Pitchers you should pick up, others you should avoid

Every year on the Memorial Day weekend, I study which pitchers are likely to improve their results based on two metrics that show how well they have been pitching. At the same time, I come up with a list of pitchers whose performance is likely to fall off during the final two-thirds of the season.
Some of the pithcers on the way up are pretty obvious. Clayton Kershaw and Corey Kluber weren't winning early. But they are Cy Young Award winners. And the metrics I use -- opponents' batting average, or Hittability, and strikeout:walk ratio, or Strikeability -- showed that both were pitching well during April and May.
In the study, I included the 109 pitchers who at that point were on a pace to qualify for the ERA title (1 inning per team game). I compared their Hittability and Strikeability ratings with their standing in strikeouts and wins. Pitchers ranking high in combined Hittability and Strikeability but low in the counting stats are likely to be rewarded with better results going forward.
Others on the good list are Jimmy Nelson, Wei-Yin Chen, Francisco Liriano, Aaron Sanchez, Chase Anderson and Michael Wacha.
If any of those pitchers are a product of a small sample size or luck, rather than talent, I'd suggest Nelson, Anderson and possibly Sanchez. The others all have a track record.
There are just two pitchers I would expect to fall this season. Usually, there are seven or eight pitchers, sometimes even more on the bad list. This year's players due for a fall are Mark Buehrle and Mike Fiers.  Buehrle was easy to see coming. In recent years, he has started fast and finished poorly. I remember telling someone it was OK to draft him, but he should be traded by midseason or the first sign that he was faltering.
In my rankings, I divide players into four groups as equal as possible, based on where they stand in each category. Buehrle began the year as one of the majors' biggest winners, even though he ranked in the bottom quarter in both Hittability and Strikeability. That made him not only an obvious candidate to fade, but also one of nine pitchers who should be replaced in the rotation as soon as someone better could be found.
There are seven pitchers in the top one-fourth in both Hittability and Strikeability. They are also good bets for success between now and October: Jason Hammel, Max Scherzer (another Cy Young Award winner), Matt Harvey, Johnny Cueto, Jake Odorizzi, Felix Hernandez (Cy!) and Zack Greinke. The biggest surprises on that list are Hammel and Odorizzi, who is one of the reasons why the Rays still are contending in the American League East.
They are players you should seek to acquire in your fantasy leagues, if you don't already have them.
Pitchers to avoid or to dump, in addition to Buehrle, are Jeremy Hellickson, Alex Wood, Tim Hudson, Kyle Kendrick, Jordan Lyles, Jeremy Guthrie, Chris Tillman and Kyle Lobstein.
Hellickson has been at the top of the Hittability and Strikeability lists in years past. I'd suggest that he and Tillman might have previously undisclosed injuries. Hudson, Guthrie and Buehrle may simply be at the end of the line.
I'll have more posts on my Hittability/Strikeability ratings, and how they can be used to predict future performance.

No home-court advantage in regionals

The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament isn’t likely to have a top seed with a big home-court advantage in this year’s regionals.

We’ve seen teams such as Duke and Syracuse playing close to home cooking over the years.

That scenario could have resulted again this season with the East Regional in Syracuse. SU, which wasn’t headed for a top seed anyway, took itself out of the equation by putting the team on a self-imposed probation that made them ineligible for the tournament.

A cynic might say that was an easy decision in a year when the Orange might not even have qualified for the Big Dance. They won’t even have the option of being embarrassed in the NIT the ACC Tournament, for which they’re also ineligible.

The other regionals are distant from the homes of other perennial contenders. The Midwest Regional is in Cleveland, the South in Houston and the West in Los Angeles.

There is one team that could win the tournament without having to board an airplane.

That’s top-ranked Kentucky, which should be able to win anywhere short of the NBA’s Western Conference.

Assuming the Wildcats would go in the Midwest, they’d open NCAA play in Louisville, move on to Cleveland and play in the Final Four even closer to home in Indianapolis.

In the most recent polls, Gonzaga, Virginia and Duke followed Kentucky. Gonzaga would be the natural choice as the No. 1 seed in a West Regional woefully short of top teams. Virginia would be likely to be the East’s top seed. Though Duke would be playing in its natural South Regional, the Blue Devils would be about 1,000 miles from home.

