There are several different levels of groundball pitchers floating around major league baseball right now. There are the no-stuff command types who get grounders based on movement and location (Jon Garland, Braden Looper), the guys who have devastating sinkers with average velocity (Derek Lowe, Aaron Cook), and then there’s the power pitchers who hammer the bottom of the zone with fastballs that simply can’t be hit in the air (Brandon Webb, Chien-Ming Wang).

And then there’s Brad Ziegler. He’s a side-arm reliever for the A’s, and his fastball tops out at about 86 MPH. It’s basically his only real pitch – he throws it 89% of the time, mixing in a below average slider just to keep hitters occasionally off balance. Just based on velocity, his stuff could charitably described as marginal. If he was a lefty, he’d be described as crafty, which is code for can’t-break-glass-with-his-fastball.

But what he lacks in velocity, he makes up for in movement and deception. His fastball has so much sink, in fact, that in his first 11 1/3 innings of major league pitching, he’s posting a 73.5% GB% and an 8.33 GB/FB rate. He’s faced 40 batters since the A’s brought him up from Triple-A, and a whopping three of them have managed to hit the ball in the air.

Apparently, Billy Beane missed having Chad Bradford in the bullpen, so they decided to create another one. Until 2006, Ziegler was a traditional over the top pitcher, but given his limited chances to make the majors as a “normal” pitcher, the A’s convinced him to become a side-arming reliever. It’s worked wonders, as he hasn’t given up a home run since at any level, and he’s run a GB% of 60% or higher at every stop along the way.

Because of his delivery and his repertoire, Ziegler’s always going to be more of a ROOGY than a true dominating relief ace, as lefties will enjoy seeing that fastball come in from the low arm slot, but he’s clearly got enough movement on his fastball to be a nightmare for right-handed hitters in late game situations. Once again, the A’s demonstrate just how easy it is to build a quality bullpen, converting a fringe prospect into a real weapon coming out of their bullpen.

When David Price was selected first overall in the 2007 draft he instantly became the Rays’ best pitching prospect. But that is not to say the organization did not already have some impressive pitchers.

Wade Davis was nabbed in the third round of the 2004 draft out of a Florida high school. The right-hander made 13 starts in his pro debut but was roughed up and had an ERA over 6.00 and allowed 11.08 H/9. The organization was cautious with him and they had him repeat the Short Season League in 2005. It was the next season, though, that the 20-year-old really got noticed.

In 27 Low-A ball games, he allowed 7.64 H/9 and amassed 10.17 K/9. He also walked almost four batters per nine innings, though. Davis then posted similar numbers in 2007 split between High-A ball and Double-A. In 2008, Davis was once again assigned to Double-A.

His numbers have regressed from his Double-A stint last season:
2007: 80.0 IP | 8.33 | 0.34 HR/9 | 3.38 BB/9 | 9.11 K/9
2008: 73.1 IP | 8.47 | 0.61 HR/9 | 3.44 BB/9 | 6.63 K/9

Have hitters caught up to Davis or is he hiding an injury? Or has he just hit a mid-season wall? He has allowed six runs in two of his last three starts. 2008 has not been an impressive season for Davis, but he still has a mid-90s fastball and an excellent curve ball. At 22 years of age, time is still on his side.

The end of each season brings with it a few certainties: eight teams make the playoffs, one team wins the world series, and we are likely to argue or debate about which player’s performance merits the Most Valuable Player award. Some years house less debates than others but the award’s definition is so ambiguous that there are usually a few players that meet the loose “criteria.” By definition, the MVP award was spawned from the idea back in 1922 to honor the player “who is of greatest all-round service to his club and credit to the sport during each season; to recognize and reward uncommon skill and ability when exercised by a player for the best interests of his team, and to perpetuate his memory.”

Now, in 21st century language, this translates to the player who was most valuable to his team; the player who, if removed from his team, would hinder the success of the team the most; the player the team cannot live without. From a statistical standpoint this would seem to refer to which player contributed the most wins to his team. Luckily, we have a statistic for that here, known none other as WPA.

I decided to look at the win probability statistics for all years currently on Fangraphs (1974-2007) in order to see if the definition of MVP has held true, as well as see the average total and rank for a few of these statistics. The stats in question are WPA, WPA/LI, and Clutch. WPA/LI refers to context-neutral wins and so the different game states comprising plate appearances are not taken into account. Clutch, which I will discuss a bit more in-depth later tonight, measures a player’s performance in high leverage situations against his performance in all others.

