The Tigers added another bat to the equation today, acquiring Aubrey Huff from the Orioles in exchange for pitcher Brett Jacobson.

Huff figures to play some DH for the Tigers, this could be a problem since his bat has been horrid this season. His .253/.321/.405 line is pretty unlike Huff. The main culprit seems to be an increase in strikeouts – nearing a career high point – and a depressed BABIP. Huff is still pounding righties at a decent rate, but lefties are having their way with him. Huff hasn’t played the outfield since 2006, but did play some third base last year, so maybe the Tigers plan to use him in a utility role, but that seems a bit questionable given his defensive limitations.

For the six weeks of Huff, the Orioles receive Jacobson. The former Vanderbilt closer has decent velocity and has spent time developing his breaking and off-speed pitch, but his main problem was with control. Those problems haven’t shown up too up much as a professional, but he’s taken a step back upon reaching High-A.

Even if Jacobson falters to ever make an impact at the major league level, you have to appreciate the Orioles dedication to turning older parts into potentially useful young ones. Just this week they also acquired Rhyne Hughes as a PTBNL in the Gregg Zaun trade. Hughes is left-handed with some pop, but his high strikeout rates corresponding with advanced age are a bit concerning. Still, turning these old, near the end of the road (either with the O’s or in baseball) parts into something with upside is commendable.

For all the talk about how large of an impact Orlando Hudson has had on the Dodgers (and he has, with a +2.5 win season that has made him a great pickup for LA), it seems that one of the other bargain free agents signed by Ned Colletti last winter flies under the radar. Randy Wolf, who signed for $5 million in February (plus some performance incentives that he’s likely to reach), continues to give the Dodgers consistently steady work and is basically matching Hudson’s production with a +2.4 win season of his own.

Wolf isn’t a frontline starter by any stretch of the imagination. As a strike-throwing flyball lefty, his performance is heavily impacted by the variations of HR/FB and BABIP rates. In his last years in Philadelphia, these numbers were terrible and served to make him look like a batting practice pitcher. A little regression on his side has allowed him to slot in as a nifty mid-rotation starter the last few years, and some positive luck this season has made him appear even better than that.

Through it all, Wolf has basically the same guy all along. Other than a one season dip in 2006 (when he legitimately was awful), his BB/K rate has been basically steady for his entire career. In graph form, it looks like this:

Wolf strikes out more than twice as many guys as he walks, which is necessary to survive as a guy who puts the ball in the air a lot. He is the classic good-command-of-blah-stuff southpaw, though despite pitching well the last two years, he hasn’t been viweed as more than a fungible arm by most of baseball. Now that he’s got a sparkly 3.43 ERA (thanks to a .270 BABIP, of course), that should change this winter, as Wolf should be line for a pretty decent payday.

But for this year, at least, Wolf was a pretty big bargain, and signing him on the cheap is one of the reasons the Dodgers are on top of the NL West.

Today, as many of you probably already know, is deadline day for Major League Baseball teams attempting to sign 2009 amateur draft picks. Ever since the draft occurred back on June 9-11, clubs have been negotiating with the college and high school players that they selected in the 50-round selection process. Because of MLB’s (ridiculous and ineffective) hard line on exceeding draft-slot signing bonuses, a lot of player signings will be announced today (having effectively cut into their development time line).

However, a number of key players from the first round of the draft signed long before the deadline loomed. It’s always nice to see players excited about beginning their pro careers, with less emphasis placed on money. Let’s have a look and see how some of the early first-round signees are faring in pro ball.

Drew Storen: This right-handed reliever was drafted out of Stanford with the 10th overall pick that Washington received for failing to sign 2008 first-round pick Matt Harringt… er, Aaron Crow. Storen actually signed on draft day and quickly entered the minors. In 24 innings split between low-A and high-A, the reliever allowed 18 hits and just two walks. He also struck out 37 batters. He was recently promoted to double-A, where he’s made three appearances and has allowed just one hit in four shutout innings. Here’s hoping he doesn’t catch the curse of Ryan Wagner… or Craig Hansen… or Joey Devine… or…

Tony Sanchez: The Pirates organization received a lot of flack for selecting the Boston College catcher with the fourth overall pick. He was considered a very good draft prospect, but seemingly no other teams had him positioned that high on their draft boards. The Pirates organization, though, is currently looking pretty good as the club used some of the money it saved by selecting the catcher to signed a number of later round diamonds-in-the-rough to over-slot contracts… and Sanchez is arguably the hottest hitter in the minors right now. The right-handed hitter has a .410 average in his last 10 games, and he has also slammed three homers and driven in 15 runs. Overall in low-A ball, Sanchez is hitting .367/.470/.624 in 109 at-bats.

