Continuing on with the trade value series.

#40: Tommy Hanson, RHP, Atlanta: 0.1 WAR

Despite a mediocre start to his major league career, Hanson is one of the most talented young pitchers in baseball. He put up video game like numbers in the minors and was the most impressive pitcher in the history of the Arizona Fall League last year. His four pitch mix contains two knockout breaking balls and an above average fastball. His lower present value and high risks push him down here, but he could easily be top 20 a year from now, especially considering he’s basically free for the next 3 years.

#39: Jason Heyward, OF, Atlanta: 0.0 WAR

Recently promoted to Double-A at the age of 19, this is how Heyward has handled his first 32 plate appearances above Double-A: four singles, three doubles, two triples, four walks, no strikeouts. That’s how you announce that the best prospect in baseball has arrived on the scene. A big left-handed premium bat with power and plate discipline, Heyward profiles as an elite hitter with some defensive value. He could be in Atlanta next year, taking the mantle from Chipper Jones as the next great Braves hitter.

#38: Clay Buchholz, RHP, Boston: 0.0 WAR

In any other organization in baseball, Buchholz would be a regular member of the rotation. He’s mastered the minor leagues and even pitched fairly well in the majors, posting a career 4.34 FIP over 98 innings in 2007 and 2008. He’s got top notch stuff and improving command, which is why every GM in the world asks for him when they call Boston, but the Red Sox realize how valuable of an asset he is, which is why he’s still in their organization. Wherever he ends up, he’ll instantly become the future of the team’s rotation.

#37: Roy Halladay, RHP, Toronto: 4.2 WAR

Perhaps the most interesting guy on the list, because he’s actually in play. He’s the best pitcher in baseball, but he’s only signed through 2010, and his salary is prohibitive for some teams. The Blue Jays have made it clear that they’ll only trade him if they get overwhelmed, but will teams be willing to part with multiple premium players in exchange for ~45 starts from Halladay? I’m guessing Toronto will have to decide whether they want one top notch guy, or several pretty good players, because I don’t see anyone offering two players who could end up on this list next year.

#36: Josh Hamilton, OF, Texas: 1.0 WAR

He’s probably the most physically gifted player in the game, a supreme athlete with the ability to do everything on the field. He was a +4 win player in his first full season of major league playing time, and he’s improved defensively since last year. A true middle of the order hitter with defensive value, heading into his prime, and 3+ years away from free agency, he’s the prototypical franchise player. Injury concerns drag him down a bit, as does the lack of cost certainty, but on talent, he’s top five.

It’s safe to say that things have not gone quite like the Kansas City Royals management thought it would in 2009. The club started off pretty well but faded quickly in the standings and the Major League club is now in fourth place in the American League Central division, 11.5 games out of first place.

While the big-league club is floundering, there is some good news on the farm – especially down in low-A ball with the Burlington Bees. In recent years, the Royals organization has been stung by its inability to develop its own starting pitchers. Young stud Zack Greinke has begun to shift that trend and more reinforcements are on the way (albeit it slowly).

The Royals organization drafted two 6’5” prep pitchers in the 2008 draft: Michael Montgomery (supplemental first round) and Tim Melville (fourth round). Melville was a first-round talent who fell due to signability concerns, but the Royals did what any good organization (desperately in need of minor league talent/depth) should do: It ponied up the cash for a deserving talent, giving the organization two outstanding pitching talents from the 2008 draft.

Montgomery, a left-hander, made 12 appearances (nine starts) in 2008 at rookie ball. In 42.2 innings, he allowed 31 hits and posted a 1.69 ERA (3.13 FIP). So far this year, he’s also kept his ERA below 2.00 at 1.69 (2.83 FIP). He’s allowed 33 hits in 48 innings of work. The southpaw, who just turned 20 years old, has posted a walk rate of 3.94 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 7.88 K/9. He has yet to allow a home run this season, after allowing just two in 2008.

