If for no other reason than a ragged beard and moppy heard of hair, we should all be thankful that the Mariners chose Kanekoa Texeira in the past Rule 5 draft. Texeira was a part of the Yankees’ organization, which has a draconian policy towards facial hair and style alike. They are essentially baseball’s version of the Illuminati with constricting policies in exchange for success. Oh sure, you’ll win games, but no handlebar mustaches for you, my friend. And really, is winning without a mustache winning at all?

Texeira remained a Mariner through the spring and into the summer before the team placed him on waivers. The question of choice at the time was something like, “Which sabermetric organization will be the next to give this guy a shot?” That was a question because through 18 innings with the Mariners, Texeira had decent peripherals and a stinky ERA.

The team of intellectual sunshine to claim Texeira was – of course – the Kansas City Royals. He’s since pitched in 15 games for them and has looked nothing like his Mariner incarnation. Instead of being a reliever with modest strikeout and walk rates who gets a fair amount of grounders, he’s morphed into a reliever almost completely void of strikeouts and walks who gets an extreme amount of grounders. It’s a good look for him, too, as his FIP and xFIP have remained about steady while his ERA has deflated by more than two runs.

In such small sample sizes, it is possible that one or the other could be Texiera’s real ability. It’s also possible that neither are truly representative since it is just 43 innings and true talent doesn’t know of our arbitrary boundaries – like seasons – so it doesn’t have to show itself through every sample just because Texeira is now in the majors or just because the season just began or anything like that. He looks like a useful reliever to have in a bullpen and kudos to the Royals for grabbing him, but right now, it’s hard to peg just which skin is his own.

The Rays finally learned what it’s like on the good side of the no hitter today. Matt Garza faced the minimum tonight against the Detroit Tigers, walking only one batter. Garza added six strikeouts as well, and finished the job in 120 pitches.

To be sure, this Detroit Tigers lineup is not the lineup that was 31 runs above average entering this season. Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, and Brandon Inge were out, replaced by Will Rhymes, Don Kelly, and Ryan Raburn. Ordonez is a well above average hitter, and Guillen and Inge have performed around average this season. Tonight was Rhymes’s third major league game. Raburn has struggled mightily this year but is projected around average. Kelly has also struggled mightily, but his struggles, according to ZiPS, are more indicative of his true talent. This lineup is demonstrably worse, but the presence of players like Miguel Cabrera, Austin Jackson, Brennan Boesch, and Johnny Damon still signify some firepower in the Tigers’ lineup.

That said, no hitting any major league lineup is impressive, and we can’t ignore the fact that the Tigers lineup just might contain the best hitter in the American League. How did Garza do it? His four-seam fastball was utterly dominant. He threw a whopping 96 four-seamers out of his 120 pitches. Sixty-seven of these four-seamers went for strikes and ten of those 67 went for swinging strikes, both of which are fantastic numbers. The Tigers just couldn’t put good wood on the fastball. The pitch type linear weights over at Brooks Baseball have Garza’s flour-seamer at a staggering 6 runs above average tonight. That mark would rank 33rd among all pitchers in baseball over the course of the whole season; Garza’s fastball was 3.5 runs above average entering the game.

Games like tonight are the reason that Tampa Bay was willing to deal a top prospect like Delmon Young for Matt Garza. Garza’s performance immediately goes down as the most memorable performance by a Rays’ pitcher, and this performance on a national stage will make sure that anybody who wasn’t paying attention to the Rays before is paying attention now.

Last Monday, Jack Moore questioned the Oakland Athletics’ decision against trading Ben Sheets. A week later, Sheets is doubtful to make another start this season and perhaps ever again for the A’s.

This is not the first injury the Athletics have sustained and it will not be the last. Roughly $31 million of Oakland’s $58 million dollar payroll is split Between Coco Crisp, Mark Ellis, Eric Chavez, and Sheets; combined they have produced 1.4 WAR – or about $22 million per win. Somehow, the Athletics are still around .500 despite effectively playing with a $27 million dollar roster – about $5 million less than Alex Rodriguez is making by himself. That goes without even mentioning Justin Duchscherer, who banks $1.75 million of his own.

