While perusing the Royals’ organizational chart the other day, I realized that it’s been quite some time since I’ve heard anything about Aaron Crow. The right-hander, you’ll recall, was the ninth overall pick by the Washington Nationals during the 2008 draft.

Stepping back into 2008 again, the Top 2 pitchers in the draft that year were Crow and Brian Matusz of the University of San Diego. Here is what Baseball American said about Crow before the ’08 amateur draft:

In three years, Crow has gone from an undrafted high school senior to the best righthander in the 2008 draft, thanks largely to the best fastball package available. Other pitchers may throw harder, but no one can match the combination of Crow’s velocity (92-96 mph with a peak of 98), hard sink, command and ability to maintain his fastball… Some teams wonder if his mechanics and size (generously listed at 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds) might make him more of a closer than a front-line starter. Crow led the Cape Cod League with a 0.67 ERA last summer and was the No. 1 prospect in the league.

And here is a little something on Matusz:

Like David Price, the No. 1 pick last year, Matusz is tall and lanky at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, and scouts have history with him. He didn’t sign with the Angels in 2005 as a fourth-round pick out of an Arizona high school, and he starred for Team USA last summer, after ranking second (behind Price) in the nation in strikeouts… Matusz profiles as a middle of the rotation starter at worst, and if he improves his fastball and mechanics, he can become a staff ace.

There was a lot of debate over who was the better pick but it appears that Baltimore made the smart decision to take the more advanced left-hander. While Crow is struggling in double-A, Matusz is holding his own at the MLB level and has 15 MLB starts under his belt with a career xFIP of 4.58.

Unable to come to terms with Washington in ’08, Crow re-entered the draft in ’09 and went 12th overall to the Royals. He didn’t sign until late in the year so the former University of Missouri star officially began his pro career in April, 2010.

In the first start of his career, Crow allowed just one unearned run in 4.2 innings. His subsequent double-A starts have been inconsistent. His best stretch came in two games on April 29 and May 4 when he allowed just five runs on 12 hits in 15.0 innings. He walked three and struck out nine. In his last start against Tulsa (Colorado) on May 9, Crow was touched up for seven runs on seven hits and four walks in 5.0 runs. He did not strike out a batter.

Overall, he’s allowed 43 hits in 41.2 innings. Crow has given up 17 walks with just 21 strikeouts. Despite an excellent ground-ball rate of 70%, Crow has given up six homers (1.20 HR/9). If he keeps up that ground-ball rate, he should have some success, but he’s not going to reach his ceiling of a No. 1 or 2 starter with a sub-5.00 strikeout rate. It’s still early to get too worried, but flashes of Luke Hochevar are dancing in my head; one under-performing former No. 1 draft pick in enough for the Royals organization.

While I’ve never met Will Leitch in person — and have certainly never posed with him like in those disgusting, poorly Photoshop-ed pictures of us floating around the internet — there’s a debt of gratitude I’ll always owe him for his performance on a certain, now pretty famous, episode of Costas Now.

It’s not the way his presence there turned Buzz Bissinger into a rabid, frothing mess — although I certainly have no problem with that. Rather, it’s the way he (i.e. Leitch) was able to articulate, more or less on the fly, the merits of sportswriting in the electronic age.

For it’s during that discussion that Leitch says:

One of the nice things about the web is [that] it’s a meritocracy. Sure, anyone can start a blog, but to get a readership you have to be serious, you have to be consistent — it’s hard goddamn work doing a blog.

As an unabashed classist, democracy is something about which I’m inherently skeptical. When left to their own devices, the teeming masses rarely seem to make good decisions. (I mean, seriously, the Toronto Raptors?)

The thing is, it works on the internet — or, at least with baseballing analysis it seems to. Craig Calcaterra, Dave Cameron, Rob Neyer: these guys are, by and large, products of the internet. Without the benefit of electronic print, there’s a good chance that we, as readers, are never introduced to their voices. Even Joe Posnanski, though he wrote for the Kansas City Star — well, he wrote for a paper in Kansas City.

I invoke that Leitch thing here, because, a couple days ago, I was corresponding via something called “G-Chat” with MC Jonah Keri. After performing the secret handsake of the Mutual Admiration Society (yes, you can do it over the internet), we somehow got to wondering: What is it that motivates the sporting blogger? Fame? Cash money? All the Cristal a man can drink?

Mind you, it’s not just the big guns we’re talking about, either. The “we” in the title of this post refers to anyone who says to him- or herself, “I’mma write me some words.”

