Eighteen Hits of Choke

Luddites in the world of new baseball analysis often complain the statistics can't capture everything in the game, like moving the runner on a ground out or motivating teammates with "intangibles."  While that's true as far as it goes, the newfangled stats like OPS (on base average plus slugging percentage), VORP (value over replacement player) and SIERA (skill-interactive earned run average) capture much of what is unaccounted for by flaccid old stats like batting average, RBIs and pitching wins.

The inter-league rivalry game between the Orioles and Nationals last night provides a great example. Baltimore's first baseman, Derrek Lee, notched a double and four singles in five at bats. Center fielder Adam Jones smacked a double and three singles in five at bats and right fielder Nick Markakis added four more singles. Second baseman Robert Andino pitched in a single and a double and others added safeties, including pitcher Zach Britton and pinch hitter Vlad Guerrero in his only trip to the plate.

The O's batted .419 with their 18 hits ... and plated just four runs in an 8-4 loss.

Batting average just fails to represent enough of what transpired in this game. One important reason for Baltimore's fecklessness is that despite making 43 trips to the plate against six different pitchers, they didn't manage a single walk. Perhaps D.C. pitchers were laying every offering in the strike zone, but more likely, the Orioles need to alter their approach at the plate.

The Nats can take more credit for playing error-free ball in the field and turning a pair of double plays to douse rallies. Geeks and deniers can agree that the Birds' inability to string hits together was also a key contributor to their low run total. Because just three players produced 13 of the team's 18 hits, there wasn't much opportunism up and down the lineup. Indeed, the Orioles left 13 on base. 

Seamheads would call that an unfortunate distribution of results. Change-haters would ascribe psychological characteristics to the two teams, asserting that the Orioles weren't "clutch" or Nationals pitchers "bore down." Research finds there is very little to that. No matter how you measure it, there's little consistency to "clutch hitting" or "choking" among players, and even less among teams. 

Indeed, just the night before, Baltimore left just seven men on base and scored two in the ninth to defeat Toronto. So they're not chokers, just a team whose batting average doesn't tell the whole story. And in that sense, the Baltimore Orioles are every team in baseball.

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Payback's Gonna Be A Bitch

Before Ranger northpaw Alexi Ogando got torched by the Yankees for six runs in five outs on Tuesday, he was 7-0, 2.10. A deeper dive into his body of work suggests that 2.10 is irrevocably in the rear view mirror and 3.50 is decidedly on the horizon.

Ogando was being fitted for a bust in the BABIP Hall of Fame until 12 Bronx batters stacked up four singles, two doubles and a walk against him. Batters were hitting just .210 on balls in play against him this year (it's now a similarly unsustainable .226), which suggests that Lady Luck wasn't just on his side, she was accompanying him to the Oscars.

In 124 lifetime innings, Ogando possesses the fourth lowest pitching BABIP of all time. No one with any experience is below .240, suggesting that Ogando is due some comeupance. Compounding the misery-projection, the 6'4" Dominican has stranded an otherwordly 81% of baserunners. Research shows that this characteristic is almost always a function of pure happenstance, so a visit from the regression fairy seems inevitable.

As Ogando's BABIP and strand rates return from Death Valley, his ERA will rise towards 3.68. That's the number that seamheads have determined best represents the value of his pitching given average luck and fielding. A 3.68 ERA is a mark of excellence, particularly at The Hitting Factory at Arlington, but it isn't 2.10. If a 3.68 ERA is a valid representation of his ability, Ogando has some robust paydays ahead of him.

Of course, that ignores one important issue. The 27-year-old sophomore twirled just 72 frames last year between the minors and majors and only 80 minor league innings over three years before that. In other words, his arm is already in uncharted territory. It would surprise on one who is paying attention if, come mid-season, he's gassed.

So while Ogando appears to be a legitimate talent, he's not yet Pedro. If you've got him on your Fantasy team, sell high now.

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And You Thought Jackie Robinson Broke the Color Barrier

I remember riding the subway as a teenager with some friends  -- all Caucasian -- when a very inebriated black man got into a discussion with us. 

"You're white, right?" he asked, clearly on the way to making a Kumbaya statement about race.

"How did you know?" I asked perkily. "Roy White!" I leaped across the aisle and shook his hand. 

"No, no," he stammered. "I mean you're white and I'm..."