That “somehow” is credit to the A’s rotation. Brett Anderson – who returns this week – and Dallas Braden are the two best pitchers on the squad and neither has managed to stay healthy this season either. Vin Mazzaro is a relatively new addition to the rotation as well. He is only tallied 60 starting innings this season with an additional 10 in the bullpen. His 4.42 xFIP (starting only) is an improvement over what he offered last season, which is nice, but the real story of the rotation is the combination of Gio Gonzalez and Trevor Cahill.

The 22 year old Cahill has upped his groundball rate to 57% through 17 starts. For comparison’s sake, former Athletic Tim Hudson is at 66% and Justin Masterson is at 63%. Although he’s still a fastball pitcher at heart – and with groundball rates like that it’s obvious that he’s a sinkerballer – Cahill has successful substituted a curveball in place of his slider. Anytime a pitcher ups his strikeout rate while simultaneously downing his walk and home run rates it’s a joyous occasion. When Cahill does walk a batter or allow a hit, he’s getting double plays in 18% of his double play opportunities – roughly equal to the aforementioned Hudson.

Gonzalez is the elder of the pair as he is all of 24. He’s made 20 starts this season and is averaging six innings. Much like Cahill, Gonzalez has ostracized the free pass from his game; not entirely, but enough to make a noticeable difference. Gonzalez’s fastball shows good velocity and casual observers may notice the usage and depict Gonzalez in their mind as a pitcher with a dominant heater. While the pitch does get strikes, it is not quite a pastball as it only misses bats about 6% of the time. Gonzalez’s curve does the dirty work. With a ten-inch drop (relative to a ball thrown without spin), the pitch results in a whiff nearly 14% of the time.

When the holy trinity of Hudson-Zito-Mulder descended onto the other depths of Major League Baseball, everyone looked for a new big three to emerge in Oakland. Haren-Harden-Blanton did the job, just not quite as well. It’s far too early to acclaim either Gonzalez or Cahill as the third wheel alongside Braden and Anderson, but the Athletics might have the makings of a very good and very cheap rotation for the very near future.

Previous Four Factors Entries:
Carlos Gonzalez
Joe Morgan
Brennan Boesch
Martin Prado

Shin-Soo Choo is a star. I’m not sure if people recognize him as such, mainly because he somehow hasn’t reached any all-star games. Still, there’s no getting around his production. 2010 marks the third straight season in which Choo has a wRC+ above 140, and in all 3 of these seasons Choo has put up at least 2.9 WAR and at least 4.4 WAR per 600 plate appearances. Those are star type numbers, but they often get lost due to the lack of talent surrounding him in Cleveland. Let’s look at what has made Choo such a fantastic hitter these last three seasons.

2008 was Choo’s breakout season, his second year in Cleveland after coming over a deal for Ben Broussard. He showed a solid walk rate and great power, although a big part of what powered his big season was a .367 BABIP. Even without it, Choo would’ve been a solid hitter – the walks and power were there – but that performance on balls in play pushed his season from above average to elite. It’s important to remember that this was a short season for Choo, in which he played 94 games and accrued 370 plate appearances, and that may impact some of these numbers – POW typically won’t stabilize until later in a season.

2009 was a very similar year for Choo, although the power dropped off over the course of a full season. It’s hard to be too disappointed, though, given that Choo still gave the Indians a performance that lives up to many of the elite hitters in the game. Twenty home runs and 38 doubles supplied the power for Choo, which was slightly disappointing given the fact that he put up 14 homers in only 370 PAs the year prior. Still, any player that can put up any sort of decent power numbers – and a POW that was 136% of league average certainly qualifies as decent – while also putting up OBPs near .400 is a fantastic offensive player. Despite this, there’s the elephant in the room – another high BABIP, this time at .370. Even after 1000 PAs, we can’t be sure that it would stay so high, and would Choo remain at such a high level without it?

