After dropping another game last night in Dale Sveum’s debut as manager, the Brewers have now lost five in a row and are no longer leading the wild card chase. September has been a disaster for Milwaukee, as they are now 3-12 in the final month of the season, frittering away what seemed to be a pretty solid shot at a playoff berth.

Most of the blame lays squarely on the shoulders of the offense, and in particular, four hitters who have just laid a giant egg.

Ryan Braun: 11 for 56, .196/.286/.286
Corey Hart: 9 for 55, .167/.207/.255
Mike Cameron: 5 for 45, .111/.200/.222
Bill Hall: 5 for 30, .167/.219/.233

As a group, they’re 30 for 186, a nifty .161 average. Hart has the lowest WPA/LI of any player in baseball in September, while Cameron comes in 3rd and Braun comes in 4th. When you have three of the four worst hitters in baseball in a given month, it’s hard to score many runs. The simultaneous collapses of that foursome have basically sunk the Brewers offense, and potentially the Brewers season.

Even things that have gone well haven’t helped – J.J. Hardy has four home runs this month, but all four have been solo shots. Prince Fielder went deep twice last yesterday, but CC Sabathia chose the same day to take his first loss since coming over to the National League.

They’ve fired their manager in an effort to salvage what’s left of the 2008 season, but unless Sveum can figure out how to make half his offense remember how to hit, they’re in a lot of trouble.

Of the top eight relievers by innings pitched in the majors this season, six of them are part of a pair of relievers on the same team.

Paving the way so far is Josh Rupe of the Rangers with 84.2 innings in just 43 games while teammate Jamey Wright checks in at seventh with 79.2 innings spread over a more conventional 70 games. Among all the pitchers mentioned herein, Rupe is alone in that his entering leverage index is a meager 0.56 and also showing a mediocre 47-41 strikeout to walk rate

At fourth and eight in the majors lies a pair of Phillies relievers. Chad Durbin‘s 81.2 innings in 64 appearances and Ryan Madson’s 75 innings over 69 games. When your rotation is so bad that it continues to give Kyle Kendrick starts, you are going to have a lot of innings for your bullpen to soak up.

Finally, sitting back to back at fifth and sixth are a pair from the nation’s capital in Joel Hanrahan (81.1 innings in 66 games) and Saul Rivera (80.2 innings over 72 games). Saul Rivera has been quite the horse for the Nationals as he logged 93 innings last season as well and 88.2 innings split between the majors and Triple-A in 2006. Hanrahan was previously in the rotation so his high inning count for a reliever is a moderate one for a pitcher trained as a starter though it’s noteworthy that he hasn’t been used more in long relief stretches.

What these six do have in common beside a laborious workload is that each pitch for teams with sub par (and that’s a British-style understatement there) rotations. But what is interesting is that this trend was not present last season as each of the top five relievers in usage during 2007 were from different teams and the top team relievers in 2006 were all from differing teams. It’s another curious aspect to the 2008 season.

The best part of what analysts call a “slash line” is that we get to see the on-base percentage and slugging percentage stacked up next to the traditional barometer, batting average. Looking at the three of these metrics, side by side, can help us understand which players are great all-around, which are purely power hitters, or which ones have a tremendous eye. For instance, a .333/.420/.560 slash line looks Pujols-esque; the player has a high percentage of hits that consist of singles as well as those of the extra base variety. A Dunn-type line of .244/.368/.571 would offer that the player has a great eye, as his OBP vastly exceeds his BA, and that he is a great power hitter, because although the BA is low, the value of the hits put into the equation are, more often than not, greater than a single.

When we see the slash line, though, sometimes it looks a bit “off.” We are almost trained to see the three numbers increase as we move from left to right, but occasionally a player will post a higher OBP than SLG, which looks nutty in slash line form. Someone hitting .273/.332/.328 just looks, well, different from the mold. It tells us that he has almost no power to his name and that the vast majority of his hits are singles.

