With playoff rosters being set tomorrow night, don’t be surprised if the Rays place J.P. Howell – out for the season following shoulder surgery – on their roster with intent to replace him at a later date. Keep an eye out in particular for Jake McGee to fill that vacancy.

The team set a precedent in 2008 using the disabled list trick to eventually place David Price on the playoff roster. He would come out of the bullpen in the postseason and recorded the final out in the American League Championship series. McGee, like Price, is a hard-throwing southpaw, but one whose future is likely within the same role. McGee’s secondary stuff is not as polished as Price’s was in 2008 and he has an elbow zipper to boot.

In 88 innings for Double-A Montgomery, McGee struck out more than one batter per inning and held a 2.53 FIP. The Rays promoted him to Durham, where he’s appeared in eight games (seven as a reliever) and he has continued striking out more than one batter per inning, but he has dropped his walk rate to fewer than one free pass per nine innings pitched. Obviously those ratios are skewed given the small sample sizes associated, but McGee looks major league ready.

Ostensibly, the rest of the bullpen would remain steady, with Andy Sonnanstine and Lance Cormier likely moving aside as Jeremy Hellickson and Grant Balfour join the ranks. Wade Davis could also find himself on the inactive list for at least the first round of the playoffs, giving the Rays the chance to carry 12 pitchers like normal with four being starters. Whatever the combination, the Rays’ pen has been a strength all season and could be even better over the rest of the season.

Episode Forty-Two
In which the panel is sooo super relaxed, OMG.

Headlines
Stephen Strasburg: Arms and the Man
Manny Ramirez in the Windiest of Cities
September Call-Ups: The Whos and Whens and Stuff
… and other fresh-faced ideas!

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Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Matt Klaassen, Generally Useful Guy
Bryan Smith, Resident Prospect Maven

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R.A. Dickey has never managed to go an entire season without at least some time spent in the Minor Leagues. Perhaps 2011 will break that streak because the Mets certainly have to be a little regretful of the 60.2 innings they had Dickey spend in Buffalo to begin 2010.

Dickey wasn’t much different in Triple-A this season then he has been in the past aside from a reduced BABIP and a higher ground ball rate. Then again, Dickey has always been better than the Triple-A level and this season was no different with Dickey accumulating in the range of about 1.5 WAR if we extended the formula to the Minor Leagues. Called up to the big leagues and inserted into the Mets rotation as of May 19. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning with four walks and two strikeouts in six innings, but things only got better from there. In the 120.1 innings since that first start, Dickey has recorded 83 strikeouts and just 27 walks and one hit batter.

What’s working for Dickey? Not surprisingly, it’s his knuckle ball. Never before has he committed to it so fervently, throwing it over 80% of the time and getting good results. And despite the increase in knuckle balls, Dickey has halved his walk rate from last season and kept his strikeouts level. He’s even manged to keep more batted balls on the ground. Also despite the heavy use of a knuckler, Dickey’s wild pitch and passed ball rate (just one per 240 pitches) is merely 59th amongst all pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches in 2010.

Coming into play today Dickey is sporting a sparkling 2.64 ERA but more importantly, his FIP is a solid 3.44 and his 3.68 xFIP points to a pitcher not succeeding through luck alone. And that is before you consider that Dickey might deserve a discount on his FIP due to his knuckleball. His 2.5 WAR to date exceeds his previous career best of 1.9 with the Rangers in 2003. That’s a significant bounce back from a really poor 2009 season spent mostly in the Twins’ bullpen.

Even though he has bounced around the league for the past ten seasons, Dickey has yet to accumulate enough service time to qualify as a Major League free agent and thus the Mets still retain arbitration rights to him. It’s always fun to take heed of players such as Dickey who have found some, perhaps fleeting, success after years of struggle. Will he be able to stick an entire season in a big league rotation next season?

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 National League West division.

