Everyone suspected Luis Perdomo’s usage and the score of the game would have a relationship built upon by managerial artifice and desire to slowly transition Perdomo from Double-A to the majors. Thus far, it appears the plan is to not only to place Perdomo in low-leverage situations, but to put him in situations that combined to make him the lowest leveraged reliever in the majors.

Perdomo has appeared in nine games and recorded 37 outs all while doing so with an average leverage index of 0.10. Those nine entry points all came when the Padres were down by four or more runs, and usually near the end of the game. Here are the entry points in full:

April 15th: Bottom of the eighth to begin the half inning, Padres down by five runs.
April 17th: Bottom of the fourth, runner on second, two outs, Padres down by six runs.
April 21st: Bottom of the seventh to begin the half inning, Padres down by four runs.
April 25th: Top of the ninth to begin the half inning, Padres down by nine runs.
April 26th: Top of the ninth to begin the half inning, Padres down by four runs.
April 27th: Bottom of the eighth to begin the half inning, Padres down by four runs.
April 29th: Bottom of the sixth, bases loaded, two outs, Padres down by seven runs.
May 3rd: Bottom of the seventh to begin the half inning, Padres down by five runs.
May 10th: Bottom of the fourth, runners on the corners, nobody out, Padres down by three runs.

Interestingly, only two of his appearances have come within the confines of Petco, which probably speaks more to the Padres road woes – 5-13 as of this writing — than anything else. Here’s a quick way to check on how the Padres fared at the end of the season; check how many appearances Perdomo makes.

On Sunday we added the in-season ZiPS projections to the player pages. Now they’re available in the projections section in the usual sortable format and also the my projections section if you’d like to customize your player list.

Once again ZiPS (RoS) is what a player is projected to do in the remaining part of the season while ZiPS (Update) is the player’s projected final season total.

When Brandon Webb went down, so went most of the hope in Arizona for a competitive season. Already trailing the Dodgers in talent level by a healthy margin, the Diamondbacks needed a repeat season of greatness from Webb and Dan Haren to realistically have a chance of keeping pace. That clearly has not and will not happen this year and the Snakes have stumbled out to a 13-20 record that he seen 2009’s first managerial change.

Somewhat lost amongst that sad shuffle though is Max Scherzer’s early season emergence as a replacement for Randy Johnson’s role as the third spoke in the Arizona rotational wheel of excellence. Arizona’s first round pick (11th overall, the pick after Tim Lincecum) in 2006, Scherzer was mightily impressive last season in his brief stint in the rotation, logging 48 strikeouts to just 14 walks over 37 innings.

Getting the chance to be a starter from the get go this season, Scherzer has continued to succeed with a 4.33 FIP coupled with a bounce back in his ground ball rate. While the strikeout rate has diminished, that comes as no surprise as it’s nigh impossible to maintain a 30% K rate in the Major Leagues as a starter. Scherzer’s rate of 20% so far this season is still very respectable and as long as he keeps the walks around the 10% or lower mark he should continue to be valuable.

Importantly for his future success, Scherzer’s rate of missing bats is down only a touch, further increasing his sample size and showing that he just might be able to stick at his current level of around 12%, a very impressive figure. That he has been able to generate those types of results while throwing fastballs around three-quarters of the time speaks to how effective his fastball is and how well it sets up his change and slider.

If Scherzer can keep it up, he’s going to be able to use this likely lost season for Arizona to build up his arm strength and be ready to help the Diamondbacks work back toward contention in 2010.

When Robinson Cano debuted as the Yankees second baseman in 2005, at the raw age of 22 years old, fans of the empire caught an extended glimpse of a player with the potential to help the team in a big way. His fielding initially stunk, erasing the slightly above average contribution made on the offensive front. Though his season produced no more than one tenth of a win above replacement level, it became clear that some experience could go a very long way.

