Baseball – Jose Pagan, A.J. Burnett, Hal Trosky Jr., Jeremy Guthrie

Jose Pagan (b. 1935) was a shortstop-third baseman for the Giants and Pirates.  In the decisive Game  #7 of the 1971 World Series, his eighth inning double knocked in Willie Stargell for the game-winning/series-winning run. fairandunbalancedblog  

Let’s start by looking at what went wrong for Burnett this past season. A.J. Burnett’s ERA was just awful for a fantasy starter. His FIP and xFIP, however, indicates that he could be in for some improvement. His 4.77 FIP isn’t great, of course, but his 3.86 xFIP offers hope for some type of rebound. The reason for the large gap between Burnett’s ERA and xFIP likely is a result of Burnett’s horrible 17.0% home run rate. That home run rate was the worst among all qualified starters this past season, even worse than Bronson Arroyo, who gave up 46 home runs. The silver lining is that with a home run rate that high, things are likely to regress towards the mean this upcoming season. This also isn’t the first time Burnett has experienced a huge spike in home runs. In 2007, Burnett’s home run rate jumped to 17.7%. The next season, it dropped to 9.6% — slightly below his career average. http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/should-you-draft-a-j-burnett/

Hal Trosky, Jr. grew up with a great model to emulate while dreaming of becoming a big league player. His father, Hal Trosky, Sr. was a major league star, who, if not for World War II may have made a very strong case for enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame. As it was, Senior had a star career that ended after the 1946 season when Junior was 10 years old. By that time the younger Trosky had seen enough to know what he wanted to do with his life- play baseball. By the time he was in high school, Trosky, Jr. had become a talented player and was drawing a lot of interest from professional teams. As a senior in Cedar Rapids, Iowa he hit .667 and had scouts from nearly half the major league teams in attendance at his games. The connections his father had made during his time in the game helped guide the young man’s decision making, and in 1954 he settled on signing with the Chicago White Sox after making a good connection with team owner Charlie Comiskey, Jr., who shared the commonality of being baseball progeny. http://seamheads.com/2012/02/12/hal-trosky-jr-a-stubborn-baseball-player/

Jeremy Guthrie may be going mile-high, but Coors Field isn't quite the terror it was in the 1990s. Homers are likely to be a problem, given Guthrie's 41% career flyball rate, but Camden Yards wasn't a great place for him either, and the difference may not be that drastic. Though he'll be going to the world's most feared hitter's park (and owner of second place on ESPN's park factor list) he'll be staying away from Boston, Toronto, and New York (the third, fourth, and sixth-most hitter friendly parks in baseball) on the road, replacing them with trips to San Franciso, San Diego, and Los Angeles, so the park change isn't as bad as it sounds. Of course, that isn't counting the hitters themselves. Pitching for Baltimore is more than pitching for a bad team, it's facing four of baseball's toughest offenses night after night. The general quality difference between the AL and the NL should help, too. Overall, the change in environment should be a wash at the worst for Guthrie's rate stats and strikouts, and could well give them a boost. http://www.rotoauthority.com/

Cutnpaste: Chris Schwinden, Jason Isringhausen, CitiField Dimensions, Bradley Marquez, Jose Pagan

9-3-11: - http://metsmerizedonline.com/2011/09/prospect-pulse-buffalo-2012-help-on-the-way.html  - SP4: Chris Schwinden - Schwinden has emerged as the “ace” of the Buffalo rotation this year, going 8-7 with a 3.95 ERA in 25 GS. He has put himself squarely on the “prospect map” as a RHP in the Dillon Gee mold. The chief difference between the two, is where Gee relies heavily on his change-up as an out-pitch, Schwinnie uses a hard-breaking curveball. He will be a super long-shot to make the Mets out of ST next year, and will probably be a “holdover” in the Herd’s rotation, but should definitely get his first big league opportunity at some point during the 2012 campaign, whether in the rotation or the bullpen is tough to say.

(Jason) Isringhausen is suffering from a herniated disk in his lower back. He last pitched on Sept. 6. With Isringhausen down, Collins has given a few more opportunities to bullpen options like Manny Acosta and Daniel Herrera. The manager is still trying to figure out his closer situation for the future. Isringhausen has said he would like to pitch in 2012. He has a 4.05 ERA in 46 2/3 innings this year. At 38, he has overcome a trio of Tommy John surgeries, a pair of hip surgeries and a laundry list of other ailments - http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2011/09/mets_notebook_reliever_jason_i.html  

Amid growing speculation that the Mets will shrink the daunting dimensions of Citi Field this off-season, the issue has become an open topic of discussion among players in the clubhouse. After a recent game, David Wright lamented that he had hit “800 feet worth of doubles” and added, perhaps only half-jokingly, that he hoped such an effort would yield a couple of home runs next season. Until now, hitters like Wright have been the ones asked about the size of the park, and fans and commentators have weighed in on the merits of altering a facility that is only three years old. - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/sports/baseball/the-pros-and-cons-of-altering-citi-field.html  

9-14-11: - http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/13/3365498/texas-techs-bradley-marquez-takes.html#ixzz1XvtSeqZK  - (Bradley) Marquez is playing football this fall with the Raiders and will go through spring football drills before reporting to the Mets' rookie league in Port Lucie, Fla., in May -- 48 hours after his school session at Tech concludes. "I'll start in rookie ball and hopefully progress throughout the summer and see where I end up at the end of the summer and then go start over again next year [with football]," Marquez said. "Everybody starts at the very bottom, and you basically determine how fast you move up." The Mets awarded Marquez a $325,000 signing bonus to be paid over the life of his three-year contract, and are paying for Marquez's education, which frees the Raiders to use that scholarship money on someone else.

(Angel) Pagan's is too often overlooked, with some people even suggesting the absurd idea that the Mets should not tender him a contract for 2012. Pagan is undoubtedly having a down year at the plate, but he's still far from a liability. Since he began playing a significant amount of time in 2009, Pagan ranks seventh among qualified center fielders in wRC+. It's a bit concerning that Pagan's defense in center field appears to have gone downhill. UZR/150 ranks him worst in baseball at -16.9, but DRS has him at a middle-of-the-pack zero. Poor scores in both metrics are out of line with Pagan's work in 2009-2010. It's possible that the metrics are just a bit weird with him in a small sample of data, or Pagan is just human and having a not-so-great year in the field. Either way, Pagan still looks like a major league center fielder who can be retained on the cheap for next season, and the Mets don't have any obvious choices to replace him in the minor leagues. Productive big league players under team control at a reasonable cost are hard to come by, and in that respect, Pagan definitely seems underappreciated. - http://www.amazinavenue.com/2011/9/14/2423158/the-moneyball-mets-underappreciated-players-on-the-2011-team