Eric Chavez’ career could be coming to a close soon. The list of injuries associated with Chavez is long and tiresome and this news has simply thrown gas on a debate just as silly; whether Billy Beane should have blame placed on him for the Chavez extension failing. The quick answer: no.

Chavez inked a six-year 66 million dollar extension prior to the 2004 season. The contract included a club option for 2011, raising the potential contract value to nearly 80 million. It seems like a relatively safe bet to assume that option will not be exercised in favor of a 3 million dollar buyout. Our WAR numbers only go back to 2002, meaning two seasons prior to the extension being signed, ion those Chavez posted 5.6 and 4.1 win seasons. In 2001, Chavez had about the same offensive production as 2002, a little less playing time, and who knows about defense. Even if we assume he was a league average defender you get a ~4 win player. Meaning you have three consecutive 4+ win seasons.

In 2004, Chavez would post a 5.7 win season. A year later he posted a 4.3 win season, then a 3.6 win season. From there on out, Chavez has seen his health deteriorate at a rapid piece. To date, Chavez has recorded about 9 wins under the extension, totaling 30.6 million. That leaves the A’s losing about 36 million over this and next season. Surely not what Beane imagined when he called Chavez career “[A lock]” in Moneyball, but why would Beane have imagined a ton of injuries and missed time for Chavez? Chavez had seen at least 550 plate appearances in four straight seasons and played in at least 115 game every season since being promoted for good in 1999 and at least 150 from 2000 to 2004.

There’s a risk of injury with every player, but for all purposes, Chavez was a damn good risk to take. If Chavez had lost only a half of a win every season since 2006 we would be talking about a career path lke this (extension years only):

2005 4.3 WAR ($3.4 m/win)
2006 3.6 WAR ($3.7 m/win)
2007 3.1 WAR ($4.1 m/win)
2008 2.6 WAR ($4.5 m/win)
2009 2.1 WAR (~$4.7 m/win)

That’s 62 million over the first five years with one more year and then an option year to go. A six million dollar profit. No, it’s not Evan Longoria’s deal, but it was a heck of a lot less risky. We can only project the future based on what we know at the present and from history, same with any team in the league. The key in evaluating any deal in retrospect is keeping mind what was known at the time, otherwise what’s the point if only one side has the benefit of hindsight.

Though more of a Strat-o-Matic fan than a fantasy baseball enthusiast, I aid some friends in their decision making processes for the latter from time to time. Last night, while hanging out for the Phillies-Reds game, one of these friends posed a question I have been asked countless times this season: What do you think of Shairon Martis? While my response involved nothing more than a gesture, encapsulated in the body language was my lack of confidence in the pitcher.

For fantasy purposes, I can see where Martis has value since he sports a 5-0 record, but he isn’t really offering much outside of that meaningless metric, for both fantasy and reality.

Through eight starts, Martis is averaging right around 6 IP/GS with 47.2 total innings. His 4.53 ERA and 4.58 FIP match up rather well and scream average. Now, an average pitcher is certainly an asset for a team, but I am quite skeptical that Martis can continue to perform at a league average level with his current peripherals and skillset.

For starters, his 4.34 K/9 and 3.59 BB/9 do not exactly imply dominance. Martis is also very unlikely to sustain a .269 BABIP over the course of the season, an inevitable regression that will taint his current numbers regardless of a below average strand rate bound to improve.

Further, it also isn’t as if Martis throws like Johnny Cueto, a young stud with a blazing fastball that needs to work out a few kinks before graduating from Throwing College into Pitching University. Martis throws a 90.3 mph fastball with about average movement and does not exactly resemble Derek Lowe in the groundball department. On top of that, none of his pitches, per the fantastic linear weights addition to the site, are disgusting or supremely dominant in any fashion.

Listing comparables for a pitcher proves to be a rather tall order given the numerous facets of performance that must be taken into account, but the way Martis is currently pitching seems to closely match the output of Jason Marquis last season, at least in the ERA, FIP, K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 areas. Martis gets hype because of the 5-0 record and the fact that nobody has seen him in action before, but deep down, his performance to date is akin to 2008 Jason Marquis.

ZiPS projects Martis to end the season with a 4.89 FIP in about 162 innings, which, when coupled with the projected rates of controllable skills, resembles the 2008 campaign of Tim Redding. Martis is pitching like Marquis right now with the projection of Redding for the remainder of the season.

