This is something I began over at Statistically Speaking but it makes more sense to continue here at Fangraphs. Giants pitcher Matt Cain had an historically unlucky season in 2007, posting statistics similar to, if not better than, most NL starting pitchers. And yet, at the end of the season, all he had was a 7-16 record with no true consolation prize. Via my Net Luck Rating statistic–which measures the quality of decisions and no-decisions by evaluating each start as a separate commodity–it was the unluckiest season of the decade. Based on the quality of his starts and his frequency of well-pitched games Cain would have gone 16-7 in his decisions if pitchers were awarded wins for every well-pitched decision and losses for every poorly pitched decision.

Based on how bleak the outlook appears for the Giants I have every reason to believe the string of bad luck will continue. That being said I have decided to track each of his starts. To read the recaps of his first two starts, click any of the links below:

• Cain Watch #1
• WPA, 4/1/08
• Cain Watch #2
• WPA, 4/7/08

Cain’s third start of the season proved to be the perfect example of his lack of luck. Here is the graph of the game:

To recap, Cain pitched 6.2 innings, surrendering three hits and two earned runs; he also walked three and struck out five. At the time of his departure in the seventh inning Cain had a 5-2 lead. Oh, and do you see that little red dot in the graph above in between the sixth and seventh innings? If so, you read correctly: Matt Cain also hit a home run in this game.

After Cain’s departure, Jumpin’ Jack Taschner (it’s a fun nickname, admit it) hit Rico Washington before Merkin Valdez got Ryan Ludwick to fly out. After seven full innings the Giants led 5-2. Some Tyler Walker, Brad Hennessey, and Erick Threets action later and the Giants found themselves extra-inning losers by a final score of 8-7. Sigh. Poor Matt Cain.

In terms of WPA, Cain contributed .286 in the pitching department and .190 in the hitting department; for the game that adds up to an accumulative WPA of .476. Considering that the winning team will add up to a .500 and that the Giants eventually lost the game, the team had to do a lot wrong to lose. A cursory scan of the bullpen WPA for the game supports that: Threets chimed in with a -.292, Walker with a -.318, and Hennessey with a -.434. The efforts of these three not only erased Cain’s efforts but doubled over in the negative direction.

This was definitely a game Cain should have gone onto win but will go down as a too-familiar great start but no-decision. For the season, Cain is now at: 3 GS, 16.2 IP, 13 H, 6 ER, 12 BB, 15 K, 3.24 ERA. Based on his WPA, Clutch, and WPA/LI Cain is currently very comparable to Johan Santana. Despite pitching well in two games, and poorly in the other, he is 0-1. The saga continues.

Week two of baseball is officially in the books as of two days ago. Lots of surprises this year including David Ortiz trailing baseball in WPA, WPA/LI, and BRAA. He’s dead last, by a lot. Maybe he’ll land himself a not so coveted Worst of the Week award.

Batter of the Week:

Travis Buck takes top honors this week with .806 wins. His biggest hit of the week was on April 10th where he hit a 2 run double in the top of the 9th worth .391 wins. He hit 6 doubles and 1 triple the entire week and while he may not have hit any home runs or had the best OPS, his consistent hitting was definitely the most timely.

Pitcher of the Week:

Matt Capps narrowly beat out Wandy Rodriguez with .84 wins to become the pitcher with the highest WPA of the week. Capps threw five scoreless innings including two that were very high leverage extra innings.

Worst of the Week:

Joe Borowski’s -0.897 wins was by far the worst of any player. David Ortiz as the worst batter gave him a run for his money with -.565 wins, but Borowski giving up a walk-off grand slam to Torii Hunter was really something special. The way things are going, Borowski could win this award next week too!

The Biggest Hit:

.712 wins – Travis Hafner hit the biggest home run of the season off of Justin Speier with 2 outs, in the top of the 9th, and a man on first to put his team up 4-3. Jake Westbrook closed out the game for the win and his first complete game of the year.