Right-hander Melville signed too late to make his 2008 debut, so he’s a little bit behind Montgomery on the development chart. Nonetheless, he joined the left-hander in low-A ball in 2009, where he’s made 11 starts. In 50 innings, Melville has allowed 48 hits while posting rates of 3.96 BB/9 and 7.20 K/9. The 19-year-old hurler has allowed five home runs and he has a 3.78 ERA (4.34 FIP).

Despite their inexperience, both pitchers rank among the organization’s best three pitching prospects – along with high-A left-hander Danny Duffy. Montgomery features a low-90s fastball, as well as two well-developed secondary pitches: a curveball and changeup. Melville’s repertoire includes a fastball that can touch 95 mph, a good curveball and a developing changeup that needs work.

Fear not, Royals fans. Help is on the way… Unless Dayton Moore trades Montgomery and Melville for Jerry Hairston or Ramon Vazquez.

This past Saturday was the second annual PITCHf/x summit. The summit, put on by Sportvision the creators of the PITCHf/x system, was a chance for interested parties to get together and discuss all things PITCHf/x and HITf/x. I had the pleasure of attending and I wanted to share my highlights. You can go over to Sportvision’s website and download the power points of any of the presentations.

PITCHf/x

Matt Lentzner gave a great talk on arm slots and the movement of fastballs. He showed that the angle of a pitcher’s arm slot is very close to the angle of the vector connecting the (0,0) and (h_mov,v_mov) of a pitcher’s fastball. He showed images of Brad Ziegler‘s and Hideki Okajima’s arm slots and the movement of their fastballs, which was very compelling. Lentzner continued on how this could be used to make pitch classiciation algorithms better.

Harry Pavlidis talked about the next step in pitch valuation. He, briefly, discussed the current method which he and I currently use, and is used in the pitch valuations here at FanGraphs. It is explained here. The method was introduced by Joe Sheehan at Baseball Analysts. Harry went on to propose two new pitch valuations methods, both defense independent based, one based on batted ball type identification (be they BIS or GameDay or STAT) and the other based on HITf/x data.

Finally we discussed the problem of park to park PITCHf/x differences. The differences are much corrected from last year, but still evident. In addition, we discussed that at even within a season in one park PITCHf/x values can shift. Marv White of Sportvision told us that before every game the system is re-registered to make sure that it is in proper registration. The registration is super sensitive, in PETCO, for example, the weight of additional fans sinks the entire stadium enough to draw the cameras out of registration. Some suggested that Sportvision release the information whenever a system in re-registered so that analysts knew of these events.

HITf/x

Greg Moore and Marv White of Sportvision introduced us to HITf/x. The cameras that capture the pitches for PITCHf/x are on continuously, so they capture images of the ball coming off the bat on balls in play. Thus collecting the HITf/x data was a natural extension for Sportvision. Since the cameras are trained on the space area between the pitcher and catcher they only catch the beginning of a ball in play’s trajectory. Depending on that trajectory they capture between two and fourteen images of the hit ball. From those images Sportvision fits the equations of motion just like they do for a pitch. Since the cameras were set up for the pitch they capture enough images to fit all nine variables in the equations of motion for a pitch (horizontal, vertical and depth position, velocity and acceleration), but they can only fit six for hit balls (horizontal, vertical and depth position and velocity). From this the initial speed of the ball off the bat, vertical and horizontal angle of ball are calculated.

Without acceleration the spin on the ball in play is not known, so the backspin which gives, particularly fly balls, loft, and the side spin which causes hits to slice or curve are not available with the current HITf/x system. Thus the final position and hang time of the hit cannot be accurately calculated. In Alan Nathan’s presentation he combined the HITf/x data for HRs with Greg Rybarczyk’s final landing distances. With that he could estimate the spin on each HR. He showed that each additional mph in the speed of the ball off the bat added about four feet to the distance of a HR, and showed how the slice of the ball differed coming off the bat of LHBs versus RHBs.

