Perhaps the most interesting fact that I learned while researching this series came right at the time of writing, which is that for Game One of the NLCS, which begins in roughly seven hours, there are still tickets available. And I am not even talking about the exceedingly expensive seats going unsold. I just checked, and at this moment I could still buy seats at the cheapest price level ($51) in the upper deck behind home plate. What’s up LA?

Anyways, as far as the series goes, the Dodgers get an added boost with the return of Hiroki Kuroda, who was unavailable in the Divisional Series. He will slot into the third spot in the rotation with Clayton Kershaw getting the nod tonight and Vicente Padilla in Game Two. Randy Wolf will get the start in Game Four.

The Dodgers had a huge bullpen advantage over the Cardinals in round one and they still maintain that here against Philadelphia. In fact, their rotation is going to be stronger as well, so look for the Dodgers to hope to contain the potent Phillies offense. Contrary to others, I am less sure that the Dodgers need some solid performances from lefty specialists to do that. The lefties in the Phillies lineup have shown roughly neutral splits this season while facing a left-hander has greatly helped their right-handed hitters. I still anticipate that George Sherrill will be used against the likes of Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez though.

The Dodgers hold the edge in pitching, the Phillies in hitting, and I think their defenses are a toss up. In the end, I see LA as the better team by a couple wins per 162 games and even though we only have a maximum of seven here and anything can happen, my best estimate is that the Dodgers get revenge for 2008 and that we’ll have a New York vs LA World Series.

Jimmy Rollins is having a pretty bad year at the plate, with a wOBA of .316. Before this year, going back to 2004, he has had a wOBA of at least .341, and had four years above .350. That was very good offensive performance for a shortstop. Not a big walker, the offensive value came from contact skills, a good BABIP and solid power. Well, this year the second of those three fell out from under him. His BABIP dropped to 0.253 taking his batting average and on-base percentage (under .300) with it.

For a speedy switch hitter, often batting from the first base-side batting box, a BABIP of 0.253 is surprisingly low. In fact, it is the third lowest in the game, down with guys like Carlos Pena, Aubrey Huff, David Ortiz and Bengie Molina. His IFFB% is 13.7%, thirteen in the league, and that probably plays some role, but there has to be more to it. To look deeper I went to Baseball Reference which breaks up BABIP by hit type. Here they are for Rollins’ career, for Rollins in 2009 and the NL 2009 average.

BABIP
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+
|              |  Career |    2009 | Average |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+
| Ground Balls |   0.225 |   0.213 |   0.235 |
| Fly Balls    |   0.095 |   0.094 |   0.142 |
| Line Drives  |   0.725 |   0.629 |   0.718 | 
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+

It looks like the big issue is with his line drives. They are falling for hits way less often than in his career or league average. He has 118 line drives this year. If he had his career average BABIP on those he would pick up about 10 extra hits, which would bring his BA up to .263 and his OBP .304. Better, but still off his career numbers.

To look at this a little closer I plotted the heavily smoothed frequency distributions of the angles in play of his line drives for 2009 versus 2005 to 2008 (the years the data are available from GameDay).

It does look quite different. He is hitting many more to right field; in addition, these are turning into outs much more frequently.

BABIP on Line Drives
+----------+---------+---------+
|          |  Career |    2009 |
+----------+---------+---------+
| Angle < 0|   0.707 |   0.650 |
| Angle > 0|   0.784 |   0.620 |
+----------+---------+---------+

Usually the line drives he hits to right field fall in for hits at a very high rate. This year he is actually hitting more to right field, but they have a much lower BABIP.

Even breaking the data down this far it is still hard to say how much of this is bad luck and how much of it is something wrong with Rollins. As Jack talked about earlier today, this is a place where the HITf/x data would really come in handy.

Joe Torre almost certainly looked at a lot of different factors when determining his playoff rotation for the NLCS. However, after naming Vicente Padilla his #2 starter against the Phillies, I’m left to guess that he did not bother to look at platoon splits when making his decisions.

Padilla has pitched better than anyone could have expected since joining the Dodgers, running a 3.40 FIP in seven starts, then shutting out the Cardinals in the first round. However, Padilla has a long track record of having significant problems against left-handed batters. Below are his platoon splits this year and for his career.

