A Long Strange Trip

Dear Bud,

If you're wondering why people growing up on the web and Facebook and Twitter and instant gratific -- is the game over yet? -- are bored with baseball, take a look at the seventh inning in the Giants-Marlins tilt on Monday.

Keeping in mind that both teams are on the periphery of the race and sport young studs that may form the frame of a strong edifice in the future. If you're a denizen of the Golden or Sunshine states, there's reason to invest some time and attention in your homeboys.

Ricky Nolasco comes out to start the bottom o' the seventh,  with visiting Florida ahead 3-0. He retires Juan Uribe and walks Pat Burrell, an offense so gross that it prompts  manager Edwin Rodriguez to bolt from the dugout for a chat, eventually pointing his left arm towards the bullpen. Taylor Tankersly trots in and fires his warm-up tosses.

Aaron Rowand turns around Tankersly's second pitch and it's quickly 3-2. Rodriguez argues its foulness and the umps review it, determining they made the right call. The skipper leaves the field, the PA announces Freddy Sanchez as the next batter and Rodriguez bounds back up the dugout steps for a tete-a-tete with Tankersly before signaling for northpaw Jose Veras. 

I know what you're thinking: yippee! Another pitching change, my favorite thing! Now we can assault the fans in the stadium with another insipid videoboard race among cartoon cheese products while the television audience is treated to the 11th airing today of a beer commercial. 

Sanchez singles on the second 94 mph fastball he sees. Bruce Bochy yanks Chris Ray and pinch hits Nate Scheurholz, who flies out. Next up, promising rookie Andres Torres, who watches two pick-off attempts, two strikes and four balls before walking to first base.

It's now been six minutes since Rodriguez has set foot on the field, a situation remedied by another conference on the hill. Jose Veras departs for a well-deserved shower, having dispensed 10 pitches and two throws to first. Brian Sanchez takes the long walk to meet with Rodriguez before limbering up with his requisite warm-up throws. 

At this point, the crowd has, en masse, checked Lindsay Lohan's Facebook status. Incarcerated. They wonder what Justin Bieber is up to, or perhaps, what Justin Bieber is.

Sanchez makes quick work of Edgar Renteria, who whiffs on four pitches. His brief tenure at the plate is a counterpoint to a half inning that dragged on for 27 minutes and involved four pitchers, only one of whom relinquished any runs.

In other words, the Marlins managed a bit of reverse alchemy, transforming an exciting 3-2 contest into a cure for insomnia and costing everyone paying a babysitter an extra Lincoln. The half-frame took nearly a half-hour without even a lead change.

Aren't you the commissioner who casts a wary eye on further replays for fear of lengthening the tedium beyond three hours? How about this instead: ban replacing any pitcher who didn't start the inning. That would end the endless shuffling on the mound that sends my wife to her book just as the contest should be building to a crescendo. 

Next, limit pick-off moves so that pitchers spend their time moving the action forward, rather than sideways. Now you'll have enough time to add instant replay and still get dad home in time to tuck in his kids.

Baseball is an entertainment product. You forget that at the game's peril. Boring may have worked for you in your car-dealing career, but doesn't sell today, Bud. Ditch the dull, drawn-out inaction and the committee meetings, the self-molestation and genuflection between pitches, and replace them with baseball. I think you'll find the Tweeting crowd a little more receptive.

Love,

Waldo the Braindrizzler

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You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

Andre Dawson enters the Hall of Fame today without altering its accounts much in either direction. He is the quintessential borderline Hall of Famer.

The raw data puts Dawson in the Hall. He alone, save for spectacular company -- Barry Bonds and Willie Mays -- hit 400 homers and stole 300 bases. An all-around performer, he won eight Gold Gloves, an MVP, finished second twice, made eight All-Star games and earned Rookie of the Year in 1977. In addition, he played his first 11 seasons in the cavern in Montreal, which simultaneously dampened his batting exploits and his knee cartilage. Make no mistake, voters do the mental math on two full years' worth of injuries that drained some of his impact.

Peel the skin on his career and the flaws emerge. His .323 lifetime OBP is the worst by an outfielder in Cooperstown and demonstrates that whatever else his talents, The Hawk was below average at the single most important regular player skill -- avoiding outs. He compensated by slugging .500 just four times over 21 years and overall hit 19% better than the average player, adjusting for his ballpark. Because that compares him to second basemen and catchers as well as outfielders, it's not Hall-level impressive. By way of comparison, Jim Rice, whom I've argued was clearly not Hall quality, hit 28% better than average. Is Jim Edmonds a Hall of Famer? He's hit 32% better than average.

In addition, Dawson padded the balance sheet by hanging around long after his skills had departed. His last four years in Boston and Florida got him into the 400-homer club despite failing to contribute wins in either city.

Where Andre Dawson really makes his HoF case is on the basepaths and in the field. The scouts and stats agree that he was an exceptional centerfielder, though the objective data suggests he lost his mojo in right, where he actually spent more of his career. He also swiped 314 bases at a 74% rate, which adds 84 runs of value to his bottom line.

All of which puts Dawson on the teeter-totter for me, a better laureate than Jim Rice, worse than Tim Raines, who hit significantly better and added 500 runs on the base paths. (To be fair, he wasn't in the same stratosphere as Dawson defensively.) But the writers gave him their imprimatur, so he's a Hall of Famer and no one, not even some amateur stat geek who couldn't hit a 40 mph curve ball, can take that away from him. And for all the electrons spilled over his admission, it doesn't add or detract from the Hall of Fame much at all.

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Curve Balls In Alpharetta?

Just back from Atlanta where I exposed my baseball-ignorant bride to a first-place tilt with the Padres at the Ted. She read a book starting in the seventh inning. Philistine.

The home team took two of three, largely because, while both clubs sport deep starting pitching, superb relief and excellent defense, the Braves bring bats to their contests.

One player whom I was particularly interested in watching was freshly minted Native American, Alex Gonzalez. Atlanta swapped their uber-talented young shortstop, Yunel Escobar, for the bloated half-year stats of a 33-year-old journeyman. On the face of it, Braves GM Frank Wren got taken for a ride on MARTA. But there's more to this trade than meets the eye.

Escobar is brimming with ability -- a bazooka arm and on base talent has earned him 12 wins over a replacement player in the two full years of his career prior to 2010. In the first half of this year, his VORP tumbled 180 points and his longball power evaporated.

In exchange, the Braves bit on a guy with 12 years of .295 OBP and intermittent power who suddenly in 2010 started banging the ball around the Rogers Centre. It sounds like the ultimate buy high/sell low proposition that made teams like the Pirates and Astros the Triple-A powerhouses they are today. Didn't you think the Braves are smarter than that?

