Banny Log 042408
Posted: April 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 27 Comments »
Start No. 5: Vs. Cleveland Indians
Innings: 6 2/3
Earned runs allowed: 2.
Strikeouts: 4
Walks: 0
Line drives off left shin: 1.
Decision: Loss (3-2)
Number of pitches: 87
Number of strikes: 59
BABIP: .200 (4 for 20)
Season BABIP: .230 (23 for 100)
When a baseball team loses seven games in a row — and I think I have a little experience with this as a columnist in Kansas City — you really can start to wonder if the team will ever win again. The Royals are playing that kind of scary baseball that really, really bad teams play — as seen on Thursday in a doubleheader against Cleveland. In the first game, the Royals banged out 14 hits in the first game, hit two homers (only the fourth time all season the Royals have managed two homers in a game), scored six runs for only the second time all season … and they were never even in the game. The Royals gave up 15 hits, committed a couple of errors, grounded into three double plays, stranded 10 runners and lost the game 9-6. It wasn’t that close.
So that was a crummy performance, the third straight crummy performance for the Royals, the sixth straight loss. Then they had Banny pitching in the nightcap, and that was MORE disconcerting. So what happened? He pitched six amazing innings — he retired 16 batters in a row — he allowed just one hit, and it was a cheappie. He had the Indians hitters swinging at shadows, which is what Banny can do when he’s really on. Then in that sixth inning, Cleveland catcher Kelly Shoppack hit a line drive whack off Banny’s left leg. Banny immediately gave the Royals the universal signal for: “It’s OK; I’m all right!†He got Andy Marte to fly out, he struck out Grady Sizemore, and he did seem to be all right.
Only … he was not quite all right. Loyal readers of Banny log understand that our hero is working with no safety net. None. He can be dazzling when he’s doing the cliches — hitting spots, changing speeds, working batters in and out. For six innings, he had the Indians chasing shadows. But, if he’s just a little bit off — if he misses his spots by inches, throws his fastball two mph slow or his cutter doesn’t come back quite enough — he’s going to get hit. In a sense, this is true of all pitchers, but I think Brian would say it’s ESPECIALLY true of him, and I would tend to agree. He was probably at about 85% in his last start against Oakland, and they hit him pretty good.
Well, Banny’s leg hurt enough that — as he would explain afterward — he could feel some pain when he landed on it. I have not yet asked Brian, but I would imagine that it bothered him mentally more than physically — he could not land exactly right. After some time in the dugout between innings (the Royals went 1-2-3 in the sixth to help him out), I’m sure his leg swelled up a little bit too. That’s all it took. First pitch, seventh inning, he threw an 87 mph fastball up, heart of the plate, a meatball, and Delucci did not miss. He cracked the first home run of the year off of Banny. That made the score 1-0 Cleveland.
Next batter, Travis Hafner, Banny’s cutter caught too much of the plate, and Hafner banged an opposite field double. Three batters later, he threw a pretty decent cutter to Cabrera, who just beat him by yanking a double down the line to make it 2-0 Cleveland. And that’s when Trey Hillman took Bannister out of the game.
Here was the important part of the inning, though: When Delucci hit the home run, everybody in the stadium, everybody in both dugouts, every fan watching, listening, Gamedaying KNEW the game was over. Over. The umpire might as well have stopped it right there. There was NO WAY, the Royals were going to score a run at that point. None.
They did not score, of course. That’s what bad teams do. They hit the ball all over the park one game, and lose a sloppy high-scoring game. They get a great pitching performance the next game and can’t score at all. I don’t think the Royals are going to be a bad team this year, I really don’t. I’ve already gone over all the good signs, and I’m on record. That’s said — at this particular moment in time they are a very bad team. The bottom third of the lineup is an automatic out. the defense has lost its sharpness. Jose Guillen is … well, let’s just say it has been suggested to me by Rob Neyer that a “Guillen log†could be in order. Opening day starter Gil Meche is really struggling, which is unexpected, and Brett Tomko is really struggling which you may have seen coming.
And when a team is playing this badly, like I say, it’s just hard to imagine them snapping out of it.*
*This could be because the imagination has a very hard time looking beyond the moment. I’m reading an interesting book called “Dear Pete Rose …†no, wait, I am reading that too, but I’m reading ANOTHER book called “Stumbling on Happiness†(one I bought entirely because of the Malcolm Gladwell recommendation, so maybe those book blurbs do sell books), and it talks about the limits of our imagination. Interesting stuff.
