What We Know, Part II

The maniacal start of the moribund Cleveland franchise will be the subject of a future post. Projected for another sub-.500, they're tearing up the league. They merit their own investigation.

Today, we look at two teams that are -- at the quarter pole -- definitely what they appear, much to the chagrin of their fans. One is the San Diego Padres, a team that nearly won the NL West last year despite a lineup of pacifists who can't hit anything. The other is the Minnesota Twins, who have so far cornered the market on suck.

The Padres are fulfilling our expectations for 2011. At 21-31 as of this writing and under-scoring opponents by half-a-run per game, they are demonstrating that while their pitching has inevitably regressed this year, their bats remain limp noodles.

In 2010, pitchers by names like Mat Latos and Wade LeBlanc improbably kept opponents off the scoreboard. Their performance seemed unsustainable -- even with a bullpen that brings cheddar every night -- and it was. The Friars still induce their share of goose eggs, as does their home field, but they're fourth in the league in ERA, not first.

That's not enough to counteract the most sluggish offense in the NL even before losing Adrian Gonzalez. Only two of their 13 batters with 50+ plate appearances have slugged .400 or more. Six of those 13 are on base less than 30% of the time, and that doesn't include shortstop Jason Bartlett's .300 OBP. The bottom line is a team slashing .226/.294/.333 and listing towards oblivion.

Higher expectations greeted your 2011 Twins, but they've evaporated in the AL's worst hitting, worst pitching and worst record. Sure, Joe Mauer's spending time on the DL, but that's what Joe Mauer does. Justin Morneau and Delmon Young haven't yet got untracked, but those are two head cases -- of different sorts -- whose performance never was guaranteed. DH Jim Thome hit 25 homers and posted a 1.036 OPS in part-time play last year, but that's not a reasonable expectation at 41; his four homers accompany a .792 OPS this year.

There's more room for improvement on the mound, particularly if Francisco Liriano's arm stops hurting. It's the bullpen, though, that shoulders most of the blame for their league-bottom 4.76 ERA: the top five relievers have ERAs of 4.88, 1.59, 7.63, 6.59 and 5.40. Closer Matt Capps is serving up two long balls per nine innings.

The big problem is this: even if the Twins aren't baseball's Cleveland Cavaliers, they're a mediocre outfit in a 17-33 hole. Even playing .600 ball the rest of the season -- which would require an invasion of body snatchers -- only gets them to 84 wins, a number unlikely to land them October games. Minneapolis brass should start shopping free agent contracts to teams in contention and get some relief and middle infield prospects for next year and beyond.

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What We Know, Part I

Memorial Day weekend -- one quarter of the season in the books. At this point, there are things we know and things we don't yet, to partially paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.

One thing that has been settled: Jose Bautista is as real as a $100,000 bill. The Blue Jays' slugging right fielder came out of Ulanbataar to smash 54 homers last year and post a .995 OPS, 31% better than his previous best. 

Bautista's real level of ability was a question entering the 2011 season. Is he the journeyman fourth outfielder of his previous seven years? Or is he the MVP-level five-tooler of 2010? Answer: neither, he's Barry Bonds without the cookies and cream.

Bautista not successfully executed a sacrifice bunt this year. Other than that, he leads the majors in everything that matters. His .502 on base average in 203 plate appearances is the best in baseball. So is his .801 slugging percentage. He's first in home runs, first in total bases, first n BB/K ratio. His hitting value over a replacement player is 50% better than anyone else's in the game. Bautista has already been worth five wins against a replacement player. Only 50 players reached that level over an entire season in 2010.

And he's "on pace" to hit 74 home runs. He gone yard 20 times and gone down on strikes 27 times. Now, Bautista is hitting a generous .321 on balls in play, compared to about .300 league-wide. But according to Fangraphs, even if he regresses to his projected performance the rest of the year, he'll end the season with a shiny .419 on base average.

