Comments on: Red Sox vs. Angels (12:03 pm Friday)

By: Justyo

Justyo — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:22:40 +0000

Phillies – Red Sox is going to be an awesome World Series.

By: Hitandrun

Hitandrun — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:27:09 +0000

I keep hearing and reading that Aybar’s groundout would have plated the lead run. Not so folks. That’s why teams play their infields in in that situation. The ground ball would have to get past the first baseman and while that is more likely with the infield in than playing back, it’s still not a lock. It’s possible that it MAY have scored the run. Scioscia made the call and now has to live with the result. It was a gamble he was willing to take, and he lost.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:59:45 +0000

I think the rather predictable Scioscia decision to try a squeeze in the 9th was less borne of a need to stick it to Moneyball types with an extra helping of Scioscia ball, but rather a function of who was at the plate. Erick Aybar is not someone who can be counted on to even get a fly ball deep enough to score a fast runner from 3rd, so he decided he needed to roll the dice. Which of course leads to the question of what Erick Aybar is doing in the every day lineup of a 100 win playoff team. If you can’t even trust a batter to get a runner home from 3rd with less than 2 outs conventionally, he probably shouldn’t be in there. Conversely, anyone in the Red Sox lineup would have been more than capable of delivering that run.

I think that gets right to the heart of the difference between these two teams.

By: Josh in DC

Josh in DC — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:20:59 +0000

I would guess that, as a class, 5′9″ white guys are undervalued by scouts. If I’m right, it’s ironic how they’re generally overvalued by sportswriters and TV guys. (And how announcers WANT Pedroia to be Eckstein, since they’re both short, white, second basemen who get their uniforms dirty.)

I have no point.

By: Paul White

Paul White — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:28:59 +0000

“Jed Lowrie with the game winning hit. It occurred to me as I watched it that the Red Sox are attempting to build an entire team of 5?9? white guys.”

Jed Lowrie is six feet tall. The problem is that the clown interviewing him on the field after the game, Craig Sager, is over 6′4″.

By: Buchholz Surfer

Buchholz Surfer — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:05:57 +0000

Scioscia with the squeeze attempt: was he trying to stick it to those Moneyball sabermetrics types with the smallball call? You know if it had worked then there would have been a ton of stories about how the gritty smallball play had worked and taught a lesson to all detractors.

Looked like a real case of overmanaging to me. Aybar ended up grounding out to first base, which, if it had gone that way without the squeeze, would have produced the lead run. Why not just let the guy knock in the run? Why take the extra risk? I usually like the squeeze, but more as a play to go from a 2 run lead to a 3 run lead, or from a 1 to 2 run lead at least, rather than as a tiebreaker.

By: jackie ballgame

jackie ballgame — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:34:32 +0000

Jed Lowrie with the game winning hit. It occurred to me as I watched it that the Red Sox are attempting to build an entire team of 5′9″ white guys.

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:35:11 +0000

Here’s why I don’t get Mickey. He seems to think there are two possibilities, always swing at the first pitch or never swing at the first pitch. That isn’t what is being said at all.

Instead, what a disciplined batter does is look for a pitch in a particular place on every at bat and then only swing if the ball is in that location. Most batters understand to do this when they are ahead 2-0, 3-0 and 3-1, but the best hitters do this when the count is 0-0, 0-1, 1-1, and 2-1 too. Only with 2 strikes do those hitters get a little less picky and swing at anything that is a strike.

By: Paul White

Paul White — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:43:29 +0000

Daniel – I don’t disagree that the Angels have an organizational philosophy to draft and develop guys who don’t walk much, but Hatcher is absolutely part of the problem. Look up any of his comments about the team’s approach at the plate and you’ll find them rife with talk of being “aggressive” and not letting the first strike go by because it may be the only good one you get, blah, blah, blah. That kind of talk is contributing to their hacktastic approach.

Just look at some of the youngsters they’ve developed. Kotchman walked 11% of his PAs in the minors, but just 7.9% with Hatcher as his hitting coach. He goes to Atlanta and is back up to 10.3%. Mike Napoli, as you cited, does have some patience, but his walk rate is down from his minor league time as well. Brandon Wood walked 9% of the time in the minors and 2.1% under Hatcher. Jose Molina came through the minors walking almost 9% of the time and that figure was cut in half under Hatcher. The most glaring example may be Dallas McPherson, who walked over 11% of the time in the minors and saw that figure drop to 6% under Hatcher. He sits out a year, goes to Triple A for the Marlins and is suddenly walking 14% of the time again.

The pattern is too pretty clear, and his comments back it up. Hatcher, for some reason, seems to clearly be preaching a philosophy that eschews bases on balls.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:07:21 +0000

Richard – Figgins has increased his walk rate each of the past two seasons. He’s become a respectable leadoff man, OBP-wise. He’s been at opposite ends of the BABIP spectrum the past two seasons, but I expect him to keep that avg. at around .290, and with the amount of walks he’s taking, he should be up at a .380 OBP or so. I don’t know if this is Hatcher’s doing, but someone has told Figgins to take more walks.

I’m not saying Hatcher’s a great hitting coach – he’s not. But the Angels do have guys who have come up through the system recently who will take a walk (Napoli, Willits, Wood took some walks in the minors). Most of the guys in the everyday lineup who you would call free swingers (Vlad, Anderson, Hunter, Rivera) were all set in their ways before Hatcher had a chance to get a hold of them. And as Joe has argued, pitch selection/walking seems to be a skill more than a learned ability.

I don’t think Hatcher is free of blame, since he can be charged with not helping Aybar or Kendrick figure out the whole walking thing. But I think the player selection from the GM and scouting departments are more to blame for going after players with no track record for plate discipline.