The news that the Los Angeles Angels signed Albert Pujols to a ten-year contract for $250 million has motivated me to put up my first post in a month.

While I would have preferred a shorter and less expensive contract, anything under ten years and $250 million was not going to seal the deal. As such, the way to think about this signing from an Angels' perspective is to break it into two five-year periods. That's right, 5x30 and 5x20 for an average of 10x25. Sure, 5x25 and 5x15 might be closer to what Pujols is likely to produce in terms of value but an aggregate of $200 million was going to come up short of luring the three-time NL MVP to Orange County.

Pujols turns 32 in January so the Angels just signed him to a 10-year deal with a no trade clause for his age 32-41 year-old seasons. I think he will give the Angels five very good-to-great seasons for a 1B and five average-to-good seasons for a 1B/DH. If one thinks about it as I suggested above, the Angels can easily justify the first five seasons. I mean, wasn't the consensus calling for as much as an 8 x 25-30M deal as recently as last winter? Sure, Albert's numbers fell off a tad this year but he put together an outstanding second half and postseason. In other words, I believe he is basically the same player today as he was perceived a year ago. Pujols may not earn his keep during the second half of the contract unless baseball salaries inflate significantly between now and then. But that's the risk the Angels had to take to acquire the greatest right-handed hitter of the past 80 years, if not ever.

Ironically, after signing Pujols and C.J. Wilson (5/$77.5M), the Angels actually have more flexibility than they did yesterday. Therefore, it says here that Arte Moreno and Jerry DiPoto will pull off at least one more headline signing or trade before spring training. At a minimum, they have freed up Mark Trumbo and possibly Ervin Santana. In addition, the Halos can easily move Peter Bourjos, if need be, plus Bobby Abreu (if they agree to eat at least half of his contract) and either Alberto Callaspo or Maicer Izturis.

Where am I going with this? Well, I wouldn't rule out going after David Wright or Ryan Zimmerman. The Mets are reportedly interested in Bourjos. The Nats have been linked to him, too, and have indicated a desire to shore up center field and first base. Why not a Bourjos and Trumbo deal for Zimmerman? The Mets have Ike Davis and Sandy Alderson and Paul DePodesta aren't likely to be interested in Trumbo's low OBP. As such, the Angels might have to replace Trumbo with Hank Conger. Either way, I would only give up those packages for Wright or Zimmerman if I could sign them to a longer-term deal first as both are under team control for just two more years. Wright is owed $15M in 2012 with a team option at $16M for 2013 and Zimmerman is due $12M in 2012 and $14M in 2013.

Let's dream for a minute, Angels fans. Assuming the Halos trade Bourjos and either Conger or Trumbo for Wright or Zimmerman, here is a potential lineup for 2012:

Trout, CF
Kendrick, 2B
Wright or Zimmerman, 3B
Pujols, 1B
Morales, DH
Hunter, RF
Wells, LF
Iannetta, C
Aybar, SS

While I realize that Mike Scioscia would never start the season with Trout as the lead-off hitter, he can flip Trout and Erick Aybar in April and May until he realizes how much better Trout is. After he makes that change, he can flip Chris Iannetta and Aybar if he's worried about having three RHB in the 6th through 8th slots.

If Kendrys Morales doesn't recover from his leg injury, then the Angels can slide Abreu into the role of DH, hit him first or second in the batting order, slide Howie Kendrick down to sixth or seventh, and not miss much of a beat.

Here is how the starting rotation stacks up:

Weaver
Haren
Wilson
Santana
Williams

That would be about as strong as any rotation this side of Philadelphia.

Here is how the bullpen shapes up at this moment in time:

Walden
Downs
Thompson
Takahashi
(and perhaps two of three of Jepsen, Richards, and Cassevah)

Add Ryan Madson (hey, it's not my money) as the closer and you're looking at a team that would be favored to win the World Series.

***

You can read more about the Pujols and Wilson signings at Halos Heaven, which has several articles and links to other posts at SB Nation.

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No Boston Red Sox. No New York Yankees. No Philadelphia Phillies. The three highest payrolls in Major League Baseball failed to make the final four. In fact, seven of the top ten teams didn't even make the postseason.

With the Yankees losing the ALDS to the Detroit Tigers yesterday and the Phillies falling short to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS this evening, none of the top nine payrolls are still alive and well.

As shown below, the 10th, 11th, 13th, and 17th highest payroll teams remain in the hunt to win the World Series. Congratulations to all four organizations, as well as the No. 25 Arizona Diamondbacks and No. 29 Tampa Bay Rays.

* The salary information is courtesy of USA Today.

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I went to the Angels-White Sox game last night and sat in the first row behind the home team's dugout. If you had your choice of any seats in the stadium, the ones that my friend Glen, brother Tom, and son Joe occupied on Wednesday evening would rank right there with the best of them.

I wore a red Angels shirt to root on Jered Weaver, who was making his first start since signing a five-year, $85 million extension last weekend, and the Halos. As it turned out, Weaver shut down the Pale Hose, tossing seven scoreless innings as the Angels trounced the visitors, 8-0, for the club's sixth consecutive victory. The Angels are now 71-59 and just 2.5 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West.

Manager Mike Scioscia pulled Weaver after the seventh inning even though Jered had only thrown 96 pitches. With the Angels heading to Texas for a three-game series beginning on Friday, the speculation is that Scioscia plans to start his ace on three days' rest this Sunday. If so, the Rangers will face the Angels Big Three in Dan Haren on Friday, Ervin Santana on Saturday, and Jered Weaver on Sunday. Depending on the outcome of tonight's Boston-Texas contest, a sweep would either put the Angels a half-game behind or a half-game ahead of the Rangers with one month to go in the regular season.

Mat Gleason, aka Rev Halofan in the baseball blogosphere, tipped me off to the adjoining photo by Chris Carlson of the Associated Press. He cropped the photo and embedded it in his recap of last night's game. ESPN also ran the photo as part of Mark Saxon's game report.

I can be found with hands cupped around my mouth saying "complete-game shutout" to Weaver as he took his first step into the dugout after the seventh inning. Little did I know that Jered had thrown his final pitch of the evening. The Angels scored four runs in the bottom half of the inning, highlighted by three doubles off the bats of Erick Aybar, Alberto Callaspo, and Bobby Abreu. Bobby Cassevah and Fernando Rodney worked the eighth and ninth innings, combining with Weaver for a team shutout.

Weaver, who started the All-Star Game for the American League, leads the circuit in ERA (2.03); ranks second in CG (4), QS (23), QS% (0.89), and WHIP (0.97); third in W (15) and W-L% (.714); fourth in IP (195.1); and sixth in K (166) and K/BB (3.77). He also places third in BAA (.206) and second in OBP (.252), SLG (.310), and OPS (.562). Among advanced metrics, Weaver ranks first in ERA+ (185), Adjusted Pitching Runs (41), Adjusted Pitching Wins (4.6), Base-Out Runs Saved (46.6), Base-Out Wins Wins Saved (5.5), and Win Probability Added (5.1); and second in FIP (2.80), Component ERA (1.95), fWAR (5.5), brWAR (6.5), Situation Wins Saved (4.4), and Adjusted Game Score (64.6).

The 28-year-old righthander has been consistently excellent all season long. According to Saxon, "(Weaver) has pitched at least seven innings and given up one run or fewer 15 times this season, most in the majors." He set an Angels team record with 15 consecutive quality starts earlier this year, which is quite an accomplishment when you consider that Dean Chance led the AL in W, ERA, CG, SHO, and IP in his MLB Cy Young Award-winning season in 1964; Bartolo Colon was named the AL CYA winner in 2005; and Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan tossed four no-hitters and led the league in strikeouts in seven of his eight campaigns with the Angels. Weaver also bested, among others, Frank Tanana (14 consecutive complete games in 1977 when he led the league in ERA and shutouts), Chuck Finley, and Mark Langston.

While skeptics may point to Weaver's BABIP (.250), LOB% (83.7%), and HR/FB (4.6%) stats as indications that he has been "lucky" or benefited from strong defense and bullpen support, one could counter such an argument by pointing to the fact that he has been victimized by the second-worst run support (3.96) in the majors. Look, Weaver has been confounding the experts for years. Be it his pitcher-friendly home ballpark in college, his average velocity, throwing across his body, comparisons of looks and pitching style to brother Jeff, and his extreme flyball tendencies, the naysayers have had more than their share of reasons not to like the pitcher who nonetheless has succeeded at every stop along the way, from Long Beach State to Team USA to MiLB to MLB. The combination of his stuff, command, deception, competitiveness, and smarts places him among the elite pitchers in the game today.

As I introduced in May 2010, popups/pop flies/infield flies are "The Most Under Appreciated Batted Ball Type." Such outcomes had long been ignored or misunderstood. Of note, according to Baseball Prospectus, Weaver has generated 86 popups this season, 21 more than any other pitcher. He also ranks first in POP (15.8%) as a percentage of batted balls. Given that popups are converted into outs about 99% of the time, such outcomes are basically the equivalent of a strikeout. As such, in addition to favoring pitchers with high K and GB rates, look for hurlers who generate a ton of K and POP.

A veteran of six seasons, Weaver has a lifetime record of 79-45 with an ERA of 3.27. Over the course of his career, his numbers rank in the ballpark with the best and highest-paid pitchers in baseball, including Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Dan Haren, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Josh Beckett, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt, and Johan Santana. Like the Angels, it's time to give Weaver his due.

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There have been a number of articles and interviews published over the past two weeks about my efforts to help Bert Blyleven get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. As much for my personal reference as anything else, I am linking to these stories below in chronological order.

I wrote my first of more than 30 articles about Bert Blyleven nearly 91 months ago to the day. I titled it “Only the Lonely: The Hall of Fame Trials and Tribulations of Bert Blyleven.” Only the Lonely was named after the 1960 song by Roy Orbison and was chosen because Blyleven was conspicuously missing from the Hall of Fame while all the pitchers ranked around him in several of the most important stats had already been inducted or were locks to be enshrined in their first year of eligibility.

Well, eight election cycles later and nobody can call Blyleven “Only the Lonely” any longer. His vote totals steadily rose from 145 (29%) in 2003 to 463 (80%) in 2011, ultimately piercing the 75 percent threshold needed for election last January. While Blyleven was on the ballot far too long, his date with destiny finally arrived last Sunday when he was officially inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. My wife Barbara and I sat in the Blyleven family section during the ceremony as guests of Bert and his wife Gayle.

I can now say for the first time that the past seven-plus years have been worth every minute. I can also proclaim that the preceding seven-plus months have been joyous and memorable, highlighted by the telephone call I received from Bert informing me that he had been voted into the Hall of Fame 30 minutes before the official announcement was made to the public. He told me that I was his second call, directly after the one to his mother Jenny.

The excitement didn’t stop there though. In fact, it was a fun-tastic two weeks, culminating in a surprise trip to Fort Myers, Florida to meet Bert face-to-face for the first time at a tribute dinner in his honor. After giving each other a big, warm bear hug on stage, I recalled a story about a Saturday afternoon 38 years ago that found me umpiring behind home plate in a winter league scout’s game that the then 22-year-old veteran of four MLB seasons started.

I played catch with Bert and pitched in a fantasy camp game the next morning, followed by a round of golf with him at his club that afternoon. Our foursome tied for first place with a 65 in a scramble tournament. We played well and had a great time on the baseball field and the golf course.

While I may have been the ringleader, getting Blyleven elected to the Hall of Fame was truly a team effort and one that would have never gotten off the ground, if not for the Internet. Darren Viola (known to most of us as Repoz) of the Baseball Think Factory deserves credit for linking to and excerpting my articles, which did wonders for getting the message out in the early going. Alex Belth and Jon Weisman were also prominent linkers. Rob Neyer linked my articles and advocated on behalf of Blyleven. Even Bill James got behind Blyleven's candidacy in The Hardball Times Annual. Jay Jaffe continually endorsed him in his Hall of Fame evaluations at Baseball Prospectus. There were several other backers who chipped in over the years, too.

Importantly, dozens of high-profile writers, including Peter Gammons, Tracy Ringolsby, Ken Rosenthal, and Jim Caple, changed their minds along the way and began to not only vote for Blyleven but helped spread the word and influenced their fellow BBWAA members.

Make no mistake about it, Bert did all the work on the field. Fifth all-time in strikeouts, ninth all-time in shutouts, and top 20 since 1900 in wins. Two World Series championships coupled with a 5-1 record and 2.47 ERA in the postseason only added to his credentials. My job, if you will, was simply to make the voters aware of his accomplishments and qualifications. Lo and behold, Blyleven got his just reward in his 14th (and second-to-last) year on the ballot.

As one of 295 individuals with plaques in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Blyleven is no longer "Only the Lonely."

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All of us returned home on Tuesday afternoon. My wife, son-in-law, and I had so much fun that we decided to extend our trip by an extra day. Well, not exactly. We had a lot of fun, and we stayed an extra day. But not by choice.

Instead, our flight out of Albany International Airport on Monday was delayed to the point where we were going to miss the last connection out of Newark, where inclement weather was preventing departures and arrivals for most of the day. If we stayed overnight in Newark, the first available flight to LAX was at something like 5:45 p.m. ET, meaning we wouldn't have returned home until about 9:00 p.m. PT on Tuesday. By staying in Albany, we were able to book a flight at 7:00 a.m. We boarded the plane on schedule but sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes before returning to the gate for another 45 minutes to refuel and get clearance for takeoff. While we arrived in Philadelphia nearly two hours behind schedule, we walked directly onto our connecting plane and arrived at LAX at roughly 12:45 p.m. PT.

All's well that ends well, especially when one can hold his beautiful granddaughter (the gift of my daughter and son-in-law) once again.

I plan to share more photos and stories of my trip to Cooperstown, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the private reception on Saturday night, and the induction ceremony on Sunday. Check back on Thursday and Friday for additional posts.

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We attended the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation at Doubleday Field from 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. The new event featured Terry Cashman singing Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and the Duke), followed by Bill Conlin (J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing), Dave Van Horne (Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence), and Roland Hemond (Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award).

Barbara, Joel, and I sat in the stands on the third base side between the pitcher's mound and home plate among guests of the inductees. Jerry Reinsdorf and Dennis Gilbert sat in the row below and just to the right of us. Dave Dombrowski was sitting one row in front of them. There were other front office executives and their family members in the immediate area.

The award winners and Hall of Famers sat on a stage behind second base. Going around the diamond in alphabetical and numerical order by scorekeeper positions, the following players, managers, and executives were on stage: Bert Blyleven (see how I worked that out?), Jim Bunning, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Whitey Ford, Goose Gossage, Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Carlton Fisk, Orlando Cepeda, Eddie Murray, Tony Perez, Roberto Alomar, Rod Carew, Bobby Doerr, Bill Mazeroski, Joe Morgan, Ryne Sandberg, Red Schoendienst, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Brooks Robinson, Ozzie Smith, Robin Yount, Lou Brock, Rickey Henderson, Ralph Kiner, Jim Rice, Billy Williams, Andre Dawson, Tony Gwynn, Reggie Jackson, Al Kaline, Frank Robinson, Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Whitey Herzog, Tom Lasorda, Earl Weaver, and Pat Gillick.

At the conclusion of the presentations, we were shuttled back to the front steps of the Museum to a VIP viewing area for the Parade of Legends. The Hall of Famers were driven from Doubleday Field down Main Street to the Hall of Fame individually in the back of Ford pickup trucks. We were invited to the Hall of Fame Private Reception inside the Museum afterwards. Hors d'oeuvres and cocktails were served in the Plaque Gallery.

I met Bert and Gayle Blyleven as they walked into the Hall of Fame. Bert and I shook hands and hugged. I introduced both of them to Barbara and Joel. We talked for a few minutes and concluded the conversation with a big, firm high five. I wish I had a photo of that moment but the memory will stay with me forever.

Later that evening, Bert and I met up for a few photos. The first one is of the two of us pointing to the spot on the wall where his plaque will be installed Sunday evening.

The second is in front of Blyleven's exhibit.

Needless to say, my family and I had a great day, topped by the Hall of Fame Private Reception. Meeting up with Bert in that setting was a once in a lifetime experience.

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I'm posting four photos for now. I will add more later.

My wife Barbara and me standing in front of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Saturday morning.

Here I am in the middle with my son-in-law Joel on the left and brother Tom on the right.

Jeannie, Tom, Barbara, me, and Joel in the Plaque Gallery.

I'm pointing to the spot where Blyleven will be enshrined in the Plaque Gallery forever.

After spending the morning and early afternoon at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, we're now heading to the Awards Presentation at Doubleday Field.

Check back for more photos and stories late this evening or early tomorrow morning.

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My wife and I are leaving for Cooperstown this morning for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday. We will be joined by our son-in-law Joel and my brother Tom and his wife Jeannie this weekend. If not a baseball trip of a lifetime, it should prove to be an unforgettable memory for not only the honoree himself but all of us as well.

I plan on posting as many stories, links, and photos as time allows. So be sure to check back throughout the weekend to stay abreast of our trip.

That's all for now.

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The Society for American Baseball Research held its 41st annual convention at the Long Beach Hilton two weeks ago. I enjoyed SABR 41 as an attendee and panelist, as well as for the opportunity to meet many friends in the baseball community.

Scott Boras was the keynote speaker on Thursday morning. You can listen to his 90-minute speech, which focused on his rise from a minor league baseball player to law school to becoming an attorney and then starting his own firm, known today as the Scott Boras Corporation. He talked about the use of both data and psychology in dealing with players, arbitrators, and front office executives, as well as managing the media.

You can read about and listen to the various panels that took place throughout the convention, including the medical (Dr. Neal ElAttrache, Dr. Kevin Wilk, and Ned Bergert, and moderated by Will Carroll of Sports Illustrated), media (Dave Cameron, Sean Forman, Bill Squadron, and Russ Stanton, and moderated by SABR President Andy McCue), SABR era (John Thorn, John Dewan, Roland Hemond, Wes Parker, and Dennis Gilbert, and moderated by Tom Hufford, one of SABR's 16 founding members), general managers (Jed Hoyer, Fred Claire, and Dan Evans, and moderated by Rob Neyer, the national baseball editor for SB Nation), and player (Tommy Davis and Al Ferrara and moderated by Barry Mednick of SABR's Allan Roth Chapter).

During the SABR era panel, Dewan seconded my nomination of Bill James for the Hall of Fame (see excerpt below). At the end of that discussion, I introduced myself to Mr. Hemond, who was the scouting director for the California Angels when my Dad was the Director of Public Relations and Promotions. The longtime executive will be honored in Cooperstown tomorrow as the second recipient of the Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award. After exiting the room, I stopped and listened to Parker, who was outside entertaining a small crowd of SABR attendees (that's me in the middle and Wes on the far left) with stories about his days as a former ballplayer with the Dodgers. I waited patiently and introduced myself as "Rich Lederer, the son of George Lederer." He had nice things to say about Dad, who covered the Dodgers for Parker's first five years in the big leagues.

I was invited by Cameron to participate in FanGraphs Live in the main ballroom on Thursday night. I served on an Angels/Dodgers panel with Sam Miller of the Orange County Register and Baseball Prospectus, Jon Weisman of ESPN/Dodger Thoughts, and Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. that was hosted by Jonah Keri, who writes about baseball for ESPN and FanGraphs and stocks for Investor's Business Daily. Keri introduced me as “the first stathead to induct someone into the Hall of Fame.” I also served on a national baseball panel with Cameron (second from the left in the adjoining photo), Vince Gennaro (middle), and Neyer (sitting on the far right) that was hosted by FanGraphs' Carson Cistulli (standing), who entertained us all.

The moderators and members of the audience asked me about the Angels and Dodgers, Bert Blyleven, the Hall of Fame, Jered Weaver, and Bryce Harper, among other topics. Cameron reminded me that I mentioned my disgust about the Vernon Wells signing more than once (or was it three times?). Of note, on the night before the Angels called up Mike Trout, I suggested that the team would have been better off locking him up for ten years rather than giving even more money to Wells for a shorter period. My son Joe, who attended the event along with my son-in-law Joel and brother Tom, informed me bright and early the following morning that the Angels promoted Trout from Double-A to the majors. I went to the Angels-Mariners game that evening and saw the 19-year-old prospect's MLB debut. He went 0-for-3 at the plate but made an outstanding running catch at the warning track in right-center field to record the final out in the top of the ninth inning.

I was interviewed by MLB Network at the convention the following morning. The half-hour segment was videotaped with the possibility of a portion of it being used on This Week in Baseball and/or for a documentary on the evolution of statistical analysis in baseball that will be narrated by Bob Costas and scheduled to air in the fall.

There were also numerous research presentations on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I listened to The Joe Morgan Trade by Mark Armour, a former Bob Davids Award winner and the most prolific guest columnist for Baseball Analysts. I had lunch at George's Greek Cafe with Mark and Dan Levitt prior to the former's afternoon presentation. Mark and Dan co-authored Paths to Glory and are working on a sequel.

Bob Keisser, a columnist for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, wrote a preview of the convention and a follow-up that was titled "Baseball Nerdery is Celebrated."

Long Beach native Rich Lederer, whose late father George was a Dodgers beat writer for their first 10 years here, created his own Baseball Analysts website several years ago to write about statistical and historical aspects of the game and provide a vehicle for other writers and links to even more.

"It's exciting to be here and meet a lot of people I've gotten to know through their work, and to take part in the process," Lederer said.

He got to participate in the main seminar Friday morning about SABR's impact and was feted for his statistical support of Bert Blyleven, the former Angels pitcher who finally was elected into the Hall of Fame.

"They asked me who I would help get into the Hall of Fame next," Lederer said. "I said 'Bill James' and the whole room exploded, clearly behind that idea. Next to Branch Rickey, he's given us the most information to change the way we think about baseball."

Lederer has a second choice, too - Long Beach native Bobby Grich, the former Wilson High star who had a terrific 17-year career with the Orioles and Angels, hit 224 home runs as a second baseman, had a career on-base percentage of .371 and won four Gold Glove awards.

His numbers are comparable with Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg (16 years, 282 home runs, nine Gold Glove awards) with the notable exception that Grich, the one year he was on the Hall of Fame ballot, received a mere four votes.

"There were a lot of things back then people didn't consider," Lederer said. "Grich played in two pitchers' parks (Memorial Stadium, Angel Stadium), offense was down in the '70s, and there were a lot of things he did that didn't get people's attention then - that he got on base, was a slugger playing second base, and was the best fielder for most of his career.

"I think he's probably one of the 12 greatest second basemen in baseball history."

Of the 3,000 or so attendees at the SABR Convention here, chances are each fancies their own player like Grich, or an opinion on the horror of pitch counts, or some numbers they've jotted down that you'll never get out of a box score. As gatherings of statistical scientists go, everyone in this group can call themselves a power hitter.

Aaron Gleeman, Jeff Polman, Chris Jaffe, Peter Iorizzo, Cecilia Tan, Geoff Young, Lisa Dillman, Eno Sarris, Sam Miller, Mike Leury posted recaps from SABR 41. You can read excerpts here. The site also links to their full stories, as well as to recaps from local media outlets. You can also read some of the top tweets from SABR 41, too.

I met Gleeman, Jaffe, Young, and Miller for the first time in person even though I have corresponded with the first three via email for years, including going all the way back to 2003 in the case of Aaron and Geoff.

SABR 42 will be held in Minneapolis next summer. In the meantime, if you're not a member of this great baseball organization, you should join now. Annual dues are reasonable and entitle you to many benefits, including discounted fees to the national conventions.

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News: The Tigers designated 3B Brandon Inge for assignment. The 34-year-old Inge "hit" .177/.242/.242 in 239 plate appearances.

Views: How did the two-year contract Inge signed just nine months ago work out for the Tigers?

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Joe Posnanski took a weeklong, cross-country trip that covered five cities and more than 10,000 miles in search of what baseball means in 2011. He traveled from Charlotte to Los Angeles and chatted with Vin Scully, from L.A. to New York to witness Derek Jeter's 3000th hit, from N.Y. to Kansas City to watch a game with Bill James in which Justin Verlander's 100-mph heat was topped by the temperature, from K.C. to Phoenix to catch Prince Fielder "uncoil his wonderfully violent swing" at the All-Star Game, and from Arizona to Cooperstown where a bat stored in the archives "down in the bowels of the Hall of Fame" that stuck with him the most. Yes, Wonderboy, the bat Roy Hobbs made from a tree split in half by lightning in the movie The Natural that reminded both Hobbs and Posnanski of their fathers.

THE BAT stays with me. Isn't that strange? I did so many amazing things on this crazy cross-country trip in search of what baseball means in 2011 ...

And so ... why the bat? Why does the bat keep reemerging in my mind, like a summer song that won't stop repeating? It's just a bat. It might not even be regulation size. No one used it to crack his 3,000th hit or smack his 500th homer. This bat was never even used in a major league game, or a minor league game, or a Little League game, or any real game at all.

Still ... Why do I think it's all about that bat?

"Loving Baseball" is Joe at his best. In addition to Scully, Jeter, James, Verlander, Fielder, and Hobbs, Posnanski marvels at the artistry of Adrian Gonzalez's swing, and mentions, in order, Cy Young, Sliding Billy Hamilton, Andre Ethier, Kirk Gibson, Roger Clemens, Willie Mays, Andrew McCutchen, Lance Berkman, Roy Halladay, David Ortiz, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Honus Wagner, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken Jr., Ichiro Suzuki, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Brayan Pena, Gary Sheffield, Roberto Clemente, Johnny Bench, Ozzie Smith, Greg Maddux, Danny Jackson, Jose Bautista, Pete Rose, Jimmie Foxx, Al Kaline, Tony Gwynn, Harmon Killebrew, Lew Burdette, Ralph Terry, and Bill Mazeroski.

So why is it that as I end this trip, I keep thinking about Wonderboy?

...What was I looking for? While in Los Angeles, I heard the awful news about Shannon Stone, a Texas firefighter who brought his son to a Rangers game and fell and died when he lost his balance trying to catch a baseball. In New York, I saw a young man named Christian Lopez grab Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit and then saw his father, Raul, cover him as protection from the crowd. In Arizona, I saw the determined look on Jose Cano's face as he pitched to his son Robinson in the Home Run Derby.

And in Cooperstown, I saw Wonderboy—the bat a boy carved to remind himself of his father. My father worked for most of his life in a sweater factory. When he got home each day—oil on his pants, salami on his breath—we would go to the backyard and play catch. All the while he talked: Get in front of the ball... . Put the glove under your mattress to break it in... . Don't step into the bucket... . Watch how Henry Aaron steps into the ball... . Choke up on the bat with two strikes... . Get back to your feet quickly, like Brooks Robinson... . Remember, it's easier to run in on the ball than to go back.

"They're sending you around to the country to find the meaning of baseball?" he asked.

"Something like that," I said. He looked at me with a mix of disbelief and wonder and, sure, pride. Dad's job was to keep the sweater machines running. It was a clear assignment with a clear mission—plain questions and plain answers and no time for what he always called "baloney."

"Well, baseball is fun, right?" he said.

Baseball is fun indeed.

As the subtitle of the Sports Illustrated article dated July 25, 2011 asks and answers, "What keeps the grand game great? Everything old is new again."

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Roy Halladay and Jered Weaver have been named the starting pitchers for tonight's All-Star Game in Arizona, which will be televised by FOX at 8 p.m. ET. While the 34-year-old Halladay has participated in the mid-summer classic in eight of the past 10 years, the 28-year-old Weaver earned his first trip in 2010 but did not play because he pitched on the Sunday preceding the game.

Halladay and Weaver are leading their respective leagues in Fielding Independent Pitching Earned Run Average with FIPs of 2.16 and 2.39. Of note, Weaver also leads Major League Baseball in ERA (1.86), Adjusted Pitching Runs (31), and Adjusted Pitching Wins (3.6). He ranks first in the AL and second in MLB in not only FIP but Fangraphs (4.7) and Baseball-Reference (4.9) Wins Above Replacement among pitchers, ERA+ (199), and Win Probability Added (3.4).

If Weaver is not the best pitcher in baseball, he is certainly one of the top ten, along with Halladay and, in alphabetical order, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, and Justin Verlander. A healthy Josh Johnson, Stephen Strasburg, or Adam Wainwright would fill out my list of the best starting pitchers in the game. Cases for inclusion could also be made for Zack Greinke, Tommy Hanson, Dan Haren, Jon Lester, and David Price.

Importantly, Weaver is not a small-sample-size phenomenon. Over the past year, Weaver ranks second in MLB in ERA (2.38), third in FIP (2.59), and 4th in fWAR (7.4). According to Baseball-Reference.com, he ranks sixth among all active pitchers in career ERA (3.32) and ERA+ (128).

It's taken a long time for Weaver to overcome the naysayers in the prospect and stathead community as more than his brother or an innings eater. He is undoubtedly much greater than both. Jered is not only the starting pitcher in the All-Star Game but a leading candidate to win the AL Cy Young Award this year.

Tonight's recognition will do little for Halladay's reputation but should do wonders for the under appreciated Weaver.

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The Society for American Baseball Research is convening in my hometown of Long Beach this week for its 41st annual convention. The event, which takes place at the Long Beach Hilton, kicks off today (July 6) and lasts through Sunday (July 10). The convention marks SABR's first in Southern California since 1993 when it was held in San Diego and the first in the Los Angeles area since 1980.

SABR 41 includes five full days of activities and excursions, featuring approximately 30 research presentations, panel discussions, and trips to the Angels and Dodgers games this weekend. The full schedule can be found here. Members and non-members are welcome. On-site registration is $59 for a day, $93 for two days, and $159 for the full conference.

Scott Boras is the keynote speaker at the Annual Business Meeting on Thursday morning. Dennis Gilbert is the featured speaker at the Awards Luncheon on Friday. San Diego Padres general manager Jed Hoyer will join former Dodgers GMs Fred Claire and Dan Evans on Saturday afternoon for a panel discussion ("The Changing Role of the General Manager") moderated by SABR member and SB Nation baseball editor Rob Neyer. Former White Sox and Orioles GM Roland Hemond, a three-time winner of MLB’s Executive of the Year Award and 2011 recipient of the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, will participate in "The Evolution of Baseball Over SABR's Four Decades" discussion on Friday. Other notable panelists from the sabermetric community include Dave Cameron, John Dewan, Sean Forman, and John Thorn.

I am looking forward to partaking in FanGraphs Live at SABR 41 on Thursday evening. The three-hour event will take place in the main ballroom. It costs $20.

Courtesy of Cameron, the managing editor of FanGraphs, the agenda is as follows:

7 p.m. to 8 p.m. - Dodgers/Angels discussion with Jon Weisman, Eric Stephen, Rich Lederer, and Sam Miller. Jonah Keri will be moderating this panel, and it will likely be split near 50/50 into questions and discussions originated by Jonah and questions from the audience.

8 p.m. to 9 p.m. - National baseball and statistical analysis discussion with Rob Neyer, Vince Gennaro, Rich Lederer, and Dave Cameron. Carson Cistulli will be moderating this panel, and likeways, it will be approximately half questions from Carson and half from the audience.

9 p.m. to 10 p.m. - FanGraphs Q&A with David Appelman, Jonah Keri, Carson Cistulli, Eno Sarris, and Dave Cameron. We'll take questions from the audience with whatever time is left over after the two panels.

Weisman operates Dodger Thoughts and is a writer/editor at Variety. Stephen is an author at True Blue L.A., the Dodgers arm of the of the SB Nation network. Miller is a sports writer for the Orange County Register. Keri writes for FanGraphs and is the author of The Extra 2%. Gennaro is the author of Diamond Dollars and professor at Columbia University. Cistulli is the editor for FanGraphs and host of FanGraphs Audio. Appleman is the president of FanGraphs. Sarris is a writer for FanGraphs, NotGraphs, and RotoGraphs.

I would welcome meeting any attendees before or after the panel discussions or even on one of the subsequent days of the convention. I plan on posting highlights and photos throughout SABR 41.

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Thanks to Google Alerts, I was made aware of an interview conducted by David Mark, a senior editor at POLITICO, with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, the co-authors of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America in Arena Chat.

My Hall of Fame "campaign" for Bert Blyleven was the subject of part of their conversation. Check out the 10-minute video and accompanying article. If you're pressed for time, fast forward to 3:30 and play it through the 7:00 mark.

Baseball fans, for example, may recall Bert Blyleven, a solid and durable major league pitcher from 1970 to 1992. Hall of Fame baseball writers shunned Blyleven for years, never giving him more than 30 percent of their votes (75 percent are needed for entry to the baseball shrine.)

Then a California investment manager, Rich Lederer, took up Blyleven’s cause.

“By penning a series of convincing articles and debating individual voting writers (face-to-face, in many cases), this outside dabbler pulled off the unthinkable: he changed a doomed candidate into a 2011 inductee into the Hall of Fame,” Gillespie and Welch write.

“It shows that you can move around the traditional gatekeepers and centers of power,” Welch said.

Welch, who is the editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, a leading libertarian publication, is perhaps better known around these parts as a diehard Angels fan, astute sabermetrician, and part-time baseball writer. It's hard to believe that his outstanding guest column at Baseball Analysts on Dave Hansen is now more than six years old. Be sure to check out the accompanying photo of Welch singing and Hansen jamming on guitar.

Matt and I grew up on the same block in the Lakewood Village area of Long Beach. While an age difference separated us, our brothers played on the same Little League team, which was coached by Mr. Welch. Unaware that I was the Rich Lederer from his childhood years, Matt linked to my website in 2004, then interviewed me for his inaugural "Infrequently Asked Questions" series in 2005 after discovering that we were not only neighbors but fellow bloggers with a passion for baseball and the Bill James Baseball Abstracts. Most recently, Welch wrote "How a Part-Time Blogger Changed the Face of Baseball's Hall of Fame."

Courtesy of Google Books, here is an excerpt from The Declaration of Independents in a chapter titled "The Democratization of Just About Everything...":

Fred Eckhardt is living proof that the American tradition of impactful pamphleteer activism is more than alive and well. Four decades after publication of the Treatise, it has never been easier for self-publishers and other outsiders to build their own seats at the table and elbow the deadweight aside, forcing the top-down cultures of industrial media (and politics and music and beer and a thousand other sectors) to confront their own banal inadequacies and acknowledge (only after kicking and screaming) the newcomers' contributions. Forget Bill James and pollster Nate Silver—consider the case of Rich Lederer, an investment manager by day and sabermetrics dabbler by night at his Baseball Analysts website.

Lederer, beginning in December 2003, spearheaded a one-man campaign to convince the famously stubborn and insular Baseball Writers' Association of America to elect underappreciated 1970s pitching great Bert Blyleven to the Hall of Fame. At the time, Blyleven had never received more than 30 percent of the vote (you need 75 percent to get in). By penning a series of convincing articles and debating individual voting writers (face-to-face, in many cases), this outside dabbler pulled off the unthinkable: He changed a doomed candidate into a 2011 inductee into the Hall of Fame. In a conference call with reporters after his January induction, Blyleven went out of his way to repeatedly thank Lederer, a California investment banker whom he had never met.

Irrespective of your political interests or leanings, I believe you will enjoy The Declaration of Independents. The book is as much about decentralization and democratization taking market share from "the forces of control and centralization" as anything else, and it has applications beyond politics.

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The Los Angeles Angels drafted Matt Scioscia, the son of manager Mike Scioscia, in the 45th round of the 2011 First-Year Player Draft on Wednesday. The younger Scioscia, listed in the press release as a 6-2/220 catcher from Notre Dame, was the 1,365th pick overall.

Scioscia started six times and played in a total of 16 games in his senior season. He went 6-for-30 with no extra-base hits and no walks. It appears as if Scioscia did not play in the field as he had no putouts, assists, or errors. Over his four-year career at Notre Dame, Matt hit .267/.323/.335 in 88 games and 195 plate appearances.

The Angels also drafted Scioscia out of Crespi Carmelite HS (Encino, CA) in the 41st round in 2007, but he opted to attend college. His bio on the Fighting Irish website claims he "would have been drafted much higher if not for his strong commitment to Notre Dame." Perhaps. But it's important to note that he wasn't selected after his junior season last year and has only been taken by the Angels twice and no other team in three separate drafts.

The father expects his son to sign with the Angels today. "He's excited just for the fact to get out there and play professional baseball. He's going to work hard on the defensive side. He can swing the bat. He is definitely excited for the opportunity."

I wonder how many college players with just six hits all season were drafted this year?

Nonetheless, there's hope for Matt, Mike, and the Angels. After all, Mike Piazza was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 62nd round of the 1988 draft, apparently as a favor to his godfather, who was none other than manager Tommy Lasorda. Piazza was the National League Rookie of the Year five years later en route to becoming the best-hitting catcher of all time in a Hall of Fame career that produced a .308 AVG/.377 OBP/.545 SLG, including 2,127 hits, 427 home runs, and 1,335 RBI.

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clutch
–adjective
1. Being or occurring in a tense or critical situation: won the championship by sinking a clutch putt.
2. Tending to be successful in tense or critical situations: The coach relied on her clutch pitcher.

