Verlander

Verlander's meltdown against the Rangers was pretty widely reported.  That's no surprise.  He's one of the best pitchers in the game, yet he got shelled for 8 runs without getting out of the third inning.  That's a bad start.  (To be fair, it wasn't just Verlander.  Sanchez and Fister also got plastered by the Rangers.  In fact, the only Tigers pitcher to make it out with a win was Porcello.  Let that sink in for a second.)

But, even before that, I was wondering about him this year.  I've read a handful of articles about his velocity decreasing.  I'm slightly concerned with that, but not overly so.  He's 30.  Of course his velocity is going to decline a little.  Also, over the years, he's gone from a guy who would consistently throw his fastballs in the mid-to-high 90s (I've seen him get as high as 102) to a guy who usually starts games a little lower than that (low-to-mid 90s), and relies more on his terrific secondary pitches.  His strikeout pitch used to be a high-90s fastball, but it's now his excellent slider, or a nasty curve that just drops into the strikezone at the last minute. He has evolved from a thrower to a pitcher.  (Also, he hit 100 on the gun in his last start, so it's not like his velocity has abandoned him.)

And yet, I still felt like something was off this year.  He's still good, but I didn't see him going nearly as deep into games as he has been the past few years.  Where you used to be able to count on Verlander giving you 7 innings every night, his pitch counts have been getting so high so early that we really haven't seen that Verlander show up yet.  

I realized that perhaps my expectations were just too high, so I looked at some numbers going back to 2010.  This is what the average Verlander start has looked like over that time frame.

2010

Innings pitched:  6.75

Pitches:              113.48

Hits:                   5.76

BB:                    2.15

Earned Runs:      2.55

Batters Faced:    28.03

Strikeouts:          6.64

2011 (his MVP year)

Innings pitched:  7.32

Pitches:              115.91

Hits:                   5.12

BB:                    1.68

Earned Runs:      1.97

Batters Faced:    28.5

Strikeouts:          7.35

2012

Innings pitched:  7.19

Pitches:              114.18

Hits:                   5.82

BB:                    1.82

Earned Runs:      2.12

Batters Faced:    28.97

Strikeouts:          7.24

2013 

Innings pitched:  6.39

Pitches:              109.38

Hits:                   5.5

BB:                    2.25

Earned Runs:      1.38

Batters Faced:    26.28

Strikeouts:          6.67

I excluded his last start from the 2013 stats, as that one terrible start skewed the rest of the results.  If it becomes a pattern, I'll put it back in.  But, since that should be his worst start of the season (by a wide margin, hopefully), I decided to leave it out.

I realize this isn't the cleanest way to show these numbers, but I was too lazy to put a graph together.  Maybe I'll do that after his next start.

In looking over those numbers, these things jump out:

1. In case it wasn't readily apparent before, 2011 and 2012 were terrific years for him.  It's not really a shock, but still.  Holy crap.  Those numbers, man.

2. My feeling was correct.  He is not going as deep into games as he has the past few years.  On average, he's throwing 5-6 fewer pitches per game, but only facing 2 less batters and pitching around .8 inning fewer per outing.

3. Even seeing that, it's hard to complain too much.  When your ace is throwing around 6.2 innings per game and giving up 1.38 runs per game, that's pretty incredible.

By the end of the year, I'm sure this start against the Rangers will only be a blip on the radar screen.  At some point, I assume he'll get a little more economical with his pitches, and we'll see him going deeper into games.  I think he'll be fine.

Still, when he takes the hill against the Indians on Wednesday, I'll be saying a little prayer that he fixed whatever went wrong against the Rangers.  (Which, for the most part, seemed to be pitch location.  He just wasn't hitting his spots.  Consistently missing his pitches high.  That has to be a little mechanical thing that should be fixed pretty quickly.)

