Last night, the Rays took an 8-6 lead into the 9th inning, looking to win their third straight game and put a bit more distance between themselves and the Red Sox in the A.L. East. Instead of walking away winners, however, they watched Dan Wheeler cough up the lead without retiring a batter, giving up four runs in the process, and they ended up 11-6 losers. Wheeler was pitching the 9th due to the recent struggles of Troy Percival, who has spent most of the year closing games for Tampa Bay but has looked vulnerable of late.

So, with a playoff spot a virtual certainty, the folks down in Tampa have to be deciding – just what should their playoff bullpen look like?

J.P. Howell and Grant Balfour have been outstanding all season, and give the team reliable relievers from both the right and left sides. Those two are definitely going to get high leverage innings in October. But what innings? And what about the other roles?

Wheeler’s obviously still in the mix – one bad outing doesn’t ruin a successful season. But his run prevention is built on a ridiculous .193 BABIP – his 4.27 FIP is more indicative of his real talent level. That makes him a solid bullpen guy, but nothing like a relief ace. Tampa would likely rather have him working the 7th inning than the 9th.

Chad Bradford and Trever Miller have the specialist roles locked up – they’re both good against same handed hitters, not so much against anyone else.

Those five have jobs, and for the most part, roles. But with four man rotations in October come the opportunities to have 7 or even 8 man bullpens, so there’s still some open spots.

Percival is likely to get one if he’s healthy, though it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll be used at this point. Do they allow such an extreme flyball guy to pitch in one run games? Unlikely. His home run problem probably takes him out of the mix at closer, so perhaps he joins Wheeler in middle relief, where he can be used in spots where a single bad pitch won’t turn the tide of the game.

That makes six. One, maybe two spots left, with Jason Hammel, Edwin Jackson, and David Price fighting for a spot on the playoff roster. You have to think that Hammel’s the odd man out here, as Jackson will be the long man coming out of the pen after spending the whole year in the five man rotation. And Price is just too talented to spend the postseason watching on TV. If they end up just carrying 7 relievers, though, do they go with Jackson or Price? Reward the guy who has given you innings all year or the phenom with upside? It’s an interesting question.

The folks running the Rays are smarter than me, but here’s my suggestion: Give as many high leverage innings as you can to Balfour and Howell, use Wheeler and Percival in the middle innings, spot Bradford and Miller as specialists in key at-bats, and go with Price over Jackson. Don’t pass up a chance to have a lefty throwing 95 coming out of the pen, especially if you think you’re going to have to go through Boston eventually.

Well, that’s that. With the news now official that Erik Bedard has a tear in his labrum the book on his 2008 and perhaps even his Mariner career is closed.

The result of a protracted three month negotiation between Bill Bavasi of the Mariners and Andy MacPhail of the Orioles that took more bizarre twists than your typical Lost episode, Erik Bedard landed with the Mariners for a whopping five players including Adam Jones, George Sherrill and highly touted minor league pitcher Chris Tillman.

The traditional media mostly sided on the side of Bavasi as the Mariners were coming off an 88-win season while many in the blogosphere were skeptical of the price paid in order to acquire Bedard. Erik did his best to stifle any possible opposition to the trade in Seattle with his first three pitches, a called strike fastball, a swing and a miss on a curveball low in the zone and a ridiculous breaking curve in a dirt that Ian Kinsler had no prayer of connecting on.

After that though it was all downhill. Bedard hurt his hip and as it turns out, his shoulder, in that game and couldn’t even make his second start on schedule. Off and on the disabled list, Bedard entered the season’s final month seeming unlikely to pitch again in 2008, but Mariner fans were still holding out hope that a winter’s worth of rest would return the 2007 version to them in time for 2009. But now that is not to be.

A labrum tear, no matter how minor, means at minimum a half year of rehab and it means that Bedard will not be opening the 2009 season in anyone’s rotation. As a fifth-year arbitration player and someone who did manage to pitch decently in the scant 81 innings he threw, Bedard would likely be due a raise from his current $7 million salary and thus he becomes a serious non-tender candidate for Seattle.

More than just a symbol of a season that’s seen everything the Mariners built turn to rubble, the loss of Erik Bedard represents a loss to all of baseball as the talent he displayed in 2007 was something special and despite his cold reputation from media members, my own, albeit brief, interactions with Bedard suggest otherwise. The loss of Bedard for most of 2008 and a significant portion of 2009 isn’t just the final nail in one of the worst trades of all time, it’s a loss for fans of baseball period.

