Yesterday, in an effort to shake things up with their big league roster, the Brewers designated Bill Hall for assignment, fired their pitching coach, and shipped starting shortstop JJ Hardy to Triple-A. The first two are easily justifiable. The last one is not.

Hardy is certainly not having a season that lives up to his expectations. His .229 batting average is 30 points lower than his career average, and his power is off as well. The .294 wOBA he has at the moment is the worst of his five year career. It hasn’t been a good season for Hardy in any way, shape, or form.

However, he’s still one of the five or six best shortstops on the planet. His defense is as good as ever (+8.7 UZR) as he continues to be one of the top glove-men at the position in the game. Overall, in a miserable season for Hardy, he’s still been worth +1.5 wins in about 70% of a season. As bad as he’s been compared to his previous levels, he’s been a league average player overall this year.

So why did the Brewers send him down? Yes, Alcides Escobar is a nifty prospect and they understandably wanted to get a look at him, but September call-ups are a couple of weeks away, so it’s hard to imagine Milwaukee would have done this to Hardy to get an extra two weeks look at Escobar in the big leagues. But, there is another explanation, even though Doug Melvin denies it was a factor.

Service time. If Hardy would have remained in the majors through the end of the year, he’d have had five full seasons of service time, gotten a raise in arbitration, and been eligible for free agency after 2010. If he stays in the minors for three weeks, he will fall just short of a full year of service in 2009, which would make him a 4+ year arbitration guy again this winter and delay his free agency until after the 2011 season.

The Brewers are going to trade Hardy this winter – that is basically inevitable. He’ll have significantly more value as a trade chip if the acquiring team gets him for two years instead of one. Would the Brewers really make a move like this in order to bolster Hardy’s trade value over the off-season?

I hope not. As we’ve talked about with regards to Matt Wieters earlier this season, I hate this practice of service time manipulation. JJ Hardy has earned the right to be a free agent after 2010 – for the Brewers to game the system at this point in his career in order to push back his ability to earn a fair market contract would be a travesty of ethics. I know they’re legally allowed to do so, but that doesn’t make it right.

If the Brewers organization has any sense of right and wrong, Hardy better be back in the majors soon enough to earn his full year of service for 2009. If he’s not, the union should file the grievance to end all grievances, and I’ll be completely on the union’s side. Hardy is a high quality major league player who has earned a major league job and a major league payday, and regardless of Alcides Escobar’s presence, he belongs on the Brewers roster.

Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that he’s back in the big leagues post haste, or this could get really, really ugly.

Word is Aaron Harang has cleared waivers, meaning he can be traded to any team. Any takers? Is that the sound of crickets chirping that I hear? It feels a little weird that no clubs are interested in the Harangutan, a pitcher who averaged 5 WAR per season from ’05-’07. Let’s look closer and see if the apathy is deserved.

Harang was a shell of his normal self last year, and even spent time on the DL with forearm tightness. His struggles have been well chronicled, with the fault landing on Dusty Baker, every saber-minded baseball fan’s favorite punching bag. The censure may be well deserved. Rewinding a bit, on May 22nd, Harang took his start on normal rest. On May 25th, Baker called upon Harang and his resilient arm into a tie game in the 13th inning. Harang threw 63 pitches over 4 shutout innings in extra innings and then proceeded to make his next start on the 29th. He crumpled under the load, pitching terribly until he hit the DL on July 9th. Upon returning from the DL, he eventually reverted back to his normal self for his last 8 starts.

This season, Harang has shown improvement, but hasn’t recaptured ace status. He has increased his K/9 rate from 7.5 to 8. His command has rebounded too, with a 3.5 K/BB ratio. The problem is he’s still afflicted with gopheritis. His 1.3 HR/9 rate is a step up over his 1.7 rate from last year, but it’s still not up to snuff. Peculiarly enough, he’s allowing more homers away from the Great American Bandbox than in it.

Not only has Harang taken a beating with the homers, he’s also allowed a 24% line drive rate which has bloated his BABIP to .347. Depending on what side you fall on in the tRA/FIP debate, you could attribute these numbers to poor luck. His xFIP is a healthy 3.85, which is right in line with the rest of his career and a lot better than his current ERA of 4.43. His tRA is 4.74, scaled to ERA that would be about 4.35. His regressed tRA (tRA*) is just .01 higher, suggesting Harang isn’t out of the woods yet. I’ll let smarter folk than I argue the merits of xFIP over tRA and vice versa, I just refer to both to illustrate that there’s some uncertainty with Harang. That half a run difference, over 180-200 innings, is a little over a win, if you feel these numbers foreshadow Harang’s performance going forward.