The San Diego Padres
Simon Castro| Right-Handed Pitcher
2010 Level: Double-A
Age: 22

The Padres organization said goodbye to some interesting arms while trying to solidify its roster for the playoffs. Smartly, the club held onto to Castro, who is performing very well in double-A at a young age. The right-hander has seen his strikeout rate drop from 2009 (10.07 to 7.43 K/9) but he continues to show excellent control (2.50 BB/9) and he continues to be a difficult guy to hit (7.43 H/9). If everything breaks right for Castro he could be a solid No. 2 starter. Value: Even

The San Francisco Giants
Buster Posey | Catcher
2010 Level: Triple-A/MLB
Age: 23

Posey has been as good – or better – as advertised. It’s just too bad the Giants club waited so long to call him up. The former college standout is the odds-on-favorite for Rookie of the Year in the National League with a 2.9 WAR rating and triple-slash line of .329/.372/.505 in 295 at-bats. He already has a positive UZR rating but the athletic Posey has not been catching that long (since college) and projects to get even better behind the dish. Value: Up

The Los Angeles Dodgers
Dee Gordon | Shortstop
2010 Level: Double-A
Age: 22

Flash’s son made a two-level jump to begin 2010 after posting a .359 wOBA with 73 steals at low-A ball in 2009. His time in double-A in 2010 has produced a .321 wOBA with 49 steals. Although his game is built around speed, Gordon could stand to get a little stronger (.081 ISO). On the plus side, his walk and strikeout rates are similar to what they were in low-A, although – like a lot of young, speedy guys – he could stand to be more patient (6.3 BB%). Value: Even

The Colorado Rockies
Christian Friedrich | Left-Handed Pitcher
2010 Level: Double-A
Age: 23

It hasn’t been the best season for Friedrich but he remains one of the top southpaw pitching prospects in the minors. The 23-year-old hurler has appeared in just 18 games and has a 4.21 FIP with 10.31 hits allowed per nine innings. Friedrich has been hit by a line drive this season and also suffered a strained lat muscle in another start… Luckily none of those injuries appear to be long-term concerns. His ascent has definitely been slowed but he could still surface in Colorado in 2011. Value: Even

The Arizona Diamondbacks
Jarrod Parker | Right-Handed Pitcher
2010 Level: Injured – Did Not Play
Age: 21

Despite the knowledge that Parker would be on the sidelines for the entire 2010 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, he could be found at the top of every publication’s top prospect list for this organization. The reason for that was A) He’s just that good, and B) The club’s depth was fairly weak. Things have changed, though, as the club has received a huge boost from its 2009 draft haul (Matt Davidson, Chris Owings, Bobby Borchering, Marc Krauss, etc.). All reports have Parker rebounding well since surgery and he should be on schedule to open 2011 back on the active roster, most likely in double-A. Value: Even

Up Next: The AL Central

While pulling some numbers last night about Joey Votto for my post on the Triple Crown* I stumbled across Joey Votto’s number of infield pop ups this season. It’s zero. According to BIS, Joey Votto has yet to hit a single fly ball that hasn’t at least reached the outfield grass.

*For what it’s worth, I think the edge goes to Votto over Pujols because I believe more in his high batting average than ZiPS does and I think his home field advantage in home runs and RBIs puts him in a better situation. However, it wasn’t a conclusion based on any exhaustive study of projections and I thought that was obvious since I didn’t back it up with anything. It was a single sentence reflecting a personal feeling only.

In case you were wondering, that is pretty impressive. The list of qualified hitters who have managed an infield fly per fly ball (IFFB%) rate under 1.0 since 2002:

2004 Larry Bigbie 0.0%
2009 Ryan Howard 0.6%
2009 Derek Jeter 0.8%
2006 Bobby Abreu 0.8%

Derek Jeter makes the list once and several times was amongst baseball’s best. He has perhaps best been consistent in avoiding hitting pop ups with 4.9% being his highest rate, which is still lower than the league average.

Larry Bigbie is an interesting case. 2004 was certainly the high mark of his short Major League career and he still ended up as a below average player with only a slightly above average bat. 2004 was the only season that Bigbie qualified for the batting title otherwise he would be all over this list. According to BIS, and Retrosheet’s markers have a similar interpretation, Larry Bigbie hit exactly one infield fly ball in his Major League career over 1,367 trips to the plate.

Like Jeter and Bigbie, Votto has never been one to hit into many pop ups. More impressively, he’s done it as a hitter not inclined to ground balls the way Jeter and Bigbie are or were. Votto’s career 42% ground ball rate is much lower than either Jeter’s 52% or Bigbie’s 56%. Votto doesn’t shy away from hitting fly balls, he just hits them with consistent power.

