Clemens: Blame Clemens

Clemens, in the midst of denying PEDs, also is denying an affair with a country singer. His trainer says he's lying about the PEDs, and the singer says:

“I cannot refute anything in the story," McCready said regarding the paper's anonymously sourced report about their "love at first sight" meeting at a Florida bar when she was 15—and the then-28-year-old athlete, who at the time was pitching for the Boston Red Sox, was already a married father of two.

She accompanied Clemens to his hotel room that night, the 32-year-old songstress said, but the affair did not turn intimate until she moved to Nashville to pursue her career when she was 18.”

This does not bode well for Clemens' veracity. You could say McCready is just bitter or jealous. But she doesn't sound bitter. And why would she still be jealous some 17 years after their first meeting.

Cheating is no big shocker. I wonder how many baseball players cheat on their wives and families, being on the road all the time, surrounded by testosterone, and quite noticeable and attractive to women. A lot.

Most damning though: She's 15 years old, and he takes her to his hotel room? She says they weren’t “intimate” until 3 years later, but nobody with even the slightest understanding of human sexual behavior is going to believe that they waited three years. Not when it was "love at first sight" and they are already in his room. A year, maybe I'll buy. Three? No way.

Not only have Bonds and Clemens jeopardized their status in the Hall of Fame, they may be wearing stripes. Charlie Hustle is starting to look a lot Rose-ier.

Clemens: Blame the Media

While everyone else is ripping Roger Clemens to shreds, let me take a different approach.

I am sick of having athletes publicly humiliated. Sure, they committed transgressions, but if you and I did the same thing, the whole world would not know. Did guys like Bonds and Clemens, based on their extraordinary athletic abilities, agree to be humiliated this way? Some say yes. Why is that the case? Are extraordinarily talented lawyers subject to the same scrutiny? Doctors?

Regardless of your stance about public figures agreeing to the most negative side of celebrity, don't you just get tired of it?

Can you imagine the current media and Babe Ruth? He most certainly would not be in the Hall of Fame. That's just the most extreme example. I'd estimate at least 25% of the Hall of Fame members would not be there, if the media covered the game the way it does now.

Good Quotes

Vin Scully, about Dan Haren: "He's as likely to give up a walk as he is a tattoo." Scully is old school, and sometimes says corny things, but he's like one of those old radio guys. Still colorful. Love that. He can still say something like this (about Orlando Hudson in the same game): "The O-Dog is everywhere."

Miguel Cabrera, asked about his slow start: "Don't worry. I'll hit." What I particularly like is how he isn't analyzing it. He knows he is a great hitter, so he's not the least bit worried. You want that guy in your lineup.

Manny Ramirez, about being AL player of the week: "I'm a pure hitter. I could be whatever I wanted to be. If I wanted to hit 50 home runs or 40 home runs every year, I'd do it. But I don't want to. I want to be a pure hitter and hit it to all fields." Talk about confidence! I'd make fun of how cocky this is, but Manny is a surefire Hall of Famer in my book. I can't really dispute the quote.

Star

In the Milwaukee-Cincinnati game, fifth inning, Dunn is trying to score from second, and there's going to be a play at the plate.

Dunn, lumbering towards home, did not slide and he was tagged out. Clearly a baserunning blunder from Dunn.

FSN Ohio's announcers (Thom Brennaman and Chris Welsh) blamed the baserunning gaffe on Joey Votto. Their theory is that Votto, who was standing behind the plate, only signaled Dunn once. Ergo, it was Votto's fault that Dunn was thrown out.

Probably Votto should have been more emphatic, but you can't tell me the slow footed Dunn doesn't know there's going to be a play at the plate almost anytime he is trying to score from second. Plus, isn't it his job to look for Votto's signal? To say it wasn't emphatic is fine, but to say he has responsibility for Cincy not scoring the run, but Dunn does not bear responsibility, is ridiculous.

Of course, Dunn is a star, and Votto's a rookie. Rookie mistake, right? Plus, the commentators are probably closer to Dunn in the clubhouse, and no use making those interviews more awkward.