The Biggest Out:

-.347 wins – With the A’s up by 1 and a man on 1st and 2nd in the bottom of the 13th inning, Keith Foulke induced a game ending double play ball hit by Aaron Hill. The Leverage Index in that situation was an extremely high 7.16 and it was the biggest out of the season thus far.

Without a doubt, Alex Rodriguez is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He’s a hall of fame talent with a tremendous career behind him despite only being 32 years old. He’s got a shot at the all time home run record, is the highest paid player in the game, and plays on the biggest stage in baseball every night. However, despite all his ability and his impressive career performances, he’s also become the mainstream poster boy for an “unclutch” player. His disastrous performances in the 2005 and 2006 playoffs have been well documented, and he’s heard about his failures in the clutch for years, even if they weren’t always justified.

Well, if you take a look at the Win Probability leaderboard and sort by clutch performance, you’ll notice a familiar name currently posting the worst performance in high leverage situations of any hitter in baseball. Yep, there he is, again sitting atop a list that he’d rather never hear mentioned again. And, while it’s early, the ten plate appearances he’s had in situations where the LI has been greater than 1.50 show that he’s lived up to the reputation during the first two weeks of the season.

From his play log:

April 12th, Top 8, 2 out, 1st and 2nd, up 4-3: Alex Rodriguez struck out swinging
April 2nd, Bottom 9, 2 out, 1st and 2nd, down 5-2: Alex Rodriguez struck out swinging
April 3rd, Bottom 6, 0 out, 2nd and 3rd, down 2-1: Alex Rodriguez struck out swinging
April 14th, Top 8, 2 out, 1st and 3rd, down 8-7: Alex Rodriguez reached on an FC
April 3rd, Bottom 4, 0 out, 1st, down 1-0: Alex Rodriguez flew out to second base
April 13th, Top 1, 1 out, 1st and 2nd, 0-0: Alex Rodriguez grounded into a double play
April 1st, Bottom 4, 1 out, 1st, 1-1: Alex Rodriguez grounded into a double play
April 7th, Bottom 3, 2 out, 1st and 3rd, up 2-1: Alex Rodriguez reached on an FC
April 8th, Top 3, 0 out, 1st, 2-2: Alex Rodriguez struck out looking
April 1st, Bottom 7, 0 out, no one, 2-2: Alex Rodriguez singled to right field

It’s only ten plate appearances, but it’s ten fairly miserable plate appearances. Four strikeouts, two double plays, a couple of fielders choices, and a lone single. He made 11 outs in these 10 trips to the plate and lowered his team’s chance of winning by a combined 58.4%. So far, this season, Alex Rodriguez has been a problem when he had a chance to help his team the most. This fits right into the narrative that has been told about him for years.

However, I absolutely have to note that this is not a continuation of any real trend. Thanks to the addition of leverage splits on his Baseball Reference player card, we can see that A-Rod has actually performed better in high leverage situations over his career than he has in low or medium leverage situations. Over 1508 plate appearances with an LI of 1.50 or greater, Rodriguez has hit .307/.393/.590, marginally better than his career line of .306/.389/.578. That includes being a monster in high leverage situations last year, posting a .349/.439/.706 mark over 132 plate appearances.

No one should draw any conclusions from the first 10 high leverage at-bats of Alex’s Rodriguez 2008 season, especially in light of his career performances. I had to chuckle, however, when I checked out the clutch ratings this morning and saw a familiar name sitting at the bottom. I’m guessing this will be a moniker he’s going to have to fight his entire career.

In dealing with a vast amount of injuries over the course of the 2007 season the Phillies were forced to get creative in the transactions department. They took flyers on pitchers like Jose Mesa, Kane Davis and Kyle Lohse and reverted to their farm system to call up the likes of Kyle Kendrick and Mike Zagurski. Their most productive move involved claiming JC Romero off of waivers from the Red Sox on June 22nd.

The former Twins and Angels reliever kicked off his 2007 campaign with Boston, appearing in 23 games and stranding 13 of his 15 inherited runners. Unhappy with his penchant for giving up walks the Red Sox put him on the waiver wire. Desperately seeking bullpen help the Phillies quickly snatched him up.