My friend Jeff Wimbish called yesterday late afternoon while both of us were driving home from our respective offices, rhetorically asking me if Placido Polanco was "clutch." Jeff was listening to the Dodgers-Phillies game and L.A. play-by-play radio broadcaster Charlie Steiner said, "Polanco has always been a great clutch hitter."

Off the cuff, I told Jeff, "I doubt it." I proceeded to say that Polanco was the type who announcers love to call a "professional hitter." How does one become a professional hitter, you ask? That's simple. You have to be a (1) veteran, (2) make good contact, and (3) hit for a high average. As it relates to Polanco, he is 35 years old. Check. Secondly, he has struck out in only 6.6% of his plate appearances over the course of his career (vs. a league average of 17.1%). Check. Lastly, he has a lifetime average of .303. Check mate.

Circling back to the question at hand, I concluded that Steiner would have served his listening audience better had he backed up his claim that Polanco was clutch. Thanks to all the public resources available to us, I was able to check Polanco's splits to determine if he was indeed clutch when I returned home. I'm not sure how one qualifies, but I suspect Polanco doesn't quite make the grade. I put together the following table to satisfy my curiosity.

Oh... Polanco went 0-for-3 with a BB and an RBI. In the bottom of the first inning, no score, and a runner on second base with nobody out, he grounded into a fielder's choice (1-5). In the home half of the second, the Dodgers up 1-0, bases loaded with two outs, he walked on four pitches and was credited with an RBI. In the fourth, the Dodgers leading 4-1, nobody on with two outs, he lined out to third. In the seventh, the Dodgers still on top 4-1, a runner on first with one out, he flied out to right. It was Polanco's final at-bat of the game as he was on-deck when Shane Victorino flied out to center to end the contest. The Dodgers beat the Phillies, 6-2.

The outcome may have turned out differently if only there had been a clutch opportunity or two for Polanco.

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May 29, 2011

Mr. Tony Reagins
General Manager
Los Angeles Angels
2000 Gene Autry Way
Anaheim, CA 92806

Dear Tony,

At the one-third point in the season, I thought it would be instructive to check how you and your team are doing.

The Angels are 27-27 thus far. That's right, your $142 million payroll has produced mediocrity for the second year in a row.

Looking forward to next season, I see where you have already committed $80M to seven players. This group includes two starting pitchers, two relievers, two outfielders, and a utility infielder. Unfortunately, you still need to come to terms with three members of your core roster: Jered Weaver, Howie Kendrick, and Kendrys Morales. These arbitration-eligible players will probably cost $10-12M, $6-8M, and perhaps $5M, respectively, next year. Add 'em all up and you've topped $100M for just 10 players, three of whom will do little other than pitch the middle innings out of the bullpen and provide insurance at 3B, SS, and 2B.

I understand Vernon Wells has an opt out after 2011. As such, you may be able to reduce your payroll by more than $21M should he exercise it. Do you think the left fielder who is "hitting" .183 and will turn 33 in December will seek greener pastures? I didn't think so. Enough said!

What were you thinking when you guaranteed Bobby Abreu's option for 2012 at a cost of $9M in the event he accumulated 1,100 plate appearances in 2010-2011? With just 200 to go to qualify, I suggest you order Mike Scioscia to use him sparingly the rest of the way. You're already on the hook for $39M for two aging outfielders next season. No reason to make it $48M by adding Abreu to the mix unless you're happy with a combined 12 HR in 609 PA this season from these free agent signings of yours.

How's that Hisanori Takahashi contract working out? Only 1 2/3 years to go at an average of $4M per! While the 36-year-old reliever with an ERA over 5.00 is neither the worst contract (that honor would go to Vernon Wells), reliever (tie between Brian Fuentes and Fernando Rodney), or lefty (hello, Scott Kazmir) you have signed or acquired, can we agree that it made no sense to ink *two* aging southpaws in Takahashi and Scott Downs to multi-year deals last off-season?

Turning to your contract, the Angels signed you to a long-term extension in November 2009. While no terms of the agreement were reported, would you care to at least divulge the length of this arrangement? If not, can you give us a hint? I mean, is it shorter or longer than Wells' contract (through 2014)?

Maybe you're just in a slump like Wells, Abreu, Hunter, Takahashi, Rodney, and Kazmir, and will work your way out of it like ... umm ... let me think about that and get back to you.

Until then,

Rich Lederer
Baseball Analysts
www.baseballanalysts.com

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Two-and-a-half weeks into the season and the standings are pretty much in-line with the consensus viewpoint prior to Opening Day. While this observation is no solace for Red Sox fans, who is all that surprised that the Yankees, Rangers, Phillies, Reds, and Rockies are atop their divisions? Or that the Mariners, Mets, Astros, and Diamondbacks are in the basement?

Among teams in first or last place, only the Red Sox, Indians, and Twins would cause those in the know to scratch their head. As it relates to clubs in the middle of the pack, maybe the Royals are outperforming as much as the Braves are underperforming but there is really very little to quibble about as far as the rest of the W-L records are concerned. Oh, there might be a few fans out there who were hoping that their favorite team got off to a better start, but I don't see how anyone outside Boston or Minnesota could argue for more than one win or perhaps two at this juncture.

With respect to the Red Sox, absent some permanent change in the fundamental outlook, I would simply lower their projected win total for the year by the difference between the actual (5) and expected (9) wins to date. In other words, if 95 wins was a good estimate before the season, then I would be inclined to go with 91 today. Going 86-61 (.585) the rest of the way doesn't seem so unreasonable to me.

Same thing with the Twins. Instead of winning, say, 85 games, perhaps the team ends up with 82 or 83. As for Cleveland, maybe the Indians win 75 to 80 games rather than 70 to 75. I know this is a simplistic way of looking at today's standings — especially without taking into consideration strength of schedules — but I believe it is more rational than making some sweeping conclusions about this team or that team 14 to 17 games into the season.

Will there be surprises this year? Most definitely. No season ever goes according to plan. Injuries, breakouts/breakdowns, and good luck/bad luck all come into play each and every campaign. There is no reason why this year will be different. But don't give up on the Red Sox or Twins, or raise that 2011 AL Central Championship banner in Cleveland quite yet.

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Yankees       9    5  .643  -
Rays          7    9  .438   3
Blue Jays     7    9  .438   3
Orioles       6    9  .400   3.5
Red Sox       5   10  .333   4.5

AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Indians      12    4  .750  -
Royals       10    6  .625   2
Tigers        8    9  .471   4.5
White Sox     7    9  .438   5
Twins         6   10  .375   6

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Rangers      11    5  .688  -
Angels       10    6  .625   1
A's           8    8  .500   3
Mariners      5   12  .294   6.5

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Phillies     10    5  .667  -
Marlins       8    6  .571   1.5
Nationals     8    7  .533   2
Braves        7   10  .412   4
Mets          5   11  .313   5.5

NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Reds          9    7  .563  -
Pirates       8    8  .500   1
Cardinals     8    8  .500   1
Cubs          8    8  .500   1
Brewers       8    8  .500   1
Astros        5   11  .313   4

NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Rockies      12    4  .750  -
Giants        9    7  .563   3
Dodgers       8    9  .471   4.5
Padres        7    9  .438   5
Diamondbacks  6    8  .429   5

Back in January, I thought the A's, Brewers, and Rockies were the best bets to exceed their projected win totals. I lowered my expectations for Milwaukee after learning about Zack Greinke's injury but still thought the NL Central would be a wide-open affair with the Reds, Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers fighting it out for most of the summer. I have little or no reason to change my outlook for the A's or Rockies and wouldn't be totally surprised if one or both ended up in the World Series.

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News: Troy Tulowitzki hit his sixth and seventh home runs of the season as the Colorado Rockies swept a doubleheader and the four-game series from the New York Mets on Thursday. He was a combined 5-for-8 on the day. The 26-year-old shortstop leads Major League Baseball in HR (7), XBH (10), TB (40), RC (19), SLG (.909), and OPS (1.400).

Views: Move over Albert Pujols, Tulowitzki is now the best player in the game. The seventh overall draft pick out of Long Beach State in 2005 is nearly five years younger than the three-time National League MVP, plays a much more important defensive position (and as well as any shortstop in baseball), and, get this, has actually outhit him over the past 365 days. That's right, Tulo has a higher AVG (.324 to .300), SLG (.614 to .560), OPS (1.011 to .961), wOBA (.431 to .401), and wRC+ (161 to 153) than Pujols during this period. Moreover, the player who is now just approaching his prime has generated 7.7 Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) vs. 6.5 for his 31-year-old counterpart.

You can have Pujols or, for that matter, Hanley Ramirez if you're into shortstops. I'll take Tulowitzki.

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How many analysts, writers, and fans predicted Jose Bautista's breakout season last year? Well, I know of one. That's right, John Dewan, the owner of Baseball Info Solutions, cited Bautista as the No. 1 potential breakout player based on his 2010 spring training slugging percentage near .900, which was almost .500 higher than his career norm.

How did Bautista, who sported a career line of .238/.329/.400 with 59 HR in 2038 plate appearances prior to last season, hit in 2010? Try .260/.378/.617 while leading the majors in home runs with 54 and total bases with 351.

While Dewan admits that a player's spring stats, for the most part, are "not predictive of regular season success," a study he performed a few years ago found that "extremely good spring training numbers often indicated that a breakout season was on the way. In the study, about two-thirds of hitters who had spring slugging percentages at least .200 higher than their career total went on to best their career average that season."

Who could follow in Bautista's footsteps in 2011? My guess is that nobody will come close to matching what he did last year. Nonetheless, if you're looking for a relative unknown to break out this year, you might consider the following ten candidates based on their spring training slugging percentages.

Note: Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week®, www.statoftheweek.com.

Jake Fox leads all players with nine homers this spring, including six in his last 28 at-bats. The 28-year-old has jacked 18 HR in a three-year career covering 467 plate appearances. His outstanding spring has likely earned him a spot on the Baltimore Orioles roster as the primary backup to catcher Matt Wieters and first baseman Derrek Lee.

Patrick Sullivan covered Kila Ka'aihue for Baseball Analysts last month. Ka'aihue, who turns 27 on Tuesday, has hit .429 and gone yard five times this spring. He hit .319/.463/.598 in Triple-A last year prior to being called up to the Kansas City Royals. He struggled in August but finished strongly by hitting .274/.361/.548 with six HR in 84 AB in September. He is slated to alternate with Billy Butler at first base and DH this season.

Center fielders Coco Crisp, Rajai Davis, and Carlos Gomez, and shortstop Alcides Escobar are more known for their speed and defense than their slugging. However, it should be pointed out that Crisp hit 15 HR in 2004 and 16 in 2005 when he was an up and coming star for the Cleveland Indians. After four disappointing seasons in which Crisp managed to hit just 24 HR, the switch hitter found his power stroke again last year when he produced eight four baggers in 75 games for the Oakland A's.

Chris Davis, Travis Buck, George Kottaras, and Melky Cabrera have all been highly regarded prospects at one time or another. Davis slugged a combined 38 homers in 736 plate appearances as a 22-year-old rookie and 23-year-old sophomore in 2008 and 2009. The lefthanded power hitter slumped badly for the Texas Rangers at the outset of the 2010 season and was sent to Oklahoma City (Triple-A) where he generated a line of .327/.383/.520 with 31 doubles and 14 home runs in fewer than 400 AB.

Buck was selected by the A's with the 36th overall pick in the 2005 draft and proceeded to hit .288/.377/.474 during his rookie season in 2007. However, the 27-year-old outfielder never came close to duplicating those results in 2008-2010 and was non-tendered last December. He signed a minor-league deal with the Indians with an invitation to spring training and has made the most of it by hitting .420/.453/.760 with five doubles and four home runs in 50 at-bats.

Kottaras has bounced around from the San Diego Padres organization (2003-2006) to the Boston Red Sox (2006-2009) to the Milwaukee Brewers (2010). He received more playing time than ever last year and cranked nine homers in 250 plate appearances. Kottaras and Wil Nieves are in a battle to serve as catcher Jonathan Lucroy's primary backup.

While it seems as if Cabrera has been around forever, he is only 26 years old despite amassing more than 2,600 plate appearances over the past five seasons. He reportedly dropped 15 pounds during the offseason and the six-footer is now down to 200. The slim and trim center fielder has raked to the tune of .490 with five doubles and two home runs in 51 at-bats this spring.

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The New York Yankees reportedly signed Kevin Millwood to a minor league deal on Friday. The 36-year-old righthander will compete with the 37-year-old Bartolo Colon and the 34-year-old Freddy Garcia for the fifth spot in the team's starting rotation. And let's not forget Mark Prior who hasn't pitched in the major leagues since 2006!

These candidates would make for a nice staff if this were 2003 rather than 2011. I mean, this foursome might even give the Philadelphia Phillies' quartet a run for their money. You see, eight years ago, Colon, Garcia, Millwood, and Prior combined to post a 59-45 record with a 3.71 ERA and 733 SO/256 BB in 876.2 IP when all four starters were in their 20s.

Hey, if it's not 2003, then maybe it is the 1960s as we shouldn't forget that the club is also counting on a first-generation Nova.

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Living within walking distance of Blair Field, the home ballpark of the Long Beach State Dirtbags and the venue for many area high school teams, allows me the opportunity to witness a number of prospects every year. I have attended almost every Friday night home game that Long Beach State has played since Jered Weaver's sophomore year in 2003. Along the way, I have seen Weaver, Troy Tulowitzki, and Evan Longoria countless times plus several other notable first-round draft picks, including a matchup of Tim Lincecum vs. Ian Kennedy at USC in 2006, Bryce Harper at the Area Code Games in 2008, and Stephen Strasburg at the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy's Collegiate Baseball Tournament in Compton.

Last night, I was at Blair Field once again to see one of the best college pitching performances in the history of the park. While Oregon State's Sam Gaviglio is not a prospect in the class of Weaver, Lincecum, or Strasburg, the junior righthander nonetheless pitched one of the most impeccable games in the 50-plus years of this facility as the Beavers (14-3) defeated the Dirtbags (9-8), 4-0, in the opener of a three-game series between these two West Coast schools. Gaviglio (Guh-VEE-leo) threw seven perfect innings and allowed just one baserunner (a lead-off single in the eighth) in a complete-game shutout. He struck out the first four, nine of the first ten, and a career-high 14 overall while facing just 28 batters and throwing only 99 pitches.

Gaviglio (4-0, 0.00 ERA) has now pitched 38 consecutive scoreless innings, just nine short of the single-season record of 47 by Todd Helton of Tennessee in 1994. Vermont's George Plender holds the NCAA record with 63 innings, accomplished over the 1954 and 1955 seasons. Gaviglio gave up two unearned runs in the first inning in a season-opening win over Gonzaga while outdueling the highly regarded Ryan Carpenter, threw a CG SHO against Connecticut (holding likely first rounder George Springer to an 0-for-3 with a SO) in his second start, held Hartford scoreless for six innings in his third outing, and whitewashed New Mexico State for eight prior to shutting out Long Beach State. He has allowed 14 hits and four walks while striking out 40 in 38 2/3 IP.

At 6-1 and 195 pounds, Gaviglio is the same listed height and weight as Kennedy when the latter was pitching for the Trojans from 2004-2006. The two RHP also share the fact that both rely on pitchability more than pure stuff. Gaviglio's fastball is a little light (mostly 86-88 with a high of 90) as compared to Kennedy's (89-91 when I scouted him during his college days), but his command and ability to throw strikes to both sides of the plate with all three pitches (FB-CB-CH) and at any time in the count rivals the pitcher who was recently named to start on opening day for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Gaviglio's breaking ball ranged from 78-82 and his changeup 77-81.

Gaviglio, who turns 21 in May, was a 40th-round selection in 2008 by Tampa Bay after being named the 5A Pitcher of the Year in Oregon while leading Ashland to the state championship. He chose the Beavers over the Rays and went 10-1 with a 2.73 ERA and 55 SO/9 BB in 62 2/3 IP during his freshman season. He regressed as a sophomore, going 3-4 with a 5.60 ERA and 45 SO/23 BB in an identical number of innings.

The dozen or so professional scouts (plus ESPN's Keith Law) sitting behind home plate a few rows in front of my brother and me were seemingly more interested in the opposing pitcher on Friday night. Andrew Gagnon, a 6-4/195 righthanded junior, had his first rough outing of the year, giving up six hits, four walks, and four runs in five innings. However, Gagnon (GAN-yawn) has faced much stiffer competition than Gaviglio thus far, with all five starts against ranked teams (Cal State Fullerton, Arizona, Oregon, Rice, and Oregon State). He retired Owls third baseman Anthony Rendon, a potential first pick in the 2011 draft, all three times (fly out to RF, groundout to 2B, and a line out to SS) when they hooked up a week ago Friday at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Gagnon, who gave up back-to-back home runs to OSU's Andrew Susac and Danny Hayes in the top of the first inning, saw his ERA rise from 1.30 to 1.91. He has allowed 25 hits and 13 walks while striking out 31 in 37 2/3 innings in 2011. Gagnon took over the role of the Friday night starter as a sophomore and moved up draft boards when he led the Cape Cod league with five wins while posting a 2.10 ERA and 43 K's in 38 2/3 IP. He was the Eastern Division starting pitcher for the Cape All-Star Game at Fenway Park and got the side out in order in his only inning of work. Gagnon throws an 89-92 mph fastball (with it comfortably sitting at 91), an 84-87 slider, and a low-80s change. His fastball is a bit straight and prone to getting turned around when left up in the zone. (Here is a video of Gagnon vs. Oregon on 3/4/11).

Susac (Suu-SACK) is a draft-eligible sophomore. At 6-1/205, the catcher has a pro body with a strong arm, quick pop times, and raw power at the plate. The home run he slugged cleared the wall in left-center field with lots of room to spare, a blast that was easily over 400 feet. He hit a hard groundball single between short and third in his next at-bat and drew a walk in the ninth. Susac (.453/.563/.811), riding a 13-game hitting streak, is 24-for-53 on the season with 7 2B, 4 HR, 14 BB, and 11 SO.

Baseball America ranked Susac, who turns 21 on Tuesday, as its No. 5 prospect in the Cape Cod League last summer when he hit .290 with five homers and the 23rd top college prospect for the 2011 draft. He was selected in the 16th round of the 2009 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies but did not sign. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a team took him in the first round in June.

Two weeks ago, I was on hand to see Oregon's Tyler Anderson also strike out 14 Dirtbags. The 21-year-old lefthander worked eight scoreless innings, throwing 77 strikes out of 112 pitches. After beating San Diego today, Anderson is now 3-0 with a 0.96 ERA and 52 SO/14 BB in 37 1/3 IP.

The 6-4, 215 pounder, who was drafted in the 50th round by the Minnesota Twins in 2008, was rated the 16th-best college prospect by Baseball America prior to the season. His fastball, which sat at 89-92 the night I saw him pitch against the Dirtbags, plays up due to a deceptive motion that includes a little quirk with the ball behind his back. The combination of a slightly across-the-body delivery and a slider with reasonable tilt wreaks havoc on LHB. Anderson can also handle RHB owing to a plus changeup with fade that ranks as his best pitch. Lastly, he displayed a strong move to first base, picking off two runners that evening. (Here is a video of Anderson vs. Long Beach State on 3/4/11.)

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Thanks to the work of Voros McCracken and later Tom Tango, Defense Independent Pitching and Fielding Independent Pitching have become widely accepted in the baseball community as better measurements of pitching effectiveness (and predictability of future results) than earned run average (ERA). DIPS and FIP focus on strikeouts, walks, and home runs — the three primary outcomes that a pitcher controls. Except for perhaps catchers, fielders have no impact on these events.

While SO, BB, and HR play a large part in determining ERA, the latter is also a function of defensive and bullpen support, as well as performance with bases empty vs. runners in scoring position. As a result, the difference between ERA and FIP is almost entirely accounted by strand rate (LOB%*) and batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Each variable has a coefficient correlation of nearly 80 percent with the delta between ERA and FIP.

* Based on the formula, the strand rate is an estimator of LOB% rather than an actual tally.

When you put the two together (LOB% divided by BABIP), the coefficient correlation jumps to 90 percent. Accordingly, the coefficient of determination or R² is 81 percent. In other words, more than four-fifths of the difference between ERA and FIP is due to LOB% and BABIP. As such, in addition to SO, BB, and HR rates, it makes sense to study LOB% and BABIP to understand why a pitcher's ERA may be better or worse than his FIP.

The MLB averages for LOB% and BABIP have been running at almost exactly 72 percent and .300, respectively, for several years. These percentages held true once again in 2010.

Plotting LOB% on the y-axis and BABIP on the x-axis for all 147 pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in 2010, I created the following graph. As has become customary around these parts, I broke the graph into quadrants via the intersection of the LOB% and BABIP means. The pitchers in the northwest quadrant had high LOB% and low BABIP. Moving clockwise, the pitchers in the northeast quadrant had high LOB% and high BABIP, the hurlers in the southeast quadrant had low LOB% and high BABIP, and those in the southwest quadrant had low LOB% and low BABIP.

The numbers were lifted from FanGraphs in January. The BABIP data was subsequently recalculated, perhaps due to FanGraphs using an incorrect formula initially. While directionally correct, the BABIP used for this graph are generally about .005-.010 higher than those listed on the site now. The LOB% data matches exactly. You can download the spreadsheet with the applicable data here.

As usual, I have identified the outliers in all four quadrants in the graph above. In addition, as shown below, I have created lists of leaders and laggards for both LOB% and BABIP. For perspective, the ranges on LOB% and BABIP were 59.5-82.7 percent and .238-.354, respectively.

Starting with LOB%, I highlighted the six pitchers with strand rates over 80 percent and compared 2010 with their career marks. All but Madison Bumgarner (who pitched just 10 innings prior to last season) have career LOB% that are well below their results in 2010. That said, I found it interesting that the career rates were all above the MLB norm of 72 percent.

Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Brian Duensing, Tim Hudson, and Tommy Hunter all posted career high LOB%. Halladay had only exceeded 75 percent twice before last year.

In addition to sharing high LOB%, the common thread among these pitchers is that they fared better with RISP than with the bases empty.

There were 11 pitchers with strand rates of 65 percent or lower. Excluding John Ely (who was a rookie), all but Luke Hochevar have career LOB% that are well above their results in 2010. Nonetheless, I found it as equally interesting as the observation from the leader board that the career rates were all at or below the MLB norm of 72 percent.

Nate Robertson, Tim Wakefield, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Jeff Francis, and Paul Maholm all posted career low LOB%. Scott Feldman, Jeremy Bonderman, and Tony Pena produced the second-lowest LOB% while Jamie Moyer had the third-lowest since he broke into the majors in 1986.

In addition to sharing low LOB%, the common thread among these pitchers is that they fared worse with RISP than with the bases empty.

Turning to BABIP, I spotlighted the 14 pitchers with averages under .270 and, like LOB%, compared 2010 with their career marks. All of these starters (including Armando Galarraga who actually posted a .261 BABIP based on FanGraphs' revised calculations) have career BABIP that are above their results in 2010. Of note, the career rates were all below the MLB norm of .300.

Matt Cain has never had a league-average BABIP and, in fact, has not exceeded the .278 he allowed in 2007.

Hudson and Hunter appear on the most favorable LOB% and BABIP lists. Moyer, on the other hand, was the only pitcher to appear on a leader and laggard board.

There were 16 pitchers with BABIP higher than .330. All of these pitchers have career BABIP that are below their results in 2010. In five cases, the career marks are slightly below the MLB norm of .300. The balance are all higher.

Maholm and Feldman appear on the least favorable LOB% and BABIP lists.

Here is the same graph presented with a best-fit trendline. As shown, it slopes from the northwest quadrant down and to the right through the intersection to the southeast quadrant. Generally speaking, the lower the BABIP, the higher the LOB%, and the higher BABIP, the lower the LOB%.

The outliers in the NWQ were the pitchers who benefited the most from high LOB% and low BABIP. Here are the pitchers with the highest ratios of LOB% divided by BABIP:

Six of the above pitchers ranked in the top seven in ascending order in ERA minus FIP (E-F), meaning they had better ERAs than FIPs. The other four placed 11th, 17th, 27th, and 28th (out of 147 pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in 2010).

Conversely, the outliers in the SEQ were victimized the most by low LOB% and high BABIP. Here are the pitchers with the lowest ratios:

Seven of the above pitchers ranked in the top ten in descending order in E-F, meaning they had worse ERAs than FIPs. The other four placed 17th, 19th, 21st, and 22nd.

Interestingly, the outliers in the NEQ and SWQ neither benefited nor were victimized in the aggregate as the abnormal percentages in each category basically offset one another. As an example, Moyer, a SWQ outlier, had an ERA (4.84) minus FIP (4.98) of -0.14.

There are several takeaways embedded in this study, some of which are more obvious than others:

Edwin "Duke" Snider died last Sunday at the age of 84. We're talkin' baseball here. Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. Three Hall of Famers who patrolled center field in New York during the 1950s.

There have been countless tributes written about Snider during the past week, including one titled simply "The Duke" by the prolific Joe Posnanski. In addition, Duke's death has been a topic of conversation on the Society of American Baseball Research's SABR-L message board. The latter has focused on the time when Snider hurt his arm trying to throw a baseball out of the Los Angeles Coliseum in April 1958.

Posnanski mentioned that Snider "had a powerful arm when he was young but hurt it and was never quite the same after he turned 30" but doesn't provide any details. SABR members Bob Timmermann and Lloyd Davis provided excerpts from articles in the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press. I also found one from The Milwaukee Sentinel.

This story got me thinking about what my Dad, who covered the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1958-1968 for the Long Beach Independent, Press-Telegram, had to say about the matter. I pulled out his scrapbooks and found three separate stories on this subject.

The first was published in the morning newspaper (then known as the Independent) in a separate boxed insert on Thursday, April 24, 1958 as part of the Dodgers-Cubs game coverage from the previous night.

Clowns, Hurts Arm

Duke Snider, who so far has failed to hit a ball out of the Coliseum, tried to throw one out Wednesday night with the adverse results.

Clowning around before batting practice, the Duke attempted to clear the concrete wall bordering the 79th row. He came close once, tossing one into the 77th row, but pulled a muscle in his arm on the final try.

Manager Walter Alston had to yank Snider from his announced lineup and he may miss today's game, too.

The second was the lead to a longer story with the headline spanning the entire newspaper of that evening's newspaper (known as the Press-Telegram).

Snider in Dodger Doghouse

By GEORGE LEDERER

There are some strained feelings among the Dodgers today, both physical and otherwise.

Physically, the strain is in Duke Snider's right elbow. Otherwise, it is between Snider and manager Walter Alston and the Dodger front office.

The Duke learned the hard way Wednesday night that he is paid roughly $40,000 per season to try and hit, not throw, the ball out of the park.

In a bit of pre-game horse play with utility infielder Don Zimmer, Snider strained a tendon in his right elbow as he tried to heave a ball out of the Coliseum, 79 rows high and some 120 feet deep.

Alston, who had already announced his lineup, was forced to make some quick changes. He not only yanked Snider, but suspended him without pay until he is ready to play again.

[snip]

Snider, who had succeeded in tossing a ball as far as the 77th row before straining his elbow, watched the action from the bench and was not informed of his suspension until after the game. His injury is believed to be not serious, but may keep him out another day or two.

Alston said he would not tolerate such antics. Snider, hitting only .217, was still showing the effects of last December's knee operation that sidelined him until late in the exhibition season.

The third article appeared in the newspaper the following day.

DAFFY DODGERS---AGAIN

Clowning Costs Duke Day's Pay

Duke Snider was in a surprisingly good mood Thursday when he was reinstated in the Dodger lineup by Manager Walt Alston after some extra-curricular clowning cost him a day's pay.

The Duke was forced to sit out Wednesday night's 7-6 loss to the Cubs when he strained his right elbow in trying to throw a ball out of the 79-row Coliseum.

Snider was suspended for the night and docked a day's pay, which amounted to $275.

When asked how the arm felt, Snider said, "Peachy. I can't afford to lose another day's pay and neither can Uncle Sam. You know, I'm the guy who's firing all those missiles."

Alston was still somewhat sore about the incident. He also fined utility infielder Don Zimmer $25 for his part in the throwing contest. "Zimmer was just as much a part of it as Snider. The only difference is that he didn't get hurt. I would have liked to have Snider in there last night."

Dodger relief pitcher Ed Roebuck also commanded the spotlight briefly during Wednesday night's three-ring circus. Roebuck drew a $25 fine for trying to hit the scoreboard clock with fungoes in pre-game practice.

"He was supposed to hit fly balls to the outfielders," Alston said. "Instead, he was fooling around and knocking balls into the peristyle end. You won't see him hitting any today."

Snider showed no signs of being affected by the elbow injury. He threw well from left field and beat out an infield hit in his first time at bat. Rookie Don Demeter replaced Snider in the seventh inning.

There you have it ... the real story behind how the Duke of Hazard hurt his arm in 1958.

While I'm not a fan of leaders by the decade*, I found it interesting that Snider led MLB in home runs (326) and RBI (1,031) during the 1950s. You know, the decade that featured Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Eddie Mathews. Williams missed virtually all of the 1952 and 1953 seasons to the Korean War. Mays and Mantle were rookies in 1951, and Mays missed a large portion of '52 and all of '53 to the military as well. Mathews slugged 299 HR despite debuting in 1952. Many other superstars like Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, AL Kaline, and Frank Robinson didn't make it to the majors until the mid-1950s. By the way, Snider's teammate Gil Hodges was No. 2 in HR that decade with 310. Mathews was third, followed by Mantle (280), Musial (266), Yogi Berra (256), Mays (250), Ted Kluszewski (239), Gus Zernial (232), and Banks (228).

*Jack Morris led the majors in wins during the 1980s and Mark Grace led in hits during the 1990s.

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Adam Wainwright tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow and is scheduled to undergo Tommy John surgery today. The normal rehabilitation time for pitchers following this reconstructive surgery is approximately one year, although many pitchers don't fully recover for two years. As a result, if everything goes well, Wainwright could return for the opening of the 2012 season.

The St. Louis Cardinals righthander skipped his final start in 2010 due to what the team described in a press release last September as a "right forearm muscle strain." He had experienced a tightening sensation in his elbow during his previous two starts after sleeping awkwardly on it the night before his 19th victory. Wainwright suffered a partial tear of the same ligament in 2004, missing a large portion of that season only a handful of months after the Redbirds had acquired the former first-round draft pick from the Atlanta Braves in a trade involving J.D. Drew.

Today's operation will be performed in St. Louis by team physician Dr. George Paletta, who has also repaired the elbows of Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia and Kyle McClellan. Ironically, the latter pitcher is the most likely internal candidate to replace Wainwright in the rotation this year. Meanwhile, Carpenter, who won the National League Cy Young Award in 2005, will regain his status as the club's ace. Garcia placed third in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting last season after posting a 13-8 record with a 2.70 ERA in 163 1/3 innings.

Wainwright, 29, who may possess the best curveball in baseball, might be following in the path of none other than Bert Blyleven. The Hall of Famer was 31 when he hurt his elbow early in the 1982 season. He appeared in only four games that spring and had an uneven campaign in 1983, missing time in July, August, and September. Blyleven bounced back in 1984 and enjoyed what Bert believes was the best year of his career. He won 19 games for the sixth-place Cleveland Indians despite missing four starts in May and June due to a freak foot injury. Blyleven finished third behind two relievers (Willie Hernandez and Dan Quisenberry) in the AL Cy Young voting.

In Jeremy Greenhouse's final article for Baseball Analysts, he pointed out the similarities between Blyleven and Wainwright.

When you think of big curveballs nowadays, you think of Adam Wainwright. Over the last two years, Wainwright’s curveball has been worth 45.7 runs according to FanGraphs, 20 runs better than the runner-up. Wainwright doesn’t shy away from the pitch, throwing it a quarter of the time, the third-highest rate in the Majors. However, nobody can match the 40% rate Blyleven estimated that he threw in 1978. Blyleven was known for freezing batters with his curve, and Wainwright had at least one such famous moment. Both Wainwright and Blyleven threw their curveballs in unusual fashions. According to pitch grip expert Mike Fast, Wainwright's curve "is not quite a standard curveball grip in that his index finger is completely off the ball. Most pitchers lay it down alongside the middle finger on the ball." Blyleven, on the other hand, said that he "holds both his fastball and curveball across the seams." Blyleven recalled Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller pitching the same way, but at the time knew of no one else who did. I asked Mike Fast, and he is unaware of any current pitcher who exhibits this trait. Here's an image of a potential Blyleven curve.

As shown below, Blyleven amassed about 1,750 more innings than Wainwright through their 28-year-old seasons. Nonetheless, the rate stats are nearly identical.

Buster Olney spotlighted Wainwright's usage of his breaking ball in a recent column (Insider subscription required). He threw 1,471 breaking balls in 2010, ranking fourth behind Brett Myers (1,619), Carpenter (1,589), and Dan Haren (1,482). At 44% of his total pitches, Wainwright placed third behind Myers (47%) and Carpenter (45%) among hurlers who threw over 1,500 pitches. According to Olney, the league-average mark was 24.8%. Buster also reported that the league batted .183 against Wainwright's breaking stuff.

Although Blyleven avoided surgery on his UCL, he may serve as a proxy for Wainwright's future performance. If so, look for Wainwright to struggle next season, put up one of his best years in 2013, and perhaps lead the league in innings pitched in 2014 and 2015.

As the saying goes, short-term pain, long-term gain.

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Last week, I published Graphing the Hitters: Productivity with a focus on OBP and SLG. Today's version of Graphing the Hitters is on Plate Discipline, which I introduced in this format just over a year ago.

The graph below plots walk rate (BB/PA) on the x-axis and strikeout rate (SO/PA) on the y-axis for every qualified batter in 2010. The intersection of the MLB averages for BB% (8.50%) and SO% (18.49%) created quadrants that classify players as better-than-average in both (lower right), worse-than-average in both (upper left), or better-than-average in one and worse-than-average in the other (lower left and upper right).

Unlike Fangraphs, I believe the denominator for strikeout percentage should be plate appearances (rather than at-bats). For whatever reason, Fangraphs defines walk percentage as BB/PA but strikeout percentage as SO/AB. As a result, while the raw numbers were downloaded from Fangraphs, the BB% and SO% were calculated separately.

Note: You can download a spreadsheet containing the BB, SO, BB%, SO%, and BB/SO of the 151 qualified hitters here. This information can also be used to locate the 124 players not labeled in the graph below.

Three of the players in the bottom right quadrant ranked in the top five in OPS last year. Not only did Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera, and Albert Pujols produce outstanding on-base and slugging averages but they also displayed strong plate discipline. All three hitters walked at least 60% more than the MLB average while striking out less than the MLB average.

Pujols had the fourth-highest BB% (14.71%) and the 20th-lowest SO% (10.86%). No one else comes close to matching that combination of BB% and SO%. Joe Mauer was 36th in BB% (11.13%) and 7th in SO% (9.08%).

Daric Barton (16.03%), whose name is situated between Bautista and Pujols on the graph above, edged out Prince Fielder (15.97%) for the highest BB% in the majors. A.J. Pierzynski (2.98%) had the lowest BB%.

Mark Reynolds (35.40%) had the highest SO% by a wide margin, beating out Adam Dunn by nearly five percentage points. Reynolds struck out over 200 times for the third straight season. He now holds the top three spots on the all-time single-season list for strikeouts. No other player has ever whiffed 200 times in a campaign. The top nine in SO have all occurred since 2004 with Reynolds (3), Dunn (3), and Ryan Howard (2) manning eight of the nine places. As it relates to Reynolds, if one wants to look for hope and change, he has increased his walks and BB% every year since his rookie season in 2007.

Jeff Keppinger (6.26%) had the lowest SO%, squeezing past Juan Pierre (6.40%) for top honors. He also generated the No. 1 BB/SO ratio with an impressive 1.42. Adam Jones (0.19) had the worst BB/SO. The toolsy center fielder is far from a finished product. By the same token, Carlos Gonzalez, firmly in the top left quadrant with a 6.29% BB and 21.23% SO, may not be the superstar-in-making unless he improves his dismal BB/SO ratio of 0.30. With or without better plate discipline, the 25-year-old outfielder is unlikely to ever approach the rate stats (.363/.412/.679) he put up in the second half last year.

Just five qualified hitters had a BB/SO ratio of 1.0 or better (vs. 13 in 2009). Pujols and Mauer were the only players to repeat.

Combining the features of the Productivity and Plate Discipline graphs allows us to determine the players who had above-average BB% (> 8.50%), SO% (< 18.49%), OBP (> .325), and SLG (> .403). The 29 hitters in the table below are ranked by OPS.

As I concluded last year with no particular revelation, "Pujols is the most disciplined and productive hitter in the game today." Albert may still be the "most disciplined" hitter but might not be the "most productive" anymore. You see, there is another guy out there who is a lot more like Pujols than not. In fact, this impostor had a higher AVG (.328 vs. .312), OBP (.420 vs. .414), SLG (.622 vs. 596), OPS (1.042 vs. 1.011), OPS+ (179 vs. 173), wOBA (.429 vs. .420), and wRC+ (170 vs. 165) than the three-time NL MVP (who, by the way, also has FOUR second-place finishes). No, it's not Joey Votto. It's none other than Miguel Cabrera, who sits atop the list above.

