Why So Many Strikeouts?

I read this article from SI’s Joe Lemire today in which he attempts to identify the reason why strike outs are so dramatically up this year (the Tigers’ and Red Sox’s staffs are both over a strikeout per inning pitched, which if they continue at their current rates through the end of the season would set the first and second all-time records). 

One thing I would add — one reason that batters strike out more now is that the gradual rise of sabrmetrics over the last 30 years has established that batting average is a lot less important to scoring runs than either on-base percentage or slugging percentage.  In other words, hitters can help an offense more by hitting a lot of home runs and drawing a lot of walks than hitting for a high average.

Lemire notes that fewer hitters now have a two-strike approach, seeking to hit home runs with two strikes rather than simply putting the ball in play.  As a result, he writes, strikeouts with two strikes are up 13% compared to 25 years ago.  What he fails to expressly note, although he provides the raw data, is that two-strike home runs are up 24% over the same period. 

24% more home runs at the cost of 13% more strikeouts?  That sounds like a great trade-off to me, particularly when you take into account the fact that major league defense has steadily improved throughout major league history, meaning that simply putting the ball in play is less likely to result in a base runner than it did 25 or more years ago.

Also, recognition of the value of walks, and the players who draw them, has increased in the last 30 years.  Strikeout rates have accordingly increased, because batters who take more close pitches, and thus draw more walks, also tend to strike out more.  Anyone who has ever watched baseball on TV knows that major league pitchers throw to the corners, and umpires are anything but consistent in calling those pitches balls or strikes.

SI’s Tom Verducci wrote an article about a month ago in which he attributes the increase in strikeouts to more pitchers mastering the cutter (cut fastball) and two-seam fastball combination.  Essentially, the two pitches are both fastballs which tail in opposite directions, making it extremely difficult for hitters to square up either pitch.

On the one hand, I find it hard to believe that major league pitchers haven’t been using different grips on their fastballs to get different movement for any less than the last 100 years.  On the other hand, I definitely think there is a higher percentage of major league pitchers today with both the arm strength and the training to throw different fastballs with sharp movement in different directions than ever before.  

For example, in Ball Four written in 1970, Jim Bouton strongly suggests that major league pitching coaches of his era were so mediocre that really helpful ones like Johnny Sain were the exception rather than the rule.  I doubt that’s the case today.  Not every pitching coach today may be as good as the Giants’ Dave Righetti, but most teams now have a pitching coach who can help any pitcher willing to listen.

Contemporary Minor League Stars, Part II

Continuing on with my list of contemporary minor league stars, who I define as players with at least 4,000 plate appearances in the high minors (AA and AAA) on the theory that they had to be pretty good ballplayers to last that long.  Part I of this series can be found here.

3.  Scott McClain (5,160 AAA plate appearances, 800 AA and 88 MLB).  Before wrapping up his professional career at age 37 at the end of the 2009 season, McClain played a whopping 20 seasons of pro ball.  His 5,160 plate appearances at the AAA level was the most of any contemporary player I could find.

McClain hit 292 home runs in the minor leagues and another 89 in Japan’s NPB.  However, he only hit two HRs in the major leagues during cups of the coffee with the Rays in 1998, the Cubs in 2005 and the Giants in 2oo7 and 2008.

McClain played mostly 1B and 3B and didn’t become a great AAA hitter until he was age 26.  He was at least able to make some money in his professional career by playing five season in Japan’s NPB, where American players generally earn at least the major league minimum.

4.  Andy Tracy (4,519 AAA, 1,247 AA, 314 MLB).  Another great minor league thumper, Tracy has hit 296 minor league home runs but only 13 in the show.

Tracy wasn’t highly regarded as a prospect out of college (Bowling Green in Ohio) and thus played four years in college before signing with a major league franchise.  He had a huge year in the Eastern League at age 25, which got him substantial playing time the next year for the 2000 Montreal Expos.  He got into 83 games that year and hit .260 with 11 HRs and an .824 OPS, excellent for a rookie.

However, Tracy got off to a dreadful start in 2001, hitting only .109 with a .427 OPS in 38 games before being sent down the minors, except for the briefest cups of coffee in 2004, 2008 and 2009 (a total of only 33 plate appearances), for good.  Like McClain, Tracy played mostly 1B and 3B, and was a great AAA hitter for years.

