A hot topic in today’s chat was the AL Cy Young race. I think Cliff Lee is the clear favorite to win the award, but a lot of folks chimed in that they believe that David Price would win the award if voting were held today, due to his superior win totals and the way the BBWAA has voted in the past. To support their argument, they point to this article by Jon Heyman, in which he gives his mid-season Cy Young vote to Price over Lee.

I think most members of the BBWAA are smarter than Jon Heyman. And I think when they actually look at the facts, Price’s win total won’t be as impressive to them as one might think. Let’s take a look through the game logs and see just how he’s performed in the 14 games he’s been awarded a victory, using just basic stats that every sportswriter will look at.

April 9th, 9-3 win vs NYY: 7 2/3 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 7 K
April 14th, 9-1 win vs BAL: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 7 K
April 25th, 6-0 win vs TOR: 9 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 9 K
May 7th, 4-1 win vs OAK: 7 2/3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 4 BB, 6 K
May 12th, 4-3 win vs LAA: 6 1/3 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 6 K
May 18th, 6-2 win vs CLE: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 5 K
May 23rd, 10-6 vs HOU: 5 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 2 HR, 3 BB, 2 K
June 2nd, 7-3 vs TOR: 8 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 0 BB, 3 K
June 9th, 10-1 vs TOR: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 4 K
June 15th, 10-4 vs ATL: 5 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 7 K
June 26th, 5-3 vs ARI: 8 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 1 BB, 11 K
July 7th, 6-4 vs BOS: 7 2/3 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 1 BB, 10 K
July 24th, 6-3 vs CLE: 7 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 5 K
July 29th, 4-2 vs DET: 6 1/3 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 2 BB, 9 K

In those 14 starts, the Rays have scored 96 runs, or 6.85 runs per game, including scoring 9+ runs on five different occasions. In those games, it really didn’t matter how Price pitched – if he went five innings, he was getting a win. In one of the starts, he got a win despite giving up as many runs as innings pitched.

In addition, look at how many “short” starts he had. In six of the 14 starts, he failed to finish the 7th inning, relying on the bullpen to get at least the final eight outs. He only got through the 8th inning three times, and has only one complete game in his 14 wins.

By comparison, Cliff Lee has completed at least eight innings in nine consecutive starts, throwing the full nine innings in six of those. In 18 starts, he’s only failed to finish the 7th inning once. While he may only have nine victories, his teammates have scored a grand total of 14 runs in the nine starts where he was credited with a loss or a no decision.

Regardless of what you think of BBWAA members, they are smart enough to realize that the difference in win totals between Price and Lee is entirely a function of the production of their respective teammates. Price has gotten a lot of run support and relied heavily on his bullpen, while Lee has given his relievers the night off nearly every time he took the hill and routinely got nothing from his hitters.

It’s no secret to anyone reading this site that Lee has pitched better than Price this year. But, I’d argue that even despite the win totals, that distinction is pretty clear to most of the baseball writers in America as well. Once they look at the game logs (and most of them do), they’ll see the picture above, and they’ll discount the difference in wins between the two. At least, all the ones not named Heyman.

My bet – there are more smart writers in the BBWAA than you might think. Assuming that nothing changes all that much over the final two months, I think Lee wins the AL Cy Young fairly easily. And deservedly so.

In the first inning of today’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Alex Rodriguez blasted his 600th career home run to dead center field off of Toronto starter Shaun Marcum. You can watch the video here.

Rodriguez becomes the seventh player to reach this milestone, and he does so at only 35 years old, suggesting that he may be able to chase 700 and the marks put up by Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds. If Rodriguez can do anything near what either of these three monoliths put up after their age-34 seasons (Rodriguez turned 35 on July 27th, meaning he spent a majority of the 2010 season as a 34-year-old), even 800 home runs could be a possibility. Ruth had the weakest twilight years of the trio, with 198. Aaron blasted 245 in the eight seasons he played after turning 35, but that doesn’t quite touch Bonds’s 317. Of course, Bonds’s performance is covered by the shadow of the steroids era, but it still far outweighs the performance of any of his peers at that age.

Can Alex Rodriguez keep up his performance? Even though New Yankee Stadium favors left handed hitters more than right handed hitters, StatCorner’s park factors suggest it should still help Rodriguez in his quest for 800 or 762 or 755 or any other number he’s going after. The real question is if he can fend off the effects of aging long enough.

