Throw on your guessing caps and then write down the top five in batter BB/K ratio this season. Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer are layups. Aubrey Huff is a shocker and Daric Barton is the black beauty amongst the group, but none of those four leads the league. Nope, that honor goes to Jeff Keppinger as the 30-year-old’s 1.38 ratio nary edges out Pujols’ 1.30.

Keppinger’s wOBA is at .331, above league average, and he should very well surpass his previous career best – an insane 2.2 figure from 2007 that he racked up in 276 plate appearances. Not too bad for someone whose career transactions include being traded in the Kris Benson to New York deal as well as in separate deals for Ruben Gotay, Russ Haltiwanger, and Drew Sutton.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve become so prone to looking at walk rates and isolated slugging ability that we forget about contact skills entirely. Not that one group of players has more value than the other on a wide-scale basis, obviously, it varies case-by-case, but a guy like Keppinger is flying under the radar because he doesn’t hit for much power nor does he get on base an insane amount of time. He does make a lot of contact, though, and that is a good attribute to have.

Keppinger also has one of the more, uh, interesting and vulgar sponsorships going at Baseball-Reference. Really, just check it out for yourself. Keppinger brings out the passion in folks.

Everybody knows about Billy Wagner’s ability at the closer position, and by now most know about impressive rookie Jonny Venters holding down the Atlanta Braves bullpen. However, the best FIP on the team belongs to Takashi Saito and his 2.40 mark over 48 innings this season. This impressive performance has Saito at 1.1 WAR already, making him the third Brave reliever to top the 1.0 WAR mark this season.

It’s not terribly surprising that Saito is having a good season. CHONE and ZiPS both projected a sub-3.50 FIP out of Saito despite his advanced age – a major input for these systems. However, there were warning signs that Saito wouldn’t be as good as these projections expected, as Erik Manning pointed out in the winter.

Saito’s career K/9 of 10.9 dropped to 8.4, which is substantiated by an 80% contact rate. Compare that to a career rate of 73%. His walks were also up, as more batters sat back on his breaking stuff rather than chasing it outside of the zone.

Saito also became an extreme fly ball pitcher – 52% of his balls in play were flies, but 18% of those were of the infield variety, so that’s at least a positive here among some negatives.

Throw this and more together and out pops a 4.40 tRA – not completely terrible, but a clear decline across the board for Saito. It’s definitely not what you would want to see out of high leverage reliever.

Groundball rate typically stabilizes quickly, and so even though Saito only threw 55 innings in 2009, that’s enough to worry at least a little bit about a 15% drop in groundball rate. Whatever it was that caused the massive increase in balls in the air, it has reversed itself in 2010. Saito is once again inducing ground balls on 46% of balls in play. Combine that with a strikeout rate (12 K/9) that’s back at elite levels and a walk rate (2.6 BB/9) that’s back below average, and Saito is once again looking like an elite reliever as he did with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Swift drops across the board in a relief season like those Saito suffered in 2009 may not be worrying for a younger pitcher, as the small sample size typically has a high impact. However, when the subject is over the hill, we have to worry about legitimate deterioration of skills with age. In this case, it doesn’t appear that Saito has lost much, if anything, of what made him worth a staggering 6.9 WAR in only 189 innings from 2006-2008. The magic continues for Saito with Atlanta at the age of 40, and any hints of his career headed towards its end appear to be gone now.

Today, I want to kick off an experiment of sorts. Over the last few off-seasons, I’ve noticed that the expectation of what I think a player will sign for is regularly not anywhere close to what he actually gets. Whether it was due to my misconceptions of what the market would value a player as, or just corrections inspired by the recession, we’ve seen guys sign for fractions of what they were expected to get, or not sign at all despite being pretty useful players.

So, rather than just go into this winter with my own observations of what the market may look like, I thought it would be a worthwhile effort to crowdsource the expected contracts for most of the major free agents who are looking to get paid this winter. We’re going to find out just how well the wisdom of crowds works in projecting the free agent market.

The first player we’ll throw out for discussion is the big fish of the winter, Carl Crawford. The Tampa Bay outfielder, who just turned 29, has established himself as one of the game’s best all-around players. Over the first nine years of his professional career, he’s averaged just under +4 WAR per season, and he’s been even better than that the last two years, posting a +5.5 win season last year and already reaching +5.6 wins so far in 2010. He’s in the prime of his career with a skillset that ages very well, and with a variety of abilities that are valued by every team, no matter their team-building philosophy.

