The best take I’ve read about the Ryan Howard extension had nothing to do with win-to-dollar analysis or aging curve critiquing. Nope, it was Jonah Keri’s entry into the Howard content marathon. For full disclosure: I do consider Keri a friend and he is my editor elsewhere. Neither plays a role in my fandom over his piece. Keri’s article extends beyond the field. He nary mentions runs batted in or home runs hit. Instead he focuses on subjects like appealing to authority, open-mindedness, and the role Twitter plays in instant reaction.

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By now, you’ve probably heard about Arizona’s proposition SB1070 — the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” — which was signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on April 23, just two weeks after MLB announced that the 2011 All-Star Game would be held in Phoenix, for the first time ever. The law will go into effect in three months. It “requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status” if “reasonable suspicion exists” that the person is an illegal immigrant. Because of the high proportion of Latin and Hispanic players in baseball, and the Diamondbacks are one of the most prominent (and most mobile) of all Arizona corporations, that means that baseball — and the Arizona Diamondbacks — are caught squarely in the middle of all this.

Boycotts and picket lines for Diamondbacks games have already been threatened. There was a picket line at Coors Field yesterday, and there’s a Facebook page calling for a picket and boycott of tonight’s game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Seattle blog HorsesAss.org called for the Mariners to pull out of the Cactus League. Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney came out in favor of a boycott of D-Backs games, and New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica called for next year’s All-Star Game to be moved out of Phoenix. The blog La Nueva Raza called for a complete boycott of all things from Arizona. So has Rep. Raul Grijalva — a Democrat from Arizona, advocating a boycott against the state he represents.

The team feels unfairly squeezed, issuing a statement to the Arizona Republic newspaper: “Although D-backs’ Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick has donated to Republican political candidates in the past, Kendrick personally opposes (Senate) Bill 1070… The D-backs have never supported (Senate) Bill 1070, nor has the team ever taken a political stance or position on any legislation.” It’s hardly a full-throated condemnation, but the team is certainly trying to set itself apart from the bill. Certainly, if any of these boycotts take hold, they could stand to lose a fair amount of cash. The issue of moving the All-Star game is bigger, though. All-Star Weekend is a major revenue driver for a city, as it lasts for days and is the center of the baseball universe for the better part of a week, with no other games taking place.

Many have pointed out that there is Arizona precedent for a sports league to relocate a major event on the basis of a disagreement with state law. In 1991, the NFL moved the 1993 Super Bowl out of Arizona after the governor canceled observance of a holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. That had an immediate effect: the holiday was approved by voters in 1992, and the 1996 Super Bowl took place in Tempe. A similar action by MLB would likely provoke a similarly strong reaction from the Arizona electorate, though a strong reaction is no guarantee of a repeal of the bill.

But is a boycott fair? Is it fair for baseball fans to punish the Arizona Diamondbacks for being based in a state which has passed a law that is unpopular in other states? Is it sensible to assume that refusing to see Diamondbacks games is the best way to change the law? Is it sensible to assume, as Dave Zirin of The Progressive writes, that “a boycott is also an expression of solidarity with Diamondback players such as Juan Gutierrez, Gerardo Parra, and Rodrigo Lopez”?

Whether or not the bill lives or dies will have little to do with whether Robert McCartney or Mike Lupica decide to go see the D-Backs when they’re in town. So it’s purely a decision about your personal morality. I’m not quite sure where I stand. What about you?

With the big league club sporting a 4-17 record in Baltimore, it’s safe to say it’s been a rough season so far for the Orioles. The encouraging news is that the club has actually received some respectable starting pitching with the exception of recently demoted Brad Bergesen.

Along with four solid performers at the MLB level, there is another pitcher in triple-A currently banging on the big-league door, yet again. Chris Tillman, once the club’s top pitching prospect, made 12 starts in the Majors last season at the age of 21. The pitching depth in the organization allowed the club to send him back to the minors at the start of the 2010 season to put in some extra skill development time.

His numbers last year were OK given his age, but he clearly had some work to do. Tillman posted a 6.10 FIP and his HR/9 rate was 2.08. A lot of his pitches were put into the air (37.0 GB%) and he didn’t strike out that many batters (5.40 K/9). A look to his pitch-type values suggests that he was suffering from poor fastball command, a must-have to succeed in the Majors.

Tillman’s 2010 season did not start all that well. Perhaps he was disappointed with his demotion. Or perhaps he was just a little rusty. He accumulated just 9.2 innings over his first three starts and allowed nine runs. In his third start, he hit bottom and lasted just one inning with four hits and four runs allowed. It was no doubt embarrassing for the youngster.

