Continuing on from my look at the duo of Derek Lowe and Javier Vazquez atop Atlanta’s rotation, I had planned tonight to highlight the performances of Zack Greinke and Gil Meche at the head of the Kansas City Royal’s rotation. Then Gil Meche had to go and get rocked tonight. Oops. Skipping right over that (no, I’ll come back to it), let us look at what these two have done so far.

Coming into play today, Zack Greinke led the major leagues with a 1.45 FIP and Gil Meche was sitting not too far behind in fourth at 1.82. tRA, another pitching metric that takes batted ball profiles into account, agrees with FIP, ranking Greinke 3rd and Meche 5th in baseball. Clearly, these two have been among the best pitchers this season. This should not come as too big of a surprise seeing that Meche and Greinke both ranked inside the top 25 pitchers by FIP last season as well.

Zach Greinke has upped his strikeout rate to almost one out of every three batters faced while simultaneously chipping away at his walk rate slightly as well. Greinke’s batted ball profile has not moved much, but he has yet to allow a home run which is the main culprit in keeping his FIP so deflated. That is certainly not going to hold up and given the little change so far, it would not be outlandish to still expect a repeat of 2008 from Greinke. Of course, that’s still a fantastic season.

Before today, Gil Meche’s success had been tied to cutting his walk rate by more than half while slightly upping his strikeout rate, sort of the opposite good version of Greinke’s season to date. However, Meche walked five of 22 batters faced today which more than doubles his walk rate and bring it to just under his 2008 level. He did manage to avoid yielding any home runs though, keeping his season total at zero along with Greinke. The difference there is that Meche has seen a dramatic increase in ground balls, continued today, going from a ground ball rate in the low 40s to mid 50s so far in 2009. If Meche can hold that rate, even though he will eventually start allowing home runs, he will be on track to see a legitimate improvement from his already solid 2008 numbers.

Last night, Dexter Fowler ran wild against the San Diego Padres, becoming just the 18th player in the last 55 years to steal at least five bases in a single game. The rookie sensation continues to demand that he be penciled into the line-up, as he now has a .416 wOBA through his first 62 plate appearances of the year. Even with a crowded outfield, the Rockies are going to have a hard time keeping Fowler out of the line-up.

However, this post isn’t about Fowler. This post is about Chris Young. The tall pitching one, not the hack-at-everything center field version. See, Young was on the mound for the Padres last night, and while he only lasted three innings, that was long enough for the Rockies to steal eight bases off of him.

Yes, the Rockies stole eight bases in three innings off of Young. They didn’t attempt a steal after he left the game. They weren’t running on the Padres catcher, Nick Hundley, who had to feel fairly helpless as he watched his CS% go through the floor. They were running on Young, who has one of the slowest deliveries to the plate in baseball history.

After last night’s track meet, opposing baserunners are now 14 for 14 in stolen base attempts off of Young this year. This isn’t new, though – in his career, Young has had 131 bases stolen off of him, and 13 runners have been gunned down while he was on the mound. That’s a 91% success rate.

It’s even worse if you look at recent history. Since the beginning of the 2007 season, opposing runners are 73 for 75 in stolen base attempts against Young. That’s a 97% (!) success rate.

Given this, it’s fairly obvious that teams aren’t running on Young enough. The breakeven rate of stealing a base is somewhere around 75%, and anything over 80% is certainly adding value. With a recent 97% success rate, it’s almost impossible that other managers aren’t leaving runs on the table by not running on Young more frequently.

The Rockies have some guys with speed, so they were able to execute a game plan that should be typical when Young takes the mound. Everyone short of David Ortiz should be stealing on practically pitch Young throws. Every baserunner he puts on should be thinking second base.

Quite simply, Young is worse at holding runners than anyone else in baseball is at any other skill. He’s historically awful, and opposing managers need to take a page from Clint Hurdle and make him pay for it.

2008 Draft Slot: 30th overall
Top Pick: Casey Kelly, RHP/SS, Florida high school
Best Pick: Casey Kelly
Keep an Eye On: Derrick Gibson, SS, Delaware high school
Notes: Based on pure potential and athleticism, the Red Sox had a massively-successful draft. With that said, most of the players are young and extremely raw, like Derrick Gibson, Casey Kelly, Pete Hissey, and Ryan Westmoreland. The club did a nice job of balancing that out with college picks like Bryan Price.

