Baseball: the Roy Halladay deal–it’ll be the Phillies

Which contender will pop for ace Roy Halladay, who has shown he can beat the Yanks and Red Sox?
Let’s eliminate the Dodgers. Would the Jays take Andre Ethier plus some rag taggers? nahh….and the Dodgers aren’t going to trade Russell Martin or Clayton Kershaw.
Yankees: forget it. Jays don’t want Chamberlain or Hughes, or Melky Cabrera.
Red Sox: Clay Bucholz is tempting. But overall the Red Sox don’t feel the need, unless they think the Yanks might get er done.
Phils: This is the team that really needs Halladay, and has the prospects to trade: Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor, Jason Knapp and Dominic Brown.
Cardinals: sorry, they don’t have the prospects. ditto the Angels.

Kershaw v. Koufax, 4

Including today’s game:

Career stats for Sandy Koufax (SK, aka K1) as of 10/15/57, age 21y 9mo, and Clayton Kershaw (CK, aka K2) as of 7/01/09, age 21y 3mo.

SK: IP 205.2 W 09 L 10 H 182 HR 26 ER 91 K 182 BB 108
CK: IP 201.1 W 11 L 10 H 175 HR 16 ER 85 K 195 BB 106

SK: ERA=3.99, WHIP=1.41, K/9 innings=8.0
CK: ERA=3.80, WHIP=1.40, K/9 innings=8.7

(Notes: Kershaw’s low HRs allowed this year may be due to the low HR totals of the Dodgers’ opposition..
Many of Koufax’s appearances were in relief.)

Kershaw – Koufax watch, part 2

see prior post.

Career stats for Sandy Koufax (SK) as of 10/15/57, age 21y 9mo, and Clayton Kershaw (CK) as of 6/26/09, age 21y 3mo.

SK: IP 205.2 W 09 L 10 H 182 ER 91 K 182 BB 108
CK: IP 190.1 W 10 L 10 H 171 ER 85 K 178 BB 94

SK: ERA=3.99, WHIP=1.41, K/9 innings=8.0
CK: ERA=4.01, WHIP=1.42, K/9 innings=8.7

If you don’t think that’s spooky, you’re not paying attention.
(yes, I know SK was pitching at Ebbets Field and doing a lot of relief pitching, and probably didn’t have great defense behind him; but still….and Kershaw is 6 mo younger. Physically they are virtual clones.)

See also this.

Baseball: Jim Edmonds, RIP

A very nice player for a long time. I would even say a great player. A human highlight reel. I might even vote for a Hall of Fame berth, as irrational as that might seem. But he’s done.  I could see this spring that his bat speed is gone. He won’t hit .250 this year. His stats have been circling the drain for three years, and he went off to San Diego to die. And yesterday I saw it happen. If you ever wanted to see what it means to “lose a step”, this was it. Against the Dodgers, in centerfield, in a single inning, the human highlight reel played one ball into a triple and another into a double, while pitcher Jake Peavy asked for guidance from above. I wasn’t sure Edmonds was gonna get up after the second one. Not because he was hurt. But because he knew….

Time marches on. Jim Edmonds, at 38, reaches the end of the road.

baseball: SF Giants…what were they thinking?

This team has the potential of losing 110 games. Doesn’t happen all that often. Here’s why:

Barry Zito is their ace. What?

Ray Durham: I can’t even fathom why when  how or what someone is thinking with this guy. 36 years old, hit .215, OBP under .300!!  Slg .343. And they hit him in the middle of the order?!!

Bengie  Molina:  33 yo catcher with an OBP of .298.  Slow.

Omar Vizquel: 41 years old. OBP 305.

Randy Winn: 34 years old.

Rich Aurelia? 36 years old.

Brian Wilson: “closer”; 7 career saves. sure.

Barry Bonds: Gone

no-name nobodies: 18 approximately

Who’s going to play first base? Some guy who’ll hit 9 home runs? who’s going to do anything? Aaron Rowand? Matt Cain? Tim Lincecum? They are the only average major leaguers on the team. The rest sucks. really. If any of their big three gets hurt, they will lose 110. If they stay healthy, only a hundred.

Baseball: Some things you didn’t know about Clayton Kershaw

Clayton may end up pitching this year for the Los Angeles Dodgers, despite the fact that he just turned 20. Now that Vin Scully has called his curveball “Public enemy No. 1”, I guess he’s famous. Here are some things you didn’t know about him.

He’s a big boy. He played center on his freshman high school football team, and guess who he was snapping it to? Matthew Stafford, now the strong-armed quarterback for the Georgia Bulldogs. These guys went to the same elementary school. Which was also the same grade school attended by SMU and Detroit Lions star Doak Walker. (University of Texas and Detroit Lions quarterback Bobby Layne attended Highland Park High School at the same time that Walker did.) Kershaw dropped football to concentrate on baseball, but Highland Park went on to win the state football championship anyway.

