As far as AL West aces go, most people could probably give you three easily: Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez, and Jered Weaver. Brett Anderson of the Oakland Athletics has largely flown under the radar, receiving all of two Rookie of the Year votes in a stellar 2009 campaign and having a solid 2010 go mostly unnoticed due to injury. Yesterday, Anderson continued to stymie AL hitters, holding the Seattle Mariners to one run in 7.2 innings, walking none, allowing four hits including a solo home run to Franklin Gutierrez, and striking out four.

The start lowered Anderson’s ERA to 2.98 in 78.2 innings, and that’s well supported by a 3.12 FIP. Anderson has thrived on excellent control, limiting opponents to only 1.77 walks per nine innings. That’s in part because opponents make more contact off him than the average pitcher – only a 6.4% swinging strike rate against a league average of around 8% – but also because he hits the zone more than average as well. Despite the low amount of whiffs, Anderson still strikes out 6.5 batters per 9 innings, a respectable total. Perhaps even more important than his stupendous control of the strike zone, particularly this year, with more contact allowed, is Anderson’s ability to induce the ground ball. Twelve of the 22 balls in play hit against him on Labor Day were ground balls, and this is indicative of his season to date, as a whopping 56% of balls in play have been on the ground against Anderson in 2010. That’s a big reason why he has a 0.38 HR/9 rate this season, and although he probably won’t give up home runs on only 5.5% of fly balls for the rest of his career or even this season, his xFIP is still an excellent 3.61.

Brett Anderson has found a recipe for success built on solid command and control, a fantastic slider, and an ability to keep the ball on the ground. Obviously nobody noticed last year, as a fantastic campaign received no postseason award recognition. Anderson missed the meat of the summer this season due to an elbow injury, but he’s returned on the same note that he left. Anderson is poised to post over 6 wins above replacement in his first two seasons in the majors, and will enter his age 23 season ready to show those around the country, both on the field and at home, that he’s a legitimate staff ace.

Tonight’s edition of One Night Only is a little bit really caliente.

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

New York Nationals (3) at Washington (6) | 7:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Mets: Dillon Gee (N/A)
157.1 IP, 9.21 K/9, 2.29 B/9, .339 BABIP, 3.96 FIP (Triple-A)

Nationals: Yunesky Maya (N/A)
Only Triple-A Start (8/27): 4.2 IP, 20 TBF, 6 K, 3 BB.

Pop Quiz
Q. What can make a September game between the lowly Nats and depressing Mets palatable — nay, even exciting?
A. Two starters, each making their respective Major League debuts, is what.

Who This Dillon Gee Character Is
Short Answer: A Crafty Righty.

The Slightly Longer Answer: Gee is described in Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook as having “fringe-average stuff” with a fastball sitting at 88-90 mph and topping at 92 mph. That was before a labrum tear last season — an injury he opted to treat with rehab and not surgery. This year, Gee has been excellent, posting about seven more strikeouts than walks per nine innings.Basically, he’s having his best pro year at the highest level in which he’s pitched — which, that’s not common.

The concern for Gee, obviously, is the same for other guys with his profile (i.e. more pitchability than stuff) — namely, how his numbers translate to the majors. Is he David Hernandez? Or is he, you know, Shaun Marcum? Tune in to find out!

Another (Smarter) Country Heard From
Rob Castellano (a) has an awesome surname and (b) writes about the minor leagues for Amazin’ Avenue.

Those are the two main reasons I asked him this question via email: “In re Dillon Gee: He has that crazy K rate (and K/BB rate), but is there any indication that his stuff is different from before last year’s labrum injury?”

That’s also why he was able to give me this totally legitimate-sounding answer:

Having watched quite a few of his starts at Buffalo in addition to speaking with people from the team at various points throughout the season, his stuff is pretty much identical to what it looked like before the injury. Pretty surprising considering that based on a couple of old articles by Will Carroll, in the majority of cases the rehab-only route for major arm injuries typically subtracts a couple ticks off the fastball at the very least and at most completely sabotages any and all command, which would be devastating for Gee as he makes his bones off his pinpoint control (see: the stellar K-rates you mentioned).

