We’ve added new PitchFx charts to our game charts. They’re pitch location charts vs right and left handed batters from the catcher’s point of view. These are modeled after much of Dave Allen’s work:

One attribute prevalent throughout coaching ranks in all professional leagues is a degree of loyalty to certain players. Sometimes the manager or coach sees a little of themselves in the player and they keep him around as a service to their lost youth. Other times it’s as simple as sharing common interests*. We’re unable to quantify exactly what that loyalty means to the team dynamic or the players individually. One probable result: the players don’t like it when horrible players are given more playing time because of said loyalty, especially on good teams.

Yet, that’s just what’s happening in St. Louis with Tony La Russa and members of his previous rosters.

Aaron Miles is already back; and for some reason, actually playing. Miles will soon be joined by former teammate Jeff Suppan who was released by the Milwaukee Brewers days ago. Suppan is best known as a sunk cost finally purged from the Brewers roster after making only two starts for them this season. The most steadfast and hopeful Cardinal supporters will point to Suppan’s success under Dave Duncan nearly half a decade ago. The reality is, though, that Suppan wasn’t all too different of a pitcher then than he was in Milwaukee:

MIL: 97 GS, 577 IP, 4.7 SO/9, 3.4 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9, ~5.00 FIP
STL: 95 GS, 572.1 IP, 5.2 SO/9, 3.1 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9, ~4.70 FIP

Yes, Suppan’s FIP and xFIP look improved this season relative to last, but again, he’s spent 90% of his appearances in relief, so of course the numbers should be improved. Suppan managed to tally 31 innings with the Brewers despite a 7.84 ERA. He’s not that bad. He may just be a replacement level starter in his career. That’s relevant because the Cardinals already have one of those in P.J. Walters, whom Suppan will likely replace. Frankly, Walters probably has more upside than Suppan, just as Tyler Greene has more upside than the aforementioned Miles.

This swap looks like a lateral move that’s only being made because Suppan has a history with Duncan and La Russa. If this were, say, Ian Snell, would the Cardinals have hopped on him? The Cardinals needed some rotation help heading into Thursday and it appears the same will hold true come Friday.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres won their 35th game of the season this afternoon and pulled within a half game of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West Division lead. A big part of their success this season has been young starter Mat Latos, and Latos had another fantastic start today, striking out eight batters and only allowing two runs in the 4-2 victory.

Latos didn’t induce quite as many whiffs as he normally does in this start. In 97 pitches today, Latos drew seven swinging strikes. That 7.2% mark is 2.7 points below his mark for the season. Latos made up for it by spotting his pitches excellently, particularly on his strikeout pitches. Take a look at this pitch location graph from Brooks Baseball.

Click to enlarge

The black squares denote strikeout pitches. Latos “painted the black” on four of the eight strikeouts, and was towards the edge of the zone on two more. His location was excellent, which likely allowed him to keep eight of the nine balls hit in the air in the park. He did allow his 9th home run of the season, but the Padres offense was able to scrape together enough runs to win the game, despite four double plays.

The slider has been the big out pitch for Latos this season, with a +8.3 pitch type value and nearly +3 per 100 thrown, a fantastic mark. It was excellent once again, as he drew four swinging strikes and had a pitch type value of +1.3 with only 34 sliders thrown.

Latos entered this start with a 3.89 FIP, 3.79 xFIP, and 3.07 tERA, slightly outperforming his CHONE and ZiPS projections entering the year. Given his stuff – a 92-95 fastball and the hard slider – its unsurprising that the 22 year old has taken a step forward this season. ZiPS still projects him at a roughly 4.00 FIP, but in PETCO Park there’s a good chance that Latos can maintain the sub-3.50 ERA he brought into today’s game. The Padres have to love what they’ve seen from him so far this year, and he figures to be a big part of any potential playoff run this season.

On Monday, the Los Angeles Dodgers used their first round selection on Zach Lee, a right-handed high school pitcher. For an organization that has drafted and developed Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley, this wouldn’t appear to be an odd decision, but Lee comes with a pretty big asterisk – the perception of the strong commitment to college of any player in the draft.

