When we’re not at the game, we’re watching on TV, and broadcasters shape the way we see baseball. This season, Sporting News will be reviewing the work done in booths across MLB. This time it’s the St. Louis Cardinals on Fox Sports Midwest.
As Gerardo Parra steps to the plate to lead off the game for the Diamondbacks against Cardinals pitcher Lance Lynn, play-by-play man Dan McLaughlin notes that Arizona’s season batting average is .255 against right-handed pitching.
“On the surface,” McLaughlin says, a promising beginning to an explanation of an informational nugget about batting average.
“You say, ‘Well, .255, not so great,’” McLaughlin says. Still promising.
“Well, fifth-best in the National League,” McLaughlin says. “You look at numbers across the board offensively, they are way down in baseball.”
Oh. Well, that is true, but more interesting is that, by the end of this game, while the Diamondbacks still will be fifth in batting average against right-handers, they will be 11th in on-base percentage against right-handed batters at .300. That would have been a more interesting bit of knowledge to apply.
Just stick with batting average for a moment. The major league average this year is .251, the lowest it has been since it was .244 in 1972, the year before the designated hitter was introduced. So, McLaughlin is right that numbers are down, but the major league batting average last year was .253, it was .255 each of the two years before that, .257 in 2010, .262 in 2009, .264 in 2008, .268 in 2007, and .269 in 2006. This is a nearly decade-long decline, with similar drops in on-base percentage, and in that context, this year’s statistics are not strikingly different from what anyone has seen this decade.
“It’s hard to believe that pitchers are dominating the way they are,” analyst Al Hrabosky says, lending credence to the flawed notion. “When you talk about some of the scouts, you talk about the amateur draft, they talk about it’s mostly pitchers that are the big names, so where have the hitters gone?”
This is a tanget from the original thought, and also not extremely helpful. In the history of the draft, there have been 221 pitchers taken in the top 10, representing 45.1% of all top 10 picks. The mock draft that Ryan Fagan did for Sporting News featured six pitchers in this year’s top 10, including each of the top three, which, while an increase over the historical average, is not outlandish.
The game is barely underway, so these first pieces of conversation have to be things that the announcers were ready to talk about. The lack of context provided for what are intended to be edifying observations is brutal.
BASEPATH CONFUSION
Parra singles, then Martin Prado draws a walk, and Paul Goldschmidt comes to the plate, introduced as the major league doubles leader and Arizona’s hits leader. He smacks the second pitch he sees into right field.
McLaughlin’s call: “And, a base hit into right field. Robinson … comes up firing … and the Diamondbacks held up the runner at third! I have no idea why. Parra scores, and the second runner there, that’s Prado, didn’t hesitate at all going around second base, winds up at third, and that forced Parra to head to the plate and score the first run tonight.”
A replay shows that Parra indeed hesitated going around third base, and Hrabosky pins the miscommunication on Diamondbacks third base coach Clint Sherlock. This is true enough, but the hesitation was brief and there was never going to be a play at the plate, so to say that Prado “forced” Parra to come home is a bit of a gaffe by McLaughlin. As it is, the play winds up pretty much how you would expect a single to right field with runners on first and second to wind up – one run in, and runners now at the corners. This is not mentioned, and a viewer is left with the impression that maybe Prado could have scored, had Parra not hesitated. That is not the case.
Prado scores anyway on a sacrifice fly by Aaron Hill, called well by McLaughlin: “Fly ball into right field. Runner from third will tag up. Robinson fires to the plate, it’s a strike! But Yadi can’t hold on. 2-0 Arizona.”
Hrabosky immediately comes to the scene with his take: “Oh boy. Nice throw from Shane Robinson. Shane’s a very good outfielder. He can play all three outfield positions. You see the strong throw there, and I’ll tell you, if Yadi gets that throw, 99 times out of 100, he receives it, and the Cardinals get their first out at the plate.” The replay rolls. “Momentum coming forward, strong throw, on one hop, and you just – that one hop was a little bit higher and surprised Yadi as he’s thinking of how quickly he can get the tag down, and he misses the connection.”
