The BIG Story

I sometimes accuse other analysts or writers of missing the forest for the trees, but looking back at my columns, one could easy accuse me of the same mistake. I will not deny that I stay away from big stories; the supersaturation of sports programming guarantees that Barry Bonds is not about to suffer from underexposure. Still, there are so only so many ways to repeat that Juan Castro hits a lot of groundballs to second. So today I will go off the deep end and deliver a summary of the biggest baseball stories in recent news cycles.

Steroids

Full disclosure: I watch wrestling. And I do not mean that I will watch for a few minutes if I see WWE on TV. Let’s just say that there is a space reserved on my DVD shelf and on my Monday night schedule for pro wrestling. In other words, steroids are not new or shocking to me in any way. In fact, if you want to read a really provocative account of steroid use, read Paul Solotaroff’s piece “The Power and the Glory” on champion bodybuilder Steve Michalik from The Village Voice. Since I have bypassed the shock and outrage stages of reacting to steroids in baseball, I feel like I have some distance from the subject. On one hand, steroids are incredibly bad for users, especially when taken in the doses that most competitive athletes require. But I think the craziness should stop there: no asterisks, no smug moral condescension, no posturing.

So what do we really know? We can be relatively certain that baseball players- and other professional athletes- will continue to use banned substances including performance enhancing drugs. We can be certain that PED technology will stay ahead of the testing since strong financial incentives exist to create drugs that get by tests and the testers do not even know what they are trying to find. However, we do not know what effect steroids have on the game. It seems reasonable that stronger players would hit the ball harder and farther, creating more offense. It also seems intuitive that pitchers, as Lance Berkman recently asserted, benefit from improved recovery times and better musculature. Other factors like ballparks, differently weighted bats, expansion and better training/medicine all have some effect even if we do not know precisely how much. While we do not know who is using PEDs or what effect they have, players will continue to use them even while passing steroid tests. Banning amphetamines is good, but the social stigma tantamount to a scarlet letter is probably a better deterrent than any suspension length.

Barry Bonds

While I am on the subject, I might as well talk about the most noteworthy player since at least Mark McGwire in ’98. Bonds is a good antihero. Staying with the wrestling motif, he is one of baseball’s all-time great heels, right up there with the Yankees, Roger Clemens and Ty Cobb. Some would say that having someone to hate is almost as good as having someone to love, but I am not sure I would stop there. Bonds is far more compelling as a villain than he could ever be as a fan favorite, so he rightly embraces the role and feeds off of it. I do not want Bonds to break any records, but I think everyone will remember the historical context if he does. I also do not think he has much gas left in the tank, as he is not even pursuing simple medical procedures to prolong his career or improve his season (artificial lubricant in his knees a la Randy Johnson, Keith Foulke and David Wells; bone chip removal from which he could return in a two to three weeks).

As for the McCarthy… I mean Mitchell Commission, it seems unfair to try to reconstruct one player’s steroid history while paying less attention to everyone else. I can understand the motivation though, as Selig needs to both draw closure and make it look like he is taking responsibility. If Bonds broke Aaron’s record without so much as a whisper from the Commissioner, his reputation would be somehow even worse than it already is. I give Selig credit for keeping a tense labor relationship from blocking play for 12 years, for innovating the playoff system, for improving attendance and for saying the right things about steroids. I get the impression that lots of fans reject the Commission just due to Selig’s association with it, and that is not fair. At very least, we should wait until we get results before saying it is a failed endeavor.

Washington Nationals

I think the last paragraph paid sufficient lip service to Bud Selig, and I have nothing good to say about how he has handled the Expos-Nationals dating back to 2002 and the contraction discussion. Since then, the players, fans and officials have been subjected to five years of uncertainty that still remains unresolved. I had a long discussion about the D.C. stadium in general at Baseball Think Factory about a month ago where I argued with almost every other poster about the virtues of building a stadium. A city like D.C. that has budgetary constraints and very real poverty issues extending to a sub-par educational system can ill afford to dump hundreds of millions of dollars on a project that will not help the people who most need it. Baseball is a diversion which we are lucky to be able to enjoy, but it should not take precedence over social issues that implicate people’s lives. But if the stadium had to be built- and some city was going to blow that kind of money- there is no reason to continue delaying the team’s sale weeks, months, and even years.