The Sports Blog That Wouldn't Die

So...it's been a while, eh?
At some point, I just assume that we'll both stop posting stuff to this blog, and it'll die silently, only 2 people aware it ever existed in the first place.
But that day is not today.
We're talking basketball.  Football.  Baseball.  I can't promise it'll be coherent, but it'll be something.
(After writing that sentence, I've decided to break this post up into two parts, as one of them concerns Verlander and has a lot of numbers.  I thought that lumping that in with a bunch of random thoughts just felt a bit weird.  So tonight you're getting a double-dose of "The D".  [I immediately regret writing that phrase.])

Being a quasi-vagabond with no cable 70% of the time, I haven't been able to watch much of the NBA playoffs.  I'm usually able to catch whatever games fall on Monday & Tuesday nights, and whatever games are televised on ABC on the weekend.  (As an aside, one of my favorite hobbies has been listening to Simmons talk about some inane point, and just see how Wilbon reacts.  It's wonderful.)
Anyway, from what I've seen, I've been enjoying.  Not so much the Knicks/Pacers series, but the two Golden State series were phenomenal.  The non-blow-out games in the Heat/Bulls series were enjoyable (really looking forward to the Heat/Pacers series).  Watching Memphis bludgeon people has been even started to grow on me a bit.  My only regret so far is that I haven't been able to watch more.
I'm sure you've seen more than I have.  I know that the Heat are the favorite to win it all, and it's no surprise to see why.  But who do you think has the best chance of beating them?  I could see the Pacers series being a grind, but I fully expect the Heat to win in 5.
I could see the Grizzlies taking a shot, if only because I don't know how well the Heat will be able to match up with the Gasol/Randolph pairing.  I could also see the Spurs giving them a run, with a combination of the big guys down low and some smart passing.  Break it down for me.  Who has the best shot of beating the Heat, and how can they do it?

Remember all that stuff I said about not being able to watch the NBA playoffs?  Like, in the last segment?  All of that applies to the NHL playoffs, too.  I've caught a handful of games, but not much.  I was able to catch game 2 of the Wings/Blackhawks series this past weekend, and was glad I did.  Throughout the season, I kept thinking that the Wings had a decent offense (with Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen & company, how could they not?), but their defense looked terrible, due in no small part to the loss of Lidstrom.  I kept thinking that the defense would get better as the season progressed.  But, with a lock-out shortened season, there wasn't too much growth to be seen, and they barely squeaked into the playoffs (they ended up winning their last three games and getting in at the 7th seed).
And now, here they are, up 2-1 on the mighty Blackhawks.  From what I've seen, their defense definitely seems improved over where they were in the regular season.  I guess a little time is all they needed, after all.
I'm not saying they've won this series.  Even up 2-1, there's a long way to go, and the Blackhawks are a very good team.  But their defense has been pretty encouraging so far.  I'm hoping I can catch some more games in this series.  I keep thinking that I'll go to Buffalo Wild Wing's or something, but I really don't want to go by myself.  Feels a bit weird.

It may be a bit early to start talking football, but whatever.
Very excited about the Packers draft.  They added a couple terrific running backs in Eddie Lacy & Jonathan Franklin (their full-house offense is going to look amazing this year).  They grabbed Datone Jones, a great DT in the first round.  They grabbed Josh Boyd (DE) in the 5th round.  On top of that, they're getting a healthy Nick Perry back, as well as Jolly's return from a sizzurp suspension.
There are some scary teams going into this year (the 49ers and Seahawks have improved their already good teams), but I think the Packers are right up there with them.

That'll do it for hodge-podge talk.  Coming up next: Verlander.

A Look Back at Orlando's Season

Well, that was fun. Not so much the winning a quarter of all the games that you participated in part of it, but the watching the young pieces come together part was fun.The last time Orlando was this bad, it was 2003 and Tracy McGrady was surrounded by the likes of Juwan Howard and Tyronn Lue. This time, there is at least something to look forward to on this team.

One thing I recently realized about this team, is that there are no lottery picks on it. This team SHOULD have finished with the worst record in the league. The Bobcats (2nd worst record) have Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo (along with Ben Gordon and Tyrus Thomas, if we're being technical). All former lottery picks. The Cavaliers have Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson. Our young talent (Tobias Harris, Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless, Andrew Nicholson) was all drafted outside of the lottery. Credit due to GM Rob Hennigan. If he can find talent like that outside of the lottery, I'd love to see what he can do with lottery picks and a little cap space.