Lee, a two-sport star, is signed on to attend Louisiana State University to play quarterback, and he’s one of Les Miles’ top football recruits. After the selection, Miles saw fit to release a statement to dissuade fear among his team’s fans, saying:

“Zach wants to come to LSU, get a degree and play football and baseball for the Tigers. I met with Zach and his parents today and I think that they are looking at LSU as a great opportunity both academically and athletically. Zach is an outstanding student and he’s excited about the college experience.”

Before the draft, rumors were swirling that Lee had put his price tag to sign at over $6 million, a figure generally reserved for the top two or three prospects in a draft. While Lee is seen as a good pitching prospect, no one thought of him as a potential top-three pick, and no one was lining up to pay the kid six million dollars.

The Dodgers can deny it all they want, and they can even prove us wrong if they get him under contract before the mid-August deadline, but everyone strongly suspects that the Dodgers took Lee knowing that they wouldn’t be able to sign him. If Lee goes to LSU, the Dodgers will simply get the 29th pick in the 2011 draft as compensation, one widely seen as much better and deeper than the pool of players they were selecting from on Monday.

In essence, the Dodgers traded their first round pick this year – a year in which they’re under significant financial constraints given their ownership situation – for an equivalent or better selection in a year from now. Because trading picks in baseball is not allowed, they simply used Lee as the pawn to get around the rules, much like the Reds did with Jeremy Sowers back in 2001.

For some, this situation will support a rule change to allow the trading of draft picks, where teams like the Dodgers could trade down or out of drafts if they so chose. For me, though, this simply represents another reason to abolish the draft entirely. Marc suggests that we move to two drafts – I counter that we shouldn’t have any at all.

There are better ways to disperse talent among teams. I laid out my thoughts for such a plan last year, and won’t rehash all the details, but I think the Zach Lee situation gives us yet another reason to doubt the ability of the draft to accomplish the goal of why it was instituted in the first place.

Rather than forcing teams to make sham picks to get around strange rules, or allowing talented players to end up with teams that have the resources to go over slot recommendations in later rounds, let’s just get rid of the whole system and start over. There’s a better way.

A couple of days ago, Joe Posnanski wrote a beautiful post (okay, that pretty much goes without saying) called “What Strasburg Means,” in which he condensed why we’re all so excited about Stephen Strasburg: he’s limitless potential, possessed of such laughably, wonderfully, enjoyably freakish gifts that even in our era of cynicism and media saturation, we’re all reduced to anticipation and wonder. In Joe’s words, “Stephen Strasburg is Christmas morning.” And his debut did nothing but increase our wonder and anticipation for his next start. Especially in a season in which two (three) perfect games have already been thrown, there seems nothing he plausibly couldn’t do.

For us in the stat community, maybe, he might be significant for still another reason. As occupied as we often are with challenging conventional wisdom, with seeing the unacknowledged value in a pitcher like Bert Blyleven or the overvaluing of a hitter like Ryan Howard, we rarely get to join in the exact same cheers as the rest of baseball. Stephen Strasburg isn’t overvalued or undervalued: his 100 mile-an-hour-heat is exactly as blistering as it appears to the naked eye, and his knee-buckling hook is just as devastating as Lastings Milledge thinks it is. He makes our jobs easy: for once, as stat analysts, we can say that the conventional wisdom is earth-shakingly right. The kid’s legit.

I saw his first start from the upper deck of Nationals Stadium on Tuesday. I couldn’t see just how his hammer danced, but I could see the Nationals Pirates flailing, increasingly despondent, as he pounded the strike zone again and again, brought the crowd to their feet again and again, to the point that they expected excellence — audibly sighing every time the umpire called a ball — but erupted every time he delivered yet another strikeout. I was there as the guest of my friend Alyssa Rosenberg, who wrote a report of the game for a local magazine and wanted my “sabermetric” opinion of the start, and all I could tell her was what she already knew: he was amazing.

Sometimes seeing is believing.

When the Marlins called up Mike Stanton earlier this week, the baseball world teemed with excitement. It wasn’t just Marlins fans. While they were the most excited of us, the rest of the baseball world watched intently. While Stanton has always been a highly regarded prospect, this year he developed something of a mythical lore akin to Matt Wieters and Jason Heyward. In just 190 at-bats at AA, Stanton hit 21 home runs, one every nine AB. Southern League pitchers were so afraid of him that they walked him 44 times, which is 13 more times than he walked in AA last year — in 109 more AB. By all appearances, he was ready to make his major league debut.

