Durham Bulls At the Break — 3

Pitching

As the last piece of this series, let’s take a look at pitching. Pretty darn good.

The first chart is the team trend over the last twenty games. This may at first glance, look fairly flat, but flat at what level, you may ask? And the answer is, at a pretty good level, since we won 13 out of those twenty games.

At the individual level we use Fielding Independent Percentage as a metric (think ERA, it’s almost the same thing at these sample sizes). The pitchers marked with a * are on the Tampa Bay 40-man. What I find interesting about this chart is how well our relievers are doing. Everyone knows that Hellickson is a first rate pitcher, but notice that most of our relievers are better than the team average. The implication is that, even on a bad day, we always have a chance.

I’ve thrown in strikeout to walk ratio mostly to once again show R.J. Swindle’s unusual numbers. But notice how well Virgil Vasquez does on both charts. He’s probably the guy to watch in the second half of the season.

What does the rest of the season look like? A couple of these guys are on the cusp of moving up/moving on.

R.J. Swindle is not on the 40-man, but according to this post yesterday, he has a 15 July opt out clause. Opt out as in, “Call me up or call me gone.” That’s Thursday folks. We would do well to remember what the Rays did last year in similar circumstances. They called up Winston Abreu, let him sit in the bullpen for a few days, and traded him to Cleveland. If history were to repeat itself, R.J. might be back in time for the playoffs. Somehow I don’t think that will happen. I, along with a lot of other folks [WDBB, Adam Sobsey, Jason Collette], would love to see him get a chance to see if he can handle major league hitters.

Another guy I’d love to see get his shot is Joe Bateman. He isn’t on the 40-man either, but, as was pointed out yesterday, the Rays have got several open 40-man slots.

How about the guys who are on the 40-man?

• Jeremy Hellickson — the Rays, unless they really, really need him, will probably leave him with us until September.
• Dale Thayer — insurance for a TB injury. Dale’s basic numbers are pretty good, but June was not his best month.
• Mike Ekstrom — have to say that he’s probably available for a trade

Not in Durham are two more pitchers on the TB 40-man, Jake McGee and Alex Torres. Both are with the Montgomery Biscuits. Torres is having a good year, McGee isn’t. I think we’ll see Torres before the end of the year. Much like Hellickson showed up in late July of last year.

How about the rest?

Let me first say how much I like almost all of these guys. Going forward, in addition to the guys already mentioned, I’ve got to say that I’m really looking forward to watching Virgil Vasquez and Brian Baker get in a bunch of innings; Winston Abreu show the International League how to close out a game; and Dale Thayer getting back on track. Unfortunately, I’d guess that Heath Phillips and Aneury Rodriguez may not be long with the team. If Darin Downs had done better, one of them might be on the bubble right now. Richard De Los Santos is doing a good job. We need him to stick around as well. I like having a lefty, but Carlos Hernandez, whom I also like a lot, may not be with us all that much longer either.

Some of you guys out there understand this much better than I do. What do you think?

Durham Bulls At the Break — 2

Position Players

Before we get to the hitting let's mention other aspects of the game.

The Durham Bulls are a very good defensive team. They have committed the fewest errors on any team in the International League, 43. To put that into perspective, the next best team, Louisville, has committed 61 and the worst, Norfolk, has committed 96. Our catchers have allowed only 52 stolen bases (the worst, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has allowed 100).

Our runners have stolen 100 bases, best in the league.

The Bulls runs allowed (clearly mostly the pitching, of course) is the lowest in the league.

As a crew they have shown great versatility as well. So far we’ve had 21 different ballplayers on the roster. We’ve had 7 different guys play catcher, 4 at first base, 5 at second base, 5 at shortstop, 4 at third base, and 8 different guys in the outfield.

