I dug back into my podcast-rambling bag of tricks tonight and joined Daniel from C70 at the Bat and Mike from Stan Musial’s Stance on the United Cardinal Bloggers’ Radio Hour tonight.
I managed to hop on the line just in time to ask a few questions of the night’s special guest, Matt Sebek from Joe Sports Fan, who joined us to talk about the Cardinals’ Social Media Night and his column about said evening.
We also talk Tony La Russa and possible managerial replacements as well as the Cards moving broadcasts back to KMOX for the 2011 season.
All this was just in the last half-hour! Daniel and Mike were talking for 30 minutes before I even joined!
About two weeks ago, I was delighted to receive an MLB-branded Coveroo case for my phone.
First, to be clear, Coveroo is not in the business of making cases. They have partnered with manufacturers and MLB (among other licensors) to print and engrave cases with brands, logos, and other designs.
The colors are very high quality and the centering and alignment of the logo on my case are perfect to the naked eye.
You’ll notice that they’ve added a bit of their own branding at the bottom of the case, but it’s not terribly obtrusive and doesn’t detract from the focus of the Cardinal logo, in my opinion.
If you look closely at the photo below, you’ll notice that I was able to scratch the top of the feathers off of the bird’s head with my thumbnail (had to see just how tough this printing was!) – but save for that, the printed logo has held up quite well.
If the printed logo is not for you, they also offer engraved options that are not in color.
Another nice touch (that may or may not come through clearly in the photo) by the Coveroo folks was printing the MLB Properties copyright and trademark symbol for the logo in a black color very similar to the case itself. I found this a great way to be both compliant with their licensing agreements and still give the printed logo on the case a clean, visually pleasing presentation.
Comparing XGear’s pricing for the basic case ($24.99) to the Coveroo printed case ($29.95) or engraved case ($24.95) – I’d ask “why aren’t you getting the custom one?” Coveroo also includes shipping for free.
As important as the printing quality, I have “lost the handle” of my phone a couple of times since snapping this case onto it – not a full drop, mind you, but not exactly gentle handling – and it has come out no worse for wear. So my phone is protected AND it looks pretty sharp while I’m walking around Chicago-land reminding Cubs fans that their team still is worse than the Cards?
So Matt Holliday popped up on the first pitch of an at-bat in the ninth inning with the game on the line Tuesday night and everyone freaked out. I’m here to address that.
The adage of taking the first pitch has been preached since little league, and it appears that it has stayed with most casual fans who anger over an aggressive at-bat well into adulthood. The problem with this is that over the course of a players development through high school, on to college, and into pro-ball, exceptional athletes can outgrow things like taking the first pitch. It simply doesn’t apply. Is taking pitches a good thing? Absolutely (See Pedro Feliz). While Holliday is no Scott Hatteberg, he isn’t patient enough to be a well above-average hitter. Which leads me to my next point…
Above-average players are above-average players no matter what the count. In fact, Holliday is more than above-average when swinging at the first pitch. Check out a blurb from Derrick Goold’s Bird Land Blog:
Holliday has about the equivalent of a full season of swinging at the first pitch, according to the splits available at Baseball-Reference.com. He has 594 at-bats when he’s swung at the first pitch, and in those at-bats he has a .386 average, 45 home runs, 50 doubles and 149 RBIs. That is a pretty good season. Subtract his first pitch-swinging at-bats from his career totals, and here is how they compare:
1st-pitch … .386 BA, .724 SLG
All other ABs … .303 BA, .508 SLG
While this should end the discussion for most of us, but it won’t for some of you who want to argue that while Holliday has had success on the first pitch as a total, when the game is on the line, he has now — twice, actually — failed to come through. “In the clutch,” if you will. The problem with this is the power of the noticeable outcome. It’s a situation that your opinion of the play is decided by what happens. This may seem kind of silly to a lot of people, and I hope I’m not coming off as preachy, but there’s a better way to watch and access baseball. Why should Holliday popping out on the first pitch be deemed reckless AFTER he does so? Aren’t we smart enough to decipher if a hypothetical action would be a good or bad decision before it actually happens? If so, and you still don’t think Matt Holliday should have swung at Evan Meek’s slider, I can live with that. But forming an opinion based on a couple memorable hacks – that is reckless.