"Do you know my friends?" I interrupted cheerily. "This is Vida Blue, Dick Green, Alvin Dark and Red Ruffing! Say hi, guys."

"Wait, no, I mean I'm a black man," he enunciated through the Thunderbird haze. "And you are white boys. But we're all here together getting along."

"Well sure, we're getting along," I said, "but I'm the only White boy here. Alvin isn't a White, he's a Dark. And even though he stays over my house a lot, Dick's not a White, he's a Green. Vida's a Blue, though a lot of kids at school say he's yellow. Ruffing is a...well...a Ruffing, but he's Red. Not a Red like Brezhnev, if you know what I mean. He's as American as apple pie. More like red, white and blue."

The poor guy just folded into himself at that point, overwhelmed by a torrent that seemed to him disconnected from whatever point he had been trying to make. He remained sullen until we bid him a hale adieu at our stop, reminding him which color of the wheel we each represented. I'm not sure if we advanced or set back race relations that evening.

That scene was brought to mind again by this fanciful post penned by Jacob Peterson at Beyond the Box Score, in which he calculates what color name produced the most, best players.

Here are the concluding paragraphs:  

After tabulating the results, "White" came out on top. While "Brown" had the top two color-named players in MLB history (Kevin Brown and Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown), there were no other star players with that name. "White," on the other hand, had 8 players with at least 25 WAR, led by Roy White, Deacon White, and Devon White. All of this despite there being more than twice as many players named "Brown" (86) than [sic] "White" (40). "White" was also helped by having relatively few players who came in below replacement-level: 30%, compared to around 50% for most other names.

Coming in a distant third was "Green," which featured solid careers from Shawn Green and Danny Green, but not much else. There have been only 7 fewer Greens than Whites, but the Whites have accrued 227 more WAR.

Right on the heels of "Green" was "Blue," which finished in 4th place despite only having 3 MLB players to its name. Of course, two of the three players were Vida Blue, the longtime A's ace, and Lu Blue, the 1920's 1st baseman who was sort of like that era's John Olerud, though with a bit less power. By average or median WAR, "Blue" easily comes out on top.

The accompanying graph is pretty neat, so see for yourself.

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Twelve's Not Enough

It was a big night on Monday for Diamondback starter Zach Duke. His team spotted him 12 runs in four innings and he smashed a two-run cookie at the plate against the drowning Marlins.

Alas, Duke did not get the win. Up nine-zip, he relinquished three runs in the third, one in the fourth and another three before he could get out of the fifth. Duke left the game with a five-run cushion, but came an out short of "earning" the win.

The good news is: he didn't lose. That's high praise for a 4 2/3-inning performance of seven runs on 13 hits, including doubles by each of the two opposing pitchers. It can come as some consolation that the Brewers' Randy Wolf and Cubs' Ryan Dempster also didn't win, despite pitching seven shutout frames against each other. They walked one and fanned 14 between them.

Also not losing was the Rays' Alex Cobb (5 2/3 shutout innnings) and Detroit's Phil Coke (6 1/3 innings of goose eggs). So they're all in the same boat with Duke as far as the W-L record goes.

A.J. Burnett can't say the same. He held Cleveland to a run on five hits, a walk and eight strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings. But he was "charged" with the loss.

Of course, there's one thing Duke accomplished that the rest of the pitchers didn't. In a 12-9 barn burner he hit the game's only home run.

Baseball's a crazy game.

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Indian Givers

Well, that didn't take long. While we were all wondering whether the Cleveland Indians were for real, their entire team signed with the Miami Heat.

Since jumping out to a seven game lead over the rest of the AL Central and a 17-game advantage on the woeful Minnesota Plan B, the Indians have dropped 14 of 18 while the Twins' substitutes have begun competing. Detroit, 11-4 in its last 15, has caught the Indians, and the Twins, though still looking up at the rest of the league, are within seven games.

It's not just bad luck in Cleveland, which would be redundant anyway. The Indians have scuffled on both sides of the ball, tallying under three runs per game while allowing more than six during their slide. Minnesota, meanwhile, has discovered itself, though most of itself is on the DL (Joe Mauer, Denard Span, Jim Thome, Jason Kubel). The two leading sluggers on the team are Michael Cuddyer, 9 home runs, and Danny Valencia, 5. (Yes, that Danny Valencia.) That's an annual rate of 25 and 12 respectively, which is roughly what your bank CD is paying these days.