Florida Marlins

How dumb are the owners of the Marlins? Did the miss that five year cycle of sucking after the first title in 1997 that did not result in a new stadium? Did they think the city would respond more quickly now that D.C. has a team and San Antonio is the closest thing approaching a viable market? I feel for them, playing perpetual second fiddle to a football team, but they have to make the best of their situation rather than blaming the city for marketing a product that is not profitable. I have been to Dolphins Stadium, and I can say that RFK, Shea Stadium and the Metrodome are all appreciably worse places to watch baseball among stadiums I have already attended. I have no first hand experience with Tropicana, Turner, SkyDome, or McAfee (Oakland), but I cannot imagine that any of them are much better, and most of those teams have built competitive franchises without holding their fan bases hostage. Florida built a champion in 2003 with many homegrown players and a few mid-level free agents and I am willing to bet that they turned a profit that season. If they remained dedicated to developing their own cheap talent, they may be a decent franchise year in and year out. There is no way making the franchise a laughingstock makes them more valuable or a better product for baseball fans as consumers. You know what they say about fooling me twice, so anyone who falls for the team after this second dismantling deserves disappointment. Maybe it is not the owners who are so dumb after all.

Lasting Impressions

Sure, a few weeks is not enough time to make judgments about teams for certain, but that does not mean we cannot be impressed by early season performances. Chris Shelton, for example, may have had a high upside in his statistical profile, but is there anyone who expected a start like he has had? I’m not talking about Albert Pujols hitting homerun after homerun; we all expect him to be a world beater. Today, I want to focus on the performances and the numbers that have seemingly come out of nowhere, even if they are not likely to continue.

Most Impressive

Morgan Ensberg: Ensberg hit his ninth homerun today, which is impressive in itself, but he’s one of a handful to reach that threshold. Hitting .400 through 20 games is another solid statistic, but if he did it over the month of August he would be a guy having a great month rather than someone having a second consecutive breakout season. What really sets Ensberg apart for me is the fact that he has a 1.478 OPS while playing with a Staph infection. All the while, he is leading Houston to the top record in the NL, a game in front of the much hyped Mets. Houston was supposed to be down this year, but with a solid rotation. So far, their no. 2 offense in the senior circuit has overcome bad pitching performances from everyone but Roy Oswalt. I do not know what it takes to fix a Staph infection, but if he gets a chance to play healthy, he just might hit 80 homeruns with a .450 average. Or not.

Ryan Freel: We knew that the Reds had to have a contingency plan for Griffey and even for Austin Kearns, but this scenario is not exactly how anyone expected it to play out. First, they flipped fourth OF extraordinaire Wily Mo Pena for Bronson Arroyo, which has worked out well so far. Next, Major League-ready AAA stud Chris Denorfia has languished in Louisville all year, seemingly creating a void of outfielders for the big club. But the team got creative, plugging former Indian Brandon Phillips into second base ahead of Tony Womack and shifting Adam Dunn to left. When Griffey went down for a precautionary DL stint after a minor injury, super-sub Ryan Freel started getting everyday ABs in center. So far, Freel has stolen eight bases, living up to his reputation as a speedster, but has walked 15 times, good for 8th in the NL in OBP. Avoiding outs like that will make people ignore his sub-.400 SLG. A .450/.350 OPS split? That’s downright Bondsian. Of course the concern is that pitchers will go after him if he cannot prove he is able to punish pitches over the plate, decreasing his BB totals, but you have got to give credit where credit is due, and he has put himself in some pretty good company so far.

John Patterson: Would you have guessed John Patterson leads the majors in strikeouts? Probably not, as a 1-0 record through four starts is like 2005 redux when he went 9-7 with an ERA just over 3.00 and great peripheral stats. Patterson’s lack of decisions is curious, as he posted 198 innings last year in 31 starts and is averaging almost seven per start so far this year. At very least, he is putting his team in a position to win, an especially important feat with Livan Hernandez off to a weaker start. Staying in the company of Pedro, Schilling, Glavine, Chris Carpenter, and King Felix will probably ensure that he does not remain stuck on one win for long.

Least Impressive

Brad Wilkerson: The Rangers’ jewel of the supposed off season heist in the Soriano trade has been a mess so far, more problem than solution in the team’s struggle to stay afloat in the difficult AL West. While Soriano has surprised to the tune of .329/.380/.644- acclimating himself to pitcher-friendly RFK with three homeruns on a soggy night last Friday- Wilkerson has struggled with an old shoulder injury. Losing two-thirds of his homeruns last year was partially attributable to his stadium, but was still a cause for concern. Moving to Arlington with a winter to rehab his shoulder was supposed to yield big results, but so far he has only been able to go .191/.247/.338. For his career, he has struck out about 1.5x more than he has walked, but this year the ratio is 29/4 in 68 ABs. That statistic indicates two things: first, he has been horrifically awful so far this year, and second, there is a high probability that he will make his way back.

