Lots going on, limited time, so I think I’ll only report the things I have comments on.

Carlos Quentin was hit by a pitch, which may or may not have been intentional (it didn’t look like it to me. Why throw at a batter on a 3-2 count in a close game?). Quentin charged the mound, bashed into Greinke, broke his collarbone, and he will miss 1-3 months. Quentin was given an 8-game suspension, and Don Mattingly says it should be for as long as Greinke can’t pitch. My opinion: the penalty for charging the mound should be more severe, especially if actual contact is made (rather than just jawing or pushing) as was the case here – Quentin body blocked Greinke. Of course, Greinke didn’t exactly back away. I would like to see the practice of charging the mound ended, or at least punished harshly. 25-game suspension without pay seems about right. In a related note, Carrasco was also suspended 8 games for hitting Kevin Youkilis. This amounts in playing impact to a single start, though in financial impact it is the same suspension Quentin got. Do I think 25 games for Carrasco would also be more fair? Darn right I do. I know that HBP is part of the game, but intentional HBP (does ANYONE doubt that Carrrasco took aim?) should NOT be. At least be subtle about it.

I watched the entire Yankees-Orioles affair last night, and there were several points worth mentioning. Sabathia was pretty sharp, but his fastball rarely topped 90 (I remember one 92 late in the game). Can he win consistently as a decent-fastball-great-location pitcher? Yes, but not as consistently as a great-fastball-great-location pitcher, which is what he was. One of the runs that Sabathia allowed was unearned, and it was bizarre. I wanted to show the video, but mlb.tv got it screwed up, the video is of a different event in a different game. But here is what happened: first, Youkilis fielded a ball down the line cleanly, but didn’t set up well and three the ball off-line, allowing the runner to reach. It was a tough play, and could have been ruled a hit, but E-5 was not unreasonable. Then Sabathia wiped his hand on his pants with the ball in his glove (on the rubber) and was called a balk. I have seen him do this dozens (hundreds?) of times but never called before. Sabathia’s objection, which was vociferous, was not even that it is not a balk, but rather that it is a part of his routine – he does it all the time. In any event, the balk moved the runner to second, where he scored on a seeing-eye single past Jayson Nix (in for the injured by HBP Nunez, who of course was in for the injured Jeter). In my opinion, Jeter comes nowhere near fielding that ball, but Nunez has a decent chance to make the play. A-Rod may well not get TO the ball Youk fielded, but if he DOES get there, his strong arm probably makes the play. Anyway, very cheap run.

The run made it 2-2 and set up the surprising Yankee seventh. Instead of clinging to a 2-1 lead with Sabathia pitching well, they were faced with a tie game. They loaded the bases with 2 outs and Vernon Wells launched a deep fly ball to center. In fairness to Adam Jones, many centerfielders would have that ball go over their heads. Jones made a long run, got a bead on it at the warning track in DEEP center, blew a bubble with his bubblegum, took the ball in the mitt but on the palm, didn’t close the glove properly, and dropped the ball for a 3-run error. mlb.tv also messed up the video of this one, but it was amazing to see such a great fielder clank a ball that badly. It WAS cold.

And THAT set up the top of the eighth, when Sabathia, now sporting a 5-2 lead, allowed singles to the first two batters, and I wondered if Girardi would take him out. But no, he pitched to the red-hot Manny Machado and induced a one hop line drive which became the first 4-6-5-6-5-3-4 triple play in baseball history. Fortunately, this one video they got right. It was fun to see Cano jumping up and down like a little leaguer who had just turned his first DP. Personally I though Youkilis almost cost the TP when he threw to first (Machado was halfway to second and headed there) but Overbay was able to make the catch-and-throw in time.

Other fun stuff: Atlanta gave up 4 runs in 2 innings, and trailed 4-0 after 6. But 1 in the seventh, 1 in the eighth, 2 in the ninth and 2 in the tenth gave them their seventh straight victory, and moved them to 9-1, their best start since starting 13-1 in 1994. And by beating the Nats in this one, they opened a 2-game lead instead of being tied for first. The Nats blew the save when Davey Johnson chose not to use Soriano to close out the game. May be the right decision, but it likely cost them a ballgame.