Even if staff ace Francisco Liriano continues his comeback on the mound and manager Ron Gardenhire remembers where his bullpen went, it's going to take a paradigm shift for the Twins to become relevant again. The same can not be said for Detroit or the White Sox, who are now within three-and-a-half of the division lead. They both look capable of looking capable over the last 100 games and making the early aptitude of the Indians and scuffling of the Twins ultimately irrelevant.

But they had us wondering for a minute there. 

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Him Hit Cookie...Yum Yum Yum

Reports of Big Papi's baseball death -- notably mine -- were greatly exaggerated.

Following a poor 2009 season and a miserable start to 2010, David Ortiz suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous predictions. Combining his declining skills with a big body and an inability to play the field (not to mention steroid whispers), many pundits wrote Oscar the Grouch stories about Boston's Cookie Monster.

I plead guilty to some of this. Here's what I said last April: "Undoubtedly, the wrist injury of '08 was part of the equation, but turning 230 pounds into baseball's golden years -- he's 35 this year -- is likely responsible for some of it too. Look for Ortiz to continue to be an asset, but a depreciating one, particularly since he can't play the field."

Here's your depreciating asset, punditheads. After batting .143 with one home run last April, Papi finished the season at .270/.370/.529 and 36 blasts, and has started this year at .326/.394/.612 and a 40-homer pace. He's already twice as valuable as he was in the injury-plagued '08 campaign.

The pivot point seems to be that Ortiz can get around on lefties again. He's hitting .333 versus southpaws after struggling to .221, .212 and .222 the last three years. He's never really powered up against same-side hurlers, but as long as he gets on base with regularity against them, his ability to crush righthanded pitching means he's still an awfully dangerous at-bat.

So in retrospect, it appears Ortiz's wrist woes sapped his strength in '09 and maybe during the cold New England April of last year. But he's been hotter than Courtney Kardashian since, which is to say he's the same David Ortiz he was from '03-'07. The conclusion being drawn, that Ortiz was in decline because his performance had tailed off, he was aging and other players built like him hadn't aged well, was reasonable, but ultimately wrong. Those factors suggest decline, but they don't guarantee it.

The Red Sox may luxuriate in a full season of the Big Papi who led Boston to a pair of World Championships. Still, they would be wise not to bet the farm on his svelt self after his contract expires this year.

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Ichiro At .261

Ichiro Suzuki is going to the Hall of Fame. A .330 lifetime average, 400 steals at an 80% rate, 10 straight 200-hit seasons and a rifle in right field, combined with a brilliant first act in Japan punch his ticket. A former Rookie of the Year and MVP -- inappropriate and undeserved respectively -- and a consistent Gold Glover, he's not just worthy; he's unique. He's the second or third greatest leadoff hitter of all time even without his career in the Orient.

So far in 2011, we're seeing exactly what Ichiro's limitations have always been. In a nutshell, for Ichiro, it was always about piling up singles. Infield scrambles and shallow outfield drop shots have always been the key to his value. They drive an unprecedented lifetime BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of.356. (Unlike most pitchers, hitters do have some control over their BABIP. Great bat control, hitting line drives, avoiding pop-ups and shallow flies, and beating out infield hits all inflate BABIP, which inflates overall batting average.)

This year, at 37, Ichiro seems to have lost his magic. With a below average BABIP of .280 and batting average of .261, Ichiro is a replacement level player. Lacking power or much of a proclivity for free passes, his .261/.317/.299 is abysmal for a corner outfielder. He's still swiping bases -- 14 in 18 attempts so far, but the defensive metrics suggest he is no longer an asset in the field either.

What this suggests in practical terms is that he no longer possesses the rare ability to place the ball on the field. Losing a split second of reaction time to age makes all the difference in the world in that regard. 

There's no precedent for quite this. In Ichiro's worst previous year, 2008, he still sported a fluky-looking .334 BABIP, batted .310 and got on base nearly 39% of the time. In 2005, a BABIP of .316 held down his average and on base to career-lows, but he seemed to be swinging more for the fences, smacking a career-high 15 homers.

In those two seasons, Ichiro was a below-average hitting right fielder. His other virtues still made him a reasonably valuable 4-5 win player, but none of that was due to a .300+ batting average that we thought for years branded a player exceptional.

Live by the BABIP; die by the BABIP. This may be the early hours of the sun setting on a singular career, a career based more than any other in history on a freaky ability to flick out the bat and loop a pitch into right field.
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What's A Guy Gotta Do To Get Playing Time?

