Quick answer: sort of.

In 2008, Ervin Santana had a fantastic season. He struck out nearly a batter per inning and walked fewer than two per nine. He sustained this performance for a remarkable 219 innings, amassing 5.8 wins in the process, with his FIP, xFIP, and ERA all under 3.55.

Last year was not so kind, as he was worse in every facet of the game. The major culprit behind this descent was a nearly two MPH drop in fastball velocity, from 94.4 to 92.2. In 2007, as well, Santana posted a 92.2 average fastball velocity and struggled mightily. In both 2007 and 2009, Santana posted FIPs above 5.00 and xFIPs above 4.60.

Santana’s results have been fantastic so far, as he has a 3.29 ERA in 82 innings. His peripheral numbers are improved as well. Strikeouts are up, walks and home runs are down. However, neither of these numbers are at the point at which we would expect such a low ERA; his FIP is 4.36 and his xFIP only slightly better at 4.19.

The fastball velocity which Santana showed in 2008 simply isn’t back. Santana’s fastballs in 2010 have averaged 92.7 MPH, still nearly 2 MPH below their 2008 mark. It appears that he is making up for this lack of velocity with deception. Batters are swinging at far more pitches outside of the zone (30.2% vs. 25.8%) and far fewer pitches inside it (57.9% vs. 64.4%). Naturally, hitters’ contact percentage is far worse outside of the zone, and so Santana is drawing slightly more swings and misses. Presumably, these pitches chased out of the zone, which are still contacted just over half the time, are not hit as well as those in the zone, which could also be contributing to Santana’s success, particularly with regards to his decreased home run rate.

He’s still not drawing ground balls, and so he will be limited by a prevalence for the home run ball going forward. Still, even if his ERA reverts to the levels that his advanced metrics would suggest, he will be a productive, average or slightly above starting pitcher. Santana will likely never be the pitcher that he was in 2008 without that upper tier velocity, but he’s showing this season that he can still be effective without it.

Tonight’s main event is of the “no-brainer” variety.

In other words, you can watch it even if you don’t have a brain.

Florida at Philadelphia | Wednesay, June 09 | 7:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Marlins: Josh Johnson (NERD: 10)
77.0 IP, 9.00 K/9, 2.81 BB/9, .286 BABIP, 48.5% GB, 4.8% HR/FB, 3.25 xFIP

Phils: Roy Halladay (NERD: 10)
93.0 IP, 7.45 K/9, 1.26 BB/9, .302 BABIP, 53.4% GB, 4.3% HR/FB, 2.93 xFIP

First, It Needs to Be Said
The NERD scores you see above are slightly different than the ones I introduced to the wide readership last week. One of the biggest flaws of NERD 1.0 was the total absence of velocity as a component. In NERD 1.1 — or whatever’s the nerdiest possible name for it — I’ve added the absolute value of each pitcher’s z-score (i.e. standard deviations from the mean) for velocity. That gives a bump not only to Ubaldo Jimenez (+2.23) and Justin Verlander (+1.95), but also to Tim Wakefield (+6.10) and Jamie Moyer (+3.30). I’ll submit a recalculation, probably with some other improvements, as soon as sloth allows.

Second, It Also Needs to Be Said
There are only five pitchers (out of about 160) with perfect NERD scores at the moment: Cliff Lee, Dan Haren, Francisco Liriano, and the two guys pitching tonight. Actually, go ahead and add Stephen Strasburg to that list, just for Esses and Gees. Still, that’s not too many.

Watch For
• Roy Halladay’s Command. Is there a difference between command and control? I’m not convinced — although I’m willing to be. In any case, if there is a difference, my bet is that Halladay is likely an object lesson in such a thing. It’s not just that Halladay doesn’t walk guys — Doug Fister has about the same BB/9 — it’s that he owns the strike zone.
• Josh Johnson’s Fastball. Johnson has the fourth-fastest average fastball velocity among qualified starters. Not until I engaged upon this absurd experiment — i.e. NERD and its attendant concerns — have I truly realized how thrilling velocity is to behold. And it’s some combination of velocity and placement that gives Johnson’s fastball a 9.2% whiff rate on the season — compared to a 7% or so whiff rate across all major leaguers on same pitch.
• Mike Stanton, Part Deux. The 20-year-old outfielder made his debut for Florida yesterday. Here’s his line from Double-A Jacksonville: .311/.441/.726. So, uh, that happened.