Twins pitching staff: I know that nobody needs to be reminded of this one, but the struggles across the board are very disconcerting. Radke (-2.0 VORP), Lohse (-7.9) and Silva (-3.0) have all pitched below replacement level, with Santana and Baker performing only a little better. Nine of the eleven pitchers the Twins have used are giving up at least 9.9 hits per nine innings, with the exception of Liriano (stud) and Nathan (in four innings). I recently mentioned that Santana and Radke may need time to get a feel for their changeups, but neither has looked good at any point so far, and Silva has been even worse. In his most recent start against the White Sox, he only avoided walking hitters by throwing fat pitches over the plate, one after another. Unsurprisingly, the Sox tagged him for 13 hits and four homeruns in under six innings. If there is any consolation, perhaps it is the unusually high batting average on balls in play accumulated by Twins opponents. Only Nathan and Silva have sub-.300 BABIP, indicating that Silva’s may be a less hopeful case, but that luck should even out for the rest of the staff. Now if only that luck could even out in a hurry…

You Could See it Coming

Jim Thome: Thome has been exceptional, posting the top VORP in the entire AL to this point and leading the Sox to the best run differential in the league despite only average pitching. I never had much doubt that he would be able to be productive again, but saw his downside in his durability, which his numbers do not reflect. Posting a good April was not the biggest challenge for Thome, so much as it will be posting a solid July-August-September where he takes the field every day.

Greg Maddux: PECOTA and stathead analysts nailed this one, pegging Maddux for a big year from the start. His year so far is one where the sample size caveat comes with a grain of salt, as Maddux rarely has huge performance swings over the course of the year. In other words, his historical performance his the caveat for the caveat. John Smotlz pointed out in a Sunday Night Baseball interview that both Maddux and Glavine have had rough patches in their careers, but that both are heady hitters who make adjustments and do not struggle for long. Combine their intelligence with the miracles of modern medicine (including injury prevention) and refined conditioning methods, and Maddux and Glavine can keep pitching with softball repertoires for a few more years.

Things are Different in the Show
Minor League Affiliates

During an opening day telecast, Dodgers GM Ned Coletti answered questions about losing Nomar Garciaparra to an early and unexpected DL stint by saying the team had the benefit of calling up a player and playing him on the same day by virtue of being geographically close to their AAA affiliate. Additionally, a recent article discussed how some teams keep their young backups in AAA to get them more playing time as a strategic move so they are ready to play if the starters get injured. With the Twins 1073 miles away from Rochester, their AAA affiliate, I couldn’t help but thinking that some teams get a competitive advantage out of carrying a 25th player the same day they call him up whereas others have to wait a day for their player to get to the majors. Thus, I asked a series of questions leading to a possible radical and idealistic realignment of minor league teams closest to various major league cities.

-What is the distance in miles between the Major League city and its AAA affiliate?

-What possible AAA cities are closer to the Major League city?

-Without upsetting any better affiliations, can the Major League team align itself with a closer minor league affiliate? Keep in mind that this is basically a logical set problem, where some possible affiliations look good in isolation but upset the broader scheme. For example, since Seattle and Tacoma are locked together, Portland isn’t particularly close to a Major League city, so it is an exercise in balancing risk.

-Do any teams have historical affiliations with importance greater than travel distance? (Note: I found the answer to this question to be “no.”)

I tried to maximize the teams with very close proximity for two reasons. First, the obvious advantage of minimizing travel, but also the possibility of keeping fans within a day trip of seeing the AAA club. Living in Washington, I would never travel to New Orleans to see a prospect or any other reason, but I might find a way to check out a team in Norfolk or Richmond. With those principles in mind, here are the affiliations I maintained and those I changed.

Stayed the same:
Texas-Oklahoma City, Seattle-Tacoma, Oakland-Sacramento, Anaheim-Salt Lake City, Kansas City-Omaha, Detroit-Toledo, Boston-Pawtucket, Los Angeles-Las Vegas, San Francisco-Fresno, Arizona-Tucson, Colorado-Colorado Springs, St. Louis-Memphis, Cincinnati-Louisville, Houston-Round Rock

Changed:
Minnesota-Iowa, Chicago(A)-Indianapolis, Cleveland-Columbus, New York (A)-Rochester, Toronto-Buffalo, Baltimore-Durham, Tampa Bay-New Orleans, San Deigo-Albuquerque, Chicago(N)-Ottawa, Milwaukee-Portland, Pittsburgh-Scranton-Wilks Barre, Florida-Charlotte, Atlanta-Nashville, New York (N)-Syracuse, Washington-Richmond, Philadelphia-Norfolk

Some of the current affiliations make very little sense to me, such as the Twins with a team in Rochester, New York, especially while the Yankees partner with a team in the Midwest (Columbus). Even more perplexing is putting Florida with Albuquerque when there are a bunch of International League teams in the Deep South. But before I go any further, here are some numbers legitimating my calculations.

