Pic of the Week

Curtis Granderson and umpire Mike Muchlinski
are in agreement on the call on his double Tuesday.

Curtis Granderson, known in these parts as the greatest of the Mankao Mashers, is having a decent bounceback season with the Toronto Blue Jays.

He's become a platoon player at age 37 -- just 20 plate appearances against lefties coming into Friday's play -- and having his at-bats focused on right-handing pitching has resulted in a sharply improved on-base percentage.

This is the Grandy Man's 15th major league season and his fifth team. I was, frankly, a bit surprised he got an offer during the winter. He's lived up to it, probably in part because he's not getting overexposed.

Notes quotes and comment (Game One edition)

Stop me if you've heard this: Clayton Kershaw is a really good pitcher.

OK, you've stopped me.

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When I'm working during World Series games, I have the TV on around the corner but the sound off and my iPad with the MLB At Bat app up with one of the team's radio feeds playing. It's a bit behind the TV, but that's OK.

Last night I went with the LA radio broadcast, Charley Steiner and Rick Monday. I frequently see complaints about Steiner, which I think boil down to He's not Vin Scully. Well, who is? But Vin is retired now, and we really should let the man enjoy his retirement. Steiner is more than competent. I may try the Houston feed tonight.

I did mutter about one thing Steiner said, in wrapping up the game. He called Kershaw's performance "flawless." Well no. He did give up a homer, after all. That's a flaw. It was very good: three hits, no walks, 11 strikeouts in seven innings. Pitchers don't lose often with that line. But sometimes they do.

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As a Mankatoan, I feel compelled to note that Curtis Granderson, the greatest of the Mankato Mashers, was left off the World Series roster by the Dodgers. The Grandy Man hit .161 for the Dodgers after his midseason trade from the Mets. Even with the occasional long ball tossed in, that's not good enough.

The Dodgers instead went with Brandon McCarthy, an oft-injured pticher who only figures to draw mop up duties if anything in the series. Ideally, the Dodgers will never even have him warm up.

 

Pic of the Week

Curtis Granderson cooperates Saturday with a pair of
selfie-seeking fans in Washington.

Curtis Granderson is fondly remembered in Mankato. He was a Mankato Masher in this city's first season with a team in the Northwoods League, and he's had a fine major league career with the Tigers, Yankees, Mets and now Dodgers.

And he is even more highly regarded for his off-the-field activities and persona. He isn't a Hall of Fame caliber player, but by all accounts he's a Hall of Fame caliber human being.

That said ... he's 36 and the numbers are trending down. Granderson came into Saturday with 90 plate appearances with the Dodgers; he's hitting .107 in that time.

One-oh-seven.

He has hit for some power; he has 23 homers on the season to flavor his .206 batting average. But time is undefeated, and the Grandy Man's career may well be nearing its end.

Contemplating Curtis Granderson

The Grandy Man can ... make this catch.

Away back in 2001 -- in the early days of Mankato's entry in the Northwoods League -- the Mashers (which eventually morphed into the MoonDogs under new ownership) featured an outfielder named Curtis Granderson.

That connection has given some of us in the Key City a lasting interest in Granderson's career.

On Sunday night, he started the Mets' three-run first inning rally against the seemingly impregnable Jake Arrieta. He later reached over the right field wall to take a homer away from Chris Coghlin. He also drew a walk, stole two bases and scored a second run. Nice game.

From the great Joe Posnanski:

Four players in baseball history have hit 40 homers in a season and 20 triples in a season (not in same season). Name 'em.

— Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) October 19, 2015

Answer: Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Willie Mays and, yes, Curtis Granderson.

— Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) October 19, 2015

Three of those names are inner-circle Hall-of-Famers, and the fourth is Granderson.  But Granderson, now in his mid-30s, has certainly had a distinguished career. even if his production takes different shapes with different clubs. He's had four 100-run seasons and two 100-RBI seasons, he's hit .300 (only once), he's had a couple of 25-steal years.

He's not a classic leadoff man, but he got the job done in that role with the Tigers and he's doing it again now for the Mets. He's always been pretty ineffective against left-handed pitching, and that remains the case (.183 against southpaws this year).

Notes, quotes and comment

Curtis Granderson fractured his right forearm on
this pitch by Toronto's J.A. Happ on Sunday.

Catching up on weekend developments:

*The wrangle over how to fit a baseball field into the coming Vikings stadium was resolved Friday. I had earlier cast doubt on the good faith of the football team in this issue, and even though the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the amateur baseball side, I can't help but think that it never should have become an issue of contention.

Anthony Slama has
been twice exposed
to the Rule 5 draft
and gone unclaimed.

*Yankees outfielder and former Mankato Masher Curtis Granderson broke his right forearm Sunday when hit by a pitch. The Grandy Man is to be out about 10 weeks, which would keep him out of action into May. The Yankees were tentatively shifting Granderson to left field and Brett Gardner to center; now there's little question that transition will take place. It will be interesting to see how the Yankees deal with the loss of their one power-hitting outfielder.