In 2006, he reached that potential, hitting .342/.365/.525 with a .377 wOBA. Sure, Cano’s isolated patience could have been better and his .363 BABIP seemed sure to regress, but vastly improved offensive numbers coupled with a UZR twenty runs better than his rookie season led to the Yankees keystone cornerman posting +3.5 wins.

Things only improved the following season when Cano produced +5 wins thanks to a +11 UZR mark and offensive output similar to the year prior. Then 2008 happened. Cano’s UZR dropped from +11 to -8, and his offense of +15 to +20 runs nosedived to -10 runs. At just a half-win above replacement, Cano looked lost both at the plate and in the field. After BABIPs well above .300, Cano’s dropped to .286, leading many to suggest that he will once again experience success this season.

In fact, the ZiPS projection system called for a .349 wOBA that would place Cano very close to his solid 2007 campaign. Through 139 PA, Cano is hitting .321/.353/.519, with six dingers and a .376 wOBA. On top of that, his defense has been above average at +2 runs. In 31 games, Cano’s +1.1 wins above replacement have already doubled last season’s end product.

How will he perform from here on out? ZiPS feels confident in Cano’s .376 wOBA to begin the season and sees his true talent for the rest of the season in the .356 range. Should this come to fruition, Cano would end the season hitting .304/.341/.492, a career best 23 home runs, and a .360 wOBA. If he can produce at that level offensively and hover around the league average with the glove, the Yankees will have themselves a very valuable 26-yr old second baseman.

2008 Draft Slot: 11th overall
Top Pick: Justin Smoak, 1B, University of South Carolina
Best Pick: Justin Smoak
Keep an Eye On: Robbie Ross, LHP, Kentucky high school (second round)
Notes: Taken 57th overall, Robbie Ross has yet to appear in an official pro game and will likely pitch in rookie ball this season, beginning in June. He’s short for a pitcher at about 5’11’ but he can touch 94 mph with the fastball. So far, the Rangers organization has received little from draftees not named Justin Smoak. But the club is OK with that, as he’s smoakin’ the ball in Double-A with less than a year of pro experience. If not for Chris Davis, Smoak could already be in the Majors.

2007 Draft Slot: 17th overall
Top Pick: Blake Beavan, RHP, Texas high school
Best Pick: Julio Borbon, OF, University of Tennessee (Supplemental first round, 35th overall)
Worst Pick: Matt West, 3B, Texas high school (Second round)
Notes: With five picks before the second round, thanks to free agency compensation, the Rangers added a lot of depth – and talent – to the system with this one draft. Matt West was not a terrible second round pick; his numbers have been OK so far… He’s just shown less so far than the other top picks. First pick Blake Beavan has been a bit of a disappointment too, as his stuff has not been as overpowering as it was in high school. If Julio Borbon, already in Triple-A, can learn to take a few more walks to help his on-base percentage, he could be a threat at the top of the Rangers’ batting order. In this draft, the club also grabbed pitching prospects Michael Main, Neil Ramirez, and Tommy Hunter.

2006 Draft Slot: 12th overall
Top Pick: Kasey Kiker, LHP, Alabama high school
Best Pick: Chris Davis, 1B/3B, Texas junior college (Fifth round)
Worst Pick: Chad Tracy, C, Pepperdine University (Third round)
Notes: Lacking a second-round selection, the club took catcher Chad Tracy, who quickly played himself out from behind home plate, which hurt his value. Chris Davis was an absolute steal in the fifth round for Texas, as he is already the club’s starting first baseman (But is he turning into Russell Branyan?). Keep an eye on shortstop Marcus Lemon, who just keeps hitting. At worst, he should be a MLB utility player.

