A week ago, the Brewers seemingly played the service time system to postpone J.J. Hardy’s free agency by a season. Today, the Royals are following suit with Alex Gordon.

Entering this year Gordon had exactly two years of service time. By taking him out of the equation for more than a few weeks, the Royals have pushed back his free agency eligibility by an entire season. Obviously this has been a poor season for Gordon. He’s hitting .198/.300/.313 and even worse since returning from the disabled list.

Certainly Gordon has given the Royals enough of a reason to demote him, but the timing is ultimately peculiar. Active for a month, did anything really chance within four weeks time that made the Royals think some time at Triple-A would help Gordon more than continuing play with the big league team? The only race involving the Royals is the race for Bryce Harper.

The problem with his game so far is his inability to drive the ball or make consistently solid contact. More than 50% of his batted balls are grounders, a figure well above his career average. If going down a level will somehow relax Gordon or alleviate pressure, then I guess it makes sense. Otherwise, it seems like a ploy to get another year of cost control; which is smart player management if not the most morally upstanding act.

Perhaps the more pressing matter is not Gordon’s 2009 status, but what the future holds for him. Playing draft retrospective is a bit silly, but the Royals chose him over Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Braun, two of the best players in the National League, meanwhile Gordon has yet to record a three-win season. Although he has been above average in both of his seasons to date, that’s probably not what the Royals expected when taking him second overall.

It’ll be interesting to see whether a team tries to take Gordon off KC’s hands this off-season, and if the Royals go through with it.

You’ve probably read part of the kerfuffle from the weekend regarding Mark Teixeira, the MVP award, UZR, defensive statistics in general, and the usefulness of valuation metrics like WAR. It feels like half the world has weighed in on the issue, with pretty much every possible viewpoint represented. Instead of weighing in on that discussion, I wanted to branch off it just slightly.

The annual debate over what the Most Valuable Player is comes up every year. Because the BBWAA gets to vote on the award, and the rules governing how they should vote are vague at best, we are treated to a yearly exercise in listening to people attempt to define value. For many years, the majority of the BBWAA has defined value as “driving in runners on a winning team”, which is why high RBI sluggers on playoff teams almost always win the award.

With the advent of the internet and the coalescence of passionate, enthusiastic baseball fans who like to quantify everything, that definition has come under fire, and rightfully so. As a result, every fall, we see the same articles pop up, just with different names. Stop me if you’ve read this sequence before.

Beat Writer: “Joe Ribbi proves he’s the MVP with another clutch home run. Where would Team Win-All-The-Time be without him?”

Sabermetric Blogger: “Look at this ridiculous article about Ribbi being the MVP. What a moron. Deosn’t Beat Writer know that Sam Shortstop is the one getting on base all the time?”

Beat Writer: “I’m at the games, I travel with the team, I talk to the guys in the clubhouse, and we all agree – it’s Joe Ribbi. Sometimes, you just have to realize there’s more to the game than numbers.”

Sabermetric Blogger: “When does this fool retire? If I had a subscription to the paper, I would cancel!”

Reasonable people take swipes at each other, bridges are burned, Joe Ribbi wins the MVP, and life goes on. Rinse and repeat, every September.

In the end, it isn’t an argument about baseball. It’s an argument about the perspective of how the game is seen through various lenses, and in many ways, a disagreement about the progress of a generation. Most of us see baseball in a way that is very different from how our fathers and grandfathers saw it, which is not unlike the generational gap in almost every other area of your life. Does your dad use twitter? Is your grandpa a frequent visitor to the local tapas bar? Do you yell at them for their “ignorance”?

This isn’t meant in any way to disrespect people like Tyler Kepner (who I met briefly when he worked at the Seattle P-I, and I have heard is a good guy and a smart man), but I’m just not sure why we engage in annual argument about how he and his peers define the word valuable. Really, why does it matter to us?

I get why baseball players might care, since they have financial incentives tied to who actually gets the award and such. I get why their families might care, as shiny trophies are always fun to hand down through the family. I get why the writers care, as it gives them a chance to have their opinion heard. I just don’t know why we’re supposed to care.