2007 Draft Slot: 55th overall (supplemental first round)
Top Pick: Nick Hagadone, LHP, Washington U
Best Pick: Nick Hagadone
Worst Pick: Chris Province, RHP, Southeastern Louisiana (4th round)
Notes: It’s a little crazy that Nick Hagadone is still the top pick from the draft considering the time he missed due to Tommy John surgery. The other players drafted, though, have been slow to develop. Don’t be surprised if the best player from this draft ends up being first baseman Anthony Rizzo. This draft would have been even stronger at the time if the organization had been able to sway top prep players like catcher Yasmani Grandal and pitcher Nick Tepesch to sign, both of whom were considered second-round talents but were drafted after the 25th round due to signability concerns.

2006 Draft Slot: 27th overall
Top Pick: Jason Place, OF, South Carolina high school
Best Pick: Justin Masterson, RHP, San Diego State (2nd round)
Worst Pick: Kris Johnson, LHP, Wichita State (supplemental 1st round)
Notes: Kris Johnson’s stuff has not been the same in pro ball thanks to injuries. Justin Masterson has definitely been the best player so far, but Daniel Bard could have something to say about that before too long. Some kid named Matt LaPorta failed to come to terms after being selected in the 14th round.

2009 Draft Slot: 28th overall
Draft Preference (2006-08): Best available player
MLB Club Need: Catching, third base, shortstop
Organizational Need: Left-handed pitching, Second base, Left field
Organizational Strength: Shortstop, Right-handed pitching, First base
Notes: With a history of picking at the end of the draft, Boston will no doubt take the best player available, which could very well be a Top 10-15 player, in terms of talent, who slid due to signability concerns. The club can also have the satisfaction of choosing one pick before the rival New York Yankees. Unlike in recent years, Boston does not have a bunch of supplementary picks so it will have to make the most of its selections, which is not a concern for the well-run, smart organization.

Andruw Jones went 0 for 4 last night. This year, that’s newsworthy, which is a pretty remarkable occurrence given how bad Jones was last year. That 0 for 4 lowered his 2009 line to .370/.514/.778. This is a guy who had a .505 OPS last year. His OBP is currently higher than that.

Yes, it’s only 35 plate appearances, but it’s 35 amazingly good plate appearances. Jones has walked more times than he’s truck out, posting a 7/6 BB/K rate. He has seven extra base hits in nine games. Last year, he had 12 extra base hits in 75 games.

Jones was a walking disaster, out of shape and unable to play at a major league level. The Dodgers paid him to go away. For the most part, baseball gave up on him. Andruw’s out to prove them all wrong, and he’s off to an amazing start.

Even with the small sample, the 2008 version of Andruw Jones was simply not capable of this kind of performance. He didn’t have enough life in his bat to get around on fastballs, and the result was an enormous jump in his strikeout rate and groundball rate. Through the first few weeks of 2009, both of those are back towards his career norms, making 2008 look like a massive outlier.

He’s making contact again, but more importantly, he’s hitting the ball hard. The Dodgers have to be wondering where this was a year ago, because right now, Jones looks as good as he ever has. We talked about the potential for him to pull a Jermaine Dye and rebound in a big way… that looks more likely every day.

Talent doesn’t just evaporate. Jones earned his way to the majors at 19 because he was a remarkably gifted individual. Those abilities are still in there. Kudos to the Texas Rangers for giving him an opportunity to find them again.

Run distribution over a given season is an amusing thing. Most offenses are judged off their seasonal runs scored average, but that’s often a bit misleading, as Studes showed us a while back. So far this season, despite being nearly a month engaged, the San Francisco Giants are yet to score 70 runs. In fact, the Astros, Diamondbacks, Athletics, and Reds have yet to score even 75 runs. On the other hand the only team to score more than 120 runs is the Blue Jays of all teams.

125 runs for the Jays, 65 for the Giants, that’s not a perfect 2:1 ratio, but it’ll work. What you see below is a run distribution chart. Basically, I took the amount of runs scored, plugged in how many games Team X scored Y amount of runs, divided that amount of games by the total amount of games played, and bam, we have liftoff. What’s the difference between the best and worse run producing lineups so far It’s important to note that while the Jays have played three additional games, the Giants are not being punished for a less-hectic schedule.

