More on the '69 Mets

As promised in Monday's print column:

The 1969 Mets had two young pitchers destined to win more than 300 games apiece — Tom Seaver (311 wins) and Nolan Ryan (324). The staff also included Jerry Koosman (222 wins) and Tug McGraw (96 wins and 180 saves), who weren't Cooperstown-bound but destined for long and distinguished careers.

In 1969 Seaver was 24, and he pitched 271 innings. Koosman was 26 and threw 241 innings. McGraw was 24 and pitched more than 100 innings, mostly in relief. Ryan was 22 and had a much lighter workload (15 relief outings, 10 starts, 89-plus innings), but he had missed almost all of the 1967 season with arm problems and was notoriously wild.

By today's standards, Seaver, Koosman and McGraw had heavy workloads for pitchers so young. Yet they weren't burned out by such use.

Of course, the Mets also had Gary Gentry, 22, regarded as every bit a match in talent to the others. He made 35 starts, pitched 233-plus innings and was fried before he reached 30.

We don't have pitch counts for these guys, but we do know how many batters they faced per game. This counts in longevity; in his book "The Diamond Appraised," Craig Wright used batters-faced to study pitcher durability and concluded that, especially for pitchers under age 25, BFP should be limited to an average of 30 per start (or less).

Koosman was a tad under 30 in 1969. Seaver was at 31. Gentry was at 27. Ryan, in his 10 starts, was at 24. Wright thinks Seaver, as great as he was, might have had an even greater career had he been handled a bit more carefully in his first few years with the Mets. 

Most organizations, in the 1960s and '70s used four-man rotations — or, perhaps more specifically, four-day rotations. The top pitchers pitched every fourth day, three days of rest. The Mets used a five-day rotation. Seaver's 35 starts in 1969 break down thusly: 18 starts on four days rest; eight starts on three days; four starts on five days; three starts on six days; and one start on two days (he made a one-out relief appearance and started two days later; it was four days after his previous start.) The Mets spaced out starts more than the other teams of the era did, which is why they never had anybody throw 300 innings in a time when that was not unusual.

Seaver, Ryan, Gentry and Koosman were all power pitchers. Jim McAndrew was not. McAndrew, age 25, started 21 games for the '69 Mets (and had six relief appearances) for 135 innings. His BFP worked out to 24.4, but it was skewed. He had starts in the first half of the season in which he faced 9, 6, 12 and 16 hitters. But in his last 11 starts, he never faced fewer than 25 batters, and once reached 41 (he pitched 11 innings). He was pitching well in August and September, and manager Gil Hodges rode him hard.

And like Gentry, he was washed up at a young age.

The Hoffmann watch

NUN Jamie Hoffmann's playing time pretty much evaporated in the past week, with one at-bat since May 25.

Here's his game log. 

It's not too surprising that he's not getting a lot of PT. The Dodgers have Matt Kemp (career .296 hitter) in center and Andre Ethier (career .294 hitter) in right, and Hoffmann isn't likely to dislodge either of them. Juan Pierre got first crack at left field duty after Manny Ramirez got caught by the doping police, and he's merely hitting .384.  We all know he's not that good — nobody is, including Joe Mauer — but Joe Torre is not about to stop riding that hot hand.

But Pierre's 0-for-7 the last two days, so maybe ... 

More of the inexplicable

In the spirit of an earlier post:

* How the San Francisco Giants could go about a decade with this guy and this guy in the lineup back-to-back (not to mention this guy heading the starting rotation) and wind up with one NL pennant, one division title and zero World Series titles. 

*Why Delmon Young (.245-.291-.284; that's right, two extra-base hits in 107 plate appearances) gets the majority of playing time over Carlos Gomez (.217-.289-.315 in 100 plate appearances). The offense is similarly offensive, and Gomez is far superior in the field.

* How Joe Mauer can be hitting .500 against right-handers almost a month into his season.

* How Matt Tolbert can survive striking out at a .267 clip. He has 14 hits — and 19 strikeouts. Gardnehire may love his hustle and attitude, but those attributes only go so far.