Based on the current polls, the regions could stack up like this:

East – 1. Virginia, 2. Villanova (playing on a familiar Carrier Dome court), 3. North Carolina, 4. West Virginia or Maryland.

South – 1. Duke, 2. Kansas, 3. Iowa State, 4. Northern Iowa or West Virginia.

Midwest – 1. Kentucky, 2. Wisconsin, 3. Louisville or Kansas, 4. Notre Dame.

West – 1. Gonzaga, 2. Arizona, 3. Utah, 4. Wichita State or Northern Iowa.

There’s still a long way to go. So those regional lineups could change a lot, but it’s still not likely that a clear hometown favorite will be hosting.

Notes on Virginia-UNC

Virginia beat the North Carolina Tar Heels at their own game Monday night.

The ACC leading Cavaliers (20-1 overall, 8-1 in conference) rallied from a six-point deficit to win the road game 75-64.

Third-ranked Virginia was coming off its first loss, to No. 4 Duke before taking on the No. 12 Tar Heels. A rugged stretch of schedule will continue for UVa Saturday against No. 9 Louisville.

UNC (17-6, 7-3) had broken away from a defensive struggle where neither team scored in the first 2 minutes by beating the Cavaliers’ zone and getting the ball inside.

When Joel Jones scored for a 16-10 lead, North Carolina already had scored 10 points in the paint.

By halftime, which Kennedy Meeks ended with a tip-in to put the Tar Heels back in the lead at 33-32, they had scored 18 points inside.

North Carolina scored 16 more points in the paint in the second half, but Virginia put in 24 from short range. Those earned the Cavaliers a 40-34 advantage for the game.

“The defense tightened up,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett told ESPN’s Allison Williams. “Our guys played the way we need to play, and that’s blue-collar play.”

UVa’s three starting guards were the leading scorers, but Anthony Gill came off the bench to help up front with 13 points and a team-high 7 rebounds.

Malcolm Brogdon scored 17 points. Justin Anderson’s 16 included three 3-pointers, and London Parrantes added 15 points.

Marcus Paige led UNC with 15, but 10 of those came after Virginia had built an 18-point lead at 66-48. Playing inside, Brice Johnson had 14 points and 8 rebounds, and Meeks added 11 and 7.

Meeks was playing after waking up with a 101-degree fever. J.P. Tokoto struggled, missing all three field goal attempts and scoring one point in 30 minutes.

The Tar Heels will visit unranked Boston College Saturday.

Belichick, Patriots one move ahead in chess game

You've seen the last-minute interception that clinched the Patriots' big game 49 victory -- if not live, then in incessant replays.
And you've seen or heard the second guessing of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.
Why would Seattle pass with 20 seconds left, the ball on New England's 1 yard line and Marshawn Lynch in the backfield?
As the teams lined up, I was thinking that the Seahawks would be swarming around Lynch so much that a pass could be open.
Carroll might have been thinking the same thing when he called for the pass. But he wasn't expecting that New England's Bill Belichick might be one step ahead of him.
Belichick was like the customer in the AT&T commercial who one-ups Lily in appreciation for appreciation of appreciation by saying merely, "I appreciate that." By the the time Lily recovers with "ahhhhh," it's too late. The point has been made.
The Patriots were not too late.
In a post-game interview, Malcolm Butler, the rookie who made the interception, said when he saw receivers stacked on the right end of the formation, he was looking for the pick play designed to get Ricardo Lockette open.
Why would Butler be looking for that? Had the Patriots spied on Seattle practices?
No, it was probably just good old-fashioned scouting.
Were there examples of pick plays the Seahawks used this season to score on short passes in similar situations?
On Sept. 21, Seattle had the ball on Denver's 5 with 23 seconds left in the first half. There was a stack and a third receiver on the left end, with Lynch split out wide on the right. Tight end Zach Miller ran downfield, Lynch slanted across his backside, the deep defender was late getting to him and Russell Wilson hit Lynch for a touchdown.

Pitching moves don't guarantee anything to Sox

Looking at the big splash -- or at least the overblown coverage -- about Boston's new pitching acquisitions. 

