Athletics Nation - All Posts

Introducing Three New Contributors

2013-05-22T13:46:11Z

First, thank you to all who submitted a FanPost for consideration. It was great to read so many different perspectives.

With that, I'm happy to introduce to you the three new contributors:

SamYam is a sci-fi/fantasy nerd, grammarian, and die-hard Sacramento Kings and Oakland A's fan who happens to be a medical student on the side. He was raised on "Holy Toledo!" and may or may not have pretended to be Chad Bradford in pickup wiffleball games. After being a lurker for almost 5 years, he is very excited to discuss WAR, grit, FIP-, and scrappiness with the Athletics Nation community. He most recently wrote two excellent fanposts on both Brett Anderson and Jarrod Parker.

son of ptbarnum is a former concert and theatrical producer (thus, the "ptbarnum" reference in his pseudonym). For many years, he conducted seminars for nonprofit organizations throughout North America on the subject of event fundraising. These days, he fends off disaster in the stock market on a daily basis. He will be writing about the sales, marketing and business management of the Oakland Athletics. In doing so, he hopes to continue a family tradition of fine sports writing established by his brother, Kevin Nelson, author of "The Golden Game," a history of baseball in California, and "Operation Bullpen," a recounting of the FBI sting of the greatest sports memorabilia scam in history." He was author of the Selig's War fanpost.

Finally, and not least, Nathaniel Stoltz is a long-distance A's fan residing in Winston-Salem, NC. He has written about baseball online in a variety of capacities since 2008, mostly focusing on scouting (Carolina League, South Atlantic League, and Appalachian League) and sabermetrics.

SamYam's debut piece is the current cover story and he will write on Wednesdays. son of ptbarnum and Nathaniel Stoltz will write on Thursdays and Fridays, respectively. Please join me in welcoming these fine gentlemen to our front page writing group!

Great Debates: Do Hot Streaks Exist?

2013-05-22T13:27:25Z

Twitter is good for many different things. Perhaps the most important is for my friends to show me pictures of what they ate for lunch. A close second, however, is that Twitter also happens to be an incredible format for public discourse, and three nights ago we saw a very interesting debate unfold between two very smart men in the baseball industry: former A's starter (and perhaps my favorite Oakland Athletic of the past decade) Brandon McCarthy and respected analyst and scout Keith Law.

Often times in modern baseball debates, we hear about the split between the "stats nerds" and the traditionalists. This dichotomy suits the media members who take sides, dividing themselves into camps. Depending on which side of the aisle they choose, they rip advanced statistics for "attempting to reduce baseball to binary code" (a direct quote from Mitch Albom), or lambast traditional scouting for focusing on things like "grit" and "heart".

However, this specific disagreement is not one of grit vs. numbers. Brandon McCarthy is well known as a player who embraces the sabermetric movement with open arms. His refusal to buy into Law's argument clearly does not come from a place of steadfast refusal to see the light of statistics.

Keith Law is describing a phenomenon that is known commonly as the Hot-Hand Fallacy, and its more well-known converse the Gambler's Fallacy. If you flip a coin, it has a fifty percent chance of landing on heads, but over a short period it will rarely come up 50/50. You will often get a "hot streak" of multiple heads in a row. This is just due to random variation- the coin isn't "getting hot"- each successive flip still has a 50% chance of landing heads.

Law's argument is that this applies to baseball as well. A hitter (or a pitcher) has an absolute skill level- and over a short period, you can get random variation. A hitter like Miguel Cabrera might have a 6% chance of getting a home-run in any given at-bat (last year he hit 44 in 697 plate appearances, or 6.3%). In the game Keith Law and Brandon McCarthy were debating, Cabrera hit 3 home runs in 5 plate appearances. Assuming that Cabrera hits a home run 6% of the time in any given plate appearance, Cabrera would by random chance hit 3 home-runs in 5 PA's 0.2% of the time. This would mean that over a 162 game season, Miguel Cabrera has an approximately 32% chance of having a single three-homer game.

