This is the second part of a three-part series highlighting a 20-year history of first-round catchers.

Since 2003, another 24 catchers have been drafted in the first round. This includes a 2007 draft that saw eight catchers taken, starting with Matt Wieters and ending with Ed Easley. Seven of those players have already reached the Majors with varying degrees of success: Wieters, Daric Barton, Mitch Maier, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Landon Powell, Josh Donaldson and Jeff Clement (I’m not counting Buster Posey). Two of the 24 can already be qualified as busts, as neither Jon Poterson or Max Sapp are playing professional baseball. That leaves us with 15 players today to discuss.

Neil Walker, Pirates, 24, AAA, .336/.404/.601

Never good enough defensively to be a catcher, never enough bat for the third base experiment to work. But he’s competent and consistent, and now capable of playing first, second, third, left field and probably serves that emergency catcher role. He’ll be on a big league bench.

Brandon Snyder, Orioles, 23, AAA, .200/.289/.300

Snyder has shown some nice offensive improvements since his disastrous 2006 full-season debut, but has fallen off a cliff since reaching Norfolk in midseason 2009. I don’t see 2 WAR ever happening, as good as his 58 games at Bowie almost had me fooled.

Hank Conger, Angels, 22, AAA, .240/.325/.385

The warning sign I saw consistently with busts is a significant drop-off once reaching Double-A. At first blush, Conger’s 58-point OPS drop looks as it qualifies. But when considering the context — a tougher offensive environment, far more PA’s, improved patience — he actually improved. Conger isn’t the power bat we thought he might become, but if his defense allows it, his contact ability could certainly see him become Mike Lieberthal.

Devin Mesoraco, Reds, 22, High-A, .328/.418/.608

Was written off a little fast, considering his first two seasons were the Midwest League at 20 (.710 OPS, 83 G) and the Florida State League at 21 (.692 OPS, 92 G). He’s healthy now, and in the same place as a lot of his peers that chose to attend college instead. Showing every skill, including improved defense. I think he was written off too early, but I wait to see how he handles Double-A to elevate his prospect status too heavily.

J.P. Arencibia, Blue Jays, 24, AAA, .226/.299/.391

I’m a little concerned about Arencibia. He was given much praise after a 2009 hot start in the FSL, but that was just half a season. He then finished that year up with a .282/.302/.496 line in Double-A, and now through 146 career AAA games, has a line of .234/.287/.434. There is juice in the bat, no other real skill. I don’t have high expectations.

Travis d’Arnaud, Blue Jays, 21, High-A, .328/.362/.547

On the shelf with a backstrain, d’Arnaud looked like he might be having a breakthrough season. There is a lot to like, but there is also a long way to go. Can’t wait to see what he can do when healthy.

Jackson Williams, Giants, 24, AA, .225/.389/.348

Has improved going up the ladder, but he started so low, that I’m not sure the future holds much. He was a budgetary pick the season the Giants had three first round picks, and is known more for his defense. It would be a smart thing for Williams to continue with this newfound patience, as defense and patience could lead to a long career backing up Buster Posey.

Mitch Canham, Padres, 25, AA, .200/.296/.290

It’s not looking good for Canham, who is the one person on the list so far that I really can’t see playing in the Major Leagues.

Ed Easley, Diamondbacks, 24, AA, .273/.377/.364

No power and marginal defensive skills aren’t a good combination. Easley was a questionable first-round pick when it happened, and he’s done nothing to make me think he’s a Major Leaguer.

Buster Posey, Giants, 23, AAA, .338/.435/.535

And has thrown out 46% of opposing baserunners. The Giants affinity to Bengie Molina remains the most baffling aspect of this Major League season for me. #freebuster

Kyle Skipworth, Marlins, 20, Low-A, .273/.329/.516

If the Marlins had taken the conservative route with Skipworth and held him until short-season ball last year, his prospect status would be much higher today. As it stands, Skipworth is repeating Low-A, and doing a very nice job of it. His defense is much improved, the power is back. But his 10/43 walk-to-strikeout rate leaves much to be desired. I don’t have real high hopes, but the talent is there.

Jason Castro, Astros, 23, AAA, .259/.394/.296

Has now played 96 games above the California League, and has 19 extra-base hits in 400 plate appearances. I like the defense, I like the walk rate, and he makes enough contact. But until Castro starts to hit the ball with authority, the brightness of his future is in question. A good-not-great prospect.

