By now, most people are familiar with the tale of Joel Pineiro. The former Mariner’s career was on the ropes a few years back — after averaging 2.6 Wins Above Replacement per season with Seattle from 2002 to 2005, Pineiro fell to 0.6 WAR in 2006. He signed with the Red Sox for the ’07 season and spent his time in Boston mopping up in the bullpen. Traded to St. Louis in July, Pineiro was so-so as a starter during the second half of the year and in 2008, battling shoulder and groin injuries. He posted 0.6 WAR again in ’07, and 0.9 WAR in ’08.

And then, the breakthrough. Pineiro played Daniel LaRusso to Dave Duncan’s Mr. Miyagi (or Dre Parker to Duncan’s Mr. Han, but I’m old school), becoming skilled in the art of the sinker. Tossing 214 frames in 2009, Pineiro induced ground balls at a 60.5 percent clip, while striking out 4.42 batters per nine innings and stingily issuing 1.14 BB/9. His 3.68 xFIP was tenth among qualified NL starters, and his 4.8 WAR ranked eighth. Pineiro parlayed that performance into a two-year, $16 million deal with the Angels this past winter.

Transitioning back to the DH league and coming off of a year of unprecedented success, Pineiro wasn’t expected to come near the five win mark in 2010 — it would be a bit much to anticipate him again inducing grounders like a Derek Lowe/Tim Hudson love child, while displaying Greg Maddux-esque control and keeping a home run per fly ball rate under seven. But the FANS figured he’d make the Angels look pretty smart anyway, projecting a 3.4 WAR season.

So far so good for the 31-year-old righty. After last night’s eight inning, one-run outing against the Brewers, Pineiro sports a 4.01 FIP and a 3.86 xFIP on the season. His walk rate has predictably climbed from barely over one, but it remains excellent at 2.18 free passes per nine innings. His HR/FB rate has also regressed to 11.8 percent, after last season’s 6.5 percent mark. Pineiro’s burning worms again, with a 55.9 GB%. Surprisingly, he’s striking out batters at his highest rate (5.84 K/9) since 2004. That is not a breath-taking total, but Pineiro’s swinging strike rate has increased from 5.6 in 2009 to 6.5 this season (8.2-8.6 percent MLB average in recent seasons), and his over all whiff rate when throwing a fastball has climbed from 4.2 percent last year to 5.7 percent in 2010.

Pineiro was regarded skeptically over the winter, as teams were unsure of how much of the gains that he made in 2009 would carry over in the years to follow. The market basically valued him as a 1.5 to two-win pitcher per season, and Pineiro’s well on his way to exceeding that level of performance. He has amassed a 1.5 WAR so far this season, and if he meets his ZiPS projection for the rest of the year (4.14 FIP in 102 innings), he would finish with about three wins above replacement. Kudos to the Angels for snagging a quality starter at a reasonable price.

Alternate title: Fun With XOuts

Picture the situation: one out, runners on first and second. Ground ball directly to the second baseman. Inning over, right? Wrong – he boots the ball into right field, the bases are loaded, and three runs score in the inning. As they say, if you give the opposing team four outs in an inning, it will come back to hurt you.

The aforementioned scenario brings us back to the unfortunate story of Chad Qualls. Qualls is having about as unlucky a year as a reliever can have, posting an 8.46 ERA despite a 4.15 FIP. Using tRA’s formula for expected outs (xouts), seen here, we find that Qualls has compiled 76.7 xOuts on the season in his 22.1 innings pitched, which means Qualls has been suffering through nearly 3.5 outs per inning. Whether it is his defense or just the quality or location of balls in play against him, hitters have managed to reach far more often than we would expect given what we believe is in the pitcher’s control.

Looking at ERA-FIP suggests that Qualls has been unlucky to the tune of 4.29 runs per 9 innings pitched. But when we factor that Qualls would be expected to have recorded about 25.2 IP instead of the 22.1 he has actually recorded into his FIP, the number falls to 3.61 – meaning Qualls has given up 4.85 runs per 9 innings more than we’d expect. It’s no surprise that the Diamondbacks bullpen, then, is on pace to have quite possibly the worst bullpen season ever.

What about the flip side? It would be pretty easy to pitch if you only had to get two outs every inning. Just ask Arthur Rhodes. The ageless wonder (he turns 41 in October) just continues to get batters out, as he has a 2.70 FIP and a ridiculous 0.32 ERA after 28 innings (one earned run) which has come on the one home run that he has allowed this year. With the two run disparity between his FIP and his ERA, it should come as no surprise that he’s only compiled 70.1 xOuts in his 28 innings, a rate of 2.5 xOuts per inning.

