It doesn’t take much for a hot streak to turn cold. Two weeks ago the Rockies were plowing through opponents en route to a 10-game winning streak. They lost some momentum with two straight losses to the Padres, but then came back to win three straight, putting them within a game of the NL West and within 2.5 of the Wild Card. But two straight losses have dropped them to 2.5 games out of the West with 12 games to play. That’s a tall order with two teams sitting in front of them.

Tonight the Rockies play the second of three games in Arizona, and it is the definition of a must-win. This isn’t just because of their position in the standings, but because they have their ace on the mound. If the Rockies can’t pick up a game, or at least stay even, with Ubaldo Jimenez pitching then they’re going to have an awfully tough time gaining any ground in the West. This is also Ubaldo’s first shot at 20 wins. While that’s normally not that important, it is in this case. The Rockies need not only for Jimenez to pitch well, but they need to support him with runs.

Part of the Rockies’ late-season advantage was their number of games at home. At 51-24 they have the second best home winning percentage in the league. While they’ll return home for an important series against San Francisco this weekend, they’re stuck in the Phoenix for the next two games. Thankfully for them Jimenez has been excellent on the road this season. While he has a higher walk rate on the road, he also has induced far more ground balls away from Coors Field, 56.4 to 41.3 percent. His FIP, 3.13, is a bit higher, but not much. His xFIP, 3.67, is a bit lower. In terms of results he has a 2.50 road ERA compared to 3.23 at home.

When facing the Diamondbacks this year Jimenez has fared very well. In 126 PA during 33 innings opponents have hit .197/.248/.333 against him. That has led to just six runs. The Diamondbacks have also struck out 28 times and drawn just eight walks while homering twice. Of the players he will face tonight, only Kelly Johnson and Adam LaRoche have hit him well in their careers, though neither has homered off him. Stephen Drew is 8 for 32 with five walks and four doubles as well. Miguel Montero might be a nuisance as well; he is just 3 for 23 lifetime off Jimenez, but two of those hits have been home runs.

According to pitch type values, Jimenez matches up well against the Diamondbacks. The Arizona offense has hit knuckelballers and cutters particularly well, and are also above average against the fastball. Jimenez does go to the fastball often, 62.5 percent, but many of those are sinking two-seamers. The Diamondbacks tend to flail against sliders, curveballs, and changeups, all three of which Jimenez features in his arsenal.

Even if the Rockies lose they do have a chance to pick up ground against San Francisco this weekend. That might make this seem like a less important game. But it’s not. It seems like everything plays in their favor this evening. With their ace on the mound against one of the worst regular pitchers in the NL, there is no excuse to drop the game.

A couple of highly touted catching prospects in the minors, William Myers (Royals) and Jesus Montero (Yankees), had a great 2010 season hitting. There have been some concerns with both players regarding their ability to handle the various aspects of catching (e.g. handling pitchers, throwing out runners, blocking pitches, etc). With talk of the Royals and Yankees possibly moving them off of catcher to another position, I decided to look at few items that teams must consider when moving a catcher to another position.

Positional Value

A good-hitting catcher is rare to find. After Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, Victor Martinez and Mike Napoli, the ability for current catchers to hit this season drops off considerably.

A catcher’s value is best seen when looking at the differences in WAR adjustments given for various positions. Generally, a catcher is moved to one of three positions in the field if he can’t catch: first base or one of the two corner outfield positions. So a team usually only has one of the following six options to a get a good-hitting catcher in the lineup (I ignored third base, as over 75% of the games were from one player, Brandon Inge):

Catching only (does’t play in field on days off – assume 1/6th of days will be off)
Catch and DH on days off (Joe Mauer clone)
Catch and 1B on days off (Victor Martinez clone)
First Base
Corner Outfield

Using positional adjustments, here is how much difference there is in value (WAR) for each of the preceding positions considering the ability of the catcher to hit (assuming league-average fielder):

Being a catcher, compared to the other position choices, adds anywhere from 1 to 2 WAR contributed by the player. This difference could be nice advantage for a team that has the catcher under team control for several seasons.

Defensive Value

In the previous example, I considered catchers to be league average in their defense. I decided to see how well catchers did when moved to a new defensive position.

