In yesterday’s Phillies-Mets game, Damion Easley picked up three hits in his five at-bats, all of which were infield singles. Upon witnessing the third of these singles it hit me somewhat quickly that, wow, Easley has been around for a long, long time. His major league career began in 1992, meaning that this is his seventeenth major league season. In fact, Easley’s career began so long ago that his first employer was actually the California Angels, not the Anaheim Angels, or even the Los Angeles Angels of Californian Los Anaheim like today.

The title is a bit facetious given that I was well aware Easley still belonged to a major league club but is anyone else surprised in the least that he has been able to stick around for seventeen years?

It isn’t as if Easley had the peak years of a star shortstop either. Easley’s peak came between 1997 and 2001, with the Tigers, where an average season looked like this: 147 G, 142 H-544 AB, 32 2B, 19 HR, 53 BB, 101 K, .262/.342/.435, .777 OPS. Say what you will about the OPS metric but, amongst those with 500+ games played in this five-year span, Easley’s ranks 124th, right in the vicinity of Jose Offerman, Michael Tucker, and Troy O’ Leary. Essentially, his peak was not terrible, but I would generally have a hard time believing that a player with a .777 OPS in a five-year peak would be a seventeen year veteran.

His best season came in 1998, when he slugged 27 home runs, good enough to earn quite the curious berth in the Home Run Derby. One of my favorite aspects of baseball is how, on occasion, the smaller details will stick with us. With Easley, I couldn’t quote you his career numbers or peak stats without some research, or even name all of the teams that employed him (Angels, Tigers, Devil Rays, Marlins, DBacks, Mets) without glancing at his player page, but I’ll always remember how odd it looked in the 1998 derby when Easley stood next to all of those proven sluggers… though, to his credit he did out-HR one Chipper Jones on that fateful day in Coors Field.

Since his peak, Easley has largely become a reserve, making spot starts here and there and filling in during extended injuries for starters. This in part explains how he has stuck around so long; it isn’t as if he’s a full-time regular anymore. From 2002 until now he has put together a .242/.317/.399 slash line, right on par with Brandon Inge in that same span. The major difference there is that Inge was a starter for the majority of those numbers. Though that likely explains more about the misuse of Inge than anything about Easley, it’s pretty remarkable that the guy has been able to play major league baseball for at least seventeen years, primarily under the radar, and without a peak that would garner him a big reputation.

As we near the trading deadline, there is essentially one good pitcher left on the trade block – A.J. Burnett. Because of his ability to opt out of his contract at years end and their placement in the standings, the Blue Jays are willing to move him if the right offer comes along. But Burnett has always been something of an anomaly, so what is the right offer?

First, we have to know what we expect Burnett to do the rest of the year. For that, we’ll use Sal Baxamusa’s Quick-N-Dirty Marcel spreadsheet, which he made available a couple of weeks ago. Plugging Burnett’s numbers gives us an updated Marcel projection for the rest of the year, and produces the following results for Burnett:

84 IP, 82 H, 34 BB, 80 K, 9 HR, 3.73 ERA.

That’s right – Marcel is so effected by his struggles in the first half of the season that it actually projects him to do better in the second half than he did last year. That should tell you all you need to know about the predictive power of ERA right there.

So, if we do away with the idea that Burnett’s current 4.73 ERA is somehow his new true talent level, we see that Burnett is still quite capable of being a solid addition to a contender’s pitching staff down the stretch run. If he was replacing a guy with a 4.82 ERA projection, the difference between Burnett and that starter would be one full win, and most teams that would be trading for Burnett would be replacing starters even worse than that hypothetical.

A.J. Burnett isn’t Sabathia or Harden, but he’s not chopped liver either. If there’s a team that really wants to make a run at the title and needs a starter, they’d be wise to overlook Burnett’s reputation and pay for his expected performance.

The Baltimore Orioles organization currently has two very talented hurlers on its Double-A staff, both of whom should have bright futures in the Majors Leagues if they can stay healthy. Interestingly, though, the pitchers come from very different baseball backgrounds.

Jake Arrieta was selected in the fifth round of the 2007 draft but he was considered a better talent before falling in the draft due to signability ($$$) concerns. During his college career he spent time at a junior college and at Texas Christian University. He was also drafted by the Reds in 2004 (31st round) and the Brewers in 2005 (26th round). The Orioles managed to get him signed with an above-slot deal and the ‘gamble’ has paid off for the club.