They are. The mercurial Escobar is a prodigal child who was killing Atlanta defensively and causing agita in the clubhouse. Worst of all, managerial icon Bobby Cox had consumed all the Yunel he could handle, and was ready for a blander course that he could more easily stomach.

No doubt Gonzalez is a short term solution. But for a team with World Series aspirations, he brings proven defensive aptitude at a key position and a hale-fellow clubhouse persona. Moreover, what Bobby wants, Bobby gets, for as long as he fills out the lineup card. No one's going to argue with a first-ballot Hall of Fame skipper.

In the game I watched, AGon demonstrated in vivid hues how a guy can play 13 Major League seasons collecting outs at a 70.5% rate. Three of his at-bats were American Legion quality, including a couple where he chased sliders into Gwinnet. His all-or-nothing approach may pay dividends in Toronto, but it'll simply be all nothing if he applies it to the Senior Circuit.

On the other hand, Cox didn't have to reach for the antacid every time a ball traveled his shortstop's way. (Actually, Cox was serving a one-game suspension, so he didn't even have to watch. But you get the point.) In a pennant race, there's a lot to be said for a team's ongoing emotional health.

So what seemed like a poorly-conceived sacrifice of future value for a league-average present may turn out to be more evil Bobby Cox genius. The converse, however, is not necessarily the reverse. This deal still benefits the Blue Jays, who have less chance of beating the Yankees, et. al. than Robert E. Lee. (In fact, Lee took an early lead and kept it close longer.) They might as well flip their rent-a-shortstop for a chance to sip at the emerging star cup at below-market prices.

There is one small coda to this: In his first 30 plate appearances for Atlanta, AGon's been raking to the tune of .370/.433/.519. Maybe opposing pitchers ought to consider throwing more sliders into the Atlanta suburbs.

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A Net Deficit, By George

Much ink has been spilled in remembrance of George Steinbrenner and I have little to add to the discussion of his life or personality. He never sounded like someone I'd want to know or work for, and it always seemed to me that his episodic acts of generosity were a kind of green-washing of his reputation, image and life's work.

Of course, I've never been a Yankee fan. Anyone who is ought to hold The Boss in some esteem, since he spent and willed his franchise to unequaled success during a 35-year tenure at the helm of the team. 

Well, tangentially, that's not quite accurate. Steinbrenner's impetuousness and immaturity plunged the franchise into a dark hole from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Only when he acquiesced to the urgent and incessant pleas of the team's professional staff to unclench his grubby paws from the day-to-day operations did it rebound to its traditional position atop the sport.

Where it resides today, much to the detriment of baseball. Say whatever else you like about Steinbrenner, while he was leveraging his market position to maximize revenues and build championships in the Bronx, he was simultaneously pricing out much of the rest of baseball. Teams in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Oakland, Tampa Bay, San Diego, etc. must compete on a national (or continental, to be exact) labor market using mostly local revenues. 

To wit: the Tampa Bay Rays, finally ascendant after years of futility, now have a roster of great players entering their arbitration years. Their earnings peaks are still years ahead, but they will begin commanding 40%-60%-80% of their free market value. Nonetheless, with a payroll one-third of the Yankees', Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has announced that labor costs are unsustainable and must be cut next year. If the Rays carry out that plan, they will be forced to gut the team after just three years of competitiveness. It will be nearly impossible for them to challenge for the division with a diminished payroll. This is George Steinbrenner's legacy.

Steinbrenner famously answered, when asked about revenue-sharing in baseball, that he didn't buy the Kansas City Royals. No, but his team can't play itself, so he's in business with the Kansas City Royals. The Royals' television package with Fox Sports KC nets the team an estimated $3 million. The Yankees' TV contract is opaque because the team owns 40% of the network, but their share is estimated at $1.2 billion. This is an apples and oranges comparison, but if the Yankee broadcasts on YES are responsible for just a third of the revenue, that's $400 million. In other words, a $200 million team payroll represents one half the TV revenues alone. In KC, TV revenues cover just six percent of even a meager $50 million team payroll.

The free market, to which Steinbrenner genuflected when it served him, would suggest that the Kansas City Royals -- or any other franchise struggling to keep pace with the Yankees -- simply move to New York. With 20 million people in the metro area, the Big Apple can certainly support three teams, and probably more. The Milwaukee Brewers, who serve a metro area of barely 1.8 million people, would be better off as one of 10 Major League teams in the tri-state area. But Steinbrenner always used his market monopoly (well, duopoly, to be exact) to prevent any other club from dividing his fan base. The Yankees have the ability through baseball rules, which codify an otherwise illegal trust, to prevent a Brooklyn franchise, a Long Island franchise, a northern New Jersey franchise, etc. (Congress allows baseball, uniquely, to enjoy exemption from anti-trust laws.)

The result is that it must suck to be a fan of half the teams in baseball. They can hope their favorite nine will be competitive now and then, but not for long. Ultimately, their teams can't compete with the Yankees, or even the Red Sox, Mets, Cardinals, Dodgers, Angels, etc. Worse, it sucks to be a baseball fan. There's just nothing interesting about the richest team in the capital of the world buying the best players, assembling a Hall of Fame lineup and winning the World Series. 

Now, revenues are not destiny. Certainly some low-revenue franchises, like the A's of the '90s and the Twins today, manage to compete at a high level for a while guided by smart management that is committed to winning. Some low-revenue franchises simply ought to be committed. K.C. and Pittsburgh (at least in previous years), reinvested their luxury tax money back into their owners' pockets. And some big market clubs, like the Mets and Astros, fritter away their advantages on bad baseball investments. 

So the Yankees deserve a lot of credit for the acumen of their professional staff. Since the Pavano-Wright debacles, they have adeptly executed their championship plan. (Even there, one would expect the richest franchise to buy the best talent for the front office.) They have assembled by far the best team and are first in line for the best available players. That ought to gratify every Yankee fan.

It ought to infuriate every baseball fan, though. And those two ideas, in a nutshell, are what George Steinbrenner left behind.

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Halftime Hardware

All-Star Break means taking stock, so let's examine the season at mid-life and pick the winners, losers and kncukleheads.

It's been a sub-par half-year for the best player in baseball. Albert Pujols' .416 OBP would be his worst since 2005, his .992 OPS would be the second worst of his career and his .332 "True Average," a catch-all seamhead measure adjusted to look like a batting average that purports to encompass total offensive value including baserunning and considering ballpark and pitching faced, would be the worst since his second season. Consequently, Price Albert is merely an MVP contender. Were he tearing it up as usual, he'd have lapped the field. 

It's hard to argue with Ubaldo Jimenez as the MVP of the Spring and early Summer in the NL. The Rockies are winning 89% of his starts and 48% of their other games. Luck and good defensive support play may be on his dance card every start, but Jimenez is pitching for the same team as his mound mates. His contribution to that gap -- no matter how incomplete -- sounds award-worthy. For what it's worth, sabermetric measures suggest Jimenez has been a little less effective than Roy Halladay & Josh Johnson.

