I’m pleased to announce that FanGraphs has arrived on the iPhone & iPod Touch!

This initial version of the FanGraphs Baseball iPhone App includes:

– Live win probability and win probability graphs.
– Live box score and play-by-play data.
– Basic/Advanced/Value stats for any baseball player.
– Minor league stats.
– Historical game data going back to 1974.

Here are the screenshots:

The app is currently priced at $2.99 and is available now. You can either click here to take you directly to the app store page, or search for FanGraphs in iTunes.

Be sure to leave us feedback so we can start adding additional features to the next version!

With the number of games remaining for teams dwindling into a single digit territory, I thought it a decent time to evaluate the possible postseason match ups that we will be viewing this coming October. Lets start in the American League.

Three of the four playoff spots are all but fixed at this point. New York will win the East, Anaheim the West and Boston the Wild Card. Because of the rule preventing the team with the best record in the league, which will be New York, from playing the Wild Card team if said team is from their division, which Boston is, New York gets the benefit of playing the lower win totaled team that captures the AL Central crown.

Boston will face off against the Angels in the Divisional Series for the fourth time. Each previous time, 2004 (sweep), 2007 (sweep) and 2008 (3 games to 1) was won by Boston. Will the Angels be able to overcome their first round nemesis this season?

The Yankees meanwhile, who have a Divisional Series bug of themselves to boot having not advanced past the first round in their last three trips to the postseason, will face off against either the Detroit Tigers in a rematch of the 2006 ALDS or the Minnesota Twins in a rematch of the 2003 and 2004 ALDS’ which were both won by New York, who hasn’t won a Divisional Series since.

As for which team might present a tougher task to New York, the Twins and Tigers are remarkably evenly matched in value this year. I guess that’s not much of a surprise given their nearly identical records, but when you consider how often it seems the won-loss records are out of whack with the team’s underlying performances, I was interested it note the combined hitters (includes defense) + pitchers WAR for the two teams:
Tigers: 20.9 + 14.8 = 35.7
Twins: 19.2 + 15.4 = 34.6

Neither team is markedly stronger than the other and it would come down to simple matchups and which team might benefit more from the dropped 5th starter in the playoffs.

Tonight, Derek Holland takes the mound for the Rangers. On the surface, he might look like a disappointing young pitcher who has found the transition to the majors to be a bumpy road. After all, he’s 7-12 with a 6.17 ERA. Those are the kinds of numbers that would usually lead to a ticket back to Triple-A next season.

Instead, we should be expecting Holland to take a big step forward next year. While he’s had some problems with the long ball, he’s controlled the strike zone in a way that should be very encouraging for Ranger fans. His BB/9 (3.12) and K/9 (7.16) are both terrific numbers for a rookie starter with minimal high level minor league experience.

For comparison, Holland is the 20th rookie pitcher in baseball history to throw at least 120 innings and post a BB/9 below 3.5 and a K/9 above 7.0. Of the 20 pitchers, only three others besides Holland have posted a below average ERA during that rookie season – John Danks in 2007, James Shields in 2006, and Roger Clemens in 1984.

In his second year, Danks saw his ERA drop from 5.50 to 3.32. Shields went from 4.84 to 3.85. Clemens went from 4.32 to 3.29. All of them knocked a run per game off their ERA totals the following year.

Danks is a particularly useful comparison, given how similar their profiles are. Holland’s issues with the home run are basically equal to Danks’, as they both gave up 1.8 homers per nine innings, in part due to a high HR/FB rate. Danks HR/9 fell to 0.69 the following year, which was the driving force in his second year improvement. Holland shouldn’t be expected to see an equal drop in home run rate, but it’s a good bet that he’ll be better at keeping balls in the park next year. And that’s going to make a big difference in his results.

For all the talk about some of the game’s most impressive young hurlers, Holland sholdn’t get lost in the discussion. Forget the amount of runs he’s given up – he’s shown enough to be considered a candidate for a huge step forward next year.

With his recent promotion to the Majors, there have been a lot of questions being asked about the Cubs’ outfield prospect Tyler Colvin. The Clemson University product was originally selected by Chicago in the first round of the 2006 draft. He was chosen 13th overall, even though some teams did not have him in the mix for a Top 100 selection.

The Cubs organization thought enough of his athleticism to bypass other players such as Travis Snider (Toronto), Kyle Drabek (Philadelphia), Hank Conger (LAA), and Daniel Bard (Boston). But the club did not have second, third, or fourth round picks and it obviously felt he would not be there in the fifth round, where the club selected Jeff Samardzija.

Colvin’s early minor league numbers were OK on the surface but he did not excel in any one area. He hit for a respectable average in 2007 while splitting the year between high-A and double-A but it became clear that his approach was not going to work in the upper levels of the minors and the Majors.

