Home Stand Ends Well; To Charlotte; Charts

Well, this wasn't all that great a home stand for the Bulls, but it did end well. The four-game losing streak was disturbing; however, things seemed to sort themselves out the last two games, even if yesterday was touch and go.

Sunday was the 4th "bullpen day" since April 27. The Bulls have won three of those games, which says a lot about this year's relief crew. Without Yonny Chirinos' complete game shutout on Saturday, I doubt that it would have worked yesterday, though. Statistical trivia. Don't think I've seen two blown saves in one game before.

Sunday was also the seventh extra-inning game the Bulls have played. They won 3 of those games.

The Bulls are four games ahead of Gwinnett in the South, but note that Charlotte's on a streak.

click on chart for larger image

Runs Scored Chart

Net runs scored is one of those interesting stats that we like to track. If you run it through the Pythagorean Expectation formula, it will tell you what the team's won-lost record "should" be. In the Bulls case, this year the PE formula says that the Bulls "should" be at 23-12, exactly where they are. The Knights, who are at 18-17, "should" be at 19-16. The sabermetrics guys seem to think that discrepancies tend to indicate strengths (weaknesses) in relief pitching.

What this chart shows is just how well this year's team is doing compared to previous years, the best since 2013.

Rosterizing

• RHP Yoel Espinal came back from Montgomery and did a fine job last night.
• RHP Ryan Stanek got called up to Tampa Bay and had his big league debut against the Red Sox last night. He faced two batters. One hit. One K.
• RHP Blake Snell is coming back. In my end of year comments last year I said that after Snell's callup in June he would not be back. I was wrong (imagine that!). He hasn't been having a very good year with the Rays (4-0, 8 games, 4.71 ERA, 25 BB in 42 innings). Expect him to be working on very specific tasks, which may or may not help the Bulls when he shows up.

Matchup 

Charlotte's on a roll lately. And they are hitting very well. And they are at home. This could be an interesting series.

Durham Bulls Sweep Chiefs; Bisons in Town; Charts!

Syracuse came to Durham on a six-game winning streak. They left town on a three-game losing streak. Last night the Bulls' bats simply got very, very hot — especially Patrick Leonard who is now at .413 on the season!

Disturbingly, the Bulls pitching roster is short two starters and one of the fill-ins, newcomer Edwin Fierro left the game with an injury last night.

Time for some charts. All can be expanded by clicking on the image.

The Bulls lead the IL South and have the best won-loss record in the league.

Pitching is better than the league average, with the relief crew doing a simply superb job.

As are the hitters, with last night's game being their best effort of the year.

Tonight the Bisons are in town. The Blue Jays' Triple-A team leads the International League North and is arriving after splitting a series with Norfolk (and putting up with much of the same weather we've seen this last week).

Familiar faces on the Bisons include pitcher Jeff Beliveau from 2013 and 2014, catcher Luke Maile who was with the Bulls for much of 2015 and 2016; and infielder Jake Elmore, who had 57 games with the Bulls (and 51 with the Rays) in 2015.

The Durham Bulls in 2016: Part 1

This is the first of several posts where we review the 2016 Durham Bulls season. We'll start with some overall team stats, then take a look at individual players.

Overall, this was not a good year for the Durham Bulls. At 20 games into the season they dropped below .500 and never got back. There was a moment, however, at the end of July that they had a clear shot at winning the IL South Division. But they fell off the edge and never recovered.

See also  Part 2 - The Pitchers, Part 3 - The Hitters, Part 4 - The Tampa Bay Rays, and Part 5 - The DBAP.

Wins and Losses

How bad was it? Well, let's just point out that this was the worst year in Triple-A history of the Durham Bulls.

Pitching

Overall, pitching was decent this year. As the chart shows, the relief crew was not very good for much of the year; however, the team average ERA stayed below the IL average. At the end of the year the team ERA of 3.67 ranked 7th in the International League.

This was not a stable crew.  The Bulls saw 34 different pitchers take the mound. That included four position players and a couple of rehabs.

On balance, however, we have to say that pitching was not the problem in 2016.

Hitting

Durham Bulls hitting in 2016 in a word — awful. Their end of year OPS was .685, 12th in the 14-team International League and .047 behind the league leader Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Their batting average was a dismal .238 tied for worst in the league with the Syracuse Chiefs.

Of the 23 players who came to bat this year (two of them were pitchers with just one plate appearance each), only three played in over 100 games. The best of the bunch was infielder Daniel Robertson who hit .259 with 43 RBI and a decent OPS of .713.

Geek stuff comment: I chose OPS since folks are reasonably familiar with the stat. Plus, when charted in this manner the curve matches the same curve for wOBA very well. For an individual player, by the way, an OPS of .685 is characterized as falling between "poor" and "below average". Obviously, early in the season the hitting was really bad and there was a steady improvement, but not enough to make up for the dropoff in pitching as season's end.

