Wrapping up the Free Talent All-Star team, we move on to the easiest place to find quality contributors – the bullpen. Teams like San Diego have exploited the ability to get relievers for nothing and turn them into relief aces, essentially building bullpens for nothing and giving themselves a competitive advantage over teams who continue to throw money at veterans with track records. As you’ll see from the list below, you don’t have to give up anything to get a legitimate all-star reliever, and there’s really just no reason to spend valuable resources on your bullpen.

Closer: Joakim Soria

The Royals used the #1 pick in the 2006 Rule 5 draft to snag Soria, who has been all they could have hoped for and more. After a very good 2007, he’s been unhittable in 2008, and with his command of four pitches, don’t rule out a potential move to the rotation down the line. He’s got quality stuff that moves and that he can throw for strikes, and while relievers aren’t the most consistent bunch, Soria has a very bright future.

Closer: Bobby Jenks

Jenks was a Nuke Laloosh type prospect in the Angels organization before the White Sox claimed him on waivers. He stands as the success story of what can happen when one of these good stuff/no command types finds the strike zone with consistency, and Jenks has been lights out since joining Chicago. However, no matter how well he pitches, he’ll likely always be remembered as the guy Ozzie Guillen called in by making the “fat guy” signal to the bullpen.

Setup: Heath Bell

Of course, Guillen could have done the same thing if he was managing the Padres and wanted Heath Bell to pitch, because he’s not Mr. Fitness himself. What he is, however, is a guy who just put up one of the most impressive relief seasons in recent history last year. He pitched in 81 of the Padres 162 games, throwing 93 2/3 innings and posting a 2.50 FIP. When a reliever strikes out 100 or more batters in a season, you know you have something special, and this something special cost the Padres nothing more than Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins.

Setup: Bobby Seay

Originally, Seay made news in 1996 after being declared a free when the White Sox didn’t tender him a contract offer in time and was scooped up by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a cool $3 million signing bonus. However, he never lived up to expectations in Tampa, was shipped off to Colorado where he lasted just one season, and was eventually given a chance in Detroit after signing for the league minimum. After more struggles in Detroit in 2006, he broke through last season with a terrific 2007 campaign and has continued to succeed as a left-handed reliever in the Tigers bullpen. Considering the going rate for a major league lefty who can get batters out, the Tigers have to be happy with what they’ve gotten from Seay for relative peanuts.

Setup: Cla Meredith

Shockingly, another Padre. Meredith was the throw-in in the Josh Bard/Doug Mirabelli trade, but quickly made it known that he was the most valuable piece acquired in that deal. A dominant groundball pitcher with good command, Meredith has been a rock in the San Diego bullpen since 2006, and he doesn’t even turn 25 until next month. This is one deal that Boston certainly won’t be bragging about as the years go on.

James D’Antona has been a favorite of mine ever since he was taken by Arizona in the second round of the 2003 draft out of Wake Forest University. D’Antona has always been talented but he was slow to develop in professional baseball and has yet to appear in the major leagues despite being 26 years old.

He was left off the D-Backs’ 40-man roster the last two seasons and I kept waiting for a team to take a chance on him, given his excellent power potential and his ability to play third base, first base and catcher. In college, D’Antona showed the ability to throw 94 mph off the mound but had poor footwork at the hot corner and some doubted his drive to succeed.

In 2006 at Double-A, D’Antona hit .312/.383/.487. In 2007 at Triple-A, hit he hit .308/.362/.499. This season, in 142 at-bats, D’Antona is smoking the ball with a line of .430/.445/.676. On the negative side, he has walked only three times. But he has shown a better eye at the plate in recent years and he keeps his strikeouts down (especially for a guy with power). He struck out 19.1 percent of the time in 2006, and 11.8 percent in 2007. So far this season, D’Antona has struck out 13.4 percent of the time.

He may not be the everyday player that the D-Backs envisioned when the organization drafted him, but D’Antona has the makings of a solid bench player and pinch hitter. He’s just in the wrong organization, as the club has a solid bench, and he would be a smart acquisition for a National League team as the Mark Sweeneys and Julio Francos of the world begin to show their ages and/or hang up their spikes for good.

It seems that a common course of action for pitchers trying to revive their careers is to sign with the Nationals. Jason Simontacchi tried it; as did Esteban Loaiza and Jerome Williams. The same can be said for Pedro Astacio. Odalis Perez hopped on this year; and Tim Redding is currently experiencing some success in his second year with the team.