A-Rod’s power from ages 31-34 is trending down and right now it’s hard to imagine him rattling off another 200 home runs in his career to reach 800. It’s possible that 762 will be tough for him to reach, and we always have to account for the possibility of injury. However, Aaron had an even less impressive, albeit more consistent, stretch in that same time of his career, and he went on to be a tremendous slugger through age 40. Ruth’s career was simpler, as he steadily declined from utterly ridiculous to merely really good from age 32 to age 40, but Ruth’s power numbers were driven by a more balanced attack between doubles and home runs, whereas Aaron didn’t hit many doubles in his later career.

Alex Rodriguez has already cemented himself as one of the elite hitters in the game’s history at a relatively young age. Now the question becomes how much does he have left. He certainly has the chance to be the first player to reach 800 home runs stateside – one can never forget the great Sadaharu Oh and his 868 career Japanese home runs – but there’s also no guarantee, given the realities of injury and aging, that he can reach the records of Bonds and Aaron or even become the fourth player to reach 700 home runs. Over the next few years, we will find out if Rodriguez can join this pantheon of greats, but even if he doesn’t, this is an accomplishment to be celebrated.

Every so often a team has three pitching prospects so exciting that they get a group label. In the 90s the Mets had Generation K. The A’s opened the 00s with the Big Three. Later in the decade the Yankees had a group that announced Michael Kay dubbed Generation Trey. Around the same time the Texas Rangers had their own troika of elite prospects. Their collective name was a bit more clever, as fans turned the last names of John Danks, Edinson Volquez, and Thomas Diamond into DVD. Unfortunately, the fans who coined the name never saw much of those players.

Danks was the first to go. The ninth overall pick in 2003, he ranked among Baseball America’s Top 100 in each year he qualified. Yet his journey to the majors was not smooth. In 2004, he started in low-A, dominated, and got a promotion to high-A, where he stumbled a bit. In 2005, he pitched well while repeating high-A, but again stumbled upon his promotion to AA. The Rangers stuck with the same plan, though Danks again failed to show the stuff of a ninth overall pick at both AA and AAA. Maybe his home run rate that year was the tipping point, but whatever the reason they traded him after the 2006 season to Chicago for Brandon McCarthy.

Next went Volquez. An amateur free agent signing in 2001, Volquez first appeared for an affiliated team in 2003 and worked his way all the way to the majors by the end of 2005. He spent 2006 and 2007 mostly in AAA, though he did manage to get almost 70 major league innings during that span and showed improvement during his second short stint. Still, the Rangers decided to trade him for Josh Hamilton that winter. That left Diamond as the only remaining member of the seemingly indefatigable triumvirate.

A year after selecting Danks with the ninth pick, the Rangers selected Thomas Diamond with the 10th pick. He was another high strikeout guy who had problems with walks, but his stuff was undeniable. Unfortunately, injuries hit him hard. He underwent Tommy John surgery, causing him to miss the entire 2007 season. His 2008 comeback was cut short by an ankle injury and then a shoulder one, allowing him to pitch just 53.2 innings that year. They were not particularly good innings, either, as he walked 37. In 2009, there was hope that he could join the Rangers as a reliever, but he experienced poor results in the minors, walking 44 in 55.2 innings. That September the Rangers designated him for assignment, and the Cubs wasted little time claiming him. They then DFA’d him themselves later that month, but this time he passed through wavers and was outrighted to AAA.

This year in the minors has been a bit better for Diamond. He finally got his walk rate under reasonable control, walking 46 in 104.1 innings (3.8 per nine). Meanwhile he struck out 8.6 per nine and generally kept the ball in the park. That resulted in the Cubs calling him up and putting him on the mound for his major league debut last night. He didn’t fare poorly, allowing three runs through six innings while walking three, though he did strike out 10. It took him 122 pitches to do it, so he still has efficiency issues. But Diamond could be a bright spot on a generally disappointing Cubs season.

