Last night Ryan Zimmerman hit his 27th HR, already a career high with over a month to go in the season. After a disappointing season last year, in which he spent over a month and a half on the DL, Zimmerman is back to the level of play we saw in his excellent 2006 and 2007 season. Even better, actually, already worth over 6 wins and posting the best wOBA in baseball during the month of August.

Offensively he is getting on base more and hitting for more power than ever before. His walk rate is over 10%, and probably the result of a much lower O-swing rate without a decrease in Z-swings. His ISO is also at a career high, thanks to hitting more balls in the air (his GB% is at a career low) and more of those going over the fence (his HR/FB jumped up to 16% after being 11% in 2006 through 2008). No doubted aided by playing his first full healthy year away from the cavernous RFK stadium.

Defensively he is no slouch. For the past three years he has played better third base than anyone (although that time period conveniently excludes Evan Longoria). Going forward we can fully expect him to be a +10 run third baseman and one of the top handful of defensive third basemen in the game.

The Nationals have had a disastrous season on and off the field. On field their offense has acutally been fairly good, in no small part because of Zimmerman. But their run prevention horrid. The off field issues have begun to turn around with the signing of Strasburg and hiring of Rizzo. So maybe Zimmerman will play behind some guys who can pitch and with some other players who can field in his time as a Nat.

I knew Aaron Hill was having a remarkable season, but it still caught me off guard when the game I was watching displayed the American League home run leaderboard.

Carlos Pena, 37
Russ Branyan, 31
Mark Teixeira, 31
Aaron Hill, 30
Justin Morneau, 29

This is like the old third grade test – “which of these is not like the others?” You have four traditional power hitting first baseman, known for their ability to drive the ball with regularity. And then there’s Hill – a 5’11 second baseman who had 28 career home runs before the season began.

Hill has always been a good player, mainly because of his range on the infield and his ability to hold his own at the plate. He’s made his mark as a good contact, gap power guy, but there were some questions about his true offensive abilities after a miserable 2008 season that saw him .263/.324/.361 in just 55 games.

He’s put last year behind him and then some, keeping pace with the premier sluggers in the game despite no drastic changes in his skillset. His contact rate is about the same as always, though he has increased his swing rates slightly, becoming more aggressive as he gains MLB experience, especially in terms of chasing pitches out of the zone. His O-Swing% is a career high 28%, for instance.

Beyond that, his batted ball profile is still neutral, which suggests his swing plane isn’t much different than it has been in the past. However, balls that used to land on in the gap are now flying over the wall – his HR/FB rate is 16.7%, when his career average coming into the season was about 5%. For a pitcher, this would be a sign that he’s been the victim of extremely bad luck, but hitters have far more control over their HR/FB rate than pitchers do. That doesn’t mean that Hill hasn’t been the beneficiary of good fortune, but we can’t just chalk up HR/FB rate to random variation.

To better look at his home runs, we turn to HitTracker.

The first thing we notice is that he’s an extreme pull power guy, with nearly all of his home runs flying out to left field. The next thing you notice, if you scroll down to his individual HR listing, is how many are labeled “JE”, which stands for “just enough”. Hill is tied with Joe Mauer and Kevin Youkilis for the league lead in home runs that were barely home runs, as 11 of his long balls have been categorized as cutting it close.

In fact, looking at the list of average home run length on Hit Tracker’s site, Hill’s 384.6 foot average distance is one of the lowest in the league. The guys whose home runs average 380-390 feet are mostly middle infielders (and Johnny Damon). On this list, he’s no longer anywhere near guys like Pena or Branyan.

We can also see that the extra home runs are coming from balls that used to be doubles just by looking at his total rate of extra base hits. In his healthy 2007 season, 37% of Hill’s hits were of the extra base variety. This year, 36% of his hits have gone for extra bases. There’s no change in how often he’s whacking the ball – just what category of XBH those balls are being classified as. Due to whatever reason, Hill has been able to clear the fence (barely, in some cases) with more regularity this year, but it doesn’t look like he’s actually added much in the way of power.

Aaron Hill is a good player, but he’s not a 30 HR guy. Odds are he never does this again.

With the Cardinals up nine games and just a little over month to left to play, the Cubs are punting. Per reports, Rich Harden was put on waivers and claimed by a contending team. That team is rumored to be the Minnesota Twins.

Believe it or not, there’s still some hope for the Twins. Coolstandings.com gives them a 14% probability of making the playoffs; PECOTA gives them 15%. The Tigers haven’t run away with things yet, and the Twins are scheduled to play the White Sox six more times and Detroit seven times this season. Their September schedule also includes some feeble opponents – six games apiece with inter-division rivals Cleveland and Kansas City, as well as four games on the road against Toronto and a three game home stand with Oakland. So yeah, it’s feasible they could make up some ground and pull this thing out, with some luck.

