Michael Bourn homered last night for the first time since July 11, 2009. Bourn had gone 551 at-bats without knocking one over the fences, which is a mighty long time when you consider everything that has happened in the time since:

Not only has Stephen Strasburg signed since the night of July 11, but he’s also made big league five starts with 48 strikeouts.

Since that night the Yankees have won 99 games (losing 52) which results in a win rate of roughly 66%, or 107 over a regular season. The Orioles, meanwhile, have won only 49 games (losing 102), which results in a win rate of 32.5%, or 53 wins over a full season.

Albert Pujols hit 31 homers and Prince Fielder hit 39.

The Pirates’ starting lineup went from:
C Ryan Doumit
1B Adam LaRoche
2B Freddy Sanchez
3B Andy LaRoche
SS Jack Wilson
LF Garrett Jones
CF Andrew McCutchen
RF Delwyn Young

To:
C Ryan Doumit
1B Garrett Jones
2B Bobby Crosby
3B Pedro Alvarez
SS Ronny Cedeno
LF Jose Tabata
CF Andrew McCutchen
RF Lastings Milledge

Or seven of the nine fielding positions with new starters with three of those starters in the 2009 lineup being traded since.

Cliff Lee switched teams twice while piling up 191 innings, 164 strikeouts, 14 walks, and 12 homers allowed- his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 11.7:1.

The aforementioned notes were just some of the things I thought to look up off the top of my head. Of course the most ridiculous thing about Bourn’s streak is that it comes nowhere near touching Jason Tyner’s infamous drought. Tyner had never hit a home run, even in the little leagues, until late July of 2007, a streak that stretched over 350 major league games and 1,220 at-bats. He would then hit another homer 40 games later. When it rains, it pours.

Getting to an 0-2 count is highly advantageous to the pitcher, which comes as no surprise. After reaching an 0-2 count, Major League hitters so far in 2010 have batted .172/.203/.254. It is a simple formula: get ahead of hitters and things get easier for you. To that end, it was worth keeping an eye on which pitchers have been most effective at reaching that intermediary step in retiring hitters.

I limited my first look to starting pitchers with at least 100 batters faced on the season. If anyone needed another example of the supernova arrival of Stephen Strasburg then here is one more: Strasburg leads all starters with 29% of his batters faced ending up in an 0-2 count. Among those with a larger sample size comes runner up Cliff Lee at 28.3%. Obviously, Strasburg is a strikeout fiend and Cliff Lee could throw a beach ball through a pinhole so their high placement comes as no shock.

When it comes down to it, I expected a list of pitchers proficient at getting into 0-2 counts would correlate well with a list of pitchers sorted by strikeout to walk ratio. For the most part, that expectation was borne out. There were, however, a few notable exceptions that I found interesting. Among pitchers with stellar ratios, Roy Halladay (74th of 173), James Shields (94), and Zack Greinke (99) were much further down the 0-2 count list than seems fitting for such pitching profiles.

Conversely, Wade Davis (27), Joe Saunders (37), Gio Gonzalez (52), and Clay Buchholz (53) were much higher up on the 0-2 scale than their strikeout and walk rates would have suggested. Joe Saunders might be the least surprising of this group of four given his reputation for going 0-2 on hitters and then inevitably ending up in a full count due to his lack of any out pitch.

What does it all mean? I don’t propose that there is some grand insight here. Rather, I find it to be another perspective, another cross section on the battle between hitter and pitcher in each at bat. The top and bottom ten are produced below.

TOP TEN
Stephen Strasburg
Cliff Lee
Phil Hughes
Josh Johnson
Roy Oswalt
Scott Baker
Clayton Kershaw
Carlos Silva
Hisanori Takahashi
Homer Bailey

BOTTOM TEN
Justin Duchscherer
J.D. Martin
Dana Eveland
Brian Tallet
Mitch Talbot
Brian Bannister
Brian Moehler
Brian Burres
Doug Davis
Carlos Monasterios

Earlier today, Marc Normandin and I were discussing Fausto Carmona and somehow the topic of groundball-to-flyball ratio came out alongside the amount of line drives Carmona is (or rather: isn’t) giving up. The agreement was that skews his figure when compared to other pitchers with differentiating line drive rates. If that point sounds familiar, it’s because Dave Cameron wrote a similar article in early April; as you can see here.