(Update on the Tolbert point: The Twins have put Nick Punto on the disabled list and recalled Alexi Casilla. Harris is to play short and Casilla second with Tolbert backing up both. That's more sensible than Tolbert as the regular second baseman.)

Bullpen Ray guns

The Twins today open a series in Tampa Bay against the defending AL champs, which sets up a compare and contrast opportunity regarding the two bullpens.

Ron Gardenhire is a slave to current convention in handling the relief corps. Joe Nathan pitches the ninth inning in save situations. He gets three outs and he's out; he has yet to pitch more than an inning at a time. He is the only Twin with a save so far.

This is probably not the optimal use of a relief ace; there's no way a three-run lead in the ninth is more crucial than a tie in the seventh or eighth, but that's the way managers regulate the workload these days. As for the three-outs-and-done ... well, Nathan's 34, and he didn't seem to handle four- and five-out assignments with any success last season, when the middle relief implosions prompted Gardy to expand Nathan's workload.

Anyway: Nathan in the ninth, Jose Mijares and Matt Guerrier as the primary set-up men, R.A. Dickey as the long man, Sean Henn (theoretically) as a LOOGY, Jesse Crain and Luis Ayala trying to re-establish themselves as serious options. It's a bullpen of set roles, and four of the seven, at least, are doing well in those roles (Nathan, Mijares, Guerrier, Dickey).

Joe Maddon is a bit more adventuresome, or at least he was late last season, when Troy Percival was on and off the DL and not always available when active. The Rays have six pitchers with saves — Percival has six to lead the team, and may never have another (he's on the disabled list again and contemplating "retirement;" I put quote marks around the word because he's "retired" and returned before.)

Last season, six Rays had at least two saves. Percival, who led the team in saves (28), also had four holds — meaning he was occasionally used to protect leads in the seventh or eighth innings.
Maddon shuffled lefty J.P. Howell, former Twins fireballer Grant Balfour, journeyman Dan Wheeler and phenom David Price — plus ROOGY Chad Bradford and LOOGY Trevor Miller — through a variety of roles in the postseason with success.

This year, the no-role bullpen has struggled. Howell's faring well — 2.63 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 24 innings — but Balfour's ERA is 5.75, and he's walked 14 men in 20 1/3 IP, and Wheeler has thown four home run balls in his 16 innings (4.86).

The bullpen may not be Maddon's greatest concern these days; his middle infield is on the DL, and two of his starters, Scott Kazmir and Andy Sonnenstine, have ERAs above 7. But he's not getting much relief from his no-role pen either.

A bad day for an ump

Todd Tichenor is umping home plate today in the Red Sox-Twins game at the Dome, and he's not having a good day.

The seventh inning just ended. In the top of the seventh, he butchered a play at the plate — Jason Kubel threw out Jeff Bailey, but Tichenor missed the call. Then Tichenor threw out Mike Redmond. Then he threw out Ron Gardenhire. Since Joe Mauer was the DH and had to go into the game to catch, the Twins lost their DH.

In the bottom of the seventh, Tichenor — whose strike zone has wandered considerably all game — called a ball on Brandon Harris, and Josh Beckett said a naughty word. Loudly. When everything was over in that rhubarb, Boston catcher Jason Veritek and manager Terry Francona were ejected, with Francona delivering a variety of emphatic hand gestures vividly describing Tichenor's ball-strike calls. Unlike Gardenhire, Francona is not known for getting ejected.

I believe Tichenor is a vacation fill-in ump, not a full timer. I know I was looking at the crew at the start of the series and wondered who the crew chief is. Jerry Layne, I suppose. It certainly is not a veteran crew; Chris Guccione might be a fill-in too. Anyway, you've got to figure: An ump runs four players/managers, he's having a bad day.

Update: Game over. The run on the Bailey play didn't beat the Twins. How the game would have run with better ball-strike calling, that's completely unknowable.

Of interest, given this morning's post, is how the Twins bullpen fared, and how Gardenhire deployed them.

Anthony Swarzak started, pitched pretty well, left in the seventh having given up a homer and bloop double. Jesse Crain entered, faced one batter, got a fly to right on a 3-2 count that moved Bailey to third. Out went Crain (a week of rest and just six pitches, half of them balls), in came Henn.