With an uninspiring rotation of Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Carl Pavano and essentially a couple of replacement players, the Twinkies are also believed to be in on the Brad Penny derby. Harden clearly is the better option than Penny, but the more expensive one — he’s going to be a Type A free agent. Optimistically the Twins could squeeze six, maybe seven more starts out of Harden. Harden has been pitching as well as anyone in the second half with a 1.80 ERA and a 3.30 FIP. His ZiPS projects a 3.56 FIP for the rest of the season. If they can get that sort of performance out of seven starts, that would be good for about an extra win over replacement.

Harden is owed about $1.4 M left in salary, but should be worth anywhere between $3.2-4.4M in performance, and then there’s the matter of the two high draft picks. All this means Harden should fetch a very good return, potentially two solid B prospects.

For the Twins, it’s a worthy gamble. October baseball remains in the realm of possible, and Harden would certainly help their chances. Even if they don’t make the playoffs, the Twins can make it up in next year’s draft if they don’t/can’t bring Harden back. Picks aren’t as valuable as top prospects in the same way the proverbial bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, but Minnesota has had a decent enough success rate when it comes to drafting first rounders. As long as the Cubs aren’t asking for Aaron Hicks or some crazy multi-player package, I think I’d pull the trigger if I were the Twins’ GM. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Harden between now and Monday.

Last week Dave and MGL both made points about how just about anything can happen in 40 inning stints. To hammer that point home a little harder, let’s do an exercise that shows just how much variance exists. Below I’m going to list a few starting pitcher lines from the last 30 days; I’m also going to list the names of the owners of these lines, but not in order. Your job is obviously to attempt and match the line with the name without cheating.

A. 44.1 IP, 40 H, 4 HR, 8 BB, 21 SO, 2.23 ERA
B. 43 IP, 58 H, 8 HR, 4 BB, 36 SO, 4.4 ERA
C. 42.2 IP, 42 H, 4 HR, 7 BB, 52 SO, 4.22 ERA
D. 38 IP, 40 H, 9 HR, 8 BB, 32 SO, 4.97 ERA
E. 34.2 IP, 28 H, 2 HR, 13 BB, 28 SO, 2.08 ERA
F. 37.2 IP, 54 H, 6 HR, 7 BB, 12 SO, 6.21 ERA

Barry Zito
Mark Buehrle
Bronson Arroyo
Roy Halladay
Justin Verlander
Dan Haren

Answers after the jump.
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Days like today prove that the best results are sometimes the most unexpected ones.

The Mets have about a gazillion regulars on the disabled list and are playing for 2010. The Marlins have a slimmer of playoff hopes and sit pretty at second place in the National League East. Anibal Sanchez isn’t great (4.72 FIP and 5.38 tRA in 41 innings this year) but against the Mets lineup, it looked like an easy victory. I mean, really, look at this morbid crew:

Angel Pagan CF .343 wOBA
Wilson Valdez SS .248
Daniel Murphy 1B .307
Jeff Francoeur RF .299
Cory Sullivan LF .330
Fernando Tatis 3B .314
Omir Santos C .300
Anderson Hernandez 2B .278
Tim Redding P .056

Of the eight batters, two can be called league average hitters or better. That’s it. Three-fourths of the Mets lineup consisted of below average hitters, and yet, they went out and scored 10 runs on the Marlins.

Hernandez contributed three hits on the day and scored twice, Valdez knocked in a run and had two hits, Murphy had a pair of hits and three RBI, Sullivan had two hits, Tatis popped a solo home run, and so on. Every Mets starter A) had a hit, B) had two.

For Anibal, his final line after 3.2 innings pitched: eight hits, two earned runs, three walks, two strikeouts, and one bewildered glance at the scorecard to see whether such a pathetic looking group actually knocked him around. Cristhian Martinez relieved Sanchez and didn’t fare much better as he allowed six hits and four earned runs in three and a third innings.

Fans of the Mets don’t have much to look forward to when batting nowadays, but for once they weren’t the ones vomiting at the results.

For the second time this month, the Red Sox have overreacted to a recent poor stretch of results and granted free agency to a quality major league pitcher. First, they cut John Smoltz loose, and now they’ve let Brad Penny out of his contract after they removed him from their starting rotation and he expressed a desire to start for another team down the stretch. The list of suitors lining up for Penny will be long, just as it should be – the guy can still pitch.