It isn't entirely unprecedented that a player -- even at Bautista's advanced age of 30 -- suddenly achieves a new level of performance. Ted Kluszewski doubled his previous yearly home run total when he smacked 40 in 1953. He banged out 49, 47 and 35 the following three seasons. Carlos Pena did the same thing for the Rays in '07, when he delivered 46 pitches into the stands. He's hit 31, 39 and 28 since, with 28 coming despite a .196 batting average last season.

Still, if Bautista went nuts with the bat last year, he's stark raving mad so far in 2011. It's fun to watch and I hope it continues.

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Are the Giants Bustered?

An unnecessary train wreck in front of home plate earlier this week has left backstop phenom Buster Posey on crutches for the season. That's bad news for the offensively-challenged Giants, but there's some good news as well.

Posey is a legitimate star, his tepid .284/.368/.398 start in 2011 not withstanding. After a gleaming college career and a team MVP-caliber rookie season (.305/.355/.505), projecting him for five wins over a replacement-level player this year would not have been overly optimistic.

Well, now we get to see his replacement, journeyman Eli Whiteside, 31, who's played a notch above replacement level in 321 lifetime plate appearances, roughly what he could expect the rest of the way this year.

Of course, the Giant brass isn't locked into their back-up backstop. There's been talk that GM Brian Sabean might execute a trade with Pittsburgh for 30-year-old Ryan Doumit. Doumit is signed for this year and has a reasonable two-year option for $15.5 million, so he could be a short-term rental or a lease-to-buy, depending on the Giants' needs going forward. Doumit brings a respectable .262/.338/.438 lifetime line and could deliver roughly two wins the rest of the way.

So the Giants lost about four wins under the current arrangement (remainder of Posey's season, which would have been roughly four wins) or sacrifice some high-quality livestock from the farm to gain back two.

Four wins is a big deal. It's the difference between a .500 record and 85 wins, or between 85 and 89. In the flaccid NL West, 89 wins takes the division and 85 puts a team in contention. San Francisco is third best in the senior circuit in defense and third worst in offense, which means the pitching was already carrying the team to its division lead. With Whiteside, the load gets heavier and the Giants have to be considered co-favorites rather than clearly the best team in the NL West.

That's the good news: L.A., Colorado, Arizona and San Diego. The Dodgers, Rockies and D-Backs don't reside in the Padres' low-rent neighborhood, but they all need some gentrification before their neck of the woods is in the division-winning district. That's why losing their one true offensive threat doesn't alone derail the Giants' season.

From Sabean's point of view, there may be other avenues for the offensive uptick he needs to solidify a playoff spot in the Bay, even with Barry Bonds incarcerated. First, the Kung Fu Panda and his sterling .904 OPS is expected back in the lineup in June after wrist surgery. Replacing the odious stylings of Miguel Tejada's dessicated remains (.522 OPS and abysmal fielding) with Sandoval at third base adds back Posey's wins in one fell swoop. Aubrey Huff's return just halfway to last year's performance would jack his hitting above replacement level and add three wins to SF. Even the lost-cause free agent splash from three years ago, Aaron Rowand, could knock a loss off the team's record going forward by just stinking in center field, instead of putrefying.

So Sabean might just lay low and see if his lineup can coax a few more runs for Messers Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez and Baumgarner to pitch in front of. The Giants can probably win the West without panicking. Without hitting is another matter.

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No Tres Bon, Pierre

Juan Pierre is batting .261 with six steals this year and lots of left field speed. Sounds like a good leadoff choice for the White Sox, right?

And he is, for the White Sox' Double-A affiliate in Birmingham. Because, according to Beyond the Box Score, Pierre is the worst player in MLB so far, costing the White Sox a full loss already in a quarter of the season compared to a replacement level left fielder.

How? To start with, he hasn't left the park yet. Well, "yet" is probably not appropriate, since it connotes an expectation that we shouldn't have. Pierre has jacked two homers in the last five seasons, and 14 for his 12-year career, In fact, in 202 plate appearances, he has just six extra-base hits. That leaves him with an empty .261/.320/.298 line.

The speed? He's swiped six bases. In 14 tries. 