Current Average Distance: 374 miles
Revised Average Distance: 215 miles
Current Average Distance of teams in second group: 567 miles
Revised Average Distance of teams in second group: 385 miles
Average Distance Saved: 182 miles

Sure, my orientation is not without its flaws. The Portland conundrum has no good solution (current affiliate San Diego is in the same time zone, but is still 928 miles away), and Milwaukee takes the brunt of the punishment. And that time zone concern is a legitimate one, as players getting called up from west coast teams lose time before the first pitch that night when the have to go eastward.

Alas, I still think my method has its advantages. For one, four natural affiliations are born where fans would have the opportunity of making a daytrip to see their team’s AAA games (CHA-IND, CLE-COL, TOR-BUF, WAS-RIC). Also, the ridiculous affiliations of 700 miles or more goes from four to one (MIL-POR), and I have reduced the medium range distances of 400-700 miles from seven to five.

And if you think teams do not consider the travel distance, keep in mind that Baltimore made five call-ups from nearby AA Bowie, Maryland, including Chris Ray twice. To put that in context, the Twins made zero call-ups from AA. While some of the difference probably has to do with organizational philosophy, I have to imagine that the distance plays a major factor.

Obviously, such a change is not going to happen, if only because it would be a marketing disaster to have the Twins’ AAA affiliate be named the Cubs. But that does not make it a bad idea, and as long as we all play fantasy baseball, we might as well play fantasy organization as well.

P.S.- If anyone wants a deeper look at the numbers, I have an Excel spreadsheet with all of this data and a few more categories for all 30 teams, but I cannot post it as an attachment through this server. E-mail me a request and I can send you the spreadsheet.

Too Early for Trade Talk?
The Trade Ranking System

In any sort of trade, the first reaction of any observer is to try to figure out who “won” the trade. Usually, analysts go about that task by projecting forward the impact that a player will have on a team, but it is an inexact science to say the least. It seemed to me that it would be useful to find a way to at least classify trades, because trading a group of prospects for a rental player is hardly comparable to swapping out depth in the OF to solidify the bullpen, for example. There is still a place for the traditional notion of winning a trade- the long-term evaluative comparison of who did what for whom- but that comparison has to be divorced from the immediate classification of the type of trade. Therefore, I came up with a tree diagram to classify and even rank the trades as they are made while leaving room for longer-term win-loss valuation.

Notes:

-I plan on using this format to evaluate trades in the future with slight modifications as I find ways to improve, so it is worth explaining in greater detail. “Filled a Need” and “D/N Fill a Need” are straightforward categories. It may seem that the latter category would be irrelevant since no team would ever make a trade that did not fill a need, but most prospect acquisitions and many salary dumps may fit in this category. For example, Arizona did well in the Javier Vazquez trade to pick up OF prospect Chris Young and El Duque, but did not fulfill a need, per se.

-“Had to trade” and “D/N have to trade” is a little bit more difficult. I rank “D/N have to trade” higher because flexibility is generally better. While one might argue that the success of those required is a better reflection, I think there is an inherent advantage in being able to keep the player and his value if no great offer comes about. Think about the Jim Thome trade: the Phillies could not get full value from both Thome and Howard on the same team, so they had to trade one of them. Perhaps of Howard had failed miserably, they would have had less urgency to trade Thome and they would have been able to better leverage themselves in trade or keep Thome and test his health if they chose to. Across the whole spectrum, filling a need is more important than dealing from versatility; everything on top is more important than everything beneath and everything on the left is better than everything on the right.

-At this point, we can rank trades as they are made. Moving across the boxes immediately above the red line, call the trades A, B, C and D. Therefore, the best trade is one where the team trades from a position of depth and fills a need. Consider the Twins trading A.J. Pierzynski a couple of years ago. Ryan thought Mauer was ready so C became a position of depth. He traded from that position of depth to shore up the back end of the bullpen in acquiring Nathan, who was coming off a solid season as a setup man in San Fran. I’ll revisit this trade again later, but it is easy to see that its reputation matches its ranking. On the other end, the worst trade is one where the team had to trade someone and did not fill a need in return.

