2010 MLB Season Discussion

[Cephius]

Hey look, it's Bad AJ, the cure for any bad offense. It's just so much fun to watch him get destroyed and then watch the offense to get shut down by another joke of a pitcher. First place was real nice...

[Bozo]

Guess Burnett is only good when he has a strike zone the size of an elephant like he did in Game 2 of the World Series.

[Akiyama]

Hey look, it's Bad AJ, the cure for any bad offense. It's just so much fun to watch him get destroyed and then watch the offense to get shut down by another joke of a pitcher. First place was real nice...

game up, meaning a loss would result in a half game loss.. so 0.5 up on Rays/Sox.

[Cephius]

Guess Burnett is only good when he has a strike zone the size of an elephant like he did in Game 2 of the World Series.

Strike zone has nothing to do with it, he's either incredibly bad or he throws a 2 hitter.

Plus Pedro had a pretty stupid strikezone that night too >_>

[Andarvi]

Fucking AJ god damnit. Pisses me off that he can still say to himself "well, at least im not javy."

[Bozo]

Strike zone has nothing to do with it, he's either incredibly bad or he throws a 2 hitter.

Plus Pedro had a pretty stupid strikezone that night too >_>

Umpires sucked.

[Cephius]

Do you really think it mattered? When he's on no one can hit him. When he's off... you get game 5!

[Bozo]

You will not win this argument of a game that happened over 6 months ago damnit!

http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/...1&s_type=7.gif

Do you really think it mattered? When he's on no one can hit him.!

But they can walk 9 or however many times. Out of curiosity, was his no-no a shut out or did he give up a sac fly/ground out/bases loaded walk type of run?

[Cephius]

Nah it was a shutout, he spread out the walks, didn't walk more than 2 in an inning IIRC.

P.S. There are a lot more red squares outside the strike zone in that graph

[Akiyama]

Nah it was a shutout, he spread out the walks, didn't walk more than 2 in an inning IIRC.

P.S. There are a lot more red squares outside the strike zone in that graph

aren't..the red squares the yankees, thus proving his point? o.o or am I wooshing myself here.

[Moss]

aren't..the red squares the yankees, thus proving his point? o.o or am I wooshing myself here.

I was thinking the same.

[Kurp]

ESPN article on Mauer/Morneau and Target Field. It's an insider article so I pasted it here.

Spoiler: show

Like most new ballparks, Target Field has done wonders for baseball in Minnesota. Folks in the Twin Cities are once again excited to go support their team in person. But are Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and the other players excited about it? From a pure "batting" perspective, would they rather be back in the Metrodome? With the help of our friends at HitTracker Online, we can journey through time and space to see what would happen to home run balls if they had been hit in other ballparks.

So far this year there have been 50 home runs hit in 36 games at Target Field. That's only 1.4 per game, the fourth-lowest in the majors. Compare that to the 189 hit last season at the Metrodome, which is more than 2.3 per game. Additionally, the average distance of a trip around Minnesota's bases is down nearly 14 feet-- from 400.2 to 386.6. Eight of last season's homers would have stayed in play in the new park. The challenge is to figure out why.

Obviously the Twins' move outside brings the weather into play. In theory, cooler air holds more moisture, which prevents the ball from carrying quite as far. Last year, Twins fans had to prepare for temperatures as scorching as 70°, or all the way down to (brrr) 68°. In very obvious contrast, this season's game-time temps have ranged from 45° (May 11) to 88° (May 29). Unfortunately, it takes some real extremes to see an impact in home-run distances solely due to the thermometer. The average ball at Target Field has only been "knocked down" by 10 inches because of it. The coldest homer was Morneau's on May 11, which traveled 376 feet and only lost two feet due to the 44-degree conditions. That one would have been a homer at the 'Dome as well.

So if the temperature effect is negligible, what about the wind? Right field at the Target is open to an entrance plaza and the downtown skyline, whereas the rest of the stadium is double-decked and creates a swirl. Surely balls hit to right will get into that wind current one way or another.

This design feature seems to be the biggest reason why right field and right-center have proven to be "death valley" for hitters. The prevailing winds in Minneapolis are from the south and southwest. Since home plate faces east, the wind usually either comes straight in from right, or it wraps around the end of the first-base stands. Low line drives have a chance at getting out (and do), but a fly ball gets pushed back toward center field where it's easily catchable. A spray chart of the homers hit this season shows only one to right-center and one to straightaway center. Compare that with last year at the Metrodome, where the homers are spread evenly around the outfield. This is despite the actual field dimensions of the two parks being nearly identical.