Crawford is going to attract intense interest from multiple teams. There will be an inevitable bidding war for his services, with the Yankees and Angels most often rumored to be the teams ready to break the bank in an effort to lure Crawford to join their organizations. So, the question is, how much does he get, and for how long?

You can use the form below to submit your answers. Once we have a decent sample and the numbers seem to have stabilized around a length and figure, we’ll revisit the expectations. Assuming there’s enough interest, we’ll continue doing these until we get to free agency and find out just how much you guys actually know about projecting free agent contracts. It should be a fun experiment.

I’m not sure who started it (perhaps Rany Jazayerli?), but a few years ago many internet writers began to call Gregg Zaun the Practically Perfect Backup Catcher. However, as people looked more closely. they began to realize that a catcher who was close to league average offensively (Zaun has a career 94 wRC+) and non-horrible defensively would actually make a Pretty Good Starting Catcher. The Toronto Blue Jays noticed and were the only team to really give Zaun a full season of playing time in 2005. By that time, Zaun was in his mid-30s, durability issues started to set in, and he’s never seen that much playing time again. However, the nerdosphere’s like affair with Zaun continued, and although he’s been more of a half-time player since then, he’s hit well enough to be an above average player (relative to his playing time).

Zaun’s 2010 with the Brewers ended early due to injury, and it’s an open question whether he’ll come back for his age 40 season in 2011. But there may be a new candidate to take up his role: Atlanta’s David Ross. Of course, barring unforeseen circumstances befalling Brian McCann, it makes sense that Ross isn’t going to be a starter in for the Braves any time soon. Despite his backup role, however, it seems to me that he could ably start for someone.

Ross has a good defensive reputation, and both DRS and TotalZone rate him as above-average. But let’s leave that aside and focus on his bat. We know that that most catchers don’t hit well. One of the handy things about wOBA is that it is just linear weights in rate-stat form, so we can convert it to runs above/below average. At FanGraphs, the full-season positional adjustment for catcher is +12.5 runs. So prorated 700 PA, to be average a catcher has to be worth -12.5 runs or better to be average or better (assuming average defense). In the 2010 run environment (.322 league average wOBA), that means a defensively-average catcher with about a .300 wOBA will be league average.

How does Ross stack up? Over the last three seasons (2008-present), he has a .349 wOBA (.249/.369/.421), which clearly puts him above the .300 “average line” we set above, as well as better than many starters over the same period, some of are rightly considered to be good players: Russell Martin (.324), Carlos Ruiz (.323), Yadier Molina (.319), and Kurt Suzuki (.315). While Ross’s 2009 power outburst (.234 ISO) was likely far above his true talent, and he’s probably had a fair bit of BABIP luck the last two season (.341 BABIP in both 2009 and 2010 so far), Ross has also thrived on an very good walk rate (15.1% from 2008-present) due to his consistent ability to lay off pitches outside the strike zone. Of course, there’s a sample size issue here, as Ross hasn’t even had 500 plate appearances total the last three seasons. A good bit of regression (particularly for BABIP) is called for here. After doing so, ZiPS RoS projects Ross’s current true talent as a .322 wOBA hitter — about MLB average, which, as a catcher makes him an above-average player.

In a league where Bengie Molina and Jason Kendall have full-time jobs, one wonders why more teams didn’t offer Ross a bit more money and playing time when he was last a free agent. His .286 wOBA in 2007 probably didn’t help, and perhaps teams felt he couldn’t handle even a half-time workload. However, in 2006 he played almost as much and had a .386 wOBA. Whatever the case may be, we probably won’t get to see what Ross could do with more playing time. Not only is he playing behind McCann, but the Braves have Ross locked up through 2012 at a bit more than $1.5 million a year — a bargain given that Ross still been delivering them about a win a season in less than 200 PAs. If McCann does go down for a while, Atlanta knows they won’t suffer too much in the hands of the new Practically Perfect Backup Catcher Who Could Probably Be Starting Somewhere.