In his 25 games with the Nationals since the middle of last season, Redding has the following numbers:

2007: 15 GS, 84 IP, 84 H, 38 BB, 47 K, 3.64 ERA, 1.45 WHIP
2008: 10 GS, 57 IP, 44 H, 22 BB, 38 K, 3.16 ERA, 1.13 WHIP

His FIPs of 5.17 and 4.36, respectively, suggest his ERA should be higher based on controllable skills, but Redding has definitely produced well enough to at least draw some interest from teams other than the Nationals. Puzzling, too, is his domination so far of the Phillies. In five starts against them as a National, Redding’s numbers are:

vs. Phillies: 5 GS, 31 IP, 25 H, 6 ER, 10 BB, 21 K, 1.45 ERA, 1.13 WHIP

His FIP of around 3.57 still implies he has done quite well against one of the league’s best offenses. Is there anything different from a year ago that could be attributed to this increased relative success?

His BABIP has been lucky, coming in at .234 when it should be closer to .280, but Redding has kept this down for his entire career.

What about his BIP rates? Last year, his LD/GB/FB was 22.2/38.3/39.5; it is currently 16.0/46.3/37.7. He has replaced six percent of line drives and two percent of flyballs with grounders. Grounders that apparently have not found holes in the infield too often.

His selection and velocity is also quite interesting. Though not by leaps and bounds, his velocity has increased in all four of his pitches; his selection of them has also differed. His fastball usage is down three percent but velocity is up 1 mph; his slider usage is up ~6% and velocity is up ~1 mph; his curveball usage is down ~1% but his velocity is up 1.5 mph; and his changeup usage is down ~1.5% while velocity is up ~1.5 mph.

When put together, this selection and his location has helped him increase his K/9 and decrease his BB/9. Despite not lighting the world on fire with a high K/BB, his numbers are up from a year ago and are likely a major reason for his WHIP dip from 1.45 to 1.16.

He doesn’t strike many batters out, 5.68 K/9, and he walks 3.47 batters per nine innings, but teams should not automatically write off playing the Nationals, especially when Tim Redding is on the hill.

As we continue to look at the Free Talent All-Stars, the job gets a bit harder. Right now, pitching is severely overvalued by major league clubs, as they give extreme amounts of credit to pitchers who experience any success at all and horde arms in their organization. They also value experience and track records more than they should, so the list of guys being given jobs in the rotation is mostly made up of players who don’t qualify by our standards for this team. That isn’t to say there aren’t free talent starters, however – they’re just fewer and farther between than position players. On to the guys who made the cut.

Number One: Jeremy Guthrie

The Orioles claimed Guthrie off waivers from the Indians after they ran out of patience with him following the 2006 season. It was a good move, as Guthrie has been a well above average starter since he arrived in Baltimore, throwing 238 quality innings and establishing himself as the anchor of Baltimore’s rotation after the Erik Bedard trade. The Indians do a lot of things right, but giving up on Guthrie right before he made the leap wasn’t one of them.

Number Two: Chad Gaudin

Yep, another Oakland player. J.P. Ricciardi tossed his former organization a bone when he traded Gaudin to the A’s for a player to be named later, which turned out to be career minor leaguer Dustin Majewski. Gaudin has gone on to become a valuable member of the A’s rotation and bullpen, switching between roles as needed. The A’s keep winning despite churning their roster every year, and picking up guys like Gaudin for nothing are the main reason why.

Number Three: Brian Bannister

The only player on the Free Talent All-Stars who might actually read this post, Bannister has gotten a lot of publicity for admitting that he’s fully aware of the sabermetric writings of the day. While he’s not blessed with his father’s raw abilities, the younger Bannister has created a career as a strike-throwing innings eater out of his intelligence and understanding of how to pitch. Considering that he only cost the Royals Ambiorix Burgos, he may have been the best hiring of a stathead in major league history.

Number Four: Odalis Perez

The Nationals pulled the rare trick of signing a guy to a minor league contract and then having him start on opening day that same year. You can generally say that a team isn’t a contender when they pull that off, but Perez has given them solid performances for next to nothing. With his shaky command and home run problems, he’s no one’s idea of an ace, but he is showing that he’s perfectly capable of putting together a respectable performance, and that teams don’t have to pay top dollar to get a useful veteran starting pitcher to fill their rotation.

Number Five: Armando Galarraga

The Tigers rotation has been a disaster this year, but Galarraga has been the bright spot in a very dark cloud. Acquired from the Rangers for non-prospect Michael Hernandez, Galarraga has come up from Triple-A and brought some hope to a team that finds itself extremely disappointed in how the 2008 season is shaping up.