The effects of Diamond’s injuries were clear. Once heralded as a guy who could sit 92-94 and touch 97 with the fastball, Diamond just barely cracked 90 mph with his best fastball last night. He averaged 88.4 mph. Yet he threw 45 of 68 for strikes and generated six swings and misses. His changeup, previously rated as above average, also worked for him. He threw it 23 times for 16 strikes, seven of which were swinging. Baseball America noted that the development of a third pitch would be crucial to his development, and to that end he seems to be working in a slider, throwing it 11 times last night for 7 strikes, though no swings and misses.

Other teams might kick themselves for trading way or releasing their three top pitching prospects only to see them succeed, to varying degrees, elsewhere. Danks is an established top of the rotation guy for the White Sox, Volquez impressed in Cincinnati before requiring Tommy John surgery, and now Diamond has a chance for the Cubs. Yet the Rangers have one of the deepest pitching systems in the game. In fact, of their top 10 prospects, per Baseball America, they feature seven pitchers, three of them left-handed. The future certainly looks good for the Rangers.

Yet we’re seeing a trend similar to what we saw with DVD. Both Martin Perez and Kasey Kiker, the team’s Nos. 2 and 6 prospects, have faltered a bit this year. Will we see them turn to the trade market this off-season as they had in the past? Or will we see them a bit more reserved about giving up prospects who have experienced rough years?

Let’s say you are building a dam, and you want to make sure this is the best dam that’s ever been built. You gather your logs, get some help from friendly beavers, and in two weeks have put together a pretty fine dam if you can say so yourself.

Then, when the river starts to actually run strong, you begin to see that some pieces of wood aren’t that great. But you know those holes are there; they’re always going to be there. Not every piece of wood can be equal. The foundation, the best pieces of wood, the core of your dam, is what makes it a great dam. The other logs are just inevitable imperfections that, even if they are mended, won’t ever make that big of a difference.

So, needing to strengthen your dam somehow, you push the strong logs of your dam. And you push them and push them until you can’t take it anymore; but you’re dam still isn’t as good as you want it to be. You give it a serious look-over. No, it’s not the minor logs that are serving their purpose. It’s not your building skills. It’s the damn supposed “best logs” not living up to their expectations. So you rip them out and try to get even stronger pieces of wood. Before you know it, you’re out of the logging business and trying to get a senior scouting job with some National League club.

By now, you get my drift. Unfortunately, not everyone does, and the problem isn’t as minor as it seems. When executives of any trade, but for our purposes baseball, refuse to improve on the margins, they are not only hurting their overall utility but creating future problems.

The best example I can give here is the Mets, although I’m sure you can think of examples with your own favorite team. The Mets started this season with the following lineup:

C Rod Barajas
1B Mike Jacobs
2B Luis Castillo
3B David Wright
SS Jose Reyes
LF Jason Bay
CF Gary Matthews Jr.
RF Jeff Francoeur

Do you see the weak logs? It shouldn’t be that hard. Mike Jacobs is now a Triple-A player for the Jays after proving he can’t hit major league pitching during his brief stay with the Mets. Gary Matthews Jr. had a .234 wOBA for the Mets, striking out in 41% of this plate appearances. Rod Barajas is currently on the DL, but has been below average with a .292 wOBA and 0.5 WAR on the season. Jeff Francoeur honestly doesn’t deserve to play baseball at any level professionally, despite how affable he may be. His .284 wOBA is made even worse by his tendency (or just self-afflicted rule) to swing at everything often and early. I won’t even mention Alex Cora.

Many of those players have been replaced. Josh Thole has been very good during his limited time at catcher, Angel Pagan has been one of the best players in baseball this season, and Ike Davis is having a nice rookie year at first base. Still, this unsurprisingly hasn’t been enough for the medicore Mets. When you see that it took months for R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi to replace Oliver Perez and John Maine in the rotation, nobody should be surprised at the record of the Mets.

When James Kannengeiser of Amazin Avenue gave some wise ways the Mets could improve their ballclub, it was met with this reply from Matt Cerrone at the ever popular MetsBlog:

Sure, releasing Oliver Perez, Jeff Francoeur and Alex Cora might help, and it would sure get the attention of fans, but, at the end of the day, Mike Pelfrey, Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez, Jose Reyes, Jason Bay and others are still on the roster and still need to get their collective act together.