One problem with moving catchers to another defensive position is seeing how the player’s defense translates to the new position. Defensive numbers for catchers would be tough to compare to other positions, so I decided to lump all catchers together and see how they did as fielders. I took all catchers that caught a minimum of 10 games in any season from 2002 to 2009 and started any other position in the field. Then, I combined the UZR for all these players. Finally, I calculated the UZR/150 for these players and regressed the values a bit depending on the total games played. Here are the results:

As a whole, catchers end up generally being fairly decent fielders, but seemed to take a little better to the outfield than to the infield. Looking at the numbers a little further, it can be seen that a catcher’s ability to throw translates well to the outfield. Here are the ARM components of UZR for the two corner outfield positions:

Most of the defensive value a catcher has in the outfield is in his arm.

Conclusions

Several outstanding hitting catcher prospects in the past had questionable defense and pitch calling skills while in the minors, but their bats were too good to keep them out of the majors. Carlos Delgado caught in 406 of the 524 games he played in the minors over five years, with games played at 1B coming only in the last two years. Once in the majors, he caught a total of two games, but went on to become a great-hitting first baseman. Victor Martinez on the other hand struggled a year or two behind the plate in the majors, but ended up becoming a passable catcher.

Teams understand the value of keeping a great hitter behind the plate. The usual positions that the catcher will eventually transition are considered to be positions known for good hitters (1B, DH, corner OF). In my opinion, a prospect will have to be pretty atrocious in his catching duties to move him away from catching considering the extra value a good-hitting catcher can bring to a team.

Dave Cameron wrote on Monday about Troy Tulowitzki and his case for the NL MVP award against Joey Votto. I thought I’d take a look at how pitchers in the rest of the NL West, particularly the Giants, could cool down Tulo’s recent hot streak, especially when the two teams face off this weekend.

I will only look at fastballs and sliders instead of all major pitch types, due to small sample size. I contemplated taking all of Tulo’s pitches since 2007, but Tulowitzki was a much different hitter in 2008 (.263/.332/.401) than he is now in 2008 (.325/.390/.588).

First up, let’s look at where pitchers get Tulowitzki to swing and miss on fastballs, whether the pitcher is right-handed or left-handed (pitches from 2009-2010, 1353 fastballs from RHP, 505 fastballs from LHP):

The red circular regions are what I call 50% swing zones and represent a concept I borrowed from Jeremy Greenhouse. Essentially, Tulowitzki swings at over 50% of all fastballs thrown inside the swing zone. The heat maps in this example are of swinging strike percentages (SwStr%), which is swinging strikes per pitch (as opposed to swinging strikes per swing, which I term Whiff%). Nothing too terribly surprising here, as Tulo, like most hitters, swings and misses the most when a high fastball comes. Tulo’s swing zone from RHP fastballs is larger than the one from LHP fastballs though, and it seems right-handed pitchers should occasionally throw the high and inside fastball. Let’s look at Tulowitzki against sliders (pitches from 2009-2010, 600 sliders from RHP, 159 sliders from LHP):

Here, you see smaller swing zones from Tulo, meaning he is less likely to swing at a slider than he is at a fastball. But when he does swing, the probability of a swinging strike is higher, especially on low and away sliders from RHP or low and inside sliders from LHP. If you look at the position of the swing zones relative to SwStr% hot spots, it would seem to me that Tulo chases low and inside LHP sliders more than he does low and outside sliders from RHP. In either case, Giants pitchers should look to throw timely low sliders going toward the pitcher’s glove side.

However, for the most part, Tulowitzki is very patient at the plate, only swinging the bat 43.4% of the time this season (recall from yesterday’s post that Vladimir Guerrero swings at 60.7% of all pitches). His patience seems to pay off in terms of limiting swinging strikes, as he whiffs on only 6.2% of pitches. As a comparison with other NL MVP candidates, Joey Votto whiffed on 10.3% of pitches this season while Ryan Zimmerman whiffed on 7.3% of them. If the Giants want to shut down Tulowitzki this weekend, looking to induce swinging strikes would be one possibility, but I believe it would be better to approach Tulo by avoiding solid contact.