If I Had My Druthers
• Hallday would throw his cutter to lefties a whole bunch. Halladay can throw said pitch right at the back foot of a lefty batter. Like, he threw two of them to Chase Headley in the the third inning of his last start. Headley swung and missed at both. Voila:

Yesterday, Joe Pawlikowski noted that there seems to be an increase in the overall O-Swing% so far this season, which led to some questions about whether the strike zone was being measured consistently from season to season.

Over the course of the nine years Baseball Info Solutions has plotted pitches, there have been some not so small changes in the average O-Swing%. Over the past 3 years the numbers have been stable, but this season it seems O-Swing% is up about 3%. This can sometimes make raw O-Swing% a difficult stat to match up to year to year because the baselines can be somewhat different.

However, when looking at a player’s O-Swing% above average, there is a very strong correlation from year to year and this continues to be the case for the 2010 data. In other words, a typical player’s “plate discipline” does not end up changing that much season to season. Here are the more recent correlations for players with greater than 50 plate appearances compared to BB% or Pitches/PA.

O-Swing% Above Average / BB% / Pitches per PA
2009 – 2010 – .74 / .56 / .66
2008 – 2009 – .74 / .64 / .68
2008 – 2010 – .68 / .53 / .57

As you can see, even when compared to something as seemingly stable as Pitches/PA, O-Swing% is definitely more stable from year to year once you adjust for the baseline.

So the lesson here is that average O-Swing% is important to take into consideration. We’ll be adding O-Swing% Above Average (OSAA for short) to our repertoire of stats starting tomorrow, which will make life somewhat easier when comparing a player’s O-Swing% from season to season.

Episode Thirty-Three
In which the panel is less than perfect.

Headlines
Armando Galarraga and the Prospects of Replay
Armando Galarraga and the Aesthetics of Perfection
Improving NERD: Putting a Number on Pleasure
… and other sly tricks!

Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Matt Klaassen, Resident Philosopher

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop.

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Many pundits labeled the Rays’ selection of LeVon Washington in the 2009 draft a typical Tampa Bay pick. Athletic, fast, and with raw baseball skills, Washington hailed from a local high school and held a commitment to the University of Florida. Making the pick a bit more interesting for the conspiracy theorists was a slight hint of nepotism stemming from Washington’s shared bloodline to area legend and team employee Fred McGriff. Soon the 30th selection in the draft would be shown on the team’s local broadcast and announce his desire to quickly sign with the Rays and begin his professional baseball career.

Washington never signed with the team, though. Advisor Scott Boras and the Rays played hardball throughout the summer and (eventually) through the signing deadline. Even after Washington was ruled academically ineligible to play for the Gators he chose against signing; instead he would attend a local junior college by the name of Chipola. Meanwhile the Rays were awarded pick 30B (or in normal person land: pick 31) in the 2010 draft as compensation for failing to sign him. The move reeked of boldness from Washington’s camp since he was fresh off labrum surgery and had to bank on his ability, not only to raise his stock, but to not get injured once again.

At Chipola, Washington would bat .327/.429/.578 with eight homers, 24 walks, and 20 strikeouts. Keith Law and Baseball America alike ranked Washington in the 60s heading into the draft and earlier today the Cleveland Indians popped him with pick number 55. That Washington nearly doubled his pick number brought a smirk and knowing chuckle from those who felt he overplayed his hand by passing on the Rays’ offer, a reported $1.1 million. Yet, Jon Heyman reported (and later rescinded to an extent) that Washington and the Indians were nearing an agreement worth $1.55 million.

It would appear that Washington and Boras made the correct decision from a raw dollars perspective, but of course, things are rarely that simple. Using the time value of money formula and estimating a 10% interest rate (for simplicity’s sake), Washington could’ve placed the entirety of that $1.1 million into a bank last year and have it be worth $1.21 million today. The flip side is that Washington’s new deal necessitated a signing value of at least $1.41 million last year to equal the amount he may receive soon. That he gained $340 thousand likely constitutes a victory in the Washington household.

There is at least one drawback though and that is with Washington’s free agency eligibility. Since Washington missed a matter of months in development time rather than years – as he would if he were a member of the Gators right now – there’s probably not too much concern about a delay in free agency qualifying. And why should there be? He’s not even guaranteed an appearance in the show. Forget trying to guarantee a full season worth of playing time and don’t even think about six years of service time in the majors. That’s something that won’t be a factor for at least seven years and given the bust rate of even the best prep and collegiate draftees, it likely won’t ever come into play here.