Peter Jensen combined the HITf/x data with the Gameday fielded locations. He looked at plays where the two disagreed on the horizontal angle of ball in play, restricting his attention to balls to the shortstop. Obviously they disagreed on deflected balls, since HITf/x gives the angle of the hit while Gameday where it is eventually fielded. In addition to these deflected balls he found 60 more balls in play to the shortstop where the angle was off by more than 10 degrees. For these the HITf/x angle was more accurate in all but two cases.

BASEBALLf/x

The section on the future was the most exciting. Matt Thomas, Greg Rybarczy and Marv White discussed the future of ball and player tracking. Matt Thomas has tracked fielders at Busch Stadium for a number of games. From the press box using a tripod-mounted consumer level DSLR, laptop and the discipline of photogrammetry he tracked where players started in the field and where they went to field the ball. The furthest a player went to field a ball was around 120 feet by Adam Kennedy running to catch a pop up in foul territory. He also had great information about the probability of a fielder getting to a fly ball based on the distance between where he started and the ball landed.

Rybareck and Marv White both talked about the future of tracking the ball from the pitcher’s hand to the end of the play and all players on the field: runners and fielders. Sportvision is in the research stages of that project and it was recently described in the New York Times. Once this information is available it has the potential revolutionize baseball analysis.

The conference was great. I want to thank the presenters, Alan Nathan who organized the talks and Sportvision for hosting the summit and taking us to a Giants’ game afterwards.

Continuing on with our trade value series.

#45: Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, San Diego: 2.9 WAR

How different would the perception of Gonzalez be if he didn’t play half his games in a cavern? He’s posting a .273 ISO despite playing in the best pitchers park in baseball and rarely getting a pitch to hit because his teammates are so inferior. Oh, and then, there’s his contract – he’s set to make just $13 million through 2011. The Padres fans would riot if they dealt him, but his value will never be higher than it is now.

#44: Max Scherzer, RHP, Arizona: 2.1 WAR

Though he’s been projected as a reliever by many due to command problems and concerns about his delivery, Scherzer has established himself as a quality major league starter. The classic power pitcher, he has a career 3.50 FIP between last year and this year, and he’s still a couple of years from arbitration eligibility. He hasn’t yet shown that he can endure a full 200 inning season yet, so the risk of the unknown holds him back a little bit, but the overall package is still quite valuable.

#43: Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington: 3.2 WAR

For all that is wrong with the franchise, Zimmerman is the shining beacon of goodness. A good hitter and great fielder who isn’t yet 25, he’s already one of the best players in the game and has upside beyond what he is now. The newly signed contract extension will keep him in D.C. through 2013, but at rates that are just discounted, not massive bargains. He’ll likely always be a bit undervalued because so much of his value is tied to his glove, but if Washington ever puts some major league players next to him, he’s a great foundation piece.

#42: Joba Chamberlain, RHP, New York: 0.9 WAR

So, the conversion to the rotation hasn’t gone so well yet. His velocity is down, contact against him is way up, and he’s posting a 4.78 FIP because his command hasn’t improved. However, he’s still a premium arm pitching in the toughest division in baseball, and we’ve seen what he’s capable of when he’s going right. We can’t ignore the upside just because the last month or two has been ugly. The risks are significant, however – if he doesn’t start pitching better in the near future, he could easily end up back in the bullpen. Like Hamels, high risk and reward. At least he’s still cheap.

#41: Josh Beckett, RHP, Boston: 3.5 WAR

There’s little question that Beckett is a legitimate ace, with a projected 3.46 FIP going forward that is outstanding given the context of the division he pitches in. Still just 29, he’s a front of the rotation pitcher in his prime, and he’s sustained his velocity over the years, which has to be encouraging. However, he’s also only signed through 2010, so while his present value is very high, his future value is limited, as he’s going to get very expensive very quickly.

“The defensive statistics – I still really don’t understand how some of those statistics are evaluated, I really don’t. When you watch baseball games every single day, its very apparent who can play defensively and who can’t.”