Scoring was down on this night, with lots of low-scoring games. Since it was cold in much of the country, you could suggest that chilly weather tends to hold down run scoring, which is why April tends to be low-scoring. And I would mostly agree. EXCEPT: the Mets visited Minnesota, where they used to play in a dome but now play at Target Field. It was 34 degrees at game time, and dropped steadily, while white stuff  fell from the sky (I don’t know what that is, as I live in tropical New Hampshire). Naturally the pitchers dominated this one, especially as neither the Mets nor Twins is known as an offensive force. The Mets scored 5 in the first on two doubles, two singles, one walk and one error. The Twins got two back in their half on a walk, double, hbp, single. Three singles and a walk scored another run for the Mets in the second, and chased erstwhile Phillie Vance Worley. John Buck then added RBI numbers 16, 17, 18 and 19 with a LONG grand slam to make it 10-2. Eventually this snowy night resulted in TWENTY-ONE runs by both sides, the Mets victorious at 16-5. Imagine if it had been warm, and they could really hit!

As a result, the METS now lead the NL in runs scored with 65. The pitching-first A’s lead the AL with 70. These numbers are off-the-charts (next best in the NL is 58, in the AL it is 54). The A’s, by the way, have won 9 straight after starting the year 0-2.

April is SO much fun.

Happy Birthday, Mom. My mother passed away just over 4 years ago, but she would have been 88 today. I miss her. Don’t you just love the early season swings? Houston scored 17 runs in its first 7 games, a nifty 2.4 per games. Not surprisingly (nor coincidentally) they were 1-6 in those games, and in fact nearly half of those runs (8 of 17) came in their opening day pasting of the Rangers. So they scored 9 runs in 6 games, all losses. But now their runs scored look like a normal offense – they scored 16 yesterday (!!!) to give them 33 in 8 games, a bit over 4 per game which is about average. My offense evaluator is not deceived, though: their offense “deserves” a 2-6 record, exactly what the team has achieved. The Yankees are in a similar boat, actually. After Saturday’s games, they had scored 19 runs in 5 games (3.8/G) while ALLOWING 33 (I commented on it at the time) which is a nifty 6.6/G. Three games later, and the Yankees LEAD the major leagues in runs scored (with 49 in 8 games, 6.1/G) while allowing 5.0/G (still bad, but far from the worst. They played against Verlander and Jimenez (also Carrasco, returning from Tommy John surgery) and won the three games by 7-0, 11-6, 14-1. And the offensive explosion was led by former dead weights Cano and Gardner. In 3 games Cano’s OPS went from 350 (!) to 1028 (!).

I did not get this posted yesterday, and since then the Astros scored ANOTHER 8 runs (32 runs in 3 wins, 9 runs in 6 losses) and the Yankees were rained out. One thought: the Red Sox are off to a terrific start – their hitters are clicking, they are getting good pitching, and even though they broke their sellout streak (no sellouts this year after opening day) their fans are excited. The Yankees are off to a terrible start – pitchers getting hammered, half the team on the DL, stars not hitting, etc. But of course the Red Sox are 5-3 and the Yankees 4-4, not statistically significant.

I love this game.

Oddity: to date, the Yankees (2-4) have not won a game in which the starting pitcher gave up a run. The most common number of runs scored (or allowed, of course) in a game of MLB is 4, followed by 3, followed by 5. The Yankees have allowed 8, 7, 2, 8, 8, 0 missing these numbers every time. Not actually a good pattern, of course. Sabathia posted a game score of 70 which is great, but he was not all that dominant (4K, 3BB) but the hits weren’t falling in for the Tigers, and the Yankees actually got some good defense. Here is the depressing thing about being a Yankee fan at the moment: the Yankee “plan” was Gardner, Granderson and Ichiro in the outfield, A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Teixeira in the infield, and pick up a DH and a catcher. They picked up Hafner, and decided to go with Stewart behind the plate. The sore four are lost for (at least) April, leaving only 3 original roster players still playing: Gardner, Cano, Ichiro. Plus Hafner and Stewart if you want to count them. They picked up Youkilis and Wells in response to injuries. So how are the original guys doing? Gardner OPS 530, Cano OPS 330 (!!), Ichiro OPS 302 (!!!!). Early days, of course, but wow. Plus of course they were rated anyway to have an average offense but an excellent rotation and bullpen, so those 33 runs in 6 games (5.5/game) are truly ugly.

Meanwhile, superstar pitchers did not fare so well yesterday. Reigning Cy Young winner Dickey gave up 5 runs in the first inning (!) and 8 in exactly 100 pitches: his ERA for the young season is 8.44. Reigning Cy Young winner Price also gave up 8 runs in 96 pitches: his ERA for the young season is 8.18. Both saw their teams lose by identical 13-0 scores. And the anemic Yankees, proud scorers of 17 runs in their first 5 games, got to Verlander for 3 runs in the first inning, on a double by noted power hitter Francisco Cervelli, followed by a home run by feared slugger Jayson Nix. Meanwhile Steven Strasburg gave up 6 ER in 5.1 IP (GS 27) and superstar Matt Cain allowed NINE runs in one INNING. Not really a good day to be an ace.