Back to Banny. He only got three swing-and-miss strikes the entire game,* but one of them struck out Travis Hafner and another struck out Grady Sizemore. But with Banny, I’m finding more and more, it isn’t the swing-and-miss pitches that show his stuff, but the “bad swings.†In the seventh, when he was battling the left leg an diminishing stuff, he fell behind Jhonny Peralta 2-0. There was a man on third, one out, this was a sure sac fly situation, if not something more.
And then Banny threw a great pitch; the kind of pitch that makes him so much fun to watch. This was an obvious fastball situation, especially because Brian throws probably 70% fastballs anyway.** Instead, Banny threw the slider, outside corner, working away, a couple mph slower, and Peralta — in total swing mode — hit right over the top, grounded out to third base, the run did not score then. That’s Banny at his Banny Log best.
*The Royals — and this is rather disconcerting — had 15 swing-and-miss strikes against Cliff Lee. I mean FIFTEEN; this offense is in absolutely freefall. We might have to write a little something about Tony Pena Jr. at some point because right now, at this moment, he could be the most confused hitter I’ve ever seen. The numbers are telling enough — .136/.148/.153 with 1 double, 0 triples, 0 homers, 15 strikeouts, 1 walk. But it’s more than the numbers … I have to do a post on him. My plan on cutting down on posts is working about as well as my plan for taking a book sabbatical from work. I need to be in one of those Southwest commercials. I HAVE to get away.
** Brilliant reader Roarke points to a cool Web site that shows that Banny has been throwing about 37% fastballs this year and 32% sliders, 16% curve, 23% change-ups. I have no reason to doubt the numbers, but I think from watching him that some of those sliders are actually cutters — and his fastball has a natural cutting motion anyway so those two blend together. When I say “throws about 70% fastballs,†I really was combining fastballs and cutters in my mind. About 70% hard stuff — upper 80s to 90 mph stuff. What was interesting is that on Thursday, according to MLB Gameday, Banny threw exactly zero change-ups. That’s what I’ve seen most of the year — I don’t think he throws his change-up that much. From my point of view, he changes pace with the curveball and slider.
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Don’t worry about the Royals. Hillman has it all figured out. Instead of being a LF and batting 3rd, Teahan is now a RF and batting 3rd. And Instead of being a RF and batting 5th with his .160 avg, Guillen is now a LF batting 4th with his .165 avg.
Meanwhile, Gaithright and Callapso still sit on the bench because they aren’t good enough to replace the guys ahead of them. You know, Guillen and Pena.
Nothing wrong with the Royals at all.
There should be a new award established call the “Steve Carlton”. That will be based on his ‘72 performance and will be given to the pitcher who has the best year for a team that isn’t any good. Greinke and Bannister can share the award this year.
Joe Sheehan wrote a blog on Baseball Prospectus on just how bad the Royals hitters were in the first game of that DH– the one where they actually scored some runs. It’s an interesting look at their approach in that game. The title pretty much tells it all: “Bad, Bad Baseball”:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=851
(probably subscriber content, not sure.)
Some highlights:
“The Royals are facing Fausto Carmona in the first game of a doubleheader… Carmona comes into the game second in the AL in walks allowed, with 18, having walked nearly twice as many men as he’s struck out (10) in 23 innings. He’s walked nearly one out of every five men he’s faced this year. This is consistent with his work towards the end of 2007, when his command deserted him a bit in the postseason. His ERA is 1.96 because he has yet to allow a home run or a triple, and has given up just three doubles and a .246 batting average on balls in play. Loosely speaking, swinging isn’t going so well, but if you let Carmona get himself into trouble, he will.
First inning, Royals come to bat down a run. Joey Gathright takes three pitches, two of them balls, then bunts his way on to first. David DeJesus comes to the plate and walks on seven pitches, taking five of them. Carmona has thrown 11 pitches, six of them balls. Mark Teahen comes up with two on and no one out. The first three pitches to him are balls. Carmona has now thrown 14 pitches, nine of them out of the strike zone, and is one pitch from walking the bases loaded. You have to give him a chance to do that, right?