Who This Yunesky Maya Character Is
Short Answer: A Cuban Defector.

The Slightly Longer Answer: The 29-year-old Maya signed a four-year, $8 million contract with Washington this summer after defecting from Cuba last September. According to Jorge Arangure Jr. of ESPN’s La Esquina blog (Insider only), Maya threw for scouts in the Dominican last December. Arangure Jr writes that “In addition to [an 88-92 mph] fastball and two-seamer, Maya threw a slider, curveball and changeup. Additionally, Maya occasionally throws a splitter.”

Maya is another reason to like the direction in which the Nats are headed. Obviously, the injury to Stephen Straburg is problematic, but Maya and Jordan Zimmermann in the rotation — along with Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa in the infield and the looming arrival of Bryce Harper — well, at least there are some pieces about which to be optimistic.

Cincinnati (7) at Colorado (6) | 8:40pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Reds: Johnny Cueto (6)
158.1 IP, 6.48 K/9, 2.73 BB/9, .287 BABIP, 41.1% GB, 8.4% HR/FB, 4.37 xFIP

Rockies: Jhoulys Chacin (7)
107.1 IP, 9.39 K/9, 4.19 BB/9, .293 BABIP, 46.6% GB, 9.0% HR/FB, 3.74 xFIP

The Reds and the Playoffs
Cincinnati’s playoff odds, per Baseball Prospectus: ca. 98%.

The Rockies and the Playoffs
Colorado’s playoff odds, per Baseball Prospectus: ca, 15%.

Aroldis Chapman’s To-Do List
I’m not at liberty to say how or from whom I acquired it, but I have in my hands a document that will certainly be of interest to the readership. The document in question? A to-do list written in the hand of Aroldis Chapman.

I don’t know the exact date of the document’s composition, but my guess is that it’s from last week some time.

Here it is (translated from the Spanish by Jorge Luis Borges):

1. Throw a baseball at, like, 103 mph.

2. Also, throw slider that’s nigh impossible for other humans to hit.

3. Use above offerings to post swinging-strike rate close to 20%.

4. Laundry.

5. Inspire awe-induced sighs at baseball stadia across the United States.

Compelling, indeed.

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

Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, I posted about how Miguel Olivo’s horrific August dramatically changed his seasonal line, and what should (and shouldn’t) be concluded from that situation. Today, I want to look at a player whose seasons has taken the opposite path: the Detroit Tigers’ Ryan Raburn.

Back at the end of June, I suggested that the Tigers should be prepared to give some of Brennan Boesch’s playing time to Raburn. To put it mildly, that statement did not meet with universal agreement. It is easy to see why that was the case. Through the end of June, Raburn’s seasonal line was .211/.290/.358, and Boesch’s was .332/.380/.602. I can’t take credit for figuring anything out, really. But CHONE still had faith in Raburn’s bat on the strength of previous performance, he hadn’t had that many PA so far in 2010, and Boesch’s overall minor league track record and major league BABIP in 2010 both suggested that he was playing over his head. This isn’t a post about Boesch, so I won’t belabor the point, but almost immediately after that post (at which point his wOBA well was over .400) he put up a .265 wOBA (.209/.311.253) in July and a .234 wOBA (.185/.227/.304) in August. Boesch’s seasonal wOBA is still a respectable .336, but expectations have probably been tempered quite a bit.

As I wrote above, though, this is about Raburn, not Boesch. While Raburn was okay in April (.333 wOBA), he was absolutely dreadful in May (.117), recovered a bit in June (.339), but was still horrible in July (.247). Then August rolled around, and Raburn busted out a .408 wOBA (.308/.357/.606), including 8 home runs. The hot streak hsa continued into the first few games of September, and raised his previously putrid seasonal line to a respectable .339 wOBA (.257/.323/.457). It’s worth noting that Raburn got about twice as many plate appearances in August (112) has he did in any other month. This isn’t to say that “consistent playing time” are what caused his streak, but simply that it is the reason one hot month was able to change his seasonal line so dramatically from the where he was at at the end of July: .211/.287/.329.