Maybe the year(s) of the pitcher are over. While run scoring is usually down in April, with mind-boggling hot streaks by certain hitters more than offset by slow starts by other stars (Josh Hamilton had is first hit of the season in the 6th game), scoring so far has been at about the level it was last season, and well above what it was last April. Let us hope that offensive levels have returned to a more reasonable (say 4.3-4.4 per game) level. Offense is, all things considered, more fun than defense.

I love this game!

Four games into the young season (five, for Oakland and Seattle) there are no undefeated teams, and no winless teams. Nine teams are 3-1, Nine are 2-2, Ten are 1-3 and two are 3-2. But of course there are some SERIOUS anomalies.

First on that list is Chris Davis of the Orioles. After three games FanGraphs posted this article about him. In the fourth game he went 2 for 4 with a HR and FIVE RBI. And while the game doesn’t seem that close (9-5) it was his grand slam that broke a 5-5 tie, so it wasn’t exactly “piling on in a blowout”. He joins a very select group – only 4 players in history hit a HR in each of the first four games of a season. No one has done it 5 games in a row, but of course he at least has a chance to stand alone there.

Another fun anomaly is the Washington Nationals. Only 4 National League teams have a worse run differential than the Nats’ -5. Yet Washington didn’t allow an earned run in its first three games! Error prone? Not really. They allowed 1 run in 3 games, posting a +10 run differential in their sweep of the Marlins. But Dan Haren’s team debut, in the Great American Smallpark in Cincinnati did not go exactly as planned: Haren allowed 6 run in 4 IP (GS 25) including 4 HRs, and the Washington bullpen was worse, allowing NINE runs in 4 IP of relief, including 2 more HRs. Meanwhile the Washington batters, choosing not to waste hits in a lost cause, managed only 2 in 6 IP off Homer Bailey (how would you like to have THAT first name in THIS ballpark???) and 5 altogether. They didn’t waste a single run, losing the game 15-0 and creating that -5. This is the kind of thing that makes me use my metrics rather than the Pythagorean theorem: by that measure the Nats should be 1-3, but I have their starters as deserving 3-1, and their offense the same. And, of course, they ARE 3-1.

The Phillies were supposed to go just as far as their pitching would take them. Well, so far, not so far: despite a nifty 2-0 shutout by Cliff Lee (and Jonathan Papelbon) the Phillies have allowed TWENTY-NINE runs in four games. Ouch! And of course it is really in THREE games, since Lee allowed none. Hamels, Halladay and yesterday Kendrick allowed 5 ER in 5.2 IP (GS 34) and was followed in the bullpen by YIKES! yikes YIKES! This drubbing was 13-4 against that offensive juggernaut the Kansas City Royals, who scored only 5 runs in their first three games before this 13-run performance.

The Yankees are of course the most painful to me. They have allowed 25 runs in 4 games, most in the AL and tied for 2nd worst in the majors (after those Phillies), while scoring only 13 (3.25 per game). I know all about the sore four (Jeter, A-Rod, Teixeira, Granderson) but superstar Robinson Cano has one hit in four games, and it’s the guys they DIDN’T intend to have starting (Wells, Youkilis, Nunez) who have been hitting, while the intended regulars (Gardner, Cano, Stewart, Ichiro, Hafner) have done basically nothing). I think they will straighten it out, but if not it is going to be a LOOOONG summer!

Don’t you just LOVE this?

I want to get back to posting every day, which means getting up, watching highlights, reading box scores, etc. on a regular basis. But I missed yesterday, the first day after the Yankees played, and it is already late as I type this. I’ll get better, if anyone cares.

Some interesting baseball these first two days.

Yu Darvish pitched a perfect game until 2 outs in the ninth, when a comebacker through his legs went into centerfield to end the effort (GS 96). Greg Maddux would not have been able to pitch that well, but he WOULD have had the final out if the same play occurred with him on the mound. Pitcher defense doesn’t matter a lot, but it DID cost Darvish a place in history.

