Sometime in the near future, Tommy Manzella is going to be the answer to a trivia question. That trivia question will involve naming the starting National League Central shortstops during the 2010 season. Orlando Cabrera and Julio Lugo will roll off the contestant’s tongue; Ryan Theriot and Alcides Escobar will follow; even the memory of the fierce war Ronny Cedeno and Bobby Crosby waged in spring will flare like so many bombs; but Tommy Manzella? No way. No how.

When one arrives on Manzella’s Baseball-Reference page, they will look at his positions and see “pinch runner” and “pinch hitter” listed before “shortstop”. This is amusing on three different levels, but truth be told, Manzella’s ability to field at shortstop is evidently his best talent. For years now, Manzella has been named by Baseball America as the Astros’ best defensive infielder. Evidently he can pick the ball. Even so, BA has yet to rank Manzella in the Astros’ top 10. That’s a bit of a problem, because the Astros’ system is not one that you would call “deep.”

Defense is the new black, though. So maybe all the disrespect stemmed from Manzella’s wickedly mediocre offensive game. In nearly 830 plate appearances at Triple-A, Manzella has hit .268/.319/.380. Most of that comes from a truly horrid 2008. His OPS at Double-A (503 PA) was .758, and last year his OPS was a career-best .756 (580 PA). CHONE forecasts a .244/.295/.349 line, which would be worth -1.6 wins over 440 plate appearances. For reference, Cesar Izturis’ career Major League line is .259/.298/.331 and the aforementioned Cedeno’s is .240/.280/.346.

Manzella turns 27 in mid-April. Unless he’s Adam Everett with the glove or goes through a Ben Zobrist transformation (Zobrist was an on-base machine throughout the minors though, mind you) he’s a utility player at best. Luckily for him, the Astros (a) have nobody else besides Jeff Keppinger and (b) don’t appear interested in signing the 35-year-old version of Manzella. That within itself is progress, if you ignore the whole Brandon Lyon contract.

It’s come to my attention that the Fielding component for the CHONE projections is per 150 games and not a raw total for the season that I, for some reason, thought it to be. The Fielding projections have now been properly adjusted based on projected games.

I’ve also made a few slight changes to the Fan Projections that adjusted some extremely unrealistic ballots, mostly pertaining to players with zero playing time, but who were projected to hit over zero home runs and extra base hits.

There’s a lot going on at FanGraphs each week. This week alone we had 43 posts, rolled out two new features, and made a book announcement. So in case you missed something, here were the highlights:

Splits! – Finally, FanGraphs now has splits data dating back to 2002. They include platoon, home/away, monthly, leverage, batted ball, and spray splits.

2010 Second Opinion – By the end of the month we’ll be releasing our first electronic publication, The FanGraphs Second Opinion: 2010 Fantasy Baseball Companion

FanGraphs Audio – Carson Cistulli hosts our very first podcast where we go roundtabling with Dave Cameron, Matt Klaassen, and Erik Manning.

New Contributors – Joe Pawlikowski checks out why teams are avoiding Jermaine Dye and Alex Remington looks at why signing early is what gets you the big bucks.

Split Analysis Galore – Intro | Mauer | Platoon | Weaver | Gagne | Bonds | Hill | Howard | The Minors | Looper

And on the RotoGraphs Fantasy side of things:

OBP or AVG – Zach Sanders delves into the merits and difficulties of adding On-Base Percentage to your league’s scoring categories.

ADP Values: Center Field Edition – Eno Sarris identifies some of the values to be had at the center field position.

Rzepczynski – David Golebiewski takes a hard look at Marc Rzepczynski and concludes he’s someone to target late in fantasy drafts.

Frank Thomas, a.k.a. “The Big Hurt,” officially retired today. However his career ended, his up-and-down (but hardly bad) 2000s makes it hard to recall his utter dominance in 1990s. I’m not going to get into the Hall-of-Fame debate about Thomas or designated hitters. Yes, we have to adjust for his defensive “contribution,” but fortunately, Wins Above Replacement does just that. The “FanGraphs Era” currently only extends back to 2002, so for some historical WAR perspective, let’s compare some career WAR numbers from Sean “Rally” Smith’s historical WAR database.

Frank Thomas 75.9
Pete Rose 75.4
Johnny Bench 71.4
Brooks Robinson 69.2
Edgar Martinez 67.2
Duke Snider 67.2
Eddie Murray 66.7

To repeat: these numbers adjust for Thomas’s non-contributions on defense. If you think the players below him on that list are Hall-quality, then Thomas, who was “only” a monster hitter, should get in, too.

