Tired of being pigeonholed as a reliever, Aaron Heilman has demanded a trade from the Mets, as he wants them to find a team that will give him a shot to return to his roots as a starting pitcher. Other teams have found success moving relievers back into the rotation, Ryan Dempster being the most recent success, and Heilman was a first round pick as a starter in 2001, so there will probably be a team out there that believes that he’s worth a shot as a starter.

How successful will the conversion be? First off, let’s try to determine how good of a reliever Heilman has been.

Over the last four years, Heilman has tossed 357 innings, walked 131 batters, struck out 322, and allowed 29 HR, which adds up to a 3.67 FIP. That’s solidly above average for a reliever, but doesn’t make him a true relief ace. However, he wasn’t consistently above average all four years.

From 2005 to 2007, he ran a K/BB rate of between 2.61 and 3.15, showing good enough command of his fastball/change-up combination to throw strikes while missing a decent amount of bats. He sustained a pretty low HR/FB rate, which helped him keep the ball in the yard even though he’s not a dominant groundball pitcher. His FIP for those three years was 3.34, and he was a very good setup man.

Last year, however, his walk rate went through the moon, jumping from 2.09 to 5.45, and his HR/FB rate spiked, causing him to be a bit home run prone. It could be random variation, where he just had a rough year finding the strike zone, but a quick look at his pitch selection reveals an interesting change – Heilman started throwing a lot more sliders last year, throwing them in 12% of his pitches versus just 0.4% a year prior. The change-up dropped from 37.9% to just 24%, as the slider made him more of a three pitch guy and less dependent on the change.

The slider may have helped him miss a lot more bats, but he got those gains in strikeout rate by throwing way too many pitches out of the strike zone, and the end result was a jump in walk rate that was more detrimental than the jump in strikeout rate. If the rise in use of the slider was the cause the of dramatic jump in both BB and K rates, it appears to have been too detrimental to be worth it.

It will take a full breakdown of Pitch F/x data for us to determine whether the slider was the cause of the command problems, but it seems likely that the rise of the slider usage wasn’t a coincidence.

What does this mean for Heilman as a starter? Well, there aren’t that many successful starters who rely on strictly a fastball/change-up to get by. Almost every starting pitcher has some kind of breaking ball that they can use to change the plane of a hitters eye, and if Heilman just can’t command his slider, that could be a real issue in moving him into the rotation.

As a fastball/change-up guy, he was a very good reliever. As a fastball/change-up/slider guy, he was something of a mess. It’s not enough to conclude that he doesn’t have a chance as a starter, but I’d call this a buyer beware situation.

Last night, David announced that FanGraphs is officially carrying wOBA as our newest statistical addition. For those of you who have read The Book, you’ll be familiar with wOBA, but for those of you who aren’t, here’s a brief introduction and some reasons why you should give this new, funny sounding stat a try.

First off, wOBA is a linear weight formula presented as a rate statistic scaled to On Base Percentage. Essentially, what that means is that average wOBA will always equal average OBP for any given year. If you know what the league’s OBP is, you know what the league’s wOBA is. Usually, league average falls in the .335 range – it was .332 last year, but offense was down around the game in 2008, which may or may not continue.

So, why should you care about wOBA? What makes it better than OPS or any of the more famous rate statistics that measure offensive value? The beauty of wOBA lies in linear weights. Essentially, every outcome has a specific run value that is proportional to other outcomes – a home run is worth a little more than twice as much a single, for instance. What wOBA does, as all linear weights formulas do, is value these outcomes relative to each other so that they are properly valued.

OPS, as you probably know, significantly undervalues the ability of a hitter to get on base. It treats a .330 OBP/.470 slug as equal to a .400 OBP/.400 slug, when the latter is more conducive to scoring runs. wOBA gives proper weight to all the things a hitter can do to produce value, and is a more accurate reflection of a hitter’s value.

For a practical example, let’s look at Ryan Ludwick versus Hanley Ramirez. Ludwick had a .966 OPS versus a .940 OPS for Ramirez – not a huge difference, but one most people would consider significant. If you put a lot of stock in OPS, you’d probably argue that Ludwick had a better offensive season.

