After the 2008 season, the Kansas City Royals traded Leo Nunez to the Florida Marlins for Mike Jacobs, who was to become a key part of the Royals 2009 push for the AL Central title. There is no need to re-visit the fate of Kansas City’s aspirations. The Marlins apparently aren’t happy with how their own 2010 playoff push is going, firing manager Fred Gonzalez and some coaches today. I suppose owner Jeffrey Loria feels like being forced by the union and MLB to actually spend money entitles him to expect greatness from those under him. I leave that discussion for someone else.

But looking back at the 2008-2009 off-season, from the standpoint of the spendthrift Marlins, Nunez’s best attribute at that time was probably that he had one more pre-arbitration season left, and that they could get him for Jacobs, a replacement level player they were likely going to non-tender. Sure, Nunez had been a half-win reliever in 2008 with a 3.77 FIP, but while his 3.62 tERA looked good, his 5.13 xFIP was less than impressive. In 2009, while Jacobs (unsurprisingly to to nearly everyone everyone except the Royals’ “braintrust” and, it must be said, a number of FanGraphs commentators) was awful in Kansas City to the tune of -0.5 WAR, Leo Nunez didn’t exactly light it up in 2009, either, putting up -0.8 WAR. One could still say that the Marlins “won” the trade given the salary differential from the two, but this clearly wasn’t what they were expecting. Nunez wasn’t completely horrible, as his xFIP was 4.41, but a 4.91 tERA showed he was getting hit hard, his strikeout rate wasn’t making up for the big flies, and, frankly, given Florida’s usual budgetary methods, the predictable outcome would have been a non-tender rather than let Nunez head to arbitration. Florida obviously saw something they liked, however, and settled with Nunez for $2 million dollars.

Thus far in 2010, the Marlins’ faith in Nunez has been amply rewarded, we he’s put up almost one win already. What caught my eye, however, wasn’t simply Nunez’s good performance so far — after all, pitcher performance varies more year-to-year than hitters, and given the small samples we get of reliever performance in single seasons, great changes are to be expected from season-to-season since we only get a glimpse of their true talent. What grabbed my attention was how firmly Nunez seeming “transformation” is supported by his peripherals.

Beginning with the “dumb” stat, ERA: Nunez currently sits at 2.43. Over not even 30 innings, a lot of pitchers could do that. That is actually higher than his FIP, at 2.33. Nunez has had good FIPs before, partly on the basis of his luck on flyballs. He has been lucky with HR/FB rate this season, at only 4.0%, but even when normalizing that, his xFIP is still an impressive 3.04, and that’s mainly because of one of the most impressive and radical changes to Nunez’s peformance: after having about a 40% GB rate and about a 43% FB rate in 2008-2009, in 2010 Nunez has ramped up his ground ball rate to 52.6%w and his fly ball rate is down to 32.1%. All this explain why his tERA is an amazing 2.11 in 2010.

That isn’t all. In 2008, Nunez simply didn’t strike that many batters out (4.84/9). He increased that to 7.86 in 2009, but also upped his walk rate to 3.54. In 2010, he has lowered his walk rate down to 2.12, while increasing his K rate to 8.80, a career high if he keeps it up. Combining that with his newly-found groundball tendency, it’s as if Nunez looked at his 2009 in the offseason, wasn’t happy, and simply decided, “well, that didn’t work, maybe I’ll try striking out more guys, walking less, and, while I’m at it, I’ll keep half the balls in play on the ground. Maybe that will work.” I’m sure Brian Bannister has talked about it in one of the 27 interviews he’s given over the last few seasons, but Nunez is actually making it happen.