With the invention of the internet (thanks Al!), we don’t need to look back through a list of MVP awards to remember who was good way back when. We have baseball-reference for that. History isn’t recorded in trophies, but in data and stories, and we now have the capability to store a massive amount of both. No matter who wins the AL MVP award this season, we’re going to have a ridiculous amount of information about what happened on the field in 2009, and we’ll be able to show our kids and their kids just how much fun it was to watch Joe Mauer play baseball. The history of the game, as told by us, won’t be changed one iota by how the BBWAA votes in six weeks.

If they want to think that Teixeira was the most important player to his team in the league this year, that’s fine. Most of us probably disagree, and we’re under no obligation to report that as any kind of factual statement. I’ll be telling people that Mauer was the most valuable player in the American League for 2009, and I’ve got a mountain of information to back it up. How other people view the definition of the word value has no real world impact on me.

Twitter isn’t dying because people over 50 aren’t using it, and Tapas bars are doing just fine without an early bird special. Mauer’s legacy, and the history of the game, will be just fine without Tyler Keper’s vote, too. We’ve got better ways of capturing what happened on the field than through an award based on an esoteric argument about the definition of a vague word.

Let them vote for whoever they want. I don’t care.

Note to Reader: If you’re in a rush or merely averse to reading, I invite you to skip bottomward without further ado. If you’re the sort of Reader who’s in the market for a prose style sweeter than candy, then read this whole thing like seventeen times.

The first thing you need to know is this: I love Mark Bellhorn so hard.

I wanted him (i.e. Bellhorn) on the Red Sox while he was a Cub and then Rocky in 2003. I watched his Boston plate appearances with the sort of attention a young aristocrat such as myself ought to reserve only for Latin, opera, and the finer points of estate law. During the 2004 ALDS versus the Angels, I almost found myself in honest-to-goodness fisticuffs with another, much larger Red Sox fan at The Riviera in New York City when he (i.e. this monster-sized person I’m talking about) had the temerity to suggest that Bellhorn was somehow undeserving of his post as Boston’s second baseman. I thumbed my nose at the haters when Bellhorn jacked a donger in Game Six of the ALCS versus New York. I continued to defend his place on the Sox in 2005 even as his numbers made it very difficult to do so without the threat of physical abuse. To this day, I carry a Bellhorn (2003 Topps) card in my wallet for what I would describe as its “talismanic properties.” I am currently aware that he (i.e. Bellhorn) plays for Colorado Springs and is posting a park- and luck-adjusted line of .259/.364/.494. I still believe that he is of some use to an MLB club — as an expert on the catalog of REO Speedwagon, if nothing else.

Many would feel compelled to describe my feelings for Bellhorn as a “mancrush.” Excuse me while I take umbrage at that term. To have a crush implies a sort of puppy love, a feeling of intoxication. Pleasant, yes, but also fleeting. My love for Bellhorn, on the other hand, is as deep as and complex as the wine-dark sea.

Moreover, I think less than Mark Bellhorn himself, it’s the idea of Mark Bellhorn to which I’m irrationally drawn.

Which, allow me to pontificate on that.

Epicurus said of the gods that they are not the catty, bickering cadre of drama queens portrayed in Homer’s epics, but totally content beings upon whom we ought to meditate so’s to better understand how to perfect our own happiness.

I’m not sure I’d describe Bellhorn as perfect, per se. There have been certain days when his hair — so often the platonic ideal of “the wet look” — does not live up to the lofty precedent it has set for itself so far as Awesome Factor (AF)* goes. That said, there is something that Bellhorn has done perfectly — namely, to parlay a kinda limited skill set into a couple of really excellent major league seasons.

*A totally real metric, duh.

This is* Mark Bellhorn’s skill: to hit a ball very hard when it crosses the plate in an area approximately two baseballs wide by two baseballs tall, middle-in — and to play a decent, if not stellar second base while doing it. I remember Bellhorn taking pitches that other hitters — literally, any other major league hitter — would swing at**. Bellhorn? He’d just watch it go, almost always with an expression on his face — a cross between annoyance and boredom — that I remember my friends’ older brothers wearing when I was in junior high and they (i.e. the older brothers) in college. Bellhorn was the anti-Molina.