The question is: 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?

Well, you shouldn’t expect to find the answer here, today. But it’s my intention, over the course of some posts that’ll be coming out over the next couple days, week, whatever, to harass some smart guys — some guys who’re articulate enough to express their feelings on the topic — and approach some answers.

Before I bring the current post to a conclusion, it’s only right to share some of Jonah’s own thoughts. Here they are, however incomplete, in their original G-Chatty form:

10:11 AM me: Do you have any one-line answers as to why you, in fact, write?
10:11 AM Jonah: I can tell you why (and you can note it publicly, or not, up to you) but it’d be slightly longer than one line)
10:12 AM I write because I have no other discernable skills
I write because I like creating
I write because I’m a social animal and producing something tangible and public engages others to come talk to me about it
10:13 AM I write because as a kid, I thought Ring Lardner and W.P. Kinsella and Bill James and the Sports Illustrated crew were really cool.
10:14 AM I write because I love sports, and realized by age 12 I’d never be good enough to play in the NBA
I write because the Expos roped me in, and I became so attached to them that I had to tell people

Tomorrow: why Bryan Smith writes.

The legend of Stephen Strasburg continues to grow. The 2009 first overall draft pick pitched six no-hit innings during his second career triple-A start on May 12. He was lifted after the sixth inning and replaced by fellow ’09 No. 1 draft pick Drew Storen, who promptly gave up a hit to the third batter he faced.

Strasburg breezed through the Baltimore Orioles’ triple-A lineup, which was laden with minor league vets like Michael Aubrey, Joey Gathright, and Robert Andino. It even included a few true prospects in Josh Bell and Brandon Snyder.

The reason for Strasburg’s success on this night was clear. Simply, he threw strikes. Fifty-five of his 80 pitches were for strikes. With the strict pitch count, he did a nice job of getting through six innings despite striking out seven batters (and walking one). His stuff looked very good. Every batter was behind the right-hander’s mid-to-high 90s heater. He also had a good 12-6 breaking ball that caught a lot of batters looking at strikes.

On this night, though, his change-up may have been his best pitch. Speed-wise, it came in around 88 mph, which many MLB pitchers would consider to be the average velocity on their fastballs. The off-speed pitch had crazy, late fade that was utterly unhittable at times, as it dropped off just as the hitter swung at the pitch.

Strasburg’s combined season numbers between double-A and triple-A are outstanding. In 34.0 innings, the former San Diego State star has allowed just 14 hits and eight walks in 34.0 innings. He’s also racked up 40 strikeouts and has an excellent ground-ball rate, which has helped him keep the ball in the yard. Strasburg has yet to give up a hit to a right-handed batter in triple-A and left-handed batters are hitting less than .100 against him on the year (more than 50 batters faced).

The Washington Nationals club currently sits in second place in the National League East division. The Philadelphia Phillies club looks strong but the rest of the division is definitely vulnerable; a National League wild card spot is also not out of the question. The Nationals organization obviously doesn’t want to risk it’s future by playing for 2010, but it’s not absolutely crazy to think that the club could sneak into the playoffs (OK, maybe it’s a little crazy).

Pitching has been a weak spot for the club, as it ranks last, or near last, in strikeout rate, batting average allowed, WHIP, and xFIP. When we look at the starting rotation, we see that Jason Marquis has been lost for at least two months due to surgery, John Lannan has been terrible and Craig Stammen has been walking a tight rope. The club’s best starter, Livan Hernandez, has been doing cartwheels down the tight rope. The pitcher I have the most faith in right now is Scott Olsen, and that scares me just saying it.

If the Washington Nationals club continues to hover near the top of the National League East, the organization will have a huge dilemma on its hands as it weighs present gain versus future value. If Strasburg keeps pitching like he has been, though, it’s hard to envision him in the minor leagues a month from now.

Scott Boras represents Hank Blalock and Hank Blalock has an opt-out clause in his contract. Rather than simply executing the clause, Boras decided to talk about it with the press first. It’s an understandable move since Boras is never in the press, and it also gives us some time to analyze the forthcoming scenario in which the Rays must ultimately choose between Pat Burrell and the aforementioned Blalock.

Burrell has completely lost the ability to hit left-handed pitching. Between 2005 and 2008, Burrell’s lowest wOBA against lefties was a robust .401 in 2008. His wOBA last year was .278, more than double this year’s .132 figure. As far as ISO goes, forget it. He’s yet to record an extra base hit against a southpaw this year, and last year the rate was a career low .050.