Before we apply his xOuts to his FIP, Rhodes has allowed 2.38 fewer runs per 9 innings than we would expect. Accounting for the fact that xOuts suggests that Rhodes should have only completed 23.1 innings with his batted ball distribution so far, his FIP increases to 3.24 – still a solid number, but not quite as dominant as his 2.70 would suggest. We would expect, then, that Rhodes would have given up nearly 3 more runs per 9 innings than he has so far.

Basically, not only has the fact that certain pitchers have been lucky impacted their results in the innings that they have already completed, but it impacts the actual number of innings they’ve completed. In cases like Rhodes, if some base hits had fallen in, perhaps it would have resulted in another home run later in the inning. In the case of Qualls, he may have already been out of the inning if not for a defensive miscue, an infield hit, or a ball finding a foul line. Instead, the next batter hit that next home run or RBI double to inflate his ERA to an even higher level.

We already have a few tools to measure “luck” for pitchers, such as BABIP and HR/FB, but I think looking at xOuts can give us an interesting look at pitcher luck as well as providing it in a unit that is relatively easy to understand and how it relates to the game. If you’re interested in seeing this number for more pitchers, I’ve calculated it for every pitcher in 2010 with at least 10 IP here, as StatCorner’s leaderboard isn’t updated for 2010 yet. For previous years, check out StatCorner’s leaderboard.

Entering last night’s game, Aubrey Huff owned a .395 wOBA through 256 plate appearances, a number significant for many reasons: (A) The .395 wOBA represents a career high for Huff, at the age of 33; (B) The career high comes after the second worst hitting season of Huff’s professional career; and (C) Huff only added to his numbers by hitting a homer, a double, and a single, while driving in two runs for the Giants in a victory over the Orioles.

For someone who spent his entire career in the American League, barring a three month stint with the Astros in 2006, Huff is enjoying National League life. He’s walking more than ever, striking out at rates unforeseen from him since his days as a zealous and nubile – oh yes, nubile – third baseman for the Devil Rays. His BABIP is in check, yet he’s hitting for more power than normal. Huff has also made contact at a higher rate this year than normal.

In playing the outfield for the first time in more than five seasons, it is like Huff has discovered the fountain of youth, as one of his home runs did yesterday. ZiPS now has him finishing the season at .372, which is leaps and bounds better than any projection system had expected for Huff entering this season. Take a gander:

CHONE: .338
Marcel: .332
ZiPS: .339
Fans: .334

The Giants signed Huff for $3 million on a one-year basis- meaning that just getting a combination of those projected figures probably would have made Huff worth it. Instead they have received one of the best hitters in baseball to date. It’s like a karmic refund for the Edgar Renteria deal turning into a mess.

On May 12 I wrote that Akinori Iwamura couldn’t play any worse and that there was nowhere to go but up. I was horribly wrong. Not only was Iwamura designated for assignment today, but his seasonal line somehow did get worse as his Pirates’ career ends with a .264 wOBA in 193 plate appearances. As vital as it is to lay out what we know about a topic, sometimes it’s even more important to spell out what we don’t know.

With Iwamura, we know that he is 31-years-old and suffered a knee injury last season. We don’t know the affect that knee injury has on his lateral movement or agility, with the latter being one of his best defensive assets. We know that Iwamura entered the season with a career BABIP over .330 and exits from Pittsburgh with a .211 BABIP. We also know that despite hitting a career high amount of groundballs, he’s registering a career low amount of infield hits.

Iwamura’s BABIP on groundballs hit is an almost unfathomable .135. His career rate, with this season’s numbers included, is .284. League average for this season is .230. I don’t have timed data on Iwamura’s runs from home to first, or first to third, or whatever distance becomes an acceptable measure of his speed versus the rest of the league, but from my exposure to Iwamura, he’s certainly got above average speed. So what could be the reason for such a seemingly contradicting relationship between his groundball rate and infield hits?

The most obvious and boring explanation is bad luck. With the information we have, this is in all likelihood the most reasonable answer. One could make the case that Iwamura’s time playing on artificial turf helped raise his BABIP but league BABIP rates for grass and turf alike show that grass actually has a higher BABIP this season. Iwamura’s career rates suggest the opposite, yet his grass BABIP is still over .300 and those numbers are predominantly in road circumstances, where Iwamura would be expected to hit worse.