Even with his recent struggles, he’s running a 4.48 FIP on the season, thanks to recording twice as many strikeouts as walks and maintaining a neutral home run rate. That makes him around a league average starting pitcher for the season. Yes, he throws his fastball too much, but that’s always been true – he’s averaged 70% or more fastballs every year since 2004, and he’s proven he can be at least moderately successful pounding the zone with heaters.

The chink in his results – a .336 batting average on balls in play, which isn’t particularly predictive of anything. ZIPS projects a 4.44 FIP from Penny going forward, and that’s assuming he stays in the American League. Someone’s going to get a quality pitcher for nothing – who are the contenders for his services?

Detroit makes a lot of sense, as the back of their rotation is a bit of a mess. They just sent Aramando Galarraga to Triple-A for a brief stint, Jarrod Washburn is turning into a pumpkin, and they are simultaneously trying to limit Rick Porcello’s innings, leading to things like Nate Robertson and Zach Miner splitting a start this weekend. With a 67 percent chance to win the division, they’re the clear favorites in the AL Central, and Penny would have a good shot at cracking their playoff rotation.

If he wanted to go back to the National League, Colorado has a clear need for a starting pitcher after just losing Aaron Cook with an arm problem. The Rockies are leading the Wild Card race in the NL and should be an aggressive suitor, but as a free agent to be, Penny might not want to ply his trade in Coors Field for the last month of the season.

That would leave Florida as the best fit in the NL. Penny obviously has history there, and he would be a clear upgrade over Sean West in the Marlins rotation. At 4 1/2 games behind the Rockies in the Wild Card standings, they’re a long shot to play in October, but it would be a chance at some meaningful baseball in September in an environment that he knows fairly well.

I’d bet on Detroit, but regardless of where he ends up, he’s likely to be an asset. Boston has to hope that this doesn’t come back and bite them in the playoffs.

Carlos Marmol is a fun pitcher to watch. He whips the ball out from a sidearm motion from the stretch in such a way that it makes his 94 MPH fastball appear to rise as it approaches home plate. The pitch also has a considerable amount of tail. To compliment his fastball, Marmol throws a ‘slurvy’ slider that features some serious sweep. Marmol also hides the ball very well, which gives him some deception. This deadly combination makes him extremely tough to hit, as evidenced by his career hit per nine innings rate of 5.8.

The problem with Marmol is that he is his own worst enemy. For his career, his BB/9 rate is 4.76, but Marmol has now entered into “Wild Thing” Mitch Williams territory this season. Last night was classic Marmol. He entered into the game in the 9th inning with a seven run lead. He walked the first three batters he faced, allowed a run on a force out, struck out the next batter, gave up a double and then struck out the next batter to end the game.

The off the charts walk rate is probably an over the top illustration. Marmol has 55 walks in 59.1 innings pitch, to go along with a 11 hit batters. A quarter of the batters Marmol has faced this season, Marmol has put on base via either the walk or the hit by pitch. As often as Marmol’s putting batters on, he’s striking them out. 26% of the batters he’s faced this season have gone down on strikes. The young Dominican has recently assumed the role as the Cubs closer, as Kevin Gregg has suffered with the long ball this season, and the Cubs don’t feel rookie Angel Guzman is quite ready yet.

So what kind of rarefied territory is Marmol walking in? Pretty rare, definitely Mitch Williams type of stuff. There have been five seasons, including Marmol’s, where a reliever has struck out at least an average of a batter per inning, walked 7 per nine and hit at least five batters in a season.

With the help of Baseball Reference’s Play Index, we find those seasons are:

1987 Mitch Williams 108.2 IP, 10.7 K/9, 7.8 BB/9, 7 HBP,ERA+ 140
2008 Dennis Sarfate 79.2 IP, 9.7 K/9, 7 BB/9, 7 HBP, ERA+ 95
1962 Ryne Duren 71.1 IP, 9.3 K/9, 7.2 BB/9, 6 HBP, ERA+ 87
2009 Carlos Marmol 59.1 IP, 10.8 K/9, 8.3 BB/9, 11 HBP, ERA+ 121
1960 Ryne Duren 49 IP, 12.3 K/9, 9 BB/9, 7 HBP, ERA+ 72

I encourage you to read up on the life and times of Ryne Duren, who basically was Rick Vaughn. His wildness knew no bounds, stories have it that in the minors he hit a batter while he was on deck. His control was that rough. With a 95 MPH fastball and coke-bottle glasses, Duren would take a long time squinting in order to read signs from the catcher, and that would make batters just about wet themselves. Duren’s also known for overcoming a tough bout with alcoholism.