If you're like me, you prefer to weigh your apples and oranges separately. That would leave Ubaldo to the Cy Young competition and pit Pujols against Joey Votto, David Wright, et. al. That particular trio ranks 1-2-3 in value over replacement player, which considers position, but not defense. They are close enough in VORP to justify elevating Wright's excellent defense at third over Pujols' superb glovework on the corner and leaving Votto behind.

The picture is more muddled in the Junior Circuit. Outfielder Josh Hamilton (.346/.390/.625, 47.2 VORP), first baseters Miguel Cabrera (.346/.423/.651, 46.8 VORP) and Justin Morneau (.345/.437/.618, 45.5 VORP), and keystoner Robby Cano (.336/.389/.566, 42.5 VORP) are the main options.  Cabrera is clearly the best hitter, but contributes the least with the leather. Cano is plainly swings the least lethal bat, but is most valuable facing the hitter. No one would have to justify a vote for Morneau or Hamilton either. It's worth accounting for offense-inflating ballparks in NY and Dallas, and recognizing that pitchers sing God Bless Comerica. What seems most likely, anyway, is that Cabrera maintains a stratospheric batting average while Hamilton suffers from mean-regression, making the choice a bit less Solomonic.

On to Cy Young. The above-referenced Jimenez  is an obvious NL choice, though Johnson (1.70 ERA, 4.39K/BB), Halladay (2.19 ERA, 6.74 K/BB) and Adam Wainwright (2.11 ERA, 3.63 K/BB) could proudly hoist the trophy -- if there is one -- guilt free. Halladay offers more endurance and that level of accomplishment in a home stadium that plays to the grand slam crowd, though it must be nice never to have to face his mates Chase, Ryan, Jayson, Shane, Jimmy, et. al. Johnson pitches in front of an infield anchored -- and I do mean anchored -- by Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla. So pick your poison, or just wait for the rest of the season to play out.

Again in the AL, the view is more opaque. Cliff Lee (2.54 ERA, 15.17 K/BB, 10 of 13 Quality Starts) would be my history-making choice; he'd have to earn the award with one team in the first half and another post-ASB. Jon Lester (2.78 ERA, 2.82 K/BB, 13 of 18 with Fenway as home base), Felix Hernandez (2.88 ERA, 3.12 K/BB, 16 of 19) and others jostle for position at the front of the line.

Armando Gallaraga and Jim Leyland share the Gentleman Merit Badge for proving that you can have a perfect game even if you give up a hit. In the same vein, Jim Joyce wins the Don Zimmer Real Man Apology Award. Adrian Gonzalez earns the Snow White Trophy for playing with seven dwarfs in San Diego. The LeBron James Ribbon goes to the Cleveland Indians, who have saddened the people of Northeast Ohio by staying. The late George Steinbrenner takes the Warren Buffet plaque to eternity for plunking down $187,000 of his own schwag in an $8.7 mil play in 1974 for the Yankees, now worth $1.5 billion.

And then there's the the Idiot Award shared by all of us. Or at least all of us who thought the Reds were also-rans, the Padres were cellar-dwellers, the Mets were done, the Phillies were shoo-ins and the Mariners were contenders. And we'll earn it all over again unless we acknowledge that we might be right when it's all said and done. So let's just play the second half.

 I can't wait until Thursday.
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Not A Dilemma At All

As everyone in baseball has noted, Mets skipper Jerry Manuel has a dilemma on his hands with the return of Carlos Beltran after the All-Star break. He'll have four fine outfielders for only three spots. Inserting Beltran means someone who has lit it up will have to sit.

It's a nice dilemma, except for one thing: it's no dilemma at all.

Most of the discussion around Beltran's return from knee injury concerns his centerfield replacement, Angel Pagan. Pagan has been the Mets' second best hitter, behind David Wright, and contributes other fine attributes, like 19 steals in 24 attempts and solid defense in a difficult defensive position. Pagan's laudable.304/.364/.457 performance at the plate looks a lot like last year's breakout season, which suggests the 29-year-old switch hitter is the real thing.

Another real thing is Jason Bay, despite a relative dearth of long balls.  He's smacked 30+ out four times in his career and .279/.375/.512 career line, so it's not like Manuel is lifting him and his big contract to keep Angel Pagan in the game.

Jeff Francoeur, on the other hand, is very much NOT the real thing. He is Broke-A-Cola. He is the poster boy for sabermetric disembowelment. Francoeur is everything showy that doesn't matter and a zero in the shadowy parts of the game that actually affect the score. Manuel ought to have yanked him from the lineup before Beltran recovered, much less once Beltran is ready to patrol center.

Wait a second, you say. He hits for power and sometimes average, runs well and swipes bases, and has a rifle in right field. He's a studly young buck and by all accounts a good guy. What could be bad about that? I hear he like long walks on the beach and supports the fight against child abuse too.

Let's take a look at "Frenchy's" resume. (You know, some baseball nicknames are pure genius -- the Big Unit and the Big Hurt come to mind -- while others are so inane and soulless they should be banned. I just used one of those. Never again, I promise.) Though Francoeur has batted ..283 in 625 plate appearances since joining the Mets, he's trotted to first a grand total of 30 times. It's harder to walk him than Ron Kovic. His OBP of .322 just downright stinks, and it's an improvement over his lifetime rate.

Francoeur has bopped 18 homers and 34 doubles in that time, which keeps you in the lineup if your OBP is .350, or if you're a second baseman. And while he's got a whipsaw right arm, his defense is certainly not the equal of either the Beltran who got hurt or of Pagan. Over the last three years, Francoeur has been exactly a replacement-level outfielder at the plate. However, he's a fine pinch runner and a late inning defensive replacement for Bay, if you think that's an upgrade.

Fox color analyst Kevin Millar observed about Francoeur that "this guy is a ballplayer." It's true: you take one look at him play and you think he's got it all. But today's analyst community has managed to get beyond the muscles and the sweet swings to measure the abilities that really contribute to success, and plate discipline is at the top of the list. His complete lack of it is Jeff Francoeur's downfall. Jerry, this is an easy call: sit him.

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Smelling A Rat

This is a scenario that's no longer possible, but it's fun to imagine. It's the kind of scam that Billy Beane used to perpetrate on the rest of baseball during the '90s, before front offices started realizing that scouts without stats -- that is, development without research --  is Laurel without Hardy.

The run-scoring environment in San Diego is so depressed that it distorts the value of hitters and pitchers. Wade LeBlanc, a skooch above average in the first half this year, sports a 3.30 ERA despite nearly four walks and just six strikeouts per nine frames. Catcher Nick Hundley has been one of the better backstops in the league this year, despite a .263 BA, 5 HR 26 RBI. His meager .337 OBA, with half his plate appearances coming at Petco, is actually a boon to the Pads.