A few days ago, I looked into Jay Bruce’s decline in power since his wrist injury last season. I asked our readers if there were any other players they wanted examined. Troy Tulowitzki, Derrek Lee, Jordan Schafer and Rickie Weeks were brought up. I don’t have the batted ball data around when Derrek Lee’s injury happened and Jordan Schafer was sent to AAA after coming off the DL, so neither of those two will be examined. That leaves Rickie Weeks and Troy Tulowitzki to be looked at closer.

I will be looking at the average distance in feet for the fly balls and line drives and the average angle they were hit towards (positive angle is to left field and negative number is to right field). The angle is important to look at because it shows that the batter is able to get the bat through the ball and drive it.

Rickie Weeks

Rickie is a nice test case since he has broken his wrist twice since making to the big leagues: once in May 2007 and the other time in May 2009. Here is a look at line drive and fly ball distances and angles for Rickie from 2007 to current:

I am not for sure what to make of the data exactly. Before either injury, he was driving the ball to left field and averaging 277 ft per hit. After the first injury, he never hit for the same power in distance and started hitting the ball more towards center field. This season, it looks like he has had a boost of power and is starting to turn on the ball a little more. I am wondering if his 2007 injury never actually healed until this past off season.

Also, I divided this year’s data into two time frames. It can even be seen that he is increasing his distance over this season. Again, the one year recovery on wrist injuries looks to hold true.

Note: As asked in my last article, someone pointed out that the weather may be a concern (flyballs travel further in warm weather vice cold weather). The difference is that the ball travels at most ~3 less feet in April compared to a peak distance in June.

Troy Tulowitzki

There is not much data since Troy’s return, but here is his data from the last 4 years:

Two pieces of information stick out to me right away, though.

First in 2008, he had much less power than in 2007 and 2009. Looking back to 2008, he had both a quadricep and hand injury during that season that may have slowed him down. I may also have to look if hand injuries have the same loss of power that wrist injuries do.

For 2010, he has hit for distance just fine, but before and after the injury, he was taking it more to center than he did previously. Since Troy has returned, he is hitting it even more towards center.

Further Research

I am really needing to get some good baseline data to work off of for future analysis. I will probably wait to start it this off season so I can use all of the 2010 data on injuries and batted ball data.

Entering 2010, FanGraphs posted Top 10 prospect lists for all 30 MLB organizations. And it’s been a great year for rookies, which means there are going to be a lot of changes in the Top 10 lists for 2011. Before we tackle that beast after the season, though, we’re taking a look at how each club’s No. 1 prospect has fared in 2010. Today, we’re looking at the American League Central division.

Carlos Santana | Catcher
2010 Level: Triple-A/MLB
Age: 24

Santana forced Cleveland’s hand by posting a .451 wOBA in 57 triple-A games in 2010. The catcher then started off his MLB career with a scorching stretch before his bat cooled a bit. His season ended early after an ugly collision at home plate that forced him to go under the knife for a knee injury. Santana ended his rookie season with a triple-slash line of .260/.401/.467 in 150 at-bats. Like Buster Posey in San Francisco, Santana has a bright future as an offensive-minded catcher who projects to get better behind the dish after being converted to the position earlier in his career with the Dodgers. Value: Up

Mike Montgomery | Left-Handed Pitcher
2010 Level: A+/AA
Age: 21

Montgomery is one of the top pitching prospects in all of minor league baseball who reached double-A at the age of 20. The lefty did have a hiccup this season, though, when he landed on the disabled list with elbow soreness. His numbers have been very good in double-A, but he saw his walk rate increase with the jump (3.50 BB/9), but that could also be related to his injury. Montgomery still has a solid 3.76 FIP and has been hard to hit (7.67 H/9). With a fully healthy 2011 season, he could reach the Majors by the end of next season. Value: Even

Tyler Flowers | Catcher
2010 Level: Triple-A
Age: 24

After posting a wOBA rate of more than .400 in 2009 (split between double-A and triple-A), Flowers looked to be on course to take the MLB job of incumbent catcher A.J. Pierzynski in 2011. However, a disappointing triple-A season in 2010 may have cast some doubt in the minds of Chicago’s front office. Flowers has hit just .221/.333/.435 in 340 at-bats. Always known for power, walks and lots of strikeouts, the young catcher has continued the trend but the low batting average and even-higher-than-normal K-rate (35%) has led to a .339 wOBA. His BABIP is much lower than his career norm but he could also be putting too much pressure on himself with the Majors with a MLB job within sight. Value: Down