Defense

To discuss defense we had to invent a stat since none of the ones I'm familiar with seemed to get at the issue. In midseason it just seemed like the Bulls were giving away a lot of games.

This is a very simple stat, "Defensive Difference Index". It is the running total of unearned runs as a percentage of all runs allowed. Seems to me that this measure accounts for the fact that a lot of mistakes such as wild pitches, errors, and passed balls don't end up making a difference. Here we see that the Bulls really weren't very good at defense this year, but certainly had a very good run near the end, bringing themselves down to near the IL average.

How did they compare? Well, that's where this stat may have some problems. The Bulls were nearly the worst in the league. They ranked 12th out of 14. But the worst team in the league by this measure was the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, who won the North Division. The best team in the league was the Charlotte Knights, who did not do well at all. However, the Columbus Clippers, the best record in the IL, ranked #4. Guess that it means that it takes everything to have a winning team.

Blown Save

Game 121, 13 August, Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Charlotte Knights (White Sox): 5
Durham Bulls (Rays): 1
Season: 54-67; Home Stand: 1-1; Home Games Remaining: 12
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Stats:
Game Score: Schultz 89; Season Avg 55 (24 starts, 122 innings)
Tm OPS: Game .406; Season .672; Diff -.266

Jamie Schultz pitched his best game of the season and added to his league-leading strikeout totals by 11. He left the game with a shutout in hand.

At first, I wondered why Tyler Sturdevant was called in for the 9th. However, the facts were that he had only allowed 1 run in 9 appearances since the All-Star break. So, it seemed to make sense. But things got ugly in a hurry when two infield singles and a sacrifice put runners on second and third with one out. Former Bull Jerry Sands came to bat.

The broadcasters mentioned that an intentional walk was the obvious call, setting up a possible double play. What were they thinking? Manager Jared Sandberg has only called for an intentional walk 5 times this year. It is simply not what he does as a manager (he only called for 8 all of last season). He is not alone in his thinking. The best team in the league, the RailRiders, has only called for 4. Still, Sandberg is the same guy who has said that hitting is contagious on both a team and individual level and Sands had gotten two of the three hits allowed by Schultz. Just sayin'.

All of which became moot when Sands hit a three-run home run. A couple more hits and a couple more runs later Parker Markel came in to get the last out. But not before Sturdevant had earned his 4th blown save and a loss, his ERA had ballooned from 1.14 to 2.51 and the Bulls had slipped out of first place .

Moving on to another topic: Unless local reporters, that would be the Herald-Sun, ask the question, or we happen to tune in to the broadcast early, we fans never get injury updates from the Bulls. Jaff Decker played last night for the first time since August 5. Injured? Probably.

Pitching

Since the All-Star break the relief crew has been doing a terrific job. By last Thursday, they'd brought their running ERA down from 3.79 to 3.43, even better than the starters. In just two games, two of them, Kyle Stanek up in Pawtucket and Sturdevant here in Durham, have added enough runs to push the entire relief crew's ERA back to being well above the team average.

click for larger view

Mistakes Matter

Game 116, August 7, DBAP
Gwinnett Braves: 5
Durham Bulls: 2
Season: 53-63; Home Stand: 2-3
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Stats:
Game Score: Schultz 48; Season Avg 54 (23 starts, 114 innings)
Tm wOBA: Game .294; Season .301; Difference -.007

Steve Wiseman, writing for the Durham Herald-Sun, captured some of my feelings about the game here:

In the eighth inning, [Casey] Gillespie represented the tying run at the plate with one out and Durham runners on first and second. But, on a 3-0 count, he grounded into an inning-ending double play.
“For a young hitter to come to Triple-A and get the green light, you try to get a good pitch to hit and do some damage,” Sandberg said. “Obviously it’s easy to be critical of him because he made an out. But I want him to be aggressive there. I was pleased with how aggressive he was.”
In the ninth inning, the Bulls loaded the bases with two outs thanks to a Gwinnett error and two walks. But, after working the count full against Braves hard-throwing closer Maikel Cleto, Alec Sole took a called third strike to end the game.

Actually, I'm not critical of Gillespie, I'm critical of the manager. The same manager who, at the start of the 6th inning, didn't even have a reliever warming up when Jamie Schultz was at 90+ pitches. After a double, a long fly ball that moved the runner to 3B, a walk, an errant pick-off throw that scored an unearned run, another walk, Schultz was up to 106 pitches. Markel was finally warming up. The same manager who, with an unusually deep bench, sent to the plate a fellow who has yet to have a hit for the Bulls.

By the way, new to the Rays shortstop Matt Duffy was with the Bulls on a rehab assignment, 0 for 4.

Outside the game —

• The Bulls have a day off. It's time to note just how much harder these guys work than their major league counterparts. The Bulls first game this year was on April 7, the Rays first game was earlier, April 3. The Bulls have played 116 games in 122 days. The Rays have played fewer games (110) in more (126) days and, of course, traveled in much more comfort. Today is the last day off of the season.