*Was? I had a hard time choosing which tense to use in re Bellhorn, on account of, like a deaf and/or senile grandparent, he’s still technically around but you wouldn’t say that he’s flourishing exactly.

**Unfortunately for me, the way I remember the situation is not entirely substantiated by the facts — at least not to the degree I thought. Bellhorn’s Z-Swing% of 64.0% was below the league average of 69.6% in 2004 but ranked only 32nd among the 162 players with at least 500 PAs. His Z-Contact% of 78.4% is more representative of the Bellhorn I remember. It places him ninth among the same group of players.

Bellhorn’s “patience” was less patience, I’d say, and more an acute awareness of his abilities. Knowing that he would almost definitely miss any offering not expressly located in his own personal hitting zone, he decided not even to acknowledge these pitches. Of course, with two strikes, he might take a cut so’s to give the impression of caring, but I always got the sense that it was more for show than anything. Luckily for Bellhorn, this sort of approach (i.e. the one where you “wait for your pitch”) is not such a bad one for hitters, especially those with some power. And it worked well for Bellhorn in 2004, during which year he posted a wOBA of .360 and a PrOPS of .254/.364/.425.

Such self-awareness is not peculiar to Bellhorn, either. If anyone remembers the Scott Hatteberg chapter from Moneyball, you’ll remember Hatteberg, commenting on his ability to lay off pitches outside the strike zone, saying something like, “I just realized a long time ago that, if I swung at certain pitches, I wouldn’t be able to hit them hard.” Hatteberg continues by asking why you would swing at a pitch that you knew you’d just ground to the second baseman. Furthermore, he was confident enough in his contact abilities (regularly posting a Contact% of around 90%) that he didn’t mind hitting with two strikes. This perfect storm of innate ability and homespun common sense made Hatteberg a very valuable baseball player for a couple years.

There is something very elegant about this, about a player who, in being most authentically himself, in having an approach to baseball so informed by his approach to life, succeeds at baseball.

This is one type of player to which I’m drawn. And if it’s true what my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Terry once told me – namely, that I’m “not that special”* — then I’m guessing that a Reader or Two might have had similar inclinations.

*A real molder of young minds, that Mrs. Terry.

For some time, I’ve attempted privately to articulate exactly what sorts of players someone like me is drawn. Or phrased differently: for some time, I’ve recognized a peculiar tendency — in myself, among my statnerd friends — to develop irrational attachments to certain players. These attachments are not systematic, by any means, but they’re not entirely random, either. Always the players in question seem to gravitate towards one Type or another. What I’ve been unable to do is to put my finger on, in, on top of, or even athwart the connection between these players with any sort of satisfaction.

A TAXONOMY OF STATNERD HEROES

After a lot of very serious research — most of which involved something akin to “soul-searching” — I alighted upon what I consider to be at least something like a reasonable summary of Types. This is merely an attempt to make explicit what has more or less been said — like by Sky Kalkman, for example, when he says he roots for “smart organizations and underrated players.” I’ve made no attempt to suggest why the players belonging to these Types — to suggest why they warm the cockles of the statnerd heart. That project might be more appropriate for someone familiar with “science.”

The Statnerd Hero might very well be:

1. An MLB player whose advanced metrics (i.e. EqA, wOBA, VORP, UZR – really anything that attempts to improve upon AVG, HR, and RBIs) suggest greater production than is commonly perceived.

This is really the sort of player to whom the world was introduced by Bill James and made by popular by Moneyball. It could be Scott Hatteberg or Jack Cust or, more recently, defensive savant Mark Ellis.

No, it’s not only Oakland A’s on this the list.