Teahen doesn’t. He swings at the 3-0 and fouls it off. In fact, the Royals swing at Carmona’s next eight pitches, scoring one run on a groundball single inside the first-base line, but leaving a big inning just hanging there when Alex Gordon grounds into a double play on the first pitch he sees. Look at that sequence again: Carmona–who has walked 19 men in 23 innings when Teahen steps up–throws nine balls in his first 14 pitches, and the Royals swing at the next eight. That is unacceptably stupid baseball.
It gets better…”
Joe:
According to Josh Kalk’s database (http://baseball.bornbybits.com/2008/pitchers.html), Bannister threw fastballs 53.15% of the time last season (which I believe is a bit below the league average) and this year he is only throwing it 35.9% of the time, which is extremely low. Of course, it has a 31.87% rate for sliders, which is almost certainly picking up some cutters because Bannister is not listed as throwing any cutters.
Does Teahen have secret knowledge about swinging at 3-0 pitches with men on? He’s done it twice this year. The first time he grounds out to second. Last night he fouled it off and eventually flied out to center.
Someone should ask Hillman what the heck is up with that. Is he not giving him the “take” sign?
wait, what Malcolm Gladwell blurb? I’m looking for it!
Small Sample Alert
Jose Guillen – 1 HR, 9 RBI, .181/.209/.313, OPS+ of 38
Emil Brown – 2 HR, 19 RBI, .276/.296/.421, OPS+ of 98
This is just me working for you Joe. You’re welcome.
Jose Guillen – 1 HR, 9 RBI, .181/.209/.313, OPS+ of 38
Me – 0 HR, 0 RBI, .000/.000/.000, OPS+ of 0
slight edge, Guillen
Jose Guillen – KC salary $12,000,000, GDP 3, errors 1, mitchell report “yes”
Me – KC salary $0, GDP 0, errors 0, mitchell report “no”
huge edge, Me
Way to take some time off the blog, there, Joe. I don’t miss not missing it.
Fortunately for the Royals, an equally dismal team comes to town this weekend as the hapless Blue Jays arrive, fresh off the heels of a three-game sweep by the Tampa Bay Rays.
If Joe’s post is anything to judge by, it’s going to be a full weekend of suckage. I wouldn’t expect a great deal of offence.
I’ll bring this up again:
I perfectly understand and applaud the return of Bob McClure this season, but in what paralell universe did Barnett merit a return this season as batting coach?
I know some may say coaches are overrated, but don’t the Royals at least owe it to themselves to find out if these bad approaches are entirely the fault of the players, the manager, or the coach?
GMDM has stated in the past that he needs 40 games to evaluate his roster properly, and make adjustments as needed.
Game 40, barring any additional rainouts, is May 14th.
It can’t get here soon enough.
I watched most of both games yesterday and it was so painful to watch the Royals bat. I didn’t document it like Joe Sheehan but I was having a lot of those same thoughts. When Gordon swung at the first pitch he saw in the first inning, I was really deflated because I had hope that he knew better. Does anybody track groundball/line drive/flyball stats for hitters? All I ever see Bulter hit are ground balls. He gets a lot of hits but I want to see him drive the ball.
You can see gb/ld/fb rates for Billy Butler here: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=7399&position=DH&page=9&type=full
Stumbling on Happiness is a brilliant book with an unfortunate title that makes it sound like a self-help manual.
I also bought it based on Gladwell’s blurb, which is the only time I can ever recall a jacket blurb actually making me reach for my wallet.
So, what is going on with Meche?
Do you expect him to turn this around pretty soon, or is it all unexplainable at this point?
Soria looked good again. Sure would be nice to get to him with a lead. Of course you would have to score runs to do that.
I was watching BBTN last night and thought to myself “Man, the wheels sure came off Banny after that sixth inning. Wonder what happened?”
Because a control/finesse guy typically doesn’t face such a gigantic dip from one inning to the next. In typical John Kruk “Where’s my Hot Sauce!” fashion, they ofcourse ignored the fact that Banny had gotten beaned in the shin.
So now it makes more sense. Way to go BBTN crew!
Banny is the type of guy that gives the Indians fits. I was surprised they got 2 runs off of him. It’s fortunate Cliff Lee has inexplicably turned into the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball. Otherwise, that’s a loss. I guess the accommodations in Buffalo weren’t so hot.
My Dad and I used to have all sorts of debates about swinging at a 3-0 pitch.
He’s right in that I’ve heard play-by-play guys say, “He’s taking all the way. Strike one,” about a billion times in my life.
Dad used to argue that a pitcher is gonna grove something right down the middle on a 3-0 pitch and it might be the best ball to hit at the whole at-bat.