Last night, the Rockies, pushing for a playoff spot and just out of the lead in the National League West, suffered a tough loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that’s been “playing for pride” for months. The loss dropped Colorado to 2.5 games back in the divisional race with only 12 games left to play. In the top of the ninth inning, down 3-1, the Rockies’ batters due up were the red-hot Troy Tulowitzki, veteran Melvin Mora, and Rockie (Rocky?) for Life Todd Helton. Wait, what? Melvin Mora? Surely the right-handed hitting Mora wouldn’t bat against the right-handed pitcher Juan Gutierrez? Maybe the Rockies’ bench is a bit thin due to injuries, but while Helton has had a down season, he has the platoon advantage… Mora is only playing because of Ian Stewart’s injury. Colorado manager Jim Tracy wouldn’t let Mora bat, not with this being the Rockies’ last chance in a key game, right? After Tulowitzki struck out, Mora did indeed go up to bat and struck out swinging; then Helton fouled out to end the game. Did Tracy make a mistake in not pinch-hitting for Mora in such a crucial game?

Mora has actually been fairly useful for the Rockies this season, offsetting his poor fielding with slightly above-average hitting (104 wRC+), which is pretty decent for a somewhat cheap bench player. Of course, for this situation we need more than current performance; we want “true talent.” For that, I’ll refer to CHONE’s August 29 updated projections, which I’ve translated to wOBA (using last season’s weights and leaving out SB/CS as they aren’t relevant for potential PH/platoon situations). Mora is currently a .330 wOBA hitter according to CHONE. Mora’s career (well, 2002-present) platoon split is not that big — .354 wOBA vs. LHP, .351 wOBA vs. RHP. When estimating his platoon skill with reference to his .330 wOBA CHONE projection, his expected wOBA vs. RHP is .326, and vs. LHP .339. Tracy would want to pick a batter expected to have a better than .326 wOBA in this situation, obviously.

On the Rockies bench at the time were two obvious candidates (the others all being either right-handed and/or terrible, and Ryan Spilboroughs having already been in the game): Jason Giambi and Seth Smith. I say “maybe three” because one could make a case for Chris Iannetta, as he’s a pretty good hitter, but a) he’s right handed, b) I’m not sure he was available given recent injury problems, and c) the pinch-hitting penalty eliminates his chances of likely being helpful in this situation anyway.

The key is c): the pinch-hitting penalty. Research has shown that hitters typically have a much more difficult time hitting off the bench than normal, so we expect their wOBA to be about 10% lower in these situations.

So in Giambi’s case, while CHONE projects a .357 wOBA, off the bench, we’d expect him to be a .321 hitter. After estimating his platoon skill, we’d expect him to be about a .328 hitter versus RHP. CHONE projects Smith projects at .368 wOBA, which is .331 after the PH penalty, and after adjusting for the platoon advantage, comes out to .333.

While the “penalty” means that pinch-hitting for the platoon advantage is rarely as beneficial as fans think it is, in this case, it does appear that the Rockies would have had a better chance by having Smith or Giambi hit for Mora. But let’s not got crazy — over 700 PA, a .328 wOBA is worth less than two runs over a .326, or barely a thousandth (~0.0017) of a run per PA. Given the margin of error in projections, not pinch-hitting Giambi for Mora is hardly a ridiculus decision. There is a bigger gap between Smith and Mora: over 700 PA, a .333 wOBA is worth about 4 runs than a .326, but that’s still less than a hundreth of a run (~0.0058).

It is fair to say that given the game and season situation that Tracy should have pinch hit Seth Smith for Melvin Mora. Once we take a closer look at the numbers, however, the advantage gained wouldn’t have been as big as one might think.

The narrative of a season is too often written by early season play, a good April begins the conversation of a successful season. Take Kelly Johnson, for instance, who will be remembered as having a good 2010 season. But in each month after April, Johnson never hit half as many home runs or OPS’d within 200 points of his first 30 days. The misconception is something Keith Law has hash-tagged a lot on Twitter this year, using Matt Wieters and Gordon Beckham as cases of when early season play hides midseason success. I want to bring that conversation to the minor leagues, and highlight some performances that may have been overshadowed by what came before it. I’ll do the same with the pitchers later.

Post-April Stars

Grant Green hit .284/.313/.411 in April. He hit .325/.373/.543 the rest of the season.
Joe Benson hit .169/.296/.271 in April. He hit .273/.350/.578 the rest of the season.
Sean Ratliff hit .259/.326/.407 in April. He hit .306/.359/.524 the rest of the season.