This isn’t about cherry-picking August as Raburn’s true talent or dismissing it as a “fluke.” Rather, it’s about a) accepting whatever a player’s “true talent” may be, his performance will be distributed more or less unevenly through time, and b) the old “small sample size” issue (in this case, in relation to impatience with Raburn after his first ~200 PA this season). It isn’t as if Raburn had never hit in the majors before. Yes, in 2008 he was terrible in the majors (.295 wOBA), but in only 199 PA, and the year before he was good (.365 wOBA) in almost as many PA (148). The most recent sample in 2009 was also the largest (291 PA), and he had an impressive .378 wOBA (.291/.359/.533), showing a decent amount of walks and very impressive power (.241 ISO).

Despite his ups-and-downs early in the season, Raburn’s overall 2010 line shows that 2009 was not simply a fluke. Yes, it was probably above his true talent level, but if he had a 8.9% walk rate in 2009, a 7.1% rate isn’t hard to believe for 2010. Just because most of his power came in August doesn’t mean that his very good .200 ISO in 2010 is less believable than his .241 in 2009. Taking into account his performance so far in 2010, both ZiPS RoS and CHONE’s August 28 update see Raburn as a solidly above-average hitter.

Raburn isn’t a long-term solution in the Tigers’ outfield. He’s 29 years old. He has been platooned pretty heavily in the majors, although not so much this season, and properly estimating his platoon skill shows that his split isn’t much larger than average and that he can hold his own against RHP. He’s been moved around defensively, he’s probably about average in left field — average left fielders are generally in left field because they aren’t impressive looking defensively.

Still, Raburn’s bat is good enough that combined with his outfield skills he’s probably about an average player (~2 WAR over a full season), and could make a decent stopgap starter or very good fourth outfielder. He’s going into his first year of arbitration, and probably will get an award that makes him quite affordable for at least one year. One great month isn’t enough to radically change our evaluation of any player, but in context, it should be enough to keep Raburn from being an automatic non-tender.

Sunday afternoon was simply another outing for Felix Hernandez. King Felix threw eight shutout innings against the Cleveland Indians, striking out nine, walking one, and only allowing four hits. The big game was nothing new for Hernandez this season, whose 2.38 ERA trails only Clay Buchholz among American League pitchers and whose 2.95 FIP trails only Francisco Liriano and Cliff Lee in that same group.

Given how remarkable Hernandez’s stuff is, it should be no surprise that he is among the best pitchers in the world. All of his pitches were at top form on Sunday, as we can see thanks to the Pitch F/X data from Brooks Baseball. His fastball sat between 92 and 96 and drew three swinging strikes in 40 pitches. Hernandez showed fantastic control of that pitch, as it was a strike 28 times overall – over 70% of the time. Batters clearly weren’t making good contact on his fastball either, as the pitch type linear weights value for the pitch was a whopping -2.2 runs for the game.

His other fastball, classified as a sinker by Pitch F/X but still in the 92-96 range, was similarly impressive, drawing five whiffs and notching 28 strikes in 43 pitches. Hernandez only had to go to his off-speed stuff 28 times, including a 90 MPH changeup which hardly classifies as off-speed. That changeup was only used seven times but proved deadly, as it drew four whiffs – an unfathomable 57.4% whiff rate. The slider, which averaged 85 MPH, wasn’t quite as impressive in terms of contact – three whiffs in 18 pitches – but Hernandez’s control of the pitch was excellent, as it went for a strike 13 times.