However, Ramirez actually had a slightly higher wOBA, .403 to .401. This is due to the fact that Ramirez posted a .400/.540 line compared to Ludwick’s .375/.591 mark. Ramirez’s 25 point advantage in OBP was slightly more valuable than Ludwick’s 51 point advantage in SLG, and wOBA reflects this.

The other great advantage wOBA has is that it’s extremely easy to convert into run values. Simply take a player’s wOBA difference from the league average, divide by 1.15, and multiply that by how many plate appearances he got, and you have a run value above or below average for that player.

For instance, using Ramirez, who we already said had a .403 wOBA, which is 72 points higher than the 2008 NL average of .331. 0.072 / 1.15 = 0.063. 0.063 * 700 = 43.82 runs above average.

wOBA – league average wOBA divided by 1.15 times plate appearances = runs above average by linear weights. Simple, easy, and accurate. This is the joy of wOBA.

If you want a solid, context-neutral statistic that values hitting properly, wOBA is a great place to start. Some of the other great stats here on FanGraphs, such as WPA/LI and WPA, take context into account to add or subtract value based on how a hitter did in certain situations, but there are times when you just want to know how a batter did at the plate, regardless of who was on base or what the score was at the time. For those, wOBA is the perfect answer.

A few weeks ago, I ran a series here detailing the ten biggest offensive plays of the 2008 season, based on shifts in win expectancy. That is, the ten instances where the team’s probability of winning the game increased the most due to the occurrences in a single plate appearance. David DeJesus, if you recall, took home the honors of producing the top play of the season with his July 12th walkoff home run against Brandon Morrow of the Mariners.

Though several great threads developed in that series of articles, one in particular piqued my interest. This specific commenter wondered if there were any games this season during which a player accrued a WPA over 1.00; as in, was anyone worth one or more wins, in one game? Luckily, Senor Appelman was accomodating with the data, probed from the Fangraphs database, and I now have in my possession every instance from 1974-2008 during which a player’s single-game WPA met or exceeded 1.00. There are only 38 such batting games, but two of them occurred during this very season.

The bigger of the two games took place on June 7, and belonged to Cody Ross of the Florida Marlins. This also happened to the game featuring a walkoff home run from Ross that ended up #4 on the list of the biggest offensive plays of the season. Ross went 2-4 on the day, with a single, the three-run homer, a walk, and a stolen base. All told, his efforts resulted in a 1.13 WPA for the game. Ross had a solid season, especially from a power standpoint, hitting 22 home runs with a .488 SLG and .804 OPS. His seasonal WPA was 1.56, 1.13 of which belonged to this game. Essentially, outside of this game, his positive and negative win advancements amounted to a net of +0.43.

The other such instance took place two weeks later, as Kurt Suzuki of the Oakland Athletics produced to the tune of a 1.00 WPA. Suzuki went 4-5, with a single, two doubles, and a home run, en route to five runs batted in on the day. His overall WPA for the season was -1.61, meaning that outside of this game, his win advancements amounted to a net of -2.61. Even poor offensive players can win a game for their team every now and then, it seems.

Despite Ross’s advantage in the WPA department, when evaluating these two games in terms of run expectancy, the edge shifts to Suzuki. Kurt amassed 4.55 BRAA in this game, good enough for 0.509 wins based on run expectancy. Ross, however, contributed 2.62 BRAA and a 0.258 REW. And there you have it: Cody Ross not only produced the fourth biggest offensive play of the season, but that particular game saw him become one of just 38 players to produce a WPA greater than, or equal to, a full win, in a single game, since 1974; and even though Kurt Suzuki had a very poor season at the plate, he essentially won one whole game for the Athletics back on June 20.

The statistic wOBA (weight on base average) is now available in the player pages, leaderboards, team pages, my team pages, and the projections.

wOBA, created by Tom Tango, is a version of linear weights that has been weighted to fit an OBP scale. The weights have been properly adjusted by season and for the minor leagues by season and by league. For more information about wOBA, check out the links below:

Weighted On Base Average or wOBA
wOBA year-by-year calculations
Getting to Know wOBA

Over the last few days we have had plenty of time to consider which relievers for our respective teams are true mop up men. First, I asked you to help me out by identifying which relievers fit the bill, before testing those results against a neat little formula devised by TangoTiger. The formula multiplied the number of games pitched by the quotient of leverage index divided by innings pitched. The smaller the number, the more mop-uppy the pitcher. This formula produced an interesting list of pitchers that included many of the same relievers initially identified by the readers.

