At the all star break the only two win-20 runs saved-pitch is Dan Haren‘s four-seam fastball (Tim Lincecum’s change is knocking on the door). All-star Dan Haren not only has the game’s best four-seam fastball, but he also has one of the game’s best cut fastballs (worth one win) and one of the game’s best split finger fastballs (worth half a win). Haren throws a good curveball, too, but for the most he succeeds throwing a variety of different, all great, fastballs. As we saw earlier Jamie Moyer throws a couple different fastballs, but none is as good as any of Haren’s. Jon Lester (four-seam, two-seam and cut) and Carlos Zambrano also succeed throwing a range of different fastballs. Here is the movement on Haren’s pitches.

Haren’s four-seam fastball averages just over 90 mph and has big ‘rise’ and tails in to RHBs. His splitter ‘drops’ in comparison to his four-seam fastball with the same vertical movement as a sinking two-seam fastball. The difference is that a two-seam fastball tails even farther in to RHBs (larger horizontal movement) than a four-seam fastball, while a splitter has less horizontal movement. Haren’s splitter averages about 85 mph. His cutter has slider-like movement and averages 86 mph. He added the cutter this year, replacing a slider he felt was not as effective in Arizona’s low humidity.

Here is his usage pattern and a summary of some stats for each pitch. Zone is the percentage of time he throws the pitch in the rule book zone (using pitchf/x data) and whiff is the number of swings and misses per swings.

+-----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|           | v RHB | v LHB |  Zone | Whiff | GB/BIP|
+-----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Four-Seam |  0.40 |  0.55 |  0.53 |  0.14 |  0.35 |
| Cutter    |  0.36 |  0.09 |  0.44 |  0.36 |  0.50 |
| Splitter  |  0.11 |  0.08 |  0.35 |  0.39 |  0.62 |
| Curveball |  0.13 |  0.28 |  0.52 |  0.26 |  0.47 |
+-----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

The four-seam fastball is his bread and butter, he can get it in the zone with regularity. Against righties his main secondary pitch is the cutter and against lefties the curve. Against both it looks like his splitter is his out pitch. It is rarely in the zone, but gets huge whiff and GB rates-a nasty pitch to throw when ahead in the count. Haren continues to be one of the game’s best pitchers and this year he gets it down throwing an array of hard offerings.

Sometimes I think people underestimate the performance analysis savvy of certain organizations. Then, today happens.

Trade reaction from Ben Badler, via Twitter.

After a long week, I was tired Friday evening and was in desperate need of a nap. About an hour and a half later, I woke up bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed, and went over to the computer to read up on some baseball in attempt to help wake myself up out of a hard sleep. Looking over the headlines, I thought to myself “why, this must be April 1st. That, or I’m still dreaming”. The Royals and the Mets both made moves to acquire two of the worst regulars in all of baseball. After pinching myself and checking other various websites, yes it was true. Jeff Francoeur and Yuniesky Betancourt were both traded on the same day.

R.J. already covered the stupid that is the Betancourt trade. There’s little to say about the Ryan Church for Jeff Francoeur trade that hasn’t been said, and really, there really is no reason to even try and break down such a trade here to FanGraphs readers. I will say that my favorite part of the trade is hearing Minaya repeatedly refer to the amount of games Francoeur can play. Good job, Omar. Way to fail to get the simple concept of replacement level. Gratuitous graph, in light of Frenchy’s now famous quote “If on-base percentage is so important, then why don’t they put it up on the scoreboard?” :

In a Day of Crazy, Jack Zduriencik shined by trading minor league pitcher Justin Souza for 3B Jack Hannahan as a stop-gap option while Adrian Beltre is on the shelf until mid-August. No, Hannahan is not very good, but he’s an upgrade over Chris Woodward, he’s basically free and can pick it at third, to put it in a nutshell. Hitting is definitely not Hannahan’s thing, last season he was 15 runs below average and this season he put up a paltry .260 wOBA before being sent down to Triple-A. He’s the proud owner of one of the major league’s longest swings, and the result is a 30% strikeout rate. He at least has some sort of batting eye, with an 11% walk rate last season.