Martis is only 22 years old, which makes him very attractive in the world of keeper leagues, be it for fantasy or Strat purposes, but he has not done anything right now to suggest that he will be anything more than a marginal fourth starter. Bear in mind that my opinion is in no way concrete after some starts this year and a few more last season, and that these feelings are derived more from questioning his selection, movement and velocity as opposed to the actual results.

To walk hitters at his current rate and remain successful, a pitcher either needs to have a flukily good year preventing the longball or strike hitters out at a rate far superior to 4.34 per nine innings. Color me skeptical that Martis’ combination of velocity, movement, and pitch selection can definitely get that job done.

2008 Draft Slot: Sixth overall
Top Pick: Kyle Skipworth, C, California high school
Best Pick: Kyle Skipworth
Keep an Eye On: Isaac Galloway, OF, California high school (8th round)
Notes: Kyle Skipworth has not performed as well as the club probably would like, but young catchers have a lot to learn – both offensively and defensively, so there is a larger learning curve. Isaac Galloway was given an above-slot deal to sign in the eighth round and he’s shown respectable numbers so far while playing in low-A ball as a 19 year old. He just needs to cut down on the strikeouts and use his plus-plus speed a little more effectively on the bases. Second-round pick Brad Hand (Minnesota high school) had a very nice debut but he’s been brutal in 2009. The southpaw hurler has a 10.23 ERA in six starts.

2007 Draft Slot: 12th overall
Top Pick: Matt Dominguez, 3B, California high school
Best Pick: Michael Stanton, OF, California high school (2nd round)
Worst Pick: Jameson Smith, C, California community college (3rd round)
Notes: It’s far too early to give up on Jameson Smith, a young catcher, but he has limited power and strikes out too much right now. Matt Dominguez continues to be a good prospect, but he has been surpassed by Michael Stanton, one of the top power-hitting prospects in all of baseball. Stanton has shown some improvements this season in high-A ball, while maintaining a good batting average, solid power and cutting down on his strikeouts (from 32.7 K% in 2008 to 26.1 in ’09). Keep an eye on OF Bryan Petersen (fourth round, UC Irvine).

2006 Draft Slot: 19th overall
Top Pick: Brett Sinkbeil, RHP, Missouri State University
Best Pick: Chris Coghlan, 2B, University of Mississippi (Supplemental first round)
Worst Pick: Brett Sinkbeil
Notes: Brett Sinkbeil has been brutal above A-ball. In the past two seasons, the right-hander has allowed 236 hits in 178.1 innings of work. He’s also struck out just about five batters per nine innings during that span of time. Chris Coghlan was a nice grab and should be the club’s second baseman of the future. They don’t have huge ceilings, but the club has found useful part-time (at the very least) players in outfielders Scott Cousins (3rd round), and John Raynor (9th), as well as pitcher Graham Taylor (10th).

2009 Draft Slot: 18th overall
Draft Preference (2006-08): Prep hitters
MLB Club Need: Starting pitching, Relief pitching, Center field
Organizational Need: Right-handed pitchers, Left-handed pitchers, Left field, Shortstop
Organizational Strength: Center field, First base
Notes: Wow, the organization really loves to take high school prospects out of California. The club has actually not been all that successful with its first-round picks in recent years but it has made up for that fact with subsequent selections. The club could really use some pitching depth in the minors, but it has not had a lot of luck drafting pitchers in recent years. The last good pitching selection was Chris Volstad out of a Florida high school in 2006. That year the club selected four other pitchers before the second round (3 prep, 1 college) and missed on Jacob Marceaux, has seen promising things from Ryan Tucker, but is still waiting to see what it got with Aaron Thompson and Sean West.

Going into the day, I was planning on writing this post about Dontrelle Willis. The guy shut out the Rangers last night for 6 1/3 innings, giving up one hit, walking two, and striking out five batters against one of the league’s best offenses. 60% of his pitches were strikes. He hit 93 on his fastball. In short, he looked like the D-Train of old, and gave the Tigers a needed shot in the arm.

Willis’ performance deserves a post of its own, but it will have to wait, because as I was writing it up, I got an email from R.J. Anderson to our author mailing list. It read as follows:

I’m guessing there’s an announcement coming soon, but the Pitch Type Linear Weights are amazing.

Wait, what? Pitch Type Linear Weights?

Since I was already on Willis’ player card, I scrolled down. Sure enough, there they are. Linear weight run values for each pitch type going back to 2003. My jaw hit the floor. If I wasn’t already married, I would propose to the FanGraphs stats section.