There were also a bunch of pitchers on the list that, according to the commenters, did not belong. It seems that many teams did not have a true mop up man, persay, but rather a few pitchers who, individually, failed to meet the 40-IP qualifier. That being said, 16 relievers still remained after removing those who did not belong: Darren O’Day, Seth McClung, Josh Rupe, Aquilino Lopez, Boof Bonser, Gary Majewski, Clay Condrey, Joel Peralta, Jon Lieber, Lance Cormier, Jason Hammel, Franquelis Osoria, Luis Vizcaino, Buddy Carlyle, Brian Tallet, and Mike Timlin.

With the list narrowed down, the next step involved determining which of these mop up men performed at the highest level in 2008, thereby earning the Fangraphs Mop Up Man of the Year Award. If this award were designated for hitters, then WPA/LI would be a very appropriate evaluative metric. Unfortunately, pitchers create their own situations, and relievers enter into previously designed situations, meaning WPA, which factors in the crucial natures of certain situations, is a much better tool. For measure, though, I also included the WPA/LI, because the true winner of this award should post good marks in both categories:

Darren O'Day      (LAA) -0.35 WPA   -0.24 WPA/LI
Seth McClung      (Mil)  0.11 WPA    0.38 WPA/LI
Josh Rupe         (Tex)  0.87 WPA    0.71 WPA/LI
Aquilino Lopez    (Det) -0.09 WPA   -0.54 WPA/LI
Boof Bonser       (Min) -0.63 WPA   -0.67 WPA/LI
Gary Majewski     (Cin) -0.19 WPA   -1.15 WPA/LI
Clay Condrey      (Phi) -0.20 WPA   -0.31 WPA/LI
Joel Peralta      (KC)  -0.93 WPA   -1.42 WPA/LI
Jon Lieber        (CHC)  0.00 WPA    0.02 WPA/LI
Lance Cormier     (Bal)  0.12 WPA    0.10 WPA/LI
Jason Hammel      (TB)   0.63 WPA   -0.41 WPA/LI
Franquelis Osoria (Pit) -1.07 WPA   -0.99 WPA/LI
Luis Vizcaino     (Col) -0.73 WPA   -0.76 WPA/LI
Buddy Carlyle     (Atl)  1.14 WPA    0.99 WPA/LI
Brian Tallet      (Tor) -0.34 WPA    0.64 WPA/LI
Mike Timlin       (Bos) -1.12 WPA   -1.08 WPA/LI

Four pitchers stand out, in particular: McClung, Rupe, Hammel, and Carlyle. Let’s take a closer look at these four:

          WPA   WPA/LI     ERA    FIP   WHIP                    
Carlyle: 1.14     0.99    3.59   3.58   1.24  59 K/26 BB in 62.2 IP
Rupe:    0.87     0.71    5.14   4.99   1.56  53 K/46 BB in 89.1 IP
Hammel:  0.63    -0.41    4.44   5.46   1.52  29 K/23 BB in 50.2 IP
McClung: 0.11     0.38    3.67   3.92   1.46  37 K/26 BB in 41.2 IP

Honestly, this isn’t even a contest, as Buddy Carlyle is, far and away, more deserving of the honor than anyone else on this list. Because of this, Buddy Carlyle of the Atlanta Braves—do a drumroll in your head—is the recipient of the 2008 Fangraphs Mop Up Man of the Year Award. Congrats, Buddy: you may not have worked out as a starting pitcher, but nobody can clean up messes or preserve the lead/deficit the way you did this past year.

There are a few things that come every winter – Chrismas, cold weather, and Brian Sabean signing a free agent over the age of 30. It never fails, as the Giants GM continues to believe the best way to rebuild is to bring in players who are heading towards the end of their careers. So, it’s tempting to look at the report that the Giants have signed Edgar Reenteria to take over at shortstop and think that this is just more of the same, but let’s take a closer look at his abilities anyway.