All of this is in an extremely small sample of course (not quite 30 innings), but keep in mind that it isn’t as if Nunez had a huge sample of last year’s performance, either, at about 70 innings. Using simple 5/3/2 weights for seasons, at about 42 innings we’d weight Nunez’s 2010 equal to his 2009 in terms of projecting his true talent, so he’s getting close. And there is evidence (other than the results he’s getting) that he’s changed his approach. His BIS pitch-types indicate that he’s throwing fewer fastballs and sliders in favor of many more change-ups, which has made his fastball and (especially) his change-up more effective. Whether he can continue with this success throwing almost 46% change-ups is something to watch.

We don’t know exactly what the Marlins saw in Nunez, but whatever it was, the made the right decision, and it is a credit to their talent evaluators. FanGraphs currently values Nunez’s 2010 performance alongside or greater than that of more well-known relievers such as Rafael Soriano, Billy Wagner, Francisco Rodriguez, Grant Balfour, Jose Valverde, Mariano Rivera, and Joakim Soria. Even if he can’t keep it up, he’s more than earned what the Marlins are paying him this season.

Magglio Ordonez is having a great year for the Tigers; his .402 wOBA sits just outside the top ten in baseball. Ordonez has always been able to maintain a relatively low strikeout rate for a hitter with his power and walks, and this year it is even better with a career low strikeout rate (9.5%), a career high walk rate (11.7%) and solid power (ISO of .185). The great BB:K numbers are caused by his best O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, and Contact% in the FanGrapgs Era (since 2002). His 91% contact rate is ninth best in the bigs and of those players better than him only Dustin Pedroia and Victor Martinez have anywhere near his power.

Here I will quickly look at where that extra contact is coming from. I use the contact contours that I introduced in this post. These contours are estimates of Ordonez’s contact rate.  A swung-at pitch inside the solid line is contacted over 92.5% of the time. A pitch around the solid line that Ordonez swings at (92.5% contour) is contacted 92.5% of the time.  A swung-at pitch between the solid and dotted is contacted between 92.5% and 87.5% of the time.  And so on. I compare his contact rate for 2010 to his contact rate on pitches between 2007 and 2009 (those in the pitchf/x data set) and the image is from the catcher’s persepctive.

Because Ordonez hasn’t swung at many pitches outside of the zone, inside the curves are unresovled there, but throughout the strike zone he has a much higher conatct rate. His 92.5% contour covers much of the zone in 2010 compared to perviously where it was just a small part middle-in. He is also making contact at a higher rate on pitches up-and-away. Previously, he made contact on those pitches less than 87.5% of the time, but he is making contact at a high rate (higher than 92.5%) on these pitches.

That extra contact has led to fewer strikeouts and is partially responsible for Ordonez’s success so far. On the face of it, this success may partially vindicate the Tigers’ decision to allow Ordonez’s option to vest (he has already been worth nearly 11 million dollars, and more if you think wins are more valuable than average to the Tigers who have a shot at the AL Central). Still, decisions need to be evaluated based on the information that was available when they were made. And even the Tigers could not have predicted a .400 wOBA first half from Ordonez.

Short-season leagues around Minor League Baseball are in full swing now. Some leagues – like the Dominican Summer League – have played more than 20 games, while others – like the Gulf Coast League – have managed just two games so far. Let’s have a look at some of the interesting names found within these low-level leagues. Small sample size warning clearly applies.

Dominga Santana, OF, Philadelphia
Considered by FanGraphs as the Phillies’ 12th best prospect entering 2010 (and ninth by Baseball America), Santana had a solid debut season in the Gulf Coast League in ’09. The outfielder hit .288/.388/.508 at the age of just 16(!). Well, five games into the New York Penn League season he’s third in the league in hitting at .471 (17 at-bats). Santana is a potential five-tool player, with a strong arm, although the 6’5” outfielder projects to lose speed as he fills out.

Michael Ynoa, RHP, Oakland
Signed for more than $4 million in ’08, Ynoa had yet to throw a pitch in pro ball until the 2010 season. Injury concerns caused the organization to go slow with the big right-hander but he’s still just 18 years old. The Dominican Republic native faced the Angels’ rookie league club on June 21 and he allowed just one hit (no walks) in three innings and struck out four batters. The organization will continue to be cautious with Ynoa, so he’ll likely be a slow mover through the system.