This year, five players that qualify for the leaderboard are posting higher OBPs than SLGs: Willy Taveras, Gregor Blanco, Chone Figgins, Jason Kendall, and Ryan Theriot. To no surprise, these five players have combined for a whopping six home runs this year. If a player has absolutely no power yet still holds down a major league job, he either must play Ozzie Smith-caliber defense, or serve as a menace on the basepaths. As we might expect, while these five combine for just about half the amount of home runs Ryan Howard has over the last month, they have stolen 141 bases between them.

Curious to see if players have posted a higher OBP than SLG for an extended period of time, I probed the Baseball Reference Play Index, looking for anyone from 1983-2008 with at least 3,000 PA. The following thirteen names surfaced:

1. Dave Magadan, .390/.377
2. Willie Randolph, .375/.347
3. Quilvio Veras, .372/.362
4. Luis Castillo, .367/.356
5. Walt Weiss, .351/.326
6. Ozzie Smith, .351/.346
7. Mark McLemore, .349/.341
8. Jose Oquendo, .346/.317
9. Otis Nixon, .343/.314
10. Wally Backman, .343/.335
11. Garry Pettis, .332/.309
12. Darren Lewis, .323/.322
13. Felix Fermin, .305/.303

Pretty safe to say these guys fit the bill described above, as either defensive wizards, menaces on the basepaths, or utility players that can fill any and all gaps for teams. While there were thirteen players that have posted a higher OBP than SLG over 3000+ PA, the number seems relatively small given a 25-26 year span. None of these players are hall of famers, other than Ozzie, but it is still pretty remarkable they were able to stick around for so long with next to no power in their arsenal.

Due to the trades of CC Sabathia and Paul Byrd, as well as the injuries to Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona, the Indians have cycled a lot of arms through their rotation this year. The newest of those arms, Scott Lewis, has made quite the splash, tossing 14 shutout innings in his two appearances so far. Neither the Orioles nor the Twins have been able to hit him so far, and as a kid who doesn’t turn 25 for a few more weeks, he’s getting some fans excited about his potential for 2009 and beyond.

However, a look beyond his early run prevention leads to some warning signs. Lewis has the classic pitch-to-contact skillset of a guy with fringe stuff – he’s not walking anyone (1.29 BB/9) but not missing bats either (5.14 K/9, 5.7% Swinging Strike%), and like most guys without a real fastball, hitters don’t have any problems putting the ball in the air against him (57.9% FB%).

Throwing strikes is nice, but if you’re giving up a ton of flyballs, you’re going to give up home runs. Lewis has managed to keep all 19 of his outfield flies in the park so far, but that’s just simply not going to continue – we’d have expected him to give up a couple of home runs by now, given this skillset, and if he was giving up 1.29 HR/9 instead of his current 0.00, he wouldn’t look quite so sparkly.

As we can see from the pitch data here on Fangraphs, Lewis’ fastball averages 86.5 MPH and his change and curve are both in the mid-70s. This is exactly the kind of stuff we’d expect from a strike-throwing flyballer, and it’s not the repertoire of a guy with much chance to get better.

Lewis is what he is – a younger, more orthodox Paul Byrd. He can pound the strike zone and look okay when the ball stays in the park, but his upside is that of a 5th starter. He can be useful as an innings sponge at the back of a rotation, but it’s unlikely a team would ever want Lewis pitching a meaningful inning in a playoff series.

While we have discussed here how solid or awful performance very early in the season can “make or break” the reputation of a player for that given season, so too can similar performance at the end of the season. Most don’t remember that Carlos Delgado stunk early on, but since they cannot remember exactly when he started performing well, feel it has been for a very long time, maybe all year. A player in a somewhat similar situation is Ryan Howard. Howard, the Phillies first baseman and former NL MVP, got off to an extremely slow start, but has been so good recently that he is now creeping his way into award discussions.