With the new design of the home page up and running I recently noticed that Orioles closer George Sherrill not only has the oldest-sounding name in baseball but also leads all relievers with a 2.03 WPA. Sherrill, part of the Erik Bedard trade, has 17 saves out of the Orioles 23 wins; his saves:team wins percentage of 73.9 leads all closers as well.

Something interesting about his success—other than the fact that five of his saves have come against his former employer Seattle—is his higher than expected 3.43 ERA. Granted, ERA is not too useful of a barometer when analyzing the efforts of a closer, but his high saves total and high WPA led me to believe he has been shutting down opponents with the greatest of ease.

A closer look at his game logs shows that, of his 8 earned runs allowed, three have come in non-save situations and another two in his blown saves. In all successfully converted saves, Sherrill has allowed just three earned runs. Despite this relative success, there are four other closers who have been performing extremely well while surrendering next to nothing, regardless of whether or not their appearances coincide with blown saves or non-save situations.

Billy Wagner: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 19 K
Brad Lidge: 19 GP, 19 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 8 BB, 21 K
BJ Ryan: 14 GP, 14 IP, 11 H, 1 ER, 6 BB, 17 K
Mariano Rivera: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 14 K

Here are the averages of these four stacked up next to Sherrill:

Sherrill: 21 GP, 21 IP, 13 H, 8 ER, 10 BB, 16 K
Others: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 17 K

Another interesting area to look at is the situation in which the closer entered. Coming into a bases loaded, no out situation with a one-run lead is much different than entering into a nobody on, one out situation with a two-run lead. The statistic gmLI measures the difficulty level when the pitcher entered the game. Here are the average gmLIs of these five closers:

Wagner: 1.34
Lidge: 1.83
Ryan: 2.10
Rivera: 1.65
Sherrill: 2.21

Generally speaking, the average LI, or neutral event, is 1.00; 10% of all events will be over 2.00.

Sherrill has the highest average gmLI of the five while Wagner has the lowest. While it is definitely remarkable that Wagner is yet to surrender an earned run—he has given up 4 unearned runs—it looks as though Sherrill has been less successful in preventing runs due to pitching in much tougher situations.

These other four may have better peripherals, but do not let Sherrill’s ERA fool you: In just 21 innings pitched he has contributed two wins while pitching in tough situations.

Following up on this morning’s post about the Free Talent Infield, here’s a look at an outfield and designated hitter that could have been assembled for the baseball equivalent of nothing.

Left Field: Matt Diaz

Diaz makes this team in spite of being pretty awful so far in 2008 thanks to the success he’s had the past two years. After the 2005 season, the Royals gave up on Diaz, designating him for assignment and trading him for Ricardo Rodriguez, whom you’ve rightfully never heard of. Diaz turned into quite the effective outfielder for the Braves, breaking out of his preassigned role as platoon player with a stellar 2007 season. He’s hyper aggressive (swings at 43.17% of pitches outside the strike zone), but his ability to drive the ball when he makes contact makes up for some of that. He’s not a true all-star, but the return the Braves have gotten from him compared to what they gave up make him a Free Talent All-Star.

Center Field: Josh Hamilton

Like Ludwick, we’ve already profiled Josh Hamilton here on FanGraphs, and you’ve almost certainly heard his story a few hundred times by now. As a Rule 5 selection by the Reds, he’s been one of the biggest success stories of that draft in its history, and after being shipped to Texas, he’s now laying claim to being the best player in the American League West. You’ll probably want to be okay with hearing Hamilton’s story, because he’s going to be a big star for the next decade.

Right Field: Ryan Ludwick

I noted Ludwick’s strong start last week, and he hasn’t slowed down since. He’s hitting .336/.413/.739 so far in 2008, giving the Cardinals a legitimate weapon to drive in on base machine Albert Pujols. Interestingly enough, before he became a freely available talent and signed with the Cardinals in 2005, he was traded (in a package) for fellow Free Talent All-Star Carlos Pena back in 2002. Perhaps the lesson of that trade should be not to give up on prospects who don’t hit the ground running so easily.

Designated Hitter: Jack Cust

I’m scared to put anything here – anytime I write about Jack Cust, he hits .900 for the next several weeks and A’s fans descend like a swarm of locusts. So I’ll just say that the A’s picking up Jack Cust for cash has turned out pretty well for them.