About those unearned runs ...

Unearned runs are the result of mistakes by the defending team. So, it somehow doesn't seem fair to count them against the pitcher. That's why we have earned run averages. Overall, one of the many problems of the Bulls this year is mistakes of various sorts (errors, passed balls, etc.). That situation can be expressed as the percentage of unearned runs as part of the overall runs scored against the Bulls. It is not a pretty picture. And it has been an unlovely picture for most of the year. For the International League as a whole, 10.5% of the runs scored have been unearned. For the Bulls, as of last night, 13.8% of runs scored were unearned. That's down from a season-high of 15.9% back on May 8th, but the Bulls have been above the IL average since very early in the season. Some of that percentage can be attributed to Eddie Gamboa's contribution to the passed ball numbers, a league-leading  28, but the Bulls also hold second place in errors in with 93.

Here's how the unearned run rate has looked since the All-Star break (game 93).

click on chart for larger image

Bulls' Bats Come Back

Game 115, August 6, DBAP
Gwinnett Braves: 0
Durham Bulls: 10
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Stats:
Game Score: Marks 77; Season Avg 54 (18 starts, 104.2 innings)
Tm wOBA: Game .470; Season .301; Diff +.169

Just last Wednesday the Bulls had their worst game at bat of the entire season (Tm wOBA of only .031). Last night they had one of their best: home runs, triples, doubles, singles adding up to 25 total bases. Leading the band was Johnny Field who hit a home run on the second pitch of the game. Also hitting home runs were two of the three Bulls catchers — Curt Casali who was actually catching, and Hank Conger, who was DHing. The third catcher, J.P. Arencibia, had the night off. In fact, everyone reached base (Motter on a fielder's choice) except new guy Alec Sole.

Meanwhile, Justin Marks had another good start.

About those catchers —

The Bulls are carrying three and something will have to give. At the moment the Bulls have 12 pitchers and 13 position players on the roster, the reverse from the usual 13 pitchers/12 position players. Both Hank Conger and Curt Casali are on the 40-man, and they both started the season with the Rays. I think that means that they are both drawing full major league salaries. They are with the Bulls because they weren't having very good seasons and then the Rays claimed a catcher, Bobby Wilson, off waivers. That gives the Rays five catchers with significant major league time (J.P. Arencibia has almost 500 major league games under his belt, many more than Conger, Casali, Maile, or Bobby Wilson). Given my track record for bad guesses, I'm not going to try. But the Bulls need a reliever to replace Danny Farquhar.

Outside the game--

• My local newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer, appears to have given up on covering the Bulls in print. Not even reprinting the press release of previous day's game now. 
• Mikie Mahtook is reported as coming off the disabled list and should start playing for the Rays soon.

Here is a chart displaying the Bulls' erratic hitting performance. This is the game-by-game team wOBA since the All-Star break (July 14th). Nice to see slight upward trend since hitting has been the Bulls' problem all year. Obviously, an above-average night at bat doesn't guarantee a win, but it sure doesn't hurt. Similarly, a poor night at bat (for example, July 16th's wOBA of just .191), doesn't always mean a loss — June 16th was the night Justin Marks threw a no-hitter.

The Durham Bulls at the All Star Break - Part 2 - Pitching and Hitting

Pitching

Bulls pitching has been just fine. The starters' collective ERA is 3.40, much better than the league average of 3.64. The relievers have not been doing nearly as well, but as a team, the pitching crew has been better than the league average.

Game Scores

The Game Scores chart reflects the starting crew's strengths and weaknesses. Adam Wilk is now on the disabled list and Eddie Gamboa had quite a stretch on the list as well. Clearly, Austin Pruitt is  the better of the crew that started the season and Jacob Faria's three games have been very promising. Note that a Game Score of 50 is considered average.

Hitting

The fundamental problem with the 2016 Bulls is hitting. The team wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) at the moment is .296. In general, .300 is considered "poor" and .290 is considered an "awful" wOBA. For the last month or so the wOBA has wavered between "awful" and "poor" with no real trend one way or another.

See Part 1 for charts on overall team performance. 

The Durham Bulls at the All-Star Break - Part 1

The best team in the International League South Division is the Charlotte Knights (White Sox). They are an ugly 8 games below .500. That leaves the Durham Bulls in the very odd position of being an even worse 12 games below .500 in the won-loss metric, but only 2 games behind in the division competition. [standings]

Click for larger image

This leads quite naturally to the speculation that if the Bulls could make a serious run at reaching just the .500 mark they'd have a chance at winning the division and making the playoffs (the wild card is obviously going to come from either the North or West Division). So here's a chart that tracks the Bulls' performance back to mid-season (72 games) and shows the path to .500. The Bulls need to win 32 out of the next 52 games to get there.