Cubs manager Mike Quade has only given sophomore outfielder Tyler Colvin 81 opportunities at the plate this year following an intriguing rookie season. Colvin, a Clemson product, impressively pounded 18 doubles, five triples and 20 homers in just 358 at bats. On the other hand, his .315 on-base average and his 100 whiffs versus 30 walks were worrisome.

Rookies are notoriously inconsistent, so with a little coaching, it certainly appeared that the former first round pick could improve his plate discipline and get on base more often while continuing his ball-crunching ways. Then why is Quade refusing to play him?

Well, the .096 batting average may have something to do with it. That's right, in 81 plate appearances, Colvin is less than halfway to the Mendoza line. That's worse than all but one of the team's starting pitchers. Even with seven walks accompanying his seven hits, his on base average is .173. Where an OPS of 100 is an average major leaguer and an OPS of 85 is a futility infielder, Colvin's OPS is 12. Twelve.

If Miguel Tejada (.211/.237/.271) is a grape's worth of putrid at the plate and Reid Brignac (.173/.209/.182) an apple, then Colvin is a watermelon. Besides the oh-fer lifestyle he's engaged in, his party is in a corner outfield position. The difference between Colvin and a replacement corner outfielder is six runs. That's how much better the Triple-A scrap heap acquisition would be.

It doesn't get any better: all his hits came in April. Granted, he spent most of May in Des Moines, but 0-17 in the bigs isn't improvement.

What's wrong, his hitting coach says, is that he has holes in his swing, chases junk outside the zone and needs to make adjustments now that pitchers are onto him.

It's not like the Cubs are going anywhere this year with or without Colvin, but this isn't the way one positions himself for a future roster spot. Except on the West Tennessee Diamond Jacks.

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What We (Don't) Know Part III

Every couple of years, some team finds itself sprinkled with magic dust. Their best players deliver as expected while their lesser lights shine unexpectedly. A couple of young guys who weren't even in the pre-season plans contribute. A patchwork of starters get the job done and a gaggle of middle relievers deliver excellence in anonymity. The team combines good fundamentals with a few lucky breaks to win a handful of close games. The roster sidesteps injuries, things click and the team -- the '02 Angels, '05 White Sox, '10 Giants -- savors the fruits of victory.

Is it the Cleveland Indians' turn this year?

Despite a recent flattening out -- 10-10 in their last 20 -- the Tribe continues to sport the best record in baseball and the largest division lead, following predictions that they'd be lucky to win 75 games. Their two best players -- Shin-Soo Choo and Grady Sizemore -- have respectively failed to get untracked and failed to get healthy. The rest of the lineup, led by shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and resurrected DH Travis Hafner, has picked up the slack. Pronk has hit 71% better than the average player, albeit in only 32 games, and Cabrera has channeled Alex Rodriguez at short, both with the stick and the leather.

There was always talent in the lineup, latent though it appeared to be. The pitching is another matter, providing the bigger surprise and greater opportunity for decline. Justin Masterson and Josh Tomlin are 12-5 combined with ERAs under 3.30 despite K rates around six per game that don't bode well going forward. The less said about the rest of the rotation, most notably ace Fausto Carmona, the better for Northeast Ohio,  and the bullpen has coaxed great results (9-3 2.89 RA and 14 saves) out of middling performance (87/44 K/BB ratio, 1.17 WHIP). Avoiding the long ball -- closer Chris Perez is untouched in 23 appearances -- has gone a long way for the relief corps.

The team is playing smart too. The advanced metrics see outstanding defense worth two wins on its own, led by outfielders Choo, Michael Brantley and Austin Kearns. They're also stealing bases judiciously at a 73% clip, with the big three of Choo, Brantley and Cabrera swiping 21 of 24.

Cleveland plays in a moribund division, but it's faced Boston and Tampa Bay six times each, and woeful Minnesota only twice, meaning there's plenty of light lifting ahead of them. On the other hand, they've  pulled a year's worth of rabbits out of hats -- 11 wins in the final at bat -- something that can instill confidence in a young team, but tends to even out over time.

Perhaps the best news along Lake Erie is that the AL Central is more a subtraction than a division. No one else seems capable, at least as presently constituted, of flirting with excellence in the remaining 2/3rds of the season. As long as the wheels don't come off in Cleveland, that leaves the Tigers, the lone team within eight games, with the only realistic chance of offering any competition.