On February 6, 1998, the Yankees acquired Chuck Knoblauch from the Twins for a four-player package including prospects Eric Milton and Christian Guzman. Following a relatively poor rookie season in which his OPS+ was just 38, Guzman’s sophomore campaign saw him smack 25 doubles, 20 triples and jump to a 70 OPS+. Next year, in 2001, he performed so well that, despite playing no more than 118 games, he finished 16th in MVP voting. From 2002-2004, his OPS+ regressed to the seemingly expected range of 77-79. The Washington Nationals liked his fielding, approach, and perhaps his still not yet reached potential and inked him to a nice contract prior to the 2005 season.

Guzman promptly pulled a “Beltran,” which is my new term for someone who performs poorly in the first year of a big and/or new contract. During that season, he posted a Bloomquist-like .574 OPS. Christian missed the entire 2006 season, but returned towards the end of last year, playing 46 games and posting an .846 OPS. Though it was less than one third of the season, his rates were better than ever, leading some in the fantasy world to buy low, in the hope that he could parlay that production into a very solid 2008 season.

He has not disappointed this year. In 132 games, his OPS is .787, which is the highest it has even been in a season in which he played 120+ games. His 9 home runs are one off of his career high, and his 34 doubles established a new career high. Additionally, his rate of strikeouts is at a personal low of 10%. Unfortunately, his rate of walks is also a very, very low 4%, the fifth lowest in the senior circuit. Guzman has always built his OBP largely off of his batting average, and this year is no different. With a BABIP of ~.340 and a very low walk percentage a good chance exists that his current numbers are not as much driven by skill as luck.

On the defensive side, he is currently at +15 at shortstop, good for fourth at the position, meaning he is producing nicely on both sides of the ball. His numbers may regress or he may establish himself capable of posting higher BABIPs, but this is the first season he has played over 130 games in which his production has been of this caliber. He may have gotten laughed at as an all-star due to each team needing a representative, but his season has definitely been all-star worthy.

Not a lot of things have gone right in Washington this year, even if you just focus on their baseball team. Ryan Zimmerman hasn’t progressed into the franchise player as hoped, Austin Kearns took another step backward, Nick Johnson got hurt, and the GM and one of his top advisers are being investigated for crimes of fraud. Despite moving into a new park, the team has been horrible and is driving fans from the park.

However, in that overwhelming cloud of darkness, there has been one glowing light, growing in strength the last few months and giving Nationals fans some hope for the future. That unlikely bright spot is Elijah Dukes.

The oft-troubled Dukes is finally making noise for what he’s doing on the field, living up to the reputation as a potential all-star hitter he built while in Tampa Bay’s farm system. After a terrible start to the season (.167/.311/.208 in May after missing April entirely), Dukes is hitting .300/.404/.585 since June 1st, compiling 235 plate appearances while hitting like one of the game’s elite players. 29 of his 60 hits during that span have gone for extra bases, and he’s essentially become Washington’s only legit power threat.

If we extrapolated his production the last four months out to 600 PA, we’d see Dukes has been sustaining a pace that would give him 36 2B, 5 3B, 33 HR, 77 BB, and 26 SB in a full season. That kind of performance would make him one of the game’s best all around players, as we discussed yesterday.

Now, clearly, hitting well for 235 PA isn’t the same thing as doing it for a full season, and Dukes has a lot to prove after years of injuries and off field problems. But Jim Bowden’s strategy has always been to acquire high ceiling under-performers and watch one or two turn into legitimate stars, and he may have hit the jackpot again with Dukes. If he can stay out of jail and off the DL, he has the talent to be a frontline player, and the Nationals could certainly use more of those.

The Mississippi Braves players did not like to make things easy on themselves in 2008. The club started off the year with a 6-20 record in April but still managed to make the 2008 Southern League (Double-A) playoffs. The Braves then went on to win the league championship over the prospect-studded Carolina Mudcats, but all three wins occurred in extra innings.

