Intriguing Players of the AL East

Almost certainly, 2011 was what the Milwaukee Brewers had in mind when they drafted Canadian high schooler Brent Lawrie in the first round. In just 150 at-bats, Lawrie smashed nine homers and eight doubles and posted a sterling .293/.373/.580 from the hot corner. That extrapolates to 36 homers, 32 doubles and 28 steals in 32 attempts over a full season.

Except, the Brewers didn't envision those results coming in Toronto. Milwaukee swapped Lawrie last year as part of the package that brought back Shawn Marcum and a division title. What Toronto got was the fifth youngest player in the majors in 2011, whose cumulative value to the Blue Jays was second on the team -- in a quarter of a season.

If Lawrie can recreate that kind of performance, and his minor league experience suggests he can, Mike Schmidt is making room for him in Cooperstown. Before he does, Lawrie will have to continue to impress for more than 171 plate appearances.

Lawrie's fellow rookie Blue Jay, catcher J.P. Arencibia, also presents a provocative profile. In 129 games, the 25-year-old Miamian pounded 23 long balls and not much else. Slow afoot and, it appears, to get the bat around, Arencibia hit just .219 and whiffed 133 times.

Arencibia is young, hit .301 in his last stint in the minors (Triple-A Las Vegas) and reached safely at about half the normal rate on ground balls, suggesting that some bad luck (and slow-motion running) may have been at work. On the other hand, contact skills like that don't generally wear well and the leash will be short. Minor league backstop sensation Travis D'Arnaud carved up Double-A last year.

Those are two more intriguing players I'll be watching in '12. A full season of breakout for the pair could catapult the Blue Jays into the playoff conversation with NY, Boston and Tampa.

J.J. Hardy's Babe Ruth imitation won't help the Orioles escape the AL East cellar, but another year of .269/.310/.491 with 30 bombs from the shortstop position won't hurt. Hardy has done this sort of thing before -- in '07 and '08, so it's no fluke, and his .273 batting average on balls in play hints at room for improvement. On the weak AL shortstop roster, a reprisal of last year's output makes Hardy Silver Slugger material.

Staying in the AL East, Kelly Shopach's batting average, OBP and slugging percentage have all steadily declined since he hit .261 with 21 homers in '08. If Shoppach's efforts for Boston tail off further from last year's .176/.268/.339 with Tampa, he'll be practicing his craft in Pawtucket. 

GM Ben Cherington and special consultant Bill James know that Shoppach's .212 batting average on balls in play makes less sense than most presidential candidates. They also know that Shoppach feasts on lefties and would look good in a platoon with switch-hitter Jarrod Saltalamacchia. So there may be a last gasp or two left in the 33-year-old righty. As with Hardy, Arencibia and Lawrie, we'll soon find out.

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Thirty-five Years and Counting

There's a scene in Moneyball when Brad Pitt, playing Oakland GM Billy Beane, tells A's players that they should not bunt, and if the other team bunts they should just pick up the ball and throw to second for the out. "If your enemy is making mistakes, don't interrupt him," Beane says.

"I always wondered about that," exclaimed the sweet, blond wife who brings a book to the ballpark, on those rare occasions when she accompanies me to one. "Why do teams purposely make an out?"

And with that, my wife leaped over thousands of professional sportswriters and sports talk show hosts who are still thinking and talking about the game as if it were 1923. Simply by dint of watching this flawed and sometimes apocryphal movie, millions of Americans will know more about baseball than, say Mike Greenberg and Mike Golick, hosts of the most popular national sports radio show, or a Baltimore Sun reporter who wrote an article two years ago for my local paper about the struggles of Jeff Francoeur without ever mentioning walks or on base percentage.

Now that the calendar has flipped, we've moved another year clear of 1977, the year Bill James first published his Baseball Abstract debunking many of the myths that no longer permeate Major League Baseball's backrooms but remain hallmarks of baseball reportage. Writers, announcers and fans who still exalt batting average and RBIs, pitching wins and saves, chemistry and clutch hitting are now 35 years behind the times, and counting.