Maybe he’s hitting the ball weaker, but that would seem to suggest he would be beating out more of them using his speed and the assumption that the infield isn’t playing him closer now than they have in the past. Or maybe he’s hitting the ball harder on the ground, but again, wouldn’t a few balls find their way into the holes; or, if the defense began playing further back, wouldn’t this increase Iwamura’s probability of reaching on weaker hit grounders?

The answer to all of these questions are of course: I don’t know. I don’t know what went wrong with Iwamura in Pittsburgh, and I’m not sure the Pirates really do either. They’re in full-blown youth mode in Pittsburgh and playing time for Iwamura was about to be severely restricted, in part due to his own crippling performance. Some team, maybe the Twins, maybe not, should take a chance on Iwamura though. I sincerely doubt he’ll continue to play this horrendously … but I’ve been wrong about that before.

Chipper Jones, the face of the Atlanta Braves franchise and a star since 1995, recently met with Braves officials to discuss retirement at the end of the season. Perhaps Jones doesn’t wish to see his career end in the same fashion that Ken Griffey Jr.’s did with the Seattle Mariners. Perhaps he’s simply tired of baseball. However, if he feels that his performance is no longer at a Major League level, he should greatly strongly reconsider his plans.

Yes, Jones’s offensive performance has taken a dip this year. Thanks to a .236 batting average, mostly from a .255 BABIP, Jones’s wRC+ is down to 109, his lowest mark ever. Despite that, Jones still has strong peripheral stats. His 18.8% walk rate is the highest among qualified players and is the highest of his career. His .134 ISO is still slightly below average, but if those two marks are combined with a BABIP closer to his career norm (.315) or even last season (.285), and Chipper has a line closer to .260/.400/.420, it would make him one of the top hitting third basemen in the National League, behind Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, and the surprisingly hot Scott Rolen.

There’s also reason to believe that Jones can still hit for above-average power. All three of Chipper’s home runs before last night were easily out, according to HitTracker, including a 429-foot blast off John Grabow back in April. Last night’s shot off Lance Cormier was again to dead center, not an easy task at Turner Field. Again, given the fact that even with this low level of power so far this season, any sort of regression would only serve to place Jones among the top third basemen of the league.

Simply put, anybody that can still get on base like Chipper is right now is most likely good enough to play in the Major Leagues. His defense at third base has slipped but not to the point at which he needs to be moved off of the position; even with a -4.5 or -6.5 UZR, the range that his performance over the last two seasons seems to suggest, he’s still more valuable on defense than the average corner outfielder. He’s on pace to post 2.5 WAR this season if he can reach 600 plate appearances, which is of course no guarantee, but it is a pace that suggests that Jones is still an above-average player. Even without regression in either his batting average or his slugging, Jones can still be an above average player.

If Chipper Jones feels that he must retire for personal reasons, then that’s his prerogative. There’s no doubt in my mind, however, that Jones is still a high quality major league baseball player. It would be unfortunate for both the fans as well as the Atlanta Braves if he were to end his career with quality baseball still ahead of him.

The Angels are 36-32, in second place in the AL West, and two games behind first place Texas. They are in that position despite having a below average offense (-10 wRAA), a below average defense (-19.3 UZR), and a below average pitching staff (4.33 FIP). How are they winning games? The Angel way – clutchness.

If it seems like we write about this every year, well, we do. I mentioned the Angels penchant for clutch hitting two years ago, showing that they were consistently among the league leaders in our metric that shows the gap in wins added that comes from hitting well in high leverage situations. Matt Klaassen wrote about it earlier this spring.

And here we are today, talking about it again, because once again the Angels are clutching their way to victories. They have +1.34 clutch wins from their hitting and +2.48 clutch wins from their pitchers, totaling just under four wins added by coming through when it counts. Not surprisingly, they lead the league in clutch wins added.

It isn’t surprising because they do this every single year. Last year, they added seven wins to their total through clutch performance. In 2008, they had fifteen clutch wins. As noted in the first linked post above, this is basically an annual trend. The Angels are consistently among the league leaders in clutch wins, and have been for the better part of the last decade.

There are all kinds of explanations for why they are able do to this year in and year out. Generally, Mike Scioscia gets the credit for getting the most out of his team. The Angels minor league development staff is lauded as teaching their players how to play the game the right way. But the explanations are never very specific, nor are the players who put up the crazy clutch seasons consistent.