Keith Law argues that the notion of being "locked-in" has nothing to do with the hitter gaining confidence or getting hot; rather it's random fluctuations in the distribution, much like flipping a coin 5 times in a row and getting all heads. It doesn't happen often, but if you flip enough coins it will happen from time to time. Law even linked to an interesting article from a joint study at Cornell and Stanford to support his case, which can be found in its entirety HERE.

McCarthy's response?

McCarthy may seem to be dismissing Law out of hand, but he's actually making a very succinct, if blunt, counterargument. Law's hypothesis is predicated entirely on the assumption that a player's talent level is like a coin or a pair of dice: the chances of getting heads, tails, a 7, or a home run does not change no matter the circumstance. McCarthy, on the other hand, is arguing that a player's talent level and his mindset cannot be separated. Here's more McCarthy on the effects of being "in the zone":

A player who has gone 0 for his last 7 might be pressing and losing confidence, while a player like Miguel Cabrera who has already hit two homers on the evening might just have the ability to play loose and fluid. How many commenters right here on AN have noted Josh Reddick's struggles when he comes up with men on base in a crucial situation? Of course, according to McCarthy, these things are nearly entirely unquantifiable, but that does not mean they do not exist.

Personally, I'm still not quite sure where I stand on this issue. I tend to be a volume consumer of advanced statistics, and for statistics to have predictive value they have to assume a true talent level. But everyone agrees that talent level fluctuates- players improve as they reach their prime, and decline with injuries and age. So why is it so crazy to assume that things in the short term can affect a player's current talent level?

What do you guys think?

Recap: Bears Fly, Tofu Dogs are Consumed, A’s win 1-0

2013-05-22T03:47:49Z

There are some rare feats in baseball. Once or twice a year, someone throws a no-hitter. Another couple times, someone hits for the cycle. But even rarer than both of those is a 1-0 victory by the away team at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. John Shea has the record:

It's the 13th 1-0 game in Rangers Ballpark history.
— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) May 22, 2013

Since its opening in 1994, this has been known as a place of horrors for the A's and any other visiting team. The A's once lost a game 17-16 in 2000 that they led 15-7 at one time. Bill King famously did not travel on road trips to Texas at the end of his career. He hated the heat and the crazy "alcoholic-filled nightmare" games.

Today, with Yu Darvish starting for Texas and thunderstorms threatening above, it had nightmare all over it for the A's. He's the best pitcher in the American League, and he did have a decent start today. He threw 100 pitches over 6 innings, K'ed only 5 A's and walked 3. The A's helped him out, again leaving double-digits on the basepaths (and the bases loaded in the 8th) and 8 in scoring position, and not adding on when they could. Indeed, despite the win, the most frustrating sequence of the game came in the 5th inning. Eric Sogard led off with a walk, and Adam Rosales bunted. Not only that, but to confound the stupidity, Rosales did not do his normal all-out hustle out of the box. What resulted was Darvish alertly throwing to second to get Sogard, and Elvis Andrus making an off-balance throw to get Rosales by a step at 1B for a double play. It was a good play on both ends for Texas, but equally dumb for Rosales to assume they would throw to second and nothing else.

Before that, however, in the battle of Eastern Hemisphere vs. Western Hemisphere imports, the Western Hemisphere won. Yoenis Cespedes crushed a Darvish pitch with two outs in the top of the 3rd to give the A's the only run they would need. This was because Dan Straily had his best MLB outing today. Over 7 innings, he faced only one over the minimum, allowed 2 hits, and struck out 5. Most importantly, he allowed no walks.

Perhaps visual forms are better. Here is Dan Straily's location diagram from today, courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

And here is it from his start, last Wednesday:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

As you can see, he worked down in the zone more often and was overall in the zone more often. That is what he will be need to do consistently to be successful in a big league rotation. With any luck, he builds on this start, and Sonny Gray is allowed to stay down in AAA where he belongs to get more seasoning.

That was pretty much it. Between Straily, who finished the 7th on 6 pitches, and Sean Doolittle and Grant Balfour, the Rangers were kept quiet all night. Doolittle struck out 2 of the 3 men he faced, and Balfour got Profar to groundout, struck out Elvis Andrus, and got David Murphy to fly out to Cespedes - fittingly- to end it.