No, what makes Hannahan a nice addition is the fact he can play third base with the best of them. Over the past three seasons, Hannahan has an UZR of 18.4 and an UZR/150 of 14.7. Over the course of a season, his defense alone is worth a win alone, and over the past 238 games with Oakland and now a couple with Seattle, Hannahan has been a three WAR player on the strength of that defense. The M’s are still in the race and adding Hannahan to replace Woodward only helps. Zduriencik is continuing a pattern of picking up undervalued glove men, as we’ve seen him do with acquiring Franklin Gutierrez, Endy Chavez and Ryan Langerhans. On a day of fools, Jack Z. looks like a genius in contrast.

It takes the rarest of circumstances for a perfect game to occur. Friday night in San Francisco had all the makings. The intriguing subplot involving Jonathan Sanchez’ future, the tender moments provided by his father and brother being in attendance – reportedly the first time his father has seen him pitch in the majors –, and the worst offense in the National League. Everything was brewed and marinated just right, or so it seemed.

Sanchez started the evening with a groundout and a pair of strikeouts. In the second he secured three fly outs. After getting some run support in the bottom of the second, Sanchez kept on rolling, retiring 6-9 and 1-3 in the next two innings and setting up a big match-up with Adrian Gonzalez to start the fifth. It’s hard to say whether anyone was really excited about the potential of a perfect game at this point, but anytime you have to face off with Gonzalez, it’s a big deal. Sanchez struck Gonzalez out swinging on four pitches and then K’d Chase Headley for good measure.

In the sixth and seventh innings, Sanchez would strike out five of the six batters he faced, with the only ball in play coming courtesy of Luis Rodriguez. The final out of the seventh would be Kevin Kouzmanoff, which again set up Gonzalez to open the next inning. Realistically, Gonzalez is the only obstacle between Sanchez and immortality. Gonzalez flies out to the track, and there you have it. At this point, someone – likely upon emptying their beverage container – has realized Sanchez’s line is starting to look historic.

Chase Headley comes up, hits a hopper to third and…oh heavens, Juan Uribe butchers it. Even with the perfect game over, Sanchez retires Craig Stansberry, Eliezer Alfonzo, Luis Rodriguez, Edgar Gonzalez, and Evereth Cabrera in order. Sure, it’s not a perfect game, but you have to feel good for Sanchez tossing a no hitter. Even after the game, Sanchez’s ERA sits a half run higher than his FIP. The guy definitely could use some good luck, and he got some on this night.

The Royals desperately needed a shortstop. Their collective group was batting a cool .208/.234/.281 with awful defense and little in the way of upside.

Today, they pulled the trigger, acquiring Yuniesky Betancourt.

Betancourt doesn’t hit for power, walk, take coaching well, field, or keep himself in shape. His contract calls for 3 million next year, 4 million in 2011, and 6 million in 2012 (although the Royals can always pay him the 2 million buyout instead), so he’s not cheap either. Over the last three seasons Betancourt has hit .278/.299/.392 while playing most of his games in Safeco. He doesn’t hit for a lot of power, but even if you assume Safeco suppressed him a bit, he’s still not a very good hitter. He’s a below average fielder at shortstop, and the whispers – which have became a bit more than that in the Seattle press – suggest he lacks work ethic.

The Royals give up Derrick Saito and Dan Cortes. Saito is a low-level reliever striking out a ton of batters, meanwhile Baseball America ranked Cortes as the third best prospect in the Royals system. I’m not a GM, I don’t know what Jack Zduriencik wanted for Betancourt, but Cortes seems like a lot for a perpetually below average shortstop.

If adding playing time threats, benching, closed door meetings, and a team in contention didn’t snap Betancourt into focus, then what will? Even if the Mariners are picking up most of the tab, which we don’t know at this point, it’s still a questionable gamble for Dayton Moore.

The Royals still desperately need a shortstop.

Over this past off-season Brain Saeben surprisingly made a number of free agent acquisitions that were well received in the sabermetric community, including signing Jeremy Affeldt to two year eight million dollar contract. Affeldt has already provided 3.2 million dollars of value, so is well on his way to earning his contract. A big part of his value comes from the fact that he has allowed only one home run so far this year on the strength of his amazing 66% GB/BIP, as of last night good for third below only side-armers Brad Ziegler and Peter Moylan. That is way above his career average of 48%, although his GB rate has been increasing each year since 2006.

