Utility player Mark DeRosa has gotten around. The veteran has played with six clubs during his 12-year career. He was swapped twice within a six month period in 2008-09. DeRosa was first traded from the Chicago Cubs to the Cleveland Indians in December of ’08 and then from Cleveland to the St. Louis Cardinals in June of ’09.

In his half season with Cleveland, DeRosa provided a WAR of 1.4; he followed that up with a 0.3 WAR in half a season with St. Louis. So far this season for the San Francisco Giants (with whom he signed as a free agent), the former Atlanta Braves draft pick has seen his WAR fall into the negative at -0.3.

In those two aforementioned trades, five young players – four of whom were true “prospects” – changed hands. Although it’s been almost a year since DeRosa played for Cleveland and a good amount of time since he suited up for Chicago, let’s have a look and see what lasting effect – if any – he’s had on those two organizations (I last reviewed the Chicago side of the trade in July ’09).

Chicago received three young pitchers when it traded DeRosa to Cleveland: Jeff Stevens, John Gaub, and Chris Archer. Impressively, all three pitchers are still in the organization, and everyone has seen a bump in their value to the organization.

Stevens has been the most valuable to date. The 26-year-old reliever has had a neutral WAR (at exactly 0.0 for his career) but he’s looked good this season and could develop into a solid middle reliever. The right-hander has pitched 14.1 innings since being recalled in May. He went nine games before he allowed an earned run, but he then allowed runs in three straight games before tossing a scoreless frame on June 23. Stevens currently has an xFIP of 4.52, an average ground-ball rate, and a respectable strikeout rate of 7.53 K/9. His fastball has sat around 91 mph but he’s struggled to command his secondary pitches on a consistent basis.

Gaub, 25, has been a real find for the Cubs. The organization has yet to challenge him in the Majors, but the southpaw looks like he’ll be solid middle reliever or LOOGY. In ’09, he allowed 36 hits and struck out 80 batters in 60.0 combined innings between double-A and triple-A. Gaub handled left-handed batters very well in ’08 and ’09 but he’s struggled in a small-sample size in 2010. Lefties have batted .394 against him this season; he needs to show more consistent command of his slider – which can be a plus (strikeout) pitch. Despite his command and control (18 walks) issues, Gaub has a 3.52 FIP, 35 strikeouts and has given up 24 hits in 26.0 innings of work.

Gaub was the breakout player in ’09 and Archer is looking like the breakout star of ’10. Pitching in high-A ball, the right-handed starter currently has a 3.17 FIP and has given up just 49 hits in 66.1 innings of work. He’s also posted a solid ground-ball rate (51%), and has an excellent strikeout rate (10.21 K/9). The 21-year-old Archer also showed a high strikeout rate (9.83 K/9) in low-A ball in ’09. His fastball can reach 95-96 mph and his curveball is becoming more consistent. He’s still quite unrefined but Archer has solid potential as a big league starter.

Like Chicago, the Cleveland organization still retains all the pieces from the late 2008 trade: Chris Perez and Jess Todd, both pitchers.

Perez has pretty much been a neutral reliever for Cleveland, in terms of WAR (0.1). Traded in mid-2009, he showed solid numbers in half a season with Cleveland, which included a 3.85 xFIP, 10.26 K/9 rate and a 6.48 H/9 rate. The right-hander has taken a larger role in the bullpen this season, including filling in for injured and ineffective closer Kerry Wood, but Perez’ numbers have not been as good as they were in ’09. He currently has a 5.30 xFIP and he’s allowing more than one hit per nine innings over last season’s rate. His strikeout rate has also dropped to 6.33 K/9. His pitches (fastball and slider) have just not been as reliable this season, although his overall control has held steady.

Todd, a former second round pick out of the University of Arkansas, has always posted good numbers in the minors. He stumbled in his MLB debut in ’09 and posted a 7.66 ERA (but 4.47 xFIP) with a hit rate of 13.70 H/9 in 22.1 innings. He struggled with the home run (1.61 HR/9), as well, but showed a solid strikeout rate at 8.06 K/9. He produced a neutral WAR at 0.0. Todd simply needs to show better fastball/cutter command in the Majors. In 2010 at triple-A, the right-handed reliever has given up 33 hits and 11 walks in 31.1 innings. He also has 33 strikeouts.