Carlos Perez, C, Toronto
Another international find, Perez made his pro debut in the Dominican Summer League in ’08 as a 17-year-old catcher and he showed an outstanding approach at the plate for his age, with a line of .306/.459/.378. He also walked 52 times with just 28 strikeouts in a league where most of the hitters are extremely aggressive. Last season in rookie ball, Perez hit .291/.364/.433 in 141 at-bats and showed solid defensive skills behind the plate. Toronto continues to go slow with the talented catcher as he’s currently playing in the New York Penn League and has a 1.150 OPS and has scored a league-leading eight runs through five games. Toronto has impressive catching depth in the minors with J.P. Arencibia, Travis d’Arnaud, A.J. Jimenez, and Perez.

Kolbrin Vitek, 3B, Boston
I love to see draft prospects sign quickly and get on with their pro careers. Vitek is one of nine first-round picks from 2010 that have jumped at the chance to play pro ball. He’s hitting .333 through five games and has been playing third base. Fellow third baseman Jedd Gyorko had an outside shot of going in the first round in 2010, but he slid to the Padres in the second round. He has a 1.350 OPS and the league lead with two homers through five games in the Northwest League.

Miguel Sano, SS, Minnesota
One of the top 2009 international free agents ($3.15 million), Sano was left in the Dominican Summer League this season by the Twins and he’s hitting like he wants a ticket north. The recently turned 17-year-old infielder is currently hitting .341/.444/.636 through 44 at-bats. He’s struck out 14 times, but he’s also taken eight free passes through 14 games.

Yeicok Calderon, OF, New York AL
New York shelled out cash to a number of talented international free agents in ’08 and Calderon was one of the them, although he was not considered the top player in the group. In fact, he did not even make Baseball America’s Top 30 prospects list for the organization. After a solid debut in ’09 in which he hit .321/.440/.415 in 193 at-bats in the Dominican Summer League, Calderon is making a statement in 2010 and he clearly wants to move stateside in 2011. He’s leading the DSL in homers with five (he hit three in 55 games last year) and he has a .956 OPS through 18 games.

Overview

With their 10-4 loss to the Marlins last night the Orioles are now 19-51, last place in the majors by six full games. That puts them on pace for a 44-118 season, which would put them in company with the 2003 Tigers and 1962 Mets. It would also be a 20-game downturn from last season, when they went 64-98. There are a few bright spots and plenty of potential, but these Orioles are a bad team that has underperformed. There’s not much anyone can do to fix that.

Buy Or Sell

The O’s face a conundrum as the deadline approaches. They do have a number of players who other teams will find attractive. The Orioles stand to improve future teams by cashing in on those players, so in an ideal world they’d be aggressive sellers. But the Orioles have to deal with reality, and in reality those trade chips rank among their top performers. To sell them off could be what pushes the Orioles past that 120-loss mark. No team wants to face that possibility.

Orioles president and CEO Andy MacPhail might not have a choice. He knows what lies ahead for his team. There is no mercy for the weak in the AL East, and the division will only get tougher as Toronto reloads. For Baltimore to keep its best trading chips would be to miss an opportunity to help build a stronger future. That is not something they can afford right now. If it means a new low in the loss column, well, that’s the price that teams sometimes have to pay for future wins.

After a strong start Kevin Millwood has pitched poorly lately, which certainly hurts his trade stock. As Dave wrote yesterday, however, he could present a bargain for a contending team looking for an additional arm. This is good for the contender, but bad for the Orioles. According to Eddie Bajek’s reverse engineering of the Elias rankings Millwood still rates as a Type B free agent, and unless he completely collapses probably won’t lose that designation. The Orioles can likely do better — they did, after all, nab Josh Bell for George Sherrill last year — but they shouldn’t expect a huge return for Millwood.