Over the last 30 days, Howard is second in baseball with a 1.41 WPA/LI, leads baseball with both 11 home runs and 29 RBI, and has added 10 doubles as well. While RBIs are not the greatest evaluative tool, they are gospel to the mainstream, and he is not disappointing in that area. In this span, he has hit .291/.381/.709, a 1.090 OPS.

His overall WPA/LI is just 2.08, meaning that prior to this recent 30-day stretch, Howard had gone the whole season being no more than 2/3 of a win better than an average hitter. Sure, he has 44 HR and 133 RBI, and seems to be on a streak hot enough of helping him reach 48-50 longballs, but his numbers have taken serious hits. In 2006, he posted a .425 OBP/.659 SLG. Last year, a .392 OBP/.584 SLG. This year, however, even with the home run and doubles and RBIs, his slash line included a .332 OBP/.526 SLG. His batting average over the last three years has gone from .313 to .268 to its current .244.

Since his extra-base hits appear to be the same, it seems that Howard is just plain hitting less. His BABIP helps explain that, as it ranged from .336-.363 in 2005-07, and is just .283 today. Add to that his dearth of walks this year—108 in 2006, 107 in 2007, just 74 in 2008—and it’s no wonder why his slash line has plummeted. On the season, his .858 OPS is not terrible, but many would claim his numbers are much better based on how great he looks right now, “when it matters.” This same group likely would not believe that teammate Jayson Werth, with an .881 OPS, has a higher count in the same metric.

As an analyst, it’s important to remember that Howard’s dominance in the month of September so far does not come close to telling the whole story. As a fan, however, it is very exciting for this guy to finally start performing like everyone in the Philadelphia area has wanted him to for months. If the Phillies make the playoffs this year, he is definitely going to receive MVP votes, as unjustified as it may be, but that’s how it seems to go. Perform tremendous early on and stay the course for the rest and your reputation will remain in tact or perform tremendous at season’s end and it’s all anyone will remember.

After five disastrous appearances earlier in the season, the Tigers optioned Dontrelle Willis to the minors to overhaul his delivery and try to regain his form as a major league pitcher. Last night, he returned to the majors – let’s take a look at the start of his comeback.

Willis managed to get through 5 innings of work, giving up only two hits and three runs, but walked five and struck out four. Command was still a huge problem, as he threw almost as many balls (42) as strikes (47). Unbelievably, however, his five walks (out of 22 batters faced, or 22%) was a significant improvement over his early season performances, where he walked 21 of the 58 batters he faced (36%). You know you’re having a bad year when you can point to a 9.00 BB/9 and say “hey, it’s improvement”.

At this point, it’s pretty clear that his issues are more than just physical. He managed to limit his walk rate to just 10% in the minors, so he’s physically capable of throwing the ball over the plate. However, he’s been unable to find that rhythm against major league hitters, and the history of other pitchers who have had mental struggles with their command isn’t exactly pretty.

The Tigers owe Willis another $20 million to cover the 2009 and 2010 seasons, so it’s likely that they’ll continue working with D-Train to try to get him back on track and throwing strikes. But, once it becomes a mental issue instead of a physical one, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it will ever get fixed.

They should be somewhat encouraged that he was able to get through 5 innings against a good Texas line-up, but he’s got throw strikes far more often if he’s going to get major league hitters out with any consistency. Getting back on the big league mound was just the first step – the big test will be figuring out if he can ever find his command in the majors again.

On October 29th of 2007, the Braves swapped Edgar Renteria over to the Tigers in exchange for Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez. Some were critical of the trade from the Braves perspective, but they’ve certainly come up with the bigger end of the stick in all aspects for 2008. For now, let us just take a look at Jurrjens.

Jair made a brief appearance in the Tigers 2007 rotation, making seven starts and flashing a dismal 13-11 strikeout to walk ratio while hitting a batter and tossing a pair of wild pitches. Jurrjens earned the call up based on a solid season in Double-A at the age of 21 so the Tigers had him skip Triple-A and make some starts at the tail end of the season.

