#10: Chase Utley, 2B, Philadelphia: 4.8 WAR

He’s not cheap anymore, and at 30, he’s headed towards the down side of his career, but he’s also on pace for his third consecutive 8+ win season. He is the guy who makes Philly a contender. Just a tremendous all around player that excels at every part of the game, his 2005-2009 peak is going to go down as one of the best in baseball history for a second baseman. $60 million over the next four years isn’t bargain basement money, but he’s worth twice that.

#9: Tim Lincecum, RHP, San Francisco: 5.3 WAR

501 career innings, 2.76 career FIP. He’s on his way to a second straight Cy Young award and should destroy the previous record for first year arbitration eligible pitcher salary if the Giants can’t lock him up long term this winter, even as a super-two. He’s improved his previously poor command to the point that it’s hardly an issue anymore, and his strikeout rate has actually risen from his rookie season despite a two mph drop in fastball velocity. The inherent risk with all pitchers keeps him below the eight premium bats ahead of him, but he’d command more in trade than any pitcher on earth.

#8: Ryan Braun, LF, Milwaukee: 3.0 WAR

You don’t find many 25-year-olds with 1,500 career plate appearances and a .400 career wOBA. Braun is a classic middle of the order monster at the plate with easy power to spare. He’s making strides in improving his pitch recognition and should match last year’s walk total in the next couple of weeks. After showing he didn’t belong at third base, he’s become a decent enough defender in left. Oh, and he won’t make an eight figure salary until 2014.

#7: David Wright, 3B, New York: 2.5 WAR

The simultaneous drop in power and rise in strikeout rate are a bit disconcerting, but Wright is still a guy who averaged +7.9 WAR per year the last two years at age 24 and 25 and is signed for half of his market value through 2013. Without the weird performance this year, he might have cracked the top five. While I wouldn’t get too worked about about three months of baseball, he’s going to have to start hitting like the Wright of old again sometime soon.

#6: Brian McCann, C, Atlanta: 2.4 WAR

Guys who can make contact and hit for power are usually incredible offensive machines McCann has a career .201 ISO and 13.5% K%. Plus, he’s a 25-year-old catcher. Did I mention that he’s signed through 2013 for a grand total of $32 million? Atlanta, please put some talent around on this guy so we can all watch him play in October.

Before the season Dave Cameron looked at the trend of some teams putting a greater emphasis on outfield defense. He specifically noted that the Mariners, Rays and Orioles were planning on effectively playing three center fielders. The outfield defense plan has worked out well for the Mariners and Rays, but not for the Orioles.

Ichiro Suzuki, Franklin Gutierrez and Endy Chavez were just as good as advertised and the Mariners limited defensive butchers Wladimir Balentien‘s and Ken Griffey’s time in the field. Chavez is out for the season with an injury but his playing time has largely been replaced Ryan Langerhans, also a very good defender. By UZR’s measure the Mariner’s outfield defense has saved 30 runs over average, playing a big part in keeping them in AL West contention.

The Rays outfield has been worth 25 runs over average, second only to the Mariners. Their outfield innings have gone to equally to Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton and the Gabe platoon, with a little sprinkling of innings from Ben Zobrist. All of these guys have played well this year, right in line with their career UZRs.

For the Orioles things have not gone as well, giving up an additional 20 runs in outfield defense. Nick Markakis and Adam Jones are two of the game’s up-and-coming star outfielders and their futures are bright, but their defense this year has not been good. Together they have given up over 15 runs, but it is important to remember this does not mean we should expect them to be poor fielders going forward. UZR and other defenses metrics, by all accounts, take huge numbers of innings before they become predictive and are subject to big fluctuations even of the course of an entire season.

Markakis and Jones came into this season with great fielding numbers in 2008. Markakis at +11 UZR/150 in over 1300 innings in RF and Jones at +11 UZR/150 over 1000 innings in CF. This year Markakis is -16 UZR/150 over 760 innings in RF and Jones -12 over 600 innings. This new data put together with the old tempers our expectations; maybe Markakis is only a +5 to +0 corner outfield and maybe Jones is just a +5 to +0 center fielder. With so few innings it is also important to weigh our projections going forward with scouting reports, at least one set of which calls the two great defensive outfielders.