The Jays offense has scored 4 or 5 runs in nearly a combined 40% of their games. Compare that to the Giants ability to score 4+ runs, and you end up seeing that the Jays are scoring 4 or 5 runs in nearly more games than the Giants are scoring at least four. Interestingly, the two are close to equal on the amount of one run games while the Giants are blowing the Jays out of the water in two run games.

The big key to the difference: the Jays have yet to end a game with zero on the scoreboard, the Giants are about 5% of the time.

One of my biggest pet peeves involving baseball fandom is how we take the great players for granted and come to expect incredible performances instead of treasuring them. Newer players experiencing similarly solid campaigns or players that come from out of nowhere seem sexier and often cause us to look past the tremendous players that produce at high levels each season. Pitchers like Roy Halladay and Johan Santana have been excellent for quite some time but they lost plenty of spotlight last season thanks to breakout years from Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee.

This isn’t to say that Lee nor Lincecum did not deserve their accolades last season but rather that the proven aces who have helped carry their teams for several seasons should not be the Woody tossed aside for the Buzz Lightyear. Last night I wrote about how I cannot stand the “next Cliff Lee” posts and a major contributing factor is that one of the pitchers most likely to post numbers reminiscent of Lee’s last year is Johan Santana, who is still really good.

Many thought he had entered a decline phase in 2007 thanks to a career-worst 3.82 FIP. Once the home run rate is normalized, Santana’s 3.55 xFIP in 2007 was actually very similar to his marks the previous two seasons. When he experienced a sharp dropoff in strikeout and uptick in BB/9 last season, in the more pitcher-friendly senior circuit, those who suggested the decline felt even more confident about their beliefs. An xFIP of 3.83 did not help matters either.

In 2007, Johan produced +4.6 wins. Last season, +4.8 wins. What people are missing when suggesting Santana is overrated is that the worst season in his career as a starter still equaled the well documented efforts of Cole Hamels last season and fell just a bit shy of Derek Lowe’s very stellar 2008 season.

Santana’s last two seasons have not been of the same ilk as his +7.5 or more win seasons from 2004-06, but his incredibly high level of performance became so consistent that those following the game expected it to occur forever; when he “declined” to around +5 wins he was deemed a disappointment. Comfort levels are bad when it comes to baseball because fans don’t realize how good they have it to be able to watch superstars on a daily or weekly basis.

Through four starts this season, nobody outside of Kansas City has been better than Santana and Johan would have to be the consensus pick to sustain some semblance of the early season scrumtrulescence. In all honesty, I hope Johan continues this hot streak just to silence those who have deemed him terribly overrated or think he had little left in the tank.

CHONE pegged Santana to post a 3.45 FIP in 208 innings this season, numbers that would likely result in around +4.5 wins. Through four starts, he has already amassed approximately one third of that total, racking up +1.3 wins in 25.2 innings of work. He is not going to finish the season with a sub-1.50 FIP or a 0.70 ERA but the way he is throwing the ball right now portends success more closely resembling his 2004-06 dominance.

The bottom line is that Johan Santana is still an incredible pitcher and might very well be the best in the sport. Pitchers should not be expected to produce +7.5 wins in every season of their career and thus should not be considered busts or overrated upon a dropoff to a fantastic win value somewhere between +4.5 and +5 wins.

Cliff Lee had, by all accounts, a fantastic 2008 season en route to a Cy Young Award. What made his performance more remarkable was how he seemingly came out of nowhere, a back end of the rotation type of pitcher without any history of complete and utter dominance. Unfortunately, his success last season also paved the way for a wide array of speculation with regards to which pitcher will repeat such a turnaround this season.

Double unfortunately, many of those doing the speculating lack some sort of uniform criteria, leading to several names being floated that realistically fail to match the exactitudes of Lee’s season.

Pitchers like Zack Greinke, Josh Johnson and Chad Billingsley are mentioned the most often. All three of these righties have been dominant in April but do not really have that “Cliff Lee” feel in that they are fairly recently removed from prospect status. Lee experienced a bit of success in the majors for several seasons before an injury plagued 2007 and a dominant 2008; guys like Greinke, Johnson and Billingsley simply do not fit that bill.