This was the A's 5th consecutive victory, and their 6th of the last 8 games they've played. Having now won two consecutive series, the A's will look to finish off a road sweep of Texas tomorrow. At 11:05 AM PST, Alex Hall will host your game thread.

Edit: Lowrie will live. Barely.

Lowrie had an X-ray on foot. No break but he won't be in there tomorrow.
— Jane Lee (@JaneMLB) May 22, 2013

He was one of 3 HBPs the A's received today (two on Moss)

Game Thread #47: A's at Rangers (2)

2013-05-22T01:39:18Z

A's are up by 1 on a Yoenis Cespedes HR to dead center. They also squandered an opportunity to add on with terrible base running on a terrible tactical decision to bunt after Sogard led off the 5th with a bunt. Hopefully that won't come back to bite...

Game Thread #47: A's at Rangers

2013-05-22T01:36:37Z

The real 2013 A's have appeared to show up for the last week or so. The A's will attempt to take the series today against a tough customer in Yu Darvish.

Yu Darvish is not a good matchup for the A's. He is leading the world in K% at 36.3. He's my personal Cy Young pick, and probably the best pitcher in the American League right now. He took a perfect game on opening day against the Astros through 8.2 innings before Marwin Gonzalez broke it up.

He's not unbeatable, though. Last year, the A's won two of the three games in which he faced them. Darvish gets his K's, but he has so much movement has can be prone to bouts of wildness. Dan Straily last faced the Rangers in his previous start. He had control issues of his own, walking 4, hitting 2 more, and only striking out 2. It wasn't his finest start, as he only last 4.1 innings. Overall, Straily faces on average just under 5 batters per inning. He'll have to keep the ball down and make sure the HR issues don't manifest themselves today in order to be successul.

The weather could also be an issue, so it may also be a puddleball game. Jane Lee has your forecast:

Lots of rain and thunder here in Arlington right now. Seems like it could continue off and on through the night.
— Jane Lee (@JaneMLB) May 21, 2013

Here are your currently dry lineups:

1. John Jaso (L) C

2. Jed Lowrie (S) DH

3. Yoenis Cespedes (R) LF

4. Brandon Moss (L) 1B

5. Josh Donaldson (R) 3B

6. Seth Smith (L) RF

7. Chris Young (R) CF

8. Eric Sogard (L) 2B

9. Adam Rosales (R) SS

1. Elvis Andrus (R) SS

2. David Murphy (L) LF

3. Lance Berkman (S) DH

4. Adrian Beltre (R) 3B

5. Nelson Cruz (R) RF

6. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B

7. Craig Gentry (R) CF

8. A.J. Pierzynski (L) C

9. Jurickson Profar (S) 2B

DLD 5-21-2013: Texas edition

2013-05-21T18:08:19Z

Did I mention that the A's are playing the Astros starting on Friday? They could use some Houston-style cooking, hopefully after they polish off the Boomstick.

via cdn3.sbnation.com

Speaking of food, there is a great feature on MiLB.com about minor league foods. If you haven't had a chance to catch an MiLB game, you should. Not only do you find some unique foods, but it's a great way to spend a lazy afternoon knocking down some beers and seeing some organization's young talent. Or a no-hitter against the Ports, if you're me and go to Lancaster to catch them on Mothers' Day.

Someone else is also fond of Texas food:

@susanslusser I'm not sure what will be the death of me in Texas - the heat, or those prepackaged press box cookies
— Jane Lee (@JaneMLB) May 21, 2013

As far as yesterday's game is concerned, the A's could have done more:

"You get frustrated during the game at some of the opportunities when you leave some guys on," manager Bob Melvin said, "but we continued to fight through the at-bats the whole game; it was good."

The A's collected 15 hits, six for extra bases, beginning with Seth Smith's solo homer in the second inning. In the fifth, Coco Crisp, Yoenis Céspedes and Brandon Moss doubled to highlight a four-run rally.

Colon, however, did all that he could while he is still in his 30s:

Asked about any drop-off this year following Colon's suspension, Melvin said, "We've been monitoring that pretty closely, watching the velocity. Everything seems to be similar. So, no, he looks the same to me."