Clinging to a tenuous lead in the NL West, how might GM Kevin Towers goose his lineup? How about by exploiting the reality of perception? If he could deal one of his red herring hurlers for a significant bat -- particularly in the outfield -- he could make his team significantly better.

The best trading partner would be one in a similarly dampened offensive environment, like the denizens of AT&T Park, Dodger Stadium or Citi Field. Their hitters' prowess is similarly understated by the numbers, so what looks like a fair trade statistically would vastly benefit San Diego. Or, they could upgrade their pitching by filching an under-rated arm from a homerdome like the BoB or Yankee Stadium.

This is what Beane did repeatedly for Oakland during the '90s, when only a handful of teams could distinguish Bill James from LeBron James. He swapped closers with big save numbers for hitters with low batting averages but high on-base percentages. He traded RBI collectors for pitchers with good walk-strikeout ratios and bad won-loss records. He cashed in speed merchant out-machines for discerning thieves with lower SB totals. In each case, the value of the former was overblown, the latter under-appreciated. (He did other things too, mostly involving payroll-depression, but that's not relevant here.)

A decade later, that just won't work. Every general manager in baseball understands the importance of context and luck, or has someone on staff who does. There isn't a team that can't see through that ruse. Today, the inefficiencies in the marketplace, which Beane drove a truck through in the 90s, are wafer-thin.

Still, it's a fun exercise. Imagine, for example, if Towers could induce Arizona to take LeBlanc and his .330 ERA for Ian Kennedy, mired in a 4-7, 4.12 season. Towers would know that at Bank One Ballpark, where strikeouts go to die and home runs live like kings, Kennedy and his eight Ks per nine are a highly valuable commodity.

Alas, at least for San Diegans (and Tijuanans), the baseball consumer protection board prohibits this sort of fraud. Front offices smell rats like this a mile away, even if their fans can't.

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The Worldwide Leader In Drivel

I teach my college students that there is precious little partisan political bias in network news, and anyone who says otherwise is just revealing their own personal partisan political bias. (I exempt Fox News, which is pretty overt in its bias, and therefore somewhat insulated from the criticism. I hear MSNBC tilts in the other direction, but I've never seen it.) Most reporters have professional pride and the ability to be fair, if not to cover all facets of every issue.

The major bias in news, I tell them, is in favor of news. Duh.

The major bias in non-news networks is for profit, and nowhere has that been more egregiously demonstrated than by ESPN in its lunatic ramblings about LeBron James.

I wondered how the network could become so unhinged that for three weeks it spent 60% of its radio programming -- I mean 60% of the 40% that's not commercials -- endlessly conjecturing about James's intentions. Considering that no "reporter" or "analyst" had a shred of information useful to the story, it seemed inconceivable that ESPN could dedicate such endless drivel to this non-story. I was especially amused by the "predictions" that were being dealt like poker cards, predictions based on wisps of air, as if parsing the intentions of the Soviet-era Kremlin. Only one person knew LeBron's heart and that person wasn't telling.

My musings came to a head on Tuesday, when ESPN radio's morning show literally chucked its coverage of baseball, World Cup and all else sporting to dedicate its airwaves to non-stop dead-horse beatings for the entire show. I understand the occasional Chris Berman and Dick Vitale, but had an entire network checked into Bellevue?

Then it all became clear. It turns out that James had convinced station brass to run a prime time one-hour extravaganza during which he would reveal his destination (and God knows what else for 60 whole minutes. Well, 32 minutes, after commercials.) In fact, ESPN hadn't been covering a story; it had been promoting an upcoming special on its own network.

Which makes me wonder, how much Connecticut spittle would have been projected over this issue had Fox Sports televised it instead. In other words, what was the real news value of LeBron's free agency. Maybe I'm just a hopeless Association-hater, but it's hard for me to imagine that even 25% of the actual airtime wasted would have been so dedicated, and I think something more like 8% is more accurate. It would be a shocking indictment of this infuriating network, if only it weren't shocking at all.

Word is that the proceeds from sponsorships for that hour were going to charity, but even if true, ESPN reaped copious benefit from LeBron's largess, pumping the airwaves with its station promos, reinforcing its brand, etc., etc. So it turns out that I was just a prop in the scenery during the three-week run-up, not a customer to be entertained. Good thing I began switching to public radio to hear actual news instead.

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Who Do They Use for Bobblehead Night?

There is a team in the National League that has one good hitter. One. That player has produced more value to the team than the batting order's next five best batsmen. Combined.

Of the 12 other everyday players with at least 100 at bats, not a single one has managed an OBP above .338. That particular player has a .348 SLG. Which puts him at about the midpoint on the team. Only two semi-regulars, besides the star, have SLG above .400. The second most prodigious offensive performer on this ragtag outfit is a platooned catcher with a .258/.337/.436 line, which fails to note that he's attempted five steals and slid into a tag each time.

The trio patrolling the outfield breaks out the big wood to the OPS tune of .730, .646 and .717. An average starting outfielder racks up a .790 OPS. Put into stats that your local sportswriter would understand, your standard outfield averages a .280 BA and 25 dingers. Our protaganists' triumvirate hits .230 with 12 homers.

Who are these goose egg collectors -- the chronically anemic Pirates? The feckless Orioles? Some Triple-A bottom feeders? The Detroit Lions? No, this battalion is in first place. By four games. With the leading run differential in the circuit.

Welcome to your 2010 San Diego Padres.

As you might imagine, Los Dads have some kinda pitching staff. Their top four starters, Mat Latos, Clayton Richard, Wade LeBlanc and Jon Garland are exploiting Petco's score-deadening qualities, with ERAs of .262, .274, .325 and .324 respectively. 

Defense, the park and luck are collaborating to dampen those ERAs. In fact, advanced measurement techniques suggest that Garland and LeBlanc particularly are swimming in water that's over their heads. It's affecting the whole mound corps: all but two hurlers on the entire squad sport ERAs over 3.30. But the defense is part of the team's equation and San Diego isn't moving to Denver anytime soon, so don't bet the house (or maybe you should, considering how much you owe on it) on those numbers fattening up much as the season marches on.

Still, if you want to know how Adrian Gonzalez's team is winning at season's midpoint with a lineup of defensive replacements, look to the relievers. One after another, the Priests send to the hill a parade of fire extinguishers. Tim Stauffer's ERA is 0.39. Ryan Webb, 1.72. Closer Heath Bell is at 1.82 and he's fanning 12 per nine innings. Luke Greggerson, the first reliever into the game most nights, is throwing golf balls. He's relinquished four hits and one walk and whiffed more than 11 batters per nine innings. His K/BB ratio is an otherworldly 8.5. That's Luke, not fLuke.