After sifting through the leaderboards a bit I decided to write about Kevin Correia. The 29 year old Padres’ starter has made 14 starts and currently features a groundball-to-flyball ratio of 1.71; a career best. Despite that, Correia is actually giving up one of the highest ratios of liners in his career. Correia’s 48.3% groundball rate is a career high figure too, though, which could make him a victim of scorer bias. Take a look at his fliner (FB+LD) rates:

2007: 54.9%
2008: 61.8%
2009: 55.2%
2010: 51.7%

And once you create a groundball-to-fliner ratio, here’s how Correia looks:

2007: 0.82
2008: 0.62
2009: 0.81
2010: 0.93

From Dave’s thread, the wise Tom Tango suggested that he prefers GB-FB per contacted ball since the majority of pitchers will fall between a close range of line drives given up. Now how does Correia look?

2007: 4.8%
2008: 1.3%
2009: 8.8%
2010: 20.1%

That suggests that Correia has gotten better since joining San Diego in getting groundballs instead of fly balls. Using GB-FB assumes that half of the line drives are really groundballs and half are really flyballs, thus canceling out their inclusion. What if we assume that most of Correia’s liners are really fly balls; say 75%? Here’s how the GB-FB breakdown looks:

2007: -2.60%
2008: -11.28%
2009: -0.83%
2010: 8.55%

The only major change between even this and last season is an increased usage in his change-up (nearly double the amount); otherwise Correia’s increased groundball tendencies are a product of small sample size, location, or sequencing. Without becoming overly loquacious, the intent here wasn’t to find the reasoning as to why Correia is getting more grounders (although I suspect location, sequencing, and sample size all play into the equation at various amounts) but rather to see if the improvement is real or just a mirage. It looks legit through these lenses.

”There was nothing wrong with the investment. This guy was an outstanding pitcher in the National League, in the game, for the four or five years before that. And there’s no question that the deal was a solid one in the industry. He certainly would have been one of the hotter tickets on the street if that thing went to the end of the season.”

This is Jim Hendry, talking to the Chicago Sun-Times about the Carlos Zambrano contract, which was signed in August of 2007 with free agency looming for the Cubs ace. The $91.5 million contract is now seen as an albatross. Here’s how it breaks down, starting in 2008, via Cot’s Contracts

08:$15M, 09:$17.75M, 10:$17.875M, 11:$17.875M, 12:$18M, 13:$19.25M vesting player option

Given that the option only vests if Zambrano finishes first or second in Cy Young voting in the 2011 or top four in 2012, we can be relatively safe in assuming that the contract will expire after the 2012 season. When we look back at Zambrano’s performance up to and including 2007, was Jim Hendry actually justified in handing Zambrano such a large contract?

Let’s take a look at Zambrano’s 2004-2007, the years that should be the deciding factors in this contract. 2002 and 2003 are far enough removed that their impact on Zambrano’s predicted future performance is minimal.

2004 (age 22-23): 209.2 IP, 8.1 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 3.57 FIP, 3.80 tERA, 3.88 xFIP, 2.75 ERA
2005 (age 23-24): 223.1 IP, 8.1 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9, 3.70 FIP, 4.36 tERA, 3.54 xFIP, 3.26 ERA
2006 (age 24-25): 214.0 IP, 8.8 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 4.14 FIP, 4.44 tERA, 4.20 xFIP, 3.41 ERA
2007 (age 25-26): 216.1 IP, 7.4 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 4.58 FIP, 4.53 tERA, 4.62 xFIP, 3.95 ERA

There’s a pretty simple picture painted here. Zambrano constantly managed to outperform his peripheral numbers, mainly because of BABIPs below .290 every season. Still, he was becoming worse and worse each season, as his ridiculous HR rate in 2004 normalized and as his walk rate ballooned in 2006, followed by a stirkeout shortage in 2007. At 26, there was no reason to believe that Zambrano had already peaked, but the trend is certainly disheartening. Marcel saw Zambrano as a 3.48 ERA pitcher for 2008 and a 3.90 FIP. CHONE was less optimistic, projecting a 3.82 ERA and 4.17 FIP.