The word around the twittersphere is that Brian Fuentes is heading to the Twins with a player to be named later heading back in return. It is doubtful that the PTBNL is of any real value, but the Angels certainly have no need for a closer whose contract ends this season. I can say that with pretty good confidence because the vesting option on Fuentes’ contract stipulates that he needs to finish 55 games in 2010 to activate it. Fuentes is at 33 this season and is headed to a team with at least two relievers ahead of him for saves.

Since the Twins have little to worry about Fuentes’ vesting option, this can be seen as simply a very short-term rental. This looks like just a little extra insurance to better the Twins’ odds of outlasting the White Sox for the AL Central title. My question is whether adding Brian Fuentes actually betters the bullpen.

After a down season in 2009, Fuentes has not rebounded meaningfully. His fastball speed is still down and the ground balls are even more infrequent in nature. Fuentes has regained some of his lost strikeout rate, but not a lot and he’s been treading water thanks in part to his .250 BABIP. Fuentes’ tenure with Anaheim paints him as being close to a replacement-level reliever.

The Twins have had a very strong bullpen this year. Jeff Manship, Matt Guerrier and Glen Perkins are the only active members of the team who have posted a FIP above four while in the bullpen. Perkins was done in a very small sample and he’s more of a starter anyways.

This move certainly makes the claiming of Randy Flores even more curious as Fuentes is simply a better version of Flores and Fuentes isn’t even all that good. If the idea is to ditch their claim on Flores and replace him with Fuentes to be their LOOGY, that individual move at least makes sense. If the Twins keep both of them, then I’m wondering who loses his job to make room because there’s a decent chance that Fuentes is less useful. I understand the motivation behind wanting to grab whatever improvement is out there, but I’m left feeling there isn’t much or any improvement to be had in this case.

Honest self-evaluation is difficult. For a general manager like Ned Colletti that task is complicated further by exterior forces. If Colletti incorrectly evaluates his team’s chances at making the playoffs he has to answer to a testy owner and media alike. As it turns out, that seems only to be an issue when the general manager sells off and admits his team was never heading to the postseason at that point in time. With Collettti, he won’t admit it. At least not explicitly.

Placing players like Manny Ramirez on waivers is at least implicitly accepting the Dodgers’ post-season fate. Yet here is what Colletti told Bob Nightengale earlier today:

BNightengale GM Ned Colletti on moving trading Manny Ramirez: “Not inclined to move anyone so long as we have a chance.”

Colletti is correct in saying the Dodgers still have a chance. In the truest sense, the Dodgers still have a chance. Baseball Prospectus puts those chances at 3.5%. The two teams with the most similar playoff probabilities to the Dodgers are the Florida Marlins and Oakland Athletics. Now, economic differences and all, the Marlins sold on Jorge Cantu and let Cody Ross walk without return. The Athletics did not sell, but they did not buy either. The Dodgers did buy on Scott Podsednik, Octavio Dotel, Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot, and they also claimed Rod Barajas.

It doesn’t even take a fancy simulation to realize how unlikely the Dodgers reaching the playoffs really is. The National League West top four looks like this:

SDP 76-50
SFG 71-57
COL 66-60
LAD 66-62

That puts the teams’ winning percentages and games remaining totals at:

SDP 60.3%, 36
SFG 55.4%, 34
COL 52.4%, 36
LAD 51.6%, 34

Assume every other team in the division plays 10% worse the rest of the way than they have to date, meaning San Diego plays like a .500 team, Colorado like a .420 team, and so on. Then the Dodgers have to play at a rate above .800 to match the Padres and a rate above .600 to finish in second place. That’s one hell of a hypothetical to be encouraged about your tournament hopes.

Ramirez is a free agent in few weeks, meaning if the White Sox are willing to offer value that exceeds the potential compensatory picks – frankly, I’m not sure the Dodgers can afford to offer Ramirez arbitration – then Colletti and crew should happily ship Ramirez and his drying eggs to the Midwest. The same thought should apply to Hiroki Kuroda and even Lilly. The Dodgers should have sold at the deadline (or at least, should not have bought) but they should be willing to amend that mistake if the opportunity arises.

Although Edwin Jackson was considered to be the major grab for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the three way trade involving Max Scherzer, Curtis Granderson, and Austin Jackson, the Diamondbacks certainly considered Ian Kennedy to be a large piece of their future as well. Kennedy has a 4.22 ERA, 4.60 FIP, and a 4.32 xFIP, so he’s performed roughly as an average pitcher. At age 25, there’s certainly room to improve, but one has to think that the Diamondbacks will expect more out of Kennedy as his career goes on.

