Mormon Baseball

Archive for the ‘Weekly Updates’ Category

Sometimes a bad day can just hang around forever. That is certainly true when you talk about baseball statistics. Unfortunately, for Tyler Pill, its not just one bad start, but three in a row at the beginning of the season that are dogging his averages.

Pill’s first three starts were uniformly awful — 15 earned runs in 14 innings (9.64 era) and a 2.00 WHIP — putting him in a statistical hole. But since then, Pill has started 5 games and all have been stellar. His era for those 5 games is just 1.65, and his WHIP weighs in at an excellent 0.95. In the first three games he struck out 8 (5 per 9 innings), and in the last 5 he has struck out 25 (8 per 9 innings). But, still his season era is on the high side (4.35), as he tries to work it down. He will likely need another 4 or 5 games to get down to a 3.00 era.

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While Jeremy Guthrie isn’t known as the kind of pitcher who will lead your rotation, he does usually provide the kind of solid starts that a good team can use. He fits well as a 4th or 5th starter, let’s say. But occasionally even 5th starters show a little brilliance, like Guthrie managed last week. He pitched for 7 innings against the White Sox, giving up just 1 run, 3 hits and 2 walks. For the game he had a 1.29 era and a 0.71 WHIP—exactly what you want from the ace of your staff. I’m sure Guthrie wishes he could pitch like this every start.

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Harper has been hot so far this season. No, not Bryce Harper — he’s on the DL in the majors. His older brother Bryan Harper, currently a relief pitcher for the Potomac Nationals in the Carolina League (A+). Bryan has a 1.62 era in 16.2 innings of work–which would lead the league if he had pitched the number of innings needed to qualify (32 innings so far). Although he is a reliever, he has appeared in just 10 of Potomac’s 40 games this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally back after suffering a lat strain late in spring training, Doug Fister struggled through a bad start week before last, and then was back in form, giving up just 1 earned run in a 7-inning no-decision start against the Diamondbacks. Fister gave up 5 hits and no walks in the start (0.71 WHIP) and struck out 6. His performance must be making the National’s brass happy about signing Fister during the off season. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week it was Adam Miller’s turn to lead the Mormon pitchers in the minor leagues. He pitched 5 innings of shut-out ball, earning his 3rd win for the season and brought his season era down to 2.67. The performance leaves Miller 12th in the Midwest League in era, with 10 earned runs over the 33.2 innings pitched (25th in the league). He has turned in a solid performance, one that may lead to promotion.

And Miller wasn’t alone in shutting out opponents last week. The Binghamton Mets’ Tyler Pill (Eastern League — AA) also earned a 0.00 era and a win for the week, but Pill is trying to work off some  poor outings, and his work last week only brought his era down to 5.16, while giving him a win to accompany his 5 losses this season. For Pill, last week was great, but he will need several more great weeks to bring his stats in line.

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Earning his 5th save of the season last week, the White Sox’s Matt Lindstrom is looking like a solid closer at the moment. In his two one-inning appearances last week he gave up just 1 hit and 1 walk — for a 1.00 WHIP and 0.00 era. For the season his era is down to 2.81 in 16 innings of relief and 8 save opportunities. But Lindstrom isn’t expected to keep up this level of performance for the whole year.

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How long do you have to play well in the minors before you are promoted? You might think that after a player is clearly dominating in a league that promotion would swiftly occur. And according to that logic, right now Marcus Littlewood might be justified in such expectations. Littlewood is dominating the Midwest League (A), leading the league in batting average (.361) and sporting a strong slash line that is either 3rd or 4th in the league. This is coming after a strong season last year. So why not promote him?

A similar argument could be made for Adam Law, who was dominant in both the Arizona League (R) and Pioneer League (R) last year and has done well this year in the California League (A+), with a .309 average (tied for 18th in the league) and 5 stolen bases (tied for 20th). It might be early to promote Law again, so I expected that he would stay in California.

Nope. Law was demoted last week, back to the Ogden Raptors of the Pioneer League, whose season doesn’t start until June 16th.

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While last week the Mormons in the major leagues managed almost a bust, those who weren’t injured seemed to come roaring back last week, led by the Yankee’s Jacoby Ellsbury. Last week Ellsbury was 8 for 18 (.444) raising his season batting average to .333. He also hit a home run, earned 3 rbis and stole two bases and jumped back onto the stat leaders board in 3 more categories.

On paper, Ellsbury was followed by the Mariner’s John Buck, who hit .750 last week and scored two runs. But Buck’s performance came from one game, against the hapless Astros, in which he was 3 for 4. That game raised Buck’s season average to .300 — but since Buck is a backup catcher with only 20 at bats so far, its hard to see much significance in a single game’s performance.

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The Round Rock Express’ Adam Rosales started to make the case for a return to the majors last week, going 8 for 18 (.444) at the plate with 7 walks. The walks alone are quite stunning—he nearly doubled the number of times he walked for the season, and jumped to 6th in walks in the AAA Pacific Coast League. For the season, he is batting .254 with 4 home runs, 13 runs scored and 10 rbis in 71 at bats—perhaps not enough to get him back to the majors immediately, but certainly the beginning of an argument for his return (should there be an opening).

Rosales isn’t the only Mormon in the minors who excelled at the plate last week. He was followed closely by the Beloit Snappers’ Jaycob Brugman, who was 9 for 23 (.391) with a home run and 4 walks, and by Rancho Cucamonga’s Adam Law (California League – A+), who was 11 for 30 (.367) with 7 runs scored and 3 rbis. For the season Law’s .325 average is close behind that of Marcus Littlewood, who continues to dominate the Midwest League (A) with a .395 average (1st in the league).

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While its not unusual for an individual player to have an off week, its much more unusual for all of the Mormon players to have poor or mediocre performances at the same time. But this past week was like that.

Perhaps the strongest performance was from the Royals’ pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, who improved his era in two starts last week. But Guthrie’s performance can’t really be called stellar: a 4.05 era for the two starts, a loss, 16 hits and a walk with 6 earned runs over 13.1 innings pitched. Meh…

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