How did the Bulls descend to such levels? Well, their opponents scored more runs than they did. How's that for a blinding glimpse of the obvious? The Bulls' run differential seems to have stabilized over the last several games. Unfortunately, that stability has come at around the -60 mark. It could be worse. If you take the run differential and process it through the Pythagorean Expectation formula the Bulls "should" be at 38-54 instead of their actual 40-52. Small favors.

How does the current situation compare to previous years? Well, the Bulls are reaching down into 2012 territory, but that was between two Governors' Cup years. In 2012 the Bulls finished 66-78 and in third place in the South Division.

The Durham Bulls at Mid-Season

The International League season is 144 games. Yesterday's game 72 was the midpoint. How are the Bulls doing? Not so good.

Standings

The Bulls at 31 wins and 41 losses are in third place in a very weak South Division. The good news (?) is that a solid run towards a .500 season might get them to the playoffs. Of course, that's exactly what Gwinnett, Charlotte, and Norfolk must be thinking.

Run Differentials

Runs differentials are a good metric to watch and here the Bulls are really in trouble. If you crunch this difference (currently -61) through Bill James' Pythagorean Expectation formula you come up with an "expectation" that things should be even worse — a won-loss record of 29-43.

How does the current run differential compare to previous years? It is approaching that of 2012, the worst year in the Triple-A Durham Bulls history.

Pitching

Twenty-five ballplayers have stepped up on the mound for the Durham Bulls this year. Two of them (Mayo Acosta and Dayron Varona) were position players. The performance of all of them is charted below. The team ERA of 3.67 is tied for 8th place in the 14-team International League. They strike out a lot of people, 654, and lead the IL in that category.

Until recently, the starting crew was doing exceptionally well. However, during this last road trip the starters were getting steadily worse.

Hitting

The big issue with this year's Durham Bulls is the weak hitting. The Bulls batting average, .256, is league-worst, as is the team OPS, .643. Furthermore, the current trend is drifting downward.

Individual Hitters

Twenty different players have come to bat for the Bulls so far this year. None of them has been particularly impressive. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the performance of the "invitation to spring training/minor league contract" guys. These are the players who usually make a difference. So far in 2016, not so much. We're talking about players like Kyle Roller, Jake Goebbert,  Dayron Varona and J.P. Arencibia. My impression is that Dayron Varona is doing better than his numbers show. He does have 30 RBI. We like him. Richie Shaffer, expected to be the big gun this year, has been disappointing. He would surely agree. An oddity in his numbers is that he leads the team in strikeouts (74) and comes close to leading the team in walks (33). Note that the leaders on this board have very few plate appearances.

This table is sorted by wOBA. The wRAA stat (Weighted Runs Above Average) gives a sense of what the player is contributing to the team in terms of runs.

Name	Age	PA	AVG	OPS	wRAA	wOBA
Johnny Field	24	83	.263	.760	1.4	.340
Jake Hager	23	47	.304	.732	0.4	.329
Kyle Roller	28	187	.216	.692	0.3	.320
Richie Shaffer	25	275	.241	.688	0.3	.320
Daniel Robertson	22	274	.256	.680	0.1	.319
Nick Franklin	25	247	.247	.704	0.1	.319
Dayron Varona	28	240	.235	.691	-1.2	.311
Jake Goebbert	28	175	.181	.618	-3.1	.294
J.P. Arencibia	30	90	.212	.608	-2.7	.279
Luke Maile	25	152	.201	.517	-8.4	.245
Cameron Seitzer	26	100	.185	.446	-7.6	.216

Source: Fangraphs.

Here's a way to understand the table. Note that the Bulls have a lot of "awfuls" and only one even "above average."

Rating	wOBA
Excellent	.400
Great	.370
Above Average	.340
Average	.320
Below Average	.310
Poor	.300
Awful	.290

The Tampa Bay Rays in Pictures

The Durham Bulls had yesterday off, so I thought this might be a good time for Bulls fans to take a look at the parent club. Six players who started the year with the Bulls are with the Rays now, so we have an interest in them. They include Matt Andriese, Blake Snell, and Tyler Sturdevant among the pitchers (Ryan Garton just got sent back); and Taylor Motter, Jaff Decker, and Mikie Mahtook among the position players (Nick Franklin just came back).

How are the Rays doing?

The Tampa Bay Rays are tied with the New York Yankees for last place in the American League East. The last couple of weeks show an upward trend.

click on chart for larger image

Similarly, the last couple of weeks saw an improvment in the run differentials. The Rays remain a couple of games below their Pythagorean Expectation, which implies trouble on the pitching side.

The Rays great strength has always been their starting pitching (frequently ex-Bulls). Not so much this year. This chart shows the average Game Score for their starters. Note the numbers after players name are (starts, innings). Since 50 is the target for this metric it’s obvious that the Rays are just barely getting by. Matt Adriese is being moved to the bullpen, at least for the short term, while Blake Snell has just had the two games. Chris Archer and Matt Moore are not doing well at all.