The Indians have the goods to maintain their offensive explosion, especially if Sizemore can get back on the field, Choo and Kearns heat up with the weather, and former third-base prospect Matt LaPorta continues to develop. Defense tends to remain consistent over a season. The real question is whether the starters can hang on while the relievers continue delivering. They're due for a downtick in that area, the size of which will determine whether Cleveland can squeeze out the 86 wins it takes to claim the Central.

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Going "Long" On Granderson

In his three seasons for the Kansas City Royals' Triple-A Omaha squad, Kevin Long "hit" .234/.291/.304, never earning a call-up. In 1,632 Double-A plate appearances over five years, the 5'8" 165-pound outfielder poked all of eight home runs.

Yet, if Kevin Long tells you to open your stance and move back your hands, do it. That's what the Yankee hitting coach reportedly instructed center fielder Curtis Granderson to do late last season. Early this season has been the result.

Granderson is slashing .278/.348/.612 with 17 home runs in the first third of the season, the fourth best overall hitter in the American League. (Jose Bautista, Matt Joyce, Miguel Cabrera) Add the last two months of last season, when he got up off the mat to post a 261/.356/.564 line with 14 homers, and Granderson has led the Bombers with 31 blasts in his last 102 games. He's been worth five wins during that time.

Context is important, and the Bronx is kind to hitting, but Granderson has produced better on the road (1.013 OPS) than at home. The lefty swinger has pummeled (1.125 OPS) lefties this year -- his nemesis in previous campaigns. For you "clutch" fans, Granderson's been a monster (.390/.432/.854) in high leverage situations. To top it off, he's a quality middle outfielder who can offset Yankee experiments with weak cornermen.

Simply put, when Granderson hits, the pinstripes win, and this year he's hitting. So when you espy New York at the top of the AL East pyramid, don't wonder how a team with suspect pitching and albatross seasons from Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher can still perform. It's all about a hitting coach whose talent ran out at Single-A ball, and his star pupil.
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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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Early Season Fun

Small Sample Fun

Jorge Posada has nine hits this year. Six of them are homers. He's fanned 20 times while batting .130. He's crossed the plate seven times, which means he's scored once in 23 games on someone else's hit.

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Whew!

Imagine the Mets' glee yesterday when they discovered that none of the Phillies' vaunted starters would be on the mound against them. Not the best pitcher in baseball, Roy Halladay. Not the amazing Cliff Lee. Not Roy Oswalt or Cole Hamels or even Joe Blanton. Instead, they would have the opportunity to take their licks against rookie place-holder Vance Worley.

The 24-year-old righty recorded 113 innings of Double-A work last year and 45 frames at Triple-A, with ERAs of .320 and .377 respectively. He got in 13 innings with the big club, even notching a win. 

Lucky Mets! He shut them down on two hits in six innings, fanning five. So that makes Met ace Mike Pelfrey -- four runs, eight hits in four innings -- what, the seventh starter in Philadelphia? Or is that an unfair comparison because Pelfrey got pummeled by the league-leading Phils while Worley merely faced a Mets lineup with more holes than a mole farm?

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Bunts, Bloops & Seeing-eyes

Back on April 3, the Pirates and Cubs combined for 16 hits -- all singles. The Pirates won 5-4. It's the most hits without an XBH in a nine-inning game in seven years. On August 31 of 2004, the Royals topped the Tigers 9-8 on a combined 17 singles. (Three walks joined in.)

The record for hits without an XBH in a nine-inning game is 22, achieved by LA and Cincinnati on June 3, 1988. The Dodgers pounded the Reds 13-5 on a combined 22 singles, three walks and a HBP.  Dave Concepcion pitched his only inning of Major League ball in that game, relinquishing two of the singles.

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An Important Goal

For all I bash the NHL, is there anything more thrilling than playoff hockey? Sudden-death overtime in game seven of a series? Wow.

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Hall of A Day
At the risk of harping on the Mets and Phils, Roy Halladay stymied the Mets today 2-1. He threw 27 balls all game to 33 batters. Somehow he walked David Wright, which means he missed the plate 23 times against the other 32 batters.

By way of comparison, NY starter Jon Niese, who acquitted himself favorably in six innings of two-run ball while walking just two, threw 39 balls to 27 batters.

