Venom Strikes

D’backs to Send First Round Pick Braden Shipley to Oregon

Noah Dougherty — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:31:54 +0000

The Diamondbacks have locked up their first round pick just two weeks after the June 6^th amateur draft and now Braden Shipley prepares for his first assignment joining the Single-A Short Season Affiliate, the Hillsboro Hops in Oregon.

First round pick, Braden Shipley throws a pitch for the University of Nevada Wolfpack this spring. He begins his first stint with the Hillsboro Hops this week. Image: USABaseball.com

The 21 year old just finished his junior year at the University of Nevada Reno where he led his team with a 7-3 record and 2.77 ERA to go with 102 strikeouts at a clip of 8.55 SO/9 innings. He was named the Mountain West Co-Pitcher of the Year in 2013.

The D’backs were able sign Shipley for $2.25 million which puts them under the slot amount for the 15^th overall pick of $2,434,500 meaning the club can use the additional money to help sign other draft picks.

As the 6’3” 190 lb right hander has just completed 107.1 innings for the Wolfpack in Nevada, he will be on a limited pitch count for a while once he joins the Hops so as to not burn him out. During his time with this affiliate, Shipley will have the advantage of working with Doug Drabek, a former Cy Young Award winner and 13 year MLB veteran who is the current pitching coach for the Hops.

Shipley is an Oregon native going to high school in Medford, Oregon, so his return to the state will be a bit of a homecoming that he hopes to embrace. “Definitely, I’m excited about it,” he said. “I think the people of Hillsboro are pretty excited about it, too. Being close to home, that’s just a bonus for me. Obviously I want to do well and just improve. I want to just keep getting better every day and progress towards getting to the big leagues.”

The Hops are currently 1-4 on the season. Here is their website to follow Braden and the rest of his club. And here is his Twitter account: @shipley25 and the Hops’: @HillsboroHops

Follow me on Twitter at @ndougherty313 and our team at @Venomstrikes.

D’backs-Marlins Preview with Ehsan Kassim From Marlin Maniac

Thomas Lynch — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:16:11 +0000

Tonight starts another three game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins with this set taking place in Phoenix. When the two met in South Florida last month, the D’backs took two out of three with the Marlins picking up their victory on a gem spun by Ricky Nolasco. Arizona misses Nolasco this time around but that doesn’t mean that the Fish, who just won a series over the St. Louis Cardinals, will be easy pickings. Taking time out from his bouts of joy and agony covering the Miami Heat, Ehsan Kassim, Editor at marlinmaniac.com was kind enough to answer a few questions about his beloved Marlins.

Patrick Corbin looks to improve to 10-0 this season tonight at Chase Field against the Miami Marlins. Image: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Tom Lynch: Don’t you wish the Marlins could play the Mets 81 times?

Ehsan Kassim: An 162 game schedule would be ideal personally, but I guess the 81 games would suffice. Even in those 81 games, the Marlins would be on pace to win at least 60 games. Even with that said, I feel plenty confident that the Marlins are going to turn things around going forward

TL: Miami just took 2 out of 3 from St. Louis. Is it the biggest series win of the season?

EK: It’s only the Marlins fourth series win of the season and the first one against a team not named the Mets, so yes very much. The Marlins offense received a huge boost with Giancarlo Stanton returning to the lineup. It felt so good to see the Marlins winning ballgames for a change. The team has actually gone 7-6 in the month of June and is starting to get better as they return to health.

TL: Who from the Marlins will represent the team at the All-Star Game?

EK: Since every MLB team has to have one representative, Jose Fernandez is the logical choice. He is in the middle of a phenomenal rookie season but is being overshadowed by an even more impressive campaign by Cards lefty Shelby Miller. At the ripe age of 20, Fernandez owns a 3.11 ERA and a 3.21 FIP. He has struck out over a hitter an inning, with an impressive 9.58 K/9 IP. Fernandez recently became the first pitcher under the age of 21 to strikeout 10 hitters in a start since 2007 (Felix Hernandez)

In a telling story, Rays manager Joe Maddon was singing the praises of Fernandez after he had his worst start of his career. Fernnadez is well on his way to fill out his ace promise as a prospect.

TL: What are your first impressions of manager Mike Redmond?

EK: Mike Redmond is a solid manager, but like most other managers, he is not going to win you many games. All he can do is put the team in the best position to win. As a rookie manager, he does not seem to always do that, but you can understand that if he can continue to improve. One of Red’s early problems has been sticking with a clearly declining Juan Pierre over a player with more promise, Justin Ruggiano.

TL: If Jeffery Loria remains the owner for the next decade, do you think there will be another purge like what we saw this past offseason?

EK: I don’t really want to think about that, but more than likely yes. My personal hope is that the Marlins go on a spending spree of their own top players, starting with Jose Fernandez and Giancarlo Stanton. The team has promising young players beyond those two that could build a strong foundation for the team moving forward. The key will be finding away to supplement those players with future free agent signings.

