After failing to land Jason Bay at the trade deadline, the Rays put a positive spin on their lack of an acquisition to help their offense, pointing to the impending return of Rocco Baldelli as an alternative to Bay. Considering Baldelli’s medical condition, however, it seemed a bit optimistic to be counting on him for any kind of real production.

Sometimes, though, optimism pays off. Baldelli has played in eight games since coming off the DL, and though it’s only 26 at-bats, his .308/.357/.577 mark has to be making people smile. The mitochondrial disorder that sidelined him all year is known best for sapping strength, so the fact that he’s already knocked a pair of home runs and a double is extremely encouraging. If the lingering health problems were going to weaken him physically, it’s pretty unlikely that he’d be driving the ball immediately upon his return.

Trying to project what Baldelli will do the rest of the way is a fool’s errand, as there are too many variables involved with his health, but we know that he can be a very valuable player when he’s 100%. His 2006 performance showed that he can hit for average and power even with his aggressive approach at the plate, and the Rays could certainly use a right-handed hitter who can drive pitches into the gaps.

If Baldelli is able to produce even as a part-time player, the Rays have to like their chances in the playoffs. Their pitching and defense have been outstanding, and adding another potentially productive bat to the line-up serves to make their Cinderella story less likely to strike midnight anytime soon.

When I heard that Eric was planning to do a piece on Albert Pujols today, I thought it might be interesting to go back and review that fateful draft when St. Louis found the future Hall of Famer in the 13th round.

Pujols was drafted out of a small school in 1999 called Maple Woods Community College. He signed about two months after the draft on Aug. 17 and did not make his pro debut until the following season. The 20-year-old hit .324/.389/.565 with 17 homers in 395 A-ball at-bats. Pujols also had 81 at-bats in High-A and 14 at-bats in Triple-A where he hit a human-like (gasp) .214/.267/.286.

Despite only having 14 at-bats above High-A ball, Pujols impressed the Cardinals in the spring of 2001 and the rest, as they say, is history.

But let’s take a step back even further and look at the actual draft where Pujols was acquired. The Tampa Bay Rays had the first overall pick and selected Mr. Josh Hamilton, another interesting story in his own right. The Marlins then took right-hander Josh Beckett and the Detroit Tigers took top college hitter Eric Munson, who found pro ball much more difficult. Other interesting first-round selections included Barry Zito (Oakland), Ben Sheets (Milwaukee), Brett Myers (Philadelphia), Alex Rios (Toronto) and… well, that was about it.

Some of the first round bombs included Corey Myers (Arizona), Josh Girdley (Montreal), Ryan Christianson (Seattle), and the Cardinals’ first-round pick Chance Caple.

Other draft steals included John Lackey (Los Angeles AL) and Carl Crawford (Tampa Bay) in the second round, Justin Morneau (Minnesota) in the third round, as well as J.J Putz, Erik Bedard and Aaron Harang in the sixth round. The next true steal was Pujols in the 13th.

Other big leaguers who were drafted in the 13th round of the 1999 draft include Justin Leone (Seattle), Frank Brooks (Philadelphia), Alfredo Amezaga (Los Angeles AL) and Jason Jones (Texas). Amezaga has had 1,200 MLB at-bats as a utility player, but Leone and Jones have combined for 210 at-bats and nine homers. Brooks has appeared in 12 big league games.

Look, we all know Albert Pujols is an absolutely tremendous baseball player. He is arguably the best player in baseball right now (Yuniesky Betancourt would give him a run), is a clear-cut hall of famer, and there are very few sane pitchers who actually look forward to facing him. A couple of months ago I wrote that he wasn’t being fairly treated in terms of both how good he is and how much coverage finds itself in his direction, because of this inherent comfort factor. Since we know he is fantastic, his performance has become more expected than admired, which I cannot stand. An OPS over 1.000 should “get people going” regardless of whether or not the player in question has reached that mark in just about every season of his career.

