Nick Hagadone was probably the centerpiece of the deal which shipped Victor Martinez out of Cleveland, as he entered the 2010 season ranked in the top 50 by Baseball America. However, another piece in that deal has shown a compelling combination of potential and production at the Major League level, and that is right handed starting pitcher Justin Masterson. Masterson showed both in his 28th start of the season for the Indians last night, holding the Angels to only one run – a Torii Hunter solo home run – while striking out five and walking two over seven innings of work.

As usual, the ground ball was the most prevalent ball in play type for Masterson on Tuesday night, as he allowed eight grounders, seven flies, and three line drives in a start which saw far more balls in the air than the typical Justin Masterson start. Entering this start, Masterson was showcasing an otherworldly 60% ground ball rate. With only 40% of balls in the air and only 24% of them as fly balls, it’s no surprise that Masterson has limited opponents to 0.74 HR/9 this season.

That number is crucial for Masterson, as he has an issue with walks – over four per nine innings – and doesn’t have crazy strikeout numbers to back it up – his 6.85 K/9 is hardly remarkable. However, thanks to that ground ball rate and the resulting limited amount of home runs allowed, Masterson carried a 4.15 FIP into last night’s game along with a 4.17 xFIP. The only problem was a 5.04 ERA.

It’s not as though his batted profile suggests that he’s a player that DIPS would miss on. He doesn’t allow many line drives (15.4%) and his 4.00 tERA comes out ahead of his FIP and xFIP. The problem has been allowing hits on balls in play (.336) and, more importantly, an inability to strand runners (66.2% LOB). It’s not like these issues have plagued him since he broke into the league in 2008 – his career LOB% is 70.4%, thanks to a good 2008 and a poor 2009 in that department, and his BABIP in 2008 was a paltry .243.

As a player who thrives on the ground ball, defense could be a key to Masterson’s struggles. Indeed, the Indians’ DER sits at .684 according to Baseball Prospectus, 22nd in the Major Leagues. The infield defense has left some to be desired, although I would hesitate to call it terrible. Asdrubal Cabrera has been between average and poor at SS depending on who you ask; Jhonny Peralta is certainly below average at 3B as is Matt LaPorta at 1B and Jason Donald, the backup SS. Luis Valbuena has been solid at second base. It’s certainly not a good infield, but blaming all of Masterson’s issues on it would be too much.

What’s more likely is that Masterson simply has been the victim of poor luck, and although there may be something about his spray chart that would result in him running a high BABIP, it’s certainly hard to make that claim right now, both given the lack of a reliable sample size and the fact that his .311 career BABIP is hardly an outlier. As his career continues, we should expect his ERA to fall towards average, as that’s what his unique peripherals suggest. If that is indeed the case, the Indians will have added a very valuable starting pitcher to their team, with more to come from the minor leagues in return for the Victor Martinez trade.

Turn on your heart light, baseball fans.

(Games listed in order of likely awesomness. NERD scores in parentheses.)

Florida (7) at Philadelphia (3) | 7:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Marlins: Andrew Miller (N/A)
15.0 IP, 6.60 K/9, 6.00 BB/9, .324 BABIP, 46.7% GB, 6.3% HR/FB, 5.09 xFIP

Phillies: Cole Hamels (9)
181.0 IP, 9.10 K/9, 2.64 BB/9, .295 BABIP, 44.4% GB, 13.0% HR/FB, 3.45 xFIP

Philly and the Postseason
According to both Baseball Prospectus and Cool Standings, the Phillies have about a 73% chance of making the playoffs. I’m not sure that either methodology accounts for the fact that Wilson Valdez has 288 PA this season while posting a .274 wOBA (65 wRC+) — many of those PA coming as a replacement for the talented and handsome Chase Utley.

In other words, it’s probably better than 73%.