Because Arrieta signed late in 2007, he did not make his debut until the Arizona Fall League, where he dominated. Due to his early success, Arrieta was assigned to High-A ball to begin the 2008 season at the age of 22. In his first 12 starts, the right-hander over-powered his competition and had an ERA below 2.50 and allowed just 37 hits in 69.2 innings of work. In his last nine starts, though, Arrieta has allowed 40 hits in 35.1 innings, with an ERA around 4.50. Overall, Arrieta is holding right-handers to a .169 average, while lefties are hitting .257.

Even with his recent struggles, Arrieta has allowed just 77 hits in 106 innings. He has also struck out 112 batters while walking 48. He has struggled a bit with his control, but Arrieta’s numbers suggest he is well on his way to becoming a solid No. 3 starter at the Major League level.

Brandon Erbe, on the other hand, made his pro debut at the age of 17. He was selected in the third round of the 2005 draft out of a Maryland high school and was immediately sent to Rookie Ball where he held his own and posted an ERA of 3.09 with just eight hits and 10 walks allowed in 23.1 innings of work. He began the next year in full-season ball and pitched well with 88 hits allowed in 114.2 innings of work. Erbe also struck out 133 batters with 47 walks.

The wheels fell off for the right-hander in 2007 when he was promoted to High A-ball as he struggled with his command. He went from allowed 3.69 BB/9 in 2006 to allowing 4.68 BB/9 in 2007. He also allowed 127 hits in 119.1 innings. It was the first time that Erbe experienced a prolonged slump in the minor leagues and forced him to deal with adversity, which will probably help him long-term.

Erbe has pitched much better in 2008 while repeating High-A ball at the age of 20. He is currently leading the league in innings pitched and has allowed 97 hits in 109.2 innings. Erbe has walked 31 batters and struck out 108. One warning sign is the 18 homers than the youngster has allowed this season. He does have the potential to be a No. 2 or 3 starter if he can sharpen his command and control. Erbe could also be a dominating reliever with a mid- to high-90s fastball and wipe-out slider.

Although both pitchers come from different backgrounds, they could easy form a powerful punch in the middle of the Orioles’ starting staff within two seasons.

Back at the beginning of the season we didn’t know a whole lot about the Cincinnati Reds. Dusty Baker had taken over as team skipper and opted to go with Corey Patterson in centerfield over top prospect Jay Bruce. Adam Dunn had shown consistency in being a three true outcomes player, Ken Griffey Jr. had some home run milestone on the horizon, and Aaron Harang had shown himself capable of carrying a pitching staff, but to those outside of Cincinnati the team likely looked no different than Reds teams of the past; teams with some nice pieces that wouldn’t win.

After the first couple weeks of the season, however, it appeared they had found themselves a great young pitcher in rookie Johnny Cueto. The media went nuts over this guy and analysts did their thing with regard to his repertoire and what made him effective. Heck, why wouldn’t they? Through his first two starts he had gone 13.1 innings, surrendering just six hits and three earned runs, while walking nobody and fanning eighteen.

From there he turned inconsistent, mixing some quality starts with a few resulting in five or more earned runs, and lost his spot as the emerging Reds rookie pitcher to Edinson Volquez. In fact, Volquez’s performance thus far has made many forget about Cueto; not necessarily forgetting he exists but rather that he was highly touted as recently as two months ago.

For the season, Cueto has a 4.90 ERA, 4.78 FIP and a 1.36 WHIP. He fans a good deal of hitters, 8.27 K/9, but walks 3.37 per nine innings. Additionally, his 1.61 HR/9 ranks as the 4th worst in the senior circuit and he has been a bit below average in stranding runners. The HR/9 may be a function of his ballpark, however, as teammates Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang literally rank right behind him in that category. Since this is his first season we don’t have much reliable data to gauge his true talent level, so I’ll resort to this season’s numbers for the time being.

He seems to throw three different pitches—a heater, slider, and changeup—with the occasional curveball mixed in. His fastball, however, clocks in at around 93.4 mph according to the BIS data here and even looks a bit faster in the Pitch F/X data. Actually, that 93.4 mph ranks third in the NL in heater velocity, a slight tenth of a mile per hour ahead of teammate Edinson Volquez. It appears Cueto has some good “stuff” and that the lack of luck he received early on has tended to even out, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on him. How many of you lauded his first two starts and then largely forgot about him? And what do you see moving forward from those who watch him more often?