I've always assumed there was a minimum number of times a pitcher must miss the plate to keep batters honest -- something like one-third of his offerings. Short of that, batters can simply come to the plate hacking. For some reason, this doesn't work against Halladay.

At what point is Halladay a Hall of Famer? At 172-87, 3.31, with a 3.5-1 K-BB ratio, he's been the best pitcher in the game over the last seven years, and he has two bronze statues of Cy Young to prove it. (He also came in second once.) He's led the league in innings four times and won 20+ three times. His lifetime ERA is 37% better than league average and that includes an injury-plagued 2000 campaign when he got lit up for a 10.64 ERA. He's first among active pitchers in complete games by a wide -- and growing -- margin.

Halladay has produced 56 wins above replacement, most among active pitchers and more than Whitey Ford, Red Ruffing, Joe McGinnity, Sandy Koufax and Rube Waddell, HOFers all. (He's also well behind Kevin Brown and Luis Tiant.) If Doc traded himself to his family as a 34th birthday present in a fortnight, would he get the nod?

I think there's probably some consensus that such a move would leave us in a pickle. He's certainly HOF quality, but perhaps not quantity. Two more seasons of his current magic gets him in the top 30 for Wins Above Replacement and in the exclusive company of HOFers, and not for nothing, puts him over 200 wins.

So Roy, stay upright, spend less time with your kids, and see you in Cooperstown in no less than seven years.
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Quick Hits and Curveballs

Coupla-two-tree thoughts as the sports meld on the calendar...

Have Marvin Miller and Bowie Kuhn usurped the NFLPA and commissioner's office?  The way the players are smacking around the owners is reminiscent of 1970s MLB, when Miller and the union spanked Kuhn and the lords of baseball on a weekly basis. 

The football owners have now blown all of a three games to none lead and are about to fall in game seven. They had solidarity and TV revenues. What did the opposition have -- a rookie union boss and a membership of self-centered knuckleheads? It's a stunning turn of events that is turning Roger Goodell into Tom Dewey.

The latest ruling against the lockout means that the two sides won't settle for a long time. As long as one side thinks it can win, it will not have incentive to compromise. The best case scenario for football now is another uncapped season. 

Maybe folks will watch the World Series in October instead. Pray for two warm weather teams.

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Memo to Carolina Panthers: run like Mike Vick from Cam Newton. Avoid Newton, Mass. Don't eat any Fig Newtons.

Let's consider the track record for run-first quarterbacks with low Wunderlick scores from simplified college offenses: Vick, Vince Young, Jamarcus Russel, Cam Newton. Okay, Newton's a better passer than the rest of them. He's also the only one who grew up in the shadow of a sleazebag preacher.

Run like a leaky faucet, Panthers. There are plenty of other areas in which you suck that could use a top draft pick.

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Warning: Expired Equine Whallop Zone
82-game season and four rounds of playoffs to determine who will face the Lakers in the finals. Ya-a-a-a-awn.

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AJ Burnett threw eight solid innings last night, relinquishing a run on three hits. He lost. How unclutch can you get to pitch well the night the opposing hurler throws a one-hit shutout?

The Rockies' Esmil Rogers knows clutch. The three runs and 12 baserunners he allowed in 5.3 innings stood up in a 5-3 win in Chicago because relievers shut down the Cubs for 3.7 innings.

I wonder what SF Chronicle columnist Bruce Jennings is doing tonight?

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Speaking of not being clutch, how about Jose Bautista. He's followed last season's breakout 50-homer season by leading the league so far in batting average (.364) and home runs (eight), but he isn't even in the top eight in the American League in RBI. What a bum!

Obviously, Bautista doesn't bat .364 or hit home runs when it really matters. The Jays should trade him and get someone more clutch, like Derek Jeter (.244, no homers).

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The Phillies' Cliff Lee and Diamondbacks' Ian Kennedy faced off last night in that bandbox in Phoenix. The two starters combined for one walk and 22 strikeouts, and Lee didn't even pitch the eighth or ninth. Kennedy won in a shutout.

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The Brewers recently inked Ryan Braun to a six-year deal for roughly $19 million/year. It's reminiscent of Ryan Howard's much-criticized contract with Philly in that Braun's a big bopper without a glove. On top of that, the Brewers unwisely bought out several years of below-market arbitration.

That aside, it should work out for Milwaukee. Braun is younger than Howard, and although he keeps buying mitts with holes in them, he's got an athletic body, not the lumbering slugger's build that gives many pause about Howard's ability to compete at age 35. Braun's deal is also for $6 million a year less.

