Thanks to a reader, who pointed this out to me. Did you know that Mike Wuertz is currently accomplishing a somewhat rare feat, that of generating more swinging strikes than called strikes. Through 727 pitches to date, Wuertz has caused batters to swing and miss 144 times while getting a called strike 134 times.

Achieving this level is quite difficult to do. Among pitchers with at least 500 pitches thrown this year, only four have done it so far. Along with Wuertz, there is Russ Springer (92 swinging strikes to 81 called strikes), Brandon League (94 swinging strikes to 83 called strikes) and Rafael Betancourt (66 swinging strikes to 61 called strikes).

All four of these are relievers, which is to be expected since relief pitchers have, on average, a higher swinging strike rate than starting pitchers. It takes a really rare starter to accomplish that feat. Rich Harden last year such a starter, compiling 363 missed bats against 351 called strikes.

In general, there are usually less than ten pitchers per year that manage to out pace their called strikes with swinging strikes. And aside from Rich Harden, who also did it in 2006 and is close (222 swinging strikes, 223 called) to doing it again this year, no starting pitcher has managed to do it since 2003.

As we talked about a few days ago, Matt Holliday is a good player, and he’s really going to help the Cardinals down the stretch. That said, I have to wonder, is St. Louis trying to copy the Milwaukee model of right-handed only offenses?

With this deal, the Cardinals regular line-up when everyone is healthy shakes down something like this.

1. Skip Schumaker, 2B, LH
2. Colby Rasmus, CF, LH
3. Albert Pujols, 1B, RH
4. Matt Holliday, LF, RH
5. Ryan Ludwick, RF, RH
6. Mark DeRosa, 3B, RH
7. Yadier Molina, C, RH
8. Pitcher, P, ?
9. Brendan Ryan, SS, RH

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to match-up with that kind of line-up in a playoff series. You leave your lefty starters at home, throw as many RH starters as possible, and use your LOOGY to go after Schumaker and Rasmus, before throwing a bunch more right-handed relievers to finish out the game. Pretty basic stuff.

Maybe LaRussa mixes up the line-up come October, moving DeRosa up and Rasmus back to add a little more balance, but even that only does so much – with six right-handed bats and just two left-handed bats in the regular line-up, the Cardinals are going to see a bunch of RH pitching if they make the playoffs, no matter how they arrange the batting order.

The Brewers tried this last year, with a quality offense overloaded with RH bats. They couldn’t figure out Brett Myers or Joe Blanton in the first round, and they went home. It’s tough enough to beat quality teams in a playoff series without making the match-ups easy on the opposing manager.

I get that there wasn’t a big LH bat out there that fit the Cardinals needs, but I have to wonder whether St. Louis would have been better off going after a LH third baseman instead of DeRosa if they felt like they were going to make a run at Holliday as well. As is, they’ve paid a pretty steep price in young talent to build a line-up that will hit the crap out of left-handers, but they might not see more than one or two in the playoffs. And whether this line-up can muster a bunch of runs against RH pitching remains to be seen.

The Cleveland Indians organization continued its dismantling of the disappointing 2009 squad by shipping veteran reliever Rafael Betancourt to the Colorado Rockies for minor league pitcher Connor Graham. The Indians’ bullpen has received a huge face-lift since the beginning of the season; new faces include Chris Perez, Jose Veras, Winston Abreu, and Mike Gosling. The club has shed numerous veteran pitchers like Matt Herges, Luis Vizcaino, Vinnie Chulk, and Betancourt.

Betancourt, 34, spent parts of seven seasons in the Majors with Cleveland and was a reliable mainstay in the bullpen for six. He was originally signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1993 and even spent a little bit of time in Japan. The Indians signed him as a minor league free agent in 2003. On the final year of a two-year contract (with a $5.4 million option for 2010) that was paying him $3.4 million, Betancourt was poised to enter the free agent market at season’s end.