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While I have been graphing pitchers for a number of years, I only started doing the same for hitters twelve months ago. It was a simple exercise of measuring productivity by plotting on-base percentages on the x-axis and slugging averages on the y-axis for every qualified batter in 2009.

With the foregoing in mind, I decided to create a graph using the data for 2010. As I noted a year ago, "there is nothing groundbreaking" here. Instead, my goal is just to present the information in a format that is not only visual but easier to absorb more quickly than via a spreadsheet. It is designed to be simple and straightforward. Two axis, four quadrants, and player names identifying outliers.

The quadrants were determined by the intersection of the MLB averages for OBP (.325) and SLG (.403). [The averages last year were .333 and .418. Call 2010 the Year of the Pitcher if you want to put a positive spin on it or the Year of the Worsening Hitter if you prefer to be a cynic.] The northeast quadrant is the home of hitters with above-average OBP and SLG. The southwest quadrant is made up of "hitters" with below-average OBP and SLG. The northwest and southeast quadrants identify hitters who were above average in one and below average in the other.

Note: You can download a spreadsheet containing the OBP, SLG, and OPS of the 151 qualified hitters here. This information can also be used to locate the 125 players not labeled in the graph below.

Starting with the best quadrant, the four hitters who stand out — Josh Hamilton, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, and Albert Pujols — all ranked first or second in his respective league's Most Valuable Player voting. Hamilton (1.044) and Votto (1.024) led the American League and National League, respectively, in OPS and were named the MVP winners.

The only other player besides these four to receive a first-place vote for MVP was Jose Bautista, who seemingly came out of nowhere to put up a .378 OBP and .617 SLG. He ranked fifth in the majors in OPS (.995). Bautista slugged 54 HR (12 more than any other hitter) and drew 100 BB. He led MLB in HR plus TB (tied for first with 351) and XBH (92). The Toronto Blue Jay right fielder/third baseman produced an OPS+ of 166, the first time he had ever reached the MLB average of 100. Bautista was in the 90s in his prior four seasons.

In addition to the five aforementioned players, there were three others who exceeded an OBP of .375 and a SLG of .550. Paul Konerko (.977), Carlos Gonzalez (.974), and Troy Tulowitzki (.949) ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth in the majors in OPS. Konerko (3 years/$37.5M), Gonzalez (7/$80M), and Tulowitzki (10/$157.75M) were rewarded with big contracts during the off-season.

CarGo and Tulo benefited greatly by playing their home games at Coors Field, which had a park factor of 118 in 2010. Gonzalez hit .380/.425/.737 at home and .289/.322/.453 on the road. Tulowitzki hit .339/.403/.631 in Colorado and .291/.358/.504 in away games. Nevertheless, their OPS+ of 143 and 138, respectively, ranked sixth and eighth in the NL last season. Konerko generated a career-high OPS+ of 158 at the age of 34. He finished in the top eight in the AL in AVG (.312), OBP (.393), SLG (.584), OPS (.977), OPS+, HR (39), XBH (70), TB (320), and RBI (111).

Two other outliers in the northeast quadrant include Matt Holliday (.390/.532) and Jayson Werth (.388/.532), whose diamond in the above graph touches Holliday's. Interestingly, Holliday signed a 7/$120M contract (or $17M per year with a $1M buyout) with the St. Louis Cardinals in January 2010 and Werth inked a 7/$126M deal (an average of $18M annually including a $4M signing bonus) with the Washington Nationals in December 2010. The latter's salary escalates from $10M in 2011 to $21M in 2015-17. Holliday was 30 and Werth 31 at the time of their signings.

We should also give a shout out to Yo Adrian as Beltre (.365/.553) and Gonzalez (.393/.511) had terrific seasons, placing 11th and 13th in the majors in OPS. Who finished 12th? Robinson Cano (.381/.534), whose diamond sits directly below Tulowitzki's.

By the way, is it just me or does Shin-Soo Choo remind anyone else of Bobby Abreu? Both play right field, hit lefthanded, and put up .300/.400/.500 type rate stats. Through their age 27 seasons, Choo had a 138 OPS+ and Abreu had a 137. Abreu (.308/.413/.521, 151 OPS+) had his best offensive season at age 28. Just sayin'.

At the opposite end of the graph, we see a bunch of futility infielders as Jay Jaffe would be inclined to call them. Ranked from lowest to highest OPS, Cesar Izturis (.545) takes the cake, followed by Jose Lopez (.609), Alcides Escobar (.614), Ryan Theriot (.633), Erick Aybar (.636), Orlando Cabrera (.657), Aaron Hill (.665), Jason Bartlett (.674), Ronny Cedeno (.675), Alberto Callaspo (.676), Kevin Kouzmanoff (.679), Cliff Pennington (.687), Miguel Tejada (.693), Ian Desmond (.700), Jhonny Peralta (.703), and Brandon Inge (.718). Any player residing in this quadrant had better be a "plus" fielder or had an off year.

My best bet for a comeback candidate is Aaron Hill, who had a batting average on balls in play of ONE-NINETY-SIX (.196)! His BABIP is not only remarkable in an absolute sense but also relative to his previous five campaigns when he averaged .307 on balls in play with a range of .288 to .324. The source of the problem can be found in Hill's batted ball stats. According to Fangraphs, 54% were fly balls (vs. 41% career mark and a MLB average of 38%), 35% were ground balls (vs. 40% career and MLB of 44%), and 11% were line drives (vs. 19% career and MLB of 18%). Per The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2011, 83% of fly balls turned into outs whereas only 74% of ground balls and 27% of line drives were converted into outs last year. Given the increase in FB and the decrease in GB and LD, one would expect Hill's batting average to decline but not necessarily from a previous career mark of .285 to .205. If the second baseman can keep his strikeout rate below 15% (which he has accomplished in five of his six seasons to date), I would expect his AVG/OBP/SLG to improve materially this year.

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I didn't intend to write about Bert Blyleven for my Monday entry until I received the following email from a Minnesota Twins Baseball Fantasy Camp player yesterday evening.

Rich - it was great to meet you at the camp and love the story.

I have uploaded the video of Bert meeting you -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxOvjqneZ9U

I am so happy they let you play and pitch in a game - it is a great time at the camp. Lee Stange is a great guy to have as your manager (he was my manager last year - 2010) as well.

Take care - hope to see you in Cooperstown in July.

Paul

The email from Paul Bennett made my Sunday. It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least, as I had not seen a video from the night I met Bert. I had no idea that I would be asked to speak that evening so my comments were unrehearsed. I just went with the flow. My wife, who wasn't able to join me for the trip, enjoyed watching the video as well. It made her feel as if she was back there with me.

Blyleven opens by talking about fellow Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Willie Stargell. Stan Dickman, the Executive Director of the Minnesota Twins Baseball Fantasy Camp, then asks Bert about the Internet just beyond the two-minute mark on the video. Check out the following YouTube to see how it all unfolded from there.

By the way, Paul had a great week, too. He received the under-the-age-of-50 Gold Glove Award and was the starting pitcher in the championship game that his team won, 4-3.

Thank you, Paul. I will see you in Cooperstown six months from today.

On a related note, Stan added a news story to his website yesterday. Here is an excerpt from 2011 Camp — In the Books and One for the Ages!

But perhaps the highlight of the night came when Bert was surprised with a visit by Rich Lederer, the Southern California Blogger that had taken up the cause for Bert's inclusion into the Hall of Fame eight years prior. In his press conference on the day of the vote announcement and again at the Tuesday night banquet, Bert had singled Rich out for his tireless efforts on the internet in making the case for Bert's body of work being Hall of Fame worthy. The look on Bert's face when Rich was introduced was priceless and will long stand as one of the most exciting moments in our camp's history.

What I thought was a fun-tastic two weeks has now turned into a great three weeks.

Thanks everyone for sharing this adventure with me.

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Make no mistake about it, I've had a fun-tastic two weeks. It all started with the phone call from Bert Blyleven on Wednesday, January 5 when he informed me 30 minutes prior to the actual announcement that he had been elected to the Hall of Fame. After 14 long years, the wait was finally over. Bert Blyleven, Hall of Famer.

I congratulated him and then he congratulated me. I told him, "Thank you." He said, "No, thank you." Bert could not have been more appreciative or gracious in sharing baseball's ultimate honor with me. I'm not naive though. He did all the work on the field. Fifth in career strikeouts, ninth in shutouts, and top 20 in wins since 1900. Two World Series Championships with a 5-1 postseason record and a 2.47 ERA. And much, much more. My only contribution was making voters aware of his qualifications. It all seemed so obvious to me when I wrote my first article about Only the Lonely: The Hall of Fame Trials and Tribulations of Bert Blyleven in December 2003. Everybody around him in the major statistical categories was in the HOF except Blyleven. How could that be? Well, seven years and more than 30 articles later, we no longer have to answer the naysayers.

In that same phone conversation, I told Bert that I was going to be in Cooperstown on July 24 when he is officially inducted into the Hall of Fame. He responded in typical Blyleven fashion, "You can stand next to me if you'd like." Bert and his wife Gayle have since invited me to sit with the family on that momentous day this summer.

But, as it turned out, I won't have to wait six months to meet Bert for the first time in person. While I umpired one of his scout's league games 37 years ago, I never got closer than about 60 feet, 6 inches to him. You see, on the afternoon of Blyleven's election, I was invited to surprise Bert at a tribute dinner for him at the Minnesota Twins Baseball Fantasy Camp in Ft. Myers, Florida the following Tuesday. I didn't have to think too long or too hard on the offer proposed by Jay Harris, one of of the organizers of this event.

I made plans the next day to fly out of Los Angeles to Ft. Myers (via Miami) a week ago Tuesday and fly back to L.A. last Thursday. Suffice it to say, that trip was one of the most fun-filled of my life. Nearly one week after returning and I still haven't quite come all the way down from cloud nine.

Tuesday, January 11

In anticipation of playing catch with Bert, I packed my baseball glove firmly inside my carry-on bag. My son Joe took me to LAX bright and early that morning. I caught a 7:10 a.m. PT flight and landed in MIA as scheduled at 2:55 p.m. ET. My connecting flight to Ft. Myers (RSW) was at 3:35. I called Jay, who had offered to pick me up at the airport, to let him know that I would be there on time. Unfortunately, I spoke too soon. Less than five minutes later, a voice was heard over the public address system telling us that there was a change in the aircraft and that the flight was now scheduled to leave at 4:30. Well, 4:30 soon became almost 5:00 as the passengers literally stood on a bus on the tarmac waiting to be called onto the American Eagle puddle jumper. I called Jay to let him know that I wouldn't arrive until at least 5:30. He told me not to worry about it even though the dinner festivities were expected to begin at 6:00 at the Holiday Inn Ft. Myers Airport-Town Center.

We actually arrived at the hotel in the nick of time. The program began minutes later with the honorable Bert Blyleven decked out in a white wig and green robe presiding over Kangaroo Court. He fined campers and former teammates-turned instructors a total of $1,600 with all the proceeds going to Lee County Children’s Hospital. Bert had no idea I was there as I sat in the back corner of the room at a table with Jay and a half dozen campers.

Dinner was served, a FOXSports North video of Blyleven was shown on a big screen, Bert was asked to address the audience, a toast was conducted, and songwriter/storyteller Warren Nelson sang a couple of original songs about Bert and the Twins while playing his guitar. Stan Dickman, the evening's host who is also the Executive Director of Ultimate Sports Adventures (which is the licensed provider of the Twins Fantasy Baseball Camp), called Bert back up to the stage. He asked him if there was anybody not in the room that he wanted to thank. Blyleven proceeded to talk about former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, who was unable to attend after learning that he had esophageal cancer.

Stan then asked Blyleven about the Internet and Bert once again mentioned my name and talked about my efforts on his behalf. Stan asked Bert if he had ever met me. The latest Hall of Famer said no but indicated that he was hopeful of doing so in Cooperstown in July. Stan responded, "Would you like to meet him tonight?" After Bert panned the room, I stood up and walked to the stage amid a warm reception by the audience. Bert and I shook hands, smiled, and gave each other a big hug. The look in his eyes was a combination of surprise and gratitude.

I also met Gayle for the first time in person. She presented me with a big basket of decorative cookies wrapped in cellophane as a thank you. The sugar cookies were customized with the Twins logo and Bert Blyleven HOF 2011. It was a thoughtful gesture on her part. I suggested that we take the basket to the locker room the next morning and let the campers enjoy them.

John Gordon, the radio play-by-play announcer, stopped by to introduce himself and say hello. Two days later, I was able to hook up with a fully uniformed Dick Bremer, who is Bert's partner on the telecasts, at one of the camp games. Outstanding broadcasters and men both.

Wednesday, January 12

I arrived at the Lee County Sports Complex – Spring Training Headquarters of the Twins – at about 8:00 a.m. I was given a locker and a uniform. After I got dressed, David Dorsey of the Ft. Myers News-Press interviewed me for an article that appeared on the front page of the sports section the next day. Jay then showed me around the clubhouse and took me to the cafeteria where we served ourselves breakfast. Bert sat down directly across from me. We talked about baseball and golf before meeting up on the field and having a catch.

Bert went out of his way to accommodate me as he had hip replacement surgery in October. Believe me, he can still zing it. Not shy, I told Bert that I wanted to compare curveballs. I threw him a spinner and he mocked me. "That's your curveball?" Hey, it was the first one I had thrown in years and only then at a family picnic. He raised his arm and hand to a 12 o'clock position and said, "You've got to get it up here." As someone who had a good curve through high school, I knew I was supposed to throw the ball over the barrel and shake hands with the center fielder (a visual that worked wonders for me). Nevertheless, at age 55, my shoulder wasn't as cooperative as it once was. Bert, who is four years older than me, broke off a couple of tight ones. Impressive indeed.

My manager, Lee Stange, asked me what position I played. I told him pitcher but said I could also play first base. He kidded, "Everyone out here is a first baseman/DH." Lee sent me to the bullpen to warm up. He liked what he saw enough to give me the start. The first two batters hit line-drive singles. Standing just outside our dugout on the third base side, Blyleven shouted, "Hey Rich! Try to get an out, why don't you!" I smiled at him, took a deep breath, and got back to the task at hand. The next batter hit a slow roller to my right. I was thinking two but, then again, I thought I was 30-something rather than 50-something. My brain made the play with no problem, but my body failed me. The ball passed me and the shortstop had no play. A couple of runs later and Bert was now needling me again. "You've got an 18.00 ERA!" It was actually higher at that moment in time because I had not yet completed the inning. Thankfully, I did with no further damage.

Down 2-0 after the first inning, the Stingers (see lineup card signed by Stange and our coach Rick Aguilera) battled back and scored four runs in the top of the second. I got a chance to hit and landed on second base after the infielder overthrew first. It was the last thing I wanted to happen. Not only did I run hard (not fast, mind you) to first, now I had to hustle to second to beat the throw from the right fielder who did a great job in backing up the play. Believe me, sprinting from home to second was the furthest thought on my mind when I walked to the plate. But, hey, I did it for the team and eventually scored a run. Man, was I winded when I high fived Bert on my way back to the dugout.

Teammate Bob Garvin threw several innings, limiting the New Years team managed by Phil Roof and Juan Berenguer to a run or two as we went on to a 14-4 victory. The official scorekeeper credited me with the win in a judgment call that was highly favorable to me. Stange was as generous when he told me that I earned the "W" and went 1-for-1 in my debut. I'll take 'em both, as well as the congratulations from Bert after the game.

Steve Dickman, who is Stan's older brother, took me back to the hotel to change into my golf attire and then to Bert's country club where he hosted a round of golf that afternoon for ten foursomes, generally made up of one former player and three campers. I not only played in Bert's group but rode in the same cart in an 18-hole scramble format that called for playing the best ball after each shot.

Bert posed for a photo with me next to the carts prior to teeing off. Ever the prankster, he suggested we take out our drivers. I reached into my bag of rental clubs for the 12.5° squared driver while he grabbed his ball retriever. I joined in on the fun when we gave each other bunny ears, returning the favor that Bert had given me on the baseball field earlier that day. Needless to say, we had a good time playing golf.

Our group also played well. We tied for first place with a 65. Bert, who plays to a five index, hit a lot of long drives. I was pleasantly surprised how well I hit the golf ball after not playing since July 4th. We didn't hit any balls on the range so my first swing in six months was on the first hole. Although I once played to a five myself, I was a little bit nervous when I stepped to the No. 1 tee. I hit a good drive (which we didn't use), then stuck a nine-iron about four feet from the hole, which led to our first birdie of the day. I contributed a few drives, several approach shots on the greens, and one birdie putt from the No. 3 position in the group. Dick Washburn, who was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the fifth round in 1966 and was the camp's over-the-age of 50 Cy Young Award winner, and Joe Repya, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and combat veteran of three wars, also helped our cause.

During our round of golf, I presented Bert with a couple of personalized, tour-quality golf towels that my son Joe, who is a Regional Sales Manager for Club Glove, had designed for me. The Twins logo, Bert's name, and 2011 Hall of Fame were all embroidered onto the towels. These gifts meant a lot to him.

We finished the day's activities with drinks and hors d' oeuvres in the clubhouse. Ron Gardenhire, Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, Tim Laudner, and Bill Campbell (standing next to me in this photo) were some of the players who joined us for golf and refreshments. Campbell, who won the first two Rolaids Relief Man Awards in 1976-77, shared a bunch of great stories with me in the locker room and on the golf course. He was an old-school reliever, combining to pitch 307.2 innings (an average of more than two per outing) in those two seasons. He went 30-14 while leading the league in games finished both years and saves in 1977. Soup, as he was and is still known, placed in the top ten in the CYA and MVP voting in '76 for the Twins and '77 for the Red Sox.

I returned to the hotel that evening not knowing it was possible to be as sore as I was and still have so much fun. Due to the fact that I had no intention of playing the next day, you might say that I retired early for the night and late for my "career." One and done although, as a starting pitcher, I had a built-in excuse for not pitching for another five days. Bert Blyleven or Bill Campbell, I am not.

Thursday, January 13

I woke up at 6:45 in anticipation of packing for my return flight that afternoon and a half day of camp. I met Jay in the lobby of the hotel at 7:50 and we arrived at the spring training complex at around 8:00. I wore black jeans and my Twins undershirt, jersey, and cap but no baseball pants, belt, or tube socks for me on this day.

My teammate Bob Zuckerman, as nice a guy as you could meet, took the photo of Bert and me at the top of this page on Wednesday morning. He went to Target that evening and ordered an 8x10 that he placed in my locker prior to my arrival on Thursday. I asked Bert to sign that photo and a Rawlings Major League Baseball. He personalized both, thanking me again in writing and signing "Your friend, Bert Blyleven."

We looked at the article that appeared in the Ft. Myers News-Press that morning. The photo of me pitching above was on page three. Bert ribbed me. "We need to work on your leg kick." I said, "Are you kidding me? That's major league quality right there." When I returned home, I looked for photos to check his leg kick from his playing days. Oh well, my leg kick certainly wasn't as big as Blyleven's. But it got me thinking, "Maybe the photographer snapped the photo of me pitching with a runner on base?" OK, runners on base. Either way, it may have been too short for a windup and too long for a slide step. That's why I haven't quit my day job.

I hung out with Bert and Frank Viola in the locker room. The three of us swapped baseball stories, reminiscing more about the past than the present. Bert and Frank, of course, were the go-to guys for the 1987 Minnesota Twins World Series championship team. Viola won the AL Cy Young Award the following year when he led the league with 24 wins and a .774 W-L percentage while ranking third in ERA (2.64) and ERA+ (154). As I learned from his son, Frank Viola III, the man known as Sweet Music and possessor of the best changeup in the game never missed a start from 1983-1992. He started a remarkable 354 games and completed 2,451 innings during that ten-year stretch.

Viola's son, a minor-league pitcher, worked out with Blyleven that day. After undergoing Tommy John surgery a couple of years ago, he now throws harder than ever, touching 90 with a live fastball. He also throws a nice changeup. However, he doesn't have much of a breaking ball. In steps Bert to teach him the grip and the arm action of a cutter. I witnessed much of his bullpen session, and it was a pretty good one. At 26, he just might get one last chance.

The clock struck noon and it was time for me to say my final goodbyes to Bert. We shook hands and chatted for a few moments. It ended like it started with that phone call just over a week ago with both of us congratulating and thanking one another. As a friend told me in an email, "It's nice to know that the guy you helped so much is personally worthy of your efforts." Well, let me tell you, Bert is as great a man as he was a pitcher.

My return flight was at 1:35 p.m. Jay, who couldn't have treated me any better, drove me to the Ft. Myers Airport. He dropped me off by 12:30 and handed me a sandwich that camp chef George Serra made for me and a Killebrew Root Beer in a handsome bottle. I sat on a bench outside the terminal and ate my lunch. With my boarding pass already printed, I walked directly to the gate. Unlike Tuesday, my two flights departed and arrived on time. Joe picked me up at LAX shortly after 6 p.m. PT and took me to the Claim Jumper in Long Beach where I met my wife Barbara, daughter Macy, and son-in-law Joel for dinner. Macy is expecting in March, and Barbara and I will become grandparents for the first time.

Life is more than good.

Friday, January 14

Upon my return home, I was greeted with a wonderful article by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times.

Bert meets Rich

There's a wonderful article today in the Florida News-Press. It describes the first meeting between two men so deeply aligned in my mind's eye: one a great major league pitcher, the other his most ardent advocate. I didn't realize that the two hadn't met before; it's about time.

The story of Rich and Bert is perhaps the greatest story of Sabermetrics on the Internet. There are other great stories, such as the formation of Baseball Prospectus and the growth of Tango's sabermetric blog and theories, but none have had the impact of Rich's early and impassioned advocacy of Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame.

Blyleven was an under-the-radar kind of guy when he pitched, and I don't know exactly why. Perhaps it was the small markets he pitched in, or the fact he never won a Cy Young. It was easy to overlook him when you talked about the all-time greats.

But Rich changed that. When Rich laid out Bert's career stats, you took notice. Your eyes opened, and you realized that you had been missing something for a long time. It truly was like waking up.

Thanks to Sabermetrics (and one of Rich's idols, Bill James), you just couldn't deny the power of the evidence. And thanks to the Internet, the word spread quickly. Many eyes opened and minds changed. Others joined the chorus, but Rich started the chant. And eventually the BBWAA heard, too.

This is a great story within a story, and it gives many of us hope. Hope that compelling stats really can mean something; hope that some more rationality can be brought to bear to the Great Baseball Arguments. Hope that the fundamental nature of the game can be fully incorporated with its emotional impact. Hope that minds and hearts can co-exist.

This from the article...

“Would Bert had gotten in without Lederer? That’s hard to say,” said LaVelle Neal, a sportswriter for the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis. “I will say that Lederer and the stats revolution came when Bert really needed a boost.”

...gets it wrong. There is no way the BBWAA would have inducted Bert Blyleven into the Hall of Fame without Rich Lederer. Let's give credit where it's due.

Congratulations, Bert; and congratulations, Rich. You both belong in the Sabermetric Hall of Fame.

In his Friday Filberts, Rob Neyer linked to the Ft. Myers News-Press article and added, "My favorite story of the week? Rich Lederer and Bert Blyleven having a catch."

I was also interviewed that morning by Bob Sansevere, a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He is a member of the BBWAA and is a Hall of Fame voter. To Bob's credit, he has voted for Blyleven since the get go. The Q&A appeared online that evening and in the newspaper the following day.

Buster Olney linked to the interview on his blog last Saturday (subscription required). "Rich Lederer had a lot to do with Bert Blyleven's induction into the Hall of Fame, Bob Sansevere writes."

Stan Dickman, the owner of the baseball camp, made my day on Sunday with the following note within his email. "The highlight of the week was your surprise appearance at our Tuesday evening banquet."

The pleasure was mine. Thanks to Bert and everyone involved for making the past two weeks so memorable.

Photo credits (in order): Bob Zuckerman (standing with Blyleven), Brian Hirten/Ft. Myers News-Press (pitching), and Al Schuth, Twins Camp photographer (action sequence above).

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Reviewing the Bill James Handbook has become an annual tradition for me since late 2003 when I spotlighted the 2004 edition. The Handbook, which was in its second year of publication back then, has now been around for nine years. Produced by Baseball Info Solutions and published by ACTA Sports, The Bill James Handbook 2010 offers readers more than 500 pages of stats, projections, and leader boards, as well as nine short essays by Bill James and The Fielding Bible Awards by John Dewan.

This year's Handbook features National League Most Valuable Player Joey Votto on the cover. He follows Barry Zito in 2003, Albert Pujols in 2004, Jorge Posada in 2005, Miguel Cabrera in 2006, Ryan Howard in 2007, Grady Sizemore in 2008, Brandon Webb in 2009, and Evan Longoria in 2010. The cover boys have alternated from AL to NL every year with the exception of 2006 and 2007 when Cabrera (then of the Florida Marlins) and Howard appeared in back-to-back years. Four of the nine players call first base home. No middle infielders or corner outfielders yet.

Upon opening the book, one notices the Table of Contents, which lists 26 sections, beginning with the Introduction and ending with Acknowledgements. The heart of the book includes up-to-date statistics on every major league player and manager plus team statistics and efficiency summary, baserunning, bullpens, pinch hitting, manufactured runs, park indices, lefty/righty stats, leader boards, Win Shares, hitter and pitcher projections, and career targets. The Hall of Fame Monitor and plus/minus and runs saved fielding data for every player are new additions to the Handbook this year.

I rarely miss anything with a Bill James byline. James authors 40 pages, although many are explanations, definitions, or accompanied by lists or tables. As a result, I'm left wanting more of James. Nonetheless, he provides some compelling facts and commentary in a few sections.

In 2010 Team Efficiency Summary, James writes:

As long as we have been measuring efficiency, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, Disneyland and Mike Scioscia have been the most efficient team in the American League, if not all of baseball. They still were, in 2010; they weren't good, but they were still efficient. In previous years their efficiency helped them to win. In 2010 it helped to disguise how bad they really were.

The Angels in 2010 (and most other years) scored more runs than we would expect them to score, thus they were efficient in that way. They allowed fewer runs than we would expect them to allow, so they were efficient in that way. Even given the runs that they actually did score and the runs they actually did allow, they won more games (one more game) than we would expect them to win, so they were efficient in that way. They were, as they always are, highly efficient.

Mike Scioscia was out-sciosciaed, in 2010, by first-year manager Brad Mills of Houston. When Millsie took the job, I think I speak for most of us when I confess that we were whispering behind his back that, given the team he had to work with, he'd be lucky to get out of Houston with ten fingers and ten toes. Instead, he took a 65-win team and won 76 games—a nice start to his managerial career.

On the other hand of that was the Rockies, who took a 93-win team and scratched and clawed their way to 83 wins. Which, I should add quickly, is not necessarily the manager's fault. If a team doesn't hit in the clutch, this will be measured as inefficiency, but there's really not much the manager can do about it.

His second piece of writing in this book may be the juiciest in terms of information. The title of the section is "38 Facts about Major League Baserunning in 2010." If you're into baserunning as much as I am, then you need to buy the book for these facts and the six-plus pages of tables. While you can find much of this information on the individual player pages of Baseball-Reference.com, it's not available in a alpha sort like it is in the Bill James Handbook.

I will tease you with fact 38 below:

The three best baserunners in the major leagues—Juan Pierre, Carl Crawford, and Brett Gardner—were all left fielders. Historically, left field is interesting because that is where the greatest baserunners have played (Brock, Henderson, Raines, Coleman), but there have also been many left fielders who were absolutely terrible baserunners.

In The Bullpens of 2010, James informs us that "Fourteen major league pitchers had (Leverage) Indexes over 2.00—all of them closers except Jim Johnson of Baltimore, who was over 2.00 as a setup man." Bill shows his humor when he says David Riske ranked last because "his managers thought that to use him in critical situations was Too Riske."

James gives a shout out to Chris Jaffe, author of Evaluating Baseball's Managers, in The Manager's Record. Baseball Analysts ran the introductory essay to Chapter 5 of Jaffe's book almost a year ago. James doesn't mince words at the end of his section.

I don't know Jaffe from a hole in the wall; he's not like a friend of mine or something, and also, I have to warn you that he is not a compelling writer. He does really good research. He develops a wide range of metrics by which to compare managers, like "Ballpark Adjusted Bullpen ERA" and "Leverage Points Average" and "Average Opponent Winning Percentage" (for pitchers), and I learned a great deal from reading his book. I hope you learn something from this data.

In The Hall of Fame Monitor, James tweaks the 32 rules from the old system (which was first published almost 30 years ago) and adds a new system based on Win Shares "with a caveat for relievers and one for catchers."

For a season of 30 or more Win Shares, the formula is Win Shares, divided by 30, times 10, converted to the nearest integer. For a season of 10 to 29 Win Shares, the formula is Win Shares, divided by 30, SQUARED, times 10, converted into the nearest integer. For a season of less than 10 Win Shares, no points.

That's basically all. That's the whole system; add them up and if the total is 100 or more, Hall of Famer. ... Essentially, the new system says that if you have 10 seasons as an MVP candidate of some sort, you're a Hall of Famer. 30 Win Shares is an MVP candidate; 30 Win Shares is 10 points. Ten seasons of that, you're a Hall of Famer. The two problems with that system are relievers and catchers. The Win Shares system hates relievers. Let's not get into that so, to avoid infecting this system with the problems of the other one, we count each Save as one-fourth of a Win Share before doing the calculations above. Also, since catchers' careers are generally too short for them to meet Hall of Fame standards, even if they are great players, we divide their totals by .75.

We add the points awarded under the two systems together, divide by two, and round down. Those are the points accounted for in the Hall of Fame monitor. The idea is that by looking at the question in two entirely different ways, we can avoid the weaknesses of either approach. One system probably underrates relievers; the other one probably overrates them, but when you put them together, you're OK. One system ignores park effects and changes in league standards; the other system meticulously adjusts for them. Hall of Fame voters partially adjust for them, so having a system part of which adjusts for them and part of which doesn't, that works. The system mirrors the process.

Here is a table of active players with 100 or more points:

James, in The Player Projections Section, opens with the following. "As Fantasy Baseball is now America's fourth-largest business, this section of the book could be considered business consulting. Got a hot tip for you, boss: This Albert Pujols, he's pretty good. Albert's gold brick is easy to project, because he does the same thing every year."

The ten best predictions are ranked in order (from first to tenth): Raj Davis, Matt Holliday, Stephen Drew, Russell Branyan, Torii Hunter, Alexei Ramirez, David Eckstein, Jason Kendall, Emilio Bonifacio, and David Ortiz.

To his credit, he also points out his biggest mistakes, which generally fell into three categories: "(a) we projected that a player would play, and he didn't, (b) we didn't project that a player would play much, but he did, and (c) we just missed on the numbers. Re the latter, James admits "the champion of those in 2010, of course, was Jose Bautista. I don't know how that happened; everybody else knew he would hit 54 homers. Why didn't we?"

Bill's wit shines through when he boasts about how close he was on Todd Coffey and Phil Coke. "We regret that there were no pitchers named Milk or Juice." He follows that line with "There was a Sipp" and shows his actual and projected stats.

In Pitchers on Course For 300 Wins, which is the final section aside from the Glossary, James writes:

The two pitchers in baseball today who have the best chance to win 300 games are Roy Halladay and the artist formerly known as Carsten Charles Sabathia. This statement was true a year ago; however, the situation is very different now than it was a year ago. A year ago, the no-hit pitcher and the Big Lefty were first and second on a list of contenders. Now they have separated themselves from the field.

It is likely that one or two pitchers now active will win 300 games, and two is more likely than one.

I'm into online stats and recognize that a lot of the information in The Bill James Handbook can be found at Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs, but there is still something magical about this book. I believe it will broaden your baseball knowledge and help bridge the gap between now and the beginning of spring training next month or your upcoming fantasy baseball draft.

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BERT BLYLEVEN IS A HALL OF FAMER!

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Jon Paul Morosi featured me in an article currently teased on the front page of FOXSports.com. The URL reads "bert-blyleven-hall-of-fame-bid-rides-on-sabermetrics-loving-blogger."

If you hurry on over to that link as fast as members of my family did, the following screenshot can be viewed live by waiting for or clicking on the number 5 on the right-hand side of the window. Or you can go to the MLB page and wait for it to scroll to the number 1, which corresponds to the title "No. 1 Fan: Investing guru turned blogger is out to save Blyleven from HOF snub."

Morosi, who is a national MLB writer for FOXSports.com, interviewed me on Monday. He sent an email Sunday evening asking if he could arrange a date and time to talk about Bert Blyleven with the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement forthcoming on Wednesday. We hit it off and talked for nearly two hours.

The headline that is attached to the article is "Aficionado heavily invested in Blyleven," a play on words owing to my profession as an investment manager. I'll take aficionado over internet zealot any day.

Rich Lederer is an investment manager. Stock and bond portfolios are his thing. He is the president and chief investment officer of Lederer & Associates Investment Counsel in Long Beach, Calif.

But Lederer loved batting averages long before calculating his first P/E ratio. He is a baseball guy. His father, the late George Lederer, covered the Los Angeles Dodgers for the Long Beach Independent-Press-Telegram through their first 11 seasons on the West Coast.

Lederer has since taken up the family business — as a hobby. In 2003, he founded a baseball blog, now called BaseballAnalysts.com. He writes at night, after his real job is done. The website hasn’t made him rich or famous. Yet, his words may soon resonate through the game’s most hallowed corridors.

If Bert Blyleven is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, he will have Rich Lederer to thank.

Morosi then highlights Blyleven's achievements, discusses Bert's voting trends, the "grassroots campaign," how he is polling this year, my father (including a photo of him showing off the first foul ball that he caught in the press box at Dodger Stadium in 1962), and concludes with the following:

“The Internet flattens the world a little and allows someone like me to have a say, an audience, and indirectly participate in the discussion,” Rich Lederer said. “I enjoy that. If not for the Internet, it would be next to impossible for me to have an impact on those types of things. It’s been a great vehicle. People say there have been more words written about Bert’s candidacy than anyone else in the history of the Hall of Fame.”

If the wait ends on Wednesday, happy blog postings will spring up around the web, from mainstream and sabermetric writers alike.

Then they will face the question: Which cause comes next?

I have someone in mind, but it will remain a secret until Blyleven earns his just reward.

***

Here are four links on the same subject:

ESPN.com released the ballots from the ESPN writers who are voting members of the BBWAA this morning. Fourteen of the 18 writers (77.8%) voted for Bert Blyleven.

Here are the 14 that voted for Blyleven: Howard Bryant, Jim Caple, Jerry Crasnick, Gordon Edes, Pedro Gomez, Tony Jackson, Tim Kurkjian, Ian O'Connor, Peter Pascarelli, Brendan Roberts, Adam Rubin, Mark Saxon, Claire Smith, and Jayson Stark.

Barry Stanton, news editor for ESPN, did *not* vote for Blyleven (or Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Larkin, or Tim Raines), yet he voted for B.J. Surhoff plus Tino Martinez, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, and Edgar Martinez. It looks like if your last name started with "M" you had a better shot at getting Stanton's vote than if you were fifth all-time in strikeouts, ninth all-time in shutouts, and in the top 20 all-time in wins since 1900. Why someone like Stanton has a vote is beyond me.

In any event, Blyleven has now received 82 of the 105 full ballots (78.1%) that Darren Viola (aka Repoz), the editor-in-chief of the Baseball Think Factory, has gathered from voters who have either posted their selections publicly or confessed to him privately. If this sample size is indicative of the overall total, then Blyleven should narrowly gain admission to the Baseball Hall of Fame when the results are released tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's hoping that Bert Be Home Blyleven (as in 2011). Those of us who have supported him can help the cause by keeping our fingers crossed for the next 24 hours.

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One Blyleven Internet supporter is such a zealot that he has guessed as to the motives for the non-support, and even on occasion taken to outing non-supporters or ridiculing them, perhaps in an attempt at persuasion. Let me just say that I have nothing against Blyleven, and have been consistent in my non-support of him. My "no'' vote has nothing to do with the Internet campaign, which has only become apparent in Blyleven's final few years on the ballot, and appears to be effective, as Blyleven's totals have risen precipitously.

- Jon Heyman

After reading Heyman's column on si.com Monday late afternoon, my son Joe sent me the following text, "New Christmas gift request... bumper sticker that reads: 'My Dad is a zealot.'" I wrote back, "One Blyleven Internet detractor is such a zealot that he writes about why he is NOT voting for him every year."

Heyman released his Hall of Fame ballot on Twitter several days ago but devoted his entire column on Monday (sans his picks on the second page) to "Why I didn't cast a Hall of Fame vote for Bert Blyleven, again." Incredible. He mentions Blyleven specifically or refers to him in 24 of the 26 paragraphs that comprise nearly 2,000 words. By comparison, he writes one paragraph on Roberto Alomar, his top candidate; four paragraphs defending his selection of Jack Morris over Blyleven; and a few sentences on a separate page on each of his five other picks (Barry Larkin, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy).

