MLB Game Picks - Friday: June 20, 2014

I did not have a good day of game picking yesterday, but it was a fun night of baseball. Two rookies made their MLB pitching debuts, old friend, Nick Swisher, hit a walk-off grand slam (even if it killed that pick) and the mysterious reclamation of Scott Kazmir continued.

The only sad thing of the day was what happened to Gavin Floyd. What a horrible accident for his career, which might now be over. At least his last game was brilliant and something to put an exclamation mark on his career.

I am heading to Portland, Maine today so I can fly out to Florida tomorrow. So the next couple of days of picks could be fluff free and to the point! Friday's picks:

• The Pirates over the Cubs: How many times already this season have I had to pick between Charlie Morton and Edwin Jackson? It's a horrible choice and baseball, I don't appreciate it.
• The Nationals over the Braves: The Nats have the same problem with the Braves that the Blue Jays have in Yankee Stadium. Sooner or later, you have to be able to beat your rival at least once in a while. With Stephen Strasburg on the mound, there is no excuse. Of course, Mike Minor will try to keep the Nats scuffling against his team.
• The Yankees over the Orioles: Ubaldo Jimenez is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which one will the Yankees get tonight? Hiroki Kuroda must keep the Orioles in the park, sometimes hard to do with those O's bangers.
• The Indians over the Tigers: Wasn't that weird yesterday when they interviewed Joe Nathan after yesterday's game and it was projected all over the stadium? That was weird and it was just one win. One win won't fix the Tigers' problems. Corey Kluber over Rick Porcello.
• The Rays over the Astros: David Price has given up a lot of home runs. The Astros are a home run or nothing ball club. So which will happen? I have to go with Price to dominate and for the Rays to scratch a few off of Jarred Cosart.
• The Marlins over the Mets: This game is a toss up. The Marlins' offense has dried up recently and the Mets never had one. Daisuke Matsuzaka has been pitching well, but is that a mirage? Henderson Alvarez has done great at home, but not last time. Questions abound...
• The White Sox over the Twins: Hector Noesi has surprised. It's not that he has been great. What is surprising is that he has not been awful. He could pitch decently enough to win over the Twins and the White Sox' power could derail Ricky Nolasco.
• The Royals over the Mariners: I am still hearing reports that Hisashi Iwakuma is having problems with his back. That makes me too nervous to pick him. Instead I'll go with Big Game James Shields with the Royals staying hot.
• The Cardinals over the Phillies: It's hard to argue with Jaime Garcia's two great road starts and I always like lefties against the Phillies. A.J. Burnett can be had, especially early in the game.
• The Rockies over the Brewers: This game could be high scoring. Or Christian Bergman can have a third straight good start and win. Either way, Marco Estrada at Coors does not make me comfortable.
• The Diamondbacks over the Giants: Except for two bad starts against the Dodgers, Josh Collmenter has pitched well. Tim Lincecum has pitched well twice in a row. This is a toss-up for me. So I'm going with the home team.
• The Athletics over the Red Sox: The A's picked up Brad Mills for a dollar. So naturally, they will make hamburger look like filet mignon. It's the A's! They are the smartest cats around. It will help that the A's face Felix Doubront who has been awful this season.
• The Angels over the Rangers: Garrett Richards is a stud. And Joe Saunders is...well...Joe Saunders. I have picked way too many home teams today. Scary.
• The Dodgers over the Padres: See? I had to pick a road win in here somewhere. So let it be Dan Haren handling the Padres while the Dodgers score four runs at least off of Ian Kennedy.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Reds over the Blue Jays: The Blue Jays are slumping and have lost nine of their last twelve. They then send Liam Hendriks out there to face the Reds in their park. Ugh. The Blue Jays lose a bat in the NL park and Mat Latos was great in his first start back from the DL.

Yesterday: 5-7, June: 142-118, Games of the Day: 39-37, Season: 595-499

A Brad Mills rant

Brad Mills is one of the good guys. He inherited a team in the Houston Astros with the lowest rated farm system in baseball for the last several seasons. All of his veteran players were traded away leaving him no choice but to field a team of castoffs and players from that bereft farm system. Despite it all, he handled it all with integrity and grace. His players never quit on him. They played hard despite being outgunned in every game. But in baseball, a new general manager will always want his own guy and staggering losses not caused by his own doing will always get a manager fired. That is always the way it has been and it stinks.

Brad Mills deserved better. And it is hoped he will get another shot where he at least has a fighting chance to win. 

