The new “Past Calendar Year” addition to the leaderboards is tremendous. If you haven’t played around with it yet, what are you waiting for?

Here’s my fun revelation of the day. In the last year, here are the league leaders in strikeout totals for hitters.

1. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia – 236 strikeouts in 623 at-bats, 37.7% K%
2. Jack Cust, Oakland – 192 strikeouts in 490 at-bats, 39.2% K%
3. Mark Reynolds, Arizona -192 strikeouts in 509 at-bats, 37.7% K%

After those three, the dropoff in strikeout rate is huge. Mike Cameron is #4 with a 32.6% K%, not even in the same ballpark as Howard, Cust, and Reynolds. But how many people really think of the Arizona third baseman as a Cust/Howard level swing-and-miss machine? I certainly didn’t, at least until looking at this leaderboard.

It wasn’t exactly easy to see this coming either. During his 1216 minor league at-bats in 2004 to 2007, Reynolds posted a 24% K%. With guys who have huge holes in their swings, such as Cust and Branyan, we knew they were strikeout monsters even before they got to the big show. But Reynolds – he didn’t start racking up the Ks until he got to Arizona.

Unlike with Cust, who racks up the strikeouts because he just never swings (34% Swing%, which is just hilarious) and gets deep in counts, Reynolds has legitimate problems making contact. His 63.78% contact rate is the worst in the majors, with only Howard’s 64.35% even within shouting distance.

Because he’s able to drive the ball consistently, he’s still a productive hitter even with the contact issues, but it’s something that Arizona’s coaching staff should be working with him on. It’s very hard to have a sustained career with that kind of low rate of contact, and Reynolds doesn’t draw walks like Cust or Howard to offset some of the strikeouts. If he continues to swing and miss at this rate, it won’t be too long before he’s hitting .210 or .220 due to BABIP variations and, at that point, his job will be in jeopardy.

A team would be pretty happy with a draft if it netted one future Major League All-Star or a couple Major League contributors. The 2004 Tampa Bay amateur draft has already produced four top prospects, one Major League starting pitcher and a few other spare parts that have the potential to see a little time on the Major League roster. What is even more impressive about the Rays’ draft is that the organization secured numerous top prospects without the aid of supplemental selections.

Despite average stuff, pitcher Andy Sonnanstine has had the best value of the 2004 drafted. Taken in the 14th round out of Kent State University, the right-hander is currently a member of the Rays’ starting rotation and has won 14 games over the past two seasons. This year he is 8-3 with a 4.85 ERA in 16 starts. He has allowed 117 hits in 94.2 innings, along with 18 walks and 63 strike outs.

I have already written about Jacob McGee (fifth round) and Wade Davis (third round) this week and they, along with first round pick Jeff Niemann, were the jewels of this draft. Niemann was slowed by injuries but he finally made his long-awaited Major League debut in 2008. Second round pick Reid Brignac, a shortstop, is also one of the Rays’ top prospects and currently playing at Triple-A where he is hitting .270/.320/.453.

Right-hander Matt Walker’s results have never matched his stuff, mainly due to poor control. The 10th round pick out of a Louisiana high school has walked 5.83 batters per nine innings in his career.

Sixth round selection Ryan Royster, 21, is only hitting .235/.285/.304 this season in High-A ball, but the outfielder broke out in 2007 with 30 homers and a .329 average in Low-A ball. Fernando Perez, another second tier outfield prospect, was drafted out of Columbia University in the seventh round. He is currently in Triple-A and is hitting .276/.361/.394. Both players could see time at the Major League level, although neither is likely to be a regular.

In case you have not heard yet, Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon and general manager Ed Wade found themselves entangled in a verbal-turned-physical altercation yesterday. The incident, which took place prior to the game, stemmed from some combination of Chacon’s play, the manager’s office, and dinner. For a recap of the actual event, watch the video below:

Now, Chacon mentioned that he hopes this does not prevent him from pitching in the major leagues again, yet I’m wondering why he is pitching in the major leagues right now. Here’s a comparison between his Marcel for this year and his actual numbers:

Marcel: 1.44 K/BB, .266 BAA, 1.50 WHIP, 73.7% LOB, 4.69 ERA, E-F of -0.41
Actual: 1.29 K/BB, .267 BAA, 1.51 WHIP, 72.7% LOB, 5.04 ERA, E-F of -0.64

Marcel did a pretty darn good job of showing where his numbers would hover around and they really are not that good. His LOB rate is right around league average meaning he has not really been unlucky at all or due to regress. His K/BB is 3rd worst in the NL; his HR/9 is 5th worst; his FIP is 3rd worst; and his BB/9 is 7th worst.