This is selling the degree of difficulty short for Yadier Molina – Yadi – and on replay, it looks like it would have been a very close play had he handled Robinson’s throw cleanly, because the ball did bounce high, meaning that Molina not only would have had to pivot 90 degrees, he would have had to do so while bringing the ball down to Prado’s level on the ground. It’s a tricky play for a catcher, even as good as Molina is, and as the discussion turns to a play from Wednesday night’s game on a throw in from left field to get an out at the plate, this distinction is not mentioned, nor is a replay of that play shown.
“It is part of the job of the third base coach to get some guys thrown out at the plate,” Hrabosky says. “You just don’t want that many.”
This simultaneously makes sense, as you want a third base coach to be aggressive in getting runners home to score, and does not make sense, as getting runners thrown out at the plate is the opposite of what a third base coach wants to do. There has to be a clearer, more incisive way to make this point.
Hrabosky continues with an anecdote: “The great Jack Buck, describing a third base coach one day – one of my classics – one of his classics – called the third base coach ‘Dr. Kevorkian.’”
There is a pause, and then McLaughlin says, “It was Tommie Reynolds, wasn’t it?”
Hrabosky says, “I didn’t want to say it was Tommie Reynolds. He may be watching this game, probably in Arizona.”
McLaughlin: “Ah, he’d be laughing, too.”
Hrabosky: “He got so many runners thrown out at home plate, the great Jack Buck called him ‘Dr. Kevorkian.’”
Tommie Reynolds was the Cardinals’ third base coach for one year, in 1996. Jack Kevorkian’s trial for participating in assisted suicide was in 1999. There is a good chance that a significant portion of the audience, like, anyone under the age of 25, will have no idea what Hrabosky is talking about other than picking up context clues to know that Jack Buck once said something clever about a third base coach who got a lot of runners thrown out at home.
SECOND LOOK
As the second inning begins, McLaughlin throws things down to Jim Hayes at field level for an injury report on Michael Wacha, who was hit by a line drive in the dugout in the previous game. Wacha has a bruise behind his elbow, but expects to make his next start. Wacha’s clear joke about being angry at his teammates for not blocking the line drive is presented in less than a joking manner, which is odd.
Also, this is not news, as all of the details in Hayes’ report on Wacha was in Derrick Goold’s game story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Thursday morning. (CORRECTION: While Wacha's joke about being angry at his teammates was in Thursday's newspapers, Wacha saying he expected to make his next start did not happen until Thursday afternoon, when Hayes asked him.)
McLaughlin then prompts Hayes for reports on Jason Motte’s return from the disabled list the previous night, and to talk about Carlos Martinez’s struggles. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and while it’s cool of McLaughlin to use the opportunity to promote former Sporting News colleague Stan McNeal’s piece about Martinez on Fox Sports Midwest’s website, there are now two outs in the inning, and it would be more interesting to know if Hrabosky has any thoughts on adjustments made by Lynn after his rocky first inning.
Instead, Hrabosky gets back involved by talking about Parra being 6-for-10 in his career against Lynn, which becomes 6-for-11 on the next pitch with a ground ball to shortstop.
In the bottom of the inning, Hrabosky presents his theory, that with the game having an earlier-than-usual start time by an hour for getaway day, perhaps Lynn’s routine was thrown off.
Lynn has a 7.20 ERA in the first inning of his 10 starts this year, with a .987 OPS that includes half of the four home runs he has allowed on the season. In his career, Lynn has a 5.59 ERA in the first inning of 74 games, with opponents posting a .900 OPS. You would think that Lynn would want a change of his pregame routine to maybe lead to better starts of games.
HOLLIDAY ROAD
McLaughlin begins the bottom of the sixth inning by talking about how he did some research on the inning’s leadoff batter, Matt Holliday, who has been a topic of conversation during a game that has a good pace but feels like it is dragging a bit.
McLaughlin’s research revealed that Holliday has been durable, as he has played 689 games as a Cardinal. During the time that Holliday has been in St. Louis, only Hunter Pence, Ichiro Suzuki, Nick Markakis, and Justin Upton have played more games as a corner outfielder in the major leagues. McLaughlin does not actually say that it’s Justin Upton, but that’s who it is. Also, this list on which Holliday is in fifth place features Jeff Francoeur in 10th, so make of that what you will.