Though the game score was “only” 86, Clayton Kershaw’s debut yesterday might have been even more impressive: he became the first pitcher in history to pitch a shutout and hit a home run on opening day. And he made a bid to be the first pitcher ever to throw a shutout and hit a homer in a 1-0 game: his HR came in the eighth (!) inning to break up a scoreless tie. But his teammates, aided by the Giants’ defense, plated three more runs to spoil the potential. None of the half-dozen pitchers to pitch a shutout and hit a HR in the same game hit their home run after the fifth inning except him, and only two others had their HR be the game’s first run. Steve Carleton in 1972 did have a game in which he pitched a shutout and drove in the game’s only runs. It is called “doing it all”.

Not only did the Yankees not look too good in losing 8-2 to Boston to end their streak of 11 straight home openers, one short of the record – the looked bad doing it. CC didn’t have his fastball, and the defense sometimes looked back on their heels. For example Johnny Gomes (!) scored from second on a ground ball to second. The Yankee lineup was not what I predicted a few posts ago, because a lefty started, but Gardner, Nunez, Cano, Youkilis, Wells, Francisco, Suzuki, Nix, Cervelli does not exactly invoke the image of Murderer’s Row. They pounded out 6 hits, one of them for extra bases, though they did have their chances. Sabathia was ordinary, to say the least, and Joba contributed a YIKES! from the bullpen.

Most interesting stat from the early baseball: 10 teams have already played twice, and the only one of the ten to win both games was: the Mariners! Four players are tied for the ML lead in HRs with 2 (Michael Morse, Bryce Harper, Troy Tulowitzski and Carlos Gonzalez) two of which play for Colorado (though their GAMES were in Milwaukee. Of course, Harper has played only one game.

Red Sox rookie leftfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. is being hailed as the latest superstar from the Red Sox farm system. He may well turn out to be great, though he batted only .271 in 61 games at AA last year and all his other experience is single-A or lower. And his superstar debut yesterday was 0 for 2 with 3 walks. Admittedly he looked good at the plate, very controlled and disciplined, and he made a running catch in the outfield (though I thought it was an easier play until he turned the wrong way). I am just not ready to coronate a 23-year-old with 2 total years of professional experience and no major league hits quite yet.

I DO love this game, though!

Here we go! The Astros beat the Rangers yesterday (!) 8-2 in the season opener, and most teams are in action today. Time for the silly forecast of the year: Bob’s best guesses.

I invite anyone who chooses to add their predictions. I will give the short form first (the one I expect most readers to use) and then my full standings version.

AL East NYY, Tor, TB, Bos, Bal  Central Det, KC, WS, Cle, Min West sLAA, Oak, Tex, Sea, Hou, WC Tor, Oak

NL East Was, Atl, Phi, NYM, Mia  Central Cin, SL, Pit, Mil, Cub  West LAD, SF, Ari, Col, SD  WC SF, Atl

AL

East                                          Central                               West

NYY 88-74                              Det 90-72                         sLAA 90-72

Tor 87-75                                KC 82-80                         Oak 88-74

TB 81-81                                 CWS 78-84                      Tex 87-75

Bos 79-83                               Cle 70-92                         Sea 70-92

Bal  78-84                              Min 67-95                        Hou 60-102

NL

East                                        Central                              West

Was 92-70                            Reds 90-72                      LAD 91-71

Atl  90-72                             SL 88-74                          SF 90-72

Phi 85-77                              Pit 82-80                         Ari 86-76

NYM 78-84                          Mil 81-81                         Col 82-80

Mia  60-102                         CHC 74-88                      SD 70-92

Remember, you read it here first! Go Yankees! Go Dodgers! Go Phillies! Go baseball!

Oh, well, it shouldn’t surprise me. I had planned to use the
FanGraphs positional power rankings series to calculate “expected
wins” for each ML team, to get a FanGraphs over-under. Well, Dave
Cameron beat me to it and so it is redundant for me to do it. Well,
not quite actually: he calculated the expected wins for each team, but didn’t
compare that to the earlier FanGraphs post of initial over-under values. Nor
did he put it in standings. So I guess I’ll do that:

Here are the teams, alphabetically, with their Over-Under,
FanGraphs projection, and the result:

Now here are the resulting standings:

I am not sure how MLB would feel about this result. As
always with mathematical calculations, things tend toward the mean. There will
likely be 98 win teams and 60 win teams, but that will be a result of being
good (or bad) and having the breaks go your way (or against you) – there is no
way to predict the key injuries or surprise players that will skew this result.

But if the AL East were actually a dog-fight, with FOUR
teams vying for the division crown, and with the possibility that NONE of the
other three would be the second wild-card, THAT would be amazing. And of course
if the standings actually came out this way, the Angels and Rangers would have
to play off for the division/first wild card, and I don’t know HOW they would
resolve the Yankees-Rays-Blue Jays-Athletics mess. Wouldn’t THAT be fun???