Padre Power Outage

The San Diego Padres have only 19 extra base hits in their first 10 games. The other major league teams have averaged 28 extra base hits in the same time period. Most likely this is the effect of having played 7 of the 11 games at home, where Petco reduces run scoring by approximately 10%.

It occurred to me that this also might be caused by their hitting coach, if they had a new one. And guess what? They do...sort of. Last year on July 31, 2007, Wally Joyner became the hitting coach. Could that be what's causing the power outage? Does he have a "singles" philosophy?

Simply, no. First, Joyner wasn't just a singles hitter, although he trended that way at the late stages of his career. He regularly posted ISOs of .150 and higher. He hit for power in his early years, including 34 home runs in 1987, before the massive power increases of the early 90s. That figure was good enough to tie him for 3rd in the home run race that year. It seems unlikely he'd be teaching a singles approach.

More importantly, in August/September last year, the Padres slugged a higher percentage than they did before Joyner took over the hitting post. So it's probably just the excess of games in the home park.

But look at this table, showing where Padres hitters are hitting the ball in 2008, and their averages for 2005-2007:

       Pull  Middle  OppField
2008    22%    57%       21%
05-07   28%    54%       18%

Padres hitters are pulling the ball quite a bit less, which saps power in a big way. Slugging percentages on pulled balls are in the .700s. Slugging percentages up the middle and to the opposite field are in the .390-.410 range. The Padres do not have a massively revamped lineup, so it should not be attributable to personnel changes. Again, this could be a ballpark effect.

Of course, there also are only 273 at bats in the 2008 calculation...far too small a sample size to draw definitive conclusions. It is something to watch, though, once we have more ABs to work with, and a more even distribution of home and away games for the Padres.

Huston Street

I've never paid much attention to Huston Street before. Now that he's on my fantasy team, I'm watching him more closely. Unfortunately, in three outings, he has surrendered three home runs.

I've been messing around with MLB Gameday's pFX pitch data. I can't claim I understand it to the degree that some do, but I wanted to investigate the difference between the gopher pitches Street has thrown, and his normal pitches. These are admittedly very small sample sizes, so take it with a grain of salt.

Because the first game was in Japan, complete pFX data is unavailable for the first game. So we'll start with the second game, on April 2, against Boston. Varitek hit a home run off of a change up, at least as classified by the pFX system (which may or may not be accurate with respect to pitch identification). He threw 20 pitches that day...7 were changeups, averaging 84.75 mph at the release point. pFX shows his fastball at only 88.43, however, so there isn't a whole lot of difference. Two of Street's change ups were around 80 mph.

It's possible these pitches were misclassified. If not, his change isn't much of a change.

I graphed the difference between the change up he threw to Varitek on the homer, and the 6 other change ups he threw that game. First, the chart, then some explanation:The top point on the blue line represents the average release point for the 6 non-HR change ups he threw, and the bottom point on the blue line represents the average location of the change ups as they reached the front of home plate. The top and bottom of the strike zone are represented by the purple lines...and they are averages of the strike zones of the batters Street faced in Boston that day. The top point on the yellow line represents the release point on the change up to Varitek, and the bottom point is approximately the height at which Varitek made contact.

What is clear from the graphic is that Street's release point was further left on the home run ball, and instead of a falling motion (induced mostly by gravity), it crossed the plate slightly outside (to Varitek) and right in the middle of the average strike zone. MLB pFX reports this as an 86 mph change up. He had thrown two earlier change ups to Varitek in the at bat, averaging 80 mph...both for balls.

In the game against Cleveland last night, Hafner hit a fastball into the seats. It was the third fastball of the at bat. Street threw eight other fastballs during his appearance. The average speed at release was 89 mph, which is about the speed of the fastball he threw to Hafner.

Here's the chart for that one:

It shows that Street's release point was off to the left on the HR ball in this instance too, and the pitch ended up in Hafner's wheelhouse.