Aaron Hicks | Outfielder
2010 Level: Low-A
Age: 20

Asked to repeat low-A in 2010 despite a respectable ’09 season, Hicks has risen his wOBA from .337 to 372. His been quite consistent this season, save for a poor showing in May. He’s still learning to tap into his power (.146 ISO) but Hicks has already stolen a career high 19 bases and has an outstanding walk rate at 16.2 BB%. Overall, he has a triple-slash line of. 271/.389/.417 in 391 at-bats. He’s going to continue to require patience, but Hicks could develop into something special. Value: Up

Casey Crosby | Left-Handed Pitcher
2010 Level: Rookie
Age: 21

Injuries continue to haunt Crosby and he’s appeared in just three games this season after making 24 low-A starts in 2010 in which he posted a 2.80 FIP. The young pitcher has battled elbow soreness this season, which is definitely not good news considering he underwent Tommy John surgery shortly after signing with the Tigers out of high school in 2007. Value: Down

Up Next: The NL Central

With September fast approaching, it’s incredible to think the season is almost over. I say the same thing every year, but it really does seem like Opening Day was yesterday. As we get closer to the big 1-6-2, I wanted to take a look at some of the biggest decliners in WAR (not primarily due to injury) from 2009 to 2010 and do a little analysis as to why the drop occured.

UT Ben Zobrist
2009 WAR: 8.3
2010 WAR: 2.7

Zobrist was the name around sabermetric circles last year, putting up awesome offensive numbers while playing a variety of positions. Unfortunately for Ben and Rays fans alike, that prowess at the plate has not carried over to 2010. The 29-year-old’s wOBA dropped from .406 last year to just .330 this year, a combination of an 11.9% drop in home runs per fly ball and concurrent drops in BABIP and BB%. Meanwhile, here’s Zobrist’s defensive games started in 2009 versus 2010:

1B: 2/7
2B: 81/27
3B: 1/0
SS: 6/0
LF: 2/0
CF: 5/8
RF: 37/71

Due to Tampa Bay’s roster construction, Zobrist is playing a lot more of right field and less of premium positions that require a lower offensive performance to beat replacement level standards.

SS Derek Jeter
2009 WAR: 7.4
2010 WAR: 2.2

Jeter’s 2009 was truly remarkable, putting up the fourth highest wOBA of his career (and best since 2006) while also accumulating the most fielding runs of his career. In 2010, everything has come apart for the captain from the Bronx. Jeter’s on pace to have the worst offensive year of his career by a pretty decent margin with a .323 wOBA (102 wRC+); he’s walking 2.3% less of the time while also hitting grounders at a Tim Hudson-esque 65.8% rate. With a BABIP .63 lower than last year, there isn’t much saving Derek at the plate. On defense, UZR has him for -4.3 runs with DRS saying he’s been at -11. Either way, Jeter has disappointed given his 2009 and contract.

INF Chone Figgins
2009 WAR: 6.1
2010 WAR: 0.2

The most dramatic decrease of all, Figgins has gone from one of the best third basemen in baseball last year to one of the worst second basemen this year. In his first year in Seattle, Figgins has hit a measly .248/.336/.292 despite a modest .306 BABIP; after a .358 wOBA with the Angels last season, Figgins is at .298 this year, well below league average. Despite moving to second base, the positional advantage hasn’t mitigated enough to put Figgins where he should be. After a UZR/150 of 17.9 at third base in 2009, Chone is at -13.8 at second this season. Simply put, Jack Z can’t be pleased.

OF Matt Kemp
2009 WAR: 5.1
2010 WAR: 0.6

At the start of the season, Kemp was the big name throughout baseball. He was dating Rihanna and coming off of a stellar 2009 in which he put up a .367 wOBA while playing solid defense in center field. But everything has fallen apart since then. Kemp just hasn’t been the same player he once was with a UZR/150 of -15.6, nowhere near where he was last year. Moreover, Kemp’s .323 wOBA has been due primarily to a BABIP .49 points below his career average. Here are his peripherals for the the past two seasons:

BB%: 7.8/7.9
K%: 22.9/27.9
LD%: 21.3/20.2
GB%: 40.4/40.9
FB%: 38.3/39

Not much different. Still, Kemp’s production has been seriously disappointing, but at twenty five years old he has a lot of time to go back to his better days.