The NL races would be exciting, too, with the Nats and
Braves playing off for the division-first wild card, and the
Giants-Diamondbacks-Cardinals somehow playing off for the second wild card.

Meanwhile, the Overs and Unders are 15 each, with the
largest margins (therefore the best bets, if you believe the FanGraphs
analysis) on the over being the Rockies (9.5), Cubs and Twins (5.5) and the Red
Sox (4.5), and the largest margin on the Under being the Dodgers (5.5) with no
one else more than 2.5.

For what little it is worth, I think the Astros will be
worse than projected, I think the Red Sox will also be worse than projected, I
think the Nationals will be better, I think the Dodgers will be better. And I
think I don’t know what I am talking about, but that is the fun of this time of
year, right?

On a completely unrelated note, I watched the Yankees play
against the Astros a couple of nights ago. The Yankees absolutely started their
“A” team, and left them in for 6 innings or more. Here was their lineup:
Starting Pitcher CC Sabathia, CF Gardner, RF Ichiro, 2B Cano, 3B Youkilis, DH
Hafner, LF Wells, 1B Rivera (Juan not Mariano), SS Nunez, C Stewart. I didn’t
recognize ANY of the Astro players, though some of them had hundreds of ML PAs
last season. The Yankees couldn’t score against their initial starter, but did
beat up a minor league player enough to salvage a 4-4 tie. Mark, my son, says
this would have been an amazing lineup in about 2006. Though Brett Gardner
would have been only 17. This is a sad, old team which may well win 87-90 games
but could also fall completely off the table.

Real game on Sunday, full slate on Monday. Here comes
baseball!

The news is reporting that all the elements are in place for the Yankees to “acquire” Vernon Wells from the Angels for a low-grade prospect, with the Angels picking up $29M of the $42M (!!!) still owed to Wells over the next two years. So the Yankees will pay $6.5M per year for two years for a right-handed backup outfielder (who will start for a couple of months) with a .258 OBP last year. And of course the Yankees refused to pay Russell Martin $12M for 2 years, and are now going to pay MUCH less valuable Vernon Wells $13M over the same two years. Crazy, right?

I suppose it might be crazy, but the two are NOT the same. The Yankees have vowed to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold in 2014, and paying Martin would have been $6M next year (the luxury tax is calculated on AAV). But the reports (not yet finalized) are that the Angels will send $9M to NY this season, and $20M next year. Doesn’t matter, say the snarks, it is still $6.5M AAV so that is what goes against the luxury tax. I beg to differ.

The average of Wells’ stupid 7-year extension is $18M and THAT is what counts against the luxury tax. They Yankees absorb it all. BUT the cash that the Angels pay goes against THEIR luxury tax (irrelevant) and is CREDITED to the Yankees. Thus the CASH cost to NY is $12M in 2013 and $1M in 2014. The LUXURY TAX cost to NY is $9M in 2013 (resulting in $3.6M in tax, I think, at 40% – it may be 50% which would be $4.5M) and MINUS $2M in 2014 (actually HELPING against the tax threshold). The Yankees may be desperate, but they are not entirely stupid.

So yes, this is an overpay, but no, it doesn’t negate their efforts to get under the luxury tax line. And Wells is NOT a good player, but he IS probably better than Matt Diaz or Ben Francisco.

Am I happy about it? No, not particularly. Am I disgusted? No, not particularly. Do I care? Actually, quite a bit. Go Yankees!

I guess the NCAA tourney has been entertaining – I haven’t watched at all but I read about some upsets and some thrilling games, mostly blowouts though. The WBC is over, with the best team winning (Dominican) and the US bounced by two 1-run losses. The Yankees, so cost conscious that they let Nick Swisher and Russell Martin walk, and are stuck instead with Juan Rivera and Francisco Cervelli, are apparently going to pick up Vernon Wells who still has $42M left for two years of mediocrity – I hope the Angels are going to eat about $38M.

But the season starts Sunday, with a pretty full slate (12 games including Yankees and Dodgers) on Monday, so baseball is almost here! I will probably write more frequently, and I hope to finish my piece on the FanGraphs projections by then, though if they don’t publish the adjusted values it won’t be worth it.

If I don’t get useful values, I may do an over/under for all the teams in aggregate (my opinion only) and I will certainly publish my final standings, and invite any of you that care to to do the same. Almost there!