Jim Leyland: Dream Maker.

It's funny, I was sitting here just earlier today hoping I could come in and run my mouth (or fingers, I suppose) about how incompetent of a manager Jim Leyland is. You know, just hoping for back-to-back crushing, walk-off losses to the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles, California of the Northern Hemisphere, Milky-way.

And hopefully we do it in awesome fashion, too. Like a wild pitch to allow in one run. A walk. A clean single to right to tie the game.

But here's the kicker: The bullpen doesn't get charged with those runs, they go to your starting pitcher who had his best start of the season and got rewarded by an early departure!

Surely this just wasn't possible though. I'm dreaming up nonsense that no manager would put his team or fan base through. Nope, no way, no how.

But, Jim Leyland is a dream maker. He's like the Make A Wish Foundation for Detroit Tigers fans across the country that are just aching to see what new and inventive ways a team can lose a baseball game. Jim Leyland, who I've dubbed "Hunches" in my second post in this blog ever, is just so clutch at coming into a game where he's not needed and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. To put that big, fat cherry on top, he manages to pull off the unthinkable: the back-to-back walk-off losses.

Did you see the game? Yeah? You want to relive the agony of the 8th inning of the Tigers loss to the Angels again in this paragraph or two? Okay, let's go:

Jeremy Bonderman had been cruising. 7 innings, 4 hits, 7 strikeouts versus just 1 walk. And his pitch count was in phenomenal shape at just 77 pitches. And coming off another heartbreak just 24 hours prior, that's a big deal to save the bullpen.

So, the 8th inning starts with Reggie Willits, who just pinch-hit for Brandon Wood, singling through the left side of the infield. Next up is Sean Rodriguez who singles to left field as well. 2 on, 0 out, but neither ball hit very hard at all. Bonderman's throw just 4 pitches in the 8th inning. After a coaching visit to the mound, Bonderman faces light-hitting Maicer Izturis. He sacrifices the 2 pitch he sees to advance the runners to 2nd and 3rd with 1 out and Gary Matthews, Vladimir Guererro, and Garrett Anderson due up who had combined for just 2 hits in the ball game. Bonderman can surely handle that.

But, see, that's where Jim Leyland gets you. After 83 pitches, 53 strikes, 7 strikes outs, 1 walk, Jeremy Bonderman ready to face the 2-3-4 hitters for the Angels, Hunches strolls to the mound to make the move. Surely he's bringing in the lefty to turn Matthews around as you wouldn't just bring in another righty because Bonderman isn't tired at all, nor getting beat up with a couple of hard line drives. And like a Hitchcock movie where you don't know what's coming next, Francisco Cruceta strolls from the bullpen.

Cruceta makes Matthews look foolish. Then, the trouble begins. A wild pitch during the Vlad at-bat scores the first Angels run to make it 2-1 and the run is charged to Bonderman. Then, Vlad walks, and Garrett Anderson lines one into right field to tie the game at 2 and the run is charged to Bonderman. After some heart stopping moments, a fly out to Matt Joyce off the bat of Casey Kotchman with the bases loaded ends the 8th inning.

The 9th inning drags on with the top half ending on the Golden Sombrero securing strikeout for Matt Joyce, as Ervin Santana throws 113 pitches over the full 9 innings because Mike Scosia knows what he's doing, and the bottom of the 9th starts. Aquilinio Lopez, the Tigers most effective reliever all year long, is, of course, saved and used in this spot which makes about as much sense as jumping into a bath tub with a toaster. You obviously wouldn't want to use your best reliever in the highest leverage situation of the baseball game or anything. That kind of logic is poppycock. Poppycock I say!

Lopez doesn't have it. He finishes with 10 of his 18 pitches for balls in a sequence of events that I don't even have the heart to recap. Suffice it to say that the scuffling Gary Matthews pulls the trigger to end the misery for what have to be the two most draining losses by a combined two runs in recent memory.

Is this loss squarely on Jim Leyland? Yes. The offense clearly should not be scuffling this much, but Ervin Santana was equally as good as Jeremy Bonderman was (and would have been, most likely). I can give them the pass. That said, the job of a major league manager is to motivate and put his team in the best position possible to win a baseball game within the realm of the rulebook.

That would include, but is not limited to:

- Not pulling your starting pitcher after 80-something pitches and 7 innings -- especially when he's dealing all night long and the victim of two weak hits.

- Learning from your mistakes on yanking pitchers too early when there is no reason for it to happen. Somewhere, Nate Robertson is having Vietnam-like flashbacks.

- Going to anyone but your most effective reliever in the highest leverage situation of the baseball game.

- Continually batting your DH who's got the shoulders of Bea Arthur 3rd in your lineup, day in, day out until a pulled oblique tears him from your grasp.

But, apparently a nice silver mustache gets you a multi-million dollar job, a bad smoking habit, free first class travel, and the ability to punch an entire fan base of a team in the stomach, at the same time. On back-to-back nights. In the first two games of a west coast road trip. In a very disappointing season.