-The next level is whether the acquired player(s) succeeded or failed, which could easily alter the previous equation in the long term. If a player who does not fill a need and came over in a necessary trade blows up upon arrival, it obviously becomes better than, say, if Nathan, Bonser and Liriano had all bombed. I’m also ranking the players acquired on when they succeeded. The Nathan/Liriano trade has worked out in the short and long term by immediately providing a closer for several years and giving them a great reliever (starter to be) in Liriano. Having both is certainly the most beneficial, but after that I rank short term success over long term success because the present value is more beneficial than the potential for future value. Think of another recent Twins trade, swapping Matt Lawton for Rick Reed at the deadline in 2001. Reed had a great 2002, but struggled down the stretch in 2001 and could not help the team get in the playoffs. If Reed had flourished and helped the Twins catch the Indians in 2001, he would have easily been worth Lawton, but the delayed gratification makes it more worthwhile. Factor in long term injury risk, player depreciation and escalating salaries as players pass through arbitration, and having short term success is clearly better.

-My original graph had another two-pronged extension on the end of every thread that evaluates whether the player sent in the trade succeeded or failed. In addition to the sour grapes reaction, there is the importance of the lost performance (the A’s would look much worse for trading Tim Hudson if he had won the Cy Young for the Braves). There is also the minor factor of another team having the other player’s performance. Trades do not usually happen within a division, which attests to the fact that teams do not want the players they deal to give their rivals a comparative advantage. Taken this way, there are 32 different types of trades, which we can call A1-8, B1-8, C1-8 and D1-8, but only in the long term. A1 is the best type of trade, one where the team did not have to trade their player, where their return filled a need, the acquisitions succeeded in the short and long term and the player they dealt failed. This entire list describes the Nathan/Liriano trade to a T. The worst type of trade, though, is one where the team did not fill a need in dealing a player they had to deal, where the acquisition did not succeed and the player they dealt succeeded. The worst type of trade would be D8, like the Phillies trading Placido Polanco to free up an IF jam, getting a redundant right handed reliever in return who pitched merely adequately while the team missed the playoffs and Polanco flourished. These things have a funny way of compounding themselves. While Liriano has so far surprisingly overcome his injury history in an otherwise brilliant trade, Ugeth Urbina is on trial for setting people on fire. To recap, trades can be categorized A-D immediately after they are completed for both teams (one team can have an A trade and another a D trade in the same deal), and can be further ranked as 1-8 based on the long term outcomes for all players involved.

Check Swings
Early Season Twins Notes

The Tigers and Brewers are off to remarkably hot starts behind good young players and analysts like Joe Sheehan (here) remind us to take a healthy dose of restraint. But that does not mean that we can’t draw a few conclusions here and there from early competition. A lineup featuring Tony Batista and Juan Castro has struggled to overcome its struggles from a season ago? Call it confirmation of an old suspicion. I’ve said similar things before, but let me reiterate that I want the Twins to succeed and I want Tony Batista to have a career year (which would mean, what, a .310 OBP?), but those two statements are not necessarily compatible. Perhaps more noteworthy has been his horrendous defense, which was supposed to be a strong point. In the season opener against Toronto, he missed no less than three balls that it seemed he should have fielded, and his consistently bad placement and reactions have continued, even eliciting criticism from the Cleveland broadcast team on Saturday. So, yes, it is early, but the AL runs scored totals have shaken out remarkably quickly: the Twins are third worst in front of fellow usual suspects LA-A and KC.

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Johan Santana is off to another less than stellar start, failing to make it through six innings in either start and giving up double digit hits against Toronto. I guess that is what happens when hitters can sit dead-red fastball all day. Santana tried to throw his changeup and slider over and over in the WBC, missing high or way off the plate and occasionally leaving it way over the plate. Even in the first inning of the first game, he tried to get David Ortiz with a changeup that he took over the fence to give the DR its first lead preceding a beatdown of Venezuela from which the team never fully recovered. Toronto’s commentators offered a fair explanation, saying that the changeup is a feel pitch more so than any other, requiring the pitcher to repeat a very precise motion with almost no room for error. Recall the graph of Santana’s and Radke’s early season struggles and eventual peaks in July or August from last week; both are changeup specialists, Radke utilizing a circle change with fastball arm action and while Santana combines that pitch with a traditional change that falls off the table with late movement. It seems odd to me that both pitchers so routinely round into form at the same pace, seemingly taking the same amount of time to find the “feeling” of the changeup, but if the results continually reflect that impression, I guess I will remain hopeful and expectant of a better second half. The best case scenario includes Santana hitting stride a month earlier due to his early preparation for the WBC, perhaps helping him- and the Twins- to a couple of extra wins.