2009:

Vs RHB: .246/.301/.363, 2.35 K/BB
Vs LHB: .303/.384/.453, 1.54 K/BB

Career:

Vs RHB: .241/.300/.368, 3.03 K/BB
Vs LHB: .297/.380/.479, 1.30 K/BB

In his major league career, he’s faced more than 3,000 batters from each side of the plate. He’s owned right-handed hitters and been owned by left-handed ones. This shouldn’t really be any surprise, given his arm slot and the amount of fastballs he throws from that angle. Righties have a hard time picking the ball up out of his hand, but lefties get a really nice view early on in the delivery.

This isn’t some small sample fluke. Padilla will always struggle against LHBs with his repertoire. And, wouldn’t you know, the Phillies have some pretty good left-handed hitters. Between Shane Victorino, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raul Ibanez, Padilla’s going to be staring down one of the best collections of left-handed bats in the game.

I understand the desire to play the hot hand, and Padilla is throwing better in LA than he has in years, but this is still a really bad match-up for him. In this case, Torre’s simply weighting recent performance far too heavily. Pitching well or not, he’s still penciling in Vicente Padilla for two starts in the NLCS, and that’s not a good decision.

The Washington Nationals finished 2009 with 103 losses. Suffice to say, they were not a good team. Much of the blame can be placed upon the shoulders of the pitching staff. According to StatCorner’s version of tRA, the starting rotation alone was nearly 100 runs below average. Our own measure of runs above replacement using FIP has the Nationals at roughly 62 runs below average.

John Lannan was the only pitcher for the Nationals to accrue over 110 innings pitched this year. Once again, Lannan’s results defied advanced pitching statistics. For the second straight year, Lannan posted an ERA+ over 110 despite a K/BB well below 2.00. With his inability to strike batters out, Lannan has posted FIPs nearly a run higher than his ERA.

Lannan’s best quality as pitcher is his ability to induce ground balls. According to StatCorner, 41.6% of plate appearances against Lannan resulted in ground balls, against a league average of 31.8%. However, despite the fact that tRA accounts for batted ball profiles in its calculation, Lannan’s tRA+ was under 90 for the second straight year.

Then why are Lannan’s results so much better than the advanced statistics suggest? Let’s take a look at what’s happening with Lannan’s batted balls, compared to the league. Shown below is Lannan’s BABIP splits compared to the NL average for 2009. League averages have remained relatively constant (within .005) over the last two years.

This trend of low BABIPs on every split is similar for his entire career – slightly lower BABIP on ground balls, slightly higher on FB/LD. His defense in 2008 was slightly above average at +9 UZR, and in 2009 it was poor at -27 UZR, and yet the BABIPs remained very similar. If it’s not defense, what is the cause of Lannan’s success in this extremely variable category? This is where I believe that Hit F/X data can really come in handy – is Lannan actually allowing weaker balls in play? Is he merely lucky with the spray angles of balls hit in play against him? Is there something else I’m not taking into account here?

Two seasons is not enough of a sample to say that Lannan has some sort of special talent regarding balls in play. The question that needs to be answered here is whether or not there’s something repeatable about the apparently poor quality of balls put in play against Lannan. If it is repeatable, Lannan could be an incredibly valuable asset going forward, as he doesn’t reach arbitration until 2011. If it’s not repeatable, then the Nationals are looking at yet another back of the rotation starter with a minimal impact at the major league level. It’s not often that pitchers with K/BB ratios as low as Lannan’s succeed. As the sample size grows, 2010 will be a very interesting year for both the Nationals and Lannan.

Game One of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) begins in Los Angeles tonight. Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Cole Hamels will take to the mound against the Dodgers’ young lefty Clayton Kershaw.

Hamels will look to throw the ball better than he did in his one NLDS start against Colorado. In that game, Hamels took the loss after allowing four runs on seven hits in five innings of work. If confidence plays into his success at all, Hamels should be brimming with it when facing the Dodgers. He dominated the team a year ago in the ’08 NLCS.

The offense was pretty darn successful against Colorado in the National League Division Series. Entering the ’09 NLCS, the hot hitters include the big names like Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Chase Utley, and Raul Ibanez. Even Carlos Ruiz got in on the act. The one player we have yet to see break out in post-season play is shortstop Jimmy Rollins. He scored just one run in the NLDS, and posted an on-base average of just .263. Rollins did not drive in any runs, either, although, to be fair, that is not his job.

The bench – Miguel Cairo, Greg Dobbs, Matt Stairs, and Ben Francisco – was also quiet. Collectively, the quartet went 0-for-8 with one walk. That lack of production from the veterans could very easily have a much larger impact in the NLCS than it did in the NLDS.