Yeah, I’d say. But even the best of hitters fail to get on base 2 out of 3 times. Even if they hit the room-service fastball, someone’s likely to catch it.
Math makes my ears bleed. And I don’t know how I would approach a statistical analysis of whether it’s better to hit a 3-0 pitch than “take all the way.” There’s be weighted stats since only the best hitters are usually given the green light to hit 3-0. And, on the heels of a six-game slump, I’m not sure Hillman was in any position to go against “the book.”
But golly.
This still is April, isn’t it?
I think Gathright bunting lead-off on 3-0 was utterly stupid. Unless he thinks it his role to learn how to use his speed. It was the first inning. Maybe even the coaches weren’t in the game yet. Who in their right mind would have thought Joey would bunt 3-0?!
Gathright’s got a lot of skills, but doesn’t quite understand the game yet. He might come around.
This might be the perfect April for Hillman to hold a closed-door come-to-Jesus meeting with the team along about May 1st.
The Roylz know how to win and they’re learning how they lose.
It’s up to Troy to teach them the difference.
Who are the Roylz? There’s a team in Kansas City called the Royals. Is that who you mean?
To “John”:
You (rightfully) wonder when Soria might pitch with the lead again.
Put him in the rotation (WHERE HE BELONGS), and I’d venture to say that will happen every 5th game or so, guaranteed.
Re: 3-0 pitches.
The pitcher doesn’t have to groove one strike. He has to groove two straight strikes (or in reality three.)
I have no absolutely no math to back me up on this, but I think on a 3-0 pitch, you take it, because in reality, he’s come back and try to throw another strike and the chances of you getting on base increases because:
A: He has to throw two strikes in a row
B: On a 3-1 count, you can still look for your pitch to hit, and if it’s not there, you let it go by and hope to get the call for ball four. If not, it’s just a 3-2 count.
C: 3-2 count, the pitcher still has to throw a third strike. You have to be a little more defensive, but it’s still the pitcher who has to “make the play.”
Fangraphs says you are mostly right on your 70% estimate, Joe. They say 64% fastballs, 14% sliders, 12% curveballs, 10% changeups. (Scroll down to the bottom of the link to see the pitches.)
http://tinyurl.com/6j5z3t
In a piece in this year’s Beep, Davenport looked at hitter performance on various counts, and at how often pitcher’s throw strikes on various counts.
A hitter whose AB ends on a 3-0 count, whether by receiving the four-pitch walk or by swinging and making contact that results in an out or a hit, hits at a .396/.951/.816 clip.
One whose AB goes through a 3-0 count, but does not end on that pitch, bops out a .296/.723/.516 rate.
Pitchers throw a strike when down three balls and no strikes 69% of the time.
There have been a few references here to how stupid the Mets were to give Bannister away for Burgos. There’s no defense for Burgos, who’s been either awful or hurt the whole time, but…
Bannister as Met: 38 IP, 19 K, 22 BB, 4 HR. He had an OK ERA and all… but it was clear to all of us that he was dancing between the raindrops & that if he hadn’t gotten hurt, he probably would have started getting his head handed to him in short order.
Yeah, we’d like a do-over, but this isn’t exactly David Cone for Ed Hearn (don’t forget, that one went the other way!).
I know this is a KC centric site, but jeez you hardly mentioned Cliff Lee’s Koufaxian April performance. Here check this out:http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=852.
Here’s a highlite: “In 31.2 innings, he has allowed 11 hits, walked 2, struck out 29, and has a 0.28 ERA.” His ERA+ is 1561 – no that’s no typo – repeat: his ERA+ is 1561.
The fact of the matter is your boyz coulda alternated Paul Splittorf against lefties and Bullet Rogan against righties and you still wouldn’t have a prayer against Cliff Lee this April.
So don’t be too hard on Banny. This loss should come with an asterix – cuz he just got beat by a guy on an unconscious winning streak.
Stumbling on Happiness is indeed terrific — it’s not a book I picked up because of its blurb, but yes, I do do that sometimes, and it works. If you’re in the mood for equally engaging, fun, story-and-experiment-filled books about weird things our minds do to our perceptions of the world, it’s been an excellent couple of years for those: I highly recommend Carol Tavris’s Mistakes were Made (but not by Me) and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. If given the chance to trade Jose Guillen for a copy of either book, you should surely accept.