Ty Wigginton has made the most of his playing time. He started the season as a reserve, but became a starter when Brian Roberts hit the DL with back problems. He would have gotten at-bats anyway, considering Garrett Atkins’s horrible bat, but he has taken advantage regardless. His .367 wOBA still ranks high on the AL charts, though it is dropping. Since May 19th he’s hitting .223/.339/.282. He’s clearly better than that, but he’s not as good as his early season hot streak either. Because he is versatile he should find a few suitors, but because he is a free agent at the end of the year teams likely won’t give up much for the rental.

The player that could probably fetch the greatest return is outfielder Luke Scott. This is his sixth season in the majors, but he has accumulated only three full years of service time, meaning he has two more dates with the arbitration panel before becoming a free agent. His production this year, a .365 wOBA, is in line with his career .360 mark. His best defensive innings have come at the outfield corners, where he has a positive career UZR. The production and service time combination means the Orioles could get more for Scott than they could for Millwood and Wigginton. In a year when offense is down, there are certainly a few contenders who could use an outfielder with an .838 OPS.

The rest of the roster features nothing attractive. The Orioles want to hang onto their younger players, and the rest are veterans who probably wouldn’t help a contender. Even Miguel Tejada looks pretty terrible right now. The only other name that approaches attractiveness is Jeremy Guthrie, and it’s unlikely the O’s trade him. Like Scott, he has two more years of arbitration which, combined with his mere $3 million salary in 2010, could yield some decent offers from other clubs. But to lose Guthrie would be to lose veteran presence in the rotation next year. It’s not something that we can really quantify, but I’m sure the Orioles would like to avoid relying on a rotation of pitchers 25 and younger.

On The Farm

This is where things get interesting for the Orioles. They have already tapped a couple of pitchers from their top 10, Brian Matusz and Jake Arrieta, and could again dip into that pool later this season. LHP Zach Britton, their No. 3 prospect entering the season, has pitched very well at AA and might take a trip to Baltimore before season’s end. Switch-hitting Josh Bellhasn’t hit that well at AAA, but considering the poor production the O’s are getting from third base he could also crack the roster this season. First base prospect Brandon Snyder has heated up of late and could find himself with the big league squad in September. Again, it’s not like they’re getting anything from their current first basemen.

Beyond those guys the O’s have a number of high-ceiling guys at the lower levels. Some of them might be able to help next year, but as the team has learned this year it’s not something they can count on. It looks like the O’s could use more in the way of middle infield prospects. They have plenty of pitching on the farm.

Budget

The O’s opened the season with a $73.8 million payroll, their highest since 2007. That shouldn’t matter much, though. Budget is probably the last item on the team’s collective mind. It’s all about rebuilding now. Even if that means losing 120 games.

Jason Bay is having a really bad year. Considering his large contract he’s been given by the Mets, his 125 wRC+, combined with mediocre defense at a non-premium position, is simply unacceptable. The question, however, is what has gotten into Bay to have him drop so dramatically? No prognosticators saw this coming, and the Mets brass has to be shocked at the power outage, which Jack Moore chronicled wonderfully last week.

I think we may learn a little bit from Bay’s swing. Let’s take a peak at his stance from July of 2009 on the Red Sox and June of 2010 on the Mets:

So you can definitely see a difference here despite the slightly different camera angles. On the Sox, Bay had his hands farther up and out, his knees bent more, and his stance slightly more open. Given his swing, this is the better approach, as Bay is giving himself the proper momentum to come through on the ball, flicking his wrists to generate power. Bay doesn’t have a typical swing where he whips the bat around all the way; he’s more of the Richie Sexson/Chase Utley school of hitting which requires a flick of the wrists.