2. An MLB player whose peripheral numbers (i.e. xFIP, PrOPS, tRA) suggest greater production in near future.

In 2007, you would’ve been hard-pressed to find a more rabid J.P. Howell apologist than yours truly. Howell finished that season with a 1-6 record and 7.59 ERA, but his 4.25 xFIP (8.65 K/9, 3.71 BB/9, 46.1 GB%) suggested an excellent young pitcher. His 5.53 tRA for is less optimistic, but 1) I didn’t know that at the time and 2) that’s not really the point. The point is that, at the time, I was convinced of Howell’s excellence, even as public opinion differed.

3. Either an MLB part-timer or older (27 and up) minor leaguer whose production suggests probable success in expanded MLB role.

The Informed Reader will already know that Prentice Redman and Ruben Gotay’s PCL numbers are currently off the proverbial hizzy. Redman is posting a park- and luck-adjusted line of .328/.375/.569 with Tacoma, while Gotay has a park- and luck-adjusted line of .294/.444/.480 with Reno.

Jeff Keppinger and Micah Hoffpauir have both filled this space, even if neither of them is playing all that well at the moment.

4. A younger (under 27) minor leaguer, but not top prospect, whose minor league numbers suggest success at the MLB level.

Mike Napoli, Mark Reynolds, even Curtis Granderson: despite strong minor league records none of these three was really ever a highly touted prospect in the way that a Mark Prior or Jose Reyes or even Homer Bailey was. Of course, “highly touted” is a bit subjective, but let’s pretend we all understand what I mean. Napoli was considered a bit of defensive liability and more of a placeholder for Jeff Mathis. Reynolds, if I’m remembering correctly, was called up to replace an injured Chad Tracy but was considered a low-contact guy without a real position. Granderson was regarded as doing a lot of thing decently but nothing real well. A current player in this mold is Cincinnati farmhand Chris Heisey, a former 16th round draft pick who posted a park- and luck-adjusted line of .315/.398/.538 in 238 Double-A ABs this year.

5. A player who demonstrates vigorously what Americans, quoting French poorly, call je ne sais quoi.

As FanGraphs’ own Erik Manning pointed out earlier today, pitchers such as Charlie Haeger and R.J. Swindle — those guys who reach a mostly successful end by unorthodox means — are heroic, too. This category is big enough to include top players, as well. Like, can anyone believe how compact Albert Pujols‘s swing is? And what about Javier Vazquez’s curve?

It’s never good when a team loses its No. 1 catcher. But it’s especially bad timing for the Texas Rangers organization with the club 4.5 games behind Los Angeles for first in the AL West division and narrowly (0.5 games up on Boston) leading the Wild Card race. To this point, Jarrod Saltalamacchia has started 71% of the club’s 116 games (and the rate was far worse prior to August). Rookie back-up catcher Taylor Teagarden has started just 34 games behind the plate (29%). I would argue, though, that the loss of Saltalamacchia to right arm soreness/numbness is not a loss at all.

Manager Ron Washington has favored Saltalamacchia to a fault. The 24-year-old catcher has an offensive line of .236/.293/.375 with nine homers in 280 at-bats. His putrid on-base percentage is hurt by both his low batting average and his hack-tastic tendencies at the plate, where he has posted a 7.3 BB%. Saltalamacchia has also posted a lousy strikeout rate at 34.3 K%, the fourth highest K rate in the Majors amongst players with 250+ at-bats. His wOBA is .290, the 23rd worst rate in the Majors.

In truth, a catcher’s offensive contributions are really a bonus. It’s on defense where a backstop really needs to shine. Unfortunately for the Rangers, Saltalamacchia’s glove may be worse than his bat. Amongst catchers with more than 500 innings behind the plate, the Texas catcher is second in errors with seven (and first in the AL). His game calling/receiving skills are nothing to write home about and his range is at the bottom of the barrel. Saltalamacchia has also caught just 19 of the 80 runners trying to steal against him, good for a caught-stealing rate of 24%.

The truth is that, despite showing encouraging improvements, the Rangers pitching staff can still use all the help it can get – and we’ve seen how defense can positively impact results thanks to the presence of rookie Elvis Andrus at shortstop. Saltalamacchia has never been a good fielder, and he probably never will be… But he needs to show something on offense to justify his playing time.