It was a good time for Cleveland to shed Betancourt (and it allows him to enter a playoff race). The right-hander was having a respectable season, but his workload was down a bit as he began to show signs of fragility. His control was also slipping as his walk rate went from ranging between 1.02-2.43 BB/9 during his prime years to 3.17 in ’08 and 4.40 in ’09. Betancourt’s strikeout rate, though, remained strong at 9.39 K/9 and he was allowing fewer than one hit per nine innings. His 30.9 GB% should make things interesting in Colorado.

The Indians organization has certainly seen a jump in the quality of its minor-league arms (T.J. House, Hector Rondon, Alexander Perez, Jeanmar Gomez) and the addition of Graham adds another promising power arm to the system. Graham at 6’6” 235 lbs is a behemoth with a low-to-mid-90s fastball and good slider. He was a reliever at the University of Miami (Ohio), but he’s been getting added pitching experience by working out of the starting rotation in pro ball. Most scouts believe, though, that his MLB future lies back in the bullpen, where he could develop into a set-up man or closer.

This season in high-A ball, Graham allowed 68 hits in 80.1 innings, while posting a walk rate of 4.59 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 9.75 K/9. It’s his control that will dictate whether or not he gets handed the ball in the ninth inning. He’s done a nice job of keeping the ball in the park in his career, and he allowed just two homers this season in Modesto.

If Cleveland wants a return on its investment sooner rather than later, it will assign Graham to double-A and shifted him to the bullpen. If that were to occur, he could be ready for the Majors by mid-2010. He turns 24 in December, so there is no reason to keep the kid gloves on.

All things considered, it’s a smart move by both organizations.

Before heading over to Greensboro last night to watch Andrew Brackman pitch for the Charleston RiverDogs, I checked out his line here on FanGraphs to see how he’d been pitching as of late. It was ugly – a BB/9 over 6 was the main culprit of a FIP near 5.00 in low-A ball. That’s not good, but plenty of pitchers have struggled in the minors while coming back from arm surgery. More than the results, I was interested to see what he was throwing.

In the first inning, he sat 90-92 with the fastball, going to the outside corner against RHBs. The pitch had some decent movement down and away, and profiled as the kind of pitch that could get groundballs. His command was poor, as expected, walking the leadoff batter, but even once he got ahead in the count, it became obvious he didn’t have anything else besides the fastball. On an 0-2 count, he threw a 73 MPH curve with no tilt that bounced about a foot in front of the plate. He came back with another weak 72 MPH curve that just hung in the strike zone begging to be hit. He went back to the fastball and got through the first inning, but wasn’t impressive.

Then came the second inning. The fastball dipped down to 88, but he still popped 92 occasionally, but the breaking ball was just awful, and the Greensboro hitters were sitting on his fastball. His command went in the toilet, and the movement on his fastball ran right into LHBs wheelhouse, giving them a chance to take batting practice. Kyle Skipworth, who isn’t exactly a good hitting prospect, launched one of Brackman’s fastballs deep into the night sky. Every left-hander just pounded the fastball, and the curve simply wasn’t good enough to keep hitters off balance.

At one point, with the bases loaded and nobody out, Brackman abandoned the fastball and threw nothing but curves. Foul, Foul, Roped down the line. That didn’t work so well. His breaking ball just wasn’t anything close to being a major league pitch.

Seven runs scored in the second, but Brackman came back out for the third. At least, until he walked a couple more hitters, and Charleston’s manager had seen enough. 2 1/3 innings, 6 hits, 5 walks… and he looked even worse than that.

Brackman needs a lot of work. His command is a 30 or 35 on the 20-80 scouting scale, and he’s currently pitching without good stuff either. He’s got nothing – no velocity, no breaking ball, no ability to throw strikes. If I didn’t know who Brackman was before the game, I’d have written him off as a very tall non-prospect.

Yankee fans hoping for Brackman to get to New York someday better hope he finds his velocity, because the current version is never going to get out of A-ball.

Rumors are flying throughout the twitterverse that St. Louis is doing some Holliday shopping, and it is expected to come at the expense of their top prospect, Brett Wallace.