Here is Bay getting ready to swing as the pitch is coming in, already released from the pitcher’s hand:

The differences here are more subtle. On the Sox, Bay is less crouched (see how his knees are more bent on the Mets and his rear end is sticking out more). On the Mets, his front foot isn’t as parallel to his back while his hands are farther down, meaning he’ll generate less power with his swing. The main takeaway is that he is more geared back for a strong swing earlier, but now is more flat-footed, giving him no chance to drive the ball on the outside part of the plate with any serious power.

Finally, look how far away from the plate he is on the Mets. It doesn’t look like much, but that ~1 inch or so can mean the world. Because Bay stands so far away from the plate, there’s no way for him to generate any power to right field. He’ll either swing through a pitch on the outside corner, pop it up to right, or roll it over for an easy grounder. Here are his stats when hitting the ball to the right side:

2010: .188/.176/.375, 35 wRC+
2009: .267/.267/.533, 103 wRC+
2008: .256/.247/.522, 92 wRC+

However, if we look at the numbers to right field a little closer, we can learn some more:

2010: 8.8% LD, 5.9% GB, 85.3% FB, 24.1% IFFB, 3.4% HR/FB, .152 BABIP
2009: 9.8% LD, 11.5% GB, 78.7% FB, 20.8% IFFB, 8.3% HR/FB, .214 BABIP
2008: 8.6% LD, 9.7% GB, 81.7% FB, 13.2% IFFB, 6.6% HR/FB, .205 BABIP

I think that Bay has gotten slightly unlucky on his balls in play to the right side this year, but ther’s good reason for such a .156 BABIP. One out of every four balls he hits to the right side is a popup, which is basically an automatic out. That percentage is almost double of his 2008 numbers. Bay’s groundball rate is also extremely low, and grounders have a higher BABIP on average than fly balls. Right field at Citi Field is cavernous, and for Bay to hit flies 85% of the time he hits to right field is a death wish.

The power droppage to right field, and overall for that matter, is stunning, but not necessarily shocking. The change in Bay’s stance isn’t overwhelming, but it may be a marginal cause for his weak numbers for the season. Only time will tell if Bay can get back into form.

Noon, baseball, chatting. Let’s do it.

At 39-33, the Cincinnati Reds currently sit one game back of the St. Louis Cardinals for the division lead in the National League Central. Cincy’s starting pitchers (12th in the NL in xFIP) and ‘pen arms (11th) haven’t really stood out, and the defense has been middle-of-the-pack (eighth in UZR). The offense is the only unit to rate in the top half of the Senior Circuit, as Reds hitters rank second in Park-Adjusted Batting Runs.

Jonny Gomes is doing his part at the plate, slugging .285/.342/.491 with a .352 wOBA in 243 plate appearances. The erstwhile Ray has contributed +4.3 runs with the bat so far, drawing the vast majority of starts in left field for the Reds. During the interleague portion of Cincinnati’s schedule, Gomes has mostly DH’d. Unfortunately, that’s not an option the rest of the year. Once you consider Gomes’ lumbering defense, the Reds might be costing themselves runs by playing him over rookie Chris Heisey.

During his big league career, the 6-1, 225 pound Gomes has a -24.7 UZR/150 in left field and a -16.2 UZR/150 in right field. Pro-rated to 150 defensive games, Total Zone has him at -15.9 runs in left and -24.3 runs in right. Few players in the game punt as much value with the leather — despite Gomes’ quality hitting, he has contributed just 0.1 Wins Above Replacement this season.

Heisey, meanwhile, is considered a much more well-rounded prospect. A 17th-round pick out of Division III Messiah (Pa.), Heisey hit a combined .296/.367/.459 in the minors while rating very well in center and the outfield corners per Total Zone. Prior to 2010, Baseball America called the 25-year-old a “plus defender in the outfield corners.” Heisey projects as an above-average defender in a corner spot, and he reminds me of a David DeJesus-type.