This start only adds to Hernandez’s fantastic 2010 line. Now, on the season, Hernandez has thrown 219.1 innings, striking out 209, walking only 60 and allowing 14 home runs. That comes out to rates of 8.58 K/9, 2.46 BB/9, and 0.57 HR/9 – numbers which finally equal the numbers that Hernandez put up as a 20 year old phenom with a blazing fastball out of the minor leagues. In 2005, that excellent rookie year, Hernandez posted a 2.67 ERA and a still career best 2.85 FIP in his first 12 major league starts. Hernandez’s FIP currently sits at 2.95, in a much larger sample. People expected great things out of him after that season, and although Hernandez has been nothing short of fantastic, this is the first time since that he has truly regained that level of greatness. It’s safe to say that Felix Hernandez has assumed the throne that many believed he would after such an impressive debut stint in the Major Leagues.

We’re a couple days into September,and about a month left in the season, nine of the 12 NPB have a chance at making the playoffs.

Before we delve into the standings, here’s how the playoff system works.

Nippon Professional Baseball has two leagues, the Central and the Pacific, each of which consist of six teams. Each year, the top three finishers from each league advance to the playoffs, known as the Climax Series. The Climax Series is split up into two stages, which break down like this:

1st Stage: 3rd vs 2nd, in a best-of-three series. Winner advances to the 2nd stage.

2nd Stage: winner of 1st stage vs the league champion, in a best-of-seven series with a twist*. Winner advances to the Nippon Series.

* The the 2nd stage is formatted like a best-of-seven series, but the league champion is automatically credited with a one-game advantage at the start of the series. So a maximum of only six games is played, and the league champion only has to win three games to advance to the Nippon Series, but the challenger would have to win four. Since this format was introduced in 2008, there have been no upsets in the 2nd Stage. Prior to 2008, the 2nd Stage was a standard best-of-five series.

In both stages, the team ranked higher in the standings gets home field advantage. The first place finisher is considered the league champion, even if they fail to reach the Nippon Series.

Make sense? If not, let me know in the comments.

After the jump, you’ll find the current (as of September 3) NPB standings, borrowed from NPB’s official site.

Read the rest of this entry »

Miguel Olivo is having a nice season at the plate (if you believe in defensive metrics for catchers, he’s also having a good season behind the plate, but this post is about offense) for the Colorado Rockies. Leaving aside the Chris Iannetta issue (sigh), Olivo has given the Rockies slightly-above average offense (101 wRC+), very good for a catcher. In a surprising twist, Olivo, well-known for his hacktastic ways, has slightly decreased his swings at pitches outside of the zone in 2010 (although he’s still one of the most free-swinging hitters in baseball), which partly explains his best seasonal walk rate since he became a regular player. While a .323 on-base percentage is nothing to get excited about for most players, for Olivo, it is not only the best on-base percentage of any season in his career, but it’s the only time he’s ever had a yearly OBP over .300.

Still, while a .335 wOBA is good for a catcher, even in Colorado, a quick glance at Olivo’s monthly wOBAs through July (.398, .403, .352, .351) might lead one to wonder how it got so low. Well, in 58 August plate appearances, Olivo hit .140/.155/.158 for a .141 wOBA. That’s simply a stunning line. After walking more than ever before through July, Olivo walked once in August, and that was an intentional walk. His BABIP for August was .211, which probably reflects some bad luck, although he hit very few line drives (7.9%) during the month. He hit a good deal of fly balls, but none of them went out of the park for home runs during August.

To be clear — it would even more foolish to cherry pick one month of Olivo’s season to represent his true talent or to dismiss it as an “outlier” as it would to do so for a whole season. One has to take the season as a whole into account and properly weight it, regress it, etc. It is simply stunning how bad the one month was, so bad that it can take the seasonal line down that far. Olivo has had some months almost this bad this before — a .234 wOBA in July 2009 and a .201 wOBA in July 2008, to give just two examples. All players have bad stretches, naturally. One shouldn’t attribute “consistency” or its opposite as a particular “skill” to any player. Understanding that performance will fluctuate around a players true talent is just part of accepting randomness.