They are the equivalent of a political reporter who speculates who's going to face President Carter in the next election. (It couldn't have been Sarah Palin; she started junior high school that year.) They are the Catholic Church condemning Copernicus's (and then Galileo's) proof of heliocentrism, before finally acknowledging its truth more than 300 years later. They are my neighbors in South Carolina who still can't bring themselves, 151 years later, to recognize that the Civil War was fought over slavery. The people charged with informing us about baseball know less about the soul of the game than my thoroughly apathetic bride.

I've noted before that the demonizing of scouts and dismissal of defensive value are unforgivably narrow-minded turns in the book and movie. And I've questioned -- just a few posts ago -- Billy Beane's endless rebuilding for a nebulous future. But those who continue to deny the revolution in baseball analysis are on the wrong side of history. Even my wife can tell them that.

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Intriguing Sluggers of 2012

Michael Morse has drawn a Major League paycheck for six years, but not until 2010 was there any hint that he might be an asset to a team. In about half a season of plate appearances he swatted 15 home runs and hit .289/.352/.519. for the Nationals.

Last year, the Nats handed Morse the first base job when Adam Dunn left for oblivion on Chicago's South Side. Morse responded with 303/.360/.550 and 31 jacks to help Washington approach respectability.

Turning 30 in March with a new two-year, $10.5 million contract, Morse will be tasked in 2012 with proving he wasn't a fluke. The 3-1 strikeout-walk ratio doesn't bode well in the long run, but two years of consistent output suggests Morse could continue to hit.

Morse is one of several intriguing players in 2012. Another is the aforementioned Dunn. After a season out of Dante's Inferno, he will be Done unless he rebounds this year. A regression halfway to his mean, factoring in age (now 33), puts Dunn around .232/.357/.460 with 30 homers, according to Baseball Prospectus's projection, which would be slightly better than his replacement in Washington.

Another player to watch is Brent Morel, a 24-year-old third baseman for Dunn's White Sox. In his inaugural campaign, Morel scuffled -- .288 OBP -- but he socked eight home runs and quadrupled his walk rate in September. BP projects him for a desultory .264/.301/.391 with 13 dingers, but young players are less projectable than old ones.

Logan Morrison is a 235-pound lefty masher in Miami whose half-season debut in 2010 (.282/.390/.487) suggested left field may be locked up for awhile. In a full tour of duty at age 24 last year, he slid to .247/.330/.468. While his batting average lagged, Morrison was earning free passes and walloping the ball when he got a hold of it. If he can get hits at a respectable rate, he'll make millions. Should Morrison reprise his minor league averages above .300, he'll make All-Star teams. 

Morrison is probably the best bet of this group, because of his age, batting eye and power. He flashed hitting acumen on the farm and will be newly surrounded by a formidable Marlins lineup that includes Jose Reyes setting the table.

Josh Hamilton may be going in the opposite direction. I'll be surprised if the Texas fly-shagger rebounds from the 298/.346/.536, 25-home run season in 2011 that seemed like a disappointment following an MVP 2010 in which he batted .359 and punched out 32 big flies. His days as a centerfielder may also have passed.

Now 31, Hamilton has put his body and his psyche through the ringer. The Ballpark will continue to hide some of his decline unless he's unable to stay on the field. Look for him to tail off starting this year. It might not be dramatic, but the days of MVP candidacies is over.

I'll take a look at some other intriguing players in future posts. Five more weeks!
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Meet the New Leadoff Hitter. Same As the Old Leadoff Hitter.

Dear Seattle Mariners fan,

My very deepest, most sincere, heartfelt and genuine sympathies. If you had any notion that you were already knee deep in the fire, you just discovered that was just the frying pan. 2012 promises to hurt even more.

Last year, the Sub-mariners -- because their hitting is below sea level -- trotted out the second lamest collection of bats we've seen in decades, finishing last in baseball in scoring with just 3.43 runs/game in a 4.46 league. Even lamer was the 2010 squad, which scored just 3.17 runs per game in a 4.45 runs/game league, making the last two years the most punchless performance since Rope-A-Dope.

But have no fear, if you need the deck chairs re-arranged on the Titanic mess that is your offense, manager Eric Wedge has a foolproof plan.

Wedge has boldly announced, even before Spring Training as begun, that he is making a big move at the top of the lineup. One-time superstar Ichiro Suzuki, now 38 and getting aboard just 31% of the time, is out as the leadoff hitter.

