Last Year's Durham Bulls: Pitchers

Here's what I've heard about last year's pitchers.

• Richard De Los Santos, 148 innings pitched, Durham Bulls
• Heath Phillips, 139 innings, Long Island Ducks
• Jeremy Hellickson, 117 innings, Tampa Bay Rays
• Aneury Rodriguez, 113 innings, Houston Astros
• Brian Baker, 105 innings, Durham Bulls
• Carlos Hernandez, 90 innings, ????
• Joe Bateman, 76 innings, Oakland Athletics
• Virgil Vasquez, 66 innings, LA Angels
• Dale Thayer, 60 innings, NY Mets
• Mike Ekstrom, 58 innings, Durham Bulls
• Winston Abreu, 55 innings, Toronto Blue Jays
• R.J. Swindle, 55 innings, Durham Bulls
• Darin Downs innings, 40, Florida Marlins

We had 11 pitchers with 20 innings or less (details here) and we'll surely be seeing some of them in 2011 (Cobb, Torres, McGee). If anyone can fill in the holes above I'll update this. Could swear that I heard something about Heath Phillips, but sure can't find my notes.

Update: April 19. Changes in italics

Looking at 2010 — 4 — Pitchers

Twenty-seven ballplayers stepped onto the mound for the Durham Bulls in the regular season. That compares to just 17 so far for the Tampa Bay Rays. We’ll take two of those off the list, since infielders Angel Chavez and Omar Luna were thrown to the wolves in the last inning of two games. Interestingly, they both did just fine. And we'll add one to the list, Alex Torres, who pitched a couple of postseason games.

We’ll look at the rest in order of innings pitched, since with only a couple of exceptions the Bulls seemed to be a bit confused over who was going to be a starter and who was going to be a reliever this year. It will probably take a couple of posts to get through these guys.

Richard De Los Santos (26). RHP. Mostly a starter. 148 1/3 innings (7 innings, postseason), 28 games (23 starts), 14-5, ERA 3.52.

• De Los Santos started the year as a reliever, making his first appearance in the Bulls’ third game. He started a game on May 1 and eventually set a Durham Bulls record of 14 wins in the regular season. How good is he? Pretty good. In a year where all except one other starter went on the DL, De Los Santos certainly showed durability and a very respectable ERA. Furthermore, as the season went on he was going further into games, although he never got past the 7th inning. We’ll have to see how the Rays treat him next year. My guess is that he will be back with the Bulls and we should be happy to have him.
  
• Stats.

Heath Phillips (28). LHP. Starter. 139 1/3 innings. 24 games. 8-7. ERA 4.07.

• Phillips has been a “wait till next year” kind of guy for quite a while now. We like him. But then there’s the 21 home runs he gave up (the most, by far, of a Durham pitcher). He was in the starting rotation from the beginning of the year and we are somewhat surprised that he put in as many innings as he did. He went on the DL in mid-August and sat out the remainder of the season. He’s been pitching in AAA for 4 years now, so he may have reached his limit. Nevertheless, big left-handers are a treasure, so expect him back next year.
  
• Stats.

Jeremy Hellickson (23). RHP. Starter. 117 2/3 innings. 21 games. 12-3. ERA 2.45. On Rays 40-man.

• A terrific pitcher and a pleasure to watch. Deserves all of the awards he got this year for his minor league performance. Unlike David Price’s tour as a Bull, when he was clearly working to some kind of Rays program and not necessarily focused on game situations, Jeremy made a big difference in the Bulls won-loss record. Very, very impressive young man. More than that, there’s a chance that he will at least start the season with the Bulls next year depending on how their year works out. Called up in August, he had a couple of very successful starts and then went to the bullpen where he is having no success at all, so far.
  
• Stats.

Aneury Rodriguez (22). RHP. Mostly a starter. 113 2/3 innings (7 2/3 post-season). 27 games (17 starts). 6-5. ERA 3.80.

• For Rodriguez I would judge his season as one of him wondering just what the Bulls expected of him. He was pressed into service after starter Jeff Bennett went on the DL in April. He had two brilliant games as a starter, then a couple not-so-brilliant, and then worked as a reliever and starter the rest of the year. Overall, an asset to the Bulls.
  