As mentioned, these two teams faced off in the ’08 NLCS… With few major subtractions on either team, let’s have a look at the key additions for each club from one year ago.

Key Additions for Philadelphia:
Chan Ho Park, RHP
Pedro Martinez, RHP
Cliff Lee, LHP
Raul Ibanez, LF

Key Additions for Los Angeles:
Ronald Belisario, RHP
Vicente Padilla, RHP
George Sherrill, LHP
Randy Wolf, LHP
Jeff Weaver, RHP
Ronnie Belliard, 2B
Orlando Hudson, 2B
Jim Thome, 1B

Los Angeles has certainly had the bigger of the two face-lifts. Overall, though, you have to like the value of Philadelphia’s four additions over the eight players that LA added, based on what they collectively provided during the regular season: 12.3 vs 9.2 WAR.

On paper, it’s hard to pick a favorite to win the NLCS. Both teams have good pitching and good hitting. For the fans, this could end up being a very entertaining series. I’m also willing to bet that the bullpens and benches will play much larger roles than they did in the two division series.

Franklin Gutierrez lead the American League in Clutch this season. That seems like an upset. Perception would lead me to believe most of the people who read this site likely read sites like USS Mariner, which has boasted about Gutierrez since he was acquired. That means he’s not exactly an unknown to this particularly community. He actually hit pretty well this season too; a .283/.339/.425 line from a centerfielder who plays most of his games in Safeco isn’t too bad.

Still, the idea of Gutierrez as the clutch-est lead me to wonder who else would qualify for the biggest upset in recent Clutch history. I narrowed it down to a pair of choices, they are as follows:

Jay Payton 2006, Oakland Athletics

Somehow he finished with a 2.55 Clutch rating; “somehow” because Payton hit .296/.306/.444 overall, which translated to a .320 wOBA – a figure below league average. This seems like a strong case of getting your hits in the right situations. With men on, Payton hit .319/.354/.426. With nobody on he hit .276/.297/.412. In high-leverage situations he possessed a .863 OPS – a number which descended to .772 in medium-leverage situations and .661 in low-leverage situations – and all of this despite batting mostly in the 5th-7th slots in the order. Billy Beane probably didn’t envision this scenario playing out when he dealt Chad Bradford for Payton in July of 2005, but those are the breaks.

Troy O’Leary 1996, Boston Red Sox

Speaking of Boston, O’Leary had a down season in 1996. His wOBA was a mere .328 and he failed to flash the power of previous and future years. So naturally, O’Leary would post the highest Clutch rating of his career at 3.23. He never even topped one again despite playing through 2003. O’Leary just loved coming to the plate with runners on; his OPS was .938 with someone on, 1.035 with at least one person in scoring position, and a flat .597 with nobody on. As you can imagine, this lead to some funky looking splits by leverage, such as: 1.004/.764/.628. Run of the mill, really.

Unless there’s a glaring oversight, I think it’s safe to crown one of these two years as the most unlikely “clutch” campaign in recent history.

At mid-season, Philadelphia was making a well-publicized push for Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay, a free agent after the 2010 season. With then Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi wanting the moon and then some, the Phillies organization looked elsewhere for pitching depth. General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is looking like a very smart man.

Cleveland sent veteran southpaw Cliff Lee to the Phillies for four prospects: right-handed pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp, infielder Jason Donald, as well as catcher Lou Marson. Lee made 22 starts in Cleveland and was good for four wins above replacement (WAR). For Philly, he made 12 regular season starts and was good for a 2.4 WAR. In the playoffs to this point, Lee’s excellent pitching allowed Philadelphia the opportunity to win both of his starts (a 0.70 WPA).

So, how did the prospects end the season in the Cleveland organization? For Philly’s Triple-A squad, Carrasco – the highest-rated prospect in the trade – had a 2.92 FIP in 114.2 innings. In Cleveland’s system, he posted a 4.01 FIP in 42.1 innings, while allowing 31 hits and posting a walk rate of 2.98 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 8.79. He made five starts in Cleveland and posted a 7.08 FIP. He had equal walk/strikeout rates at 4.43. Carrasco’s fastball value was well below-average at -5.95 wFB/C despite averaging 92.3 mph.