So yeah, Astros. Have your little news conference at ten o'clock. Justify your actions. This observer will not buy a word of it. And it doesn't matter who you will hire. Whoever it is will never have the character of Brad Mills nor be as good a manager. 

Houston Astros An Interesting Team

Brad Mills certainly had a tough time out of the gate last year. It got so bad early that long-time stars, Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt, both asked to be traded. They got their wish and both got the playoff experiences they were hoping for. The Astros, meanwhile, didn't exactly roll over and play dead. After their funked out start, they came on strong and played very competitive baseball before fading a bit at the home stretch. Despite the team for sale, there is cause for modest hope that this team is in okay shape to field a competitive team.

First off, Mills seems to be a very good manager. The team finished eight games above its Pythagorean win-loss total based on its run differential. Mills seems to that rare mix of leader whose positive outlook is indefatigable and he seems to get the most out of his young players. He let young guys like Michael Bourn, Jeff Keppinger, Chris Johnson, Hunter Pence and Brett Wallace go out there and play everyday and all seemed more poised to become viable major league players. To be sure, there is still questions about whether Wallace will find himself and another player he let play, Tommy Manzella, seemed lost at times. But still, it's a promising starting point.

Pence and Keppinger had very fine seasons. Keppinger is a solid little player who walks more than he strike out, puts the ball in play and found a home at second base. His defense needs to improve but he looks like a guy who can live in the number two hole for many years to come. Pence almost became a star in 2010. He strikes out too much and walks too few at bats, but he had a solid season at the plate and let the team in homers, ribbies and runs scored.

After a disastrous move to sign Pedro Feliz, a move panned by everyone including this writer, the Astros didn't dwell on their mistake. Instead they moved Chris Johnson into the line up at third and he became their best hitter. His 123 OPS+ is a result of his slugging percentage and his batting average. He strikes out too much and he is far from patient at the plate with less than 20 walks. If he could be more selective and improve that category, he can be a star. He also needs to improve his defense which was far from stellar.

Wallace, obtained from the Blue Jays, was handed the first base job after Berkman left. He had some nice moments, but he too is a strikeout machine and shows little patience at the plate. He was a surprise in the field though and played more than adequately around that bag.

Michael Bourn's numbers are confusing. He steals a lot of bases and he is better than average at drawing a walk. But his batting average never got near being good enough to lead off and he does not drive the ball on a regular basis. He's a fantastic center fielder though with great defensive numbers. But he does need to pick up his average if he is going to be a viable lead off guy. And it wasn't a question of bad luck as he had a high BABIP.

The Astros have a pair of promising catchers in Quintero and Castro. Both did well on defense and threw out a good percentage of base stealers. But both finished with identical 59s in OPS+. Castro is only 23 and is one of their most highly touted young players. He should develop better with the stick and will probably the team's number one catcher before too long.

The Astros do need to figure out how long the Carlos Lee era lasts in Houston. Lee seems like a really old 34, is a terrible outfielder and his production was way down this past season. As the last remaining "star" of this team, he is a problem the Astros have to deal with. His offense has been overblown and he just isn't as good a player as people have thought. He still hits homers, but offers little else.

We'll have to deal with the pitching in another post as this one is getting long in the tooth. But Wandy Rodriguez is one of the most solid starters in baseball. Brett Myers stunned everyone with his success last year. The Astros need to figure out the rest among Norris, Figueroa, Wright and Happ. But there is enough there to give the Astros a chance to win three out of every five games.

There is mild optimism for this team. They have a good manager. They have young players that could develop into very good ones and they have a lovely ball park. In two years, they will also have a local television network like NESN and YES and that will improve their viability as well. Don't count the Astros out in 2011. They have little minor league depth, but they seem to be making the most out of what they do have.

The Houston Astros' Amazing Season

If the Fan had a vote, the Houston Astros' manager, Brad Mills, would get this writer's vote for Manager of the Year in the National League (Francona should win it in the AL). The Astros were so bad earlier in the year that its two best players, Oswalt and Berkman, both came out publicly and said they wouldn't mind being traded. They got their wishes and both have a good chance to make the playoffs. But the Astros haven't exactly rolled over and died since those two players departed. The opposite has happened--they are thriving.

Consider that the Astros were 17-34 after play was completed on May 31. June saw an improvement and they finished that month 14-14. But they were still only 31-48. Since the end of June, the Astros have gone 33-25. They swept the Cardinals twice. They swept the Phillies. They took three out of four from the Mets...well...okay, that's not a good example. But you get the idea. The Astros are playing so well that they are currently seven games ahead of where the Pythagorean run-differential says they should be. They have out played their run differential by seven games (thought that bore repeating).