2009 Draft Slot: 14th overall
Draft Preference (2006-08): The club likes prep arms, but it does a nice job of finding good college hitters too.
MLB Club Need: Starting pitching, Relief pitching
Organizational Need: Catcher, Second base, Third base
Organizational Strength: Right-handed pitching, Center field
Notes: The depth amongst the fielding positions is not overly deep at any position, but the organization is loaded with good, young pitching. The club has an extra selection in the supplemental first round (44th overall) for the free agent loss of outfielder Milton Bradley.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Carlos Pena had a monstrous week in the Three True Outcomes, with 20 of his 28 plate appearances ending in a walk, a strikeout, or a home run. Pena essentially took the defense out of the equation when he was up to bat, making the result almost entirely dependent on the pitcher-hitter confrontation.

Today, we’ll look at the pitcher who is doing the exact opposite of that so far this year, Joel Pineiro. Through six starts, Pineiro has posted a 3.73 FIP, besting all of his seasonal performances dating back to 2001 when he burst onto the scene as a dominating relief pitcher for the Mariners. He’s given the Cardinals rotation quite a boost, and is one of the reasons why St. Louis is off to such a strong start.

Pineiro’s achieving this low FIP by minimizing the true outcomes to a ridiculous extreme. He’s faced 160 batters in his first six starts, and only 22 have managed to walk (seven), strikeout (13), or hit a home run (two). The other 138 batters, or 86.2 percent, have put the ball in play. The average National League pitcher has had just 68.5 percent of their plate appearances end with a ball in play.

Pineiro is easily the National League leader in ball in play rate. Ross Ohlendorf comes in second with 77.8 percent of batters faced ending with a ball in play, a far cry from Pineiro’s line so far. Over in the American League, however, there’s another pitcher giving Pineiro’s extreme contact strategy a try. Shane Loux, one of the Angels multitude of reinforcements, is at 82.7 percent balls in play. Like Pineiro, Loux also has gotten strong results from the no true outcomes strategy, posting a 3.80 FIP.

Both Pineiro and Loux are groundball pitchers, so they just throw a ton of sinkers and hope for the infielders to rack up the assists. However, in both cases, their success has been buoyed by remarkably low HR/FB rates – Pineiro’s is at 5.6 percent while Loux’s is at 2.6 percent. Pretty much every announcer on earth will tell you that these are succeeding due to the quantity of their groundballs, but in reality, it’s the quality of their flyballs that has made their seasons a success so far.

Unfortunately for these two, there’s no way they can continue to keep the ball in the park at these rates. The pitch to contact strategy can work for a while, but unless you have the most ridiculous sinker known to man, you’re going to give up home runs eventually. It might not happen over a given six start stretch, but it’s going to happen.

Theoretically, a pitcher can succeed with a no true outcome approach. We just haven’t seen one who has been able to limit the longball enough to make it work since Tommy John, who had a career 80 percent ball in play rate and a 3.38 FIP. I’m sure we’ll see another pitcher who has that special skillset eventually, but unfortunately for fans in St. Louis and Anaheim, these two aren’t it.

Edwin Jackson’s prospect status has always attracted a claque yet his performance through 2008 hardly warranted the hype. A lively arm capable of touching the upper-90s with a blazing fastball and a whip like slider seemed destined for major league stardom, even more so after his debut, outpitching Randy Johnson – which should be a warning to anyone who takes the first “x” amount of games or innings as a predictor of future performances. Pitching coach after pitching coach tried to solve the Jackson enigma without much success. As blessed as his right arm was, he would go throw lapses where walks were plentiful and strikeouts, not so much.

Naturally, it’s a bit odd to glance at Jackson’s stat line and see a 3.51 FIP to go along with 7 strikeouts and 2.2 walks per nine. That’s not what we’ve come to expect from Edwin Jackson at all. So what’s changed?

Jackson’s BABIP is lower than it should be, but that has little bearing on his FIP, his HR/FB% is down despite his FB% being up, that’s something to watch for, Jackson’s getting slightly more first pitch strikes and a bucket load more of hitters chasing him outside of the zone. Why?