Luke Scott and Nolan Reimold picked up most of Felix Pie’s, the third member of the Orioles planned three CF outfield who couldn’t hit enough to justify his playing time, innings and have played poor defense. Scott has a history as a +5ish corner outfielder and Reimold was projected as an average corner outfielder, so their performance should get better. Going forward we shouldn’t expect the Os outfield to play as bad as it has, but we can’t expect them to play like three center fielders either.

Continuing on with the trade value series.

#15: Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Colorado: 1.8 WAR

It’s been an up and down couple of years for the Rockies shortstop, but the future is bright indeed. He’s added walks and more power this year, rounding out his offensive game and giving him the tools to be a significant offensive threat. And he’s still an above average defensive shortstop, just 24 years of age, and signed to a contract that is so team friendly he should probably fire his agent.

#14: Matt Kemp, CF, Los Angeles: 4.1 WAR

The prototypical five tool player, Kemp has increased his walk rate each of the last two years without harming his core skills, making him a well rounded offensive threat. He’s also among the league leaders in UZR in center field this year, showing above average range and a cannon arm. He won’t turn 25 until September, and he’s just entering his arbitrtation years. Yeah, this is one valuable player.

#13: Dan Haren, RHP, Arizona: 4.3 WAR

Defying normal trends, his strikeout has risen every year since he reached the majors. He’s gone from a strike-throwing mid-rotation guy to a legitimate ace, and the contract extension he signed with Arizona will keep him drastically underpaid for at least the next three years.

#12: Grady Sizemore, CF, Cleveland: 0.8 WAR

He’s kind of the posterboy for the new school kind of player. He walks, hits for power, plays quality defense at a premium position, and uses his speed to steal bases at a high rate of success. The low batting average, mostly due to high strikeout totals, doesn’t limit his perceived value as much as it would have 30 years ago. He’s also locked up through 2012 at rates low enough to be considered thievery.

#11: Zack Greinke, RHP, Kansas City: 5.8 WAR

Dayton Moore has made a lot of mistakes, but signing Greinke to an extension before the season started probably saved his franchise $50+ million. He’s having a silly season at age 25, and is the runaway leader for the Cy Young award. He won’t be cashing in on his success until after the 2012 season, however, when his newly minted contract finally expires. Whoops.

The Cardinals have a question to answer. What in the world are they going to do with Troy Glaus? The big slugger is a week into a twenty day rehab assignment in the minors and should be cleared to play by August. With Cardinal third-sackers combining for a pathetic .275 wOBA, you would expect that getting back a hitter like Glaus would be welcome news.

Unfortunately for St. Louis fans, Glaus can’t throw across the diamond without experiencing pain in his right shoulder. Swinging the bat is another thing, but that doesn’t seem to help the Cardinals. Well, that is unless they would consider some outside-the-box thinking, like say switching Pujols and Glaus to opposite sides of the diamond. Otherwise, Glaus will be limited to being one expensive pinch-hitter.

Let’s consider the crazy, um, I mean creative side for minute. Early in his career, Pujols played 96 games at the hot corner. According to UZR, he was worth -4 runs per 150 games; not great but by no means damaging given his numinous bat. While that was years ago, checking the results of Tango’s Scouting Report by the Fans, Pujols’ instincts and hands are nigh impeccable, both desirable traits in a third baseman. On the other hand, his arm strength rates as below-average, which is of course is less than what you would like. For what little it might be worth, based on his different grades for the various fielding skills, both Eric Chavez and Mike Lowell pop up in Albert’s similarity scores. So we know that Pujols is an elite defender at first, and chances are he could hold down the fort at third base just fine for the next few months.

Aside from limiting Glaus to pinch-hit duty, the other option would be trading him to an American League team looking for a DH, such as Detroit. This would most likely mean the Cardinals would have to eat most of the remaining $6 million left on his contract and getting little in return.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pujols unselfishly asked to play third, but his manager dismissed the idea. Tony LaRussa is built his reputation as someone who will toy with lineups in order to gain even the slightest advantage, but doesn’t want to tinker with Albert. I definitely can understand the reticence when it comes to dealing with his superstar, but it seems to me that moving him to third for two months is hardly as big of deal as it initially appears to be. Considering the Cardinals have long been trolling the trade market looking to add a bat, giving away a Glaus for nothing would be a waste.