In 2010, we get the answer to that question: a resounding “yes.” The power dropped off a little bit along with the BABIP, but the plate numbers, BB% and K%, have both moved enough to compensate. A 2% increase in walk rate doesn’t seem that significant, but it moved Choo from 128% of league average to 156%. The big difference is the strikeout percentage. Choo is now striking out less than the league average after two seasons in which he was well above. This almost entirely compensates for the drop in BABIP, as the fact that he now has more balls in play emphasizes his still solid BABIP as well as his good POW score. Of course, we’re dealing with a small sample here, but after 360 PAs, both BB% and K% should start to stabilize.

The Indians haven’t had a good team this year, but Shin-Soo Choo is an excellent piece to build around. As an outside observer and a big fan of Choo, I hope that the Indians can put a solid team around him, if only so that the general public can begin to notice just how incredible a hitter he is.

I suppose it was predictable. If anyone had asked before the season, “who will be two most valuable outfielders in the National League the week of the trade deadline?” I think most analysts would have agreed on two names: Matt Holliday and Andres Torres. Why even look at the leaderboard?

But seriously: Andres Torres?

Drafted in 1998 by the Detroit, Torres never really lit up the Detroit system, and was granted free agency in 2004 after only a couple hundred major league plate appearances. He bounced around several organizations’ systems, but his only pre-2009 major league action consisted of 21 PA for the Rangers in 2005. While he hit pretty well for the Cubs AAA affiliate in 2008, it was still the minor leagues, and he was 30 years old at the time — hardly the sign of someone who might be useful in the majors.

The Giants signed Torres to a minor league contract before the 2009 season, and Torres surprised by not only playing good outfield defense (primarily in center and right), but hitting the ball quite well, sporting a .379 wOBA (.270/.343/.533) in 170 PA. It wasn’t primarily BABIP-fueled as if often the case, as one can see from his impressive isolated power (.263) and above-average walk rate (9.4%). Still, over 170 PA just about anything can happen — observed wOBA is regressed halfway to league average at about 220 PA, which is a more sophisticated way of saying that Torres 170 PA of impressive offense told us less about his true talent, statistically, than just guessing he was a league average hitter. So it was understandable that Torres didn’t figure heavily in the Giants off-season retooling.

More than halfway through 2010, the 32 year-old Torres is at it again, getting 356 PA so far due to Mark DeRosa’s injury situation and the continuing disaster in center that is Aaron Rowand. Torres is smoking at the plate with a .378 wOBA (.274/.365/.492). Once again, there’s little or no obvious BABIP luck here, Torres continues to hit for power (.218 ISO) and has not only increased his walk rate (to 11.1%) but has decreased his strikeout rate. His plate approach was decent in 2009, but discipline has improved in 2010 with less swings at balls outside the zone and better overall contact. As for his excellent defensive ratings, it’s far too small a sample to garner much about his true talent based on UZR alone, but the 2009 Fan Scouting Report seems in to indicate he’s for real in that regard.

What do we make of all this? Preseason projections certainly didn’t see this coming: CHONE projected a .318 wOBA, and ZiPS saw a .315. ZiPS RoS (which takes into account the current season’s performance) sees a .339 wOBA from Torres the rest of the season, which is above average, but a far cry from his current performance. This is not mean to “show up” these projections systems, whose creators hardly claim infallibility; moreover, there was precious little data from recent major- or minor-league performance that would suggest that Torres’ offensive true talent was even close to .378 wOBA.

To be honest, there still isn’t. While Torres may have more than twice as many PA in 2010 as he did in 2009, that does not mean that we have “twice the certainty” regarding his observed performance’s relation to his true talent level. Statistics don’t work that way. The updated projections from ZiPS and CHONE may not be your cup of tea, but I’ll take them over my own opinion. You may trust your own scouting eye better than I do mine (and honestly, who could blame you). While this isn’t a case of BABIP gone wild, random variation can go beyond just that, and there have been other massive deviations from true talent much larger and longer-sustained than the gap between Torres’ current performance and his projections.

Whatever the case may end up being, this post is not meant to be deflationary towards what Torres and the Giants have achieved so far this season. For as much (justified) criticism as the Giants front office receives, it must be admitted that in cases like Aubrey Huff, the Giants were right and many of “us” were wrong. But before being impressed with Aubrey Huff (who has been excellent), spare a moment for the NL’s second-most valuable outfielder so far in 2010: Andres Torres.