McLaughlin has more to reveal. Holliday’s average as a Cardinal is .309, he says, adding that there have only been four better. McLaughlin then adds the key detail of that .309 average “with runners in scoring position.” Holliday’s average as a Cardinal is .304, a piece of information that could spark a good conversation about how hitting with runners in scoring position is not a super skill, and that over time, good hitters will succeed in those situations.
It does not do that, and the bases are empty anyway, as Holliday is leading off the inning, but McLaughlin continues to add that Holliday has the most RBI in the National League since he joined the Cardinals. This is as bogus as using RBI to explain how good Holliday is in the first place, as of the five players in baseball ahead of Holliday on the RBI list since he joined the Cardinals, three – Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, and Albert Pujols (is he allowed to be mentioned now in St. Louis?) – have spent significant time in both leagues.
Since the start of the 2009 season, when Holliday began the season in Oakland but was traded to St. Louis, Holliday is fifth in doubles, eighth in on-base percentage among players with at least 1,000 plate appearances, 14th in baseball in offensive WAR, 20th in slugging percentage, according to baseball-reference.com. He’s a great hitter. Nobody is debating this. There are just better ways to express it.
Holliday flies out to fall to 0-for-3 on the night.
PEN ANALYSIS NOT MIGHTIER
The Cardinals put together a two-run rally to tie the game anyway, with a Robinson double driving in both runs. McLaughlin’s call is good again: “Robinson with a fly ball, into left-center… will it get down? IT WILL! This game is tied! Robinson on his way to second, he’s tied it up and it’s 2-2!”
Robinson’s double is followed by an intentional walk to Mark Ellis to bring up the pitcher’s spot. During the walk, Pat Neshek begins warming up in the St. Louis bullpen, and the booth is all over it, leading to what should be Hrabosky’s best point of the game, in his wheelhouse as a former relief pitcher with knowledge of what it takes to warm up in a hurry.
“As a reliever, you’ve got to sit down there, and you’ve got to assume that you could just come up,” Hrabosky says. “If you get called in, you could go out there and pitch on the mound with your eight warmup pitches. You would think that way. It’ll never happen, and you can get 15 or 20 pitches down there anyway. He’s got plenty of time now that they, select it, they call back Lance Lynn. Jon Jay warming – Descalso went down there, but you have to assume Jon Jay was down there getting ready.”
The latter part of that was maybe about the Cardinals stalling with their announcement of a pinch-hitter, in order to give Neshek time to throw a couple of extra pitches in the bullpen? It’s hard to say. Jay taking the first pitch for a called strike also serves the purpose of giving Neshek a little more time, and there probably was a take sign given from the St. Louis bench. This is not mentioned.
THIS ONE GOES TO 11
The Cardinals score in the seventh inning, and again in the eighth, setting up a save situation for Trevor Rosenthal to close out a sweep of the three-game series. A graphic appears showing Rosenthal’s pitch load for the week – 26 on Thursday, 17 on Friday, nine on Saturday, 23 on Sunday, none on Monday or Tuesday, and 11 on Wednesday for a total of 86.
“You see how many pitches he’s thrown this week,” Hrabosky says.
“Eleven in the extra-inning game last night,” McLaughlin says.
“He looked like he bounced back like we all expected after the tough game on Sunday,” Hrabosky says. “Just gotta cut down on his walks.”
The pitch count information is important enough to get a graphic, but not any kind of explanation of why it’s important, or analysis of what it means to Rosenthal coming into this game. Then again, given the confusing and contextually deficient nature of so much of this broadcast, aside from McLaughlin’s clear descriptions of plays as they happen, maybe it’s for the best that Rosenthal just throws a quick 11 pitches to get three outs and wrap up the Cardinals’ sweep.
RANKINGS SO FAR
1. San Francisco (Kuiper/Krukow, CSN Bay Area)
2. Oakland (Kuiper/Fosse, CSN California)
3. Seattle (Sims/Blowers, ROOT)
4. Chicago-AL (Harrelson/Stone, CSN Chicago)
5. Houston (Brown/Ashby, CSN Houston)
6. New York-AL (Kay/Cone, YES)
7. St. Louis (McLaughlin/Hrabosky, FS Midwest)
8. Washington (Carpenter/Santangelo, MASN)