In Kershaw’s senior year at Highland Park High School, in a playoff game, he struck out every batter…..nd these were big schools, the second highest classification in Texas. Struck out 15 in a row. One ball was grounded into the third base dugout. There was one popfoul over the backstop. That was it. The game was stopped after 5 innings by mercy rule.

In high school, when not pitching, Kershaw played first base. In another playoff game that year, held in the minor league ballpark in Frisco, Texas, Kershaw, a lefty, hit a 410 foot home run to left center field.

baseball: NY Yankees pitching staff

Andy Pettite: an average lefty. He may last forever, but that doesn’t make him Warren Spahn.

Mike Mussina: slipping badly. He’s Bert Blyleven, except with better teams. He’s at the age when Bert lost it. Below average.

Phil Hughes: The Yankees seem to think that big guys are the way to go. An interesting concept. I guess they are obsessed with Roger Clemens. Hmmm. Good luck with all that. Hughes is a great prospect. Why were the Yanks trying so hard to trade him….? because they’re stupid. See Melky Cabrera.

Joba Chamberlain: So hyped it’s hard to tell what he’s really got. He wins the 38 year old Roger Clemens lookalike contest. What conclusion can you draw from that? will he look like David Wells in three years? is he on the juice? At this point you have to be enthusiastic, but something about this guy disturbs me.

Chien-Ming Wang: a gaudy W-L record but he isn’t that good. When you walk 3 and strike out 5 a game, things are gonna get ugly more of the time than you’d like. He’s certainly better than average, but not all that much. Don’t be surprised if he goes 16-14 this year.

Mariano Rivera: 38 years old. Who knows where the time goes. I assume he’s gonna yield to Chamberlain. So why does the GM sign him to a new three year, 45 million dollar contract, when he should have traded him? idiots…
Overall, average. If both Hughes and Chamberlain progress, better than average.

Overall: this is a team that has one great player, a couple of good players, and a couple of potentially very good players, with Rip Van Winkle at the GM position. What’s the opposite of Moneyball?

Where will they finish? well, I’d say they have enough to beat Toronto, Baltimore and Tampa Bay, fergodsakes, but they aren’t in Boston’s class……I’d say they finish 84-78 and I don’t see how they can get a wild card slot.

NY Yankees, part 8: Melky Cabrera

Twenty three years old, and the Yanks were shopping him for anyone and everyone. I guess they knew he’s the only position player who has any value (A Rod is not a position player…he’s an untouchable god). His closest comparable hitter at age 22 is Sixto Lescano, not a bad player, and he’s like Chet Lemon, and Roberto Clemente, of all people, is on the list.  I think the fact that they were shopping him shows one of two things: either the front office is staffed by idiots, or he just isn’t that good.  I’m thinking it’s the former. Certainly he’s a decent centerfielder. So if he hits like Sixto Lescano or Chet Lemon, he’s a good player.

Projections: this guy is gonna get better.  12 HR, BA .290, OBP 350.  The Yanks are average in CF, and they might be a little better than average, if he comes along quickly. Unless they trade him for another old first baseman.

Well, that does it for the position players.  The disaster shaping up at first largely outweighs the superstar at third.  And otherwise they are, on average, exactly average, and the injury potential is large.

Tomorrow: the pitching staff.

NY Yankees, part 7: Hideki Matsui

Geez, another 34 year old guy.

Sure, he’s been a nice player, but he’s also starting his slide. For a left fielder, he will be no better than average this year, at the plate and in the field. Not fast. Projections: 18 HR, 85 RBI, BA .265. Not bad, but, for a left fielder, not good either. Again, at this age, the injury thing is always lurking….

NY Yankees, part 6: Jason Giambi

Will he even start? if he does the Yanks are in even worse shape than I thought. No point mincing words over this guy….stick a fork in him.

37 years old, no juice, no fielding, no baserunning, old, slow, geez. A subpar player, without question. I don’t know what his contract is, but if I’m Giambi, I wouldn’t be buying a condo in NY, if you catch my drift. And this Juan Miranda guy, 25 years old and ex-Cuba? Sorry, but even the rosiest projections are only average for a first baseman. Who else? Morgan Ensberg? just a journeyman, on the downslope also. Posada? is that an upgrade? Wilson Betemit? you’re kidding, right? Projections: hits .240, 12 HR, 60 RBI…yadda, yadda…..

First base is definitely below average.

How did the Yankee front office spend the winter? watching the Knicks?