For a guy who had never hit more than five home runs in a season before, Joe Benson clubbing 27 in 2010 is a big number. But his patience eroded, as he walked one less time in 2010 than he had in 2009, albeit with 185 more plate appearances. His strikeouts are an issue, and will keep the average down at higher levels. The key is figuring out just how much New Britain aided in his home runs (we’ll get to that when I continue this series), and I think it did to a degree. That being said, the kid always had untapped power, and now it’s there. Denard Span will need a quick start to his 2011 season, or his job will be in jeopardy fast.

Grant Green is really good. He slid in the draft a bit last year after being talked about as a potential top five pick as a sophomore. Oakland’s gain. The one area he was most consistent in was the error column, with at least six in every month, and 37 overall. He’s going to hit, he just might not be a shortstop. Sean Ratliff did much better in the Eastern League than the Florida State League — environment context is everything! — but overall, he had a nice season. He hit lefties well this season, and had a nice power breakout. I believe in him, though like Benson, those strikeout numbers will keep the batting average down.

Post-May Stars

Marquez Smith hit .198/.291/.327 the first two months. He hit .337/.405/.650 after.
Aaron Hicks hit .246/.362/.369 the first two months. He hit .303/.429/.471 after.

Cubs fans, at least those of us hoping for a rebuild, pray that Aramis Ramirez will decline his 2011 player option, and the Cubs will see what Marquez Smith can do in the big leagues. This season wasn’t a huge improvement for Smith (he’s always posted solid numbers), but it was a big enough final three months to make people start noticing. Before we get too excited, we need to remember that he did this in the easiest offensive league in pro baseball, but I certainly believe the guy could OPS around .800 in the Majors, and I’m not sure I would have said that before the year.

As a guy repeating the level, people thought Aaron Hicks was going to explode out of the gate this season. When it didn’t happen in April or May, the “bust” word was thrown around in certain circles (particularly the queue of prospect chats). But his numbers after June 1 were really good in a pitcher’s league, and I think Hicks is now undervalued. He might struggle in the Florida State League next year, but like Joe Benson, you might see him really breakout when he gets to New Britain.

Post-June Stars

Brandon Guyer hit .259/.340/.471 the first three months. He hit .417/.449/.668 after.
Jesus Montero hit .250/.313/.414 the first three months. He hit .340/.404/.650 after.
Yonder Alonso hit .248/.319/.361 the first three months. He hit .347/.421/.592 after.
Tim Beckham hit .211/.294/.341 the first three months. He hit .306/.402/.379 after.

One of these things is not like the other, as Beckham’s final two months were about 300 OPS points lower than his peers. But he’s a former #1 pick, and when he shows signs of life, we need to talk about it. The problems here are that he showed no power at any point in the season, his base-stealing is down, and so (Kevin Goldstein wrote this week) are the grades on his raw speed. But he took a major step forward in developing patience this year, peaking with a 20-walk month in July. At the very least, the Rays need to work with him to make sure that dedication continues as the rest of his game develops.

Montero is pretty charted territory, because he’s probably the most visible prospect that I can ever remember. He’s a damn good hitter, and could probably handle Yankees DH duties after they make sure he doesn’t make a habit of early season rust. Trading him would be a mistake. With Yonder Alonso, I think trading him is the only option, with the caveat that he might do some damage elsewhere. But his troubles against left-handers, his questionable future home run output, a general lack of athleticism, and a decline in his walk numbers should give the Reds the ability to sleep at night. Post-June aside, he’s a second-division first baseman.

Guyer’s future has been a question in my chat each of the last few weeks, as desperate Cub fans cling to any optimism. Given his amazing end of the season, I can see why they picked Guyer. An excellent contact hitter and baserunner, Guyer would really do well to walk more often, as his power will always be of the gap variety, and his defense in centerfield will always be a stretch. I still see a tweener, but he’s also starting to change my mind.

Post-July Stars

Matt Cerione hit .238/.303/.381 the first four months. He hit .383/.532/.734 after.
D’Vontrey Richardson hit .224/.305/.307 the first four months. He hit .306/.413/.570 after.
Todd Frazier hit .239/.298/.425 the first four months. He hit .317/.431/.517 after.

Obviously, we’re getting down to smaller samples. I don’t know why it took college hitters Cerione and Richardson so long to get acclimated to the Midwest League, but they were certainly good in August and September. Richardson has the louder tools, but he also struck out 164 times in 522 at-bats. I always saw Cerione as a platoon guy at best, though I admit his numbers against southpaws were better than I thought he had in him. Look for him to get bandied about as a prospect when he kills the ball in High Desert next year.