In 2008, the monster clutch Angels were Maicer Izturis (+1.46), Mark Teixeira (+1.21), and Howie Kendrick (+1.15) on offense, and Jason Bulger (+1.20), John Lackey (+1.11), and Joe Saunders (+1.03) on the mound. Last year, it was Gary Matthews Jr (+2.11, seriously) , Jeff Mathis (+1.05), and Chone Figgins (+0.95) carrying the clutch load. This year, it’s Kendry Morales (+0.91), Hideki Matsui (+0.77), and Bobby Abreu (+0.57) doing it with the bats, while Ervin Santana (+0.96), Jason Bulger (+0.55), and Fernando Rodney (+0.45) have done it on the mound.

Seriously, what do those guys have in common, besides being Angels at the time? Teixeira was a rental player who came up through the Rangers organization. It’s hard to argue that the Angels had much influence on the development of Matthews, Matsui, Abreu, or Rodney. If it’s good coaching, why did Santana have a negative clutch rating before this season, when he’s a home grown kid who has been on the roster for five years?

I’m not asking these questions to insinuate that the Angels have nothing to do with these performances – I’m genuinely curious what they could possibly be doing to extract such performances from wildly different players, but do so almost every single year? At this point, the odds of it just being luck are pretty slim, so it seems reasonable to suspect that the Angels are doing something right. But none of the theories advanced so far seem to have any kind of evidence to support them, and there does not seem to be any discernable trail we can follow that will lead us to the answer.

Until someone figures out just what the Angels are doing, all we can really do is sit and stare in amazement. Right now, there’s no explanation. The Angels are a phenomenon.

Episode Thirty-Five
In which the panel is a little drafty.

Headlines
Reflecting on Strasburg
Projecting on Harper
Draft-as-Event: More Nerdier?

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Eno Sarris, Rogue Fantasy Contributor

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Audio on the flip-flop.

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Overview

This post could easily be three words long, but I assume that the premise of the “What the X Should Do” series is to assume the place of the front office, so… I know it’s hard to believe, but the Royals are out of 2010 contention this season. They need to look to the future, but it is difficult to figure out when that “future” might actually begin, and thus what current players might and might not be part of it.

Buy or Sell

Clearly, the Royals should sell, but whom? The Royals aren’t young: the only player under 26 among the regulars and starting pitchers is Billy Butler. As will be discussed below, there’s no significant help coming from the farm system (other than from players who should already be up like Alex Gordon and Kila Ka’aihue — both 26) this season or next. The most optimistic possibility for significant help from the minors is 2012, and while that seems unrealistic to me, it at least gives us a place to start: the Royals should be looking to get value for any player on their roster that is not likely to have value for them in 2012.

The Royals have plenty of players that will not be helpful in 2012 or after, but a sizable chunk of them are useless (or close to it) now. Scott Podsednik is Juan Pierre without the glove. Jose Guillen has hit decently this season, but once you narrow his options to AL teams (he can only DH, despite recent appearances in RF), then narrow that to contenders… and after that, well, there’s still his massive salary (prorated portion of $12 million dollars remaining this season). Both were hot to start the season, and if they can’t get a C- prospect for either of them with the Royals picking up their entire salaries now, they never will. Both are currently sucking up playing time better given to others, and should simply be released. Well, if Podsednik can’t be traded he might be useful off the bench “just in case” fellow ill-fated outfield acquisition Rick Ankiel doesn’t return to full health soon. The Royals might as well keep Ankiel around to up his numbers a bit in case of a waiver trade (he has no value at the moment), although he should not be allowed to block Alex Gordon or even Mitch Maier. Gil Meche is a slightly different case, and is on the DL at the moment, but even if he wasn’t, his 2009 and 2010 performance, as well as his contract, gives him little or no value on the market without the Royals picking up a significant portion of his salary. Some other Royals might have a bit of value, but not enough to be helpful to the Royals other than as a salary dump: Kyle Farnsworth, Willie Bloomquist, and Captain 92%.

The Royals do have some players that they should move in expectation of getting something helpful back. Brian Bannister is 29, his recent performances don’t inspire confidence, and by the time 2012 comes around he won’t be worth his likely arbitration award, but he’s still under team control, and might be a useful #4 starter somewhere else. David DeJesus, one of the more underrated players in baseball, has significantly more value. He plays good defense on the outfield corners, can probably still play passably in center, and is having the best offensive season of his career. He has a very club-friendly contract ($4.7 million in 2010, with a $6 million club option for 2011, a bargain for a 3-win player). While he can help a team now, and the Royals don’t need to be (re-)signing any 30+ players for their next contender. He won’t bring back a future star, but he could bring back another (young and cost-controlled) David DeJesus-type: an above-average regular. The longer they wait, the less they will get back.