Something clicked after that. In his fourth start, Tillman went eight innings and allowed just three runs on seven hits and no walks. He stuck out five and posted his best GB/FB ratio of the season.

The right-hander, now 22, clearly saved his best performance for his fifth game. Last night against the Gwinnett Braves, Tillman threw a nine-inning no-hitter. He walked just one batter (former Tigers prospect Brent Clevlen) and struck out six. The fly-ball pitcher also relied heavily on the ground-ball with 13 worm-burning outs compared to six in the air.

While perusing the post-game information, I came upon this comment from Tillman, which was recorded by MiLB.com reporter Daren Smith: “I was pitching around my fastball. I had my curveball when I needed it. I was able to throw my changeup and my cutter. My catcher [Adam Donachie] did a great job calling pitches and I had three or four great plays behind me.”

Tillman had been working on a cutter this spring. It sounds like he’s having enough success with it now to utilize it during a no-hit bid, which is encouraging news. The development of a cutter has had a profound effect on the careers of quite a few pitchers in the Majors, such as Roy Halladay. The work on the cutter could also explain his early-season struggles, although I cannot confirm that.

Tillman was a top prospect even before adding the fourth pitch to his repertoire; it’s encouraging to see a talented player – who has experienced more successes than failures in his career – realize the importance of always trying to get better.

There are six starting pitchers who, in the first month of the season, posted a groundball rate of a little more than 60 percent, ranging from Derek Lowe (60.5%) to Tim Hudson (63.3%). None of the other names would surprise you either – Felix Hernandez, Ricky Romero, Joel Pineiro, and Jorge de la Rosa are all well known as extreme groundball pitchers, and their sinkers are working well to begin the 2010 season.

However, none of them are even close to leading the league in groundball rate. St. Louis rookie Jaime Garcia is lapping the field, with a ridiculous 71.2% groundball rate through his first four starts. The gap between Garcia and Hudson is as large as the gap between Hudson and C.J. Wilson, who ranks 15th on the list.

It shouldn’t be surprising that a Cardinal pitcher is leading the league in inducing grounders, given that we’ve recently talked about Dave Duncan’s magic touch. However, Garcia’s not your standard pound-the-zone-with-a-sinker guy, as he has four pitches that he mixes in – a fastball, a slider, a curve, and a change. In getting his 14 groundball outs last night, he threw just under 60 percent fastballs, for instance.

Perhaps most impressively, he’s not just running up his totals by dominating left-handers. He’s faced 18 LHBs this year compared to 85 RHBs, as opposing managers have been stacking the deck against him and running out almost entirely right-handed line-ups. It hasn’t mattered, as they’re hitting the ball on the ground against him at a 68 percent clip. Of course, that’s better than the left-handers, who have hit the ball on the ground 90 percent of the time.

You don’t need a degree in regression to know that Garcia won’t finish the year with a 1.04 ERA, but given how he’s attacked hitters so far, we may have a new leader in the clubhouse for National League Rookie of the Year. Even in just 26 innings of work, he’s shown that he’s got the stuff to sustain quality performances, and he’s got the added benefit of having Dave Duncan around.

He’ll have to prove he can stay healthy for the long haul, but in terms of whether he’s good enough to get major league hitters out, Garcia is answering that question very quickly. This kid is for real.

The lessons from week three on the farm.

Carlos Peguero and Koby Clemens can hit for power outside of California.

In 2008, Peguero and Clemens were both sent to High-A for the first time as 21 year olds. After a modest cumulative line of .283/.345/.451, the Mariners and Astros respectively opted to return them to High-A in 2009. This time both in the California League, they were among the hitter haven league’s most dangerous players, Peguero hitting .271/.335/.560 while Clemens posted a career-best .345/.419/.636 batting line. However, neither was given much publicity this winter as an offensive prospect, as the assumption was that both had seen inflation effects due to playing in High Desert and Lancaster.

In the last week, Peguero accumulated a hit in every game (dropping his average to .378, somehow), and hit six home runs to join Mike Stanton atop the minor league home run leaderboard (with 9 total). Clemens wasn’t as prolific, but with two more homers, he’s leading the Texas League with seven jacks through 19 games. Now scouts and prospect analysts alike are being forced to retrace our steps, and make sure the initial opinions of these players were fair. I think it was with Clemens, certainly, who has now been relegated to first base and strikes out too often. His patience was always slightly above-average, but not enough to handle the offense needed to stay at first base. I’m now guessing he eventually spends time in the Major Leagues, a testament to a lot of improvement in 2-3 years, but I’d be surprised if he spent much time starting.