That year, Colvin walked just 3.9% of the time in high-A (245 at-bats) and 2.0% in double-A (247 at-bats). His average remained OK, in part due to strong BABIPs of .356 and .342. Colvin was then left in double-A in 2008 to work on his game plan at the plate. He batted an uninspired .256/.312/.424 in 540 at-bats. His walk rate rose to 7.5%.

The organization demoted the now-24-year-old outfielder to high-A to begin 2009 to not only continue working on his approach but also to continue his rehab from elbow surgery, as one reader pointed out. Colvin hit just .250 with an OPS of .683 in 32 games, but the walk rate hit double digits for the first time in his career at 10.4%. He was then promoted to double-A (His third shot) for the remainder of the minor league season. He hit .300/.334/.524 with a walk rate of 5.0% in 307 at-bats.

It’s pretty clear that Colvin is what he is: A fringe starting outfielder with average usable power who doesn’t get on-base enough, and who has limited interest in stealing bases despite having above-average abilities on the base paths. He might luck into a few seasons where he’ll produce a solid batting average, but it probably won’t be the norm.

The Cubs took a gamble on Colvin in the 2006 draft, but it looks like a swing-and-a-miss as a No. 1 pick. That said, he could still be a useful MLB player… and he’d be getting better press if he had gone to the Cubs in the third or fourth round.

It’s Friday and I feel like doing something a little bit different this morning. If you read my stuff even on a semi-regular basis then you probably know that 90% of my writing is about minor league baseball, prospects and rookies. One of my favorite things to do is surf the ‘net to see what other prospect scribes are saying or doing. So, let’s give a shout out to some of the best in the business.

Baseball America
This publication is the King of Prospect Analysis. Working like a well-oiled machine, Baseball America makes use of a large staff of insightful and passionate baseball writers, which helps it cover every avenue of minor league baseball, as well as college and high school baseball. The staff has taken a number of hits over the years as other larger companies have stolen some of the writers, but The Big Three remain the same at the top of the chart: Will Lingo, John Manuel, and Jim Callis. Callis is probably the best-known writer as he does a weekly chat for ESPN.com and also helps cover the amateur draft for Major League Baseball’s draft-day television coverage. I am also a particular fan of the work done by Ben Badler, Matt Eddy, and Aaron Fitt. I’ve really enjoyed Nathan Rode’s work as of late. Right now BA is producing Top 20 lists for every league in Minor League Baseball beginning with the Gulf Coast League.

Keith Law at ESPN.com
Perhaps the most entertaining baseball personality on the Web, Law is a well-educated prospect analyst who entertains me to no end with his (usually) weekly chats. He brings an interesting perspective after spending time as an assistant general manager with the Toronto Blue Jays, and he obviously has some scouting education/experience. Law also does good work on the amateur baseball draft. The only knock I have on his work is that there is not enough of it. I’d love to see him do even more… like The Klaw Top 10 lists. Feel free to ask him a question during one of his chats… and don’t worry… if it’s a stupid question, he’ll let you know.

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus
Goldstein is the main reason why I have a subscription at BP.com… and so I can read Eric Seidman’s weekly analysis. Goldstein is a former Baseball America staffer who has made good on a solo career. His annual Top 11 Prospects lists are a must-read for every minor-league fan; he has connections in the industry that would make you drool. The weekly Monday Ten Pack is a great way to start the week, and his new daily Minor League Update has been the best thing to happen to BP.com since Mr. Seidman arrived. The only downside to his work is the aforementioned subscription.

John Sickels at Minor League Ball
Sickels is probably not as widely known as the Laws and the Goldsteins of the baseball world, but he has been around for a long time and you’ve probably read his stuff as some point or another. A glance over to my baseball bookcase shows a Stats Inc. 2001 Minor League Scouting Notebook that Sickels wrote. He did a bunch of them before branching out onto his own. Sickels does his own website, he contributes to Rotowire.com, and he publishes his own prospect annual called The Baseball Prospect Book. Be sure to order the 2010 version when it’s available.

Lisa Winston and Jonathan Mayo at MiLB.com
One of the best things to happen to the minor leagues and prospect coverage has been the growth of the official site of Minor League Baseball. On the downside, I think so much more could be done with the type of revenue that is being generated by MLB.com and MiLB.com… Each minor-league system should have at least one full-time reporter devoted to it with massive amounts of material written for each one on a daily basis. That hasn’t happened yet, but we do have Winston and Mayo. Of particular value is the work that they do leading up to the draft, as well as their annual organizational previews and reviews.

Is there anyone else out there that you read on a regular basis?