Tracy’s last season was 2011, when he hit .288 with a .987 OPS in 85 games for the Reno Aces of the AAA Pacific Coast League.  Reno is a great place to hit, but Tracy’s numbers are so impressive that I have to think that it was accumulated injuries (Tracy was 37 that year) that ended his professional career.  For what it’s worth, I saw Tracy take Carlos Marmol deep in a game in New Orleans between the Zephyrs and the Iowa Cubs in May 2007.

5.  Mike Cervenak.  (3,785 AAA, 2,091 AA, 13 MLB).  One of my favorite contemporary minor league stars, I’ve written about Cervenak before here and here.  He’s playing in Taiwan this year, most likely finishing out his pro career at 36.  He’s hit 192 minor league home runs.

6.  Cody Ransom (4,455 AAA, 554 AA, 687+ MLB).  Another one of my favorite contemporary minor league stars, almost certainly because, like Cervenak, Ransom’s a former Giants prospect.  However, unlike Cervenak, who never really got a fair shot with the Gints, Ransom was once a highly regarded prospect even though he was 9th round draft pick.  The Giants like toolsy prospects, and Cody had tools.

As I’ve written before a number of times, Cody is one of those rare players who developed significantly as a professional hitter after age 27, and he got his first significant major league playing time last year at the ripe old age of 37 (282 plate appearances for the Brewers and Diamondbacks after never getting more than 86 in any of his nine prior major league part-seasons).

Cody, or “Babe” as I like to call him, started the 2013 campaign with the San Diego Padres, but they designated him for assignment after he started the year 0-for-11.  The Cubs claimed him off waivers and in three games he’s off to a 4-for-9 start with home run, two doubles and a walk.  Given his red hot start as a Cubbie, and the fact that Wrigley Field is a great place for a guy with power like Ransom, there’s a good chance he’ll stick around in Chicago for a while.  It doesn’t hurt that the 2013 Cubs look to be a bad team in need of players who can hit a little.

7.  Kevin Barker (5,140 AAA, 1,320 AA, 323 MLB).  Another minor league bomber, Barker hit 271 minor league home runs (but only six in the Show), finishing his professional career in 2011 for the Oaxaco Guerreros (“Warriors”) of the Mexican League.

Barker got into 78 games for the Brewers in 1999 and 2000 at ages 23 and 24, but he didn’t hit the second year, and got only a few cups of coffee after that.  His best minor league season was probably 2009 when he hit 22 HRs and had a .927 OPS in 101 games for the AAA Louisville Bats.

8.  Michael Restovich (3,503 AAA, 565 AA, 297 MLB).  A former Twins prospect, Restovich hit 214 minor league home runs, but only six in the majors.  He was a fine minor league hitter who just didn’t hit in the limited major league opportunities he got.  His professional career ended in 2011.

9.  Chris Richard (3,192 AAA, 1,065 AA, 1,006).  Originally drafted by the Cardinals, at age 27 Richard played 136 games for the 2001 Orioles in which he hit .265 with 15 HRs and a .770 OPS, while playing RF, CF, 1B and DH (a very unusual combination).  He didn’t hit well in 2002, however, and that was the end of his major league career except for cups of coffee with the 2003 Rockies and the 2009 Rays.  Richard slugged 198 minor league HRs in addition to his 34 major league jacks.  His professional career ended in 2010.

10.  Jeff Bailey (2,995 AAA, 1,826 AA, 159 MLB).  Yet another minor league slugger, he hit 191 minor league dingers but only six in the Show.  Bailey spent parts of six seasons with the Pawtucket Red Sox from 2004 through 2009 and got three cups of coffee from the true Red Sox the last three of those seasons.  He finished his professional career with the Rochester Red Wings in 2011.

11.  Tike Redman (3,549 AAA, 724 AA, 1,461 MLB).  Just in case you were thinking all contemporary minor league stars were sluggers, Redman was a center fielder who just wasn’t quite good enough on either side of the ball to have a long major league career.  However, the Pirates certainly gave him opportunities, as his 1,461 career major league plate appearances attest.

