Bumgarner hit hard in spring debut, A's beat Giants 9-4 | Yahoo Sports

I am worried more about this comparison to Hamels circa 2008-2009 than the A's mini-shelling in a practice game. I saw this in a story somewhere and immediately started feeling uneasy. Then the mini-shelling just made it worse. Even though it was in a practice game.

Cole Hamels threw 262.1 innings in 2008 in a World Series MVP season. The following season was the worst of his career (4.32 ERA, 1.286 WHIP). 

from Yahoo Sports:
Bumgarner hit hard in spring debut, A's beat Giants 9-4 - Yahoo Sports:

"Right now I'm not worried about results," Bumgarner said. "It's about getting my body back in the rhythm of making pitches, and competing. You want to get guys out, but it's more about getting my arm in shape."

'via Blog this'

Some of this is carry over from this blurb from the book Baseball Between the Numbers:

One of the earliest analyses of historical trends in pitcher usage was the landmark 1989 book The Diamond Appraised by Craig Wright and Tom House. The authors looked at pitchers of various ages and their workloads and discovered that young pitchers who pitched to a high number of batters per game seemed to get hurt more often. This was the beginning of the modern movement to monitor pitch counts.

In the mid-1990'2 Baseball Prospectus's Rany Jazeyern was one of the first researchers to try to organize and codify what the mishmash of evidence on pitch counts was telling us. He summed it up in his principle of pitcher fatigue: Throwing is not dangerous to a pitcher's arm. Throwing while tired is dangerous to a pitcher's arm.

All this statistical (over)analysis led to things like pitchers abuse points (PAP), and the dreaded Verducci effect which states:

Last week, Sports Illustrated writer and Jason Parks man-crush Tom Verducci put out his annual column warning about a specific type of player: A young pitcher (25 or younger) who saw a significant increase in his workload in the previous season over the season before that (defined as an increase of at least 30 innings, including postseason and minor-league work). Verducci claims that this sort of pitcher is in danger of either a significant injury and/or a performance decline in 2013 because his 2012 was much busier than his 2011. It's a proposition that's become known as the Verducci Effect.

From a rational standpoint, I should be comforted by this article which should have put a Dr. Kervorkian on the Verducci Effect (also dubbed the Year After Effect) but some of these old statistical theories die hard. Funny how that works, since the SABR folks often accuse baseball folks of the same mentality of clinging on to past theories even after they have long out-lived their utility.

And I'm still going to worry about Bumgarner just a little bit, but I'm going to wait until real-live hitters hitting in real-life situations tell me something different about him.

How perfectly old-school can you get?

from Deadspin.com
http://deadspin.com/5877565/the-verducci-effect-is-overworked-and-broken-down

Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci came out with his annual "Year After Effect" column yesterday, based on his hypothesis that that young pitchers tend to break down the season after an increased workload. Specifically, a pitcher 25 and under is supposed to be at risk if he pitched at least 30 more innings than his previous career high.

Dubbed the "Verducci Effect" by Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus, it's one of the most prominent early examples of a happy marriage between analytics and old journalism. Sabermetricians were some of the loudest critics of the overuse that may have contributed to the early decline of Mark Prior, Ben Sheets, and other pitchers who debuted in the early aughts.

But the Verducci Effect probably doesn't exist. Its continued popularity has little to do with the power of numbers to support rational observation and everything to do with their power to baselessly reinforce existing beliefs. The article is an example of three pervasive mistakes that the general public makes about statistics:

• Regression to the mean: When an outcome is far above or below expectation, the subsequent results tend to be closer to the average. How does a young pitcher make Verducci's list? By having been healthy and successful enough to earn a greater workload. So by chance alone, you'd expect some members of that group to pitch worse, and you'd certainly expect to see some of them get hurt. Derek Holland's good health allowed him to pitch 71 more innings than he ever had before. If he gets sidelined in 2012, it will have more to do with the random nature of injuries than with Rangers mismanagement.

• Confirmation bias: People tend to rely on anecdotal examples that confirm what they already think. There's little attention paid to the pitchers who repeat their healthy seasons the year after; instead, fans fixate on the ones that get hurt. Mets fans might look at Jon Niese's 2009 injury and point to Verducci's warning label. They'd be ignoring the fact that no other pitcher that Verducci identified in '09 spent a single day on the disabled list.

 • Correlation does not equal causation: Verducci is correct that some pitchers who pitch 30 innings more than their career highs tend to get hurt. However, that doesn't mean that his rationale for why that happens is valid. After I read his article, I went to the bathroom and peed. That doesn't mean I peed as a result of reading.