Ichiro recently reached 200 hits for the ninth consecutive season. Not by coincidence, that matches his career length in the major leagues, meaning he’s reached the plateau in every season since making the leap. That’s a lot of hits and one of the reasons for Ichiro’s streak is his ability to generate infield hits. Ponder his totals:

2002 – 41
2003- 34
2004 – 57
2005 -31
2006 – 41
2007 – 44
2008 – 49
2009 – 49

337 infield hits over eight years – or roughly 42 per season. That’s a ton of hits and none of them have left the infield. Since Ichiro is left-handed and his follow through includes “starting towards” first base, you would expect a fair number of those to be of the bunt hit variety. Yet he’s only laid down 50 bunt hits since 2002 and has attempted only 98 bunts – which equates to a pretty ridiculous success rate when he does choose to lay one down.

Not only does Ichiro lead the league in infield hits, but by a pretty considerable amount. He has 21 more than second place Michael Bourn, 22 more than Carl Crawford, 24 more than Jacoby Ellsbury, and 33 more than Hanley Ramirez. With such it’s little surprise that the Mariners lead the league in infield hits. Ichiro obviously makes up a large contribution, but Franklin Gutierrez (14) and Adrian Beltre (13) are into double digits as well.

The Oriles, Dodgers, Nationals, and Yankees round out the top five in league-wide infield hits as a team. Meanwhile the Braves, Cubs, Pirates, Indians, Phillies, and Reds have considerably fewer infield hits.

Kenny Williams isn’t happy with his team. He believes he put together a playoff contender, but that the players just haven’t played up to their abilities, and he’s willing to say so publicly.

“They are underachievers,” Williams said before the White Sox played the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday. “We’re not playing up to our capabilities. Period.”

I’m curious, though – who exactly on his team was he expecting more from? The White Sox are fourth in baseball in pitcher win value, so I’m pretty sure he’s not complaining about a pitching staff that is one of the best in the game. The problem has to be the offense, right?

Aging veterans such as Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, and Paul Konerko have been about as productive as you could have expected, and they were the core of the run producers. AJ Pierzynski is having one of the best years of his career, despite getting up there in age. Scott Podsednik came back from the dead to provide decent offense in center field. Gordon Beckham was a pleasant surprise just a year after being drafted. Alexei Ramirez transitioned from second base to shortstop nicely, and while his power has diminished, his overall offensive performance is similar to last season.

Really, the only significant underachiever on offense is Carlos Quentin. He has taken a big step back from last year’s breakout season, but injuries have been a lingering problem for him all year and regression should have been expected anyway. Does Williams really believe that Quentin should have matched his 2008 totals while playing through plantar fasciitis?

I’m sorry Mr. Williams, but your offense isn’t full of underachievers. It’s just not very good. The best players are just a bit above average, and your roster lacks any position players that are legitimate stars. Pierzynski is probably your best everyday player, and that’s a pretty big problem.

The failure of the 2009 White Sox isn’t a work ethic or motivational problem. It’s a talent problem. You didn’t build a team with enough of it to contend. That’s not the players’ fault.

The Chicago Cubs club has been one of the most active organizations when it comes to signing amateur talent out of Korea. This year, the Cubs received better-than-expected results from shortstop Hak-Ju Lee.

The 18-year-old infielder showed an advance approach at the plate for his age. He hit .330/.399/.420 in 264 at-bats. Lee posted a more than respectable walk rate of 10.5 BB% and a reasonable strikeout rate of 18.9 K%. He also had 25 steals in 33 attempts. Lee was incredibly consistent, hitting .300 in each month of the year, and he also hit more than .300 against both right-handed and left-handed pitchers.

Defensively, Lee showed excellent range at shortstop, but he made 27 errors in 61 games. Many young fielders – even those that go on to win Gold Gloves – struggle with errors in the low minors, so there is little to be concerned about; it’s more important to dwell on the range he exhibited. Lee is also still working his way back from Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow.

Pitcher Dae-Eun Rhee, 20, has perhaps even more potential than Lee, as he was ranked as the Cubs’ 4th overall prospect entering 2009, according to Baseball America, even though had Tommy John surgery after just 10 pro starts in 2008. Rhee had an impressive debut in ’08 when he allowed just 28 hits in 40 low-A ball innings. He also posted a walk rate of 3.60 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 7.43 K/9. Rhee did not give up a home run. When healthy, he’s shown an 88-93 mph fastball, a plus changeup and a good curveball.

There are two other Korean players worth keeping an eye on in the Cubs organization, and both were signed along with Lee in 2008. Right-handed pitcher Su-Min Jung, 19, was treated with baby gloves in his debut season in ’09. He made two shutout appearances in rookie ball (three innings) before moving up to short-season ball. Jung allowed 23 hits in 24.2 innings of work, while also posting a walk rate of 4.01 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 6.20 K/9. He showed some rough edges with a home-run rate of 1.46 HR/9 (despite a solid ground-ball rate) and a FIP of 5.63.