For the second year in a row, the White Sox have used the August waiver period to add a talented outfielder who has worn out his welcome with his current team. Last year, the White Sox took on the remainder of Alex Rios‘ contract, and while he struggled to finish out 2009, he has been one of their best players this season, and the move has certainly paid dividends. Will adding Manny Ramirez pay off as well?

There are a couple of ways to look at whether Ramirez will work out or not. The White Sox are a fringe playoff contender, with about a 13 percent chance of making the playoffs. Ramirez is a significant upgrade from their rotating DH platoon, a position that has been most frequently manned by Mark Kotsay and his .233/.307/.382 line. ZiPS projects a .292 wOBA going forward for Kotsay, which pales in comparison to the .400 mark projected for Ramirez.

Even if you bump up the projection a bit to account for the other guys who would rotate through the DH position, we’re still looking at a 100 point gap in wOBA in September, which is a huge number, and, over 100 plate appearances, it adds up to nearly an eight run difference. Even though it’s only for a month, replacing Kotsay with Ramirez should add almost a full win to the White Sox total.

Given their place in the standings, a one win upgrade could make all the difference in the world. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that Chicago ends the season within just one game of the Twins. Having Ramirez’s bat in the line-up could put them in the playoffs, and given how valuable that is, picking up his $4 million in remaining salary and not surrendering any talent is something of a no-brainer. The team gets significantly better in a playoff race and all they have to give up is cash. That’s the kind of move every fan should want their team to make.

But it does raise a question. If the White Sox had $4 million in their budget for 2010, why did they wait until August 30th to spend it? They gave Kotsay $1.5 million to occupy a fairly important roster spot, despite the fact that he’s been a replacement level player since 2006, and failed to make necessary upgrades to their offense over the winter. If they had the ability to throw another $4 million at this roster, couldn’t that money have been spent better last winter on a guy who would have been around for the whole year, rather than just the final month?

It’s a fair question, but the reality is that circumstances change and budgets are not static. I’d imagine, though I’m just guessing, that if Kenny Williams could have spent another $4 million last winter, he’d have done so, and probably made some different choices about what his team looked like. The uncertainty about a team’s overall performance is far greater in January than it is in August, and not knowing if a team will be a contender or not pushes teams to be somewhat conservative with their payrolls each off-season.

The team has information they didn’t have before, and Jerry Reinsdorf was willing to gamble some cash on a player who can upgrade the team in a playoff race. Perhaps that is cash he was not willing to gamble over the winter, not knowing what this team would look like come the stretch run. While it’s reasonable to ask Williams why he was willing to lean so heavily on Kotsay, I don’t think we can assume that the money that they just spent on Ramirez was available to him over the winter.

So, overall, kudos to the White Sox again. They made a bold, intelligent waiver claim last year with Rios, and they’ve done so again with Ramirez. I still think Minnesota wins the AL Central, but Chicago will at least make it interesting. Plus, Manny being managed by Ozzie Guillen? Let the comedy begin.

This edition of One Night Only contains a semi-lengthy consideration of a fringe major leaguer.

In other words: P-A-R-T-Y.

(NERD scores in parentheses.)

New York Nationals (3) at Atlanta (5) | 7:10pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Metropolitans: Pat Misch (10?)
18.0 IP, 3.50 K/9, 1.00 BB/9, .314 BABIP, 46.3% GB, 4.0% HR/FB, 4.55 xFIP

Braves: Jair Jurrjens (5)
95.0 IP, 6.25 K/9, 2.94 BB/9, .291 BABIP, 39.6% GB, 7.3% HR/FB, 4.52 xFIP

Pat Misch, Pat Misch Is on My List
You’ll notice, if you look down below at the full schedule of today’s games, that I gave Met starter Pat Misch an estimated NERD of only 6. At the time, I thought I was being liberal even with that assignation: Misch isn’t exactly what you’d call a “stuff” guy (currently sporting, for example, an average fastball velocity of 85.4 mph) and appears, at first glance, to be a serious candidate for the Quad-A (or just straight-up Triple-A) label.