Romero was in uniform on June 29th, a day consisting of a day/night doubleheader between the Phillies and Mets. Due to a depleted starting rotation–Freddy Garcia hurt, Jon Lieber hurt, Brett Myers now the closer–the Phillies called on waiver claim JD Durbin to pitch in game one. Durbin struck out the side in the first inning but gave up six runs over 4.2 innings en route to a loss. He definitely did not live up to his nickname – “The Real Deal.”

The nightcap, also resulting in a Phillies loss, saw Romero make his debut: a one inning performance equipped with a hit, two walks, and two strikeouts.

The next day, June 30th, saw the Phillies end their four-game set with the Mets; again they lost. The starting pitcher in this game was the recently called up prospect JA Happ. Being in attendance of this game I witnessed Happ struggle, giving up five runs in just 4+ innings. Following 2.2 solid innings from Ryan Madson, Romero made his second Phillies appearance by striking out Carlos Delgado to end the seventh inning.

If you have not noticed, the Phillies debuted three pitchers in a 27-hour span named JA, JC, and JD. Regardless of how tremendous Romero proved to be down the stretch–36.1 IP, 15 H, 5 ER, 20/26 inherited runners stranded, and the 6th best Clutch score for relievers with 40+ games–have you ever heard of a name coincidence as insane as this? Three new pitchers all debuting within two days of games, for the same team, with name abbreviations of JA, JC, and JD.

With the great addition of pitch type and velocity numbers here on FanGraphs, as well as the proliferation of Pitch F/X data, we’ve seen some great analysis of pitchers and the potential causes for their success and failure. In particular, there has been a decent amount of discussion about Barry Zito and his loss of velocity this season. However, Zito’s not the only one who has seen his fastball drop significantly, and among that group is Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander.

In 2006, the only starting pitcher in baseball with a higher velocity average on his fastball was Felix Hernandez, who clipped him 95.2 MPH to 95.1 MPH. Last year, Verlander’s fastball averaged 94.8 MPH, ranking him behind just Felix and A.J. Burnett. There was no question about it – Verlander was a power pitcher with a great fastball and one of the emerging young stars in baseball.

However, with the calendar flipping to 2008, something has changed. In his first three starts of the year, Justin Verlander has averaged just 91.9 MPH on his fastball, a 3 MPH decline on his main weapon. Instead of lighting up radar guns with Felix and Burnett, he’s now throwing as hard as Jair Jurrjens and Nick Blackburn. That’s less impressive company, with no offense intended to either youngster. This isn’t just a normal early season blip, either – Verlander’s down 5 MPH compared to what he was throwing in April of 2007.

The velocity loss has clearly had an impact on Verlander’s performance so far. His walk rate is up, his strikeout rate is down, and he’s giving up more home runs to boot. That’s a rough combination, and helps explain the 5.73 FIP he’s posted during the first 19 innings of his 2008 season. While the Tigers as a team have struggled coming out of the gates, perhaps no performance is as worrying as Verlander’s. If his fastball continues to sit around 92 MPH for the remainder of the season, he’s going to have to make some significant adjustments to be the frontline starter that Detroit was counting on.

Jeffrey Niemann was the only player to make his debut yesterday. He picked up the win for the Rays by throwing 6 innings with 5 strikeouts and allowing just a single run. Niemann, the fourth overall pick the 2004 draft, was listed as Baseball America’s 99th best prospect this year. At 6 feet and 9 inches tall, he holds the distinction of being the tallest player in Rays history.

Corey Patterson has always been thought of as a guy with tremendous potential. From 1999 to 2001, Baseball America ranked him as the 16th, 3rd, and 2nd best prospect in baseball respectively. The physical talents were obvious; terrific athleticism, quick bat, legitimate home run power, and serious speed from a guy playing a premium defensive position well. However, Patterson struggled to refine his approach at the plate, and by repeatedly chasing pitches out of the strike zone, he made himself a fairly easy out for opposing pitchers. If you can’t make contact, it is tough to be an offensive asset. For seven years, Patterson simply didn’t hit the ball often enough to live up to his natural talent, which led to him being bounced out of both Chicago and Baltimore and finding himself as an unwanted free agent this winter.