If we use Zambrano’s 3.50 ERA as our input for WAR, the deal looks excellent. Over 200 innings, that would be worth about 5 WAR, and in 2008 a marginal win was going for about $4.5M on the free agent market. Even with a discount for contract length, with Zambrano at 26 years old, the contract would pay for only 3.3 WAR. That looks like a major win for the Cubs.

If we use 3.90, close enough to Zambrano’s CHONE ERA and exactly his Marcel FIP, the deal looks like a fair market value contract. That input produces 3.5 WAR, just above what the initial contract calls for.

If we instead use 4.10, the value of Zambrano’s CHONE FIP, the deal becomes a loss for the Cubs, as Zambrano would only produce 3 WAR in the first season.

If Jim Hendry had a legitimate reason to believe that Carlos Zambrano could keep his BABIPs ridiculously low, than there was a legitimate reason to believe that Zambrano would continue to be a 3.90 ERA pitcher or better, which would make the contract a reasonable one for the Cubs. However, given DIPS theory and how successful it typically is with evaluating pitchers, it seems likely that the 4.20 FIP which CHONE projected for Zambrano (and which he actually posted in 2008) was a much more realistic expectation.

Certainly, the case that we see right now with Zambrano is among the worst-case scenarios, but there wasn’t much reason to believe that Carlos Zambrano would produce that well, especially for five years after the contract was signed. It seems to me that Hendry saw too much of the 2004-2005 Zambrano when he offered this contract and not enough of the 2006-2007 version.

Overview

Despite losing seven of their last ten, the Minnesota Twins are still in first place in the American League Central. The Tigers and Chicago White Sox have cut the Twins’ lead in the division to 0.5 and 1.5 games, respectively. As Joe Pawlikowski wrote earlier today, the Twins should not panic. They remain the most talented team in the division. However, the Twins have real competition at the moment, and should be looking to make improvements where they can at a reasonable cost.

Buy or Sell

The Twins should be looking to buy, but carefully. They do not have many obvious needs among their position players. The biggest “hole” is probably another middle infielder who can play third base. Nick Punto’s glove largely makes up for his helplessness at the plate, but this is one place the Twins could use a real upgrade. Brendan Harris will return to his replacement-level self soon enough and Danny Valencia, at least at this point, doesn’t have the bat/glove combination to be a real improvement over Punto. While the Twins can probably get by with Punto at third, both shortstop J.J. Hardy and second baseman Orlando Hudson having injury problems already this seasons. If Minnesota can obtain a decent third baseman it would allow Punto to fill in at third, second, and short when needed rather than having to resort to replacement-level scrubs like Harris and Matt Tolbert if another rash of injuries hits.

Another good idea might be trying to obtain a decent fourth outfielder, since Denard Span is Minnesota’s only competent defender out there — one shudders to think what might happen if he gets hurt. To be fair, a Michael Cuddyer–Delmon Young–Jason Kubel outfield (in whatever positional combination) might finally beat out the Matt Garza-and-Jason Bartlett-for-Delmon Young,*-Brendan Harris-and-Jason Pridie trade in terms of Twins-related Unintentional Comedy value.

* No, Delmon Young being about league average so far this season does not come close to making up for it. The fact that he’s being praised for an average performance only accentuates the hilarity of that trade. It is a credit to the Twins front office that they’ve been able to work around it.

To the surprise of no one who understands the value of relievers, the Twins have weathered the loss of Joe Nathan quite nicely. Jon Rauch and Matt Guerrier are good if unspectacular, and while the Twins could use another decent bullpen arm, they don’t have to make a desperation move.

The starting pitching has been strong, with a FIP under 4. Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker and Carl Pavano head up a rotation good enough to compete with any other in the Central, but a) things are really close, and b) they could improve it. If they could replace Nick Blackburn’s innings with a league average starter, or perhaps even (given the right trade circumstances) Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt, Minnesota could really widen the gap between themselves and their divisional competitors, not to mention set themselves up with a strong playoff rotation.