When the Red Sox signed Julio Lugo to a four-year, 36 million dollar contract in winter 2006, Theo Epstein assumed he was getting the player who hit .284/.348/.405 over the previous season. Two and a half seasons and more than 20 million later, Lugo is on the outs in Boston. Reports have Boston willing to eat the contract and take on a fringe prospect in exchange for the roster spot. That’s quite the fall from grace for someone who looked like the cream of the crop not long ago.

Lugo has actually hit better this season than in his other two seasons with Boston. That’s not saying much, and his career line with Boston is still .251/.319/.346. Defensively, Lugo hasn’t been much better in Boston, posting UZR/150 of 4.3, -2.6, and -43.2. Okay, obviously the last one is due to an extremely small sample size; if you assume he’s more like -10 than -43, you get the picture of a below average defensive shortstop, but hardly the worst in the majors.

What happened to him? His ISO has sat well below .100 the past two seasons after never touching .105 or lower the rest of his major league career. His walk rates are still quite solid, same with his strikeout rates. His BABIP hit a rough spell in 2007 but has since bounced back fine. He hit a lot of grounders last season, and now he’s hitting a lot more fliners. Lugo’s tendency to hit a home run has all but vanished. He still makes contact, doesn’t swing out of zone, and he’s seeing fewer balls in the zone.

The only thing that makes sense is that Lugo’s physical skills have decayed. He is a shortstop in his mid-30s, but he’s also hovering around replacement level. ZiPS projects Lugo to hit league average, and depending on where he plays on defense, he shouldn’t be that poor. Maybe Lugo’s body has decided enough is enough, or he really misses playing with his brother (Ruddy Lugo was his teammate during his time in Tampa Bay) or he simply doesn’t feel comfortable in Boston and never did.

If Boston is covering most of the salary and willing to take back just about anything to clear the roster spot, teams have done a lot worse than taking on Lugo and winding up with an average bat and probably below average glove at either middle infield position.

On July 14th, the Philadelphia Phillies officially signed Pedro Martinez to a one year, $1 million contract with bonuses for performance and time on the active roster. He was immediately placed on the disabled list. What kind of performance can Philadelphia expect or hope for from Pedro?

A lot will depend on his health, something we would only be able to speculate upon. What we do know is that 2008 Pedro was much worse off than previous years in several key ways. A pitcher that reliably hit the zone around 55% of the time suddenly dropped to just 50%.

What is worse is that hitters almost began making a very high percentage of contact on the pitches outside the zone, the sorts of pitches Pedro would use to generate strikeouts before were now being put into play. Naturally, that led to a big drop in strikeout rate and an increase in walk rate.

Even with those setbacks, Pedro graded out as just a slightly below average pitcher instead of horrible one that the 5.61 ERA might have suggested. His big problem was the home run. Pedro’s HR/FB jumped to over 15% in 2008, something not likely to repeat itself though pitching in Philadelphia certainly will not help.

If Pedro is fully healthy, he comes with the upside of a very good starting pitcher. If he repeats 2008, he should look like a below average starter. For roughly $2 million (over a full season) that is a pretty good gamble for the Phillies.

Hanley Ramirez is really good

So good, that Ramirez ranks fourth on the career leaderboard in shortstop wOBA. Behind Arky Vaughan, Alex Rodriguez, and some guy named Honus Wagner. ZiPS projects Ramirez to finish with a .417 wOBA this season, one point lower than his current figure, which keeps his career wOBA around .397. How unique is that from a shortstop? Well the top two offensive shortstops had the following numbers through 25 years of age:

Honus Wagner: .392 wOBA, 1,519 plate appearances, three seasons of play
Alex Rodriguez: .406 wOBA, 4,247 plate appearances, eight seasons of play
Compared to Hanley: .397 wOBA, ~2,752 plate appearances, five (four, really) seasons of play

Hanley is in the middle in each regard. The biggest hurdle might be whether or not he can stick at shortstop moving forward. In the full four years he’s spent in the majors, Hanley has rated as a slightly below average shortstop twice (including this year’s -2 UZR/150), solidly below average once, and holy-mackerel-move-him-to-center-tomorrow-bad once. Unless he suddenly deteriorates, it seems unlikely Hanley is moving before he reaches 28/29 – the same age when Rodriguez made the switch, albeit not because of necessity.