Brett Wallace is not-so affectionately dubbed “the Walrus” by scouts for his 6-1, 245 pear-shaped body. Scouts do love his bat though; he was considered to be the best pure hitter of the 2008 draft. In just a season and a half of pro-ball, Wallace has put up a .308/.392/.469 line. This year he started slowly for Triple-A Memphis, but has worked his way up to a respectable .298/.351/.431. Not eye-catching, but certainly not at all shabby for someone who was swinging a metal bat in the Pac-10 just a little over a year ago.

Wallace is not projected to be a big-time power threat, but rather a 15-20 homer guy who hits for a high average and takes his fair share of walks; somewhat of a Kevin Youkilis before he found his power stroke. The biggest knock on Wallace his “fall down range”. He’s defensively challenged at third base to put it mildly, and there is this guy named Pujols in St. Louis who isn’t moving from first base.

Baseball America recently came out with their mid-season top 25, and Wallace ranked 21st. According to Victor Wang — who has published some tremendous research on the hidden value of prospects and the draft — top 11-25 ranked hitters have a trade value of $25 million. Suffice to say, Wallace is a valuable commodity.

Matt Holliday is projected to hit for a .370 wOBA the rest of the season. He’s a good fielder and base-runner, so we can safely figure he will add to the Cardinals a couple of wins, worth $9 million. He’s also a Type-A free agent at the end of the season, meaning an added bonus of some extra draft picks. Once again referring to Victor’s research, that compensation is worth $5 million to a club, not even close to equal value of a top 100 prospect. (Sky also has more light on the subject at BtB. Bookmark it, folks.) Holliday is also due about $6M in salary for the rest of the season.

So two wins plus draft pick compensation minus salary equals about $8 million in value for Holliday. Simple math, folks — $25M > $8M. The trade is actually pretty lopsided when you look at from that perspective. Mozeliak is also faced with the fact that after Brett Wallace, his farm system will be a lot thinner, no pun intended.

Flags fly forever, and Wallace may never quite pan out and is probably not the greatest fit for his parent club.The Cardinals should be buyers at this point, but I wonder if they can’t get a better return than a rental for their top prospect.

I didn’t think I’d be writing this, but here I am. The Houston Astros are in second place in the National League Central. It’s July. It’s the second to last Friday in July, and yet the Astros have a better record than the Cubs, Brewers, and Reds; the Cardinals have a game and a half lead on Houston.

The problem: Lance Berkman just hit the disabled list. It goes without saying that Berkman is a vital clog to the Astros. He leads them in on-base average, slugging percentage, ISO, wOBA, and just about any other offensive stat of consequence. Berkman’s replacements aren’t so good, in fact, Berkman’s infield mates aren’t very good. In his absence, Chris Coste has taken over the first base duties. That leaves Kazuo Matsui, Geoff Blum, Jeff Keppinger, and Miguel Tejada rounding out the infield. Here’s a look at their wOBA to date:

Tejada .356
Coste .298
Keppinger .323
Blum .316
Matsui .289

Throw in Matt Kata and Darin Erstad for good measure and the Astros still only have one better than league average hitter standing on the dirt. None are too stellar with the glove either, which leaves the Astros in a rough predicament. They don’t have the young pieces to acquire a stand-in first baseman, or brand new second baseman. Instead, they’re left to make do with what they have. With so little depth a playoff run seems fairly hard to imagine.

Truth is, I’m not sure how they got to this point. Matthew showed them as the luckiest team in baseball recently and I think the shoe fits. They have top heavy talent. On offense four players are worth 2+ WAR and Carlos Lee/Ivan Rodriguez are worth 1+. After that, only two other batters over a half a win. Same can be said for their pitching staff. Two starters over two wins, one starter with a win, a reliever in Chris Sampson who is quite good, Russ Ortiz doing swingman duties, and that’s it. Those are your players with 0.5+ WAR.