The article breathlessly adds that they're also looking at RHPs James Shields and Max Scherzer and just about every other available pitcher. The implication is that they might have about a 9-man All-Star rotation. Probably won't lose a game, except occasionally to the Yankees. 

I'm thinking that to acquire a star pitcher in a trade, the Sox would have to trade at least one from the group of RHPs Justin Masterson and Rick Porcello and LHP Wade Miley, or that if they sign a free agent pitcher or two, to fill other holes they'd have to trade one of the pitchers they've acquired.

Here's some reality: After the All-Star break, those three pitchers were a combined 9-17. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure their combined ERA was well above the league average. Porcello was 3-8, 3.48. Miley 3-6, 4.60. Masterson was 3-3, but with an awesome 7.04 ERA. 

If the plan is to improve the pitching incrementally, and they're able to pull it off, that should work if they have Shields and Scherzer in the rotation instead of Masterson and Miley, plus another above-average infielder or center fielder who could hit. But if 2/5 of the rotation is Masterson and Miley, and they still have holes in their lineup, the Sox wouldn't be a major threat.

I think Porcello should be OK, but his ERA could take a hit pitching in Boston. I saw him last season before he slumped. He was masterful in shutting out the Rangers. I asked him if he was a better pitcher than he'd been in the past. He looked at me, hesitated and said, "That's for you guys to say." I was pretty sure he was at that time, not so sure now and not too sure what happened to him down the stretch.

Proposal: the easy way out for college football committee

In a little over an hour, the college football championship teams will be decided.
Seems to be there's one easy solution for the committee to make.
In that solution, these would be the seeds.
1. Oregon -- avenged its only loss in a big way against Arizona in the Pac-is it now 12? championship game.
2. Alabama -- No. 1 in the polls for a good part of the season, and won the Southeastern Conference championship game.
3. Florida State -- The only undefeated team and the defending national champion under last year's BCS system. The Seminoles won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in their typical fashion, by an eyelash. But they did win every game on their schedule, and I believe in the boxing maxim, "To be the champ, you've got to knock out the champ." The committee should give FSU a chance to lose the title, but they also could spare a couple of more eyelashes to win it
4. Ohio State -- won the Big Ten championship game in resounding fashion with the Buckeyes' third quarterback this year.
The matchups would be Ohio State vs. Oregon in the Rose Bowl and Florida State vs. Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
OK. I hear you howling: What about TCU and Baylor? What about them? What conference championship did they win? Oh, they were Big 12 co-champions? And Baylor beat TCU head to head, so the Bears should have been placed with the top four? That argument doesn't hold water under the championship committee's priority of criteria, which lists strength of schedule higher than head-to-head competition.
By taking deserving Ohio State and Florida State teams, the committee avoids the sticky wicket that would be picking one of the Big 12 teams over the other.
By not rewarding Baylor for playing a soft non-conference schedule, he committee also could send a message to teams to beef up the opponents on their resumes.
Also, by not taking either Big 12 team, the committee would set up a third game with great interest on New Year's Day. A Baylor-TCU rematch in the Cotton Bowl would have all of Texas and most of the rest of the U.S. buzzing.
* * *
I don't like this idea, but I'm resigned to having an eight-team playoff in the near future. That way a champion in one of the five biggest conferences would not be excluded from the playoff. However, there still would be a lot of whining from the No. 9 and 10 teams in that system.
Before that eight-team playoff comes into being, the committee would require the Big 12 actually to have 12 teams. The easiest solution would be to annex Houston and Rice, with woeful SMU as a possible fallback. With 12 teams, the Big 12 would be able to have its own championship game.
The conference made a huge blunder in its marketing as being the conference with "one true champion." Turns out, the Big 12 doesn't have any champion. That is, until one team wins the Cotton Bowl showdown.
Another thing I'd like to know is why college teams have to play 12 regular-season games. I know, I know, money. But when one of the 12 is say Alabama vs. Florida International or Baylor vs. Sam Houston State, that money really benefits only the lower-rung team that's the visitor against a team that could have national championship aspirations.
I'd favor a 10-game regular-season schedule. The 11th game for some teams still could be a conference championship.
Then there could be a 16-team playoff over four weeks, ending at about the same time as in the current format. A bunch of other teams still could play in one of the crappy bowls featuring teams whose only requirement would be having a pulse. The only downside would be from the teams ranked 17th and 18th.

