Category Archives: Javy Guerra

Bryce Who? Matt Kemp Does It Again

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For seven innings, the much-hyped Washington duo of Stephen Strasburg & Bryce Harper held up their end of the deal. In front of a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium, Strasburg whiffed nine without allowing a walk, while Harper made his debut a memorable one by doubling off the wall and throwing an absolute laser from left field to the plate that would have nailed Jerry Hairston at the plate had catcher Wilson Ramos only been able to hang on to the perfect throw. Ramos’ inability to complete the play meant that Strasburg would leave after 101 pitches with a 1-1 tie, and that’s not to be taken lightly: Chad Billingsley may not have been as outright dominating as his Nationals counterpart, but when you can stay in the game for seven innings and leave standing tall against the great Strasburg, that’s an achievement not to be overlooked – although with the way the ninth inning unfolded, it almost certainly will.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the 2012 Dodgers if the game didn’t stay close into the late innings and… well, look. Sooner or later we’re going to have to acknowledge that Javy Guerra is just a mess right now, right? You can argue that he got spooked by taking a Brian McCann liner off the face the other night, but that was hardly the start of his troubles; he’s blown something like 37 games over the last two weeks. Entering in the 9th after Scott Elbert allowed a LaRoche single and induced Rick Ankiel to eliminate LaRoche via sacrifice bunt – and for the record, I have absolutely no idea why Don Mattingly yanked Elbert after just five pitches – Guerra allowed a single, a sacrifice fly, and another single, pushing two runs across and putting the Dodgers down 3-1. You can argue that Guerra is getting BABIP’d to death with all the singles if you want, but if you plan on being a late innings reliever in the bigs, you need to miss some bats, and Guerra simply has not been doing that lately. (Is that… Shawn Tolleson‘s music I hear? No, of course not.)

But that was far from the end of it. Surprisingly, the bottom of the order showed some life in the 9th, with Mark Ellis & James Loney leading off with two singles, followed by a Juan Uribe ground rule double which plated Ellis. Henry Rodriguez, touching triple digits, blew away A.J. Ellis and got the utterly useless Adam Kennedy to ground into a fielder’s choice… and then things got weird.

With two out, Rodriguez uncorked a 102 MPH wild pitch, scoring Uribe to knot the game at 3 and pushing Kennedy to second. Dee Gordon followed, feebly striking out against Rodriguez’ overwhelming heat to end the game… except that the third strike also went to the backstop, allowing Gordon to reach first and the game to continue. Tony Gwynn attemped to walk off against reliever Tom Gorzelanny, but lined out to LaRoche to end the frame.

Jamey Wright set the Nats down without trouble in the top of the tenth, and that brought Matt Kemp to the plate. Kemp crushed a Gorzelanny pitch into center for the walkoff win, and what else can you really say about Kemp? (Other than, “why in the hell would the Nationals even pitch to him there?”) Harper’s debut brought the spotlight to this game, but Kemp reminded everyone that for all of the potential about what Harper might yet be in the future, the present belongs to Beast Mode.

No Bigger Beneficiary of Hot Start Than Javy Guerra

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Through seven games, Dodger closer Javy Guerra has five saves, the most in baseball. Though Guerra has indeed been very good – more on that in a second – that’s mostly a function of this team’s style of play, which is to rely on good starting pitching, improved defense, and just enough offense to eke out tight victories. Saves, as we should know by now, are more of a team-based and situation-based stat than any indicator of a reliever’s skill. It wouldn’t surprise me if this team ranks in the top five for save opportunities at the end of the year just because of how they’re put together, similar to how Francisco Rodriguez‘ record-setting 62-save 2008 was in no small part due to the fact that he was handed a record 69 chances to save games.

Still, Guerra’s performance ranks as one of the bigger surprises for me in this young season, since his mediocre minor-league track record and good-but-not great 2011 peripheral stats made him seem like a great candidate for regression and someone who would be more likely to be setting up Kenley Jansen than vice-versa by June. And who knows, that might still happen. But in the early going, at least, Guerra has been fantastic, striking out five in his five innings against just one walk and one hit.