Usually such a high GB rate is achieved by throwing a ‘sinking’ fastball. Most fastballs ‘rise’ about 8 inches, that is they drop 8 inches less than you would expect due to gravity. A sinking fastball ‘rises’ a lot less than a normal fastball, so appears to sink to hitters. A sinker will generally have a vertical movement between 4 and -4 inches, so drops between 4 inches less to 4 inches more than you expect due to gravity. Here is the average vertical movement of the fastballs of the eight relievers with a GB rate above 60%. They are ordered along the right.

Affeldt’s fastball rises the most of the group, almost as much as an average fastball. Most of the group has heavy sinking action to their fastballs, as expected. In addition most of the group throws two-seam fastballs that tend to sink more, while Affeldt throws mostly a four-seamer that tends to rise. Affeldt’s high GB rate is very strange given this graph.

The next thing I thought was that even though Affeldt’s fastball rises he can locate it down in the zone. So I looked at the location of his pitches in 2008 and 2009.

The 2009 pitches are very slightly lower, but almost no different. Based on the type of pitches he throws, and where he throws them I do not think that Affeldt is a 60+% GB pitcher. I think that rate is very fluky and will settle back to his career average around 50%, but he is still a very good relief pitcher at that GB rate.

Outfielder James McOwen is the current owner of the 45-game hitting streak, the minors’ longest since Roman Mejias hit in 55 straight — over 50 years ago. During the 45-game streak, McOwen has batted .398/.440/.536 for the High Desert Mavericks, the High-A affiliate for the Seattle Mariners. Obviously hitting safely in 45 straight games is quite a feat, so one might assume Jamie McOwen is some sort of valuable prospect, no?

Well, not exactly. McOwen didn’t make Baseball America’s Top 30 Mariners’ prospects in their latest handbook. He’s never been mentioned as a prospect by any of the other prospect gurus around the interwebs, such as Kevin Goldstein, Keith Law or John Sickels. What little I’ve been able to dig up is that he is what scouts call a “tweener”, meaning that while he might hit for some average, he won’t hit for the type of power you’d hope for out of a corner outfielder, and he can’t play center or any other up-the-middle type of position.

Looking at his minor league numbers, he has cut down on his strikeouts; they are down to 14.5% to 21% last year at the same level. His power production is up a bit, (.149 ISO) but it is hardly considered to be anything extraordinary in the hitter’s paradise that is the Cal League. With anyone in the middle of a 45-game hitting streak, you’d expect a high BABIP, which McOwen has, at .403. So there’s nothing whatsoever statistical here that backs up that McOwen is some sort of uber-prospect. He’s 23 years old, put up a ‘meh’ .323 wOBA last year, and as I said, is repeating a level.

McOwen’s hit streak is the 8th longest in minor league history. Just for kicks, let’s look at players with longer hitting streaks, and whether or not it translated into big league success. Take into consideration that the minors are quite what they are now, but:

• In 1919 Joe Wilhoit hit in 69 straight games for Wichita. In four seasons he played for four different teams, compiled 887 plate appearances and a wRAA of 4.
• In 1930 Joe DiMaggio (ever heard of him?) hit in 61 straight in the PCL. I think we know what sort of career he went on to have.
• I mentioned Roman Mejias earlier; he carved out a 9-year career, playing with the Pirates, the Colt .45’s and Red Sox. He had a career high .343 while with Houston, but for his career was a negative at the dish, with a -19.8 wRAA.
• In 1922, Otto Pahlman hit in 50-straight in the now defunct Illinois League. He never cracked a major league roster.
• In 1915, Jack Ness hit in 49-straight for Oakland and had the PCL record until The Yankee Clipper came along. Ness only lasted 12 games with the 1911 Tigers, and didn’t play in the minors again until the season after the streak, in 1916 with the White Sox. He played in just 87 total games in the big leagues, posting a .299 wOBA for his brief career.
• In 1945, Harry Chozen also hit in 49-straight for Mobile. The hit streak came eight years after he played one game for the Cincinnati Reds in where he went 1-for-4. That was it for his major league career. Despite the streak, he never was brought back to the majors.
• In 1925, Johnny Bates hit in 46 straight for Nashville of the Southern Association. There’s a Johnny Bates that had a pretty nifty 9-year career (164.3 wRAA), but that career ended in 1914. It’s doubtful that the same Johnny Bates was playing in the minors eleven years later at age 43, right? Because if so, then that’s just plain interesting.
• Sitting just behind McOwen is Brandon Watson, who hit in 43-straight games for Triple-A Columbus. He’s now 27, playing in the Diamondbacks organization, and his hitting for a .310 wOBA. In 96 major league plate appearances for his career he has a .216 wOBA.