To complete the effect that DeRosa has had on his former organizations, we must look to the 2010 draft. The St. Louis Cardinals organization received a first round supplemental draft pick for the loss of DeRosa (a Type B free agent) to San Francisco. With that selection (46th overall), St. Louis acquired the rights to Arizona State University pitcher Seth Blair. The club has yet to come to terms with the right-hander, although he was ineligible to sign a pro contract while his school competed in the College World Series (ASU was eliminated on June 22).

Heading into the 2009 season, Joe Girardi knew he had a small problem on his hands. By most measures, his Nos. 1 and 2 hitters, Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter, ranked among the best in the league. In 2008, Damon posted a .375 OBP, a solid mark from the leadoff spot. Jeter, even in a down year, had a .363 OBP. They were both proven players who figured to get on base plenty for the power bats in the middle of the order. The problem was, Damon’s on-base skills sometimes went for naught. Jeter simply grounded into too many double plays.

It’s expected that Jeter, a groundball hitter, will hit into his share of twin killings. When he was younger he used his above-average speed to keep that mark in the low double digits. As he crossed the age-30 barrier, however, that number started to rise. In 2007, he grounded into a double play in 14 percent of his opportunities, and in 2008 that rose to 18 percent. Worse, because Damon got on base so frequently Jeter found himself in many double play situations — once every 4.94 plate appearances.

Girardi didn’t want to see his leadoff hitter eliminated so frequently. It would kill rallies and take men off base for their new No.3 hitter, Mark Teixeira. As it turned out, the World Baseball Classic, in which Jeter participated by Damon did not, gave Girardi his opening. Maybe he read John Walsh’s article on double play opportunities, maybe he didn’t. In that piece, Walsh showed that Damon is historically good at avoiding the double play. A leadoff man much of his life, he hasn’t faced tons of situations, but when he does face them he tends to avoid making two outs. When Jeter returned from the WBC he found himself in the leadoff spot, with Damon hitting behind him.

The outcome was as good as it could have been. Jeter still grounded into a double play in 17 percent of his opportunities, but he faced those situations only once every 6.75 PA. It saved the Yankees a few outs in the 2009 season. Even when Damon departed after the season and the Yankees acquired career leadoff man Curtis Granderson to take his place, there was little question of who would bat first. There was just no way Girardi would move Jeter out of that spot after he had performed so well in 2009.

This year we have seen a strange development in this case. In 2009, the Yankees’ No. 9 hitters posted a .309 OBP, which is part of the reason why Jeter saw fewer double play opportunities. In 2010, that number is up to .324, mainly because Brett Gardner has frequented that spot. Moreover, Jeter’s groundball percentage has risen more than 10 points this season, to 67.2%. Combined with yet another year of slowing physically and it sounds like a surefire recipe for a bevy of double plays. Yet that has not been the case at all.

Jeter has faced a double play situation once every 5.86 plate appearances, and has grounded into one eight times. That is a 14 percent mark, his lowest since 2007. That includes his two double play grounders last night. If he keeps up this pace he would finish with 17, one fewer than last season. The two double plays last night make it a bit tougher to get a read on his pace, too. After all, before then he had grounded into six double plays in 55 opportunities, 11 percent. For all we know he could drop down to that rate for the rest of the season. Or, of course, he could ground into double plays in five of his next 10 opportunities and end the season with an inflated rate. Such are the perils of situational stats like these.

It still seems odd, though, that Jeter has avoided double plays this year despite conditions that indicate that he’d hit into more. More base runners and more ground balls points to more double plays. We still have plenty of time to determine whether this is a fluke — for instance, the No. 9 hitter frequently reaches with two outs. Something tells me it is. I just don’t see how you can see more runners on base and hit the ball on the ground more and end up hitting into fewer double plays. During the course of an entire season, I suspect, we’ll see Jeter’s rate around the 17, 18 percent we saw in 2008 and 2009.

Discussing balks is different from discussing almost every call made by major league umpires. For balls and strikes, there is an objective rulebook strike zone; for fair and foul, the line is clearly drawn; for base-out calls, if either the player or the base (if a force play) is tagged before the runner touches the base, he is out. All of these plays are objective. However, the balk call is more of a subjective animal.

The balk is dealt with throughout Rule 8 of the MLB rulebook, which deals with the pitcher, but specifically in rule 8.05. Much of it is, in fact, objective, such as 8.05 (f), which states it is a balk when “The pitcher delivers the ball to the batter while he is not facing the batter,” but the comment on rule 8.05 is where the subjectivity comes in: “Umpires should bear in mind that the purpose of the balk rule is to prevent the pitcher from deliberately deceiving the base runner. If there is doubt in the umpire’s mind, the ‘intent’ of the pitcher should govern.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at another play from the Dodgers-Angels game from last night: Brian Fuentes’s pickoff of Matt Kemp in the top of the 9th inning. Watch the video here.