Using the ‘last 3 calendar years’ parameter and setting the qualifying cutoff at those with 180+ IP in that span, here are Chacon’s ranks amongst all pitchers–SP and RP–since he was a reliever last year:

K/9 – 185 of 263
BRAA – 188 of 263
HR/9 – 209 of 263
WHIP – 218 of 263
WPA/LI – 227 of 263
BB/9 – 241 of 263
FIP – 253 of 263

Based on his controllable skills just ten pitchers given the chance to pitch as often, if not more, have been worse, and yet it took a physical altercation with his GM to get him off the mound? Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but regardless of his “good start,” I would have very little, if not no, confidence with him in my starting rotation. Maybe the Astros can use this as an excuse to get rid of a low-risk signing that does not appear to offer even medium reward.

The ace of the Angels rotation, John Lackey, spent the first eight weeks of the season on the shelf recovering from a strained tricep muscle. Often times, when a pitcher opts for rest, the results when they return aren’t what they, or their teams’ fans, would hope for. Velocity drops and a loss of movement aren’t uncommon, and teams have learned that it’s not generally a great idea to count on getting premium production from a pitcher just coming off the disabled list.

Lackey, however, is bucking that trend in a big way. Since coming off the DL on May 14th, he’s been the model of consistency. Here are some of the relevant markers from 2007 and 2008.

Fastball Velocity: 2007, 90.9 MPH – 2008, 90.6 MPH
Groundball Percentage: 2007, 44.7% – 2008, 44.9%
FIP: 2007, 3.54 – 2008, 3.43

In each of his eight starts since coming off the disabled list, Lackey’s pitched a minimum of seven innings. He’s given up just one earned run in six of those starts. His game scores have ranged from a low of 60 to a high of 70. He’s posted a positive WPA in all of his appearances, and a WPA of .30 or higher in three of those eight starts.

The recovering-from-injury John Lackey is indistinguishable from the completely healthy version, and his success is one of the reason the Angels are putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the A.L. West. Consistency has always been his calling card, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that even something like an arm injury can’t slow him down.

While writing and researching this post it is still hard to believe, for this baseball fan at least, that the Tampa Bay Rays are currently 45-31, a full fourteen games over .500. Not to say I didn’t expect them to be good but their turnaround has been remarkable and very fun to keep tabs on. In looking over some of their statistics I came across this interesting little nugget: Andy Sonnanstine leads the AL in E-F, at 1.53.

E-F, or ERA-FIP as you may have seen at The Hardball Times, does just what the title suggests: it subtracts the FIP from the ERA in order to see which pitchers have been lucky or unlucky with regards to their earned run barometer and controllable skills measure. Sonnanstine has a 4.85 ERA yet a 3.32 FIP. That FIP ranks 8th best in the league and the only other E-Fs higher, in all of baseball, belong to Bronson Arroyo and Ian Snell; their ERAs are 6+ right now.

Adding to my interest level are Sonnanstine’s numbers last year: a 5.85 ERA and a 4.26 FIP, resulting in a 1.59 E-F. So, two years running now Andy has posted an ERA over 1.5 runs worse than his controllable skills (BB, K, HR) would suggest. It didn’t even matter that this year’s ERA is a full run lower. Not surprisingly, his .348 BABIP is the highest in the AL, and his 63.8% LOB rate is the second lowest in the league. For comparison’s sake, the AL average LOB rate at this juncture is 72.36%.

Due to this lack of luck, his win probability metrics have taken some serious hits. Andy’s -0.39 WPA ranks 5th worst in the league while his -0.34 WPA/LI registers 8th from the bottom. Despite one of the best measures of controllable skills in the league, he has statistically been one of the worst contributors to success. Whereas Aaron Harang has been unlucky in terms of his W-L barometer, Sonnanstine has been unlucky in a number of different areas yet currently holds an 8-3 record.

Sonnanstine has been unlucky thus far in terms of the numbers largely out of his control but don’t tell that to his W-L record, which is good enough to introduce himself to plenty of fantasy owners out there.

I love the BIS pitch data statistics that are available here on FanGraphs. One of the first things we noticed using that data this season was that Justin Verlander’s fastball disappeared in April. He was throwing 91-92 instead of his usual 94-95, and his performance suffered as a result. He walked 18 and struck out just 20 batters in his six April starts, leading to a 6.50 ERA. His struggles were a major reason why Detroit failed to live up to expectations early on.