This year, even less press seems to consist of Albert-oriented focus, and he might actually be having the best season of his career. He rarely misses games, but being hurt for a bit this year will cause some of his raw totals to fall short of years past; his rates, however, are just as good if not better. In 118 games, Pujols is hitting .359/.467/.639, for a 1.106 OPS. Let that slash line sink in.

The only other time he came close to this was in 2003, when he hit .359/.439/.667, for an identical 1.106 OPS. The difference between the two years comes in the form of walks. This year, Albert has a 17% walk-rate, which is higher than any other season of his career. Coupled with a very low strikeout rate, Pujols has a BB/K of 1.95, meaning that he walks about twice for each strikeout. In terms of raw figures, that translates to 44 strikeouts and 86 walks. In fact, Pujols is the only player in baseball with a 17% or higher walk-rate that has a strikeout rate of under 20%.

Since his rookie season he has never fanned more than walked, and his BB/K has ranged from 1.49-1.95 since 2004. His patience is an enormous factor of his success that does not get mentioned much. Another of these factors is his fielding. You might not think it at first glance, but Pujols has been the best defensive first baseman in baseball at least since 2005. From 2005 until right now, Albert has been +87 plays better than an average first-sacker: +15 right now, MLB best +37 in 2007, MLB best +25 in 2006, and +10 in 2005.

To put that in perspective, not only is he probably the best overall hitter in baseball right now, he is also the best fielder at his position, which truly does elevate his value, regardless of how fielding metrics are perceived in the general public. I’ll end this with just some simple rankings:

BB/K: 1.95, 1st
BA: .359, t-1st
OBP: .467, 1st
SLG: .639, 1st
OPS: 1.106, 1st
WPA/LI: 5.19, 1st
REW: 5.73, 1st

Yeah, he’s pretty good, and could be in the midst of his best season to date.

Brian Bannister made quite the saber splash this off-season when he professed his love of sabermetrics and advanced statistical analysis to unearth exactly what would make him successful. One of his goals involved staying ahead of the hitters, which would in turn reduce his BABIP against. For the most part, this worked in 2007, as he kept hitters at bay with a .266 BABIP. This well below the average mark helped his 3.87 ERA vastly outdo his 4.40 FIP.

In addition to balls put in play against him failing more often than most others to result in hits, his HR/FB was a very low 6.8%. If the average in this category is around 11-12%, then not only was he successful in preventing hits, but he didn’t give up much in the home run department either. So why the 4.40 FIP? Well, he didn’t strike anyone out and his BB/9 was not ridiculously low relative to the strikeout total. All told, his K/BB was a meager 1.75 last year.

This year, things have seemingly changed. His 5.96 ERA is over two full runs worse, his HR/FB has just about doubled to 12%, and 11 of his 25 starts have resulted in five or more earned runs crossing the plate. His latest start featured ten runs in one inning. Though he has definitely had some great games this year, when 44% of your starts involve 5+ earned runs, then either your controllable skills have faltered or you are very unlucky… or both.

If his controllable skills had truly imploded, then his FIP likely wouldn’t be just a half-run higher than last year. Despite his 5.96 ERA, his FIP is a run lower at 4.94. His HR/9 has jumped from 0.82 to 1.41, but his K/BB has risen from 1.75 to 1.94. Additionally, according to the xFIP statistic kept at The Hardball Times—which normalizes the home run component of FIP—Bannister has actually been pitching better this year.

Last year, when his ERA was 3.87 and FIP was 4.40, his xFIP was 5.14. This year, at 5.96 and 4.94, respectively, his xFIP comes in at 4.79. While he outdid his xFIP in both cases last year in the positive direction, both his ERA and FIP have done the opposite this year. It’s hard to convince people that someone with numbers seemingly as poor as his—a -2.02 WPA, -2.36 REW, and -1.39 WPA/LI—is actually performing a bit better than a year in which his surface numbers looked pretty solid, but this does seem to be the case.