After an offseason of rejection, the Cincinnati Reds offered him a minor league contract on March 3rd, giving him a chance to fight for a roster spot in spring training. After they decided to send Jay Bruce to Triple-A to start the year, Patterson found himself with a regular job, and with the way his 2008 season has started (.57 WPA/LI and the Reds best hitter to date), he may just have found a home where he can remind people of the player they thought he would be.

It all starts with his strikeout rate. Look at the graph of his contact ability throughout his career.

During his time in Chicago, he was a strikeout machine. As you can see, this is something he’s clearly worked on improving, as the line from his 2005 to 2008 strikeout rate shows a huge decline. So far this year, he’s struck out two times in 46 plate appearances. That’s pretty remarkable for a guy with a career K% of 22.7%. His current K% of 4.8% puts him in a group with noted contact kings Casey Kotchman and Placido Polanco. When you look at the pitch data summary from his Baseball-Reference page, you can see the difference. Even though he’s seeing less strikes than in any other season, he’s only swinging at 72% of those pitches in the strike zone, compared to a career average of 81%.

By being more selective in which pitches to swing at, Patterson has managed to put himself in positions to hit pitches he can do something with, and that’s been manifest in his performance. Of his 11 hits, five are doubles and four are home runs, giving him a .405 Isolated Slugging Percentage that ranks fifth in all of baseball. Patterson’s early season performance isn’t going to be sustained at this level (a 7% swinging strike rate is impossible to keep up), but there are legitimate reasons to believe that he’s adopted a new approach at the plate, and his continued contact ability could be just the ticket to stardom that people have been projecting on Patterson for most of this decade.

Before getting into the good stuff I wanted to take a paragraph to introduce myself. My name is Eric J. Seidman and I am a baseball fanatic/statistical analyst/superfan from Philadelphia. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to write here at Fangraphs in order to help further the tremendous work David Appelman has done. In addition to posting daily at this great site I currently write for Statistically Speaking, MLB Front Office, and occasionally The Hardball Times. I welcome all questions, comments, and/or post suggestions via e-mail and you will definitely find me hanging with Dave Cameron around the comment threads.

For my inaugural post I am going to take a look at Phillies leftfielder Pat Burrell – a guy that somehow has the ability to garner the monikers of both overrated and underrated – and why the Phillies should not even think twice about whether to re-sign him. Burrell, the former #1 pick out of Miami came up to “the show” in 2000 as a first baseman. He had played third base in college but with Scott Rolen manning the hot corner needed to learn a new position. Then, with the acquisition of Travis Lee as part of the Curt Schilling deal, Burrell was forced out of the infield entirely. Never known for his fielding prowess Burrell has not been atrocious defensively but definitely will never win any gold gloves.

Early in his career Burrell was known as nothing but a power threat: he couldn’t run, he couldn’t field, he struck out too much, and his batting average too often hovered near the .255-.260 mark. Take away a horrid 2003 season, though, and Burrell has without a doubt shown signs of improvement and consistency. His strikeouts have decreased, walks have increased, and his confidence has seemingly returned. I wrote an article a couple of months ago on Burrell showing how his BABIP, save for 2003, had historically been consistently high. On top of that, here are his OBP, SLG, and HR figures from 2005-2007:

• 2005: .389 OBP, .504 SLG, 32 HR
• 2006: .388 OBP, .502 SLG, 29 HR
• 2007: .400 OBP, .502 SLG, 30 HR

Already off to a great start Burrell has really been the glue so far holding this injury-plagued Phillies team together. As of right now Burrell ranks 1st in all of baseball in WPA/LI with a 0.98; his 0.98 is a full eighteen percent ahead of closest competitor Mark Reynolds. Burrell also ranks 1st in BRAA and REW, ahead of Joe Crede in both; in BRAA he is a full half-run ahead of Crede. Much of the talk surrounding the Phillies this season has pertained to whether or not Chase Utley would be the third straight Phillie to win the MVP award. If the season ended today, for whatever reason, Burrell would be the Phillies frontrunner.

