Last year, in need of an offensive boost, the Brewers called Ryan Braun up from Triple-A and handed him their third base job despite concerns about whether he was capable of playing a major league quality third base. Braun went on to have one of the most remarkable rookie seasons in major league history, becoming one of the league’s best hitters from the day he stepped on the field.

Russ Branyan isn’t at the beginning of a great long career, but it’s eerie to note just how history is repeating itself up in Milwaukee. With a struggling offense and no obvious answers at third base, the Brewers recalled Branyan from Nashville (where he was hitting .359/.453/.693) on May 25th and gave him regular playing time at third to get his bat in the line-up while they figured out if they could live with his defense.

He hasn’t stopped hitting since he got to Milwaukee, putting up a .306/.405/.855 mark in 62 at-bats since he got the call. He’s doing it in typical Branyan-style fashion, joining the three true outcome heroes of the game with a 15.1% BB%, 38.7% K%, and .548 ISO based on 10 longballs. Of his 74 plate appearances, 45 of them (61%) have ended in a walk, strikeout, or home run. Notable TTO monster Jack Cust has had 56% of his plate appearances end in a BB, K, or HR for comparison, while Adam Dunn is at 55% and Ryan Howard is at 53%.

With Branyan, the Brewers knew what kind of player they were getting, and they were willing to overlook the flaws in order to see if he could provide some much needed offense. Perhaps teams that continue to overlook these AAAA sluggers should take note – Branyan already has more extra base hits in 20 games than everyday designated hitter Jose Vidro has for the Mariners all season, for instance. Finding a guy who can just hit the baseball really far isn’t all that hard, and the organizations struggling to get production from their DH positions should be fairly ashamed of themselves.

If baseball continues to trend in the direction that it has been – less offence – then pitchers with average or fringe-ish stuff have a much better chance of putting together a solid Major League career. Right-hander Jonah Nickerson is one of those minor league pitchers whose career is looking a little bit brighter.

Currently in High-A Lakeland, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, Nickerson is continuing to build a solid pro career after being a very good starter at Oregon State University. The 23-year-old was drafted in the seventh round of the 2006 draft and has “fringe-average stuff” (86-88 mph fastball, curve ball, cutter, change-up) but he has solid command and knows how to pitch.

Nickerson did not pitch for the Tigers organization in his draft year, but he entered full-season ball in 2007. In 150 innings in low A-ball, he allowed 9.32 H/9 and 2.27 BB/9 but struck out just 6.93 batters per nine innings. Moved up to High-A ball in 2008, Nickerson has continued to improve. In 74 innings, he has allowed 8.76 H/9 and 1.95 BB/9. His strikeout rate has remained about the same at 6.81 K/9. He could be even more successful if he induced a few more ground balls, as he currently has a 1-1 ratio with fly balls. It might be a good time to give him the Double-A test.

No, a slow offensive third of a season in the Major Leagues does not suddenly make Nickerson a potential No. 1 or 2 starter. However, he is someone to keep an eye on as a possible future No. 4 or 5 starter, especially given the lack of top prospects in the Detroit system.

Close to halfway through this regular season, those everyone pegged for success back in the beginning of the calendar year can be found atop most pitching leaderboards: Cliff Lee, Joe Saunders, Shaun Marcum, and Edinson Volquez. A fifth pitcher, however, has been performing at quite the high level as well despite the lack of similar publicity.

His name is Aaron Cook and, for those unfamiliar with his work, he pitches for the Colorado Rockies. Through 15 starts, Cook is 10-3 with a 3.29 ERA, 3.99 FIP, and 1.27 WHIP. In 104 innings of work he has allowed 105 hits and 27 walks to go along with his 50 strikeouts. The ERA, FIP, WHIP, and his 1.85 K/BB are all career highs for Cook; while the season has plenty of life remaining, his current numbers appear to be better than any of his past work.

A notorious groundball pitcher, his percentage of such balls in play has actually decreased overall from 2005 until now. Though essentially stagnant between 2006-2007, he has thrown a lower percentage of grounders and line drives, replacing them with flyballs in this four-year span.