Want to know what pitch Dontrelle dominated with back in 2005? That would be his fastball, which was 44.1 runs above average that year. Or, for just sheer amazement, look at Zach Greinke’s pitches this year – all four of his pitches are at least +1 run better than average per 100 pitches (which is what the /c denotes), but his fastball and slider are just disgusting. Or you can look at Cliff Lee, who is dominating with his slider/cutter this year.

I’m a little bit biased, since I write here and all, but this is an amazing addition, and for us to have access to this kind of data – for free! – is mind blowing. Let’s all give David Appelman a standing ovation.

You may have noticed a new section in the player pages called “Pitch Type Linear Weights”.

First of all a huge thanks goes out to Dave Allen and his tremendous work over at baseballanalysts.com. With his help, we’ve implemented his linear weights by pitch framework using the Baseball Info Solutions pitch type data.

What this section does is it uses linear weights by count and by event and breaks it down by each pitch type so you can see in runs the actual effectiveness of each pitch.

There are two stats for each pitch type. The first one is preceded by a “w” and this is the cumulative runs above average for a particular pitch type. Then there are the statistics trailed by “/C” which denotes runs above average per 100 pitches of that type.

This is kind of a first stab at the data and the weights we’re using are per an actual event, so singles, doubles, triples, etc… are weighted properly using data from 2005-2008. Behind the scenes we’re also calculating the data by batted ball type, so there’s always the possibility of displaying a “defense neutral” runs above average by pitch type as well.

Right now we’re only showing this in the pitcher’s stats pages and for the Baseball Info Solutions data. I expect over the next month that we’ll roll this out in the PitchFx sections and the leaderboards and maybe even for Plate Discipline stats.

Not a lot of things are going right for the A’s these days, they have a lineup that features Bobby Crosby, Jack Hannahan, and Adam Kennedy most days, their young rotation is taking a beating, and any plans of winning the division have seemingly been doused for the moment, but right about now, Billy Beane is probably thankful that he spent so much energy constructing his bullpen. Not because the pen has had many leads to secure and protect, but because more than any other team in baseball, the A’s are calling upon their pen to rack up innings. At least that’s what I found when I took the total number of innings pitched and then divided the amount of relief thrown innings by the total innings, giving us the percentage of total innings thrown by relievers. Here’s a look at the graph:

The A’s stick out like a sore thumb. That unit is getting about 4% more innings than any other team, and all things considered, is doing a decent job with it. The Marlins lead the league in bullpen FIP, but the A’s are the fourth best overall and second best in the American League behind only the Chicago White Sox. Off-season waiver claim Kevin Cameron, trade acquisition Mike Wuertz, oddballer Brad Ziegler, and middling starter-turned-reliever Andrew Bailey are the bright spots. Remember that the A’s lost their best reliever, Joey Devine, before he even threw a pitch this season. We all knew the A’s rotation would be a question mark heading forward, but I don’t think any of us expected the rotation to only pitch about 55% of the total innings thus far.

Also, for those curious, the other teams at the top and bottom of the graph. Top: Phillies, Orioles, Astros, Marlins. Bottom: Rangers, Pirates, Reds, Royals, Cubs.

Having lived in Seattle for the last couple years it has been my curse to watch a lot of Mariners baseball. A hallmark of that baseball has been aggressive hitters getting themselves out on pitches out of the zone. This season, however, has brought forth an example that has been hitherto missing from my viewing experience. Franklin Gutierrez has come to bat with a seeming plan to make the pitcher work each and every time, even if it meant taking strikes and it struck me that I could not recall seeing a hitter on the Mariners called out on strikes as often as he has so far this season.

With that thought in mind, I decided to look at which hitters had taken the most strikeouts looking this season. I wanted at least semi-regular hitters so I limited my sample to batters with over 50 plate appearances. I ended up with plenty of hitters who just rarely ever struck out at all, such as Juan Pierre. That didn’t spark much interest, so I decided to further splinter my sample size into hitters who had been rung up in at least 20% of their plate appearances to date in order to get a decent sample size of strikeouts. Here then are the five hitters in the Major Leagues who meet both criteria above and have had at least half of their strikeouts been of the called variety.

John Baker, Florida, 69.6%
Travis Hafner, Cleveland, 55.56%
Milton Bradley, Chicago(N), 52.6%
Ian Stewart, Colorado, 51.7%
Carlos Gomez, Minnesota, 50.0%

Baker is playing like your prototypical doesn’t swing much power hitter, but he also makes contact at the rate of a more traditional slap hitter, hence the massive lead in called strikeout percentage.