This analysis can get a whole lot more intricate by examining and implementing other factors. Like say, tuition and insurance costs or potential tax ramifications. Surely Boras and Washington’s family went through those and found this a worthwhile risk 10 months ago, and you know what? They look right if this proposed deal goes down.

As for the Rays, they used that 31st pick on a prep catcher from Indiana named Justin O’Conner. Who knows how he’ll turn out; still, the early word is he’s going to sign relatively quickly which would be a welcomed sight following last year’s debacle when the team failed to sign its first and second round selections.

(Note: Jonathan Mayo has since posted an outright refusal from the Indians on the proximity of a deal, writing that the Indians say they haven’t even contacted Washington.)

Around baseball, and sabermetric circles in particular, Nyjer Morgan is best known for his stellar defense. However, because of his incredible speed, he’s also known for his ability to steal bases. After stealing a whopping 42 bases between Pittsburgh and Washington last season, Morgan’s name would be a priority among fantasy circles for those elusive steals. He has 12 steals in 56 games this season, which would put him on a pace for a mid-30s total, which could see an increase if his OBP can rebound up to the .351 mark he posted last year.

However, Morgan has also already been caught stealing a league leading nine times, and picked off another four. That makes 13 total outs on the bases against only 12 advancements. Ten of the steals and all of the caught stealings have came at second, and the other two steals have came at third.

Overall, this is simply terrible production from a player who is supposed to be a major asset on the bases. According to EQSBR, Baseball Prospectus’s statistic for measuring runs created from steals, Morgan has been the worst runner on the Nationals and the second worst to the Padres Nick Hundley, who hasn’t successfully stolen a base yet and has made five outs on the bases.

Obviously, Nyjer Morgan is a much better base stealer than Hundley and likely most of the league. However, somebody who is going to be caught stealing or picked off on 13 of their 25 opportunities should not be running 25 times. Either Morgan has been very unlucky, or he’s picking poor spots to run. He also appears to have a serious problem with pickoffs, as he was picked off a whopping nine times in 2009, making his 42:17 SB:CS ratio much less impressive.

This doubly hurts the Nationals, as Morgan is fantastic at taking the extra base. This season, he’s been worth roughly +.6 runs on the non-SB components of EQBRR, BPro’s overarching baserunning metric. Last season, he was roughly +2.5 runs.

Morgan’s excellent speed is not debatable, but right now he’s not using it optimally on the bases. If he can’t find a way to be more successful in his steal attempts, he and the Nationals must reduce his number of attempts. If they don’t, and Morgan keeps running into outs, it will simply be a waste of a large asset on offense.

Yesterday, I suggested that the Nationals were making the right decision for Bryce Harper’s career by putting him in the outfield. The most popular response to that assertion was that the Nationals shouldn’t care about Bryce Harper’s career, only the first six years of club control that they are guaranteed under the CBA. I find this sentiment confusing, honestly, especially considering the crowd that it comes from.

10 or 15 years ago, one of the big arguments from the sabermetric community was that managers were abusing young pitchers, making them throw so many pitches at a young age that their arms would almost certainly fall off. People like Dusty Baker and Dallas Green were vilified for their handling of their pitching staffs, and baseball reacted to the criticism of short term thinking.

From 1990 to 1999, a pitcher was allowed to throw 151+ pitches in a game on 35 different occasions. From 2000 on, it has not happened once – Livan Herandez’s 150 pitch outing is the most any pitcher has thrown in the last decade. The sabermetric community saw what it perceived to be short-sighted thinking, publicized the issue, and the game reacted.

Now, however, it seems like the statistically inclined are on the other side of the fence. Rather than asking baseball teams to be good stewards of a player’s career, the popular refrain is to extract as much value from the first six years of a player’s career as possible with no regard for his long term future.

I find that strange. Putting aside the fact that most elite players re-sign with their original teams for years beyond their first six, making it an act of self-interest to preserve a player’s value beyond his initial term, I believe that teams have a responsibility to look out for the long term well being of players on their team, regardless of whether they’ll be lifetime members of the organization or not. If not just for ethical reasons, then for the good of the game.