I’m sure Banny the Math Whiz already knows this, but for any Royals fan upset with his performance, it isn’t nearly as bad as it looks.

With his next home run, Grady Sizemore will become the newest member of the 30-30 club, combining both power and speed in a season that puts him among the American League’s elite. In fact, he’s only the 52nd player in history to rack up both 30 bombs and 30 steals in the same year. However, Sizemore’s actually in even more exclusive company, as most 30-30 guys have been corner outfielders. If we reduce the list of 30-30 seasons to guys who played either SS or CF, we find Sizemore in impressive company to say the least.

Sizemore will be the 13th SS/CF to go 30-30, and the list reads like a veritable Who’s Who of the best five tool players in baseball history – Willie Mays, Eric Davis, Barry Larkin, Dale Murphy, Ron Gant, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Jimmy Rollins, Jose Cruz, and Preston Wilson. Okay, so those last two names aren’t exactly Hall of Famers, but the rest of the list is the kind of company that any player would want to find himself in.

And, of course, it’s not even September yet – if Sizemore finishes the year strong, he has an outside shot at 40-40, where he’d join A-Rod as the only up-the-middle player to record both 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in the same season.

Despite the Indians failure as a team this year, Sizemore’s having an excellent season, and has been the best player in the American League this year. Let’s not let his performance get lost due to the struggles of his teammates.

I talked a little bit about Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect Chris Tillman yesterday. Tillman’s Double-A rotation mate David Hernandez is another interesting prospect in the system and a survey by Baseball America recently ranked the pitcher’s out-pitch as the best breaking ball in the Eastern League.

Hernandez was drafted in the 16th round of the 2005 draft out of Cosumnes River Junior College. It was the third time that he had been drafted, including in the 29th round of the 2003 draft by Colorado and the 34th round of the 2004 draft by Arizona.

Along with his breaking ball – which has been called both a curveball and a slider – Hernandez also has a low-90s fastball that can touch the mid-90s and a change-up. He has battled his command a bit (including a career 3.88 BB/9) but Hernandez, 23, has also always been able to rack up the strikeouts (career 10.17 K/9).

After spending his first three pro seasons in A-ball, Hernandez has taken to Double-A like a fish to water. He currently has allowed 102 hits in 129 innings pitched, good for a .217 average against. He also has allowed 64 walks and struck out 156 batters. Hernandez is also an extreme flyball pitcher. If you combine that fact with the high number of walks this season it’s clear that the pitcher still has work to do, but it shouldn’t be long before Hernandez receives a taste of Major League Baseball.

While I firmly believe the comments made by Jimmy Rollins towards Philadelphia fans was a non-story, and, well, true, the fact is that he is having a very poor followup to his 2007 MVP campaign. Granted, some will argue that he should not have won the award in the first place, but he did, and his performance with the bat this year has been anything but award-worthy. Now, in the field, he has been a +8 shortstop this year to go along with his +7 last year and +12 in 2006. The issue, however, is that the perceived effectiveness of a player is generally born out of his offensive performance and production in timely situations.

In other words, WPA is a pretty good indicator of the MVP award, because voters aren’t going to stop and think about what would have happened if every plate appearance just counted as one (WPA/LI). They look at overall numbers, the clutchiness, and more like-factors. With that in mind, and with Rollins’ offensive struggles this year, I took a look at the MVP winners over the last twenty years (1988-2007), along with their WPAs in both the award year and the next year. The ultimate goal being to see if anyone else has had such a drastic perceived drop in effectiveness.