Peguero, on the other hand, might be something. Strikeouts have always been his problem, but the whiffs are down significantly this season. The power has always been there, but there is nothing untapped about it anymore. A team like the Mariners, low on power and in a field beneficial to left-handed pull hitters, might be able to get something out of a guy like this.

Ethan Hollingsworth has a good FIP.

Zero home runs. One walk, two HBP’s. Twenty-five strikeouts. 26 innings in four starts. All told, we’re talking about a FIP of 1.62 for the Colorado Rockies fourth-round pick in the 2008 Amateur Draft. In the California League.

Last season had to be considered a disappointment for the 22-year-old Western Michigan product, as he posted a 4.37 ERA between Low- and High-A. But taken in context, and things look a little better. First, half his season was in Asheville, the South Atlantic League’s most hitter-friendly environment. His ERA splits in that league were telling: 6.07 ERA at home, 2.06 on the road. Then he went to the California League, an environment death on pitchers and fielders alike. While plagued by 77 hits allowed in 59.3 innings there, the .392 BABIP certainly seemed a little high.

Back in Modesto to start this season, Hollingsworth isn’t giving his fielders much to work with. He’s a pretty traditional low-90s, 4-pitch guy, but there’s something to be said for those pitchers that have the confidence to attack the zone with their stuff. I always go back to a guy like Joe Mays when thinking about pitchers like Hollingsworth, and if Mays can have middling success in the Majors, I don’t see why Hollingsworth can’t, too.

The Salem Red Sox have a good middle of the order.

Three players on the High-A Salem Red Sox roster are responsible for 13 of the team’s 19 home runs. These three are batting .365 and slugging .630, while the rest of the team is hitting .247 with a .365 SLG. There is just no denying that the 14-6 Red Sox owe their winning record to the performances of Ryan Lavarnway, Will Middlebrooks and Oscar Tejeda.

Lavarnway is the elder statesman of the group, as he will turn 23 in August. A sixth-round pick in 2008 out of Yale, Lavarnway was a guy that hit .467/.531/.873 as a sophomore, and followed it up with an injury-shortened .398/.541/.824 junior season. While his catching abilities are debateable, as he’s fairly green at the position, and is still only splitting time there this season. But the bat will play, as he’s now at .360/.407/.667. I’d like to see Boston commit to turning him into a catcher while challenging his bat, so we can really see what’s here.

Middlebrooks was a guy the Red Sox bought away from a two-sport scholarship at Texas A&M on the signing deadline in 2007, and has looked very raw ever since. But things seem to be coming together a bit for Middlebrooks this year, and he’s now showing some consistent patience and gap power. He’s hitting .353/.421/.559 in the earlygoing, and continuing to show off a rocket arm at the hot corner.

Finally, there is Tejeda, the youngest of the sluggers at just 20 years old. You can sort of tell as much, what with his 17-1 K/BB ratio through 78 plate appearances. But he’s also growing up quickly, as his five home runs are already the highest he’s hit in a single-season. Anytime a 20-year-old middle infield is hitting .382/.385/.658 in High-A, it’s big time news. While I’m not as quick to anoint him as a breakout prospect as I am Lavarnway and Middlebrooks, he might just be the one with the biggest potential of all.

Contrary to a narrative that — against all odds — has yet to die, it’s probably fair to say that most people find their way to sabermetrics not as a replacement for baseball, but as a means to appreciating baseball more fully. This, I’m almost positive, is the case for my fellow writers here at FanGraphs*, and also for the largest segment of the readership. It’s a fact: we like watching baseball. The numbers simply enhance our understanding of — and, thus, our capacity to enjoy — the experience.

*Except for Dave Allen, that is, who — as I’ve mentioned before — would like the robots to take over, stat.

Here’s my question today, though: why do we watch? Or, more specifically: all things being equal, what compels us to watch one game and not another?

Obviously, team allegiance is a powerful motivating factor. The popularity of SB Nation’s and other, unaffiliated team-specific sites is evidence enough of this. But when our fave team isn’t playing — or just for those of us without very strong ties to our hometown teams — what is it exactly that we’d like to see?

Below are five criteria that some disgustingly haphazard polling has elicited. Feel very free to provide other suggestions in the comments section.

Pitching Matchups
In any given contest, and assuming about six innings per start, a starting pitcher will be involved in roughly a third of a game’s plays. If a certain, unspecified demigod is pitching for a certain, unspecified team located near or around the Dallas Metro area, the odds of a life-altering (or merely ecstatic) viewing experience are pretty good. Make that two notable starters and, just as with so much mint-flavored gum, the pleasure is doubled.