As soon as I saw this play, I felt it was a balk, but feelings were mixed. Given that the balk rule is very complicated – rule 8.05 has 13 subheadings and a comment with two more subheadings – I figured that I should really analyze this closer to make sure. However, I believe rule 8.05 (a) clearly defines this pickoff move as a balk.

If there is a runner, or runners, it is a balk when —
(a) The pitcher, while touching his plate, makes any motion naturally associated with his pitch and fails to make such delivery

First, let’s take a look at a snapshot of the motion in question.

Now, let’s take a look at another Fuentes pitch, this one taken from the final at-bat of the game.

These are two remarkably similar images, and I would say that this for certain violates rule 8.05 (a) and the penalty should be a balk.

There is also a convincing argument to be made that Fuentes violated rule 8.05 (c) as well, after the jump.

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In the midst of a disastrous season, the Astros seem to finally admit that they need to rebuild. Their franchise pitcher, Roy Oswalt, has requested a trade, and the team seems willing to accommodate him in finding a new home. Besides Cliff Lee, Oswalt is the most talked about name on the market as we head toward the trade deadline.

I wonder, however, if Oswalt is merely the Astros’ second most marketable pitcher. Hiding in the shadows, Brett Myers is quietly putting together an excellent season, and while he doesn’t come with Oswalt’s pedigree, neither does he come with the baggage of a huge contract and a no-trade clause.

Oswalt is the better pitcher, certainly. Going forward, ZiPS projects Oswalt to throw 110 innings and allow 47 runs, while Myers is projected to pitch 80 innings and allow 40 runs. Given that the innings difference will have to be made up by relievers, a team would be projected to save about 10 runs over an equivalent number of innings by acquiring Oswalt instead of Myers.

10 runs, or about one extra win. Is that really worth the cost difference? Myers will cost just over $1 million for the remainder of the 2010 season, while Oswalt’s contract will pay him about $5 million in August and September. For teams with strained budgets, that money could be a significant factor, but of course, the real cost differences kick in next season.

Myers will almost certainly decline his part of the mutual option and become a free agent this winter, so the acquiring team will have no long term commitment, and could potentially even recoup some compensation if they offer Myers arbitration and he signs elsewhere, as he has a chance of pitching himself into Type B free agent status.

Oswalt, on the other hand, is due $16 million 2011 and either another $16 million in 2012 or a $2 million buyout of the final year. Even if the acquiring team exercises the buyout, they will end up having paid $22 million for a little less than one and a half season’s of Oswalt’s services.

There’s a pretty good case to be made that a team would be better off with Myers and the $21 million they would save by going for the lesser Astros arm, which would give them more flexibility to make other moves to additionally improve their roster. Oswalt is the better pitcher, but it’s hard to argue that the gap is large enough to justify the differences in salary.

The Astros will almost certainly trade both pitchers at some point in the next month. Just don’t be surprised if they get a better return in prospects for Myers than they do for Oswalt.

In two weeks, Dave Cameron and I will be flying to Los Angeles to see the Futures Game, and we’ll bring you exclusive content from Angel Stadium while we’re there. As you’d expect, the announcement of the rosters was of great interest to us, so I will do my best to cover them in four parts: pitchers and hitters for both the U.S. and World teams. This is my third Futures Game, and while it’s just an All-Star Game, I’m eagerly anticipating watching these pitchers give their best for one inning, and these hitters try to deal with some of the best stuff in the minor leagues. Here’s a look at that stuff on the American side, ranked in order of the velocity they’ll throw.

Tanner Scheppers | RHP | Age 23 | Texas Rangers | AA/AAA (Tex/PCL)
38.8 K% | 8.6 BB% | 0.48 HR/9

What an inning will look like: Scheppers will be the guy to test triple digits, and I truly wouldn’t be surprised to see 90% fastballs if he makes it to Anaheim. He’s got a nasty curveball that we might see on a two-strike count, particularly to any right-handed hitters.

What he profiles as: While the hope is still that Scheppers could be a starting pitcher, I believe his move to the bullpen is no temporary assignment — his future is either closer or set-up man, depending on how the Rangers handle Neftali Feliz. Scheppers will always be death on right-handed hitters, and his hard fastball and sharp curve arsenal could lend to a Joel Zumaya-like future.