• Stats.

Brian Baker (27). RHP. Long relief, spot starter. 105 innings. 37 games (12 starts). 9-5. ERA 3.86.

• Even though he seemed to run out of steam at the end of the year, we were very impressed with Mr. Baker. Poised on the mound, smooth delivery, slightly generous with home runs (10), but not too bad. Note the number of innings he pitched relative to the rest of the team. Good job.
  
• Stats.

Carlos Hernandez (30). LHP. Starter. 90 2/3 innings. 18 games (17 starts). 6-5. ERA 4.17.

• I want to like Hernandez, I really do. But for two years we’ve been wondering if he was going to make it to the park for his next start. Something started going wrong in mid-June and even though he pitched in four games in July and one in August, he was really out for the season. Overall, he hasn’t been a very effective pitcher for the Bulls for the last two season. His ERA is up almost a full run from last year as well (3.29 to 4.17).
  
• Stats.

Joe Bateman (30). RHP. Reliever. 76 innings (6 2/3 postseason). 54 games. 7-0. ERA 1.66. 7 holds. 4 Saves.

• Bateman is one of my all-time favorite Bulls pitchers (the other being Winston Abreu) and this year he was even better than last year. More efficient, hit fewer batters (5, down from 9), and seemed to not get himself into as many difficult situations. We have always thought it odd that he has never had a chance with the majors. He still pitches a good game as far as we are concerned and we hope that he makes it back.
  
• Stats.

Virgil Vasquez (28). RHP. Starter. 66 1/3 innings. 12 games. 6-2. ERA 4.88.

• For his fourth AAA season (two with Toledo, one with Indianapolis), Virgil got off to a bad start when he broke both wrists in a traffic accident early in the year. That happened after just three games and he didn’t make it back until June 29. He went back on the DL in mid-August. Seems a likable guy, but his stats are nothing special.
  
• Stats.

Dale Thayer (29). RHP. Reliever. 60 innings (7 1/3 postseason). 46 games. 4-1. ERA 3.43. 5 holds. 2 saves. On Rays 40-man.

• This was not Dale’s best year. He did get to Tampa Bay twice, but only pitched in one game. He did a good job for the Bulls this season, just not as dominant as he has been in the past. He was outrighted to Durham September 1 (i.e., dropped from the 40-man) which means he will be a free agent at some magic day soon. Doubt that he will be back with the Bulls next year.
  
• Stats.

Playoff Pitching — 1

If any reader of this blog ever had any doubt that baseball is a demanding sport, consider this:

Of the five starting pitchers who began the 2010 for the Bulls, four are on the disabled list — Heath Phillips, Virgil Vasquez, Carlos Hernandez, and Jeff Bennett (who ended up in Nashville in the PCL league where he is on the DL). The exception, of course, is Jeremy Hellickson. And we will mention in passing our favorite guy, Jason Cromer, who never really showed up this year.

Meanwhile, according to Adam Sobsey over at Triangle Offense, this is the rotation that Charlie Montoyo is looking at for the playoffs:

Richard De Los Santos, Ramon Ortiz, Brian Baker, Aneury Rodriguez, Bobby Livingston.

We’ve got decent numbers on three of those guys, so here are their charts. Once they get a few more innings in, I’ll put up what we’ve got on Ortiz and Livingston.

A bit of apples and oranges here in terms of how each player got to where he is statistically. De Los Santos has, by far, the most innings and the most starts. But they all have been relievers and starters this year. The curves show what a steady performer De Los Santos has been all year, while Baker has been much more erratic (sometimes in a good way). At the moment, Baker certainly appears to be on a slight improvement trend while Rodriguez is on a very slight downward trend.

# 10

Game 107: Durham Bulls (Rays) 5; Pawtucket Red Sox (Red Sox) 1
Season: 67-40; Trip: 5-0; Streak: 10-0
Wrap, Box, Providence Journal

The story for fans up nawth was a visit to Pawtucket by rehabbing Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury. For the Bulls the story was the tenth win in this streak.

Another solid performance by our pitchers, beginning with Virgil Vasquez, visits by Mike Ekstrom and R. J. Swindle, and a close-out by Winston Abreu. Nicely done.