Greinke suffered from depression early in his career, rebounded for a very stellar 2008 campaign and has allowed just one unearned run in four starts this season. That doesn’t place him in the same category as Lee. Greinke isn’t a non-descript pitcher suddenly becoming an ace but rather an ace in the making living up to his potential. The same can be said for Billingsley, whom many have been high on for over two years now. Johnson looked dominant before injuries got the best of him so he, too, does not belong in such conversations.

If people are really looking to try and find the “next Cliff Lee” they need to include back end pitchers with a smidgeon of success in their past who have looked solid so far. Someone like Wandy Rodriguez comes to mind. If Rodriguez finishes this season with incredible numbers then his season would have a similar feel to Lee’s. Looking for someone to replicate what Lee did goes beyond someone posting incredible numbers who is not an established ace like Johan Santana or Roy Halladay and too many analyses are failing to make this distinction.

Case in point, speculating on which pitchers are going to have breakout seasons and cement themselves as horses capable of carrying a team is fine… just do not label such speculations as searching for the next Cliff Lee. Or if such a label is involved, make sure the pitchers being discussed are actually in the same category as Lee and not just young pitchers coming into their own.

As the Arizona Diamondbacks proved last year, you can’t win a division in April. They finished 20-8 after the first month of the season with a league best +56 run differential. They had a 5.5 game lead over the second place Dodgers and looked like the best team in baseball. Their young players were hitting, their starters were dominating, and their bullpen was keeping leads safe.

It would be the only month of the year where everything clicked, as they finished 82-80 and watched the Dodgers surge past them to take the NL West. The D’Backs were the best team in April, but it wasn’t enough to get them to the playoffs. There are just too many variables for a team to lock up a division in April.

A team can certainly lose a division in April, though. The “it’s still early” mantra doesn’t hold if you dig yourself a hole too large to overcome in five months. The 2009 Diamondbacks are pretty close to proving that.

They currently sit at 7-11, 5.5 games behind the first place Dodgers. They could take comfort in the fact that the Dodgers were able to overcome an equal hole last year, but the circumstances of their positions are not the same. The Dodgers played well last April, posting a +30 run differential that showed they were better than their 14-13 record in the first month of the year. The D’Backs have posted a -25 run differential, which suggests that they have earned their .389 winning percentage.

Adding injury to insult, the D’Backs are going to be without Brandon Webb for at least the next six weeks. His original diagnosis was “no problem”, which was then adjusted to “he’ll miss a start”, and now has become “won’t throw for three weeks at a minimum”. At this point, assuming that Webb will be able to return in June and pitch at ace-type levels is not a very good bet.

Webb is clearly Arizona’s best player, and subtracting him for six weeks and then projecting some level of reduced performance for the rest of the season necessitates that we change how well we expect Arizona to play over the remainder of the season. Before the season started, CHONE had Arizona as a 79 win team. Given their 7-11 start, we’d expect them to finish with 77 wins if CHONE’s opinion of their roster hadn’t changed at all from Opening Day.

It has, however, changed, thanks to Webb’s injury. Replacing one of the best pitchers in baseball with Yusmeiro Petit for even just six weeks will cost Arizona at least one win, and Webb’s diminished projection could cost them another in the second half of the season. So, an updated CHONE projection accounting for Webb’s injury would have the D’Backs finishing with about 75 wins.

CHONE didn’t like the Dodgers all that much before the season started, projecting them to finish with 82 wins. However, their strong start adds three wins to that projection, and even if we assume they will immediately regress to Opening Day CHONE expectations, they’d finish with 85 wins.

Arizona isn’t trying to make up a 5.5 game gap – they’re trying to make up a 10 game gap. They weren’t as good as the Dodgers before the season started when Webb was healthy, and they certainly aren’t as good now without him. When you add in the 5.5 game hole they’ve already dug themselves, and it’s extremely unlikely that the D’Backs will win the NL West this year.

They couldn’t win the division with quality play last April, but they very well could have lost it with their struggles this April.

Welcome to the first edition of the Amateur Draft Reviews. This series will review the past three drafts for each organization for interesting facts and trends. It also serves as a preview for the upcoming MLB Amateur Draft, which takes place on June 9 and 10.

2008 Draft Slot: 1st overall
Top Pick: Tim Beckham, SS, Georgia high school
Best Pick: Tim Beckham
Keep an Eye On: Jake Jefferies, C, UC Davis (3rd round)
Notes: Jake Jefferies, a left-handed hitting catcher, has hit well in pro ball and has a good approach. Defensively, the only real question mark is his average arm. He is currently playing in A-ball. Tim Beckham’s older brother Jeremy Beckham was drafted in the 17th round and they are playing together in 2009 at A-ball.