Tony Sanchez, Pirates, 22, High-A, .294/.401/.460

This is, to a degree, where Castro was a year ago. The difference is that Sanchez is doing it in a much more difficult environment, and is much less polished defensively. He’s going to make the Majors, but the chance of him becoming a star doesn’t seem high for me.

Steven Baron, Mariners, 19, Low-A, .176/.208/.231

There was a lot of wondering why the Mariners were so into Baron, and it isn’t going to stop soon. Baron is overmatched as a teenager in the Midwest League, and not waiting to play him in the Northwest League seems like a bad decision. If he makes the Majors down the road, it will not be for his bat. But that will have to come a long way to even have that discussion.

Josh Phegley, White Sox.

Phegley is currently on the Disabled List with ITP Syndrome, a virus that attacks platelets in your body. Baseball has been put on hold for the Indiana University product, and we wish him the best of luck in his comeback.

We learned yesterday that just 8 of the 31 catchers drafted in a 15-year stretch ever contributed 12 WAR or more at the Major League level. If so, we can expect just 3-4 members of this group to do it. My guess is Posey, one of Sanchez/Castro, d’Arnaud and one of Conger/Mesoraco.

Ultimate Zone Ratings (UZR) home and away splits are now live in the splits sections for position players! And on the subject, I’ll add a quote from Mitchel Lichtman’s revised UZR primer, which we’ll be posting later today.

…if you still don’t trust a certain player’s UZR because of the park factors issue, you can check out his road numbers. Keep in mind that you will see lots of random differences between some players’ home and road numbers which have nothing to do with park effects – they are simply an artifact of small sample sizes. Remember also that even large sample sizes can have large random fluctuations as well.”

Ian Snell was not a fan of Pittsburgh. He even went as far to ask for a demotion just to escape the wickedness. The Pirates would oblige and would trade Snell after he conquered a few hapless Triple-A lineups. With Snell happy – or at least happier – in the Emerald City, it would seem like his pitching would improve. And hey, his ERA did improve, but his peripheral statistics actually worsened. See:

2009 with Pirates: 80.2 IP, 5.36 ERA, 4.61 FIP, 5.16 xFIP
2009 with Mariners: 64.1 IP, 4.20 ERA, 5.23 FIP, 5.66 xFIP

Seattle pitching coach Rick Adair worked with Snell on his mechanics extensively upon Snell’s arrival with the focus being on his plant foot. The intended change was for Snell’s foot to land with toes pointed towards home plate, a shift from his general landing position which saw his foot pointed towards third base. The alteration would presumably result in better command, potentially more velocity, and more comfort. Whatever Snell was doing in the rotation for his four starts, it wasn’t working.

Cliff Lee then returned. With Jason Vargas and Doug Fister cruising along, and both Snell and Ryan Rowland-Smith out of options, the Mariners chose to shift Snell to the bullpen. Snell will now move back to the rotation, replacing Rowland-Smith, who slides into the bullpen. It’s not an ideal situation for the Mariners, but at this point, exposing either to waivers so one of their Triple-A arms, like Luke French or Garret Olson, can join the major league rotation probably isn’t worth it.

Snell pitched better out of the pen in a long-relief role, totaling nine innings, six strikeouts, two walks, and a homer. The walks and the home run actually all came in his first outing against the Rays, so Snell managed to escape nearly six innings worth of action against the Orioles and Athletics without a free pass or jogger. That stat line adds up to something like a 4 FIP. Pitchers generally gain a full run per nine moving from the bullpen to the rotation, meaning that performance would be expected to translate to a 5 FIP, but it’s a null point since the sample size is ridiculously small.

Then again, a 5 FIP would be an upgrade over Rowland-Smith. In 39 innings this season, Smith has unintentionally walked 17 batters and struck out 16 while allowing 10 home runs. That’s brutal and results in a FIP of 7.14. Smith’s fastball isn’t fooling anyone this season and our run values have it worth -2.79 per 100 thrown. Last year, Smith’s worst pitch per 100 thrown was his change-up at -0.19, yet this year he has two pitches in the red.

The diagnosis on Rowland-Smith seems murky, but for now he gives the Mariners the first southpaw they’ve had in the bullpen all season.