There has been speculation recently that, should the Rockies continue to struggle, they may be looking to part ways with offensive juggernaut Matt Holliday. Holliday, a Scott Boras client, will be a free agent following the 2009 season and will likely enter the market looking for a long-term, big-money contract that either a)the Rockies cannot give or b)the Rockies won’t want to give. Instead of focusing on the fiscal aspects of this situation, though, I wanted to take a look at his home and road splits; last year it became somewhat common knowledge on the East Coast, when discussing Holliday vs. Jimmy Rollins, that much of Matt’s stats came from his home park.

Here are Holliday’s yearly splits, from 2004 until now:

2004 H: .338/.406/.603, 10 HR, 29 K, 229 PA
2004 R: .240/.287/.367, 4 HR, 57 K, 210 PA

2005 H: .357/.409/.593, 12 HR, 45 K, 264 PA
2005 R: .256/.313/.416, 7 HR, 34 K, 262 PA

2006 H: .373/.440/.692, 22 HR, 44 K, 334 PA
2006 R: .280/.333/.485, 12 HR, 66 K, 353 PA

2007 H: .376/.435/.722, 25 HR, 58 K, 363 PA
2007 R: .301/.374/.485, 11 HR, 68 K, 350 PA

2008 H: .356/.440/.671, 4 HR, 13 K, 84 PA
2008 R: .283/.371/.402, 2 HR, 13 K, 105 PA

In case you hadn’t noticed, he has done leagues better at home than on the road. Put together, here are his career splits:

Home: .363/.426/.662, 73 HR, 189 K, 1274 PA
Road: .274/.336/.444, 36 HR, 238 K, 1260 PA

Finding comparisons generally helps to further a message so I probed the BR Play Index for players with career numbers similar to those in each of his splits. I found just one person from 2004-now with overall numbers anywhere near his home production: Albert Pujols.

In looking at his road numbers a plethora of names appeared but the closest match was the .275/.339/.456 line in this 4+ year span of Aubrey Huff.

While there is little doubt Holliday could have won the MVP award last season and little doubt about his talent, prospective teams looking to acquire his services and ink him to a mega-bucks deal might want to take into consideration he has been Albert Pujols at Coors Field and Aubrey Huff everywhere else. Not to say Huff is a bad player, which is the common misconception when looking at drastic statistical differences such as this, but he is not on the same level as Pujols.

Perhaps Holliday likes being at home, in general, regardless of whether said home field is Coors Field, but I would tend to think he is someone that truly benefits from that park.

One of the most important concepts for an organization to grasp in this day and age is that of replacement level, or the knowledge that baseball’s talent is distributed as a pyramid with a large base at the bottom. Teams that understand that they can get real performance from guys who aren’t necessarily “established veterans” or “proven winners” can exercise this advantage to create a strong cost advantage when compiling their roster, thus saving more money to be spent on guys with talent levels near the top of the pyramid. Teams that fail to grasp the concept of replacement level often have large amounts of dead money sitting on their payroll, as they pay players for their reputation rather than their future performance.

So, today, I’m beginning a four part series on guys that I’ll refer to as the Free Talent All-Stars – those players who were recently acquired for essentially nothing and have become valuable contributors to their franchises after being picked up on the cheap. The rules for inclusion are simple; a player must have been acquired by one of the following methods within the last three years.

Selected via the Rule 5 draft
Placed on waivers
Included in an inconsequential trade
Signed to a free agent contract of no longer than one year and worth no more than $1 million

The Free Talent Infield

Catcher: Jesus Flores

Teams covet talent behind the plate and rarely let it get away, so it’s not a surprise that the pickings at catcher were a little slim. However, Flores was obtained by the Nationals in the 2006 Rule 5 draft, and he’s posted a .262/.340/.400 line in the majors since. As a 24-year-old with a decent bit of power, Washington has to be happy with the fact that they acquired a useful big league backstop for essentially nothing.

First Base: Carlos Pena

The Rays gave Pena a one year, $800,000 contract before the 2007 season after the Red Sox decided that they didn’t have room for him on their roster anymore. 46 home runs later, Tampa was buying out the rest of Pena’s arbitration years by signing him to a three year contract extension to keep him in the middle of their order for the foreseeable future. Free talent signings don’t work out much better than this one did.

Second Base: Dan Uggla

Our second Rule 5 guy, the Marlins grabbed him from Arizona’s farm system in the 2005 version of that draft. Since then, he’s hit .269/.339/.501 while doing his best Jeff Kent impersonation. He’s not much to write home about defensively, but there aren’t many middle infielders who have as much power as he does. Uggla’s pop from a non-traditional offensive position is one reason the Marlins are surprising everyone so far in 2008.