Shelby Miller | RHP | Age 19 | St. Louis Cardinals | Low-A (Midwest)
33.7 K% | 8.1 BB% | 0.44 HR/9 | 1.37 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: It’s going to be similar to Scheppers, with a ton of fastballs, probably touching about 97 mph if he’s going all-out for an inning. What secondary stuff we’ll see I don’t know — but his curveball is the other plus pitch.

What he profiles as: Obviously Miller is far away, but he’s going to be a good one. Ignore the 4.79 ERA in Low-A, as the River Bandits defense is horrible, and he’s currently sporting a .389 BABIP. What’s encouraging to me is the .233/.296/.356 line he’s held left-handed hitters to — either the changeup has improved immensely, or he’s just got a great approach to lefties. Hopefully we’ll get an idea in Anaheim.

Jarred Cosart | RHP | Age 20 | Philadelphia Phillies | Low-A (Sally)
29.3 K% | 5.2 BB% | 0.38 HR/9 | 1.89 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: Given that his secondary stuff is probably the weakest of the bunch, Cosart is going to go after hitters with his fastball on pretty much every pitch. But he’ll flirt with 98 mph, and his lower arm slot will create a bit of deception.

What he profiles as: Until the secondary stuff comes around, it’s hard to see Cosart as anything but a reliever down the road. He’s been able to dominate Sally League hitters with his unique combination of velocity, command and movement on the heater, so if he grabs hold of a breaking ball, he’s got a good chance.

Jordan Lyles | RHP | Age 19 | Houston Astros | Double-A (Texas)
23.8 K% | 5.6 BB% | 0.62 HR/9 | 1.12 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: It’s not everyday we get to hand Astros fans good news, but I really think there is a non-zero chance that Dave and I will walk away from Anaheim most impressed with Lyles. Dude has a great build, commands a fastball that could push 95 mph in one inning, and his changeup has got really good. He also has the chance to hang a curveball and give up a long ball, however.

What he profiles as: Lyles is going to be starting in the big leagues late next season, and he’s a special talent. All six home runs allowed this year have been to right-handed hitters, so it’s clear that his fastball-change approach to lefties is currently better than the fastball-curveball option he gives right-handed hitters. He’ll give up some home runs in Minute Maid, but the good command should balance it out just fine.

Christian Friedrich | LHP | Age 22 | Colorado Rockies | Double-A (Texas)
21.2 K% | 8.8 BB% | 0.93 HR/9 | 0.83 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: Friedrich’s curveball will be on the highlight reel for sure, as it’s one of the best in the minor leagues. I’m guessing we’ll see him throw it for a strike and in the dirt, while pitching around 92 mph with the fastball. Someone on the broadcast will probably say Barry Zito; though I’m not sure if that will be reflective of the quality of the broadcast or Friedrich’s future.

What he profiles as: The lefty has been scuffed up a bit in Double-A after a hot start, with his ERA rising to 5.59 after last night’s start. Too many walks and too many home runs is a frustrating combination, and I think Friedrich just needs the confidence in his changeup to have three pitches to throw at righties. He’ll be alright, but he’s more a mid-rotation guy.

Dan Hudson | RHP | Age 23 | Chicago White Sox | Triple-A (International)
31.6 K% | 7.7 BB% | 1.30 HR/9 | 1.18 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: Hudson has the most TV-friendly delivery of any American pitcher, as he slings it from a three-quarter arm slot. The preseason comparison Baseball America made to Jered Weaver is apt, as it’s deception that we’ll walk away impressed with. He’ll mix in a slider and changeup, too.

What he profiles as: Hudson’s delivery and velocity got him a lot of groundballs at Old Dominion in college, but it’s clear now that he’s a flyball pitcher. The home runs are going to be a problem, and the secondary stuff still could stand some sharpening. Is it too early to predict a high infield fly rate?

Zach Britton | LHP | Age 22 | Baltimore Orioles | Double-A (Eastern)
19.5 K% | 8.0 BB% | 0.46 HR/9 | 3.19 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: Britton is going to throw a lot of sinkers, if not a sinker on every single pitch. But it’s for a good reason, as Jeff Sackmann currently has his GB% at 65.2%. The depth of his slider will be something to look for, as it sits between average-and-plus depending on the day. But the depth of the slider is a foregone conclusion.

