Future Redbirds

I came across this article from Kary Booher of the Springfield News-Leader.  I was reading it and certain parts were jumping out at me so I decided to write down said thoughts for you the readers.  I’ve generally been impressed with Booher.  I don’t find his flavor of writing to be abrasive (as some sports writers are) and he’s always good about relaying transaction news.  He doesn’t appear to have an agenda or simply write things that are ridiculous.  I’ve read writers like that – and the respsonses lampooning them.  I just want to dig a little deeper into Kary’s article and see what comes up.  With that, I’m off.

Needing to enhance a slider that had been sporadic all season, Rauschenberger turned to the lefty, who has a pretty nice slider of his own.

AZ: Other things Rauschenberger needs to enhance: fastball, curveball, changeup.

Daniels could have steered Rauschenberger the wrong way, could have sabotaged his assortment of pitches for personal gain in the dog-eat-dog quest for the major leagues. But he didn’t.

AZ: Have you seen Rauschenberger’s stats this year?  Cory “Don’t call me Meacham” Rauschenberger has been really bad.  In 80+ innings he has an ERA and FIP over 5 and a 50:30 K:BB ratio.  He hasn’t been a good pitcher this year.  Daniels doesn’t need to sabotage someone who’s already sunk themselves.

Completing a three-game sweep of the Frisco RoughRiders, owners of the best winning percentage of any team in Double-A and Triple-A baseball, says as much.

AZ: Wow.

[...]and have won 28 of their last 39 games.

AZ: Double Wow.

Even better, the starting rotation has been downright filthy — a good filthy, that is — over the past 2 1/2 weeks.

AZ: Sniff, sniff.  Something smells fishy.  Was the starting rotation really that good from June 24 - July 9th?  Could be.  It’s hard to grasp timeframes like that without numbers.  I’m inclined to think of things like Jarrett Hoffpauir’s .440 wOBA in June or the bullpen that has been nails all season with Motte, Scherer and Perez or the recent addition of Kyle McClellan.  Juan Richardson’s .387 wOBA in July perhaps?  I’m not arguing that the rotation hasn’t been good but there have been a lot or reasons for their success this season.  Booher isn’t saying it’s exclusive to the rotation; that’s just what his article is about so that’s what he discusses but we should all remember that this is a pretty well balanced team.

Collectively, the rotation has an 11-2 record and outstanding 2.51 earned run average, meaning Springfield’s starters have pitched well enough to earn a decision and have shortened the bridge to the back of the bullpen.

AZ: Now this article started off with Rauschenberger as a segue into the rotation as a whole.  If I was to discuss a reason for recent success in the rotation, it would be the huge upgrade Adam Daniels has proven to been over the excretable Kevin Ool as a starter.  Daniels came up about 3 weeks ago. . . strangely close to the 2.5 that Booher sites.  I went back through those last 13 games and the starters have been good.  By my count (and I’m doing this by hand so it’s a rough count), the starters averaged 6 innings over this time frame with a sub-3 ERA.  (Booher slyly omits the pummelling the team took on the 23rd of June from the math.)  The team is averaging 6.6K/9 and a 2.8BB/9 over that time frame.  The only pitcher to really crap the bed in those 13 starts was, the star of the article, Cory Rauschenberger with his 2 and 2/3 innings performance on the 2nd of July allowing 6 ER on 9 hits.  Still this has been a nice little run for the Springfield team whose seen their biggest star, Mather, moved to Memphis and their heir apparent, Rasmus, stumble for the last few weeks.

Aside from Rauschenberger, the four other starters — Daniels, Mitchell Boggs, Jaime Garcia and Eric Haberer — also have pitched as if the season is still on the line. In July, having already clinched a playoff berth by winning the North Division first-half title, these games are for all intents and purposes meaningless in the Texas League standings.  But the starters have pitched as if mounting a playoff charge.

AZ: Maybe they’ve pitched as if they are trying to reach the majors?  Texas League playoffs wouldn’t be my goal if I was Jaime Garcia.

There is incentive, too, because the front office names a player of the day for every home game and awards him $100 — wonderful money considering most of the players are making the Double-A minimum salary of $64.28 a day.

AZ: Like I said, Texas League is probably nice and all but the majors pay a little better.  BTW, I think it’s pretty cool that the front office does this.  Even if it’s less than $15,000 for the organization over the course of the year, I would be pretty excited to be handed $100 at the end of a day.  (The $65 a day paychecks….less exciting).

The thing I like most about this article is that it reminded me how well the team is doing overall.  Something I’ve found while writing about the minors this season has been that I tend to lose the forest for the trees from time to time.  It’s hard when I’m reading 7-8 boxscores a night to remember if a team is on a streak.  Thankfully, we’ve got a good beat writer in Springfield to help us remember things like this.