Finally, former first-round pick Todd Frazier had a really good finish to his season. After walking 24 times the first four months, Frazier walked 21 times in his last 33 games, while the rest of his peripherals stayed fairly static. At the very least, he could platoon in left field next season, and be an asset off the bench against right-handed pitchers. He just needs to keep walking.

The Cardinals released super-utility infielder Felipe Lopez yesterday after what can only be described as a disappointing 2010 season. Lopez hit only .231/.310/.340 for the Cardinals and rated as relatively poor on defense. All together, Lopez only posted 0.2 WAR in 425 plate appearances for St. Louis. The last straw for Cardinals’ management appears to have been Lopez’s continual tardiness, coming to a head yesterday, according to Fox Sports Midwest.

It’s hard to fault the Cardinals for investing in Lopez, as the season cost them only one million dollars. Lopez was coming off of a career year between the Diamondbacks and the Brewers, a season in which he posted 3.9 WAR and a 116 wRC+. In that sense, it’s kind of a surprise that Lopez was forced to take such a small contract, but apparently teams saw through the .358 BABIP and perhaps some of these behavioral issues which resulted in Lopez’s release were known prior to the season. Regardless, picking up a player who CHONE projected for 2.5 WAR for only a cool million has to be considered a shrewd investment that simply didn’t work out.

Going forward, it’s hard to say that much has changed with Lopez. Outside of BABIP fluctuations, his last four years rate as slightly below average to average as a hitter. Lopez walks slightly more than average and makes slightly more contact than average. His weak spot is his power, as he’s typically a single-digit home run player. Much as his great numbers from 2009 were BABIP supported, his poor numbers from 2010 are a result of a low .272 BABIP. CHONE’s updated projections have Lopez’s slash line at .270/.343/.390, a roughly average line for a MLB hitter.

Given the issues that Lopez apparently had with management as well as the fact that Lopez’s contract was set to expire at the end of the season anyway, the Cardinals’ decision to release Lopez makes sense and is hardly likely to negatively affect their future. But Lopez’s struggles this season don’t suggest that he’s finished as a productive player by any means. It would behoove teams with open infield utility spots on their bench or teams desperate for a 2B or 3B starter to take a look at Lopez next season, as he will likely be cheap once again and he should provide somewhere between one and two wins above replacement.

This edition of One Night Only is like watching paint dry — on the canvas of one of Picasso’s masterworks, that is.

(NERD scores in parentheses.)

Colorado (6) at Arizona (9) | 9:40pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Rockies: Ubaldo Jimenez (8)
202.2 IP, 8.53 K/9, 3.64 BB/9, .276 BABIP, 49.0% GB, 4.4% HR/FB, 3.73 xFIP, 5.9 WAR

Diamondbacks: Rodrigo Lopez (3)
184.1 IP, 5.13 K/9, 2.49 BB/9, .300 BABIP, 37.6% GB, 12.9% HR/FB, 4.71 xFIP, 0.8 WAR

Notes
This is surprising to me: Rodrigo Lopez has made 30 starts for Arizona this season. That’s only the second time he’s reached the 30-start threshold in his career, with the only other time coming in 2005. The difference between the early- and mid-decade version of Lopez and this one is about a strikeout per inning and three to five percentage points in groundball rate (with the present iteration coming out worse in both). That’s also the difference, it turns out, between a league-average and replacement-level innings eater. Lopez is the latter now.

A Decisive Decision
How bout we never talk about Rodrigo Lopez in this space again, okay? I realize it’s my fault this time, and I’m sorry. Nor do I intend to disrespect Lopez himself, who I’m sure wants really badly to be good at baseball. It’s just, generally speaking, Rodrigo Lopez represents a Type of player — capital-T, per my main man Carl to the Jung — of little interest to the baseballing enthusiast: he’s older (but not old-old), borderline replacement-level, and plays for a team that’s way out of contention.

In short, there are a lot of things I’d rather think about than Rodrigo Lopez.

Things I’d Rather Think About Than Rodrigo Lopez
• Juice
• Appellate Law
• Mexico, Entire History Of
• All the People I Know Named Tim
• Frank Tanana

Consolation Prize
As a consolation prize, I offer you these true facts:

• While currently the second-youngest team in the league (average batter age of 26.8), the D’Backs are also one of the most powerful (currently fourth in park-adjusted HR/FB). The Diamondbacks are like the child king of the majors.
• Nor does that really even count Brandon Allen, who’s also young (24) and powerful (25 homers in 469 PA at Triple-A this season). This game will be markedly more interesting with him in left field.
• Troy Tulowitzki.