The top hitters in the playoffs were infielder J.C. Holt (.323), first baseman Kala Ka’aihue (.364), and Jordan Schafer (.333). Holt, 25, was a former star outfielder at Louisiana State University and he actually began the season in Triple-A, where he struggled and hit just .212/.333/.228 in the first month. Upon his demotion to Double-A, Holt picked things up and hit .285/.351/.397 with 22 stolen bases in 393 at-bats.

Ka’aihue’s first taste of Double-A in 2007 was bitter as he hit just .127/.221/.186 with 51 strikeouts in 118 at-bats after dominating High-A ball earlier that season. The 2008 season was a different story though as Ka’aihue hit .274/.417/.457 with 14 homers and 88 walks in 376 at-bats. His brother Kila Ka’aihue, 24, also had a breakout season by hitting 37 homers and driving in 100 RBI before earning a September call-up to the Kansas City Royals.

Schafer, considered the Braves top hitting prospect as 2007 wore down, began the year on a low note with a suspension that was handed down in the spring. He missed the first two months of the season and had an up-and-down year. Schafer hit .269/.378/.471 with 10 homers and 12 stolen bases in 297 at-bats. He picked things up in August by hitting .323 with six homers and carried that momentum into the playoffs.

All three players should move on to Triple-A for the 2009 season, one step away from realizing their dream of a big league career.

Raise your hand if you have heard of Vernon Wells. You know, the Blue Jays centerfielder who served as an ESPN analyst in the offseason? The guy who hits about 27-30 home runs each season, has an OPS close to .900, and plays stellar defense. Right, we all know him… but do we really know him? After finding out that he has been one of the more productive players over the last thirty days I perused his career numbers, as well as this season, and was a bit shocked. See, I just assumed he put up seasonal lines like the one mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. I, like many others, probably saw him in an all-star game, saw one really great season of his, and constructed the rest based on reputation.

In actuality, Wells’ current .831 OPS would be one of the highest of his career should the season end today. He has only played 98 games, so the counting stats are lower, but his offensive rates are right in line, or better than, those in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007. This leaves just 2003 and 2006 as being standout and tremendous seasons offensively. Here, I figured that 2006 was the norm, when he had an .899 OPS, blasted 32 home runs, stole 17 bases, and finished fourth amongst centerfielders with a +14 in the field.

In the field, he has steadily declined since 2006, going from +14, to +7, to this year’s -14, meaning that he has made fourteen plays less than an average centerfielder this season. Last year, he had a very low .265 BABIP which contributed to his low .706 OPS, but this year it has risen to .300; however, his ISO is at .190, down from the .200-.233 range in other seasons. Essentially, Wells has been able to get hits at a decent pace but they do not account for as much power as most in Toronto would like. Add in his declining defense and he is quickly heading past disappointment-ville.

Maybe he can have a tremendous September and increase the rates. We’ve seen Ryan Howard make significant leaps in short times before. Over the last thirty days, Wells is hitting .321/.369/.571, a .940 OPS, with a .250 ISO. This is the Vernon Wells that many fans think of or that fans in Toronto hope for, but at this stage it just seems more like a teasing hot streak than sustainable production. Perhaps the defense this year is an outlier and perhaps the injuries have prevented him from reaching his full potential, but he definitely seems to be a case where the reputation inflates his actual production and causes ignorance to those who don’t astutely pay attention.

Like the AL MVP race, and unlike the AL Cy Young (Cliff Lee) and the NL MVP (Albert Pujols) races, the NL Cy Young has a few worthy candidates, each with their specific claim to the title of best pitcher in the National League for 2008.

Brandon Webb has the pedigree and the twenty wins that voters will gravitate toward and ranking third in WPA means that even by better stats, Webb is among the viable candidates.

If the Brewers hang on to take the Wild Card, will CC Sabathia get some consideration? His totals in the National League are certainly exemplary and best in the league, but he’s dogged but a sample size about half that of the other contenders unless you consider his AL stats as well. Which in and of itself raises an interesting debate, but in Sabathia’s case raises a further point of whether or not those combined stats are good enough to warrant a Cy Young.

Chad Billingsley of the Dodgers and Ryan Dempster of the Cubs have shiny ERAs and playoff teams to back their otherwise excellent seasons but overall weak case at a Cy Young award. Johan Santana hangs around 2nd place in many categories and warrants a mention as well.