As the calender rolled into May, however, Verlander’s velocity started to pick up. After averaging just a 91.9 MPH fastball during his first three starts of the season, his fastball averaged 93.6 MPH during May, and his performance improved right along with the velocity spike. In 39 innings in May, he walked 13 and struck out 24 while posting a 3.92 ERA. It still wasn’t classic Verlander, but it was at least encouraging.

Enter June, and it’s safe to say that Verlander is back. His average fastball is now 94.5 MPH, sixth best in baseball during this month, and the results are what we expected from a guy who looked like an emerging ace last season. He’s walked 10 and struck out 28 batters in 27 1/3 innings, dominating hitters and holding them to a .575 OPS.

Whether it was just a tired arm phase or a mechanical tweak, Verlander’s fastball is back, and he’s pitching like the Tigers thought he would heading into the year. Detroit fans have to be happy to have their ace back to pitching like one, and it’s even more comforting that there’s a verifiable explanation for the improvement. For all the talk of guys learning how to pitch without their best stuff, Justin Verlander is clearly a better pitcher when he’s throwing 95 instead of 92.

Like David Price and Wade Davis, Jacob McGee is yet another promising, young pitcher in the Rays system. However, the southpaw, like Davis, is finding Double-A to be a little bit more challenging than A-ball.

Born in California, McGee attended high school in Nevada and was drafted in the fifth round of the 2004 draft. He spent two seasons in Short Season Ball and averaged about 7.5 H/9 and 9.5 K/9 during that time. As a 20-year-old, McGee spent a full year in Low-A ball and allowed 6.92 H/9 and 4.37 BB/9. He also struck out 171 batters in 134 innings (11.49 K/9).

He then put up similar numbers the next year High-A ball, although his walk rate dropped significantly to 3.01 BB/9. He earned a late-season promotion to Double-A and held his own with rates of 7.33 H/9 and 11.57 K/9. He averaged more than five walks per nine innings, though.

McGee returned to Double-A this season and is doing OK, but his strikeouts are down: 8.22 compared to a career average of 10.43. His hit rate remains good at 7.26. It’s no surprise that minor league hitters struggle to make good contract against McGee, who has a fastball that can touch the high 90s and solid secondary pitches (a slider and change-up). He has done a nice job of holding right-handed batters to a .236 average this season and lefties are at .213.

At only 21 years of age, McGee remains a very promising prospect and has the potential to be a No. 2 starter at the major league level if he can improve the command of his secondary pitches.

One of the best parts of this site is the accessibility of David Appelman and his willingness to improve and/or update the site to feature more statistics and new parameters for those numbers. The newest addition to the Fangraphs statistical team is calendar year rankings. By going to the leaders page you can now sort not only by month or last 7/14/30 days, but also by the last 1, 2, or 3 calendar years.

For instance, did you know that Ryan Howard, with 145 home runs, has the most in the last three calendar years? Or that Alex Rodriguez ranks second, with 131, fourteen less than Howard?

How about the best and worst WPA counts for hitters in this same span?

BEST
1) Albert Pujols, 18.68
2) Lance Berkman, 17.49
3) David Ortiz, 17.29
4) Vladimir Guerrero, 12.57
5) Ryan Howard, 11.88

WORST
5) Jose Lopez, -3.59
4) Yuniesky Betancourt, -3.73
3) Jack Wilson, -3.86
2) Brandon Inge, -4.24
1) Ivan Rodriguez, -4.93

Hmm. Of the worst five contributors over the last three calendar, two are from the Tigers and two are from the Mariners. In terms of context-neutral wins (WPA/LI), Pujols and Berkman switch places; Berkman’s 17.34 comes in ahead of Pujols’s 16.69.

How about starting pitchers and WPA?

BEST
1) C.C. Sabathia, 9.06
2) Johan Santana, 8.92
3) Roy Halladay, 8.89
4) Brandon Webb, 8.67
5) John Smoltz, 7.91

WORST
5) Dave Bush, -1.94
4) Carlos Silva, -2.79
3) Livan Hernandez, -3.46
2) Jason Marquis, -3.64
1) Matt Morris, -7.83

Wow. Numbers 2 and 3 combine for -7.10 and Morris still comes in 7/10 of a win worse than them. In terms of WPA/LI, Johan reclaims his spot atop the throne with a 10.77, a full 1.60 wins ahead of second-place Brandon Webb’s 9.17. Santana also has the best K/BB (4.45) in this span, as well as the highest LOB% at 78.7%.