Dan Johnson picked up his 30th home run and 95th RBI. Elliot Johnson, playing right field, added a double and two RBI to his stats. Chris Richard added to his league-leading batch of doubles with his 34th.

Today’s game coverage is supposed to start at 12:50. Maybe we’ll get some background on what’s happening down in St. Petersburg. At best we’ve got to fill a big hole and, unless Carlos Hernandez or Jason Cromer (remember him?) comes off the DL, we just might not have anyone available.

Here’s an update on our hitters, and a new stat, bRAA (wRAA). Without digging into it too much, let’s just say that this number is how many runs a batter contributes to a team, above the league average. The problem, for evaluating Bulls, is that I’m guessing that the site where I get these numbers (www.statcorner.com) is using American League averages, not International League averages. That’s OK with me, because all I really want to show is the relative ranking of our hitters (and, obviously, Rays hitters as well). We would assume that going from the International League to the American League would result in a drop. How much? Hard, possibly impossible, to tell. Nevertheless, this is a number we can assume that Rays’ management is looking at.
What does the table tell us? Dan Johnson is having a terrific year. We knew that. Chris Richard’s year is much better than certainly I thought, as is Elliot Johnson’s. Desmond Jennings and Justin Ruggiano, only so-so. Fernando Perez, awful.

If these were the only numbers, you can see some obvious potential swaps between the teams.

Speaking of swaps and shifts, am I the only one who’s annoyed at Bulls management for lying to us? Here’s GM Mike Birling’s tweet from a couple of days ago when Jeremy Hellickson was pulled after three innings:

#GM A lot of twitter followers are wondering about Helly. He is fine. Just keeping his innings in check

Does anyone believe that now? Should we pay much attention in the future?

In the short run, the Rays acquisition of a reliever, Chad Qualls, doesn’t necessarily affect the Bulls since they put Grant Balfour on the DL after a particularly dumb move on his part, otherwise someone would have to have been pushed overboard.

But then there’s Rays first baseman Carlos Pena being pulled from last night’s game. Is that going to force the Rays to finally take a look at Dan Johnson? Looking at that table above, they could do worse.

Pitiful, Just Pitiful

Game 95: Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay) 3; Columbus Clippers (Cleveland) 8
Season: 56-30; Home Stand: 0-1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

Ugly, ugly, ugly. It was a pitiful performance by Durham pitchers. The 4th inning quite possibly the worst single inning of the year — 11 batters, 5 walks, 1 run scoring error, 2 hits, 5 runs, two Bulls pitchers.

Bulls broadcasters started making excuses for Jeremy Hellickson even before the game began, mentioning his fourteen days since his last Bulls start, his two innings at the Futures game (he should have gone just one?), the possibility that there might be some “rust”. As the game progressed there was a spate of blaming the ump, Derek Crabill, but since Columbus’ pitcher was getting the same calls, that didn’t fly. In the end, Hellickson was out of the game after 6 K’s, 5 BB’s, and 3 runs on 4 hits, leaving the bases loaded for Dale Thayer in the aforementioned 4th inning. Easily Hellickson’s worst start of the year. Possibly his worst start as a professional ballplayer.

Dale cleared out the debris by giving up a base-clearing double (adding three more runs to Hellickson's total), then loaded the bases himself with two walks. Still, he didn’t let any more runs in. That was left to Darin Downs, who coughed up two more runs on four more walks (that’s eleven if you’ve been counting) and a couple of hits.

I gave up at the end of the 5th and left the ballpark, but noticed that Brian Baker and Mike Ekstrom did decent jobs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th. Ekstrom did give up a BB for a season high 12 walks for the Bulls.

Carlos Hernandez, by the way, was put on the disabled list last night. A muscle strain of some sort, possible aggravated by a play at first base Sunday afternoon.

Moving right along, let’s just go on out to the Web World

• The Raleigh News & Observer did a not-very-timely profile on Jeremy Hellickson.
• Rays Index is reporting the Rocco Baldelli has signed a minor league contract with the Rays. He was before my time as a Bulls fans, but apparently he has a lot of Durham friends. He has been assigned to the Charlotte (Florida) Stone Crabs. We may see him in due time.
• Winston Abreu gets some love from DRaysBay with a plea for him to be called up.