They have a ton of negative valued players though. The pitching staff has Geoff Geary, Doug Brocail, and Brandon Backe (amongst others) to thank for -2 WAR while the batters should send parting gifts to Jason Smith and Jason Michaels; -2.3 WAR without counting the pitcher contributions on offense. That’s -4.3 WAR. If you take Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee off the team to date, they combine for 3.8 WAR. That’s how bad some of the players the Astros are relying on are.

Maybe they can sneak into first place for a few days, just for their fans sake, but it’s not going to last long. Frankly I might be a bit irked as an Astros fan, all this luck is going to cost Houston a nice draft pick for their efforts.

Dave covered Mark Buehrle’s perfect game earlier, but the most impressive aspect of the performance might be the time it took for him to do the feat. The Rays television crew recorded exactly how long Buehrle was on the mound today. The total time of the game is listed at 123 minutes (2:03 in hours). Of those 123 minutes, Buehrle was only pitching during 32 of them.

Easy math: 32/123 = 0.26, times 100…that means that 74% of today’s game involved the Rays on the mound. The other 26% involved the Rays not making a sound. Impressive doesn’t begin to describe that figure and while I don’t have similar measures for any of the other perfect games, we do have the total time of game in each instance. To compare with the past five perfect games:

Randy Johnson 2004 2:13
David Cone 1999 2:16
David Wells 1998 2:40
Kenny Rogers 1994 2:08
Dennis Martinez 1991 2:14

In fact, we haven’t seen such an amazing performance go by this quickly in two decades. Tom Browning’s perfect game in 1988 took just under two hours at 1:51, Mike Witt’s perfect game a few years prior clocked in at 1:49.

On a personal level, this marks the first perfect game I’ve experienced from beginning to end. It was surreal realizing that history was knocking entering, oh, say the fifth or sixth innings. At that point it seemed like destiny.

Congratulations Mark Buehrle. Now go buy Dewayne Wise a new car or something.

If you haven’t heard, Buehrle just threw the 18th perfect game in major league history. He was brilliant, putting a powerful Tampa Bay line-up to sleep, 27 up and 27 down. Well, sort of. He got 26 batters out. Wise got Gabe Kapler out.

Inserted as a defensive replacement in the 9th inning, Wise didn’t have to wait long to spring into action. Kapler was the first batter of the inning, and he launched a pitch deep into the left center field gap. Wise took off, got to the fence, and made a leaping stab to pull the ball down from over the top of the wall. Then, he crashed into the wall and a lost handle on the ball, finally bare handing it before he crashed to the ground. Instead of a home run, Kapler was simply out #25. You can see the video here.

Buehrle did the rest, capping off history by striking out Michael Hernandez and getting Jason Bartlett to ground weakly to shortstop. 27 months after he no-hit the Rangers, Buehrle one-upped himself, and wrote his name into the history books, with perfection.

His final line? 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K. 76 of his 116 pitches were strikes. His WPA for the game was 0.29, mostly thanks to an early grand slam from Josh Fields that put an end to high leverage situations.

Congratulations to Mark Buehrle. From all accounts, he’s one of the good guys in baseball. You’ll never be forgotten now.

This week we’re taking a look at some of the leader boards in double-A and high-A ball. Today, we’ll take a look at the leaders in Strikeouts Per 9 Innings (K/9) and Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) among the three high-A leagues: the California League, the Carolina League and the Florida State League.

As with the high-A hitters, I want to add a caution with this league. The California League, is an extreme hitter’s league, so many of the pitchers’ numbers are more impressive than they appear. The Carolina League is also a difficult league to pitch in, although not quite as bad as the Cal League. The Florida State League is widely considered a pitcher’s league.

11.20- Chris Withrow, RHP, Los Angeles NL

Elbow soreness limited this former first-round pick to just four innings in 2008. His control has been off in 2009 (4.93 BB/9) but Withrow is still racking up the Ks. The 20-year-old has a 4.82 ERA, but his FIP is just 3.03. In 80.1 innings, he’s allowed 73 hits and just three homers.