12.  Luis Figueroa (4,682 AAA, 1,602 AA, 16 MLB).  A shortstop who apparently hit just well enough to be a AAA starter for years and whose glove, I presume, wasn’t quite good enough to make him a major league late inning defensive replacement, Figueroa’s North American career appears to have ended last year with the Oaxaca Guerreros.  He got three major league cups of coffee in 2001, 2006, 2007, but appeared in a total of only 18 major league games.

13-16.  Joe Thurston (4,868 AAA, 633 AA, 384 MLB), Esteban German (3,720, 511, 1,170), Ray Olmedo (3,381, 734, 484) and Bobby Scales (3,342, 708, 158).  A quartet of middle infielders/jacks-of-all-trades.

Thurston got into 124 games for the 2009 Cardinals but didn’t hit.  German was a briefly hot prospect who played semi-regularly for the Royals from 2006 through 2008 but hit worse each successive year — he’s now playing in Japan.  Olmedo looks like a classic glove-tree shortstop who didn’t hit much even at AAA, but stuck around because of his defensive acrobatics.

Bobby Scales was a fine minor league hitter who played a lot of different positions but probably not well enough at 2B or 3B to keep him in the majors.  He had a .373 on-base percentage last year for Japan’s Orix Buffaloes, but the team didn’t bring him back in 2013, probably because he didn’t hit for power and his defense wasn’t very good.

I strongly suspect there are other contemporary minor league stars I have failed to identify, and I invite you to send in comments identifying them.  However, I think I’ve made a point: there are still a large number of minor league stars in today’s game playing great ball at the AAA level, who either through bad luck, late development or by virtue of being just a hair below the talent level of major leaguers have spent most of their long professional careers in the minor leagues.

Never Say Die

In Spring Time hope springs eternal.  Even the most aged or down-and-out ballplayers believe they have at least one last hurrah left in them.

The Reds have just signed perennial comeback kid Mark Prior to a minor league deal.  Since blowing his arm out in 2006, Prior has thrown a total of 49 professional innings over the last three seasons, after not pitching at all from 2007 through 2009.

Although Prior remains a real long-shot, his numbers at AAA Pawtucket last season at least create some room for hope.  In 25 innings pitched, Prior had a 3.96 ERA with a pitching line of only 15 hits, but four HRs and 23 walks, allowed and 38 Ks.  He’s still hard to hit, but his command is still long departed.

Vladimir Guerrero is looking for  a minor league deal this Spring.  He last played in the majors in 2011, but he’s still only 38 years old this year, assuming that 1975 is his real birth year (Guerrero admitted a couple of years back that he was older than he claimed when he originally signed with the Montreal Expos).

Guerrero played 12 minor league games for the Blue Jays last year, but asked for and received his release when the Jays did not immediately promote him to the majors.  His unwillingness to stick it out longer in the minors might impact teams’ willingness to sign him this Spring, since the odds of him getting a major league job out of Spring Training seem slim.

Guerrero could still hit when he last played in the majors (between .290 and .300 each of his last three seasons), but his on-base percentages declined precipitously, and his power numbers were also on the wain.  Even so, he could help a team in need of a right-handed hitter with pop, particularly if some one on the major league roster gets hurt.

Meanwhile, the Royals are still hoping to squeeze another year out of the soon to be 39 year old Miguel Tejada.  They signed him in late December to a minor league deal that promises him $1.1 million if he makes the major league club.

Tejada hasn’t played in the majors since 2011 and had a terrible .596 OPS in 343 plate appearances for the Giants that year.  Losing Buster Posey for most of the season was the biggest reason the Giants didn’t make the post-season in 2011, but giving Tejada so many plate appearances certainly didn’t help.

Tejada is hitting .267 with a .600 OPS in seven games so far this Spring Training.

Finally, Dontrelle Willis‘s most recent comeback, this time with the Cubs, hit a snag in his very first Spring Training game earlier this week.  Only seven pitches in, Willis came out of the game with “shoulder tightness” — apparently meaning that his shoulder hurt.

Willis has said the injury is minor, and he is reportedly resumed his throwing schedule in the Cubs’ minor league camp.  Willis wasn’t expected to make the Cubs’ major league roster this Spring, but it’s still disappointing that he couldn’t make it through one outing without hurting himself.