A couple weeks ago Sean Smith released a revamped Total Zone system which included Gameday location data. You can read all about it on baseballprojection.com.

On FanGraphs you can now find the new Total Zone numbers for the 2005-2009 season in the player pages under the heading TZL in the Advanced Fielding sections. Here’s what Carl Crawford’s numbers look like:

The Braves, it appears, perpetually seek outfield help. Last year they struck early to address the issue, trading for Nate McLouth in early June. It seemed like a fairly safe bet. McLouth had produced a .364 wOBA in 2007, which he followed with a .369 mark, including an uptick in power, during his 2008 breakout season. In 2009 he had produced a .365 wOBA prior to the trade, so the Braves were fairly confident of his ability to maintain his output. Even if he dipped a little he’d provide an upgrade over the hodgepodge of washed-up and never-were outfielders.

The transition from Pittsburgh to Atlanta didn’t exactly go smoothly for McLouth, but it didn’t go poorly either. He produces a .342 wOBA for the Braves in his 396 PA, though his power fell off a bit. His strikeout rate rose a bit, but that wasn’t too much a surprise. It was really in 2008 that his strikeout rate fell, so perhaps that was the anomaly. But, all considered it wasn’t bad at all, especially considering his $2 million salary. The Braves didn’t make much noise, though they did go from .500 upon McLouth’s arrival to 10 above .500 by season’s end. Plus, they had Nate for two more seasons at a reasonable rate, plus a $10.65 million option for 2012.

Yet in 2010 the Braves haven’t realized any of McLouth’s potential value. He has been a net negative in every sense this year — except, maybe, that his walk rate has remained consistent with last year. His AVG is down to .168, and no matter how little you regard batting average that is not a number befitting an MLB starter. His power is way down, too, a .097 ISO that comprises a paltry dozen extra base hits in 220 PA. To date he has produced -1.3 WAR, which nearly offsets the value he provided the Braves last year.

These numbers obviously fall a long way from what the projection engines had in mind. CHONE pegged McLouth for a .355 wOBA, Marcel for .358, and ZiPS had him highest of all at .364. The best part about ZiPS is that it is a self-correcting machine. It has already placed lower expectations on the remainder of McLouth’s season, projecting a .339 wOBA the rest of the way, knocking his ISO down nearly 20 points from his preseason projection. Even that seems a bit optimistic. It would take a drastic and immediate turnaround for McLouth to realize anything close to his previous value.

A little more than a year after acquiring McLouth to help fill a void in the outfield, the Braves could be seeking more help. This time, however, it would be to replace McLouth. While they have solutions at the corners with Jason Heyward and an Eric Hinske – Matt Diaz platoon, center field remains an issue. Melky Cabrera and Gregor Blanco filled in while McLouth sat for a month and a half with a concussion, but neither is an ideal season-long solution. The Braves’ outfielders rank 13th in the NL in wOBA (.319) and are slightly below average, per UZR, defensively. They could certainly use an upgrade in center, especially it’s a rental. They do, after all, have McLouth under contract for one more year.

Despite the optimistic ZiPS rest of season forecast, we’re essentially at the point where we can write off McLouth’s 2010 as a lost cause. Though it’s never a positive for a player to miss that much time with a concussion, there was a chance that the break from baseball would help McLouth clear up anything that wasn’t working earlier in the season. Yet he’s collected just one hit in 15 PA since his return while grounding into two double plays and striking out twice. No, 15 PA doesn’t mean much when isolated, but considering McLouth’s failings earlier in the season it does not present a positive sign at all. I’m sure the Braves aren’t placing any expectations on him for the remainder of the season.