*I am frequently amused by the fervor with which certain online observers of the Twins campaign for Anthony Slama. Slama's appearance in Sunday's exhibition game was greeted with a predictable enthusiasm in my Twitter feed, but it didn't go well. It's not so much Slama's sour results (two-thirds of an inning, two hits, two walks, no strikeouts, three runs) as how he got there.  He had his usual lack of velocity and his usual lack of pitches in the strike zone. Only one of runs was earned, but the game sure slowed down when he entered. Yeah, it's early in spring training, but he merely confirmed the organization's skepticism of his skills.

* Two Peter Gammons tweets Sunday about the Twins:

"Ron Gardenhire has completely brought in on Mike Pelfrey"

"Twins think even though Eddie Rosario has a 70 arm he can be near star level as a second baseman, quickly after his Puerto Rican winter."

"70 arm" is a scouting grade that says, basically, that Rosario has a right fielder's arm. (The range scouts use is 20 at the bottom, 80 at the top— so 70 isn't top of the line, but it's well above average.) It's a confusing tweet by Gammons, because a strong arm is hardly a disqualification for second base, which is what the sentence implies. I think he's suggesting that Rosario throws too well to be "wasted" at second base, but that's the Twins plan. (The strong arm may wind up being a saving grace for other inadequacies at the position; it was Rosario's fielding error that resulted in the two unearned runs yielded by Slama.)

Notes, quotes and comments

Nick Blackburn's
WHIP — Walks and
Hits per Inning Pitched
— is 1.60, second worst
among AL qualifiers.

Nick Blackburn got just four outs on Sunday— four outs, one hit and four walks. He left with a forearm strain, and he's destined for the disabled list, with Anthony Swarzak filling his rotation spot.

It really doesn't matter if a low-strikeout rate pitcher is one of the manager's "guys." He's going to lose out to ineffectiveness at some point, and even if the manager is too stubborn (or without superior alternatives), the pitcher's going to get hurt.

Blackburn has 148.1 innings for the season, 183 hits allowed, 54 walks and four HBPs. That's 241 baserunners allowed. The ineffectiveness part is certainly there.

And now, so is the injury part.

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Swarzak pitched well in relief of Blackburn, getting out of the bases loaded jam and lowering his ERA for the season to 3.12. But like Blackburn, his strikeout rate is too low (4.5 K/9 so far this season) to believe that he's a long-term solution.

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Curtis Granderson slides past Drew Butera with his inside-the-
park home run.

The Monday print column — on the virtues of Curtis Granderson — was written well before his exploits on Sunday. I touched it up after his inside-the-park home run to noted that he had tied Jose Bautista for the AL lead in homers.

But I failed to check on Bautista later in the day. Bautista homered Sunday as well, and thus maintained a one-homer lead on Granderson.

Taking nothing away from Granderson's hit — he smacked it well — but the Twins outfield play added a base or two to it.  Ben Revere and Jason Kubel converged on the wall, and the ball hit high enough on the fence that it ricocheted hard and back toward the infield. Ron Gardenhire fingered Revere as the guy who should have pulled back. Not that it mattered in the final outcome; Mark Teixiera followed with a traditional over-the fend homer, so the Yankees would have gotten two runs out of the two batters even if the Twins had held Granderson to two or three bases.

The multiple surfaces of the right field wall proved tricky from the time Target Field opened. It's bound to bite the unwary and the inexperienced from time to time.

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The Tigers swept the Indians this weekend, but I took particular note of this bit of foolishness:

A couple weeks or so ago, there was a kerfuffle involving the Tigers when Magglio Ordonez tarried at homeplate to see his his home run went fair or foul, and Angels starter Jered Weaver took exception. Later, Carlos Guillen put on a strutting display after his home run, and Weaver threw his next pitcher over the head of Alex Avila (and was ejected).

OK, so the Tigers figure it's OK to stand at homeplate to watch homers leave, right?

On Sunday, Asdrubal Cabrera tarried at home plate to watch his ball go foul, and Detroit's Rick Porcello threw his next pitch behind Cabrera's back.

Conclusion: It's OK for Tigers to do it, but not for their opponents.

This is known as Tony LaRussa logic. 

The platoon differential: "Fixing" Curtis Granderson

Curtis Grandrson had just four hits in his career against
Francisco Liriano before his game-changing triple in
the sixth inning on Wednesday.

It seems that every time Curtis Granderson -- the greatest former Mankato Masher -- comes to the plate in the Twins-Yankees series, Ron Darling tells us that the Yankee center fielder is greatly improved since hitting coach Kevin Long reworked his stance.

Oddly, Darling is quite vague on the specifics. There could be any number of reasons why, one of them being that the statistical facts don't match the claim and that Darling is merely buttering up Long by touting his expertise as a hitting instructor. This is not unknown in broadcasting.

About as specific as Darling has been: Granderson, he said, was hitting .240 in August when Long asked manager Joe Girardi to "give him to me for a couple of days" -- keep Granderson out of the lineup for intensive practice. Since then, Darling claimed, Granderson has hit marvelously.

Considering that Granderson hit .247 for the season, that would seem to overstate matters.