Lastly, and very regretfully, is the news that Jon Weber, although retired, has received a 100 day suspension from major league baseball for his third positive test for a “drug of abuse.” Really sorry to hear it. Probably explains his sudden retirement.

Durham Bulls Starting Pitcher — Sunday, 9 May

(click chart for larger image)

Jeremy Hellickson is having a stellar year. His numbers are superb across the board, and he’s winning games. He’s by far our best pitcher and among the best in AAA baseball. We are fortunate Tampa Bay doesn’t need him right now.

On a related topic (stat-geek warning!) Carlos Hernandez’ performance last night was pure fodder for the baseball numerologists. Going into the game his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 4.68, his ERA was 3.10, and his won-loss record was 2-0.

He took the loss and is now 2-1.

But, since the play in which an error was committed could have ended the inning, all the runs scored thereafter were “unearned”. Hernandez lasted two more innings. So, for the night he had 0 earned runs and his ERA dropped from 3.10 to 2.73.

Of course, no one watching could call it a strong performance (except for the seven strikeouts — that was impressive). He took 94 pitches to get through 4 innings and he gave up a home run and two walks. His FIP barely changed, from 4.68 to 4.65.

So, you’ve got to score one for the sabremetricians on this one, the FIP sure looks like it judges pitchers better than ERA, at least in the case of Hernandez.

Get a Hit!

Game 23: Durham Bulls 7, Buffalo Bisons 12
Wrap, Box
Game 24: Durham Bulls 0, Rochester Redwings 1
Wrap, Box
Season: 15-9

What’s going on here? The Bulls have been skunked twice in three days after none at all before now.

Oh, what the heck, let’s just talk about trivia.

Such as: The Louisville Bats were out of town yesterday (in Buffalo). Was that deliberate choice to avoid the Derby or just happenstance? Inquiring minds want to know.

What in the world happened to Richard De Los Santos? Too bad his first AAA start didn’t work out with a win, but he pitched a terrific game. And he had a terrific outing in relief a few days ago. We can hope.

We need to hope since we’ve been short two starters ever since Jeff Bennett disappeared and Virgil Vasquez crashed his scooter.

Benchriders last night: Jennings (10), Colina (1), Richard (1), Eldridge (1)

Over at Rays Index he’s surveyed some of his fellow Rays bloggers to evaluate who might be traded this year. Current Bulls Hank Blalock, Justin Ruggiano, Dan Johnson, Fernando Perez, Aneury Rodriguez, Carlos Hernandez, Winston Abreu, and Dale Thayer all made the list. Sort of like living in a meat market, seems to me. Must work on the heads of our players.

Today we’ve got a day game (1 pm). Again I’ve got to ask how come we don’t have those in Durham? Anybody know?

Inquiring minds mind would also like to know how come the Minnesota Twins’ Triple-A franchise is in Rochester, New York? They are almost 1000 miles apart. Could be that a Twins executive thought he was placing the team in Rochester, Minnesota, but that seems a bit implausible. We made an effort to understand this back in the Spring, but didn’t succeed. Maybe it has to do with learning how to play cold, especially with the Twins new park.

The Tobacco Road Cafe is open. Might be an interesting place for a before or after game meal. Not sure it will be a good place to watch the game from, though.

If you happen to be into contests/sweepstakes and stuff like that, minor league baseball has a couple going on: here and here.

All-Star Break — Pitching

(click on chart for larger image)

For AAA the All-Star break comes at a point well past mid-season. We’re at 90 games, 18 past the 72 games that mark the first half of the season for us. And we only have 27 home games left before the playoffs begin.

Although we looked at these numbers recently, thought they might be worth another look before things start up again.

What jumps out at me in the pitching chart is the lack of depth. Of the five, only three have seen very many starts as Bulls (Davis 18, Hernandez 17, and Cromer 9). Of course, Sonnanstine had a bunch of starts with the Rays and if his mononucleosis is under control he will be a huge asset the rest of the season. I have no idea of Mitch Talbot’s status. He had 10 starts before he went on the disabled list and were he to come back, we could certainly expect a lot from him. So, that leaves only Matt DeSalvo as a weak starting pitcher.