Among the many topics being discussed today in the aftermath of last night’s loss to the Pirates is whether or not Randy Winn had a legitimate shot at scoring from second base on Albert Pujols‘ single in the top of the ninth inning. Jose Oquendo thought not, and held him up, but was it the right call?
Using highly unscientific methods to try and put a quantifiable spin on this quandary, I used a screencap, PNC Park diagram, Adobe Illustrator, and some fuzzy math to come up with the answer.
I had to make some assumptions. First, I assume that Randy Winn could make the trot from third base to home in 3.75 seconds at full speed (which he would’ve been, rounding third base with no stop sign). Winn made it from his lead-off spot away from second base to third in about 3 seconds, so I am fairly comfortable with this assumption. Second, I also assume that Ronny Cedeno is running at the same speed to go retrieve the ball. That means they’re going approximately 24 feet per second.
Using the video of the play, I estimate that Cedeno is about 15 feet or so from the ball:
That means Cedeno will get to the ball in a little over six-tenths of a second, approximately 0.625 seconds. (Unfortunately, this video doesn’t actually show him picking up the ball in a manner that can be timed.) So by the time Cedeno picks up the ball, Winn still has 3.125 seconds to beat a throw home.
So Cedeno is 166 feet from home plate with the ball, and Winn is 85 feet from the plate at full speed. A couple of cursory Google searches tell me that a pro shortstop should be able to throw about 85 mph from his position to first base (hey, I told you this was going to be unscientific). Assuming the ball to slow down a bit by the time it reaches home plate from his current location in short left field, say 80 mph, means that Cedeno can get the ball to the plate in about 1.4 seconds – IF you assume that he’s planting and making a strong throw.
That leaves Winn still 1.725 seconds from the plate – a little over 41 feet, in our scheme. Seems like a bunch of real estate to make up, doesn’t it?
The critical time is in Cedeno retrieving the ball and how much strength he can get behind his throw. Obviously this is a huge hole in this entire project, but you’re at least left with the one remaining variable – can Cedeno pick up the ball and set in 1.725 seconds? Just as importantly, could he have gotten enough behind the throw to make the above assumptions correct? And finally, could he have put it right on the plate and remove another variable – the catcher’s tag?
Ok, so maybe I haven’t really proven anything (not that I set out to, given the methods) – but it certainly seems more plausible than I thought that Cedeno could’ve gunned Winn down at home.
I’m not prepared to declare this myth busted – hard to say for certain if he’s safe or out – but my instinct still says you send him.
What do you think? Safe or out? Did Oquendo make the right call to stop Winn?
(Please keep the comments about my math and procedures to a low snark, k?)
I will have a full write-up on Miller’s performance yet in the next day or so, but wanted to get you some video of Cards prospect pitcher Shelby Miller that I took at this weekend’s game.
I apologize for the shakiness at times, I took this on my phone and was holding it between the ropes on the backstop screen.
Additionally, watch at around 0:59 for the foul ball that hit the screen just a few feet to the left of me. Look alive!
Sick of reading about how great Jaime Garcia‘s start yesterday was? Good, me neither, so here’s some more… Derrick Goold and Brian Walton have already covered how Garcia’s start ranked in efficiency – Bird Land comparing fewest number of pitches for a 2010 MLB shutout, and The Cardinal Nation Blog comparing to other past Cardinal [...]
Brendan Ryan is penciled into the first slot in Tony La Russa’s batting order today, facing Barry Zito and the San Francisco Giants. This will be the first time back in the lead-off spot for Ryan since July 1 against the Milwaukee Brewers. Ryan has obviously improved at the plate as the season has gone [...]
…tonight. And why fiddle around with putting him in a position where he can hit into double plays in obscurity? Rather, the manager has inserted one Pedro Feliz into the fifth spot in the batting order. The spot immediately behind Matt Holliday. Two spots behind Albert Pujols. You know, bait for intentionally walking the two [...]
With today’s waiver trade for Pedro Feliz, it seems pretty clear that the Cardinals are willing to take whatever offense they can get from the third base position the rest of the year in exchange for potentially upgraded defense. That said, with the offense finding consistency elusive yet again during this frustrating season, it goes [...]