Certainly, Bud Black's charges operate in a low-run environment. Petco has proven itself the most run-suppressant park in baseball over the last six years, dampening run-scoring by 20%. That's a huge factor and it explains a lot of the numeric fun we've had above. Nonetheless, this is a wretched hitting team living in the dead-ball era and a pitching staff that's carrying the load. Even accounting for the park, four of the eight regulars produce offense below replacement level.

So the question is, can San Diego remain perched atop the NL West, and if so, how? This isn't new: they had the best record in baseball over the last 62 games last year. If GM Jed Hoyer doesn't secure a decent bat, in the outfield optimally, can the Deacons continue to win 2-1 at a .600 clip into October?  It's going to be interesting to see.

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My All-Star Roster

The composition following this statement is a study in trivia. Nothing you are about to read amounts to a hill of beans. Which is saying something for a blog called "braindrizzling" in which the topic is baseball. So you've been warned.

The aforementioned is so mentioned because this is about the All-Star squad, which matters almost entirely in the sense that a dozen of the 64 participants get bonuses for having their names selected. Beyond that, it's the fans game and they vote for the guys they want.

Here's the really surprising part: the masses do a great job. They are far more rational than the players and managers, who seem to select the guys with the best reputations and whom they like the best, respectively.

It doesn't matter, in part because no one has ever defined what constitutes an All-Star-worthy performance. Is it half a season of accomplishment? Is it the best 162 games, from last ASG to this one? Is it just about being the best player? The one fans want to see?  Or is it some combination of these?

Everyone seems to have their own, sometimes variable, formula. Here's mine, and it's no more defined than any other: I vote for the best players having the best seasons. How's that for vague? Albert Pujols is the NL first baseman unless he's hitting .230 with six home runs. Jerry Hairston, Jr. and his .695 lifetime OPS doesn't make my starting roster batting .400 with 20 dingers unless David Wright falls down a flight of stairs and takes Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones, Placido Polanco, Mark Reynolds and the Kung Fu Panda with him.

I take into consideration when a player has only played half of half the season, but I pay no mind whatsoever to whether a player is currently hurt. If he deserves the nod, I bestow it. Let the manager replace him.

That said, here are my votes for the Mid-Summer Classic.

NL

1B Albert Pujols

2B Chase Utley

3B David Wright

SS Hanley Ramirez

C Brian McCan

OF Ryan Braun

OF Andre Ethier

OF Matt Holliday

AL

1B Miguel Cabrera

2B Robinson Cano

3B Adrian Beltre

SS Derek Jeter

C Joe Mauer

OF Josh Hamilton

OF Ichiro Suzuki

OF Vernon Wells

DH Vlad Guerrero

You'll notice that there aren't any rookies or surprise names on this ballot. Jose Bautista is going to have to go all Mark McGwire on AL pitching for more than 260 at-bats before I get ramped up about him. Moreover, not everyone here is having a great year. Jeter's batting .286 with middling power and speed. McCann's at .259 and he's missed some games. They are still clearly the best in their league at their position. (It helps that no NL catcher or AL shortstop is lighting it up.)

There are plenty of tough calls here. Prince Albert sets a lofty standard, but Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn and Joey Votto all have OPS above .900. At least one of them will watch the game from a bar. ("Adam, your turn to buy a round!) The same in the AL, where Justin Morneau makes every bit the case Cabrera does, and Paul Konerko and Kevin Youklis are both having great years.

Chase Utley is by far the best second baseman in the senior circuit, so the fact that four other keystoners are putting up the same numbers in bigger ballparks doesn't excite me. David Wright and Scott Rolen are both great candidates, but Rolen has a history of fragility and Wright plays in a cavern. I gave the AL third sacker job to a raking Beltre, but Evan Longoria, ARod and Michael Young all make cases.

In the outfields, Josh Hamilton and Andre Ethier are the in-shooiest. I'm not so sure about Ichiro; you could have reasonably picked Alex Rios, Carl Crawford, Shin Soo Choo, Torii Hunter or Nick Swisher. Brett Gardner, a College of Charleston product, needs to show me more before I elect him to stardom. The same for Colby Rasmus in the NL, who's hitting up a storm, but we've yet to determine whether that front will blow through. Likewise, I eschewed Jayson Werth's ballpark-aided results, and Alfonso Soriano's inconsistency. Andrew McCutcheon is a stud in the Steel City, but he's a lock for the game as the Bucs' sole representative, so I gave Holliday the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I've employed woefully weak reasoning to break what amounts to a tie. It's no worse than penalty kicks.

Kudos to the fans: most of the names listed above are on the their wish list. In the AL, they've got Morneau at first, Longoria at third and Crawford in the outfield, all legitimate alternatives, though with Nelson Cruz's overblown Texas stats too close for comfort behind Crawford. They totter a bit on the NL squad, with Polanco wrongly leading Wright and Yadier Molina leading McCann. Jason Heyward is their worst selection, but who can blame them for irrational exuberance about a well-mannered 20-year-old stud?

I know, it's all drivel, and we'll forget who went to Anaheim by year's end when the real All-Star team (aka the New York Yankees) collects another championship trophy (yawn.) I can promise you this: it won't be nearly as exciting as the NCAA championship won yesterday by my home state Gamecocks, the pride of South Carolina, who defeated UCLA 2-1 in 11 innings. "No one can lick our 'Cocks."

See, drivel is suddenly looking good.

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Snooze and Notes

I haven't commented on the blather about an All-Star appearance for Stephen Strasburg because I haven't wanted to dignify the discussion by perpetuating it. But the talkosphere persists, so I'll just point out the following.

Players don't earn All-Star berths on six good weeks of play. If Strasburg's reputation of supernova is justified, he'll collect plenty of All-Star appearances. If he's a flash-in-the-pan, we'll feel pretty stupid about giving him someone else's slot based on six lifetime starts.

It's also worth noting that Nationals management would chew their own arms off before allowing Strasburg to throw in a meaningless exhibition. (Sorry, Bud. Truth to power.) So even if you buy the argument that his selection would goose interest in the contest, he'd likely not pitch, leaving unfulfilled fans grousing.

Between the every-team rule, the lack of definition of what an All-Star is and the myopia of managers, players and fans, it's hard enough for deserving players to claim their spots. If the nation wants to see Strasburg perform, the real alternative is for Fox and ESPN to show an occasional Nats game.

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The trade deadline is looming, so the discussion has begun about which team cashes in the 2010 season and dessicates its lineup. I don't know where the notion derived that the alternative to contending is selling off all your parts, but it's a fallacy. 

Certainly, teams that have no chance this year might be wise to parlay half a year of value in a veteran who won't resign for some young potential. (This isn't always true. Increasingly, front offices are deciding that the two high draft picks they receive when losing a top free agent are more valuable than whatever they can return in trade.) The obvious example is Seattle, where Cliff Lee could bring back some strategically-placed stufmuffins from the Twins, Mets, Red Sox, etc.