The Marlins would have to make a few lineup adjustments to fit in Stanton, a right fielder. They already had three outfielders. Cody Ross, an established player in his third season of full-time work, would certainly remain. The casualty, then, was between 2009 Rookie Of The Year Chris Coghlan and former top prospect Cameron Maybin. Both have been disappointing so far this season, and the Marlins would probably benefit in the short-term by using Stanton as an upgrade. The odd man out, given the numbers, seemed an obvious choice.

Coghlan started off the year horribly, but his low point came early. After an 0 for 4 day against the Phillies on April 18 his triple slash sat at .109/.146/.109. Since then he’s been much more like the Coghlan we got to know last season. In his last 185 PA he’s hitting .308/.359/.432 and has been the Marlins’ leadoff hitter.

Maybin, on the other hand, presents a nearly opposite story. After that same April 18 contest Maybin was actually as this peak, hitting .309/.377/.400. Since then he has hit .189/.252/.315 in 140 PA. When the Marlins made the decision to call up Stanton, they also made the complementary decision to remove Maybin from the starting lineup. Instead of sending him back to AAA, however, they instead moved him to the bench, optioning OF Brett Carroll. Given Maybin’s considerable talent, it seems like an odd move.

For years, dating back to his professional debut in 2006, scouts and scouting publications have loved Maybin. In their Top 10 Tigers prospects list after the 2006 season, Baseball America said, “Maybin has all the tools and, all the more impressive, those tools are well developed at his young age.” They went on to say that, “Maybin has very few shortcomings,” noting his high strikeout rate as the only factor that warranted even the slightest concern. Similarly, Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein gushed about Maybin, remarking in early 2008 that, “[w]hen it comes to tools, Maybin is Home Depot.” Later that year, after the 2008 season, Goldstein again sang Maybin’s praises. “Maybin’s raw tools rate with those of any other prospect in the game,” he said.

Yet, for all the accolades, strikeouts became a bigger problem for Maybin as he advanced levels. In his pre-season assessment of Maybin, Goldstein noted Maybin’s biggest problem area. “He understands the strike zone well enough, but needs to improve his pitch recognition, as he’s prone to chasing breaking balls out of the zone,” he said. In the postseason assessment he said something similar: “His swing has a pronounced trigger in it, which makes it difficult for him to adjust on pitches in flight, often forcing him to flail badly.” The only question, then, was the degree to which this would hold him back at the major league level. The answer, as we’ve seen this year, is considerably.

A look at Maybin’s pitch type values shows that he has trouble with non-fastballs. His positive marks come on the cutter and split-finger, while he has a slightly positive mark on the four-seamer. Sliders, curveballs, and changeups all seemingly give him fits. It’s not exactly that he’s chasing these pitches outside the zone; his O-Swing% is a bit above league average but not greatly so. Instead, he’s missing a significant number of these pitches, 53.5 percent against a 66.3 percent league average. He’s also faring relatively poorly on pitches inside the zone, making contact on just 82.9 percent of his swings against an 88.3 percent league average. This shows up in his swinging strike rate, 11.6 percent, up about a point from last year and 3.4 points above league average.

It would seem, then, that pitch recognition remains Maybin’s biggest weakness as a hitter. He won’t learn to recognize pitches while sitting on the bench, though, so again the Marlins’ decision to leave him in the majors seems an odd one. He might not see high quality breaking balls in AAA, but that would still afford him a better chance to learn than a bench role on the major league roster. The Marlins, as we’ve learned in the past few years, are a shrewd organization. Surely they have a plan here.

Michael Jong of Marlin Maniac sheds some light on the situation. This weekend the Marlins head to St. Petersburg to play the Rays, and then, after two home series, will travel to Baltimore for a final interleague matchup. That gives the Marlins six games in which they can use the DH, and therefore use all four of their outfielders. It’s possible that they’ll use the next two weeks as an evaluation of sorts. If Maybin doesn’t show improvement, then maybe he’ll head back to AAA where he can continue to work on his pitch recognition.