While Olivo’s August performance in-itself should not be singled out as a reason to worry, it did alter his 2010 line in a way that does matter. It turns Olivo’s 2010 season from a very good offensive performance to one that is slightly above-average. It makes the Rockies decisions about playing time 2011 a bit more interesting given Olivo’s club option and Iannetta’s contract.

The Oakland Athletics languish at 65 wins and 68 losses, due mostly to a lackluster offense. The A’s can pitch, ranking third in the American League in starter xFIP and sixth in reliever xFIP. Leather is no problem either, with the green and gold saving an AL-leading 43 runs more than an average defense club. But those bats? Oakland has -32 Park-Adjusted Batting Runs, 12th in the AL.

Don’t blame Daric Barton, though. The 25-year-old first baseman has arguably emerged as the team’s best position player, and he has done it with strike-zone discipline and quality D instead of the brute force that’s typically associated with the position that he plays.

From 2007-2009, the former Cardinals prospect and Mark Mulder trade chip was basically the definition of a league-average hitter. Barton had a .328 wOBA in 799 combined plate appearances, with a 99 wRC+. He showed little pop (.145 Isolated Power), but he worked a walk in 12.6 percent of his PA. Defensively, the converted catcher helped his case by saving 5.4 runs per 150 defensive games. The A’s still held Barton in high regard entering 2010, but his mild hitting, injury issues (a neck strain in 2008 and a pulled right hamstring in 2009) and the emergence of prospect Chris Carter cast doubt upon his long-term potential. After all, how good could a singles hitter playing at the low end the defensive spectrum be?

Suffice it to say, Barton has staked his claim to first base in 2010. No, he still doesn’t fit the position’s archetype, and it’s possible that he never will — his .135 ISO ranks ahead of only James Loney among qualified first baseman. But the lefty batter is taking more base on balls than anyone else. Barton has walked 15.8% of the time, tops in the majors.

Not surprisingly, he’s not biting when a pitcher tempts him with a junk pitches thrown off the plate. Barton has swung at 16 percent of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone, the lowest mark in the big leagues. For comparison, the MLB average this season is 29.2 percent. According to Baseball-Reference, Barton has gotten ahead in the count in 46 percent of his PA. The AL average is 35.6 percent.

Overall, Barton’s got a .367 wOBA and a 133 wRC+. Maybe he has gotten a few fortunate bounces — his BABIP is .326, while his rest-of-season ZiPS projection calls for a .308 BABIP. But even with a lower BABIP, Barton is pegged as a .357 wOBA hitter.

In addition to owning the zone, Barton has been a pickin’ machine at first base. He’s got a +13.7 UZR/150 this season. He’s probably not that good, but there are sound reasons to think he’s a defensive asset. Barton’s career UZR/150 in 2,800+ innings is +8.4. CHONE’s Total Zone, pro-rated to 150 defensive games, has Barton at +7.7 runs. CHONE’s talent level projections (updated in late August) rate him as a +5 run defender going forward.

With immaculate plate discipline and a slick glove, Barton has been worth 4.2 Wins Above Replacement. That’s in the top 30 among big league position players. While a slight dip in offense and regression in his D would make him more of a three-win player, Barton has established himself as a building block for the A’s. He’s not a slugger, but Barton’s patience and defensive prowess obviate the need for him to fit the cookie-cutter first base profile.

Episode Forty-Three
In which the panel is super credentialed.

Headlines
Media Panel from last month’s Live Event.

Featuring
David Biderman, Wall Street Journal
Matthew Cerrone, Mets Blog
Will Leitch, New York Magazine
Michael Silverman, Boston Herald
Alex Speier, WEEI.com
Moderater: Jonah Keri, Ubiquitous

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

Audio on the flip-flop.

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This marks the AL version of the post from earlier today, itself an attempt to catalog recently promoted players and inform the reader as to when said players might be seen.