10.24- Corey Kluber, RHP, San Diego

Kluber, 23, had a rough introduction to high-A in 2008 when he posted a 6.01 ERA (4.08 FIP) with 93 hits allowed in 85.1 innings of work. The right-hander was still a little too hittable in 2009 at the same level when he allowed 110 hits in 109 innings. Kluber did, though, post a strikeout rate of 10.24 K/9, as well as a walk rate of 2.97 BB/9. He’s now pitching in double-A, where he’s made just one start.

9.75- Connor Graham, RHP, Colorado

Graham has posted some good ERAs (and FIPs) in his first three minor-league seasons but his control has been less than impressive (5.07 BB/9 in ’08, 4.59 in ’09). This season he’s allowed just 68 hits in 80.1 innings of work, while also posting a strikeout rate of 9.75 K/9. With a mid-90s fastball and good slider (and not much else), Graham is probably a late-game reliever in the long run (a role he held in college).

2.58- Cory Luebke, LHP, San Diego

Luebke joins teammate Kluber on this list. Whereas Kluber was borderline old for the league, Luebke was certainly an over-ager at 24. The left-hander also struggled during his first taste of the California League in 2008 with a 6.84 ERA (3.93 FIP) and 97 hits allowed in 72.1 innings of work. This year, he allowed 73 hits in 88.1 innings, while also posting a walk rate of 1.73 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 8.15 K/9. He’s now pitching in double-A with Kluber and has made three starts.

2.84- Jake Wild, RHP, Seattle

A senior sign out of college in 2007, Wild will be 25 in August so he’s definitely old for the league. He’s bounced between the starting rotation and the bullpen in 2009, while showing good control (2.23 BB/9) and modest strikeout numbers (7.92 K/9). He’s been hittable with 104 hits allowed in 88.2 innings of work.

2.96- Joshua Collmenter, RHP, Arizona

The Diamondbacks organization really needs some prospects, so Arizona has to be encouraged with Collmenter’s season, even if he is 23 and pitching in high-A. The right-hander has allowed 87 hits in 104.1 innings, while also posting a walk rate of 2.85 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 9.06 K/9. The 6’4” 235 pound Collmenter has a big, strong pitcher’s frame and he has an outside shot of developing into a No. 4 starter.

9.92- Eammon Portice, RHP, Boston

The Boston organization is flush with prospects and Portice is one name that does not get a ton of attention, in part because he’s pitching in high-A at the age of 24. The right-hander has made 17 starts but he projects as a reliever in the Majors due to a his violent delivery and lack of a third reliable pitch. Portice has shown improved control and he induces a lot of groundballs when he’s sharp.

8.70- Danny Duffy, LHP, Kansas City

One of the most promising pitchers in the entire league, Duffy is just 20 years old. He’s allowed 83 hits in 90 innings, while posting a walk rate of 2.90 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 8.70 K/9. On the downside, his K rate has dropped each year of his three-year pro career, while his ERA (and FIP) has risen each season.

8.53- Zach Britton, LHP, Baltimore

Like Boston, Baltimore is another organization that is rich in pitching depth and Britton often gets lost behind the likes of Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, and Jake Arrieta. The southpaw, though, is extremely talented and has allowed just 87 hits in 101.1 innings of work. The 21-year-old hurler has allowed four homers. He has, though, struggled with his control a little bit (3.74 BB/9).

2.72- Bradley Meyers, RHP, Washington

Meyers was considered a possible supplemental first-round draft pick (in both high school and college) before his poor showing in his draft year of college. The Nationals got him in the fifth round and it’s taken him a little while to get acclimatized to professional baseball. Things have clicked for Meyers, 23, in 2009, and he allowed 71 hits in 88.1 innings, while also posting a walk rate of 2.14 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 6.62 K/9. He also had a 1.43 ERA (but 2.72 FIP) before his promotion to double-A, where he’s made just one start. He has a fastball that can touch 93 mph, a slider, and a changeup.

2.96- Danny Duffy, LHP, Kansas City

See Above.