The Astros are still near the bottom of the pile in a lot of statistical categories. So how are they winning? Well, they are getting good pitching. Thirty-six year old Nelson Figueroa has pitched well in four starts and a dozen relief appearances and has a 2.36 ERA. J. A. Happ was the trade bait for Oswalt and he's gone 5-2 in eight starts with a 3.21 ERA. In the first half, Wandy Rodriguez went 6-11 with a 4.97 ERA and a K/BB ratio of 1.93. In the second half he is 5-1 with an ERA of 1.61 with a K/BB ratio of 5.08! Brett Myers took a $9 million pay cut from his last aborted year in Philadelphia and is having the best season of his career. His 10-7 record is totally deceiving for how well he's pitched all season. To sum up the starting rotation, four out of their five starters are having outstanding success since the All Star break.

The bullpen has come around too. The cement has been Brandon Lyon, who improbably and out of no where has saved 13 games, 12 of which have come in the second half. He has an ERA of 2.28 in the second half and granted, a lot of that is a bit lucky since his BABIP in the second half is .259, but he's getting the job done and that's something the Astros desperately needed.

To be truthful, losing Lance Berkman wasn't that much of a loss this year. His production was way down while with the Astros this year and his defense had really fallen off. Trading him was great for Berkman because he's had a great career and it's nice that he is going to play in the post season for the first time in quite a while. But the offense doesn't miss him. While the Astros still won't terrorize anyone with their line up, their slash lines have improved greatly in the second half. In the first half, the line was: 238/.296/.347. That's pretty pathetic, eh? In the second half, their slash line is: .264/.316/.385. That's a marked improvement. They scored 3.45 runs a game in the first half and have improved to 4.36 runs a game in the second half.

Hunter Pence is having a very good season and he's really come on in the last month. He almost single-handedly beat the Cardinals and his 112 OPS+ for the season is good. He's been helped greatly by Chris Johnson who was called up earlier in the season and has now played 71 games. His .321 batting average has been excellent. The problem with both Pence and Johnson is that they don't walk enough. Pence at 112 and Johnson at 118 would both have much higher OPS+ statistics if they took a few more walks.

Jeff Keppinger has had a real good second half too. After a terrible start, he has his OPS+ up to 100. The thing that is amazing about Keppinger is his strikeout total. He might be the hardest guy in the National League to strike out. In 478 plate appearances, Keppinger has walked 42 times and has struck out only 29 times. That's impressive!

The Astros need a shortstop who can hit. They need a catcher that can hit. They need a lead-off batter that Michael Bourn is not giving them. The one thing they will miss about Berkman is his OBP. The Astros are terribly impatient. They are dead last in the National League in walks taken and next to last in On Base Percentage. They really need to find more patience at the plate in their entire organization.

But despite those problems, the Astros have played great ball in the second half and Brad Mills has done an excellent job with what he has to work with. If you would have told anyone on May 31 that the Astros would be in third place in the NL Central on September 7, they would have thought you were smoking something funny.

The Astros Make a Solid Choice

From this Fan's perspective, the Astros dodged a bullet by losing out on the Manny Acta sweepstakes (for gosh sakes) and today named Brad Mills, Boston's bench coach for the last six years, as their new manager. For the story, click here.

Here is why the Fan likes this move: First, the Astros get someone who has been a part of a winning culture...ahem...unlike the guy that got away. Second, Mills has had a front row seat to one of the best managers in the business for six years. Francona is solid. He knows how to face pressure. He knows how to handle the media and he knows how to handle his players. And apparently, he knows how to delegate, a secret every good manager in any business, needs to have.

Francona's words speak for themselves: "I have given Brad more responsibility than I have ever seen a bench coach have. He totally runs spring training and he handles all the communication with the players." That my friends, is high praise. The best thing a manager does is give his charges the opportunity to succeed and have enough personal confidence to have his under-managers grow in their responsibilities.

The only question that remains is if Mills will have enough clout to help turn the Astros organization into one that mirrors Boston's. You may love them or you may hate them, but there is no smarter organization that Boston's. They just get it. Does that mean that everything always falls into place? Well, 2009 proves that it doesn't. But if you run your organization correctly, you never fall into the depths of hell and stay competitive throughout. And that's all a fan base can really ask for: a realistic chance to compete every year.