Monday, October 11, 2010

Braves Loss - It Hurts, but Cox screwed this up

Every day, I take a 30 minute break and walk around the parking deak and listen to the ESPN Baseball Today podcast.  It's hosted by Seth Everett and Eric Karabell of ESPN.
 
Today, Eric commented that Friday night, after the BillY Wagner injury, that Bobby Cox had other options in the bullpen beyond Farnsworth?  It was the 10th inning.  His only other choice was Christian Martinez. 
 
Seth described the awful way the Braves lost Sunday as being the worst he could remember.  Does he remember Friday's game and how the Giants lost?  They had a 4-1 lead after 7 innings and their closer lost it for them in the 8th.  Then Billy Wagner gets hurt and Rick Ankiel (Rick Ankiel!) joins the Babe by hitting a GW homer.  I actually think the Giants loss is worse (the Braves are crippled and saddled with Brooks Conrad), but since I am a Braves fan, Sunday's is much more painful.  They were right to ask why wasn't Diory Hernandez in at 3rd in the 9th and move Infante to 2nd.  On Friday, after Glaus's heroic DP, Cox had enough sense to replace him with Hernandez for the bottom of the 11th.  Why not Sunday replace a guy who's single-handedly trying to give this thing to the Giants (in addition to the lousy defense is lost the awful bunt he made ahead of Hinske's homer)?
 
Eric is out to lunch on Aubrey Huff's splits ("Aubrey Huff can't hit lefthanders.").  Going lefty-lefty against Huff did nothing to improve the Braves' chances.  Sure, he proportionally strikes out and hits into more DP's, but, the Braves needed neither of those, and if you were looking for a strikeout, Kimbrel was certainly the go-to guy, not Dunn. Yes, a poor decision by Cox.  But, not as bad as the 2-2 slider to Sanchez, who couldn't hit Kimbrel's fastball.  A little league coach would never have thrown that pitch to him seeing his swings against Kimbrel.
 
Huff's 2010 Splits:
Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+
vs RHP 145 480 407 117 28 2 19 59 6 0 66 60 .287 .388 .506 .894 206 10 3 0 4 5 2 .295 101 138
vs LHP  90 188 162 48 7 3 7 27 1 0 17 31 .296 .378 .506 .884 82 7 6 0 3 0 4 .323 98 158
 
Look at Dunn's splits.  Sure, he strikes out lefties more, but he's not that much more effective against them:
Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/BB BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+
vs RHB 21 44 33 4 7 1 0 1 0 0 11 9 0.82 .212 .409 .333 .742 11 2 0 0 0 2 0 .261 125 104
vs LHB 24 44 38 6 8 2 0 0 0 0 6 18 3.00 .211 .318 .263 .581 10 0 0 0 0 0 1 .400 76 73
 
Is Kimbrel awful against lefties?  Let's look:
Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/BB BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+
vs RHB 21 47 38 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 9 22 2.44 .079 .255 .105 .361 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 .188 58 8
vs LHB 20 41 34 2 6 1 0 0 0 0 7 18 2.57 .176 .317 .206 .523 7 1 0 0 0 1 1 .375 146 44

 

I think the numbers make the argument here - Kimbrel against lefties is essentially Mike Dunn with a better chance of a strikeout. 

 

Stupid moves of Sunday's game:

1. The 2-2 pitch to Sanchez (McCann, Kimbrel?)

2. Taking out Kimbrel (Cox)

3. Having Conrad in the game at all in the 9th (Cox - and I am cutting him some slack for having him in the game in the 1st)

 

To give you something else to think about for the rest of the week, when the Braves are eliminated, how many days until Freddi Gonzalez is announced as the new manager?

 

Finally, we all love VJohnny enters this year,  but, he's a starter, and that's how he came up.  I expect the team to give him a chance to win a rotation spot next year, with Kimbrel getting Wagner's job.  With Medlen out for the year, that will give the Braves choices of JJ, Lowe, Hudson, Hanson, Minor and Venters.  Someone's getting traded (Lowe, JJ?).  I think Lowe improved his value in September and October and the Braves may try to move him again to get a bat and dump salary.  Kawakami is toast.  Welcome to Kansas City or Seattle, Kenshin.

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