With over 40 years as a major league player, manager and broadcaster, Buck Martinez has experienced baseball from all angles. Now in his new role as the Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play announcer, Buck is taking your questions in a weekly blog for sportsnet.ca, Behind the plate with Buck.
MOLLY ASKS: Hi Buck, my question is about the Red Sox. How much time do you think GM Theo Epstein will give his veteran club before big changes are made? Because of their experience, would he wait until at least the All-Star break, or is he under pressure now?
BUCK: Molly, most GMs will tell you they really don’t get a feel for a team before the club plays 60 games, which generally takes you into June. It takes that long for a team to develop it’s personality. When there are several new players on a club, like the Red Sox, it may take a little while longer. John Lackey, Adrian Beltre, Mike Cameron, Victor Martinez for the first full season and Jacoby Ellsbury in left field are all adjustments the 2010 Boston club has to deal with. The challenge for Theo is to determine how far you can go this year before you shake things up, because not only are the Yankees off to a good start, but the Rays are streaking away from the rest of the pack. Tampa Bay has a very easy early schedule, which means in the second half of the year they are going to have a lot of Yanks and BoSox. They had better get out there early. Boston and Theo have a real dilemma. Will this team bounce back? In baseball since the introduction of free agency players who are signed to a new contract in a new city, often times don’t have good first years for a number of reasons. First of which in my mind is the size of the contract. A player’s salary when he signs with a new club is the hot topic. Is he worth it? Why did we have to pay so much? Wouldn’t we have been better off to stay with our own guys? Then the new player starts to press trying to live up to the hype. Beltre, Cameron and Lackey are all in this situation. I know Cammy is hurt, but was he on the down side to begin with?
And what about Big Papi? Last year he was able to bounce back in the last four months and have a respectable year. Is he going to do that again this season? Who knows! I think Theo is getting real close to having to make some tough decisions with Mike Lowell, Ortiz and Tim Wakefield. That’s why Theo makes the big bucks.
CHRIS BRYCE ASKS: Hi Buck, you brought up Mike Marshall during the first Cleveland Indians game, and I remember Mike pitching relief featuring a “screwball” which for a right hander breaks to the right. His pitch was
virtually unhittable! As nothing is new in baseball, I presume it’s still there but called something else. Is it now referred to as a “cutter”?
BUCK: Chris that is very good of you to recall THAT the “out pitch” for Mike Marshall was the screwball. I had the chance to catch many pitchers WHO the threw the screwball. I also caught some “screwballs” but that’s another blog. The screwball can be a very good pitch, but you are right in noting that it is almost non-existant these days. Marshall had a great one that broke Like a “reverse curve” if you will. Ruben Gomez, The late Mike Cuellar, and former Blue Jays pitching coach Galen Cisco are all pitchers that I caught that threw the screwball. I haven’t seen a true screwball in many years.
WINDSOR HUI ASKS: Buck, my question is regarding the Yankees acquisition of Javier Vazquez. He has not been working out for New York since they decided to reacquired him. How is it possible that he goes from 2nd in voting in the NL Cy Young Award to a guy who has an era well over 9.00?
BUCK: Many articles have been written about Vazquez and other National League pitchers that haven’t handled the move to the American League very well. Josh Beckett in his first year with Boston, Jake Peavy this year with the White Sox and Brad Penny with the Red Sox as well. The fact is the AL lineups are deeper and more powerful than the NL lineups in general. The DH has a lot to do with that obviously but the 8 and 9 hitters in most AL lineups can swing it. There are natural breaks in the NL game where a pitcher can “coast”, 7 and 8 hitters then the pitchers spot. Every third inning at least you have a chance for an easy inning. That doesn’t happen in the American League.
TRUDI JOHNSON ASKS: Hello Buck, it is great to have you back to Blue Jays broadcasting. I have a question. When Shaun Marcum was pitching last week, you and Pat Tabler mentioned several times that the pitcher “pulled the string”. Would you explain what this means? Thank you.
BUCK: Trudi I really don’t remembering saying “Marcum pulled the string” but if you heard it I will go along and try to explain. The phase “pulled the string” implies the pitcher threw a pitch with less than normal velocity. Think of a child’s rubber ball and string attached to that ball. If a pitcher were to throw the ball will full effort then before it got to the hitter, he pulled the string the ball would slow dramatically and the batter would swing too early, this is exactly what Marcum does so well. He disrupts the timing of the hitters. Great question.
JOE ASKS: What kind of things do catchers say to a batter coming up to the plate? Do they try to get in the batter’s head a little bit or is there an unwritten rule against talking to the batter in an attempt to throw him off his game? Any particular examples from your career?