As it turns out, Jackson’s slider has experienced a metamorphosis in his short time spent in Detroit. Velocity has remained the same as the break has shifted. No longer is Jackson’s slider sweeping towards lefties, instead the break is far more subtle, and perhaps far more deceptive. Rather than breaking ~2 inches, it’s breaking 1, and the vertical movement is ‘down’ about an inch as well.

Whether Jackson has gained control over the pitch with this change – whatever the change may be, it’s the only one in his arsenal, because he’s no longer throwing his change-up very often – or simply a deceptive trick, it bears resemblance to another slider on the Tigers staff, Armando Galarraga. Whether this is a Galarraga hand-me-down or a Rick Knapp lesson, it seems to be working. We’ll see if it continues.

The Anaheim Angels are close to getting back a significant portion of their disabled rotation with John Lackey and Ervin Santana seeming set to return in short order.

It has been assumed and widely written that the Angels, roundly considered to be either slight favorites or slight underdogs to Oakland for the AL West would just try to weather the storm of injuries through the first two months and then take off once back to full or near full strength. Roughly 30 games into the season, it would seem that they have accomplished that first goal with Oakland seriously floundering and just the pitching-challenged Texas Rangers ahead of them by a mere half a game.

Is the second part of the model going to hold up though? The point here is to look at what has fueled the Angels success so far to date. It certainly hasn’t been the offense which has produced at a markedly below league average level and gotten roughly, but still below, league average results on the back of an inflated BABIP. It has not been their gloves either, which also rank below average.

The Angels bullpen has produced some decent fielding independent numbers, but I would still rank them as slightly below average thanks to their near league worst line drive rate allowed. In point, what has been keeping the Angels afloat has precisely been their starting pitching.

Now, nobody is going to argue that getting Anthony Ortega out of the rotation isn’t going to be beneficial, but the other displaced member of the rotation is going to have been either Matt Palmer, currently sporting a 4.54 FIP or Shane Loux and his staff leading 3.78 FIP. For reference, John Lackey’s FIP last season was 4.53 and he was projected to be around 3.90 before the injury with Ervin Santana at about the same level. A half run of FIP spread over 150 innings amounts to a mere eight runs of difference.

All told, as long as neither Lackey nor Santana get re-hurt or implode or, in the case of Santana, turn back into the 2007 form, adding the pair back into the rotation is probably worth about two wins above what the Angels have currently gotten from their worst two starters. Two wins is a lot in a tight division, but consider that even before the injuries the Angels were not projected to be heads or shoulders above anyone out west.

The Angels are about to get better, yes, but looking at the numbers, the highest probable scenario says that they are not going to simply run away with the AL West. It’s a long season yet.

At the beginning of the season I posted here bashing a decision made by Bobby Cox in the Braves’ opening series with the Phillies. The decision involved using both Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano in the first two games when the late inning leads were large enough that the two relief aces did not need to appear. In the very next game, the Phillies overcame a 10-3 deficit in the seventh inning to win 12-11.

Neither Soriano nor Gonzalez were available due to their appearances in the prior two games. Of course, the Braves bullpen imploded in that third game and could not find the strike zone, an unforeseen circumstance, but the fact remains that aces like Gonzalez or Soriano could have stopped the bleeding if available.

Well, Cox has effectively redeemed himself in my eyes with his handling of the bullpen in the Braves recent weekend series with the very same Phillies. Most notably, the redemption stems from how he attacked the Phillies hitters in the late innings in Sunday’s 4-2 win.

The Phillies trailed, 3-2, but had a shot to come back in the bottom of the eighth with Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez and the legen… wait for it… dary Matt Stairs due up. Normally at this juncture in a game, the setup man enters to hold the lead for the closer. Not in this particular game. No, instead of Rafael Soriano taking the hill for that eighth inning, Cox sent closer Mike Gonzalez to the mound.