Using just the National League for now, I recorded the WPA, WPA/LI, and Clutch, as well as the league ranks, for all MVPs from 1974-2007. The only exceptions were Chipper Jones in 1999, since we don’t currently have that year recorded, and Willie Stargell’s co-award in 1979; according to the league leaders page he didn’t even qualify that year. After calculating the average scores and ranks, here are the results:

WPA: 6.10, Rank: 3.88
WPA/LI: 6.11, Rank: 3.48
Clutch: -0.15, Rank: 19.69

A few things initially stand out. First, the average WPA and WPA/LI are virtually identical. Second, the average rank for MVPs in these categories is between 3rd and 4th. Lastly, the average clutch score is negative.

Of the 33 NL MVPs recorded, 14 finished #1 in WPA; 15 were #1 in WPA/LI; and nobody finished #1 in clutch. In fact, just 3 of the 33 finished in the top ten, the highest being Steve Garvey’s second place rank in 1974 (the other two were Kirk Gibson as #8 in 1988 and Bonds as #6 in 2004). So, despite the hoopla surrounding clutch ability prevalent in today’s mainstream media, it has not necessarily translated into MVP success.

Now, of the 17 players who won the award while posting negative clutch scores, 13 finished 1st-4th in WPA while finishing 1st or 2nd in WPA/LI. The only negative clutch scores that did not were the following players, with their WPA and WPA/LI ranks in parenthesis:

1987: Andre Dawson (19,11)
1991: Terry Pendleton (9,7)
2000: Jeff Kent (7,7)
2005: Albert Pujols (5,2)

Of those with positive clutch scores, 7 of 16 finished 5th or lower in WPA, 6 of 16 finished 5th or lower in WPA/LI, and just 3/16 were in the top ten in clutch.

The highest WPA in this span belongs to (guess who?) Barry Bonds, with a 12.63 in 2004. In fact, from 2001-2004, Bonds averaged 10.79 wins contributed. All four of those seasons ranked in the top four, with Ryan Howard’s 8.10 in 2006 being the only other above eight wins. The lowest two WPA scores came with Dawson’s 1987 season (2.84) and Jimmy Rollins last year with a 2.69. The highest WPA/LI totals were Barry Bonds 2001-2004 and fifth place happened to be Bonds in 1993. Again, the lowest belonged to Jimmy Rollins.

It appears that clutch has not factored into NL MVP voting since at least 1974 and that those with great all around numbers/win contributions have been more than capable of winning the award while seeing a decline in their performance during high leverage situations. I tried to see if anyone this year matched up with the average ranks but the results were not too strong. Lance Berkman is currently 1st in WPA, 1st in WPA/LI, and 15th in clutch, which was the closest. When we get closer to the end of the season it should be interesting to see which players come closest to these averages, if not exceeding them.

Jose Guillen is currently putting together the weirdest hot streak of all time. In his last 37 games, he’s racked up 55 hits – 23 of those going for extra bases – and a .359/.365/.613 mark. Nothing wrong with a .360 batting average and a .600 slugging percentage, but you may notice that the on base percentage isn’t much higher than that batting average. That’s because, during those 37 games, Guillen hasn’t drawn a single walk. He’s been hit by pitch twice, accounting for the tiny difference between his BA and OBP, but he hasn’t heard the umpire call ball four since May 15th.

Those 37 games encompass 156 plate appearances where Guillen has just swung at absolutely everything. Generally, that’s a pretty bad idea, but the aggressive approach he’s taken may have actually rescued his season. The last time Guillen took a walk, he was hitting .224/.260/.395. He had drawn 7 walks in his first 154 plate appearances, right in line with what we’d expect based on his career walk rate. Clearly, all that walking was getting in the way of his hitting, so he decided to just eliminate the pesky base on balls, and voila, an offensive surge was born.

Okay, so that’s not really fair. Guillen actually caught fire a week before he drew his last walk, hitting .533/.563/.833 from May 7th to May 15th before the end-of-walks approach kicked in. So maybe there’s no cause and effect here, but it’s still at least interesting how well Guillen has hit while completely abandoning one of the easier ways to get on base. For comparison, Adam Dunn has drawn 32 walks since Guillen drew his last – that’s a lot of free pass opportunities to give up.

But for Guillen, it works. His hyper-aggressive approach at the plate doesn’t cost him his power, and his game continues to be centered around his ability to drive the ball into the alleys and over the wall. When he stops being able to do that, I’ll tell him to stop swinging at everything. Until then, I’m not going to argue with the guy slugging better than .600 while ignoring the base on balls.

