Doesn't Anyone Like the Mets?

When I was preparing the 2013 MLB tournament, I made a side bet with myself as to which team would be the last one selected.  I should have put money on that bet because I'd be rich!  Rich, I tell you!  As you can guess, I had selected the Mets to be the last team chosen because (on paper) they are going to be awful this year.  Granted, I could be way off on my personal prediction, but on a team where the second highest paid position player is Bobby Bonilla, I think the cellar awaits.

I'll let that last statement sink in for a moment...

Anyways, there is only one spot left in my free 2013 MLB Tournament, and only a handful of days left to sign up!  If you want to join in the fun, leave a comment with your selection and your "entry fee" (i.e., whether you'll mention my tournament on your blog, or add my blog to your blogroll).  Here are the contest rules and prizes.

The last team available is the Mets (#12), and here is the awesome card you could win if the Mets somehow pull of a miracle!

Pwn3d - Tom Seaver

For this installment of Pwn3d, I thought I would take a look at the stats from the other side of the ball. Instead of looking at a dominating hitter, let’s delve into the numbers of a dominating pitcher…
  

During Tom Seaver’s career, he faced 309 batters that had at least 20 plate appearances against him. As you’ll soon see, Tom Terrific ruled the mound. A mere eight batters managed to hit over .400 against Seaver, while 111 players couldn’t even crack .200. That’s a Mendoza to Williams ratio of 13.9! Granted, Seaver did face his fair share of pitchers that are part of that group who couldn’t hit Tom, but that is still an amazing display of dominance. 

This is exemplified by the fact that 34 batters struck out at least one third of the time against Seaver. The most glaring example being Tony Perez who was Seaver’s favorite strikeout victim with 44 Ks, compared to a meager five walks.

In the same vein, only six players out of our sample of 309 batters never struck out to Tom Seaver: Craig Reynolds, Wade Boggs, Lou Whitaker, George Brett, Marty Barrett and Ken Landreaux. 

Another amazing feat is that Tom was rather stingy with the long ball. Approximately half of the sample players hit a home run off of Seaver with only a dozen breaking the five home run plane, which included such sluggers like Hank Aaron, Ron Santo, Steve Garvey, Joe Morgan, Willie McCovey, Ron Cey, Darrell Evans and Willie Stargell. Pretty impressive crowd, however, the one who smacked the most taters off of Tom Terrific was Rick Monday? 

Yup, Tom Seaver was Rick Monday’s favorite long ball pitcher with 11 home runs. And while Monday’s performance was good, it was not pwn3d worthy in this writer’s mind. That performance goes to the rarely discussed Steve Ontiveros, who somehow made Tom Seaver tremble whenever he was at the dish. The highest batting average Ontiveros had against any pitcher was Tom Seaver (.500) and the most home runs hit (2). Considering that Ontiveros hit a paltry 24 home runs in his career, I find it amazing that he hit even two against Tom Seaver. Also add the fact that Ontiveros somehow managed to draw 10 walks versus 2 strikeouts against Seaver. 

On the flip side, Don Sutton was truly pwn3d by Tom Seaver with 22 PA and no hits, but Sutton was a pitcher. So, we’ll move one spot down the dominance list and fall on Bob Aspromonte who shouldn’t even have bothered dressing and leaving the locker room when Seaver was on the mound. Aspromonte was an abysmal 1 for 25 against Seaver, but did manage to draw one walk and hit one sacrifice fly. But I won’t even call that performance the worst against Seaver. I think that title goes to Dal Maxvill who was a lowly 4 for 46 against Seaver, and struck out an amazing 20 times in 50 plate appearances! 

Seaver Pwn3d You!	You Pwn3d Seaver!
4 for 46 with 20 Ks!	9 for 18

Pwn3d - Mike Schmidt

It is time for another installment of Pwn3d, where we dissect the statistics and figure out which pitchers padded Mike Schmidt’s stats or tore him to pieces. Unlike the previous Gwynn and Boggs posts, when dealing with a slugger like Schmidt, one cannot look at batting average alone. Therefore, the selections may be a little more subjective. 

Even though batting average is not the harbinger for Schmidt, let’s get the formalities out of the way. Mike hit over .400 against 16 pitchers during his career (minimum 20 PA), while batting under .200 against 34 pitchers. This gives old Schmidty a Williams to Medoza ratio of 0.47. But heck, who went to see Mike Schmidt play with the hopes of him slapping a single into right field? Absolutely no one, because we watched Mike for the dingers, and good gracious did he deliver.

However, like peanut butter is to jelly, home runs come with strikeouts. Lots of strikeouts. In fact, Schmidt faced 169 pitchers with a minimum of 20 PA, and struck out to every single one of them except for five: Mike Caldwell (23 PA), Steve Trout (38 PA), Greg Mathews (25 PA), Zane Smith (26 PA) and Tim Leary (26 PA). Pretty wild, eh? 

Want to see something even wilder? Of those 169 pitchers, every one of them walked Schmidt at least once, except for Dennis Eckersley (35 PA), Gary Nolan (22 PA) and Tim Leary (26 PA). Talk about intimidation. 

Add on top of that the fact that Mike Schmidt hit a home run against 141 of those 169 pitchers (83.4%!), with both Jerry Reuss and Bob Forsch lit up for 11 taters each. Insane! 

But with the yin, comes the yang. Almost half of the 169 pitchers struck Schmidt out at least 20% of the time. Steve Rogers, Bill Bonham and Tom Seaver all struck out the Mighty Jack at least 30 times. 

Last what we’ll parse is OPS, the true measure of who did and did not get pwn3d by Mike Schmidt. Fred Norman tops the list with the highest OPS against Schmidt at 1.655. Mike DESTROYED Norman almost every time at the plate. Half of Schmidt’s hits against Norman were home runs (6 HRs out of 12 H). In fact, 83.3% of Schmidt’s hits against Norman were for extra bases. 

Way down at the other end, Tim Leary had the best OPS against Schmidt, but he doesn’t win the prize. Scott Garrelts gets those honors with his absolute domination of Schmidt. Schmidt batted a lowly .050 against Garrelts and struck out 45.5% of the time for an anemic OPS of .336. 

Schmidt Pwn3d You!	You Pwn3d Schmidt!
1.655 OPS	.336 OPS

2013 MLB Tournament Prizes #21 through #25

Are you ready for the next batch of potential prizes for the 2013 MLB Tournament?  Good!  This week, you're either going to think I've lost my mind, or I have little faith that any of these five teams will win the tournament.  I'd go with the latter, BUT, if they do win the tourney, you're going to get a SWEET card for free!

As noted previously, there will be 30 prizes available, however, only the tournament winner will receive a prize.  The prizes consist of one card from my collection for each of the 30 teams. Seeds are not open for claiming, and the prizes are based on a sliding scale using Las Vegas' odds for winning the 2013 World Series.

For further information, check out the 2013 MLB Tournament Rules and Prizes. 

As mentioned before, this batch of prizes promises to deliver, and I might actually turn a head or two!

#21 - Odds 50/1 - NL Seed #10	1970 Topps Roberto Clemente
#22 - Odds 75/1 - AL Seed #13	1956 Topps Bob Lemon
#23 - Odds 75/1 - AL Seed #14	1962 Topps Harmon Killebrew
#24 - Odds 75/1 - NL Seed #12	1968 Topps Tom Seaver
#25 - Odds 75/1 - AL Seed #9	1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr.

PS - Seeds are not open for request, and will not be opened until all 30 prizes have been announced.

PPS - Here is the bracket...