Every study I could find on the Verducci Effect suggests that it at best doesn't exist and at worst is backwards. David Gassko's 2006 study focused on the possibility of a decline in performance, and found an increase:

OK, so what happens if we limit ourselves to pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in year two? Actually, a funny thing. The pitchers who best their career high by at least 30 innings go on to throw 90% more innings in year three than they do in year one, and those who didn't only throw 78% as many innings. What's more, while the [year-after effect] candidates have an ERA 9% lower in year three than it was in year one, the guys who were accustomed to the big workload do not improve their performance at all.

Much ado about nothing.

Is it time to start calling him "Big Game" Bumgarner?

Why not? The stats don't lie. He's been as tough as nails in the post-season since he arrived on the major league scene. Sometimes overshadowed by Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum, but never under-appreciated by his teammates or the fans.

from Giants Extra:
POSTGAME NOTES: Forget retirement, Ishikawa is now making a push for another ring; Bumgarner slams Cardinals - Giants Extra:

I found this to be incredible: Bumgarner has made nine postseason starts for the Giants and four of them were shutouts (he went nine in one of the four). “You know, he’s so good at what he does,” Bochy said. “He executed all night against a tough lineup. He’s a guy that you want out there to start things and he gave us all we were asking.”

In the past week, I’ve heard a lot of Bumgarner’s teammates say they’re thrilled that he’s getting so much notice nationally. He’s now officially one of those guys, the Lesters and Verlanders and others with reputations for coming through in the postseason. (On a related note: Why does James Shields get the ‘Big Game’ nickname? Seems there are better options.)

'via Blog this'

On this play with Kolten Wong, it went without mention by the genius commentators at Fox, but:

a) Wong was inside the baseline, not in the running lane where he belonged when the contact was initiated. If anything Wong is interfering with Bumgarner rather than Bummer obstructing Wong.

and

b) Perhaps if the Cardinals didn't waste the umpires time reviewing this play, they would have been more focused on what was going on ie: the phantom Bumgarner balk. Replay will never totally remove the human element from the game and it is not outside the realm of possibility that the crew was mentally replaying the prior play with Wong in their mind to prepare for the post-game analysis and commentary and just whiffed on the mini-balk when it snuck up on them.  

And it was a balk, IMO. However, unless it was mysteriously ruled a three-run homer balk, the Cardinals still have no chance of coming back. So there. 


http://m.mlb.com/video/v36795853/nlcs-gm1-bumgarner-nearly-balks-before-fanning-cruz

I get that these guys don't know the rules, and if Tim McCarver over the years wasn't proof positive enough, then Harold Reynolds spinning a web of rule book ignorance trying to explain the early inning drop / catch by the Cardinals RF should be the final straw. If you don't understand the definition of a catch, you have no business whatsoever trying to explain the rule book, much less question umpires judgment. And he spun himself a nice little 180 there BTW by trying to imply that the rule book was a bit tricky there. No Harold, the rule book is pretty black and white there, it's your understanding, or lack thereof, that is a bit sketchy. Nice try though.

Note to MLB: Do what the NFL does and have a rule book expert on stand-by for these "tricky" replay scenarios. It would help the credibility of the broadcast.

Nice picture of Ishakawa with the Eagle backdrop as well as a great back-story to yesterdays game and that being the story behind Ishakawa's last and likely final chance in this latest stint with the Giants. It goes to show that sometimes there is a thin line between success and "what might have been" in baseball. Good to see Ishakawa having this type of success.

BTW2: Did anyone else pick up on Verducci mentioning Romo and the persistent use of the slider by saying "you could wake him up from an afternoon nap" and he could throw that pitch? And how is that not at least a subliminally offensive comment given Romo's Mexican heritage? I mean, he didn't mention a pre-game nap or any old time of the day nap, but a siesta. Maybe Romo can wear a T-shirt to voice his displeasure.  I hereby lodge a political correctness protest on Mr. Romo's behalf and demand an immediate apology from Fox Sports for the offensive comment against the Mexican-American community in general and Sergio Romo specifically.

For future reference (definition of a catch):

A CATCH is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it; providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession. It is not a catch, however, if simultaneously or immediately following his contact with the ball, he collides with a player, or with a wall, or if he falls down, and as a result of such collision or falling, drops the ball. It is not a catch if a fielder touches a fly ball which then hits a member of the offensive team or an umpire and then is caught by another defensive player. If the fielder has made the catch and drops the ball while in the act of making a throw following the catch, the ball shall be adjudged to have been caught. In establishing the validity of the catch, the fielder shall hold the ball long enough to prove that he has complete control of the ball and that his release of the ball is voluntary and intentional.

Rule 2.00 (Catch) Comment: A catch is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball. A fielder may reach over a fence, railing, rope or other line of demarcation to make a catch. He may jump on top of a railing, or canvas that may be in foul ground. No interference should be allowed when a fielder reaches over a fence, railing, rope or into a stand to catch a ball. He does so at his own risk.

If a fielder, attempting a catch at the edge of the dugout, is “held up” and kept from an apparent fall by a player or players of either team and the catch is made, it shall be allowed.