Surely a .071 BABIP against lefties is hurting his performance, but at the same time, a .378 BABIP against righties is propping up his .368 wOBA against normal people. He’s just not hitting for power anymore against anyone. Consider that Burrell hit 57 home runs against lefties between 2002 and 2008, yet he’s hit zero since joining the Rays.

Clearly something’s gone wrong with Burrell and there’s a pretty good chance whatever is wrong isn’t going right anytime soon. For all intents and purposes, just call Burrell a sunk cost and cast aside the concerns about money. He’s going to be paid his money no matter what and the Rays are going to be the ones writing the checks. With Willy Aybar entrenching himself as the designated hitter against lefties, this comes down to which of the not-so-killer-and-somewhat-irritating B’s can be counted upon to hit righties moving forward.

The answer isn’t as cut and dry as Boras and Blalock would hope it would be, even after a torrid April in Triple-A. Blalock has a career .362 wOBA against righties (.328/.349/.391 last three seasons) but posted those numbers while having the benefit of hitting in Arlington and in a (mostly) non-designated hitter capacity.

Maybe the solution is to toss aside Burrell and plug in Blalock while the option persists. And hey, if Blalock doesn’t work, maybe try Matt Joyce when he finally returns from an elbow sprain that could limit his throwing abilities. If that doesn’t work, then there’s always Dan Johnson and Ryan Shealy.

Or Andy Sonnanstine.

On April 9, Jeff Francoeur hit two home runs, and his line stood at .429/.471/1.000. On April 14, he not only homered, but walked twice. Okay, one of them was intentional, but this was Jeff Francoeur. His line stood at .429/.514/.929. The most recent of Jeff Francoeur’s 10 walks for the season took place on May 5 against the Reds, at which point his line had dropped to a still respectable .263/.336/.474. But after a blistering .284/.355/.531 (.373 wOBA) April, May has not been kind so far: .147/.205/.147 for a pitcher-esque .184 wOBA. Jeff Francoeur’s current overall line for 2010 is .243/.311/.417 (.321 wOBA). His career line in the major leagues is .270/.311/.431 (.317 wOBA). So much for turning a corner.

I won’t need to recount the full saga of the former Atlanta hometown hero traded to the Mets last season for eventual non-tenderee Ryan Church. Despite a less-than-refined approach at the plate, he was very valuable on both sides of the ball during a 274 PA call-up in 2005 (3.2 WAR) and over a full season in 2007 (4.0 WAR). Since then, however, Francoeur has gone from a guy who once graced the cover of a magazine your Dad used to read to a guy who produced one of the classic self-referential quotes of all-time. After putting up a miserable .286 wOBA for the Braves in 2008, he was even worse for them in 2009 (.278 wOBA), which precipitated the trade to the Mets.

Some still believe in Francoeur. He did put up a .350 wOBA in 308 PA for the 2009 Mets. During his hot start (and all those walks!) to 2010, one columnist actually used the phrase ‘OBP machine’ to describe Francoeur. And yet here we are, with Francouer sitting at around his career averages.

It’s natural to want to believe in a (fairly) young player. And in a way, it’s refreshing that two organizations have kept playing Francoeur when young players are so often given up on after a near-meaningless sample. But while 26 is young, it isn’t that young. More importantly, Francoeur has over three thousand major league plate appearances in which he’s accumulated a .317 wOBA. A few good weeks don’t cancel those out. He’s hitting a few more flyballs out of the park so far this season, but he’s also hitting fewer line drives. More significantly, the ‘OBP Machine’ is swinging at pitches out of the zone 43% of the time, that’s ridiculous even for him (37% career). ZiPS Rest-of-Season projections see Frenchy as a .265/.324/.429 (.324 wOBA) hitter for the rest of the season. He had some great defensive seasons in right field in Atlanta, but most of that was due to his strong arm, and teams aren’t testing him as much anymore. All things considered, he’s about a 1 WAR player over a full season. This is probably who he is: a bench/platoon player with a strong arm, declining range, occasional power, and no concept of the strike zone (I wonder which Atlanta team official liked him?) If the Mets have any sense at all (ahem), Francoeur will be non-tendered after the season, since he isn’t even worth his arbitration salary this year.