Schadenfreude

For those of you not up on your German, schadenfreude is the taking of pleasure in the misfortunes of some one else.  In this case, the misfortunes are happening to the New York Yankees, and I’m not exactly sad about it at all.

J. A. Happ broke Curtis Granderson‘s arm with a wild inside pitch in a Spring Training game today, and Granderson will miss ten weeks while his arm heals.  I’m certainly not saying I’m happy about Granderson getting hurt.  I don’t wish that any player get hurt. Also, Granderson’s a great player, and I always want great players to stay healthy and play.

It’s just that I find it hard not to take a certain pleasure when bad things happen to the Yankees as a franchise.  They spend so much money to buy up the best players, and the team and its fans are disappointed any year they don’t win the World Series, even if they go deep into the post-season.  As a fan of a team that had a long, long stretch of futility before the last three seasons, it’s hard not to enjoy seeing the Yankees fall flat on their collective faces once in a while.  See how the rest of us live, you New York blowhards!

Everything seems to be going wrong for the Yankees right now.  They have gotten old and so overpaid that the team can’t (or won’t — see below) simply spend to bring in a whole new line-up of new stars, as they did under the Boss.

Derek Jeter is old and coming off a broken ankle.  Alex Rodriguez will miss at least half the year after hip surgery and is embroiled in another steroid scandal.  Mark Teixeira isn’t the player he once was, and at age 33 isn’t likely to be that player again.  C. C. Sabathia in 2012 showed signs of the injury problems many analysts, including his one, have been been expecting for a pitcher his size now in his 30′s.

In a rare confluence of events, not only the Yankees, but also the Red Sox, look like they won’t make the play-offs in 2013.  The Sox lost 93 games last year, and they don’t at all look a team that will suddenly turn around and win 90+ games in 2013.

Meanwhile, the underdogs may finally be ready to have their days.  The Blue Jays made several big moves this off-season at what appears now to have been a particularly opportune time for them to do so.  Maybe they’ll make the post-season for the first time since they won the World Series in 1993.

The 2012 Orioles made the post-season for the first time since 1997, and they have a relatively young team that will presumably get better.

The Rays are one of MLB’s smallest market teams, but they make the most out of what they have to work with and can be expected to contend again in 2013.

The last time neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox made the post-season (excluding the strike-shortened 1994 season in which the Yankees finished with the best record in the American League) was 1993.  It’s long past time that someone else get the opportunity to fight it out in the play-offs.

That being said, the underdogs better make hay while the sun shines.  If the Yankees and Red Sox finish no higher than third in the Eastern Division, expect them to start shelling out again next off-season.  Their potential revenue streams (and in the case of the Yankees the fact that so many of their fans are front-runners) are such that it’s worth it for them to spend big on free agents if that’s what it takes to reach those play-off revenues.

Stray Thoughts

When I’m hard up for something to write about regarding baseball, one of the places I look is Sports Illustrated’s newswire.  It’s usually good for something that sparks my desire to comment.

The Indians are planning to put out an Albert Belle bobble-head next June in which he points to his flexed biceps, a pose the real Belle struck in the 1995 play-offs against the Boston Red Sox, when the Sox manager Kevin Kennedy asked the umps to check Belle’s bat for corking.  The gesture has a whole new meaning today, in light of all we now know about steroids in the 1990′s game.

I’m not accusing Belle of steroids use, but I do wonder about a bobble-head that celebrates something relatively forgettable that happened 18 seasons ago.  However, the Tribe hasn’t won a World Series since 1948, but last lost the Series in 1995 and 1997.

I guess Belle making a muscle is the best they can do.  As far as bobble-heads, I would have gone with their two big free agent signings this off-season, local boy (relatively speaking) Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, or one of their young stars like Carlos Santana (if they haven’t already issued a bobble-head for him), and left it at that.

I was also amused by back-up catcher Francisco Cervelli‘s claim that he “consulted” with Biogenesis of America LLC, but never used any of their banned performance-enhancing products.  It may be true, but it certainly sounds ridiculous.