A far better stat to measure relievers than the flawed “saves” and “blown saves” is without question “shutdowns” and “meltdowns”, a Fangraphs creation which gives (or takes) credit based on whether a reliever’s performance made his team more or less likely to win by at least 6%. (Full explanation here.) The main benefit there is that all relievers can make that kind of impact, not just the one who is lucky enough to be handed a three-run lead coming into a clean inning in the ninth. It also means that middle relievers don’t get penalized by the fact that they can only blow saves before the ninth, not collect them, which is what infuriated me when anyone complained about Jonathan Broxton‘s “career saves percentage” without realizing that he spent nearly three years setting up Takashi Saito, rarely being given the chance to finish the ninth.

Guerra tops that list as well with four shutdowns, tied with Matt Guerrier, of all people, among others, so there’s nothing cheap about what he’s been able to accomplish so far. Guerra’s fastball is usually his money pitch, and he’s been throwing it more (75.9%) than he did last year (61.5%) despite his velocity on it being down by about a mile per hour in the early going. But like the rest of the pitching staff, he’s been benefiting from improved defense behind him – I don’t think a .100 BABIP is going to last, but there’s no question that Mark Ellis & a healthy Juan Uribe are a fielding improvement over Jamey Carroll & Aaron Miles – and the avoidance of walks, as the staff nearly made it the entire series without walking a Pirate before Mike MacDougal issued a free pass in relief of Chris Capuano last night.

There’s still a part of me that wonders about trading Guerra while his value is high, assuming he’s still looking good in a few months. I realize that there’s almost no chance that will actually happen, because the team’s quick start makes it unlikely they’ll be completely out of the race in a world that now has two wild cards, but if there’s anything we should know by now, it’s A) non-elite relievers are rarely good long-term investments and B) young right-handed pitching is the one thing this organization has in spades.

Guerra’s impressive start helps the Dodgers in some hidden ways, as well. I don’t think anyone would argue that Guerra is a more imposing reliever than Jansen, but by proving he’s able to lock down the ninth, that frees Jansen up to be available in the 7th and 8th as needed – often at more crucial points in the game than the 9th – and that has a ripple effect on the usage of the entire bullpen. (Jon Weisman looked at this late last season, in a piece I completely agreed with.)

Regardless of our expectations for him or what the future may hold – just by definition, there’s regression coming, because again, .100 BABIP – Guerra has been fantastic in the early going and a huge part of the team’s initial success. Somewhat lost in the 6-1 start, I think, is that the Dodgers haven’t exactly been crushing opponents; other than the 6-0 win over San Diego in Chad Billingley‘s first start, every other victory has been by three runs or less. With even just a little less effective work from the back end of the bullpen, the 6-1 start and all the good feelings around it could easily be more of a 4-3. Guerra deserves much of the credit for that. Keep on proving me wrong, Javy.

News From the First Day of Dodger Spring Training

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Plenty of news coming in on this first official day of camp, and isn’t that a lovely feeling? Pitchers & catchers have reported, with position players joining them by Monday, and that means we’ll finally have real news & updates to talk about, not just hypotheticals and what-ifs. Don Mattingly held court this morning with a few of our famililar media names, and here’s what we know so far…

* Clayton Kershaw will be your Opening Day starter. (Ken Gurnick) Well, of course. This is news in the sense that “hey, Frank McCourt might not be such a great guy” is news. You know how I feel that the Opening Day assignment is wildly overrated, and so this doesn’t mean a great deal to me. Still, it’s a nice honor for Kershaw, and one that he’ll hopefully be able to carry for at least the next ten years. With three lefties likely to be in the rotation, I imagine that Kershaw will be followed by Chad Billingsley & Ted Lilly, then Aaron Harang & Chris Capuano. That will mean two lefties back-to-back as the rotation turns around, but that’s unavoidable.

* Dee Gordon will lead off and Matt Kemp will hit third. (Eric Stephen) No surprise here, either, especially with how well Kemp finished the year in the #3 spot. I think there’s a good enough argument to be made that Gordon is best served hitting lower in the order, where his inexperience and questionable on-base skills may not be exposed as much, but with his speed there was never any real chance Mattingly would have done that, and to be honest it’s not like there’s an obviously better choice anyway. (No, not even A.J. Ellis.) The official Dodger Twitter notes that Gordon reported early to camp and was in the cage taking BP today, which is a great sign. Dylan Hernandez adds that Mattingly likes the idea of Andre Ethier & Juan Rivera behind Kemp for protection, so while it’s not like we didn’t already know what the batting order was going to be, it seems pretty clear that the regular 8 will work out like so: 1) Gordon 2) Mark Ellis 3) Kemp 4) Ethier 5) Rivera 6) James Loney 7) Juan Uribe 8) A.J. Ellis, with some chance of Loney & Uribe being swapped. You know what’s going to be fun, though? When Gordon is inevitably banged-up, or even just gets a regular day off, and Jerry Hairston or Adam Kennedy gets to lead off instead.