So, how do the two match up? Let’s take a look at Gomes’ and Heisey’s rest-of-season CHONE projections. Offensively, Gomes projects as about +.014 runs above average per plate appearance. Heisey has just 56 plate appearances at the MLB level, with a .413 wOBA. His rest-of-season CHONE forecasts him as -.012 runs below average per plate appearance. If each receives, say, 300 PA from here on out, Gomes would add a little more than four runs above average with the bat while Heisey would be about four runs below average.

Offensively, advantage Gomes. But it’s extremely difficult to envision a scenario in which Heisey doesn’t make up that eight run difference in offensive value with the leather. CHONE thinks that Heisey would actually rate as an above-average center fielder. Let’s say that Heisey rates as a +10 run defender in left per 150 games and Gomes a negative 15 (which is probably generous). If each plays something like 80 more defensive games this season, Heisey would add roughly five runs in value, while Gomes would surrender about eight runs.

Admittedly, the numbers I use are presented as a speculative exercise, but the Reds could be punting a half-win in value for the rest of 2010, perhaps more, by preferring Gomes over Heisey. The NL Central race is close at the moment, but CoolStandings gives the Reds a mild 32% chance of clinching a playoff berth. They’ll need to optimize the talent on hand to stay in the race, and it doesn’t appear as though the team is doing that in left field.

Even though he can’t count Lou Piniella among his fans, Ken Rosenthal remains among the best in the business at breaking news across baseball. Naturally, that means I occasionally find myself reading The Buzz on Fox Sports’s website, where Rosenthal and Jon Paul Morosi report some of the latest news, rumors, and other such things from around baseball.

Their most recent post as of this writing deals with the Oakland Athletics and their willingness to trade two of their more prominent chips this summer, namely Ben Sheets and Coco Crisp. Apparently, the A’s are happy with how Sheets is serving as a mentor to their young players, and may want to keep him for the rest of the season, even though they possibly wouldn’t gain any free agent compensation if he walks at the end of the contract. Crisp has a $5.75 million club option which “could fit easily into their budget.” In conclusion, the Athletics would need to “receive a compelling offer” to move Sheets and would have to be “motivated to move” Crisp. The conclusion regarding Sheets is from “major-league sources;” the conclusion regarding Crisp could simply be speculation by Rosenthal- it’s not clear.

What does all this actually mean? Mark Polishuk summed up the post over at MLBTradeRumors with the title A’s May Hold On To Ben Sheets, Deal Coco Crisp?. The question mark and use of the word “may” display uncertainty, but the language in the Fox Sports post doesn’t suggest either of those conclusions to me. First of all, the A’s would obviously have to receive a compelling offer in order to move Sheets. In trades, the trading partners are always looking to receive equal (or higher) value for their respective pieces; no player is ever moved without a “compelling offer.” Also, Polishuk’s title suggests that Crisp is more likely to be dealt than Sheets. To me, the difference between “motivated to move” and ‘a compelling offer” is simply one that could be found in a thesaurus.

Perhaps I’m expecting too much or reading the article incorrectly, but I don’t feel that I’ve learned anything at all by reading Rosenthal’s blurb – it tells me that Oakland would have to receive something meaningful back in return in order to trade Ben Sheets or Coco Crisp, but that is the case with any player. Still, some fans may interpret this article as saying there’s no chance that Sheets is moved, or perhaps that Crisp’s option will certainly be picked up.

The rumors are relatively benign – nobody’s going to be terribly excited by this news, nor should they be. Now is the time of year where trade talk heightens and Fox’s report is merely one example of misleading or meaningless language. For those who obsess over Major League Baseball like I do and like I know many of you reading do and like many of those fans who won’t ever set eyes upon this blog do, trade rumors are a regular part of our baseball watching and reading. For some reason, we care about what Ken Rosenthal and Buster Olney and other major league sources are saying. Based on the volume of rumors around the game – MLB Trade Rumors averages 104 posts per week – these sources sure have much to say. But in this case, and in many others, all this talk adds up to nothing.