Renteria was a huge disappointment in Detroit last year, hitting .270/.317/.382 and posting a .308 wOBA just a year after a huge season in Atlanta. The big culprit was the loss of 62 points off his batting average – as a guy who doesn’t walk a lot and has gap power, he can’t afford to hemorrhage that many hits. At 33, such a significant drop off is the kind of thing that ends careers. However, there are reasons to think that Renteria’s got something left in the tank.

For starters, he’s one of the most consistent line drive hitters in baseball. For the last five years, his LD% has never been lower than 22.2% or higher than 23.3%. Predicting Renteria’s line drive rate is perhaps the easiest thing to do in baseball. In fact, his batted ball profile was – across the board – almost exactly equal to his career averages. Check this out:

GB%: 2008 – 45.8%, Career – 46.2%
FB%: 2008 – 32.0%, Career – 31.0%
LD%: 2008 – 22.2%, Career – 22.8%
IFFB%: 2008 – 8.5%, Career – 8.0%
HR/FB%: 2008 – 7.1%, Career – 7.4%

That’s some pretty remarkable consistency. If you can find why we should believe that Renteria fell off a cliff in ’08 in that batted ball profile, you’re a better man than me. Even the projection systems that don’t care at all about batted ball data, and just use the results of the last three years (such as the Marcel projections published here on FanGraphs) don’t believe that Renteria is finished.

His Marcel for 2009 has him projected as a .285/.345/.417 hitter, good for a .336 wOBA. That makes him, essentially, a league average hitter while playing shortstop. That’s not easy to find and quite valuable.

However, there’s the issue of how well he plays shortstop. His offense wasn’t the only thing slipping in 2008, after all. The +/- system from the Fielding Bible has Renteria dropping to -9 plays last year from -1 the year before, with his range going from average to a real problem. At 33, we wouldn’t expect Renteria to still be the same defender he was 10 years ago, so this shouldn’t be a huge surprise.

However, even if we project him as a -10 run defender at shortstop in 2009, his league average offense still makes him a +2 win player compared to a replacement level shortstop. Given a rumored price of $9 million per year for two years, the Giants are essentially paying $4.5 million per win on a short term deal, which is about what free agents were going for last winter.

For San Francisco, this isn’t a bad deal – they get a guy who should rebound and re-establish some value without any long term risk, and they fill a hole with an average player while waiting for the kids to develop.

This is also yet another sign that perhaps the 2009 market isn’t going to be a very good one for sellers, as we’ve seen no evidence of any price inflation in the transactions completed so far. The buyer’s market continues.

The Graduate: Ian Stewart | Born: April 1985 | Infielder

Only 23, Ian Stewart has been on the prospect radar since being selected 10th overall in 2003 out of a California high school. His ceiling is not as high as it used to be, but Stewart still has a lot of promise and should have a full-time gig in Colorado in 2009 at either second base, third base… or maybe even first base… depending on how the off-season plays out. In 2008 at the MLB level, Stewart hit .259/.349/.455 with an ISO of .195 in 266 at-bats. To have long-term success, he needs to produce better rates than those he accumulated in 2008: 10.1 BB% and 35.3 K%.

The Riser: Jhoulys Chacin | Born: January 1988 | Right-Handed Pitcher

In just his first full season in North America, the Venezuela native absolutely exploded and spent the second half of the season in High-A. Jhoulys Chacin will likely open 2009 in Double-A at the age of 21. This past season, he allowed just 82 hits in 111.1 innings with rates of 2.43 BB/9 and 7.92 K/9 at A-ball. Upon a promotion to High-A, Chacin allowed 61 hits and rates of 1.63 BB/9 and 8.41 K/9 in 66.2 innings. Although he was a little more hittable against better competition, his BABIP increased from .268 to .317 and his K/BB ratio was an eye-popping 5.17. With improving command, a low-90s fastball and developing secondary stuff, he has the potential to be a dominating Major League starter.