Plenty could change between now and the trade deadline if the Marlins don’t work their way back into contention. Given the current outlook, though, it seems like Maybin will find his ticket to AAA at the conclusion of the Baltimore series. If pitch recognition is at the center of his issues, then he’ll do better to work on that playing every day in the minors rather than a couple times a week in the bigs. The Marlins have the option, and I suspect that they’ll use it. If that fails they’ll have to draw up a new plan, but for now it seems like the future of Cameron Maybin rests on his ability to develop his pitch recognition skill.

As we learned from Moneyball, one needs to find undervalued assets when faced with a finite budget. When looking around baseball, analysts often refer to Billy Beane in Oakland and Andrew Friedman in Tampa Bay as two guys who have succeeded with a limited payroll. I’d like to add one more team to the list that always seems to get overlooked in this aspect: the Florida Marlins. For years the Marlins have stayed relatively competitive with one of the smallest payrolls in baseball, and even with a weak fanbase, have won two World Series despite being around for less than two decades. While we can go back and look at some bargains they got in the late 90’s, I think it’d be interesting to check out some of their latest grabs:

OF Cody Ross
Acquired: May 2006 trade with Cincinnati for cash/PTBNL
2007-10 WAR: 9.2

During the 2006 season, Cody Ross found his way around three National League teams, eventually finding a home in Miami, where he’s been one of the most underrated players in baseball since. For the ’06 season, Ross hit just .227/.293/.431, and although he had some pop, was considered nothing more than a fourth or fifth outfielder. He was not only twenty six years old, but was never considered a top prospect or anyone who would have an impact career. However, Ross has taken off in Florida. His best season came in 2008, where he racked up 3.7 WAR thanks to plus offense and defense in centerfield.

1B/3B Jorge Cantu
Acquired: January 2008 on a minor league contract with invite to Spring Training
2008-10 WAR: 5.4

Cantu might be the most interesting case of them all. He came up for neighboring Tampa Bay as a highly touted slugger, and after putting up a .346 wOBA in fifty games as a rookie in 2004, smacked 28 homers the following year. However, after a dramatic decline from 2006-2007, he found himself without a home going into the 2008 season. The Marlins gave him a chance, and he’s been a staple of their batting order ever since.

2B Dan Uggla
Acquired: December 2005 from the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Rule V Draft
2006-10 WAR: 16

This story is definitely the most well-known. Uggla was seen as a career minor leaguer by most teams, including his own, which meant he wasn’t protected by the D’Backs during the Rule V draft leading up to the ’06 season. Despite hitting extremely well in Double-A in 2005, he never earned a promotion even to Triple-A, and as a twenty five year-old was just seen as another guy who mashed minor league pitching but couldn’t handle the big leagues. The All-Star secondbaseman has certainly made geniuses out of the Marlins front office, never having a season with less than 2.4 WAR.

C John Baker
Acquired: March 30 2007 in trade with Oakland for 1B Jason Stokes
2008-10 WAR: 3.2

Baker, who ironically was a central figure in Moneyball, was swapped back and forth between Oakland and Florida via waivers before the Marlins finally held onto him after a 2007 trade. Baker blossomed in 2008, posting a .392 OBP, an excellent number for a guy at a premium position. After a stellar year in 2009, Baker has gotten off to a slow start in 2010 thanks to injury.

C Ronny Paulino
Acquired: March 2009 in trade with San Francisco for P Hector Correa
2009-10 WAR: 2.6

Primarily a backup catcher in Florida, Paulino has stepped up ever since Baker’s injury, and after posting 1.7 WAR in 2009 despite playing less than half of a season, has been even better this year, posting a wRC+ of 110.

CL Leo Nunez
Acquired: October 2008 in trade with Kansas City for current Buffalo Bison 1B Mike Jacobs
2009-10 WAR: As Dean Wormer would say, 0.0

Although Nunez had a so-so 2009 (4.41 xFIP), his 2010 has been phenomenal thus far, as his xFIP stands at 2.90. He could be the Marlins closer for quite some time.

Those are the most notable names, but you can also look to the entire Marlins bullpen over the past few years as a ragtag of journeymen or pickups who excelled when given the chance. The Marlins may not have the biggest budget, but they know a bargain when they see it, and that’s dangerous.