C.C. Sabathia likes the National League. Last night, he made his fourth start with the Brewers since being acquired from Cleveland, and he threw his third straight complete game, giving up just three hits in shutting out the Cardinals. The only other pitcher who has thrown back-to-back complete games this season is Roy Halladay, who threw four straight during April. Three straight complete games is impressive, but he has a ways to go before he ties the Rick Langford’s modern baseball record of 22. Yes, 22. Langford threw complete games in 28 of the 33 games he started in 1980, tossing 290 innings along the way. The game was a little different then.

How does Sabathia’s four start run compare to other great pitching runs we’ve seen this year? Here are the contenders.

John Lackey, 6/11 to 6/29: 31.7 IP, 19 H, 7 BB, 29 K, 1.14 ERA
Dan Haren, 6/18 to 7/4: 28 IP, 18 H, 5 BB, 27 K, 0.96 ERA
Felix Hernandez, 5/31 to 6/17: 28.3 IP, 18 H, 5 BB, 29 K, 0.95 ERA
John Danks, 6/14 to 7/1: 26 IP, 18 H, 6 BB, 22 K, 0.69 ERA
Scott Kazmir, 5/15 to 5/31: 27 IP, 13 H, 7 BB, 27 K, 0.67 ERA

C.C. Sabathia, 7/8 to 7/24: 33 IP, 20 H, 8 BB, 31 K, 1.36 ERA

From a run prevention standpoint, he can’t quite match the best four start stretches of guys like Kazmir and Danks, though he made up for the difference in quality through sheer quantity of innings. I’d probably take Lackey’s run as the best of the bunch, since it came against AL competition, but Sabathia is certainly in the running.

It really is hard to fathom that this Sabathia is the same guy who gave up nine runs in back-to-back games back in April and had a 13.50 ERA after his first four starts of 2008. His ERA since then? 2.10.

With the way Sabathia is throwing, the Brewers are going to be very hard to beat if they get to the playoffs.

Last night was one of many emotions for me, all of which happened to coincide with the Phillies-Mets game. Johan Santana took on Phillies newcomer Joe Blanton in a contest that would eventually result in a sole owner of first place for the time being. While my night got off to an exciting bang thanks to a Jayson Werth RBI single in the first inning, it quickly turned sour when the Mets tied it up and pulled ahead thanks to a blown call from the umpire two run homer from the ever-so-torrid Carlos Delgado. The deflation quickly shifted to awe as Santana once again just cruised through the high-powered offense of the Phillies. Eventually that awe turned back into some form of sadness as Ramon Castro added to the Mets’ lead, before pulling a complete 180 to elation as the Phillies scored six runs in the ninth inning once Johan was taken out.

After the game, however, the baseball fan and analyst in me angered at the audacity of some mainstream writers to suggest, in so many words, Johan doesn’t have that “it” factor anymore, or that he isn’t nearly as good and seems to be on the decline. And the major reasons for these opinions stem from last year’s 15-13 W-L record and this year’s mere 8-7. From reading some of these articles or listening to some Baseball Tonight analysts you would think that Johan would struggle to cut it as the #3 option on most teams.

Frequent Fangraphs commenter Bill Baer wrote a great piece at Crashburn Alley that echoed my feelings last night during the game, that Johan has been incredibly unlucky this year, just like Phillies ace Cole Hamels. My feeling was that if Santana’s record was 11-3 or even 10-4 that most people would feel very differently about his performance this year. But then I looked at his numbers and calculated his projection over the remainder to see what his end of season statistics might look like… and my anger that he has lost something based on his W-L shifted to surprise.

See, even though his record doesn’t do his season justice, Santana does appear to have lost some semblance of effectiveness. Entering this season his projection called for around a 3.26 FIP, 1.10 WHIP, 2.24 BB/9, 9.23 K/9, and a 4.12 K/BB. Here are his 2008 numbers, his projection over the remainder, and what his overall numbers would be should this projection hold true:

2008 to date: 3.75 FIP, 1.21 WHIP, 2.47 BB/9, 7.79 K/9, 3.16 K/BB
Second Half: 3.45 FIP, 1.17 WHIP, 2.41 BB/9, 8.58 K/9, 3.57 K/BB
2008 Overall: 3.64 FIP, 1.20 WHIP, 2.44 BB/9, 8.08 K/9, 3.31 K/BB

If his season ends up like this, it would mark his worst K/9, BB/9, WHIP, K/BB, and BAA since becoming a full-time starter in 2004. Don’t confuse this with ineffectiveness, however, as he has been very productive this year, ranking in the NL’s top ten in several pertinent categories. As I mentioned above, if his record were 11-3 or something along those lines most of these conversations would cease to exist because most fans are usually quite content in believing a pitcher with a record that good is impervious to luck.

