The Greatest Pitcher in 100 Years

It's as if we didn't notice Greg Maddux or Roger Clemens pitching in the bigs. One of the greatest of all time is serving it up for a sixth season and and we've managed to allow our attention to be diverted, as if he's a solar eclipse.

While we've all been focused on Pujols and Cabrera, ARod and Jeter, and Verlander and Halladay these past few years, the left-handed Texan in question has the lowest career ERA of any pitcher with 1,000 innings since the Dead Ball Era. That's nearly 100 years of ball. Fire up the superlatives.

The list of pitchers with higher ERAs looks like this: Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbel, Whitey Ford, Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez. Christy Matthewson's lifetime ERA was 35% better than league average. Our protagonist, 44% better.

In six seasons, he's 72-44, 2.64. He's been worth 31 wins to his team, about double the value of Kyle Lohse in seven fewer seasons, and Lohse earns $11 million/year.

That's a lot of clues and yet...you can't for the life of you figure out who it is. At 6'3" 225 it's not like Clayton Kershaw is hiding. He's led the NL in ERA the last three seasons, won the Cy Young Award in 2011, finished second last year and is certain to merit a top-three finish this season. He's the Rodney Dangerfield of hurling even though everyone knows he's an ace.

Were he a rookie today, Kershaw would be blowing up Twitter. The number seven pick of the 2006 draft, he crushed minor league hitters and got to the bigs after 35 starts on the farm. Vin Scully has called his diving curve "public enemy number one," and it's not like his 97-mph heater is Miss Congeniality.

Now, Kershaw pitches half his games in Dodger Stadium, which acts like a fourth outfielder. It's a bit of a stretch to compare him to, say, Pedro, who toiled in a hitter's park partly during the Steroid Era, faced the Yankees three-four times a year and, like Kershaw, sported an ERA 44% below league average after 1000 innings. He also followed that by twirling four of the greatest seasons of all time.

Kerhsaw is just 25 and earns free agent status after the season. Can you say "scajillion?" When he gets it, you'll understand why.

Amazing But True Statistics At the One-Third Mark

Baltimore's Chris Davis has hit 20 homers and slugged .766. That's more home runs than the entire Seattle Mariner infield, including the catcher. It's a higher slugging percentage than any two Mariner infielders.

The Marlins are on pace to draw fewer than 1.5 million fans. In a new stadium.

The Cardinals have 10 pitchers with sub-3 ERAs. The Astros have none.

Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown last year. This year, he's hitting more line drives, walking more, striking out less, hitting for a higher average, getting on base more often and hitting for more power.

The Reds' Shin-Soo Choo is on pace to elicit 42 HBP. That's as many or more than 13 entire teams.  

Kyle Lohse's 4.37 ERA (feeding a 1-6 record) is still a run better than the Brewers' team average.

The A's have drawn 231 walks this year. Chicago has drawn 245 walks this year.  That's the Cubs and White Sox combined.

Pittsburgh's Jason Gilli has been credited with 22 saves in the first third of this season. He tallied five saves in his 10 Major League seasons prior.

Oriole sophomore Manny Machado is on pace to hit 72 doubles. The team in Miami has 73.

Phillies outfielder Domonic Brown hit .303 in May and slugged .688. He did not draw a single walk. 

Remember when David Ortiz was done? He's hitting .326/.400/.596. Again.

D-backs' catcher Miguel Montero is hitting .077, and slugging .077, on three-ball counts. 

Pirate hurler Jeff Locke is 5-1, 2.25 despite a weak 42/26 K/BB ratio.

Royals' savior James Shields has a 2.83 ERA in a league-leading 86 innings, a K/BB ratio of nearly four and a pair of complete games. And KC remains in the cellar.

Props to Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs and other baseball bloggers for much of this information.

A Bunch of Lohsers

Here's my theory: Milwaukee Brewer management is so enamored with its crackling-smart win-now strategy of 2011 -- during which they leveraged acquisitions of Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum for the last year of Prince Fielder's tenure in Wisconsin to a division title -- that they decided to reprise the approach this year.

That would explain why they've paid $33 million and their top draft pick for three years of 34-year-old flash-in-the-pan Kyle Lohse.  If Lohse is a number two starter, as his contract suggests, then I'm a number two pencil.

Last year, Lohse pitched the most innings, won the most games, lost the fewest, struck out the most, had the most quality starts, the best K/BB rate, the lowest WHIP and by far the lowest ERA of his journeyman career. After 10 seasons of 88-98, 4.80, Lohse has responded to Dave Duncan's tutelage in St. Louis for a pair of 30-11, 3.10 seasons.

So he's a new pitcher, right? Yeah, not so much. Lady luck has escorted the California righty the last two years, and left him in the care of good Cardinal defense when she's been unavailable. Whether she returns for a third year is up to her, and no one ever accused Milwaukee's fielding of aptitude.

Moreover, and sadly for the team's faithful, it's not 2011 anymore. Fielder, Greinke and Marcum are gone and the Brewers are making a beeline for the basement in the NL Central. Even if Lohse's second act continues, and that's not the way to bet, he might catapult them to .500 in 2013. But he'll cost them in future years, because signing a free agent offered a deal by his incumbent team costs a first-round pick, something the Brews' barren system could little afford to sacrifice.