The Tumbler: Chaz Roe | Born: October 1986 | Right-Handed Pitcher

A supplemental first round selection from the 2005 draft, Chaz Roe has recently been passed by a number of pitching prospects in the system. He struggled through some injuries in 2008, a year after pitching a career-high 170 innings. Roe spent the majority of the season in Double-A, where he allowed 98 hits in 105.1 innings with rates of 2.91 BB/9 and 5.98 K/9. His walk rates have improved each of the last three seasons, but his strikeouts rates have dropped over that same period. Roe may be suited to the bullpen with a low-90s fastball and plus curveball. His change-up is lacking.

The ’08 Draft Pick: Delta Cleary | Born: August 1989 | Outfielder

Delta Cleary is your basic high-risk, high-reward player. He went undrafted until the 37th round of the 2008 draft out of junior college and the Rockies organization got him under contract thanks to a $250,000 investment. In his debut in Rookie Ball, Cleary hit .276/.315/.400 with an ISO of .124 in 105 at-bats. He posted rates of 5.4 BB% and 18.1 K%. He has a lot of work to do, but Cleary has 30-30 potential.

The ’09 Sleeper: Eric Young Jr. | Born: May 1985 | Second Baseman

Eric Young Sr. patrolled second base for the Rockies for parts of five seasons beginning in 1993 and son Eric Young Jr. could be next in line for the second base job in Colorado. The younger Young missed some time with injuries in 2008 but still managed to hit .290/.384/.392 with 46 stolen bases in 403 at-bats. He has hit more than .290 in each of the past three seasons and stolen 87 bases in 2006 and 73 bases in 2007. Young embraces the small-ball game, gets on base and is a smart base runner. After the 2008 season, he headed to the Arizona Fall League where he hit .430/.504/.640 with another 20 stolen bases in 31 games.

Up Next: The Arizona Diamondbacks

Scott Boras is known for his ridiculous assertions in an effort to boost his client’s worth on the free agent market. We’ve already talked about his hilarious Oliver Perez as Sandy Koufax argument, so today, we’ll look at his claims that Jason Varitek’s defense is so valuable behind the plate that he’s worth “Posada money”, or about $13 million a year.

The heart of Boras’ claim is that Varitek has a significant, positive influence on Boston pitchers, far more so than any other catcher, and this influence directly translates to wins on the field. He presents the ’08 Red Sox .608 Winning Percentage with Varitek behind the plate versus just a .524 Winning Percentage when he didn’t start as evidence. It doesn’t just stop there, however – if you look at the pitching performances in those respective games, there’s a massive difference.

In games where Varitek started behind the plate, the Red Sox pitching staff had a 3.94 FIP. In games where anyone else started behind the plate, the Red Sox pitching staff had a 4.80 FIP. That’s a pretty striking difference, and FIP is obviously a better measure of the team’s pitching than winning percentage. So, is Boras on to something in regards to ‘Tek?

Maybe, but the macro view of the two statistics just presented don’t help us find out. There’s all kinds of problems with using the data just presented as evidence that Varitek helps his pitchers, starting with the fact that games started by Varitek isn’t a representative random sample. He caught all of Josh Beckett’s 27 starts, 30 of 33 Jon Lester starts, and 27 of 29 Daisuke Matszaka starts. Of the 89 starts made by the Red Sox top three starters, Varitek caught 84 of them. Of the 73 starts made by the various #4 and #5 starters that Boston cycled through, Varitek only caught 36 of those.

If the Red Sox hadn’t performed better with ‘Tek behind the plate, it would have been a massive upset. When 70% of your starts come with one of the big three on the mound, it’s a virtual lock that the team will have a lower ERA with you behind the plate than when you’re not, simply due to the talent level of the pitchers that you’re catching.

So, instead of looking at the macro approach, let’s look at how each individual pitcher fared when ‘Tek was catching compared to when Kevin Cash was behind the plate. There were some huge dropoffs among some pitchers when Varitek wasn’t catching.

David Aardsma: 3.33 FIP w/Tek, 6.71 FIP w/Cash
Hideki Okajima: 3.13 FIP w/Tek, 6.06 FIP w/Cash
Julian Tavarez: 3.06 FIP w/Tek, 5.62 FIP w/Cash
Craig Hansen: 3.76 FIP w/Tek, 6.08 FIP w/Cash
Jon Lester: 3.64 FIP w/Tek, 4.60 FIP w/Cash

On the other side of the coin, the swings weren’t as large, but perhaps more interesting.