In his seven losses this year, Johan has pitched 45.2 innings and surrendered just 17 earned runs, good for a 3.35 ERA. That’s an extremely solid ERA for games in which he received a loss. In these same seven games, he has received only nine runs of support. Nine. That’s 1.77 RS/9 in these games. Of course he’s going to lose some of these if his team fails to score any runs. While I was shocked to see his strikeout numbers decline and baserunners increase, he is still among the elite in my eyes and the eyes of many others, I’m sure. If someone wishes to poke holes in his production this year it would make much more sense to note some of the aforementioned numbers, not to say his record is a disappointing 8-7, especially when considering how well he has pitched in some of these losses and how little support he has received.

He may not be the 2004 Johan and his true talent level may have changed a bit, but he is still a darned good pitcher.

This morning, we looked at the three potential MVP candidates from Texas and decided that Josh Hamilton was the best of the bunch, as he’s added about 1.9 wins over a league average player at this point. Does that make him a legitimate candidate for AL MVP?

Let’s look at the other contenders, using the same process described in this morning’s post.

Grady Sizemore: 2.7 WPA/LI, +0.5 position adjustment, +0.5 defense – +3.7 wins
Joe Mauer: 2.2 WPA/LI, +1 position adjustment, ? defense – +3.2 wins
Alex Rodriguez: 2.6 WPA/LI, no position adjustment, +0.1 defense – +2.7 wins

I think these three are the real AL MVP candidates as of July 23rd. Sizemore’s having a tremendous season while no one notices, and considering his offensive production matches Hamilton’s while playing in a less hitter friendly park and playing better defense, it’s tough to justify a real argument for Hamilton over Sizemore. Grady’s been the best CF in the league, and if you’re going to pick an MVP from that position, it has to be him.

The difference between Mauer and Sizemore really comes down to how much credit you want to give Mauer for his defense. We have almost no ability to quantify a catchers impact on a pitching staff, so while most people agree that he’s great back there, how much is that worth. Half a win? A win? Two wins? I have no idea. I’ll let you fill in that part yourself, and your answer to his defensive value probably determines whether you think the MVP at this point is Mauer or Sizemore.

A-Rod’s in the race, but he’s going to need a huge finish to make up the gap. He’s capable of it, but I wouldn’t bet on him right now.

One of the odder stories this season was the revelation that former MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada is actually two years older than the public had been to led to believe. Despite the questionable journalism techniques utilized in order to show that Miguel’s pants had in fact been on fire for sixteen or seventeen years, the fact remained that he was 33 years old, not 31 years old. A few months later, he is now 34, not 32 years old.

The first thought to cross my mind upon hearing this news was how it would effect his projection coming into this season. He was already a 32-yr old shortstop experiencing a noticeable decline in power. Now that we discovered him to be a 34-yr old shortstop, the sharp decline made a bit more sense. With the in-season Marcel projector readily available I plugged in Miguel’s current numbers but entered in both of his birthdays. Here are the results:

32 yr – 2nd Half: .293/.346/.455, 8 HR, .801 OPS
32 yr – Total: .284/.329/.435, 18 HR, .764 OPS

34 yr – 2nd Half: .291/.344/.452, 8 HR, .796 OPS
34 yr – Total: .283/.328/.434, 18 HR, .762 OPS

In 2004, he posted a .534 slugging percentage as a 30 year old (thought to be 28 year old). Since then, the same metric has decreased in each year and, if his true talent level holds up in the second half, the .434 would again show a decline from the year prior. His true talent level was barely affected by the change in age based on these in-season projections, but moving forward this level will have two lost years to take into account.

The Texas Rangers are keeping themselves in the wild card race with a monstrous offense trying to overcome some really bad pitching and defense. At the heart of the run scoring machine are three hitters having terrific seasons – Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, and Milton Bradley. At different times in the year, all three have been lauded as potential AL MVP candidates, and you can make a case for each one.

However, it’s hard to argue that your the most valuable player in the league if you aren’t the most valuable player on your own team, so this morning, we’ll try to figure out which one of the Texas trio has been the best so far in ’08.

Let’s start with the offense, using WPA/LI as the metric of choice.