The new leadoff hitter is the answer to this question: whose four-year, $36 million contract was the biggest waste of legal tender in baseball history? That would be utility infielder Chone Figgins, signed to staff third on defense and reach first on offense for Seattle. The only time over the first two years of his deal that Figgins has reached first is on a throw in the dirt. 

The new Mariner leadoff hitter offers a .236/.308/.285 alternative over the last two seasons to Ichiro. If that doesn't sound like a table-setter, that's all right. It's not as if there's anything being served at this banquet.

Consider that last year, their top slugger was catcher Miguel Olivo, whose 19 home runs accompanied a .224 batting average and .253 OBP. Or that their best (and only good) hitter, rookie second baseman Dustin Ackley (.273/.348/.417), played just half a season. Or that CF Franklin Gutierrez batted .224 with 16 walks and one home run, and was not the worst hitter in Seattle's starting lineup. (That would be the aforementioned $9 million man.)

Which might explain why Wedge, using all the weapons at his disposal, will punish Ichiro's dreadful 2011 performance, in which he neither reached base much nor hit for power discernible at even the atomic level (.272/.310/.335), by shifting him to the third spot in the lineup.

Gaaaaaaack.

Now let's be real. Ackley will have a full season and Jesus is coming -- Yankee import Jesus Montero, who has served notice that he can rake at the highest level. And Seattle still Marinates in pitching -- Felix Hernandez and...uh...well, Pineda and Fister are gone.

Seattle Mariner fans, my very deepest, most sincere, heartfelt and genuine sympathies.

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A Brave New Season

You've heard of addition by subtraction, but how about addition by inaction? That's the Atlanta Braves' intriguing formula for 2012.

For one thing, the addition necessary for the Tomahawks is one game. One added win last year would have put them in the post-season -- a 163rd game against St. Louis for the Wild Card. A two-win leap would have erased the September fade.

How do you make the leap while standing still? Easy: you get better. Presto.

Signing free agents is almost guaranteed to bloat the payroll, but not necessarily the win column. So Atlanta GM Frank Wren passed on all the big names, small names, stage names and aliases. While the Phillies inked a studly new closer, the Marlins imported a roster and the Nationals hired a pitching staff, Wren sat tight and promised that last year's collapse was ancient history.

In fact, Atlanta will be without two starting players from 2011. They flipped starter Derek Lowe to the Indians for salary relief and some minor league filler. They also let shortstop Alex Gonzalez take his talents to Milwaukee. They won't miss Lowe's waning days in Major League baseball, but AGon was a slick fielder who may be tough to replace.

What that leaves manager Fredi Gonzalez is another year of admirable defense and suspect offense. The starting staff is anchored by veteran Tim Hudson (16-10, 3.22)  and now-healthy Jair Jurrjens (13-9, 2.96). Promising youngins Brandon Beachy (7-3, 3.68), Tommy Hanson (11-7, 3.60) and Mike Minor (5-3, 4.14) will be pushed by rookie sensations Randall Delgado and Julio Teheran, who enjoyed cups of coffee in the bigs last season.

The bullpen is stacked, with Peter Moylan and Eric O'Flaherty fronting the unhittable endgame duo of Jonny Venters (1.82 ERA and 96 K in 88 innings) and Craig Kimbrel (2.10 ERA and 127 K in 77 innings). Atlanta relinquished the third fewest runs in baseball last year behind the historically good staffs in Philly and San Francisco, and they promise to repeat that this year.

Team brass is banking on offensive improvement up and down the lineup in 2012, and it's not clear that check will cash. There's certainly reason to expect Jayson Heyward 3.0 will more resemble the rookie phenom of 2010 (.277/.393/.476) than the sophomore slumper of 2011 (.227/.319/.389). A full season of Michael Bourne means they have speed atop the lineup and perhaps a legitimate leadoff threat if he can repeat his .363 OBP from 105 games in Houston. And Brian McCann is Brian McCann, the NL's premier catcher.

Second sacker Dan Uggla can't possibly repeat his 2011 first half (.185/.257/.365), but he probably can't repeat his second half either (.296/.379/.569), which means his full-season results -- .233/.311/.453 -- might not be far off the mark for 2012.