Games like yesterday’s against the Padres suggest that Kennedy has top half of the rotation potential. Kennedy threw seven shutout innings against San Diego, allowing only one hit and two walks while striking out a whopping 12 batters. Only nine of the 24 batters faced by Kennedy even managed to put the ball in play, and four of them put the ball on the ground. Even though it was in cavernous PETCO Park, it’s hard to classify this outing as anything but dominant.

As we dive deeper, we continue to see impressive numbers out of Kennedy’s start. Kennedy threw 62 strikes in 105 pitches (59%), drew 16 swinging strikes (15.6%), and was above average with every single one of his five pitches according to pitch type linear weights. Particularly impressive was Kennedy’s changeup, which he threw 16 times. Twelve of them went for strikes, and a ridiculous 8 – half of them! – resulted in swings and misses. Kennedy was drawing swings and misses both at the edges of the zone and down the middle, as this plot from Brooks Baseball shows.

Click to embiggen

Some may be quick to dismiss a start against the Padres in PETCO Park, but we can’t do that this year. The Padres offense has been above average this year, and that’s prior to additions such as Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada. In the post-Dan Haren era, the Diamondbacks will need production from other SPs in the system. Expecting Kennedy to become another Dan Haren is a pipe dream, but with performances like this as well as Daniel Hudson’s strong showings with his new team, the Diamondbacks have two young starting pitchers who should form the core of a solid starting rotation for a few years to come.

Last night, Matt LaPorta stepped to the plate in the sixth inning and launched a Vin Mazzaro sinker deep into the left field bleachers. That homer was a game-changer. Prior to LaPorta’s two-run shot, the Indians trailed the A’s 2-1 and had a 35 percent chance of claiming victory. After the blast, the Tribe had a better than 70 percent shot of getting the W. With the two clubs trading zeros from that point forward, Cleveland came out on top by a 3-2 score.

The Indians expected frequent offensive heroics from LaPorta after he was acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in the July 2008 CC Sabathia trade. A fearsome slugger at the University of Florida, LaPorta thumped minor league pitchers for a .279/.386/.539 line in 433 plate appearances split between Milwaukee and Cleveland’s Double-A affiliates in ’08. LaPorta has also thrashed the opposition in Triple-A over the past two years, batting .310/.400/.548 in 474 PA. Yet, LaPorta’s feats of strength in the minors have been conspicuously absent in Cleveland.

In 525 major league PA over the 2009-2010 seasons, LaPorta has a .243/.309/.395 triple-slash. His wOBA is .310, and his park-and-league-adjusted wOBA is eight percent worse than the MLB average (92 wRC+). That would be acceptable if LaPorta were a slick defender at a premium position. But, considering that he’s a DH-worthy first baseman/corner outfielder, LaPorta’s lagging lumber has made him a replacement-level player. He has accumulated just 0.2 WAR in the majors.

LaPorta hasn’t been a total hacker, but his 8.4 percent walk rate is slightly below-average. The 6-foot-2, 210 pound hitter’s vaunted power hasn’t been on display, with a mundane .152 ISO. To some extent, LaPorta has been unlucky. His batting average on balls in play is .274, while his expected BABIP, based on his rate on home runs, strikeouts, stolen bases, line drives, pop ups and fly balls, is .311. Still, he has shwon run-of-the-mill secondary skills instead of being a guy who takes and rakes with the best of them.

While LaPorta isn’t exactly thriving against fastballs, he’s at least holding his own (-0.1 runs per 100 fastballs seen). Against pitches that dip and dive, though? Well, LaPorta’s channeling his inner Pedro Cerrano. He has been -1.38 runs below average per 100 changeups seen, -1.48 runs/100 against curveballs and -1.62 versus sliders. These numbers might look worse than they should due to LaPorta’s low BABIP. But opposing pitchers seem to think he’s vulnerable against breaking balls and changeups. Over the past two calendar years, 309 hitters have gotten 500 or more big league PA. LaPorta ranks in the bottom 10% in terms of fastballs seen.