But he's got great field coverage with the glove, right? In fact, defensive metrics say he resembles a statue in left this year. Now, defensive metrics have as much variability as London weather, but that's not a good sign. Pierre turns 34 this August and maybe he's having trouble getting reception in US Cellular Field.

All this, of course, is fun with numbers. Pierre is what he is and always has been: a speed-first guy with a decent average, as many walks as strikeouts and a theft rate of 75%. He utterly lacks pop, but he's a solid fielder who staffed center creditably for half his career. So look for his batting and on-base averages to rise and his steal rate to improve. His defensive calculations will stabilize, whether because of improved play or the dampening of statistical quirks. He'll be worth a win over replacement by season's end, or else his season will end prematurely. 

In the meantime, he bears some of the blame for the Southsiders' poor start.

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Lessons From A Single Game

Rockies-Phillies last week at Citizens Bank Park provided a vivid illustration of how little of the game pitchers control.

With the score knotted at one and runners on first and second, Placido Polanco saved Cole Hamels a charge against his ERA. Rockie second-sacker Alfredo Almezegar blasted a fastball between third and short that had RBI written all over it. A diving Polanco speared the ball and threw to first, ending the inning instead.

Leading off the top of the next frame, Philly fill-in second-baseman Wilson Valdez nabbed a slow roller making googly-eyes for the outfield grass and jump-threw a one-hopper to first. Ryan Howard swiped at the throw and clipped it, putting the lead-off man aboard. In making the play look harder than it was, Howard side-stepped an error. Any resulting run would have accrued to Hamels's discredit, a point he rendered moot by retiring the remainder of the side without incident.

Bottom of the eighth with Colorado starter Jorge De La Rosa cruising against the scrapping Philadelphia lineup. After walking Valdez and converting Shane Victorino's sacrifice bunt into an out at first. De La Rosa bounced a curveball under Chris Ianetta's catcher's mitt, sending Valdez within 90 feet of home. Ianetta was correctly charged with a passed ball, but it's commonly understood that at Coors Field that's a wild pitch. Hometown official scorers are more reticent about assigning blame to the local boys.

The next batter, Jimmy Rollis, lofted a soft fly to shallow center, endangering the rally. But center fielder Ryan Spilborghs over-ran his approach and needed seven steps to unleash his throw, providing Valdez, not to mention Mama Cass, the requisite time to cross the plate safely with the go-ahead run. Two bad defensive plays cost the Rockie pitcher the loss.

Numerous morals float to the top of this soup. The most salient is how many unaccounted factors affect ERA and W-L. Over the course of a season, defense can easily add or subtract half-a-run of ERA -- the difference between an excellent 3.90 ERA and an average 4.40 ERA. It's the reason that RA, which doesn't bother with the semi-arbitrary distinctions between "good" and "bad" runs, is a more honest and no less accurate barometer of pitcher accomplishments than ERA.

It also demonstrates the more widely-understood weakness of defensive metrics -- even advanced ones. None of the current crop directly accounts for Howard's miscue, recognizes Spilborghs's indiscretion or provides any tools to weigh their relative merits. (All the advanced metrics credit Polanco with a play made, and since a lesser cornerman -- that is to say, everyone -- would have made no play there, Polanco's prowess is recognized. Over the course of a season, those plays add up to runs saved.)

For the time being, at least, defense will have to be consigned to the sport's murky netherworld comprising luck and other mysteries whose unlocking is years from being complete. In the meantime, it's important to distinguish results on the field that pitchers actually do control and those they don't, and to credit and debit them appropriately.

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Singles and Doubles

Just back from a convention. Got some Big League Chew in my craw...

Justin Verlander now has two more no-hitters in five years than the New York Mets have in 50 years.

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No pitcher has won even 16 games in a year for the Pirates since Dan Quayle was vice president. Kevin Correia, at 5-2, is on pace for 26 wins. While "on pace" is about the dumbest baseball concept since the "unwritten rule," it sure is fun to contemplate.