Oh, how good it must be to have that sort of job security. There's countless UAW workers who'd love to have such job security.

UPDATE: Jim Leyland in the post game on the move to yank Bonderman: It was a "no brainer. No Brainer."

I don't make this stuff up, folks. I cannot write a line that says so much, in so little.

Jeremy Bonderman: The Struggles Revisited

In my last post, I discussed Jeremy Bonderman and what percentages, on average, he's throwing his fastball, slider, and change up as well as how it compared to his 2007 campaign.

Well, I fully intended to use the Gameday and PITCHf/x data from his start on May 16th in Arizona where he looked good -- Jeremy Bonderman Circa this time last year good. Bonderman had some control problems in the game but finished with a line of: 6.0 innings, 3 hits, 3 earned runs, 5 strikeouts, 4 walks, and 1 homer allowed. However, the start was marred by some defensive lapses (2 foul balls that dropped and an error) which led, ultimately, to his undoing.

Well, as Billfer noted, the data for that game is not available as what was probably worse than the Tigers corner infielders not catching foul pops was the umping by the ump the players voted the worst in the major leagues not once, but twice (yeah, link stealing from Bill ... so wrong. But his linkage database is the cause for much envy around the internet, I swear it!), CB Bucknor.

Anyways, conspiracy theories about how CB Bucknor sneaked into every clubhouse in the major leagues to steal all the good bats that are leading to the Baseball Commish looking into their breakage-rates, as well as, causing runs to be down significantly from the past few years, or how he's a socialist leading the Socialist Red Wings to the Stanley cup are still unfounded and, therefore, set aside, I looked at Bonderman's start on May 22nd against the fledgling Seattle Mariners.

But, before we get to that . . .

If you recall the player card for Jeremy Bonderman at the time of my last post had his percentages looking like this:
67.87% Fastballs
19.39% Sliders
12.72% Change ups

Well, his player card has updated info and now his percentages are sitting at:

65.63% Fastballs
18.35% Sliders
16.02% Change ups

How does his start against the M's on the 22nd compare? Well, here's what I gathered:

The first hitter batter Bonderman faced didn't register results, so I have just 87 of Bonderman's 90 pitch evening. The results, shook down, as such:

61 fastballs
23 sliders
3 change ups

So, with the available data, he was, percentage-wise, like this (divided by 87, not 90 since I don't know what the other 3 pitches were and I want to be accurate here):

70.1% Fastballs
26.4% Sliders
3.4% change ups

He used both his fastball and slider more than what his percentages from my last post and from what his updated player card show them being. Maybe he didn't have the feel for the change up at all? Maybe he felt he is feeling the frustration of mixed results at best this year and is reverting back to what he feels comfortable with? Maybe I'm just making up reasons to speculate because I honestly have no idea what a one game sample can tell us. Without the data from that game in Arizona, it's hard to be certain but he did look to be throwing more 4-seamers against the D-Backs as well as a lot of late, sharp breaking sliders.

However, his start against the M's, Bondo was topping out at 91 and working in the 88-91 range all game long and 82-83 with the slider with one hitting 80 and being classified as a curveball and a couple hitting 84 on the gun. His change was consistently in the mid-80's which may be acting more like a batting practice fastball than an actual change up.

This is obviously a small data sample to be working with (just the 1 game; damn you and your evil ways CB Bucknor, damn you!), but it's something worth following up on regularly -- especially if the results keep steering from the norms he's set control wise in the past.

Jeremy Bonderman: Why the Struggles?

Everyone has their theory around why Jeremy Bonderman has struggled so mightily in this 2008 campaign. Everything from decreasing velocity, to diminishing stuff, to possible injuries. Speculation runs just as rampant as one of his 2-seamer's he's had so many problems controlling this year.

Well, here's what I've figured out about Bonderman: He's not using his slider nearly as much. Stunning analysis, Mike. No, really, that's hard hitting work, you should get paid to do this.

But, all kidding aside, he really has backed off the use of his slider. I've looked at the numbers via Josh Kalk's blog which has player cards (both hitters and pitchers, for 2007 and 2008) thanks to the publicly available Pitch f/x data that MLB Gameday uses.

Let's look at the numbers . . .

In 2007:
He threw his fastball 58.27% of the time, his slider 36.53%, and his change just 5.2% of the pitches that were recorded by Pitch f/x data.

This year, he's been recorded as throwing a fastball, a sinker, a slider, a curve, a splitter, a change, and a cutter. Most of these are probably just due to the classification of the pitch as sometimes he'll back off his slider a bit velocity-wise and it acts more like a curve.

So, I'll just group these into Fastball (add the sinker in there as that's his 2 seamer classified as a sinker), a slider (add the curve to the slider numbers), and a changeup (I'll add the splitter in there as it's probably his changeup just thrown harder or classified wrong depending on the velocity of the pitch).