That quote comes from Dayton Moore on a Kansas City radio station yesterday morning. Let’s ignore that Moore probably shouldn’t publicly admit that he doesn’t know about defensive metrics and assume he’s not the only GM with this ‘flaw’. He could easily say defensive statistics are imperfect and should be combined with some good scouting and had his point made just as easily, but he didn’t. Whatever, the larger point is that he’s claiming Yuniesky Betancourt looks like a good defender if you watch him every single game. That’s simply untrue.

For someone to think Betancourt is a good defender that person either has no idea what a good defender looks like, or simply can’t evaluate defensive ability. You know who watched Betancourt seemingly every day since his career began? The Mariners fan base. Thanks to Tom Tango and the Fans Scouting Report, we have their honest evaluations of Betancourt’s defensive ability dating back to his rookie season.

Betancourt was appraised highly in 2005, receiving a 86 overall position-neutral score. The number of ballots shot up by nearly 200 in 2006 and Betancourt retained a fair score of 82. Even more ballots were cast in 2007 and his score again slipped to 69. Then 2008, Betancourt’s position neutral score sat at 39. The obvious retort is that fans aren’t qualified to scout defensive qualities either, but compare the scores to what UZR has said and a trend emerges:

Year – FSR/( UZR/150)
2005 – 89/2.1
2006 – 82/0.7
2007 – 69/-1.4
2008 – 39/-12.7

The fans say Betancourt has lost defensive quality steadily since 2005 and so does UZR. Both agree the biggest jump happened between 2007 and 2008. I suppose you could say the numbers have influenced the fans a bit – we are talking about a pretty intelligent fan base with Seattle – but our version of UZR only became readily available last winter.

The fans and UZR agree that Betancourt has gotten progressively worse and is a below average shortstop, Moore and the Royals scouts don’t. Odds are, Moore and company have the least amount of data to form their opinion on Betancourt. We’ll see if Moore is right after all.

At the break and with the official news finally coming in that Manny Acta has been let go in Washington, I decided to take a look at which at which teams have been lucky or unlucky the most so far this season. Of course, the definition of lucky is going to be pretty subjective to people. Here is how I have defined it, and have defined it in the past as well lest there be any concerns that I gerrymandered my criteria.

I use BaseRuns, which is my favorite team-wide metric for determining expected runs allowed and scored, to come up with an expected won-loss record based on the pythagorean method (with a variable exponent based on the runs per game, namely the David Smyth/Patriot model of pythag).

That expected winning percentage is then added to the team’s strength of schedule and then 0.5 is subtracted away to get a scheduled-neutralized expected winning percentage. Multiplying that by 162 yields a BaseRuns, schedule-neutral estimate for how many games the team should win over a season if it played at its season-to-date level.

I then subtract that from the team’s actual winning percentage scaled out to 162 games to arrive a plus or minus win figure of how lucky the team has been per 162 games.

For the more math inclined,

And the rankings, from most lucky, to most unlucky:

Astros 11
Giants 10
Phillies 10
Tigers 9
Reds 9
Angels 6
Brewers 6
Red Sox 6
Marlins 6
Rangers 3
Orioles 3
Cardinals 3
White Sox 2
Cubs 1
Mets 1
Dodgers 0
Mariners 0
Yankees -1
Padres -1
Rockies -2
Braves -3
Pirates -3
Twins -5
Athletics -5
Royals -5
Blue Jays -8
Diamondbacks -8
Rays -9
Indians -11
Nationals -19

Help us all if one of the home run derby contestants goes on a cold streak. Someone, somewhere, will mention that the slump started right after the player partook in a contest all about hitting the long ball, and naturally hasn’t adjusted his mechanics or mindset since. The poster boy for the post-derby slump is Bobby Abreu. He hit a of homers in the first half, only a few in the second, yet still wound up with around what you would expect from a slugger on the wrong side of 30.

Any fears of a powerless second half because of the derby are extinguished when you examine the last three seasons of participants. Taking all 24 of their first and second half homerun and plate appearances, I found that the difference is marginal, and can probably be attributed to regression more so than anything derby related.