The Braves are expecting improvement from first baseman Freddie Freeman, who posted a respectable rookie season (.282/.346/.448), but a high BABIP and late season decline hint at regression. The same with Chipper Jones, the centenarian cornerman whose offensive utility and ability to stay on the field can only decline. Plan B at the hot corner involves plugging in utilityman Martin Prado, whom the Braves hope will return to his .300 hitting ways after a season with a .250 BABIP that dragged his batting average down to .260.

Plan A in a woeful outfield requires better performances from Heyward, Bourne and Prado. Plan B requires that the youth movement pays off and Heyward, Jose Constanza and Jordan Schafer suddenly turn into the Alou brothers. But that's not the way to bet, so there may be more futility outfielding ahead for the Braves. It could be worse at shortstop, where they're plugging rookie Tyler Pastornicky into the starting lineup without a track record or a net. The 170-pound righty posted a punchless .314 average in the high minors last year, so good luck with that.

There are plenty of assets on the farm, but most of them are arms. It's hard to see this team improving on its 10th place NL finish in runs scored. But a couple of unexpectedly good performances, coupled with awesome pitching prospects, means the Braves are in the hunt again in 2012. Buckle up: six weeks 'til Opening Day.

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When Do the Bucs Get Good?

A blog post on the Pirates has been slaking through my brain for the better part of the new year. So you can imagine how my ears perked up today when I heard that the Pirates and Yankees were on the verge of a trade involving A.J. Burnett. 

Wouldn't a trade that includes the mercurial right-hander mean a one way ticket to Pittsburgh? Why on earth would a rebuilding team want an erratic 35-year-old with an ERA over 5.00 the last two seasons? The only way this deal makes sense is if Pittsburgh receives prospects as reward for absorbing some of the $33 million owed Burnett for the next two years. 

(Reportedly they'll send a prospect and roughly split the bill. Blecch for the Bucs.)

The slack that the SABR world has cut Pittsburgh brass over the last four-and-a-half years will begin getting taut in 2012. In the five off-season's since Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington came aboard as president and GM, they swabbed the decks of the veteran core for a treasure chest of young players and minor leaguers. Gone are Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell and other, lesser lights. Bay tore up the AL for the Red Sox in '08, but otherwise, few in Pittsburgh are lamenting these losses.

The losses they're lamenting are across from the Win column in the standings since. The Pirates' 19-year streak of losing records is not Coonelly and Huntington's fault, and they have been wise to ignore the record and focus on building a contender for the long term. But at 72-90 in 2011, their best record since '04, there's no clear sense that the team is headed in the right direction. (Baseball Prospectus projects the Pirates for 71 wins in '12.)

In swapping the present for the future, the Pirates brought back the likes of Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlmendorf, Dan McCutchen, Brandon Moss, Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen, Gorkys Hernankdez, Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton, Lastings Milledge, Joel Hanrahan, Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Tim Alderson, Chris Snyder, Pedro Ciriaco, James McDonald, Andrew Lambo, Kevin Hart, Jose Ascanio, Josh Harrison and John Bowker. This group will determine whether the Pirates are contenders or pretenders in the future.

In 2011, the payoff was still small, and Pittsburgh's fans, even the most patient, are going to be hard pressed to remain so in 2012. Hanrahan saved 40 games with a 1.83 ERA, Tabata and Harrison  provided replacement level hitting at left field and third base, starting pitchers Karstens and McCutchen both got good results as starters despite vexing strikeout rates and Cedeno is a glove-only shortstop now entering his 30s. Besides that, the treasure trove from all those trades is mostly seaweed and sand.

The Pirates have also had five (more) years of high draft picks and have spent the most money in baseball scouring the globe for prospects. Yet they still lack an ace -- or a number two starter, for that matter -- and aside from Andrew McCutchen (.259/.364/.456) they still don't have anyone who can hit a lick.

It's early, to be sure. Almost none of the names above has entered their primes. But it's getting late to be early. A 20th year of failure will have the new management team's supporters assembling the plank for Coonelly and Huntington to walk.

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When "Champion" Doesn't Mean Much

So the New York Giants, a team that doesn't play a single game, home or away, in New York, a team that was a mediocre .500 after 7/8ths of the season and that snuck into the playoffs mostly on the incompetence of their division rivals, are the Champions of the Football World.