Five in a Row!

Game 58, June 5, DBAP
Gwinnett Braves: 0
Durham Bulls: 9

Season: 26–32; Home Stand: 6–1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Stats:
Game Score: Snell 68; Season Avg 56
Tm OPS: Game .813; Season .653
Tm wOBA: Game .363; Season: .296

The Gwinnett Braves pitching crew were more than generous again, giving up 8 walks. And the Bulls took advantage of it early. Half of the runners who scored in the first 4 innings got on base with a walk. A double by Kyle Roller, home runs by Johnny Field (off the Bull) and Dayron Varona drove them in, as did a single by Varona.

A big day for Bulls hitters and pitchers led to the biggest run differential of the year, the team’s 4th shutout, the longest winning streak, the first four-game sweep in years, and the best home stand this year.

Blake Snell had an impressive 6 inning, 104 pitch game. A bit shaky in the first inning, when he was victimized by a bad call by the 3rd base ump on a pickoff and run down. The runner went out of the baseline, but ump didn’t see it that way. After a batter or so, Snell was in command the rest of the way.

Juniel Querecuto started the game at second base. The first time he’s done that as a Bull. He was taking the place of Nick Franklin, who finally got his call to the Rays. Querecuto has plenty of experience at the position in lower level minors (where he has mostly been played at shortstop).

Cameron Seitzer came back from “extended Spring Training” to play first base and to fill the hole left by Nick Franklin’s departure.

On the Bench: J.P. Arencibia, Mayo Acosta, Jaff Decker

Outside the game —

• “Dr. Miraculous” runs the numbers of some of the current Montgomery Biscuits (and future Bulls?).

Standings

The Bulls run against the Braves has pushed the Bulls up into second place in the South. They are off to Norfolk for two games and back to Durham for two games before heading North for six games and then, oddly enough, back to Norfolk for three games.

click on chart for larger size

Two in a Row!

Game 55, June 2, DBAP
Gwinnett Braves (Atlanta): 0
Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay): 3
Season: 23–32; Home Stand: 3–1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Stats:
Game Score: Pruit–78, YTD Avg–58;
Tm OPS: .767;
Tm wOBA: .287

Jaff Decker’s two solo home runs provided the thrills and Austin Pruitt provided the strong right arm for a very good game.

The game also marked just the third time that the Bulls have won two games in a row this year, the last was May 7 & 8 (those two extra-inning marathons against Norfolk). Plus it was just the third shutout for Bulls this year.

Austin Pruitt has emerged as the Bulls most successful pitcher this season. His two starts with Game Scores of 78 are the best by any Bulls pitcher so far.  Over his 11 starts he has a team bests for starters of a WHIP of 1.01, an ERA of 2.48, and FIP of 3.05. For what it’s worth, he’s also the Bulls most “efficient” starting pitcher, using up only 4.73 pitches per out. Oh, he’s picked up 4 wins against 3 losses over the year as well.

Outside the game —

• The Bulls team ERA dropped down to 3.50, exactly the International League average.

I'm obviously a big fan of the Game Score stat. It seems to me to be a straightforward way to look at starting pitchers. Here's how the Bulls crew looks for the year. A Game Score of 50 can be considered to be about the same as a "quality start" in the lingo of broadcasters. Blake Snell is on the 40 man roster and, of course, Matt Andriese isn't with the team any more. These are pretty good numbers.

Just for grins, or groans as the case may be, here are the average game scores of this year's Tampa Bay Rays crew. Matt Andriese shows up on this list as well. Matt Moore's and Chris Archer's troubles are pretty obvious. 

Durham Bulls Offense Has Best Night of the Year

Game 52, Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Durham, North Carolina

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (New York Yankees): 3
Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays): 5

Season: 21–31; Home Stand: 1–0
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun (No story on their website, guess they took Memorial Day off. Too bad. Missed a good game.)

So there I was grumbling to myself for most of the first 6 innings. The Bulls had wasted a one-out triple by Kyle Roller through awkward baserunning by Roller himself and a caught stealing of Dayron Varona. Starting pitcher Justin Marks was really working hard (he ended the game having thrown 103 pitches in just 3 ⅔ innings). And then in the 6th inning, after a leadoff home run by recently-returned Jake Goebbert, the Bulls left the bases loaded. Meanwhile, back in the 4th the RailRiders had put up three runs.

But then came the 7th as the Bulls got a run off a Jaff Decker sacrifice fly and then the 8th when the Bulls put finishing touches on their best hitting game this year, a one game OPS of 1.061 (see chart below)! A solo home run by Nick Franklin and a two-run homer by Dayron Varona were the innings’ highlights.