A lot of you are pretty passionate about Bryce Harper’s future position. In Tuesday’s post, where I suggest that moving Harper to the outfield is in the best interests of the game, people raised the question of whether every catcher who can hit should be moved to another position to preserve their offensive abilities. Given that I’ve argued that the Twins have made the right decision to keep Joe Mauer behind the plate for now, I figured I should clarify my position on just who should catch at the big league level.

I believe that most players have, at any given time, a natural position that is the best fit for their overall skillset. Long striders who can cover ground and throw should play center fielder, where their physical abilities can be maximized. Stocky left-handed throwers with limited speed should play first base. None of this is revolutionary. Players should be, and usually are, put at positions where their strengths are magnified and their weaknesses hidden.

Using Mauer as an example, his physical skills include below average speed, a rocket arm, and good footwork. Additionally, he’s generally given off-the-charts reviews for his leadership abilities and communication skills. Regardless of how much offensive ability Mauer had, those abilities profile perfectly behind the plate. It is not just the position where he has the most offensive value, but the position where his defensive abilities are maximized as well. It’s a natural fit for his skills. He should be a catcher, not just because his bat makes him a rare commodity, but because his defensive profile fits the position.

It’s not always so cut and dry, of course. Take Jayson Werth, for example. Coming up through Baltimore’s farm system, he offered potential as an offensive minded catcher with a bat that would have been well above average for the position. However, he was not very good behind the plate, as his footwork left a lot to be desired. At best, he would have been below average defensively as a catcher. His athleticism, however, plays very well in the outfield, where he’s become one of the better defensive corner guys in the game. He has the physical skillset of an outfielder, and the Blue Jays made the right decision to move him out from behind the plate in 2003.

Harper is much more Werth than Mauer as an athlete. He runs well and has the abilities to become a plus defensive corner outfielder. He would need a lot of work to be even average behind the plate, and the time and effort required for him to get to that level would take away from the development of the rest of his game. Like Werth, Harper has a chance to be an asset defensively in the outfield, while few project him to be anything more than a liability behind the plate. The difference in defensive performance could easily make up for the scarcity issue, and that’s without getting into the benefit that his offense would receive from not catching.

I am not arguing that every single good hitting catcher should be moved. Mauer belongs behind the plate (for now). Brian McCann is playing the correct position for his skills. Matt Wieters should stay behind the plate, as should Kurt Suzuki. Bryce Harper, though, profiles better in the outfield.

Previous: Washington Nationals

Overview

The Astros are currently in last place in a weak NL Central and are tied with the Arizona Dimaondbacks for the worst record in the National League. It seems like the obvious play for this terrible Houston team would be to sell, but one never knows with the combination of GM Ed Wade and owner Drayton McLane, who have been known to buy in hopeless situations. At 10 games back of both St. Louis and Cincinnati, this year’s situation would certainly qualify as hopeless.

Buy Or Sell?

As mentioned above, “sell” is the obvious choice for Wade and McLane. The real question is if they can find a buyer willing to give decent value for the players that they can sell. Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman have already requested trades. Other players that could help teams down the stretch include Michael Bourn, Brett Myers, and Wandy Rodriguz. It’s not likely that either Bourn nor Rodriguez will be traded as they are still under team control for two and one more years respectively, but Myers is only on a one year deal and has performed excellently so far both in terms of results and peripherals (3.01 ERA, 3.50 FIP, 3.81 xFIP).

Oswalt and Berkman, as the best players involved, are naturally the most interesting to watch in this situation. Oswalt is due $18 million between his 2011 salary and 2012 buyout, which severely reduces his value. The Astros would likely have to eat a good deal of salary in order to land a decent prospect. Berkman is in the last year of his contract, but there is a club option for $15 million and, given his no-trade clause, may request that this option is picked up before approving a trade, leaving the Astros in the same situation that they have with Oswalt.

Regardless, the Astros need to get some value out of those contracts, and that won’t happen with the two players languishing on a roster that only includes five position players and ten pitchers above replacement level. Myers and Oswalt have both been excellent, as has Felipe Paulino, even though he hasn’t been getting support from his team. Rodriguez has been good but his 4.00 FIP isn’t as good as he’s been in recent years. Bud Norris is a solid youngster who rounds out the rotation and figures to be part of the Astros rebuilding process.