The players most likely to resort to performance enhancing drugs are (1) superstars, who want to be the very best and have unrealistic (?) expectations that they will be protected from disclosure so long as they perform; (2) marginal players, who have the least to lose (minor league careers at dirt pay) and the most to gain (significant major league careers and salaries) by using PEDs; and (3) aging veterans trying to hang on for a few more seasons.  That being said, all professional athletes can benefit from the boost they get from PEDs, and a lot of it probably comes down to each individual player’s willingness to push the envelope (i.e., cheat) to get ahead.

One thing to be said for Cervelli — his career numbers don’t suggest a player on steroids.  As a major league player, Cervelli’s strongest attribute is his ability to get on base (i.e., lay off pitches just out of the strike zone and draw walks — he has a .339 career on-base percentage), and he’s never shown a whiff of power (career .353 slugging percentage).  I don’t see how PEDs would give a player a better batting eye, and there’s no evidence at all that Cervelli has added strength by ‘roiding up.

Here’s a silly Spring Training article about how Barry Zito has a bounce in his step and renewed swagger after his fine performances in last year’s post-season.  I’ve already written about how Zito’s 2012 post-season finally justified the $126 million contract he signed with the Giants before the 2007 season.

However, Barry Zito‘s post-season performance in no way suggests that he still has the major league stuff to pitch his way successfully through the 2013 season.  Zito’s 15-8 regular season record was more a matter of good luck and the law of averages bouncing back, at least when one compares his 2012 performance to 2009 and 2010, when he had losing records but pitched about the same or better.

Compared to those two prior seasons, Zito’s hits per nine innings and strike outs rate were worse in 2012.  He threw a few more strikes in 2012, but not enough to justify his vastly better won-loss record.

I’m not taking anything away from Zito’s 2012 post-season performance by saying it’s highly doubtful that the ego and confidence bump he got will translate into a successful 2013 campaign.  Instead, the objective evidence suggests that Zito’s 2013 is more likely to look like his miserable 2008 and 2011 seasons, than his 2009, 201o and 2012 campaigns.

Michael Bourn Gets Burned

The Indians have reportedly signed center fielder Michael Bourn to a four-year deal for $48 million.  While Bourn won’t be going to bed hungry any time soon, this deal is a disaster for him and his agent Scott Boras, given that the majority opinion was that Bourn was the best true center fielder available in this year’s free agent class.

The obvious comparison is with B. J. Upton, who got five years at a guaranteed $75.25 million from the Braves earlier this off-season.  Yes, Upton is two years younger than Bourn, but Bourn has been much better last year and the last three years.

In 2012, fangraphs rated Bourn’s performance as worth $28.9 million and Upton’s at $15.0 million.  Over the last three seasons, fangraphs rated Bourn’s performance as worth $66.2 million and Upton’s at $49.9 million.

Strangely, fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan thinks both the Indians and Bourn got good deals out of this signing.  I just don’t see it.

Even taking into account that much of Bourn’s value comes from his center field defense and the facts that he’s getting older and his defense is likely to slide in the next few seasons, Bourn looks like the kind of player who will be a more valuable lead-off hitter in years to come.  Bourn still runs extremely well (ten triples and 42 stolen bases in 55 attempts last season), he hit with more power than ever in his career (his nine home runs nearly doubled his career total), and he gets on base fairly well for a lead-off hitter who runs as well as he does (.348 OBP last year, and between .341 and .354 the previous three years).

I will admit, however, that Bourn is not an ideal lead-off hitter, due to his relatively low on-base percentages.  Bourn has not scored 100 runs in any of the last four seasons despite averaging 677 plate appearances per year and leading the NL in stolen bases in three of those seasons.  Wade Boggs, who ran like a slug, scored 100 or more runs in seven consecutive seasons because he got on base roughly 45% of his plate appearances.

Even so, the fact that Bourn got less than four years and $60 million has to be seen as a failure by his agent Scott Boras.  In fact, it’s not clear at all that the Braves decided they wanted Upton over Bourn.  Early in the off-season, Bourn/Boras were throwing up pie-in-the-sky contract numbers, and the Braves simply went out and got the next best player, for what at the time seemed like a more reasonable amount.

Would the Braves back in November have been willing to give Bourn the same contract they gave Upton?  I don’t have much doubt they would have.