On the other hand, it makes no sense for the Mariners, who are probably just a few players away from duking it out for the division, to back up a truck and unloading everything of value from the roster. If they're going to have any chance in 2011, 2012 and beyond, the current stars are going to have to play a role.

On the other end of the spectrum are bottom-feeders like Cleveland, Houston, Washington and Pittsburgh. Darkening their rosters with a anyone over 30 is a mis-allocation of resources that should be remedied by trade whenever possible. Of course, that has nothing to do with the trade deadline, as the Pirates' brass has demonstrated on numerous occasions. The sooner those clubs excise older stars -- cough royoswalt cough -- from their lineups, the more they can get in return. The real issue is that if Houston, Cleveland, etc had any star players, they wouldn't be in their current predicaments.

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The ground ball fairy smiled on Edwin Jackson yesterday, turning every ball hit into an out. Jackson earned a no-hitter against the hit-challenged Rays with a performance that could hardly be called excellence. Jackson struck out six, put nine men on base -- eight via walk and one via HBP -- and needed a sparkling defensive play to prevent a run from scoring and leaving a bases loaded, one out situation. He also got a boost from a forgiving official scorer who posted E-4 on a ball that might have been a hit in any other game.

Jackson needed 149 pitches to get through nine frames, so subtract a sterling defensive stop or two and he gives up runs, takes the loss and doesn't finish the game.

This will be recorded as the fourth no-hitter of the season and will be remembered as the fifth, but it was not one of the 25 best pitching performances of the year. Such is the life of a no-hitter, another piece of trivia that has value only because we notice it.

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Deconstructing His Ubaldoness

What in the name of Bob Gibson, 1968, is Ubaldo Jimenez up to? Two months into the season, he has already amassed a 13-1 record and a 1.15 ERA. In fact, it's even better than that, because his RA (which neglects the largely irrelevant distinction of unearned runs) is the same other-worldly 1.15.

Is UJ really this good? Can he maintain this pace?

It's worth noting that Jimenez is no flash in the pan. He has been considered a prime cut since his signing out of the Dominican at age 16, and has posted a solid first four seasons of work, sporting an ERA around 3.70 and nearly eight strikeouts per nine IP. He's big, coachable and fires mid-90s darts. Scouts have always felt that his control and health were the only things standing between him and stardom.

That said, 13-1, 1.15 with Coors as home base is pretty special. Below-average major league starters sometimes shut down their opponents for two or three turns, but rarely this well, this long. Usually, exploding out of the starting blocks like this takes a combination of skill, luck and good teammates. And Jimenez is no exception.

Ubaldo is responsible for a goodly portion of his results. First, he's averaged more than seven innings a start. That's both a cause of good outcomes and a result. As the best pitcher whom opponents are going to see in a given game, Jimenez helps himself by remaining effective as long as possible into the start and minimizing the use of relievers.

Second, he's fanned 88 batters in 101 innings, which is about his career rate, but he's shaved a walk per nine off his career average. He's surrendered just three taters all year, and six hits per nine, which are both superb, and about half his former rate. But as we shall see, we now have the tools to see that both those figures are a tad misleading.

MLB now records the location, velocity and horizontal and vertical break on every single pitch, and their result. With that information, researchers have been able to tease out correlations that suggest when results are whacky. For example, we know that pitchers have little control over the batting average on balls in play (BABIP) against them. So when we see batters scuffling at .235 on balls in play against Ubaldo, we know that he's got a bill coming due. (Average BABIP in the NL is .298. Some pitchers can sustain a BABIP down around .280, but not much lower.)

We can break BABIP down much more granularly to see how exactly Jimenez has been surfing a wave of serendipity. Although Jimenez serves up line drives about as often as everyone else, the batting average against him on those balls is .600, compared to a league average of .722. So before congratulating him on keeping guys off the bases, he should be offering obeisance to the Patron Saint of Right At Someone. The same for ground balls, which reached the outfield at an 11% rate, a mere shadow of the league rate of 17%. That could be the result of a Rockie infield slick with the leather, which appears to be a fact, but not sufficient to reduce the hit rate on worm-killers by 64%.

It breaks down further. Those three meager home runs? They smack of a visit to Flukeytown. Batters have poked just 5.8% of their fly balls off Jimenez into the stands, about half the normal rate. This is possible if those sky-balls present as pop-ups, but Ubaldo has no particular pop-up proclivities.

There's more. Hitting with runners in scoring position is often cited as a key to run scoring. It's largely a matter of luck that tends to regress to mean for a player, team or pitcher over time. Ubaldo is surrendering just a .186 BABIP with runners on base. It's certainly possible that he bears down more, digs deeper and makes his best pitches when the enemy threatens, but that would show up in strikeouts and walks, not BABIP. Fortune tends not to smile so broadly as .186 BABIPs for whole seasons.

Finally, you may have noticed that Jimenez has 14 decisions in 14 starts. That's unusual for a pitcher who's left 25 innings for his relief corps to handle. But handle they have, watching carefully over those 1-0 leads he's left to them. The bullpen trio of Joe Beimel, Matt Belisle and Manny Corpas are all in the top 20 of reliever effectiveness.

Given all that, how great has Ubaldo Jimenez actually pitched? Baseball Prospectus has created a new yardstick that strips out luck, ballpark and defensive efficiency and measures what a pitcher's ERA would be, all things being equal. In other words, given a pitcher who walks and strikes out at his rate, and who induces grounders, flies and line drives at his rate, what should Ubaldo Jimenez's ERA be? (BP calls this SIERA, for "Skill-Interactive ERA.")  Their analysis suggests that Jimenez has been the 16th best pitcher in MLB with a SIERA of 3.43.

Before you scoff at the difference, remember that a 3.43 ERA is pretty sweet. Based on BP's analysis, 20 more starts at a 3.43 ERA would leave Jimenez with a 2.49 ERA for the year and somewhere between 20 and 22 wins. On the other hand, it's hardly historical, or even the best in the league. It suggests, as does all the information above, that Jimenez is a top 20 hurler on a top five run of luck.

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Keeping Us On Our Toes

Here's another reason baseball is a great game. An objective pre-reason forecast for the Mets offered little hope. The Queens contingent was drinking from a nearly empty pitching cup and sported Band-Aids all over the field.

It's a long season and the prediction may yet turn out right, but for now, the Mets are 10 games over and knocking on the door of first. How did a squad with a flashing check engine light manage to lap the field for two weeks? 

Well, R.A. Dickey is 5-0, 2.82. It's no knock against the early prognostications that none of them accounted for Dickey. He was neither a Met nor an asset before the season began.