Mike Timlin: 6.37 FIP w/Tek, 3.48 FIP w/Cash
Bartolo Colon: 4.54 FIP w/Tek, 3.37 FIP w/Cash
Clay Buchholz: 4.86 FIP w/Tek, 3.90 FIP w/Cash
Daisuke Matsuzaka: 4.12 FIP w/Tek, 3.80 FIP w/Cash

Three starting pitchers did better with Cash than with Varitek, while only one did better with Varitek than Cash. If Varitek really was significantly better at calling pitches and helping his pitchers improve, wouldn’t that be manifest most strongly with the guys he prepares with ahead of time, rather than the ones that come into a game without much notice?

Still, though, the sum difference of the FIP by the pitchers that Varitek and Cash had in common was +.252 when Varitek was behind the plate. That’s a huge difference, worth about 28 runs over a full 1000 inning catcher season. If we could actually prove causation, and not just correlation, Boras’ argument for Varitek wouldn’t be all that crazy after all.

Unfortunately, we just can’t. We just don’t have precise enough tools to judge whether the performance fluctuation can be credited to Varitek, or if it was just random variation. So, while there is some evidence that the Red Sox pitchers did quite a bit better when he was behind the plate, we just can’t say with any kind of certainty that it’s a sustainable skill that will go with him wherever he plays in 2009.

Buyer beware – if you pay a significant amount of money for Jason Varitek’s catching skills, hoping that your pitching staff will magically improve, you’re betting on a hope.

Yesterday began our discussion regarding mop up pitchers, the ones that enter into blowouts and accrue innings to prevent the unnecessary usage of higher-leverage relievers. I asked for some help identifying the mop up men for several teams, as only a few existed off the top of my head, and got great feedback. One of the comments on the thread, from TangoTiger, suggested we apply the formula: GP*(LI/IP). The minimum amount of innings would be set to 40, in order to ensure these pitchers logged ample enough time to qualify.

The LI component, for those unaware, is Leverage Index, developed by the aforementioned TangoTiger. The stat essentially measures the stress level of the situation at hand. An average LI is 1.00, so when dealing with supposed mop up pitchers, of interest are the average LIs for pitchers equal to, or below, the average. Plugging it into the above formula, dividing by innings pitched, and multiplying that quotient by the total number of games pitched should, in theory, help us narrow these mop up guys down. Basically, the lower the number provided by that formula, the more mop-uppy the pitcher.

Below are the results, with the mop up number next to the name. I was only looking for the mop-uppiest pitcher on each team, so certain players with lower scores than others mentioned will not appear below:

Darren O'Day         (Angels),         0.251
Seth McClung         (Brewers),        0.279
Josh Rupe            (Rangers),        0.289
Aquilino Lopez       (Tigers),         0.301
Brian Bass           (Twins/Orioles),  0.334
Boof Bonser          (Twins),          0.343
Gary Majewski        (Reds),           0.361
Clay Condrey         (Phillies),       0.365
Joel Peralta         (Royals),         0.414
Robinson Tejeda      (Rangers/Royals), 0.426
Jon Lieber           (Cubs),           0.436
Lance Cormier        (Orioles),        0.445
Billy Sadler         (Giants),         0.464
Ryan Rowland-Smith   (Mariners),       0.478
Jason Hammel         (Rays),           0.509
Franquelis Osoria    (Pirates),        0.514
Luis Vizcaino        (Rockies),        0.523
Jeremy Affeldt       (Reds),           0.531
Buddy Carlyle        (Braves),         0.543
Nick Masset          (White Sox/Reds), 0.551
Jesus Colome         (Nationals),      0.558
Cory Wade            (Dodgers),        0.603
Doug Waechter        (Marlins),        0.624
Brian Tallet         (Blue Jays),      0.627
Chris Sampson        (Astros),         0.660
Mike Timlin          (Red Sox),        0.660
Mike Adams           (Padres),         0.763
Jensen Lewis         (Indians),        0.788
Edwar Ramirez        (Yankees),        0.799
Santiago Casilla     (Athletics),      0.926
Juan Cruz            (Diamondbacks),   0.969