I've waxed poetic about Nikola Vucevic in the past, but I feel every word of praise has been deserved. He was great this season. As of that post, he was sitting at 12 PPG/11 RPG on 52% FG. He finished the season at 13 PPG/12 RPG on 52% FG and became just the sixth person in the past 30 years to post those numbers. The other seven: Charles Barkley, Tim Duncan,  Dwight Howard (3x), Shaquille O'Neal (2x) and Buck Williams. (To be honest, I was ready to throw that list out when I saw Buck Williams on it, until I did my research. he won a Rookie of the Year, an All NBA team, four All Defense teams and is the only member of the 16K points/13k rebounds club that isn't in the Hall of Fame. Not bad.) There were 18 20/20 games in the NBA this season. Vuc had four of them. In 25 games after the All Star break, Vuc threw up nearly 15 and 13 a game, on 51% FG shooting. The moral of this story is that Vucevic is good. And I think he can become really good. Guys that young don't put up numbers like that and just fade away. If he doesn't progress one bit past his current stage, he's still a solid NBA player. With that way he improved month by month, I have a hard time believing his progression stops there.

Tobias Harris was a very welcome surprise to Orlando. I was unimpressed with him at Tennessee and he mostly rode the bench in Milwaukee before coming to Orlando and throwing up numbers. In the 27 games he played with Orlando, he averaged at 17/8.5 on 45% FG shooting. Granted, 27 games is the equivalent to only a third of a season, but I have no reason to believe that Harris couldn't have sustained those numbers given a whole season of playing time in Orlando. The only players in NBA history to match Harris' numbers at age 20 are Shaq, Chris Webber and Elton Brand. Again, they did it over the course of an entire season, but Harris was impressive in his own right. He arrived in Orlando in late February, and didn't start until March. In 16 March games, he averaged 18 and 8 on 43/36/77 shooting. I would have been content with that. Then in eight April games, he averaged 20/10/3.5 APG, though his percentages took a hit, 44/21/64. As with Vucevic, guys that produce that young tend to find a way to have decent NBA careers at the worst. I look forward to a full season of him next year.

Blog Universe favorite, Moe Harkless had a rough start to the season but really took off after the All Star break. In 46 games before the break, Harkless at 5/4 per game on 46/17/57 shooting. Yikes. In those 46 games, he hit double figure in scoring just four times. After the break, he scored in double figures in each of his next 10 games. In 30 games after the break, he averaged 13/5, and added in 1.6 SPG on 46/32/57 shooting. Not only the numbers, but he just looked more sure of himself after the break. At 19 years old, he may have the most potential of anyone on this team.I see a lot of Paul George in his game and I'm hoping he takes the strides to improve his shot that Paul George did from his rookie year until now.

The jury is still out on Andrew Nicholson.

As you can see from his shot chart above, he is at or above league average from almost every spot within the three point line. And the spot where he is below league average, he has tended to not really shoot from. He knows where his bread is buttered, which is a good thing. However, he doesn't contribute much in terms of rebounding or defense, which is a bad thing. He's been pretty inconsistent, but so have his minutes so I can't really fault him there. Still, with his ability to score, I imagine he can be a productive big man off the bench.

Even rookie second rounder Kyle O'Quinn looks to be a viable third center at the worst. Hennigan knows his stuff on the draft. I recently read that he plans to work out as many as 80 players in the draft. Under previous GM Otis Smith, the Magic routinely worked out 8-10 players and drafted Daniel Orton without ever bringing him in for a workout. Amazing how that pick didn't pan out. I will probably jump into a little more NBA draft scouting to determine who I would like to see suited up in Orlando next year. I'm leaning toward Nerlens Noel, but there is still plenty of time left. It's playoff time, now.

Tigers

You may have noticed that I haven't been keeping up with my Tigers post.  I kind of realized that, on top of it being a lot of writing for me, it's also probably not very interesting for a non-Tigers fan to read.  So I may just do a once-a-week check-in.

