Under The Knife 6/5/24

Learning Anew

I owe a lot to Joe Sheehan. He let me hang around him at my first Winter Meetings in Nashville. We drank. We talked baseball. We met some people. But mostly he gave me credibility by standing there. Twenty-something years later, I still learn a lot from him, even when he’s not standing next to me.

Joe’s column over the weekend about Aaron Judge and how he’d picked up after Alex Verdugo came up behind him is well worth reading, but this wasn’t about the myth of protection suddenly coming back. He had good points, but as with anything, my question was “Is this knowable?” (At this point, that question might as well go on the theoretical UTK merch as a T-shirt.) I did a bit of digging and the answers honestly surprised me.

First, as Sheehan pointed out to me, he never argued that lineups don’t matter. In fact, he’s argued the opposite in that lineups are one of the very few quantifiable ways that managers can make a difference. It’s apportioning at-bats over the course of a season in a purely stable lineup, but it’s more than that in the function of a season.

I asked someone involved in helping pitchers figure out what pitches to throw to batters - yes, that’s a real thing - and they told me that there is some effect. I don’t have permission to go into details, but I believe I can summarize to say that for the most part, situation (runners on, game score) is more important than who’s coming up next, but that it can be factored in if needed. Think of it as a layer of complexity that’s not normally used, but very possible. I didn’t ask, but I’d guess the effect hasn’t been tested.

But it could. Using large data models and AI/ML tools, teams are likely looking (or have already looked) at this kind of question. I asked a couple team officials I trust about this and one said that they’d looked at it a few years back and decided it wasn’t “worth the squeeze” to use his metaphor. He acknowledged it existed, but that there were better ways to use his resources. The other was less committal on whether his team had looked at it, but he said it would be something that bears a new look with all the new tools coming into the game.

There’s things like this that are going to bear re-checking from early sabermetric acceptance. Something like BABIP - seemingly random, but possibly knowable if we get granular enough with the data and I mean grains of sand on the beach granular. My idea of “Keeler charts” that would instantly tell us where the “ain’t” is on the field, with knowable range and fielding positioning acting together to show us where a hit might be? Plausible, if not possible just yet.

We simply have too many new tools, new ways of measuring, more computing power, more video, more eyes, and just more of everything. Things that we thought would never be knowable are now standard. Imagine a kid today watching a game and not getting exit velocity, instant homer distance, or OPS on the scoreboard. Man, those were absolute dreams in 2002, ones we barely imagined were possible.

Look, I don’t pretend to speak for Sheehan. He can do that for himself, far better than I could, but he’s usually going in the right direction. What I can do, for now, is get to the injuries:

JOSE URQUIDY, SP HOU (sprained elbow)
LUIS GARCIA, SP HOU (sprained elbow/rehab)
CRISTIAN JAVIER, SP HOU (sprained elbow)

Just a few weeks back, the Astros were looking forward to getting the bulk of their rotation back in place, with Jose Urquidy taking his place alongside three other Latin studs behind Justin Verlander. That’s not happening now, as all three remain on the IL and Urquidy will be there a long time as he heads for elbow reconstruction. The question will be what kind of surgery he has and whether he’ll miss around a year, or more, but with the depth issues the team already has, losing anyone hurts. Losing one of the best for a year is nearly fatal.

Cristian Javier hit the IL and went for imaging on Tuesday. Few expected that he would be getting in line behind Urquidy, putting the Astros down not just one but two current starters. That he’s headed for Tommy John surgery this week (Thursday) is both not a surprise at all, and yet a shock. Javier will miss the better part of 2025 now, and all of 2024, leaving the Astros in a real hole. Without the depth to deal with this already, each additional injury, let alone long term injury, puts the team further and further back.

The loss of Urquidy and Javier puts even more pressure on Luis Garcia, who’s now the only injured Astros starter likely to get back in the short term. Garcia’s deep in his TJ rehab and is throwing to batters, with the hope that he’ll be able to start a rehab assignment later this month with a return sometime just after the ASB, which has been the plan. The lack of setbacks isn’t really remarkable with what is normally a rote rehab protocol, but the importance of it is amping up with each new lost player. And yes, he’s going to have to change his motion, if not his mechanics:

Add in the Spencer Arighetti took a 104 mph liner off his calf and there’s a real crisis for what the Astros are going to do. There’s Triple- and Double-A arms that could be called up, but few are ideal and certainly none are to plan. Arighetti would go again next Monday, so they have until then to decide whether the bruising on his leg will be enough of an issue to force another pitcher up. Post-Strom hangover? Yes.

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