One reason for his success is his somewhat vast increase in runners stranded. Last year, when he posted a 4.12 ERA, 4.58 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, and 1.39 K/BB, he had just a 68.1% LOB rate. This year it has jumped to 75.8%. All told, he is allowing a smaller percentage of runners to reach base and then stranding a much higher percentage of them.

His 2.21 WPA ranks 2nd in the NL behind just Volquez while ranking 5th in the entire MLB behind Lee, Saunders, Marcum, and Volquez. His 1.14 WPA/LI ranks 10th in the NL and, the only clutchier starting pitcher than Cook has been Vicente Padilla (1.13 for Padilla, 1.09 for Cook). Additionally, his 13.13 BRAA and 1.30 REW rank 9th in the NL.

Coming into this season many pegged, and rightly so, Jeff Francis as the Rockies ace. Close to the halfway mark Cook has been one of the best in baseball, let alone his own team, while Francis has struggled.

Does anyone remember a stranger season in recent memory than the one Cliff Lee is currently putting together? As we’ve covered extensively here, Lee came out of the gates pitching like 1988 Orel Hershiser, dominating opponents with ridiculous performances that seemingly came out of nowhere, but lately, he’s been hit hard and watched his ERA rise significantly – he’s just barely edging out Shaun Marcum for the AL Lead as of today. However, his core performance hasn’t regressed nearly as far. Look at his by month performances:

April: 0.48 BB/9, 7.65 K/9, 0.24 HR/9, 1.80 FIP, .195 BABIP, 81.6% LOB%
May: 2.10 BB/9, 6.55 K/9, 0.52 HR/9, 2.99 FIP, .346 BABIP, 79.7% LOB%
June: 2.20 BB/9, 10.47 K/9, 1.10 HR/9, 2.99 FIP, .437 BABIP, 70.3% LOB%

He got lucky in April, so maybe karma is coming back to haunt him, but really, a .437 batting average on balls in play is not regression to the mean – it’s regression so far past the mean that it can’t even see it with a telescope. It might be tempting to look at Lee’s 5.51 ERA in June and determine that he’s back to being what he always was, but the old Cliff Lee was never a 2 BB/10 K/1 HR pitcher. His core stats from June would fit right in with Johan Santana’s career line. June is simply not an example of Lee reverting to previous form.

As Lee continues to post months with a FIP below 3.00, we’re going to have to continue to revise our estimate of his true talent level upwards. This is a classic example of why I couldn’t care less about a pitcher’s ERA. His run prevention results of late hide the fact that he just continues to assert that he’s a better pitcher now than he’s ever been.

As numerous studies have shown, it’s very hard to predict who will perform well in clutch situations, as the Great Clutch Project continues to demonstrate. Even players with cemented reputations as clutch or choke hitters see huge swings in their performance in high leverage situations, and it’s nearly impossible to find a guy who consistently does better than we would expect in big time pressure spots.

However, there is one player who is currently following up a pretty clutch 2007 with an even more clutch 2008 – he’s the only guy who amassed a clutch score of 1.00 or greater last year and has already done the same this year. That guy is the legendary master of timely hitting… Maicer Izturis.

In 2007, Izturis totaled 1.12 wins thanks to clutch hitting, good for the 19th highest clutch rating in the game despite getting just 336 at-bats as a part-time player. So far in 2008, he’s totaled 198 at-bats and already amassed a 1.22 clutch rating, 4th highest in baseball. Almost all of that has come in the last month, as Izturis has been a big hit machine for the Angels recently, including these remarkably high leverage hits.

June 11th, 5.96 LI, 7th inning, down 2-1, vs Scott Kazmir: Bases loaded single scores two.
June 1st, 6.39 LI, 9th inning, 3-3 tie, vs B.J. Ryan: Walk off single wins game.

He amassed .702 WPA in those two at-bats alone, accounting for most of his 1.01 WPA on the season.

In his career, Izturis now has a clutch score of 2.59 in 1184 at-bats. If he sustains this kind of performance much longer, it won’t be long before he gets tagged with the clutch hitter label.