When I started those posts, my main concern was the bullpen.  That's still a big concern.  It's not just the lack of a closer; there's not really a go-to shut-down guy in the bullpen.

The closest thing to that description is Al Alburquerque.  My love of him has been well documented.  When he's on, he's as close to unhittable as you can get.  A fastball with great late movement.  An absolutely filthy slider.
The problem is, his control has always been an issue.  Still, if you need a couple strikeouts out of the bullpen, he's the guy to turn to.  But he could just as easily walk a few guys or throw a couple wild pitches.

Smyly could also be very good.  He's been spotty so far this year, but I really like him.  So far, his role has been long reliever (which makes sense, seeing as how he was in the running for the 5th starter's spot during Spring Training), but I could see them turning to him in high leverage situations.

Coke is pretty good against lefties, but terrible against righties.

Dotel is pretty good against righties, but only decent against lefties.

Benoit can be good, but he's also prone to throwing a few gopherballs.

Villarreal was good last year, but has been an absolute train wreck this year.

Downs has seemed decent, but I haven't seen much of him yet.

The starting rotation is as good as anyone in the league.  But the bullpen is kind of a mess.
It seems like I've seen this before.  Last year, the bullpen started off pretty shaky, but rounded into shape as the season went on.  I hope that happens this year, but I'm not overly confident.

The Detroit Experiment: Game 4

Result: Tigers win
Score: 8-3
Record: 2-2

Another afternoon game on a work day.  Another game I listened to on the radio.

Detroit goes home, and their bats wake up.  Kind of hoped that would happen.  Fielder got loose for 2 HRs (including one that may have knocked an old man unconscious), and Avila hit a solo homer, himself.

Also, Smyly pitched 4 perfect innings in relief (with 5 strikeouts).  Which was nice, because he looked less-than-impressive in his appearance in the first game.  The Tigers are going to need him going forward, so it was good to see such an impressive performance.

It should be noted that the Tigers beat the Yankees today 8-4, notching 17 hits in the process (Cabrera finally got in on the action, going 4-4 and a walk).  Tomorrow afternoon is Verlander vs. Sabathia.  Very much looking forward to that.

Verlander, Ghostface and Adrian Younge

I'm completely on board with the Verlander extension.  I know it's a lot of years/money, but I think he'll live up to his part of the deal for the vast majority of the contract.  Maybe even the entire contract.  The deal was 7 years, $180 million.  Like you said, there's an option to kick that to 8 years, $202 million if he hits certain levels.  I know one of those involves him being in the top 5 Cy Young voting in his 7th year.

I like this deal for a couple reasons:
1. I was terrified of him hitting the free agent market and losing him to a team that threw a 10 year, $250 million contract at him or something.  I love watching him pitch every 5th game.  I wasn't ready to lose Verlander to the Dodgers/Yankees/Angels/Red Sox.

2. He's 30 right now, and at the top of his game.  So this deal will pay him until he's 37.  For a pitcher without a history of injuries, that's not a horrible risk.  He's sure to diminish as he gets deeper into his contract, but that's the risk they're taking right now.
But I honestly think he'll be effective through the entire contract.  He has a fastball that can hit 100+, but his command and his secondary pitches are so good that he should be able to compensate for the loss of velocity in his fastball.  I think he'll age well, and I think he's very capable of turning himself into a lower velocity fastball guy who can still get guys to swing and miss with his pinpoint control and his nasty breaking balls.

I will say that it's hard to look at Halladay struggles right now (at age 35) and not be a little concerned.  Same build.  Same general profile.  Halladay struggled with injuries last year, and was far from effective in his first start this year.  Though I do think that Halladay will be okay, he does have to make some adjustments in order to still be effective (which he is currently in the process of doing).  I can see Verlander going through a similar thing 5 years down the line.  But he's such an intelligent pitcher, and has such great command of his secondary pitches, I think he'll be fine.
Honestly, I'm more concerned about paying Fielder big money in his 40s than paying Verlander big money in his mid-to-late 30s.