Bradley: 2.82 WPA/LI
Hamilton: 2.58 WPA/LI
Kinsler: 2.49 WPA/LI

Bradley’s pretty clear been the best hitter of the three, with the difference between Hamilton and Kinsler being pretty small. Of course, Bradley’s also spent most of his time at DH, so his offensive performance relative to his peers is less impressive than his teammates. Let’s adjust for position scarcity, using tangotiger’s position spectrum. Over a full season, DHs get a -1.5 win penalty, second baseman get no adjustment, and center fielders get a 0.5 win bonus. We’re 60% of the way through the season, so we’ll use 60% of those adjustments, giving us the following position adjusted offensive estimates:

Bradley: 1.9 offensive wins added
Hamilton: 2.9 offensive wins added
Kinsler: 2.5 offensive wins added

Hamilton takes a firm lead, with Bradley falling to the back of the pack. However, defense counts too, and since Hamilton and Kinsler take the field, we have to factor their performances with the glove as well (Bradley’s already been docked heavily for DH’ing, so we don’t further dock him in defensive analysis). We’ll use the Fielding Bible +/- numbers from Bill James Online for our purposes here, since it’s the best defensive metric out there published in season.

John Dewan’s system has Hamilton as a -10 play defender in center field and -2 in right field. Those 12 plays that he didn’t make are basically equivalent to one win lost. Hamilton’s really a right fielder being stretched beyond his skills in CF, so some of his offensive value is given back when his defense is compared to players with more range.

Kinsler isn’t a particularly great defensive second baseman either, and +/- isn’t much kinder to him, giving him a -13 mark that ranks him 32nd among major league second baseman. Ouch.

So, we chop 1 win off for both Hamilton and Kinsler, and our new win values for the Texas Trio come out as follows:

Bradley: 1.9 wins added
Hamilton: 1.9 wins added
Kinsler: 1.5 wins added

After defense is factored in, Hamilton and Bradley come out even, while Kinsler falls back to third place. While his offense is terrific compared to other second baseman, +/- doesn’t really see Kinsler as much of a second baseman, and the overall nods go to the guys having the better offensive seasons.

There’s still a good chunk of the season to go, but right now, I’d have to go with Josh Hamilton as the Rangers MVP, slightly edging out Bradley in a situation where you could make a case for either one. Does he have a case for league MVP? We’ll get to that tonight.

Yesterday we looked at Mike Hampton and his many injuries, and so it only made sense to today take a look at another member of the FIP—Fraternity for the Injury Prone—Carl Pavano. Prior to the 2005 season Yankees GM Brian Cashman inked Pavano to a four-year deal worth around 39.95 million dollars. The signing came on the heels of two very solid seasons from the righty once traded for Pedro Martinez. Aside from W-L and ERA, Pavano had decreased his BB/9, WHIP, HR/9, BAA, BABIP, and FIP each year from 2001-2004, leading to a rise in his K/BB and LOB%.

Unfortunately, his K/9 also took hits in each of these years. All told, the Yankees looked like they might have been getting a good #4 starter albeit at a steep price. Now, at the end of that contract, the deal looks like one of the worst ever handed out, not just because Pavano’s pinstripes performance lacked quality for the most part, but because those performances were so few and far between.

Since signing with the Yankees, Pavano has made 19 starts, pitched in 111.1 innings, with an FIP upwards of 4.70. He missed the 2006 season completely, made just two of those nineteen starts in 2007, and Cashman seems to believe that he won’t recover from his latest surgery in time to pitch this year, meaning the Yankees would have paid 40 million dollars for 17 starts of below average pitching in 2005, and two relatively meaningless starts in 2007.

Pavano’s contract bothered the players, as well, never the more evident than in the book Living On the Black in which Mike Mussina scoffed at a contract offer from the Yankees that there was no way he would accept less money than Carl Pavano.

He also took criticism for withholding injury information from the Yankees, after breaking his ribs in a car crash. He didn’t tell the team until he was scheduled to come off the disabled list for a different injury. I cannot imagine how that conversation went down.

Cashman: Well, Carl, we’re activating you and will schedule you in the rotation.
Pavano: Oh wait, I forgot to tell you…
Cashman: (sighs) What now?
Pavano: I actually have broken ribs.
Cashman: How long have you forgotten to tell us?
Pavano: A few weeks.
Cashman: Were you planning on telling us?
Pavano: Well… not really… but now that they hurt alot…

What the future holds for this once promising prospect is yet to be seen, but just like Mike Hampton will likely forever be remembered for his injuries, Carl Pavano will likely go down in baseball lore as one of the worst retrospective contract signings in the history of the game. Since Pavano signed, he has made 19 starts… in that same span, Roy Halladay has 23 complete games.