On the other hand, Teagarden has been left to rot on the bench, as Washington tries to single-handedly ruin a young player’s career. What excuse is there for playing a promising rookie only a handful of times during a full Major League season? When he was drafted, Teagarden was widely considered the best defensive catcher in college baseball. His defense made him a sure-fire Major Leaguer, even if he failed to hit (You know, along the lines of what Saltalamacchia has produced this season).

No, Teagarden’s line of .198/.264/.373 is not encouraging, but he’s had absolutely no chance to get into a hitting rhythm. Prior to August and Saltalamacchia’s injury, Teagarden had started back-to-back games only once all year. As the Rangers’ No. 1 catcher in August, Teagarden has hit .200/.314/.533 in 30 at-bats. He’s finally gotten a chance to show his above-average power with three home runs. After walking just three times from May to July, he has five walks in August and is again showing the above-average patience that he showed in the minors. In a very small sample size, Teagarden has shown glimpses of things that Saltalamacchia has proven he does not possess.

Normally, we joke that a manager’s overuse of a pitcher has caused an arm to fall off. In this case, it appears that Ron Washington has caused a catcher’s arm to all but fall off. In all seriousness, though, while Teagarden is far from being the second coming, one can only hope that Texas takes this time to realize that there is life beyond Saltalamacchia.

Francisco Liriano had another tough start last night, lasting just two inning and giving up seven runs on seven hits and two walks. His ERA and WHIP look worse than he has pitched because of his unlucky BABIP (0.326) and HR/FB (0.122). Still his real performance has been below average. He has a tRA of 5.11 and league average is in the high fours. This is disappointing after the dizzying heights of his pre-injury 2006 and solid performance last year.

The big problem is his fastball, which has been worth a staggering -21 runs below average. It in about 3 mph slower than it was in 2006 as a starter. His two secondary pitches, a slider and a changeup, are both very good. He showed a similar pattern in 2006, an average fastball and an amazing slider and change. These pitch value numbers are not luck-corrected, if the BABIP or HR/FB values on his fastball are poor he is penalized. So I wanted to check out the numbers on his fastball more directly under his control:

Fastball
+--------+---------+---------+
|        | Liriano | Average |
+--------+---------+---------+
| Zswing |   0.590 |   0.612 |
| Oswing |   0.170 |   0.241 |
| Whiff  |   0.047 |   0.057 | 
| GB/BIP |   0.371 |   0.408 |
+--------+---------+---------+

There is way more than just bad luck at play here. Particularly bad is the lack of out of the zone swings, while having an almost league average in zone swing rate. A low number of out of zone swings relative to in zone swings results in batters making better contact, rarely swinging and missing, rarely swinging at balls, and rarely taking strikes.

Back when Liriano was throwing a 94mph fastball he could only muster an average fastball, so now that it is 3 mph slower it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is having such poor results. He is only 25, hopefully he gets some of the speed back on the fastball, and is better able to locate it, to get more whiffs, out of zone swings and ground balls.

After nearly a year of hoopla surrounding just how large of a signing bonus Stephen Strasburg would command, we finally got the answer last night – $7.5 million in up front signing money and $7.5 million in guaranteed salaries from 2010 to 2012 (along with the pro-rated league minimum for what’s left of 2009), bringing the total package to just over $15 million. This is the largest contract ever given to a player signed through the draft, breaking Mark Prior’s record of $10.5 million from the 2001 draft.

However, after all the hoopla, the deal isn’t that much different than what Prior got, once you adjust for present value. The annual inflation since Prior signed has been about 2.4%, so adjusting Prior’s deal to present day dollars would put his original contract at about $12.7 million. Strasburg’s $15 million in guarantee is “only” an 18% premium over the adjusted value of Prior’s deal.

Now, beating a record by 18% isn’t bad, and of course Strasburg would have been a bit nutty to walk away from that kind of money as a 20-year-old pitcher. But, really, after all the talk of shattering previous draft records – 18% over Prior’s deal was the best Scott Boras could do? Maybe he’s lost a step.

Anyway, congratulations to the Nationals organization for getting the deal done. You have a franchise player. Now, the question is what to do with him.

