Testing the Transfer Rule

So Saturday night, Nate McLouth became the first Nats victim of the transfer rule. I could not find video of the play, but to cue the scene, Braves have runners on first and second with one out when Andrelton Simmons hits a loopy fly ball to right. McLouth senses the runner on second may tag so he positions himself to throw and catches the ball. As he swings his glove back to his cocked throwing hand, the ball slips out and falls to the ground. The runners move up and everyone is ruled safe. The Nats, having already used their challenge, had no recourse, and with Angel Hernandez involved, no real hope.

As Dave Cameron at Fangraphs wrote, Nate is not the first foiled by the new rule intended to improve the judgment mechanics on double play attempts. He certainly will not be the last, nor will the Nats be the team most grotesquely screwed over by the rule change. Watching the McLouth play a half dozen times, it is understandable how MLB could feel the transfer rule applies fairly to both infield and outfield scenarios. However, let me repaint the picture:

Braves have runners on first and second with one out when Andrelton Simmons hits a loopy fly ball to left. Harper charges and secures the ball in his glove. He takes a step or two towards the infield and sees an opportunity to end the inning. As he begins the motion to transfer the ball to his throwing hands- "OOPS! I dropped it!" Harper quickly regathers and fires a seed into Rendon at third to nail the lead runner. Evan Gattis, struggling from a rough hangover from the evening before, can't figure out why Doug Descenzo is flailing his arms on third base, Rendon flips the ball to second and the rally is wiped out.

The samples collected by Fangraphs show the a slew of the bizarre effects the rule can have, and the umpires are not too keen on change and replay, so we certainly have not seen the end of this.

Dibble's Comment on "Quality starts"

Rob Dibble talks out his ass for a few minutes out of each telecast, but it really what they pay him to do. And it is better that the team's color guy is a straight shooter than somebody who gushes over everybody and everything. He did make an interesting point about how MLB defines quality starts.

A quality start is defined when a starting pitcher pitches at least 6 innings and gives up 3 or fewer earned runs. He then went on to state his case that Jordan Zimmerman, despite his first inning struggle, made a quality start and got his team back in the game. Sorry Rob, just like how MLB defines wins, saves, etc., you can't argue quality starts... or any statistic for that matter. But the fact is, once he served up those balls for Kemp and Blake, he retired 16 of 19 batters, and even threw a double play ball in there to quell a rally in the 6th. Six runs is not insurmountable, and by working several quick innings, he lulled the Dodgers to sleep, and once Wolf was off the hill, the Nats' bats woke up. Even the ball Kemp hit out wasn't a bad pitch, low and away; Kemp is a beast and will occasionally do that.

The Nats are now 8-11-1 since sending Milledge down, with that 1 being in good shape to add to the 8 in a few months.

Dibble made one other observation about Angel Campos tightening up the strike zone once the game got close. I doubt it was a conscious decision, and I disagree with Dibble's assessment; the strike zone was fine later in the game. Some umpires will call a blowout more liberally just to keep the game moving, prevent tempers from flaring. It plays to the advantage of the pitchers, and the Dodgers relievers didn't seem to take advantage of the edges of the plate.

Good win... now let's dump all this steroid talk in LA for some old fashioned managerial turmoil in the desert. AJ Hinch is a smart guy. Oakland pitchers used to lobby Art Howe to get him behind the plate even though he couldn't hit a lick. Once the Big Three came up, they worked exclusively with Ramon Hernandez and Rick Peterson, and Hinch's baseball IQ was expendable. Should be an interesting series.