Anyway, it’s interesting and sort of amusing that only Williams and Marmol managed to have above average ERA’s with these sort of rates. Carlos Marmol, Algo Salvaje.

Without stealing Caron’s shtick, let me say that if you enjoy undervalued players stuck in baseball purgatory, you probably have a soft spot for Matt Murton. For whatever reasons Murton has been stuck in Triple-A two years running and yesterday was designated for assignment to make room for Juan Rincon of all people.

This could be a blessing in disguise though, as you have to figure some team will give Murton a chance for no cost.

Murton is 27-years-old and has hit well in Triple-A 954 plate appearances and counting. A .312/.388/.469 line is impressive and Murton isn’t someone proven incapable of hitting major league pitching either. Murton hit .287/.353/.438 in 1,051 plate appearances split between the Cubs, Athletics, and Rockies. He can play on a daily basis or platoon as a lefty masher.

Defensively he’s graded out above average in each of the seasons in which we have data. At absolute worst he’s an average player who only plays against lefties and plays in the corners. He’s not a superstar and won’t move jerseys by the pound, but some team should absolutely jump on this chance to acquire him for a 40-man roster spot.

Which leads me to the best part, in that Murton can be optioned to the minors for the remainder of this season. That means a team can store him away for an off-season and reconsider whether they have a lineup slot for him next spring. Of course that’s essentially what happens at this point anyway.

Matt Murton has major league baseball player talent, some team should give him the label, jersey, and roster spot and reap the benefits.

Once against thanks to a helpful reader tip, I am here to present a possibly interesting nugget of baseball trivia. Three true outcome hitters are known for their high power and high totals in walks and strikeouts. Principally, the high strikeout and walk totals typically force them to carry low batting averages and their high power usually means a high number of home runs.

One interesting offshoot of that would be a player going so far to the extreme that he actually hits more home runs than singles. How extreme is this? Well, the complete list, as best as I can tell (Baseball-Reference’s Play Index makes me figure this out circuitously) of all such seasons since 1901 in which a batter appeared at least 200 times and had more, or at least as many, home runs than singles looks like this:

1995 Mark McGwire, 39 HRs, 35 1Bs
1998 Mark McGwire, 70 HRs, 61 1Bs
1999 Mark McGwire, 65 HRs, 58 1Bs
2000 Mark McGwire, 32 HRs, 32 1Bs
2001 Mark McGwire, 29 HRs, 23 1Bs
2001 Barry Bonds, 73 HRs, 49 1Bs

Remarkable. I searched far and wide and could not find a single other player to do it since the turn of the 20th century. A few, like Frank Thomas in 2005, managed it in small samples, or came close like Ken Griffey Jr. did in 2003 and Eddie Robinson in 1955.

Well, we have something to pay attention to for the rest of the season because entering play today, we have this:

2009 Carlos Pena, 37 HRs, 35 1Bs

As if you needed another reason to pay attention to an AL East team.

Yesterday, I talked about Johan Santana who is now undergoing season-ending surgery on his elbow and how his contract looks going forward. Since that piece went out, two more New York Mets’ pitchers have been shut down for the season to undergo surgery.

J.J. Putz, acquired from the Mariners this past winter as part of the dramatic bullpen makeover that was supposed to be the cure to the 2007 and 2008 collapses certainly was not up the task that he was brought in for. A combination of injuries and ineffectiveness doomed his year. Putz was already well into his decline, seeing his strikeout rate fall from 34% in 2006 to 30% in 2007 to 26% in 2008, all before he was traded off. It was nearly halved this year to just 14%.

In addition to the lack of strikeouts, Putz, who battled injuries all through 2008 as well, now has two consecutive years of injury-shaken control to overcome along with the heavy task of just getting healthy. Putz’s option is almost certain not to be exercised and thus he will depart from the Mets having been paid roughly $6 million and contributed a negligible amount above replacement level.

In addition to Putz, Oliver Perez is undergoing surgery on his knee and is done for the season. 58 walks in 66 innings pitched this season and according to both FIP and tRA, Perez was worth -0.7 wins above replacement in 2009, the first year of his horrible 3-year, $36-million contract. Unsurprisingly, Perez’s velocity was down, his average fastball down to the slowest level yet, at just 90mph. I was critical of the deal when it was signed for many reasons, Perez’s injury risk one of those factors. Forget about breaking even on this deal, I think the Mets would be lucky to get back $10 million total once all is said and done.

All told, between the two, the Mets dished out $17 million dollars for about -$3 million in value.