Because of the way the deal is structured, Strasburg is only under contract through 2012, and then will have his three arbitration years before he qualifies for free agency. If the Nationals stick him in the major league rotation next spring, they’ll control him through 2015. Despite the strong fan interest in seeing him, however, there are several compelling reasons to let him begin 2010 in the minors.

For one, there’s the issue of workload. In his two years of starting for San Diego State, he threw 97 and 109 innings respectively. Given the significant potential value he holds to their long term future, Washington has every reason to be cautious with Strasburg next year, and holding him under 150 innings is probably in everyone’s best interests. That’s very hard to do if he starts the year in the big league rotation.

Secondly, there’s still the transition to professional baseball that needs to be made. His stuff is overwhelming, but he’s still going to have to learn how to pitch on four days rest, and how to respond if he isn’t hitting 100 with the fastball every time out. Working on pitching without his best stuff will be a far easier experience if he isn’t being saddled with the weight of an entire fan base watching.

And, yes, there’s the free agency issue. The Nationals could add an extra year of club control by holding him down for approximately three weeks next season. While I’m not a fan of using that as a decision making tool in most cases, when it comes to a kid straight out of college, there are significantly less ethical issues here than with the J.J. Hardy case, for instance.

For a variety of reasons, it makes sense for Strasburg to begin 2010 in the minor leagues. Washington fans, I’m sure you want to see this kid in D.C. as soon as possible, but I hope you’re willing to wait until May of next year for his big debut.

Well, everyone thought the Washington Nationals organization would end up as the biggest loser after the dust settled on Draft Deadline Day, but that wasn’t the case. No. 1 overall pick Stephen Strasburg agreed to a Major League deal for more than $15 million. Three other teams, though, had far worse days than Washington.

1. The Texas Rangers

After looking long and hard at fellow Texas prep pitcher Shelby Miller, the Rangers organization decided on Matt Purke with its 14th-overall pick. His 90-95 mph fastball and good slider were certainly enticing but it was known at the time that he could very well be a harder sign. While Miller spurned Texas A&M for the Cardinals (and $2.8 million), Purke will head off to Texas Christian where he will be eligible for the 2011 draft as a draft-eligible sophomore.

The organization also has yet to sign supplemental first round pick Tanner Scheppers, who spent the 2009 season pitching for an independent baseball league after choosing not to return to Fresno State University for his senior year, after failing to sign with the Pirates as a second-round pick in the 2008 draft. Scheppers, though, is not subject to the deadline, so the club can still sign him.

The Rangers did come to terms with four players on over-slot deals: right-handed pitchers Shawn Blackwell (Texas HS, 24th round), Nick McBride (North Carolina HS, 5th rnd), left-hander Paul Strong (California HS, 17th rnd), and outfielder Riley Cooper (University of Florida, 25th rnd). Unfortunately, the collection of signees does not come even close to replacing Purke.

Texas has one of the best minor league systems in all of baseball, but it has already graduated Derek Holland, Elvis Andrus, and Taylor Teagarden. Neftali Feliz and Julio Borbon are not far behind, so the system is emptying quickly.

2. The Toronto Blue Jays

When Toronto lost A.J. Burnett to the Yankees, it stung. When the club failed miserably in 2009, it hurt. When general manager J.P. Ricciardi tried to (unsuccessfully) trade Roy Halladay – the face of the franchise – it infuriated fans. Now the minor league system is floundering yet again under Ricciardi (every affiliate is at or near the bottom of the standings and numerous top prospects have taken sizable steps backward this season).

Help was supposed to be on the way for the minor league system, and for the future of the franchise. With five selections in the first three rounds of the draft, it gave hope to fans… something small to cling to. However, when the clock struck midnight on Monday night, the team had failed to sign its supplemental first round pick (James Paxton, LHP), its second-round pick (Jake Eliopoulos, LHP) and its third-round pick (Jake Barrett, RHP). Making matters worse is that both Paxton and Eliopoulos were Canadian pitchers.