When the Detroit Tigers organization selected Cale Iorg with its sixth round pick in 2007 (and gave him more than $1.4 million), it took a flyer on a talented, toolsy player who had not played organized baseball in almost two years. It also added to the accomplishments of one of the larger, yet lesser known, baseball families.

The Iorgs are not as well known as the Boones or the Bells or even the Hairstons. But Cale’s father Garth was an infielder with the Toronto Blue Jays for nine seasons in the ’80s and uncle Dane was a utility player in the late ’70s and ’80s for a number of teams, including the Phillies, Cardinals and Royals.

Brother Isaac, now 29, was drafted by the Blue Jays in the 19th round of the 2001 draft out of Brigham Young University and spent four seasons in the minors before hanging up his cleats. Brother Eli was selected in the supplemental first round by the Houston Astros in 2005 and is currently in Double-A. Eli, 25, spent just one year on a Mormon mission during college and signed with Houston for $900,000, despite being drafted higher than Cale.

Although Cale, a shortstop, played college baseball for just one season, he was considered by many scouts to be the most talented ballplayer in the family. So far this season, the 22-year-old is hitting .260/.326/.415 in 246 High-A ball at-bats. He has eight homers and 12 stolen bases in 17 attempts. The weakness for all three members of the younger generation has been plate discipline and Cale is currently walking 7.8 percent of the time and striking out at a rate of 27.0 percent. Defensively, he has committed 11 errors in 59 games.

Although Eli could make it to the majors quicker than Cale, the younger brother appears to have the brighter future with an intriguing combination of speed and power at a premium position.

One of my favorite numbers to look at is the run support provided to a given pitcher. It’s nothing necessarily sustainable but provides solid supporting evidence when discussing the validity or merit of a starting pitcher’s statistics, namely his W-L record. For instance, many understand that W-L records are not necessarily indicative of performance quality–a guy can give up 2 or 3 runs in 8 innings and lose, or give up 5 runs in 5 innings, but receive 8 runs of support and win.

Interestingly enough, that example comes pretty close to replicating both ends of the run support spectrum. John Lannan, who Dave noted should be known for more than just injuring Chase Utley last year, is at the bottom, receiving just 22 total runs in his 14 starts. When extrapolated it comes to 2.39 RS/9, a full 0.39 runs ahead of closest “competitor” Paul Byrd. However, he has a 3.36 ERA and, including unearned runs, has a RA/9 of 3.47.

On the opposite end we have Kyle Kendrick of the Phillies. In 15 starts this season Kendrick has received 74 runs of support, or 8.50 RS/9. The next closest? Oliver Perez, whose 7.47 RS/9 is over a full run less.

It comes as no surprise then that Lannan is 4-8 and Kendrick is 6-3, even though the former appears to be pitching better than the latter.

Additionally, Kendrick is no stranger to run support either, as his 7.74 RS/9 last season would be atop the Fangraphs leaderboard if his 20 starts qualified for inclusion. So, in the last two years, Kendrick has made 34 starts and received 178 runs of support. In those 34 starts he has gone 199.1 innings while allowing 99 runs (earned or unearned). Since his mid-season callup in 2007 he has gone 16-7; his 4.47 RA/9 is more than erased by his 8.04 RS/9.

Maybe Lannan should talk to Kendrick about lending him some of those runs in order to boost his barometer.

While surfing through my MLB Extra Innings package the other night I came across a bottom line statistic that piqued my interest: Pirates outfielders had (at the time) a .904 OPS, which led all of baseball. I knew Nate McLouth had gotten off to a scorching start; that Jason Bay had seemingly begun to bounce back from a disappointing 2007; and that Xavier Nady had been producing better than many gave him credit for. What I did not know, however, was that these three have arguably been the most productive outfield in the entire sport.

Looking first at their OPS, the Pirates trio all ranks in the top fifteen amongst major league outfielders. McLouth comes in 5th at .940; Bay in 7th at .932; and Nady in 14th at .886. There are no other threesomes in the top fifteen and, in fact, the only other outfields in the top thirty-five belong to the Cubs and Giants; however, Alfonso Soriano, Mark DeRosa, Kosuke Fukudome, Aaron Rowand, Fred Lewis, and Randy Winn all have a lower OPS than Nady’s .886.