TL: The Marlin most likely to be dealt at the deadline is……

EK: Ricky Nolasco. He has pitched excellent of late and with Nathan Eovaldi making his return to the rotation on Tuesday and Henderson Alvarez not far behind, Nolasco may find his way out of Miami sooner rather than later. Three teams have been listed as interested include the Orioles, Yankees, and Giants. All three could offer the Marlins a mid-level prospect that has a shot to impact the Marlins in the future.

I would like to thank Ehsan for taking the time to answer my questions and to wish the Marlins and their fans the best of luck this season. If you would like to read my responses to Ehsan’s D’back questions, head over to marlinmaniac.com by clicking here. Ehsan and his staff do a tremendous job covering the Marlins and it is a must-read for all baseball fans.

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Ian Kennedy: Promise Lost?

Jeff Wiser — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:31:47 +0000

Ian Kennedy walks off the field after the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. IMAGE: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

What to do with Ian Kennedy?

Aside from the whole melee in Los Angeles this week, the guy is costing himself a lot of money with his 2013 performance. He’s currently rocking a 5.49 ERA over 78.2 innings this year and is averaging six innings per start. His strikeouts are down, his walks are way up and he’s been much more homerun prone than seasons past. We know that homeruns allowed are usually a volatile stat and can vary greatly from season to season, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on him about that. Or should we? Let’s look at what he’s doing wrong.

Looking at Kennedy’s Pitch F/X data, it appears his velocity is still there. During his stellar 2011 season, he averaged 89.9 mph on his fastball while he’s currently averaging 89.7 during 2013. That’s not a drop worthy of our attention. His other pitches appear to be on par with his past performance, so I think we can rule velocity out as a problem.

Location would be the next logical question area to examine. Pulling up Kennedy’s heat maps from 2011 and 2013, we can see some trends. First to the maps. Here’s his 2011 fastball locations:

And now for his 2013 fastball locations:

If we’re looking carefully, we can see that against lefties he’s catching a little more of the plate this year with his heater than in the past. He’s also elevating the fastball more and he’s not pitching at the knees. This might lead to some of his home run problems.

Against righties, he’s pretty similar with the exception that he’s been more wild. The 2013 heat map shows us that he’s all over the place with his fastball against righties, missing badly with frequency. That problem with location is resulting in his walks.

Now, I know that Kennedy throws more than just fastballs but pitching for most pitchers, Kennedy included, is predicated off of fastball location. Ian is a guy that needs to locate and throw the pitch for strikes in order to make his secondary stuff effective. He’s not someone who “pitches backwards” and can throw his slider or changeup 70% of the time. Pitch F/X values show that his fastball has been terrible this year and that’s the foundation for his lack of success on the mound.

Oh, and not all strikes are created equal. He needs to not only throw his heater for strikes but it’s also imperative that those are quality strikes on the edge of the zone, not balls grooved down the middle. Looking at hitters’ swing tendencies against IPK, you’ll notice that that while their chasing fastballs out of the zone at a similar rate to 2011, they are punishing fastballs in the zone at much higher rate (63.5% in 2011, 70.6% in 2013), resulting in that elevated ERA.

One final aspect I’d like to mention is Kennedy’s Left On Base (LOB) percentage. This is the rate at which base runners that relievers inherit from Kennedy are left stranded. In essence, it’s a reflection of how good of a job the bullpen is doing at keeping Kennedy’s runners from scoring. In 2011, 79.3% of all base runners inherited from Kennedy were left stranded by the bullpen and thus were not charged to Kennedy’s ERA. In 2013, that number is down to 66.8%, running his ERA up in the process. That could be a result of Kennedy exiting more innings this year with runners in scoring position in the past (let’s not forget that he’s been pretty bad), but the bullpen is not doing him any favors.

The control problems are causing walks and homeruns while simultaneously decreasing his strikeouts. You don’t need to be a world-class sabermetrician to understand that this is a recipe for disaster. It might be mechanical and it might be mental. Hell, it might be both at this point. Whatever it is, it needs to change in a hurry.

Kennedy is arbitration-eligible for the second time in his career this winter. He’s making $4.2 million this year and won’t be in line for a raise unless he turns things around in a big way. He’s also possibly the odd man out in a crowded situation of quality pitchers. Let’s not forget that Tyler Skaggs is going to need a permanent place in the rotation for 2014 and Archie Bradley will likely need one for 2015. Add to the mix up-and-comers David Holmberg, Andrew Chaffin, Jake Barrett and the recently drafted Braden Shipley and one can see that Kennedy needs to shape up in a hurry or he’ll be let go.

What at one time looked like a promising situation for years to come has quickly faded into something else altogether. After Kennedy and his agent, Scott Boras, reportedly snubbed the DBacks brass regarding an extension, it appears that the ship may have already sailed. I expect the Diamondbacks to offer him a low salary in arbitration this year and if he doesn’t accept, they may just let him walk. His trade value is non-existent and the days of IPK in a Diamondbacks uniform may quickly coming to an end.

*Heat Maps and stats courtesy of FanGraphs.com

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