This isn’t only about 2011. Despite everything they have endured (much of it self-inflicted), the 2010 Mets have a realistic shot at the playoffs. It’s unlikely that they’ll catch a far superior Philadelphia team in the NL East, but they’re in the hunt for the wild card. Organizational favorite Carlos Beltran will hopefully be back at some point to give the Mets a boost. When and if he returns, the Mets should use the opportunity to finally sit Francoeur in favor of Angel Pagan, a decent hitter (.341 ZipS RoS wOBA) and very good defender (+10 career UZR/150 in the outfield) who could start for many teams. Again, this isn’t about the future. Francoeur and Pagan are what they are — an expensive bench guy and an underrated above-average player. When Beltran returns, the Mets need to forget the Francoeur Dream and start Pagan in right (or center, if Beltran can’t play there).

Last night, for only the seventh time in his major league career, Daisuke Matsuzaka didn’t walk a batter. During his four years in the majors he has developed a reputation for wildness, which came as a surprise. In Japan, where he played for the Seibu Lions, he demonstrated quality control. From 2002 through his final season in 2006 he kept his walk rate below three per nine. In fact, in 2006 he walked just 34 batters in 186.1 innings. Once he reached the majors, though, that rate started to rise.

In 2008 he developed a reputation as a wild pitcher who could work out of jams. He walked 5.05 batters per nine innings, a mark that ranked second highest in the majors. Despite all those base runners, though, Matsuzaka finished the year with a 2.90 ERA and an 18-3 record. A number of factors aided this phenomenon, and few of them appeared to be sustainable feats.

What stands out most, and what plays most into his reputation for working out of jams, is an 80.6 percent strand rate. His expected LOB%, based on xFIP, was about 10 percentage points lower. Speaking of xFIP, it sat at nearly two runs higher than his ERA. This was due not only to the high walk total, but also because only 6.1 percent of his flyballs allowed left the park. That’s a considerable feat for someone who allows 43 percent fly balls.

Matsuzaka’s numbers with runners on base helped, too, as did his performances in high leverage situations. With the bases empty he walked 5.55 per nine, but once a runner reached base that dropped to 4.52 per nine. More helpfully, he induced more poor contact, holding opponents to 5.84 hits per nine. With the bases empty that figure was 7.84 per nine. The 40 batters he faced in high leverage situations didn’t find much success, hitting just .152/.300/.212, striking out 11 times.

It’s tough to gauge exactly how lucky Matsuzaka got in 2008, because he has spent most of his time since 2008 on the disabled list. After pitching just 59.1 innings last season he has only 17 this season after missing most of April. We’ve seen his LOB% come back to the mid-70s, and we’ve seen his home run rate more than correct itself, but how much of this was due to him pitching hurt, and how much was due to a statistical correction? I’m not sure anyone can really say.

Last night, though, Matsuzaka pitched perhaps his best game in the majors (though I’d vote for this one). He completed seven innings, allowing just three hits and one run. Even more impressively, he struck out nine and walked none. More than two-thirds of his 106 pitches were strikes. The only time he even remotely ran into trouble was in the sixth, when a double, wild pitch, and double allowed the Blue Jays to score their only run of the game. By that point, though, the Red Sox offense already had the game well at hand.

What impressed the most was how effectively he used his fastball. He threw the four-seamer 68 times, far more than he normally does, but generated seven swings and misses. He doesn’t have an overpowering fastball, but he has decent movement on it and, at least last night, threw it for strikes. His two other fastballs, a cutter and a two-seamer, help, as does the changeup he has worked in more frequently this season.

What I’m not sure of is whether this signals progress for Matsuzaka, or if it’s a tease. On the progress end, he corrected the one aspect that has hampered him more than any other during his major league career, his walk rate. On the tease end, he’s done this before only to later revert to his wild ways. Now that he’s healthy we should get a good look at him this season. Surprisingly, he has only two more left in Boston after this. It feels like he just went there.

The Twins promoted 2009 first-round pick Kyle Gibson to Double-A yesterday on the heels of his seventh start in the Florida State League, which lowered his ERA to 1.87 in 43.1 innings. Gibson was the 22nd overall pick last season out of the University of Missouri, where he dropped in the draft due to concerns over a predraft stress fracture in his throwing arm. Minnesota’s great scouting department saw an opportunity to get great value — Gibson was a potential top 10 pick entering the spring — and gave him $1.85 million, more than five hundred thousand above slot.