Meanwhile the bullpen crew of Markel, Wagner, Farquhar, and Floro, threw 5 innings of shutout ball, closing  down one of the best hitting teams in the International League.

Outside the game (sort of) —

• As mentioned, Jake Goebbert passed through waivers and is back with the team.
• Patrick Leonard got sent to the Montgomery Biscuits. Leonard played in 42 games so far this year as a 1st baseman, 3rd baseman, and outfielder. He was hitting just .198, well-below his last year’s performance with the Biscuits. Probably part of larger roster shuffling. Stats.
• Johnny Field got promoted from Montgomery. Looks to be a pure outfielder and it looks like the 24 year-old has been having a pretty good year so far. Stats.
• Cameron Seitzer, who has been with the Bulls all year, has been sent to “Extended Spring Training” (probably a paper move). The first baseman is not having a particularly good year with an OPS of just .464. Stats.
• Early in the game new guy Johnny Field was coaching first base, which got me to wondering, just what is it that hitting coach does during a game? We see the manager and the pitching coach pretty regularly, but not Ozzie Timmons. But then he suddenly showed up, coaching first base. The first time I’ve noticed him there this year. Have I been missing something?
• Remember Ryan Garton, who made 14 appearances for the Bulls before being called up a few days ago? Turns out he’s part of a new training experiment that the Rays are experimenting with, but also being very close-mouthed about. Something about varying the weights of balls thrown in training. Story here.
• Dylan Floro got his third save in his third opportunity last night. Has he found his niche?

Here’s that chart I mentioned earlier. Game-by-game OPS scores for the last 15 games. Last night was the best this year.

Road Trip Done; Bulls Back Home

Game 50, Huntington Park, Columbus, Ohio
Durham Bulls (Rays): 0
Columbus Clippers (Indians): 3
Wrap, Box

Game 51, Huntington Park, Columbus, Ohio
Durham Bulls: 1
Columbus Clippers: 2
Season: 20–31; Trip: 2–4
Wrap, Box

Three Bulls caught stealing (two as the result of pickoffs) is simply an awful bit of base-running performance by a team that can hardly afford to waste runners who get to base, although they were 0 for 7 for the runners who did get into scoring position.

Adam Wilk pitched a decent game, giving up just two runs and ending up with a nice Game Score of 63, but without run support he picked up his 6th loss.

At 11 games below .500, the Bulls are saved from ignominy only by the even worse won-loss record of the Norfolk Tides who are 16 games below .500. Standings.

Looking at the runs the Bulls score vs the runs they allow, the Bulls are cruising toward 2012 territory, a year the Bulls finished 15 games below .500 and third place in the IL.

Runs scored compared to runs allowed can also be cranked through the Pythagorean Expectation formula, but when you do that with this years' numbers (154 runs scored, 210 runs allowed) it shows that the “expectation” is even worse than the current 11 games below .500. It drops to an expectation of 18-33, 15 games below .500.

click on chart for larger view

What If?

Game 23, April 29, Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Louisville Bats: 4
Durham Bulls: 2
Season: 10-13; Home Stand: 1-5
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

For the stats geeks, one play made all the difference. For the fans, not so much. As Blake Snell started the 6th he was moving into unknown territory, having not gone more than 5 innings this year. He gave up a single. The next play was a very hard grounder just to the left of second base. Bulls shortstop Daniel Robertson knocked it down, but could not start the double play. Result: runners on first and second, no outs. In our section of the stands, the ruling was 3-1 to call the play an error on the shortstop. The official scorer called it a hit. Snell then got an out, but next gave up a home run and the Bats were ahead 3-2. He walked the next two batters and was pulled from the game. His replacement, new guy Danny Farquhar, let one of the baserunners in. So all four runs were charged against Snell and his ERA went up quite a bit. If it had been an E6, some of those 4 runs would have been unearned.

On the other hand, the Bulls had their first error-free game in a long while. They committed 11 in the previous six games.

This was as dismal a home stand as I can remember. Unless something got on track on the bus ride to Louisville, it’s not going to get much better. The Bulls play five games games against the very same teams they just played in Durham — two against Louisville and three against Indianapolis.

Outside the game —

• Joey Rickard, who was a great-looking young Durham Bull at the end of last season, went to the Baltimore Orioles in a Rule 5 draft action. He beat the Rays the other day.

Chart: ERAs and FIPs

The ERAs and FIPs(Fielding Independent Percentages) of the Durham Bulls pitching crew, sorted by innings pitched. the usual early season, small sample warnings apply.

K's and Dingers; Fun at the DBAP

Game 18, April 24, Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Indianapolis Indians (Pittsburg): 1
Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay): 6
Season: 10-8; Home Stand: 1-0
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

Fun day at the park as several Bulls had a terrific game, starting with Jamie Schultz and his 12 K’s, and then there was Richie Shaffer getting his first home run in the 5th inning and another in the 7th.