Philly and the Postseason (Starting Pitcher Remix)
You’ve probably already known this since you were born or something, but it’s still a fact: the Phillies have three excellent starting pitchers. Behold:

Pitcher		xFIP
Halladay	2.93
Hamels		3.46
Oswalt		3.56

After last year’s ALDS, in which the Yankees beat the Angels, Dave Cameron noted how 48 of the 59 innings pitched by New York (81.4%) during the series were thrown by only four New Yorkers: CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera. New York used a similar technique to dispatch of Philly in the World Series.

It’s likely that, by this one measure alone, Philadelphia would actually have an even bigger advantage this postseason, were they to leverage their pitching the way New York did last year.

It wouldn’t be right to say that Brad Lidge, despite his totally competent 3.64 xFIP, is the same sort of weapon as Mariano Rivera. However, here are the other three relevant pitchers.

Pitcher		xFIP
Sabathia	3.82
Burnett		4.29
Pettitte	4.38

League-average ERA — to which xFIP is calibrated — is 4.12 this year. Last year, it 4.32. That’s a kinda big leap, but it also doesn’t make up for the difference in the two staffs above.

Youth of Florida
One of the main components behind Florida’s elevated NERD score is the youth of their team, in which category (i.e. youth — and, specifically, batter age) they rank third, behind only Pittsburgh (26.7) and Arizona (26.8).

In particular, it’s the Marlins’ outfield that’s notable in this regard, as left fielder Logan Morrison (23), center fielder Cameron Maybin (23), and Mike Stanton (20) are all almost young enough to write for FanGraphs.

St. Louis (3) at Milwaukee (9) | 8:10pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Cardinals: Jaime Garcia (7)
153.1 IP, 7.28 K/9, 3.58 BB/9, .295 BABIP, 55.3% GB, 6.9% HR/FB, 3.75 xFIP

Brewers: Chris Capuano (N/A)
37.0 IP, 9.00 K/9, 3.16 BB/9, .329 BABIP, 44.8% GB, 12.8% HR/FB, 3.68 xFIP

Capuano as a Starter
I submit that Chris Capuano is reason enough to watch this game.

Since he (i.e. Capuano) replaced Manny Parra in the rotation at the end of August, he’s made two starts, with a line that looks exactly like this:

8.0 IP, 38 TBF, 9 K, 5 BB, 10 H on 22 BIP, 12 GB on 24 Batted Balls, 2 HR on 9 FB.

First off, I don’t know if I’ve made it clear in this electronic pages, so I’ll say it vigorously right this minute: I’m the head of the Manny Parra Fan Club. I arrange all the functions, prepare all the mailings, send kinda creepy emails to Parra — all that.

But second off, it’s hard not to find Capuano compelling at the moment. Not only is he coming back from those consecutive Tommy Johns, but it also might surprise the reader to learn that Capuano has actually conceded 7 R (and 7 ER) in those 8.0 IP.

In other words, while pitching in what appears to be a generally effective way, Capuano has been dreadfully unlucky in terms of results.

Jon Jay’s Luck
About a month ago, St. Louis’s Jon Jay was batting .382/.433/.583. When that was happening, you probably did what I did:

1. Got really excited.
2. Got immediately suspicious.
3. Checked Jay’s BABIP.
4. Were like, “Ah, man.”

The BABIP you found at Jay’s elegantly designed player page was probably something like .430 or whatever. Unsustainable, whatever it was.

A month or so later, Jay’s doing this now: .323/.378/.472 (.368 BABIP), .367 wOBA, 132 wRC+. In other words, an excellent (if not crazy) line, but with something like a reasonable BABIP. Ultimately, his ball-in-play luck will continue to regress, but given his decent speed, it’s not crazy to think it could sit at something like .320, or even slightly higher.

Also Playing
These games are very likely playing at some kind of sporty channel near you.