Over in the hitting categories, the Bulls are usually in first or second place, sharing honors mostly with the Cleveland Triple-A team, the Columbus Clippers. Columbus is having a terrific season as well, at 55-36 to our 55-35. Would have been interesting to have been in the same division as them. Glad we weren’t. The Bulls lead the league in runs scored and home runs; we are second to Columbus in team batting average (.277 to .288), team OPS (.794 to .812), and team wOBA (.352 to .367). The Bulls are 2-2 against in our one away series back in May. We meet again this month at home.

Now let’s take a look at the roster. Just for comparison, I’ve got the Rays position players as well.


An oddity is that we have 12 position players (infielder Omar Luna comes and goes) and we are carrying three catchers. That’s because the Bulls have essentially a 24-man active roster and usually split that 12-12 with the pitchers. The Rays have a 25-man active roster.

As can be seen, five players on the Rays 40-man roster are with the Bulls. As far as I can tell, the only position player not with the Rays and not with the Bulls is outfielder/first baseman Leslie Anderson. Anderson is currently in Montgomery and we can expect to see him before the end of the year. Without diving into a birth month analysis, the average age of the players on the two team’s rosters is pretty much a wash. The Bulls have the players at the extremes (Jennings, 23, and Richard, 36). As we’ve been noting all year, the Bulls are very much a veteran team.

Of course, comparing the wOBA between two very different levels of play is hard to do. Particularly difficult are the differences in the quality of pitching faced. On the other hand, we should note that all Triple-A playing fields are required to be maintained at major league levels. So the differences there (not the ambiance, of course) are not all that much.

So, what might happen over the next month or so? Particularly, say, for the players at the top of the list? Dan Johnson is something of a special case. So lets look a the others.

• First, several of the Bulls' best are not on the 40-man. To go up to the Rays someone would have to be taken off their 40-man and at risk of being lost to the Rays system entirely.
• Second, with the exception of Elliot Johnson, the non-40 man players are “old”.
• Third, to be called to the Rays, they have to perceive a need.
• Fourth, some of these guys could easily be seen as trade bait. And their numbers are likely to make them attractive.
• Lastly—don’t fall out of your chairs—several may be with the Bulls because the Rays want the Bulls to be the best team in Triple-A baseball.

With all that in mind, here are some possibilities in the short run.

• I can’t make a better case for Dan Johnson going to the Rays than the one made over at DRaysBay recently. But that’s if the Rays really want him. I’m betting that they’ll put him into a trade package.
• If the day comes that the Rays want to shuffle the 40-man, I’m afraid that Fernando Perez is likely to be the top candidate to be waived.
• Gotta think that they are also watching Navarro closely and either Navarro or Shoppach is available for a deal.

But that’s the Rays. I don’t really care about them. What about the Bulls? Here’s the interesting part. Seems to me that, except for Dan Johnson, there’s a really good chance they will leave us alone for a month or so. Leaving us with a terrific infield, pretty good outfield, and decent power (especially if Ruggiano, Richard, and Elliot Johnson step up as they certainly can and have.

Update: A careful reader has pointed out to me that I need to point out to everyone else an additional feature of the Rays’ 40-man roster — they don’t have 40 men on it. In fact, they only have 37 on it and could easily shift J.P. Howell to 60-day DL and free up a fourth slot. So, for all those comments I may have made in this post and others about the Rays having to free up a slot to get one of our guys onto the 40-man — never mind ...

Durham Bulls At the Break — 1

The All-Star Break is a big deal in the major leagues for a few reasons: it comes near the middle of the season; it gives most players some time off; there’s a usually not-very-interesting game where you can see a lot of stars in one game being very careful not to hurt themselves.

In AAA the Bulls are well-past the middle of the season with 90 games of 143 played. (Note: one of the rainouts can’t be made up, so the Bulls will be one short of the scheduled 144.) For the Bulls, mid-season came back on 23 June when the team was playing in Indianapolis. We only have 53 games left (27 at home). Nevertheless, it sort of feels like the middle of the season, and our guys, except for the futures players and our All-Stars, are getting a bit of a break.

So, here’s some charts to kill the time while we’re waiting for baseball to start up again.