Since his arrival in the big leagues, the best way to describe Luke Gregerson is simply “unhittable.” Last season, Gregerson posted a 3.24 ERA/2.50 FIP/3.11 xFIP in seventy-five innings with a K/9 of a whopping 11.16. This year, he’s walking two batters less per nine innings, and with some BABIP help is down to a line of 2.66 ERA/2.43 FIP/2.60 xFIP. However, he’s also decreased his tERA from 2.56 to 2.13. The groundballs are down while the flyballs have increased, which isn’t usually a good sign, but it is partially due to the decrease in line drives (which is most likely going to regress a bit). Gregerson has also begun to throw his slider a bunch more this year, up to 61.4% from 49.6% last season. Joe Pawlikowski wrote about about Gregerson’s nasty slider in early June:

The Padres’ bullpen has benefitted greatly from Gregerson and his slider. The unit claims the NL trifecta of fewest walks, most strikeouts, and lowest batting average against. They’re getting help from everywhere, but Gregerson has been a particular bright spot this season. The high slider frequency does cause a little concern, but for right now it’s his nearly unhittable weapon. I can’t imagine being an opposing hitter and standing in to face him.

Using the Bloomberg Sports Pro Tool, I wanted to take a closer look at Gregerson’s slider:

The top image shows all sliders thrown by Gregerson in 2010 to right-handed batters, while the bottom image shows the batted ball location of all those pitches. The highlighted balls in the top image correspond to the highlighted balls in play in the bottom image. As you can see, when Gregerson leaves his slider up and in/over the plate to right-handed hitters, it tends to get hit relatively far compared to all of his balls in play. Still, there’s only one homer there and a bunch of flyouts and a few groundouts, so even Gregerson’s hung slider isn’t all that bad. Here are the pitches from the lower-right quadrant of the batter’s box:

When Gregerson is able to locate his slider, batters don’t stand a chance. This also only includes batted balls. Look at Gregerson’s swings-and-misses generated by his sliders versus righties in 2010:

Gregerson’s slider has been worth 12 runs above average this season (from our own numbers here at Fangraphs) after an outstanding 18.7 mark last year. You can see why.

When I was putting together my Trade Value series, my preliminary version included Dan Haren. A good pitcher on a good contract, not yet 30, and durable as can be, I figured he would draw a lot of interest if the D’Backs put him on the market. Then, while hanging out in Anaheim, I started talking to friends in the game about the list, and a consensus quickly emerged – they were not nearly as high on Haren as I was.

After a series of conversations that all went the same way – “He’s okay, but I wouldn’t give up any of those guys for him, or a bunch of other guys you didn’t include” – I dropped him from the list. It just became obvious that Haren’s trade value wasn’t as high as I thought it would be, given his performances the last few years. Regardless of where his xFIP ranks, he wasn’t seen as any kind of ace by the people who actually were putting rosters together.

Now, a day after he’s been traded for about the same amount of value as Philadelphia gave up to acquire Joe Blanton two years ago, it’s probably time to ask why. Why is there a massive divide between the teams and the online baseball community when it comes to how good Haren is and what he’s actually worth?

As best as I can tell, it comes down to two issues – velocity and home runs. While Haren’s walk rate and strikeout rates are excellent, his home run rates have always been a bit of a problem. Of the 56 qualified starting pitchers over the last three calendar years, Haren’s 1.11 HR/9 ranks just 40th. He has done a good enough job at limiting baserunners that his longball issues haven’t been a huge problem, but giving up bombs is one of the easiest ways to look bad in front of scouts.

To us, a home run is simply -1.4 runs in the ledger, a mistake that may or may not be predictive of future success. To a lot of scouts, allowing a home run is a sign that there’s a problem with what you’re throwing. Some pitchers, such as Josh Beckett, can overcome this stigma by impressing with raw stuff – a 95 MPH fastball, a big 12-6 curve that buckles knees.

Haren, on the other hand, doesn’t have that kind of repertoire. His fastball is more 88-92, and he relies heavily on a 86-ish MPH cut fastball to keep hitters off balance. So, when he centers one of his average velocity fastballs and it gets blasted over the fence, it’s easy for scouts to assume that Haren is always going to give up a lot of dingers. It’s hard to be impressed when the radar gun says 89 and the ball went 450 feet.

So, Haren gets lumped into a group of pitchers that includes James Shields, Cole Hamels, Javier Vazquez, and Ricky Nolasco – guys who some teams believe throw too many strikes. Several of these teams believe that these guys are too willing to throw one down the middle in order to keep their walk rates down, and it leads to too many home runs and a package that is viewed as more of a good pitcher than a great one.

