Thursday, April 10, 2008 |
Games, Games, Games
Calling All Homers: Angels 9, Cleveland 5
A better-than-expected game by Dustin Moseley, whose stature in the rotation is "first off when Lackey comes back", but he managed to strike out five over six frames despite giving up four runs. The offense lit up Cleveland pitching, with Mike Napoli, Garret Anderson, Casey Kotchman, and Vlad Guerrero all going yard, and Napoli's with the bases juiced. A great game for erasing some of that negative WPA for those players.It's Only A Small Sample If You Don't Count 2007: Diamondbacks 4, Dodgers 3
Yesterday, reviewing the results of a game that got ever-so-slightly out of control, Jon wrote of Andruw JonesHalf a week ago, Matt Kemp looked like he had lost all ability to recognize a pitch.It's a fair point as far as it goes; even PECOTA projects a .257/.345/.488 line ($), which, while bad for a guy making the kind of money he is, is still better than his current .129/.206/.161. The major issue I have with it is that Colletti knew Jones would potentially be bad and signed him anyway. Guys do fall off cliffs, and Jones might be one of them. At #117:A year or two ago, Jeff Kent went something like 3 for May. Now he's 40 and still hitting.
Yes, player careers wind down. And maybe he does need glasses, or to get in better shape. Certainly, some adjustment is in order. But some of you guys are acting as if Jones suddenly came down with Lou Gehrig's disease. No, not even I will give him an endless period to turn it around, but it's April 9!
My concern is not that Andruw Jones is not hitting. If he were making contact or swinging at good pitches I would write it off to a slow start but he is totally lost out there. He swings early. He swings late. He swings at letter high pitches. He swings at pitches in the dirt. The only pitches he doesn't swing at are the ones over the plate.I'm told there were some bad calls in this game, and that the pitching just wasn't quite up to it, but a sweep at the hands of the Snakes should be a real wakeup call.He needs to be told to stop pulling the ball. If he doesn't stop then he should be sat down until he does. I don't care about his weight or his smile, but he needs to do what his manager and hitting coach tell him.
If he continues to be a disappointment it won't be a total loss. Eventally we will have the entertainment of Kent laying into him.
Edwin Jackson Shows Up Colletti: Rays 7, Mariners 0
January 14, 2006: Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers with Chuck Tiffany (minors) to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Danys Baez and Lance Carter.2-0, 0.64 ERA, and eight hits allowed all year. Wow, Danys Baez and Lance Carter are sure useful parts, aren't they?— Edwin Jackson transactions, Baseball-Reference
Something that still could have been if not for Flanders:
Update: As Andrew pointed out in the comments, the lousy trade was essentially forced by an action taken by his predecessor, Dan Evans, who unnecessarily started Jackson's service clock at least a year too early by calling him up in 2003. You can understand that in the context of the worst Dodger offense relative to its hyperproductive pitching in franchise history (and one of the worst ratios of pitching performance relative to offense in major league history), but that doesn't relieve Dan Evans, who so often talked about winning over the long term, from his responsibility of wisely using his resources.
Labels: angels, diamondbacks, dodgers, indians, rays, recaps, stupid ideas
Then again, he did just turn 24 years old. And maybe that's the point.
Another indication this guy is built for long relief. He does quite well in the first three innings for the most part.
I'm not trying to defend Colletti at all; I'm just sayin' that his star had lost some of its lustre.
Perhaps that is all the more reason why they should have stuck it out. Even at his worst, he really wasn't worse than Esteban Loaiza or the warmed-over corpse of Jason Schmidt (will he even be back this year?)
Would you really be willing to accept an 8 ERA in the first half from him? Since you're already torching Jones, I doubt it.
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