Out of the bullpen, Matt Lindstrom has pitched well. After that, Brandon Lyon has not been nearly good enough to justify his three year, $15 million contract, and the only other above replacement relievers have been Wilton Lopez and Gustavo Chacin.

The Astros could use upgrades at every position. Humberto Quintero has been serviceable at catcher but is already 30 years old. Another 30 year old, Jeff Keppinger isn’t much of a glove at 2B and is projected to be below average at the plate for the rest of the season by ZiPS. Tommy Manzella might be the worst player in professional baseball at SS, and Pedro Feliz seems to have completely lost his bat at 3B.

On The Farm

The Astros farm system was ranked 27th by Beyond the Box Score’s system of aggregating rankings from around baseball. Their top three prospects are catcher Jason Castro, shortstop Jiovanni Mier, and pitcher Jorday Lyles. A team can never have too many of either of those three positions, so the Astros can use any player at any level at any position. Their biggest need would be at the higher minors, though, as they did manage to pickup five picks in the first three rounds in this year’s draft.

Budget

Drayton McLane has always been willing to buy, so maybe we shouldn’t read too much into the fact that the Astros opening day payroll was $10 million dollars less than it was in 2009. Still, shedding payroll should be a priority for the Astros, and the easiest way to do that would be to get out from under the contracts of Berkman and Oswalt.

For most of his major league career, Jose Valverde has relied upon pure, unadulterated power to close out games. Delivering sizzling fastballs from a calm, unhurried motion that contrasts with the wild leaping and fist pumps that follow the recording of the final out, Valverde has punched out 10.7 batters per nine innings, issuing 3.62 BB/9 and posting a 3.48 xFIP in the bigs.

The former Diamondback and Astro inked a two-year, $14 million contract with the Detroit Tigers this past winter, with a $9 million club option for the 2012 season. Papa Grande hasn’t been scored upon since April 7th, a stretch of 23 appearances. Clearly, Valverde has been the beneficiary of good fortune — he’s got a 0.37 ERA, due in large part to a Houdini-like .136 BABIP, a 96.6 percent rate of stranding base runners and a 7.7 home run per fly ball rate. For comparison, Valverde’s got a career .280 BABIP, a 79.3 left on base rate and a 10.4 home run per fly ball rate. But his xFIP, 3.59, is right in line with his previous work. Same old Valverde, right?

Not really. In the past, the 6-4, 250 pound righty has been all about the fastball. He threw his heater in excess of 80 percent in 2005 and 2006, and used the pitch more than three-quarters of the time over the 2007-2008 seasons. However, there’s a clear change in Valverde’s pitching approach as of late:

(note: his Pitch F/X numbers don’t show the same changes in pitch usage. However, given that the pitches Pitch F/X classifies as fastballs have decreased several MPH this season, with a sharp decrease in vertical movement, I’m inclined to believe the system is lumping a lot of splitters in with the fastballs.)

After gradually decreasing his fastball usage in favor of a mid-80’s splitter over the past few seasons, Valverde’s percentage of heaters thrown has fallen sharply in 2010. He’s now tossing his fastball a little over half the time, going to his tumbling off-speed pitch over 44 percent. Valverde’s fastball sat at 93-94 MPH when he was airing it out with great frequency, but the pitch has parked at 95-96 MPH more recently.

The result of Valverde’s shift in pitching philosophy? Far more contact and ground balls than in years past. This season, opponents are putting the bat on the ball against the 32-year-old stopper 79.1 percent of the time, compared to a career 70.1 percent average. Valverde’s swinging strike rate, 14.4 percent during his career, is just 7.9 percent in 2010. His walk rate (3.7 BB/9) is basically unchanged, but his 6.66 K/9 is by far the lowest mark of his big league tenure.

While he’s not missing bats, Valverde has become an extreme ground ball pitcher. With a 68.3 GB%, Valverde trails only San Diego’s Ryan Webb and Atlanta’s side-arming Aussie, Peter Moylan, among qualified relievers. That’s quite the contrast to his career rate of grounders, 39 percent.

Amazing luck aside, Jose Valverde’s results are right in line with his previous work. But the process behind those results has been drastically different. Rather than employing a fastball-centric, high K strategy rarely involving infielders, Valverde is going off-speed often and burning worms like few others.