Statistically Notable (or Otherwise Compelling) Players
If the pitching matchup is no great shakes, it’s still possible that three or four or five players between the game’s two teams offer some sort of intriguing storyline. Very often the players might share some of the traits of the All-Joyer (i.e. underrated by traditional metrics, unlucky in a way that xFIP or BABIP might explain). Also, it could just be as simple as liking the looks of a certain player*.

*Side note: while Jayson Werth’s chances of remaining with Philly have probably taken a hit, I have it on good authority that that Ruben Amaro is very interested in signing Jayson Werth’s beard to a long-term deal.

Rookies (and Debuts)
Hope is a powerful force. If it weren’t, lottery tickets would probably be way less popular. In baseball, nothing embodies hope like the rookie player. Stephen Strasburg, and his imminent arrival in the Majors, is so highly anticipated because of feats we think he might accomplish. It’s smart of us, this instinct: if we’re in the business of witnessing the amazing, it’s smartest to invest in relatively unknown, but promising, commodities.

Seasonal Context
Remember last year’s Game 163 between Detroit and Minnesota? I do. I was cheering for the Twins outta my mind despite the fact that I have almost zero connections to that team/city.

Quality of Broadcast
As I mentioned just yesterday in re CSN’s Ken “The Hawk” Harrelson, there are times when the broadcasting team makes a game less watchable. There are other cases — like when Vin Scully is wrecking the mic — where you couldn’t give two frigs about which teams were playing. (Seriously, Vin Scully is like the Platonic Grandpa. Sabermetrics schmabermetrics: if Scully says something, I accept it as incontrovertible fact, owing to his cadence and obvious capital-W Wisdom.)

I enjoy using the BaseRuns formula as a sanity check for team performance to date. There are big flaws in simply taking a team’s actual runs scored and allowed and applying the Pythagorean formula to come up with expected wins. It assumes that the actual run totals are sacrosanct when they are anything but. Especially so early in the year when factors such as competition faced and home/away splits are more likely to be dramatic.

I ran through each team coming into play today and noted the difference in what BaseRuns said the team should have scored and allowed and their actual results so far. There is little surprise at the bottom of the table; Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston and Pittsburgh have all legitimately played atrociously. Pittsburgh has actually been more than doubled up on runs allowed versus runs scored and if they kept playing at this level, BaseRuns says they would be a 39-win team.

The top of the table also is not shocking, but it does affirm some early season surprises. The Yanks are on top, but second place belongs to those stingy Giants, leading the league in run prevention. The Cardinals, Rockies and Twins follow suit, even though the Twins have gotten lucky so far on their own solid run prevention numbers.

Among teams that BaseRuns decrees are ten or more games off their straight pythag win-loss record are the Rays, currently 13 wins lucky but still a legit top ten team. The Blue Jays are ten games unlucky on their projected pace and the White Sox are 14 games on the same side of the ledger.

By far the biggest outlier is the New York Mets. They have scored 86 and allowed 69 for a pythag pace of 95 wins. According to BaseRuns they should have scored 82, but allowed 88 for a BaseRuns pace of just 76 wins. That is a mammoth 19-win spread and a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about jumping on the Mets bandwagon for 2010. That’s not to say it cannot be done, but they need to up their level of play dramatically.

Ryan Howard’s massive new extension brought forth various responses, many of them focusing on Philadelpha General Manager Ruben Amaro and his front office. Most of the reactions I read were negative, some were positive. None of what I read praised Howard’s agent, Casey Close.

Andrew Friedman and the Tampa Bay Rays’ front office are regularly and rightly praised for transforming a laughingstock with a small budget into a stacked monster with a small budget. The crowning achievement of Tampa Bay’s front office (so far) is undoubtedly signing third baseman Evan Longoria, then (2008) quite new to the big leagues, to a contract that guarantees him less over the guaranteed portion of the the contract (2008-2013) than Ryan Howard will be paid in 2010. It also includes three club options for 2014-2016. Longoria’s 2010 base salary (without prorating his signing bonus) is less than one million dollars. Nothing I have read says anything about the job done by his agent, Paul Cohen.

Last month, in reference to Barry Zito, R.J. Anderson wrote,

Should we really mock players for making prudent financial decisions when we praise management for doing the same?

I’m curious about something very much like this, with agents standing in for players. When we (and “we” here is not merely rhetorical, it includes me) praise/condemn a deal, we usually mean good or bad for the team’s budget. I know that some of us will sometimes call it a “win” for the player, or a “fair deal for both sides,” but I don’t think I’m being inaccurate in saying that is not the usual discourse on these matters. If the deal is good/bad for the team, we say that the general manager or front office did a good/bad job.