His 6-yr/50 mil contract expires at the end of this season and Burrell has made it adamantly clear he wants to stay in Philadelphia. This raises an interesting question: Should the Phillies re-sign him? As that article states Burrell is no longer the franchise-savior and he is 31 yrs old. Being a devout Phillies fan my initial reaction is “heck yes they need to re-sign him!” On a more logical approach though, I decided to look at the 2009 Free Agent Class, via Cot’s Contracts, to see who his replacements could be should they go in a different direction. According to the site, the only left-fielders available via free agency, following this season, are:

• Moises Alou
• Garret Anderson
• Adam Dunn
• Raul Ibanez
• Jacque Jones

There are two other notables in Carl Crawford and Manny Ramirez but both have options for 2009 that I fully expect to be exercised. This means that, unless the Phillies can pull off some sort of magical trade to land Matt Holliday, there choice is going to be between Burrell and the five guys listed above. None of those five are remarkably better than Burrell. Throw in the facts that Burrell wants to stay in Philadelphia above all else, will likely give some type of hometown discount to ensure that happens, and his power hitting is perfect for a bandbox stadium and it just makes sense for the Phillies to get moving on an extension.

Sal Baxamusa wrote an article in today’s Hardball Times about some of the fastball velocity data on FanGraphs and how they correlate year-to-year.

And Chone Smith over at Anaheim Angels all the way wrote about 2002 Baseball America prospects and how their fastballs have fared over time. He’ll be working on aging curves next. Hat tip to Tango!

I’d also like to say there are two new writers joining the FanGraphs team today. David Cameron already introduced himself and Eric Seidman of Statistically Speaking will be stepping up to the plate a bit later today.

Projections will be hidden by default later today, but will still be available if you click the “Show Projections” button. I wanted to thank all the projection system owners for contributing their projections this year, so… I give a very big thanks (in no particular order) to Dan Szymborski, Baseball Info Solutions, Bill James, Chone Smith, Jeff Sackman, Tom Tango, and John Burnson.

Hey all. My name is David Cameron, and I’m thrilled to have been invited by David Appelman to join in the great work he’s been doing here at FanGraphs. You may have read some things I’ve written elsewhere, either at USSMariner, The Hardball Times, or Baseball Prospectus. I’m excited to be here, not only because the data that David has made available has been a huge asset to fans and researchers alike, but also because I look forward to seeing how we can explore the information available here, create some unique commentary, and build a community that rivals the quality of the knowledge found on this site. I’ll be hanging out in the comment threads regularly, so feel free to ask any questions or make comments there, and we’ll get the discussion started.

For my first post here, I wanted to take a look at what has to be the most exceptional story 2008 has brought us so far – the unbelievable return of Gabe Kapler. A year ago, Kapler was the manager of the Greenville Drive, a Red Sox affiliate in the Class A South Atlantic League. At 31-years-old, he had retired from his playing career and was beginning a coaching career in the lowest rung of full season minor league baseball. He’d spent the previous few years bouncing between reserve roles and playing in Japan, and after a torn Achilles in 2006, it looked like he would never get a chance to fulfill the promise he showed as a prospect with the Tigers in the 90s.

However, unwilling to let his on field career end prematurely, he declared himself a free agent this winter and landed a contract from the Milwaukee Brewers. With a hole in center field while Mike Cameron serves out his suspension, Kapler has… well, to say he’s made the most of his opportunity would be the understatement of the year. After going 3 for 4 with a couple of doubles and a home run last night, he is now 11 for 26 with two doubles, four home runs, two walks, and a stolen base just for good measure. He leads the majors in batting average and slugging percentage (at .423 and .962 respectively), and his 0.71 WPA/LI ties him with Casey Kotchman, and just behind Albert Pujols, as the fourth best hitter per plate appearance in baseball. Kapler has been the Brewers savior as Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder struggle to start the season, and one of the main reasons the Brewers are 8-4 in their first dozen games.

In all likelyhood, this will go down as the best two week stretch of Kapler’s playing career, but it’s two weeks he wouldn’t have experienced had he stayed retired.