Depending on how well the prime of Ramirez career and – more importantly – the slope of his career treat him, we could be looking at the third best hitting shortstop in the history of baseball. Or he could fall off and only be one of the five-to-ten best hitting shortstops in history; because that would obviously be such a huge disappointment of a career.

Continuing on with the trade value series.

#20: Jose Reyes, SS, New York Mets: 0.7 WAR

On the field, Reyes is a superstar. He ran off three straight 5+ win performances in his age 23-25 seasons, which is a pretty incredible stretch of play. As a switch-hitting five tool player headed into his prime, he’s the kind of guy you can build a franchise around. Unfortunately for the Mets, they only have him locked up through 2011, so while he’s a bargain for the next two years, he’s going to get free market salaries starting in 2012.

#19: Adam Jones, CF, Baltimore: 1.5 WAR

While Jones is just a good player right now, he’s still scratching the surface of what he can be. Still just 23 years of age, he has the kind of athletic ability and swing to add significant power as he fills out, giving him a chance to be the rare middle of the order center fielder. Plus, he won’t even be arbitration eligible until after the 2010 season. All-Stars who make the league minimum before they turn 24 are remarkably valuable.

#18: Colby Rasmus, CF, St. Louis: 3.0 WAR

Everything I just said about Jones, except he’s also left-handed and a year younger. Rasmus isn’t quite as good of an athlete, but he’s a comparable hitter and could be better defensively. It will be interesting to watch these two develop, as Rasmus is more polished and might already be a little closer to his ceiling. They’re both franchise cornerstones, though. Blue Jay fans, forget it – you’re not getting this kid for Halladay.

#17: Felix Hernandez, RHP, Seattle: 3.8 WAR

King Felix has taken his throne this year, swatting away critics who claim he’s been overhyped since arriving back in 2005. The ability to command his fastball consistently has allowed him to develop into a true frontline starter, and with four plus pitches, he’s capable of blowing hitters every time out. However, like with Reyes, he’s only under club control through 2011, and his strong performance this season will get him a big payday in arbitration this winter. He’s great, and still just 23, but this is the last year he’s going to be cheap.

#16: Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota: 4.1 WAR

He’s just one of two guys in their 20s in baseball that you can look at and say with confidence that he’s an easy Hall Of Famer as long as he stays healthy. He’s putting up one of the great catcher seasons of all time, and at 26, he’s just entering his prime. However, he’s a free agent at the end of the 2010 season. Anyone trading for him would only be getting a year and a half worth of value before they had to outbid New York and Boston for his services, and just thinking of what kind of contract he might get as a free agent makes one shudder. So, while he’s the odds on favorite for AL MVP, I can’t put him any higher than this.

Erik Kratz is not a household name. Even if you follow Minor League Baseball on a regular basis you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s never been at the top of the prospect lists for either of the organizations he’s played for: Toronto and Pittsburgh.

Kratz is 29 years year. He’s played eight minor league seasons, seven of which came in the Toronto system. He signed his first contract in 2002 after playing at a small college in Pennsylvania. The catcher began his playing career in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada (a now-defunct affiliate). Kratz is also one of the few Mennonite players in professional baseball.

You may not have heard about Kratz, but any pitcher who has ever thrown to him probably remembers his name. Toronto minor league pitchers used to rave about throwing to the defensive specialist. Kratz excels at game calling and receiving. He also regularly throws out 30-35% of base runners attempting to steal. His career offensive line is an uninspiring .248/.316/.419 but he possesses intriguing power and Kratz has never had the ability to play everyday – at least until this season, his inaugural year in the Pirates organization.

In his first true opportunity to play everyday, Kratz is currently hitting .269/.327/.428 with five homers and 17 doubles in 201 at-bats. He’s also a perfect 6-for-6 stealing bases and he’s creaming left-handed pitchers with a .357 batting average (a career-long trend). Recently, Kratz was named to the triple-A all-star game, which was held last night. He went 2-for-2 with a double and a homer and was named the game’s MVP.