Take an agent like Casey Close, or, I don’t know, let’s pick someone non-controversial… Scott Boras. Close or Boras will come up, but usually the best that is said about them outside of sabermetric circles is that “they are part of the process” and that “it’s their job to get their clients the most money.” Sabermetric circles mostly avoid “Boras is the devil” talk. This isn’t another “agents are just doing their job” peice. Well, not exactly, although that is true.

What interests me is not the lack of praise for agents who are good at their job (although I think Mystery Team is probably sick of being unable to sign anyone). What interests me is the comparison of the negative cases: while someone might call a general manager “terrible” or “incompetent” because of foolish contracts, I’ve never read a piece going on at length that an agent should be fired because of an extremely team-favorable contract. One can quibble over specific circumstances, but just as it is the GM’s job to look at his team’s future and the player’s likely performance down the line when establishing what he can pay a particular player, it is the the job of the agent to do the same in the players’ interest. The agent has to be able to evaluate talent and the market down the road. I’m not trying to pick on any agent in particular — one would need to look at each agent’s clients to see how they made out. This would be an interesting comparative project.

Our current focus is understandable. Most of us are fans first, we want our teams to do well, and so we admire/denigrate GMs who sign good/bad deals. This also give us the urge (that some resist) to get angry with agents for “just doing their jobs.” My question to us, not as fans, but as (amateur) analysts going forward: what about the agents who (might be) doing their jobs badly?

For pitchers there’s a new table in the splits section, Pitch Types, which shows the percentage of pitches each pitcher throws on any particular count. Here’s what the MLB averages looked like in 2009:

As you might have suspected, as the count gets more in favor of the pitcher, out come the breaking pitches. And typically, the more behind the pitcher gets in the count, the more fastballs are thrown.

Last night Edwin Jackson experienced the worst start of his career. It isn’t particularly close, either. The 10 runs he surrendered in just 2.1 innings trumps his next worst start, his final one of the 2009 season, in which he allowed eight runs in five innings. While it’s almost certainly an aberration, his start did continue a trend that we’ve seen so far this year from Jackson. He has started employing his curveball and changeup more often.

Just last year, as Dave Allen noted, Jackson used his slider more often than he had in years past. After throwing the pitch 22.5 percent of the time in 2007 and 20.6 percent in 2008, Jackson threw 25.5 percent sliders in 2009, the year in which he pitched more than he had previously in his career. Since Jackson is primarily a fastball-slider guy, he ended up going to the fastball more often, but also lessened his reliance on his third pitch, a changeup that hasn’t served him well in the past three years.

Last night Jackson threw 55 pitches. While he used his fastball a bit more often than he had in previous starts, he also used his changeup and curveball more often — and used both more often than his slider, which he threw just four times. Neither the curveball nor the changeup helped him much, as the results make clear. In fact, all three secondary pitches failed Jackson in the first inning. On an 0-1 count to Troy Tulowitzki Jackson threw a curveball low and in, and Tulowitzki lined it for a double. The next batter, Carlos Gonzalez, saw a 1-1 curveball below the zone, but he ripped it down the line for a two-RBI double. Jackson then went to his bread and butter, the slider, on the first pitch to Miguel Olivo, but left it up in the zone. That resulted in a ground rule double.

This increased use of his curveball and changeup was not a one-start occurrence. Maybe he used them more often because he wasn’t feeling the slider — he threw it four times and the results were double, foul, double, swing and miss. But the trend has spanned his five starts this season. His changeup use has increased from 6.6 percent in 2009 to 9.4 percent so far this season. His curveball rate has increased even more, going from 2.3 percent to 7.4 percent. While Jackson might benefit in the long run by adding two serviceable pitches to his repertoire, he still has some work to do with them.

The biggest problem with his increased changeup and curveball usage is that it has taken away from his best pitch, the slider. According to pitch type values the slider was by far his best pitch in 2008 and 2009. His curveball also proved a weapon in 2009, so perhaps working it in more frequently would be to his benefit. His changeup, though, has never been a good pitch, ranking in the negatives every year since 2007. It has been a particular disaster this year, yet he uses it more than his curveball, a pitch that appears to be better.

The one major complication I can think of in this case is employing dual breaking pitches. While his slider and curveball might be superior to his changeup, I imagine the stress on his arm is far greater when he throws the former two pitches. The change, then, might be a necessary evil, a different look that can help preserve his arm. Given how poorly he throws it, though, maybe he should go to it less frequently.