Randal Grichuk and Mike Trout: The Los Angeles Angels organization had back-to-back selections in the first round of the draft with picks 24 and 25. The club selected two high school outfielders with those selections and both players are currently raking in rookie ball. Grichuk, who has more raw power than Trout, is currently hitting .311/.341/.477 with 12 doubles and seven triples in 193 at-bats. The right-handed hitter has some work to do, though, with a 0.13 BB/k rate and a BABIP of .423. Trout is a more well-rounded player and he’s currently hitting .369/.428/.541 with six doubles and six triples in 122 at-bats. He appears to have a better handle of the strike zone with a walk rate of 10.3 BB% and a strikeout rate of 18.9 K%, but Trout also has an unsustainable BABIP at .449.

Jiovanni Mier: Houston has done a very good job of bungling previous drafts to horrific levels, but the organization seems to be making amends with its last two drafts. Mier was selected out of a California high school with the 21st pick of the draft and has performed better than expected. The raw shortstop is currently hitting .302/.406/.504 with nine steals and 15 extra base hits in 139 at-bats. Scouting reports suggest Mier has average to below-average power, but he’s already hit four homers in rookie ball. He’s also showing an encouraging walk rate of 13.1 BB%.

Other players who signed quickly included: A.J. Pollock (Arizona), Brett Jackson (Chicago NL), Reymond Fuentes (Boston), Tim Wheeler (Colorado), and Jared Mitchell (Chicago AL).

Last night Mike Wuertz stuck out the side in the 8th as the A’s came from behind victory to beat the White Sox. Wuertz was hailed as a nice pick up over the offseason, and the he has worked out better than any one could have imagined. He is striking out 11.5 per 9 and walking only 2.5 (both far and away career bests).

You may have read that Wuertz’s slider is the hardest pitch to hit in the game, that is it has the highest whiff rate (misses per swings) of any pitch. Since the article came out the whiff rate on his slider has increased, so now both righties and lefties make contact with the pitch under 50% of the time they swing at it, which is incredible. Since batters swing at this slider over 50% of the time, this means over 25% of the time he throws a slider he gets a swinging strike. Wuertz takes full advantage throwing his slider 64% of the time to both lefties and righties.

He locates the pitch down-and-away to both lefties and righties, rarely leaving the pitch up or in.

The key to his success is those low sliders. Batters swing and miss at these pitches low in the zone and below the zone at a huge rate.

This weekend I received enough e-mails about Mark Teixeira and his 2009 UZR of -0.8, that I thought it was worth discussing in a public post instead of answering each e-mail individually. I can only believe that this debate was spurred by a blog post on the New York Times website by Tyler Kepner:

[…] and his defense has been off the charts.

I say off the charts because I’m convinced there is no chart that accurately measures defense. The attempt is a noble one; defense is easily the most underrated ingredient in how games are won. But I don’t fully accept it.

People often cite Ultimate Zone Rating, a metric that tries to measure range and errors and how they affect runs allowed or prevented. But how can that statistic be valid when it says Teixeria has had a negative defensive impact?

Teixeira makes tremendous plays every game. He smothers everything near him, and his throwing arm is fantastic. Maybe he seems better than he is because the previous Yankees first baseman, Jason Giambi, was so adventurous in the field. But it would be hard to overstate the importance of Teixeira’s defense.

Kepner is quick to dismiss everything about UZR on what amounts to his own observations on one player. Then he leaves himself an opening in saying the equivalent of “maybe I’m biased because I’m not used to watching a good first baseman?”

What does UZR have to say about Jason Giambi then? He’s been -24 runs below average since joining the Yankees in 2002 (including his 2009 with the Athletics so far). Not a good defender. And what about Teixeira since 2002? He’s been +14.4 runs above average.

Well that’s strange. UZR agrees with what Kepner is absolutely sure he is seeing. That Teixeira is at the very least better than Giambi. And UZR actually thinks he’s considerably better than Giambi. I wonder what Kepner would say about that?

The quote that Teixeira has a negative defensive impact is a bit misleading too, considering he has a -0.8 UZR on the season so far. In my book, that’s pretty much average. He never even bothers to mention how negative it is and with the way he’s discrediting UZR, you’d think he was rated the very worst first-baseman out there.

In truth, Teixeira over the 2008 and 2009 seasons has been rated the #2 first-baseman by UZR at +9.8, so UZR has actually liked the guy a whole lot the past two seasons. But, I don’t want the point of this post to be for me to try and validate UZR.

Advanced baseball stats often paint a contrarian picture of baseball. Whether it be a player’s value or a player’s skill level, they often do not agree with popular and mainstream thinking. On the other hand, sometimes they do agree with mainstream thinking, but just because they don’t doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the statistic.