Non-prospect Ike Davis, whose pedigree included half a year at Double-A prior to 2010, has banished the ghost of Carlos Delgado at first base. Pre-season reviews missed that. So sue them.

Mike Pelfrey dipped into 2009's 10-12, 5.03 performance and pulled out a 9-1, 2.39 exhibition so far in 2010. Whoops. Didn't have that.

Jonathan Niese was certainly on the early spring radar screen, but bets on rookies always have to be hedged, right Matt Wieters?

The Grapefruit League roster included train wrecks Oliver Perez, Elmer Dessens and Gary Matthews, Jr. After a few painful looks, Jerry Manuel has minimized their participation. D'Oh! Couldn't have predicted that.

In short, the Mets today aren't the team that broke camp in April. Nor, likely, are most others. The only constant in baseball is inconsistency, which makes pre-season predictions largely academic exercises.

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Word was floating around, as the Pirates sunk in the NL Central like Blackbeard in cement shoes, that manager John Russell and GM Neal Huntington would be jettisoned because of the team's poor performance. Anyone who believed (or reported) this needs a psych eval.

Neither Russell nor Huntington is being paid to break Pittsburgh's string of futility this year. They inherited a patient with strep throat, a broken leg, a bleeding ulcer, elbow tendinitis, diabetes, an ingrown toenail and bilateral plantar fasciitis. Their charge will require time, tender care and lots of patience before he recovers, and any attempt to send him home prematurely will delay his ultimate recovery.

Management in the Steel City gets this and recently revealed that contracts for Russell and Huntington had been extended through next year. There will be a reckoning for this administration, but it's not now. So stop looking at the Pirates' box score unless you've got the 2012 newspaper. 

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Reports, including mine, of the baseball death of David Ortiz have been greatly exaggerated. I revert to my original projection for Ortiz: he will be a diminishing asset, but an asset nonetheless this year. 

No really, that's what I said.

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The Incredible Shrinking Outfielder

In 1999, I dabbled in an AL-only Rotisserie baseball team. During the draft, my partner and I agreed that the best values would leverage positional scarcity, not pure performance. We set our sights on drafting one of the three transcendent shortstops (ARod, Nomar, Jeter), the only plus-hitting catcher (Pudge), a couple of valuable second-basemen and a key DH asset.

 

Selecting at the end of a snake draft, we nabbed Nomar and Pudge with our first two picks, much to the consternation of our opponents, who were googly-eyes over big boppers like Carlos Delgado and Ken Griffey, Jr. We shocked the crowd again in the next two rounds, plucking Robby Alomar and Edgar Martinez from among a coterie of slugging first basemen and corner outfielders.

 

Not until the 9th round did we finally get around to staffing first. David Segui hit .305 with 19 dingers and 84 RBIs the year prior, certainly not the equal of guys like Mo Vaughn, but within shouting distance. We captured an entire infield of all-stars in exchange for the 20 homers and 40 RBI lost at first base. (We had the best offense in the league, a weak pitching staff and finished second overall.)

 

What made that strategy work was a pile of outfield (and first base, but that’s not so much the point here) bodies in MLB that year. Consider some of the outfield names of the day: Juan Gonzalez, Ken Griffey, Jr., Manny Ramirez, Bernie Williams, Albert Belle, Paul O’Neill, Tim Salmon, Shawn Green, Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou, Greg Vaughn, Barry Bonds, Vlad Guerrero, Tony Gwynn, Larry Walker. Every one of them had a Hall of Fame year in 1998. The best hitters of the day patrolled the distances or made the stretch on 6-4-3s.

 

Now, name the best outfielder in baseball today.

 

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

  

(Whistles Jeopardy theme...)

 

Stuck on Ryan Braun? Jeff Kemp? Grady Sizemore? The remnants of Ichiro perhaps?

 

A list of the top 10 hitters by OPS last year includes just two deep-fly catchers -- Joey Votto and Derrek Lee. You have to reach down to #6 on the list in the AL today to find an outfielder – Alex Rios of Chicago. Not exactly Sammy Sosa. In the NL, Andre Ethier and Colby Rasmus are 1-2 in OPS. Today. Check back in September. Neither has this kind of pedigree. (To be fair, they may turn out to. Rasmus is a sophomore; Ethier has a four-year record of accomplishment, though this would represent a quantum leap.)

That's heads; tails is where all the batsmen have gone. Today, shake a tree and a middle infielder with a good stick will fall out. Cano, Zobrist, Mauer, McCann, Jeter, Posada, Furcal, Escobar, Tulowitzki, Uggla, Utley, Pedroia, and Rollins jump to mind. Pivotmen and backstops, all. There are no 5’8” 160-pound slapsters filling the infield positions anymore. If Adonis can handle the position defensively, his team will gladly leave him at short.

Whether it's a paradigm shift or just a phase we're going through, it's one I don't think baseball has ever seen before. Put me in coach! I want to play centerfield!
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Back Here on Planet Earth...

AP summary of Mets-Indians game:

Johann Santana won for the first time in four starts and NY rallied to beat Cleveland.

Santana (5-3) gave up four runs and seven hits over seven innings as the Mets won their fifth straight and ninth of 10.

The left-hander fell behind early, struck out only one, but earned his first win since beating the Yankees on May 23.

During that stretch, he had two no decisions despite not yielding a run over 15 consecutive innings.

Francisco Rodriguez worked the ninth for his 14th save in 17 chances despite yielding a two-out, two-run pinch homer to Shelley Duncan.

Braindrizzling summary of Mets-Indians game:

David Wright had three singles and Ike Davis homered as the Mets pummeled Justin Masterson and the Cleveland Indians.

Despite the worst outing in his last four starts, Johann Santana was credited with his first win of that stretch, thanks to the Mets' 12-hit attack. Previously, he had two no decisions despite not yielding a run over 15 consecutive innings.

Santana gave up four runs and seven hits, and struck out only one over seven innings as the Mets won their fifth straight and ninth of 10.

Francisco Rodriguez nearly blew a three-run lead in the ninth, surrendering a two-out, two-run pinch homer to Shelley Duncan before registering a third out. He was credited with a save.

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USA! USA! USA!

A brief diversion to soccer as the World Cup begins. A few things Americans need to know about the World Cup.

1. It's great that ESPN is broadcasting the games because it means that, for a moment at least, there will be massive coverage, talk, speculation, anticipation and hype about the biggest sporting event in the world.

2. It's miserable that ESPN is broadcasting the games because it means that, for a moment at least, there will be slanted coverage, ignorant talk, irrelevant speculation, anticipation of all things American and malignant hype about the biggest sporting event in the world.