First half HR/PA%: 5.52
Second half HR/PA%: 4.79

Over the average second half (377 plate appearances) the difference is 3 home runs. You could blame this on a meaningless competition, or you could chock it up to regression. Why are these guys even chosen for the event? Because A) they’ve hit a ton of homers in the first half or B) they’ve hit a ton of homers in the past. “A” is the key to the regression pie. Let’s take a look at the biggest drops.

Justin Morneau (2007) 6.6% /2.3%
Dan Uggla (2008) 6.6%/3.3%
Chase Utley (2008) 6%/2.8%
David Wright (2006) 5.2%/2.2%
Lance Berkman (2008) 5.5%/2.6%

Each of these guys outdoing their previous numbers and the league’s numbers; a combination which signals some regression is on the way. That means, it’s not a physical or mental adjustment some players are going through, but rather a statistical one.

This afternoon, I announced the beginning of the 2009 MLB Trade Value series. Today, we kick it off with the bottom five.

#50: Prince Fielder, 1B, Milwaukee: 3.7 WAR

The big man is having the best season of his career, as he’s upped his walk rate while hitting over .300, and the power is still there. He’s an offensive beast, and at just 25 years old, he’s headed for the prime of his career. Unfortunately, he’s a couple of years away from being a DH, and the lack of defensive value limits the amount of teams that would give up the farm to get him.

#49: Jered Weaver, RHP, Anaheim: 2.5 WAR

Despite the ERA fluctuations, Weaver has been remarkably consistent since arriving in the majors, posting a FIP between 3.80 and 4.06 each year. That’s a quality pitcher, to be sure, but he’s not the ace he looked like in ’06 or earlier this year. Toss in the health concerns and his 50% flyball rate, and while most teams would love to have him, he wouldn’t command a king’s ransom as he heads into his arbitration years.

#48: Cole Hamels, LHP, Philadelphia: 1.7 WAR

After looking ace-like last October, he’s resumed being a good but not great starter this year, thanks to his home run problem. Health concerns will always be an issue with Hamels, and he’s no longer dirt cheap. He’s certainly a valuable arm with upside beyond what he is now, but the risks are fairly significant. He’s one of the guys who could easily be 30 spots higher, or nowhere near the list at all, at this time next year.

#47: Robinson Cano, 2B, New York: 2.2 WAR

Cano has rebounded from a lousy 2008 season, showing improved contact skills and finding his power stroke again, which make him one of the game’s better offensive middle infielders. He doesn’t walk and his defense isn’t great, but the rest of the package makes up for a few shortcomings. The contract extension he signed contains two team options that could keep him in pinstripes through 2013 at below market rates, as well, so he’s the rare Yankee other teams could actually afford to trade for.

#46: Elvis Andrus, SS, Texas: 1.5 WAR

He’s 20 years old and already a league average major league shortstop, thanks in large part to his defensive abilities. He has a good approach at the plate, solid contact skills, and should develop some additional power as he grows. His upside is extremely high, and he’s already a quality major league player. His reduced present value, due to the lack of current power, is the only thing that drives him this far down the list.

You’re excused if you’re thinking: Who the heck is Rene Tosoni?

Crowned the Most Valuable Player of Major League Baseball’s annual top-prospects showcase (for his pinch-hit RBI double, which led to the winning run for the World Team), Tosoni is a 23-year-old outfielder in the Minnesota Twins organization. The left-handed hitter was drafted in the 36th round of the 2006 draft and signed as a draft-and-follow (a now-defunct process) out of Chipola College in Florida. Tosoni was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but he went to high school in British Columbia.

He got off to a hot start in his pro career in 2007 when he hit .301/.407/.428 with 13 stolen bases and three homers in 236 rookie ball at-bats. Injuries slowed his ascent in 2008 but he hit .300/.408/.414 with three steals and one homer in 140 high-A at-bats. This season in double-A, Tosoni’s batting average has slipped a bit, but he’s showing more power with a line of .278/.387/.480 with 10 homers and six steals in 273 at-bats. His ISO has nearly doubled from .114 to .201.