Gardy probably had this in mind: Henn gets Jacoby Ellsbury, they walk Dustin Pedroia intentionally, then Henn goes after J.D. Drew. That would be classic LOOGY use. Henn, however, plunked Ellsbury with the 2-2 pitch. Now he had pitch to Pedroia — who hit the fly to right that started the ejection runaround. That's the second out, and Drew hit the first pitch to second to end the inning.

In for the eighth (and ninth) comes Luis Ayala. He faced just six hitters, gave up one hit, got a double play.

What I take from this:

1) Crain is on a much shorter leash right now than he was 10 days ago.

2) Henn hasn't pitched enough yet to establish whether he's a good LOOGY candidate, but: He's now faced nine right handed hitters, and none have gotten a hit. Two walks, Pedroia's disputable sac fly, and 0-for-6 in official at-bats. Lefties are 3-for-8 with a HBP and two doubles. That's a .444 OPB and .556 SLG. And going that far inside on the 2-2 pitch to Ellsbury wasn't good. The best that could happen was going to 3-2.

3) Ayala's results look good, but three of the six outs were air outs, which doesn't suggest that he has rediscovered his good sinker. He did throw strikes, however — 12 strikes, two balls in his 14 pitches.

Working the bullpen

The print column two weeks ago suggested that Ron Gardenhire was overworking the few relievers he trusted.

Here's an update:

In the past week — starting with the 20-1 shellacking of the Chicago White Sox that ended a bizarre road trip (the Twins went 1-6 while outscoring their opponents) — the Twins played seven games, going 6-1.

They've used Joe Nathan four times, twice in save situations, the other two just to get him some work.

Jose Mijares had pitched three times, getting one hold.

Matt Guerrier has pitched three times, getting two holds.

Jesse Crain, the fourth guy Gardy was using in game situations, has not worked at all, suggesting that he (a) pitched his way into the doghouse and/or (b) is not fully recovered from the arm issue that landed him on the DL.

Luis Ayala has pitched once. He got one out, gave up two hits, and came out.

Sean Henn, who relieved Ayala, has pitched twice. (He replaced Craig Breslow on the roster; Breslow has since pitched four times for Oakland, taking one loss but lowering his ERA from 6.28 to 5.40.)

R.A. Dickey has pitched once, a four inning stint that was a perfect example of his role.

In that week, the Twins bullpen has been charged with three runs allowed (one each for Mijares, Guerrier and Dickey) in 15.1 innings, a 1.76 ERA. Only one of those runs (Dickey's) can be said to have had an impact on the outcome, and even that one didn't look significant at the time. The bullpen has not blown a lead.

And, perhaps most important, the key guys — Nathan, Mijares and Guerrier — haven't been overexposed.

Still, the Twins need at least one more useful arm, preferably two — and that's assuming that Henn proves a fit as a LOOGY.

Baseball and the Supreme Court

I imagine Bud Selig, commissioner for life, brooding in his Milwaukee estate over the sudden decline in his political fortune. For eight years, the president of the United States was a man who had once been a member of Bud's little fraternity, the owner of a major league team. And now the new president has appointed to the Supreme Court the very judge who, in 1995, told Bud and Co. that they couldn't impose a new contract on the players, that they had to negotiate with the union.

Sonia Sotomayor may or may not have "saved baseball," as President Obama suggested Tuesday in nominating her. But she is a baseball fan (her team is the Yankees), and as such fits in a long court tradition. Samuel Alito, currently the most junior member of the court, is a noted Phillies fan, for example.

One famous story about baseball and the court centers on Potter Stewart, a fan of the Cincinnati Reds. On Oct. 10, 1973, the Red and New York Mets were playing the deciding game of the NL Championship Series — a day game. The court was hearing oral arguments.

Stewart and fellow justice Harry Blackmun had the clerks provide them with inning-by-inning updates on the game. As the lawyers droned on, the clerks would hand the justices memos with the score.

One said: "V.P. Agnew resigns! Mets 2, Reds 0." (The memo was circulated among the full court and eventually made its way into Blackmun's official papers.)