Left-handed batters generally don’t like hitting left-handed pitchers. The angles are different, the movements are different, and baseball is full of lefty specialist relievers who have honed their craft to maximize their effectiveness against same handed hitters. So, if I asked you who was hitting left-handed pitching better than any other first baseman in baseball this year, Casey Kotchman probably wouldn’t be your first choice.

But there he is, six weeks into the season, torching southpaws to the tune of a .389/.421/.583 line. In fact, Kotchman’s posting a pretty severe reverse platoon split, as he’s been much more effective against LHPs than RHPs, who he’s hitting just .286/.343/.452 against. This is a pretty significant change for Kotchman, who had never hit a home run off a left-handed pitcher in the majors before this season. From 2004 to 2007, Kotchman had 142 plate appearances against southpaws (he had been pretty strictly platooned) and notched just six extra base hits, all doubles. In 38 plate appearances against lefties this year, he’s already recorded five extra base hits including the home run.

Now, this almost certainly doesn’t represent an actual shift in Kotchman’s true talent levels, as platoon splits are notorious for small sample size flukes and don’t have as much predictive value as commonly believed. Kotchman’s unlikely to finish the year among the league leaders in offense against southpaws. However, we can note that the drastic uptick in performance does give us the knowledge that Kotchman possesses the necessary skills to hit both right handed and left handed pitching, and the Angels should abandon any idea of platooning him going forward. This is clearly an area where Kotchman has improved, and there’s simply no need to take his bat out of the line-up when a lefty is on the mound.

Los Angeles’ offense is no longer just the Vladimir Guerrero show, and as Kotchman and his fellow young hitters continue to improve, the Angels vice grip on the American League west just continues to tighten.

I wrote about the Diamondback’s 2007 first round pick Jarrod Parker yesterday. After researching him, I decided to take a look back at Arizona’s other recent No. 1 picks, from 2003 to 2006, and came away impressed. Taking players in the first round of the Major League Baseball amateur draft is not as foolproof as some people might think… there have been a lot of first round busts over the past five years.

First baseman Conor Jackson was the club’s first pick of the 2003 draft out of the University of California as the 19th overall selection. He is not a superstar but Jackson made it to the majors as a full-time player within three years of the draft. He has an OPS+ of 105 during his major league career and has been consistent.

Shortstop Stephen Drew was taken 15th overall in the 2004 draft out of Florida State University. He actually slid in the draft due to signability concerns. He sat out for a while during contract negotiations and finally signed on the dotted line in 2005. After 148 minor league games Drew was in the majors to stay. Like Jackson, he has been solid but unspectacular. He has a career OPS+ of 91 but is only 25 and has time to mature. The tools are there and, as long as the motivation is also there, he should appear in a few All-Star games.

Justin Upton is arguably the best pick that the Diamondbacks organization has made in the last five years. He was drafted first overall in the 2005 draft out of a Virginia high school. In less than two full minor league seasons, the infielder-turned-outfielder was in the majors (seemingly) to stay. So far this season, his first full year in the majors, Upton is hitting .304/.389/.500 with an OPS+ of 126. At only 20 years of age, he has the makings of a superstar.

Right-hander Max Scherzer has been the latest first rounder to impact the major league club. He was drafted 11th overall in the 2006 draft out of the University of Missouri. Scouts have been split on whether Scherzer should be a starter or reliever at the major league level but he is currently being used as a starter. His first major league appearance, though, was as a reliever and he got a lot of people excited by pitching 4.1 scoreless, hitless innings with seven strikeouts. He got knocked around in his next appearance and allowed five earned runs. His last two starts have resulted in zero earned runs, along with three unearned runs. Overall, he has a 2.33 ERA in three starts (four appearances) and has allowed 16 hits along with seven walks in 19.1 innings. He has struck out 23.

It will be interesting to see who the Snakes target for the first pick (26th overall) of the 2008 draft of June 5.

Down three runs in the ninth inning on opening day, Kosuke Fukudome belted a three-run homer off of Eric Gagne to tie the game. The Cubs would ultimately lose, but Kosuke had earned himself the clutch label, and labels can be very hard to break. In certain cases these labels are undeserved, like calling David Ortiz clutch based on past results; the stats here at Fangraphs show he was one of the least clutch players last season and he has a -0.32 score this season. Likewise, players with negative labels will find themselves hard pressed to shake off the opinions pointed in their direction.