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Orlando Hudson had swiped just 60 bases in his nine-year career prior to 2011, and never more than 10. On May 2nd, he slid safely into second for the 10th time this season. Hudson is 33, so he's not getting faster. In fact, the Twins jettisoned the proud keystoner in the off-season in an effort to add youth to the lineup.

Perhaps the heightened thievery is a fluke, or an insightfully-rational response to the low-impact environment of the Padres' batting order.

More likely, it's Hudson's way of informing the Twins brass that they can insert their leadoff spot in their collective colonic orifice.

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It's the Year of the Pitcher! Again!

Of course, run scoring is generally down since '01, when teams plated, on average, more than five runs-a-game. Scoring so far this year is still historically high -- around 4.3 runs. Setting aside the fact that scoring in April is not necessarily indicative of season-long offensive tendencies, this year's patterns are still the fifth highest since 1954, outside the bopper-ball era of 1994-2010. 

It would be much more accurate to say that the Steroid Era (for lack of a better term), when men were men and pitchers were afraid, ended after 2007, and scoring has been declining since. At least so far.

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"We're only one month into the season, so you're only talking about one-sixth of the at-bats he is going to get this season. "I don't think you can fairly judge anybody on just one-sixth of the season."

That's Joe Girardi on Derek Jeter's miserable .250/.308/.263 start to the season. That is why Joe Girardi is a major league manager and the average sports talk radio caller demanding Jeter's demotion or removal from the lineup is an assistant overnight manager in the shipping department at the fertilizer warehouse.

Unless the Yankees break into the Mets' clubhouse and make off with Jose Reyes this week, Jeter can continue to perform at replacement level and avoid...replacement. More likely, this first-ballot Hall of Famer will make a few adjustments and spit fire for a few weeks to reach levels much more like last year's .270/.340/.369.  

No doubt, however, that at 37, the Jeter you once knew has Judge Cratered and that $51 million contract is going to Pavano all over the Yankees for three years.

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The Best Pitcher You've Never Heard Of

You, perhaps, have never heard of Tim Berners-Lee. You can be forgiven. Berners-Lee first proposed creation of the World Wide Web and helped invent the language that powers it. Because he handed the ball off to others the credit for his achievement has been diffused.

Likewise, even connoisseurs of America's Pastime can be forgiven if they can't pick the best pitcher in baseball out of a lineup.

I refer to 33-year-old Padre right hander Mike Adams, a 6'5" beanpole whose record of achievement dating back to the Bush II Administration merits a Cy Young-style award for middle relievers, but instead has delivered anonymity north of Orange County and east of Rancho Cucamonga.

Over the last two seasons and the first month of this campaign, Adams has turned Major League hitters into gobs of Smuckers apricot jam. In 120 innings, Adams has allowed all of 14 extra-base hits while fanning 142 batters. Opponents have blind-squirreled their way to a .157/.216/.215 line against him, giving him an 0.52 RA. (That counts seven unearned runs against him.) For all that, the mid-90s sinkerballer collected $414,800 in '09 and $1 million last year.

It's not like Mike Adams was a slacker prior to that. In '08, while earning a pauper's sum in baseball terms -- $335,000 -- he clamped down on batters to the tune of .200/.263/.331 and a 2.48 RA with 74 punchouts in 65 innings. That's roughly what left fielder Gabe Gross brought to Oakland's offense last year, and he's now out of the majors. For Adams, a repeat of that season would be a disappointment, but in 2008 they were a harbinger of things to come.

Because context is everything -- think how a "traditionally white college" would go over -- it merits mentioning that Adams toils in the no-DH league and in a home park that turns aluminum bats to wood. Still, even if those conditions impose a 20% penalty on batters facing Adams, that doesn't get anyone without a cape to an 0.52 RA.

Appearing for an inning every other game last year, Adams managed to produce 2.5 wins of value to San Diego. That's more than Adam Lind, Ivan Rodriguez or Todd Helton accounted for in 120+ games full games. For that, Adams got a raise to $2.5 million this year. And continued anonymity.

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