Daily Archives: May 7, 2007

J.A. Happ Interview

* Interviews

J.A Happ Interview

Scouts drool over them. General Managers open up their pocket books for them. Managers dream of them. Opposing managers cringe at the mere mention of them. They are the tall lanky left handed pitchers who throw mid 90’s heat, snap off curve balls and/or sliders and frustrate opposing batters with a barely get there change up. It’s probably no coincidence that the number one pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana relies on numbers one and three. It’s probably no coincidence that Hall of Fame lefties Sandy Koufax and Steve Carlton embarrassed big league hitters for years and future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson continues to make big league hitters weak in the knees.

Continue reading J.A. Happ Interview →

Some general thoughts…

Other Stuff

* I’m starting to legitimately worry about Carlos Carrasco. It’s only a month, it’s only a handful of starts, but he’s already allowed 6 HR in 31 innings after allowing 6 home runs all of last season. The low K rate is also sending up a bit of a red flag. We’re not in panic mode, or even “worry mode”, just kind of head scratching mode at this point.

* JD Durbin made his debut the other day, and struck out 7 guys in 4.2 innings. The bad news is, he also allowed 7 hits, and of the 14 balls put in play, 6 were line drives.

* Jason Donald is tearing the cover off the ball. In 23 May AB, his 3 slash line is .609/.643/1.000…..not bad.

* Adrian Cardenas is up to .279, and while you want to see more from a top pick, after a frigid April, he’s hitting .316 in the first week of May.

* Mike Zagurksi clearly doesn’t belong at Clearwater. Through 13 innings, he’s averaging 17.5 strikeouts per 9, and he’s allowed only 9 of the 44 batters he’s faced to reach base.

Monday Morning 6 pack

Other Stuff

The new name for the weekly “Hot or Not” series is the Monday Morning 6 pack. I’ll admit, it’s a nod to Kevin Goldstein’s always entertaining Monday Morning 10 Pack over at Baseball Prospectus, but “Hot or Not” just wasn’t gonna get it done anymore. I’m cutting the list down from 5 each to 3 each, mainly because I felt like I was starting to put mediocre stat lines up there “just to get 5”, and that’s no fun. If I deem 4 to be worthy one week, we’ll go with an honorable mention. So here we go

Stock Up

Jason Donald: 15/27 — .556/.600/.852 — 3 BB — 2 2B – 2 HR — 10 RBI — 9 Runs
Jeremy Slayden: 11/28 — .393/.500/.679 — 6 BB — 5 2B — 1 HR — 8 RBI — 7 Runs
Andrew Carpenter: 14 IP – 4 ER (2.57 ERA) — 12 H — 4 BB – 12 K

Stock Down

Jason Jaramillo: 3/26 (.115) 1 BB
Greg Golson: 5/29 (.172) 2 BB
Mike Costanzo: 3/21 (.143) 1 HR

Thoughts?