Three months earlier the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that had a good but not great season, failed to win their division and snuck into the playoffs largely on the late-season incompetence of a rival, became Champions of the Baseball World.

Which followed by seven months the University of Connecticut's elevation to the pinnacle of the college basketball world following up-and-down play and low expectations entering their post-season tournament.

I don't know how much of this narrative applies to the Dallas Mavericks or the Boston Bruins, though I don't believe either team was considered the kings of their sport until they won their respective titles. But I do know that results like these leave me cold.

It appears that the purpose of post-season play has devolved into a stand-alone tournament designed to crown a victor, but not necessarily to decide anything, or bring a satisfying resolution to their season of play. (Voice in my head: Don't be an idiot: the purpose of post-season play is to create entertainment products of value to TV networks that sell advertising time to beermongers and truck peddlers.) In my youth, there were two separate baseball leagues and the sachems of each squared off to determine who was the best team that year. It was the same with the NFL championship and the early Super Bowls. "Champion" meant "best."

In 21st century sports, after months of play some multiplicity of teams start all over in a tournament that often requires different strengths than the regular season and elevates the importance of luck to or near the forefront.

The upshot of elongated playoffs has been threefold:

1. The regular season's value has diminished. Its main purpose is to earn the minimum requirements for a playoff spot.

2. The best teams are less likely to emerge victorious.

3. More teams participate, which gives more fans a rooting interest.

Factor #3 has dominated all the discussions, but I am very troubled by the dilution of the championship. The Giants and Cardinals seem to me more like the last man standing than like "champions." They endured the winds of fortune that buffet all teams in a tournament better than their competitors, but I don't feel like we have crowned a "best team" or even determined who that is.

With respect to baseball, a seven-game series is such a lottery that adding more of them (or even shorter series, like the one-game variety now proposed) makes a mockery of the 162-game schedule. So forgive me for having difficulty generating much excitement about Super Bowls and Stanley Cups and NCAA Finals and even -- gasp -- World Series. They just don't, in my mind, serve much of a purpose.

Other than inspiring some pretty clever ads.

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Standing O for "Little O"

In the land of three-armed men, the two-armed man is unremarkable. Such is the lament for Omar Vizquel, a mere pipsqueak of a shortstop in a time of behemoth belters. Vizquel, at 45 years of age and 159 hits short of 3,000, signed a minor league deal with Toronto last week, presumably to tutor Blue Jay prospects.

Performing his ballet at short for Seattle, Cleveland and San Francisco, Vizquel presented as the latter-day Ozzie Smith, a glove-first, adequate-hitting middle infielder who helped his team to multiple World Series. But just as 5'9" Vizquel was gaining traction, 6'4" Cal Ripken was breaking records, 6'3" Alex Rodriguez was winning the batting crown and 6'3" Derek Jeter was winning championships. Throughout his career, as Vizquel approached the Hall of Fame bar for shortstops it moved higher and higher.

Vizquel fell short of the even the old standard for Hall shortstops regardless; he never flashed either the talent afield or with the stick of the Wizard of Oz. His .272/.337/.352 lifetime line in an era of inflated offense is actually 18% weaker than the average hitter. His magic at short -- soft hands, cat quickness, near perfection -- was enough alone to earn him stardom, but without power, he would have needed more seasons like 1999, where he hit .333/.397/.436 with 45 extra base hits and 42 of 51 steals for Cleveland. Only two other times in his career did "Little O" get on base 36% of the time, not nearly enough for someone with 80 home runs in 23 seasons. Vizquel pales next to ARod and Jeter.

(It's worth acknowledging, though not necessarily crediting, the defensive statistics that are somewhat underwhelmed with Vizquel's defensive prowess, granting him just 10-13 wins lifetime with the glove. That's less productivity than they credit to Ripken in just 17 years at short. Feh.)

With his defensive skills eroded and his offense drained of its adequacy, Vizquel's chances of cracking the Blue Jay lineup this year are slimmer than Tim Lincecum, and even then he almost certainly wouldn't make more than nominal appearances for the big league club. Vizquel hasn't been capable of above-replacement work since his triumphant valedictory with the Giants six years ago. So we'll take this moment to remember and appreciate the best fielding shortstop of the last two decades who accumulated 1000 walks, 1400 runs scored, 400 steals and 11 Gold Gloves, and came within one season of 3,000 hits.