There may be some truth to those feelings. Perhaps Haren would be better off walking a guy here and there rather than pounding the zone no matter the situation. Since he doesn’t throw 95, maybe putting a 3-1 fastball in the strike zone isn’t always such a great idea. I think they make an interesting argument.

I don’t agree with their assessment of Haren’s overall value, but as we saw yesterday, the actual price for Haren was far lower than the expected price. If you’re wondering why, this is the best explanation I can get. To MLB teams, limiting walks and striking out hitters are nice, but you can’t be an ace if you give up a lot of home runs.

Obviously, it has not been a successful year for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Yesterday’s demoralizing extra innings loss to San Francisco left the Diamondbacks at 37-62, 22 games behind the Padres in the division, with a .374 winning percentage. The only team in the National League with a worse record this season is the Pittsburgh Pirates, who are below .500 for the 18th straight season and currently have a 34-64 record. By any standards, the 2010 has to be a failure for the Diamondbacks.

That doesn’t mean that 2011 has to be a failure as well. The Diamondbacks’ impressive core led to an 87 win projection from our FAN projections, and PECOTA, CAIRO, and CHONE had projections ranging from 79 wins to 85 wins. Clearly, none of these systems foresaw how historically bad the Diamondbacks bullpen is this season. Despite a solid July (+1.16 WPA), the D’Backs bullpen still has a WPA of -6.92, more that 2.5 wins worse than the next worse team. Aside from that, the team has performed relatively well. The offense has been slightly below average, as has the starting rotation, but not to the point where the team should be 25 games below .500. The rest of the team has played closer to a .470 team than a .370 team, but that bullpen exposes all the flaws and more.

Many of the key pieces will be around for next year and beyond. Any discussion of the D’Backs core has to start with Justin Upton. Upton is having another solid season, with 2.8 WAR in 416 plate appearances, and he’ll be around until 2015 under a favorable $51.5 million contract. Chris Young is in the middle of a breakout season and is around until 2013. Mark Reynolds is under control until 2012, as is Stephen Drew. Kelly Johnson has one more year of arbitration remaining. Edwin Jackson is under control for 2011 and Ian Kennedy will be around until 2014. As a group, these players have compiled 15.8 WAR, on pace for around 25 WAR over a 162 game season. Young and Johnson have overplayed their projections, but Reynolds, Upton, and Drew have underplayed their own – as such, I feel like 25 WAR is a good, rough estimate for this group as a whole. If you are of a more conservative vein, anything in the range of 20-25 would be possible.

The problem is that these seven players have been surrounded by incompetence. Chris Snyder and Miguel Montero have performed well with split time at catcher, but other position players have been largely poor. The starting rotation has severely missed Brandon Webb, enough so that it has had to rely on players like Rodrigo Lopez, Billy Buckner, and Dontrelle Willis. We’ve already covered how terrible the bullpen has been.

A team that produces 32 WAR is typically a league average team, and 40-45 is should be enough to earn 90 wins and the playoff berth that typically comes with that total. Between the 20-25 WAR produced by the aforementioned core and the 5.0 produced by Haren, it shouldn’t take long to develop the supporting cast necessary to produce the remaining 10-15 WAR necessary to reach the playoffs. Relievers are fungible and the most abundantly available resource, and the Diamondbacks have a solid player in Brandon Allen and his .905 OPS in AAA coming up at first base. Perhaps the budget wouldn’t be enough to compete in 2011, but a large majority of those important players, including Dan Haren, would have been under control for more than just next season. The core that still remains probably needs one more star to compete, and with the relatively weakness at SP, Haren was the perfect fit.

The Diamondbacks, however, saw a .347 winning percentage and a situation that simply wasn’t salvageable, and the interim management reacted by dealing Dan Haren for a significantly worse but significantly cheaper starter in the short term. The move says to me that they don’t feel that this core can win games and reach the playoffs. Now, with Dan Haren replaced by a below average starter in Joe Saunders, they’re probably right. All the pieces were in place for Arizona. It’s simply disappointing to see such a young, promising team broken up at this stage in the game.