3. The World Cup is not about the USA. It's about the world. Get over it. Americans can almost be forgiven their profound ignorance of the rest of the world with respect to the Olympics. After all, the media coverage could hardly be more jingoistic and the results feed the notion that the games are all about America, except for stupid sports like fencing and biathlon (i.e., sports that we are not good at, as opposed to smart sports like mogul skiing and extreme snowboarding and softball.)

4. The US has no realistic chance of winning the Cup. And guess what, that's okay. It doesn't make America less wonderful. I'd still rather be American than Argentine or Italian. Regardless of the outcome of the US-Algeria match, the US GDP is still thousands of times greater.

5. The real contenders are Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy and Portugal. France might complain that they belong in that field. Everyone else is competing for a good showing, much as teams in the NBA's Western Conference did this year.

5. The US-England match, which has yet to start as of this writing, is THE LEAST IMPORTANT MATCH FOR EITHER TEAM. The reason this match has received 465 times as much attention as any other is because it's the first one for the only team that counts, according to ESPN. But it's the toughest match for both teams in the group round. That means that as long as they take care of business against weaker opponents Algeria and Slovenia, both side will move on to the next round regardless of the outcome. If all were to go according to form, the US would win two and lose one and advance.

6. Luck is an immense part of the game. Because one goal has so much value, a fluke is often the difference between winning and losing. (See the Hand of God.) But in sabermetric terms, if 10 runs of VORP roughly equals a win of value in baseball, it's more like a two-to-one relationship for goals in soccer.

7. I root for teams that haven't won before. Go Spain.

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Didn't He Pitch for the Yankees?

Great insight from Jeff Sullivan, MLB Editor at SB Nation...

A few guys have debuted this week. There was Strasburg, of course. There was Jose Tabata with Pittsburgh. There was Brad Lincoln with Pittsburgh. There were probably some other guys, too. And there was Mike Lincoln with Florida.

In any other year - in any other Strasburg and Heywardless year - Mike Stanton might be all the rage. Mike Stanton is 20 years old. He got promoted to the Marlins from AA after slugging .726 over 240 trips to the plate. Mike Stanton is an absolute beast, as promising a power prospect as any we've seen in years, if not decades.

I'm not here to give you any sort of obscure numerical insight on Stanton. He's coming from AA. Not only are the numbers there more limited and harder to find - they also mean a lot less. The competition is worse, the environments are more poorly understood, and the scorekeepers are bad. No, I'm just here to point out what I find to be perhaps the most amazing of Stanton's statistical exploits.

It isn't the 1.167 OPS or the 21 homers he hit in AA Jacksonville. No, it's the 39 homers he hit in single-A Greensboro in 2008, at the tender age of 18.

18. Jason Heyward was in the same league in the same year, and he was also 18. Heyward hit 11 balls out of the park. 18 year old Matt Dominguez hit 18. So did 18 year old Freddie Freeman. Jesus Montero hit 17. Mike Stanton finished with a 13-homer lead over second place Cody Johnson, who was a year older.

When Miguel Cabrera was 18, he played in A-ball. He hit seven homers. Adrian Beltre was one of the best teenage prospects baseball had ever seen, and when he was 18, he hit 26. Albert Pujols only hit 19 after being drafted at 20. And so on and so forth.

When Mike Stanton was 18, he hit 39 home runs.

And he's barely slowed down as he's climbed the ladder. His numbers suffered a little bit upon his first promotion to Jacksonville a year ago, but he very clearly figured things out in 2010, and while I imagine he'll face some obstacles after skipping AAA and jumping straight to the bigs, it's impossible not to get excited. Mike Stanton can't drink, and he's already accomplished some things in the professional ranks that few ever have.

Stephen Strasburg in Washington. Jason Heyward in Atlanta. Mike Stanton in Florida. The NL East is the new center of baseball.

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Muddle of the Order

The great philosopher, my own personal self, once said that the real test of a team is not its best slugger, #1 starter or closer. It's the #7 hitter, the fourth starter and the utility infielder.

That's because every team has a couple of celestial bodies on the roster batting in the middle of the order. The really good teams' Murderers' Rows range up and down the lineup, and can send an average arm to the hill even on the fourth or fifth day.

This wisdom is vindicated by the team that's claimed my rooting interest since 2005, the Washington Gnats. (There is a team in Savannah, GA called the Sand Gnats. That isn't short for Gnationals, though.) DC currently sports the most potent 3-4-5 hitters in baseball.

Check it out:

Ryan Zimmerman   315/.415/.587 25.0 VORP

Adam Dunn   .284/.378/.565 20.7 VORP

Josh Willingham   .283/.429/.524 25.1 VORP

For comparison:

Alex Rodriguez .290/.361/.482 14.6 VORP

Mark Teixeira .226/.341/.391 2.4 VORP

Robinson Cano .376/.419/.616 40.0 VORP

Chase Utley .262/.382/.471 18.1 VORP

Ryan Howard .289/.348/.468 11.3 VORP

Jayson Werth .274/.357/.543 13.4 VORP

Remember that VORP (value over replacement player) measures the offensive contribution of a player at his position, adjusted for home park, relative to a guy available on the free agent wire.

Clearly, the D.C. Comics are not the equal of the World Champs or the runners up. That's because Washington has sent to the plate a pair of gentlemen (Willie Harris and Will Nieves) 100 times each who are batting 24 points shy of Sr. Mendoza. The two have combined to "contribute" minus-12.6 VORP, which means some barbed wire and duct tape off the scrap heap would be worth nearly 13 more runs than these two studmuffins. Add their space-taking to 257 at-bats-worth of third outfielder Nyjer Morgan (.253/.320/.342 -2.5 VORP) and you have the makings of a seriously bad lineup.

Of course, not withstanding His Royal Highness, The Rookie of the Year, King Stephen Onestart, the Nats' problem is much more a matter of defense than offense. For starters, Adam Dunn's defense is offense. More to the point, with a bullpen like that, it's not a save, it's a miracle. The aforementioned Washington Stimulus Package, (as many fans for his first game as for the next two nights combined, which were two of the best crowds there this year) 14 Ks into his career, is already 11 times as valuable as closer Matt Capps, and two wins better than failed starter Jason Marquis. 

If you're wondering how even the Almighty Stephen manages that in seven innings, he got help. Marquis and his 20.52 ERA managed to be worth one-and-a-half wins less than a replacement pitcher in just three starts comprising eight-and-a-third innings. That's Tony Hayward bad, and certainly nothing you'll find on the Yankee or Phillie rosters, or on the roster of any first division team.

To complete the record, let's see the seventh best-hitting regular on each team:

Curtis Granderson (NYY) .254/.338/.451  6.8 VORP

Carlos Ruiz (PHI)  .287/.417/.375  8.2 VORP

Adam Kennedy (WAS)  .243/.325/.338 3.6 VORP

So next time you wonder why a team that sports some big wood and live arms can't break .500, remember that you're not looking in the right place.

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