Gonzalez is a power lefty and all three of the power hitters due up that inning were also lefthanded. Gonzalez turned the Phillies away save for a walk to Stairs, preserving the lead. Soriano completed the role reversal the next inning, closing out the win. Granted, Gonzalez is one of few southpaw closers throughout the league but this decision was a breath of fresh air.

It would not have been smart to bring in a righty to face three lefthanded power hitters in order to do nothing other than ensure that Gonzalez entered into a “save opportunity.” For all intents and purposes, Gonzo did record a save in this game because the game had more of a chance of being won or lost in that eighth frame rather than the following inning when Carlos Ruiz was due to leadoff. Yes, Miguel Cairo pinch-hit for Ruiz (what was the point?) and Werth hit for the pitcher, but the more crucial plate appearances took place the inning prior, when Gonzalez did everything he would normally be called on to do, only in an earlier inning.

This is efficient usage of the bullpen, bringing in the right guys at the appropriate times instead of following a dumb, predetermined set of rules. Perhaps Cox feels that both Gonzalez and Soriano are on equal footing and can be flip-flopped as the closer/setup man depending on matchups. If so, bravo, because that is a very sound strategy. This isn’t a closer by committee nor is it sticking to one guy strictly because he makes a lot of money. Instead, using both of these guys in each role plays to their strengths and the weaknesses of the opposition simultaneously rather than one or the other.

Cox arguably mismanaged his bullpen early in the season, but here is to hoping that he continues to use Gonzo and Soriano this way, spitting in the face of a “rule” that states only one pitcher can close out games and these games can only be closed out in the final frame.

The Blue Jays success is probably the biggest story early of the first 20% of the major league season. The preseason focus was squarely on the Boston/New York/Tampa triumvirate of power, with Baltimore and Toronto relegated to tough luck also-rans in the best division in baseball. A good defense and a strong bullpen wasn’t expected to be able to make up for an offense that had some problems and a patchwork rotation, and even finding someone who thought the Jays would finish above .500 was a challenge.

However, the Jays offense has been a monster so far this year, scoring runs in bunches and pounding opposing pitchers into submission. The huge surprise has been the inexplicable surge from Marco Scutaro, but just as vital to the team’s success has been the mashing of Adam Lind. The 26-year-old had posted just a pedestrian .282/.316/.439 in 349 plate appearances last year after a .238/.278/.400 line in 311 PA in 2007. Put together, his ’07/’08 seasons inspired little confidence, as he played at +0.2 win level over a full season’s worth of innings.

2009 was essentially Lind’s make or break year. If he flopped at the plate again, he risked getting tagged as a AAAA player, a guy who could hit minor league pitching but couldn’t translate that success against higher quality pitchers. It’s still early, but Lind is doing everything possible to ensure that the season ends up making his career instead of ending it.

His .333/.405/.561 line is eerily similar to the .328/.394/.534 mark he posted in Triple-A last year. His walk rate, strikeout, and isolated power are all almost identical to what he did in the International League last year as well. He’s never going to be the most patient guy in the league, but he’s doing a better job of swinging at strikes, cutting his O-Swing% from 34% last year to 24% this year. He’s been far more selective overall, as he’s swinging the bat just 40% of the time this year, way down from his 50% mark in his previous major league trials.

Despite swinging less often, his contact rate is basically unchanged, suggesting that Lind’s change is almost entirely related to chasing less bad pitches. By refining his approach and making pitchers throw him something he can hit, he’s establishing himself as a legitimate major league hitter.

He’s almost certainly not this good, of course. The updated daily ZIPS projection that we debuted here on the site today projects him for a .349 wOBA over the rest of the 2009 season, way down from the .417 wOBA he’s currently posting. His current .384 batting average on balls in play isn’t sustainable, no matter how much more patient he has gotten. Regression is coming. But his early season performance should give Blue Jays fans hope that Lind can hit major league pitching.

It may have taken him awhile to adjust, but it’s unlikely that Lind will be making any return trips to the minors anytime soon.