* Blake Hawksworth is not going to be ready for Opening Day. (Dylan Hernandez). This initially came as something of a surprise, because Hawksworth’s January elbow surgery was originally not expected to keep him out so long, but Hernandez reveals that Hawksworth had to have a second procedure to deal with an infection that resulted from the first, so he’s “a few weeks behind schedule.” If there were any justice in the world, this would mean that the final bullpen spot would go to Josh Lindblom, who clearly proved he was big-league ready in his debut last season. Of course, Lindblom has options remaining, and the Dodgers have plenty of washed-up veteran non-roster types in camp. Remember yesterday when I said that I had a feeling that I couldn’t back up that Jamey Wright was going to make this team? Yeah, this is how. Depending on Hawksworth’s timetable, his recovery could force the Dodgers to make some interesting roster choices to make near the end of April when Ronald Belisario is eligible to return from suspension. (I know, it sounds crazy to even suggest it, but Stephen actually saw him in person today.)

* Javy Guerra starts camp as the closer. (Hernandez) Again, no surprise here, because Guerra took hold of the job last year after no one else could and did little to force the team to make a move. If he can be effective again this year, then fantastic, because Kenley Jansen is arguably more valuable as a “fireman” type who can come in and dominate when the situation dictates, rather than tether him to the 9th inning. Still, I see Jansen moving into the 9th inning at some point this year.

* Steve Yeager rejoins the Dodgers. Yeager, who originally joined the organization when he was drafted in 1967 and was a Dodger catcher for all but one of his 15 major league seasons before becoming an occasional Dodger hitting coach for four minor-league affiliates, has been hired to work with the backstops in camp. Yeager hit .228/.298/.355 over his career, which makes him basically the perfect person to work the current group of catchers… or lead an interstellar battleship.

* A spring training primer from Jon Weisman. In a long piece at ESPN/LA, Jon breaks down the players in camp, all the way from Kemp to Lance Zawadzki. Rabid followers over the winter will likely have seen all of these names already, but this is a good resource to keep bookmarked for three weeks from now when you’re trying to remember just who in the hell Matt Chico is.

More to come, no doubt.

This Might Be The Best Thing Javy Guerra and James Loney Do All Year

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Very few people believe that Javy Guerra is really going to hold off Kenley Jansen and hang on to the closer’s job all season long, and as we discussed earlier today, expectations for James Loney are all over the map. By July, he could either be in the All-Star Game or in the minors, and neither one would surprise me in the least.

Yet absolutely none of that matters today, because we’ve been lucky enough to receive this gift from the lords of high comedy: Guerra & Loney photobombing celebrities and randoms at the Eastbound & Down premiere party. What’s that, you say? Loney popping up behind random girls doesn’t do anything for you? How about Guerra photobombing Marilyn Manson, of all people – twice?

Frankly, if the shot of Guerra leaning around the pole (#2 in the set) hasn’t become a widely-known Photoshopped meme by morning, we’ve all failed.

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MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Relievers, Part 1

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Today we move on to relievers, and like the rotation, these are not necessarily ordered by importance, lest I end up with a day that is only about Lance Cormier and Mike MacDougal. Today, we start with an unexpected closer, a resurgent lefty, and a crazy old man.