Upon his move to Atlanta, Jurrjens was regarded as a pitcher with middle of the rotation upside and perhaps another year or so before that level was supposed to be reached. What has happened instead is Jurrjens taking a leap forward and coming a co-ace with Tim Hudson of the Baves rotation. Where has the performance come from? Well, Jurrjens’ 2007 strikeout ratio was 20%. In Double-A. One year later and he’s posting an 18% in the big leagues, far surpassing what was expected from him so soon.

Furthermore, Jurrjens had been a pronounced groundballer in the minors and that returned to form in 2008, climbing fourteen points over the 2007 figure that he posted with the Tigers. Seemingly overnight, Jurrjens turned into a a 7K / 3BB / 0.6HR pitcher in the big leagues at the tender age of 22. One season is still too small a sample to be sure, but it looks like the future is bright for Jurrjens and you can chalk up another win on a pitching trade for the Braves.

Last week, Matthew examined the idea of anchoring, or how our perception of a player’s performance on the whole can largely be influenced by very good or very poor production in the first month of the season. No matter what happens from that point forward, unless the player in question belongs to “our” team, we are going to instinctively jump back to the April performance to gauge how he is doing. It is with this in mind that I bring up Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, the offensively-talented youngster that is usually thought of as a force to be reckoned with when he steps up to the plate.

From 2005-2007, Cabrera posted OPS counts ranging from .947-.998, exhibiting the kind of patience and power that makes any fan of an opposing team feel uneasy. After an off-season trade from the Marlins to the Tigers, some speculated that the change of scenery, or the change in leagues that is, may effect his numbers, much like those of Carlos Beltran and Adrian Beltre. Now, Beltran and Beltre had poor inaugural seasons with their new teams but bounced back quite nicely after that. The Tigers got off to an incredibly disappointing start, and Cabrera’s numbers in April were not necessarily indicative of his proven track record.

He was hitting .270/.359/.470, an .829 OPS, with 5 doubles and 5 home runs. His relatively slow start, coupled with the poor performance of the team, led many to believe this speculation was coming true, and that Cabrera would have a down season. Since May 1st, Cabrera has hit .293/.350/.543, an .893 OPS, with 27 doubles and 28 home runs. On the whole, that brings his seasonal line to .289/.351/.530, an .882 OPS, with 32 doubles and 33 home runs, numbers very similar to those he posted in 2004, his first full year in the majors. In fact, his current OPS+ of 130 is the same as it was back in 2004.

His line has definitely improved since April, but it does not appear that anyone has realized. Not many know he’s got 33 jimmy-jacks this year, or that his ISO of .241 is the second-highest of his career. They just know that he had a slower-than-usual April, and are basing assessments off of that. Granted, his season is well off the Marcel projection of .328/.408/.558, a .966 OPS, but there are some interesting reasons why. First, his BB % is the lowest it has been in a full season in his career, meaning quite simply that he isn’t walking as much. That is one reason his OBP is much lower—the SLG is actually quite similar to year’s past, but the OBP is off. Additionally, his BABIP has ranged from .330-.382 in his career, even being projected at .371 this year. As of right now, it is .312, still technically above average but much lower than what he has established himself capable of. Because of this, not as many hits are falling in, which affects all three components of the slash line.

Cabrera is on a new team, at a new fielding position, in the league with superior talent. All three of those factors could play a big part in his performance this year, or they could have nothing to do with them. If the BABIP is any indication, it seems like an outlier. He could very well “bounce back” next season and post numbers similar to those in Florida, as his true talent level would suggest, but he will need to be a bit more patient at the plate, swinging at less pitches out of the zone, as his percentage is higher this year. A team could do much worse than employ a first baseman with an OPS right around .900, but Cabrera has shown himself capable of so much more than that. His early season performance may still be affecting his current seasonal reputation, but he is still having a very good year, one extremely similar to his 2004 campaign.