Up top, a look at how we stand in the International League’s South Division. Obviously, pretty good. We are 20 games above .500 and 9 games ahead of Charlotte.


The Runs Scored/Runs Allowed chart is really exceptional. There’s a sabremetrics idea called Pythagorean Expectation that crunches runs scored and runs allowed and comes up with a won-loss “expectation”. In the Bulls case it tells us we “should” be at 60-30 instead of 55-35. What does that mean? I’m not sure. Other than we have really been scoring a lot of runs and keeping the other guys from scoring as well. That is, the Bulls are a very good baseball team.

Another feature of the All-Star break is that major league teams start shuffling their rosters even more intensely than usual. That in turn means that our opponents are going to start looking very different from previous encounters. But this is a very intangible sort of thing likely to have more of an effect on internal team dynamics than the actual skill sets on display. A notable exception is the likelihood of seeing some extremes on the pitching side of things. That is, pitchers promoted too soon; or major leaguers down for a tuneup. In general, the Rays have not been prone to significant shuffling of players even in the September call-up season. Nor have they focused on “trade deadline” deals. But there’s a first time for everything and we’ve got some real depth here that they have to be looking at.

Speaking of the Rays, here’s how they look at the break after 88 games. Notice that they are also 20 games above .500. Unfortunately, the Rays play in the American League East. In any other division they’d be looking at a shot at the Series for sure. As it is, if the season ended today, they would be the Wild Card. Since they are in the AL East, however, they will be chasing the Yankees (and racing the Red Sox) all year.

The Rays Runs Scored/Runs Allowed chart shows how they appear to have recovered from their June troubles. Their “Pythagorean Expectation” is 55-33 and the actual is 54-34.

How did our guys do in the Futures game? Pretty good. [Box] Jeremy Hellickson pitched two innings and got the win. Desmond Jennings batted lead-off, did not get a hit, but got on base three times (walk, hit-by-pitch, reached on error), and scored three of the U.S.’s 9 runs.

Justin Ruggiano was named Hitter of the Week in the International League. Pleased to see Justin get the recognition he deserves. It was a very good week for him. Here’s the press release.

Durham outfielder Justin Ruggiano hit .355 with 3 home runs during the past week, and led the International League with 11 RBI and 7 extra-base hits. He hit safely in all seven games and drove in at least one run in six of the seven games to help Durham maintain the largest advantage of any of the division leaders in the IL. Ruggiano showed his versatility this week starting games at each of the three outfield positions, and in addition to his power he also stole a base and was tied for 2nd in the IL with seven runs scored.

28-year-old Justin Ruggiano is in his seventh season of professional baseball, and his fourth with the Durham Bulls. He is a former mid-season and post-season International League All-Star. Ruggiano is a native of Austin, Texas.

Win One; Lose One; Take a Break

Game 89: Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay) 5; Norfolk Tides (Baltimore) 3
Wrap, Box

Game 90: Bulls 4; Tides 5
Season: 55-35
Wrap, Box

The Bulls go into the All-Star break as the best Triple-A team in baseball—the International League or the Pacific Coast League. They should be proud of that. They have worked really hard to put together this remarkable record.

Yesterday Brian Baker did a terrific job of standing in for Jeremy Hellickson. Joe Dillon had his best game since coming back from his hamstring injury, and with some help From Elliot Johnson, Angel Chavez and Dioner Navarro, led the Bulls to their 55th win.

Today Carlos Hernandez seemed to be having a tough time of it, even though it was really only a messy 3rd inning that made the difference.

Atypically, the Bulls offense did not get on track until the 9th. At that point, with the Bulls down by five runs, they picked up four quick ones on a Perez walk, Furmaniak single, Ruggiano home run, Dan Johnson double, and Navarro single. (Why, you may ask, was Omar Luna in for Elliot Johnson as a pinch hitter early in the inning to strike out for the first out? Good question. Haven’t a clue.) It all came to an end with Chris Richard grounding into a double play.

Take a break guys. A very, very well-deserved break.