In the end though, there’s one man that so far has risen above all these mentioned above and that’s Tim Lincecum. Not only does Lincecum lead the league in ERA (by about a quarter of a run) and strikeouts (by a whopping forty) but he has a gargantuan lead in WPA over Johan Santana in 2nd place 5.22 to 3.51. It’s just his second season but assuming the Giants don’t blow out his arm Tim Lincecum deserves the first of what should be multiple Cy Young Awards.

When scouts dream at night, they dream of five tool players – guys who can hit for average, hit for power, run, catch, and throw. These are considered the building blocks on which a superstar is built, and the very best players in the game can usually do most, if not all, of those things at a very high level.

There are a decent amount of true five tool players in baseball right now, and at one time or another, almost all of them have been referred to as “the best all around player in the game”. But who really has been the best of the bunch – the guy with a diverse skillset who exceeds in every area of the game – in 2008?

Here are the contenders, in alphabetical order:

Carlos Beltran, .280/.371/.490, 38 2B, 4 3B, 24 HR, 21 SB, 3 CS
Curtis Granderson, .293/.375/.504, 24 2B, 13 3B, 19 HR, 10 SB, 4 CS
Hanley Ramirez, .294/.396/.527, 33 2B, 4 3B, 30 HR, 33 SB, 12 CS
Jose Reyes, .295/.359/.474, 34 2B, 18 3B, 14 HR, 50 SB, 14 CS
Alex Rodriguez, .304/.393/.584, 33 2B, 0 3B, 34 HR, 17 SB, 3 CS
Grady Sizemore, .271/.379/.513, 36 2B, 3 3B, 32 HR, 38 SB, 5 CS
Alfonso Soriano, .291/.351/.561, 29 2B, 0 3B, 29 HR, 19 SB, 2 CS
Chase Utley, .289/.377/.533, 38 2B, 4 3B, 31 HR, 12 SB, 2 CS
David Wright, .298/.386/.534, 40 2B, 2 3B, 31 HR, 15 SB, 5 CS

Hits For Average

For the most part, they’re all pretty similar. A-Rod’s the only one who cracks .300, but besides Sizemore and Beltran, they’re all in that .290 to .300 range. Sizemore’s contact issues leave him at the bottom of the barrel in this specific tool.

Hits For Power

Again, A-Rod has a slight lead in longballs, with most of the group being around that 30 HR mark. However, power isn’t just hitting the ball over the wall, as we see from guys like Jose Reyes, who has 66 extra base hits even though he only has 14 dingers. Wright has racked up more XBH than the rest (73), but Rodriguez’s slight lead in HRs and fewer plate appearances make him the winner in this category.

Running

At first glance, we have our first landslide, as Reyes has 50 steals while no one else even has 40. However, Sizemore’s 38 steals and just 5 CS is more impressive. To catch Reyes, he’d simply have to go 12 for 21 in stolen base attempts the rest of the way, and I think we’d all agree that he probably could run at a 57% success rate if he really wanted to – he’s just choosing not to because it would hurt his team. We can’t ignore the extra bases Reyes has been able to take turning doubles into triples, however, so he wins this category even though Sizemore’s been the better base stealer. There’s a big dropoff after those two, with everyone else clustering around the same area.

Fielding

The combination of range and fielding ability, the Fielding Bible’s +/- system is quite helpful here. They have Utley at a ridiculous +39 plays above an average second baseman this year, but second base is comprised of worse defenders than shortstop, so we have to account for the position adjustment. John Dewan’s system has Beltran at +17 plays in CF, which is fantastic, and Sizemore at +9, which is also very good. It has everyone else at around average (or worse, in Granderson’s case) for 2008, so we can realistically look at Utley, Beltran, and Sizemore as the category leaders. Beltran’s +17 as a CF is extremely impressive, but no matter how many adjustments you make, it’s hard to get away from Utley’s +39. He could be a good shortstop or CF if the Phillies wanted to move him, and he’s proving it every year. Utley gets the nod here.

Throwing

Here’s where it gets a bit subjective – most people would agree that Hanley, Reyes, and Soriano have impressive arm strength, while Sizemore and Granderson certainly don’t. But we don’t have any seasonal data that tells us who has been more valuable throwing the ball this year, so I’ll just let you pick your own winner here. I’m going with Reyes, because he has more opportunities to use his arm at SS than others do, but I’ll let someone talk me out of that if they want to try.