One intriguing piece is closer Joakim Soria, who has a club-friendly contract through 2011 with club options for 2012-2014. It is a good deal for the team, but relievers are rarely worth more than two wins a season, and the Royals should be at least check if they can get more value for him on the market for the 2012-and-after seasons.

There is something special on the roster. As I wrote above, the “2012” scenario is exceedingly optimistic, but it remains in the minds of many fans because it is the last season of Zack Greinke’s current contract. Greinke has been up and down this season, but his 5-win 2008 and 9-win 2009 are still relevant. Unless the Royals can realistically contend in 2012, the club needs to be open to trading Greinke. They have time to be picky (and don’t have to trade him this season), but the sooner they move him, the more they can get for him. Even if one thinks he is “only” a five-win pitcher, he’s being paid like a sub-3 win pitcher for the remainder of his contract, and that value could bring back an impressive haul.

Now, if even 2013 seems unrealistic for contention, then all bets are off. If that is the case, the Royals don’t have to trade the following players, but the team should be open to seeing what value they can bring back: Alberto Callaspo (for sure), Chris Iannet– I mean Alex Gordon (still potentially good, despite the organization’s efforts to scapegoat, bury, and devalue him), and Billy Butler (unless they can extend him to an Adam Lind-type contract).

On the Farm

Prior to the season, Beyond the Box Score’s aggregate farm system rankings had the Royals at #6, and since then Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer have actually started to live up to their draft status, and the pitching continues to impress. That being said, it must be kept in mind that other than raking 26-year-old “prospects” Alex Gordon and (maybe) Kila Ka’aihue in AAA (being blocked by all that super talent on the big club), none of the impact prospects are above AA, which is why the 2012 scenario is so unlikely.

Budget

Say what you want about Dayton Moore (and I have), but along with putting together a good farm system, he has also done well in convincing ownership to increase the budget significantly (which is the main reason the farm system has improved). The Royals’ major league payroll is currently around $75 million dollars and probably won’t go much higher in the near future. While Guillen, Ankiel, Willie Bloomquist, and Kyle Farnsworth will be coming off the books after the season, the Royals have a number of players due for arbitration raises such as Gordon, Butler, Callaspo, Bannister, as well as contractual raises for players like Greinke and Soria, so there won’t be much money as one might think for Dayton Moore to make his typically shrewd free agent signings.*

* Props to Dan Szymborski.

Max Scherzer’s four starts since returning from Toledo have been quite good. Although he has given up a number of runs, he is striking out lots of batters while not giving up a huge number of walks — a recipe for success. Here are his numbers broken down before and after his time in AAA.

Before:
8 starts, 42 innings, 26 Ks (5.6 per 9), 16 BB (3.4 per 9), 9 HRs, 5.89 FIP

After:
4 starts, 24 innings, 33 Ks (12.4 per 9), 10 BB (3.8 per 9), 3 HRs, 3.33 FIP

Scherzer claims to have made some mechanical adjusments in AAA and the results bear this out, as he is throwing his fastball a solid two mph faster (91.8 mph before heading down, 93.9 since). His change is 1.5 mph faster and his slider is the same speed. One would think that given this jump in fastball speed Scherzer’s increased strikeouts would be the result of more swinging strikes against the fastball. Interestingly, this is not really the case.

Swinging Strike Rate
          Before   After
Fastball  0.053   0.057
Change    0.113   0.191
Slider    0.140   0.229

Breaking and off-speed picthes almost always have a much higher swinging-strike rate than fastball, so that should not be a big surprise. But I am surprsied that Scherzer’s recent jump in strikeouts is largely the result of an increase in swinging strikes on his breaking and off-speed pitches rather than his fastball. I am sure that the work he did on his mechanics improved his slider and change, but it is also possible that the increased swinging-strike rate on those pitches is due to the increase in speed of his fastball. The effect one pitch has on subsequent pitches in an at-bat is complicated, interesting, and not well understood, but Scherzer may offer an interesting case study in which the results from an improvement to one pitch type (increased fastball speed) is seen in other pitch types (change and slider swinging-strike rate).

To start the 2009 season the A’s made a somewhat surprising move by bringing both Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill north to Oakland to start the season. Since they were not only the team’s top two prospects, but also Baseball America Nos. 7 and 11 prospects made this something less than shocking, but both had under 40 innings of experience above A ball. Since the A’s stood little chance of contending, though, they thought it prudent to get their best guys some major league experience. The move worked out in many ways.