As the meat of the trading season approaches, more and more trade rumors will flood the internet. When it comes to these rumors, we have to remember that, in many cases, they are just that – rumors. This isn’t meant as a blast at MLBTR or Polishuk or Rosenthal – they do a an important job in the baseball world. I find MLBTR to be an invaluable resource when it comes to news and formulating ideas, and as I mentioned above, Rosenthal is an excellent story breaker. But, at the same time, just because it comes out of the mouth of a source doesn’t make it meaningful nor even true. I think that knowledge and some critical reading just could keep all of us a little bit calmer this July.

Stephen Strasburg is pitching tonight (at 4:35pm ET, versus Brian Bannister and Kansas City). It goes without saying that every American boy should watch that game while holding his father’s hand. But there are other baseball games, too, and one of them — Minnesota at Milwaukee — is deserving of the baseball nerd’s attention.

For this edition of One Night Only, I contacted certain members of the nerdosphere who possess intimate knowledge of the teams participating in tonight’s game. I also contacted my friend Dan Lurie, who, despite not being a member of the nerdosphere proper, is a bang-up gentleman and Minnesota native.

Of each contributor I requested two or three bullet points in response to the following prompt:

Knowing your team the way you do, what’s something a general audience should know ahead of this contest?

Their responses (in the relevant sections below) are almost entirely verbatim, copied right from my email account to these electronic pages. Thus, if the syntax differs from one section to the other, well, you’re invited to deal with it.

Voila:

Minnesoter at Mawaukee | Wednesay, June 23 | 8:10pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Twins: Francisco Liriano (NERD: 10)
87.2 IP, 9.55 K/9, 2.46 BB/9, .339 BABIP, 48.7% GB, 2.7% HR/FB, 3.07 xFIP

Brewers: Manny Parra (6)
48.1 IP, 9.31 K/9, 4.10 BB/9, .362 BABIP, 49.3% GB, 10.6% HR/FB, 3.81 xFIP

From Larry Granillo, Owner-Operator of Wezen Ball
• There’s little doubt that the Brewers’ terrible pitching has done the most damage to the team’s chances this season. A close second, however, is the terrible defense. The only positions to have a positive UZR among the regulars are Carlos Gomez in CF (UZR of 0.6 in 338 innings) and Alcides Escobar at SS (1.9 in 518 innings). Jim Edmonds has a 1.3 UZR in 264 innings across all three outfield positions.
• Despite that porous defense, and despite Fielder’s career -6.4 UZR/150 at first base, the Brewers have started someone other than Prince at first only once in the last 260 or so games, and that was only last week. Also, since Prince announced his vegetarianism before the start of the 2008 season, he has hit 93 home runs, driven in 270 runs, and put up a .930 OPS. If he’s still on that diet, it hasn’t exactly sapped his strength.
• The Brewers have not won a game in which the Chorizo won the sausage race… Ok, I made that one up. But the Brewers do have an NL worst 11-19 record at home. The only team with a worse home record in baseball is the Orioles. That’s not exactly the company you want to keep

From Jack Moore, Math Snob and Owner-Operator of Disciples of Uecker
• Parra’s [been] awesome [in his] last three starts, as we talked about in the pod. [The pod, that is, which I am almostly defintely editing as you read these words. Promise! – Cistulli]
• Jonathan Lucroy is a relatively exciting prospect, as he’s a solid defensive catcher, and a good contact hitter who should be a solid, above-average ML catcher.
• For all the talk about Jim Edmonds being a poor fielder, he’s hitting extremely well this year at age 39 and coming off a year away from baseball. This is the second time the Brewers have come up big on a guy who was out of baseball, after Gabe Kapler in 2008.
• John Axford is awesome and has a fantastic mustache and a 94-97 MPH fastball.