As with that — and also yesterday’s — installment, none of what follows ought to be regarded as official prospect mavening. Bryan Smith, just yesterday, wrote two pieces about our very newest Major Leaguers. As is typical, Smith’s work offers things like “information” and “analysis” — i.e. a pair of traits far beyond the purview of the present work.

For each series, I’ve included (a) the start times of the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday games, respectively, (b) the name, age, and position of each respective call-up, (c) said call-ups’ rankings both on Marc Hulet’s top-10 and Baseball America’s top-30 preseason organizational prospect lists, (d) the players’ lines at their most recent minor league stop, and (e) any notes relevant to better enjoying said players’ promotions.

(wOBA+, or park-adjusted wOBA relative to league average, courtesy of StatCorner.)

Toronto at New York | 1:05pm, 1:05pm, 1:05pm
Blue Jays
JP Arencibia, 24, C
Hulet / BA: 4 / 2
Line: 459 PA, .301/.359/.626 (.306 BABIP), .412 wOBA, 115 wOBA+ (Triple-A)
Notes: First, before you salivate all over the numbers, consider the team batting line for the Las Vegas 51s: .295/.360/.479. That’s like a .370 wOBA, and is most assuredly the product — at least in part — of park effects. Still, as the young catcher’s wOBA+ suggests, Arencibia has provided above-average offense this year after taking a step back in 2009.

Yankees
Notes on Greg Golson available in yesterday’s edition.

Tampa Bay at Baltimore | 7:05pm, 7:05pm, 1:35pm
Rays
Rocco Baldelli, 28, Handsome Man
Hulet / BA: NR / NR
Line: 48 PA, .273/.292/.477 (.303 BABIP), .325 wOBA, 90 wOBA+ (Triple-A)
Notes: As someone on the Twitters recently noted (I forget, sorry), the Rays now have two ex-minor league coaches on their roster. And, yes, I recognize that Baldelli isn’t a prospect, but I also understand this: if you’re not excited about the Woonsocket Rocket, you’re not excited about life.

Desmond Jennings, 23, CF
Hulet / BA: 1 / 1
Line: 458 PA, .278/.362/.393 (.327 BABIP), .355 wOBA, 105 wOBA+ (Triple-A)
Notes: The idea is that he’s Carl Crawford, Part Deux. He definitely seems to have the “running fast” part down: Jennings was 37-for-41 on stolen base attempts at Durham before his promotion. TotalZone, per Sean’s Smith Baseball Projection, has him as a +4 fielder in center, which means he could be something like +10 to +15 fielder in left. Crawford, meanwhile, has +15.8 UZR/150 in left for his career.

Orioles
Notes on Brandon Snyder in yesterday’s edition.

Chicago at Boston | 7:10pm, 7:10pm, 1:35pm
White Sox
Tyler Flowers, 24, C
Hulet / BA: 1 / 2
Line: 412 PA, .220/.334/.434 (.283 BABIP), .339 wOBA, 100 wOBA+ (Triple-A)
Notes: A.J. Pierzynski‘s contract runs out after 2010, and Flowers is likely to replace him. Reports on his defense seem conflicting, but he seems rather adept at absolutely crushing the ball, posting ISOs of around .200 or greater throughout the minors.

Gregory Infante, 23, RHP
Hulet / BA: 9 / NR
Line: 26.1 IP, 11.62 K/9, 4.10 BB/9, 2.10 FIP (Double-A)
Notes: Dan Santaromita over at Future Sox has aggregated a couple scouting reports on Infante, saying that he (i.e. Infante, not Santaromita) throws an 94-98 mph fastball and demonstrates flashes of talent. Will probably be a member of Sox’ bullpen next year, where he’ll almost definitely drag down the collective BMI of Chicago’s relief corps.

Red Sox
None.

Texas at Minnesota | 8:10pm, 4:10pm, 2:10pm
Rangers
None. (Unless maybe you count Pedro Strop. But I’m not doing that.)