Looking at the AL standings this morning, only two things struck me as out of place. Seeing the Mariners in last is still a bit of a surprise, but one I’m growing accustomed to. The other, though, is seeing the Red Sox in fourth place. Heading into the season it looked like the AL East might host three of the best five teams in the league, if not the three best overall. Yet the Red Sox sit at .500, 3.5 games behind the third place Blue Jays. That, actually, makes three surprises.

I wasn’t the only person who thought that the Blue Jays would take their lumps this season. Their pitching became far weaker after trading Roy Halladay, and the main pitcher they received in return, Kyle Drabek, likely won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, and even then he’ll likely never reach Halladay’s status. Their offense also looked unimposing. Yet so far this season the Blue Jays have scored 5.17 runs per game, fourth in the AL. Their pitching staff has allowed 4.39 runs per game, a tick better than league average. These performances have propelled them to a 24-17 record, which is exactly in line with their Pythagorean mark.

The strangest aspect of the offensive explosion is where the Jays have received the production. Adam Lind has experienced a power outage, and has a .304 wOBA. Aaron Hill, who hit the DL after just two games, has barely hit since returning. Lyle Overbay, normally a solid contributor, hasn’t been driving the ball and has been largely unproductive. But still, the Blue Jays score. John Buck, Jose Bautista, and Alex Gonzalezhave essentially replaced the production, at least temporarily, that the team expected from Lind, Hill, and Overbay. Add in a Vernon Wells resurgence, and it’s a winning formula in the short-term.

In the long-term, the Jays will need Lind and Hill to start producing, since they can’t expect Buck, Bautista, and Gonzalez to maintain their current paces. Buck in particular has been the product of a hot May, in which he’s already produce a .513 wOBA. In April that was a more reasonable, for him, .320. The Alex Gonzalex honeymoon appears over after a wonderful April, in which he produced 6.4 wRAA on the strength of a .404 wOBA. In May he’s at -1.2 wRAA an a .305 wOBA, which is more reflective of his true talent.

What figures to hurt a lot is the absence of Travis Snider. After a slow start Snider has started to break out, posting a .477 wOBA in May before spraining his right wrist. That means certain playing time for Fred Lewis and Jose Bautista, both of whom are hot. Maybe Bautista is for real, too, as Dave examined earlier this week. It’s tough to say how well Snider will hit upon his return. His lack of experience in the league, combined with the power-sapping potential of a wrist injury, means they can’t expect he’ll continue his breakout. But maybe, as with the rest of the roster, they’ll receive an unexpected contribution from elsewhere. Just last night, for instance, Edwin Encarnacion, who swapped places with Snider on the DL, hit his second home run of the season. If he returns to his 2007 or 2008 production level, the Jays will more easily be able to weather the loss of Snider.

We’re only about a quarter of the way through the season, and plenty figures to change before we see Game 162. The Jays probably won’t stay in third place, as the top three in the AL East all feature better rosters. But given how well they’ve played this year, the Jays are one of the bigger surprises this year. Even when their best and most established hitters have slumped, others have produced in their steads. The first stage of the rebuilding plan, it seems, has gotten off on the right foot.

The chat begins at noon eastern. Keep in mind that RotoGraphs hosts a chat each Friday, so you’ll get your fantasy advice fix over there, and we’ll try to focus mostly on MLB stuff.

Since Ducky Medwick in 1937, no National League player has completed the illustrious Triple Crown – leading the lead in batting average, homers, and runs batted in. Nearly a quarter of the way through the 2010 season, Andre Ethier of the Los Angeles Dodgers leads the National League in all three of these categories, with a .392 batting average, 11 home runs, and 38 RBIs. On Tuesday, the Dodgers announced that the fractured finger that he sustained on Saturday would send him to the disabled list for the first time in his career.

Given that the injury will likely sideline Ethier for two to three weeks, if not more, his triple crown dreams are essentially dead. With 27 players within four home runs of Ethier’s total of 11 and 12 players within 10 RBIs of Ethier’s total of 38, it’s almost assured that Ethier will only lead the league in batting average upon his return.

At this point, the Triple Crown is not much more than a historical relic. Much more important is how the loss of Ethier will impact the Dodgers’ playoff chances. The Dodgers have rattled off nine straight victories after a 13-17 start and now only sit half a game behind the upstart San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants. With 203 runs scored, the Dodgers’ offense has quite easily been the best in the National League West, and Ethier’s tremendous performance to date has been the leading factor.