There wasn't a thought to let Colon pitch the eighth inning even though he needed 95 pitches to get through seven.

"He's 40," Melvin said, "and we want to try to get him through the season. Anything over 100 for me is starting to get a little uncomfortable. And to give us seven and just short of 100 is just terrific."

Cue "He's a man" jokes here starting Sunday

Dump away!

A's breeze to 9-2 victory over Rangers

2013-05-21T03:58:29Z

The A's mission was simple tonight - get a quality start out of Bartolo Colon and tag the pedestrian Josh Lindblom and a tired Rangers bullpen. Done and done. Eight out of nine starters got at least one hit, and Colon pitched 7 innings, allowing just two runs.

The early going did not look great for the A's. Seth Smith hit a solo homer, but beyond that, the A's left five on base in through the first three innings against a very hittable Josh Lindblom (who featured a below-average fastball and a straight change up). The first inning had Coco Crisp and Yoenis Cespedes reaching base and stealing bases, with no runs scored. In the third, the A's left the bases loaded. The Rangers, meanwhile, were tagging balls all over the field but running into outs, hitting into 3-6 double plays to end the first and second innings. This had the makings of a "missed opportunities" game.

Yet, the game was tied at 1 until the A's eventually got to Lindblom in the 4th. Coco Crisp, who had at that point reached base twice on infield singles to second baseman Jurickson Profar, knocked a hustle double to left fielder David Murphy to start the rally. After Jed Lowrie was retired, Cespedes and Brandon Moss hit back to back doubles. 3-1 A's, and Ron Washington had seen enough given Lindbom's early struggles.

In came Joseph Ortiz and out went any hope the Rangers had of winning the game. This was an interesting decision as Washington could have intentionally walked Smith and used Lindblom to pitch to Chris Young, whom he had struck out twice at that point. On the other hand, Lindblom looked terrible and had just got smacked for three doubles. However, the lefty-lefty matchup failed to get the intended result. Seth Smith went the other way, singling home Brandon Moss and moving to second on a bobble by Murphy. Chris Young immediately knocked in Smith with a broken bat line drive, and the rout was on.

Colon, wise beyond his weight, knows that no lead in Arlington is safe. And with his even keel and consistent fastball, he tends to pitch well with a solid lead. After giving one run back on a Profar sacrifice fly (the phenom went 0-2 with 2 RBI in his 2013 debut), he cruised through the bottom of the seventh.

Meanwhile, the A's were ready to add on against the overworked Rangers bullpen. In the 6th, Lowrie doubled, Cespedes reached on an intentional walk (his second walk of the game) and Moss drew a 5 pitch walk to load the bases with two outs. Alas, the AN rain dances were ineffective and Josh Donaldson flew out to end the inning.

Nevertheless, the plucky A's picked up where they left off in the 7th. Smith walked, Young singled up the middle, Sogard gritted a grounder up the middle, and it was rally time. Crisp drove in Young on a groundout. With Lowrie at the plate, Sogard used his elf magic to induce a Cory Burns wild pitch to score himself. The only shame was that Sogard didn't go long on maybe the best chance he'll have all season.

In the 8th the A's again left the bases loaded. Norris, the only starter without a hit, struck out after swinging and missing on three straight pitches to end the inning. After loading the bases for Donaldson once more, the Bringer of Rain came through with a run-scoring single. Lowrie misread the ball and stayed at third, leaving the bases loaded. Smith flew out, ending the threat.

The A's got 15 hits and 8 walks (yay!), yet left the bases loaded in a staggering four innings (wtf?). Leaving that many on base probably won't work tomorrow against Yu Darvish, but I'm not here to pick nits. The A's hit well, pitched well, ran well, and throughly beat down the division leaders. And oh yeah, four game win streak. A's nation should be very happy.

Also, adioslucca's grandpa is a total badass - happy birthday!

GameThread #46: A's at Rangers (2)

2013-05-21T02:01:10Z

We go to the 6th, A's 5, Rangers 2. Bartolo Colon pitching stellar. Lindblom out, Rangers pen the rest of the way.

Our big hitters are coming through so far. Sogard HR watchers remain unfulfilled.