What he profiles as: The successes that we’ve seen from Jaime Garcia and Ricky Romero and C.J. Wilson bode well for Britton, who could be pretty similar to the Rangers southpaw at the big league level. He could stand to improve his walk rate a little, but it’s not a huge issue. He could be pitching just fine in the Majors right now.

Jeremy Hellickson | RHP | Age 23 | Tampa Bay Rays | Triple-A (International)
27.7 K% | 5.8 BB% | 0.30 HR/9 | 0.77 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: If the Rays don’t heed Jonah Keri’s request and keep Hellickson in the minor leagues, we already know who the most poised pitcher in the game will be. Hellickson has three pitches, he’ll mix them all in during any count, and he’ll confuse the hell out of the less experienced World hitters.

What he profiles as: Hellickson could be a fine big league pitcher yesterday, as his command and ability to keep the ball down are really good skills. I do wonder if his strikeout rate will still be this good in the Majors, though his ability to throw fastball-change-curve in any situation is a rare skill. FIP is going to like this guy.

Mike Minor | LHP | Age 22 | Atlanta Braves | Double-A (Southern)
34.7 K% | 9.9 BB% | 0.90 HR/9 | 0.98 GO/AO

What an inning will look like: Since Minor’s numbers are nothing like we envisioned from last year’s seventh overall pick, I’m not sure I could accurately summarize what we’ll see. But my guess is that his curveball, which was just an average pitch to scouts a year ago, has become a plus offering.

What he profiles as: I think I’ll have a better idea after the game. His fastball command has taken a turn south while his strikeout numbers are now out-of-this-world. It’s just a performance that doesn’t make sense across the board, and as a result, he’s the guy I’m most anticipating.

First of all, to be clear, I’m not talking about this blunder (video), where Matt Kemp was picked off by Brian Fuentes in the 9th inning of last night’s game between the Dodgers and the Angels – I’ll cover that one later today. Instead, I’m talking about the tandem gaffe between Russell Martin and Reed Johnson. On a base hit by Jamey Caroll, Russell Martin was thrown out at second to end the game before Johnson, starting at second, managed to cross home plate to score the tying run. Check out the video here.

Let’s diagram this play and try and get an idea of exactly what happened. This is the first shot from behind home plate in which we can see Reed Johnson. This comes roughly 1.45 seconds after the point of contact. Johnson was off on contact with two outs.

There’s going to be quite a few more images here; if you’re interested in tracking this play, follow the jump!

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At some point you just have to feel like everything that can go wrong for the Pirates will go wrong- like last night. Paul Maholm is generally a decent enough pitcher. Through his first 14 starts this season he held a 4.20 FIP and a sub-4 ERA. If a pitcher’s beauty is defined by his FIP, then Maholm isn’t pretty anymore. Here’s how his first inning went last night (note that this was also Maholm’s only inning):

Elvis Andrus walked on four pitches
Michael Young homered
Ian Kinsler grounded out
Vladimir Guerrero walked on four pitches
David Murphy singled
Justin Smoak reached on a fielder’s choice
Matt Treanor flied out

What unfolded above resulted in a 2-0 deficit, which is bad but not completely insufferable. Maholm took the mound in the second down by a lone run and walked Julio Borbon on five pitches. The Rangers would catch a break on an error by Neil Walker. They would then singled in five consecutive plate appearances- 6-1 just like that. Dana Eveland would relieve Maholm and give up another run before escaping the inning.

All told Maholm racked up a -.439 WPA, a 2010 worst for the category. A quick glance through his game logs suggest Wednesday’s disaster is among the five or six worst starts of his career. The last time Maholm was this bad came in late May 2009 against the Cubs. He lasted four innings, allowing seven earned runs, walking three, and striking out two. For comparison, Maholm went one inning last night, allowed five earned, walked four, and struck nobody out. In both games he allowed only one home run and a hit for each run (unearned and earned alike).

In light of yesterday’s article on Infield Fly Balls and xFIP, there were some questions and debate about if popups are something under a pitcher’s control, or what you might call a skill. After reading the comments, I was somewhat doubting that my research might not have been thorough enough to essentially rule them out as a skill (which is what I more or less did).

If you look at popups per ball in play on a year-to-year basis, you get a correlation of about .52, which would highly suggest that there is some “skill” in inducing popups. However, there is a very strong positive correlation between popups and outfield-fly-balls (.64), and a very strong negative correlation between popups and groundballs (-.72).

In other words, as outfield-fly-balls increase, so do popups. As groundballs decrease, popups increase. For comparisons sake, line-drives have absolutely no correlation with popups.