Marson hit .250/.346/.386 with a .136 ISO in 44 big-league at-bats for Cleveland. He also hit .243/.319/.340 in 103 Triple-A at-bats for the organization. Donald hit .257/.350/.400 but appeared in just 10 games after the trade due to an injury. Knapp also struggled through injuries in his new organization. (He was dealing with shoulder woes before the trade, too) Cleveland, though, could not turn down the opportunity to acquire his blazing fastball and gaudy strikeout numbers in low-A ball (11.03 K/9). Once in the Cleveland organization, Knapp made four starts and pitched just 11.2 innings.

That’s not a whole lot for the 2008 Cy Young award winner. Also keep in mind that Cleveland also tossed in outfielder Ben Francisco, who has some value as a bench player. To be honest, Donald and Marson are likely part-time players at best. Clevaland has better options, especially at catcher. Knapp is a long way away and the injury to his shoulder is worrisome. Carrasco is a pitcher who has never been able to live up to his impressive potential. Lee, on the other hand, has already exceeded expectation.

When people talk about this group of upcoming free agents, they generally comment on the lack of high end talent available. With all due respect to Matt Holliday and John Lackey, they’re a clear step back from the likes of Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez, and Carlos Beltran types that have populated the market in recent years. The general consensus is correct – this group is not very impressive at the top end.

But let’s accept this free agent class for what it is – full of interesting players with a real chance to outplay the contracts they receive. Most years, free agency is akin to shopping at Pottery Barn, where you’re paying full price for marketing, store overhead, and the comfort of a familiar brand. This year, it’s more like buying scratch-and-dent furniture from Ebay.

Let’s be honest – you get a better deal on Ebay than Pottery Barn. Sure, you have to accept some risk that what you see in the picture bears some resemblance to what you’re going to get, and the chances of getting nothing for your money is a bit higher, but those factors help drive down price as well. And when you actually get what you were hoping for at an Ebay price, you come out with a really good deal.

That’s this free agent class. Rich Harden can be one of the best pitchers in baseball when he’s on the mound and throwing strikes, but his long injury history is going to limit him to a short term deal. He’s far from the only talented starting pitcher with injury concerns – Ben Sheets, Erik Bedard, Kelvim Escobar, John Smoltz, Justin Duchscherer, Brett Myers, and Randy Johnson are all probably looking at one year deals at rates that will be a fraction of what they would get if they were coming off healthy seasons.

It isn’t just pitchers, either. There are several position players who will almost certainly sign for less than we’ll project them to be worth. Even with teams appreciating defensive value more, it has been so undervalued that we can’t expect a full correction yet. Thus, players who derive a significant chunk of their value from their play on the field will still likely be relative bargains. That’s Placido Polanco, Adrian Beltre, Adam Everett, Mike Cameron, and Randy Winn.

Defense hasn’t been the only thing that’s been going for a discount of late, either. Older players near the tail end of their career have been increasingly sent into forced retirement, as teams have moved towards younger players at a rate where they’ve probably over-corrected. Players like Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, and Carlos Delgado will probably find themselves in line for massive pay cuts, as they’re reaching the end of their usefulness as major league players. But they’re not there yet, and a team that can scoop up any of them on a one year deal could get a quality hitter without a long term commitment.

It’s a winter for bargain shopping. Maybe that’s not what the Yankees and Red Sox are into, but for the rest of baseball, this should actually be a nice change of pace.

Since Ron Gardenhire took the reins in Minnesota in 2002, the Twins have played .547 baseball and won five AL Central Division titles. Somehow, they have managed to succeed in a small market while teams like the Royals, Pirates, Brewers, Reds, Nationals, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Marlins are mired in relative futility. Even the brilliant Billy Beane’s Oakland Athletics couldn’t maintain their small-market success in the latter part of the decade.

Meanwhile, the Twins have maintained their competitive edge, highly due to their reliance on “doing the little things right.” Never mind that they’ve fielded players like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Johan Sanatana, Torii Hunter, and Joe Nathan. It’s the little things.

One player on the 2009 Minnesota Twins that fits this mold exactly is Nick Punto . Yes, the same Nick Punto that Derek Jeter threw out on a baserunning gaffe in Game Three of this year’s ALDS. Outside of that one instance, Punto has the perfect Minnesota Twin reputation: light hitter, great defender, runs the bases well, can move runners over, and can pick up hits in clutch situations.

Punto certainly is a light hitter. Since 2005, Punto has accrued at least 375 plate appearances in every season. In these seasons, Punto’s wOBA ranges from .260 to .324. Punto simply has no power, and his on-base skills don’t mitigate this deficiency. In a league that averages an ISO between .155 and .160, Punto has never posted an ISO above .098 – his career rate is .076. Combine that with a career walk rate that hovers around average and you’ve got a consistently below average hitter. His only near average years came with fluctuations in BABIP in ’07 and ’09, where his BABIP was nearly 30 points above his career norm both years.

