Can't Get Enough

I love baseball. In fact, I often find myself dreaming about the game. I stare at spreadsheets all day, sometimes wind up with a sore back from being hunched over the keyboard all day, and find myself constantly checking my fantasy squads for up to the minute results even when it is clear just how my team will finish in the standings. I know, I’m addicted. Luckily the season is almost over – though of course that doesn’t mean I won’t still be pouring over stats all offseason in search of those little tidbits that will make all the difference in 2010. Here are a few of my observations for Monday.

Matt Cain won his 14th game of the season on Sunday, this after picking up three straight loses during which time he allowed a total of 15 earned runs over 14.1 innings, and yes, that’s more than one run per inning folks (9.42 ERA). I’ve said it all along that Cain has just been lucky this season, though it’s not like I really wanted to see that prediction come to fruition down the stretch when the Giants really needed him to make a playoff push. Here are some numbers.

2009: 7.03 K/9, 2.31 K/BB, 0.93 HR/9, .265 BABIP
Career: 7.51, 2.08 K/BB, 0.80 HR/9, .277 BABIP

So, for the 13th time, don’t expect Cain to continue to roll along with an ERA of 2.88 next season, not unless he really turns around some things on the hill. Look for that ERA of his to be much closer to his career 3.53 mark in’10, though that would still leave him as a valuable member of any fantasy staff (just don’t reach on him).

Can you believe it?Jorge de la Rosa has 16 victories with one start left. If he manages to pull out the win, he will tie the Rockies single season record of 17.

Andy LaRoche had five hits on Monday, including two bombs, leading to six RBI against the Dodgers. That gives LaRoche 12 homers and 61 RBI in 499 ABs this season, to go along with a .259 batting average. So much for that breakout season he was supposed to have after producing strong numbers in spring. The breakout star for the Pirates has actually been Garrett Jones who has 21 homers and 10 steals, not to mention that he has hit .301 in his 292 ABs. If you predicted that one, you can have my job. Wait, I’m not willing to give up my job, you can have one that belongs to one of my co-workers.

Mike Lowell had another one of those Synvisc injections into his hip with to help lube up the joint for the playoffs. It hasn’t been a season to remember for Lowell, but really, is anyone going to complain about a .290 average, 17 homers and 75 RBI in just 438 ABs? If he picked up 589 ABs, as he did in 2007, that rate would leave him with about 23 homers and 101 RBI, and who wouldn’t take that from a third baseman who also hit .290? Exactly.

Brandon McCarthy continues to operate on the fringe of relevance. McCarthy, long hampered by injuries, owns a 4.47 ERA and 1.35 WHIP this season through 16 starts. Things have gotten even better of late as he has posted a 3.45 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP over his last five starts. He isn’t someone to count on, and he certainly doesn’t deserve any attention in mixed leagues heading into 2010, but if you are in an AL-only league there are certainly worse flyers to take a chance on late in your draft.

Do you like it when athletes do those funny commercials? If you do, and you are a hockey fan, give the new Joe Thornton Commercial a watch. Good to know that he has a job because this new line of work wouldn’t be too profitable based upon how he did in the commercial.

By Ray Flowers

Will it Ever End?

The Pirates are at it again, and that isn’t a good thing. For a proud franchise, one that has won nine pennants and five world championships in it’s illustrious history, there is no end in sight to the continual failures of the organization.

Next Year.

That’s the refrain the fans are fed year after year by the front office.

And year after year the refrain is repeated yet again.

For a group of fans that haven’t witnessed their team post a .500 record since Barry Bonds left the club after the 1992 season, their frustration must be at an all-time high. Why do I say that? Well beyond their unbelievable run of futility, the Pirates made a couple of moves in past day or so that has the team, once again, looking to the future. This time the players are voicing their displeasure at the moves.

“It’s not our job to understand the big plan, I guess,” first baseman Adam LaRoche said.

Here is what shortstop Jack Wilson had to say. “We know that they’re looking to the future, which doesn’t say much about 2009. We’re five games out, and we lost two or three of our everyday players…I’ve been here nine years. I’ve seen two or three of these trades every year and still haven’t had a winning season.”

Management, of course, has a different take.

“The upside that we’re gaining is something we can’t pass up,” manager John Russell said.

What moves are we talking about?

The Pirates sent OF Nyjer Morgan, RP Sean Burnett and jack of all trades Eric Hinske out of town in a couple of moves, and in return they netted the talented but enigmatic Lastings Milledge and the talented but unproductive Joel Hanrahan. It really can’t be argued that the club received the more talented players in these deals, but the questions are a plenty.

(1) Can a guy who was banished to the minors a year after hitting 14 home runs while stealing 24 bases be a difference maker? What if that guy was terribly ineffective at the dish this season (.167 in 24 at-bats) prior to his demotion? What if that guy continues to live his life as if no one else matters but himself? Milledge has 20/20 talent, but he has proven thus far to have a .20 cent head.

(2) Does the club really need a 95 mph throwing reliever who failed miserably as a closer this season for the Nationals (five saves, five blown saves)? You can’t teach 95, and Hanrahan does have 128 Ks in his last 117 innings so he certainly has talent, but he is far from a finished product with a career walk rate of 5.04 per nine innings

Beyond these two moves, which again seemed to net the club the more talented options, the question becomes one that the organization must answer to the fans – do they intend to make money or produce a winning squad? Remember, this is a team that let its best player, Jason Bay, go last year in a late season deal and then followed that move up by trading their new “best” player to the Braves when they moved Nate McLouth this season. What kind of message does a club send to it’s fan base when it trades away its number three and four hitters for a couple of prospects, a decidedly average starting pitcher (Charlie Morton), a pitcher no one has heard of in Bryan Morris, a failed reliever in Craig Hansen and a failed outfielder in Brandon Moss? Oh yeah, the club also got third baseman Andy LaRoche but I almost forgot him because he is hitting a whopping .278 with a massive three home runs and a staggeringly mediocre .750 OPS this season.

Look, I’m not a Pirates fan at all, but I can sympathize with the fans of a club that have to pay money to watch an ownership group that continues to say “wait til next year.” My question is, will they ever reach the point of “next year” or is this a conundrum in the same vein as the fact that we think we can never travel the speed of light as Albert Einstein posited many years ago (why is light speed travel not possible you ask? For those of you that care click on the link to Speed of Light and scroll down to “The Ultimate Speed of Light” for a brief description). For the Pirates sake I truly hope next year really is next year, though I still wonder if the Pirates have assembled enough talent to even return to the level of respectability and a .500 record. One can hope, and the eternal optimist in us all surely hasn’t given up on that.

By Ray Flowers