So, after going through all five categories, what have we learned? A-Rod’s the best in the batters box, with small advantages in average and power, but he falls off in running and fielding. Reyes is the fastest and might have the strongest arm, but he hits half as many home runs as most of the others. Wright is solid across the board, but isn’t the best at anything.

For me, it comes down to Sizemore, Beltran, and Ramirez. Hanley has best average but the worst baserunning and the worst defense of the three, so he’s out. Sizemore’s average brings him down, and Beltran has a slight edge defensively, but it’s hard to get past 71 extra base hits, 38 steals at an 88% success rate, and terrific defense in center field.

So, my vote for the best all around player in baseball in 2008 goes to Grady Sizemore.

The Trenton Thunder (NY AL) won the 2008 Eastern League title last Sunday with a Game 4 victory over the Akron Aeros (Cleveland). It was the club’s second Double-A championship in as many years.

The club received a late-season spark from catcher Francisco Cervelli, who missed much of the season with a broken wrist suffered in a spring training collision at the plate. Cervelli hit .315/.432/.384 in 24 games. The 22-year-old was signed as a non-drafted free agent out of Venezuela in 2003 and projects as a solid big league second-string catcher.

Overall, the club featured a number of veteran players but prospects Jose Tabata and Austin Jackson had large roles in the season’s final outcome. Tabata had an inconsistent season but still hit .272/.339/.368 with 18 stolen bases as a 21-year-old. He was then used as bait to acquire Xavier Nady from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Jackson, 21, hit .285/.354/.419 with 19 stolen bases, 56 walks and nine homers in 520 at-bats. his strikeout totals (113) continue to be a concern, especially with his limited power output to this point. That said, there are signs – 33 doubles – that the power is developing.

Another key ingredient for the Thunder title was the starting rotation, with five starters making at least 16 starts and posting ERAs under 3.70. All five pitchers also allowed fewer than one hit per inning pitched. George Kontos led the staff with 151.2 innings pitched, followed by Jason Jones (team leading 13 wins), Phil Coke (2.51 ERA), southpaw Chase Wright and Eric Hacker (who allowed just three homers in more than 90 innings). The general feeling is that Kontos and Coke have the best chance to help the big league club in the future.

On occasion I like to peruse the leaderboards here by position and see which players rank atop or on the bottom of the WPA/LI spectrum. Yesterday, however, I discovered a disturbing pattern while doing this for the junior circuit. It seemed that the bottom of each position was populated by members of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s stayed in the playoff race for half of the season before shipping away parts like Rich Harden, signaling a throwing in of the towel, so to speak. Their poor performance from that point on was largely attributed to the trading away of Dan Haren in the off-season and Harden in-season. From what these numbers showed, though, their struggles have a whole heck of a lot to do with their offense.

Since WPA/LI is a counting stat, I did not use the qualified only field, but found that all but Frank Thomas and Jack Cust were above 0 in this category. In fact, some of the others are so below 0 that they rank within the bottom five or bottom ten at their respective positions, if not at the very bottom of the list. Here are some of the players and their context-neutral wins:

Kurt Suzuki, C, -0.89
Daric Barton, 1B, -1.81 (lowest)
Mark Ellis, 2B, -1.16 (3rd lowest)
Bobby Crosby, SS, -2.87 (lowest)
Jack Hannahan, 3B, -0.81 (5th lowest)

Additionally, five of their six outfielders rank in the bottom twenty, as Emil Brown is ninth from the bottom, Carlos Gonzalez is eleventh, and Eric Patterson, Rajai Davis, and Travis Buck rank eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth from the bottom. The WPA/LI of these players range from Buck’s -0.72 to Brown’s -1.37. The other outfielder, Ryan Sweeney, is at -0.01, making him essentially a league average hitter, keeping him away from the bottom twenty. That leaves the Athletics with Jack Cust, Frank Thomas, and Ryan Sweeney as average or above average hitters, with Cust being far and away the best.

The team has an MLB-worst .683 OPS on the season, from a .318 OBP/.365 SLG. To put that in perspective, it would be the equivalent to having Felipe Lopez occupying every spot in the lineup this year. Their pitching may still be relatively solid and may only improve in the years to come, but the offense of their personnel needs drastic improvement, regardless of how solid defensively some of these players may be.