I'd like to respond to the following excerpts from Heyman's column:

Phil Cavaretta (1916-2010) died of complications from a stroke on Saturday. Based on an Associated Press story that appeared on ESPN Chicago, Cavaretta also had been battling leukemia for several years but that disease was in remission according to his son Phil Jr. The elder Cavaretta was 94.

Cavaretta was signed by the Chicago Cubs at the age of 17 in 1934 and made his major-league debut that same year, playing seven games in September and going 8-for-21, including a homer in his first start to account for the only run of the contest. He broke his ankle in 1939 and 1940 but bounced back and was named the National League MVP in 1945 when he topped the league in AVG (.355) and OBP (.449) while leading the Cubs to the World Series.

The first baseman/outfielder served as the team's player-manager from 1951-53. After being fired by his hometown Cubs, he signed with the White Sox in May 1954 and played parts of two seasons on the South Side of Chicago before being released in May 1955. After his playing career was over, Cavaretta managed in the minors, coached and scouted for the Detroit Tigers, and wound up his baseball career as a batting instructor for the New York Mets' organization.

Cavaretta was the last surviving player from his debut season in 1934. Buddy Lewis of the Senators is now the only survivor from the 1935 season. As reported by Peter Ridges on SABR-L, Cavaretta was the only man alive who had appeared in a World Series in the 1930s. According to Who's Alive and Who's Dead, he was the 13th-oldest former major leaguer when he passed away.

In addition, Cavaretta was one of the last four living players mentioned in David Frishberg's 1969 classic Van Lingle Mungo. He is survived by Eddie Joost (born 1916), Johnny Pesky (1919), and Eddie Basinski (1922). A photo in the music video linked in the opening sentence of the paragraph would suggest that John Antonelli, a major-league pitcher from 1948-61, is also a survivor. I don't mean to imply that the lefthander is not alive today, but he was generally known as Johnny. The John Antonelli referred to in the song is more likely the infielder who played for the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies in 1944-45.

Joost turned 94 last June. With Cavaretta's death, he becomes the 13th-oldest living player. He also is the only surviving member of the Cincinnati Reds team that won the 1940 World Series. Eddie had a fascinating career. The Baseball Library carries the following biography:

Joost became the Reds' regular shortstop in 1941 and committed 45 errors. After his 45 errors in '42 led the league, he was traded to the Braves. There, Joost suffered further ignominy in 1943, setting a record by hitting just .185, the lowest batting average ever for a player with 400 or more at-bats. He then retired voluntarily but gained a second life with the Athletics beginning in 1947. Though his hitting improved, he found a better way to reach base: walking. From 1947 through 1952, he walked more than 100 times a season, twice gaining more walks than hits. He was an All-Star in 1949 (reaching highs of 23 HR and 81 RBI), and again in '52, after having led AL shortstops in putouts four times to tie the league record. Joost was the A's manager in 1954 but led his untalented crew to a last-place finish.

Frishberg, an American composer, jazz pianist, and vocalist, will turn 78 next March. He immortalized 37 different ballplayers in his baseball hit, including Van Lingle Mungo four times (plus an extra Van Lingle for good measure) and five others twice.

Here are the lyrics to Van Lingle Mungo, a three-time All-Star pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1930s.

Heeney Majeski
Johnny Gee
Eddie Joost
Johnny Pesky
Thornton Lee
Danny Gardella
Van Lingle Mungo

Eddie Basinski
Ernie Lombardi
Huey Mulcahy
Van Lingle
Van Lingle Mungo

Following Johnny Sain's death in November 2006, Maxwell Kates wrote a guest column for Baseball Analysts, simply titled "Van Lingle Mungo." It highlights Sain, Van Lingle Mungo, and the other 35 players mentioned in the song.

Rest in peace, Phil Cavaretta. Long live Eddie Joost, Johnny Pesky, Eddie Basinski, Dave Frishberg, and the song Van Lingle Mungo.

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With the announcement that the Philadelphia Phillies had signed Cliff Lee late Monday night, the baseball world began to contemplate whether a starting rotation consisting of Lee, Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt was perhaps the greatest in the history of the game.

When most of us think about the best pitching rotations, we tend to point to the Oakland A's of 2001-2003, the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s, the New York Mets of the 1970s, the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s, the Cleveland Indians of the 1950s, or maybe the 1971 Baltimore Orioles if you're into wins.

In the Greatest Starting Rotations of All-Time, Andrew Johnson of Fanhouse writes, "Only 25 pitching staffs since 1901 have ever boasted four or more pitchers who qualified for the ERA title with an ERA+ equal to or greater than 120, according to Baseball-Reference.com." He highlights six rotations and includes a link to his Play Index findings.

At the Baseball Reference blog, Steve Lombardi ups the ante a bit, creating a post on teams with four starting pitchers with at least 30 GS and ERA+ of 130 or above. It's happened just once: the 1997 Atlanta Braves with Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Denny Neagle, and John Smoltz. He includes a link to his Play Index results as well.

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs uses Wins Above Replacement (WAR) totals for the past three years to determine where the Phillies Big Four stacks up in Best. Rotation. Ever? Halladay (21.5) ranks No. 1, Lee (20.9) No. 2, Hamels (11.9) No. 16, and Oswalt (11.2) No. 21 for a cumulative total of 65.5. The 1993 to 1995 and 1996 to 1998 Braves featuring Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, and Steve Avery/Neagle totaled 56 and 66.8, respectively. Maddux's three-year totals exceeded Halladay's, Smoltz's '96-'98 run fell just shy of Lee's, Glavine's '93-'95 is slightly worse than and his '96-'98 is superior to Hamels', and the fourth starter of Avery or Neagle is worse than Oswalt's totals.

With respect to Avery and Neagle, Cameron adds, "That was part of what made that Braves run so spectacular. They kept swapping out guys behind The Big Three and getting high-level performances even with all the changes. There were times where they got equivalent production to what we might expect from Philly’s rotation in 2011, but they never had four guys who had established themselves at this level going into a season."

In conclusion, Cameron says:

If there’s a four-man rotation that has ever looked this dominant heading into a new year, I can’t find it. It is almost certainly in the discussion for the greatest four-man rotation of all time.

Taking a slightly different approach, my brother Tom forwarded to me the following table from Baseball-Reference's Play Index. It is a list of all the teams with four starting pitchers in the rotation generating at least four WAR while qualifying for the league ERA title. Seven teams made the cut, including the Braves in 1991 (without Maddux) and 1997. Aside from those Atlanta staffs and the 1967 Cincinnati Reds, you have to go back almost 100 years to find a 4x4 rotation.

Note: Pitching WAR differs between Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference in that the former uses Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and the latter uses Sean Smith's defense-adjusted Run Average.

Wanting to drill down deeper to look at the individual and cumulative totals produced the next table.

There are several interesting observations:

1. The 1912 Pittsburgh Pirates had four pitchers with at least four WAR but none with five. A very solid 1-4 but no real ace.

2. The 1909 Philadelphia A's had four pitchers with at least four WAR but none with more than five. These four starters, including Hall of Famers Chief Bender and Eddie Plank, had ERAs of 1.76 or below. It wasn't known as the Deadball Era for nothing. The league average ERA was 2.47. The league-wide run average was 3.44. Lots of errors back then. Despite the smaller gloves, the official scorekeepers held the fielders to a high standard.

3. The other five staffs all had at least one starter with a WAR of six or more. Of those five, two had three pitchers with at least five WAR.

4. The Braves, in a couple of different renditions, had the best starting four as measured by B-R WAR since the early part of the last century.

5. Led by Joe Wood, the 1912 Boston Red Sox had the most productive staff among those teams with 4x4 since 1900. With 9.6 WAR, Wood had the highest single-season total among all the pitchers on this list. Furthermore, the Red Sox had the highest four-man, single-season cumulative WAR at 24.1.

How does the Phillies staff compare to these all-time great rotations? Last year, the foursome produced 21 WAR (although not on the same team). Halladay had 6.9, Oswalt 5.1, Hamels 4.7, and Lee 4.3. Oswalt split his WAR among the Houston Astros (2.3) and the Phillies (2.8) while Lee split his among the Seattle Mariners (2.6) and Texas Rangers (1.7).

If these Philadelphia starters can repeat their 2010 performance, the Phillies could surpass the Braves and become the greatest four-man rotation since Smoky Joe and the 1912 Red Sox, at least as measured by Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement.

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News: The Red Sox and Padres have reportedly agreed to a deal in principle that will send first baseman Adrian Gonzalez to Boston in exchange for three prospects — pitcher Casey Kelly, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, and outfielder Reymond Fuentes — plus a minor league player to be named later.

Views: While it's difficult to not like the trade from the perspective of the Red Sox, this agreement may be one of those deals that truly benefits both teams. There was no way that the Padres were going to re-sign Gonzalez before, during, or after the 2011 season. Therefore, it makes sense that San Diego GM Jed Hoyer would try to move him sooner rather than later. Hoyer and AGM Jason McLeod worked under Boston GM Theo Epstein for years and know the Red Sox talent as well as anyone.

Kelly, Rizzo, and Fuentes were ranked as the first-, third-, and sixth-best Red Sox prospects by Baseball America last month. All three were projected to be part of Boston's starting lineup in 2014 (with Kelly and Rizzo reaching the majors no later than 2012 by most estimates). According to Baseball America, Kelly had the best curveball, Rizzo the best power, and Fuentes the best athlete in the system.

As touted as this threesome may be, I would have expected San Diego to hold out for either Jose Iglesias or Ryan Kalish as the fourth player in the puzzle. Instead, it appears as if the PTBNL is not on the 40-man roster and is eligible for the Rule 5 Draft next week. Look for this player to be nothing more than a throw-in, perhaps a mid-level minor league pitcher whose upside might be as a major league reliever.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez is a monster. The lefthanded-hitting slugger ranked fifth in on-base percentage (.393) and times on base (271), sixth in total bases (302) and runs created (119), seventh in on-base plus slugging (.904), and ninth in slugging average (.511) in the National League while playing in the least-friendly home ballpark for hitters in the majors. His ballpark-adjusted OPS (or OPS+) ranked third in the league at 152, trailing only 2010 MVP Joey Votto and three-time MVP Albert Pujols.

For proof as to how much Petco Park has damaged Gonzalez's stats, look no further than his career record at Petco and on the road.

The above splits may not even tell the whole story. You see, Petco is death on lefthanded sluggers. According to the Bill James Handbook, from 2008-2010, Petco Park has produced park factors of 87 for AVG and 59 for HR (with 100 equivalent to the MLB average), meaning it reduces the former by 13 percent and the latter by 41 percent for LHB. By comparison, Petco's PF were 89 and 96 for RHB.

Despite the ballpark handicap, Gonzalez ranked as the most productive opposite-field hitter last season, according to our own Jeremy Greenhouse. His inside-out swing is a perfect fit for Fenway Park.

Check out Gonzalez's 2010 spray chart at Petco Park, then take a look at Fenway's dimensions. He pulls the vast majority of his ground balls but hits the bulk of his fly balls to the opposite field, which should be just what the doctor ordered in Boston.

Petco Park
    

Courtesy of River Ave Blues, here's Gonzalez's spray chart overlaid onto Fenway Park (h/t Patrick Sullivan).

I count 30 home runs. In 81 home games. With 14 fly outs turning into four baggers. Ten of those fly-outs-would-be-home runs were hit to straightaway left field. Whether Gonzalez slugs 30 or 25 or even 20 HR at Fenway, the impact is going to be huge as Adrian has averaged 11-12 jacks at Petco since joining the Padres in 2006. Add the 21 HR he has averaged on the road during this period and it doesn't take too much imagination to project the newest Red Sox banging 40 or more homers in each of the next few seasons.

We can also view Gonzalez's home *and* road taters via HitTracker. Thirteen of his 31 HR were hit to left field, a phenomenal rate for a lefthanded batter. The image on the right displays the location of all home runs at Fenway Park last year.

Gonzalez looks like a pretty good fit for Fenway, no? Importantly, he doesn't turn 29 until next May. While he had shoulder surgery in October, he is expected to be fully recovered by the time the 2011 season opens. You can be sure that the Red Sox put him through a full physical this weekend and wouldn't proceed with the trade if management had any doubts about his health.

In addition to the exam, the Red Sox have been given a negotiating window by MLB to work out an extension with Gonzalez. If it's true that he wants a Ryan Howard-like, 5-year/$125M contract, I would combine the last year of his current deal that pays him $6.2M into a new 6-year/$132M pact that allows him to earn an average of $22M right off the bat.

Should the Red Sox not sign Gonzalez and proceed with the deal anyway, the organization gets his services at a discount of $15M-$20M in 2011 plus two valuable picks in the 2012 draft for the loss of a Type A free agent. As a result, short of Gonzalez suffering a major injury after signing a long-term contract, I don't see how Boston can lose.

San Diego might win, too. Maybe in a big way. Only time will tell. But the Padres could lose if the three prospects don't pan out.

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I have been troubled for a couple of years with the consensus belief in the sabermetric community that free agents are worth between four to five million dollars per Win Above Replacement (WAR). For the ESPN Stats and Info blog, Tom Tango of Inside the Book stated that "the value of a win on the free-agent market is between $4 million and $5 million dollars." In a recent New York Times piece, Sean Forman of Baseball-Reference.com wrote, "2009 free agents received nearly $4.5 million per win added." Led by Dave Cameron's input, Fangraphs has based its dollars per win value at approximately $4M for 2007, $4.5M for 2008 and 2009, and $4M for 2010.

I respect all three of these esteemed analysts. However, I believe there is a flaw in applying $4 million, $4.5 million, or $5 million to estimate the value of all free agents. To see if I could set the record straight, I began by using ESPN's Free Agent Tracker to create a database for the 2009-2010 crop. Of the 201 free agents last year, 121 signed MLB contracts, 66 inked MiLB deals, and 14 retired. For the purposes of my study, I excluded free agents who signed for less than $3 million per season. Most of these players were part-timers, backups, pinch hitters, or injured. In hindsight, the best of this lot included Alex Gonzalez, Kevin Gregg, Miguel Olivo, Kelly Johnson, John Buck, Jim Thome, and Jonny Gomes. In addition, I eliminated foreign players Aroldis Chapman, Noel Arguelles, and Ryota Igarashi, as well as Colby Lewis, who played in Japan in 2008 and 2009.

All in all, there were 53 free agents who qualified, a sampling that captured the most significant signees between the 2009 and 2010 seasons. The players in the table below are ranked by their total compensation. I also included the number of years, the average annual salary, the average Fangraphs WAR for the 2007-09 period, and the average annual dollars per WAR.

Let's take a look at Matt Holliday. He signed a seven-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals for $120 million, equal to an average of $17.142 million per season. Holliday averaged 6.1 WAR during 2007-09. As a result, he was paid $2.80M per WAR.

Based on $/WAR, the major outliers were relievers John Grabow ($37.5M), Mike Gonzalez ($13.95M), Fernando Rodney ($11M), Rafael Soriano ($9.06M), Jose Valverde ($7.78M), and Billy Wagner ($7M), all of whom had a higher $/WAR than Jason Bay ($6.88M), the highest-paid position player based on the average WAR for 2007-09. It's pretty obvious to me that there is virtually no correlation between the salaries of relief pitchers (be it closers or setup men) and WAR. As a result, I believe it makes sense to exclude them when trying to determine what a free agent is worth. Nonetheless, I have calculated the arithmetic mean, weighted average, and median $/WAR including and excluding relief pitchers.

Here are my findings:

• The arithmetic mean $/WAR for all players was $4.36 million. Excluding relief pitchers, it was $2.88M.

• The weighted average $/WAR for all players was $3.03 million. Excluding relief pitchers, it was $2.73M.

• The median $/WAR for all players was $2.95 million. Excluding relief pitchers, it was $2.73-2.80M.
  

I realize this study is based on one year only. In addition, the salaries may have been negatively influenced by the overall economy. That said, no matter how you slice and dice it, excluding relief pitchers, the average free agent signed for about $2.7-$2.9M/WAR last offseason. I believe this finding is significant in that most analysts have routinely used $4.5M per win added.

Based on their performance in 2010, the biggest bargains from the list above were Marlon Byrd ($1.22M/WAR), Adrian Beltre ($1.41M), Orlando Hudson ($1.61M), and Placido Polanco ($1.62M). Beltre and Hudson are free agents once again. The biggest busts were Chone Figgins ($15M/WAR), Randy Wolf ($14.17M), and Jason Bay ($11.79M). Figgins and Bay have three years left on their contracts and Wolf has two years to go. Due to injuries, Mike Cameron (-0.3 WAR), Nick Johnson (0.1), and Rich Harden (-0.7) didn't pan out as their new employers expected.

Let's check out how this year's free agents are doing:

I excluded RP Joaquin Benoit and Jose Contreras from this table. For consistency, I also excluded Geoff Blum, who signed a two-year contract for $2.7 million (which was less than the $3M minimum I required for the 2009-2010 free agents).

With seven precincts reporting, the sample size is small. Nevertheless, the results are as follows:

• Excluding relief pitchers, the arithmetic mean $/WAR was $3.41 million.

• Excluding relief pitchers, the weighted average $/WAR was $3.37 million.

• Excluding relief pitchers, the median $/WAR was $3.59 million.
  

While it may be too early to get a definitive read for this year's class, excluding relief pitchers, the average free agent has signed for about $3.4-$3.6M/WAR this offseason.

There are several big-name players who haven't signed yet. The crop is headlined by Cliff Lee (6.97 average WAR from 2008-2010), Carl Crawford (5.0), Jayson Werth (5.0), Beltre (4.53), and Derek Jeter (4.43). Rounding up last year's $/WAR to $3M and using the mid-point of $3.5M/WAR this year produces the following average annual salaries: Lee ($20.9M-$24.4M), Crawford and Werth ($15M-$17.5M), Beltre ($13.6M-$15.9M), and Jeter ($13.3M-$15.5M). Unless the Yankees cave in to their captain, I would be surprised if any of these players sign for an average annual salary outside of these ranges. If so, it would help confirm my belief that free agents (sans relievers) are worth about $3M-$3.5M per WAR rather than the $4.5M that seems to be universally accepted.

Of note, one can reach slightly different conclusions by using Baseball-Reference WAR instead of Fangraphs WAR. I'm not necessarily more partial to one over the other. One can also weight the WAR differently. I used a simple average of the past three years, tweaking a few players based on injuries and playing time. There might be merits in going with a weighted system, such as a 3-2-1, in certain situations. In reality, teams are trying to project WAR but most estimates are going to be heavily influenced by observed WAR.

Furthermore, there are many other factors that teams consider when making offers to free agents, including a player's age, his position, current health status and history of injuries, the consistency and arc of his career, the supply and demand for that type of player, the length of contract, and whether he is a Type A or B free agent. Put it all together and shake it up, and it is my contention that the going rate for starting pitchers and position players who are free agents is somewhere in the range of $3,000,000 to $3,500,000 per the three-year trailing average WAR.

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Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants on winning the 2010 World Series. The team won the NL West by two games and then sailed through the postseason by winning 11 of 15 games in capturing the NLDS, NLCS, and World Series titles.

I have to admit, I never saw it coming. Not before the season. Nor during the season. Nor before the World Series. While I picked the Giants to beat the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS, I thought San Francisco would fall to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS and to the Texas Rangers in the World Series. Rather than the Giants winning it in five, I had the Rangers winning in five. On second thought, maybe I got it half right. Just kidding.

Where did I go wrong? Let me count the ways:

1. Small sample size. (Rule No. 1 of forecasting: When you make a mistake, blame the sample size.)

2. Three games in the NLCS were decided by one run. The Giants won all three.

3. The Phillies outscored the Giants, 20-19, but won only two of the six games.

3. I had no idea that the Phillies would "hit" .216/.314/.321 in the NLCS.

4. I didn't foresee Cody Ross slugging three doubles and three home runs in the NLCS.

5. The Giants outscored the Rangers, 29-12. What can I say?

6. I had no idea that the Rangers would "hit" .190/.259/.288 in the World Series.

7. I had no clue that Josh Hamilton and Vladimir Guerrero would combine to go 3-for-34.

8. I failed to anticipate that Edgar Renteria would go 7-for-17 with two HR in the World Series. He went deep three times during the regular season.

9. Although I was never a fan of Texas' bullpen aside from Neftali Feliz, I would not have guessed that the set-up relievers would implode to the tune of of a 10.97 ERA over 10.2 innings.

10. I thought Cliff Lee and the Rangers would win Games 1 and 5. Instead, Tim Lincecum and the Giants won both of these crucial battles.

11. Don't forget Rule No. 1.

Look, San Francisco won the World Series fair and square. The Giants are worthy champions. The fact that I got it wrong is neither here nor there. As they say, flags fly forever. Conversely, predictions aren't worth the paper they're written on (or the pixels on your computer screen), especially those involving ... yes, small sample sizes. The staff at Baseball Analysts make such forecasts for fun and are not afraid of being wrong. To Patrick Sullivan's credit, he picked the Giants to win it in six. Not too bad.

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The 2010 World Series is upon us. Every baseball fan knows the main storyline: The Texas Rangers will appear in the World Series for the first time while the San Francisco Giants will be looking to win their first World Series since moving to the west coast in 1958.

News: The Tigers re-signed 3B Brandon Inge to a 2-year, $11.5 million contract, with an option for 2013. Inge would have been a free agent.

Views: What am I missing here? Most of Inge's value is tied to his defensive prowess at third base. However, his advanced fielding metrics have been in a steady decline since 2006 when he led the majors in Ultimate Zone Rating at 19.0. It fell to 11.2 in 2007, 4.1 in 2008 (when he also played C and CF), 6.6 in 2009, and 3.1 in 2010. While Inge is still above average, the trend is not your friend here. Nor is his age. He turns 34 next May.

Over the past five years, Inge has hit .236/.313/.405 with an OPS+ of 88. His OPS+ has only exceeded 100 one time — 109 in 2004 during his age-27 season. He strikes out at an alarmingly high rate at about once every four trips to the plate. The righthanded hitter has never hit for a high average on balls in play (career rate of .285 with a peak of .316 in 2004). His baserunning is nothing to write home about. To wit, he made 10 outs on the bases last year, excluding the three times he was caught stealing in seven attempts.

Shake it all up and it's difficult for me to see why Inge is worthy of such a contract. At best, Inge may add two wins above a replacement player. At $3M per win, he could be worth $6M (vs. an average annual salary of $5.75M). If you want to ascribe a higher value per win, be my guest. Either way, I believe the downside risk is greater than the upside reward. If Inge continues to lose range in the field, he could actually become a liability at the hot corner. In that case, Inge would be nothing more than a platoon player and pinch hitter (career .267/.342/.465 vs. LHP) and perhaps a positive influence on the bench and in the clubhouse.

The contract is not a disaster, but it's one that leaves me nonplussed.

For Joe Pawlikowski's take, be sure to read his analysis of Inge's contract at FanGraphs.

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OK, you're Joe Girardi. I'd say you're Joe Girardi for a day but, if it was for a day only, you might think differently. So let's just say you're Joe Girardi, the manager of the New York Yankees. You know, the team that is down two games to one in the best-of-four American League Championship Series.

Your club beat the Texas Rangers in the first game by coming back from a 5-0 deficit to score six unanswered runs in the seventh and eighth innings to win 6-5 on the road. You got trounced in the second game of the series, 7-2.

No problem. You did what you had to do. Your team split on the road. Two games down, a maximum of five to go with three of them at home. You've got the AL West champions right where you want them. Except for one thing. You now have to face Cliff Lee. Yes, that Cliff Lee. The guy who knows his way around New York in terms of both the city and your lineup. The 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner throws eight scoreless innings on Monday night, allowing only two hits and one walk while striking out 13 batters in an 8-0 shutout.

Lee improved his postseason record to 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA in eight starts. The southpaw has now beaten the Yankees three times in October, including twice as the ace of the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 World Series. He is on one of the best runs in the history of the postseason. Not known as a strikeout pitcher, Lee is the first pitcher to whiff 10 or more batters three consecutive times in the same postseason and is now tied for the lead with Bob Gibson and Randy Johnson with five career postseason games of at least 10 Ks.

With Lee perfectly positioned to start the finale of this series, "the Yankees probably need to win this series in six games and avoid a Game 7" or so says Andrew Marchand. I can't say that I disagree.

As a result, one could argue that the Yankees cannot afford to lose another game in this series. It's not that Lee can't be beaten. It's just that you don't want to go into Game 7 having to beat Lee. To the credit of the Rangers, this is exactly why management traded for him in July. It's hard to believe that someone who has gone 48-25 with a 2.98 ERA and a 5.6 K/BB in the past three regular seasons and 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA and 9.6 K/BB in the past two postseasons has played for four teams (CLE, PHI, SEA, and TEX) during this stretch.

That brings us to Game 4. Your team is now down two games to one. Do you go with AJ Burnett as previously announced or do you pitch CC Sabathia on three days' rest? If you opt for Sabathia, that means you either have to ask both Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte to pitch on short rest or stick AJ in there for Game 5 on Wednesday or Game 6 on Friday. Should you decide on Burnett for Tuesday night, then you won't be able to start CC three times or in the final game vs. Lee in what would be an epic battle of two of the best lefthanders in baseball.

Here are the facts with respect to Burnett:

Remember, you're Joe Girardi. It's your call. Do you stick with Burnett in Game 4 or do you change it up? Sabathia threw just 93 pitches in Game 1. He is 3-1 with a 1.01 ERA and extraordinarily strong peripherals working on three days' rest during the regular season throughout his career. Moreover, don't forget the fact that you asked CC to pitch on short rest against the Los Angeles Angels in the ALCS last year and it worked out pretty darn well. He won both games, fashioning a line of 16-9-2-2-3-12. The big guy started Game 1 on Friday and Game 4 on Tuesday. Sound familiar?

What will it be, Joe?

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With a no-hitter and four shutouts in the League Division Series and no team scoring more than seven runs in any single game, it seems as if pitching has dominated the postseason thus far. Perhaps it has but not to the extent that I thought before checking the numbers.

Through the first 14 games, the eight teams have combined to score 89 runs, an average of 6.36 per game. Don't get me wrong. Run prevention is down from the regular season. Way down. As in 38 percent down. But runs per game are off just 19 percent vs. the 2009 LDS and only 11 percent excluding the two contests in Colorado. Meaningful but not off the charts.

Like this year, no team scored more than seven runs in any LDS last fall. John Lackey and Darren Oliver combined to throw the lone shutout in Game One against Boston. In 2010, Oliver once again was part of a combined shutout, completing the final 2 1/3 innings to preserve the 6-0 whitewash for C.J. Wilson and Darren O'Day in Game Two against Tampa Bay.

Roy Halladay threw the most talked-about game of all, tossing only the second no-hitter in the history of the postseason. Halladay walked one and struck out eight while facing only one batter over the minimum as Philadelphia beat Cincinnati to set the tone in Game One in what became a three-game sweep. Teammate Cole Hamels closed out the series with another shutout, allowing just five hits and no walks while fanning nine Reds.

As impressive as those shutouts were, Tim Lincecum pitched the most dominating game of them all in terms of Game Score. The Freak pitched a complete-game shutout, striking out 14 while giving up only two hits and one walk.

Both Halladay and Lincecum will be well rested when they square off in Game One of the NLCS on Saturday. Neither starter will have thrown a pitch in competition in at least nine days. At first blush, it would seem as if the long rest may benefit the 5-foot-11, 170-pound Lincecum slightly more than the 6-6, 230-pound Halladay. However, it should be noted that the latter threw his no-no nine days after his final regular season start, which incidentally was a two-hit, no-walk, complete-game shutout on longer than normal rest.

Over in the ALCS, the New York Yankees have to be loving the fact that Cliff Lee and David Price will be facing one another tonight, meaning neither starter is likely to face the Bronx Bombers until Game Three on Monday. That said, the winner of tonight's rubber match will have their ace ready to go in the finale on four days' rest should the ALCS go the distance.

But first things first as there will be no ALCS for the losing team tonight. Only golf clubs and fishing rods.

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According to Press-Telegram columnist Bob Keisser, 17 former Long Beach State baseball players performed in the major leagues this year. "No other college team can boast of having that many players in the majors in 2010."

Known as Dirtbags during their college years, the group is headlined by three All-Stars, namely American League Most Valuable Player candidate Evan Longoria, National League Player of the Month for September Troy Tulowitzki, and MLB strikeout leader Jered Weaver. There isn't a university in the country that came close to duplicating the feats of this trio.

Tulowitzki and Weaver were college teammates in 2003 and 2004. Tulo and Longoria played side-by-side in the infield on the 2005 club. All three players were drafted in the first round by their respective teams: Weaver in 2004 by the Los Angeles Angels, Tulowitzki in 2005 by the Colorado Rockies, and Longoria in 2006 by the Tampa Bay Rays.

Longoria hit .294/.372/.507 with 46 2B, 5 3B, 22 HR, 72 BB, 96 R, 104 RBI, and 15 SB in 20 attempts for the Rays this season. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2008 and has been named to the All-Star team in each of his first three MLB seasons while being the recipient of a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger in 2009. Longoria, who turned 25 last week, led the AL and NL with 7.7 Wins Above Replacement (brWAR) in 2010.

Tulowitzki posted career highs in AVG (.315), OBP (.381), and SLG (.568) this season. He hit 15 HR during the final month, including 14 in a 15-game stretch when the Colorado Rockies won 13 times to climb within one game of the NL West lead. The slick-fielding shortstop missed 33 games with a fractured wrist in June and July but still managed to jack 27 HR in only 122 G and 529 PA. He turned 26 yesterday.

In addition to leading the majors in Ks, Weaver topped the AL in GS (34); finished second in K/BB (4.315); third in IP (224.1), K/9 (9.35), and WHIP (1.07); fifth in ERA (3.01), ERA+ (135), and FIP (3.06); seventh in H/9 (7.50); and ninth in BB/9 (2.17). The 6-foot-7 righthander ranked second among pitchers in brWAR (5.4) and fifth in fgWAR (5.9). He pitched six or more innings in 31 of his 34 starts, ranking second in quality starts with 27. Unfortunately, Weave had the 10th-worst run support among 43 qualified starters, which negatively affected his W-L record (13-12). The five-year veteran turned 28 last week. Unsigned beyond 2010, he will be entering the second of his three arbitration seasons in 2011.

Longoria and Tulowitzki have two of the most team-friendly contracts in baseball. It's hard to believe but Longo made only $950,000 this year and will earn just $2 million in 2011, $4.5M in 2012, and $6M in 2013. The Rays have a $7.5M team option with a $3M buyout in 2014, an $11M option in 2015, and an $11.5M option in 2016. According to Cot's Baseball Contracts, the latter option may increase to $14M based on rankings in the MVP voting. Tulo, meanwhile, will earn $5.5M in 2011, $8.25M in 2012, and $10M in 2013. The Rockies have a $15M team option with a $2M buyout in 2014. At signing, Troy's deal was the largest ever for a player with less than two years of MLB service.

In alphabetical order, the following ex-Dirtbags also competed in the big leagues this year (with years at Long Beach State in parentheses): John Bowker (2002-04), Andrew Carpenter (2006), Bobby Cramer (2000-01), Bobby Crosby (1999-2001), Brad Davis 2002-04), Greg Dobbs (1999), Danny Espinosa (2006-08), Marco Estrada (2005), Jason Giambi (1990-92), Paul McAnulty (2002), Cesar Ramos (2003-05), Jeremy Reed (2000-02), Jason Vargas (2004), and Vance Worley (2006-08).

Crosby was a first-round draft pick (25th overall) by the Oakland A's in 2001. The shortstop was named the AL Rookie of the Year in 2004 when he hit .239/.319/.426 with 34 2B and 22 HR in 151 games and 623 plate appearances. Giambi, a second-round pick by the A's in 1992, won the AL MVP in 2000 when he hit .333/.476/.647 with 43 HR, 137 BB, and 137 RBI. The lefthanded slugger led the league in OBP, BB, and OPS+ (187). He placed second in the MVP voting the following season after topping the circuit in OBP (.477), SLG (.660), OPS (1.137), OPS+ (198), 2B (47), and BB (129).

After Longoria, Tulowitzki, and Weaver, the next most valuable player in 2010 as measured by WAR was Vargas. The Seattle Mariners southpaw started 31 games, tossed 192.2 innings, and produced a 2.15 K/BB ratio, 1.25 WHIP, and a 3.78 ERA. The 27-year old succeeded by throwing strikes and keeping the ball in the park. Nearly 90 percent of his pitches were either fastballs or changeups.

Look for Espinosa and Worley to make a bigger splash in the NL East in 2011. Espinosa played shortstop at Long Beach State and in his three years in the minors but was primarily a second baseman after the Washington Nationals called him up when rosters were expanded on September 1. He belted three homers in his first 15 plate appearances and slugged six for the month. The combination of striking out too often (30 times in 112 PA) and hitting only .239 on balls in play reduced his batting average to .214 but a slugging average of .447 was more in-line with his MiLB production (.455). Espinosa, a member of the U.S. team in the Futures Game in 2009 and 2010, figures to compete for the second base job for the Nats next spring. At worst, he should make the team as a backup middle infielder.

Worley was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 20th round out of McClatchy HS (Sacramento, CA) in 2005 and the third round after his junior year at Long Beach State in 2008. He signed and combined to go 3-2 with a 7.57 K/BB ratio, 1.07 WHIP, and a 2.66 ERA in 11 GS and 61 IP in the New York Penn League (Short-Season A) and South Atlantic League (Low Class A) that summer. Worley struggled in 2009 at Double A Reading (7-12, 2.04 K/BB, 1.38 WHIP, and 5.34 ERA) but bounced back in 2010 (10-7, 2.59 K/BB, 1.30 WHIP, and 3.36 ERA) while earning a trip to the big leagues this summer before making his Triple A debut for Lehigh Valley. The bespectacled righthander went 1-1 with a 1.38 ERA for the Phillies, highlighted by five scoreless innings against the Atlanta Braves one week after his 23rd birthday in the second-to-last game of the season. He should get a good look next spring.

Since former Long Beach head coach Dave Snow's arrival in 1989, at least two players from every Dirtbags team reached the major leagues. I'll let Keisser, who also serves as the Press-Telegram's beat writer for Long Beach State, take it from here.

The 1989 team sent Kyle Abbott, Darrell Sherman and Tom Urbani to the majors.

Between 1999 and 2006, at least four players from every team has reached the majors, topped by a stunning eight players from the 2002 team - Abe Alvarez, John Bowker, Brad Davis, Chris Demaria, Paul McAnulty, Carlos Muniz, Jeremy Reed and Jered Weaver.

The 2004 team that came an inning away from a College World Series berth sent six players to the majors and all six were active this season - Bowker, Davis, Cesar Ramos, Troy Tulowitzki, Jason Vargas and Weaver.

It isn't a stretch to say the parade won't stop any time soon, either. Third baseman Adam Heether, outfielder Shane Peterson, shortstop Devin Lohman, and pitchers Jared Hughes, Nick Vincent, Andrew Liebel, Bryan Shaw, Adam Wilk, Charlie Ruiz and Jake Thompson are all performing well enough in the minors to warrant an eventual shot at the majors.

Mike Weathers succeeded Snow in 2001 and resigned after the 2010 season. He turned the program over to Troy Buckley, who served as the school's pitching coach from 2001-2007 and associate head coach in 2010. He was the minor league pitching coordinator with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2008 and 2009. Buckley worked with Carpenter, Cramer, Estrada, Ramos, Vargas, Weaver, and Worley in his previous stint at Long Beach State. It will be interesting to see if he can be as successful at producing position players as the two previous head coaches.

As Keisser concludes, "It's about the foundation that's been built, one that includes a ramp to the majors."

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The staff of the Baseball Analysts made predictions before the season began and, as it turns out, did very well. Our consensus picked five of the eight teams that qualified for the postseason, missing only on Tampa Bay in the American League and Cincinnati and San Francisco in the National League.

The Giants befuddled us the most as no one placed the NL West champions higher than third in the division. We narrowly missed on the Rays with three staffers choosing Boston as the AL Wild Card entry and two going with Tampa Bay. The Rays, of course, won the AL East, edging the Yankees by one game. Four of five analysts tabbed the Reds to finish second in the NL Central with all five of us incorrectly projecting St. Louis to take the division.

All eight postseason teams had run differentials of +100 or more. No other club in the majors had a differential that high. The Yankees led in runs scored (859) and in run differential (166). The San Diego Padres allowed the fewest runs (581).

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Rays         96   66  .593  -
Yankees      95   67  .586   1
Red Sox      89   73  .549   7
Blue Jays    85   77  .525  11
Orioles      66   96  .407  30

Toronto was clearly the biggest positive surprise in the AL East, if not the entire league, in manager Cito Gaston's final season. Forget the fact that the Blue Jays finished in fourth place. Winning 85 games in a tough division and finishing much closer to first than last place made for a highly successful season for MLB's lone club north of the border. Led by Jose Bautista's major league-leading 54 HR, Toronto tied the 1996 Baltimore Orioles with 257 homers, the third-most in the history of baseball.

AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Twins        94   68  .580  -
White Sox    88   74  .543   6
Tigers       81   81  .500  13
Indians      69   93  .426  25
Royals       67   95  .414  27

The AL Central played pretty much to form with Minnesota winning its second consecutive division title. The Twins have now won six of the last nine division crowns. Unfortunately, Minnesota has been bumped in four straight League Division Series, never winning more than one game in any of these match-ups.

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Rangers      90   72  .556  -
A's          81   81  .500   9
Angels       80   82  .494  10
Mariners     61  101  .377  29

Texas finished atop the AL West for the first time this century. The Rangers have increased their win total from 75 in Ron Washington's first season in 2007 to 79 in 2008 to 87 in 2009 and 90 in 2010. Pitching and defense have been the key with Texas allowing 280 fewer runs this year vs. two seasons ago. Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners may have been the most disappointing team in baseball, losing more games than any team not named the Pittsburgh Pirates.

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Phillies     97   65  .599  -
Braves       91   71  .562   6
Marlins      80   82  .494  17
Mets         79   83  .488  18
Nationals    69   93  .426  28

Philadelphia captured its fourth consecutive NL East title, winning the most games in the majors. The 2008 World Series champions have increased the number of regular season wins in each of the past four campaigns. Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels, perhaps the most formidable Big Three in the postseason, will be seeking to take the Phillies to the World Series for the third straight October.

In his final season at the helm, Bobby Cox is leading Atlanta into the postseason for the 15th time in the past 20 years but the first since 2005. However, it has been nine years since the Braves won a postseason series. The Hall of Fame-bound manager will be looking to win his second World Series and the first since 1995. He is 1-4 in his previous five attempts.

NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Reds         91   71  .562  -
Cardinals    86   76  .531   5
Brewers      77   85  .475  14
Astros       76   86  .469  15
Cubs         75   87  .463  16
Pirates      57  105  .352  34

Joey Votto, the favorite to win the NL MVP, and Jay Bruce (.388/.474/.925 with 12 HR in his final 22 games) combined to lead Cincinnati into the postseason for the first time since 1995. A healthy Edinson Volquez (27.2-17-6-6-8-31, 1.95 ERA in September) will be the key to a pitching staff that lacks a proven stopper.

NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST
TEAM         W    L   PCT  GB
Giants       92   70  .568  -
Padres       90   72  .556   2
Rockies      83   79  .512   9
Dodgers      80   82  .494  12
Diamondbacks 65   97  .401  27

If you knew Pablo Sandoval was going to hit .268 with 13 HR, would you have believed that San Francisco would have won the NL West? Instead, rookie Buster Posey (.305/.357/.505) and newcomers Aubrey Huff (.290/.385/.506) and Pat Burrell (.266/.364/.509) combined with a stellar starting rotation and bullpen to beat back San Diego on the final day of the season.

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Although interest in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in has waned over the past decade as more advanced metrics have emerged, these statistics are far from obsolete. Not only are AVG, HR, and RBI still the three most commonly cited stats involving hitters on radio/TV and in newsprint, but they were even played up in the new media in late August and early September as so-called statheads wrote about the possibilities of a Triple Crown winner this year.

While not as prestigious as winning the Triple Crown, there are a couple of players who are on the verge of setting "records" with respect to these stats. Specifically, if Carlos Pena and Mark Reynolds wind up hitting under .200, one or both will have the dubious distinction of hitting the most home runs or driving in the most runs in a season with a batting average below the Mendoza Line.

Going into tonight's play, Pena is hitting .198 with 27 HR and 81 RBI. Reynolds has outdone Pena slightly, hitting .199 with 32 HR and 84 RBI. Prior to this year, no player has ever accumulated more than 29 HR or 64 RBI while "hitting" under .200.

Let's take a look at where Pena and Reynolds stand in HR and RBI among those failing to crack the .200 mark.

Here are the leaders, if you will, in HR:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

HOMERUNS                      YEAR       HR      AVG
1    Mark Reynolds            2010       32     .199
2    Mark McGwire             2001       29     .187
3    Carlos Pena              2010       27     .198
4    Rob Deer                 1991       25     .179
5    Ruben Rivera             1999       23     .195
6    Mike Schmidt             1973       18     .196
7    Steve Balboni            1990       17     .192
T8   Gorman Thomas            1986       16     .187
T8   Shane Andrews            1999       16     .195
T8   Tim Laudner              1987       16     .191

AMERICAN LEAGUE

HOMERUNS                      YEAR       HR      AVG
1    Carlos Pena              2010       27     .198
2    Rob Deer                 1991       25     .179
3    Steve Balboni            1990       17     .192
T4   Tim Laudner              1987       16     .191
T4   Gorman Thomas            1986       16     .187
6    Dean Palmer              1991       15     .187
T7   Reggie Jackson           1983       14     .194
T7   Harmon Killebrew         1975       14     .199
T9   Eric Soderholm           1972       13     .188
T9   Roger Repoz              1971       13     .199
T9   Deron Johnson            1974       13     .171

NATIONAL LEAGUE

HOMERUNS                      YEAR       HR      AVG
1    Mark Reynolds            2010       32     .199
2    Mark McGwire             2001       29     .187
3    Ruben Rivera             1999       23     .195
4    Mike Schmidt             1973       18     .196
5    Shane Andrews            1999       16     .195
6    Dave Kingman             1983       13     .198
T7   Darren Daulton           1991       12     .196
T7   Todd Hundley             2001       12     .187
T7   Bob Tillman              1969       12     .195
T7   Bob Robertson            1972       12     .193

And now RBI:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

RBI                           YEAR      RBI      AVG
1    Mark Reynolds            2010       84     .199
2    Carlos Pena              2010       81     .198
T3   Mark McGwire             2001       64     .187
T3   Rob Deer                 1991       64     .179
5    Harry Lyons              1888       63     .194
6    Pedro Garcia             1974       54     .199
7    Coco Laboy               1970       53     .199
T8   Tom Tresh                1968       52     .195
T8   Mike Schmidt             1973       52     .196
10   Shane Andrews            1999       51     .195

AMERICAN LEAGUE

RBI                           YEAR      RBI      AVG
1    Carlos Pena              2010       81     .198
2    Rob Deer                 1991       64     .179
3    Pedro Garcia             1974       54     .199
4    Tom Tresh                1968       52     .195
5    Reggie Jackson           1983       49     .194
T6   John Gochnauer           1903       48     .185
T6   Todd Cruz                1983       48     .199
T8   Ed Kirkpatrick           1966       44     .192
T8   Harmon Killebrew         1975       44     .199
T10  Deron Johnson            1974       43     .171
T10  Tim Laudner              1987       43     .191

NATIONAL LEAGUE

RBI                           YEAR      RBI      AVG
1    Mark Reynolds            2010       84     .199
2    Mark McGwire             2001       64     .187
3    Coco Laboy               1970       53     .199
4    Mike Schmidt             1973       52     .196
5    Shane Andrews            1999       51     .195
6    Ruben Rivera             1999       48     .195
7    Germany Smith            1890       47     .191
8    Nick Esasky              1984       45     .193
9    Monte Cross              1901       44     .197
10   Darren Daulton           1991       42     .196

Three Hall of Famers grace these lists: Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew, and Mike Schmidt. Jackson was on his way down, Schmidt was on his way up, and Killebrew accomplished this feat in his last season. Mark McGwire knew it was time to go when he hit .187 while clubbing 29 HR in his farewell campaign in 2001. Dave Kingman, he of 442 career home runs (the fifth-most of any hitter on these lists), hit .198 with 13 HR in 1983 before jacking at least 30 dingers in each of his final three seasons.

While far short of Jackson (139 OPS+), Killebrew (143), Schmidt (147), and McGwire (162), the 32-year-old Pena (123) is producing at a higher clip than all of the other hitters listed above, including Kingman (115) and Gorman Thomas (114).

Reynolds (108), on the other hand, appears to be heading down the path of Rob Deer (109) and fellow third baseman Dean Palmer (107), who flamed out after his age-31 season. The 27-year old may not be long for a starting assignment in the majors if he continues to strike out over 200 times per season without Gold Glove-caliber fielding or a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) that rivals his 2007-2009 mark of .343 (vs. .255 in 2010). Meanwhile, Reynolds is a cinch to become "the first regular player to strike out more times in a season than his batting average." In his defense, you have to be pretty good — or perhaps have been good — to even set such records.

While your friends are paying attention to the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays or the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres, make sure you don't forget about the triumphs of Carlos Pena and Mark Reynolds.

Note: Thanks to Lee Sinins and his Complete Baseball Encyclopedia for the lists.

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George Lederer, affectionately known to me as Dad, was one of seven members inducted into the Long Beach Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday. The city's HOF was created in 2004 and the inaugural class included a couple of Cooperstown selections in Bob Lemon and Tony Gwynn as well as Bob Bailey, Jeff Burroughs, Ron Fairly, Bobby Grich, Vern Stephens, and several coaches and scouts.

Including the class of 2010, there are now 57 honorees, 31 of whom have played in the major leagues. The list excludes such notables as Long Beach Poly's Chase Utley and former Long Beach State All-Americans, first-round draft picks, and MLB stars Bobby Crosby, Evan Longoria, Troy Tulowitzki, and Jered Weaver. This quintet will no doubt be elected shortly after their playing days are over.

Five members were added to the Long Beach Softball Hall of Fame, a group that now totals 53, many of whom have also been inducted into the International Softball Congress HOF. The Long Beach Nitehawks won ten men's World Championships during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the heyday of men's fast-pitch softball.

The ceremony was held at Blair Field and across the way at what is now known as Red Meairs Field at Joe Rodgers Stadium. There were a number of previous inductees in attendance, including former major leaguers Joe Amalfitano and Dave Frost, scouts Bob Harrison and Harry Minor, coach Bob Myers, and umpire Joe Reed.

Dad is the third journalist to be named to the Long Beach Hall of Fame. The first two were Ross Newhan (class of 2006), a former sportswriter for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Los Angeles Times, and Frank Blair (class of 2007), the first sports editor of the Press-Telegram from 1921 until his death in 1953. Newhan was the recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000. Four of Dad's colleagues, including former sports editors John Dixon and Jim McCormack, who also serves on the selection committee, plus Jack Teele, an NFL executive for over 30 years, and Al Larson, were on hand to honor him.

Amalfitano, who prepped at St. Anthony High School in Long Beach, told me that Peter O'Malley and his family planned to be at the ceremony and sent their well wishes to our family through him. The former player, coach, and manager also said he spoke to Sandy Koufax, who sent his regards as well.

My father was the sports editor of the Wilson High School and Long Beach City College newspapers. He joined the Long Beach Independent, Press-Telegram in 1948 and mostly covered local prep and college sports for the next ten years. Dad was assigned the Dodgers beat at the tender age of 29 when the team moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. One of our favorite photos is of Dad walking outside the P-T in downtown Long Beach on his way to the airport for his first spring training in Vero Beach in 1958.

Dad covered the Dodgers for 11 years, including the World Series championships in 1959, 1963, and 1965. He also served as the Dodgers statistician in the post Allan Roth days and was one of four MLB official scorekeepers for the team's home games, including Koufax's perfect game in 1965. Amalfitano reminded me that he was the 26th out in that game. Dad was the president of the local chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America and a member of the Board of Directors on a national level.

After more than a decade traveling around the country every year from late February through early October, Dad decided to accept new Angels GM Dick Walsh's (standing on the right next to my father) offer to become the club's Director of Public Relations and Promotions in early 1969. He served in that capacity until passing away in 1978 from a misdiagnosed case of malignant melanoma.

Bob Keisser featured Dad in a recent article on the front page of the Press-Telegram's sports section. In The Lederer Tree, Keisser tells the story of the family's sports legacy in Long Beach. My Mom was recognized in a follow-up column a couple of days later.

In the course of covering the Family Tree of the Lederers - the late George Lederer, the former P-T baseball writer who will be inducted into the Long Beach Baseball Hall of Fame next Saturday - the contributions of Pat Lederer, George's wife, were overlooked.

That was egregious. George passed away in 1978, so it's been Pat who served as the foundation for the family for the last 30-plus years and guided her four children and seven grandchildren through life.

My mother, who just turned 82 last month, joined my brother Tom, sister Janet, and me for the ceremony on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, our younger brother Gary, who lives in Phoenix with his wife and three children, was unable to join us due to a major conflict in his schedule. Our three spouses, four of George's seven grandchildren, several members of the extended family, and numerous friends (one of whom traveled from out of the state and another drove over 100 miles) were also in attendance. Needless to say, it was a very special day.

There was only one person who was missing that we all wanted to be there with us. The Hall of Famer himself. George Lederer. My Dad.

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Joey Votto slugged his 34th home run last night as the Cincinnati Reds pummeled Barry Enright and the Arizona Diamondbacks, 7-2. His dinger was overshadowed by the fact that Jay Bruce jacked two homers in his first two trips to the plate after missing a dozen games. Nonetheless, Votto's four bagger was his Major League Baseball-leading 17th HR to the opposite field according to play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman.

I happened to be watching the game at that moment and made a note to check Votto's scatter plot on Hit Tracker, which logs and calculates the trajectory and distance of every home run in Major League Baseball. As it turns out, Greg Rybarczyk's site indicates that Votto has produced 19 homers to the left of straightaway center field (including yesterday's big fly, which isn't part of the following graph).

As shown, Votto has clubbed a couple of home runs just to the left of the 90° mark. My guess is that these bombs (one of which traveled 457 feet, the 24th-longest HR in 2010) were not deemed to be opposite field by MLB. The monster blast was deposited onto the party deck in center field at Great American Park, a first for Brewers' color analyst Bill Shroeder.

After looking at the distribution of Votto's home runs, I began to think about the pitch locations, especially those that were hit to the opposite field. Without the ability to create graphs like our own Dave Allen, I resorted to Joe Lefkowitz's PitchF/X Tool. Interestingly, all but four of Votto's long balls were turned around on pitches in the middle 60% of the strike zone. Yesterday's homer was on the pitch designated as a sinker on the outer 20% of the chart. Gameday described it as an 88-mph sinker.

By the way, Joe's site allows you to screen Votto's home runs for velocity (he has slugged three HR on 95-mph fast balls and two on 78-mph sliders at the other end of the spectrum), horizontal and vertical movements, and release points. If you have a cool boss or time on the weekend, click on the PitchF/X link in the banner at the top and play around with all the variables, including choosing a pitcher, batter, team, stadium, home plate umpire, plate discipline, pitch type, result, batted balls, count, pitch count, velocity, runners on base, and much more. It's a treasure chest full of information and fun.

Combining video with sites such as Hit Tracker and Joe Lefkowitz's PitchF/X Tool (among others) can help turn you into a baseball analyst or perhaps even an amateur scout in no time. Want to contemplate how to position fielders and pitch to Jose Bautista and Albert Pujols, the respective home run leaders in the AL and NL? Check out their scatter plots.

   

The pull hitter on the left is Bautista. The Toronto Blue Jays slugger has yet to hit a home run to the right of center field. In fact, he has only slugged about a half dozen to the middle third of the field. The other 40 or so homers have been launched to left field with more than half of those sailing over the fence between the left fielder and the foul line. Pujols, on the other hand, has tremendous power to center field, as exhibited by the fact that nearly half of his home runs have been hit to the middle third of the field. Interestingly, the three-time MVP has failed to slug a home run to the right third of the field.

Sometimes you just let the picture speak for itself.

Have fun and make sure that you don't miss lunch today.

Note: Jeremy Greenhouse's innovative Batted Ball Location Leaderboards are also valuable tools in this area.

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While strikeouts per pitch hasn't caught on as hoped when I introduced the idea in February 2006, there is no disputing the fact that this metric explains runs better than strikeouts per inning or strikeouts per batter faced.

As detailed in Strikeout Proficiency (Part Two), K/P has the highest correlation in each of the five run measures (ERA, R/G, ERC, FIP, and DIPS). K/BF has the second-highest correlation and K/IP has the lowest correlation. In any other words, K/P > K/BF > K/IP.

To give K/P more utility, I multiply this decimal by 100. Not only do we now get a real number out of this exercise but the standard of measurement is almost exactly the average number of pitches per start during recent years. In an era of pitch counts, it seems more instructive to me to measure starters by the number of K/100 pitches than K/9 IP.

(For context, among those who are currently qualified for the ERA title, the average pitcher has thrown 100 pitches per start and completed 6 1/3 innings. The average number of K/100P is 4.88.)

With the foregoing in mind, let's take a look at this year's leaders. Interestingly, there are 100 pitchers who have averaged at least one inning per team game, which is the minimum to qualify for the ERA title. (The stats were compiled yesterday evening in real time and may not include the entire results for late games.)

As shown, Brandon Morrow is leading the majors with 7.06 K/100P. He is averaging 97 pitches and 6.85 Ks per start. While Morrow leads MLB in K/100P, K/9, and K/BF, the 26-year-old righthander is 13th in strikeouts due to the fact that he is only averaging 5 2/3 innings per start. Aside from Morrow's dominating one-hit, 17-strikeout, complete-game shutout last month vs. Tampa Bay when he was allowed to throw 137 pitches, his starts, innings, and pitch counts have been managed closely by Cito Gaston and the Toronto front office. Along these lines, he was shut down for the season after making his last start on Friday against the New York Yankees. Although the former first round draft pick out of Cal will fall short of the required 162 innings to qualify for the ERA title, it makes little or no difference given that his 4.49 mark currently ranks 36th in the American League (out of 46 pitchers). However, it is worth noting that he has a bigger gap (1.31) between his ERA and FIP (3.18) than any starter in the big leagues.

Francisco Liriano ranks second with 6.87 K/100P. Like Morrow, Liriano's ERA (3.27), while excellent, understates his defense-independent pitching prowess this year as the lefthander tops the majors in FIP at 2.31 due to a strong strikeout rate, a better-than-average walk rate, and a home run rate (0.16 per 9) that is more than twice as low as the closest challenger (Josh Johnson, 0.34). While Liriano's HR/FB of 2.6% is probably unsustainable longer term, his xFIP (3.01), which normalizes the home run/fly ball rate to league average, still places him first in the AL and second in MLB (behind only Roy Halladay, 2.93).

Jon Lester ranks in the top five in the majors in strikeouts, K/100P, K/9, and K/BF. He is tenth in the AL in ERA and fourth in FIP and xFIP. The 26-year-old southpaw has produced three consecutive superb seasons and must now be regarded as one of the top five pitching properties in baseball.

With Stephen Strasburg sidelined through 2011, is there a better 22-year-old (or younger) pitcher than Mat Latos? The San Diego righthander is two months older than Brett Anderson and three months older than Clayton Kershaw, the other contenders for this mythical title. Latos (6.54) and Kershaw (6.39) rank fourth and sixth, respectively, in K/100P. Both starters play for teams in the NL West so they generally face similar competition. Although Latos' home ballpark is more friendly toward pitchers than Kershaw's, the former (.188/.247/.310, 2.36 ERA) has outperformed the latter (.241/.325/.350, 2.86 ERA) on the road this year. In the department of be careful when analyzing (over analyzing?) the effects of home ballparks, please note that Latos has pitched 99.1 IP on the road and just 56.1 IP at home this year. In other words, he has only thrown 36 percent of his innings at Petco Park, which means he hasn't benefited from the 87 park factor as much as one might believe without examining the facts. Oh, and it just so happens that Latos and Kershaw are the scheduled starting pitchers tonight when the Padres host the Dodgers.

At 6.41 K/100P, Jered Weaver is sandwiched between Latos and Kershaw. Weaver ranks among the top five pitchers in the majors in Ks, K/100P, K/9, K/BF, and K/BB. He is 8th in ERA, 6th in FIP, and 5th in xFIP among AL pitchers. The 6-foot-7 righthander also ranks 5th in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and 3rd in Win Probability Added (WPA) in the junior circuit. While the Angels' ace lacks the gaudy win totals and winning percentages of CC Sabathia and David Price (and others), he has clearly been one of the five most effective starting pitchers in the league this season. Weaver can take the next step by pitching deeper into games as he is without a complete game and has only worked more than seven innings three times, primarily due to the fact that he leads the majors in pitches per plate appearance (4.17).

A lot has been written and said about Tim Lincecum's up-and-down 2010 but the fact remains that the two-time Cy Young Award winner is seventh in the majors and third in the NL in K/100P. His fastball velocity and movement have declined this season, yet he is getting more batters to swing at pitches outside the zone than ever before. In the aftermath of a poor August, the 26-year-old righthander beat the Colorado Rockies with a strong performance (8-5-1-1-1-9) on September 1. I would be slow to give up on this extraordinary talent.

Felix Hernandez leads the majors in strikeouts and ranks eighth in K/100P. He deserves to win the AL Cy Young Award as much as anybody, yet may be hurt if voters hold his mediocre win total (11) and W-L % (.524) against him. Both can be easily explained by the fact that Felix has received the lowest run support (3.90) in the AL this season. According to Lee Sinins, Hernandez would be 15-6 if he had received average run support. Sure, Sabathia is 19-5 but he has been supported by an average of 7.59 runs from his Yankees teammates. Similarly, Price (16-6) has received an average of 6.72 runs. Even Clay Buchholz, whose 15-6 record and league-leading 2.25 ERA will draw considerable attention, has been backed by 7.06 runs per nine. The truth of the matter is that Hernandez is 2nd in ERA, 3rd in FIP, 3rd in xFIP, 3rd in WAR, and 1st in WPA. No other pitcher matches those rankings.

Cole Hamels has also pitched much better than his 9-10 W-L record would suggest. He has received the fifth-lowest run support (4.92) in the NL. Teammates Roy Oswalt (3.72) and Roy Halladay (4.68) rank first and fourth, respectively. Meanwhile, the 26-year-old lefthander ranks 4th in the NL in K/100P, 7th in K/9, and 8th in K/BB and xFIP. No team wants to face the Phillies' Big Three in the postseason.

Yovani Gallardo ranks 10th in the majors in K/100P. While the Milwaukee ace can frustrate writers, analysts, and fans at times, it is hard to argue against the following NL rankings: 1st in K/9, 4th in FIP, and 6th in xFIP and HR/9. While Gallardo needs to improve his control to reach his potential, he has been victimized by the fourth-highest BABIP (.337) and the eighth-lowest LOB% (69.2%). I mean, let's give the guy a break — he's only 24 years old.

There are a number of other pitchers having superb seasons, including the next four on the list: Adam Wainwright, Cliff Lee, and the previously mentioned Roy Halladay and Josh Johnson. Along with Ubaldo Jimenez, Wainwright, Halladay, and Johnson are probably the leading favorites to win the NL Cy Young Award in 2010. An argument could be made for all four at this point. Although Lee and Halladay aren't thought of as strikeout types, both have posted strong K/100P marks in part due to their pitch-count efficiency. Lee is 3rd among qualified MLB pitchers in P/PA (3.49) and 2nd in P/IP (14.0), while Halladay ranks 6th (3.58) and 3rd (14.2) in these two measures.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Strasburg (92 Ks and 1,073 pitches) averaged 8.57 K/100 pitches in 12 starts spread over 68 innings. That, my friends, is 1.51 K/100P more than the leader among all qualified pitchers!

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Let me preface today's post by stating that I love a good baseball story as much as the next fan. But I've developed a pretty good b.s. detector over the past 50-plus years. I can usually separate the fiction from the facts. My antennae tend to go up when I hear a former player recall an incident from long ago.

On Friday, August 27, the Cincinnati Reds were hosting the Chicago Cubs. I was watching the game via MLB Extra Innings. I'm not sure why I even had the game on other than to keep tallies on Joey Votto, who is on my fantasy baseball team.

With the Reds beating the Cubs 6-1 in the bottom of the sixth and Thomas Diamond facing Ramon Hernandez, play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman asks color analyst Jeff Brantley a question out of the blue. "Cowboy, do you remember the first home you gave up as a major league pitcher? Do you remember who hit it? Do you remember the year?"

Brantley laughs, "Oh, yeah," but doesn't answer quickly. Brennaman interjects, "Let's start off with the easy part: the year." Brantley says, "The year was '88." Brennaman responds, "You're one for one." He offers Brantley a hint by saying "the guy at the time was playing for the Montreal Expos." Brantley guesses Delino DeShields. Brennaman gives him a hard time and basically hands him the answer by telling Brantley it was a slugging first baseman. Brantley asks, "Andres Galarraga?" Brennaman then chimes in, "You got it."

That discussion was all fine and dandy. No reason to question the truth here. I figured Brennaman or a staff member looked up that piece of trivia before the game. The good stuff immediately followed when Brantley proceeded to spin a tale about another home run he allowed.

Brantley: The one that I remember the most was the home run by Eddie Murray and the reason I remember it the most is because I had thrown him a split-finger on the first pitch and he swung and missed it by a mile. I mean, he looked like a clown, and I thought this guy was, like, really good.

Brennaman: (Laughing) He was pretty good.

Brantley: Yeah, and I'm thinking to myself, 'This guy just missed my pitch by a mile.' Terry Kennedy, our catcher at the time, came to the mound and he said, 'Don't throw him that pitch again.' I said, 'Why not?' I said, 'He just missed it by a mile.' He goes, 'He's going to be sitting on it.' So I threw him a bunch of fastballs and he kept fouling them off, fouling them off. Kennedy kept calling fastball. I was like, 'Forget that. This guy's not gonna hit another split-finger.' I threw it and he hit it in the upper deck in Candlestick. The upper deck.

Brennaman: That's a long home run.

Brantley: Oh my gosh.

Brennaman: Was that in '88 as well?

Brantley: No, that was in '89. I learned that one. But I learned a very valuable lesson that day.

Here is the two-and-a-half-minute clip of the foregoing conversation:

As it turns out, the valuable lesson Brantley learned that day wasn't about telling the truth. Instead, I presume he never threw Murray another split-finger again. Maybe. You see, while Brantley gave up a home run to Murray at Candlestick Park in 1989, he didn't get Steady Eddie to look like a clown by swinging and missing a split finger. Nor did Terry Kennedy come out to the mound and tell Brantley not to throw that pitch again.

How do I know, you ask? Well, thanks to Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference.com, we can look up exactly what took place on that Saturday afternoon. A fact-finding mission moments after Brantley finished his tall tale detailed the real story. It's not quite as interesting as the one Brantley told.

Brantley indeed got ahead in the count. However, the first pitch wasn't a split-finger that Murray missed by a mile. Rather, it was a *called* strike. It's pretty tough to look like a clown when you don't even swing at the pitch. But, hey, it makes for a nice story 21 years later.

Murray fouled off the second pitch. Score one for Brantley. That said, Brantley didn't throw him "a bunch of fastballs," nor did Murray keep "fouling them off, fouling them off." Heck, Brantley only threw him three pitches. A called strike, a foul ball, and the offering that Murray presumably hit into the upper deck. Murray did slug a home run. That's not being questioned. And, for all I know, he may have hit one of Brantley's split-finger pitches. And it may have landed in the upper deck. Who knows at this point?

Just a matter of not recounting the type and number of pitches? Well, not really. Terry Kennedy didn't even play that day. Kirt Manwaring started and played the entire game at catcher. As a result, there is no way that Kennedy "came out to the mound" and told Brantley not to throw that split-finger again. If the truth be told, it was this bit of information that led me to question what happened. Look, why in the world would Kennedy (or Manwaring, for that matter) take a trip to the mound to tell his pitcher not to throw the same pitch that the batter had just swung and missed by a mile while looking like a clown? It doesn't make sense. In other words, it didn't pass the "smell test."

I don't know if anybody else caught this gaffe. More than anything, it reminds me just how valuable it is to access old box scores, as well as play-by-play and pitch summaries. Thank you, Retrosheet. Thank you, Baseball-Reference.com.

And thank you, Jeff Brantley. Nothing like some good ol' Cowboy folklore.

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I went to the Reds-Dodgers game yesterday afternoon and watched Joey Votto walk and score a run in the first inning, slug a solo home run in the sixth, and line a two-run single in the ninth as Cincinnati beat Los Angeles 5-2 to stay atop the NL Central by 3 1/2 games.

Votto is leading the National League in batting average (.323), on-base percentage (.422), and slugging average (.592). He also ranks third in HR (29) and second in RBI (86) and has an outside chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1967 when Carl Yastrzemski turned the trick for the Boston Red Sox.

For the most part, only Albert Pujols, who is in the hunt for the Triple Crown himself, stands in Votto's way. Pujols ranks first in the NL in HR (32) and RBI (89), fourth in AVG (.316), and second in OBP (.411) and SLG (.592). He has never led the league in RBI despite reaching 120 or more in six of his nine campaigns and never having fewer than 103. Albert has ranked first in HR, AVG, and OBP once each and SLG three times.

Over in the American League, Miguel Cabrera is second in AVG (.341), and first in OBP (.435) and SLG (.645). He also leads the league in RBI (102) and is in second place in HR (31). While it would appear that Miggy could win the AL Triple Crown, it must be noted that he trails Jose Bautista by seven home runs. If the latter returns to earth or gets hurt or traded to an NL club, then perhaps Cabrera would have a shot at winning the Triple Crown. Otherwise, he might have to settle with capturing the Triple Crown of rate stats. Joe Mauer (.365/.444/.587) accomplished the latter feat last year, joining Barry Bonds (2002 and 2004) and Todd Helton (2000) as the fourth player to do so in the past ten years.

While it is unlikely that either Votto or Pujols *and* Cabrera will win the Triple Crown this year, there is a reasonable chance that one or two of these first basemen could win the Triple Crown of rate stats. If either Votto, Pujols, or Cabrera had a monster finish and won the traditional and rate stats Triple Crown, he would become only the ninth player to produce this double since 1900. (Tip O'Neill — no, not this one — was the first in 1887.)

Ted Williams and Rogers Hornsby — perhaps the greatest left- and right-handed hitters, respectively, in the history of the game — won the traditional and rate stats Triple Crown in the same season twice each.

Only three Triple Crown winners failed to lead their leagues in OBP or SLG. As it turns out, the culprit was OBP every time. In 1956, Mickey Mantle had the misfortune of playing in the same league at the same time as Williams and fell short in OBP (.464 to .479). In 1937, Joe Medwick finished fourth in OBP, trailing leader Dolph Camilli (.446), Johnny Mize (.427), and Gabby Hartnett (.424). In 1933, Jimmie Foxx was edged in OBP by Mickey Cochrane (.459). (In 1878, Paul Hines led the NL in AVG, HR, RBI, and SLG while placing fifth in OBP.)

While all the hitters who won the traditional and rate stats Triple Crown in the same season are in the Hall of Fame, only three were named Most Valuable Player in that year: Yaz, Robby, and Hornsby (1925). Williams lost the MVP to Joe DiMaggio in 1947 and Joe Gordon in 1942. Gehrig succumbed to Cochrane in 1934 and Klein to Carl Hubbell in 1933. There was no NL MVP in 1922 and no award winners in 1909 and 1901. Mantle, Medwick, and Foxx, the other three Triple Crown winners, all won their league MVPs.

Only Yastrzemski, Robinson, and Mantle won Triple Crowns and played for a pennant-winning team. All three were named MVPs that season.

Meanwhile, Votto or Pujols could become the first NL Triple Crown winner since Medwick in 1937. As noted above, Cabrera could become the first AL Triple Crown winner since Yaz in 1967. Votto or Pujols could win the Triple Crown on a team that just might win the NLCS. If so, history would suggest that whoever pulls it off would be a lock to win the NL MVP this year. Cabrera, on the other hand, will be fighting history, as well as a number of other worthy candidates, including Robinson Cano and Josh Hamilton, both of whom are enjoying career years and playing for division-leading teams.

Note: Rob Neyer points out that Omar Infante could pose a problem for Votto (or Pujols) in batting average. It is my belief that Infante will cool down the stretch owing to a combination of reverting toward his career average, playing every day, and the toll of the long season for a utility player who hasn't appeared in 100 games in a single season since 2005. Nonetheless, it adds an interesting wrinkle to the NL Triple Crown this year.

Update: Dan Szymborski of The Baseball Think Factory quantifies the likelihood of Votto, Pujols, and Cabrera winning the Triple Crown with Albert given a 16.7% chance, Miggy 1.8%, and Joey 0.8%. Insider subscription required. I might be inclined to take the better than 100:1 odds on Votto.

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Aside from their difference in positions, the careers of Chipper Jones and Jeff Bagwell have been almost identical. The National League rivals each won a Most Valuable Player Award and produced statistics that are almost indistinguishable from one another.

While Bagwell and Frank Thomas may have been separated at birth — both players were born on the same day (May 27, 1968), played first base, arrived in the majors within a year, won the MVP Award in 1994 (Bags in the NL, the Big Hurt in the AL), and produced career totals that were more alike than not — the similarities between Bags and Chipper are nearly as astonishing.

Jones and Bagwell have both been in the news recently. Chipper underwent surgery for a torn ACL this past week, and Bags was named the hitting coach for the Houston Astros last month. The offseason should be an interesting time for these superstars. Speculation will surround whether Jones can fully recover from his knee injury and return in time for the 2011 season, while Bagwell will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at how closely Jones' and Bagwell's career counting and rate stats line up:

It's pretty difficult to separate the two, no? I don't think you can really make a strong case for one and not the other based on the counting or rate stats. Given that Jones has played in 111 more games with 223 additional plate appearances, perhaps we can agree that Bagwell edges Jones by the slimmest of margins on the offensive side of the ledger by virtue of his .003 and .004 advantages in OBP and SLG, respectively, as well as his favorable ballpark-adjusted OPS (aka OPS+).

Bagwell was actually a better defensive player at his position (1B) than Jones was at his (3B). However, Jones played the more difficult corner infield spot and the difference in positional scarcity is estimated to be worth about 140 runs according to Sean Smith of BaseballProjection.com, whose work on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has become the industry standard.

Based on WAR — which factors hitting, baserunning, fielding, and position — the difference between Bagwell (79.9) and Jones (80.0) works out to 0.1 win. One-tenth of one win over the course of their 15- and 16-year careers. They rank 56th and 57th all time in WAR among all players and 36th and 37th among non-pitchers.

As far as peak value goes, the nod goes to Bagwell, who produced three seasons (8.9, 8.3, and 8.1) that exceeded Jones' best (7.9). On the other hand, Bagwell had two seasons that were worse than anything Jones has put up to date.*

* I'm skeptical of the -19 Total Zone assigned to Bagwell's fielding in 2003, which is the primary reason for his abnormally low 1.7 WAR total that season. His basic stats (games, innings, putouts, assists, errors, double plays) are not all that different than 2002 and 2004. Moreover, his Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games (UZR/150) was 4.1, which is almost exactly halfway between his 2002 (3.1) and 2004 (5.0) marks. The net effect of this potential glitch is that it reduces Bagwell's value by about two wins in 2003 and, by extension, two wins for his career.

The bottom line is that Jones and Bagwell are two of the greatest players of the past two decades. One can make a case that both rank among the top five players at their position since 1900 (with only Mike Schmidt, Eddie Mathews, George Brett, and Wade Boggs possibly exceeding Jones at 3B and Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Albert Pujols outdoing Bagwell at 1B). As a result, Jones and Bagwell should be slam-dunk, first-ballot Hall of Famers. Here's hoping that Bagwell gets his due when the results are announced in January and Jones follows up five years after his retirement, which may or may not be in 2010.

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The 24th annual Area Code Games were held at Blair Field during the past week. The summer showcase has been one of the premier national events for high school baseball prospects since it was moved to Long Beach in 1994. The wood bat tournament consists of eight teams and over 200 players invited from around the country, the vast majority of which will be offered major college scholarships and/or drafted in June 2011 or 2012 as the case may be for about 10 percent of the participants.

Unlike many showcase events, the players don't pay to play. Instead, several hundred professional scouts, scores of college coaches, and dozens of agents are charged a fee for attending these games. One of the scouts in attendance (Scott Boras) is also the father of a prospect (Trent Boras, who preps at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, CA). There was an even more famous father-son combo with Wayne and Trevor Gretzky (Oaks Christian, Westlake Village, CA) prominent in the stands and on the field, respectively.

In addition, there were six sons of former MLB players and a brother of an active big-league pitcher: Alec Bankhead (Greensboro, NC), son of Scott; Brandon Bonilla (IMG Academy, Bradenton, FL), son of Bobby; Shawon Dunston Jr. (Valley Christian, San Jose, CA), son of the father by the same name; Brett Geren (San Ramon Valley, Danville, CA), son of current A’s manager Bob; C.J. McElroy (Clear Creek, League City, TX), son of Chuck; Drew Stankiewicz (Gilbert, AZ), son of Andy; and Joe Ross (Bishop O'Dowd, Oakland, CA), brother of A's pitcher Tyson.

The tournament featured eight teams: Milwaukee Brewers (California) sported Blue and White entries, Texas Rangers (Texas and Louisiana), Chicago White Sox (Midwest), Washington Nationals (Pacific Northwest), Oakland Athletics (Southeast), New York Yankees (Northeast), and the Cincinnati Reds (Southwest and Rocky Mountains). As noted, the geography of the big-league clubs and their Area Code teams don't necessarily match. Nonetheless, the players wore the colors of their MLB teams with "Area Code" in script across the front of all jerseys.