But there was more, a lot more. Jake Goebbert came into the game with an awful OPS of .255 and raised it to .316 with two singles. Still awful, but there’s hope. Similarly, Kyle Roller punched a home run and raised his OPS up to .868, an above average number.

The three homers plus RBIs by Nick Franklin and Carlos Corporan led the Bulls best run differential of the year. Plus they went into a tie for first place in the South Division.

In addition to Jamie Shultz’s superb performance, we saw Andrew Bellatti on the mound for the first time since April 13. Did OK in his 22 pitches. Time to call out Eddie Gamboa’s superb ERA of 0.71 and there’s his WHIP of 0.95. He had 2⅓ innings yesterday and looked very good.

Outside the game —

• Blake Snell had a superb start against the Yankees and is back in Durham. 
• The Rays fiddled around with the 40-man roster to add Jhan Marinez and then he was called up. He had an inning in relief last night. No word on his replacement. Possibly Danny Farquar?
• Luke Maile is reported to be a couple of days away from coming back.
• No word (that I heard) on Mikie Mahtook’s status.

Team Hitting

OPS (on base percentage plus slugging) is one of those stats that has fallen out of favor for evaluating individual players. But we are less interested in that than we are in team trends. For that it works just fine. What we see here is that the Bulls’ hitting over the last 15 games fell off from a very hot, small sample start. It fell below this year’s International League average. We are still early enough in the season for one game’s results (the best team OPS of the year — 1.024) to push it up quite a bit.

click on chart for larger view

Awkward Day for the Durham Bulls Starter

Game 7, April 13, Durham Bulls Athletic Park

Gwinnett Braves: 6

Durham Bulls: 2

Season: 4-3
Wrap, Box

The Bulls finished off their first home stand of the season with some pitching/playing oddities, a noisy education day crowd of 8,700, and a 2nd place IL South record of 4-3.

Matt Andriese never looked comfortable in his 5⅔ innings. Guess we could blame some of it on the umpires, who called two balks, but Andriese himself was responsible for the 2 wild pitches and an error.

Some late inning excitement (and two runs scored), but the early dominance of Gwinnett’s Mike Foltynewicz could not be overcome.

Tidbits from the home stand:

• Mikie Mahtook has been outstanding in his leadoff role. He played in all 7 games with a terrific On Base Percentage of .455, 3 triples, 8 runs scored, and a stellar OPS of 1.075. Playing right and center, his fielding has been superb as well.
• Richie Shaffer started off ablaze and has since slightly cooled off, but his OBP of .484 is even better than Mahtook’s, partially due to the 6 BBs he’s drawn and his OPS over the 7 games is a superb .979.
• Dayron Varona was fun to watch in his 4 games. A canon of an arm, team-leading OPS of 1.078, and willingness to try anything, e.g., pitching the 10th inning on Tuesday.
• At the other end of our concerns are Jake Goebbert, 4 games, no hits, 3 BB; and Kyle Roller, 5 games, 1 hit, but 6 BB. 
• We mentioned the long pants earlier.
• We haven’t mentioned that hitting coach Ozzie Timmons is usually not on the field coaching 1B, a break from tradition. Jake Goebbert and Kyle Roller are the ones that I’ve noticed.
• Haven’t sampled much of the food yet. Your comments/observations welcomed.

The Bulls are off for a very long, 10-game road trip to Charlotte (4 games), Gwinnett (3 games), and that odd run past Durham and over to Norfolk (3 games). They are back on April 24 to play their first out-of-division games with Indianapolis (Pirates) and Louisville (Reds).

ERA Trend

With the usual early season/small sample warnings, here’s how the collective ERAs are looking. Yes, it’s a small sample and just today's events moved the marker quite a bit; nevertheless, a 2-run gap between starters and relievers is worrisome.

click on chart for larger image

Be Still My Heart

Game 5, April 11, Durham Bulls Athletic Park

Gwinnett Braves (Atlanta): 5

Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay): 6

11 innings

Season: 4-1; Streak: W-3
Wrap, Box, Gwinnett Wrap, Herald-Sun

A game not for the faint-of-heart. The Braves tied the Bulls in the 6th and then loaded the bases in the 8th, 9th, and 10th innings. But they did not score a run. In the top of the 11th they went ahead by a run. In the bottom of the 11th, however, Carlos Corporan got his first hit of the season and with the help of Nick Franklin, Kyle Roller, and Dayron Varona, the Bulls had a walk-off win. The Braves had twice as many hits as the Bulls, 16 to 8.

First Look: Pitcher

LHP Adam Wilk: 4⅔ innings, 6 hits, 3 ER, 0 BB, 2 K’s, Game Score - 42
Wilk has time in the Detroit, Pittsburgh, and LA Angels systems. Looks like one of those pitchers that the Rays seem to find each year that can help the Bulls (and maybe the Rays) before the end of the season. Plus he’s left-handed. Stats.