Looking at Kosuke’s numbers, however, it seems he was properly labeled, at least so far. In case you cannot recite all of his numbers off the top of your head, here they are:

Fukudome 2008
46 GP, 51-167, 11 2B, 2 3B, 2 HR, 17 RBI, 30 BB, 27 K
.305/.409/.439, .355 BABIP
1.11 WPA, 0.58 WPA/LI, 0.52 Clutch

More facts about him? Well, his home/road splits have been pretty drastic:

Home: .393/.505/.562
Road: .205/.292/.282

And his splits with runners on base are drastic as well:

Nobody On: 104 PA, .261/.346/.337, 12 BB, 18 K
Runners On: 95 PA, .360/.479/.547, 18 BB, 9 K

The clutch score is what stuck with me, though, as he ranks 10th in the NL. Looking at a few other areas that could determine clutchiness, the results seemed to match:

High Leverage: 40 PA, .412/.462/.647
Within 1 Run: 49 PA, .361/.463/.482
Tie Game: 100 PA, .419/.490/.581

The clutch stat here does not measure performance in clutch situations but rather how a player performs in the high leverage situations as compared to context-neutral situations. Based on that definition, Kosuke is definitely stepping up in the situations in which his team needs him to. He might not be lighting the world on fire with extra base hits but these numbers clearly suggest Kosuke still deserves the label assigned on opening day.

During the winter, the Mariners decided that the only thing keeping them from contending last year was the back end of their rotation. They got disastrous performances from Jeff Weaver and Horacio Ramirez , but they still managed to win 88 games, so they decided that by improving on two of the worst starting pitchers in baseball, they’d make themselves a legitimate candidate for the A.L. pennant in 2008. They spared no expense, throwing a ridiculous amount of money at Carlos Silva and trading their entire farm system for Erik Bedard.

After those two moves, they announced that Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista were the new #4 and #5 starters, and that the improvement they’d get from those two over what they got from Ramirez and Weaver would be enough to make them the team to beat in the American League West. After getting pounded again last night, they now stand at 18-29 with the worst record in the junior circuit, and there’s this:

Jeff Weaver and Horacio Ramirez, 2007 ERA: 6.58
Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista, 2008 ERA; 6.56

The names have changed, but the performance is simply a rerun. Weaver and Ramirez combined for -5.26 WPA in 245 innings last season. Washburn and Batista have racked up a combined -1.40 WPA in 91 innings of work, which puts them on pace for -3.76 WPA over a comparable innings total, so at least the new struggles have come in situations that don’t matter quite as much, but that’s not the narrative this team was selling over the winter. The Mariners really believed they were going to have one of the best rotations in baseball with a staff or proven veterans and Mel Stottlemyre as the pitching coach, but instead, the starters ERA is 4.98 while pitching half their games in a pitchers park.

The season is already over in Seattle, and while the offense and defense have been horrible as well, the back end of the starting rotation has once again been a disaster. So much for proven veterans.

By acquiring Dan Haren the Diamondbacks front office made it clear that this team could legitimately contend for a world series title as soon as this year. Placing a clear cut AL ace in Haren alongside one of the game’s best and most consistent in Brandon Webb would provide quite the formidable 1-2 punch.

Almost two months into the season, Webb and Haren have been more than a 1-2 punch; they have been a 1-1A punch, with Webb pitching out of this world and Haren performing like a true ace. In fact, some of their stats are pretty similar too. Take a look.

Brandon Webb
9-0, 2.56 ERA, 2.70 FIP, 0.99 WHIP, 2.88 K/BB
9 GS, 63.1 IP, 46 H, 17 BB, 49 K
70.3% LOB, .253 BABIP, .293 xBABIP
17.3/65.4/17.3 LD/GB/FB (Career: 18.2/64.3/17.5)

Dan Haren
5-2, 3.14 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 0.98 WHIP, 4.50 K/BB
9 GS, 57.1 IP, 46 H, 10 BB, 45 K
68.0% LOB, .260 BABIP, .303 xBABIP
18.3/47.6/34.1 LD/GB/FB (Career: 19.5/45.0/35.5)

Both prevent runners from reaching base but are slightly below average in stranding them. They are also each about forty percentage points better in the BABIP department than their line drive rate would suggest. Webb and Haren have also changed their pitch selection and frequency. Webb is throwing 3% less fastballs and 3% less curveballs; the difference is made up by a 6% increase in changeup usage. Haren, on the other hand has replaced 4% of his splitters/changeups with fastballs.