Matt saw that the weak logs were hurting the dam, and simply decided that the bigger logs had to get their “act together.” I guess it didn’t matter that Mike Pelfrey has a better ERA/FIP/xFIP/tERA than last year, or that K-Rod has been flat-out great, or that Jose Reyes has been incredible after a slow start thanks to coming back from an injury (and is still on pace for a 3-WAR year per 150 games), or that Carlos Beltran got back from serious knee surgery after the All-Star break. The strong logs were not strong enough.

I wish I could say that this is a problem that is just relayed via talk radio and blogs, but it’s not. General Managers consistently choose to ignore minor holes on their roster, and this comes from a lack of understanding the true value of stats like Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Solid roster management is one of the most valuable traits that any sports executive can have. Unfortunately, those strong logs can only take so much pressure until they break.

Everybody knows that Robinson Cano is enjoying a monstrous 2010 season — with 5.2 WAR, Cano leads all Yankees players and trails just Hamilton among MLB position players. But do you know who places second on the Bronx Bombers in WAR? It’s not A-Rod. Teixeira? Nope. The Captain? CC Sabathia? Uh uh. Posada? Negative. The answer is none other than Nick Swisher, at 3.4 wins.

With a team payroll that eclipses the Gross Domestic Product of some small countries, the Yankees are both praised and scorned (depending upon which city you’re in) for their financial might. But Swisher wasn’t a lavish free agent acquisition. Rather, the club bought low on the gregarious switch-hitter after a seemingly disappointing 2008 season with the Chicago White Sox.

Swisher signed a long-term deal with the Oakland A’s in May of 2007, locking him up through the 2011 season for a total of $26.75 million (the pact also includes a $10.25 million club option for 2012, with a $1 million buyout). But the Pale Hose picked him up in January of ’08 for a package of prospects including Fautino de los Santos, Gio Gonzalez, and Ryan Sweeney. Swisher posted just a .325 wOBA and a 94 wRC+ with the White Sox, who grew tired of him and shipped him (along with Kanekoa Texeira) to the Yankees in November of ’08 for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez and Jhonny Nunez.

While Swisher’s season was superficially disappointing, he still worked the count well (13.9 BB%) and hit for power (.191 ISO). The only real difference between the former Buckeye’s ’08 campaign and his previous work was a big dip in BABIP (.249). With New York last year, Swisher’s BABIP climbed to .272, and he showed the best secondary skills of his career — he drew ball four a whopping 16% of the time and posted a .249 ISO. The result? A personal best .375 wOBA and 132 wRC+.

In 2010, Swisher has been an offensive beast. His wOBA is up to .396 (12th among qualified MLB batters), and his park-and-league adjusted wOBA is a full 50 percent better than the average batter (150 wRC+). But the way in which he has achieved those results is different.

Sure, Swisher is still crushing the ball — his ISO is .251. But he’s walking much less this season (9.4%, compared to a career 13.5 BB%). The 29-year-old, normally an extremely patient hitter, has been more of a free swinger. Take a look at his rate of swings on pitches thrown outside and inside the strike zone:

He’s still taking a cut at fewer outside pitches than the average batter, but he’s chasing more than in years past. On in-zone offerings, he’s letting it rip more than most.

Courtesy of Pitch F/X data from TexasLeaguers.com, here are Swisher’s swing rates by pitch type. I also included the league average swing rates, provided by Harry Pavlidis of The Hardball Times:

There is an across-the-board increase, with the biggest spikes occurring on fastballs and changeups. According to our Pitch Type Run Values, Swisher’s smacking fastballs like usual (+2.07 runs per 100 pitches thrown in 2010, +1.12 career). His run values against breaking stuff are much higher than usual this year — +1.66 versus sliders (-0.73 career) and +0.96 against the deuce (-0.59). He’s at -0.97 runs/100 with the changeup (+0.20).

Swisher’s line hasn’t suffered due to the lower walk rate because his BABIP has shot up to .333. His career average is .283, and his expected BABIP (xBABIP), based on his rate of home runs, strikeouts, stolen bases, line drives, pop ups, and ground balls, is .296. He’s getting more hits on grounders and line drives than in any previous season:

Much has been made about Swisher’s work with hitting coach Kevin Long — Swish’s stride is shorter and more closed off, with his hands closer to his body. I’m not a swing coach, and I don’t have Long’s expertise. So, I won’t speculate whether those alterations have made Swisher better equipped to handle breaking stuff. It can be easy to fall into a cause/effect trap, though, pinpointing a specific reason for a change in performance when it could be random.