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He's A Prince But He's No Fielder

Time for all you Detroit Tiger fans to practice your cartwheels -- an athletic act that Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez can't replicate.

I know the folks in Motown are atwitter over the Murder's Row -- or duo, for now -- of Fielder and Cabrera in the wake of the nine-year, $214 million signing of Cecil's son. No doubt, that's some formidable pop in the middle of the lineup. You might say it's . . . sizable.

My hatred for this signing is sizable too. You might say Prince Fielder-sized.

Prince Fielder is a certified stud with the wood. The length of the commitment and the outlay required is not the problem; it's the cost of signing a 28-year-old, top-five slugger. The problem is that the Tigers have to take the field every half inning, and in that vein, they now have three Hummers in a gas-conscious world. Detroit plans to play Fielder at first and Cabrera at third and Jhonny Peralta at short. They might as well stick Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano in the outfield because that is one ghastly defensive team.

At 275 pounds, Cabrera has all the mobility of a sofa-sleeper. Sixty pounds ago he staffed the hot corner for Florida -- in much the same way that Capt. Francesco Schettino "staffed" the Costa Concordia. His attempts to snare groundballs beyond arms length in 2012 will either be comic or tragic, depending on how hard you root for the White Sox.

In addition, he and Peralta (and keystoner Ryan Raburn) had better make good throws to first, because Fielder is ironically named. At 260 pounds himself, Fielder will be Cabrera's doppelganger across the infield. It won't get any better when V-Mart returns from a torn ACL -- probably next year -- because that guarantees at least two of the trio will have to play the field if the third DHs.

In short, Detroit now has three scary sluggers, but all three play the same defensive position -- none. Add to that a pitching staff that includes a Cy Young winner who is nearly certain to regress and a supporting cast that boasts Doug Fister and three guys whose records masked their mediocrity last year.

Sure, the Tigers will hit, but they won't catch and they won't run (49 steals last year and Austin Jackson had 22 of them) and their suspect pitching won't get any help. This combination of parts has Edsel written all over it and it's not due for an upgrade until V-Mart's contract expires in three years. Prince Fielder is a great pickup -- but not for this team.

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Bitten By the BABIP Bug

One of the more controversial, but profound, insights of new analysis is that pitchers have relatively little control over whether batted balls that stay in the park are hits or outs. What we see as good pitching with our naked eyes is often a stew of defense and luck when put under the microscope. Pitchers may control whether batters swat flies or kill worms, but they don't control the placement of those batted balls three feet one way or the other, which is easily the difference between a hit and an out.
 
Generally, a pitcher can expect that batters hit around .300 on balls in play. The real distinction among pitchers is how often they fan batters, put them on base via walk or plunking and relinquish big flies. 

It's not a hard-and-fast rule; sinkerballers endure higher BABIPs but induce more double plays and allow fewer home runs. Some individuals, bat-breakers in particular, maintain unusually low BABIPs over long periods. Knuckleballers confound the whole system, but are rare enough to hold their convention in an elevator.

So when reviewing pitcher seasons, a quick look at opponent BABIP can sometimes suggest a disconnect between performance and results. CC Sabathia's 2011 offers a snapshot.

Sabathia is reliably a beast, even when bitten by the BABIP bug. In 2011, he anchored the Yankee staff with a 19-8, 3.00 line in 237 innings. He whiffed 230 batters and walked just 61. Imagine this: things didn't go his way.

Sabathia for his career pitched to an opponent BABIP of .292, which makes sense for a fly ball pitcher like him. After 2300 innings, you have to figure the statistical kinks have been worked out so that's the true measure of his work. But in 2011, batters hit .322 on balls in play against him. A change in his pitching mix or something else could possibly be at issue, but it's far more likely that a few unlucky bounces and/or an aging defense are responsible.

Had Sabathia's luck held out for his "normal" BABIP, he would have given up 21 fewer hits. His ERA would have dropped 26 points. Let's say he'd have won an extra game and lost one less. Now he's 20-7, 2.74 and not the fourth best pitcher in the league, but the second or third.