From Bryz, Owner-Operator of Off the Mark
• If you are communicating online or via text about Francisco Liriano during the game, you must call him FranKKKKie (one K for every strikeout he has recorded. If he has none, then default to Liriano). Bonus points if you do this verbally and/or can include backwards Ks.
• Prince Fielder may be a vegetarian now, but Delmon Young has been far more successful in losing weight.
• Insiders claim that Carl Pavano and John Axford have a $500 wager on who will have the better mustache by the end of the season.

From My G, Dan Lurie, Front Man of The Grapefruit League
• There’s the coming-of-age story of Delmon Young who is cooking right now (maybe because he can finally be confident that he’ll be in the lineup almost every day). Dude has been notching some clutch hits lately and seems to have cut down a bit on his wild free-swinging. He’s also much more svelte, as we’ve discussed during past viewings. [This is true. We’ve talked about this. Dan Lurie is absolutely not lying. – Cistulli]
• As for prospects, Danny Valencia has been up for a couple weeks and started 3B again Tuesday night, after Gardy got bold the past few days and had Cuddyer starting over there.
• Also, please note this ridiculous Punto t-shirt.

A Tweet from Dayn Perry
In the event that you haven’t seen the face part of John Axford yet, this tweet from Dayn Perry will give you an idea of what to expect:

John Axford looks like he should be in a Victorian stage play tying a chaste maiden to the railroad tracks.

One Other Match-Up That’ll Probably Be Pretty Great
Randy Wells (8) at Cliff Lee (10), 10:10pm ET.

If I Had My Druthers
• Manny Parra would throw off the burdensome yoke of Fortune. I mean, it’s a seriously heavy yoke that probably hurts him alot.

Today I saw a couple gripes around the Internets about xFIP and how infield fly balls are not taken into account. On FanGraphs, overall fly-ball percentage is used to calculated a pitcher’s “normalized” home run rate.

This got me thinking about David Gassko’s Batted Ball DIPS article from five years ago where he writes the following about infield fly balls:

Infield flies per ball in play actually have a slight negative correlation with outfield flies per ball in play. Inducing infield flies is a skill, and while it correlates somewhat weakly year-to-year (Lichtman found an “r” of .140), a small subset of pitchers exhibits clear control over the percentage of their fly balls that are infield pop ups. I would encourage studies looking into who those pitchers are—one thing I have noticed is that extreme ground ball pitchers allow fewer than expected infield fly balls.

What I believe is actually going on here is that fly-ball pitchers in general have higher infield fly-ball rates as measured by Baseball Info Solutions. The repeatability of infield fly balls is basically just a side effect of a pitcher’s total fly-ball rate. Looking at all pitchers from 2006-2009, here’s what you get when you bucket FB% in increments of 5%:

FB% Bucket     IFFB%    HR/FB%   HR/OFFB%
< 25%          7.1%     11.1%     11.9%
25% - 29%      7.8%     10.9%     11.7%
30% - 34%      8.9%     10.2%     11.2%
35% - 39%      9.7%     10.2%     11.3%
40% - 44%     10.5%     10.0%     11.2%
45% - 49%     11.6%      9.8%     11.0%
>= 50%        12.2%     10.0%     11.4%

So, while it’s pretty clear that overall FB% is impacting IFFB%, I’m not sure things are quite so obvious with home runs. It seems to me that home-runs-per-total-fly-ball plateaus at about 10% starting in the 30%-plus range. And for home-runs-per-outfield-fly-ball, things look pretty similar, except everything is about 1% higher because of the removed IFFBs.

So getting back to xFIP, does it really matter whether or not you exclude popups? The answer is, not really. You’re going to get almost the same results because HR/OFFB on average exhibits more or less the same issue as HR/FB. In fact, the correlation between using OFFB vs total FBs in xFIP is .996. The two, in practice, are virtually identical.

However, when you bucket the data like this, it seems that there is one thing made clear: When an extreme groundball pitcher induces a fly ball, there’s slightly greater chance it will end up a home run. I think it would be particularly interesting to look at the run values of different batted balls types for different buckets of fly-ball pitchers, but I’ll have to leave that for another time.