On the Farm

According to Beyond the Box Score’s pre-season aggregate farm system rankings, the Twins have the 12th best farm system in the major leagues. They have some very high upside position players like Aaron Hicks, Ben Revere, and Miguel Sano in various levels of the system, as well as their usual bevy of potential middle-of-the-rotation strike throwers. Danny Valencia has a chance to be an adequate starting third baseman down the road. Their most obvious prospect trading chip is catcher Wilson Ramos, who is probably a league average catcher at worst, and maybe much more than that. More importantly, he might be the most “blocked” player around baseball at the moment. The Twins shouldn’t give him up for just anything, but they should be shopping him for the right deal. If they crave an impact pitcher, Minnesota will have to give up more than just Ramos. It’s tough to imagine them trading Hicks or Sano, but if the right offer is on the table, flags fly forever…

Budget

At about $98 million dollars, the Twins are hardly the small payroll team of the past, thanks to the taxpayer generosity. They don’t have much money coming off the books in 2011, and Joe Mauer is getting a big raise. There are also decisions about options and/or arbitration raises to be made for players like Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and J.J. Hardy, among others. Moroever, unless Hudson (free agency) and Hardy (arbitration) are retained, the Twins will probably have to replace them with free agents. So unless they plan on raising their payroll significantly in 2011 (and they may very well, I don’t know), any pieces they acquire in trade this season probably shouldn’t require them to commit to much more money in 2011.

There are no conspiracies in Major League Baseball… just large coincidences. One such coincidence was the significant number of top prospect call-ups in June. Many of these prospects now have close to a month’s worth of experience in the Majors, so it’s a perfect time to check in on them and see which players are positioning themselves to make a strong run at the Rookie of the Year awards.

Buster Posey, C, San Francisco
OK, we’re fudging the rules right off the bat here with Posey, who technically played three games in May. One of the top offensive prospects in baseball, he’s looked good at the MLB level and is currently hitting .310/.337/.414 in 87 at-bats. The Giants organization has already announced that Posey will see more time behind the dish going foward, which is great news for his overall value as he’s currently appeared in just three games as a catcher, compared to 21 games at first base.

Jason Castro, C, Houston
Castro is one of the most recent call-ups and he has just four games of MLB experience under his belt. The former No. 1 draft pick narrowly missed making the team out of spring training only to go down and struggle in triple-A with a triple-slash line of .226/.388/.245. Luckily for him, J.R. Towles failed in his bid to hold onto the big-league gig.

Pedro Alvarez, OF, Pittsburgh
Despite his brief pro career, Alvarez has a bit of a reputation as a slow starter. He hit poorly at high-A ball in ’09 before moving up to double-A and setting the world on fire. Then he opened up 2010 at triple-A and hit just .224/.298/.424 in April. His bat came to life in May and June, though, which earned him a shot at the Majors. Alvarez has struggled to make contact in his first 10 games. The former No. 1 draft pick has struck out 17 times in his first 35 at-bats. His triple-slash line currently sits at .114/.158/.171.

Jose Tabata, OF, Pittsburgh
Tabata more or less reinvented himself at triple-A in 2010 by setting a career high in steals in just 53 games and also by hitting more than .300 with solid on-base numbers. Rewarded with his first taste of the Majors, Tabata has hit better than Alvarez but he’s still producing modest numbers. The former Yankees prospect is hitting .242/.299/.339 in 62 at-bats.

Mike Stanton, OF, Florida
The 20-year-old Stanton got a lot of people excited with his double-A numbers, which included 21 homers, a 1.171 OPS, and 52 RBI in 53 games. Unfortunately, a lot of people looked past the high strikeout rate. The Marlins’ top prospect is currently hitting just .213/.279/.311 in 61 at-bats. His strikeout rate sits at 47.5 K%. It definitely would have made a lot of sense to give him some time at triple-A before promoting him to the Majors.

Brad Lincoln, RHP, Florida
A former Top 5 pick in the amateur draft, Lincoln has been a little slower to develop than the organization had likely hoped. The right-hander produced good, but not great, numbers at triple-A this season, which was good enough to earn a shot in Pittsburgh. The MLB results have not been that great, though. Lincoln currently has a 5.95 xFIP and his ground-ball rate sits at 38%. His strikeout rate through four starts is just 3.00 K/9.

