Novoa gone, Winter ball update

Roberto Novoa was claimed by the Orioles today. He hasn't pitched since 2006, so who knows what they're getting.

From the Small Sample Size Department

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, Ryan Harvey continues to sit with an injury. Nate Samson is hitting the ball with a wet towel - 8 singles, 5 walks and only 1 strikeout in 31 PA's. Looks like a patient hitter, waits for his pitch and drives it on 8 hops thru the infield.

In Arizona, Sean Gallagher has pitched well in relief, with 4 K's and only 1 hit allowed in 3 innings. Rocky Roquet has thrown 2 innings, striking out 3 but allowing 2 hits and a walk. Matt Avery has allowed 5 baserunners in his 3 innings, but has struck out 3. Justin Berg has 4 K's in 4 innings, which proves Cubs prospects are strike out pitchers as are their big leaguers.

At the plate, Joe Simokatis makes Samson look like Sampson, with a meager .133 across the board - just 2 singles and no walks in 15 AB's. Add in 4 strike outs and this guy looks like he may be back at AA next year.

Josh Lansford hasn't had a great start, his .286 average disguises his struggles - he has just 1 walk in 15 PAs and and .357 SLG.

Sam Fuld is raking, with an OPS over 1.000 and 4 stolen bases in 7 starts. He could make noise for a roster spot in 2008. It would take a strong Spring, but it isn't out of the question. Too bad he doesn't play middle infield, but he might be a legit lead-off hitter someday (he's hitting lead-off for the Solar Sox).

He's had virtually no big league at bats, so the 7 we do have in PITCHf/x are not anything to go by. But, he did manage to not swing at any of the 3 pitches out of the zone, took 1 strike, fouled off 2 others, and put 1 in play.

There is Gameday data, not PITCHf/x, for AFL and HWB, but I haven't even looked at it to see if there's anything of value.

Why the "best" team doesn't win

Good piece in the NY Times about the difference between post-season and regular season success.

Last year, the Mets (97-65) met the Cardinals (83-78) in the National League Championship Series. That 14-victory gap made it seem as if the Mets should be a big favorite. In fact, that difference amounted to one victory every two weeks or so during the season. That is inconsequential over the course of a postseason series.

Read it

The Mockingbird on Alex Rios

Blue Jays blogger halejon has a recent post on using PITCHf/x to see if pitchers adjusted to Alex Rios.

Hill's Curve and the Weather

I'm hoping/assuming Hill will have a better than average curve tonight, given the humidity and the wind forecast. I decided to gather up his curves from Wrigley and put them against the weather conditions.

Since 5 of his 7 starts had the wind blowing in from somewhere, I eventually combined all 3 "in" directions into 1, and the two "Not In" games. No humidity data (I can get it, but, I gotta be someplace @ 5:07).

I need me a good stats package to do some fancier analysis.....but this looks like a better curve. Also consider both the "Not In" games are from September and only one of the "In" games is, but good luck controlling for that with this sample size.









This is a good enough reed for me to cling to, at least until game time.

Livan's bag-o-tricks

Update
Looking at this again, I think it's pretty obvious I'm splitting two groups that shouldn't be split. I'll do it right when I look at his start tonight, which I hope is short and painful.
-------------------------
Livan Hernandez throws somewhere between 3 and 700 different pitches.

Looking at home games, roof closed, y=50

I can find four or five just looking at speed


Make it four and look at the pitch spins by speed


And still not be sure when I put that spin data up as PFX instead


He might really have 5 or 6 pitches.

They all seem to come from the same release point - there are some differences, but nothing eye-popping.



Check out the head-to-head history at baseball-reference.com (in descending order of plate appearances vs. Livan).

Floyd
Lee
Kendall
Ramirez
DeRosa
Ward
Soriano
Jones
Cedeno
Murton

Aloha Cubbies/Sharks

Update
mlb.com confirms that Harvey was run for due to an injury, but nothing more. They have a better site than the official site below.
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I didn't know this until last year, but there's a Hawaii Winter Baseball league.

The Cubs have two players from the system playing for the Honolulu Sharks.

Ryan Harvey, a disappointing former first rounder, may have been injured yesterday, since he was pulled for a pinch-runner after his first AB (no news available, this is HWB, after all).

His numbers so far for the Sharks are not impressive. No extra-base hits or walks, and a lot of K's, against Single A competition. Considering he's 23 and has not hit well (career OBP < .300), and has only advanced to Daytona (he was hurt briefly), he may no longer be a legitimate prospect if he can't muster a promotion to Tennessee.

game-by-game
0-1 K
1-5 2K, E
1-4 3K
2-4 RBI, K
1-1
-----
5-15 7K RBI E
.333/.333/.333

Nate Samson, a shortstop who finished up playing for Ryno last year, is also with the team, as a back-up. Weak bat, not a name-to-remember

0-1
1-1 BB, R
DNP
1-3 BB
DNP
-----
2-5 BB, R
.400/.571/.400

The Arizona Fall League gets going soon, which is a much higher level of competition. Check out the Cubbies on the Mesa Solar Sox (w/highest level in 2007). Fuld is on call for the NLCS.