Or first. Because your 2011 Cy Young and MVP, Justin Verlander, in addition to pitching with his hair on fire, was unbelievably lucky.  His BABIP in 251 innings of labor was .237, nearly 100 points lower than Sabathia's and more than 50 points lower than his lifetime BABIP. A "normal" opponent BABIP for Verlander in 2011 means 39 more hits fall in, and his ERA balloons 54 points. Switch a couple of wins to losses and suddenly the runaway best pitcher in the league is 22-7, 2.94, a nearly identical record to Sabathia's.

(Jered Weaver, the #2 Cy Young votegetter, also enjoyed a skewed BABIP in 2011.)

An even deeper dive can tease out the discrepancies even further; there might be some explanation for a small part of Verlander's seemingly anomalous performance. It demonstrates, though, how much of the enthusiasm for Verlander as MVP might have been misplaced.

Ten years from now, the green eyeshades will have developed even finer tools for separating ability, defense and luck, and the conclusions we tentatively draw here might be reversed. Or vindicated. Still, the current state of the art reminds us that there's more to take into consideration than the usual pitching stats when analyzing pitcher value. It also suggests that Verlander, even maintaining his awesome level of performance, has little chance of repeating his 2011 results.
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Making A Matusz of Things

The Baltimore Orioles have been among those constantly rebuilding teams ever since Jeffrey Mayer, now an adult, broke their heart. The O's have accumulated some talent over the years, but they have two major handicaps: the AL (B)East and their pitching staff.

In the last week, Baltimore's new GM, Dan Duquette, picked up a pair of semi-promising Japanese pitchers. If the pair lives up to their modest potential, they will immensely improve a staff that drove the team off a cliff in 2011.

The O's mound corp gave up 5.31 earned runs per game, last in the majors by a robust margin. Their only above-average pitcher, reliever Koji Uehara, notched a grand total of 141 outs.

How about Brian Matusz, the highly-regarded third year starter? In 2010, Matusz hurled 176 innings and struck out 143 batters. He went 10-12, 4.30 against tough competition, flashing the talent that made him the fourth pick in the '08 draft.

It's possible that Matusz died and was replaced on the hill by Rosie Ruiz last season. Or that his evil twin, an accountant with no discernible baseball talent, tied him up in a basement back home in Phoenix while he took Brian's starts in the rotation. Whatever the truth, the person alleging to be Brian Matusz started 12 games last season and averaged four innings and five runs per start. He went 1-9, 10.69, the worst ERA for any pitcher with 12 start ever. Ev-uh.

You can find your own numeric fun with Matusz's 2011, including the 18 homers he relinquished in 49 frames, one less than in the previous 176.

Matusz is on a short leash in 2012, but then so are all his litter mates. Baltimore will audition anyone who can fog a mirror in Spring Training in an effort to avoid the basement in a tough division and to develop some arms while they continue to develop Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis and some other promising everyday player properties.

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Diving Deeper In the BABIP Pool

A pitcher throws a pitch and it's strike three. Bully for him. He shares the credit with no one, except perhaps the batter, who deserves the entirety of the blame. It's part of what makes baseball largely a team game of individual performances.

Or, the batter takes ball four. The blame-credit dispensation is switched. Demerit pitcher and no one else. Credit batter alone.

Same hurler and hitter, but this time the bat makes contact and the ball sails into the warm, starry night. The moundsman can't blame his defense for a home run, unless it bounces off Jose Canseco's noggin and over the fence.

Walks, HBPs, Ks and home runs are all simply mano-a-mano events. When we examine the records of the combatants, we know exactly who did what by the result. Other kinds of results leave much more room for error because defense and luck play significant roles. 

Surely a pitcher who induces lots of pop-ups has the right to expect to pile up the outs. Those that drop between fielders are the exception, rather than the rule. Conversely, serving up a barrage of line drives is likely to lead to a quick hook.

Which brings us to Vernon Wells. The man with the toxic contract hit a miserable .218/.248/.412 for his 26 million,187 thousand, five hundred dollars in 2011. Wells isn't worth that money in three good years, but with that line he wasn't even worth a roster spot. You might espy a Major League Baseball-worst BABIP of .214 and conclude that he's ripe for a 2012 rebound. Alas, a deeper dive into his record and the kinds of balls he hit suggests that he suffered more from too many pop-ups and dribblers than from bad karma for his inflated paycheck.