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The Houston Astros’ rotation is one of the best in baseball. This much is true. A top five rank in xFIP and FIP support the premise and a staff ERA in the top-half of the league does little to falsify it. Yes, that same rotation features Brett Myers, Wandy Rodriguez, J.A. Happ, Bud Norris, and Felipe Paulino. If their plan is to fingerprint and lock up any doubters like twin Foxes then so far everything is going on schedule.

Myers leads the team in innings pitched and while his 3.02 ERA is over his head, he must be considered one of the best offseason signings in the league. Rodriguez the mainstay of the group and Happ is the anti-Wandy. Norris and Paulino are products of the Astros’ system, with Norris being the breadwinner of the pair. Paulino is interesting in his own right, though, and that is whom I choose to focus on here.

Paulino’s stuff is majestic from the scope of a radar gun. His fastball averages 95.5 miles per hour and tops every starter in baseball that qualifies except Ubaldo Jimenez. Nevertheless, Paulino’s fastball holds a negative run value. This is startling for one reason in particular: Paulino is giving up a home run on less than 2% of his flyballs. That percentage is the clone on the other side of the mirror to his homer rate in 2009 which was out of this world ridiculous. The fastball run value being so horrid without balls clearing the fence is concerning.

Still, Paulino misses bats, gets a fair amount of grounders, and otherwise is pitching almost identical to his 2009 stats. The gopher ball is the difference between his FIP (3.24, down from 5.11) and why his xFIP has jumped. I do not think Paulino is a true talent five-run average pitcher. Instead – and perhaps sheepishly – I would expect him to be somewhere in the middle of those two xFIP. That’s mighty fine for a back-end starter in the National League Central.

Neil Walker is only 24-years-old but has the prospect life of someone a few years his senior. Baseball America featured the 11th overall pick of the 2004 draft on four consecutive top 100 lists between 2005 and 2008. Walker peaked at 43 and fell off entering the 2009 season. During that stretch, Walker changed positions – from catching to third base – before ultimately finding a position that would lock him into the Buccos’ everyday lineup.

Though it is important to keep in mind how little time Walker has spent at the keystone, the defensive reports on Walker have not been encouraging to date. None of our fielding metrics are particularly kind to his play at second base this season and it seems the only area in which he’s excelled is turning the double play. One would suspect that Walker’s play would improve with experience, although Skip Schumaker is proof that sometimes that is not the case.

Walker’s defensive struggles would be immaterial if his bat were equally poor. Instead, Walker’s offensive production looks like an uplifting calypso tune on an otherwise scratched record. The .364 wOBA looks good, indeed, and Walker’s slash line is strong amongst second basemen. The walk rate (5.6%) and strikeout rate (21.3%) represent the incorrectly named Walker’s pitfalls.

Walker has the second best on-base percentage amongst players with a walk-to-strikeout ratio under 0.35, trailing only Carlos Gonzalez. In order to succeed with that skill set, a player has to either hit for a lot of power or hit for a high average. Walker is doing a bit of either so far with his average being propped by a .372 batting average on balls in play. Can Walker sustain that heading forward? Maybe, but betting on it seems like an unsafe proposition.

That’s not to say Walker cannot grow and mature into a fine offensive second baseman. It’s just to say he’s probably not one of the elite hitters at the position heading forward unless the BABIP proves sustainable.

As we head down the stretch, the name at the top of the pitcher WAR leaderboard might be surprising, but it shouldn’t be shocking. The title reveals that the leader in pitcher WAR at this point, nearly 85% of the way through the season, is Florida Marlins ace Josh Johnson – not Roy Halladay, nor Ubaldo Jimenez, not Cliff Lee, not Felix Hernandez, and not CC Sabathia. Johnson is establishing himself as possibly the best pitcher in the game, coming off a 5.5 WAR, 209 IP, 3.23 ERA, 3.06 FIP 2009 season and posting even more remarkable numbers in 2010. In 183 innings this season, Johnson has a 2.30 ERA and a 2.44 FIP – good for 6.3 WAR to date.