Each team played five games over six days (Thursday, August 5-Tuesday, August 10) with most contests scheduled for seven innings and a few for nine.

Day One (Thursday, August 5)

In the opening game on Thursday, Henry Owens (Edison, Huntington Beach, CA) of the Milwaukee Brewers (Blue) pitched the first two innings and struck out six of the seven batters faced. He walked the other one. The lefthander threw 31 pitches, 21 for strikes. He was throwing 87-89 mph. At 6-foot-7 and 195 pounds (with size 17 shoes), his fastball plays up a bit due to the fact that he throws on a downhill plane. Moreover, his body offers lots of projection although a scout I spoke to noted that Owens' velocity is down a couple of ticks from his sophomore season in 2009. Nonetheless, he may be the most highly regarded prep pitcher in the country and could be drafted in the top half of the first round next June.

A member of the USA Baseball 18U National Team, Owens has had a busy summer. He was 3-0 with a 2.33 ERA in five appearances and four starts, whiffing 31 batters and walking nine in 19.1 innings. He was also named to the Aflac All American Baseball Classic, which will be held on Sunday, August 15 at 5 p.m. PDT in PETCO Park. The game will feature the nation’s top 38 high school players heading into their senior year.

Baseball America offered the following report in its Aflac Classic player capsules:

Scouts love Owens' frame, which has plenty of room to fill out, and he adds to the package by showing a good arsenal—and all from the left side. His fastball sits 88-91 mph from the left side, and he also works with a sharp, two-plane curveball and mixes in a changeup.

Area Code and Aflac teammates Travis Harrison (Tustin, CA) and Christian Lopes (Edison, Huntington Beach, CA) each went 2-for-4. Harrison is a 6-2, 220-pound outfielder with big-time power, as evidenced by the 504-foot home run he jacked at the Power Showcase in January, breaking Bryce Harper's record from the previous year by two feet. Lopes, a 6-0, 185-pound shortstop, has been well known in prospect circles for several years. He and his younger brother Timmy Lopes (class of 2012) transferred from Valencia to Edison last January, joining Owens and Eric Snyder, who has committed to UCLA. All four players are on the same team in the Area Code Games, too. Their high school club promises to be one of the best in the nation next year.

In the second game, Owens' 18U teammate Derek “Bubba” Starling (Edgerton, Gardner, KN) led the Chicago White Sox to a victory, pitching two innings (2-1-1-1-1-2) and knocking in the first run with a ground-rule double that the left fielder lost in the sun and bounced near the warning track and over the outfield wall that measures 348 feet down the lines, 387 to the power alleys, and 400 to center. His fastball sat in the high 80s and touched 90. The righthander has reportedly thrown in the low 90s but hasn't pitched much this summer. He hit .339/.474/.532 with three HR and 16 BB and 12 SO in 78 PA and tossed 4.1 scoreless innings with 7 SO and only 1 BB for Team USA last month. The tall and lanky Starling (6-5, 195) is an outstanding two-sport athlete who has verbally committed to play baseball and quarterback at Nebraska. The five-tool player ran a 6.56 in the 60-yard dash, tied for the fifth-fastest time in the SPARQ testing on the first day of the Area Code Games. I like the Matt Holliday (who was also one of the top high school QB in the country) comp that New York Yankees Director of Scouting Damon Oppenheimer made to ESPN Rise, a part owner and sponsor of the event.

White Sox center fielder Charles Tilson (New Trier, Winnetka, IL) showed off his athleticism on Thursday by running the fourth-fastest 60 (6.54) and stealing three bases that evening. On Saturday, a scout sitting in my row clocked the lefthanded-hitting center fielder at 3.98 while an area supervisor in front of me had him at 4.0 exactly on an infield single that didn't even draw a throw. So as not to be labeled a one-trick pony, Tilson opened Sunday's game by slugging the first home run of the tournament. It was an impressive blast to right field into a slight breeze coming off the ocean. He singled and stole two more bases later in the game and threw out a runner at third to top it all off.

Teammate Johnny Eierman (Warsaw, MO) is another speedster who had the second-fastest time in the 60 at 6.41. The 6-foot-1 shortstop and quarterback is coming off a junior year in which he was an all-state selection in baseball and football. The LSU commit slugged three home runs during batting practice on Thursday but struck out in five of six plate appearances after going 2-for-3 with a triple in the first game. While Eierman doesn't lack for load or bat speed, he may need to alter his swing plane in order to make more contact at the next level.

Nicholas Burdi (Downers Grove, IL) threw three innings in relief, striking out five without allowing a walk. The 6-5, 215-pound righthander was dialing his fastball up to 90-91 while flashing a hard slider at 84-85 and a changeup with good arm action at 81-82.

Lefty Cody Kukuk (Lawrence, KS) and righty Michael Fulmer (Deer Creek, Edmond, OK) both touched 90 on the radar guns in the later innings.

The opposing starting pitcher for the Washington Nationals, Dylan Davis (Redmond, WA), threw 92-94 in his only inning of work. His heater was the fastest of the evening. It appeared as if he only threw one other pitch, a short slider that Baseball America tabs at 83-84. The smallish righthander, generously listed at 6-0, 200 pounds, gave up two runs (one earned) on Thursday but bounced back to toss two scoreless innings on Sunday. An Aflac selection, Davis has committed to Oregon State.

Cole Wiper (Newport, Bellevue, WA) topped out at 91 with his fastball, 83-85 with what a scout told me was a cutter, and a 78 mph curve he left up in the zone that was pulled for a triple down the right-field line. He has thrown three innings overall, struggling with his control on Sunday when he walked three of the seven batters faced.

Porter Clayton (Bonneville, Idaho Falls, ID), a southpaw with a pronounced leg kick, struck out three batters around a hit and walk in his only inning of work. He was 88-89 with a good breaking ball. Kevin Moriarty (Shorewood, WA) K'd five out of six batters, showing excellent command of an 84-87 mph fastball and a slow curve.

Spencer O'Neil (Southridge, Kennewick, WA) stood out in the pre-game infield, displaying a strong, accurate arm in right field with all four throws to third base and home arriving on a clothes line with no hops. However, O'Neil, one of three returning players from the 2009 Area Code Games, has taken the collar at the plate, going 0-for-10 in the tournament.

Day Two (Friday, August 6)

Jordan Ramsey (North Davidson, Lexington, NC), Chris McCue (Ardrey Kell, Charlotte, NC), and John Hayman (Ware County, Waycross, GA) of the Oakland Athletics threw a combined, seven-inning shutout over Washington, which was forced to play the last game the previous evening and the first contest the following morning. McCue, an undersized righthander who has committed to North Carolina, had the most impressive arsenal of the trio, with an 89-92 mph fastball and a solid-average curveball and changeup.

Alex Blandino (St. Francis, Mountain View, CA) went 3-for-3 in the opener but competed for playing time throughout the tournament with several middle infielders on Oakland despite a solid swing that produced six hits in 10 trips to the plate.

Washington's Tyler Gonzales (Madison, San Antonio, TX), class of 2012, struck out the side in his lone inning of work. Teammate Dylan LaVelle (Lake Stevens, WA), another junior-to-be, hammered a triple that one-hopped the wall in center field to lead off the game for the Nats. Although LaVelle made a couple of errors at shortstop during the tournament, he was involved in three double plays and appears to have the glove, footwork, and arm to handle the position. His keystone partner, Erik Forgione (W.F. West, Chehalis, WA), was equally adept defensively, making at least one highlight reel play at second. He also doubled to right center on Saturday, one of the few hard hit balls that day.

Michael Conforto (Redmond, WA), who is playing in his second Area Code Games, stroked two hits. A lefthanded-hitting right fielder, Conforto has a powerful swing and a strong arm. Before knowing that TrackMan had measured his max exit speed at a tournament-best 105, I had written down "plus bat speed" next to his name on my roster. Keep an eye on this 6-0, 200-pounder with good bloodlines. His mother won two gold medals in synchronized swimming in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and added a silver in the 1988 Games in Seoul, while his father played linebacker at Penn State for Coach Paterno in the 1970s.

In the game between the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, Bryan Brickhouse (Woodlands, TX), a 6-2, 190-pound righthander, was throwing 92-94 mph gas in the first inning, striking out the side around one walk. He allowed another free pass in the second as well as a single and triple off the bat of Rio Ruiz (Bishop Amat, La Puente, CA), a third baseman and pitcher from the class of 2012, who knocked in two runs and closed out the final inning for the Yankees, lighting up the radar guns with a low-90s fastball.

Fernelys Sanchez (Washington, Bronx, NY), another junior-to-be, ran the best 60 (6.35) on Thursday and stole two bases. Matt Dean (The Colony, TX), an Aflac selection, had a tough time at the plate, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. He was 3-for-17 with no XBH or BB and five SO for the tournament. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound third baseman is a two-sport athlete who has committed to Texas to play baseball but is expected to be a high draft pick next June. Teammate Daniel Mengden (Westside, Houston, TX) will also be at the Aflac game next week.

In the final game of the day, Robert Stephenson (Alhambra, Martinez, CA) led the Brewers White to a 6-1 victory over the Reds. The 6-2, 185-pound righthander struck out six batters without allowing a walk or run in three innings. The Aflac All-American was popping his fastball in the low 90s in one of the more impressive outings of the day. Teammate Billy Flamion (Central Catholic, Modesto, CA) was the offensive star of the game, banging out two hits (including a double) and stealing a base. The 6-1, 195-pound, high-energy outfielder went 5-for-17 for the tournament and his big, powerful swing will be on display next Sunday in the Aflac game.

On the other side of the diamond, Blake Swihart (Cleveland, Rio Rancho, NM), a 6-1, 175-pound switch-hitting catcher, had two hits and drew rave reviews from many talent evaluators for his offensive and defensive prowess. He is another Aflac selection who hit a team-leading .448 AVG (26-for-58) and .845 SLG (6 2B, 1 3B, and 5 HR) for the USA 18U club. He has also committed to play for the Texas Longhorns. Swihart caught Bonilla, a lefthanded pitcher whose line (2-3-3-3-3-4) left a lot to be desired. However, the University of Southern California commit, who works out of the stretch, flashed good stuff with a fastball that sat in the upper 80s and reached 90 as well as a curve that showed some promise. Interestingly, he walked Dunston, a lefthanded-hitting, fleet-footed outfielder, on four pitches. The latter drew four free passes in 19 plate appearances while stealing two bases and scoring five runs, including a jaw dropper from second base on a dropped third strike and throw to first.

Day Three (Saturday, August 7)

With all of the teams having played at least once heading into the weekend, the biggest names were generally covered in the recap of the first two days. Nonetheless, there were new pitchers who stood out and a few hitters who jumped to the forefront such as Aaron Brown (Chatsworth, CA), who went 4-for-4 in the morning game on his way to a tourney-leading eight hits in 15 at-bats. The L/L outfielder-pitcher has excellent bat and foot speed and flashed a strong arm on Monday when he struck out five batters over just two innings. Milwaukee White teammate Tyler Goeddel (St. Francis, Mountain View, CA), a 6-4, 170-pound third baseman, jacked a stand-up triple into the gap in right center, showing both power and speed on the same play. He has also displayed a great approach at the plate, drawing seven walks while striking out just once. Desmond Henry (Centennial, Compton, CA) sparkled in the 60-yard dash on Thursday with the third-fastest time of 6.47 before transferring his athleticism to the baseball field on Saturday with two doubles. He went 5-for-13 with two BB and two SO overall.

Lots of radar guns went up in the second game when Jerrick Suiter (Valparaiso, IN), a 6-3, 210-pound righthander with a smooth delivery, entered the contest in the fifth. He worked two innings on Saturday and came back and tossed two more on Monday. The three-sport star allowed only one hit, one walk, and no runs while punching out seven of the 14 batters faced in his two outings. Suiter coupled an 88-92 mph fastball with a 73-74 plus curveball. Patrick Hope (Broken Arrow, OK), a 6-3, 185-pound righthander, was 90-91 with a 72-73 hammer curve that was without question the best breaking ball I saw all week. Fellow righty teammate Clayton Blackburn (Santa Fe, Edmond, OK) was 89-90 with a sweeping breaking ball.

In the third game, Lucas Giolito (Harvard-Westlake, North Hollywood, CA), class of 2012, just turned 16 in July, yet matched the best fastball of the tournament by consistently hitting 91-93 and touching 94 on at least one occasion according to the scoreboard display facing the press box. (Note: TrackMan registered his average fastball velocity at 95.8, or 3-4 mph faster than the consensus of the dozens of handheld Stalker Sport radar guns employed by scouts. TrackMan may measure the velocity at the pitcher's release point whereas radar guns and PITCHf/x estimate velocity at about 50 feet from home plate. There may be an additional explanation as well, which I would enjoy receiving from any expert in this area. In the meantime, the TrackMan leaders can be viewed here.) Giolito was wild with his entire repetoire of pitches (which included a 76-80 mph slurve and what appeared to be either a hard change or a two-seamer with more than decent arm-side run). With additional experience, the 6-5, 215-pound righthander may be able to improve upon his command, which was lacking on Saturday as evidenced by the 24 balls against 23 strikes and four free passes in only two innings. If so, he projects to go early in the 2012 draft.

Teammate Adam McCreary (Bonita, La Verne, CA) entered the game in the sixth inning and was announced as Henry Owens due to the lefty's handedness, similar number (38 vs. 36) and size (6-8 vs. 6-7). The PA announcer corrected his mistake, noting the "even taller" McCreary, who pitched a scoreless inning by exhibiting a mid-80s fastball, a 78 mph slider, a 72 mph curve, a 75 mph change, and a good pickoff move to first base. The combination of his polish and projection makes him an intriguing prospect.

Three Yankees pitchers combined for 17 strikeouts in the nightcap with Aflac All-Star Tyler Beede (Lawrence Academy, Groton, MA) and Karl Keglovitz (Nazareth, PA) leading the way with six each. John Magliozzi (Dexter, Brookline, MA), another Aflac selection, chipped in with five Ks. The Florida commit worked in the low 90s. Keith Law, whom I chatted with in between games on Saturday, noted that Magliozzi might be more suited for a relief role due to his arm slot. I agree and believe his lack of height (5'11") may also work against him at the professional level although I overheard one scout liken him to Tim Hudson. Beede (3-2-0-0-0-6) exhibited outstanding command of a low-90s fastball and solid secondary pitches. The 6-4, 200-pound righthander has committed to Vanderbilt.

Day Four (Sunday, August 8)

The two early games were low-scoring affairs with Phillip Evans (La Costa Canyon, Carlsbad, CA) the only player to produce two hits in the opener. He plays hard but is not the best-bodied or most toolsy athlete in the tournament. However, he did make an over-the-shoulder catch that turned heads earlier in the week.

Although he gave up two runs, righthander Mathew Troupe (Chaminade, West Hills, CA) fanned seven batters without allowing a walk in three innings. The Oregon State commit, who is now up to 6-1, 185 pounds, consistently pounded the strike zone (41 strikes and 14 balls) and may turn out to be an effective, if unspectacular pitcher.

In the third game, the White Sox's Mason Snyder (Marquette, Ottawa, IL) followed Tilson's aforementioned dinger with a double high off the 348-foot mark on the left-field wall. Dylan Delso (Broken Arrow, OK) went 2-for-2 en route to a 6-for-9 tourney with three BB and no SO. He topped all hitters in the Triple Crown of rate stats, putting up a line of .667/.750/1.000. Kyle Shaw and Ty Hensley (both from Santa Fe, Edmond, OK) touched 90 but generally worked in the mid- to high-80s. Kevin Comer (Seneca, Tabernacle, NJ) of the Yankees was the most impressive pitcher of the game as he whiffed nine in four innings while allowing only one hit, one walk, and one run. The righty's fastball sat at 87-89 and peaked at 90 but it was his secondary pitches that caught my eye, including a 76-78 mph slider with good tilt, a changeup with fade, and a two-seamer with tailing action that he used primarily against LHB.

In the finale, Elliot Richoux (The Woodlands, TX), a lefthanded-hitting first baseman, bombed a double off the top of the wall in right field (although it should be noted that the pitch was an 80-mph "fastball" from someone who will most likely stick at his more natural first base position). McElroy picked up a couple hits en route to a 4-for-7 tourney with two stolen bases. The righthanded lead-off hitter and a bunt single and ran a 4.39 to first base on a broken bat groundout to the second baseman. Nick Williams (Ball, Galveston, TX), a 6-2, 185-pound outfielder, deserves mention for recording the best SPARQ test results on Thursday despite being a member of the 2012 class. Only 16, his baseball skills are still a bit raw but his athleticism coupled with his tall, projectable body suggest he could be one of the top players in the Area Code Games next summer.

Zac Freeman (Lowndes, Valdosta, GA) was, for me, the most impressive player on Oakland's squad. He went 3-for-10 with a double and a triple plus three walks and made an outstanding diving catch going to his left in shallow center field. Disregarding his poor pitching performance on Monday, the only criticism is perhaps an overly aggressive swing that led to six whiffs in 13 plate appearances.

Parker French (Dripping Springs, TX), a big righthander, started for Texas and pitched two shutout innings with four Ks. He was popping the catcher's glove with a 90-93 mph fastball and threw several 76-78 slurves, as well as at least one plus changeup. Hayman was 90-91 but lacked consistent command in his second appearance and Darren Whatley (Bibb County, Centerville, AL) was 88-90 with his four-seamer and generally 85 with his two-seamer.

Day Five (Monday, August 9)

I didn't make it out to Blair Field on Monday in what was the final full-day schedule of the six-day tournament. The primary attraction was the all-California matchup between the Milwaukee Brewers Blue and White teams. Of note, all of the players on the Blue side are from Southern California while the majority of the players on the White are from Northern California. As it turns out, the Blue beat the White, 5-1.

Owens made his second start of the Area Code Games, hurling two hitless, scoreless innings while striking out and walking two. With four innings of no-hit, no-run ball and eight Ks, Owens was probably the star of the showcase event. Assuming good health, the sky is the limit for this special talent.

Aflac All-American Daniel Camarena (Cathedral Catholic, San Diego, CA) knocked in the first run for the Blue with a long double to straightaway center. The 6-2, 200-pound L/L is a two-way threat who has committed to University of San Diego. Baseball America sees him as a "high average, low strikeout, gap-to-gap, line drive hitter." Teammate Austin Hedges (JSerra, San Juan Capistrano, CA), also an Aflac selection, had two hits and was 4-for-10 overall. He is an outstanding defensive catcher with a strong arm that was obvious to anyone paying attention before and during the games. Flamion just missed jacking a home run down the RF line for the White, a blast that TrackMan recorded at 385 feet or what would have been the longest hit of the tournament had it gone fair.

The Brewers White team played back-to-back games, coming off a 10-1 win over the A's before facing their Blue rivals. Dante Flores (St. John Bosco, Bellflower, CA), Blake Grant-Parks (Yuba City, CA), and Kevin Kramer (Turlock, CA) each contributed two hits in the victory. The 5-10, 160-pound Flores (5-for-10 with three 2B, two BB, and only one SO) is a highly skilled SS/2B, a local favorite who is likely to honor his commitment to USC.

Cincinnati's Kavin Keyes (Alta, Sandy, UT), a switch-hitting infielder, led the offense, going 2-for-3 with a double and finishing the tourney with a .500 AVG (7-for-14). Stankiewicz, meanwhile, sparked the defense with two web gems at second base. The switch hitter has committed to Cal State Fullerton. The Nats' Clint Coulter (Union, Camas, WA) and Austin Diemer (Rocklin, CA), a late add to Washington's roster, produced all five of their team's hits in 2-0 victory over the Yankees. Seven pitchers threw one inning each with only Blake Snell (Shorewood, Shoreline, MA) striking out two.

Day Six (Tuesday, August 10)

On the final day of the Area Code Games, the manager of the A's let McCue stretch out his arm by throwing 69 pitches over the first four innings (4-4-1-1-1-4). He led all pitchers with six innings of work.

Cameron Gallagher (Manheim Township, Lancaster, PA), an Aflac All-American catcher, went 2-for-3 with a double, raising his overall average to .273 with three hits in 11 AB. The 6-3, 215-pounder has committed to East Carolina.

Although hope and change has been a popular phrase the past two years, it's really Hope and his curveball. The Chicago righthander threw two scoreless innings, once again using his put-away breaking ball to strike out five batters to give him a total of eight in just four frames. Kukuk, Fulmer, lefty Brett Lilek (Marian Catholic, Chicago Heights, IL), and Shaw followed Hope to the mound, combining to pitch six innings while allowing just one hit two walks, and one run. Lilek struck out the side in the seventh. It was a bit of redemption for the junior-to-be as he allowed three runs (two earned) in his only other outing of the tourney. Eierman was the offensive star, going 3-for-4 and lifting him into the top ten for H, AVG, SLG, and RBI.

In the final game of the tournament, McCreary started for the Milwaukee Blue club and threw two innings but failed to punch out anyone in his two appearances. Giolito gave up five hits, two walks, and seven runs in 1.2 IP, showing once again that he is far from a finished product. Camarena tripled and scored two runs. At the other end of the spectrum, Max Homick (Rancho Bernando, San Diego, CA), projected by Baseball America to go in the first round in 2011 in a mock draft back in March, had a forgettable tournament, failing to get a hit in 11 AB while striking out four times. His highlight was throwing out a runner at home from left field. Keyes and Brett Harrison (Green Valley, Henderson, NV) had two hits each for the victorious Reds. The latter went 5-for-11 with four BB, one HBP, and three SO in 16 PA overall.

The following players were the most notable in my judgment:

Top 5 Hitters

Brandon Morrow of the Toronto Blue Jays is scheduled to face the New York Yankees tonight in the first of a three-game series. The 26-year-old righthander, who is coming off two consecutive victories over the lowly Baltimore Orioles, will find the going more difficult on the road this evening against the team with the best record in the majors. That said, while it is only one game, I wouldn't bet against him.

Although Morrow's back of the baseball card stats (7-6, 4.62 ERA) are rather pedestrian, there are signs that the fifth overall pick in the 2006 draft could be on the verge of becoming one of the elite starters in the game. Call it hyperbole if you'd like but digging deeper into the stats indicates that Morrow has the makings of a top-shelf pitcher. Let me count the ways:

1. Throws gas. Morrow's fastball has averaged 93.7 mph this year, ranking eighth among all qualified starters and ahead of hard throwers such as Francisco Liriano, Mat Latos, CC Sabathia, Jon Lester, Matt Garza, Tommy Hanson, A.J. Burnett, and Max Scherzer.

2. Possesses a wicked slider. He has the 15th-highest run value and the 12th-best per 100 pitches.

3. Exceptional strikeout rate. He leads the majors with a 9.96 strikeouts per nine innings.

4. Stingy home run rate. At 0.64 HR/9, he ranks 27th among 106 qualified starters.

5. Superb advanced metrics. He is 21st in SIERA and tied for 22nd in Fielding Independent Pitching ERA. He also ranks sixth in BP's Stuff, "a rough indicator of the pitcher's overall dominance, based on normalized strikeout rates, walk rates, home run rates, runs allowed, and innings per game." He trails five of the best pitchers in the game: Francisco Liriano, Jered Weaver, Jon Lester, Josh Johnson, and Cliff Lee.

6. Swinging strikes. Morrow (11.0%) is sixth among all qualified starters in the percentage of swinging strikes. Only the aforementioned Liriano (12.6%), Johnson (11.8%), Weaver (11.2%), plus Cole Hamels (11.7%) and Tim Lincecum (11.2%) have induced higher percentages.

So what's holding Morrow back? He has the second-highest BB/9 (4.22), the sixth-highest BABIP (.343), and the 17th-lowest LOB% (68.4%). While the walk rate is clearly his own doing, the BABIP and LOB% may be a combination of poor defense, a lack of bullpen support, and being on the wrong side of the luck factor this season. The good news is that Morrow's propensity of allowing free passes has been diminishing throughout the season. He allowed four or more walks in five of his first ten starts but has only given up a similar number in just one of his last ten outings, a stretch in which he has surrendered two or fewer bases on balls seven times.

With respect to tonight's game, Morrow is 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA in four career starts against New York. He has faced the Yankees twice in the past two months, completing 13 innings while allowing 13 hits, two walks, six runs, and punching out 15 batters.

If you get the chance, you might want to tune in. If nothing else, it will put you one step ahead of Jack Zduriencik, the Seattle GM who traded Morrow last December for Brandon League and Johermyn Chavez. The latter, who was ranked by Baseball America as Toronto's 21st-best prospect, holds the key to the deal for the Mariners as a one-for-one transaction involving the two Brandons would have been highly advantageous in favor of the Blue Jays. Signed as a 16-year old out of Venezuela, Chavez, 21, is hitting .314/.383/.586 at High Desert, a notoriously hitter-friendly ballpark in the California League. A corner outfielder with limited range, Chavez will have to hit his way to the big leagues.

Meanwhile, Toronto doesn't need to wait until tomorrow for its payoff as the now-ready Morrow is only hours away from facing the Yankees once again and a few more supporters from being recognized as one of the better starting pitchers in the league.

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Cliff Lee pitched another great game last night. He has rightfully received a lot of accolades for his pitching prowess this year and was the prize target when the Seattle Mariners were auctioning him off to the highest bidders earlier this month.

Let's face it, Lee is having a pretty good season, no?

Oops, that game log actually belongs to Carl Pavano. Yes, the pitcher no Yankees fan likes. Boston fans adore him because New Yorkers don't, as well as the fact that he brought them Pedro Martinez in a trade with the Montreal Expos in November 1997. I'm sure the Minnesota faithful is appreciative, too. You see, the 34-year-old righthander is 12-6 with a 3.26 ERA this year. After last night's victory, he has now won his last seven decisions, including four complete games and two shutouts.

Pavano leads the American League in shutouts (2) and ranks second in wins (12), complete games (5), BB/9 (1.19), and WHIP (1.01); third in innings (143.2); fifth in K/BB (4.26); 11th in W-L % (.667); and 12th in ERA (3.26).

How is Pavano putting up such heady stats? In a nutshell, there are two major reasons for his success.

1. Pavano ranks first in the AL in O-Swing% (the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone) at 36.1%. The league average is 28.8%.

2. Pavano ranks second in F-Strike% (first pitch strike percentage) at 68.3%. The league average is 58.8%.

The comparison to Lee is appropriate in that the 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner is fourth in O-Swing% (33.7%) and first in F-Strike% (70.2%).

The bottom line is that pitchers who get ahead in the count, widen the strike zone, and get batters to swing at their pitches are usually successful. In addition to Pavano and Lee, there are three pitchers who also rank in the top 10 in MLB in both of these categories: Scott Baker (35.3%, 65.4%), Dan Haren (36.3%, 66.9%), and Phil Hughes (33.6%, 65.7%). Roy Halladay (32.0%, 67.9%) and Ricky Nolasco (32.7%, 64.8%) are among the top 15 in O-Swing% and F-Strike%.

I would take those seven pitchers on my team. Don't be misled by Baker's 5.15 ERA. His Fielding Independent Pitching ERA is 4.00. The difference between his ERA and FIP is 1.15, which is the fourth-highest in the majors. Only Brandon Morrow (1.40), Francisco Liriano (1.36), and Justin Masterson (1.27) have bigger deltas. Unlike Baker (whose success is based on his strong K and BB rates), the latter three are benefiting from their low HR/9 rates with Liriano at a league-leading 0.15 (2 HR in 122 IP).

As it relates to Pavano, his .255 BABIP and 74.4% LOB are significantly better than his career averages of .306 and 69.9%, respectively, which may suggest that he could be prone for reversion to the mean over the balance of the season. However, I am not nearly as pessimistic as ZIPS (Szymborski Projection System), which forecasts Pavano to go 3-5 with a 4.88 ERA from here on out.

With outstanding control and three plus pitches (fastball, slider, and changeup) in terms of run value, Pavano should continue to have his way with hitters, albeit at a pace perhaps closer to his FIP (3.85) or xFIP (3.88) than his ERA (3.26). Working on a one-year deal for $7 million, the 12-year veteran has been a bargain for the Minnesota Twins.

A free agent at the end of the year, don't be surprised if Pavano signs a new contract that pays him more per season than the one he inked with the Yankees (4/$39.95M) in December 2004. Just don't look for him to return to the Big Apple unless, of course, it's to face the Bronx Bombers in the postseason in October.

[Thanks to ESPN for the game log and Fangraphs for the stats and rankings.]

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The Home Run Derby is a made-for-TV event, one that can be enjoyed from your couch at home as much or more than almost any seat in the stadium. Nonetheless, when you get the opportunity to take two out-of-town nephews to your home ballpark to witness the festivities in person, you jump at the chance. After all, life is about relationships and shared experiences create more memories than flying solo at home.

My older brother and I took our younger brother's sons (Casey and Troy) to the Home Run Derby on Monday. Forty years ago, Tom's high school baseball team won the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section 4-A (highest division) championship at what was then known as Anaheim Stadium. A lefthander, Tom (far left) was the winning pitcher in the final game. He was also First Team All-CIF with a 10-0 record and an ERA of 1.53. For perspective, Fred Lynn (El Monte High School) was on the second team. In the preliminary game that same evening, George Brett and Scott McGregor of El Segundo HS lost to Lompoc 8-5.

  

  

I snapped a photo of David Ortiz (bottom right) slamming one of his 32 home runs. Note the ball leaving the bat. Not bad on a less than high-speed camera without much of a telephoto lens from the field boxes well down the left-field line. Big Papi beat Hanley Ramirez, 11-5, in the final round. In his fourth appearance in the derby, Ortiz jacked the third-most number of homers in the event's history, trailing only Bobby Abreu (41 in 2005) and Josh Hamilton (35, 2008). Unfortunately, nobody "Hit It Here" (bottom left), a sign placed more than 500 feet from home plate, and won $1,000,000.

My favorite photo of the evening was a rather simple one but it captured the imaginations of a 15-year-old boy watching the flight of a long home run. Accompanied by their parents, Troy and Casey returned to Angel Stadium for the All-Star Game the following evening and Heath Bell tossed the latter a ball during batting practice.

Casey, 10, threw out the first ball at a Cubs-Padres spring training game in March. He made the PONY League (Mustang Division) All-Star Team in Phoenix.

Photographs and memories.

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I spent the weekend before the All-Star Game attending two baseball games. On Saturday, Jon Weisman hosted Dave Cameron, his brother Jeremy, Bryan Smith, and me at Dodger Stadium for the Dodgers-Cubs game. On Sunday, my son Joe and I met up with Dave and Bryan at the All-Star Futures Game at Angel Stadium. We skipped the All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game yesterday evening, choosing to eat dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine, one of many restaurants at the Shops at Anaheim GardenWalk. All of us enjoyed our fish but there was a Trout that made an even greater impression earlier in the day.

The United States beat the World team, 9-1, in the 12th annual Futures Game. It was the most lopsided score on record, outdoing the World's 7-0 whitewashing in the inaugural game in Boston in 1999. The contest was a mismatch from the moment the 25-man rosters, selected by Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, MLB.com, Baseball America, and the 30 clubs, were released late last month. The current format, pitting the U.S. vs. the World, has run its useful course and many, including Bryan, would like to change the competition to the American League vs. the National League.

While Hank Conger (Angels, Salt Lake, Triple-A), a first-round draft pick out of Huntington Beach High School (Orange County, CA) in 2006 who Joe referred to as a switch-hitting Mike Napoli, slugged a three-run home run in the fifth inning to earn Most Valuable Player honors, future teammate Mike Trout stole the show in the eyes of the scouts yesterday afternoon. Trout, who won't turn 19 until next month, was not only the youngest player on the field but the most impressive. The 25th overall pick in the 2009 draft, who put on a display before the game in batting practice when he jacked a ball off the center field wall on his first swing and proceeded to launch several more over the fence, hit the ball hard all four times to the plate, resulting in two infield errors, an infield single, and a double that highlighted his speed and hustle. The slowest fastball he faced was 93 and his line-drive double was on a 98-mph heater thrown by 6-foot-3 righthander Jeurys Familia (Mets, St. Lucie, High Class A).

Trout entered the game in the bottom of the first inning as a pinch runner for über prospect Domonic Brown (Phillies, Lehigh Valley, Triple-A), who reached base on an infield single, advanced to second on one of four hits by Eric Hosmer (Royals, Wilmington, High Class A), and took third on a wild pitch by losing pitcher Simon Castro (Padres, San Antonio, Double-A). Brown (.326/.391/.608 with 19 HR in 330 combined plate appearances at "AA" and "AAA"), who felt tightness in his right hamstring when running down the first-base line and was nearly picked off first and second, left the game for "precautionary" measures and expects to play when minor league action resumes on Thursday.

Interestingly, Brown and Trout were ranked 1 and 2 in Baseball America's Top 25 Midseason Prospects last week.

1. Domonic Brown, of, Phillies (Triple-A Lehigh Valley): The power has come through as the Phillies predicted, as Brown has started to fill out at age 22 and surpassed his career home runs total in his first 65 games at Double-A Reading. Then he went out and hit four in his first 13 games after a promotion to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He ranks 10th in the minors in OPS, and he's doing it with big tools at upper levels. His still-raw defensive skills (his defensive tools are fine) are his only major flaw.

2. Mike Trout, of, Angels (Low Class A Cedar Rapids): Trout hasn't done much wrong. He ranked first in the minors in runs (74), second in batting (.362) and stolen bases (42), was tied for fourth in on-base percentage (.447) and ranks first in scouts' enthusiasm. Trout hasn't committed an error, plays hard and seems to be thriving rather than shrinking from the grind.

Brown (6-5, 200) and Trout (6-1, 217) have different body types. The lanky Brown reminds me of Darryl Strawberry while the thick Trout has drawn comparisons to NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher for his aggressiveness and physicality. Amazingly, Trout has legitimate 80 speed (on the 20-80 scale) and was clocked at 3.9 to first on his infield single, a time that Keith Law tweeted was the "fastest I've ever gotten from a right handed hitter." His plus-plus speed was also evident in center field as he recorded five putouts, including a nice running catch.

I first saw Trout in the 2008 Area Code Games, highlighting his name in yellow in my program. He generated the second highest SPARQ Rating at the event, with a 83.07 (3.64 30-yard dash, 4.47 shuttle, 60-foot power ball toss and 33.5 vertical jump). I was pleased when the Angels selected him in the draft last year as the club was in need of outfielders and athleticism. Although Trout, who was promoted to High Class A Rancho Cucamonga in the California League over the weekend, has not played above Low Class A yet, there has been talk that the teenager could reach the majors next year.

Trout has a big supporter in Angels manager Mike Scioscia:

He's not like one of these real gazelle center fielder types. This guy's a strong kid. He runs hard. He runs heavy, and he can fly. He drives the ball well to right field. He's got the makeup; he's focused. He's just a player with as much upside as any player that has put on the uniform.

Given Torii Hunter's presence in center field, there is no need to rush Trout. However, rest assured that the Angels will call him up to the big leagues when he is ready, perhaps moving Hunter to right field and Bobby Abreu to left field or designated hitter to make room for the youngster if indeed he returns to Angel Stadium sometime next year.

It's just too bad the Angels still don't have Tim Salmon to play alongside Trout.

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No, today's article is not about President Obama or Elena Kagan. Instead, the title is meant to honor two southpaws who made news this week.

1    Jamie Moyer                 506   
2    Robin Roberts               505   
3    Ferguson Jenkins            484   
4    Phil Niekro                 482   
5    Don Sutton                  472   
6    Frank Tanana                448   
7    Warren Spahn                434   
8    Bert Blyleven               430   
9    Steve Carlton               414   
10   Randy Johnson               411

HOMERUNS                        DIFF   PLAYER   LEAGUE   
1    Ferguson Jenkins           -111      484      373   
T2   Pedro Ramos                 -83      315      232   
T2   Catfish Hunter              -83      374      291   
4    Scott Sanderson             -77      297      220   
5    Jose Lima                   -76      267      191   
6    Denny McLain                -75      242      167   
7    Brian Anderson              -74      264      190   
8    Tom Browning                -73      236      163   
9    Eric Milton                 -71      267      196   
10   George Blaeholder           -62      173      111   
...
T36  Jamie Moyer                 -43      506      463   
T36  Jim Deshaies                -43      179      136   
T36  Pedro Astacio               -43      291      248

I traveled to Chicago on Wednesday for business and attended the Angels-Cubs games on Friday and Saturday at Wrigley Field. It was my first trip to the Windy City in five years. I returned home on Sunday and watched the final round of the U.S. Open before celebrating Father's Day dinner with my family.

Here were the highlights of my trip:

Wednesday

News, notes, and stats from around the major leagues while doing my best to avoid the buzzing sound of the vuvuzelas at the World Cup games over the weekend.

      AVG    OBP    SLG     OPS
BC   .316   .379   .645   1.024
AC   .243   .304   .395    .700

This has been and continues to be a big week for sports fans. The French Open. The Memorial Tournament. The Stanley Cup Finals. The NBA Championship. The NCAA Baseball Regionals. The MLB First-Year Player Draft. And the Major League debuts for Stephen Strasburg and Mike Stanton.