Without checking, can you name the top five players with the highest OPS totals from the beginning of last season until right now, with at least 100 games played? On second thought, this won’t work as well as I had planned, since there is no way for me to know who you named. In that case, I’ll just list them:

Chipper Jones, 1.058
Alex Rodriguez, 1.056
Barry Bonds, 1.045
Albert Pujols, 1.028
Milton Bradley, 1.015

Yes, Milton Bradley ranks fifth behind these four surefire (in my book, at least) Hall of Fame players with regards to offensive production via OPS. Bradley and his 2.16 WPA currently ranks third in the AL behind only Manny Ramirez and teammate Josh Hamilton. Additionally, he has a 2.81 WPA/LI that leads the league and an equal 2.81 REW that ranks second behind Hamilton’s 2.83.

In 64 games this season he has a .332/.452/.627 slash line—good for an OPS of 1.079—as well as a .295 ISO and .384 BABIP. Astonishingly, each component of that slash line ranks atop the American League leaderboard. His .332 BA is tied with Alex Rodriguez, and his OBP/SLG come in ahead of everyone else in his league.

When the Padres acquired him last season Bradley provided a spark and energy that came close to propelling the team into the playoffs. If not for a freak injury suffered at the hands of his manager, they might have played into October. Here are Bradley’s 2008 numbers stacked up next to his 2007 numbers with the Padres:

2007 w/SDP: 42 GP, 45-144, 11 HR, 30 RBI, 23 BB, 27 K, .313/.414/.590
2008 w/Tex: 64 GP, 73-220, 15 HR, 48 RBI, 47 BB, 54 K, .332/.452/.627

All told, since July 8th, 2007, Bradley has a .324/.439/.613 line in 106 games, complete with 26 HR, 78 RBI, and a 1.052 OPS. The guy may have some personality issues and he may have struggled to find a “home” throughout his career thus far, but this guy can flat out rake.

After his May 21st drubbing against the Detroit Tigers when he allowed nine runs in just over two innings of work, Jarrod Washburn’s ERA stood at 6.99. He wasn’t actually pitching much worse than usual, however, posting a 4.75 FIP that was basically in line with his career averages. He was just struggling to leave runners on base, and the runs were being piled up due to a poor performance with men on base. With an ERA over 2.00 points higher than his FIP, Washburn was a prime candidate for regression to the mean.

Not surprisingly, in his last five starts, Washburn’s ERA has been reduced significantly. His ERA during his last five starts is 3.10 after a solid performance against the Braves yesterday, and Washburn is crediting his college pitching coach.

“It was a mechanical adjustment I made after I called my college coach and asked him what I was doing wrong,” Washburn said. “He knew. It was a little adjustment at the beginning (of the windup) that turned into something big by the time I released the ball.”

Pitchers do this all the time – they struggle, they make some minor change, and the struggles end, so therefore, the minor change fixed the problem. Unfortunately, it’s almost never true. Here’s Washburn’s performance up to the phone call and since, broken down by metrics that actually judge pitching effectiveness, rather than a useless measure such as ERA.

April 4th – May 21st: 47 2/3 IP, 1.89 BB/9, 5.67 K/9, 11% HR/FB, 4.75 FIP, 4.93 xFIP
May 25th – June 21st: 29 IP, 4.97 BB/9, 6.21 K/9, 4% HR/FB, 3.92 FIP, 4.98 xFIP

If we were going to evaluate the usefulness of Washburn’s mechanical tweak based on a ridiculously small sample, we’d be forced to conclude that it destroyed his ability to throw strikes and was otherwise pretty useless. The uptick in strikeout rate is basically meaningless (it’s two strikeouts total over five starts), and the decrease in allowing runs is due to one very obvious unsustainable performance – the home run per fly rate.

Eight of Washburn’s 72 fly balls went over the fence in his first ten starts, but just one of 28 has gone for a home run in his last five starts. That’s not the result of a mechanical change – that’s random variation that has nothing to do with Washburn.

Jarrod Washburn isn’t pitching any better since he called his college pitching coach – you could easily make an argument that he’s pitching worse. However, because his ERA has predictably regressed to the mean, we get fed stories about his supposed improvements and the cause of those improvements, all of which are bunk.

Tipping pitches, holding the glove higher, changing grips – it’s almost always a post-hoc explanation for regression to the mean, and 99% of the time, it’s got no grounding in reality. Jarrod Washburn’s the exact same guy he was a month ago, and this entire non-story is simply another reason why results based analysis is doomed to failure.

Everybody knew the first pick of the 2007 amateur draft was good. But after missing approximately the first two months of the minor league season, no one expected David Price to be quite so sharp.