  Year          NAME             WPA1   WPA2   WPA-Drop
  1988      Kirk Gibson          5.00    0.87    -4.13
  1989      Kevin Mitchell       6.91    2.86    -4.05
  1990      Barry Bonds          5.63    7.99     2.36
  1991      Terry Pendleton      3.57    4.81     1.24
  1992      Barry Bonds          5.92    7.79     1.87
  1993      Barry Bonds          7.79    4.82    -2.97
  1994      Jeff Bagwell         5.79    4.70    -1.09
  1995      Barry Larkin         3.96    3.54    -0.42
  1996      Ken Caminiti         6.10    4.38    -1.72
  1997      Larry Walker         6.65    2.63    -4.02
  1998      Sammy Sosa           6.09    4.11    -1.98
  1999      Chipper Jones        6.36    2.16    -4.20
  2000      Jeff Kent            4.85    1.21    -3.64
  2001      Barry Bonds         11.63   10.57    -1.06
  2002      Barry Bonds         10.57    8.36    -2.21
  2003      Barry Bonds          8.36   12.63     4.27
  2004      Barry Bonds         12.63    0.26   -12.37
  2005      Albert Pujols        4.15    9.57     5.42
  2006      Ryan Howard          8.10    3.11    -4.99
  2007      Jimmy Rollins        2.69    0.33    -2.36

Now, Gibson in 1989 and Bonds in 2005 were both injured and missed significant time, so their second year WPA numbers should be disregarded. Other than that, though, Rollins is not alone in his perceived dropoff. In fact, his dropoff from last year to right now is actually less than some others on this list. What also needs to be taken into account is how his WPA in the MVP year is the lowest of anyone in the last twenty years—so there is much less to drop off from—but he has not been the worst in terms of WPA differential between the award year and the year after. His .747 OPS is disappointing, but he has been solid in the field, and despite the criticism pointed towards him with the hustle or lack of puncuality, the situation could be much worse.

Back towards the end of June, when the Phillies decided to send struggling starter Brett Myers to the minor leagues, I voiced my disgruntled opinion at the way they had mishandled his situation on more than one occasion. Turning him into a reliever after just three starts last year was terrible for his long-term success and then reversing the move this year, to me at least, spelled problems from the get-go. Based on his true talent level there simply was no way he could sustain the terrible performance witnessed up to that point and, since his recall, he has been very good.

Much has been discussed about his home runs allowed, and many attempts have been made, by myself included, to determine the cause of his struggles. My looks at his Pitch F/X data showed that he was throwing with less velocity on his fastball, in poor locations, with slightly less movement in certain circumstances.

A straighter 88-89 mph fastball located right around the middle of the plate isn’t exactly going to get guys out. Additionally, Myers did not change his approach; he stuck with the approach of the 93-94 mph guy he used to be and this hurt him. The slower your velocity is, the more careful you need to be with other aspects of pitching, such as sequencing and location.

Since rejoining the big league team, from July 23 until last night, he has put up some great numbers. In 6 starts, he has gone 41.2 innings, surrendering just 30 hits while giving up 9 earned runs. On top of that, he has walked just 10 hitters to go with his 32 strikeouts. His home runs? 2 in this 41.2 inning span, compared to 24 in his previous 101.2 innings.

Here are the starts, broken down:

7/23 @ NYM: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 K
7/29 @ Was: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K
8/3 @ StL: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K
8/9 vs. Pit: 7.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
8/14 @ LAD: 7 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K
8/20 vs. Was: 9 IP, 9 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

Prior to July 23, he had a WPA of -2.52. Since then, he has contributed 0.933 wins in six starts, lowering his seasonal mar to -1.59. His numbers for the entire season likely won’t turn out as well as he hoped, but if he pitches like this, you would be hard pressed to show me a team that wouldn’t love his services. And, more importantly, if he can sustain some semblance of this performance for the duration of the season, he could prove to be a huge factor in helping the Phillies make the playoffs.

After yesterday’s post on Randy Winn, I thought to myself “which infielder is the Winn of IFs”, and it didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that the underrated good-at-everything, great-at-nothing guy was Placido Polanco – the underappreciated infielder.