Javy Guerra (A+)
2.31 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 7.3 K/9, 3.5 BB/9

To say that Javy Guerra was an afterthought headed into the season is actually somewhat of an insult to afterthoughts. The only real mention Guerra got around here before the year started was when I looked at the 40-man roster crunch the Dodgers might be looking at, since they were breaking camp with so many non-roster invites, and figured that he along with John Lindsey might actually be a prime candidate for being DFA’d:

Lindsey’s the obvious choice, but if more than one spot is needed, you might also look at 25-year-old Javy Guerra, a veteran of seven minor league seasons with the Dodgers. His 2.33 ERA in 28 AA games last year may look shiny, but the 7.3 BB/9 (and 5.3 career) don’t really back it up, nor does the 1.603 career WHIP. He suffered shoulder soreness last year and then had to deal with an infection caused by a cut while washing dishes this winter. Guerra reportedly has a plus fastball, and I’m sure the Dodgers would prefer to hold onto him, but at 25, he’s no longer a kid, and his struggles at AA could make him vulnerable if a spot is needed.

That doesn’t look great for me in retrospect, though it’s hard to act as though anyone at all saw Guerra as much of an option this year. With the bullpen destroyed by injury, he got the call on May 15 as Blake Hawksworth hit the disabled list, and picked up his first big-league save just over a week later with Kenley Jansen unavailable and on his way to own disabled list trip.

Though it probably seems now that he came up and immediately took over the 9th inning, it didn’t really work out that way; he had one save in May and one in June, partially because the Dodger offense was at their low point at the time and rarely were there late leads to protect. He really took over the job in July, collecting six saves without blowing any (despite doing his best a few times), but as you can see from our midseason review, I wasn’t exactly sold on him yet:

Guerra, like MacDougal all those years ago, is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t overrate saves. For a guy who walked 6.8/9 in the minors last year and was forced to the bigs simply because of injuries, he’s been fine. He’s keeping the ball in the yard, he’s cut down on the control issues, and he’s even managed to steal a few saves while serving as the last-ditch closer. As far as debuts go, his has been a successful one. Let’s just not go overboard in anointing him as the man in the 9th inning, because he hasn’t been that good – 13 K in 19.1 IP doesn’t thrill me – and in each of his last two saves, he loaded the bases before getting out of the jam. That’s not the kind of tightrope you can walk for very long.

And had he kept up his rate of production at that point, I do believe it would have fallen apart for him. But Guerra found a way to improve. After striking out 6.1/9 before the break, he improved to 8.2/9 afterwards, lowering his OPS against from .704 to .533. In August, I had to acknowledge his success:

I also want to take the time to praise Javy Guerra, who struck out three in 1.1 scoreless innings to get his 10th save, coming in with two outs in the eighth after Mike MacDougal walked two and made a throwing error. I’ve been lukewarm on Guerra for some time, feeling that simply getting “saves” doesn’t make a pitcher any good, especially since his peripherals were iffy and his minor-league track record showed little indication of success. At the end of play of July 6, Guerra had struck out just 10 in 17.1 innings, while allowing 19 hits and five walks, good for a line of .284/.342/.343 against. In the month since, he’s appeared in 10 games with a 12/2 K/BB, allowing just five hits without an earned run. I’m still not sure that Guerra can keep this up over the long-term, but for the moment, he’s outdoing all our expectations.

Guerra, to his credit, was able to keep it up for the rest of the season, saving 21 games while blowing just two. (One of which was the ugly walkoff grand slam in Arizona in the final days of the season, after Hawksworth couldn’t hold on to a large lead or remember to cover first base.) Considering how little we thought of him entering the year, Guerra’s debut was a massive debut, one that likely cements him as the 2012 closer. Of course, since we know that saves are generally a useless stat, that does probably mean he’s a little overrated, since he’s in no way as dominant as Kenley Jansen, and he’s someone who’s near the top of my list of “possible regression dangers”. Still, as Jon Weisman rightly notes, it’s probably more effective to reserve Guerra for the 9th and have Jansen available to crush batters as needed. For Guerra, on absolutely no one’s prospect radar entering the season, it’s a role he’s earned. A+, Javy.

Scott Elbert (A+)
2.73 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 9.2 K/9, 3.8 BB/9

Believe it or not, this was Elbert’s fourth (partial) season as a Dodger, though he pitched just 26.1 innings over his first three; his debut in 2008 came just weeks after Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake joined the club.

Of course, at this time last year, we weren’t sure if we’d ever see Elbert in the big leagues again. After getting into just one game in 2010, Elbert walked away from the organization and baseball entirely, returning home for personal reasons which still haven’t been completely made public. He didn’t appear in a game after June, though he did rejoin the Dodgers and his new manager Don Mattingly in the Arizona Fall League, where he officially transitioned from starting to relieving.