His contract calls for $12.5M next season, and if he’s traded, Harang’s $12.75M club option for 2011 with a $2M buyout becomes a $14M mutual option. If you believe that Harang could be a 3.5 win pitcher or better with a simple change of scenery, then he has surplus value. If you believe that his best days are behind him and he’s more of a 2.5 WAR pitcher going forward, then his surplus value is zilch. Teams also might see the decline in performance, Dusty finagling and the high mileage on Harang’s arm and be totally scared off.

When Harang signed his 4-year, $36.5 million extension, it looked like a sweetheart of a deal. He was one of the best and most unheralded pitchers in the game. In hindsight, the deal still looks quite solid for the Reds, but it’s not the huge bargain that it originally appeared to be, which is precisely why Reds’ GM Walt Jocketty is having such a difficult time trying to move it.

Contractual ethics are always fun to discuss. Whether they be service time (Dave will cover that) or based on incentives. The philosophy of handing out playing time incentives is pretty simple. The only way the player can earn the money (or added option year, new car, whatever the two agreed on) is to play well, stay healthy, or have a manager who hates his owner. It seems like losing on a playing time incentive is impossible for a time. Either the player earns the money and the added benefit, or you simply don’t play him. Simple right?

It is, except when the player is 35-years-old, doesn’t really fit anymore, and shows signs of slowing down. Oh, and the option is for 18 million. The problem here is that Magglio Ordonez isn’t a bad player, per se, but the idea of paying him next year when he turns 36 is, well … on a 1-10 scale of unattractiveness, the proposition ranks as “cat”.

So Jim Leyland has 50 games to juggle Ordonez’ playing time just enough in order to prevent the option from vesting. Ordonez’ has 990 plate appearances since 2008, the clause needs 1,080 during 2008 and 2009 to kick in; Ordonez’ also has 231 starts and the clause requires 270. 50 games, 90 plate appearances or 39 starts to avoid.

To avoid having a grievance filed on behalf of Ordonez, the Tigers need an excuse to prove they are only sitting Ordonez because his performance is detrimental to the team’s success. Thankfully for them, they have an excuse built in. Ordonez is hitting quite poor against right-handed pitchers. His line .253/.322/.339 this year with two home runs – and yes, we should always use multiple year data, but if grievances are anything like free agency compensation rankings, arbitration, or awards, or anything else in baseball determined by stats, the only thing that matters is batting average, home runs, and runs batted during this season – while Ordonez’ teammates, Clete Thomas and Marcus Thames, are batting .253 (with more home runs) and .252 (with more home runs). Ergo, both are more productive and should be playing over Ordonez.

Unless the American League Central plans to force the Tigers hand by intentionally starting southpaws against them*, the Tigers can make it known they only wish to give Ordonez plate appearances against lefties. Theoretically ending any hope of 39 starts or 90 plate appearances. Of course, there’s always the question as to whether the Tigers should worry more about the playoffs than the money, but, that’s for another day.

*The Tigers play the Royals nine more times. How amusing would it be to see the Royals send out random minor league lefty after random minor league lefty to force the Tigers hands? I mean, they may have to call on guys out of baseball, like Bruce Chen but still.

Like pretty much every blog out there, we’ve decided to make it easy for you to share an article on FanGraphs. I’m sure a lot of you noticed this already, but figured it was worth pointing out in case you missed it. Just hover over the share button to easily send the article to wherever you like:

I went into the history of the 500 home run club yesterday and as part of that, I was looking into potential future members of the club. That investigation evolved into a longer post, one I think worthy of its own standing.

Looking at the immediate future, Carlos Delgado, with 473 career home runs, is in line to become the first member of the 500 home run club from the 2010s pending his recovery from hip surgery. After Delgado, the next members on the current active list over 400 are Chipper Jones, who is tough to gauge given his age, Jason Giambi, who has no chance and Vladimir Guerrero, who seems highly unlikely given his age and advancing level of injury. Does Chipper make it? He will probably be 70 away after this season and on a low 20s per year average at the age of 37. If he does pass it, it looks like it would be in his age 41 season, assuming no further drop off in power.

Among players in the 300-400 current list, Albert Pujols is almost a given to make it. Though remember when Andruw Jones seemed like a lock as well? Not so anymore. After Pujols, you have to go all the way down to Adam Dunn at 308 before turning 30. Dunn is likely to fall off fast when he goes, but three more 40-homer seasons gets him to about 440 and that should be close enough to withstand even a mid-30s breakdown.