One glaring difference between the two can be found in their leverage splits. Here are Webb’s:

High: 48 PA, .100/.208/.175, 10 K
Med: 132 PA, .192/.244/.233, 22 K
Low: 75 PA, .264/.293/.347, 17 K

And Haren’s:

High: 31 PA, .308/.367/.462, 6 K
Med: 90 PA, .253/.303/.386, 18 K
Low: 105 PA, .168/.184/.248, 21 K

It seems Webb gets better as the importance level rises whereas Haren performs better as the importance level lessens. Give me Webb over Haren with one game to make or break a season, but give me Webb and Haren over other twosomes, at least right now, with two games on the line.

The sky is blue. Water is wet. Daniel Cabrera has command problems. All of these things have been inarguable truths forever, and they’re so clear, there’s been no reason to state the obvious. His career BB/9 is 5.14, which is just one shade south of abominable. He’d walked 100 or more batters in each of the last two seasons. During the 116 starts he made from 2004 to 2007, he’d gotten through without walking a batter just three times.

Well, after last night’s 7 IP/2 R performance where he didn’t walk anyone against the Yankees, he’s now accomplished that same feat three times in his last six starts. He did it three times in 116 starts prior to this year, and he’s already done it three times in the last month. In his last four starts, he’s thrown 30 1/3 innings and walked just three batters. Three walks was a normal inning for Cabrera last year, but now he’s walking three guys over a three week stretch? This is baseball’s version of cats and dogs living together.

Is this command improvement (3.21 BB/9 on the year is a huge improvement for Cabrera, believe it or not) based on some identifiable change in Cabrera’s skillset? Well, to start off, we see that Cabrera isn’t throwing nearly as hard as he did when he came up three years ago. In 2005, his average fastball was 96.2 MPH, making him the hardest throwing starting pitcher in baseball. This year, he’s at 93.1 MPH, which ties him for just the 9th highest average fastball in among starters. He’s still a power pitcher, but it appears he’s (intentionally or not) taken something off of his fastball, and this reduced velocity correlates very well with lower walk rates.

Also, we note that Cabrera has essentially become a one pitch pitcher. In fact, he’s taking the idea that a pitcher needs secondary pitches and throwing it out the window. He’s thrown 87 percent fastballs this year. Eighty-Seven Percent. That’s up from 74% last year, and the difference is almost entirely from the slider, which he’s using half as much as he did a year ago. Instead of throwing one of every five pitches as a breaking ball, he’s now throwing one in ten.

These two shifts represent a real change in approach for Cabrera. He’s gone from a big time power fastball/slider guy with no idea where the ball is going to a fastball pitcher with an occasional slider and decent command. Not surprisingly, he’s posting the highest ground ball rate of his career, which is directly related to the amount of fastballs he’s throwing. However, those extra ground balls and fewer walks have come at the expense of his strike out rate, which is now a below average 5.48 K/9. He ranked in the top five in strikeout rate in both 2005 and 2006, racking up nearly one per inning over those two seasons. The move away from the slider and the reduced velocity has allowed hitters to make more contact, but he’s counter balanced that drop with the improvements in walk rate and ground ball rate.

Cabrera seems to be learning that his pitch selection and velocity is a sliding scale. By throwing more fastballs at a reduced velocity, he’s getting ahead in counts and keeping runners off the bases. He might not lead the league in strikeouts anymore, but he might have finally figured out how to be an effective major league starting pitcher.

Pitching was on the agenda for Arizona when the organization began picking players during the 2007 amateur draft. As a result, the club used four of its first six picks to take pitchers, including three college arms and one prep hurler.

Indiana high schooler Jarrod Parker went ninth overall to the Diamondbacks and then three college arms were taken: Wes Roemer of Cal State Fullerton (1st round supplemental, 50th overall), Barry Enright of Pepperdine (second round, 73rd overall), and Sean Morgan of Tulane (fourth round, 133rd overall).

Parker, 19, did not make his pro debut until 2008 and was immediately assigned to a full-season club despite his inexperience. So far this season in the Midwest League, the right-hander is holding his own with a 2.45 ERA in 36.2 innings. He has allowed 34 hits, walked nine and struck out 30.

Roemer, 21, started 2008 in High-A ball but has struggled. He has a 5.09 ERA in 46 innings. Roemer has allowed 59 hits, 14 walks and seven homers. On the positive side, he has struck out 43 batters and is inducing two groundballs for every flyball.

Enright, 22, is also in High-A ball and struggling. He has a 7.02 ERA in 42.1 innings. Enright has allowed 67 hits, five homers and 12 walks. He has struck out 38 batters. The right-hander has had three particularly bad starts where he has allowed 18 earned runs in 11 innings.