Thing is, Misch does one thing really well, and that’s throw strikes. His strike rate of 66.5% through his first three starts would tie him for 11th place in that category — with Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton — of the 205 NERD-qualified starters. Nor does it mark a serious departure from his minor league numbers, which generally have him throwing strikes at about a 65% rate.

His strike-throwing profile is borne out in his line so far, which includes a 3.50 K/9 and 1.00 BB/9. In other words, he’s pitching to contact pretty seriously. And when a pitcher is conceding so much contact, the logical question to ask is, “What’s his groundball rate?” If it’s high, you’re probably talking about a serviceable (and, for now, cost-controlled) major league pitcher; if it’s low, you’re talking about John Wasdin, who’s called Way Back Wasdin not for nothing.

So, what’s Misch’s groundball rate?

Well, there are a couple-few answers to that. Like this one: “Through 174 major league innings, it’s 43.3%.” Or, like this other one: “Through 705.1 minor league innings, it’s 47.2%.” Thing is, we ought to be most interested in a third answer — i.e. what it’s likely to be going forward.

Because Misch has a considerably larger minor league resume, it’d be ideal to project his major league rates using at least some of his minor league data. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy as looking at major league equivalencies.

The Evolution of Groundball Rates
A couple weeks ago, Resident Prospect Maven Bryan Smith wrote an article all up in this piece called “The Evolution of Groundball Rates,” in which Smith looks at 18 current major leaguers and the differences between their minor and major league groundball rates.

After listing both sets of rates, Smith gives us this:

[It’s] interesting that half the players dropped their groundball rate between 3 and 7.5 percent between the minor and Major leagues. Those who attended FanGraphs Live heard the problems I have with using MLEs to project minor leaguers. While it would be easy to do this study with everyone in the MinorLeagueSplits era, create an average drop that we apply for everyone, I just don’t find it all that informative. If you want to assume a player drops about 5-5.5 percent when he reaches the Majors, you’ll probably be about right as often as you’re about wrong.

Essentially, what we learn from Smith — and he presents the numbers in that article if you wanna see — is that groundball rates don’t translate perfectly from the minors to the majors.

In other words, if we’re going to project Misch, it’ll require something more nuanced than just MLEs. It’ll require, ultimately, human input.

The Horse’s Mouth
On account of Bryan Smith is basically just sitting by his computer all the time, thinking about this exact subject, I decided to go ahead and ask him what’s the deal with Misch. Specifically, I asked this:

I’m curious as to how you view Pat Misch. In particular, I’m wondering how he might fit into the different categories you discussed in your piece on the evolution of groundball rates.

Per his Minor League Splits page, he appears to’ve settled in the high-40s and low-50s at the Triple-A level. At the same time, he’s working with only an 85-87 mph fastball.

Who’re his comps, you think?

And, specfically, this is what Smith replied:

One thing that doesn’t receive enough attention when thinking about groundball rates is command. I think most are guilty of assuming that GB% is correlated strictly with movement — the sinker with the most downward movement should yield the highest number of groundballs. But this isn’t the case, and it’s important to remember that commanding a pitch down in the zone is half (or more) of the battle. Misch’s stuff — both in terms of velocity and movement — aren’t special in the slightest, and he doesn’t have the unique build (and downward plane) of a guy like Doug Fister. But what they do share is amazing command, and there is significant value in that. I don’t think Misch will be able to sustain a 50% groundball rate, but I think his ability to spot his fastball below the belt will keep him on the better side of average going forward.

The Outlook on Misch
I’m not sure that Pat Misch is gonna ever be a world-beater of a starter. He strikes out very few batters, and that’s not the best of qualities for a major league pitcher to possess.

But he also seems to have the stuff to not walk batters and, within, reason to induce grounders at an above-average rate.

If I Had My Druthers
• Jair Jurrjens, a native of Curacao (in the Netherlands Antilles), would begin referring to his fastball as “The Dutch Oven” — owing, you know, to the heat that it provided.
• It would become such a fabulous pitch that announcers are absolutely forced to reference it, by name, on the air.
• I, along with droves of American teenagers, would L my A off.

Also Playing
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