If I had to make a wager, I would bet that Swisher will remain an excellent hitter, but won’t keep flirting with a .400 wOBA as more balls put in play find leather.

In one of the most disappointing stories of the MLB season to date, Cleveland Indians’ catching phenom was put on the 15-day DL with a hyperextended knee and a high-grade LCL sprain. Santana will almost certainly miss a significant amount of time, if not the rest of the season, as high-grade LCL sprains can take up to 12 weeks to heal, and the Indians have no reason to rush Santana back to action given their spot in the cellar of the AL Central.

Even though it has been shortened or even prematurely ended, Carlos Santana’s 2010 season deserves celebration. Santana has been everything we though Matt Wieters would be, producing at a high level both at the plate and behind it. His .383 wOBA leads all AL catchers with at least 150 plate appearances. Putting up that kind of production at catcher is quite remarkable; in under 200 plate appearances prior to his injury, Santana managed 2.0 WAR. He has thrown out 12 of 34 (35%) of baserunners, too. Santana has brought the total package this season.

Of course, crazy things can happen in short samples. What Santana has shown so far, however, has been mastery of the game of strike zone and solid power. Santana’s 19.3% walk rate is easily tops in the majors amongst players with at least 150 PAs, 1.7 points above second place Jason Giambi. His 19.3% strikeout rate is below the league average. That means Santana makes a good amount of contact, and when he does make contact, he makes things happen. His .207 ISO (13 2B, 6 HR) is 141% of league average. The only thing preventing Santana’s wOBA from topping the .400 mark is a .277 BABIP. If that goes up and the peripheral stats remain – certainly not a lock, given the small sample, but a possibility given Santana’s pedigree – we could be looking at one of the best players in Major League Baseball.

This season was only a taste of how good Carlos Santana can be. Hopefully he recovers quickly and can get back to doing what he’s done in 2010, not only for the Cleveland Indians and their fans, but for Major League Baseball as well.

This past March, consummate Midwesterner (and contributor to like seven different websites) Erik Manning celebrated prospect Peter Bourjos via both the written and spoken word.

By his own admission, Manning’s enthusiasm for Bourjos is/was slightly irrational — which is to say that, even though Bourjos was definitely a prospect before the season began, there appeared to be no reason for the extent of Manning’s zeal.

But what if we took Manning’s excitement seriously? What if Manning’s seemingly inflated opinion of Bourjos — an opinion based on a combination of quantitative analysis, visual evidence, and je ne sais quoi — was actually grounded in something more significant than a hunch?

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwelll explores rapid cognition — i.e. the human capacity to draw eerily accurate and/or nuanced conclusions from limited information and narrow windows of experience.

The extent of Manning’s experience “with” Bourjos is limited, for sure: some advanced metrics and a couple of Cedar Rapids Kernels games. But his feelings about Bourjos are somehow stronger than other people with similar experience. What is Manning seeing that others aren’t?

Now that Bourjos has been promoted to the majors, I asked Manning to reassess his feeling on the young Angel. Here’s what happened:

Cistulli: Mr. Manning, I’ve invited you to this electronic space to revisit some comments you made in re a certain Angels’ prospect.

The prospect? Peter Bourjos. The comments? Something to the effect of, “Me likey.”

Anyway, Bourjos — or, as you would almost definitely say, Bourjjjjjjjos — made his debut Tuesday night. And, as our own Dave Cameron noted yesterday, he made it in center field, moving Gold Glover Torii Hunter over to right.

I’m curious about your initial thoughts on Bourjos’s promotion, moving Hunter over, etc.

Manning: I liked the promotion. The Angels needed to probably shake things up, and this is one of way of doing that. Their outfield defense of Rivera/Hunter/Abreu is pretty dismal and Bourjos is a superb defender in center field. The scouts rave about his defense, and the numbers back it up. According to his Total Zone numbers on Minor League Splits, Bourjjjjjjos (as I like to call him) has been worth +76 runs in 360 games started in center field from ‘06-’09. Dude can go get the ball.

Cistulli: I’m no stranger to being drawn irrationally to a player with little in the way of an MLB resume (see: Lewis, Colby), so I understand how it feels. When we talked in March or whenever, you were all about the Bourjos. Obviously, the scouting reports were strong. Baseball America had him second within the organization. Resident Prospect Maven Marc Hulet had him fourth.