BUCK: Most catchers have casual conversations with the batters when they approach the plate: “How ya doin’? How’s it goin’? How’s the family?” If I knew someone on the other team well, the exchange would be more specific. “You still swinging at first pitch fastballs? This guy’s got a great heater today or I can barely catch his slider today, it’s breaking like crazy”. There are no unwritten rules as to how far you can go. You just have to trust your own judgements. George Brett and I always had great exchanges. “Hey Buck how come this guy always gets me out? I see the ball great, I just can’t hit him”. And I would know the real story, that in fact we could never get George out and he always hit us hard. The late, great Thurman Munson of the Yankees was a real character coming up to bat. If he had a hit he was ‘Chatty Cathy’, “hey how about Dennis Leonard today, I don’t have a chance”. Then every once in a while he would ask me “where should I stand”? I would tell him stand where Willie (Randolph) did, he got a hit”. After we got him out the next conversation was short. “I’m not listening to you any more today”.
PHILIP ASKS: Hi Buck, why do you think starting pitchers have more surgeries/injuries but work less innings than in decades past?
BUCK: Phillip that is a very good question that deservres a good answer. Pitchers don’t pitch as much as they did in the 60’s and 70’s when I broke in. Teams used four man rotations and most pitchers would make 40 starts a season, with 300 innings the benchmark for pitchers. A complete game was the norm, not the exception, for pitchers who generally finished what they started. Today’s pitching is so expensive and coveted, we over protect our pitchers. I understand why. It’s money. Think about this. Free agent starting pitching will cost you about $1,000,000 per win. That is if you sign CC Sabathia to a contract it will cost you a million dollars for every game he wins per season. 18 wins, $18 million. Per season!
So with that in mind we take real good care of our pitchers and hope they stay healthy, because the cost of replacing them on the open market is prohibitive to most teams. The injury issue is multi-fold. I think we “baby” pitchers for what I just said. Pitch counts around 100 are the norm, so we never extend the outing to see what a guy might be capable of doing later in the game. The injuries are up because we have much better medical staffs that can diagnois an injury that may have been missed 10-15 years ago. I think pitchers are well protected, but I would like to see the industry return to four man rotations and challenge pitchers to work deeper in games.
MARK MICHEL ASKS: Hey Buck, just a quick question. When I go to games I love the 100 level outfield seats and usually sit right above a bullpen. When a pitcher is called up to warm from the pen, are they simple playing catch or do they throw specific pitches?
BUCK: When a manager calls to the pen there are different instructions each time. If a starter is having problems early in the game the manager may call the pen and have a reliever “go along with him”, meaning watch the inning and if the situation gets worse for the starter, the reliever should increase his intensity as the inning goes on. If a starter has two or three tough spots in the game a reliever may get up for a second time. This time it only takes a couple of pitches to get “loose” and then he will stand by ready to enter the game if needed. When a pitcher is having a good outing pitching into the 7th or 8th inning, the call may be as specific as “Camp has Konerko when he comes up”. In games with the Jays leading in the 9th, the call will be as simple as Kevin Gregg has the 9th. When relievers throw in the bullpen they all have a specific goal in mind, the first time up they get loose, the second time they get ready to go into the game and pitch along with the pitcher in the game.
KYLE FOLEY ASKS: Buck, with your knowledge of the Jays I was wondering if you have kept an eye on the farm system and can shed some light on a couple of hot prospects the Jays might have that the casual fan may not know about?
BUCK: Kyle we try to keep our eye on the minors while we are doing the Jays games. As you may know Brett Wallace in AAA Las Vegas is off to a good start with the bat. He has nine home runs and hitting nearly .300. JP Arencibia the catcher at Las Vegas is also doing well. Brian Jeroloman a catcher at AA is hitting the ball well and may be the best “catcher” in the system. AJ JimEnez and Travis d’Arnaud also are catchers that are highly thought of. Kyle Drabek, the pitcher who was the keystone in the Roy Halladay deal with the Phillies is doing well in AA.
JIM ASKS: Hi Buck, Good to see you back with the Jays. I’ve always really appreciated your knowledge of the game. Why is it that certain rules – leaving a base too early on a caught fly, missing a base, etc, are only enforced on appeal? Since the umpire has to see the infraction in order to call it, why isn’t it immediately called in the same way that other calls are made?
BUCK: I am not sure, but that is a great question. You know the rules. I think that the rule book is based on a lot of common sense issues. If you have to tag up on a fly to advance to the next base, it only makes sense that you put the responsibility on the defending team to check the timing of the runner leaving his base. The missed base call is the same. As the runner rounds the bag the defender at that base must watch to check on the to see if the runner tagged the base before advancing to the next base. I guess since these plays are so tough to see as the game moves quickly, it would be impossible to let the umpire make the call after the play continued. The appeal makes a lot of sense. But the ownness of the call on the defending team.