Stephen Strasburg, RHP, Washington
Another pitcher with four MLB starts… but the results here are quite different. Despite having a BABIP-allowed of .358, Strasburg’s xFIP sits at 1.35 and his strikeout rate is 14.57 K/9 (with a walk rate of just 1.78 BB/9). So much for rookie jitters. Strasburg’s fastball has been sitting at 97.5 mph and he has positive pitch-type values for all three of his offerings (heater, curveball, change-up).

Carlos Santana, C, Cleveland
With apologies to Mr. Posey, Santana has probably had the biggest offensive impact of all the June call-ups… at least to this point. He has made a seamless transition to the Majors and is currently hitting .318/.446/.682 in 44 at-bats. Santana also has a 19.6% walk rate and has had more base-on-balls than strikeouts (1.83 BB/K rate). His wOBA sits at .472. The biggest knock on Santana is defense, but he’s thrown out 50% of base stealers with just one error and no passed balls.

Jake Arrieta, RHP, Baltimore
Arrieta finally began to turn potential into results in 2010 at triple-A. The right-hander produced a 1.85 ERA and gave up just 48 hits in 73.0 innings of work. Promoted to the Majors for the first time in his career, he has a 6.20 ERA (5.78 xFIP) in four starts. Arrieta has given up 20 hits with a walk rate of 5.31 BB/9 in 20.1 innings. He’s shown a good fastball, but he’s struggled to command both his slider and his change-up.

On the morning of June 1, the Twins awoke a happy team. They had just beaten Seattle in the first of a four-game series, extending their lead in the AL Central to 4.5 games, their largest of the year. Their record, 31-20, was tied for the second best in baseball. With three more games against the offensively hapless Mariners, it looked like the Twins might extend their lead even further. Alas, the situation didn’t play out as anyone had expected.

After their 6-0 loss to the Mets yesterday the Twins find themselves just a half game ahead of the Tigers, who head to Target Field for a three-game set this week. Things don’t get easier for the Twins after that, as they have to play four against Tampa Bay this weekend, and will eventually play Detroit three more times, this time away, leading into the All-Star Break. There exists a distinct chance that the Twins enter the break not only out of first place in the Central, but perhaps all the way down to third place. The White Sox, after all, have gone streaking.

The biggest change for the Twins in June comes from the offense. During the season’s first two months the Twins had scored 4.92 runs per game. In June that mark is down a full run to 3.92 per game. Part of this comes from players leveling out. Justin Morneau, for instance, wasn’t going to hit .377/.493/.680 on the season. In June he’s hit .282/.333/.471 — not terrible numbers but still not to the standard he set earlier in the season. That brings his season marks to .346/.445/.612, which, if he could finish there, would still be quite remarkable. Joe Mauer, too, has skidded a bit, hitting .273/.354/.398 in June after hitting .321/.396/.453 in the first two months. Also slumping in June: Denard Span (.240/.283/.340) and Michael Cuddyer (.216/.284/.284).

The injury to Orlando Hudson has also hurt the Twins. He hit the DL on May 31 with a left wrist sprain and missed 18 days. Matt Tolbert replaced him both in the field and in the batting order, and during that 18-day span he went 8 for 38 with four walks and two extra base hits. Since his return Hudson is just 7 for 38 with three walks and one extra base hit, so it appears that his wrist still isn’t at full strength. On the other end, J.J. Hardy’s left wrist injury has turned out to be a net gain for the team. His replacement, Nick Punto, has hit .354/.425/.462 since the injury, and Punto’s replacement, Danny Valencia, has also filled in admirably. Then again, it’s not difficult to improve on Hardy’s .217/.265/.333 batting line.

In his State of the Twins post, Seth Stohs makes an observation about the injuries:

There have been times that the Twins have had four starters out of the lineup. Are injuries an excuse? Yes, they are. But what the injuries did was show that the Twins depth was not real good. Their weaknesses have been exposed.