But that doesn’t entirely explain your enthusiasm. I mean, why not Hank Conger? Why not, I don’t know, Ben Revere? What about Bourjos specifically elicits that enthusiasm?

Manning: I live in Cedar Rapids, IA — home of corn, boredom and the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the low-A affiliate of the Angels. I went to see a game or two in 2007 when the Cardinals’ low-A team was playing them (the Cardinals are my favorite team, in case the readers didn’t know that already) and I came away really impressed with the speed and athleticism of Bourjos; he just sort of stuck out. I’m not a scout by any stretch of the imagination, but he just seemed to have a lot of raw, natural ability. There’s the local rooting interest and first hand experience of seeing him play early in his career, and then it’s just his totally off the wall defensive numbers. Stat-heads and some teams have started to come around more on the value of fielding a good defense, but I think it’s still a skill that is sort of undersold.

Lastly, I think I just like saying Peter Bourjjjjjjos.

Cistulli: You say that you’re not a scout by any stretch. And I understand what you’re saying: I think it’s best to err on the side of humility in every matter, baseballing analysis notwithstanding.

That said, I just read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. His central thesis — which is pretty well substantiated by capital-S Science — is that humans can come to eerily accurate and nuanced conclusions about an object/situation/etc. in mere seconds.

You may not be the scoutiest of the scouts, no, but you’re not a novice at watching baseball, either. Here’s what that suggests to me: that your impressions — however irrational seeming — are probably worth a damn.

I wonder, have there been other prospects about whom you had a similar feeling? Who? Did they pan out?

Manning: They might not be worth much of a damn, because I also came away impressed with Nick Stavinoha, who is on the Memphis-St. Louis shuttle right now. He can’t play defense well, he doesn’t draw walks or hit for power, but he hits for a decent batting average, and he looks the part, but when I saw him he was spraying liners all over the park. The truth is he was old for the league and was basically Billy Madison throwing dodge balls at hapless grade schoolers.

But on the positive, Jon Jay has become the Cardinals starting RF for better or worse, and while it seemed most scouts were down on him for his quirky hitting mechanics, he’s turned out to be better than expected. I could seeing him have a David DeJesus-like career, or at least I can hope for one.

Cistulli: Pop quiz: What does Nick Stavinoha look like?

Manning: Nick Stavinoha looks like Aaron Miles, after he ate the Super Mushroom. Now he’s going to kick some Koopa Troopa butt!!! Both are terrible major league players whom the Cardinals have given too much playing time.

Cistulli: Correct. All of it.

Now, last thing. Bourjos has shown — superficially, at least — a power surge this season, hitting 13 homers in 454 Triple-A plate appearances after hitting only 6 homers in 504 Double-A appearances last year. I also understand that the PCL has some homer-friendly park, so I pose the question to you and your trick knee or whatever: Is the power surge for real?

Bonus question: What sort of line would Bourjos put up in a complete MLB season?

Manning: I think his power spike is pretty artificial, but not completely crazy. Just glancing at StatCorner’s park factors, Salt Lake has a 109 HR factor for right-handed batters, whereas Arkansas, where he played last year in Double-A, has a 78 HR park factor. So he’s gone through two very different hitting environments over the past two seasons. From what I gather, he’ll never be a big HR threat, but he’s not Juan Pierre, either. He should be able to hit 10, maybe 15 homers in a good year.

I think with his speed and defense, he doesn’t have to hit a lot of homers to be valuable. He should be able to leg out triples and hit enough doubles to have a respectable enough slugging percentage. He does have some strikeout issues, so it’s unclear how high of a batting average he’ll hit for. I might be optimistic, but I would guess an average line for Bourjos during his cost-controlled years would be something like a .275/.325/.435, which doesn’t sound great, but for a center fielder who will be +10, +15 defense, that’s a 3 – 3.5 WAR player. At the league minimum, I think teams would take that.