Matt LaPorta certainly isn’t a lost cause, and 500-some PA shouldn’t be used as some conclusive judgment of his abilities. But he is 25 years old now, and neither ZiPS (.253/.320/.414 rest-of-season line) nor CHONE (.264/.337/.446) throw out very optimistic projections. If LaPorta is going to be an asset for the Indians, he’s going to have to hang tough against secondary stuff and find the cheap seats more often.

Brad Hawpe, who cleared waivers after recently being designated for assignment by the Rockies, has reportedly been signed by the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are currently deadlocked with the Yankees for first place in the American League East, and designated hitter is one spot were they could use some help. The Rays have struggled to get decent production from the DH spot all season: Pat Burrell disappointed before finally being let go earlier this season, while Willy Aybar, Hank Blalock (remember him?) and, most recently, Dan Johnson all hitting poorly in the chances they were given.

Hawpe was primarily a right fielder in Colorado, but advanced metrics saw him as awful out there, perhaps the worst in the game. Moreover, the Rays are set with Carl Crawford in left, and a combination of Ben Zobrist, Matt Joyce, and Gabe Kapler in right. I guess Hawpe could always play center if B.J. Upton gets into “trouble” again, that would be fun!

Hawpe can probably still hit, assuming his injury issues from earlier this season aren’t bothering him. Yes, his .255/.343/.432 2010 line (.336 wOBA, 101 wRC+) in what is still probably the most favorable home park to hitters in the majors is less than impressive for a DH, but Hawpe did hit very well in full-time play the four seasons previous, posting wRC+s of 120, 130, 126, and 130 from 2006-2009 respectively. His ZiPS RoS projection for the rest of the season is for a .382 wOBA. That assumes he’ll still be in Colorado the rest of the season, but after (crudely) knocking off about about 10 points of wOBA for the change in parks and another 10 for moving to the AL, he’s still at around .360.

Willy Aybar and Dan Johnson have been sharing the Rays DH spot lately. Aybar is having a down year (.297 wOBA), as well , but has been a useful bat in previous seasons and is also a helpful right-handed backup at first and third. His ZiPS ROS is only .323, which suggests he’s best deployed as productive lesser half of a DH platoon with Hawpe. Johnson is a bit more interesting. Johnson first came to the Rays in 2008, and while he was already 28, the .425 wOBA (in 486 PA) he put up in AAA was still impressive. After spending 2009 playing in Japan, Johnson re-signed with the Rays for 2010, and again raked in AAA with a .445 wOBA in 426 PA. However, upon getting his call to the majors, Johnson has been pretty bad in 59 PA, with only a .295 wOBA. ZiPS RoS is not impressed, seeing only a .304 wOBA from Johnson the rest of the way. So if Johnson is the one who gets the axe in favor of Hawpe, that would be understandable given these projections.

CHONE’s August update, which takes into account current-season minor league numbers (I don’t think ZiPS RoS takes 2010 minor league numbers into account) paints a different picture, however. CHONE’s “R150” column is park- and league-neutral offensive linear weights above average per 150 games. CHONE projects Hawpe as a +5/150 true talent hitter, while Johnson, likely on the strength of his minor league performance, is projected at +17/150. So on one hand, one has ZiPS’ translations of Johnson’s minor league numbers from previous seasons and his meager (almost irrelevant) major league results from 2010, and on the other, CHONE’s translations of his minor league numbers including this season giving drastically different results. Both CHONE and ZiPS are excellent projection systems, but this enters into the tricky and much-debated ground of minor league translations, which is an issue beyond the space to pursue here.

Rather than “choosing” between projection systems, my inclination (assuming that Johnson is out), is to say that the Rays are probably making the right choice given their situation: neck-and-neck with the Yankees and with the Red Sox not completely out of the Wild Card picture. They have good reason to think Hawpe can still hit fairly well, while Johnson is a wild card given the uncertainty involved in projections based on minor league performance. The Rays’ scouts might also have seen some things in Johnson that concerned them. The Rays are probably only on the hook for about $100,000 for Hawpe over the rest of the season, so even though it’s probably only a few runs difference at most the move seems like a smart one for Tampa Bay given what is at stake. As Jonah Keri would say, it’s about the extra 2%.

Having said that, here’s hoping Dan Johnson gets a fair opportunity (i.e., at least a couple hundred PAs) in the major leagues somewhere soon. In a league in which Mark Kotsay was part of a DH platoon, he surely deserves it.