The main focus today is on the draft, which starts at 7 p.m. ET. It will be televised live by MLB Network and MLB.com.

Bryce Harper, the 17-year-old catcher who we highlighted two years ago, is expected to be taken by the Washington Nationals with the No. 1 pick. He hit .442/.524/.986 with 29 HR in 254 plate appearances with a wood bat for the College of Southern Nevada this year. Look for the Nats to move Harper's power bat and strong arm to right field where he can advance through the minor league system more rapidly than at catcher. Harper, who was ejected in his final junior college game last week, is lacking in maturity but not talent.

Once Washington pops for Harper, the next question will be the amount of the signing bonus. Harper is advised by Scott Boras, who will try to persuade the Nats ownership into a Strasburg-type bonus. Look for the Nats to shell out at least $10 million but not $15 million despite threats along the way of Harper playing another year at CSN and re-entering the draft in 2011.

The Los Angeles Angels, who have three first-round selections (18th, 29th and 30th overall), possess five of the first 40 picks overall. The Houston Astros (8th and 19th), the Texas Rangers (15th and 22nd), and the Tampa Bay Rays (17th and 31st) also hold multiple first-round choices.

Here are the projections of Baseball America (Jim Callis), ESPN (Keith Law), and Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein). Callis' predictions were updated within the past couple hours while Law's and Goldstein's were made a couple days ago and are subject to last-minute revisions.

We will have more analysis of the draft in the days to come. In the meantime, enjoy the festivities at MLB Network and MLB.com this evening. The draft will continue on Tuesday and conclude Wednesday.

***

Updates

1. Harper was indeed announced as an outfielder. ETA: June 2013 as a 20-year RF along the lines of Jason Heyward and Mike Stanton.

2. Kansas City pulls the first surprise and nabs Christian Colon, a shortstop out of Cal State Fullerton, with the fourth overall pick. Colon (.352/.439/.621 with 16 HR and 32 BB/17 SO) can handle the bat but lacks the range to play shortstop at the highest level. In a game against Long Beach State last month (in which he went 3-for-6 with a HR at Blair Field), I clocked him to first base at 4.64. While it may not have been an all-out sprint to first, I would be surprised if he can get down the line under 4.50. Look for Colon, who broke his leg last summer, to play SS in the minors but his ticket to the big leagues may be as an offensive-oriented second baseman.

3. While I've never seen Delino DeShields Jr. play in person, I'm skeptical that he merits the eighth overall selection of the draft. But nothing Houston does surprises me. Taken as a center fielder, his speed may rank as a legitimate 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale. However, with a below-average arm, DeShields may be better suited for left field or second base. At 5-foot-9 and 188 pounds, it will be interesting to see if he can hit for more power than his father (80 HR in 6652 plate appearances), who was leaner but stood four inches taller.

4. The only way to explain the Hayden Simpson pick is that the Cubs either have insight that nobody else had or are looking to save money with their first-round selection. Simpson (6-0, 175) is a smallish righthander from Southern Arkansas University (Division II). He posted a 13-1 record with a 1.81 ERA while striking out 131 and walking 35 in 99.1 innings. The school's website reported that "Simpson was listed by various sources as expected to be taken anywhere from the second through eighth rounds. None may have been more surprised than Simpson."

“I’m just blown away,” Simpson stated. “I had no idea I’d be picked then. A bunch of friends came over just to watch the draft. I was waiting for tomorrow’s rounds.”

5. The Angels drafted three high school players from Georgia with their first round picks. It will take a lot of money to sign this trio. Kaleb Cowart (3B/RHP, Cook County HS) has signed a letter of intent to play baseball at Florida State. Cam Bedrosian (RHP, East Coweta HS), the son of the 1987 NL Cy Young Award winner, has committed to LSU. Chevez "Chevy" Clarke (CF, Marietta HS) has signed to play at Georgia Tech.

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John Wooden died Friday night of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He would have turned 100 on October 14.

While Wooden is generally recognized as the greatest basketball coach ever, he was much more than a coach. He transcended the sporting world and was nearly as legendary for serving as a role model and teaching his midwestern values as the 10 national championships his UCLA teams won in 12 years (including seven straight from 1967 to 1973). Wooden amassed a record of 885-203 (.813) as a college coach, winning 88 consecutive games and 38 NCAA tournament games in a row.

Wooden is one of only three members elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach and as a player. (The other two are Bill Sharman and Lenny Wilkens.) He went to Purdue, winning All-America honors three times and leading the Boilermakers to the 1932 national championship. Wooden coached at the high school level and at Indiana State before being hired by UCLA in 1948, where he remained until retiring after winning his last championship in 1975.

Although I went to USC, Wooden's influence was so far reaching that I grew up rooting for UCLA during the 1960s and early 1970s. My first college basketball memories were watching Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, and Keith Erickson lead the Bruins to an undefeated season and the school's first NCAA basketball title in 1964. I was hooked and followed Wooden's teams, which included All-Americans Lew Alcindor, Mike Warren, Lucius Allen, Sidney Wicks, Bill Walton, Henry Bibby, Keith Wilkes, and Dave Meyers, closely thereafter.

UCLA only lost 19 games spanning a dozen years from Wooden's first championship in 1964 to his last championship in 1975. These losses were so infrequent that many of them (such as the loss to Houston in the first nationally televised college basketball game in 1968, USC's dramatic upset using a slow-down offense in 1969 at Pauley Pavilion, Notre Dame ending UCLA's 88-game winning streak in 1974, and North Carolina State defeating the Bruins in the semi-finals in 1974) stand out in my mind four decades later. But I'll never forget the big wins, including many net-cutting ceremonies that are indelibly etched in my memory.

Wooden was active in retirement, writing books, giving speeches, and attending as many UCLA home games as possible. Nell, his wife of 53 years, died in 1985. He was a devoted father, grandfather, and husband, writing love letters to his deceased wife right up until the very end. A religious man who read the Bible daily, Wooden didn't smoke, drink, or curse (although he was known to berate referees using words like "dadburn it" or "goodness gracious sakes alive"). He admired his father Joshua, regularly quoting his "two sets of three: (1) never lie, never cheat, never steal and (2) don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses."

Upon graduation from grammar school, his dad gave him the following Seven-Point Creed:

• Be true to yourself.
• Make each day your masterpiece.
• Help others.
• Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
• Make friendship a fine art.
• Build a shelter against a rainy day.
• Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

Wooden later developed his "Pyramid of Success," consisting of philosophical building blocks for winning at basketball and in life. I had the privilege of attending a breakfast featuring Wooden as the keynote speaker at the Pyramid on the campus of Long Beach State University about 15 years ago. Coast Federal Bank, the sponsor of the event, handed out "John Wooden's Pyramid of Success" (shown above), which he generously autographed afterwards. In his mid-80s, Wooden spoke for nearly an hour without the benefit of a TelePrompter or any notes or cards. He explained his Pyramid, shared his wisdom, and recited many poems off the top of his head. The morning was educational, inspirational, and unforgettable.

Coach taught his players fundamentals, teamwork, and sportsmanship. He was more pleased by his players’ success in life than on the basketball court. Almost all of his players graduated, with dozens becoming lawyers, teachers, doctors, or ministers.

Wooden impressed upon the rest many lessons of life, including some of my favorite Wooden maxims (from Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court):

• The best way to improve the team is to improve ourself.
• Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
• Discipline yourself and others won't need to.
• I will get ready and then, perhaps, my chance will come.
• If you don not have the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over?
• The smallest good deed is better than the best intention.
• The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success.
• Time spent getting even would be better spent trying to get ahead.
• It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
• Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.
• Tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember a story.
• Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.
• Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.
• Do not permit what you cannot do to interfere with what you can do.
• Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Character is what you really are; reputation is what you are perceived to be.
• Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned about who gets credit.
• Don't permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
• The time to make friends is before you need them.
• Nothing can give you greater joy than doing something for another.
• Do not mistake activity for achievement.
• You can do more good by being good than any other way.
• Treat all people with dignity and respect.
• Acquire peace of mind by making the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

Oh... and Wooden's favorite sport? Baseball. He coached baseball in college and was offered the job to manage the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960s.

Farewell, Mr. Wooden. You will be missed but never forgotten.

[There are videos and links to numerous articles at ESPN Los Angeles.]

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Happy 80th Birthday to Bob Lillis. My favorite player growing up was signed by Brooklyn in 1951 and played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, and Houston Colt .45s/Astros. He was the expansion team's MVP in its inaugural season in 1962.

Born in Altadena, California, during the first year of the Great Depression, Robert Perry Lillis attended Pasadena High School, Pasadena City College, and the University of Southern California. He was on PCC's national championship team in 1949 and was nominated for the College World Series Legends Team based on his performance for USC in the 1951 tournament. Lillis made his MLB debut with his hometown Dodgers in August 1958 during the club's first year in Los Angeles. He wore jersey No. 30 a year before Maury Wills was called up to the big leagues. Both shortstops were previously buried in the team's minor league system behind future Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese.

Lillis was traded to the Redbirds in 1961 and was drafted by the Colt .45s as the fifth pick in the 1961 expansion draft. He played ten years in the majors and was a scout, coach, or manager of the Astros from 1967-1985 and a bench coach with the San Francisco Giants from 1986-1996.

Even though Lillis hit only .236/.270/.277 with just three home runs in nearly 2,500 plate appearances, a young kid could not have had a better favorite player. He was the friendliest athlete I met, sending me autographed photos with hand-written inscriptions three times.

The first photo that Lillis sent to me was almost 49 years ago to the day when he thanked me for sending him a card on his 31st birthday. I was a month short of my 6th birthday. On the verso, he wrote "Dear Richard, That was a very nice picture you sent me. Thank you for the thoughtful birthday card. Sincerely, Bob Lillis."

Over the years, I lost contact with the player I called "Bobby" but he's always occupied a special place in my heart and the photos have been a treasured part of my collection now for nearly 50 years.

Happy Birthday, Bobby. If you happen to read this, please feel free to contact me via email. I would enjoy hearing from you. Thank you.

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Call them pop-ups, pop flies, or infield flies. While these batted balls are one and the same, they are not outfield fly balls despite getting lumped together by many baseball sites and analysts. Like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect.

Infield fly balls are converted into outs about 99% of the time. In other words, only 1% of all pop-ups become hits. By comparison, roughly 75% of all line drives, 25% of ground balls, and 20% of fly balls result in hits (including home runs). Line drives also have the highest run value, followed by fly balls and ground balls.

If pop-ups are routinely turned into outs with no advancement by base runners, then they should be treated more like strikeouts for the purpose of performance analysis than anything else. Unlike line drives, fly balls and ground balls, pop-ups and strikeouts have no (or negative) run value.

When it comes to breaking out batted balls, I favor Baseball Prospectus over Fangraphs. My preference is not due to the source (BP uses Gameday/MLB Advanced Media and FG uses Baseball Info Solutions) but rather that the former categorizes pop-ups as a separate batted ball event (POP) whereas the latter includes infield fly balls (IFFB) as a subset of fly balls (FB). (You can read Colin Wyers' article, David Appelman's rebuttal, and a thorough discussion at The Book if you are interested in how this data is collected.)

Using BP's custom statistic reports, let's take a look at the four different batted ball types as a percentage of all batted balls for 2009 and 2010.

As shown, pop-ups account for approximately 7%-8% of all batted balls. While this rate is a fraction of the other batted ball events, it is worth knowing because pop flies are almost always converted into outs.

Batted balls represent about 72% of all plate appearances with walks (9%), hit by pitches (1%), and strikeouts (18%) accounting for the balance.

While there is a lot of interesting information in the table above, I would like to focus on POP and SO rates as it seems to me that these "automatic outs" could be combined when analyzing pitchers (and hitters, for that matter). Importantly, inducing infield flies appears to be a repeatable skill, much like strikeouts and ground balls, although perhaps not to the same extent.

As shown, SO and POP total about 23.5% of all plate appearances. All else equal, I believe that pitchers with higher POP rates — particularly as a percentage of non-SO and GB — should be preferred over those with lower rates. If nothing else, it is my hope that such pitchers may gain greater respect from those who overlook them now.

While I want to like SIERA for many of its innovations, I'm not convinced that "pop-ups represent a potential problem for the pitcher in the future."

Pop-up rate was allowed to negatively affect SIERA because it is a symptom of the pitcher throwing the ball that generates an upward trajectory, which could lead to an increase in home runs. A pitcher’s skills are throwing strikes, making hitters miss, and throwing with angles and spins such that the trajectory of the ball is downward when it hits the bat. A popup almost always represents an out, but it also represents a potential problem for the pitcher in the future.

Moving forward, here are the 2009 rankings of all pitchers with 100 or more innings with an above-average SO + POP rates (SO plus POP divided by PA).

Of these pitchers, Jered Weaver (15.5%), Scott Baker (14.8%), Tim Wakefield (14.1%), Johan Santana (14.0%), David Hernandez (13.3%), Clayton Kershaw (12.9%), Micah Owings (11.6%), Rich Harden (11.4%), David Huff (11.1%), and Todd Wellemeyer (11.1%) induced the greatest number of pop-ups as a percentage of batted balls. Weaver (11.2%), Baker (11.0%), Wakefield (10.8%), Santana (10.1%), Hernandez (10.0%), Huff (9.1%), Owings (8.7%), Wellemeyer (8.4%), Jamie Moyer (8.3%), and Jeremy Guthrie (8.0%) produced the most infield flies as a percentage of plate appearances.

Importantly, the rankings of pitchers by SO + POP and POP rates are not meant to identify the most valuable pitchers as neither takes into consideration BB, HBP, or HR rates. However, I wonder if Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) couldn't be improved by combining SO and POP in its formula, which is typically defined as (HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2)/IP plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2) to create an equivalent ERA number.

The formula for FIP would need to be tinkered to account for the effect of POP as simply adding POP to SO wouldn't work. The multipliers or the league-specific factor would need to be changed to equate the newly constructed FIP with ERA.

Here are the top ten leaders for 2010 (among pitchers with 40 or more IP):

Tim Lincecum, Kershaw, Jered Weaver, and Justin Verlander are the only pitchers who ranked in the top ten in 2009 and 2010. Tommy Hanson (14th in 2009 and 5th in 2010), Yovani Gallardo (13th and 8th), and Jonathan Sanchez (12th and 10th) rank in the top 15 both years.

The greatest influence on SO + POP is clearly due to the former, yet the latter exerts value on the margin. The ability to induce pop-ups should not be dismissed when evaluating pitchers. Furthermore, it is my belief that certain pitchers have a knack for allowing fewer home runs as a percentage of outfield fly balls than the league average. Saying a pitcher is "lucky" because he has a lower HR/FB rate than the league average is simplistic, as is resorting to xFIP as a standalone measure (especially when a pitcher has a sufficiently large sample size to evaluate). By the same token, labeling a pitcher with a below-average BABIP "lucky" may not be totally accurate either.

The analytical community has come a long way on batted ball info. Paying more attention to pop-ups would be instructive in my opinion. Digging deeper into pitcher-batter results as they relate to pitch types, pitch sequencing, ball-strike counts, and bases occupied could lead us to solve some of the mysteries previously ascribed to luck and randomness. For example, pitchers with "plus" changeups may induce more than their fair share of pop-ups and lazy fly balls.

More than anything, I hope this article leads to additional discussion and research with respect to analyzing pitchers.

* * *

Update: Tom Tango sent me an email with a link to Tango's Lab: Batted Ball FIP. He pointed me to posts #8 and #9. Leave it to Tangotiger to have developed a formula for batted ball FIP (bbFIP). The formula is as follows:

ERA = 11*[(BB+LD)-(SO+iFB)]/PA + 3*(oFB-GB)/PA + 4.2

Note: the league-specific factor may differ depending on the data source

A line drive is like a walk, an infield fly is like a strikeout, and the gap between an outfly and a groundball is about one-fourth the gap between BB and SO.

In post #16, Tangotiger lists the results by root mean square error (RMSE) of bbFIP (1.05), SIERA (1.05), and FIP (1.11) and concludes "I’d say that bbFIP is a worthy addition here. Not to mention that it’s in the same spirit as FIP (linear and simple coefficients)."

If you have the time and interest, go ahead and read the entire discussion. Brian Cartwright goes into even more detail with numerous tables listing the predictive value of run estimators. As Brian notes, it is important to distinguish between "describing the past vs. predicting the future." I agree. Some skills are more repeatable than others. Guy cautions, "The farther forward you look, the more the skills change/deteriorate." He also warns against "survivor bias" in these studies. Excellent points all.

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OK, class. While finals are still a week or two away for many colleges, we're going to hit you up with a pop quiz.

The stat lines for two active starting pitchers are presented below. Which pitcher would you take? Hint: One pitcher is an "innings eater" and the other is a "franchise player."

While there is no right or wrong answer, the stat lines are virtually indistinguishable in my view. Without more information, I would have a tough time choosing between the two. Feel free to dismiss the W-L records if you'd like. With the foregoing in mind, the main difference is that Pitcher A has thrown over 200 additional innings. Pitcher A also has superior strikeout and home run rates while Pitcher B has lower walk and hit rates.

After you pass your answers to the end of the row, we will reveal the names of the two pitchers. [pause] Thank you for your participation.

Pitcher A is none other than Felix Hernandez. Pitcher B is Jered Weaver.

Are you surprised? Well, you're not the Lone Ranger. I was surprised, too. But perhaps no one is — or should be — as befuddled as Dave Cameron, the co-founder of the U.S.S. Mariner and managing editor of Fangraphs who has labeled Hernandez as a "franchise player" and Weaver as an "innings eater." I like Dave personally and respect his work greatly, but he and I have seen Weaver differently for years.

In fairness to Dave, he actually labeled Weaver "more innings eater than ace" in a Two on Two AL West preview two years ago. He expanded upon his comments in a Baseball Think Factory comments thread last summer (emphasis is mine).

In case anyone is wondering, this misquote comes from an article at Baseball Analysts last year, where I stated Weaver was "more of an innings eater than an ace", which is entirely true. Really, if we're going to talk about the Jered Weaver debate, I think it's pretty obvious that my stance on his abilities is closer to reality than Rich's. He's the exact same guy he's always been, just with varying degrees of luck - he's never been a frontline starter, and he never will be. That doesn't mean he sucks - I even put him in my list of the 50 most valuable trade chips in baseball. He's a solid mid-rotation starter. He's just not more than that, and the only people who thought he was were ones who put way too much stock into the value of BABIP-driven ERA.

Cameron then downgraded Weaver to a "mid-rotation starter" and "innings eater" in a discussion with Patrick Sullivan in our Stakeholders series three months ago.

Look, the purpose of this article is not to make Dave look bad as much as it is to bring clarity to the subject. Either Weaver is not an "innings eater" or Hernandez is not a "franchise player." Or either Weaver and Hernandez are both more innings eaters than aces, both more aces than innings eaters, or perhaps both are more franchise players than not. (Note: I have never called Weaver an innings eater, an ace, or a franchise player. Instead, I started writing about him when he was a junior at Long Beach State and compared his collegiate record to Mark Prior's.)

Cameron is far from the only baseball analyst who has underestimated Weaver. Four years ago, Kevin Goldstein cautioned Baseball Prospectus readers "Don’t Believe The Hype." The hype was directed at me. Goldstein concluded:

In the end, if he hits his ceiling, he's basically his brother.

Did Goldstein mean "ceiling" or "floor?" To wit, older brother Jeff has a career ERA+ of 94 (with a seasonal high and low of 134 and 71, respectively) while younger brother Jered has a career ERA+ of 123 (with a seasonal high and low of 179 and 103).

Importantly, the above table is designed to compare actual performance. One can look at other variables (such as age, velocity, and batted ball info) to make projections.

As it relates to Hernandez and Weaver, Felix (24) is younger than Jered (27). While most would give the edge to Felix, even Cameron believes young starting pitchers "defy conventional growth curves" and notes that the normal career trajectory "heads downward" as opposed to an "arc-shaped career path" for hitters. Let's call the age factor a push.

Hernandez (94-95 mph) throws harder than Weaver (89-90), although the latter can dial it up to the mid-90s on occasion in the early innings. Edge to Felix. Mike Fast has studied the correlation between fastball velocity and run average and concluded that "starting pitchers improve by about one run allowed per nine innings for every gain of 4 mph" (or 0.25 R/9 per 1 mph).

With respect to batted ball types, Hernandez induces more groundballs than Weaver. Over the course of their careers, Felix has generated a GB rate of 57% vs. 33% for Jered. As I and others have noted, "pitchers with above-average GB rates outperform those with below-average GB rates" due to the fact that they tend to give up fewer home runs than their counterparts.

Based on age, velocity, and batted ball info, maybe Hernandez projects as a better pitcher than Weaver. But the reality is that Felix has not outpitched Jered to this point. Or, if he has, the difference between the two has been miniscule.

Interestingly, Hernandez and Weaver squared off last Friday night. While one game does not a season or career make, Felix was knocked out of the game in the fourth inning having allowed five hits, four walks, and eight runs while Jered tossed a no-hitter for 6 2/3 innings and combined with Scot Shields for a shutout.

Rotowire added the following comment on Saturday:

Weaver continued his impressive 2010, allowing just two hits over 7.1 scoreless innings Friday against the Mariners.

Spin: Weaver now sits at 4-1 with a 2.66 ERA. A 47:10 K:BB in 44 innings is also quite good. Weaver is nearing elite starter status.

After Weaver's last outing, ESPN posted the following rankings on his player card:

• Ranks 2nd in AL in W (4)
• Ranks 7th in AL in W% (.800)
• Ranks 6th in AL in IP (44.0)
• Ranks 1st in AL in SO (47)
• Ranks 7th in AL in WHIP (1.05)

The 2010 season is less than a quarter completed. Weaver may regress toward his career stats (and rankings) before the year is out. In the meantime, he is the ace of the Angels' staff and has been one of the best 30 starting pitchers as measured by ERA and FIP over the past two and three calendar years.

No matter how you slice it, Weaver is much more than an innings eater, a mid-rotation starter, or his brother Jeff. Heck, he just may be King Jered.

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To bridge the gap between our stat-based articles, I present to you Wiffleball '79, an entertaining and nostalgic short film directed by Perry Jenkins and Travis Kurtz. The five-minute movie made its YouTube debut yesterday. Travis notified me via email this morning. It's a good one for any baseball fan, especially those who have played wiffleball. You can be one of the first 100 people to watch it. Enjoy.

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Has Alex Gonzalez really hit 10 2B and 8 HR thus far? It looks like the Toronto Blue Jays shortstop is on his way to putting up a season like he did in 1999, 2003, and 2004 with the Marlins or 2007 with the Reds when the native of Venezuela hit at least 27 doubles and 14 home runs. While Gonzalez's OBP stands at a below-average .319, his .617 SLG ranks seventh in the American League. Put it together and Alex has produced an OPS of .935, good for tenth-best in the league. Amazingly, Gonzalez's OPS+ is at 151, despite never producing an OPS+ of 100 in 11 seasons.

How is Gonzalez doing it? He's hitting more flyballs than ever and his HR/FB rate (18.6%) is more than 10 percentage points above his 2002-2010 average. Meanwhile, his LD% (19.0%) is virtually identical to his "career" mark (18.9%).

Gonzalez is seeing far fewer fastballs (46.4%) than at any other point in the pitch type data era (2002 to present). In fact, he has seen fewer fastballs and more sliders than any other hitter in the AL. In the past, Gonzalez has been fed 60% fastballs with the yearly rates ranging from 59-63%.

Why the change? Well, let's take a look at the Fangraphs Pitch Type Values table for a possible answer.

Gonzalez, who is jacking fastballs like never before, ranks third in the league in wFB (runs above average) and second in wFB/C (runs above average per 100 fastballs) while ranking in the bottom 10 in wSL and bottom 30 in wSL/C.

Of note, Gonzalez's plate discipline — as bad as it has been in the past — is worse than ever. His O-Swing% (percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone) of 47.1% ranks second in the AL, behind only Vladimir Guerrero (47.8%). With 5 BB (4.4%) and 28 SO (24.8%) in 113 plate appearances, Gonzalez's BB/SO rate of 0.18 is the fifth-worst in the AL. Alexei Ramirez (0.07), Jack Wilson (0.08), Yuniesky Betancourt (0.09), and Adam Jones (0.12) are the only "hitters" in the junior circuit with an inferior BB/SO rate. Importantly, their OPS's range from .587 to .664.

Interestingly, Gonzalez's F-Strike% (first pitch strike percentage) not only ranks higher than ever before but tops in the league, which suggests pitchers are challenging him from the moment he steps into the batter's box. While I'll defer to the advance scouts to determine whether Gonzalez should be thrown more or fewer fastballs in the future, I believe teams would be better served to make him chase as many pitches as possible.

The bottom line is that Gonzalez has hit like never before in the early going but his ability to control the plate remains as deficient as ever. There is little question that he can — and should — be had.

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A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America who has written extensively on why he has never voted for Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame now believes Andy Pettitte is going to Cooperstown.

That's right, long-time Blyleven dissenter Jon Heyman appears to have endorsed Pettitte's candidacy for the HoF in a Twitter post over the weekend.

i think pettitte's going to cooperstown for his great 1) consistency, 2) durability, 3) octobers, 4) explanation.

Speaking of "consistency," while Heyman is entitled to his opinion on both Blyleven and Pettitte, it would be nice if he could be consistent in his evaluation of these two pitchers. You see, three months ago, Heyman wrote the following (emphasis mine):

I look at numbers, too, and while my numbers may be slightly more simplistic than WHIP, WAR or VORP, I think they tell a story of a pitcher who was extremely good, consistent and durable but not quite Cooperstown-worthy. Blyleven was dominant in a lot of at-bats (thus, the 3,701 strikeouts) and even a lot of games (60 shutouts). But he was never dominant for a decade, a half decade or even a full season.

"...extremely good, consistent and durable but not quite Cooperstown-worthy."

Heyman admits in his own words that Blyleven has two of the four things he loves about Pettitte.

OK, so we know that Blyleven has the "consistency" and "durability" down. What's missing? Ahh... "octobers" and "explanation" (whatever the heck that is).

Let's take a look at those Octobers. Blyleven pitched in an era before the Division Series so let's focus on League Championship Series and World Series. He was 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and 4.50 K/BB ratio covering five different series, eight games, and 47.1 innings pitched. Pettitte is 12-6 with a 3.99 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, and 2.15 K/BB ratio covering 16 different series, 26 games, and 162.1 innings. I know that WHIP thing may be a bit difficult to calculate (hits plus walks divided by innings), but it looks to me like Blyleven gets the vote for quality and Pettitte for quantity.

Alrighty, then the big difference between these two pitchers must come down to Heyman's fourth building block: explanation. Explanation? What the heck is explanation? Seriously. Jon, please explain. You can devote an entire guest column right here at Baseball Analysts to explain what "explanation" means and/or why Pettitte deserves to be enshrined and Blyleven does not. Have at it.

In the meantime, here is a quick and dirty summary of Pettitte's and Blyleven's regular season career:

               ERA+       IP
Pettitte       116       2946
Blyleven       118       4970

Blyleven edges Pettitte in ERA+ while pitching two thousand more innings! That's right, Pettitte would have to pitch about ten more years at a slightly better clip to equal Blyleven's career. Did I mention that Pettitte will be 38 years old in June?

But, hey(man), "it's called the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Numbers." Silly me, I was led to believe that great numbers led to fame but, then again, Eddie Gaedel didn't have have great numbers (although a 1.000 OBP isn't bad) but is certainly famous. Maybe Heyman can take up the "Eddie Gaedel for Hall of Fame" cause. If that's stretching things too far (or if you want to argue that Gaedel is infamous rather than famous), how about Johnny Vander Meer? Don Larsen? Roger Maris? Maury Wills? Fernando Valenzuela? Joe Carter? I'm sure there are many, many other famous players who should be considered for the Hall in Heyman's mind.

Speaking of which, did Heyman vote for Mark McGwire? I mean, he's pretty famous, no? Well, Heyman put McGwire on his "Disqualified List."

Disqualified List (own personal list*)

25. Mark McGwire. Admitted andro use made him into a home run hero before moving into pariah territory. Projected percentage: 28 percent.

That's right, McGwire is disqualified for taking steroids (and admitting to taking them) while taking steroids and admitting to such just may be Pettitte's key to Cooperstown.

Yes, consistency. Heyman's arguments aren't very consistent but, boy, they are sure durable. It must be nice.

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I thought I would share my fantasy baseball team with readers once again. As I noted last year, "our league is one of the longest, continuous fantasy pools in the country. The Lakewood Players League, as it is known, has been in existence, in one form or fashion, for over 30 years."

The LPL is a 16-team, non-keeper league. We draft new teams each year. We do not allow trades or waiver wire pickups. Instead, we allow owners to select 28 players and offer three replacement drafts at each of the quarter poles in the season.

It's a family affair with my brother serving as commissioner and an original team owner, my son and nephew co-owning a franchise, and a cousin and another cousin's husband also sharing a team. A few of the other 12 owners are friends dating back to junior and senior high school in the dark ages of the 1960s and 1970s.

While our fantasy pool is guilty of including a few team-dependent stats, we have made a few rule changes over the years to minimize stolen bases and saves. Unlike most fantasy/rotisserie pools, stolen bases are not one of four or five offensive categories. Instead, we take net stolen bases (defined as SB - 2*CS), multiply that by .5 and add it to walks plus hit by pitches. In other words, we treat (net) stolen bases as "extra" bases, if you will. As a result, you won't find Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford being drafted in the first round of our pool. We have also reduced the value of closers by making saves worth half as much as the other pitching categories (IP, ERA, WHIP, and K minus BB).

I had the good fortune of winning our fantasy pool last year for the seventh time since 1989. I have finished third or better in all but one year since 2001. I am hopeful that I can repeat like I did in 1989 and 1990 or put together a three-peat a la 1995-1997. But the competition is tough with the team to beat owning three of my players from last year (Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, and Tommy Hanson) plus Adam Lind and Brian McCann at the turn in the fourth and fifth rounds.

Here are my draft picks:

1. Ryan Braun: Drafting in the fifth spot, I was pleased to get Braun as I had him ranked as my No. 1 outfielder and No. 3 overall hitter. In less than three full seasons, the 26-year-old slugger has averaged 40 doubles, 7 triples, and 39 home runs (along with 113 runs and 121 RBI) per 162 games. Knock off 10% for minor injuries and rest and it seems reasonable to expect Braun to hit over .300 with at least 35 doubles and 35 home runs and a minimum of 100 runs and 110 RBI. Those stats will work just fine for me.

2. Justin Upton: My decision came down to Upton or Matt Holliday. I went with Upton based on his age and upside. I have him hitting .300 with 30 HR and 90-100 runs and RBI this year. Whether those projected numbers turn out to be better than what Holliday puts up remains to be seen.

3. Ricky Nolasco: I love Nolasco. I had him last year, too. His 5.06 ERA last year masked a 3.35 FIP and his 4.43 K/BB ratio was the fifth-best in baseball. An ace in the making, he commands his 91-92 mph fastball and uses his tight slider and 12-to-6 curve as swing and miss pitches. Is as good a bet as anyone not named Tim Lincecum or Roy Halladay to win the NL Cy Young Award.

4. Joey Votto: He was my seventh-ranked first baseman. The Big 5 were all gone after the first 18 selections and Adrian Gonzalez was taken with the 29th pick. In addition, Mark Reynolds (eligible at 3B and 1B), Kevin Youkilis (also 3B/1B), Justin Morneau, Kendry Morales, Adam Dunn (OF/1B), and Pablo Sandoval (3B/1B) were off the board as well, making Votto an easy choice for me with the 60th overall pick.

5. Gordon Beckham: I liked Beckham here because, as a 2B/3B, he gave me the flexibility to go in either direction later in the draft. Pro rating his rookie stats over 150 games yields 41 2B, 20 HR, 84 R, 92 RBI, and 60 BB. I can live with those numbers at either position.

6. Manny Ramirez: Going into the draft, I had no designs on taking Manny. However, I was amazed that he was still available this late in the draft. Ramirez was the No. 12 pick in 2009 and No. 92 in 2010. That's called value. I mean, is Manny not going to hit .290 with at least 25 HR and 90 RBI, even if he only plays 130-140 games?

7. Jose Reyes: This pick was similar to my previous one in that Reyes was our pool's fourth overall pick last year and 101st this year. Sure, he missed over 100 games in 2009 with a hamstring injury and sat out most of the spring but the latter was due to a a hyperactive thyroid, which seems rather minor to this non-medical expert. Now in his eighth season, Reyes doesn't turn 27 until June.

8. Ryan Dempster: After putting together the nucleus of one of the best offenses in our league, I needed to add a couple starters with my eighth- and ninth-round picks. Dempster was not only the best pitcher on the board but also the most reliable in my judgment. He was 6-4 with a 3.15 ERA and a 4:1 K/BB ratio in 14 GS after returning from the disabled list with a broken toe in late July.

9. Jonathan Sanchez: Everyone knows that Sanchez threw a no-hitter last year, but did you realize that he was 6-4 with a 3.46 ERA and a MLB-best 10.5 K/9 the rest of the way? Like most young pitchers, he needs to become more efficient with his pitch count in order to work deeper into games. The stuff is there. Here's hoping for 180 innings with an improved walk rate.

10. Chipper Jones: Less than a week into the season and I'm already second guessing myself for this pick. But, injury risk or no, has his star fallen so far that he goes from a third rounder to a tenth rounder from one year to the next? Remember, walks are a full category in our league. Chipper had 101 free passes last year and walked more often than he struck out (89). The projection systems have him hitting at least .285 with 20 HR and producing 70-plus R and RBI. No way I can get those numbers at a non-1B or OF position this late in the draft.

11. Colby Rasmus: Now this is a guy I wanted to get. I'm quite sure I had him ranked higher than any of my competitors. A former No. 1 draft pick, top five overall prospect by Baseball America in 2008 and 2009, coming off a fantastic spring (.362/.500/.707 with 5 HR and 16 BB/18 SO), and batting fifth behind Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday gave me confidence to step up on this 23-year-old center fielder. If I'm wrong on Rasmus, it will be due to the fact that he fails to solve LHP (.160/.219/.255 in 115 career plate appearances).

12. Stephen Strasburg: I believe Strasburg is more valuable in fantasy drafts than generally perceived. You park the kid for two months, activate him when he is called up to the majors, and bank his stats for the final four months when he figures to be a top-20 pitcher in any league that counts strikeouts. I'm prepared for the fact that the Nationals will certainly limit his starts, pitch counts, and innings, which means he could be shut down by early- to mid-September. That's fine. I can plug in one of my other starting pitchers in April, May, and late September. But I'll take the best pitching prospect in decades during June, July, August, and early September.

13. Carl Pavano: Not a popular choice among many fellow participants, I took Pavano because his control is valuable in our league as we double count walks via WHIP and SO minus BB. He is an injury risk for sure, but one that I can manage around if necessary.

14. Matt Thornton: While others were paying up for closers, I sat back and drafted the reliever with the fifth-highest SO-BB total last year. The lefty whiffed 29.3% and walked 7.0% of the batters faced. He is basically a "here it is" type, pumping 95-96 mph fastballs 90 percent of the time. The combination of his velocity and location make him virtually unhittable. A good get in my mind.

15. Mat Latos: Great arm plus big ballpark means the potential is there for the youngster to shut down opponents at home this year. Only 22, Latos will be handled carefully by Bud Black and the Padres. He pitched a combined total of 123 innings in the minors and majors in 2009 and will likely be limited to about 150 IP in 2010. I plan on using Latos selectively.

16. Fausto Carmona: Who knows what I'm getting with this pick? Is Carmona the pitcher who placed fourth in the AL Cy Young Award balloting in 2007 or the wild man who posted a 13-19 record with a 5.89 ERA while allowing more walks than strikeouts in 2008 and 2009? His first start last week (6 IP, 1 H, 3 R, 6 BB, 1 SO) suggests he may be a bit of both. If the 26-year-old righthander can throw bowling balls for strikes like he did three years ago, then this pick just may be the steal of the draft.

17. Chris Perez: I was hopeful that Perez would seize the opportunity to serve as Cleveland's closer in Kerry Wood's absence and keep the job all year long. Well, the early returns are mixed. I loved his first two games and loathed his third.

18. Gio Gonzalez: This pick is all about upside. I moved Gonzalez up on my draft board when he was named the A's 5th SP as I was keenly aware of his stuff and witnessed him striking out 10 Angels without allowing a walk in his final start in 2009. Gio drew the Halos in his first assignment on Friday and was 92-93 with one of the biggest yakkers this side of Erik Bedard. He could be Jonathan Sanchez nine rounds cheaper.

19. John Baker: By far, my worst position player. I was going to take Matt Wieters but my son nabbed him in the sixth round four picks in front of me. I clearly preferred Manny, Reyes, Dempster, et al to the remaining catchers so I resigned myself to taking somebody like Baker. I'm not happy about it but am hopeful that he can reproduce his 2009 season and give me a .270 AVG with 25 2B, 10 HR, and 50-60 R and RBI.