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Not all of the early returns are so negative, as the bullpen has been extraordinary once again. Dick and Bert have been fixated on the starters’ poor performances, and five out of six of the best ERAs come from relievers, albeit in some horribly small sample sizes. Juan Rincon, who had an abbreviated spring and was not sure he would be ready for opening day, has already pitched on back to back days and has struck out four batters in three and a third innings, indicating that his stuff is ahead of where it should be. Francisco Liriano has looked completely untouchable, a possible franchise player down the road. He has outperformed his stellar K/BB ratio from a year ago by posting an infinite one so far this year (7/0) and he slammed the door on Cleveland Saturday after they looked lively against Baker earlier in the game. If the team can properly utilize him as a relief ace of old who routinely pitches multiple innings, he could be a difference-maker right now. Even the weakest performer so far, Jesse Crain, has reason for optimism. Even though he has already surrendered a HR and two runs in only three IP, he seems to have regained his taste for the strikeout, punching out four against zero walks. For me, getting Crain to stop relying so heavily on his defense to get outs was the biggest concern in the bullpen, and at least that situation looks to be improving in his first few outings.

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My own guttural response to the Tigers’ strong start has been to become extremely discouraged about the prospects for the rest of the season. I could see the Twins falling behind them early and plodding to the ASB as far as ten games under .500 before recovering somewhat down the stretch to finish with about 78 wins. This instance is one of those where I should probably calm down a little, but it is a source of consternation… The schedule has not been conducive to a hot start, going on the road to visit one of the teams with the most optimism and opening day euphoria after a big off-season. It did not get any easier after that, as Cleveland, Oakland and New York may be the three divisional favorites or even best teams in the league… One of the non-Twins headlines that has caught my attention so far has been the mess of the NL West. My pick, LA, has already faced all kinds of injuries for the second straight year, but look to be better prepared for extended DL stints this time around. But San Fran’s lineup looks remarkably susceptible to injury as well, especially that old body builder with the five head. San Diego, even without Ryan Klesko, looks better and better now that Jake Peavy quit cheating on vision tests and found out he had a detached retina… Opening day in St. Louis was an altogether enjoyable experience via MLB.tv, the greatest internet innovation since real time score updates. New Busch stadium, allegedly a hitters’ park, looks stunning with its view of the Gateway Arch and its fanatical inhabitants. A summer trip to St. Louis is definitely on my long term itinerary… It is also a shame that Jimmy Rollins’s hit streak ended so early. Even if it was the second longest streak since Dimaggio, I wanted him to beat Benito Santiago’s mark and make Marilyn Monroe roll over in her grave. If Philadelphia replaced David Bell with anyone (native Fargoan Chris Coste from AAA Scranton-Wilks Barre anyone?), they would make up my favorite infield alongside Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. As it stands, I prefer Milwaukee’s combo of Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy, Corey Koskie and Bill Hall. Just a great blend of youth, second generation future diabetics and Canadians. Good times.

The Big Blue Ribbon

As many journalists are wont to do, today I will go on the record with my picks for baseball’s major awards.

AL MVP
Smart money- David Ortiz- Last year, Ortiz made a lot of progress towards ending the deserved bias against DHs in MVP voting. Now he has the reputation for being a great leader and a clutch hitter, two qualities which are relentlessly self-affirming. Every time he gets a hit at a big moment, everyone will happily announce his clutch hitting ability. I don’t even deny that Ortiz is a great clutch hitter; I just do not think there are very good statistical methods confirming that suspicion, and I wish everyone would take that label with a grain of salt. Certainly, a good reputation does not an MVP make, but combined with the fact that he was a bridesmaid last year (generating sympathy and a sense of owing him something) and that everyone in and out of New York seems to hate Alex Rodriguez, who is the best player in the league. Now I don’t want to sound bitter, so I will close by praising Ortiz, who I expect to have a phenomenal, if not MVP-worthy, season. He could easily lead the league in HRs in a park that is not very friendly to left handed power hitters, his patience at the plate has made him even more intimidating, and he plays an important role for a team that figures to be in the race for the postseason.

Dark horse- Bobby Crosby- I have trouble picking an injury-plagued player who has yet to have a good season in the majors, but the PR engine is already behind him, constantly insisting that his injury was the main factor that derailed Oakland last year. You can be sure that if Oakland has a huge year, approaching 100 wins, the writers will want to give someone credit.