Right now, the Dodgers’ lineup has a wOBA of .338. That mark puts them at 15 runs better than the average NL offense. Remarkably, Andre Ethier has been worth over 20 runs just by himself. Replace Ethier with a league average hitter, and the Dodgers’ offense is roughly 5 runs below average. That’s equal to the level of the Florida Marlins’ offense so far this year or the Chicago Cubs’ offense in 2009. Both of those offenses are a far cry away from averaging 5.21 runs/game or finishing 3rd in the NL in scoring.

For the foreseeable future, Ethier will be replaced by Xavier Paul and Reed Johnson. The right handed hitting Johnson will likely see most of the plate appearances against left handed pitchers. Johnson has typical splits, and hits about 20 points higher against lefties than he does against righties. That puts Johnson’s half of the platoon at about a .325-.330 wOBA, given his performance so far this season as well as his preseason projections. The left handed hitting Paul has posted a .373 wOBA so far this season, but that’s heavily boosted by a .364 BABIP. His minor league numbers suggest an above average ability to reach base on batted balls, but not to that extent. An overall wOBA of .305 is a more reasonable projection for Paul. Against mainly right handed pitchers, that projection jumps up to roughly .315.

That puts the wOBA of the platoon as a whole at .319, or nearly 190 points below Ethier’s performance to date and 83 points below his rest of season ZiPS projection. If this platoon only sees 12 games – assuming a very optimistic return date of June 1 – the Dodgers will lose about four runs of production against Ethier’s projected performance. Both Paul and Johnson are much better fielders than Ethier, who’s been roughly -10 runs per 150 games over his career. Ethier’s offensive superiority, however, simply cannot be replaced by poor-to-average bats and slightly above-average gloves.

There’s no doubt that the Dodgers will need Andre Ethier back in their lineup as soon as possible. Their division-leading offense has been the key to their current run and will be key to gaining a lead over the division and holding it over not onlythe first place Giants and Padres but also the very talented Colorado Rockies. Xavier Paul and Reed Johnson should offer solid defense and acceptable hitting in the meantime, but Ethier’s bat is just simply irreplaceable, and much of the Dodgers’ 2010 season will hinge on his recovery.

Last week, I introduced to the wide readership a line of inquiry down which the very famous Jonah Keri had gotten me started. The line of inquiry concerns those bloggers who, despite almost no promise of financial compensation or notoriety, have persisted in their craft.

The question I posed — after having considered Will Leitch’s suggestion from his Costas Now episode that blogging is a really hard work — the question I posed goes like this:

Why do it? If, as Leitch suggests, it’s hard work, why do it? If, as I can tell you personally, it provides very little in the way of fame and/or cash money, why do it?

I’ve posed this same series of questions — or at least ones very similar to them — to some of the interweb’s more thoughtful baseball writers. This (and maybe next) week, I’ll be sharing their responses in these electronic pages.

Today’s willing participant is Mr. Tommy Bennett. Because you’re the sort of reader who demands quality in his baseballing analysis, you’re undoubtedly aware that, after having risen to the top of the charts with Beyond the Boxscore, Bennett currently wrecks the mic right for Baseball Prospectus.

Please note that this installment of the series is packaged in two unsullied parts: Bennett’s initial response and then his answers to my follow-up questions.

I write because I consider it to be the noblest of daily habits, because writing stimulates critical and literary thinking in a way that no other activity can. Just as writing that is ungirded by structured thought tends to be uninteresting, I find it hard to construct my thoughts without writing them down. Because baseball is such an emotional pursuit, even for spectators, this is doubly so when I try to think about baseball. When I go to write an essay, I am forced to give justifications, reasons, and evidence for my arguments. Certainly, non-written arguments can be structured and not all writing is well-constructed, but at least when I write I am most conscious of those requirements.

Let me give you an example. I grew up rooting for the Phillies, and the single most severe emotional response baseball has elicited from me came in 1993, when Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run in Game Six of the World Series. It happened, that evening, to be my ninth birthday party, and all my friends were there. I was crushed. For years, I hated Joe Carter in a way that led me to drastically overstate how good he really was. Like many commentators, I focused too much on home runs and RBI, and not enough on other aspects of offensive production. By the time I read Jonah Keri’s essay on RBI in Baseball Between the Numbers (“What’s the Matter With RBI?”), I had completed my transformation from young boy whose baseball enemies took on outsized greatness to thinking baseball fan who realized Carter was a beneficiary of a friendly batting order position that was essentially as valuable as Dave Kingman.