By no means is the race over. Halladay, Francisco Liriano, Lee, and Hernandez are all within 0.4 WAR of Johnson and could certainly catch him over the course of a few more starts. That said, it certainly doesn’t feel like Josh Johnson’s season has received the play that it deserves, whether it be in this space or across the country. Everybody already knows about Roy Halladay. Cliff Lee’s K/BB numbers are prepared to shatter records. Ubaldo Jimenez’s season began with the ludicrous ERA and the possibility of a 25 win season. Francisco Liriano gets the huge NERD scores for an ERA which remains nearly a run above his FIP due to an inexplicable .344 BABIP. Perhaps it’s because I live in the Midwest and therefore see little of Johnson on TV, but it feels that the attention given to Johnson’s season pales in comparison to those of these pitchers, not to mention guys like Clay Buchholz and CC Sabathia who have sparkly traditional numbers on playoff teams.

There’s no reason whatsoever not to like Josh Johnson’s season. He has a respectable 11-6 record with a 2.30 ERA. He has struck out 186 batters in 183 innings while walking only 48 and allowing only 7 homers. He has kept 46% of balls in play on the ground. His swinging strike rate of 11.8% rivals those of top relief pitchers. He hits the zone more than the average pitcher, and gets the first strike nearly 65% of the time. Basically, Johnson does everything that you can ask out of a pitcher, and for that reason Johnson has been the best pitcher in baseball according to our WAR, and I find it difficult to argue with that conclusion.

Between 2009 and 2010, Josh Johnson has now posted 11.8 wins above replacement. Projecting pitchers can be dangerous, but Johnson has a powerful fastball, fantastic secondary stuff, an ability to strike batters out, and solid control of the strike zone. Only a select few pitchers in the game can challenge the arsenal of picthes and skills that Johnson brings to the mound every single time out. That’s why Josh Johnson leads the league in WAR coming down the stretch of the season, and that’s why Josh Johnson just might be the single best pitcher in baseball.

The crowd has spoken, and Derek Jeter will not be getting anything close to the 5 year, $100 million deal that was rumored before the season. His relatively poor performance this year, combined with his age, has the crowd thinking that settle for a deal that pays him about half of that.

Average length: 3.38 years
Average salary: $14.91 million

Median length: 3 years
Median salary: $15 million

Standard deviation, length: 0.82 years
Standard deviation, salary: $4.20 million

While our first two subjects both had standard deviations of just under $3 million in salary, Jeter blows that out of the water. There’s a huge difference of opinion over what his annual salary will be, though most everyone agrees that he’s looking at a 3 or 4 year deal. Salaries range from as little as $4 million all the way up to the maximum of $25 million, with each number across the board being fairly represented. Some people clearly think that Jeter will get paid for what he has been, while others feel that he’ll end up getting what the market will bear, and that it won’t be kind to a 36-year-old coming off a bad year.

In the comments, someone made the comparison to Chipper Jones, and I think thats a good one. Like Jeter, he’s a one organization guy, and both parties wanted to see him end his career in the same uniform he has always worn. The Braves gave Jones a 3 year, $42 million deal for his age 37-39 seasons, though his age 36 season was significantly better than what Jeter is putting up right now. On the other hand, the Yankees have more money than the Braves and Jeter probably has more perceived intangible value.

The Chipper contract looks to be a pretty good template for the Yankees to use, and it’s right in line with what the crowd thinks he’s going to get. 3/45 – it’s probably less than what Jeter was hoping for, but about what he deserves. It’s a fair deal for both sides.

Episode Forty-Four
In which the panel’s got a gun and is going to a Broadway Show.

Headlines
New York Baseball Panel from last month’s Live Event.

Featuring
Mike Axisa, River Ave. Blues
Matthew Cerrone, MetsBlog
Ben Kabak, River Ave. Blues
Joe Pawlikowski, River Ave. Blues
Mark Simon, Head Researcher, Baseball Tonight
Moderator: Carson Cistulli

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 45 min play time.)