Overrated- Paul Konerko- He performed at the peak of his ability last year and was not in the race. Chicago will regress a little, and Konerko will lose some of his dap.

NL MVP
Smart money- Albert Pujols- And it isn’t even close. Unless Barry Bonds finds some new drug that can keep him healthy for 135 games, nobody in the league has the ability to even come close to Pujols. His other good competition, like Jason Bay and Miguel Cabrera, is stuck on uncompetitive teams that will suppress their counting stats and prevent writers from discussing their uncanny ability to lead. The Cardinals are not what they were last year, but they are certainly the class of the Central and probably the whole National League, so Pujols is in a strong position to claim Bonds’ mantle as undisputed heavyweight champion of the MLB. If Ortiz and Pujols are considered the ambassadors for the game, I think it is in great hands.

Dark horse- David Wright- I am increasingly coming to believe that the Mets are vastly overrated (Gasp! A New York sports team with undeserved hype?). Batting Reyes and Loduca 1-2 may not directly kill the lineup, but it reflects Willie Randoph’s misevaluation of offensive ability and they have serious pitching issues in terms of rotational depth and bullpen quality. Still, they will prey on Washington and Florida to help them reach 85 wins and Wright will quickly become one of media’s and the public’s favorites.

Overrated- Andruw Jones- He has yet to have an MVP caliber season if anything but HR count. Rick Sutcliffe said he saves 54 runs a year on defense (one every three games), so maybe I ought to rethink this one.

AL Cy Young
Smart money- Roy Halladay- I hate to pick against my favorite player on my favorite team, but I fear that the same problems that kept Santana out of the top spot last year will come back again. The Twins do not have as good an offense as Toronto (although it is not such an enormous deficit) and Halladay was better than Santana last year when he wasn’t getting hit by comebackers. If Toronto has a disappointing season, which is not terribly unlikely, I think Santana is a good 1-a, but the overall context tells me that Halladay’s health, hype and talent will converge this year.

Dark horse- Rich Harden- Again, if Oakland has a big year, it means their stars stayed healthy. If their stars stay healthy, it means they probably produced at a high level. King Felix is another dark horse, but he’s so dark it doesn’t even show up.

Overrated- Josh Beckett- He has had lots of good 2 or 3 starter seasons minus durability. What makes people think that moving from a pitcher’s park to a hitter’s park will reverse either of these trends?

NL Cy Young
Smart money- Jake Peavy- I heard Peavy give an interview on Baseball Tonight recently and he did his best Nuke LaLoosh impression, trotting out every cliché imaginable, babbling through difficult questions, contradicting himself and generally making me rethink whether I should like him. Maybe it does not take great brains to be a great starting pitcher, and Peavy can attest to that. He has a good stadium for a righty starter, a clean bill of health, an offense that won’t kill him, an improved defense behind him (Cameron, Castilla) and enough stuff to not lean on those guys too much.

Dark horse- Pedro Martinez- He may be the most famous pitcher in baseball, but very few seem to think he has a star caliber season left in his arm. Somebody should have told Omar Minaya that before he guaranteed the 12th year of his contract. Overall, I do not expect Pedro’s toe to hold up, but if it does and he tallies about 18 of 90 wins for the Mets, he’s going to get a lot of press.

Overrated- Billy Wagner, Eric Gagne- If there is a closer who has a shot at breaking through for a Gagne in 2004 type season, it is Brad Lidge. Gagne’s not totally healthy (his velocity is down 5-8 mph, supposedly) and even if he approximates his Cy Young season the writers are going to say that he already got his. Whoever thinks Wagner has it in him to have that sort of season is delusional- he breaks down every year and doesn’t have nearly that much left in the tank.

AL ROY
Smart money- Kenji Johjima- The reason for having a “smart money” category for ROY candidates is to separate the sexy picks from the boring ones with several years of high level pro experience. He projects to a .292/.354/.434 line, which should be more than good enough for a rookie catcher to win the award.

Dark horse- Jason Kubel- Everybody in baseball knows about Kubel due to his hot introduction in 2004 and ensuing gruesome injury. If he can tally a large number of ABs this year, his skill set caters to writers who like BA, so Kubel could play himself into the discussion.

Overrated- Francisco Liriano- Unless they trade Kyle Lohse very early on and give Liriano a starting job, he’s not going to get there by pitching in middle relief.

NL ROY
Smart money- Prince Fielder- There are lots of names that enter into this conversation, as Ryan Zimmerman, Jeremy Hermida and Matt Cain all have impressive credentials and strong holds on their jobs. I pick Fielder because he has sexier homerun totals and plays for a team that everyone is bound to love. Two potential drawbacks: Fielder’s body type make me worried about injuries despite a clean history so far and he may remind voters too much of Ryan Howard and they may want to change it up a bit.