The further down the home run list you go, the younger the player needs to be. Mark Teixeira is over 70 home runs behind Dunn at the same age, but if New Yankee Stadium maintains its reputation as homer friendly, Tex has some other skills besides power that could help him hold off decline until his late 30s and if so, that should buy him enough time to get in. Ryan Howard is an even longer shot, but if he could go post another 200 home runs in the next four seasons might get himself in the running. Big if though.

Miguel Cabrera is playing in a pitcher friendly park and does not seem the best bet to age well so I would be highly skeptical of his chances to reach 500, needing to average 30 a year (his career average) for the next decade to reach it. The furthest player out that I would feel even remotely comfortable projecting to get near the mark is Prince Fielder. Fielder’s good command of the strike zone might enable him to play for the required time that he will need.

After a decade of sluggers mushrooming the list 25, the 2010s are almost certain to look more like the 80s or 90s with just two or three players crashing the gate.

On this date a year ago, J.J. Hardy was hitting .275/.336/.462 with 17 home runs. Hardy is hitting .229/.300/.367 with 11 home runs this year, and for the time being, won’t have the opportunity to change his line anytime soon. The Brewers have officially optioned him to Triple-A and promoted their top prospect, shortstop Alcides Escobar, to the major leagues.

Hardy is older, more expensive, and was a season from free agency (more on that from Dave tomorrow), so it was clear that Escobar was the Brewers shortstop heading forward. The estimated time of arrival was up in the air, with Hardy still around and presumably possessing some trade value, but remaining with the team through July and not even being placed on waivers. I don’t know what the league would offer for Hardy, but for a team in desperate need of pitching help, you have to imagine a shortstop averaging a little over 3 WAR per season could bring a starter or two back, right?

Perhaps the Brewers want Hardy to dominate in Triple-A, therefore being able to showcase him as someone who still possesses skills. His ratio of line drives and groundballs hit are down as well, which is contributing to his poor luck on balls in play. Hardy’s strikeouts are up for the second consecutive season, but so are his walks. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him return to form with whatever team lands him this off-season, maybe as this year’s Nick Swisher?

Escobar is a fantastic defender and his bat has caught up with this glove over the last year. His first exposure to Double-A ended with a .296 wOBA, but last year he repeated the level with vengeance, staking a .369 figure. This year he’s hitting well in Triple-A , with a .351 wOBA. He’s an extremely good thief on the path when he gets on, but the most glaring weakness in his game right now is his ability to draw walks, something he’s improved on this year, but could still use some work.

I’m not entirely sure this makes the Brewers a better team this year, nor am I sure any added benefit was worth potentially sinking even more of Hardy’s trade value. Doug Melvin knows more about the second part of that statement than I do, so we’ll see how he handles Hardy in the off-season.

This week we’re taking a look at some of the top rookies in Major League Baseball in an attempt to ascertain who is the most deserving candidate for Rookie of the Year in both the American and National Leagues. Today, we’ll take a look at five rookie hitters in the National League who have a solid chance at the Rookie of the Year award. On Monday, we looked at the top rookie hitters in the AL and we looked at the top rookie pitchers in the AL yesterday.

Chris Coghlan, LF/2B, Florida Marlins

Coghlan was originally recalled to help out as a utility player and part-time outfielder right around the time that top prospect Cameron Maybin was demoted to triple-A. The former full-time second baseman (and college third baseman) has turned into a full-time left fielder for the Florida Marlins and he is second in OPS (.786) amongst all National League rookies with 220 or more at-bats. The left-handed hitter is having a nice season after getting off to a slow start when he hit below .200 in May. Overall, Coghlan now has a line of .288/.369/.418 with six homers in 292 at-bats. Oddly, he’s hitting much better outside Florida, with a road average of .329, compared to a home average of .248. Although he’s done a nice job filling in at an unfamiliar position in 2009, Coghlan’s lack of power makes him much more suited to second base, which is the role he could fill in 2010 if the club finally cuts ties with incumbent (and expensive) Dan Uggla.

Dexter Fowler, CF, Colorado Rockies

Fowler has more at-bats (345) than any other rookie in the NL this season. He also leads the youngsters in hits, doubles, runs scored, stolen bases, walks and strikeouts. Overall, the athletic outfielder is hitting .264/.362/.403 with 26 steals in 35 attempts. He has a solid walk rate of 13.8 BB% but his strikeout rate is alarmingly high at 28.1 K%. With his lack of power (.139 ISO), Fowler needs to trim his Ks. A switch-hitter, the 23-year-old Georgia native is hitting .301 versus southpaws but just .248 against right-handers. He has some work to do on his overall game, but Fowler is extremely intelligent and the sky is the limit for this rookie.