Imagine trying to gauge a player’s offensive value without using any stats. Do you think you’d remember all 600 plate appearances the guy had during the season? You probably wouldn’t. You might remember the big hits or the times he really screwed up and your opinion of the player would be biased based on a small sampling of what you could remember.

This is pretty much the same point I’m going to make with the state of fielding statistics. There is no way you remember every single play Teixeira or anyone else has made during the course of the entire season and you might only remember the big plays, or you might only remember the plays that killed your team. It’s also possible that Teixeira makes the easy plays look difficult and you’re just not realizing it. There’s really a number of areas where your memory of what Teixeira has actually done could fail you.

But this is not to say that what you see is completely useless. Studies like the Fan’s Scouting Report (by Tangotiger) have shown that through the wisdom of the crowds (many eyes and not just yours), you can get a good read on how a player is defensively.

If everyone out there agrees that Teixeira has been the absolute best first-baseman out there this season, then that’s fine, and there’s definitely value in that. The underlying data in UZR isn’t perfect and with time the imperfections get sanded out, but it’s perfectly reasonable to put some error bars on the 4 months of data used to calculated Teixeira’s -0.8 UZR on the year.

It’s also worth noting that UZR is not the only stat that thinks Teixeira has been basically average. John Dewan’s +/- (Fielding Bible) has him at +1 runs above average (also basically average in my book) and for those of you still holding onto Range Factor, he’s the 3rd worst qualified first-baseman.

In any event, when looking at these advanced fielding statistics, please use your brain and don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions just because your eyes tell you differently.

At the age of 31, Chone Figgins is showing no signs of slowing down. He racked up four hits yesterday, three of them doubles, to raise his season line to .312/.401/.413. He’s also flashing the leather over at third base, and his total performance for the season has been worth +4.6 wins. He’s got a shot at finishing the season as a +6 win player, just in time for free agency.

Figgins began his career as an okay hitter, who hit for a high average, drew some walks, and stole a bunch of bases. Since he didn’t really establish himself as a regular until he was 26, his early career performance looked like it would be his peak. Instead, he’s getting better with age.

Here’s Figgins walk rates by season:

Every year since he arrived in the big leagues, Figgins has upped his rate of free passes. He’s done this without a corresponding increase in strikeout rate by just swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone. By getting more selective, he’s been able to increase his contact rate and draw more walks, which is a pretty nifty combination.

After bouncing all over the field, he’s also found a home at third base, and has settled in as one of the better defenders of the hot corner in the game. His +9.6 UZR for the season ranks him just behind Evan Longoria and Joe Crede but right in front of Brandon Inge and Adrian Beltre. That’s some pretty nice company.

In his first three and a half years in the big leagues (2003 to 2006), Figgins racked up a total of +7.3 wins, making him essentially a league average player. In the last two and a half years, Figgins has earned +10.1 wins, which is the kind of production teams get from all-star caliber players.

He’s not as big a name as Matt Holliday or Jason Bay, but Figgins is going to get paid fairly well this winter, and if the Angels don’t shell out the cash to keep him around, they’re going to have a tough time replacing his production. He’s turned himself into a very nice player.

“It takes a big man to admit he was wrong, but takes an even bigger man to make fun of that man”.

-Unknown, but I’d guess that it would have to be Jack Handey.

I was wrong. I said the price – Brett Wallace – was too much for the Cardinals to pay for a two month rental of Matt Holliday. Factoring salary and production I reckoned Holliday was worth about $8 million of surplus value. According to studies, a top fifty hitting prospect is worth on average $25 million dollars in surplus value. Including Wallace, the Cardinals also gave up two solid prospects (Clayton Mortensen, Shane Peterson) for an additional $3 million worth of surplus value. The math, I figured was simple enough: $28 million is better than $8 million.

I underestimated how much Matt Holliday would enjoy his return to the National League. I mean, he is really, really enjoying it. Holliday is hitting like a man possessed, to the tune of a .459/.490/.776 line in 85 at-bats, something I don’t think anyone could have predicted. Coincidentally, the Cardinals have distanced themselves from the Cubs and are sitting atop the NL Central with a 5 game lead. According to coolstandings.com, their playoff odds have more than doubled from 40% on July 24th (the day they acquired Holliday) to 83% today, and the Cardinals are now on pace to win 91 games. Holliday can’t be credited for doing this single-handedly, obviously, but his performance has been worth +2.01 in win probability added; quite a boost. Obviously he’s been playing over his head, and I still feel good about my expected value figures, but I think I neglected to see how much the deals increased the Cardinals’ playoff odds.

The Cardinals paid a high cost for all their wheeling and dealing, trading six of their top prospects to get Holliday and Mark DeRosa, but the cost looks to be worth the reward, as the difference between an 87 win team to a 91 win team can mean a lot. In the book Baseball Between the Numbers, Nate Silver calculated that reaching the playoffs is worth about an extra $30 million dollars to a club’s bottom line. Flags fly forever, and thanks to Mozeliak’s dealings, the Cardinals are in line for their 23rd postseason appearance in franchise history, barring an unforeseen meltdown.

