Friday, April 29, 2016

Notes, quotes and comment

John Ryan Murphy hasn't played since his disastrous game Sunday, but I thought I'd throw this statistical tidbit into the mix:

Murphy's catcher ERA -- the team ERA when he's behind the plate -- is 2.71. Kurt Suzuki's catcher ERA is 4.67.

There's a lot of noise in that stat, and not a lot of innings. But if that persists over time, it will suggest that he's doing something right behind the plate -- something that isn't real obvious.

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So I looked at the Doc Hamann page on Baseball Reference. Turns out he was from New Ulm. Another NUN -- New Ulm Native, as we used to call Terry Steinbach back in the day in the Free Press newsroom, because it was our practice to slip the local identifier into game stories in front of his name. ("New Ulm native Terry Steinbach doubled in two runs in the seventh inning ...)

And as Buster Olney suggests, Hamann wasn't very good: one game with the Cleveland Indians in 1922, in which he got no outs, walked three men, allowed three hits, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and allowed six runs for an ERA of infinity. Which still makes him a better pitcher than me.

The BR page contains a link to a short bio of Hamann.

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Former Twin Chris Colabello tested positive for a steroid and has been suspended 80 games. Colabello says he didn't knowingly take a banned substance, and I'd like to believe him on that, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

Colabello was an easy guy to root for even when I doubted that the Twins had a use for him, and I'm sorry to see him get derailed like this.

Meanwhile, Reynoldo Rodriguez, a Triple A player for the Twins -- I saw him play in a spring training game in Fort Myers in early March -- got nailed as well. Eight games for him too. Last year he was the MVP for the Rochester Red Wings. This year, it's safe to say, not so much.

Addendum: Between the time I wrote the above and the time I got up, MLB announced that Dee Gordon, Miami's All-Star second baseman, had been suspended 80 games for PED use. The 1 a.m. hour Eastern time is an odd time to issue suspensions, but I don't run the commissioner's office.

Gordon, of course, is the brother of Twins shortstop prospect Nick Gordon (and son of former pitcher Tom "Flash" Gordon). Let's avoid the guilt-by-association thing here. I mean, one Thoma boy votes Republican, another votes Democratic and neither has any influence on the third.

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