Shortstop: Jeff Keppinger

I profiled Keppinger a few weeks ago, but Keppinger has been overlooked by several organizations, passing him around as a replaceable 25th guy, while in reality, he’s an above average major league shortstop.

Third Base: Jack Hannahan

The Tigers decided that Hannahan didn’t fit in their plans and gave him to the A’s last summer, and all Hannahan has done since then is fill the void left by Eric Chavez’s numerous injuries. He doesn’t have a ton of power, but he works the count, gets on base, and plays a decent third base. Billy Beane has made a living off picking up guys like this and getting useful production out of them to fill holes, and Hannahan certainly won’t be the last Free Talent All-Star hailing from Oakland.

Entering the season the Blue Jays felt that, with even a little run support, their starting pitching could do wonders to help propel them to victory. Roy Halladay has been a top-tier pitcher for a while now, even garnering compliments from President Bush; AJ Burnett is a flamethrower who has steadily produced over the last few years; and young Dustin McGowan looks poised to build on the success he experienced last year.

While most teams would kill to have three #1 or #2 starters at the front of their rotation, the Blue Jays actually have a fourth guy that, early into this season, has arguably contributed more to his team than all but two starting pitchers in the entire sport.

Shaun Marcum ranks third in WPA amongst all starting pitchers at 1.86, and has allowed just 30 hits in 56.2 innings of work.

Since becoming a starter in early May of last year, Marcum has posted the following numbers:

2007: 25 GS, 11-4, 142.2 IP, 43 BB, 100 K, 3.91 ERA, 1.23 WHIP
2008: 8 GS, 4-2, 56.2 IP, 16 BB, 49 K, 2.22 ERA, 0.81 WHIP

When put together it looks like a very solid, Cy Young Award contending full season:

33 GS, 15-6, 199.1 IP, 59 BB, 149 K, 3.43 ERA, 1.11 WHIP

Marcum is holding opponents to a .151/.217/.281 slash line and has left 80% of runners on base. His BABIP of .184 has been better than his .266 xBABIP, so this slash line is not very likely to keep up but he has definitely made his mark as a top-of-the-line #4 starter; especially considering there are some teams on which he would be a #2 starter.

An interesting note about Marcum’s success is his lack of fastball usage. Of non-Tim Wakefield starters, only four pitchers use their fastball less often; he throws it just 38% of the time. In fact, rotation-mates Jesse Litsch and Halladay come in at #2 and #9 in that same category.

Perhaps this vast repertoire of pitch selection and frequency helps provide the Blue Jays with one of the top rotations in the game. Either way, Marcum should not be overlooked as an up and coming and effective starter, regardless of how well his rotation-mates perform.

The words flounder and founder are often misused in the English language (including by me), as they sound similar and actually have meanings that aren’t that different. Floundering means “to struggle to move or stay upright, especially in water”, while foundering means “to sink below the surface of the water”. Essentially, floundering is the struggle to succeed while foundering is just failing to succeed. What does any of this have to do with baseball?

Well, Jeremy Bonderman is currently floundering, and it’s raising questions whether his career is on the fast track to foundering. He’s had a very interesting career path, reaching the majors at age 20 as a highly regarded prospect, but then proceeding to lose 19 games as a rookie that year. From 2003 to 2006, he steadily improved, taking his FIP from 4.69 to 3.29, and after using his power stuff to post one of the better seasons in the American League at the age of 24, he looked like a guy who had turned into a young all-star hurler.

However, the last two years have seen a regression in both stuff and performance. His average fastball velocity now sits at just 90.7 MPH, down from the 93.3 MPH mark he notched in 2006. He now throws about as hard as Kevin Millwood and Braden Looper, when he used to throw as hard as Matt Cain and Kelvim Escobar. The loss of velocity is clearly manifest in his strikeout rate.

His strikeouts are way down (5.0 K/9) and his walks are way up (5.8 BB/9), and when you combine that information with the velocity drop, you have to wonder if he’s healthy. Of course, we’ve seen similar problems with Justin Verlander this year, so perhaps the Detroit coaching staff might want to see if there’s something going on with their young starters and see if it’s fixable. If it’s not, Bonderman’s floundering could easily become foundering, and a once promising young pitcher could be seeing the decline of his career set in a little earlier than hoped.