What I've told some Cubs fans about Joe Maddon

 As I was driving home from a Mavericks game, I realized that Joe Maddon could be the one person able to erase the misery of the last 106 years or so.

He could make the Cubs winners because that's what he did with the Rays. 

He didn't do it all by himself. He came along with a management that had a clue without thinking it knew everything. It was an enlightened management that realized you didn't have to give everyone the highest salary of anybody at his position if you treated the players well. 

With Maddon running the team, the Rays were able to find players who were better than even they knew. 

The last step was for Maddon to convince the players that they could win. It took a few years. 

The situation he'll have in Chicago isn't a whole lot different from what he had in the AL East. But the Cardinals and Pirates are hardly as entrenched as the Yankees and Red Sox, nor do they receive the benefits that the New York and Boston teams did from baseball's hierarchy and the media. 

So it might take Maddon two years to do what he did in three for the Rays. 

If he uses his tenure there as the template, he'll spend the first year convincing players it's possible for them to win as a group. He'll be firm but positive with the players. He'll get them working together without cliques in the locker room. 

In the second year, he'll take aim at the Cardinals. There will be a game when the Cardinals throw at a Cub, and the Chicago pitcher will come back to take out Yadier Molina or some other key player. Or maybe a minor character. With the Rays, he did it with utility infielder Elliot Johnson taking out Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli. In spring training. The uproar at the time from New York was deafening. Who were they to do that to the Yankees? 

But at a time when another AL East manager told me his team was afraid of the Yankees -- and I observed that the Rangers seemed the same way -- the Rays had no fear of the Yanks. 

I heard Maddon in his farewell press conference saying how great a contribution Elliot Johnson made to the Rays' success. 

By the third year, here's how the Rays as a team showed me they were together from the top of the organization to the bottom. When they'd come to Texas in '09 or '10, it seemed that the music in the clubhouse was almost always a song called "Low" by Flo Rida. Kind of a hip hop song. The younger players -- most of them were young -- and the black players liked the music. But there in the clubhouse, singing along with the lyrics, would be 38-39-40-year-old Troy Percival. I never heard Maddon singing it, but I'm sure he approved.

Joe Maddon is my favorite major league manager to deal with. That's the case with most of the people who come in contact with him. He is one of the most genuinely interesting and interested people I've been around. He can carry on a conversation on just about any topic without coming across as a know-it-all. He knows what he doesn't know, and seems willing to listen to others who might have the answers. 

Managers have different reactions to their pre-game and post-game sessions with the media. Some treat it like a visit to the dentist, let's get it over with (Ryne Sandberg). Most tolerate it. Some can be prickly (Ned Yost). Maddon seems to embrace the time. He never seems rushed, he always allows enough time so he doesn't have to tell the writers and broadcasters it's time to go. It begins and ends on its own time, and it's a give and take.

Especially with Ozzie Guillen and Jim Leyland out of managing, Maddon has the most interesting media sessions.

I'm pretty sure he's the same with his players. Always having time and making time for them, and always hearing them out and learning from them.

A story. I was in one of Mike Scioscia's pre-game news gatherings in the dugout before a game a couple of years ago. I'd noticed in the media notes that a couple of players were nearly ready to come off the disabled list. He didn't say anything about them, so I asked about their status. He said something about one player, then he said that the other one, Sean Burnett, would be shut down and would undergo season-ending shoulder surgery. By that time, the clubhouse was closed to the media, but the Angels beat writers arranged to get an interview with Burnett outside the clubhouse. While we were waiting to talk to him, the Angels writers thanked me for asking. I said something about how I just figured it didn't hurt to ask. I don't think Scioscia neglected to tell us on purpose. But I told the writers that because I worked with a lot of visiting managers, there were managers who wouldn't tell you anything, some who would tell you just what they were supposed to say and others who would volunteer information. The writers didn't seem to believe it and asked, "Who volunteers information?" I said, "Maddon." Then they all nodded their heads and understood.