It seems, however, that the only injury that has really cost them was the Hudson one. Mauer missed time, but the Twins played well enough in his absence. Punto missed half a month, but he was hitting horribly then. His replacement, Brendan Harris, actually hit better during Punto’s DL stint. And, again, that doesn’t really explain the Twins’ June performance. The drop of one run per game is really attributable to some routine slumps and Hudson’s injury and poor return. Aaron Gleeman, I think, nails it:

Had the timing of the good and bad stretches been flipped, with the Twins starting 10-14 and then playing well for two months, the perception of their current situation would be different. It’s similar to how a player who follows a big April with a mediocre May through September will spend most of the season with nice-looking numbers, but a player who follows a terrible April with a strong May through September will spend much of the season with bad-looking stats.

They may both end up hitting the same .300 with 25 homers and an .850 OPS, but one guy will probably make the All-Star team while people spend months talking about how the other guy is slumping. At the end of the day a hit in April or May counts the same as a hit in September, and along those same lines while it certainly would have been nice for the Twins to go through the entire season without a lengthy rough patch that was never particularly likely.

There is, of course, also the pitching to consider. In April and May the Twins allowed just 3.82 runs per game, but since the calendar flipped they’ve seen that rise to 4.46. Chalk that up to Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, as Nick Blackburn. Carl Pavano — 2.25 ERA, .187 BABIP, 84.5% strand rate — and Francisco Liriano — 1.50 FIP, 11.33 K/9, 0 HR — have held up their ends. The other three have been quite terrible this month, which, combined with a poor offensive showing, will surely lead to a team slump.

Does that mean that the Twins have to change anything between now and the deadline? We’ll surely learn more about that when the Twins come up in our What Should They Do series. As a quick preview, yeah, it appears as though they could use one more starter. Slowey, Blackburn, and Baker are all better than they’ve shown in June, but the rotation as a whole could use an upgrade on one of them later in the season. They could probably use a third baseman as well, unless Valencia keeps hitting. But what they need most is patience. This is still a good team, talent-wise still the best in the AL Central. They’ve hit a rough patch, and it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture during one of those. The Twins needn’t panic, though. They’re still in a good position, and will likely be in a better one once the offense turns back around.

There are sometimes things so obvious in baseball that we needn’t be reminded of them. One of these things is that Angel Pagan is better at baseball than Jeff Francoeur. Dave Cameron already wrote about Pagan’s awesomeness. With Beltran rehabbing, I wrote about the inevitable over a month ago, saying:

…I think it’d be optimal for the Mets to bench Francoeur for good and put Carlos Beltran in right field. Beltran will be coming off serious knee issues and declined defensively last year. The Mets can mitigate his stress back in the outfield by putting him in right, leaving Pagan in center, and of course having Jason Bay in left field. Chris Carter and Jeff Francoeur can sit on the bench, and Gary Matthews Jr. can go home and buy really cool stuff with his tens of millions of dollars.

Fortunately, the Mets did cut ties with Matthews, have played Chris Carter more, and have Beltran playing minor league games. So it’s the end of June, and here are where Jeff Francoeur and Angel Pagan stand for 2010:

Angel Pagan: .302/.363/.443, .357 wOBA, 123 wRC+, 10.0 UZR/150, 2.5 WAR
Jeff Francoeur: .270/.320/.425, .321 wOBA, 99 wRC+, -0.9 UZR/150, 0.7 WAR

As I said earlier, this is not even close. But Joe Lapointe of The New York Times fills us in on what will actually happen when Beltran returns:

The question is where Pagan will play when Beltran comes back. General Manager Omar Minaya and Manager Jerry Manuel maintained Tuesday that Beltran would return as a center fielder — there had been some speculation that he might move to right field, or left, to lessen the running he would have to do — and that the versatile Pagan would rotate through all three outfield positions, playing behind Beltran, left fielder Jason Bay and right fielder Jeff Francoeur.