Travis Hafner’s line is quite interesting and potentially disturbing for an Indians fan. He is offering at way more pitches outsize the strike zone than previously and a markedly greater percentage of pitches that he takes are within the zone. That’s putting him in more strikeout counts and suggests a breakdown in his ability to read pitches.

Milton Bradley’s contact rates are up and he has shown positive improvement in laying off balls and swinging at strikes so his placement on this list strikes me as a fluke based on the numerical evidence.

Ian Stewart landing on this list is no real surprise once you take a look at his plate discipline numbers. Last season he swung at 47.8% of pitches thrown his way. This year he is down to 39.3% which includes just a 56.9% rate of swinging at pitches inside the strike zone. That is going to lead to a lot of called strike threes.

Gomez previously had a hard time finding a pitch he doesn’t like to swing at, but has dramatically reduced the number of pitches he offers at, with the side effect being a rise in called strikeouts, but he has cut his swinging strikeout rate almost in half.

By the way, I was right in my intuition. No regular Mariner hitter over the past few seasons has had a greater portion of their strikeouts been of the called variety as Franklin Gutierrez has.

Usually when I begin my posts with discussions centering on those with very solid controllable skillsets and the consistent durability to log 200+ frames each season, the topic of interets is Javier Vazquez. Not this time. No, instead of Vazquez, I want to give some props to another pitcher who might not fit this bill in the same exact manner but who has put together a pretty great career that gets overlooked far too often. That pitcher happens to be South Side southpaw Mark Buehrle, who just recently turned 30 years old, much younger than most realize.

Though 30 years of age does not necessarily constitute a spring chicken, Buehrle’s veteran savvy and resume dating back to the year 2000 make him seem older, somewhere in the 34-36 years old range. Since 2001, and including this season to weed out the retired, only four pitchers have thrown 1750+ innings: Vazquez, Buehrle, Barry Zito, and Livan Hernandez.

Hernandez is likely on his last legs, we all know the modus operandi of Vazquez, and Zito, despite a strong showing early on this season, has come nowhere near replicating his performance in Oakland. Buehrle has a 123 ERA+ in this span that leads the bunch. He is not exactly a strikeout machine, hovering around the league average in that department, but Buehrle walks next to nobody and breaks even on the home run front. All told, in exactly 300 major league outings, Buehrle has a 3.78 ERA and 4.14 FIP to his name.

These are not the kinds of numbers that beg for end of season award voting or spots on the all star team; however, the consistency with which these numbers were accrued speaks volumes for what he can bring to a team. Outside of the 2006 season–which was clearly an outlier in which his K/9 dropped to depths never before seen and his HR/9 rose almost exponentially–Buehrle has never posted an ERA greater than 4.21 (which actually came in his rookie season) or an FIP north of 4.26.

Here are his win values from 2002-08: +4.8, +4.4, +4.9, +6.3, +1.9, +3.8, +4.6. It is also fairly safe to assume that his numbers in 2001, which were very similar to those produced in 2002, would have resulted in right around +4.6 wins. Keeping in mind that Buehrle debuted as a rookie at the tender age of 21 years old, it is pretty incredible the kind of impact he made right out of the gate. At +0.9 wins already this season, he is right on pace for another season besting four wins.

Certain types of pitchers garner plenty of attention in the media: flashy ones like Carlos Zambrano, downright awesome ones like Johan Santana and Roy Halladay, the young ones reaching their potential like Tim Lincecum and Zack Greinke, and the ones that come from nowhere like Cliff Lee. Buehrle does not fit into any of these, and tends to fall into the same category as Roy Oswalt and Aaron Harang, very durable pitchers with quality numbers that, for one reason or another, get overshadowed.

Buehrle is not even close to being done, especially when you consider that Derek Lowe has a similar skillset and just signed a contract that will expire close to when he turns 40. The wear and tear on Buehrle’s arm may come into play but he doesn’t throw exceptionally hard and grades decently with mechanics. It’s about time we start appreciating what guys like Buehrle bring to the table.

For the sake of Pacific Coast League pitchers, can the Cubs call up Jake Fox already? The 26-year-old first baseman is hitting .429/.513/.968 through 150 plate appearances for Iowa, which is ridiculous performance for any length of time against any competition. He has a .600 wOBA. Six hundred. The next closest hitter in wOBA is Mike McCroy, who is posting a .472 mark. The gap that exists between Fox and McCoy, numbers one and two on the PCL leaderboard, is the same as the one that exists between McCoy and Brandon Boggs, who is number 70 in the PCL in WOBA.