I've given Wolf a few spins.  Right off hand, I would say that "Domo23" and "Lone/Jornada" really jumped out at me.  I need to give it a few more listens.
Really looking forward to the new Ghostface Killah album, Twelve Reasons to Die.  It's no secret that I'm a huge Ghostface fan, but I'm also a pretty big fan of Adrian Younge, who is producing the album.  He did great work on the Black Dynamite soundtrack, as well as his work on Something About April and the new Delfonics record.  I love his style.  He's kind of all over the map, but seems to go back to R&B-meets-Ennio-Morricone as his staple.  I think Twelve Reasons to Die is going to be amazing.  I'm already penciling it into my top 5 albums of the year.

Baseball. And Draft Life. And Wildcats.

How do you feel about that Verlander extension? $180 million is a lot of scratch, but seven years for a guy that's 30 would probably concern me a bit. To his credit, Verlander is a workhorse and I haven't read any in depth details about of there are certain options for the contract, but as a fan, how do you feel?

Haven't been able to catch any Reds baseball yet, and I probably won't until they catch the Braves for a series. Still, we're off to a 2-1 start so I can't complain. Shin-Soo Choo is actually getting on base, something we haven't had from a leadoff hitter in some time...small sample size be damned. I'm looking forward to a full season of Todd Frazier in the field to see if he can duplicate last year's success. And I've learned to stop waiting for Jay Bruce to make a leap. Not saying that he won't, but I'm not counting on him to erupt for 45 HR's and 130 RBI's this season, though he's certainly capable of it.

The college basketball season isn't over yet, and I'm already ready for next season. Calipari really outdid himself with this one. Six of the top 18 recruits in the country are heading to Lexington this fall...where they will join returning players Alex Poythress, Willie Cauley-Stein and Kyle Wiltjer (all top 40 recruits in their respective classes). And the #1 recruit, Andrew Wiggins, has yet to decide, so the rich may get richer. If Wiggins is like me, and I can't imagine any reason why he wouldn't be, he commits to UK anyway. It's reported that his final three schools are FSU, UNC and UK. No way I'd want to be THE guy on a FSU team that went 18-15 this past year. North Carolina should be solid next year, but solid might not cut it with #3 recruit Jabari Parker joining a Duke team fresh off the Elite Eight. Also, Harrison Barnes didn't exactly explode under Roy Williams system at UNC. I/Wiggins wouldn't want to take that chance. Why not stack the deck and sign with UK? We could truly have something special next season, i.e. undefeated season, Fab Five, type of special next year. Do the right thing, Andrew.

I've talked myself into Nerlens Noel being the missing piece for the Magic. In my mind, I had already locked Noel into a Tyson Chandler type of career (and I still think that may be his calling", but man I'd love to see him next to Nik Vucevic in Orlando. Vucevic would still play center, but Noel would be the PF that protects the basket a la Serge Ibaka, Josh Smith, young Kevin Garnett and the type of defender I believe Anthony Davis will become. Noel's offensive game will need a lot of work to function as a PF, but so did Ibaka's and now he has a jumper defenses have to respect. Vucevic's ability to shoot up to 20 foot would also help space the floor around him until he is able to refine his offensive game. I was watching some scouting report film on Noel, and I forgot how much I loved watching this guy play. Never slow to get back on defense, never jogging up the court or bitching at referees, the first one to hit the floor for a loose ball. Watching him in Orlando would be a treat.

Bengals picked up John Skelton. So that's cool.

I'm lying. That's not that cool. The draft is later this month and I don't really have any particular players I want. just positions. We need offensive line help (especially if Andre Smith walks), linebacking help (preferably someone that will allow us to move Burfict to MLB and Maualuga back to SLB), a running back and a safety. I feel like we can function everywhere else. This free agency has been lackluster so I'm hoping we remedy that with a great draft.

Not sure if you've gave it a listen yet, but "Wolf" is fantastic. The second half of the album is cool, but the first half has been getting steady spin from me. "Jamba", "Cowboy" and "Awkward", all fantastic. Great album.

Also, this song is dynamite.