One disturbing trend is the constant increase in his strikeout rate each season, from 20.3 to 21.4 to 26 K%. His walk rate, though, has remained between 11.7 and 13.0 BB% during the past three seasons. Another issue affecting Tosoni’s prospect value is his inability to hit left-handed pitchers. This season he is hitting .330 versus right-handed pitchers, but just .159 against southpaws. His career batting average versus left-handed pitching is .230 and it’s .310 against right-handers.

Defensively, Tosoni is an average center-fielder with a good arm. His range, though, will probably move him to a corner outfield spot before too long. With average power, Tosoni could very well end up as a fourth outfielder (especially if continues to struggle against southpaws). With that said, he has shown more power this year, which could lead to a starting role at the Major League level.

Tosoni is probably six months to a year away from being MLB ready. He could potentially move into a platoon role with Carlos Gomez is center, or possibly make for a cheap replacement of Michael Cuddyer, although the club would certainly be giving up some power in the switch. With other top prospects like Ben Revere, Joe Benson, and Aaron Hicks on the way, Tosoni could also be used as trade bait – especially with the higher profile he’s developed thanks to his Futures game heroics.

With the trade deadline just a few weeks away, it’s time to revisit the annual MLB Trade Value series that I’ve been doing for the last, I don’t know, four or five years. I stole the idea from Bill Simmons, who does an NBA version for ESPN.com, though my version leaves out the references to teenage soap operas and movies from 25 years ago. Sorry.

Essentially, the idea is to take all the information that goes into encapsulating a player’s value to an organization – his present skills, his future potential, how long he’s under club control, the expected cost of paying him over that time, and the risks involved with projecting his future performances – and figure out which players currently have the most trade value in baseball. The #1 guy wouldn’t get traded, straight up, for any other player in baseball. The #10 guy is someone who his organization would call untouchable, but if one of the nine guys above him was made available, they’d rethink that stance. You get the idea.

Over the last year, with the recession and the increasing intelligence of major league organizations, we’ve seen a significant rise in the valuation of young players. Where even a few years ago, people were applauding the Mariners decision to trade a bushel of talent for Erik Bedard, pretty much everyone now realizes that players like Adam Jones and Chris Tillman are more valuable than even established all-star pitchers, because of their ability to produce over multiple years for next to no salary. So, there are going to be some big name, high level talents that don’t appear on this list.

Johan Santana, for instance, isn’t on it, even though he’s a great pitcher. He’s just not great enough to justify giving up an elite talent in order to pay him premium dollars. Same with Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez. Great players, but not among the top 50 assets in major league baseball.

So, over the next week, we’ll count down from #50 to #1, going in bursts of five players. We’ll kick off with #50-46 tonight at 5 pm, and then do 10 players a day for the rest of the week. The top 5 will be posted next Monday.

Making this list is hard. There’s so many good players in the game right now, and trying to decide who fits and who doesn’t feels like an impossible task at times. So, to close out the introduction, here are the five guys who just missed the cut. You could probably make a good case for any of them being included, but for me, they were just edged out by the guys above them.

Kevin Youkilis, 1B/3B, Boston – 3.1 WAR

He’s turned himself into a terrific player, but he’s 30 years old and has reached the stage where he’s getting paid significant money.

Ben Zobrist, 2B/OF, Tampa Bay – 4.6 WAR

He’s having an amazing season, is a switch-hitter, and amazingly versatile, but is this kind of power sustainable long term, or is he a 28-year-old having a career year?

Javier Vazquez, RHP, Atlanta – 4.0 WAR

Having the best season of his career, but his ERA is still half a run higher than his FIP, continuing his maddening career tendency to perform worse than his peripherals.

Gordon Beckham, 3B/SS, Chicago – 0.2 WAR

A year after getting drafted, he hit his way to the majors. If I was completely sure he’d be a quality defensive shortstop long term, he’d have made the list.

Pablo Sandoval, 3B/1B/C, San Francisco – 3.1 WAR

The guy once described as “Fat Ichiro” now goes by Kung Fu Panda, and while he’s a strange player, he can really hit. But he’s 22 going on 30 with that body.