Boras has generally been so good at turning what looked like a bad situation into a huge contract that I wasn’t willing to write him off until a relatively bad contract was actually signed.  Well, that bad contract has now been signed.  Boras overplayed Bourn’s hand, and Bourn will have to live with it — he’ll be crying all the way to the bank.

The new draft pick compensation scheme agreed upon by the owners and players’ association looks like a win for the owners.  The Mets almost certainly would have given Bourn more than what the Indians won with, but they were concerned about losing a first round draft pick (and the signing bonus pool money) despite finishing with the tenth worst record in MLB last season, thanks to the Pirates’ failure to sign Mark Appel, another Boras client, with the eighth pick of last year’s draft.

While the owners probably would have struck a deal to let the Mets keep their 2013 first round pick, even reaching that stage required the players’ association to file a grievance after the Mets signed Bourn (you can’t file a grievance or any other legal claim for a hypothetical injury), and this fact likely impacted the contract the Mets were willing to offer Bourn.

2013 should be an interesting season for the Indians.  Even with the additions of Brett Myers, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Trevor Bauer, their pitching still looks pretty weak, although Bourn in center should help a lot in that regard.

At a minimum, Ubaldo Jimenez will have to bounce back to the pitcher he was in 2009 and 2010, Justin Masterson will have to return to 2011 form, and Zach McAllister has to improve on his fine 2012 rookie season for the Tribe to be successful in 2013.  Seems like a tall order.

As a final and largely unrelated note, the Felix Hernandez contract extension seemed like a good move for both sides, at least until medical tests suggested a problem with King Felix’s pitching elbow.  Despite all the talk of record-setting contracts, the extension really only promised Hernandez $139.5 million in new money, while giving him the ego bump of a record-setting contract and allowing the Mariners to control him through age 33, which is just about ideal for a pitcher of his caliber.

My biggest concern with a long-term extension for Hernandez was all the innings he’s pitched before age 25.  Needless to say, it’s not particularly surprising that his elbow is showing wear after all the innings he’s pitched in his career to date.

East Asia Notes

Pitchers Vicente Padilla and Jo Jo Reyes are headed to Japan and South Korea, respectively.

The right-handed Padilla has been signed by the SoftBank Hawks for a reported $3.25 million for the 2013 season.  Padilla is now 35 years old, but was reasonably successful as a middle reliever for the Boston Red Sox last year.

One thing that will be interesting to follow with Padilla is what NPB players think of his head-hunting ways.  Padilla has a well deserved reputation for throwing inside (he’s hit 109 batters in his major league career, which is third most among active pitchers).  This caused a lot of friction with his teammates particularly during his time with the Texas Rangers.

Teammates are a lot more hostile to pitchers who throw inside in the American League, since pitchers don’t bat in the Junior Circuit, meaning retaliation is always against the pitcher’s position-playing teammates.  The Hawks play in NPB’s Pacific League which, like the AL, uses the DH.

Meanwhile, Reyes is signing with the SK Wyverns, apparently as a replacement for fellow leftie Doug Slaten, who signed with the Wyverns earlier in the off-season but then apparently had second thoughts about going to South Korea for the year.

Reyes has never pitched well in the majors despite many opportunities (he has a career 6.05 ERA in more than 300 major league innings pitched), but he pitched well in the high minors in 2007 through 2009 and again in 2012.  The odds are good he’ll be successful pitching in the KBO.

As a final note, myKBO.net recently posted photos of Hyun-Jin Ryu in his new Dodger uniform.  I have to say that Ryu looks like he needs to lose at least ten pounds around the middle.

It’s a reality that pitchers don’t really need to be in great shape to be effective pitchers.  However, given all the money that the Dodgers committed to acquire Ryu’s services and get him signed, I’m sure that they’d like to see him work on his conditioning.

The Best and Worst Hitters’ Parks in MLB 2013

Last summer I discovered that espn.com provides stats for what it calls “park factor”, which for purposes of this post means the ratio between the number of runs scored at a ballpark in any given season divided by the number of runs scored by said ballpark’s occupant (and its opponents) in away games that same season.  I wrote a post last June which evaluates each park’s park factor for the five years ending with the 2011 season.