Twins
None.

Detroit at Kansas City | 8:10pm, 7:10pm, 2:10pm
Tigers
Notes on 30-year-old catcher Max St. Pierre in yesterday’s edition.

Royals
Lucas May, 25, C
Hulet / BA: NR / 17 (in Dodgers’ system)
Line: 285 PA, .296/.352/.496 (.347 BABIP), .369 wOBA, 99 wOBA+ (Triple-A)
Notes: Hey, this guy’s interesting. The Dodgers converted him from shortstop to outfield to catcher — then traded him to KC in July as part of the Scott Podsednik deal. Those numbers there are from his spell in Las Vegas. He actually performed even better (.275/.362/.516) at Triple-A Omaha with a lower BABIP (.294) and higher wOBA+ (119). With Kendall out, he’ll probably split time with Brayan Pena, which probably gives the Royals the coolest catching duo in the majors.

Los Angeles at Oakland | 10:05pm, 4:10pm, 4:05pm
Angels
None.

Athletics
Notes on relief pitcher Justin James in yesterday’s edition.

Cleveland at Seattle | 10:10pm, 10:15pm, 4:10pm
Indians
None.

Mariners
None.

Hisanori Takahashi has proven himself to be both a versatile and talented pitcher in his short time with the New York Mets. The 35-year-old Japanese rookie has a 3.95 ERA and a 3.79 FIP in 107 innings split between the bullpen and the starting rotation. Between the two, Takahashi has compiled 1.4 WAR and shown that he is worth of a full time MLB starting role.

Takahashi’s agent, Peter Greenberg, released a statement that suggested that Takahashi may prefer a partciular role and that said role is a determinant in which team Takahashi signs with in 2011:

“He has obviously established himself in the major leagues. He liked it in New York and would love the chance to take the next step here. But we’ll have to wait until the season ends to sit down with him to see what he’s thinking for next year as far as if he has a preference to any particular role.”

Given that Takahashi spent most of his years with the Yomiuri Giants in the NPB as a starting pitcher, and that he has managed a 2.6 K/BB as a starter in the MLB, the “particular role” and “next step” suggested by Greenberg is probably the role of Major League starter. Takahashi has posted a 5.01 ERA as a starter in 2010, but that is mostly due to a high HR/FB rate – his 2.6 K/BB rate in that role is effectively equal to his K/BB rate as a reliever.

Even with the high amount of home runs allowed, Takahashi has still posted roughly half a win as a MLB starter in 64.1 innings. At that rate, he would be a 1.5 WAR pitcher over a full season, and with regression over his HR rate., there’s no reason to believe Takahashi wouldn’t be an above average pitcher. One needs only to look at his success as a reliever to see how: in 42 relief innings, Takahashi has struck out 54 batters while walking only 18 and allowing only one home run. Takahashi has been nothing short of fantastic in his relief role, compiling nearly one whole win above replacement in 42 innings in the role.

The fact that Takahashi has been so successful in the relief role seems to suggest that he remains there, but the only real difference between his perfomance as a starter and as a reliever appears to be the amount of home runs allowed. It is likely that Takahashi (or any other pitcher, for that matter) would allow more home runs as a starter than as a reliever, but not to the extent that Takahashi has in his one major league season: a 1.54 HR/9 as a starter against a 0.18 HR/9 as a reliever. It’s far more likely that Takahashi would allow a 1.00 HR/9 as a starter like he has overall this season. With that kind of home run line, his 2.6 K/BB would play quite well in a starting role.

The fact that Hisanori Takahashi has given up a multitude of home runs as a starter belies the kind of season that he is having. In reality, Takahashi has shown that he has no problem retiring Major League hitters. Yes, he may be more suited to a relief role – in reality, most pitchers are – but there’s certainly reason to believe that he can succeed in a starting role. If that is indeed the case, teams should target him as a starter – not only would Takahashi be more likely to sign, but the increased amount of innings would lead to more value added to the team as well.