Now, Polanco is probably held in slightly higher regard than Winn – he was in all-star in 2007, after all. However, when people talk about the best second baseman in the AL, you usually hear names like Roberts, Kinsler, and Pedroia, all fine players in their own right. But we can’t overlook Polanco.

He’s a career .306/.350/.417 hitter, which is basically built upon a foundation of contact hitting and gap power – he’s aggressive at the plate, rarely walks, and won’t crack double digits in home runs most years, but he racks up the singles with his bat control. The approach works, too, as he’s racked up a career 4.24 WPA/LI mark, and that’s weighed down by a poor start to his career with St. Louis. Over the last seven years, his average WPA/LI per season is right around 0.8, putting him just under a win better than a league average hitter per season.

But like Winn, Polanco really shines defensively. The Fielding Bible had him at +5 plays in 2006, +10 plays last year, and already at +12 plays this season. Polanco is, by pretty every metric, one of the best defensive second baseman around, adding close to a full win to his team every year with the glove.

The combination of his bat and glove serve to make him close to +2 wins above an average player, or almost +4 wins above replacement. That’s a heck of a ball player.

He might not be Chase Utley, but he’s right there with the second tier of major league second baseman. Don’t overlook Polanco in discussions of the game’s most underrated players.

It must be depressing times for Seattle Mariners fans. Not only is the club mired in a 46-80 season, but there is a bitter aftertaste lingering in most fans’ mouths thanks to last winter’s Erik Bedard trade.

It is rare for a multi-player trade to work out perfectly for a club receiving five “lesser” players in return for one established Major League star, but it’s come pretty close to perfect for Baltimore. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Bedard has hardly been a savior for the Mariners’ rotation and he hasn’t really fit in in Seattle leading to rumors that the club would like to trade him. That said, his numbers look OK on the surface and he has allowed just 70 hits in 81 innings to go along with 31 walks and 72 strikeouts.

Let’s take a look at the players the Mariners gave up:

Who would have thought that a LOOGY would suddenly become so valuable? George Sherrill, who made his MLB debut at the age of 27 and spent parts of four seasons facing nothing but left-handed batters, has saved 31 games for the Orioles this season, solidifying the back end of the bullpen. The Mariners relievers, on the other hand, have managed just 23 saves as a team and rock-solid closer J.J. Putz has pitched, well, like a putz.

Considered the key ingredient in the trade from Baltimore’s perspective, Adam Jones has had an up-and-down season as a 22-year-old (now 23) everyday outfielder. He has a line of .279/.320/.405 with seven homers and eight stolen bases in 398 at-bats. Jones has walked just 19 times to go along with 92 strikeouts. Basically he has been Delmon Young-lite.

Right-hander Chris Tillman, 20, has been the true steal of the trade and has rocketed up prospect lists everywhere to become one of the top five pitching prospects in Double-A and Triple-A combined. In Double-A this season, Tillman has allowed just 106 hits in 124.2 innings, along with 59 walks and 139 strikeouts. As well, he has as many wins – nine – as home runs allowed. Right-handed batters are hitting just .218 against him and he could make his Major League debut next season at the age of 21.

Kam Mickolio was added to the Orioles’ 25-man roster earlier this week. The 24-year-old right-hander stands 6-9 and towers over opponents. His first Major League appearance was a little rough as he allowed three hits and one runs in one inning, but he did strike out two batters. Between Double-A and Triple-A this season, Mickolio allowed 50 hits in 56.1 innings with 29 walks and 60 strikeouts. He allowed just two home runs.

Tony Butler, a 6-7, 20-year-old hurler, has been the quietest player obtained in the fateful deal. He started out the season OK in A-ball by allowing 59 hits and 11 walks in 55 innings. After his June 19 start (He allowed five runs in three innings), though, Butler went on the disabled list with arm problems and has not been seen since.

So there you have it. The Orioles received a solid closer, starting outfielder, middle reliever, top pitching prospect and a young, dark horse prospect for a pitcher that has already worn out his welcome in his new home.

Not bad.