When the Padres first signed Jon Garland, I wrote that, “For the cost of a little more than a win, the Padres get, well, a pitcher who will produce more than a win.” I then questioned whether this was the best usage of money given the landscape of their roster. A few paragraphs later, I wrote this:

The problem is that the Padres really don’t need another back-end starter. If the season started tomorrow, they would have Chris Young, Mat Latos, Clayton Richard, and Kevin Correia guaranteed rotation slots with a whole host of arms fighting for the fifth spot including Sean Gallagher, Cesar Carrillo, Wade LeBlanc, and even Aaron Poreda. Is Garland better than those options? Probably. Is he worth $4M more to a team that doesn’t figure to have playoff aspirations? It wouldn’t seem so.

According to Baseball Prospectus, the Padres have an 82% chance at making the postseason, all but eliminating my point about their non-contender status. Clearly I was mistaken on their team’s ability, but how about Garland himself? Thus far, he’s made 22 starts, racking up more than 130 innings. His groundball rates are actually an all-time high and do not seem to be the result of stringer’s bias because his line drive rate is essentially static from last year.

The run metrics each suggest that 2010 is one of Garland’s best seasons. That his ERA is low should not be a surprise as one of the best defenses in baseball stands behind him, and they all stand within one of the more cavernous parks in the league. Equally as unsurprising is that while Garland’s home run per flyball ratio is essentially his career average the majority of those homers have come on the road.

The largest reason for deflated fielding independent pitching metrics is Garland’s increased strikeout rate. Garland is fanning six batters per nine innings pitched; that may not seem overly significant, but the last time Garland topped five strikeouts per nine innings came before The Game repped G-Unit. The biggest change in Garland’s approach seems to be the one you’d least expect. He is not getting more swings and misses overall, but he’s actually attacking the zone less often. Using our Zone% metric and dividing Garland’s Zone% by the league average, here are the returned ratios:

It’s not a significant amount less than in 2008, but it does alter the perception of Garland being someone who simply pounds the zone without hesitation or alteration. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Garland’s O-Swing% increased as his Zone% decreased; it might not be a shock that this season is his career best for O-Contact% either. Basically: batters are providing Garland with extra strikes outside of the zone by swinging as much as ever and missing more balls than usual.

Worth noting is that StatCorner has PETCO with a high park factor for strikeouts. Many reasons could play into this. Maybe the hitters’ eye is less than optically pleasing, or maybe the shadows are weird. Or, maybe, just maybe, hitters are more aggressive at the dish because of the run environment. All of this is conjecture, but I wouldn’t be surprised if each played a role in the factor.

Nevertheless, Garland is going to earn his money, and you know what, he might earn a little more by pitching well in the postseason.

Athletics claim Jeff Larish off waivers

In the least surprising news of the day, the A’s acquire a first baseman/designated hitter/corner outfielder type with good pop. Larish is 27 with more than 200 big league plate appearances under his belt with a .310 wOBA to show for it. His collective minor league performance is much more endearing, as he’s hit .262/.365/.458 in Triple-A with 42 homers in a little under 1,050 plate appearances.

The A’s outfield has been horrid this season; hitting a collective .263/.315/.379. The good news is that Larish doesn’t have to replicate his Triple-A numbers to provide an upgrade. In fact, his career .239/.318/.394 line would be an upgrade within itself, as unbelievable as that sounds. The absolute worst case scenario is that Larish doesn’t work out. In which case the Athletics lose out on the waiver claim fee and little else.

Rockies claim Wes Hodges off waivers

The Indians’ second round pick in the 26 draft, Hodges is pretty much a non-factor at this point. He’s almost exclusively a first baseman or designated hitter and in nearly 800 Triple-A plate appearances, he’s hit only .268/.312/.404. The only reason he’s notable is because of his draft status. Otherwise, this doesn’t seem like a move that’s going to result in too much reward barring a sudden twist in Hodges’ fortunes.

Tigers acquire Brandon Jones

Jones spent the season to date with the Pirates and here he gets shipped out for a player to be named later. Like Larish, Jones has limited major league exposure – 166 plate appearances – with limited success — .257/.313/.365 – along with a minor league record that promises of better potential — .266/.343/.405 in more than 1,200 plate appearances at the Triple-A level. Baseball America had Jones as one of the 100 best prospects in the game entering the 2008 season, and now he’ll try his luck with organization number three.

As an aside, if you’re looking for a nifty shirt that bemoans RBI usage, check out Rocco DeMaro’s SLG > RBI design. Not quite wOBA, but we all know wOBA’s too hard for the streets anyways.