Childers, DePaula, Bateman, and Thayer are obviously the core of our relievers and they are all doing credible jobs. It’s hard to tell how James Houser might work out as a reliever, but not bad so far. Similarly, Medlock’s status is uncertain. There’s something going on with him that appears to have nothing to do with Bulls as a team, but with roster juggling. Certainly his numbers are just fine and we’d be better off with him available in the bullpen all the time. We’ve only seen 3 innings from Meloan, so he’s impossible to judge. Julio is unimpressive.

So what do we have to worry about? Well, that’s pretty simple, the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays 40-man roster has five of our pitchers on it: Talbot, Davis, Sonnanstine, Houser, and Thayer. The Rays also have three pitchers on their disabled list, all relievers, but only one that appears to be coming off any time soon (Brian Shouse). For the Bulls that should mean that, except for Dale Thayer, our current crop of relievers should be safe from call up. Among our starters, my guess is that it would be a coin toss between Sonnanstine and Davis.

Are any of our pitchers trade bait? Hard to tell. The Rays’ problem at the moment appears to be the bullpen. Would they trade a promising starter for a proven reliever? Maybe, but this is the team that has already traded two proven pitchers off this year (Jackson and Hammel), so while it could surely happen, doesn’t seem likely. If they needed a position player, then maybe. But other than the catcher position, the Rays don’t seem to have any glaring weaknesses among their position players (and they’ve always got Joe Dillon). So, could they do something? Yes. Will they? What do you think?

I don’t have a good sense of who’s pitching in Montgomery this year, especially among the starters. So no idea who the Rays might want to have some AAA time. But that could add some interesting variables to the mix.

Matt Takes One For The Team

Game 20: Bulls 6, Clippers 3
Season: 13-7
Wrap, Box

Matt Joyce took one for the team and scored the winning run in the 7th.

Not that he had much choice in the matter. Clippers’s reliever Zach Jackson hit him in the back. Ruggiano then singled him to second. He went to third on a Chris Richard walk. He came home on a Chris Nowak sacrifice fly, and the Bulls went ahead 4-3.

The Bulls then scored two more runs when John Jaso singled.

I was once again impressed with our relievers Randy Choate and Winston Abreu.

Worried about Jon Weber leaving the game in the 8th. Could not see exactly what happened from where I sat, but radio reported he fouled the ball into his foot. In obvious pain.

Other notes:

• Listening to Neil Solondz on the radio during the game I heard him say that pitcher Jeremy Cummings will be coming back to the Bulls later in May. That’s really good news.

• Rays reliever, rehabbing right-hander Jason Isringhausen did not make an appearance.

• Looks like the Tampa Bay took Her Rays’ admonishment to heart. They beat the Boston 13-0 tonight. Catcher Michel Hernandez went 4-5 with a double and his first major league home run!
  

April Cool

For those who missed last night, you missed one of the great pleasures of April in Durham at the DBAP -- freezing your butt off. But it looks good for opening day tomorrow. Now if it just holds up for the rest of the week.

The players were out in the field running down fly balls and taking a bit of batting practice. Looks like they’ve got new warm-up jackets this year and they are an improvement over last year’s.

The opening day roster was handed out and showed up on the Bulls website today.

Three of the players on the roster I’m really happy to see back with the Bulls: Chris Richard, Jon Weber, and Michel Hernandez. Jon is a master of the Blue Monster and dangerous at bat. Looks like Chris Richard will be the designated veteran of the team, at 35 he’s two years older than Adam Kennedy. A very solid first baseman and another left-handed bat for us. Michel Hernandez has what we need behind the plate and in the bullpen: major league experience and time handling just about every sort of pitcher to come along. All three got invites to the Rays spring training and Jon and Chris in particular did very well there. Here’s hoping they keep it up. I think that Michel stuck with the Rays through the World Series last year, so he’s probably in line for an American League championship ring.

Think I’ll wait until the first game to comment on other veterans such as Elliot Johnson and Justin Ruggiano, as well as what looks like a very solid starting pitcher lineup.