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Fans of National League baseball will find joy this September. The largest gap between first and second place is six games, and the Cardinals are certainly good enough to make up some ground and turn the Central back into a competitive race. Philadelphia sits just a half game behind Atlanta in the East and 1.5 games ahead of San Francisco in the Wild Card. Colorado and St. Louis also sit within five games of the Wild Card. Seven teams vying for four spots tends to create some interesting baseball. Unfortunately for AL fans, the races aren’t nearly as compelling.

The AL East and AL Wild Card races are all but over. True, the White Sox are six back of the Wild Card, while the Red Sox are just a half-game behind that pace. The difference between the AL Wild Card and the NL Central, of course, is the quality of the teams involved. At 83-54 Tampa Bay owns the league’s second-best record. It would be much more difficult for Chicago or Boston to overtake a team that strong than it would be for St. Louis to overtake a Cincinnati team that is not without flaw. That leaves just one race, the AL Central, up for grabs.

The White Sox are within 3.5 games of the Twins, and it looks like they’ll need more than just a hot streak to close the gap. They have, in fact, been on quite the streak, rattling off seven straight victories. But in that span they’ve gained just one game on the Twins, thanks to the Twins winning 9 of their last 11. If both teams remain hot their seasons could be determined during their three-game set starting September 14th. Outside of that, neither team plays a particularly tough schedule the rest of the way.

The Twins clearly have the advantage here — not just for their 3.5 game lead, but also for the way they’ve played since early July. Exactly three months ago Justin Morneau suffered a concussion and hasn’t played a game since. Minnesota lost that game, dropping them to 45-39, third place in the Central by 1.5 games. Since then they’ve played .667 ball, going 36-18. That has made it quite difficult for the White Sox to keep pace. They’re a good team for sure, and as they showed earlier this year they can go on a monstrous tear. But it seems like every White Sox streak is overshadowed by Minnesota’s excellent play.

The rest of the way it appears as though Minnesota has a slight schedule advantage. Before the series with Chicago they play two against Kansas City and then three in Cleveland. After that they face Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, and finally Toronto, meaning they play one team with an above-.500 record and two teams with records around the break-even mark. Chicago has three more against Detroit and three in KC before the Twins series, and then Detroit, Oakland, Anaheim, Boston, and finally Cleveland. That makes for also one team above .500, but a team faring slightly better than the Jays. Chicago’s disadvantage comes from their six remaining games with Detroit.

September can prove a wacky month in the world of baseball. Last year we saw the Twins lose Morneau and subsequently get hot and win the AL Central in a one-game playoff. In 2008, Minnesota was down 2.5 with six games to play. They swept the White Sox to take first place, but then dropped two of three to Kansas City, forcing a playoff which they lost. Minnesota might hold the advantage right now, but we’ve seen how quickly things can turn. Baseball fans might find more consistent enjoyment with the NL races, but keep your eyes on the Central. This could be the third straight year with a crazy finish.

Well, this one should be interesting.

Derek Jeter is widely expected to re-sign with the New York Yankees when the season ends. A lifelong Yankee, it’s nearly impossible to imagine him going anywhere else. He is keenly aware of his legacy, and he has little to gain from ending his career in any other uniform. Given his place in their history, he almost certainly has more value to the Yankees than he does to any other franchise as well. The question, though, will be how much that value actually is.

Jeter is 36 years old and in the midst of the worst season of his career. There’s no shame in that, as he’s already sustained a high level of performance beyond an age where most players are capable of playing at his level. If his struggles in 2010 are indicative of the beginning of the end for Jeter as an elite player, that would be a fairly normal progression, and we’d expect him to settle for a short-term contract that reflected that he was nearing the end of his career.