I see very little difference from the argument about the first six years of service time compared to how college coaches have traditionally treated pitchers in their care. It is no secret that many universities have put extraordinary pressures on young arms in pursuit of league championships – most notably, the deicision to let Texas RHP Austin Wood throw 169 pitches last year out of the bullpen, after he threw 30 pitches in relief the day before.

There was outrage about that misuse of a young player, and rightfully so, but Augie Garrido’s reasoning is the same as those who argue that a team should only focus on a player’s first six years – why care about the value that he may produce for some other team at the expense of my own benefit?

It’s this kind of short-sighted thinking that has led many players to avoid college baseball, unfortunately. College baseball itself has been hurt by these short term decisions, and I’d argue that the same would be true if Major League teams adopted this “get mine and get out” philosophy. It’s good for baseball that Bryce Harper becomes a superstar who enjoys a long career, and anything that is good for baseball is also good for the Washington Nationals.

Mike Rizzo should be commended for taking a big picture view of the situation, and I am left to wonder why a community that used to fight for the proper treatment of players has now seemingly switched sides.

Today, instead of telling a story using numbers, I’ll let the numbers do all the storytelling. I think in this case that they have something to say. The table below comes from Jamie Moyer’s plate discipline stats. While I am interested in Moyer in general, it’s not his stats here that jumped out at me. Instead it’s the major league averages, which appear in the orange-colored rows.

Click for larger size

The first two columns certainly stand out. While overall swing percentage isn’t too far off from previous years, both O-Swing% and Z-Swing% have moved moved a bit. This year hitters are swinging at 28 percent of pitches outside the zone, a nearly three point jump from 2009. The number does move around a bit, dipping as low as 16.6 percent in 2004. On the other side, hitters are swinging at fewer pitches inside the zone as last year, 63.8 percent against 66 percent from last year. That number appears to increase to some degree all the way back to 2002. We’re also seeing much more contact on pitches outside the zone.

I’m obviously wondering why we’re seeing this discrepancy. Why are hitters swinging at pitches outside the zone more frequently than in the past? This seems like a good question to crowdsource. I’ll present a couple of ideas, and you guys can build on them. It’s certainly something I’d like to hear more about.

1, This is just an early season thing. They say hitters get better as the weather warms. Maybe that has as much to do with them getting into a groove — hitters are getting closer to the 250 PA mark — as it does the weather.

2. It’s just part of the natural cycles of the game. Hitters were more patient earlier in the decade. Maybe now they’re starting to be more aggressive.

3. Related to No. 2, and perhaps a bit to No. 4, pitchers are exploiting a weakness and are making hitters chase more.

4. Pitchers are just hurling nastier stuff. Hitters are having a hard time adjusting to tougher breaking and off-speed pitches. I’m not sure how you could go about proving this one, so it’s probably an afterthought, if that.

5. The criteria for pitches inside and outside the zone has changed.

6. Just blame the umps.

Again, I’m not really sure if this is something that we’ll see continue all season, or if No. 1 more fully explains it. I’m also sure that there are many, many more possible reasons. I’d like to hear them, though.

With clubs set to infuse more talent into their systems this week, and with being two months into the minor league season, it’s a great time to take a quick look at how the Top 10 prospects are doing in each system. Today, we’ll wrap up the series with a look at the National League West. Previously, we looked at the AL East, the NL East, the AL Central, the NL Central, and AL West.

*The Top 10 lists originally appeared in FanGraphs’ Second Opinion fantasy guide published in March.

Castro has dominated a good-hitting, double-A league. The right-hander has produced good ground-ball numbers and has been quite consistent. Forsythe has recovered from a slow start, which was made worse by a trip to the disabled list. Darnell, Decker, and Williams have all had their struggles, while Tate continues to deal with a plethora of injuries that have stalled his career. Luebke joins Castro as a rare bright spot on this list. His season didn’t get started until May 24 due to an injury, but he’s given up just four hits in 12.1 innings.

It’s been a pretty “meh” season on the farm in the San Francisco Giants’ system. Eight players are currently treading water and really haven’t done much to move their value upwards. The exception, of course, is Posey, who finally earned a call-up to the Majors. He could have an impact on the NL West race. On the other end of the spectrum, 2009 draft pick – and fellow catcher – Joseph has struggled down in low-A ball. He’s hitting just .193 against right-handed pitching, which isn’t going to cut it if he hopes to play regularly.