As we approach the 2013 season (and the 2012 stats have long been in), it seems like a good time to update my earlier post incorporating the 2012 season.  Without further ado, here are the average park factors for all major league ballparks over the last six season (or less for the five ball parks that have opened more recently).

1.  Coors Field (Rockies) 1.301

2.  The Ballpark at Arlington (Rangers) 1.148

3.  Chase Field (Diamondbacks) 1.134

4.  Fenway Park (Red Sox) 1.131

5.  U.S. Cellular Field (White Sox) 1.111

6.  Wrigley Field (Cubs) 1.086

7.  Camden Yards (Orioles) 1.080

8.  New Yankee Stadium (2009-2012) 1.066 [Old Yankee Stadium, 2004-2008, 1.002]

9.  Great American Ball Park (Reds) 1.057.

10.  Comerica Park (Tigers) 1.044.

11.  Kauffman Stadium (Royals) 1.018

12.  Rogers Center (Blue Jays) 1.010

12.  Miller Park (Brewers) 1.010

14.  Citizens Bank Ballpark (Phillies) 1.008

15.  Marlins Park (2012) 1.005  [Sun Life Stadium, 2007-2011, 1.038]

16.  Nationals Park (2008-2012) 0.998 [RFK Stadium, 2005-2007, 0.892]

17.  Minute Maid Park (Astros) 0.986

18.  Target Field (Twins, 2010-2012) 0.983 [Mall of America Field (the Metrodome), 2005-2009, 0.966]

19.  Turner Field (Braves) 0.978

20.  Progressive Field (Indians) 0.960

21.  Angels Stadium 0.939

22.  PNC Park (Pirates) 0.936

22.  Busch Stadium (Cardinals) 0.936

24.  Oakland Coliseum (A’s) 0.919

25.  AT&T Park (Giants) 0.917

26.  Dodger Stadium 0.915

27.  Citi Field (Mets, 2009-2012) 0.904 [Shea Stadium, 2004-2008, 0.886]

28.  Tropicana Field (Rays) 0.889

29.  Safeco Field (Mariners) 0.864

30.  Petco Park (Padres) 0.808

The rankings didn’t change much from last year.  Among last year’s ten best hitters’ parks, U.S. Cellular Park, where the White Sox play, was apparently a great place to hit in 2012, moving it up two slots.  New Yankee Stadium was apparently not a great place to hit, moving it down two slots. Coors Field improved on its status as far and away the best hitters’ park in MLB.

The Marlins’ new park, which looked like a great place to hit in late June of last year, turned out to be only a little better than average for the full season — we’ll have to see how it plays over the next few seasons.

The Royals’ Kauffman Stadium moved up two slots, and the Phillies’ Citizens’ Bank Park fell two slots.  The Astros’ Minute Maid Park also fell two slots.  The Twins’ Target Field was a hitters’ park for the first time in its three year history, jumping it up four slots.  The Pirates and Giants and their respective opponents scored a lot more runs on the road in 2012, causing both PNC Park and AT&T Park to drop three slots.

With another year in the books, the Mets’ Citi Field is developing into as much of a pitchers’ park as the old Shea Stadium.  San Diego’s Petco Park remains the worst place to ply one’s trade as a major league hitter, but Seattle’s Safeco Field narrowed the gap considerably.

Not Feeling Too Sorry for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens

I can’t say that I feel any sadness about Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens each failing to get even 40% of the vote in their year of Hall of Fame eligibility.  The sportswriters are rightfully sending a message that neither deserves to be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer due to the steroids taint.  I would have voted the same way.

In my mind, the big question is how the electors will vote next year and in the years after that. There’s no doubt that Bonds’ and Clemens’ on-field performances were better than merely Hall of Fame worthy.  There’s no reasonable way to conclude that these players don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because of their purported steroid use, while numerous other players from generations past have been elected in spite of similar conduct and worse.

For example, most of the Hall-of-Famers from the 1960′s, ’70′s and ’80′s used performance enhancing drugs in the form of greenies (amphetamine pills) and other stimulants during their playing careers.  MLB condoned or at least turned a blind eye to stimulant use by players for more than 40 years until the fall-out from the steroid scandal forced MLB and the players’ union to agree to a ban.