Let's back up a minute. The platoon advantage, as Bill James put it more than two decades ago, "is real and virtually universal." This season, in the American League, left-handed batters (such as Granderson) had 71 fewer points of OPS against left-handed pitching than against right-handers; right-handed hitters lost 34 points of OPS against righties. (Detailed numbers here)

Granderson has always sported an even more extreme platoon disadvantage. In 2009, while with the Tigers, Granderson hit .183/.245/.239 against lefties, .275/.358/.539 against righties. That's 413 points of OPS difference, despite which he had 180 at-bats against lefties,which is a lot.

His career platoon splits aren't quite that extreme, but they still suggest that he's virtually unplayable against left-handed pitchers. The Yankees, looking to inject some speed and athleticism into their aging lineup, traded for him anyway.

And he continued to flounder against lefties. And since the Yankees traditionally face more lefties than msot teams (because of the configuration of their home park), and because Granderson was still playing regularly (albeit hitting lower in the lineup), he wound up with 174 plate appearances against left-handers. This was wrecking his numbers.

The Kevin Long intervention appears to have come on Aug. 10 and 11; Granderson didn't start either day, but did play late-inning defense.

Entering Aug. 10, Granderson was hitting .240/.307/.417 for the season -- inadequate for a major league outfielder. After that, he hit .261/.356/.564. Not that much improvement in batting average, but he was drawing more walks and hitting for a lot more power.

I'd be wary of putting much weight on the platoon splits since Aug. 11, even if I had them; there simply aren't enough at-bats involved. I will note that the Star-Ledger (Newark), in reporting on Granderson's resurgence at the plate, said he's hitting .286 against lefties since Aug. 11 -- which would mean that, at least in batting average, he was hitting better against lefties than against righties. That's probably not sustainable.

So yes, the Long intervention appears to have helped Granderson. Whether the improvement, especially against southpaws, is permanent remains to be seen.

More PT for Hoffmann?

Everybody else's view of this week's Javier Vazquez (photo)-Melky Cabrera trade between the Yankees and Braves focuses on the Yankees pitching and the Braves lineup. Leave it to me to be parochial and focus on the Southern Minnesota angle.

Specifically, this deal appears to open the door to a significant role for New Ulm native Jamie Hoffmann.

Here are the key aspects:

1. The Yankees' current starting outfield —based on 2009 plate appearances — includes Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner — a switch hitter and two lefty bats.
2. Granderson's career platoon splits: .292/.367/.528 vs. RHP, .210/.270/.344 vs. LHP.
3. Gardner's career platoon splits: .260/.328/.361 vs. RHP, .241/.310/.316 vs. LHP.
4. Hoffmann is a right-handed hitter.
5. GM Brian Cashman said in announcing the Vazquez trade that the team was not going after further big-money players.

Take all that at face value, and the NUN — that's New Ulm native — figures to have at least a shot at a significant platoon role.

Do I take it at face value? Not really. The Yankees had supposedly set a payroll target for 2010 under $190 million; they are now above $200 million with just 16 players under contract, two of whom are unlikely to make the 25-man active roster. I believe that they have figures in mind for the name LFs in free agency — Johnny Damon, Matt Holliday, Jason Bay — and are just waiting for one of the three to drop into their laps.

But as matters stand, this trade looks like a nice Christmas present for Hoffmann.

Bonser, Granderson and Crain

As noted yesterday, Boof Bonser (above) was the loser when Carl Pavano accepted arbitration.

He's arbitration eligible — players get credited for service time when on the disabled list, which was at the heart of Glen Perkins' beef with the Twins in September — and figured to get a $1 million contract. Instead, he'll likely get a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. Quite the comedown.

We Twins fans will remember him for his name, of course, but we should also remember his fine pitching down the stretch in 2006, his rookie season — 4-1 in September-October with a 2.63 ERA. That was a promising beginning, but it turned out to be his best season with the Twins.

It said here Tuesday that something had to give in the Twins pitching logjam. Bonser was the first. Perkins may well be next — and LaVelle Neal suggested that the Twins may cut Jesse Crain loose before Saturday's deadline to tender contracts. Crain projects to get $3 million because he's arbitration eligible. If that seems like a lot for a middle reliever who had a 4.70 ERA, you're right. But he had a 2.20 ERA from August on.

Here's the thing: As documented by Joe Christensen, the Twins' projected payroll for 2010 is bumping the $90 million mark. If they're serious about adding a veteran infielder such as Mark DeRosa, they're likely to wind to cut somewhere else.

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Former Mankato Masher Curtis Granderson is by all accounts about to become a New York Yankee once a complex three-team trade is finalized — which is pending medical reviews.

Granderson is an eminently likable fellow and a player of talent and flaws. He can't hit lefties, he strikes out a lot and his numbers have declined the past two seasons. His departure is being mourned in the Tigers blogs I keep an eye on — he's the kind of guy fans easily make emotional investments in — but I think the organization is making a good baseball move here. At lot depends on Austin Jackson, the much-touted outfielder Detroit is getting from the Yankees.

What Arizona is thinking, that's another matter. I think Max Scherzer is a more valuable talent than Edwin Jackson, and Daniel Schlereth is a more valuable talent than Ian Kennedy, so what's the point?