Enough of that, let’s discuss Thomas’s greatness as a hitter. For this, I calculated linear weights using data from the Baseball Databank. I use the same basic version of custom linear weights/wOBA that FanGraphs does, but having it on my own database just allows me to manipulate the data for stuff like this.* The linear weights (aka “Batting Runs” or wRAA) are customized so that each event is weighted properly for each season. The runs above average are park-adjusted (thanks, terpsfan). I then convert them to wins, which further reflects the relative value of a run in that season.

* There are probably some slight differences due to discrepancies in source data, different park adjustments, etc. but it’s very close. The batting runs also differ from Rally’s, since his weights are adjusted to reconcile on the team- rather than league-level. Neither is “right” or “wrong,” they are simply two different perspectives.

The top six career leaders in Batting Wins Above Average since 1955 (the first season Baseball Databank records intentional walks):

1. Barry Bonds 126.3
2. Hank Aaron 108.5
3. Willie Mays 91.0
4. Frank Robinson 89.7
5. Mickey Mantle 83.0
6. Frank Thomas 71.5

Granted that good chunks of Mantle and Mays’ value came before 1955… that’s still impressive company. Among those with career numbers inferior Thomas are: Jeff Bagwell (64.0), Willie McCovey (62.8), Harmon Killebrew (60.0), Mark McGwire (56.9), Jim Thome (55.4), and Sammy Sosa (34.8).

Another way of judging impact is to compare overall career numbers with peak value in order to separate guys who just hung on. So let’s look at Thomas and two other great hitters of somewhat recent vintage and compare their career Batting Wins, their top three seasons, and the five-year continuous peaks:

Edgar Martinez
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 54.4
Career wRC+: 151
Top Three: 18.0 (6.8 in 1995, 5.6 in 1996, 5.5 in 1997)
Five-Year Peak: 27.5 from 1995-1999

Mark McGwire
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 56.9
Career wRC+: 161
Top Three: 22.1 (9.3 in 1998, 6.7 in 1996, 6.1 in 1999)
Five year Peak: 30.1 from 1995-1999

Frank Thomas
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 71.5
Career wRC+: 158
Top Three: 20.6 (7.1 in 1991, 6.8 in 1994 [!], 6.7 in 1992)
Five-Year Peak: 31.4 from 1992-1996 (includes 1994 strike)

I included Edgar because of the recent discussions about him, and also because, while he was obviously a great hitter, I wouldn’t have thought his numbers would stand up so well against say, McGwire’s. They aren’t quite as good, but they are in the same territory. McGwire was obviously great, but I think not only Thomas’s career numbers, but arguably his peak was better, too. His five-year peak is slightly better, and though his top three seasons (or best one) aren’t quite as good as McGwire’s, his second and third best seasons are better than McGwire’s.

Moreover, both Thomas’s top three and five-year peak both included the strike-shortened 1994 season. Regression to the mean tells us that Thomas likely wouldn’t have continued at that rate, but do you think he would have hit at a league-average rate or below the rest of the season? There are a lot of “what ifs” in baseball, of course, and in 1994 in particular, as Expos fans know. But 6.8 Batting Wins in 113 games is simply astounding. And keep in mind that the AL was the more difficult league starting in the 1990s.

I’m not sure what better compliment to end on other than to say that when all three were at the top of their game(s), Frank Thomas was a more dominant hitter than Mark McGwire and Edgar Martinez.

General Manager: Billy Beane
Farm Director: Billy Owens
Scouting Director: Eric Kubota

2006-2009 Draft Results:
First three rounds included
x- over-slot signees ($200,000 or more)

2009 1st Round: Grant Green, SS, Southern California
2. None
3. Justin Marks, LHP, Louisville [88-92 FB, Sl, CB, CH]
4x – Max Stassi, C, California HS
7x – Ian Krol, LHP, Illinois HS [86-90 FB, CB, CH]

Despite lacking a second-round pick, the organization nabbed some interesting talents, beginning with Green who projects to be at least an average big-league shortstop, with some projecting star potential. He appeared in just five games in his debut and hit .316. He should opened 2010 in high-A and could move quickly. Marks appeared in just one game after signing and he’s a southpaw with average stuff but a four-pitch mix.

Stassi would have been a potential first-round choice if an injury had not wiped out that dream. The A’s brought him away from his college commitment, though, and he should be an offensive-minded catcher with more than enough defensive skills to remain behind the dish. A suspension kept Krol from playing for his prep team, but he still showed enough potential to excite scouts. Another lefty, Krol’s fastball velocity is average-at-best, but he induces a lot of ground balls and he projects to have good command. He appeared in four games after signing and could move to low-A in 2010, although he might spend some time in extended spring training.