Morgan, who comes from the same college as Arizona starter Micah Owings, has yet to make an appearance in 2008 because of injury. He struggled in his 2007 debut in the Northwest League and posted a 5.46 ERA in 28 innings.

Many believe college pitchers are safer picks (and will advance through the minors quicker) than prep hurlers, but Arizona’s 2007 draft appears to be an exception to the rule.

In the early parts of a season there is no such thing as middle ground… at least in the eyes of the media and most baseball analysts. Players off to scorching starts are publicized all over the place, just like their initial statistical opposites. I’m looking at you, Barry Zito. Though I have no problem with guys like Cliff Lee and Joe Saunders appearing everywhere there are numerous pitchers performing quite well that are overshadowed by these hot and cold starts.

These are not pitchers necessarily under- or over-achieving but rather those whose names do not make headlines, primarily because they are hogged by the likes of Lee and Saunders.

Looking at some statistics this morning I found six pitchers that fit this bill the best. Some (at least one) names might surprise you but here are The Unheralded Bunch:

Javier Vazquez: 4-3, 3.55 ERA, 2.44 FIP, 1.23 WHIP, 58.2 IP, 12 BB, 58 K
Always a personal favorite of mine, it’s good to see Javy kicking some statistical butt. His FIP suggests his ERA should be the second lowest in baseball right now. He has a 72% LOB rate, which is just about the league average; he has not been lucky or unlucky in stranding runners or letting them score. He has the 4th best K/BB, at 4.83, but he has already posted high strikeout to walk ratios. In fact, since 2000, his low came with the Yankees, at 2.50; otherwise, his K/BBs have always been very, very good. Adding fuel to the fire is his .347 BABIP which just about perfectly matches his .345 xBABIP. Vazquez is not doing this with smoke and mirrors and his statistics should become a bit more well-known as the year goes on.

Johan Santana: 5-2, 3.30 ERA, 4.27 FIP, 1.12 WHIP, 60 IP, 15 BB, 57 K
Nobody is saying Santana is bad, underperforming, or overperforming, but the fact of the matter is that he simply has not been in the news all that much this year. After becoming the prized possession this offseason it was safe to say Santana would be scrutinized by the media, forced to live up to the expectations just like all other New York acquisitions. That simply has not been the case. Santana has been good, not tremendous or outstanding, but it says a lot about a pitcher when we have come to expect a 3.30 ERA or less, with K/BB numbers of 57/15. The one chink in his armour is the 11 home runs allowed, which becomes a bit off when we realize he is allowing around seven percent less flyballs from a year ago. He has also left 85.6 percent of his runners on base. A big strikeout pitcher like him could theoretically sustain a high LOB%, but it is not very likely he will set the millennium high at 85.6.

Ryan Dempster: 5-2, 2.70 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 1.06 WHIP, 63.1 IP, 26 BB, 53 K
The starter-turned-closer-turned-starter has exceeded expectations in the early going, going from a sight Cubs fans did not want to see walking towards the mound in the ninth inning to one they welcome in the first inning. Dempster has allowed just 41 hits in 63.1 innings; that, combined with his decreased BB/9, have contributed to the fifth lowest WHIP in the senior circuit. His xBABIP of .286 greatly outdoes his current .228 clip, so it is not likely Dempster will sustain this performance all year long, but he has definitely been a big part of the Cubs early success.

Mark Hendrickson: 6-2, 3.72 ERA, 3.78 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, 58 IP, 20 BB, 31 K
Yes, I had to double-check this a few times, run tests through SPSS, and even cross-reference with NASA to ensure this was correct, but Hendrickson…is…pitching….well. He is allowing six percent less line drives from a year ago, which are split between his grounders and flyballs. Due to this decrease, his BABIP of .293 matches his xBABIP of .294, which is right near the .300 mark. The one red flag in his corner deals with his K/BB dropping from 3.17 to 1.55.

Chad Billingsley: 4-5, 3.76 ERA, 3.09 FIP, 1.41 FIP, 52.2 IP, 29 BB, 60 K
The swingman finally placed in the rotation has not disappointed the Dodger faithful this year. Tied for fourth in the NL with 60 strikeouts, Billingsley has allowed just 2 home runs. His LOB% of 71.8 is right around the league average and he has maintained his line drive rate from a year ago. Despite this, his grounders have increased while his flyballs have decreased. His K/9 and BB/9 are also way up; he is striking out 10.3 batters per nine innings. If he can keep missing bats and keeping the decreased flyballs in the yard he could be a very effective pitcher all season long.