20. David Freese: His time may have finally arrived this season. Freese hit well in the minors (.308/.384/.532) and held his own this spring (.293/.372/.453) with surprisingly decent BB (10) and SO (15) totals. The projection systems have him hitting .265-.280 with 12-15 HR. Not bad for a backup third baseman.

21. Matt LaPorta: Although LaPorta has started five out of six games at first base, he may end up in left field once Russell Branyan (herniated disc) returns from the DL. However, it's a crowded situation with three lefthanded hitters (Branyan, Michael Brantley, and Travis Hafner) competing with LaPorta at 1B, LF, and DH, which could reduce him to a platoon player if he doesn't get off to a good start.

22. Luke Gregerson: The San Diego Padres setup man had the seventh-highest SO-BB total among relievers in 2009. He possesses a wicked slider and could become the team's closer if Heath Bell is traded this summer.

23. Cameron Maybin: My fifth outfielder. While the just-turned 23-year-old center fielder is playing in his fourth MLB season, he has yet to accumulate 200 plate appearances in a single year. He can run like the wind and is a star in the making. Hitting in the two hole between Chris Coghlan and Hanley Ramirez won't hurt his numbers.

24. Mike Aviles: It was slim pickings at this point and I still needed a backup SS, 2B, and C. This selection could come back to haunt me as the Royals optioned him to Triple-A Omaha over the weekend to free up a roster spot for Gil Meche. Coming off Tommy John surgery, Aviles won me over with an outstanding rookie season in 2008 (.325/.354/.480) and a huge spring (.471/.517/.725 with 6 BB and 2 SO). Unfortunately, I don't decide who gets to play in Kansas City.

25. Blake DeWitt: He won the second base job in the spring and should put up respectable numbers two years after hitting .264 with 9 HR in just over 400 plate appearances as a 22-year-old rookie. Good sign: DeWitt has walked five times while striking out only once in his first five games.

26. Miguel Olivo: Did you know that Joe Mauer (28) was the only catcher who slugged more home runs than Olivo (23) last year? Olivo ranked 8th in RBI (65) and 13th in R (51). Hey, he's Bengie Molina with a few more strikeouts.

27. Pedro Alvarez: With a 28-man roster, I have the ability to sit on Alvarez while awaiting his likely recall around Memorial Day.

28. Dan Hudson: The White Sox optioned Hudson to Triple-A Charlotte prior to the season. The 23-year-old righthander, who went a combined 14-5 with a 2.32 ERA at four levels in the minors, was named MLB.com's 2009 Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year. He was brought up to the majors in September and pitched six games, posting a 1-1 record with a 3.38 ERA. Hudson should get another shot this year if Freddy Garcia gets hurt or implodes.

Although I like my team, I'm not looking too swift after the first week. I'm in 13th place, lagging in troubles (doubles plus triples), runs, RBI, and innings pitched. The poor showing in the offensive categories is a function of Jones and Reyes missing a combined seven games while the lack of innings is due to not having any starting pitchers going twice last week. I should be able to make up these innings this week as Nolasco, Dempster, Pavano, and Carmona are each scheduled to start twice.

If nothing else, it should be a fun season.

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If Pedro Alvarez and Carlos Santana are still available in your fantasy baseball pool, you might not want to wait much longer to pull the trigger on them. Facing each other, the two highly touted prospects homered in their minor-league debuts and both have already jacked three home runs in only two games.

From CBS Sportsline:

News: Pirates 3B prospect Pedro Alvarez is wasting little time making a huge impact for Triple-A Indianapolis of the International Leauge. In just his second game on Friday, Alvarez hit two homers and drove in five runs. He has already gone deep three times and driven in seven runs. He is also hitting .333.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh's third baseman Andy LaRoche is 1-for-13 with no extra-base hits and four strikeouts. Manager John Russell has placed LaRoche in a tough spot by batting him seventh, one spot in front of the pitcher. He walked three times on Wednesday and has already seen 76 pitches in 17 plate appearances. LaRoche's 4.47 P/PA is tied for 12th in the National League.

Look for Alvarez, the second overall pick in the 2008 draft, to be playing in Pittsburgh no later than June 1 when teams are basically free to call up players and retain them for an additional three years before these so-called "Super Two" prospects become eligible for arbitration. It's possible, however, that Alvarez could force himself on the Pirates sooner if he continues to rake and LaRoche doesn't greatly improve upon his .227/.314/.348 career line.

News: Carlos Santana went 4 for 5 with two home runs and four RBI as the Columbus Clippers (Triple-A) smashed the Indianapolis Indians, 17-4, Thursday night.

Santana performed his magic on his 24th birthday. After two games, he is 6-for-10 with three HR and two doubles. He was the MVP of the Eastern League (Double-A) in 2009 and California League (High-A) in 2008. The only catcher standing between the switch-hitting Santana and the majors is Lou Marson (0-for-8 with 0 BB and 2 SO). A former third baseman, Santana has the arm to work behind the plate. However, he still needs to enhance his receiving and game-calling skills and is unlikely to be rushed to the big leagues despite a bat that could hit in the middle of the Cleveland order right now.

Lastly, for anybody who has been living on Mars, Stephen Strasburg will make his professional debut on Sunday. The No. 1 draft choice in 2010 will start for the Harrisburg Senators, the Washington Nationals' Double-A affiliate. He will face the Altoona Curve (Pittsburgh Pirates). The game will be streamed online via ESPN3 and broadcast on MiLB Gameday Audio at 2 p.m. ET. (Aroldis Chapman will begin his professional career at the same time as Strasburg, starting for Cincinnati's Triple-A Louisville Bats against Detroit's Toledo Mud Hens. This game will also be available via ESPN3.)

Strasburg, who pitched nine innings and allowed two runs while striking out 12 batters and walking one this spring, is expected to throw 85-90 pitches. According to Washington Post writer Dave Sheinin, money will trump talent and performance in determining when Strasburg gets called up by the Nats.

"Beyond just the baseball factors -- even the greatest prospects can benefit from some time in the minors -- the Nationals have a strong financial incentive to hold off on Strasburg's big league debut until at least late May, in order to delay his reaching free agency and arbitration eligibility.

...All they would have to do is keep him in the minors for at least 20 days, which would prevent him from gaining enough service time to qualify for free agency at the end of his sixth season, thus retaining his rights through 2016, instead of 2015. This isn't being cheap. It's being smart. And every team does it."

I recommend reading the article in full as it is an excellent primer on arbitration and free agent eligibility, including the Super Two status I referred to above.

* * *

Update (4/11/10): Strasburg pitched five innings and allowed four hits, two walks, and four runs (one earned) while striking out eight batters. He was credited with the win as Harrisburg beat Altoona 6-4. Strasburg survived a wobbly opening inning, giving up a double, single, and walk after retiring the first two hitters. The righthander retired the side in order in the second and third innings, striking out the final two batters in both frames. He was a victim of poor fielding in the fourth when Altoona scored three unearned runs, then worked a 1-2-3 fifth to finish his assignment for the afternoon.

Overall, the fireballer threw 82 pitches with his fastball sitting at 97-99 through the first three innings and touching 100 a few times (according to the stadium gun as reported by the play-by-play announcer). His 83-mph hammer curve was generally effective and he flashed an 89/90-mph changeup with diving, tailing action that resembled a two-seam fastball. With three "plus to plus-plus" offerings, Strasburg's stuff is unrivaled in both the minors and majors. While money considerations will dictate the timing of Strasburg's MLB debut, his command will determine whether he is just the best pitcher on the Nationals or one of the best hurlers in the National League this year.

While I didn't watch Chapman, his pitching line (4.2-5-1-0-1-9) suggests that he dominated Toledo batters at times. According to an MLB.com article, the Cuban defector "fired 10 pitches that read 99 mph or faster and five that traveled at least 100 mph." Mud Hens outfielder Brennan Boesch struck out twice on 101- and 100-mph heaters.

Louisville manager Rick Sweet said, "No debut compares to that at this level. As soon as the radar gun hit 100, you could hear the buzz in the ballpark."

Toledo manager Larry Parrish, who spent 15 years in the majors, was impressed with the 6-foot-4, 185-pound southpaw's arm strength but noticed mechanical flaws in his delivery. "He wasn't J.R. Richard or Nolan Ryan out there. Today, he walked one. In the big leagues, he would've walked eight. Would you like to have him? Heck yeah, but he's just not a finished project yet."

Well, the kid is only 22 with one professional game under his belt. Give him some time. As Sweet opined, "He could probably pitch in the big leagues right now and have success. The timetable is nothing more than him getting his whole game together. He's got some things to work on other than pitching."

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We turn to Jon Weisman, the proprietor of Dodger Thoughts, to discuss the Los Angeles Dodgers in our Stakeholders series that has featured writers, analysts, and team executives giving us the inside scoop on each of the 30 teams in the Major Leagues. Jon and I met in 2003 and became colleagues at All-Baseball.com in 2004. His blog was subsequently hosted at Baseball Toaster and the Los Angeles Times, and it was moved to the ESPN Los Angeles earlier this year. He has been a regular member of our roundtables previewing division races and also served as a guest columnist in 2005.

Grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair as we discuss all things Dodgers.

Rich Lederer: Let's give our readers an executive summary at the outset of our discussion. The Dodgers won 95 games, captured the NL West, and competed in the NLCS in 2009. Do you expect the team to be better, worse, or about the same this year?

Jon Weisman: I can't go enough out on a limb to say they'll be better, but I think they'll be closer to last year's level than a lot of people think. They have to replace Randy Wolf's production, but I think they can with a strong full season from Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw pitching deeper into games, Hiroki Kuroda avoiding line drives, and perhaps more help from the farm system in the rotation this year. I do think Vicente Padilla is a mirage waiting to be exposed, though. Charlie Haeger is an interesting wild card - he may be banished by April, but he might turn out to be a real boon. And then of course the lineup figures to be as solid as last year, if not more so with growth from Matt Kemp and James Loney and a potential comeback from Russell Martin. I'm not saying everything couldn't go wrong to leave us with another 2005, but I'm not betting that'll happen.

Rich: I think it is safe to say that the Dodgers will win more than 71 games this year. After opening the season with a 16-8 record, that team went into the tank and was victorious in only 55 of its final 138 games. Jim Tracy was fired by the Dodgers, then hired and fired once again by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but caught on with the Colorado Rockies early last summer and was named NL Manager of the Year. Do you anticipate that the Rockies will be the Dodgers' main source of competition within the division this year?

Jon: Yep. I don't think it's a flawless team, but they have a nice collection of players. The Giants still lack the bats to be considered a preseason favorite, and even though the Diamondbacks will be improved, I think they have a long way to climb. But there are always surprises.

Rich: Peter Gammons reported that the Dodgers have an $83 million payroll for 2010. He also said that the team spent the least amount of money on the MLB Draft and international signings the past two years. While it's clear that the Dodgers have been retrenching, I believe that payroll figure is a result of some Bernie Madoff-type accounting as the club has deferred salary to Manny Ramirez and obligations to many former players that may not be fully reflected in this reported total.

Jon: Nothing personal against Peter, since he's far from the only one doing it, but it's pretty disengenuous to ignore the deferred money or the money going to people like Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones when calculating what the Dodgers are spending, which is what that $83 million figure does. Isn't the big complaint against the Dodgers that they didn't go after a big-ticket free agent? Well, you don't often get those unless you take some risk or defer some money. The Dodger payroll is much closer to $100 million, which isn't sky-high but it's competitive enough. Furthermore, unless you believed the Dodgers should have handed John Lackey a guaranteed five-year, $80 million contract - the kind of contract that would typically blow up in their faces - there really wasn't a payroll issue to the offseason other than the non-arbitration offers to Wolf and Orlando Hudson.

Rich: Just who did the Dodgers add this year? How will the 2010 version differ from 2009?

Jon: They added very little - it's more about who they retained (i.e., the young core plus Manny) and their potential for growth. But there won't be a ton of difference - this is probably the most stable lineup the team has had in years.

Rich: How will the Divorce McCourt affect the Dodgers' ability to take on payroll during the season?

Jon: It's speculation, but I do think there's room for the Dodgers even in the current climate to make a decent midseason acquisition. But I'm not expecting Albert Pujols.

Rich: While every team could use an Albert Pujols, this Dodgers club should score a lot of runs. If Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and Manny Ramirez hit like they have in the past, the Dodgers are set with one of the most dangerous 2-3-4 hitters in the game. That said, when it comes to Ramirez, should we expect him to be the Manny of August and September 2008, the post-drug suspension Manny of 2009, or somewhere in between?

Jon: I'm more worried about Rafael Furcal than Ramirez. Furcal may or may not be healthy; either way, I think his skills are aging and I don't know how much effectiveness he has left. I don't have any idea what Ramirez will do this year, but I do think it's very relevant that he was hitting after the suspension but before his injury, and I think one might take his media silence this spring as an indication of his determination.

Rich: Moving down the lineup, is there reason to expect James Loney to fulfill his potential or is the Loney we've seen the past few years who he is?

Jon: I expect Loney to improve - maybe even reach his potential - but of course I don't think many people define his potential as that of a serious power hitter.

Rich: What's going on with Russell Martin? He added muscle and gained a bunch of weight during the offseason but strained his groin in early March and has been working his way back into shape. Do you see him bouncing back from his worst season ever and returning to his 2006-2008 form or is it possible that he could surprise us all by putting up career numbers in his age-27 season?

Jon: I expect a bit of a rebound from Martin, because it's hard to imagine him doing much worse, but it would be something if he had career numbers. Right now, if he can just maintain the good on-base percentage he has typically had, even as his power and speed have declined, I'd be happy. Even if he's in the Opening Day lineup, though, this might be the first year that Martin goes on the disabled list.

Rich: On the run prevention side, can a rotation with Vicente Padilla as its Opening Day starter and Charlie Haeger as its fifth compete for the NL West title?

Jon: Certainly. First of all, whether Padilla pitches in the first or fourth game of the season is pretty irrelevant. As for the fifth spot, the other NL West teams certainly have question marks there as well - most teams rotate guys through that slot no matter what. In no way does the Dodger starting rotation disqualify them from competing. It might simply come down to health across the board - does Brandon Webb recover it, does Jeff Francis maintain it, does Tim Lincecum keep it? And so on...

Rich: Let's talk about the bullpen. It was one of the best in the majors last year, yet Joe Torre will be without Ronald Belisario and Hong-Chih Kuo for most of April. Belisario finally made it to camp after missing the first five weeks of spring due to visa problems. He was a huge positive surprise last year as a rookie but will begin the season on the restricted list. Kuo, who was the Belisario of 2008, is on the DL. Do you think Jonathan Broxton, George Sherrill, and Ramon Troncoso can nail down the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings with little or no help from what otherwise looks to be a mediocre group of relievers?

Jon: It's similar to the rotation question. Say what you will about the Dodger bullpen, I don't see a whole lot of teams that have great fourth and fifth relievers. At least in the case of the Dodgers, they might have them by the end of April. And the team has a great number of candidates to try to help things out. Relief pitching is very volatile and unpredictable - just look at Brad Lidge, for example. But I don't see the Dodgers at a disadvantage on April 5 compared to other teams. For one thing, their top divisional rival will start the season without its closer.

Rich: How do you feel about the team's defense?

Jon: I'd like to feel better. The infield to the left of Loney is shaky, and I include Furcal in that. And Kemp is really going to be worked in center field covering for Ramirez and Ethier. One of the more interesting decisions the Dodgers might face this year is, for example, if Blake DeWitt slumps, do they call up a defensive-minded infielder like Chin-Lung Hu to plug that hole and at least improve the defense, rather than resort to Ronnie Belliard or Jamey Carroll.

Rich: Are there any minor leaguers who may contribute this year?

Jon: Among others, I expect we'll see Scott Elbert and Josh Lindblom, and since James McDonald again qualifies as a minor-leaguer, him too. Don't know that we'll see as much from the farmhands in the lineup, which looks more stable. But if the team loses an outfielder for any length of time, Xavier Paul is in line to help.

Rich: Do you think Joe Torre and Vin Scully will both be back in 2011?

Jon: You know, I have no idea. I'll admit I was a tiny bit surprised (and relieved, of course) Vin returned for this season - and I took that as a sign that he might want to do it until he physically can't anymore. Torre might simply come down to dollars, but I think he generally has liked managing the Dodgers.

Rich: Thanks, Jon. I know that I can speak for millions of Dodgers fan in hoping that Vin stays around forever. He *is* the Dodgers to most of us. It's hard to fathom following the team without him.

A native of Los Angeles, Jon Weisman has been writing about the Dodgers at Dodger Thoughts since 2002. He is the author of 100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. Weisman began covering sports professionally in 1985, complemented by adventures in writing for and about the screen that have culminated in his current position as a features editor at Variety. Any downtime he can muster will be happily spent with his wife and three young children.

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The Atlanta Braves announced on Friday that Jason Heyward, the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball, will be the team's right fielder on Opening Day. Bobby Cox, in his last season as the club's manager, told the 20-year old in a three-minute meeting in the clubhouse, "I'm delighted to tell you you're on the team, Jason, simply because you make us a better team."

Cox told the media, "He's as good a player as I've seen all spring—our team, any other team."

What should we expect from the superstar-in-the-making in his rookie season in the majors? To get a better handle on that question, I turned to some of the most well-known projection systems as shown below:

On average, the projection systems believe Heyward will hit .278/.345/.443. For perspective, that line is virtually identical to the following seven players over the past three years:

After watching Bryce Harper in the Area Code Games following his freshman year in high school, I wrote an article titled Remember This Name in August 2008 whereby I boldly proclaimed that the then 15-year old would be the No. 1 draft pick in 2011.

Well, as it turns out, I am going to miss with my prediction. No, not because Harper didn't pan out. And not due to any injury. You see, Harper skipped his junior and senior years in high school, earned his GED, and enrolled at the College of Southern Nevada last fall at the age of 17. As a result, Harper will be eligible for the 2010 MLB Draft and is likely to be the No. 1 choice a year earlier than I forecasted.

How is Harper faring in his college debut, you ask? Just fine, thank you. He has put up a .420/.514/.864 line with 8 HR and 27 RBI through his first 27 games. In addition, the lefthanded-hitting catcher/third baseman/outfielder has drawn 18 walks and struck out only 19 times. He is leading the No. 3-ranked junior college team in the country (23-5) in AVG, OBP, SLG, H (37), R (32), RBI, 2B (13), HR, and TB (76) and is second in BB and SB (6 of 8). [Complete stats here.]

I revisited Harper in January 2009 after he pulled a Josh Hamilton at the third annual International Power Showcase High School Home Run Derby at St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field. I displayed his sophomore year stats (.626/.723/1.339) in a follow-up last May, linked to Tom Verducci's Sports Illustrated article a month later, and reported that he left high school early and registered for college last June.

For the Washington Nationals (16-45), possessors of the worst record in baseball this year, it now means having the opportunity to draft the top two amateur prospects in the first 11 years of the 21st century. The franchise won the Stephen Strasburg lottery this year and appears destined to win the Bryce Harper lottery next year. Strasburg and Harper could be the most hyped pitcher-catcher duo in decades, if not ever, should they wind up playing for the Nats. If nothing else, the two Scott Boras-advised players will be the richest signees in the history of the game.

MLB's Jonathan Mayo, a former guest columnist for Baseball Analysts, has the latest goods on Harper. In an extensive interview with the confident teenager, Harper says "I could care less about the Draft. If I could come back next year and play here, I'd come back next year and play here." Bryce is probably right. Given how important playing professional baseball has always been to him, he probably "could" care less about the draft. However, I doubt if he "couldn't" care less, which is the point he was trying to make with Mayo.

With only 2 1/2 months to go before the draft, Harper's wait won't be long. In the meantime, you can watch Harper hitting his second and third home runs this season, as well as a third round tripper that also includes a slow-motion clip of his swing. In all cases, Harper is using a wood bat as College of Southern Nevada plays in a wood bat conference.

Believe the hype and be sure to remember this name.

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More than a decade ago, Defense Independent Pitching Stats (DIPS) introduced the idea that pitchers are mostly responsible for their strikeout, walk, and home run rates but have little or no control over batted balls in play. By focusing on K, BB, and HR rates only, Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) has become increasingly accepted as a better tool than more traditional methods such as ERA to evaluate the effectiveness (and predictability of future results) of pitchers.

Playing off DIPS and FIP, I began to categorize and graph pitchers by strikeout and groundball rates in 2007 (based on 2006 stats). I broke pitchers into quadrants with the Northeast Quadrant home for those with above-average K and GB rates and the Southwest Quadrant the opposite. I have continued to publish this series annually, adding walks and even Z-scores last year.

By substituting groundballs for home runs, my methodology is more analogous to xFIP than FIP. The bottom line is that the best pitchers miss bats (K), throw strikes (BB), and keep batted balls in the park (GB).

As I demonstrated last year, strikeouts have the greatest impact on ERA and RA, followed by walks, and groundballs. As a result, K+ BB+ GB+ > K+ BB+ GB- > K+ BB- GB+ > K+ BB- GB- > K- BB+ GB+ > K- BB+ GB- > K- BB- GB+ > K- BB- GB-.

I have combined the strikeout and walk components this year by using (K-BB)/BF. In the past, I had graphed K/BF on the x-axis and GB% on the y-axis. This year, I am using (K-BB)/BF on the x-axis and GB% on the y-axis. While not three dimensional, the graph below includes the three most important variables whereas it had only focused on K and GB rates previously.

In addition, I've added a new wrinkle by using the past three years combined stats rather than the prior year only. This change has increased the number of pitchers as well as the size of the data points. I could have weighted the numbers in a 3-2-1 format to place additional emphasis on the more recent results but chose not to for simplicity. I could have added HBP to BB given the fact that the former is generally as much in the control of the pitcher as the latter. That said, I don't believe excluding HBP had much of an effect on the outcomes.

There were 173 active starting pitchers who met my requirements of 120 or more innings during the 2007-2009 period. Among these qualifiers, the average (K-BB)/BF rate was 9.87% and the average GB rate was 43.56%. The mean K-BB and GB rates are highlighted in red in the graph below. These averages separate the starting pitchers into four quadrants.

I always highlight the outliers and have identified 43 this time or more than twice the number in the previous graphs. The diamond just to the right of the average K-BB rate and ever so slightly below the average GB rate is Boof Bonser, who wins our award for being Mr. Average. He was signed by the Boston Red Sox to a one-year, $650,000 contract after being designated for assignment by the Minnesota Twins in December. A first round draft choice of the San Francisco Giants in 2000, Bonser missed the 2009 season after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair partial tears to the labrum and rotator cuff in his right shoulder. With Boston's starters in place and Tim Wakefield around to serve as the backup, Boof is likely to break camp as a long reliever but could be moved in a trade to a team looking to bolster its starting rotation.

Tim Lincecum, coming off two consecutive Cy Young Award seasons, has compiled the highest K-BB rate in the majors over the past three years among those pitchers who induce more groundballs than the league average. After signing a two-year, $23 million contract in February, Lincecum has struggled this spring but threw 5 2/3 shutout innings against San Francisco's minor leaguers on Sunday. According to Fangraphs, his fastball velocity dropped 1.7 mph last year, and it has reportedly been sitting mostly at 89-91 in March. If his heater continues to recede, he may rely increasingly on his breaking balls and outstanding changeup for his "out" pitches.

The Northeast Quadrant also features former Cy Young winners CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, and Brandon Webb. The latter, working his way back from shoulder surgery after pitching just one game in 2009, is aiming to return to the rotation in late April. Meanwhile, Halladay will be pitching for a National League club for the first time in his 11-year career.

Javier Vazquez, not Lincecum, has produced the No. 1 K-BB rate in the majors over the past three seasons. He missed out on the Northeast Quadrant due to a lower-than-average groundball rate. The 33-year-old righthander will once again be pitching for the New York Yankees. Vazquez was 14-10 with a 4.91 ERA in his lone season with the Bronx Bombers in 2004. His career ERA is half a run higher in the AL (4.52) than the NL (4.02).

The Southeast Quadrant has its share of former Cy Young Award winners as well. Jake Peavy, Zack Greinke, Johan Santana (2x), Cliff Lee, and Pedro Martinez (3x) have won a combined eight CYA. Greinke (16-8 with a MLB-leading 2.16 ERA and 242 Ks and 51 BB in 229.1 IP) is coming off his best season ever. Among active pitchers, only Martinez (1997, 1999, 2000, and 2003), has bested his ERA+ of 205. Pedro, who signed with the Phillies last summer and went 5-1 with a 3.63 ERA and started three times during the postseason, is currently a free agent.

While the Northwest Quadrant doesn't sport any former CYA winners, it finds Tim Hudson, Derek Lowe, Andy Pettitte, Carlos Zambrano, and Mark Buehrle among its worm-burning residents. Lowe's (K-BB)/BF missed the Northeast Quadrant by less than 0.50%. As shown, he is one of only four starters with a groundball rate over 60 percent. The other three are Northwest inhabitants Hudson and Fausto Carmona plus Webb.

Hudson sat out the first five months in 2009 after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2008. He started seven games and compiled a 2-1 record with a 3.61 ERA, then signed a three-year, $28 million contract with the Atlanta Braves last November. Carmona had a 19-8 record with an ERA of 3.06 in 2007 but has gone 13-19 with a 5.89 ERA while allowing more BB (140) than SO (137) over the past two campaigns. The 26-year-old righthander is owed $11 million for 2010 and 2011 so he is likely to get another shot with the Indians this season.

Although the Southwest Quadrant consists of several young arms that have potential, it has an even greater number of veterans and journeymen who have settled into nothing more than mediocrity. I wouldn't expect much success from those in the bottom half with groundball rates below 40 percent.

Jeremy Sowers (1.96%) had the lowest K-BB rate in the majors over the past three years. He and fellow soft-tossing lefty teammates David Huff (4.18%) and Aaron Laffey (2.34%) own three of the twelve-worst K-BB rates among the 173 qualified starting pitchers. I don't like Cleveland's chances this year if these three southpaws wind up starting half of the team's games, especially if Carmona pitches more like he did in 2008 and 2009 than 2007.

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While I was out of the country last week, two Los Angeles sports stars of my youth — Dodgers center fielder Willie Davis and Rams defensive tackle Merlin Olsen — passed away. Both were 69.

Growing up in Long Beach, I have fond memories of Davis and Olsen. If not for their age and overlapping athletic careers in L.A., these two men would have little, if anything, in common.

The following photos were taken by Frank Finch of the Los Angeles Times. He donated them to the Dodgers and Mark Langill, team historian and publications editor, was kind enough to share them with me a few years ago.

Davis (above left, standing next to Ron Fairly at a batting cage in spring training) was born in Mineral Springs, Arkansas on April 15, 1940, seven years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a youngster. Tall and slender, Davis lettered in baseball, basketball and track & field at Roosevelt High School. He ran a 9.5-second 100-yard dash and set a city record in the long jump of 25 feet, 5 inches. Dodgers scout Kenny Myers signed Willie after he graduated from Roosevelt HS in 1958.

Myers converted Davis into a left-handed hitter to take advantage of his speed. The scout and his protege starred in "The Willie Davis Story," a black and white made-for-television movie that I remember airing back in the early 1960s. John Herbold, a legendary high school baseball coach at Long Beach Poly and Lakewood and former scout with the Dodgers and Angels, wrote a terrific column about Myers for the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper several years ago. I had the privilege of playing for Herbold and he taught us several fundamentals that he learned from Myers, whom he called "the greatest baseball teacher and thinker I ever met."

Davis played 18 seasons in the majors (plus two years in Japan) and was a member of two World Series championship teams in Los Angeles in 1963 and 1965. He produced 2,561 hits (82nd all time) and stole 398 bases (68th). Davis also won three consecutive Gold Gloves from 1971-73 although Dodgers fans may remember him more for the record three errors on two consecutive plays in the fifth inning of Game Two of the 1966 Fall Classic against the Baltimore Orioles (which happened to be the last game that Sandy Koufax pitched). Willie's nickname was "Three Dog," not for the errors or what sometimes appeared to be his lackadaisical play in the field but rather for the number he wore on the back of his uniform. His 31-game hitting streak in 1969 broke Zack Wheat's franchise record of 29 in 1916.

The three-time All-Star fell upon hard times during the 1990s. He abused alcohol and drugs and was arrested at his parents' home in Gardena for allegedly threatening to kill them and burn down their house unless they gave him $5,000. The Dodgers subsequently reached out to Davis and hired him to work in their speakers bureau. I last saw and spoke to him at a game three years ago and am thankful for that opportunity. He recalled my Dad, who covered the Dodgers from 1958-1968. Davis looked frail to me, but he seemed to be in good spirits. I will always remember him for his positive contributions to my favorite team while growing up.

Olsen (in the photo on the right, standing near the tunnel of the Coliseum prior to the 1964 Pro Bowl game) was born in Logan, Utah on September 15, 1940. He was exactly five months younger than Davis. Olsen was the oldest son in a large Mormon family. He attended Utah State University and graduated summa cum laude and Sigma Chi with a degree in finance in 1962. Merlin was a three-time academic All-American and an All-American defensive tackle, winning the outland Trophy in his senior season.

Drafted by the Rams in the first round in 1962, Olsen played his entire 15-year career with the the team and was elected to the Pro Bowl a record-tying 14 times. He was named the NFL's Rookie of the Year and first-team All-Pro in 1964 and from 1966-1970. Olsen is a member of both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.

Although Olsen is wearing 76 in the photo above, he may be the most famous player associated with the number 74 in the history of pro football. He was a member of "The Fearsome Foursome," the Rams' defensive line that consisted of Olsen and Rosey Grier at the tackle positions and Deacon Jones and Lamar Lundy on the ends. Olsen and Jones may have been the best defensive tackle and defensive end in the game for several years during the 1960s.

A gentle giant off the field, Olsen was smart and articulate. After his playing days were over, he was a noted broadcaster, actor, and businessman. Olsen starred in Little House on the Prairie, Father Murphy, and Aaron's Way. He teamed with Dick Enberg on NBC's coverage of the AFC throughout the 1980s and was one of my favorite color commentators. Olsen also served as a pitchman for FTD Florists for a number of years.

Olsen was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2009 and underwent three courses of chemotherapy. He died on March 11, 2010 at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California, two days after Davis passed away at his home in Burbank.

Davis and Olsen will be missed by their families, friends, teammates, and fans. Rest in peace.

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The NCAA college baseball season got underway on Friday night. I was fortunate to be on hand for an opener once again as Long Beach State upended the visiting Pepperdine Waves, 2-1, behind Jake Thompson's first complete game of his career.

Six years ago, I saw Jered Weaver strike out the first ten USC batters, including four in the third inning, in Long Beach State's home opener. I was also in attendance when Stephen Strasburg ushered in the 2009 season by striking out 11 while fashioning an electric fastball that registered at 100 mph on the radar guns.

While Thompson is not in the same class as Weaver or Strasburg, the junior righthander is a legitimate prospect. His fastball sat at 92-93 all game and hit 95 with an adrenaline rush on the last pitch when he struck out Ryan Heroy on a high heater to end it. The Friday night ace was efficient, throwing 105 pitches (including just one that was called a ball in the first three innings) while whiffing six and allowing only a half dozen batters to reach base.

At 6-3 and 225 pounds, Thompson has a thick body with strong legs. Only 20 years old, he is young for a junior. Jake passed his GED and skipped his senior season at Wilson HS to enroll at Long Beach State a year early. Thompson is also short on experience due to the fact that he sat out his junior year in high school after transferring from Mayfair HS where he went 6-1 with a 1.33 ERA as a sophomore.

Recruited by the highly regarded Troy Buckley three years ago, Thompson didn't receive his new pitching coach's tutelage in his freshman and sophomore years owing to the fact that his mentor left the program to become the minor league pitching coordinator with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Buckley returned to Long Beach as an assistant head coach prior to this season and Thompson appears to be back on track after not living up to expectations the past two years.

Buckley has an outstanding track record in handling college pitchers. In order, Abe Alvarez, Jered Weaver, Jason Vargas, Cesar Ramos, Andrew Carpenter, and Brian Shaw were all selected in the first two rounds of the MLB draft after working under Buckley. All but Shaw, the most recent draftee of the six, have reached the majors.

Thompson outdueled Cole Cook, a draft-eligible sophomore who posted a 7-3 record with a 3.69 ERA as a freshman in 2009. The 6-6, 220-pound righthander's favorite player is none other than Jered Weaver. Cook's fastball was mostly 93 with a high of 96. He also flashed an excellent curveball and induced two inning-ending double plays in the fourth and fifth. Cook threw 96 pitches, including 66 strikes, over seven innings while allowing seven hits, a walk, two runs, and striking out seven. Look for Thompson and Cook to get taken in the early rounds in the MLB Draft this June.

In a weekend tournament that featured Long Beach, Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton, and Oregon, the Dirtbags fell to the Ducks, 6-2, on Saturday and to the No. 4-ranked Titans, 8-1, on Sunday. CSF's Christian Colon, a potential first-round draft pick, went 2-for-4 with a solo home run in the latter contest.

Oregon is led by two-time National Coach of the Year George Horton, who spent 11 seasons at Cal State Fullerton and led the Titans to the 2004 National Championship. He is one of nine men to have appeared in Omaha as a player (1975) and a head coach. Horton's club beat his alma mater, 7-3, on Friday and lost to Pepperdine, 11-7, on Sunday.

Elsewhere, Gerrit Cole of No. 23 UCLA threw a dandy in an MLB Urban Invitational contest on Friday evening at UCLA's Steele Field at Jackie Robinson Stadium. He allowed two runs but only one hit and no walks over six innings en route to a 16-2 victory over Southern in which the Bruins belted four home runs. Cole is one of the early candidates to go No. 1 in the 2011 draft. The Yankees took him in the first round in 2008 but the 6-4, 220-pound righthander opted to attend UCLA instead.

Top-ranked Texas dropped two out of three to New Mexico over the weekend. No. 2 LSU swept Centenary with the Tigers outscoring the Gentlemen 34-12. The 6-7, 230-pound Anthony Ranaudo, who could make a strong case as the best college pitcher in the country, allowed one unearned run over five innings on Friday. Paul Mainieri won his 1,000th career game on Saturday.

No. 3 Virginia took two out of three from East Carolina, No. 5 Rice lost all three games to No. 30 Stanford, and No. 6 Florida State, No. 7 UC Irvine, No. 8 Arizona State, No. 9 Georgia Tech, and No. 10 Florida all swept their opponents over the weekend. The Seminoles outscored Georgia State 37-12. However, the Rambling Wreck did them one better, crushing Missouri State 37-3, including a 4-0 whitewash in Bryan Smith's featured opener that saw Deck McGuire, a 6-6, 218 junior righthander, toss seven scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and no walks. If Ranaudo isn't the top college pitching prospect in this year's class, then it is probably McGuire.

For more on college baseball, be sure to check out D1 Baseball, Baseball America, Boyd's World, and College Baseball Splits.

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My short post on Friday seemed to create quite a stir in the comments section so I promised to deliver a follow-up piece that would expand upon my initial take on Baseball Prospectus' prediction whereby the Los Angeles Angels would go 76-86 and finish last in the AL West in 2010.

If the truth be told, PECOTA has been consistent, if not accurate, when it comes to the Angels. It has underestimated the number of Angels wins by a minimum of eight games every season since 2004. On average, the system has shortchanged the Angels by 11 games per annum over the past half dozen years.

After reviewing these results, I have more confidence than ever in PECOTA, at least as it relates to the Angels. Here is the formula: Take the number of wins that the system forecasts for the Halos and add a minimum of eight and a maximum of 13 victories to determine the range of the team's expected win total.

With respect to 2010, PECOTA believes the Angels will win 76 games. Add 8-13 wins and... bingo, you get the range of victories (84-89) for the coming season. If you desire a more pinpoint total, then take PECOTA + 11 = 87.

While I admit to hindsight bias, my point of contention is not based on a sample size of one or two, nor selectively choosing this year or that year. Instead, it is based on each of the past six seasons. (PECOTA actually overestimated the number of Angels wins by five in the system's first year of existence in 2003. For the 2003-2009 period, PECOTA missed by an average of approximately 8 1/2 wins per season.)

If PECOTA is right and the Angels win 76 (or fewer) games in 2010, it will mark only the 36th time since Major League Baseball went to a 162 game schedule in 1961 (AL) and 1962 (NL) that a team's win total fell by at least 21 games year over year. In other words, such a collapse happens twice every three seasons or about one in 40 times when you factor in the total number of seasons involved during this period.

Granted, the higher the wins in the base year, the higher the odds of achieving infamy in the following year. Excluding 2009, teams have won 90 or more games 377 times since 1961. Twenty-one of those clubs (or 5.6%) won at least 21 fewer games the next season. Similarly, teams have matched or exceeded the Angels win total of 97 games last year 100 times since 1961. Nine of those clubs (9.0%) won at least 21 fewer games the following campaign. As a result, if history is any guide, there is less than a 1-in-10 chance of the Angels being 21 games worse in 2010 than 2009.

Here is a list of all the teams whose win totals have fallen by 21 or more games since the schedule was expanded to 162 games.