Friedrich hasn’t been overly sharp this season, although he’s battled some health issues. Chacin has stepped into the MLB rotation and has looked very good. Matzek opened the season in extended spring training, but he then moved up to low-A ball and has looked quite good. Rosario recovered from a bit of a slow start and has shown some unexpected pop with seven homers in 37 games; his career high in bombs is 12. Brothers, a 2009 draft pick, has looked strong in the high-A bullpen and could be a fast mover. Wheeler’s numbers can be categorized as good, but not great.

Prospect rating is definitely not an exact science: you win some and you lose some each year. This Top 10 list was the most controversial of the 30 I did in 2009 — mainly because I preferred Martin, Lambo, and Lindblom to Withrow. Well, it looks like I swung and missed on that assessment. Lambo was hitting well before his suspension, but Lindblom really took a step back this year. If I am going to take something positive from this list, I should focus on the fact that I was the only one to rank Ely in the Top 10 out of The Big Five, which includes Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, John Sickels, and Keith Law. The organization surprised a lot of people when it jumped Gordon over high-A and moved him directly from low-A to double-A. He’s hitting for an OK average, although his OPS is just .658. Webster and Miller are very exciting young arms.

The top of the list is hurting a bit with Parker still not back from Tommy John surgery and Allen looking for his offense at triple-A. The club is reaping the benefits from a very strong ’09 draft with good performances from Borchering, Belfiore, Owings, Krauss, and especially Davidson. Earlier in the year, the latter player was hitting very well but not taking many walks; he made an adjustment and has walked 11 times in his last 10 games. (He has a total of 18 walks in 54 games). Fellow ’09 draftee Pollock, who was actually the club’s second pick (17th overall, one pick after Borchering), is out for the year with an injury. Gillespie and Cowgill look like they could help out at the MLB level as future fourth outfielders.

The answer is Triple-A Pawtucket. The question is why. The Red Sox have a very interesting reliever on their hands in Robert Manuel, who is still in the minor leagues despite being past the point of being called a “prospect.” This off-season, upon the Sox picking up Manuel off of waivers, I wrote about my general enthusiasm for the move:

Is Manuel the next coming of Papelbon? No. His stuff probably isn’t good enough to make him a lights out force out of the pen in the big leagues. However, as long as he’s able to get strikeouts and avoid walks, Sox fans should be wary to overlook this guy, and instead be anxious to give Theo a nice pat on the back for this one. He deserves it.

I’m starting to take my hand off of Theo’s back pretty quickly. Manuel, a 26-year-old, 6’3″ right-hander who throws a fastball, slider, and changeup, has absolutely dominated in the minor leagues throughout his career. According to MinorLeagueSplits, his career MiLB FIP is 2.88 in 390 innings pitched. Over the past few years, Manuel has pitched 98.2 innings in Triple-A in a few organizations, compiling a 2.28 ERA with a 75:23 K:BB ratio. In Pawtucket this season, he has a 1.16 ERA in 31 innings, along with a 26:7 K:BB ratio.

But most importantly, Manuel could realistically be better than some of the other guys to see the mound for Boston this year. Scott Atchison, Scott Schoeneweis, and Ramon Ramirez have all pitched poorly, while Joe Nelson recently got the call up to Fenway despite a very poor outing with the Rays last season. Manuel could also be used as a bit of an early-inning ROOGY, as he’s struck out 208 and walked just 32 righties in his minor league career, good for a 2.80 FIP. Here are what the prognosticators said before the season:

Marcel: 4.31 FIP
CHONE: 4.30 FIP
ZiPS: 4.80 FIP

Not bad. However, there are legitimate concerns as to Manuel’s potential to be successful in the majors leagues (many scouts see him as a Quad-A reliever). About half of his balls in play during his minor league career have been in the air, including 57.1% this year. He’s been aided by a HR/FB rate of just 3.4%, a very low number. Considering his fastball sits in the mid to high 80s, it’s very possible he could be homer happy in the big leagues while successful in the minors.

Manuel is by no means a panacea for the Red Sox in their journey to climb over the Rays and/or Yankees in 2010. However, he can be a valuable arm in the bullpen, and maybe even more if finally given a chance to succeed in the big leagues. I think it’s just a matter of time before he forces the front office’s hand to give him that shot.