A lot of mediocre teams are acting as if there are eight extra Wild Cards instead of one and flipping the future for a very uncertain present. It's going to work for someone someday and maybe this is the Brewers' year. But probably not, and Lohse's signing reduces the odds that the next few will be their years either.

Oh Yeah, It's a Baseball Blog

For the 35th straight year, I exercised my franchise today. On the national level it was a pretty desultory affair, like scoring a run in a consolation game. No matter the outcome I wouldn't feel like a winner.

On the local level, though, I had the thrilling opportunity to cast my ballot either for people running unopposed or not at all. Choice is over-rated.

I did vote for the incumbent Receiver of Taxes, despite the lack of alternative. When it comes to receiving my taxes, she receives them like nobody's business. I mean, she's the Yadier Molina of receiving taxes. Every time I've sent her my taxes, by golly, she's received them. I'm not aware of our tax backstop being charged with a single Passed Tax all year. I don't know anything about her offensive skills, nor even how that metaphor would work, but based on her receiving skills, vis-a-vis taxes, she earned my vote.

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I heard a rumor that the NHL has fiddled away its November schedule while Nome burns. (Nome is cold. I presume they like hockey.) Two more months to go. A 40-game schedule beginning in January to eliminate the frauds, posers and ne'er-do-wells before the real season begins sounds about right.

I also heard that Laker fans were apoplectic because their team hiccuped in its first two games. Of an 82-game season. Whose only purpose is to weed out the incorrigibles. So they can roll out the interminable playoff schedule. Before winnowing down to the only four teams that ever had a chance to win a championship. If you're not a fan of L.A., Miami, Chicago or Oklahoma City, might I suggest a good book?
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Right on schedule, the BCS doomsdayers are bellyaching about the calamity of shoehorning four undefeateds into a two-team championship format. Right on schedule they are ignoring all of history, which suggests that at least two of those teams will accommodate the BCS by succumbing along the way. But who needs facts when there's 24 hours-a-day of sports talk to fill?

(Addendum to this: The Notre Dame football program should be very proud of its accomplishments so far this season, but if it's one of the nation's top 10 teams, Snooki is our next president. Worried about whether Irish will be "shut out" of the title game? Don't forget to fret about the mighty undefeated Mountain Hawks of Lehigh.

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Oh yeah, it's a baseball blog. 

General managers seeking an opportunity to dispose of the GDP of Guinea Bissau for a Solyndra-type return need look no farther than Josh Hamilton and Kyle Lohse.

Hamilton is reportedly seeking seven years at $175 million. That's Lexus money for Lexus talent. Ah so, but Hamilton is a 31-year-old Lexus that breaks down like a Vega. Anyone who inks him to more than one presidential term will experience expensive buyer's remorse.

Since entering the majors in 2001, Kyle Lohse has solidified his fourth starter status with lines like 9-13, 5.34, 6-12, 4.58 and 14-11, 4.61, worth 11 wins above replacement over 11 seasons. With a .500 record on good teams, an ERA five percent higher than average and a WHIP of nearly one-and-a-half, Lohse has established his bona fides and they're more fide than bona. (Bona = good. Or the lead singer of a rock band. Fide = your dog. Unless he's Spot.)

To any GM dazzled by his anomalous age-34 season (16-3, 2.86): Call me. I have oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. Lohse is, as popular parlance now prefers, what he is, not what he ain't, which is what he was this year. Fatten his bank account at your own considerable risk.

If Cy Young Were a NLer, Who Would He Be?

Earlier this week, Cliff Lee struck out 11 Atlanta batters and walked none. He limited the Braves to a single run. And he lost, dropping his record to 6-8.

Though Lee pitches his home games in God's Gift to Offense, his 3.18 ERA is 25% better than league average. In 198 innings, he's walked just 28 batters and whiffed 195. His 1.3 BB/9 and  7 K/BB both pace the league, the latter by a country mile.  

Cliff Lee isn't a top five Cy Young candidate, so his absence from any ballots will be no crime. But if you're wondering what happened to Cliff Lee's unique mound magic, the answer is: nothing.

The real question in the NL Cy Young race is where Johnny Cueto, Kyle Lohse and R.A. Dickey found their mound magic. Along with Clayton Kershaw and Gio Gonzalez, they have to be considered the Cy frontrunners. Cueto, a .500 pitcher with a 4.00+ ERA in his first three seasons, has reduced the walks and homers to go 28-14, 2.55 in his last two seasons. The veteran Lohse had posted one exceptional season before (15-8, 3.78 in '08), but he's experienced the full sprinkling of pixie dust this year. In his 12th campaign, he's recorded the most wins (16), best winning percentage (.842), lowest ERA (2.77) most innings (205) lowest WHIP, fewest H/9, fewest BB/9, fewest HR/9 and best K/BB of his career. Pumpkin alert!

And Dickey, well, whoever kidnapped him and replaced him with this guy (19-6, 2.66; 209 K in 22 Innings) is the Mets' MVP.

Closers Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman only pitch 60 innings each, but have been so dominant that they deserve consideration too. More on all of this after the regular season ends. One last start could decide the winner.

And for added drama, the unique stylings of Kris Medlin win Best Supporting Actor. He's barely allowed a run a game and the Braves are undefeated in his 11 starts.