2008 1st Round: Jemile Weeks, 2B, Miami
2- Tyson Ross, RHP, California
3- Petey Paramore, C, Arizona State
7x – Brett Hunter, RHP, Pepperdine
10x – Rashun Dixon, OF, Mississippi HS
28x – Dusty Coleman, SS, Wichita State

Weeks had an up-and-down season but he showed enough to make the club’s Top 10 list. Ross just squeaks onto the list too, thanks to his ground-ball rate. Paramore’s bat has not developed and he hit just .230/.344/.294 in 326 low-A at-bats in ’09. He projects to be a big-league back-up at best. Hunter showed flashes of brilliance in ’08 but he was a mess in ’09 so 2010 will be a big year for him.

Dixon had a nasty time in short-season ball in ’09 by hitting .214/.300/.281 with a 37.2% strikeout rate. Coleman has yet to justify his above-slot deal by hitting less than .250 in ’09 with a strikeout rate above 35%. He has some speed, but limited power. Keep an eye on Jeremy Barfield (8th round) in 2010. He has more offensive potential than his brother Josh, but probably less than his dad Jesse.

2007 1st Round: James Simmons, RHP, UC Riverside
1S. Sean Doolittle, 1B, Virginia
1S. Corey Brown, OF, Oklahoma State
2. Grant Desme, OF, Cal Poly
2. Josh Horton, SS, North Carolina
3. Sam Demel, RHP, Texas Christian

The club was dealt a big blow when Desme retired this off-season to pursue another calling. He would have been a Top 10 prospect after slugging 31 homers. Doolittle, though, hangs onto a Top 10 spot despite dealing with injuries. Horton has been a disappointment since being rushed through the lower levels of the minors. Brown has also leveled off after a hot start to his career.

Simmons has seen his success diminish along with his ground-ball rates, which fell below 40% in ’09. His walk rate also jumped from 2.12 in ’08 to 3.53 BB/9 last season. Although his overall numbers were not encouraging, they were not as bad as his 5.72 ERA would suggest (3.99 FIP). Demel has the potential to be a valuable relief arm if he can get his control under… control (5.85 BB/9 in triple-A).

Daniel Schlereth would have been a nice grab in the eighth round and Eric Berger would have been a good value in the ninth.

2006 1st Round: None
2. Trevor Cahill, RHP, California HS
3. Matt Sulentic, OF, Texas HS

The club lacked a first-round pick but Cahill has made up for that. He held his own in the Majors this past season despite his age and lack of experience. He’ll hopefully build on his foundation in 2010. Sulentic has shown flashes of brilliance but he may not have enough power to be an everyday corner infielder after posting an ISO of .126 at double-A in ’09. Andrew Bailey (6th round) was a huge steal and he won the 2009 Rookie of the Year while serving as the A’s closer.

Up Next: The Oakland Athletics Top 10 Prospects

2009: Mets add a veteran lefty Japanese pitcher named Takahashi who is represented by Peter Greenberg.

2010: Mets add a veteran lefty Japanese pitcher named Takahashi who is represented by Peter Greenberg.

Unlike Ken last year though, Hisanori went straight to New York rather than taking a detour through Toronto.

So, what do the Mets have with this Takahashi?

I’ve written that I see Hisanori as an MLB reliever, but he doesn’t agree with me and was adamant about getting a chance to start during his negotiations. Hisanori has mostly been a mid-rotation starter in Japan, usually putting up respectable rate statistics but doing so in rather limited work. Only three times in his ten-year career has he logged more than 160 innings, most recently in 2007 when he threw a career-high 186.2. Last year, Hisanori threw 144 innings over 25 starts, putting up solid 7.88 K/9IP and 3.5 K/BB rates.

Durability seems to be one of the things that most obviously suffers when Japan-trained pitchers transition to MLB. Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hiroki Kuroda, and Kenshin Kawakami all saw their number of innings pitch drop in MLB, in terms of both total innings over the season and innings pitched per start. Hisanori isn’t as good as any of those guys, and given that he will pitch this season at age 35, and that he’ll be adjusting to a new culture, new scouting data, a more demanding travel schedule, a different diet, and a more challenging league, it’s reasonable to expect a regression from him.

On the plus side, Hisanori is lefthanded and throws a good screwball. This is a low-risk move for the Mets — they aren’t committing a 40-man roster spot or a ton of money to him right off the bat, and he was the only free agent starter left on the market without health question marks. Still, the Mets have a long history of acquiring middling Japanese talent, and the smart money is on Ryota Igarashi to buck that trend, rather than this year’s Takahashi.