With 86 punchouts in 529 plate appearances, we could expect Wells to bat .234 with his career BABIP of .282. But Wells was making weak contact in 2011, resulting in fewer line drives, more infield rollers, fewer ground balls, more shallow pops and more flies in general than his career average. In fact, he lined just one-eighth of his fair batted balls, the lowest percentage of his career. 

All this suggests Wells had no business batting much above .218, and unless he discovers a performance-enhancing formula, will have to stave off the effect of turning 33 since the last season. Mark Teixeira, now he's another story.

The slugging Yankee first-bagger suffered the third worst BABIP in baseball last season at .239. Teixeira hurt himself by pulling the ball too much, but hit just .215 on ground balls and just .646 on line drives. League average for each is about .320 and .750 respectively. Expect him to improve on his .248/.341/.494 in 2012, scary as that is.

Here's the list, courtesy of Baseball Reference, of the hitters who qualified for the batting title with the lowest BABIP in 2011. Expect most of them to improve at least their batting average and on base percentage next season.

Rk	Player	BAbip	Tm	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Vernon Wells	.214	LAA	529	505	110	15	4	25	20	86	.218	.248	.412	.660	*789/D
2	Alexis Rios	.237	CHW	570	537	122	22	2	13	27	68	.227	.265	.348	.613	*8/D
3	Mark Teixeira	.239	NYY	684	589	146	26	1	39	76	110	.248	.341	.494	.835	*3/D
4	Evan Longoria	.239	TBR	574	483	118	26	1	31	80	93	.244	.355	.495	.850	*5/D
5	Ian Kinsler	.243	TEX	723	620	158	34	4	32	89	71	.255	.355	.477	.832	*4D
6	Kurt Suzuki	.244	OAK	515	460	109	26	0	14	38	64	.237	.301	.385	.686	*2/D
7	Casey McGehee	.249	MIL	600	546	122	24	2	13	45	104	.223	.280	.346	.626	*5/3D
8	Dan Uggla	.253	ATL	672	600	140	22	1	36	62	156	.233	.311	.453	.764	*4
9	Yuniesky Betancourt	.259	MIL	584	556	140	27	3	13	16	63	.252	.271	.381	.652	*6
10	Carlos Santana	.263	CLE	658	552	132	35	2	27	97	133	.239	.351	.457	.808	*23/D

Batters do have some ability to affect BABIP; Ichiro in his productive years regularly batted .350 on balls in play. Wells, on the other hand, hits just .282 lifetime even when he's not striking out. Here are the guys with highest BABIP in 2011.

Rk	Player	BAbip	Tm	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Matt Kemp	.380	LAD	689	602	195	33	4	39	74	159	.324	.399	.586	.986	*8/D
2	Adrian Gonzalez	.380	BOS	715	630	213	45	3	27	74	119	.338	.410	.548	.957	*3/D9
3	Emilio Bonifacio	.372	FLA	641	565	167	26	7	5	59	129	.296	.360	.393	.753	65789/4
4	Michael Bourn	.369	TOT	722	656	193	34	10	2	53	140	.294	.349	.386	.734	*8
5	Michael Young	.367	TEX	689	631	213	41	6	11	47	78	.338	.380	.474	.854	D534/6
6	Alex Avila	.366	DET	551	464	137	33	4	19	73	131	.295	.389	.506	.895	*2/D5
7	Miguel Cabrera	.365	DET	688	572	197	48	0	30	108	89	.344	.448	.586	1.033	*3/D
8	Hunter Pence	.361	TOT	668	606	190	38	5	22	56	124	.314	.370	.502	.871	*9
9	Alex Gordon	.358	KCR	688	611	185	45	4	23	67	139	.303	.376	.502	.879	*7/3
10	Dexter Fowler	.354	COL	563	481	128	35	15	5	68	130	.266	.363	.432	.796	*8

How about Dexter Fowler, whose .354 BABIP still left him hitting .266. When his luck runs out, so will his MLBPA union card. On the other hand, we've seen this before from Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Gonzalez. Cabrera's just 18 points above his lifetime mark of .347, which is why a) the bronze sculptor in Cooperstown is practicing carving Cabrera's face and b) no one is suggesting a fall to earth in 2012 for him.

We'll look at pitcher BABIP-against next time, and see who may be fixing to soar or belly-flop next season.

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