Outfielder Jae-Hoon Ha made his debut in ’09 at the Cubs’ short-season affiliate. The 18-year-old prospect hit .242/.264/.327 with a walk rate of 2.4 BB% and a strikeout rate of 12.5 K%. The numbers are certainly not exciting, but the right-handed hitter was young for the league, he was adapting to the North-American lifestyle, and his BABIP was just .270.

Brad Lidge blew another save last night. He has been a major story this year, after amazing results last year in the Phillies’ championship season he has totally fallen apart this year. Obviously his true talent then was not as good as he pitched and his true talent now is not as bad as he is pitching. The issue for the Phillies is just were that true talent is. Here I am going to look at some pitch-level indicators to see how things have changed for Lidge in the past three years (those covered by the pitchf/x data).

First off Lidge throws about 50% four-seam fastballs and 50% sliders, and the two pitches have a nice separation in movement.

The average speed on each of these pitches has declined steadily since about 2005. And both have seen a corresponding drop in whiff (misses per swings) and o-swing (percent of pitches out of the zone swung at) rate. [The pitchf/x system was installed during the course of the 2007 season so the numbers from 2007 cover 400 of the 1100 pitches Lidge threw that year].

Whiff Rate
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|          |  2007 |  2008 |  2009 |  LgAv |
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Fastball |  0.15 |  0.14 |  0.11 |  0.14 | 
| Slider   |  0.52 |  0.49 |  0.46 |  0.29 |
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

O-Swing Rate
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|          |  2007 |  2008 |  2009 |  LgAv |
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Fastball |  0.19 |  0.19 |  0.17 |  0.24 |
| Slider   |  0.44 |  0.39 |  0.36 |  0.30 |
+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

Lidge’s slider was (and still is) a really nasty pitch missing lots of bats and inducing lots of swings outside the zone. While his fastball has always just been ok; used to set up the slider. But all of these rates have moved in the wrong direction over the past three years. This gives at least partial support to his big drop in strike outs and rise in walks so far this year.

Beyond that though, his poor success has been the result of factors he has less control over: a horrid BABIP, HR/FB and LOB% (all of which were unsustainably good last year). We expect these values to regress to more reasonable levels and his performance going forward should improve, the tricky question is by how much.

With a magic number of one, the St. Louis Cardinals should lock up a playoff spot this weekend as the winners of the National League Central. With that hurdle officially cleared, they can begin to sort out their pitching staff for October, and more than most teams, they have some decisions to make.

Their top three starters are set, of course. Carpenter, Wainwright, and Pineiro is a formidable threesome, but they have to choose between either Kyle Lohse (assuming he’s healthy enough to pitch in October) or John Smoltz. Given that Smoltz has put to rest any doubt about his ability to still function as a major league pitcher, he would seem like the natural choice. After all, he’s running a 2.03 FIP since arriving in St. Louis, carving up National League hitters and making them look foolish.

Lohse, with his 4.69 FIP, is nowhere close to the pitcher than Smoltz is. That said, he’s not a total stiff, as his average-across-the-board skillset makes him a solid enough back-end starting pitcher. He’s not going to sink your chances of winning the one game per series where he takes the hill. But he’s clearly still the inferior pitcher in this decision, and the current injury situation muddies the waters a bit.

So, why would the Cardinals even consider choosing Lohse for the game 4 start? Because John Smoltz may be needed to help plug a bullpen that could cost them the series.

Ryan Franklin made the all-star team with a strong start to the season, but in the second half, he’s regressed into being, well, Ryan Franklin. He’s running an ugly 14/16 BB/K in the second half of the season, and given his career history, he should not be looked at as a true relief ace, even with the sparkling season ERA.

Likewise, the setup guys for Franklin are not the dominating types. Smoltz has significant experience coming out of the pen, and his stuff can play up for 15-20 pitches a night. As the #4 starter, he’s unlikely to work more than six or seven innings in any given playoff series, which we have to assume would be something close to even leverage. As a reliever, Smoltz could end up working in four or five high leverage critical situations, where the value of his performance would be enhanced even in a smaller number of innings overall.

Using him in relief also allows the team to minimize his exposure against left-handed hitters, who have given him the most problems this year. As a starter, the opposing manager will be able to stack the line-up with lefties to try to exploit his weakness, but that can be minimized through bullpen management.

As well as Smoltz has pitched since arriving in St. Louis, it’s probably in the Cardinals best interest to use him out of the bullpen in the playoffs. Using him as a reliever gives them their best chance of throwing a parade in November. Cardinal fans should be hoping that Lohse gets healthy in a hurry.