It has been reiterated recently that instead of using current seasonal statistics to evaluate players it would be much more accurate to use a rolling projection. While these calendar statistics do not necessarily weight the past any differently they do allow us to see which players have been good enough recently so as to trounce atypical poor early performance.

If there’s been a theme to some of my recent posts, it’s that baseball is fairly unpredictable. From Jim Edmonds‘ revival in Chicago, Russ Branyan doing a pretty good Ruth impression after getting called up from Triple-A, and Jose Guillen drawing two walks the day after I write about his 37 game walk-free streak, the game does a good job of reminding us that on any given day, you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

But, as much as we don’t know, there are some things that we do know. One of those things that we can all agree on is that the 2008 Toronto Blue Jays can’t hit. Their offense is sadder than a Lifetime Original Movie marathon. They’re slugging .376 as a team, with Matt Stairs leading the team in home runs… with eight. At the end of June. Their supposed star hitters, Vernon Wells and Alex Rios, are producing more like fourth outfielders. They average 4.0 runs per game and the hitters undermine the great work done by their teammates on the pitching staff.

So, knowing that the Jays are a pitiful offensive club, I have to ask – Bronson Arroyo, how on earth did you manage to give up 10 runs to that club while getting just three people out last night. 12 of the 15 batters you faced reach base. The amount of outs you recorded was equal to the amount of home runs you gave up. Your game score was -9. Negative Nine!

This was easily the worst pitching performance we’ve seen so far in 2008. In fact, in the last 50 years, only 13 starting pitchers have managed to record three outs or less and post a negative game score. Arroyo’s -9 will rank behind only Jason Jennings‘ performance last year when he allowed 11 runs in 2/3 of an inning.

Giving up double digit runs while not recording an out past the first inning against the worst offense in baseball? That’s a pretty special performance, but in all the wrong ways. Congratulations Bronson, we’ll remember this game for years to come, even if you don’t want us to.

Amongst the several great win probability statistics kept here is one simply titled ‘clutch.’ The number measures how well players perform in previously defined clutch situations relative to how they would have performed in a context-neutral environment. It has confused some and come into question from others recently so I thought I would take this time to break it down and try to clear up any confusion or doubts.

The stat is calculated by subtracting the WPA/LI from the WPA/pLI. Now, WPA/LI is an already calculated measure freely available all throughout this site. WPA/pLI, however, would have to be manually calculated by dividing the overall WPA by the average leverage index. As an example let’s use Pat Burrell and his current numbers. Burrell has the third best clutch score in the game at 1.35. He has a WPA/LI of 2.51, a WPA of 4.08, and a pLI of 1.06.

4.08/1.06 = 3.85 and 3.85-2.51 = 1.34. The 1.34 vs. 1.35 is nothing more than a rounding discrepancy. This measures how much better Burrell performed in high leverage situations than all others. If he posted a .900 OPS in crucial plate appearances but an equal OPS in all others, he is not considered clutch. And why should he be? Sure, he posted great numbers in high LI game states but he did not raise his game at all.

This brings me to the first major point: Clutch has different definitions and to understand this statistic we need to be on the same page. No matter how important the media makes clutch performance out to be, it does not refer to performing well with the game on the line. Instead, it refers to performing well in these types of situations relative to all others. The statistic can be summed up by the question, “Does the player raise his game in important situations?” If not, he is not clutch, no matter how great his numbers are in high leverage plate appearances.

The second major point is that being clutch or not being clutch is NOT the same as being good or not being good. You do not need to raise your game in crucial situations to be a great player and those who do raise their games are not necessarily the most talented. A player with a .200 BA that hits .300 in crucial situations is, and should be, considered more clutch than someone with a .333 BA in all situations. The .333 is a better BA but it is not clutch because it did not constitute a raising of the game.

As I pointed out this morning, just 3 of the 33 NL MVP winners from 1974-2007 finished in the top ten in clutch. Barry Bonds, who won the award from 2001-2004, had clutch scores ranging from -0.49 to -1.14 from 2001-2003, and I better not hear anybody discuss those seasons not being insanely productive. His negative clutch score just means that he did not post a 1.980 OPS (exaggeration) in high leverage situations. His high leverage OPS was likely higher than everyone else’s but this statistic works to measure a player against himself since, after all, clutch refers to raising your individual game, no matter how high that game generally turns out.

I hope this clears up some confusion but I have a feeling the vast differences in definitions of this skill/phenomenon/whatever you call it will continue to generate confusion. The media has relied on clutch to the point that we are now mistaking it for good or bad performance. This is incorrect. Clutch means raising your game, not being a good player.