If you take the home runs the M&M Boys hit last season and superimpose them on a plot of Target Field, it's a wash. Every one of Morneau's bombs last season would also have gone out of the new place. Mauer does lose one homer in the move, but he also gains one back; a long fly ball that he hit on May 11 would have been a tater if they were still playing at the other end of town.

Both of Morneau's home runs at Target Field have been of the "low line drive to right" variety, where they sneak out of the stadium underneath the wind. Seven of his nine doubles there have also been to right or right-center-- where the wind would knock down any fly ball that had a chance. Overall, Morneau already has 12 two-baggers to the right side, the same number that he had all of last season. It's also possible that he's still feeling some effects from the stress fracture in his back that brought an early end to his season last year.

Data from Inside Edge suggests that Morneau is more reluctant to swing at fastballs this season, even though he's seeing the same number of good pitches to hit. His overall swing rate against all pitches has dropped, and against heaters, it's fallen from 45% to 36%. That suggests Morneau might be passing up some opportunities. In fact, he's hit more homers this season on off-speed pitches (seven) than on fastballs (six)-- after hitting twice as many on heat each of the last three seasons.

Mauer, who has yet to hit a home run in the new park, has the opposite problem-- NOT getting balls up in the air. Mauer is putting more balls on the ground, especially the ones right down the heart of the plate, which he crushed (.571 BA) last year. This season that average has dipped to .364, and the number of ground balls has doubled. Mauer has also fallen victim to better defensive positioning; his batting average on balls in play has dropped 45 points this year, and more than 100 on pitches that are over the middle of the plate horizontally.

Mauer could be feeling the wind also. He already has seven doubles to the right side; last year he finished the entire season with nine. Adding to that, HitTracker also categorizes each home run by how much extra it had after it cleared the fence. Of Mauer's 28 bombs last season, 11 weren't really "bombs". They had "just enough" to get out of the park. Seven of those were at the Metrodome. With just a slight loss of Mauer Power, plus the wind factoring in, all of those turn into outs.

I have mixed feeling about the article. Most of the doubles that Morneau has hit weren't anywhere close to home runs. Just from watching games, anyone could tell that Mauer is putting the ball on the ground far too often. I hope (and expect) that he'll correct that as the season goes on.

I'd love to land one of these jobs. I haven't been following advanced statistics and analysis for very long, but I find it fascinating now. Maybe I should grab a degree in statistics.

[Cephius]

aren't..the red squares the yankees, thus proving his point? o.o or am I wooshing myself here.

Yeah, you're right Guess we can take away the trophy now, Burnett was getting the corner!

[Kurp]

It seems to me that the strikezone is enlarged to the left side, but it's still consistent. The most outside pitch called a strike was by a Philly pitcher. There is no bias towards one team shown there.

[Cephius]

I think the only thing people worry about Target Field is what's going to happen in October or November. I remember reading something about how if game 3 of the ALDS last year was played in Target Field it would have been like 20 degrees. I dunno about playing baseball in that kind of weather...

[Kurp]

Hotdogs are the best when it's cold!

Really, they are.

[Cephius]

No way man. Us northeasterners prefer porkchop on a stick!

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...orkchop_01.jpg

[*Shinzon*]

I think the only thing people worry about Target Field is what's going to happen in October or November. I remember reading something about how if game 3 of the ALDS last year was played in Target Field it would have been like 20 degrees. I dunno about playing baseball in that kind of weather...

They're never going to have a postseason game there. It would by physically impossible to grip or even hit one of those frozen balls lol. It was really a mistake not to have a retractable roof.

[Conrad]

I wonder what they'll do if the Twins win the ALC this year? Not very good planning on their part; if the NLDS last year was any indication, open-air baseball in cold weather cities is not ideal in late October.

[Cephius]

For the record, the coldest postseason game ever played was in game 4 of the 97 World Series in Cleveland where it was 35 degrees at first pitch. (game 3 of Phillies-Rockies last year tied it)

So uh yeah, pretty sure a Twins postseason game could destroy that record if they make it deep into the postseason.