Observations: Dayron Varona has one heck of an arm and he’s quick in the field. Playing right field last night he made a superb throw from the corner to 2B. Later a very powerful throw home was off-line, but still impressive. Jake Goebbert certainly has spent his time figuring out the Blue Monster in left. The Braves were tattooing the wall all night and he played each of them perfectly.

Mikie Matook’s third triple in five games pushed his OPS up to .939.

A very familiar face was playing second base for the Braves, Reid Brignac. Coming up through the Rays system he spent part or all of 2008, 2009, and 2012 with the Bulls. Beginning in 2013 he’s been with Colorado, the Yankees, Philadelphia, and Miami. He is not on the Braves 40-man this year. A left-handed batter, the Bulls had good luck with a shift last night.

Outside the game —

• Richie Shaffer received some well-deserved recognition as the International League Hitter of the Week.
• Taylor Motter was profiled over at DRaysBay.

Chart: The Game Score stat of Durham Bulls pitchers. First time through the rotation.
Yes, this has all the problems of small sample size, but, what the heck, this is a good time to just introduce this stat. Basically, Game Score is a measure of how a starting pitcher did in a game. See the formula at the link. If you agree that starting pitching is key to the game, then you want to see your starters keep their game scores above 50. However, starting pitching isn’t everything. We’ll get to that.

Promising Pitcher; Pants!

Game 4, April 10,  Durham Bulls Athletic Park

Charlotte Knights: 4

Durham Bulls: 6

Season: 3-1; Home Stand: 3-1
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun

In his first Triple A start Austin Pruitt was spectacular — the longest and best outing of any starting pitcher this year. Kyle McPherson, who followed him, not so much.

In the top of the 4th RF Jaff Decker crashed into 2B Daniel Robertson not too long after hitting his home run in the bottom of the 3rd. Dayron Varona took his place and hit a double and a homer (3 RBI). Now that’s depth in right field.

What’s really different about the Durham Bulls this year? Trousers.

OK, it took me a while to notice, but I’m guessing youth (as in managerial youth) finally won out. Yesterday most of the Bulls were in long pants. In all previous years the only players in long pants were re-habbing major leaguers. Pitcher Austin Pruitt and 1B Richie Shaffer were holdouts in knee breeches.

First Look: Pitchers

RHP Austin Pruitt: 6 innings, 3 hits, 1 ER, 1 HR, 0 BB, 1 HBP, 11 K’s, Game Score - 73
For his AAA debut Pruitt had a career high number of strikeouts, a solid 6 inning start, and a win. He spent last year in Montgomery, pitching 160 innings and recording 122 K’s. He looks to be a very solid asset. Stats.
RHP Kyle McPherson: ⅔ innings, 2 hits, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 HBP, 2 K’s
McPherson was simply awful in his short outing. He has been playing pro ball for parts of 9 seasons, although the last time he put in a lot of innings was in 2011 in the Pittsburgh system. He’s coming back from surgery and spent 2015 in the Rays system. The Rays are good at spotting pitching talent, so we hope that this game is an anomaly.  Stats.

Outside the game —

• Set your recorders for PBS’s documentary on Jackie Robinson. Starts tonight on WUNC. 

Bulls hitting against Charlotte was pretty darn good. Here’s the team OPS for each game compared with a three-year International League average, and this year’s running IL average. [Update: I forgot to add that the current season OPS of .840 leads the IL]

A Few Charts for the Tampa Bay Rays

Just for grins, I keep a few charts about the Durham Bulls’ parent club, the Tampa Bay Rays. The first is simply the wins and losses over the season, plotted as games above or below .500. As can be seen, back around game 70 in early June the Rays peaked at 10 games above .500. They were at a season low of 6 games below .500 as recently as September 27th. And they wrapped things up in 4th place.

Note: click on a chart for a larger image.

One reason why they finished in 4th is that, oddly enough, their opponents scored more runs than they did. This chart is a running total of the net runs scored minus runs allowed for the year. As can be seen they just barely crept back to a midpoint.

How does this compare to previous years? Here’s the last five. Not quite as bad as last year, but not nearly as good as the previous three years when they made the playoffs either outright or through a wild card slot.

I got intrigued with the “game score” stat this year and tracked the Rays starting pitchers. Game score is sort of “quality start” with a few twists. Here’s a couple of charts that came out of those data.

50 is “average” and for the last several weeks of the season clearly the starters as a group were above average. However, the Rays only won half the games. Conclusion: starting pitching is really important, but the Rays bullpen and hitters just have not been up to par.

Here’s another way of looking at the game score stat, by individual pitchers. Note the number of games and innings pitched. An oddity is that Chris Archer had the best game score of the year (95 on August 20) and the worst (a 3 on September 26)

The last chart has little to do with the Rays, but back on September 1st it seemed that the Rays had at least a remote chance to go after a wild card slot. Here’s how that played out.