Joe Blanton: 2-6, 3.87 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 1.33 WHIP, 74.1 IP, 83 H, 16 BB, 34 K
Due to Greg Smith and Dana Eveland making headlines for contributing so early into the Dan Haren trade, Kentucky Joe does not get much love. As his numbers above indicate, he probably deserves some. There is not much to say about Blanton, statistically, other than how his LD/GB/FB, LOB%, and BABIP of current all seemingly match his career averages. He might not be worth Carlos Silva or Gil Meche money to a prospective team, but this As team will be in good shape if Blanton sustains his current performance and still manages to be just the third best pitcher on his team.

I can remember Gavin Floyd’s first start like it was yesterday. Never before had I been able to experience firsthand the sort of hype that surrounded him that night. The Phillies were in third place, playing the dreadful-at-the-time Mets, and had vastly underachieved all year long. When the hot prospect threw an absolutely ridiculous curveball to the befuddled Cliff Floyd, striking him out to end the first inning, it’s safe to say I was not alone in thinking this kid could be the answer.

Unfortunately, he was not the answer. Even though the Phillies went on a 20-8 run to close out the season, Floyd would frustrate fans with spurts of brilliance masked by the inability to harness his “stuff.” A change of scenery was deemed necessary and Floyd soon found himself a member of the Chicago White Sox.

In eight starts this year, Floyd is averaging a 56 Game Score, even coming close to throwing a no-no. His numbers:

8 GS, 4-2, 2.92 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 49.1 IP, 33 H, 23 BB, 22 K

Okay, the walks and strikeouts clearly signal a red flag, but it has been very hard to hit Floyd in the early going. He has an opponents BABIP of just .193 which should also signal a red flag, especially considering his LD% would predict something in the .230 range. Oh, and his ridiculously low LD% requires us to buy a new set of flags since the 11.8% is a far cry from his 18.4% career rate.

His FIP of 5.07 results in the second highest discrepancy between FIP and ERA; only Fausto Carmona’s ERA has been luckier than Floyd’s. Instead of focusing on why he will not sustain this current level of performance, I would much rather look at what has contributed to these numbers.

His fastball usage has dipped from 72% in 2004 to 59% right now. He has increased his usage of sliders, mainly due to his development of the slider, and cut back on his curveball. The problem during Floyd’s Phillies tenure was that he could not locate his fastball; due to this, he would pitch behind hitters and not be able to utilize the curveball as much. Additionally, his changeup frequency has stayed stagnant. His velocities of these pitches have not shifted much since 2004 or even from last year to now.

Last week I wrote about Brett Myers and how odd it was that he had better numbers at home, in one of the top hitters parks in the league. The same can be said for Floyd:

Home: 3 GS, 21.2 IP, 7 H, 11 BB, 12 K, 2.08 ERA, .101/.220/.188, 16 OPS+
Road: 5 GS, 27.2 IP, 26 H, 12 BB, 10 K, 3.58 ERA, .252/.350/.456, 112 OPS+

Unlike Myers, whose road starts took place in notorious hitters parks, Floyd has experienced his fair share in pitchers parks this year.

It seems he has been successful due to his limited damage when runners get on base.

Nobody On: 126 PA, .180/.278/.252
Runners On: 77 PA, .213/.329/.525

Despite the increase in OPS with runners on he has also gotten help from five double play balls, and the fact of the matter is that I had to combine all of the baserunner states to even have something remotely close to a significant amount of PAs to analyze. In case the message was lost just now, Floyd has not allowed many runners to reach base and when they have he has done a good job keeping them there.

I don’t know if he’s found the right repertoire and frequency to help harness the “stuff” he clearly has but, for now, he definitely does not look as bad as he did in 2006.

I just wanted to point out a couple of new things on FanGraphs:

– In the leaderboard section you can now filter the pitch type by NL/AL and Starters/Relievers. This can be done for the new plate discipline stats for batters and the pitch type data for pitchers.

– The game graphs now have a sidebar with all of the games for that day. Hopefully this will make for easier navigation. There are also two new items in the sidebar: aLI and aWE. These stand for Average Leverage Index and Average Win Expectancy over the course of the entire game. The higher the aLI, the more “exciting” the game was, and the closer the aWE is to .5, the “closer” the game was (throughout the entire game).

– The scoreboard, with all the game graphs on it for one day should load much much faster. Hurray for caching!

That’s all I can think of that’s really new, except for a few changes on the homepage, but you should expect to see a few more seasons of Win Probability rolled out later this week.