Ty Cobb once claimed that during his playing career he chased down a man who tried to rob him on the street and catching him several blocks away beat the attempted robber to death.  No effort has been made to throw Cobb out of the Hall of Fame.

The same goes for Cap Anson who today is remembered as much for being the poster boy for separate-but-equal in professional baseball when he refused to allow his team to take the field against an African American opponent as he is for being the first player to accumulate 3,000 hits in his career.  Again, no one is suggesting we throw Anson out of the Hall of Fame, even though MLB’s 60+ plus year de facto ban on players of African decent is a far bigger stain on baseball history than players trying to get an edge by taking performance enhancing drugs.

In short, Bonds and Clemens ultimately deserve to be in the Hall of Fame based on their on-field performances and the degree to which they dominated the game even in an era when a lot of players were using performance enhancing drugs.  If their 15 years of eligibility pass without their being elected, that would be a real travesty.

San Francisco Giants Stock Their AAA Club

The Giants made a bunch of minor league signings the past week which deserve a mention in this blog.  The Giants recently signed Cole Gillespie, Scott Proctor and Ryan Sadowski and claimed Sandy Rosario off waivers.

Cole Gillespie is a corner outfielder who turns 29 next June.  He’s a good, but not great, AAA hitter, having hit .300 or better the last two seasons at Reno with matching .885 OPS numbers.  Reno in the Pacific Coast League is a terrific place to hit, so Gillespie’s fine seasons there don’t suggest he’s anything more than a back-up at the major league level.

Gillespie has hit .236 with a .683 OPS in 120 major league plate appearances, again suggesting he’s nothing more than a back-up at the top level.  I expect he’ll play most of 2013 at AAA Fresno, unless somebody in San Francisco gets hurt.

In fact, looking at his numbers, I’m surprised that Gillespie didn’t sign with a Japanese NPB team this off-season.  Players with Gillespie’s skill set (hits for average, has alley power but not enough home run power for the positions he can play at the major level, runs well) often blossom in Japan.  Lastings Milledge in 2012 is a good example.

Scott Proctor last pitched in the majors in 2011 and was ineffective.  However, he pitched well at AAA that year and was a top closer in South Korea’s KBO in 2012, where he posted a 1.79 ERA, saved 35 games and struck out 7.5 batters and walked 3.4 batters per nine innings.

Proctor might be able to help the Giants in 2013, but he’ll be 36 years old, and there’s still a question whether he has major league command.  He’d have probably been wiser to stay in the KBO or, if there was any interest, move up Japan’s NPB.

The Giants are also bringing back Ryan Sadowski, who made six starts for the Giants in 2009.  However, after two winning starts in which he allowed no runs in 13 innings pitched, he then proved he wasn’t really major league material.

Sadowski wisely went to the KBO in 2010 and pitched three seasons there.  He was an adequate starter in South Korea, going 29-24 over the three years, with ERAs of 3.87, 3.91 and 4.32, but also with pretty poor ratios the last two seasons.  At age 30, he doesn’t look like a pitcher who will last more than another two seasons at the AAA level, but you never know.

Sandy Rosario pitched fantastically well last year for the Miami Marlins’ AAA team, the New Orleans Zephyrs, posting a 1.04 ERA in 26 innings pitched.  He saved 16 games and had an incredible K/BB ratio of 12.  However, in 7.2 major league innings pitched over the last three seasons, Rosario has a sky-high 15.26 ERA on 22 hits allowed.  Ouch!

The biggest problem with the 27 year old is that Rosario can’t be sent to the minors without passing him through waivers, where another team will almost certainly claim him.  At least that’s been the case this off-season.

The Red Sox claimed him from the Marlins on waivers, then traded Rosario to the Oakland A’s.  The A’s designated Rosario for assignment when they needed space on the 40-man roster, and the Red Sox reclaimed him.  Then the Red Sox did the same, and the Cubs claimed him.  Finally, the Cubs placed him on waivers, and the Giants claimed him.  Teams definitely want Rosario, at least until something better comes along.

Assuming the Giants are done with off-season signings and trades, they can bring Rosario to Spring Training and see if he shows enough there to make the major league club.  If not, the odds are at least better the Giants can pass him through waivers without a claim and send him to the minors.