Dark horse- Josh Barfield- If writers don’t hold a grudge against his surly dad, the Padres keystone new keystone man could parlay a great spring into a well rounded line and some hardware.

Overrated- I do not think Hermida has enough around him to have a great season. Maybe voters will feel sorry for him, but that’s not really much of a reason for optimism.

Manager of the Year
AL: Ken Macha
NL: Grady Little

Depose Castro!

I will assume that most people reading this column are Twins fans. By extension, I will then assume that most people reading this column are upset that the Twins have chosen Juan Castro to be their opening day shortstop rather than Jason Bartlett, repeating one of the mistakes that cost them a semblance of an offense last year. Bartlett supposedly had a poor spring training, but based on the limited available spring training statistics, Bartlett out hit Castro and several other players who broke camp with the big team. Maybe it will only take a few weeks before Castro’s putrid bat will once again become untenable even at a position that does not require great offensive contributions. But why has it come to that? The front office’s continued inability to properly value their infielders’ offensive ability (or refusal acknowledge offense’s relative importance vis-à-vis defense) manifests itself in symptoms like Tony Batista and Doug Mientkiewicz. Castro just goes to show that they have not learned their lesson, and I am afraid that a lineup with this many sinkholes has no shot at the playoffs. Between choosing Baker over Liriano, Batista over Cuddyer (or anyone else who is upright and breathing) and Castro over Bartlett, the Twins have handicapped their meager probability of competing in an increasingly competitive division.

We do not know precisely the effect that playing Castro will have, but based on comprehensive statistical models, we can have a pretty good idea of the greatest probabilities. Defensively, both Bartlett and Castro are above average. Each player put up insanely high fielding Rate stats last year, Castro at 123 (Rate2) and Bartlett at 118, meaning they averaged 23 and 18 runs above average at the position every 100 games. We should temper our enthusiasm, though, as those numbers are so inconsistent with the rest of baseball that something has to be making noise in the machine. I suspect that Mike Cuddyer is to blame, as poor positioning or a general lack of skill produced putrid fielding rate stats for him at third the last two years (83, 89) commensurate with making good shortstops look like great ones by leaving more balls for them to play. Both players have career stats that make them look like good-very good defensive shortstops- Bartlett holding a slight advantage- but nothing like what they were last year. Combining their close results last year with Bartlett’s historical advantage, I believe neither can be considered a much greater asset at short, so offense should help make the decision.

And offense is a different story altogether. Based on PECOTA projections, Bartlett actually looks like a pretty good first option at short for most teams. With a .271/.339/.393 line, he adds on-base skills just above league average to his solid glove at the premium defensive position. To give some context, his .268 EQA is the same as Rafael Furcal, widely regarded as one of the top shortstops in the game and paid a salary worthy of his reputation. Castro, on the other hand, is gearing up for what could be a .254/.287/.378 year. Maybe that doesn’t look so much worse to you since the BA and SLG really are not that far off, but consider that a .050 point OBP deficit is like the difference between Cincy teammates Adam Dunn and Ryan Freel. Moreover, Castro shares his .237 EQA with Philadelphia futility infielder Ramon Martinez. “But Martinez would never play a full season,” you say. Exactly.

Running all sorts of numbers through Marginal Lineup Value formulas gives an idea of what Bartlett or Castro do to a lineup when you add them to it. Using the 2005 AL league averages of .268/.328/.424, a league average offense would score 785 runs. Plugging in the rate stats of Castro and Bartlett as everyday players, both offenses lose some runs, predictable with plus defenders at the left end of the defensive spectrum. Bartlett, though, with his decent ability to get on base, only costs the team three runs, factoring out to 782 runs for a complete season, which is quite good for someone with his glove. Castro’s contribution is not so optimistic, as the league average + Castro iteration would only score 762 runs. If defense is a push, which I maintain it would be, playing Castro over Batlett would cost the team at least two full wins, non insignificant in a tight division. In fact, the PECOTA projection for the AL Central have the Twins finishing four games behind the Indians for the division title, so two wins here and there would make all the difference. Looking at those same projections, we can see that the Twins project to 757 runs offensively, an unsurprisingly below-average figure, meaning that Bartlett would actually add offensive value whereas Castro would remain substantially below average.

I know this is not the note on which anyone wants to begin the season, but unfortunately, Batista and Castro do not strike such a harmonious chord.