Derek Jeter’s resurgent year has been well chronicled. He excelled in pretty much every facet at the game, posting a 142 wRC+ and a well above average UZR. Overall, at 7.4 WAR, he was simply one of the best players in the game.

Jeter’s offensive production had dropped mightily in 2008. He was still productive with the bat, with a 110 wRC+. Still, with his prior poor defense at SS, it remained to be seen if the decline phase of his career had started. Part of the issue was a drop in ISO to .107, the lowest of his career and by far his lowest since 2004.

The move to New Yankee Stadium seems to have been exactly what Jeter needed. Jeter’s inside-out offensive style is well known, and the dimensions at the New Yankee Stadium play directly into his hands. Of Jeter’s 15 home runs to right field in 2009, 11 came at the Yankees new park. Taking a look at his splits, we can see how big of a difference this made in Jeter’s resurgence.

Over the course of his career, Jeter has always excelled at going to the opposite field. While most right handed hitters lose their power to right field and their fly balls turn into outs, Jeter maintains a high line drive rate. His 28.5% LD rate to right field is 7.6% better than average, and many more of his fly balls (10.2% vs. 2.8% average) leave the yard, leading to a .407 wOBA to right field bolstered by a robust .211 ISO.

Although much of what hurt Jeter in ’08 was poor production on balls hit to left field – mostly from a 15.88 GB/FB ratio – what seems to have fueled his resurgence is his best season on balls hit to right field in years. He posted a 17.4% HR/FB in 2009, just under nine times better than the RHB average. This fantastic power surge was a driving force in his success in 2009. Given that 11 of his 15 HRs were at home and his home wOBA was 21 points higher despite a lower BABIP, we can surmise that Jeter’s batted balls in 2009 played the stadium perfectly.

Taking a look at data from HitTracker Online, we can take a deeper look into these home runs. Here is the data on the HRs to right field.

We can see that there weren’t any no doubters, especially among those hit at the new stadium. He’s not hitting home runs in the typical power hitter vein, but his propensity to hit the ball hard the other way means it is possible for this trend to continue at a park with favorable RF dimensions like New Yankee Stadium.

Jeter enters the last year of his current contract with New York this season. It’s hard to imagine Jeter in another uniform, and given the paradise that he’s finding himself in, I can’t imagine Jeter finishing his illustrious career anywhere else.

Apologies for the horrible headline.

To say the market for Will Ohman never formed this off-season is like saying that writing is really just organized words. The good news is that Ohman already has his assignment for the season. Last year he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30th and made his Dodgers’ debut about a week later. Things didn’t go so well though, and Ohman racked up 12 innings in 21 appearances before bowing out in late May due to injury. The Orioles stand to potentially gain from this down year as they signed the 32-year-old to a minor league deal last week.

Overcoming the odds is nothing new for Ohman. He made his Majors’ debut in 2000 at the tender age of 22. He made six appearances for the Cubs and followed that up with 11 appearances in 2001. At this point, it seemed that Ohman would conceivably break camp with the Cubs to begin the 2002 season. Instead, Ohman would undergo Tommy John Surgery and miss the 2002 and 2003 seasons. He returned to pitching baseballs in 2004 and to the Majors in a more-permanent role in 2005.

The southpaw has 324 career appearances and 231 innings. That suggests he’s not someone teams will run out there for a complete inning every time, but he’s actually faced more righties since 2005 than lefties (503 to 440). His splits suggest that he is indeed better versus lefties, as he holds a 3.99 FIP versus lefties (3.51 xFIP) and a 4.15 FIP versus righties (4.96 xFIP). Besides striking out lefties at a higher clip,he also induces more grounders against them.

At some point, Ohman will pitch for the Orioles. The Orioles only have three lefty relievers on their 40-man roster, and that includes recently re-signed Mark Hendrickson, Alberto Castillo, and Wilfrido Perez. Former Royals’ arm Chris George will also be in camp. My best guess is that Ohman makes his debut early on and the Orioles attempt to spin him off for something at the deadline; selling Ohman to a contender as the proverbial lockdown lefty.

I am in a list kind of mood apparently this week. To those that raised good questions in the last two days, I’m sorry that I did not personally respond, I do not yet have any further data to answer those, but I will be working on it. All that working on fastballs though got me on track of thinking about strikeouts and pitchers that are the most efficient at ending at bats in that way.