This is the list generated by the suggested formula. If there are players above that you disagree with, please comment below your case for disagreement, as I would like to have a concrete list to evaluate for Monday. Then, we can identify which mop up pitcher was the best at his job in 2008, and get cracking on sending he, or his agent, an official award. Also, remember, not every team may have a specific mop up man, so some of the players on this list, especially towards the bottom may not belong in the discussion. Curious to hear your thoughts.

The Graduate: Jesse Carlson | Born: December 1980 | Left-Handed Pitcher

Southpaw reliever Jesse Carlson finally reached the Major Leagues at the age of 27 and in his second tour of duty in the Jays’ system. Originally a 15th round selection out of college by Detroit, Carlson bounced around the minors for parts of seven seasons and spent four seasons at Double-A. He received his first MLB promotion early in 2008 and ended up appearing in 69 big league games. He allowed just 41 hits in 60 innings of work with rates of 3.15 BB/9 and 8.25 K/9. A fastball-slider pitcher, Carlson actually used his slider more often than his fastball in 2008 (42.7% to 56.1%). Bill James’ projection for 2009 expects Carlson to remain a productive left-handed reliever, leaving the Jays with four quality left-handed relievers: Carlson, B.J. Ryan, Scott Downs, and Brian Tallet.

The Riser: J.P. Arencibia | Born: January 1986 | Catcher

A 2007 first-round draft pick, J.P. Arencibia is arguably one of the Top 3-5 catching prospects in all of baseball, with the Orioles’ Matt Wieters firmly at No. 1. Arencibia split 2008 between High-A ball and Double-A and hit 27 home runs and drove in 105 runs. He also significantly improved his defence and will have no problems remaining behind the plate, which was a concern during his college career. Arencibia needs to work on his patience at the plate if he is going to hit for a respectable average at the Major League level. He walked less than four percent of the time this past season and often swings at the first pitch, which is something experienced pitchers will exploit.

The Tumbler: Trystan Magnuson | Born: June 1985 | Right-Handed Pitcher

A late-blooming college reliever, Trystan Magnuson was nabbed by the Jays in the 2007 supplemental first round as a college senior for his impressive fastball. Moved to the starting rotation in 2008, Magnuson was brutal in the first half and posted an 11.85 ERA in five May starts. He settled down in the second half of the season. Overall, he allowed 91 hits in 81.2 innings and posted rates of 3.86 BB/9 and 5.40 K/9. He’ll turn 24 in June and will probably begin 2009 back in A-ball so it might be wise to converted him back to a reliever in the hopes that he can accelerate his timetable to the Majors.

The ’08 Draft Pick: Tyler Pastornicky | Born: December 1989 | Shortstop

The Jays jumped back into the prep drafting pool in 2008, after finding success in 2007 – the first year the organization had spent heavily on drafting high school players in five years. Taken in the fifth round, Tyler Pastornicky was a little more advanced than the Jays had expected and he hit .263/.348/.356 with 27 stolen bases in 50 Rookie Ball games. He also took 21 walks, while striking out just 21 times. Impressively, his offensive numbers improved in each month, from June to August, as he made adjustments. Pastornicky showed solid hands in the field too, and he made just six errors in 38 games at shortstop.

The ’09 Sleeper: Brad Emaus | Born: March 1986 | Second Baseman

There weren’t many players that improved their stocks more in 2008 than Brad Emaus. The second baseman, in just his first full season, impressed offensively despite skipping over A-ball and beginning the year in High-A ball. Emaus hit .302/.381/.463 with a .161 ISO during the regular season and then dominated the Hawaii Winter Baseball league by hitting .333/.447/.494 (and taking 17 walks compared to just seven strikeouts) in 26 games. The Jays now have some depth up the middle, as fellow second base prospect Scott Campbell also had a breakout season in Double-A. At worst, Emaus should be able to have a similar career to former A’s infielder Scott Spiezio.

Up Next: The Colorado Rockies