus defender, but it is a little early to write him off. You can teach routes but can’t teach raw speed. His legs are like Herrera’s arm, a rare and valuable commodity, so they’ll give him lots of chances, just maybe not up here for awhile. Wonder if they can teach him 2B:)?
Thayne Griffin
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“Wonder if they can teach him 2B”

Doesn’t look like they can teach anyone 2B effectively based on the carousel there right now! And as much as I don’t like Gio there, I like Yuni there even less. My personal depth chart there would be Getz, Falu, Gio, Yuni of those four. But I would just prefer some stability there over anything - it can’t be easy on these guys with all the shuffling.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“My personal depth chart there would be Getz, Falu, Gio, Yuni of those four”

Agree on Getz and Falu, but understand the team’s desire to keep Yuni’s bat at the moment and to see if Johnny Giavotella can hit. When Getz comes back a choice or two will have to be made, both here and at Omaha, where Tony Seratelli and Irving Falu are performing, Tony Abreu is hitting, and Christian Colon is looming on the horizon at Springdale.

“it can’t be easy on these guys with all the shuffling.”

Absolutely. Second is an opportunity waiting to be seized and I bet Tony Abreu is telling his manager that he can play second. Team has seven possibilities over the next year, but some one of them is going to have to grab it away from Getz. Chris isn’t going to give it to them, as shown by his off-season remodeling of his swing.
Chuck Smith
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Jim, I looked through your stats on Nuke (By God that’s the name I’m gonna stick with too)and although I won’t disagree with what Nuke can occasionally do, it’s what he does more often than not and that is blow up. What’s his quality start ration like 1:3? Beyond demoralizing a fan base and making you want to throw up because you paid attention to one of his games, you have to wonder what physcological effect his starting is beginning to have on the team.

The only positive would be that playing defense behind Nuke is like playing a playoff game. You can’t have any mental mistakes because there is NO room for error.

I think we need some signs. “No more Nukes”
Chuck Smith
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Unless I’m blind, there is no way that Nuke has the mental fortitude to be a closer.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months, 3 weeks ago

“Unless I’m blind, there is no way that Nuke has the mental fortitude to be a closer.”

Closer is lower leverage than fireman, so I think Luke’s stuff can play there as a last option, warm up, start from the wind-up, rely on 95mph heat and a slider. Nearly all relievers are failed starters, so Hochevar wouldn’t be the first.

“What’s his quality start ration like 1:3?”

Four of eleven. Chen is six of eleven, Paulino four of five. Not even Verlander is perfect at it, giving up five runs a couple of times.

“you have to wonder what physcological effect his starting is beginning to have on the team.”

The team knows how difficult the game is and Moustakas, Butler, and Paulino may be the only current starters who have the high ground to cast stones, and they won’t because they remember the past. I imagine that Paulino may be the most supportive guy of Hoch on the team. Baseball is a streaky game.
Gary Brennan
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Bottom line is 6.63 era and 1.54 whip. Below a #5 starter and certainly not sufficient to justify his place in the rotation. At this point I realize it’s hard to dump a number one but, as Dayton is fond of saying “we don’t want to block anyone”. Running Luke out every 5 days for a “good start about half the time and the occasional dominant start and because a better starter is hard to find and expensive” is a poor reason. It is actually a good start about 1/3 of the time and a dominant start about about 1/6 of the time. The rest of the time he is getting his brains beat out. The clock has struck midnight for out princess.

Judging the Royals