The 22-year-old southpaw made his pro debut on May 22 and did not allow his first run in professional baseball until June 7 against Sarasota, when he allowed three runs on 11 hits in five innings. Previously, Price had gone three starts – 18 innings – with allowing no runs on eight hits and two walks. He also struck out 19 batters and induced his fair share of ground balls.

In his last three starts, though, Price has allowed at least one run. In the previous 16.2 innings, he has allowed 20 hits and five walks. He has also struck out 18 batters. In 34.2 cumulative innings this season, Price has yet to allow a home run.

Left-handed batters are hitting .111 against Price, while right-handers are at .250. His rates are good at 1.59 BB/9 and 9.53 K/9.

The former Vanderbilt University standout has not been quite as dominant as of late, but Price is still doing very well considering the significant period of time off between his final college pitch in 2007 and May 22, 2008.

No, he’s probably not going to help out this season but it would not be a surprise to see him at the major league level in 2009. And with the likes of Wade Davis, Jacob McGee and Jeff Niemann ahead of him, there is no need to rush Price.

As I write this, Bill Plaschke’s “Pierre-dar 2008” is informing him something wonderful has just happened. You see, it appears that Juan Pierre has been one of the clutchiest players this season. As of this minute he ranks seventh in the entire MLB with a 0.93 clutch score. Directly ahead of him is teammate Russell Martin and his 0.98.

For his career, Pierre has a clutch score of 4.70. All told, his career WPA of 0.66, WPA/LI of -4.01, and REW of -0.24 are pretty ugly for someone who makes as much as he, but his clutch score is rather impressive. In that same span, 2000-2008, here are the clutch scores of a few others:

David Ortiz: 2.83
Derek Jeter: 1.39
Albert Pujols: -1.13

The usual knocks on Pierre’s game have not dissipated but I never foresaw myself typing the title this post possesses. In case the clutch score confuses, it compares a player to himself, measuring how well he performs in high leverage situations to how well he performs in all situations. If a player has a .333 batting average in important situations but a .333 in all situations, he would not be considered clutch. He would be a good, solid player, but not a clutch one.

In that regard, while Pierre is nowhere near as productive as the aforementioned three, his career has consisted of more productive game-raising results than all three combined. I never thought those words would ever escape my type-mouth.

On May 28th, a eulogy for Jim Edmonds‘ career would not have been out of place. He had been released by the Padres on May 9th after hitting a measly .178/.265/.233 during the first five weeks of the season, then caught on with the Cubs on May 15th and began his career in Chicago by going 3 for 24 out of the gates. Following his 0 for 4 performance on May 27th, his OPS stood at .455.

His body was breaking down, his bat looked slow, and he couldn’t even hit his weight with two franchises. It looked like time had taken its toll, and Edmonds was just done as a major league player.

Looks can be deceiving. On May 30th, his next time in the line-up, he went 3 for 4 with a double and a home run (his first extra base hits since April 21st) and he hasn’t looked back since. From that day through his two home run performance on Saturday, Edmonds hit .400/.446/.800 in 56 plate appearances. 11 of his 20 hits have gone for extra bases during that stretch, and only J.D. Drew, Milton Bradley, and Vladimir Guerrero have been more productive hitters since Edmonds started hitting again.

Edmonds line as a Cub stands at .311/.358/.581, even with his auspicious start to his career on the north side. For whatever reason, he was able to find a juvenation machine and resurrect a career that looked to be just about over. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of Edmonds death were greatly exaggerated, and Cubs fans couldn’t be happier about it.

I’ll start by just asking you to watch this video, of Staten Island Yankee pitcher Pat Venditte as he faces off against Astros prospect Ralph Henriquez. As a brief preface, I will leave you with this: Henriquez is a switch-hitter and Venditte is a switch-pitcher! Yes, you read that correctly. Take a look at this epic matchup:

The crowd absolutely ate this up, the announcers seemed utterly befuddled, and Henriquez/Venditte literally looked like they wanted to fight each other after a bit. Equally interesting is whether or not the umpire made the correct call or not. Initial discussions at Baseball Think Factory discussed how the NAPBL—National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues—rulebook calls for the pitcher to first make a decision as to his handedness; afterwards, the batter can switch sides until he has two strikes.

Another take on the situation, apparently from a different NAPBL rulebook, says that the batter and pitcher can each switch places one time during the plate appearance.

Pete Abraham, at the Lohud Yankees Blog, asked veteran umpire Charlie Reliford about the situation to which Reliford replied the only rule is that, once the pitcher is on the mound, the batter cannot switch sides.

So, in summation, assuming Charlie Reliford is not senile or incompetent, major league baseball will literally have to change its rulebook should Pat Venditte ever make it to the show.