A quick visit to some of the fan sites, like Battersbox.ca, tells you exactly how the hardcore fan base feels. On a small positive note, the club did hand out over-draft deals to right-handers Daniel Webb (Florida JC, 18th round), Andrew Hutchinson (Florida HS, 15th rnd), and outfielder K.C. Hobson (California HS, 6th rnd). The club also signed its second third-round pick in Jake Marisnick (California HS).

3. The Tampa Bay Rays

It’s never a fun time when you get in bed with “super agent” Scott Boras and Tampa Bay learned that first-handed after failing to come to terms with first-round pick LeVon Washington, who was a fringe first-round pick to begin with. The second baseman (who is expected to move to the outfield in pro ball) has a lot of speed, but his arm is just about as weak as it can get. The Florida native will head to the University of Florida.

The club also lost second-round pick and shortstop Kenny Diekroeger, whose strong commitment to Stanford was known prior to the draft. The club was able to sign catcher Luke Bailey, who dropped out of first-round consideration after undergoing Tommy John surgery in the spring. He was committed to Auburn University but spurned the school for $750,000. The organization also gave significant over-slot deals to first baseman Jeff Malm (Las Vegas HS, 5th round), and left-handed pitcher Kevin James (Wisconsin HS, 9th rnd).

I have a soft spot in my heart for soft-tossing, trick-pitch throwing hurlers, which means that I’m a card-carrying member of the Charlie Haeger bandwagon…and the R.J. Swindle bandwagon…and I would be on the Dallas Braden bandwagon if he threw more than a couple of screwballs per game. That being said, I was excited to see Haeger make just his second big league start against the Cardinals last night.

The baseball world does not seem to share my affinity for junkballers as the Dodgers are the third team to give Haeger a try in the last three seasons. Coming up through the White Sox organization and making his big league debut at just 22-years old, Haeger was haled the best knuckleballing prospect since Tim Wakefield. Regrettably, the Sox had little lenience for Haeger when he struggled. He made his first big league start on May 1st, 2006 and allowed 5 ER over 4.1 innings pitched. Haeger didn’t get back to the majors until he was a September call-up later that season. In 2007, he was roughed up in eight big league relief appearances and sent back to Triple-A. He was a waiver claim by the Padres last September, but pitched poorly again over 4 relief appearances for the Friars and his contract was non-tendered. Talk about a quick hook. I would have thought that a young knuckler in Petco Field was a match made in baseball dork heaven.

The Dodgers assigned Haeger to their Triple-A affiliate Albuquerque, where he posted a 3.55 ERA and a 103/55 K/BB ratio in 144 2/3 innings, along with a HR/9 rate of 1.0. Isotope Park is the minor league equivalent to a pre-humidor Coors, so adjusting for park, Haeger’s HR/9 rate would be .78. In his eight year minor league career, Haeger’s HR/9 rate is just .6. Considering that a knuckler that doesn’t “knuckle” turns into a pitch you’d see thrown in batting practice, this indicates that Haeger knows his business.

While Haeger did throw a couple of BPers that ended up in the stands at Chavez Ravine the other night, the Dodgers have to be impressed by his performance. Rather remarkably Haeger needed only 80 pitches to cruise through seven innings; 61 of those pitches were thrown for strikes. He allowed three earned runs on five hits, with the damage coming from the big flies.

I am by no means a Pitch F/x guru, but here’s a look at his movement graph. As you can see with the knuckler, it breaks all over the place. There are a couple of 82 MPH fastballs that are easy to pick out in there as well.

(Click on any of the images for a larger view)

Haeger’s most beautiful flutter-ball came in the 3rd inning when he got Yadier Molina to go down swinging, who happens to be the 4th most difficult hitter to strikeout in all of baseball. To get a look at this from Molina’s perception, let’s turn to Dan Brooks’ site who gives us Batter’s Box plots, which simply is the pitch as viewed from the batter’s box.

Let’s look at this from a lefties’ perception to get another glimpse of the random movement. This would by Skip Schumaker’s at-bat in the 5th inning. Skip grounded out.