2007 Draft Slot: 1st overall
Top Pick: David Price, LHP, Vanderbilt University
Best Pick: David Price
Worst Pick: Will Kline, RHP, University of Mississippi (2nd round)
Notes: You can’t fault Will Kline for being listed as the worst pick; he had shoulder surgery almost immediately after signing. His last pitch was thrown in 2007 and he was winless in nine starts. The team scored big by finding prep pitchers Nick Barnese (California high school) in the third round and Matthew Moore (New Mexico high school) in the eighth round.

2006 Draft Slot: 3rd overall
Top Pick: Evan Longoria, 3B, Long Beach State
Best Pick: Evan Longoria
Worst Pick: Josh Butler, RHP, University of San Diego (2nd round)
Notes: Perhaps overworked while leading the staff (which included Brian Matusz) at San Diego, Josh Butler has struggled to stay healthy and consistent in pro ball. He was traded to Milwaukee for Gabe Gross (a former 1st round pick of the Jays) in 2008. OF Desmond Jennings (Mississippi CC) looks like a steal in the 10th round. RHP Heath Rollins (Winthrop U) was a nice find – especially value-wise – in the 11th round.

2009 Draft Slot: 30th
Draft Preference (2006-08): None, the club does not favor college or prep players
MLB Club Need: Relievers, catcher
Organizational Need: First, second and third basemen, Left-handed pitching
Organizational Strength: Outfielders, Shortstops, Right-handed pitching
Notes: It will be interesting to see how Tampa Bay does with one of the last picks of the first round after being at the top of the draft for the life of the franchise. The club has always had a knack for finding solid pitching in the later rounds so that’s a good sign. You can point to TB’s high draft slot as a reason for drafting so well in the first round (David Price, Evan Longoria) but a lot of club’s have buckled under the pressure of owning a top-five pick.

We learned quite a bit last week, so we’ll go with an abbreviated intro and get right to the knowledge.

The Florida Marlins miss the Washington Nationals.

After starting the season 11-1 on the strength of six games against baseball’s worst franchise, the Marlins failed to win a single game this week once they were required to play actual major league franchises. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia both swept the Marlins, as Florida’s offense went into hybernation, posting a .218/.289/.330 line. Opening week sensation Emilio Bonaficio regressed to the mean faster than anyone could have expected, as the Pirates and Phillies held him to a pitiful .190 wOBA. Live by the BABIP, die by the BABIP.

The Boston Red Sox don’t need easy schedules to win a lot of games.

The anti-Marlins, the Red Sox proved that their early season struggles didn’t mean anything, as they went a perfect 6-0 this week to up their current winning streak to 10 games. They did it in impressive fashion, as well, beating the tar out of a decent Orioles team, thumping the Twins in Minneapolis, and then sweeping the Yankees over the weekend. Their offense was ridiculous – .338/.437/.612 over the six games they played. Essentially, they had a line-up of nine Albert Pujols‘ – it’s no wonder they won most of the games rather easily. Jason Varitek was their worst hitter, and he hit .200/.304/.500 for a .348 wOBA. When that’s your worst performance, you’re going to score a lot of runs.

Victor Marintez is back.

After a miserable 2008 season that saw him miss time with injuries and his power mysteriously disappear, Martinez is destroying the ball again. His season line stands at .397/.448/.654, and he’s already launched five home runs in 87 plate appearances – three more than he had all last season. His days as an everyday catcher are mostly behind him, as he’s splitting time between catcher and first base, but he’s showing that his bat will play even when he’s not catching. The Indians have had some problems in the early part of April, but Martinez is not one of them.

Albert Pujols is ridiculous.

Okay, maybe we already knew that, but if hitting .450 with three home runs wasn’t enough, Pujols also decided that he might as well lead the NL in steals. He stole three last week, just for the fun of it, tying him with Nyjer Morgan for most in the league in the last seven days. He’s posting a .489 wOBA, and if you’re wondering how the Cardinals have surged to first place despite some question marks on the pitching staff, just remember that the best player in baseball resides in Missouri. He could retire tomorrow and he’d be a Hall Of Famer. Pujols is just something else.