Overreact Much?

From Dejan's weekly Q&A session in the PG:

Q: Why would a manager of a Major League Baseball team -- the Pittsburgh Pirates -- refuse a team invitation to attend a private tour and meeting with the President of the U.S.? I understand that James Harrison of the Steelers is standing his ground. But John Russell is the manager of a team. Should he not be there as part of the team? I say fire him for insubordination of the Pirates team and as a representative of the city of Pittsburgh.

Kathleen Twele of Elizabeth

KOVACEVIC: There is a significant difference between being invited to the White House and asking for a tour. The Pirates, hardly a reigning champion, did the latter. And never was President Obama expected to be part of that tour, so meeting him was not "refused," as you put it. Some of the Pirates wanted to see the White House. Some did not.

Can't you hear "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the background as you read that? I love the Steelers just as much as the next guy, but I find it very fitting of Pittsburghers that a Steeler (especially one who is Defensive Player of the Year) gets a free pass for skipping out on a meeting with the POTUS, while the manager of the Pirates has to be fired for skipping a tour that the President was never going to attend. Every village has its idiots, I guess.

Mr. Wonderful

Not to steal a nickname from our friends over at Mondesi's House, but Pirates' starter Ross Ohlendorf has looked pretty sterling in the majority of his outings this season, including another fine effort last night against the Cardinals in front of the PNC Park faithful. He surrendered only one run on two hits in six innings while getting 5 strikeouts and 0 walks. The run came on a home run by Skip Schumaker; the only blemish on a pretty strong pitching performance.

So what is the secret to Mr. Ohlendorf's success? Well, a huge part of it, as much as it pains me to admit, is his .246 BABIP which is way off the normal .300 or so for pitchers. You may have read Dejan mention this a couple times in his articles, but the Buccos have benefited from an inordinate number of balls in play being turned into outs. Part of that is improved defense, but most of it is just good luck.

To give you some perspective, Greg Maddux's career BABIP is .286. Pedro Martinez's is .282. Their best seasons were .246 and .237 respectively, when each was at his peak. I by no means think that any of the Pirates' starters have that kind of year in them, so I think Ohlendorf and Zach Duke, who is at .265 are both due for a regression to the mean in the very near future.

Part of Ohlendorf's success (if I can play pitching coach here for a second), is that all his pitches are coming from roughly the same release point, as last night's graph shows here, and he's changing speed's effectively, as you can see here. Though his stuff may not have a lot of snap to it, the ability to change speeds between a 91-92 mph fastball and a 81-82 mph change and slider will help you keep hitters off balance.

Also, Ohlendorf's change and slider are averaging about the same speed, but as you can see below, their break is very different. Pitch f/x actually has him as throwing a two-seam and a curveball, but I think those are just mis-identified pitches, considering there are only 9 of them total.

A few more balls in play are going to end up being hits, but if Ohlendorf (and Duke) can find a way to miss more bats and keep doing what has gotten them to this point, the regression will not be as painful. Here's hoping, I guess.

For all the (very accurate) talk of the Pirates' starters not being able to miss bats, Ross Ohlendorf just struck out the side in the top of the sixth to help keep the Bucs up 2-1.

Now we're talking.

I will be completely honest here. Nothing, NOTHING, that Dejan has written since spring training has made me more excited than the quote from Pirates' manager John Russell that appeared in today's feature story:

"Tejada swings on a 1-2 count 87 percent of the time if you throw him a changeup," Russell said. "That's not Joe making up a number. That's what the player does."

I haven't even finished reading the story yet; I was so excited that I had to immediately say something about it. Quite frankly, I don't know if this kind of thing was going on during the McClatchy/Littlefield/Tracy years or not, but given my limited understanding of Jim Tracy, I doubt it, and it's exactly the type of analysis the club needs to be successful. Give these guys a simple matchup stat that tells them exactly what they need to do for a certain batter in a certain situation, and it puts them in a good position to be successful.

Chances are that if you throw Tejada a good changeup on a 1-2 count, he's going to swing at it, and he's not going to hit it particularly well. Seems simple enough, right? Well it's just the sort of thing that shows this club might finally be headed in the right direction.