Andrew McCutchen, CF, Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates organization was extremely cautious with McCutchen, a former first round pick (11th overall) out of a Florida high school in 2005. The right-handed hitter spent parts of three seasons in triple-A before receiving his first taste of MLB action in 2009. He was well-deserving of the promotion after hitting .303/.361/.493 with 10 steals in 49 games. At the MLB level, McCutchen, 22, has hit .293/.359/.488 with seven homers and 12 steals (in 13 attempts) in 246 at-bats. His walk rate is a little low for a top-of-the-order hitter at 8.9 BB% but he has a solid strikeout rate at 18.3 K%. Although his game is mostly built around his speed, McCutchen has shown more power this year (.195 ISO in 2009 vs .115 in 2008) and he has a healthy line-drive rate at 18.5%. Defensively, he plays a solid center field but he is still learning.

Gerardo Parra, CF, Arizona Diamondbacks

Early on in his career, Parra was essentially considered a poor man’s Carlos Gonzalez (who is now in Colorado). Parra, though, is arguably having more success at the MLB level than his former teammate. The Arizona Diamondbacks organization promoted Parra to the Majors much sooner than expected due to a rash of injuries. Although he was expected to fill in for just a short time, the Venezuela native quickly made himself at home. He is currently hitting .290/.328/.427 with five homers, eight triples and five steals in 307 at-bats. The 22-year-old fielder has always hit for a good average, but he’s impatient at the plate (5.5 BB%) and he does not have the power (.137 ISO) necessary to play a corner outfield spot in the Majors on an everyday basis. He has split most of his time in the Majors between left field and center, where he’s been average at best. He does have a strong arm.

Colby Rasmus, CF, St. Louis Cardinals

Rasmus is having a nice, albeit inconsistent, rookie season for the St. Louis Cardinals. The center fielder has shown flashes of the talent that should one day make him an All-Star. However, Rasmus is hitting .248/.306/.412 with 11 homers in 330 at-bats. He has a walk rate of just 7.0 BB% and a respectable strikeout rate of 19.4 K%, but his BABIP is just .278. Rasmus had a nice month of June, but he hit .218/.291/.397 in July and is currently hitting .167/.300/.167 in August. A more patient approach at the plate, as well as a little more luck on batted balls, could really turn his numbers around.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the top rookie pitchers in the National League.

Last week R.J. looked at David Price’s improving K/BB ratio. Another important part of the Price story I wanted to look at is ground balls. Coming up through the minors one of the things that made Price so exciting was his combination of strikeouts and ground balls. Below are his GB/BIP numbers by year and level. The major league numbers are Baseball Info Solutions data from here at FanGraphs. The minor league batted ball data was taken from StatCorner, which gets it from Major League Baseball Advanced Media.

n is number of balls in play
+------+-------+-----+--------+
| Year | Level |   n | GB/BIP |
+------+-------+-----+--------+
| 2008 |    A+ |  90 |   0.50 | 
| 2008 |    AA | 149 |   0.58 | 
| 2008 |   AAA |  56 |   0.54 | 
| 2008 |   MLB*|  40 |   0.50 | 
| 2009 |   AAA |  93 |   0.41 | 
| 2009 |   MLB | 219 |   0.36 | 
+------+-------+-----+--------+
* includes time as starter and reliever

At all levels in 2008 he had great ground ball numbers, even in his brief exposure to the Majors. But in 2009, in AAA and the majors, his ground ball rate has plummeted.

For the most part Price throws two pitches, a slider and a fastball (as a starter he also throws a changeup and very rarely a curveball, but over 90% of his pitches are fastballs or sliders). Here are the ground ball rates on those two pitches during his major league career. Pitch-by-pitch data is not available for the minor leagues.

+----------+------+--------+
| Pitch    | Year | GB/BIP |
+----------+------+--------+
| Slider   | 2008 |   0.62 | 
| Fastball | 2008 |   0.49 |
| Slider   | 2009 |   0.50 |
| Fastball | 2009 |   0.31 |
+----------+------+--------+

I am not 100% sure why we see the big drop in ground balls from both of his pitches. He is locating them roughly in the same part of the zone this year as last. One possible reason is that his fastball has about an inch and a half more ‘rise’ this year compared to last year (9.6 in versus 8 in). This could result in fewer grounders. He throws both pitches slower since he is starting this year, which could have something to do with it.

Another interesting aspect is that he throws both a four- and two-seam fastball. I think almost all of his fastballs out of the pen last year were four-seamers, although I am not 100% sure. This year he started off throwing mostly four-seam fastballs, over 90% of his fastballs were four-seamers. But recently he has been throwing the two-seam fastball more often. In his last two starts, last night and August 5th, about 30% of his fastballs were two-seamers.