To put it in variable form, on plate appearances that end in a strikeout, what is the average number of pitches thrown per pitcher? My initial theory would be that pitchers with the best “stuff” would be the most effective at recording strikeouts quickly. I looked at pitchers that recorded at least 100 strikeouts over the 2007-9 period. Top 20 best:

Taylor Buchholz 4.37
Cla Meredith 4.38
Brandon League 4.39
Chad Qualls 4.40
Tony Pena 4.45
Chris Carpenter 4.47
Ross Ohlendorf 4.50
Tim Hudson 4.53
Sergio Mitre 4.53
Brandon Webb 4.54
Peter Moylan 4.55
Pedro Feliciano 4.56
Greg Maddux 4.56
Rafael Perez 4.56
Joakim Soria 4.57
Trevor Hoffman 4.57
Octavio Dotel 4.58
Chris Sampson 4.59
Clay Buchholz 4.59
Derek Holland 4.59

And 20 worst:

Brian Wilson 5.21
David Weathers 5.19
Scott Feldman 5.18
Manny Delcarmen 5.17
Fernando Rodney 5.17
Jason Frasor 5.16
Russ Springer 5.15
Matt Garza 5.13
Greg Smith 5.13
J.C. Romero 5.11
Jarrod Washburn 5.11
Kip Wells 5.11
Orlando Hernandez 5.10
Curt Schilling 5.10
Kyle Davies 5.09
Gil Meche 5.09
Ron Villone 5.08
Damaso Marte 5.08
Guillermo Mota 5.08
Jered Weaver 5.07

The first thing I noticed was just how many more pitches it takes to get a strikeout, on average. The average pitch per plate appearance is around 3.8. For plate appearances ending in strikeouts, it’s around 4.8. There is also a sizable spread here among the most and least efficient with their strikeouts. Almost a full pitch separates the best from the worst. Moving away from the extremes though, the vast majority of pitchers converse quickly around that 4.8 average. In fact, the standard deviation is only 0.15 pitches.

The pitchers in question however exhibited less of a trend than I expected. The David Weathers and Jarrod Washburns I was unsurprised at, but Brian Wilson? He misses bats pretty well. If anything there is a slight correlation between the average number of pitches needed to record a strikeout and a pitcher’s control rate. Which makes some sense, but was not the first thought that came to my mind.

Has any division seen a collection of odder off-seasons than the American League Central? The Twins have stocked up, the Indians have stocked down, and the Royals have stocked. Now, the White Sox and Tigers are engaged in what amounts to a bidding war over Johnny Damon. In order to avoid weak arm jokes about a Juan Pierre and Damon collaboration, I’ll focus on the Tigers’ supposed interest.

If reports like this one are valid, then the Tigers are willing to offer Damon a two-year deal worth around $14M. That’s a pretty chunk of change; both fiscally and literally. Most projections held Damon as this year’s Bobby Abreu; the veteran who would be iced out of a roster spot until he signed for a contract severely below than his market value. This Tigers’ offer isn’t his exact market value, but it’s considerably closer than expected. Almost too close, given the team.

Unless Kenny Williams’ desire is understated, it would seem like Detroit is bidding against themselves not only in money, but years. To make things all the murkier, this is the same Tigers’ ballclub who faced severe payroll limitations earlier this off-season, and as a result traded one of their best players because of it. Curtis Granderson will be paid only $5.5M in 2010. The Tigers also traded Edwin Jackson who will make more than $5M as well. They then turned around and used some of that money on … well, a closer, by signing Jose Valverde to a two-year deal worth $14M with a club option for 2012.

The Tigers appear willing to hand out a duplicate of that contract, minus the option, and my math skills aren’t the best, but 7+7 is more than 5+5. That’s not the entire analysis, since the value of adding Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson (along with others) cannot be understated, but it has to be unsettling for Tigers’ fans to see Granderson wear pinstripes and then possibly be replaced by an older, worse, and more expensive player.

Let’s take a closer look at Detroit’s situation. this whole financial crisis going on in Detroit extends beyond their economy. The Tigers’ payroll will sit around $120-$130M next season in large part because of extensions handed out to starting pitchers.

Following Detroit’s run to the World Series, Jeremy Bonderman received a four-year, $38M extension, and nearly a year later the Tigers acquired and re-signed Dontrelle Willis to a three-year, $29M extension, and then about one year after that, they signed Nate Robertson for three years and $21.25M. Those three combined to make 14 starts last season, which equates to roughly $2M per start. Pitchers are a different beast. Obviously all three falling to health and ineffectiveness seemed highly, highly unlikely, but it happens. That’s not even to say the contracts were bad ideas, but boy are they shaping the way the 2010 Tigers look.

Whether the Damon deal happens or not.