When combined, the Pirates outfield is currently 229-768, in 892 PAs, complete with 55 doubles, 3 triples, 39 home runs, and 114 walks or hit by pitches. Ultimately, they are hitting .298/.385/.535, good for a .920 OPS.

Reverting to WPA furthers their case: all three are in the top twelve amongst major league outfielders. Bay ranks 3rd with a 2.81 WPA; McLouth is 9th at 1.76; and Nady comes in at 12th with a 1.56. Added together, these three have contributed 6.13 wins.

Pat Burrell is far and away the outfield leader, at 4.40, but the next closest Phillies OF Shane Victorino has a -0.96 WPA. Additionally, both Manny Ramirez and J.D. Drew rank in the top ten with a combined 4.64; however, even with Jacoby Ellsbury added in they increase only to 5.26, still almost a full win lower than the Bucs.

If I had to put money on it I would say the Red Sox will surpass the Pirates by the end of the season but, almost halfway through 2008, the 34-37 Pittsburgh Pirates have the most productive outfield in the game.

When J.D. Drew signed his 5 year, $70 million contract with the Red Sox, they were destroyed by national media writers such as Bill Simmons who pushed the narrative that Drew was an unclutch loser who couldn’t perform under pressure and wasn’t any good even when he was healthy. Theo Epstein and company were pilloried for their staunch desire to acquire a high on base outfielder and overlooking all the obvious flaws that made him such a bad player. Drew was held up as the example of the kind of move that statheads make when they don’t get their nose out of a spreadsheet.

Drew has news for that group of writers – you can all apologize now.

Drew has been absolutely sensational so far in 2008, putting up a .315/.424/.576 line that is the best of any American League outfielder. Only Milton Bradley (DH, plays in Texas) and Alex Rodriguez are posting a higher OPS than Drew, and his 2.00 WPA/LI ranks 4th in the league.

He’s doing it through his usual blend of patience (15.8% BB%, #4 in AL) and power (.261 ISO, T-4th in AL), reversing a decline in his isolated slugging percentage over the last few years. His performance has kept the Boston offense rolling despite the struggles and then injury to David Ortiz, and right now, he’s pretty clearly the Red Sox best player.

In the year and a half he’s been with Boston, he’s been worth about 25 runs more than an average hitter. Depending on what you think of his defense, the conclusion is that Drew has been worth about 4 to 5 wins above a replacement level right fielder during his time in Boston. Wins are going for close to $5 million apiece in the free agent market, so if Drew was compensated fairly, we’d expect that he’d have earned between $20-$25 million for his work. Thanks to a $14 million average annual payout, we know that the Red Sox have paid him about $20 million since the contract kicked in – pretty much dead on what he’s been worth.

J.D. Drew is a very good baseball player. The Red Sox are a very good organization. The narrative about both of them was wrong.

The Detroit Tigers minor league system is lacking in blue chip prospects, but the organization is having some luck with re-energized castoffs from other organizations, including Chris Lambert. He is not going to be the savior of the Tigers staff, but he has a chance to contribute at the Major League level, which is something that seemed unlikely even a year ago.

Lambert was originally drafted out of Boston College in the first round (19th overall) by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004. He had a nice college career and pitched exceptionally well during his first year in the Cardinals system by posting an ERA below three, allowing fewer than nine hits per nine innings and by averaging one strikeout per inning. Things began to unravel, though, midway through the 2005 season when he hit Double-A and Lambert struggled mightily until 2008. He was obtained by the Tigers midway through the 2007 season for washed up Mike Maroth.

Now in Triple-A Toledo, Lambert currently has a 2.97 ERA in 14 starts and has allowed fewer than one hit per inning. He has also struck out 61 batters in 78.2 innings of work. The one downside is that he has been allowing more than one fly ball for every ground ball out, although only four balls have left the yard.

When he was drafted, Lambert possessed a mid-90s fastball and knee-buckling curve ball, along with a developing change-up. His stuff is not what it used to be, but he is learning to be more of a pitcher and less of a thrower. He no longer projects as a potential No. 2 starter, but he could still develop into a workhorse at the back end of the Tigers rotation.