Maybe the Rays have noticed the lack of ground balls and are looking for him to throw more two-seamers, which generally are more of a ground ball pitch than four-seamers. I am not sure what his breakdown was in the minors, although at Vanderbilt he said 80% of his fastballs were four-seamers.

It is an interesting trend to keep an eye on.

Nearly three years ago, the Angels decided that Justin Speier was worth a 4 year, $18 million contract. Yesterday, they decided that he wasn’t worth keeping on the roster, as they chose to eat the remainder of the deal by giving him his unconditional release. The weird thing about those two decisions – he’s basically the exact same pitcher he was at the time of the deal.

His fastball averages 90 MPH, just like it always has. He throws it up in the zone, which serves to make him a guy who gets some strikeouts but also gives up a ton of fly balls. He throws his slider nearly as often as his fastball, which makes him a guy who is going to run an extreme platoon split – he’s death to RHBs but torched by LHBs. None of this is really new.

Nearly the entirety of the issues Speier has faced involve balls flying over the wall with increased frequency. In 2006, he allowed 0.88 home runs per nine innings, while this year he’s at 1.58 HR/9 after posting an awful 1.99 HR/9 last year. However, his balls in air rate is basically unchanged – he allowed more flyballs + line drives (69.9%) in 2006 than he has this year (65.0%). The difference – his HR/FB rate in 2006 was 6.9%, while this year it’s at 13.2%.

HR/FB rate, as you may know, is not particularly predictive, especially among relief pitchers (due to sample size issues). Just like Speier’s low-ish HR/FB rate in 2006 didn’t mean he had a special skill that allowed him to rack up 380 foot outs, neither does his 2009 performance mean that he’s missing the ingredient that allows major league pitchers to keep the ball in the park. It’s likely just noise, and certainly shouldn’t be the kind of thing that would make the Angels take such a dramatic turn in their evaluation of his value.

None of this is to say that Speier is particularly valuable – flyballing right-handed specialists with okay command are ridiculously easy to find in the minors, and that kind of limited skillset doesn’t provide a big boost to a bullpen. But Speier is basically the same guy he was in 2006, only a bit less lucky. Perhaps the Angels just figured out that he was never that great to begin with, but more likely, they’re just overreacting to a few bad performances that don’t really mean much.

Speier was never worth $18 million, but an outright release is a bit over the top. He’s still a decent enough bullpen arm, and if the Angels need to get a tough right-hander out in a late game situation this October, they might wish they still had him around.

What if I told you that Scott Feldman has had the most effective cut fastball in all of baseball this year — more so than Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay’s, would you believe me? At least according to the numbers, Scott Feldman has. I have to be honest, I knew next to nothing about Feldman until I found myself goofing around on the Pitch Value leader-boards yesterday afternoon. As a refresher, the pitch values use linear weights by count and by event and then breaks it down by each pitch type so that you can see in runs the actual effectiveness of each pitch. (You can read more about how they work here).

Getting to the fun stuff, Scott Feldman‘s cutter has been worth 22.6 runs, making it the third-most effective offering in baseball among starting pitchers. The only pitch that has been more effective has been Tim Lincecum‘s change-up at a ridiculous 28.2 runs, and Clayton Kershaw’s fastball, at 23.5 runs. What makes this development a little more interesting is that Feldman just started using the pitch a year ago — throwing it 13.4% of the time. He’s honed his craft and is now throwing the pitch 30.4% of the time. Only three other starting pitchers throw the cutter more often, and those pitchers are Brian Bannister, Doug Davis and Roy Halladay.

Just two seasons ago, Feldman was a frequent rider of the Oklahoma City – Fort Worth shuttle. A former 30th round pick, he was just a so-so side-arming, sinker/slider ROOGY. He completely remade himself last year, throwing from a 3/4 arm slot rather than sidearm, mostly working with the sinker. The results were less than spectacular — a 5.35 FIP over 25 starts. In continuance with that remaking, this year Feldman started leaning heavily on the cutter to compliment his sinker and help him counterbalance southpaw hitters. Check out his crazy reverse platoon splits that have come as a result:

The overall results have also have been good; Feldman has 11 wins and an ERA of 4.01. Alright, so those baseball card numbers are a bit deceiving. His FIP is 4.57 and he’s still striking out less than 5 batters per nine. That’s still good for 2 wins above replacement so far this season. Whether or not this is something sustainable is very questionable given the low K totals, but I find it fascinating that a Quad-A reliever can transform himself into a half decent starter. It’s amazing what a willingness to learn can do for a pitcher.