Punto’s defensive reputation appears real. He is a far above average shortstop and third baseman, and in a sample of about 1.5 seasons has a +16 and +20 UZR/150 respectively at these positions. At 2B, where he has a similar sample, UZR doesn’t like him nearly as much, grading him as a +5 2B. Although these samples aren’t large enough to conclusively say that Punto is an Adam Everett-esque fielder, they do suggest his fielding ability is well above average, especially on the left side of the infield.

Now, the other things reflect what are generally considered “the little things.” For baserunning, Baseball Prospectus has a handy (if poorly implemented) tool where they display a player’s EQBRR, or Equivalent Baserunning Runs – including SB/CS as well as other measurements of baserunning such as taking the extra base. Punto’s hardly been a world beater. Since 2005, he’s been worth +6 runs. He had an excellent baserunning season in 2009, at +4 runs (the spread is rarely more than a win on either side), but his true talent is probably nearer the average of +1 run he’s shown in this span.

The other two skills mentioned above involve situational hitting. If we were to see evidence of Punto’s ability to “move runners over ” or perform better with men on base, we should see this difference in his RE24 numbers, based on run expectancies of base-out states, and his wOBA numbers (check this out for more on “little things” ). We don’t really see any consistent evidence either way. Overall, Punto’s actually been five runs worse by RE24 than wOBA, indicating that he is actually worse in situations with runners on. The data doesn’t suggest much predictability, as the numbers fluctuate from -8 to +7 depending on the season.

Similarly, if he’s a “clutch” hitter, we’d see this in his “clutch” stat that we calculate here at FanGraphs. Once again, there is no conclusion to gain from this data. Punto has been +.45 wins better in the clutch, according to the calculation, but again we see wild fluctuation (from -.65 to +.72) and what could possibly be interpreted as skill is likely just random variation.

Nick Punto may be heralded as one of those rare players who, despite having little tangible hitting talent, does those little things so well that he can bring a team to the top. Don’t believe it – it’s not true. Look at Punto for what he really is – a tremendous defender who managed to put together a couple of seasons with a solid BABIP. He’s a great bench player who can adequately fill in at any non-1B infield position, but any team that starts him wont’ be a perennial playoff contender. That is, unless that team’s catcher is Joe Mauer.

In a few weeks LaTroy Hawkins will hit the free agent market coming off a rather impressive looking season. He threw 63 innings, boasted 11 saves, and posted a 2.13 ERA. Thanks to the strong season, Hawkins’ career ERA with the Astros is sub-2.00 in fewer than 85 innings. Dig beyond the surface and Hawkins is what everyone thought he was; which is to say: not quite that good. His 3.97 FIP and 5.25 tRA contrast thanks to an unusually high line drive rate.

Way back when Hawkins was a Twin, he posted similar numbers, which led way to signing a handsome free agent contract with the Cubs. Fans jeered him with every mistake and that experiment ended quickly as he was shipped to San Francisco. Since, he’s bounced around with Colorado – making two World Series appearances even – and then went to New York. Yankee fans were relentless on the fact that he wore the same number as Paul O’Neil and actually chanted O’Neil’s name during one of Hawkins’ appearances. Hawkins then moved on to Houston and that’s where we sit now.

Hawkins has essentially lived off one-year deals since that Cubs contract – which he finished with the Orioles in 2006 — and his free agency is going to be fun to watch for one reason in particular: will any club give him a multiple-year contract? If one does, I would have to assume it’s going to because of his shiny ERA and closer potential. This seems like a very bad idea. Hawkins’ tRA has finished above 5 two of the last three years and his FIP will likely be near 4. That’s not to say Hawkins is unserviceable, just that he’s not as valuable as his ERA suggests.

The antithesis of Hawkins’ situation might be Kevin Gregg. Another guy who knows what it’s like to be scorned by the north side’s most loyal fans, he’s coming off an atrocious season and may very well be undervalued based on it. Unlike Hawkins, Gregg has shown the ability to post decent tRA and FIP figures in three consecutive years prior to this one. He too holds the closer potential, but not the shiny ERA. The downed velocity is a bit of a concern and I’m not entirely sure he lands a multiple-year deal either; but he’s the only one of the two who deserves it.