Doug Mientkiewicz, a 10-year major-league veteran, was signed by the Marlins on Wednesday to a minor-league deal that gives the team insurance if it requires a left-handed hitter of the bench. Mientkiewicz, a terrific fielding first baseman and a career .271 hitter, will play at Class AAA New Orleans. “He’s a proven guy who has a lot of experience,” said Jim Fleming, the Marlins vice president of player development and scouting - link
Livan Hernandez has now made five starts, lasting a total of 36.1 innings and compiling a gaudy 0.99 ERA. Let that sink in. Hernandez has allowed just four runners to cross the plate and one of them did not count against him (fancy way of saying unearned run). It beats the life out of me how someone with such sub-par offerings could stifle the opponent not once, not twice, but five times in a row, especially considering the fact that he has walked 13 batters to just 11 punchouts and isn’t necessarily playing in front of the world’s greatest defensive unit. His shiny ERA juxtaposed against how terrible that same mark has been the last couple of seasons got me wondering if anyone with poor ERAs in two straight years ever got off to a hot start in the third season of that hypothetical span. - link
What happened to Scott Kazmir? The Red Sox knocked him around for seven runs in 4 1/3 innings Thursday night as he blew a 4-0 Angels lead. That raised his ERA to a Slurpee like 7.11. For his first four full seasons in Tampa Bay, he spent some time on the disabled list, but pitched consistently well, posting a 3.51 ERA. He walked a high number of batters, but struck out a high number as well and, most importantly, kept the ball in the park. He gave up 19.7 HR per 200 innings in that time. Since 2009, however, while his walk rate dropped a tiny bit, his home run rate went up 38%, to 27.7 per 200 innings. The high HR rate and walk rate, his ERA jumped. Looks like the Rays did a good job trading him when they did. - link
The difference between the 2010 and 2009 Mets isn't just the length of their disabled lists. It's also the very different vibe that surrounds the current edition. People around the Mets point back to the day in spring training that Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur rounded up virtually the entire roster to go watch the Olympic hockey gold-medal game. The bonding began that day. And while chemistry can only take you so far, it's a class that previous Mets teams clearly flunked. - link
Isolated power (ISO) is an advanced metric used to calculate how frequently a player hits for extra bases. Unlike its step-father, slugging percentage, isolated power does not take singles into account. Instead, it is calculated by subtracting a player's batting average from his slugging percentage, thus revealing his true power. Players such as Ichiro Suzuki, who typically hit for high slugging percentages largely on the basis of bunts, infield hits and slap singles, have low ISOs. Players such as Adam Dunn, who mash balls out of the park with regularity, have a high ISOs. At the time of this blog post, Mets catcher Rod Barajas is 14th in the Majors with a .295 ISO. - link
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