At the age of 29, time is running out for Kratz but he certainly has something left in the tank. His years of playing the backup should have helped to ease some of the strain on his body from the rigors of the position. He has more than enough offensive potential to justify a back-up role on a big league club (not unlike Sal Fasano). Kratz’ defense is above-average, he’s a smart player and a good teammate, from all reports. The Pittsburgh Pirates organization already has four catchers on the 40-man roster, including Ryan Doumit, Jason Jaramillo, Robinzon Diaz, and Steven Lerud. The first three are legitimate big-league players, so Pittsburgh is probably not the right organization for Kratz at this point. With any luck, though, he made a name for himself in front of scouts last night and a team in need of some big-league catching depth will keep Kratz’ name in mind.

No, he’ll never be a big-league star, but Erik Kratz is a perfect No. 3 catcher for just about any organization. He’s one of those unsung minor-league heroes who deserves at least a cup of coffee in The Show.

How do you have non-existent power (second worst in baseball), an average BABIP and still provide above average offensive value? One way is to walk 2.39 times for everytime you strikeout like Luis Castillo has done so far this year. Luis Castillo is leading the league in BB/K, a little bit higher than Albert Pujols.

Castillo does it by swinging at nothing. He has the second lowest O-swing rate to Marco Scutaro and by far the lowest Z-swing rate, the only player under 50%. Throw Luis Castillo a pitch in the zone and he is more likely to take it than swing at it. When he does swing he makes contact over 94% of the time, tops in the league.

Effectively Castillo is just waiting for the pitcher to walk him. Taking almost all pitches out of the zone, over half of them in the zone and hoping to accumulate enough balls for a free pass. When he does swing he almost always makes contact, so he rarely strikes out. I wanted to see how it does it. First I looked at how often his swings by the number of strikes.

 Swing Rate
+----------+-----------+-----------+
| Strikes  |  Castillo |   Average |
+----------+-----------+-----------+
| 0        |     0.129 |     0.291 |  
| 1        |     0.322 |     0.489 |
| 2        |     0.536 |     0.600 |
+----------+-----------+-----------+

So his difference from average is the largest early in the count. By the time he has two strikes he swings at about league average rate, which is how he keeps his strikeouts down. Let’s see what that looks like in terms of his swing contours. Castillo is a switch hitter but I plotted just his at-bats as a lefty and compared him to other lefties. Recall that I am plotting his 50% swing contour, that is inside the contour his swing rate is greater than 50% and outside less. Additionally for zero strikes I also plotted the 25% contour. Right along that contour he swings 25% of the time, inside of it greater than 25% of the time and outside less.

With no strikes Castillo doesn’t have a 50% contour. There is no location where he is more likely to swing at a pitch than not when he has no strikes. In fact his 25% swing contour is about the same as the average lefty’s 50% swing contour. So he is about half as likely as the average lefty to swing at a pitch down the middle of the plate. As he gets more strikes his contour looks more and more like the average lefty. With more strikes he starts to swing more, since he doesn’t want to strike out looking.

Since he has no power and very rarely swings at pitches out of the zone opposing pitchers have no reason to throw him anything but strikes. His in zone percentage is high, 51.6%, but there are lots of batters higher. J.J. Hardy, Colby Rasmus, Mike Cameron, B.J. Upton and Yunel Escobar, among others, all see a higher percentage of strikes. So pitchers should have the ability to throw him a higher percentage of strikes than they are. I think this is probably because Castillo usually bats in front of the pitcher, while those guys in front of power hitters. Even so you have to think pitchers are making a mistake. The currency of the game is outs, and at-bats to Castillo could be ending in outs more often than they do.

EDIT: I stand corrected, Castillo has led off 14 times, batted 2nd 26 times and 8th 23 times. Based on this there is no one excuse for pitchers not pounding it in the zone 55% of the time like they do against David Eckstein, Willy Taveras and Jason Kendall.

I think most people view Castillo as a pretty boring player, but he is able to provide above average offensive value with no power and a diminishing ability to beat out grounders (his value used to come from an above average BABIP). I think that is cool, he can take extreme plate discipline, and little else, and make it work.