However, we simply can’t jump to the conclusion that this really is the beginning of the end. A year ago, Jeter had one of the best seasons of his career, and it is rare that a player’s skills decline this quickly. In fact, if we look at his underlying numbers, the decline doesn’t appear to be that dramatic at all.

2010, Career:

BB%: 8.1%, 9.0%
K%: 15.6%, 16.9%
ISO: .109, .140

He’s both walking and striking out a little less than his overall career averages, and while his power is down slightly, it’s not like he was ever a guy who counted on driving the ball to produce value. The real areas where his numbers vary significantly from his established norms are the following two areas:

GB%: 65.8%, 56.9%
BABIP: .297, .356

He’s always been a groundball guy, but this year it’s been extreme. He leads all major league hitters in groundball rate, and it’s not even close – Elvis Andrus is second, five percentage points behind Jeter. And yet, even though ground balls have a higher rate of becoming hits than fly balls, Jeter’s BABIP is the lowest of his career, and by a large margin. Before this year, he’d never posted a mark below .315, and he has more seasons with a BABIP over .350 than under that mark. While BABIP is a high-variance statistic, even for hitters, Jeter has a well-established skill at producing above the league average. That just hasn’t translated onto the field this year.

Odds are pretty good that Jeter’s going to hit better next year than he has this year. He’s probably not done as a good major league player. However, he will be 37 next year, and he’s not going to be good forever. If you give him a long-term deal, you’re paying more for what he’s done than what he’s going to do. But he’s going to be an asset going forward – even with the career low BABIP, he’s been worth +1.7 WAR this year, and it isn’t that easy to find a good shortstop.

There’s a lot of variables at play here, even if it’s extremely likely that he re-signs with New York. So, let’s hear it – what do you think Jeter will get this winter?

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. In 2000, Portland came on the scene as a possible relocation candidate for the Montreal Expos. But, on Monday, the Triple-A Portland Beavers played their last game at PGE Park, pushed out, not by MLB, but Major League Soccer. With the departure, Minor League Baseball’s largest market is now empty, a victim of MLS wanting a soccer-only facility, and a city that, like most of the nation, has placed education and services above stretching a double into a triple.

Merritt Paulson, the owner of the Beavers, also owns the USL Portland Timbers soccer club. Paulson made the successful bid for an MLS franchise in March of 2009, with MLS Commissioner Don Garber adding the caveat that he and the city retrofit PGE Park and make it a baseball-less facility (college football would be allowed), removing dugouts, adding bleacher seating where the dugouts and ivy covered outfield walls are now at the expense of the Beavers.

Paulson and the city now had not one, but two stadium funding issues on their hands.

Paulson was willing to pitch in money for a new stadium, but only so much given the amount he was going to pour into changing PGE Park over to an MLS facility. The city tried several times to gain funding for a new ballpark for the Beavers, first at Memorial Coliseum site – the “Glass Palace” the Trail Blazers used to call home – but war veterans and architects that saw the Coliseum as historically significant became vocal roadblocks in tearing it down for a minor league ballpark. With the Rose Garden Arena so close by, the Blazers were quietly opposed, as well.

With the Coliseum off the site list, the Lent’s District on the far Southeast outskirts of Portland was targeted, and then later in the suburb of Beaverton. Both had issues.

For Lents, it was a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) contingent worried about traffic and noise, while Beaverton’s issue surrounded land use, namely the need for eminent domain seizure of property; a nasty proposition.

But, the reality was, those issues paled when compared to how to fund the project. The MLS retrofit to PGE Park came in at approx. $31 million, while the new minor league ballpark was projected at $55.1 million. Finding over $86 million for the two projects came down to a matter of triage.

Paulson, a smart businessman, understood that when push came to shove, soccer made better business sense than minor league baseball. With MLS successfully expanding into Seattle, and Vancouver, BC on-tap for 2011, as well, a regional “I-5”rivalry is sure to occur.

So, what happens to the Beavers and Portland?

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