Russell Martin was on top of the baseball world not long ago. Thought of as one of the best young catchers in baseball, Martin was the face of the Los Angeles Dodgers youth movement, at least until Manny Ramirez stepped onto the scene. At this point Martin might be asking himself who pulled the extension cord out of the wall on his bat, because the power is gone.

Despite nearly identical BABIP, Martin’s ISO is almost half of 2008’s total. The leading reason seems to be a reduced number of home runs per fly ball hit. Last year about 9% of Martin’s fly balls went for home runs, this year less than 4% are landing in the bleachers. This is peculiar because Martin is A) hitting more line drives than before, B) hitting about the same number of fly balls, C) still making the same amount of contact, and D) not at the age where you would expect the average player to lose his pop.

But Martin isn’t the average player, he’s a catcher, a full time one on top of that. He’s started 135+ games behind the plate the past two years and should break the 100 starts mark on the season this week. Still, if you glance at the ISO leaderboard for catchers with 200+ plate appearances, the bottom five are (in descending order) Koyie Hill, Yadier Molina, Ryan Hanigan, Martin, and Jason Kendall; meaning he appears to carry the light stick even amongst players with the same bumps and bruises.

HitTracker’s numbers don’t speak too well for the homers Martin has hit either. The three have an average distance of 394.3 feet; in 2008 his home runs went about three feet further; in 2007 about 14 feet further. I’m willing to accept that he’s not a 405+ feet home run hitter, but I do think he’s going to start hitting more than three of every 100 fly balls out of the park during any given season.

Bill Bavasi, the gift that keeps on giving. I will spare you the second line to that reference.

Today, it shines through truer than yesterday as the exploratory surgery on Erik Bedard’s shoulder by Dr. Lewis Yocum revealed an inflamed bursa sac, which was no surprise given the symptoms, and a torn labrum, which was no surprise but still a colossal disappointment.

Bedard now has to wait four to six months before resuming any baseball-related activities. Shoulder issues are a steep hill to overcome and Bedard will have to start from scratch around February assuming no further set backs. The amount of time to rehab and build up strength again means mid to late 2010 is likely Bedard’s best case return date. We have a winner already for 2010’s version of Ben Sheets.

30 starts, 164 innings pitched. That is what the Mariners got out of Erik Bedard over his final two years of club control. That is what the Mariners got out of Erik Bedard because Bill Bavasi traded Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, George Sherrill and Kameron Mickolio. It would be easy for Mariner fans and reporters to blame Erik Bedard. I, for one, cannot see how this is any bit his fault. By all accounts, he tried his hardest to compete for the team but his body failed him. And then he kept on trying, pitching through what was diagnosed as a shoulder cyst last year and a torn labum this year.

Perhaps amazingly, given the degree to which we know now he was operating, Bedard still managed to post extremely good numbers when he was on the mound with the Mariners. The talent and stuff is undeniable, but for teams that were already going to be gunshy about giving the notorious fragile Bedard a contract this winter, a torn labrum might send them to Mark Prior before they give any more attention Erik’s way.

A sad day.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, tRA has come to FanGraphs. I’m going to try to describe it as concisely as possible, so here goes.

tRA can be seen as an extension of FIP including batted ball types, namely line drives, ground balls, and the different types of flyballs. The idea of using these is to separate defense from pitching while still incorporating some measurement of how ‘fieldable’ the contact a pitcher induces is. Line drives are a little trickier for defenders to handle than ground balls, and tend to lead to more runs scoring. This is reflected in the runs/outs data we have for batted ball types, which leads the way quite neatly to tRA.

If you aggregate the tRA outcomes (K, BB, HBP, HR, + batted balls), and apply run/out values, you end up with expected runs (xR) and expected outs (xO). We can easily convert this to runs per nine innings by taking xR/xO*27. That’s tRA. Note that it is not on the familiar ERA scale, as I believe a defensive neutral statistic should expect defenders to have a league average error rate. League average tRA is typically in the high 4s.

Why use tRA? Well, it’s an interesting tool to supplement FIP with if you want to look at how hard a pitcher is being hit. It’s not a FIP killer by any means, and the difference between StatCorner tRA (using MLB AM classifications) and FanGraphs tRA (using BIS classifications) should tell you why: batted ball types are pretty subjective. However, they’re not wildly inaccurate, and using tRA, especially alongside pitcher batted ball information will give a better understanding of what exactly a pitcher is doing.

I’m very pleased tRA has made its way to FanGraphs, and I can’t say enough thanks to David Appelman for making it possible. I hope everyone finds it useful.