This, simply put, is downright insanity, and honestly insulting to Angel Pagan. There’s no crying in baseball, but excuse me if I may get a little emotional for this guy if what Lapointe says actually comes to fruition. At the least the Mets should platoon Francoeur and Pagan in right field, as Pagan hits lefties relatively poorly and the opposite is true of Francoeur. Just in case you were thinking that maybe Francoeur beats Pagan in traditional stats:

Jeff Francoeur. : 74 games, .270 BA, 8 homers, 33 runs, 40 RBI, 7 stolen bases
Angel Pagan: 69 games, .302 BA, 4 homers, 41 runs, 35 RBI, 14 stolen bases

So it’s not the traditional stats. It’s not the advanced metrics. Then what is it? It firstly has to do with Jeff Francoeur, as Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog said:

…yes, i know francouer is a ‘cool guy,’ and he does grow one hell of a beard, and i know he looks you in the eye when he talks and he’s a great quote… i know this… i have talked to him on several occasions and he seems like a terrific person, and someone who it would be fun to hang out with… but, let’s not go crazy here…Francoeur is on pace to hit around .265 with a .320 OBP, 16 HR and 85 RBI this season.
…that’s good, don’t get me wrong, and i love his defense and his arm and i don’t underestimate how much of an impact he has on the opposing team’s running game… i get it… but, i just don’t understand why his arm and potential 15 HR is enough to kick pagan to the bench…

The Mets media has championed Francoeur while consistently chiding Angel Pagan for not having a solid “Baseball IQ” (that’s a whole other, scary-to-think-about issue). Francoeur is gritty. He makes funny faces and swings as if he’s trying harder than everyone else and reminds you of a quarterback from an SEC school in the 1960s. That’s one part of the equation holding Pagan back.

The other is what I’d like to call the “Fourth Outfielder Fallacy.” This is the fallacy that just because a player can play all three outfield positions, he is best served as a fourth outfielder. Most of the time, said outfielder did come up as a bench player who rotated around the outfield positions, but after a good time of solid play, still couldn’t shed the title of “fourth outfielder.” Fans are human, and humans love consistency and purpose. Fourth outfielders make them comfortable. It also causes people to doubt whether or not a fourth outfielder could ever be a real starting outfielder, because, well, I don’t know if there’s a real logical reason as to why, but people still say it anyway. Angel Pagan may become the latest casualty of the Fourth Outfielder Fallacy. If so, we can only hope he’s the last.

Over the last few years, Rich Lederer and I have exchanged our thoughts on the skills of Jered Weaver. Rich, an unabashed Weaver believer since his days at Long Beach State, saw Weaver as a legitimate frontline starter, while I saw more of a middle of the rotation guy who lived on keeping his fly balls in the park. Our disagreements mostly centered around whether to evaluate a pitcher on how many runs he prevents or his underlying components, as Weaver’s career ERA was nearly a run lower than his xFIP.

This year, Weaver has decided to make that argument obsolete, turning into a pitcher that both of us can agree on – a dominating, legitimate ace.

The last four years, Weaver had posted strikeout rates of 7.68, 6.43, 7.74, and 7.42, putting him just above average but certainly nothing special. This year, Weaver’s K/9 has jumped to 10.45, and he leads the majors in strikeouts by one, inching out strikeout machine (and National League pitcher) Tim Lincecum. In chart form, the leap looks like this.

In addition to increasing his strikeouts by 40 percent, he’s also posting a career low 2.12 BB/9 and a career high 36.6 percent groundball rate. He’s simply pitching better than he ever has before, and by a huge margin.

It’s hard to pinpoint any one reason why Weaver has been so much better this year than in prior years. His velocity hasn’t jumped. He didn’t add a new pitch or change the mix of pitches he’s using. His first strike rate isn’t any different than it was last year. Perhaps the most notable change is the frequency of 0-2 counts, which is up from 22 percent a year ago to 28 percent this year – since he’s getting ahead more often, he can get hitters to chase pitches out of the zone, so even if his stuff hasn’t changed, it’s made more effective by pitching in situations where the hitters have to be aggressive.

Whether he can keep pitching this way remains to be seen. Generally, it’s wiser to lean on four years of data rather than half a season’s worth, but for 2010 at least, Rich and I can agree on Jered Weaver, who has been tremendous, no matter how you evaluate a pitcher.

Episode Thirty-Six
In which the panel is get all Central-ized.

Headlines
City of Broad Shoulders (and Poor Teams)
Manny Parra for the Course
The Neal Huntington Is On!

Featuring
Matt Klaassen, Philosicator
Jack Moore, Insufferable Math Snob

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Audio on the flip-flop.

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