I’ll put together a couple of charts that take a closer look at the team over the next couple of days.

Might take a look at the Futures Game tonight — ESPN2, 6 PM, just to stay in touch.

Tides Get Rolled Out

Game 88: Durham Bulls 7; Norfolk Tides 2
Season: 54-34; Home Stand: 2-0
Wrap, Box, Game Log, Herald-Sun

Is Virgil Vasquez the real deal? Certainly beginning to look like it. He’s got almost 18 innings under his belt since he came off the DL and does not seem to be having any real problems. Certainly he didn’t last night.

Adam Sobsey over at Indy Week takes a look at Vasquez and our other, not fire-balling but game-winning pitcher, Brian Baker. Good read with some good quotes from Vasquez, Dan Johnson, and others.

Speaking of Dan Johnson, he got his 24th home run and an RBI double last night. You gotta wonder when they are going to stop pitching to him, especially with men on base. On the other hand, he leads the International League in walks drawn, so maybe they’d just be helping him set another record.

I really wish Darin Downs well, but he isn’t quite ready for prime time. Two batters, two home runs in the 9th. He did get a K, but then gave up a single before Winston Abreu had to come in to sort it out.

The Bulls have eaten up the Norfolk pitching staff these two games. We’ve seen six of their relievers so far. Potentially more opportunities over in Norfolk tonight and tomorrow.

The Bulls will be without the services of Charlie Montoyo, Jeremy Hellickson, and Desmond Jennings for the last two games before the All-Star break. I’ve got to be honest and say that I can’t get interested in the Futures game. Not even sure when it is and too lazy to look it up.

The Triple-A All-Star game will be July 14 on the MLB network. Too bad they don’t seem to have a decent website. Hard to get a decent idea of what’s going on. Might be interesting to at least look in on the game to see what one of the newer, and highly-touted, Triple-A ballparks looks like (Lehigh Valley’s).

I happened to catch the video clip with Dan Johnson, Chris Richard, and Joe Dillon promoting the Tobacco Road Cafe up on top of the Blue Monster. Stick with your day jobs, guys. You’re at lot better at baseball than you are at acting.

Since I’ve mentioned the media, maybe now is a good time for a radio rant. Here’s a bit of Marketing 101 the folks at “AM 620 The Buzz” who broadcasts the Bulls games:

A good fraction of your market listens to almost every game. So, when you peddle your commercial spots it really doesn’t work to tell your clients that they get some cheap air time by running the same spot three for four times a night for 144 games. What happens is that the listeners get so annoyed that they swear off the product — I may never drink Mountain Dew again.

Elliot’s Back ...

Game 87: Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay) 11; Norfolk Tides (Baltimore) 3
Season: 53-34
Wrap, Box, Log, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

The Bulls jumped on the Tides in the 1st inning and, after a bobble in the top of the 2nd, never looked back. By the end of the game, everyone had gotten at least one hit, and most had even more.

I would have been happy just to see Elliot Johnson back in the game. Seems like for a very long time all we’ve seen of him is the number 29 hanging on the dugout rail, hat back on his head. Elliot started at shortstop and handled his opportunities there just fine. At the plate he was a star. He singled and scored in the 1st; had a lead-off single and scored in the 3rd; had a two-run homer in the 4th; and a two RBI single in the 7th. Pretty good night’s work. All batting left, as I recall. His one at-bat batting right he struck out.

And is Justin Ruggiano back on form, as speculated yesterday? Sure looks that way. Three hits, two doubles and a home run, pushed his average up to .294 and his OPS to .836. Looking much better. He got a stolen base (19) as well.

Always on the look out for oddities we noted that in the 5th inning Angel Chavez, Jose Lobaton, and Fernando Perez each hit singles to almost exactly the same place—just over the head of Norfolk shortstop Robert Andino.