No, this isn’t anything close to Fox’s true talent level. Yes, the PCL inflates offensive levels. At some point, though, a .600 wOBA is a .600 wOBA, and you have to just say “hey, he’s earned a shot to hit in the big leagues”. It would be one thing if the Cubs were getting stellar production out of Derrek Lee, but they aren’t – the incumbent first baseman is hitting just .226/.300/.396, and ZIPs projects a .361 wOBA out of Lee over the rest of the season.

That’s decent enough production, but it’s not at a level where you can’t consider giving him some days off to work Fox’s bat into the line-up every once in a while. Even considering that Fox turns 27 in a few weeks and isn’t a top prospect, there’s just no reason to leave him in Triple-A any longer. Last year, the Rangers faced a similar situation with Nelson Cruz, and he went bananas on the American League after Texas finally got around to promoting him.

With the recent success of guys like Cruz, Jack Cust, and Russell Branyan, the idea of a AAAA power hitter is losing steam. These guys all blistered Triple-A pitching for years, but got written off as fastball only sluggers who couldn’t adjust to major league pitching. All three of them are among the better hitters in the American League right now – all they really needed was a team to give them a legitimate chance.

Fox is doing everything possible to earn his shot. The Cubs don’t have to dump Derrek Lee and go with the unproven youngster, but at the very least, they could get him on the roster and get a look at him in person. When a guy is hitting like this, there’s just no reason to hold him back any longer.

2008 Draft Slot: Ninth overall
Top Pick: Aaron Crow, RHP, University of Missouri (Did not sign)
Best Pick (that signed): Destin Hood, OF, Alabama high school (2nd round)
Keep an Eye On: J.P. Ramirez, OF, Texas high school (15th round)
Notes: After taking the collegian hurler, Washington then selected prep prospects with three of the next four picks (Long Beach State infielder Danny Espinosa was also nabbed). Of those three high school picks – Destin Hood, LHP Graham Hicks, and C Adrian Nieto – (plus J.P. Ramirez, who was given a huge over-slot deal to sign after being taken in the 15th round), all of them began 2009 in extended spring training and will be making their season debuts in June in short-season ball.

2007 Draft Slot: Sixth overall
Top Pick: Ross Detwiler, RHP, Missouria State University
Best Pick: Jordan Zimmermann, RHP, Wisconsin-Stevens Point (Second round, 67th overall)
Worst Pick: Jake Smolinksi, 3B, Illinois high school (Second round, 70th overall)
Notes: With five picks in the first two rounds, Washington grabbed a number of key prospects and completely remade (and significantly improved) its minor league system. Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler are currently pitching in the big league rotation. OF Michael Burgess (supplemental first round) is the organization’s best hitting prospect. Catcher Derek Norris (fourth round) might be the second-best hitting prospect. Getting LHP Jack McGeary to sign in the sixth round was another steal.

2006 Draft Slot: 15th overall
Top Pick: Chris Marrero, 1B/OF, Florida high school
Best Pick: Chris Marrero
Worst Pick: Stephen Englund, OF, Washington high school (2nd round)
Notes: The club spent quite a few picks on prep players and did not fare very well. Chris Marrero is the best pick of the draft, but he’s been inconsistent and injured. Sean Black did not sign after being selected with the team’s first pick of the second round. Stephen Englund, also taken in the second, and Stephen King, the third-round selection, have both struggled to hit pro pitching. Fourth round pick LHP Glenn Gibson has fallen off the map since being traded to Tampa Bay.

2009 Draft Slot: 1st overall
Draft Preference (2006-08): College pitching, prep hitters
MLB Club Need: Pitching, Pitching, Pitching
Organizational Need: Right-handed pitching, third base, second base
Organizational Strength: Outfield, catcher
Notes: Along with the first overall pick in the 2009 draft, with which the club should take Stephen Strasburg (unless there is a catastrophic injury), the Nationals club also possesses the 10th overall pick in the draft for failing to sign its first round selection from 2008 (RHP Aaron Crow, who is back in the draft). The Nationals organization has the opportunity to significantly improve its minor-league depth in the span of 10 picks. A future starting rotation including Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Collin Balester, Ross Detwiler, and John Lannan or Shairon Martis should look pretty good in the National League East, if everyone stays healthy and reaches his potential.