Gibson is a prototypical Twins draftee, as he combines solid sinker-slider (and an improved changeup) stuff with fantastic command. He has walked 2.5 batters per nine so far this season, but should be capable of even better numbers than that down the road. But where the Twins have usually found success with flyball pitchers in the past — Baker, Slowey, Garza, etc. — Gibson promises to throw an arm into the Minnesota rotation capable of a 50% groundball rate. I say this with confidence both due to the scouting reports on the tilt he gets from a 6-6 frame, his command, and two starts this season:

April 19: His third start of the season, Gibson scattered seven hits and two earned runs in seven innings against Tampa’s High-A affiliate. However, most impressively, Gibson recorded 16 groundball outs, and not a single fly out. Of the seven hits, however, five were put in the air. Still, for the game, 18 of the 23 batters to put a ball in play hit it on the ground.

April 29: Gibson’s best start to date, he allowed just one hit and one walk in a complete game shutout against Jupiter. The lone hit was a groundball, one of 17 that he would induce on the game. Only one batter recorded a fly out, and not until the ninth inning.

After struggling in his first start — allowing two home runs and eight baserunners in just 3.2 innings — Gibson tightened things up and finished his Fort Myers career with this: 39.2 IP, 27 H, 6 ER, 0 HR, 10 BB, 33 K, and a GO/AO ratio of 6.3. He moves to a New Britain team that has a cumulative .333 BABIP, so Gibson will need better infield defense to find sustained success at this higher level. Redgardless of the outcome, I do think Gibson will be capable of helping the Twins as early as next season, and he might just be the top prospect in their loaded system at the moment. And again, the Twins scouting department comes off as one of the game’s smartest, getting some of the best value in the first round by rolling the dice on an injured pitcher.

Akinori Iwamura is batting .187/.290/.271 with a .258wOBA through his first 128 plate appearances. He’s managed two home runs though, which tops his total from 2009 in less than half the playing time. It would be easy to write Iwamura’s slow start off as bad luck and nothing more, but it’s just really hard to find anything wrong with his numbers. Drawing a walk in 13% of his plate appearances is better than his career ratio and he’s actually striking out a little less often than normal. Even his .082 ISO isn’t too far off pre-established expectations.

Iwamura is hitting more groundballs than ever – about 55% in fact – and yet, his batting average on balls in play is a measly .207. The previous American low for Iwamura’s BABIP is .337 in 2008. About 4% of Iwamura’s hits have been of the infield variety. Again, that’s just not too far off from his norms. Everything just seems to come together and suggest that Iwamura is the victim of chance rather than the victim of a decaying – or perhaps deceased – skill set.

More interestingly is Iwamura’s defense. The sample size is ridiculously small – a little over 230 innings to date – but Iwamura has been worth -8.2 UZR and -9 DRS. That’s bad. Like, Yuniesky Betancourt looks good by comparison bad. It’s just so easy to take data like that and completely ignore granularity issues while trying to connect the dots. For instance, Iwamura did suffer a horrific knee injury roughly a year ago … maybe it affected his already pedestrian range?

The odds that Iwamura continues to be one of the league’s worst hitters and fielders are staggeringly low. Breathe easy, Pittsburgh.

The San Diego Padres feature a roster of goodies. The brothers Hairston (otherwise nicknamed Voltron Hairston by Marc Normandin), Tony Gwynn the Thin, and of course the most contrasting pair of teammates in the league: David Eckstein and Kyle Blanks.

The physical differences between Eckstein and Blanks spell themselves out. Heck, even the varied approaches in offensive strategy and execution are pretty easy to spot. How’s this for a factoid, though: Amongst qualified batters, Eckstein is striking out at the lowest ratio and Blanks at the highest. The actual numerical figures are 1.8% and 44.8%

Blanks’ strikeout rate is coming honest. He’s making contact on a little over 63% of his swings. For perspective, Mark Reynolds’ career contact rate is 63% on the nose and Reynolds quickly gained the reputation as a windmill. Of course, the Diamondbacks are willing to tolerate the strikeouts because Reynolds makes up for it when he does put the ball in play. The same cannot be said for Blanks thus far in 2010. About 29% of the balls he puts into play are turning into hits, yet his batting average, even when fueled by an extra three home runs, is more than .100 points lower.

And then there’s Eckstein. In 116 plate appearances, Eckstein has gone down on strikes two times. It goes without saying that Eckstein will not sustain that rate of fasting. The ridiculous part about that factoid is that Blanks has struck out four times in one game, three times in two others, and twice in nine other games. Despite an identical amount of games played and Blanks appearing at the plate 15 fewer times, he’s struck out 37 more times.

The Padres are in San Francisco to start a series which will decide first place in the National League West for the time being. That’s a series worth watching, if only to marvel at the yin and yang that is David Eckstein and Kyle Blanks.