3.06- Eammon Portice, RHP, Boston

See Above.

8.87- Evan Anundsen, RHP, Milwaukee

Anundsen has had one of the biggest jumps in value among any pitcher in high-A ball in 2009. The right-hander has seen his K rate jump by about 2 Ks per nine innings over his career norm, while also maintaining a solid walk rate (2.60). He’s also allowed just 67 hits in 93.1 innings of work. The right-hander is just 21 years of age.

8.75- David Newmann, LHP, Tampa Bay

Newmann was a fourth round pick coming out of college, but he did not get into game action after signing in 2007 and then he blew out his knee in the spring of 2008 and missed the entire season. As a result, the southpaw made his pro debut in 2009 at high-A ball. Considering the amount of time that he’s missed, you have to be impressed with his numbers, including his control at 3.67 K/9.

8.50- Darin Downs, LHP, Tampa Bay

A former Cubs prospect, Downs has seen his walk rate improve significantly (1.77 BB/9) over his 2008 season, when he posted a rate of 6.17 BB/9 in 22 double-A games. The left-hander has been too hittable with 104 hits allowed in 101.2 innings and he’s also 24 years old.

2.39- Evan Anundsen, RHP, Milwaukee

See Above.

2.57- Jose Rosario, RHP, Florida

Rosario is 23 years of age and he’s having his first successful season in pro ball since coming over to North America from the Dominican Republic. The right-hander has shown excellent control with a walk rate of 1.59 BB/9. He also has a strikeout rate of 7.75 K/9 and has allowed just two homers on the year. Rosario, though, is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who has been aided by the big parks.

2.76- Lance Pendleton, RHP, New York AL

Pendleton was a fourth round pick out of Rice University in 2005, but he missed almost all of the 2006 and 2007 seasons with injuries (surprise, surprise). The right-hander has looked good this season, but he’s also turning 26 in September. He has walk rate of 2.76 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 7.65 K/9. At best, he profiles as a middle reliever in the Majors.

Here’s the quote of the year.

“Right now we do not envision [being a seller],” Minaya said. “If we’re 6 ½ [back] in the wild card with a couple of teams in front of us, we are still kind of trying to find out how we can improve this team, if we can improve it through trades.”

Jose Reyes hasn’t played a game since mid-May. Ditto Carlos Delgado. Carlos Beltran has been on the shelf for the last month. John Maine and J.J. Putz slightly longer than that. But now, with his team 10 games out of first place and 7 1/2 games out of the top spot in the wild card, having just watched his team lose back to back games to the Washington Nationals, Omar Minaya thinks it might be time to get his roster some help.

Someone buy the man a fiddle, because he needs something to do while watching the burning rubble that is his personal overpriced Rome. During one of the great buyer’s markets of all time, Minaya paid through the nose for a bad starting pitcher and bullpen help, while neglecting the fact that there was no organizational depth beyond the starting position players. If any of them got hurt, it was going to get bad in a hurry, but that apparently didn’t need to be addressed in his spending spree over the winter.

Maybe the Mets didn’t deserve to have all these injuries strike at the same time, but the resulting collapse is directly due to a lack of planning on the part of the guy in charge. Minaya has never been very good at this whole General Manager thing, but 2009 is his Little Bighorn. If he actually thinks there’s a season left to salvage, he’s crazy. The Mets have something like a two percent chance of making the playoffs. The Pittsburgh Pirates are more likely to be playing baseball in October than the Mets are, and they’re in total sell-off mode.

There’s a bit of self-preservation going on here, of course. Minaya has earned his way into a lack of job security, contract extension or not. In a world where baseball teams are getting exponentially smarter, he refuses to catch up. Perhaps he sees the writing on the wall – his days as a major league GM are numbered. If he doesn’t get fired this winter, it will just delay the inevitable. He’s not one of the 30 most qualified people to be running a baseball team, and 2009 should seal his fate.

Sorry Omar, but if you wanted to save your season, the time to improve the roster was in May, not in July. You’re too late.