Since the correlations are so high, you can basically come up with an expected popup rate based on a player’s groundball percentage. To me, it actually looks non-linear:

So it seems that each player has a dynamic expected popup rate based on his groundball percentage. Now the real question is, do players popup rates diverge from their expected popup rates consistently on a year to year basis?

If you look at the above chart, you’ll see that there’s not much consistency from year-to-year. The correlation is about .18, which pretty much agrees with Mitchel Lichtman’s findings of .14 as quoted in David Gassko’s Batted Ball DIPS article. For comparisons sake, BABIP has a year-to-year correlation of .15.

So what does this mean for popups as a “skill”? I’d say they are sort of a skill that is closely tied to groundball percentage, but from the findings above, that’s about as far as I’d go. While there may be certain pitchers that prove to be exceptions (just as there are exceptions with BABIP), popups in general do not seem to be much of an independent skill.

All batted ball data is from Baseball Info Solutions from 2006-2009 for pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched.

About a month ago, Matthew Carruth wrote up Jose Lopez’s odd season. Summarizing his accomplishments to date with:

It’s not all cheery news however. While Lopez may pace the entire league in defensive rankings at the moment, he also trails the entire league in hitting value. Seriously. According to wRAA, Jose Lopez has been the least valuable hitter in baseball. We have all heard the term ‘all glove, no bat’ before, but this is insane.

June has nary treated Lopez the Batter with any more kindness than April and May did. Yet that .280 monthly wOBA is actually a season best, as insane as that sounds. Lopez’ .127 ISO is nearly higher than his first two month’s wOBA added together. He’s no longer walking (only one the entire month; his 10th of the season, not so good for a guy who wanted to walk at least 50 times this year) but he’s also sharply cut his strike outs down too.

There’s something else weird about Lopez’s season, too: he’s hitting better at home than on the road. Most of that has to do with an elevated BABIP, but anytime you hear of a right-handed batter who plays his home games in Safeco Field the expectation is robbery via ballpark. Not the case here. And to his credit, Lopez is mauling left-handed pitchers with an above average wOBA; the issues has been righties. Another tally to Lopez’s credit is that he’s playing pretty impressive defense at third base to date despite only changing positions in the spring.

Chone Figgins isn’t fairing too much better than Lopez, but with his contract and history of success he’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Meanwhile Lopez is in the final season of a four year extension with a $4.5 million club option for 2011. If Lopez’s BABIP induced woes continue, his likely exit will probably be through the declining of that option (which would mean a quarter of a million buyout) and hitting the free agent market rather than a trade. That seemed positively unlikely just three months ago.

Right now, the top of the MLB position player WAR leaderboard looks like this:

Justin Morneau, +4.4
Robinson Cano, +4.3
Carl Crawford, +3.8
Alex Rios, +3.4
Adrian Gonzalez, +3.3

Besides all having excellent first halves of the 2010 season, and generally being high quality players all around, these five have something else in common – they were all pretty awful in their first trip around the big leagues.

To illustrate the point, here’s their WAR per 600 PA for something equivalent to their “rookie year” – several of these guys had half seasons in several different years, so I’ve combined those into one “year” and then extrapolated the number to an equivalent of one full season’s worth of plate appearances.

Morneau, 2003-2004, +1.1 WAR
Cano, 2005, +0.2 WAR
Crawford, 2002, +1.3 WAR
Rios, 2004, +2.1 WAR
Gonzalez, 2004-2005, -2.3 WAR

Morneau flashed some power, but didn’t hit for much of an average or draw enough walks to be useful at the start of his career. Cano didn’t walk and couldn’t field his position. Crawford was excellent defensively but couldn’t hit. Rios was like Crawford, but with even less power. And Gonzalez was just all kinds of terrible.

Of the five, only Crawford came up at a really young age. The rest were 22 or 23 and were coming off successful stints in the minors, offering hope that they could contribute right away. Pretty much across the board, they came up and stunk up the joint at the plate. Crawford and Rios were able to rescue themselves a little bit with their athleticism on defense, but none of them were able to quickly translate their minor league success at the plate to the big leagues.

I said all of this to say don’t give up on talented young players who struggle in their first taste of the majors. Whether its Justin Smoak, Matt LaPorta, Michael Saunders, or even Mike Stanton, patience is a virtue. Writing off a young player who doesn’t hit immediately upon arrival is a great way to get burned – just ask the Rangers whether they’d like to have Gonzalez back right now.