Despite a nice AFL performance, we still weren’t sure what to make of him, and his initial wildness in camp seemed to indicate that he could use more seasoning, particularly after missing half of 2010:

You’ll probably hear people say that Scott Elbert punched his ticket back to the minors this afternoon in Arizona, as he walked four of the six batters he faced and managed to get just six of his 21 pitches across for strikes. That comes after a spring debut in which he walked two in one inning, meaning that he’s walked six of the ten spring batters he’s seen.

Now maybe his slow start to the spring is what’s going to get him knocked down to AAA, and maybe it’s not, but my feeling has always been that it shouldn’t matter. Unless he was able to come to camp and dominate, that always should have been the plan. And why not? He’s always had control issues, walking 5.0/9 in the minors, and last year that went up to an untenable 7.1/9. That’s of course before his well-publicized but little-understood leave of absence that meant he didn’t pitch after June.

Elbert did indeed start the year in the minors, getting recalled in mid-May when Hong-Chih Kuo went on the disabled list with anxiety issues; in his season debut, he struck out all three Diamondbacks he faced in the 8th inning on May 15. He stayed on the team for the rest of the season, though it’s hard to say he’d made much of an impression on us over the first two months, considering what I wrote in the first half review on July 12.

I know there’s been a lot of turnover in the bullpen this year, but Elbert is one of those guys where I constantly have to check if he’s still on the team or down in ABQ. I suppose that’s partially because he’s pitched just twice in the last two weeks, and partially because he’s rarely in for more than 2-3 batters at a time. As for his performance, he’s a bit of an oddity in that you’d expect a power lefty to be hell on lefty hitters, but he’s actually rocking a reverse split: lefties (.701 OPS) are actually doing more damage than righties (.561 OPS) against him. Overall, I guess you can say he’s been “acceptable”, in that he’s finally gained a foothold in the majors, but hasn’t exactly made us think he’s going to be a difference maker.

Then again, considering his mysterious disappearance at this time last year, even that is a massive step forward.

In the second half, Elbert took an even bigger step forward, contributing a 21/8 K/BB in 21.2 innings, allowing just two earned runs and a .593 OPS against. On the season, he struck out more than a man per inning while keeping his walks to an acceptable rate, important considering his history of wildness, and allowing just a single homer. The L/R split alluded to above was almost certainly the result of small sample size weirdness, since by the end of the year he’d held lefties to just an .191/.267/.250 line.

Still just 26 and despite the limited service time, Elbert is out of options, so he’s all but guaranteed a job in 2012, and could be the team’s only bullpen lefty if Kuo doesn’t return. Considering that no one was even sure if he’d have a career a year ago, that’s a fantastic turnaround.

Vicente Padilla (inc.)
4.15 ERA, 2.67 FIP, 9.3 K/9, 5.2 BB/9,

Padilla faced all of 36 batters over 8.2 innings this year, or what Clayton Kershaw does in just over one start, yet I feel like we talked about him far more than was necessary for that amount of playing time. After starting one of the weirder Dodger careers ever by going from “scrapheap pickup in August 2009″ to “Opening Day starter in 2010″ to “accidentally shooting himself”, Padilla signed a seemingly bizarre one-year deal last winter to serve as some sort of hybrid 5th starter/long man role.

Of course, he didn’t even make it out of camp before going under the knife for arm surgery; when he came back at the end of April, not only was he not a starter, he was suddenly the closer, since Jonathan Broxton was injured and no one knew who Guerra was yet.

That lasted for all of about three weeks before heading back to the disabled list with more arm discomfort. Here’s where it gets really weird, though; in early June, he had rejoined the team in Cincinnati and was expected to be activated that night. He wasn’t, and ten days later we found out that he would miss the rest of the season thanks to neck surgery, of all things. We’ve heard very little about his recovery and if he intends to resume his baseball career; Padilla has been reasonably successful in parts of three seasons as a Dodger, and I’d certainly toss him a non-roster invite for 2012. Besides, doesn’t every team need a little bit of crazy?

******

Next! Matt Guerrier is still overpaid! Jonathan Broxton‘s sad farewell! And Blake Hawksworth still isn’t Ryan Theriot! It’s relievers, part 2!