As we talked about this morning, Carlos Zambrano had the best pitching performance of the day yesterday, throwing a no-hitter against the Astros. But it might not have been the most remarkable performance of the day – that award has to go to Radhames Liz, who tossed eight shutout innings at the Twins. He gave up five hits and walked a batter, so he clearly wasn’t as good as Zambrano, so why is this performance notable?

Because, before yesterday, Liz had been the biggest disaster of any starting pitcher in baseball this year. He entered the game with a 7.75 ERA in 65 innings, spanning 14 starts for the Orioles. He was averaging less than five innings per start on the season and had given up at least two runs in every single appearance on the year. His longest appearance, before yesterday, was 6 1/3 innings against the Pirates back on June 14th. He gave up four runs in that appearance.

His average game score for the season was 38. His FIP was a staggeringly horrible 6.88. He walked a bunch of guys, gave up a lot of home runs, and didn’t strike out that many batters. He also struggled to strand the runners he put on base. Even though he threw hard, he got hit harder. He wasn’t a major league quality pitcher.

And then, yesterday, facing a Twins team fighting for their playoff lives, he did the best impression of a major leaguer that we’ve ever seen him do. He threw strikes, got groundball outs, and managed to keep the ball in the yard. He got within three outs of a shutout – not bad for a guy who had never pitched into the 8th inning before.

Despite yesterday’s performance, Liz has still been a total disaster this year – he’s at -1.58 WPA/LI despite only getting 15 starts. Over a full season, this kind of performance would be about 3.5 wins below an average pitcher, or about a win and a half below replacement level. Liz’s ’08 season is truly one of the worst we’ve ever seen, but for one shining day, he actually showed some major league ability.

Congratulations to Liz – hopefully this isn’t the highlight of your career.

The Sacramento River Cats repeated as Pacific Coast League (Triple-A) champions on the weekend after defeating Oklahoma (Texas) in the fourth game of a best-of-five series.

It was the left-handed arm of one of Oakland’s top pitching prospects that helped to lead the team to victory, as Brett Anderson snared two victories in the series despite having never pitched in a Triple-A game before the playoffs began.

In fact, Anderson, 20, opened the season in High-A ball where he made 14 appearances (13 starts) and allowed 68 hits in 74 innings. He walked 18 and struck out 80 with an average fastball, three pitches that can be plus at times: curve ball, slider, change-up, as well as excellent command.

Anderson was then promoted to Double-A where he made six starts and allowed 27 hits in 31 innings. He walked nine and stuck out 38. Obviously impressed by the 20-year-old, who was acquired from Arizona last off-season in the Dan Haren trade, the Oakland decision makers promoted Anderson to Triple-A for the playoffs.

He made his first appearance in relief during the first-round series against Salt Lake (Los Angeles AL). He pitched four innings of relief and allowed three runs on six hits and two walks. He also struck out three and pitched well enough to earn his first career save.

With his feet wet, Anderson was then inserted into the starting rotation for the PCL championship series and he started Game 1. He worked five innings and allowed two runs on six hits and a walk. He added three strikeouts and took the victory against a lineup that included a number of minor league veterans, including Ryan Roberts, and Chris Shelton, as well as prospects like Max Ramirez, and John Mayberry.

In Game 4, Anderson was even better as he pitched seven strong innings and allowed just two runs on five hits and three walks. He added three more strikeouts and induced 11 groundball outs, compared to six flyball outs.

To the Sacramento Bee newspaper, manager Todd Steverson said of Anderson, “He stepped up. Throwing in the series-clinching game and being able to keep his poise the way he did, he’s got a bright future.”

Not even old enough to drink, Anderson recorded two wins and a save in his first three Triple-A games against two of the top teams in the league. He has a bright future, indeed.