So, in 2008:
Of the 660 pitches recorded by pitch f/x data, 448 have been fastballs (67.87%), 128 have been sliders (or breaking balls; 19.39%), 84 have been change ups (12.72%).

Now, he's always had a dynamite slider with great, late bite and not a ton of horizontal movement (probably 1 to 7 or 1 to 6:30 movement if you're looking from a centerfield camera at a clock face ... the downward bite is what makes it so lethal). But, he's dropped off the number of times in throwing it. He's actually throwing it 17.14% less this year than in 2007 (quick aside on the sample sizes: 2007 recorded 980 Bonderman pitches where as 2008 has already recorded 660 Bonderman pitches) . Now, the change up is being thrown 7.52% more than in 2007, but that still leaves a 9.62% drop that have become fastballs rather than a slider.

Now, the Hardball Times has Bonderman throwing a total of 12, 581 pitches from the start of 2004 through 2008, before tonight's start. In that time frame, he's pitched in 132 games, which is 95.31, or just 95 pitches per game.

So, we'll take his 95 pitch average for the last nearly 4 years and apply his 2007 percentages to them.

In 2007, his pitch breakdown would have been:
55 fastballs
35 sliders
5 change ups

Applying his 2008 percentages to his 95 pitchers per game average, they shake down like this:
65 fastballs
18 sliders (breaking balls)
12 change ups

So, he's throwing, on average, about 17 less sliders a game. That is 17 less times he's throwing his best pitch. Imagine Johan Santana throwing 17 less change ups, Dan Haren throwing 17 less splitters, Randy Johnson throwing 17 less of his devastating sliders per game. That's quite the discrepancy.

What's the cause of this? Well, he did have a bum elbow from (in my opinion) his 20th start of his 2007 season onward (July 29th, in Anaheim on Sunday Night Baseball where he blew up to the tune of 10 ER in 1.2 IP).

Is it an organizational demand that he throw less sliders and more 2-seamers? Is it something he's doing consciously to not put more strain on his elbow? I don't know, these are the questions that are tough to answer as an outsider.

Same Manager, Same Story, Same Results, New Season

Well, I had held off on this blog thinking I'd been over-the-top with my reactions calling for Jim Leyland's firing last August. I'd even resisted the attempts to write up some blurbs about the decisions he's made this season that have cost us ball games. And, even through all my indifference towards the Tigers now 16-23 start, I've found that the only thing that riles me up anymore is Jim Leyland.

I don't want much from a manager. I don't even think a manager can be worth more than 3-5 wins over the course of a 162-game season. Except when they continually put teams in the worst positions to win baseball games.

Tonight, in the Tigers 3-2 loss in Kansas City, Jim Leyland again put the Tigers in a terrible position to win a baseball game. Tigers were tied at 2-2 after a solid outing by Nate Robertson -- 7 innings, 10 hits, 2 earned runs, 2 strikeouts, 0 walks -- helped along by two double plays and a pickoff of John Buck, and Jim Leyland decides that's the time to sit Robertson and move to the bullpen. This is a fine move -- get Nate out of there after he had given a great night and some 110+ pitches.

But Nate didn't throw 110+ pitches. Or 100+ pitches. Or 90+ pitches. He threw 82. 82 pitches. Eighty-two pitches. 53 for strikes. 64.6% of his pitches were strikes tonight. Yes, the 10 base runners in the game are concerning, but with some luck and a nice pickoff move Nate toughed his way through those innings with great efficiency. Clearly this is a night when you rest your bullpen and ride Nate as long as possible.

Apparently, that line of logical thought process is not what lands you a job paying you multi-millions to fund your smoking habits.

Then, there was the move to take out Miguel Cabrera in the top half of the 8th inning. Brandon Inge replaced Miggy on 2nd base which is a move I actually can understand the reasoning for. Inge has some of the better wheels on this team and in the late innings you improve your defense with his elite level D taking over at 3rd base, and Cabrera's had a quad problem that continually plagues him. On the flip side, you take out your $153.3 million investment who was 2-for-2 with 2 walks. Still, I don't have major qualms about the move, however, it's not one that I would have made (then again, I would have Sheffield on the DL, Guillen at DH, Inge at 3rd, Miggy at 1st), but it's one that I can buy the reasoning behind it.

Is tonight's loss solely Jim Leyland's fault? Absolutely not. Again, like I explain in most of my ramblings on Leyland's terrible decisions, the games can spin on any one pitch before or after Leyland's decision. The Tigers left 9 on base and failed to capitalize on multiple chances to score and knock Royals starter Zack Greinke out of the game sooner than he left. Also, Edgar Renteria attempting a backhanded flip to Placido Polanco that was 5 feet wide of 2nd base when he should've just pocketed the baseball is responsible for the game winning run crossing home plate.

That said, all I want a manager to do, in game, is make the moves that improve the team's position to win games. And when a pitcher is as efficient as Robertson was tonight, you don't reward that with a pat on the back and a "hit the showers while we throw some gasoline on this fire to see if we can lose this game."

Fire Jim Leyland.