And then there was the extremely unusual event of two Tidesmen reaching on errors. Including those two, this year Bulls have only allowed 19 base runners to reach on errors. On the other side of the equation, 45 Bulls have reached on errors. That goes along with other numbers the Bulls excel at this year. For example, the Bulls have drawn 339 walks, but only given up 273. One metric that seems to be a wash is hit by pitch—Bulls have been whacked 34 times and returned the favor 36 times.

I had also thought that a possible explanation for this lopsided score was turmoil in the rosters. And that might be true as far as pitching staff is concerned. But I looked at the lineups for last April 18 and can only find two Tides players missing—infielders Josh Bell and Scott Moore. The Bulls lost Hank Blalock and Ryan Shealy, so you can’t point to roster changes to explain things. On the other hand, we won that game 10-1. Guess things haven’t changed all that much.

We are 19 games above .500 for the first time this season. (Note: So are the Rays, but not for the first time.)

Speaking of the Rays, here’s a quote from Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times regarding our own Dan Johnson.

OF Dan Johnson hit his 23rd homer of the season on Wednesday for Triple-A Durham, tops in the International League and second in all of the minors. He is hitting .304 with 77 RBIs. Those numbers have caught [Tampa Bay Manager Joe] Maddon’s attention. “He’s not just down there being lucky, getting hits,” he said. “He’s a good hitter. We look at that all the time.”

A Knight Visit

Game 85: Durham Bulls (Rays) 4; Charlotte Knights (White Sox) 10
Wrap, Box

Game 86: Bulls 6; Knights 4
Season: 52-34; Trip 1-1
Wrap, Box

The Bulls are back tonight for a two game series against the Norfolk Tides. They won’t be back at the DBAP until July 15 for a game against Charlotte. Get your Bulls fix while you can.

In the meantime, a few highlights and quirks noted in last night’s game.

• Justin Ruggiano hit a three-run homer in the crucial 3rd inning. Could he be steadying out a bit in what has been a very erratic season?
• Dan Johnson hit his 23rd homer (77 RBI).
• Dioner Navarro got thrown out of the game. The ejection was apparently for arguing with the home plate umpire, Jason Bradley about a stolen base call by the 3rd base umpire, David Rackley. How weird is that?
• Then at the top of the 7th there was Chris Richard arguing that he was not hit by a pitch and should not be awarded first base. Might have had something to do with Justin Ruggiano scoring from third on what otherwise would have been a passed ball/wild pitch. Justin had to go back to third base.
• Charlotte had three runners picked off by Durham pitchers (two by Heath Phillips, one by Dale Thayer). That helps explain how the Knights got a more hits than the Bulls (10-8) and still lost.
• The second inside-the-park home run of the year was scored against the Durham outfield. Could not discern a reason from the broadcast. Solondz was constantly mentioning how small the park is. So how come an inside the park dash was possible?
• Elliot Johnson back in the lineup for both games. Yeah!
• Dale Thayer got a win. R.J. Swindle got a hold. Winston Abreu got his tenth save. Let’s not talk about Heath Phillips.
• But, let’s do talk about Swindle — he has got some outrageous numbers. How about this over 19 appearances and 31 ⅓ innings? An ERA of 0.86; an FIP of 2.40 (for the Sabremetricians — the constant is 3.2, that means his raw FIP is -0.80); averaging one strikeout per inning; only 3 BB so far for a K/W of 10.00! R.J. had 6 innings with the Brewers last year and 4 innings with the Phillies the year before that. Looks like the majors have been ignoring him. For our sake, let’s hope the Rays continue that tradition.
• Interesting podcast with Bulls Trainer Roger Fleming: Coping with heat, old age, and upcoming break.
• Dan Johnson is going to participate in a Triple A All-Star home run derby. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. But as long as he doesn’t stretch/strain something, OK. And maybe there’s some bucks in it for him.

[Update: As noted in the comments, I missed the 9th and my source for a box score, ESPN, apparently did, too. Winston Abreu pitched in the 9th and got a save. I've gone back into the article and made a couple of corrections, which are in italics. Thanks to Chris D for catching the mistake.]