Sean Gallagher, P (Cubs)
Rocky Roquet, P (Tennessee)
Josh Lansford, 3B (Peoria)
Joseph Simokaitis, SS (Iowa)
Sam Fuld, OF (Cubs)

Cubs vs. Davis' curve - Good, Bad, Ugly

Ugly
Soriano saw three curveballs last night. All down per his average PITCHf/x strike zone, and higher curveballs were called balls during the game. Plus, I saw a lot of high strikes the last two nights for sure, but not too many low ones. Not sure what the ump would've called on these three, since Soriano swung and missed at all three.
See it. Misjudge it. Hack at it. Miss it.

Bad
Ramirez got seven, swinging at three of them. One of those swings was on a pitch in the zone, the others weren't. One curveball in the zone was called a strike when Aramis took the pitch. This was obviously a pitch Davis felt comfortable throwing to Ramirez.

Good
Murton saw six, three in the zone. The first he took, the next two he made contact for an infield hit and a fielder's choice. The other three were out of the zone, and he took two and lined out on the third. Why Davis keeps throwing Murton that many curveballs is beyond me.

Murton's hit was the only on 30 curveballs overall, and all but 1 of the whiffs (Soto's) came from Soriano and Ramirez.

Hopefully Hill will do something similar to the D-Backs tomorrow.

Six Pitches, Four Curves

Ramirez gets yakked out again. Davis didn't throw too many before that - but he got Soriano on one, too.

Sorry 'bout the cruddy screen shot

Davis against tonight's line-up

Mo' Soto. Kendall may be PO'd, but good call, Lou.

Here's how they're going out tonight, with results from AB's against Davis on Aug. 25 in Arizona:

Soriano
Theriot - 1/3 (Pop Out, Ground Out, Single)
Lee - 0/2 (Called K, Fielder's Choice, Walk)
Ramirez - 1/3 (Swinging K, Swinging K, Single)
Murton - 3/3 (Double, Single, Single)
Soto
DeRosa - 0/2 (Walk, Called K, Fly Out)
Jones - 0/3 (Ground Out, GIDP, Swinging K)

Davis beat Lilly 3-1 in that game. Soriano was hurt and Soto was playing in the PCL. Other than Murton, they basically stunk.

Murton's double came on a 3-2 cutter. He singled on a 1-2 curveball. That was the second curve Davis threw him. The first was a ball low on a 1-1 count in the first AB. The third hit came on a first-pitch cutter.

Ramirez whiffed on only two pitches, but both were with 2 strikes. He fell behind 1-2 on three straight cutters, before whiffing on curveball for the K. Three of the five pitches Davis threw him in the 2nd AB were curves, same end result. He later singled on an 0-1 cutter.

Cubs v Davis

For whatever reason, Davis' favorite opponent has got to be the Cubs. Noted at Rotoworld

The Diamondbacks' Game 2 starter, Doug Davis, has had more success against the Cubs than any other team in his career.
"It always seems like every time I face them, it feels like I can execute a plan that I’ve been working on for the week before that," Davis said. "It’s something that I study and figure out what hitters’ weaknesses are, and I try to execute my pitches and let my fielders work behind me. Davis is 7-5 with a 3.39 ERA in 13 career appearances against them.
Source: East Valley Tribune

I really think we're underestimating Davis and Hernandez. They're both capable of shutting the Cubs down for 6 or 7. Hopefully they won't, and the Cubs will hit the crap out of them, but we'll have to wait and see.

Here's a look at Doug Davis.

Not feeling like the k-means approach tonight, so I took a few looks at his pitch clusters. Standard pfx_x/pfx_z, start/end speeds, spin rate x direction They tend to look like 3 pitches (just his home games where y=50, no reference to roof or other environmental considerations), until you look at speed by spin direction, and you find all four.



I gotta walk the dogs, but I'll post some about how the Cubs shake-out against Davis later. I'm going to, for now, call his pitches fastball, cutter, change and curve. Like my dogs will care.

What is this PITCH/fx stuff anyway

Here's a distraction from tonight's defeat

A great PITCHf/x article at MLB.com that has info I haven't seen before, like

Then the crew in the truck sizes each player during batting practice, so that during the game each tracking plane is pre-set; it is remembered for each subsequent at-bat by that player.

Heh, cool.

Picks to Click, based on OOZ

Pitches Out of the Zone, in particular low ones (LOOZ) are of interest tonight with Mr. Webb on the mound.

I'm not going way out on any limbs here, but I'm making picks-to-clicks based on swing and whiff rates for LOOZ alone.
<sarcasm>Will the wonders never end?</sarcasm>

I'm defining low pitches as pitches below a line created at 1 SD above the hitters average strike zone. This increases the number of low pitches by a little more than 20% than true OOZ.

(Swing rate/Whiff rate; post-season roster average: .328/.394)

Click:
Soriano (.529/.348) will chase, will contact

Flop:
Jones (.416/.468) will chase, will whiff

They're batting 1-2 tonight.

A Note on Soto
With a limited sample size, it's hard to judge, but Soto has the lowest swing rate (.167) but highest whiff rate (.625) on the team. But that's only 8 swings from 187 total and 48 LOOZ, so take some salt with that. Kendall, who is riding the pine tonight, only has a .097 whiff on LOOZ, which is from a big sample (1240 total).

Time to go watch Stockton and Darling call the game.

Playoff Roster Announced

Some big surprises for the NLDS. Short on lefty's in the pen, and no Monroe. Soto starts Game 1. That I like, and can't call a surprise.

Check out Nate Silver's series preview (sub.req.). Meanwhile, I'm working on an f/x preview.