Th lesson is here is these hit streaks are pretty meaningless in determining prospect status. Not trying to downplay his accomplishment, and here’s hoping he keeps the streak going. It goes without saying that McOwen is not the next Joltin’ Joe, but he’s not even necessarily a prospect.

Los Angeles, 99 wins
Boston, 97 wins
New York Yankees, 95 wins

Kansas City, 69 wins
San Diego, 68 wins
Washington, 55 wins

Based on Baseball Prospectus’ updated PECOTA team projections, these six teams are the only ones among all 30 teams that are projected to finish with more than 90 or fewer than 70 wins this season. The other 24 teams comprise the entire divisions of the NL Central (currently five teams within four games of the lead) and AL West (currently three teams within five games of the lead).

It is a shocking display of parity amongst a vast majority of the teams in baseball and should lead to among other things, a rather stagnant trading deadline as a remarkable nine teams in the AL and 12 teams in the NL are currently in or within five games of a playoff berth. That is 21 teams in total that right now would consider themselves to have a reasonable shot at post season play.

As boring as that might make July 31st, it should make August and September exciting. And with the economy the way it is, there might be more post-July 31st deals this season with more teams reluctant to lay waiver claims on expensive players. Of course the economy might also prevent teams from trading for some of those hefty salaries, but with the playoffs in more direct sight and a more tangible pay off looming in terms of ticket sales, perhaps teams will pull the trigger more often.

Even if not, we stand a good chance at seeing some close finishes for playoff spots, even if the eventual winner is around the 88-win mark instead of the usual 92 wins or so.

Juan Cruz is a huge fan of aviation. Of all qualified relievers, Cruz has allowed the most fly balls and inversely the least amount of grounders. 30% of Cruz’s batted balls aren’t going for grounders, nope, not 20% either, 15%? A touch high, but essentially equal to Cruz’s 14.7%. Not only is it a career low, but nearly half as many as Cruz allowed just last season. Best I can tell is that the previous lows for GB% with 20+ innings pitched include Mark S. McLemore in 2007, Al Reyes in 2007, and Chris Young in 2008 – who somehow maintained the feat despite starting.

Each of those pitchers finished over 20%, so Cruz is in some historical territory if he somehow keeps on this pace. I wouldn’t put money on him completing the task, but it is interesting to look at Cruz’s steady increase in fly balls allowed over the past few seasons, dating back to when he made the full-time switch from starting to relief duty. Check out his GB/FB ratios:

2004: 1.26
2005: 1.23
2006: 1.07
2007: 0.75
2008: 0.47
2009: 0.23

Most know you should weigh averages instead of expecting trends to continue, but I’m guessing Cruz has tested a few people’s resolve at this point. I would love to give an explanation as to why Cruz is inducing more and more fly balls, but I can’t really find anything. Maybe he’s pitching up in the zone more, or mixing his pitches better, I don’t really know. The only thing different this year is that he’s throwing his change more and his fastball less. That could help explain this year’s raise, but does little to solve the mysteries of the past.

I intend on keeping my eyes on Cruz, much like he seems to enjoy keeping his eye on airplanes.

Today, David Price matched up against Roy Halladay and won as the Rays edged the Jays 3-2. On the heels of a terrible start against Texas, where he walked five and gave up six runs while only getting four outs, seeing Price throwing six innings while only walking one batter had to be a big relief for Tampa Bay fans. However, he had some help. Take a look at the strike zone plot from today’s game, courtesy of Brooks Baseball.

By my count, there are 17 pitches that are clearly off the plate that were called strikes. Plain and simple, Tim Welke had a wide strike zone this afternoon. If it was above the knees and anywhere near the plate, he was sticking his arm in the air. He was consistent about it, giving both pitchers a few inches off the plate on either side, so while he wasn’t biased one way or another, his calls still clearly had an impact on how the pitchers were able to attack opposing hitters today.