More than that, Milwaukee needs Braun. As mentioned in an endorsement of Howard's contract last year, teams don't win without great players. Milwaukee is the smallest market in baseball, so locking up their star for six years means they won't lose him if his value soars. 

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Feeling Sorry for Baseball Writers

You know the Apocalypse is upon us when baseball writers start earning our sympathy. Well, here we go. 

Decade-long card-carrying BBWAA members are now being asked to parse an era of total uncertainty and enshrine their decisions in bronze for posterity. At a time when the tools to evaluate potential Hall of Famers are more finely honed than ever before, the writers are being asked to throw darts.

I speak of "performance enhancing drugs," of course, but only certain kinds -- the kinds that are illegal or against baseball rules for growing heads like watermelons. Baseball writers will judge some of the greatest performers of all time with absolutely no benchmarks against which to measure them. Are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Ivan Rodriguez Hall of Famers? All have been linked to steroid use; all have HoF credentials. 

Raise your hand if you are convinced that Barry Bonds used steroids? Wha? You in the back, yeah you, what's your problem? Oh, you're a Giants fan. In denial, I get it. How about you? Miss? What's that, she's deaf? Okay, that explains it. Everyone else, you can lower your hands. We even know when Bonds started -- 1999, by which time he had already put Cooperstown in a headlock. Do you deny him entry, or just make him sweat a few years before admitting him? 

How about Rafael Palmeiro? His numbers argue in favor but his urine argued against -- at least in the last month of his career. Does one tainted sample erase two decades of accomplishments? It's worth noting that Palmeiro never exhibited the physical changes, like muscles the size of Rhode Island, that ignited snickering about McGwire, Bonds and Sosa. How about ARod, who has tested clean for several years and admitted using for a period long after he'd established his bona fides. Wherefore a guy like Sosa, who's a borderline HoFer even before you consider whether he cheated. If you shave, say, 10% off his performance, he probably doesn't have a case.

Speaking of cheating, is it cheating if everyone does it? How about if three-quarters of the players do it? How about half? (For the record, the lunatic Jose Canseco, who has been right about everything involving this topic, estimated that 70% of players were doping.) Wouldn't Roger Clemens have been among the best pitchers in the game even without that extra edge?

And what happens when Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio, Derek Jeter and Jeff Bagwell come before the voters? Raise your hand if you know for a fact that they weren't also cheaters. (Of course, Jeter, Biggio and Smoltz have passed drug tests. On the other hand, the cracks in those tests are so wide Lindsay Lohan could get through them.) Hello? Hello?

Those poor writers. Besides blind faith, personal bias, rock, paper and scissors, what criteria can they use to determine? I see a few options here:

The Fatalist -- will throw his hands in the air and elect the top performers, no questions asked. (His cousin, The Denier, will get to the same result by denying that there's any proven advantage from using steroids or HgH.)

The Broad Brusher -- will black-ball anyone whose name is associated with steroid use, period.

The Philadelphia Lawyer -- will bar only those who have tested positive.

The Policy Wonk -- will create his own hierarchy of rules and apply them.

The Situational Ethicist -- will weigh the entirety of the player's career against the certainty and apparent extent of guilt.

One thing we all seem to agree on is that the five-year wait and the 15-year window give voters a chance to consider the issue with clearer vision and due consideration. We need some time to reflect before deciding a movie is an all-time great. (Except for that instant classic -- Mary Poppins. No, really.)

However writers vote, there's a legitimate rationale, as long as they acknowledge the level of uncertainty built into every decision. Personally, I'm the situational ethicist. Bonds, Clemens and ARod would get in, after a suitable period in the penalty box, for sustained greatness. I'd vote for Pudge in part because steroids don't appear to enhance defensive ability. Sosa and Palmeiro were both borderline candidates to me, so a nudge backwards drops them off pedestal. The rules on Planet Loopy are: two strikes and you're out. Nix Ramirez.

McGwire can withstand a small steroid penalty, but there does seem to be significant evidence that his home runs were synthetically generated for most of his career. (On the other hand, the reason steroids are illegal is that they are dangerous, and Big Mac suffered a lot of nagging injuries in his career that might have resulted from steroid use. Maybe the added punch and the lost playing time were a wash.)

The bottom line is that we'll never know the whole story. So I'll be cutting everyone a little slack on this, including the game itself.

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