One note: the downward slopes of the lines represent only starting and ending points for the pitch. It does not indicate the pitch "broke" in that manner. The lines include the effects of gravity.

Japanese Baseball

I'm watching Hideki Kuroda pitch tonight, and the San Diego broadcast team had an interesting story about him that I thought I would repeat here.

Kuroda was worried about joining the Dodgers, because he was concerned that Russell Martin is the everyday catcher. Apparently Japanese players are of the general opinion that American catchers are "sloppy" compared to their Japanese counterparts. Kuroda joined the Dodgers after talking with the Dodger closer, Takashi Saito, who assured him that Martin knew what he was doing.

Martin wasn't the least bit concerned, saying "I'm Canadian."

(Side note: Kuroda looks solid. I don't want to speak too soon, though, since I drafted him for my fantasy team).

Jeff Brantley, YOU ARE NOT A CLUTCH COMMENTATOR

Jeff Brantley, the former closer for the Giants, Reds and other teams, was doing the color commentary for the Arizona-Cincinnati matchup. Reds were down 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth. Phillips singles. Dunn singles. So there are men on 1st and 2d with no outs.

Encarnacion at the plate. Brantley keeps saying he should bunt, and Dusty Baker obliges. Back to this decision in a moment. After Encarnacion displays absolutely no talent for bunting, and has a 1-2 count, Brantley says:

If he can't bunt, get him out of there. Put someone else in. HE DOESN'T HIT IN THE CLUTCH. THIS GUY IS NOT A CLUTCH HITTER!

I capitalized the last two sentences because Brantley was literally yelling, as if he were actually angry about it. The very next pitch -- approximately 2 seconds later -- Encarnacion clubbed one into the left field seats to give the Reds a 6-5 victory.

When hearing Brantley, I had two immediate thoughts: (1) lots of studies show there is no such thing as clutch ability that is repeatable from year to year and (2) what does he have against Encarnacion that would make him yell out to millions of people "This guy is not a clutch hitter"? I hope Brantley never has to interview him.

Now, let's consider whether Encarnacion should be bunting, assuming he is an average hitter (fair assumption) and average bunter (unfair assumption...he looked terrible bunting and had no sacrifices last year).

Cincinnati's win expectancy, down by 2 in the bottom of the ninth, with men on first and second, is 34.6%. If Encarnacion gets the bunt down, there will be one out and men on second and third. The win expectancy for that situation is 30.1%, so the bunt is a bad play for an average hitter/average bunter because it reduces Cincinnati's chances of winning by 5%.

Arguably Encarnacion is a slightly above average hitter, and he certainly is a below average bunter. The bunt, then is a pretty bad play, if you are actually expecting him to bunt. One caveat -- if you are merely attempting the bunt to draw the third baseman in, you may be increasing your chances of scoring if you then swing away. That's not what Dusty was trying however.

Sideline Reporters

I've complained before about the third member of the broadcast team, particularly on ESPN, where the third member either gives us (a) meaningless information, (b) information readily available from any other source or (c) a product endorsement. Normally it's just an excuse to let someone other than the play-by-play and color men talk.

Watching the Mets at the Marlins, on FSN, I saw a useful report from Craig Minervini, the "sideline" reporter for the Marlins local broadcast. In the game, Carlos Beltran hit a deep fly to right that appeared to hit just above the yellow line on the wall. It was called a home run and Beltran did his trot.

Marlins manager Freddy Gonzalez argued, the umps conferred, and they changed the call. The replay shows it hit the railing and was clearly a home run. Even though it would have been hard to see exactly where the ball hit in real time from field level, it bounced way up in the air. It only would have done that if it hit the railing. If it hit the yellow line on the padded wall, it would barely have bounced at all.

Anyway, within minutes Minervini was in right field, in the stands, asking the fans in the front row exactly where the ball was hit. A fan pointed to the spot on the railing. Another fan with a scorebook said he recorded it as an HR, and only crossed it out when the umps got it wrong. That's good and fast work.