Read the rest of this entry »

National attention is required anytime the best hitter in baseball moves down in the lineup. Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday’s lineup swap is getting more play, though, because St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Bernie Miklasz originally suggested it in his column. Merely hours later, the flip showed up on the lineup card. Miklasz’ argument is simple and to the point. Holliday is going through a bad stretch hitting with runners on, and while there’s every reason to believe Holliday will snap out of the funk, why not swap them in the meanwhile and allow Pujols to bat with someone on base.

In The Book, the most important slots in the lineup are found to be the leadoff position, second, and fourth. This combats conventional wisdom a bit, since the number two hitter is generally thought of as someone who can ‘handle the bat’ – i.e. bunt, move the runner over, etc. – and the three hitter is your best or second best hitter. The reason that the fourth slot is more important than the three slot is because more often than not, the three hitter comes up with nobody on and two out, whereas the four hitter begins innings. Plus, the difference is about 18 plate appearances over a given season, not enough to dismiss the idea because it would mean less Pujols.

Tony LaRussa is a fascinating manager for numerous reasons — his bullpen management, batting a pitcher eighth, and having pitchers field and fielders pitch being the most obvious. He’s not always correct, but he usually is entertaining. What he’s doing here isn’t radical and it shouldn’t be brow-raising. It’s smart and defensible. Other teams across the league are implementing similar strategies, too. Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon pencils Evan Longoria in as his clean-up hitter most days, Alex Rodriguez mans the position for the Yankees, and even Kansas City has begun batting Billy Butler fourth.

LaRussa can proclaim innocence if accused of starting the fire. As to whether this was inspired by Bernie Miklasz or not, well, who knows. Both men should be commended for evaluating the lineup as rational agents rather than slaves to conformity and tradition.

Now watch LaRussa do something really crazy. Like bat Pujols leadoff.

I’d like to share some additional information about the Community Blog approval process. We will be selecting on a daily basis the ones we consider the best to appear in the blog.

The approval process can take up to 48 hours and we will probably not be looking at posts on the weekend. If your post is approved it will then appear in the Community Blog. We may feature exceptionally high quality posts on the homepage.

Below are some of the criteria we will use to decide whether we believe the post will be informative and/or entertaining to our readers.

1. The article is well written and well constructed, with minimal spelling/grammatical errors.

2. There is a clear and interesting point to the article.

3. The article is original and if the article contains stats based analysis, the use of stats is creative and relevant to the point you’re trying to make.

4. The article is factually correct and does not blatantly misuse baseball statistics.

5. All articles submissions should be at least 250 words.

We really appreciate the time and effort that goes into all submissions and if your article is not published and you would like additional information, you can contact us at community@fangraphs.com where we will give you feedback on why your post was not accepted.

Simply because of their importance, number of innings thrown and less volatile nature, entire starting rotations are rarely ever around replacement level. The same is not true for bullpens which can be torpedoed by a fewer poor performers and also because managers tend to display a level of loyalty to relief pitchers that is unjustified given how much variance they display in performance from year to year.

Last season saw both the Pirates and Nationals have their collective bullpen be worse than replacement level. To date in 2010, the biggest team culprit in the bullpen failure Olympics has been the Arizona Diamondbacks. The unit’s 1.24 strikeouts per walk allowed is the third worst in baseball barely ahead of the Indians and Angels.

While those two teams are worse in that regard, both compensate somewhat with low home run rates. The Indians have allowed just 0.5 home runs per nine innings. The Angels are at almost exactly one home run per nine. By contrast, the Diamondback relievers have allowed over two home runs per game!

Arizona is well known for yielding home runs, but even adjusting the unit’s home run rate down with xFIP, they still post a 5.45 figure, which is half a run worse than what the 29th best unit, the Royals at 4.96 is. The Diamondbacks’ bullpen has the league’s worst ground ball rate.

According to tRA, the only reliever for Arizona that has managed to be above average is Carlos Rosa who has faced all of three batters. Of particular note for an atrocious level of play thus far are Bob Howry (8.96 FIP), Kevin Mulvey (14.09 FIP), Juan Gutierrez (7.32 FIP) and Esmerling Vasquez (6.71 FIP).