Haeger’s just 25 years old, so he’s probably a decade or so away from his prime being that he’s a knuckleballer. I hope the Dodgers give him more of a shot that his two previous teams did. It will be a sad day if the knuckleball ever goes extinct.

Full disclosure: this was written well in advance to the midnight deadline, so if camp Boras leads a mass exodus of first round holdouts, I didn’t know at the time.

If a draft pick holds out, it’s always his fault. Either he’s greedy or Scott Boras is an insult to the game, maybe a mixture of both. Let a non-Strasburg draftee, like say, Donovan Tate (Note: he actually signed during the writing process, hypothetical!) go unsigned and see how many columnists, radio hosts, and fans turn him into a villain.

When it comes to money matters, the players are always, always, always wrong in the eyes of the public. I would guess it has to do with the loyalty factor. Most fans are fans of teams, not random high school or college players. Sure, you may like the new draft pick, and have high hopes for him, but you didn’t go to Padres.com on draft day and order a Tate jersey like you do with the NFL and NBA draft picks. Odds are fans have never seen the average draftee play – unlike the other sports – and thus there’s nothing to hang your hat on. He’s a mostly faceless entity trying to “extort” as much money out of the team as possible.

Except the players have every right to be selfish in these cases. The ones who do make it to the pros – and not many of any given draft class will – are essentially entering indentured servitude for the first three years. Only after three years of service do players get a share of the money they’ve earned and potentially get a nice free agent contract. That’s only for a small subset of these players, the rest are looking at their only real payday through baseball and have every right to try and get as much as possible.

The side that always backs the owners has some decent points as well. Why should the owners have to pay extra when the player is likely to flame out before reaching the majors? And why should the owners have to deal with the scorned lectures from Bud Selig when they go over slot?

The only solution is for a hard-slotting system. Either take slot or your rights are retained by the drafting team for the next six or seven years. As a concession for stabilized draft payouts, the owners would have to give back to the players, perhaps lowering the amount of service time required for free agency. Of course, the owners probably spend more money through this system than the other, but only in the long-run.

I’m not saying I have the answers or that either side is without some blame in the equation, but I am saying it’s a bit unfair to peg every teenager or twenty-something looking for a few hundred thousand over slot as a greedy villain.

Vicente Padilla was designated for assignment last Friday. The Rangers were accorded ten days to try and work out a trade, but are seemingly cutting ties with the enigmatic pitcher far in advance of that deadline as they have reportedly released Padilla. He is expected to clear release waivers within the next 48 hours and then be declared a free agent. In doing so, the Rangers are forced to eat a little over $5 million combined between the remaining salary for this year and Padilla’s $1.75M option for 2010.

Padilla, if you have forgotten, was traded to Texas originally from Philadelphia in December of 2005, in exchange for Ricardo Rodriguez a pitcher who never even threw a meaningful pitch for the Phillies organization at any level before getting released. Rodriguez has subsequently been signed and dropped by the Braves, Cardinals, Marlins and Pirates with his five month stint with Florida marking his longest tenure amongst the five NL organizations. He must have some really irritating clubhouse habits or something.

Meanwhile, Vicente Padilla went on to have a banner year with the Rangers, winning 15 games and posting a 4.50 ERA and 4.26 FIP. His numbers, though, were not exactly surprising, just his innings pitched total was, finally reaching 200. Padilla was rewarded with a 3-year, $33.75-million contract and the aforementioned club option for 2010.

Expected to provide a second punch behind Kevin Millwood in the Rangers rotation, Padilla promptly went out and pitched the worst statistical season of his career, a 5.26 FIP and the disappearance of his missed bats leading to a cratered strikeout rate. The strikeouts came back last year, but along with them came more fly balls and more home runs. While Padilla managed to correct the fly balls this season, he completely lost the strikeouts, down to under 5 per 9IP.

For their $33.75 million investment, one many critics panned at the time, the Rangers netted back 3.9 wins, worth $17.6 million in value according to our measurements. The Rangers paid about $8.7 million per win on Padilla’s contract which just goes to show that maybe you should reconsider giving big money deals to pitchers once referred to as among the league’s dumbest.