While Anderson went on to have a very good year, certainly worth Rookie of the Year consideration, Cahill stumbled a bit. While he did induce groundballs at a decent clip, one of his signatures in the minors, he just couldn’t get major leaguers to swing and miss. Or, specifically, he couldn’t get them to swing and miss with two strikes. He and Brett Anderson shared a 7.4 percent swinging strike rate, which ranked in the bottom third of the league among qualified starters. Yet Anderson struck out 7.70 per nine while Cahill managed just 4.53.

After the season David Golebiewski broke down Cahill’s first experience. While it was written with a fantasy bent, it was an excellent overall look at Cahill’s performance vs. his potential. While David makes a number of good points, I took away three main points:

1) Cahill abandoned his breaking pitches, throwing his curveball 3.4 percent of the time and his slider 6.7 percent.

2) Lefties absolutely murdered him, a .286/.361/.558 line.

3) He feel behind batters more often than the average MLB pitcher.

Those are, of course, in addition to his low strikeout and high home run totals. These concerns were enough, apparently, for the A’s to start him in AAA this season. After two starts they called him up to the bigs, though it looked like he might succumb to the same issues. In five innings against Toronto he allowed eight runs, six earned, against Toronto while allowing three home runs and striking out the same number. A month and a half later, that seems like a blip on the radar. Cahill has been excellent ever since, posting a 3.32 ERA on the season. That’s a bit better than his peripherals, though we have seen some improvement there, too.

Strikeouts have been on the rise for Cahill. He’s had a few low-strikeout affairs — one in 5.2 innings against Texas and two in seven innings against Los Angeles — but he’s also had a few high-K games, including six in six innings against Minnesota and, last night, five in 5.2 innings against Chicago (NL). His current mark is 5.14 per nine, and while that doesn’t remotely approach his minor league rate it is certainly an improvement over last year. It appears to come from pitch selection, as his swinging strike rate, 7.2 percent, is actually lower than last year.

He has also increased his groundball rate, getting it up to 52.5 percent. In fact, in every game since that first one against Toronto he’s induced more groundballs than fly balls, which certainly plays to his strengths. The added groundballs have come at the expense of both fly balls and line drives, which have helped his BABIP and his home run rate. Further helping his home run rate is a decrease in his HR/FB ratio, down to 10.3 percent this year from 13.2 percent last year. That makes for a happy tERA, 4.25, down from 5.39 last year.

Another excellent note on his groundballs: he gets them more often with men on base than with the bases empty. That prevents extra base hits, which in turn prevents runners from scoring. They seem to be poorly struck grounders, too, as his BABIP with men on base is just .214.

Lefties? Not a problem. In fact, he’s pitched better against lefties this season than he has righties. His BA and OBP against numbers are identical against batters of both handedness, but his SLG against lefties, .336, is considerably lower than his SLG against righties, .367. He’s striking out 6.23 lefties per nine innings, and has allowed just two of the 125 he has faced to take him deep despite surrendering more fly balls to them. We’re still in small sample country, so there’s a chance that lefties will catch up to him. For now, though, he’s clearly getting the job done.

Finally, we see that he has altered his pitch selection. In its pre-2009 scouting report of Cahill, Baseball America remarked that, “He backs up his fastballs with a nasty 79-81 mph knuckle-curve, a swing-and-miss pitch with hard downward movement.” They also praised his slider. Yet, as we saw, Cahill did not employ them much in 2009, opting to use his two-seamer, four-seamer, and changeup almost equally. We’ve seen quite a shift in that regard this year. He is now relying more heavily on the two-seamer, throwing it 46.4 percent of the time. Hence all the groundballs. He’s taken a step back with the four-seamer and changeup, and has started throwing that nasty knuckle-curve more often, 12.4 percent of the time. It hasn’t quite worked as an out pitch so far — its weighted value is -0.7, compared to his slider, which he throws far less frequently, at 0.6. But in time I suspect that his increased curve usage will pay off.

To this point in 2009 Cahill has certainly impressed. This article might have been a bit more timely after his previous start, when he downright dominated Los Angeles for eight innings. Last night against Chicago he allowed four runs in 5.2 innings, though his peripherals looked a bit better than that. He still has some kinks to work out — he’s still throwing first pitch strikes at a below league-average rate — but he has still shown tremendous improvement in his sophomore campaign. The kid just turned 22 and could continue along a growth path and justify that No. 11 prospect status. The A’s are starting to see that this season.