Compare the strike zone above with the one that Price faced from Dana DeMuth in his previous start:

Three pitches off the plate that were called strikes in the game against Texas, plus a whole host of pitches down in the zone, but over the middle of the plate, that were called balls. The strike zone that Welke called today was much, much different than the one that DeMuth called five days ago.

You hear a lot of talk about how inconsistent pitchers are, especially young pitchers. From start to start, the variations in performance can be drastic. However, we have to keep in mind that it isn’t just the pitcher’s stuff or command that’s a variable on any given day, but the opposing team, the park, the weather, and yes, the umpire. Did David Price have better command today than he did in his last start? Yea, I’m sure he did. But he got a lot more help from the man in blue today, as well. What would the performances have looked like if Welke had been behind the plate for the Texas game and DeMuth behind the plate for today’s contest? Significantly different, I think. Perhaps instead of one terrible start and one great start, Price would have just looked okay twice.

As always, the moral of the story – evaluating pitchers by their results, even their defensive independent ones, is a great way to reach some bad conclusions. There are just so many things that are out of a pitcher’s control that can have a significant, tangible impact on the final product.

With a pitching staff overflowing with the likes of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, Brad Penny, John Smoltz and Tim Wakefield (as well as the injured Daisuke Matsuzaka), the Boston Red Sox club has a plethora of options for the starting rotation. And there is more on the way. Let’s update the “disgusting” (ie. enviable) starting pitcher depth in the minor league system:

Clay Buchholz: Doomed by a poor 2008 season, this 24-year-old hurler has turned things around in 2009 but the organization lacks a spot for him at the Major League level. Buchholz has a 2.11 ERA (3.26 FIP) in 93.2 innings. The right-hander has allowed just 59 hits, while posting a walk rate of 2.79 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 8.26 K/9. Right-handed hitters are managing a batting average of just .130 against Buchholz.

Michael Bowden: Like Buchholz, this 22-year-old right-hander would probably be pitching in the Majors for just about any other big league organization. In 16 triple-A starts, Bowden has an ERA of 3.32 (4.49 FIP) and he’s allowed 70 hits in 81.1 innings, while posting rates of 3.43 BB/9 and 5.98 K/9. He’s not flashy, but he has the potential to be a solid No. 3 starter.

Felix Doubront: This 21-year-old southpaw from Venezuela is not talked about as much as some of the other pitchers in the system, but you cannot ignore his potential. Doubront has a 3.71 ERA (3.93 FIP) in 15 double-A starts. He’s been a little too hittable with 64 hits allowed in 63 innings and he has a walk rate of 4.14 BB/9, but his strikeout rates have increased as he’s climbed the organizational ladder. With a little more command and control, Doubront could vault into the upper echelon of Boston pitching prospects.

Junichi Tazawa: Tazawa received a fair bit of press this past off-season as a highly-regarded Japanese amateur free agent. Boston payed a pretty penny for the right-hander, but he’s more than justified the contract with an excellent season in double-A. Tazawa has allowed 72 hits in 87 innings of work while posting a walk rate of 2.59 BB/9. He also has a strikeout rate of 8.17 K/9, while adjusting to life in North America. Tazawa has been particularly tough with runners in scoring position (.163 average, compared to .246 with the bases empty).

Casey Kelly: Things were not supposed to go quite this easily for Kelly. The 19-year-old doesn’t even want to be a pitcher; the former two-way prep prospect would much rather play everyday at shortstop. The organization agreed to let Kelly play shortstop in 2009 if he first pitched about 100 innings on the season. With 95 innings pitched, he’s about to leave the mound behind for 2009, but Kelly has excited just about everyone with his potential as a pitcher. He blew threw low-A with a 1.12 ERA (2.14 FIP) in nine starts. In eight high-A starts, Kelly has allowed 33 hits in 46.2 innings of work. He’s also posted a walk rate of 1.35 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 6.75 K/9. Kelly has a healthy groundball rate at 53%. If you’re the Boston management, you have to cross your fingers and pray that Kelly sucks big time with the stick so he’ll turn his attention back to pitching.

And Don’t forget about: Kyle Weiland, Nick Hagadone, Stolmy Pimentel, Brock Huntzinger, and Stephen Fife.