Other Notes
Atlanta (5) at Philadelphia (4), 7:05pm ET
• Tommy Hanson (7) and Roy Oswalt (9) are your pitchers.
• Philly’s postseason odds, per Cool Standings: 88.5% (Division), 11.4% (Wild Card), 99.9% (Postseason).
• Atlanta’s postseason odds, per Cool Standings: 11.5% (Division), 74.2% (Wild Card), 85.7% (Postseason).

Seattle (1) at Toronto (7), 7:07pm ET
• Blue Jay prospect Kyle Drabek was pretty good in his major league debut last week. Line: 6.0 IP, 26 TBF, 5 K, 3 BB, 11 GB on 18 BIP (61.1%).
• Unfortunately, the Mariners are one of the teams in this game.

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

Read the rest of this entry »

The glorious juxtaposition of the Red Sox starting Tim Wakefield and relieving him with Daniel Bard or Manny Delcarmen was never lost on me. Moving from a pitcher with an unplugged heater to a live arm with a fireworks shooter attached in place of a right arm is one of the weirdest sights around. How hitters manage to adjust in such a quick manner is a testament to their talents. Are there any teams that go from Bards to Wakefields though? The very thought of which drove me to find out just which rotations throw harder than their pen friends.

As it turns out, they do exist, all three of ‘em root from newly minted franchises. Allow me to procrastinate before introducing the results by hand-waving the usual caveats associated with pitch speed data. My hope is that since all comparisons are inner-team, most of the noise from pitching in different ballparks and with various pitch scorers cease to be an issue. For more information on just how much velocity readings can vary by park, I highly encourage Mike Fast’s piece here. Tom Tango left an interesting comment that sort of applies here, too; you’ll see why almost immediately.

To the methodology. I simply went to the team leaderboards and pulled the average fastball velocity for each team’s rotation and bullpen, then subtracted the rotation velocity from the bullpen velocity. The numbers in this post originally came out as negatives, but I absolute-valued those mothers so as to make everyone more comfortable. To the results.

Marlins: 0.6 MPH

Josh Johnson throws hard (94.9 MPH). So hard that he leads the Marlins among qualified pitchers in velocity, just ahead of a number of bullpen arms, like Jose Veras (94.3), Leo Nunez (94.0), and Tim Wood (92.9). So, how then is the Marlins’ rotation tossing hotter pebbles than their pen? Because of Nate Robertson (87.8), Brian Sanches (88.4), Clay Hensley (88.6), and Burke Badenhop (88.7). The rest of the Marlins’ starters are consistent in their heat, sitting between 92 and 91 MPH.

Rockies: 0.7 MPH

Ubaldo Jimenez (96.2), Esmil Rogers (94.4), Jorge de la Rosa (93.4), and Jason Hammel (93.1) make this one easy to understand. Outside of Franklin Morales (94.4), no other reliever with at least 30 innings pitched would top any of those aforementioned starters. One can only contemplate how different the figure would be without Greg Smith (86), Jeff Francis (87.2), and Aaron Cook (89.5) weighing down the rotation’s average velocity.

Rays: 1.6 MPH

I should have known the team I am most familiar with would lead the league. David Price (94.6) and Matt Garza (93.3) feature two of the most explosive fastballs in the league. The bullpen, meanwhile, consists of an army of feather ticklers: Andy Sonnanstine (86.6) and Lance Cormier (88.6) who rack up pitches and mop up innings alike, as well as the interchangeable set-up specialists Randy Choate (87.2) and Dan Wheeler (88.6). Joaquin Benoit (94), Rafael Soriano (92.9), and Grant Balfour (92.7) do their best to make opposing batters feel the heat rise during the final frame.

Later, the teams with bullpens that significantly overpower their rotations.

One of the most tried and true responses bound to appear in a discussion about a streaky player’s season is the one that either elevates or downs the number based on consistency. So-called reliable baseball players are more desirable than their yin-or-yang counterparts for obvious reasons: those players make better spouses. More importantly, though, having a grip on performance fluctuation is a good thing.

A mere glance at Aramis Ramirez’s .324 wOBA does his season no justice on a narrative or awareness basis. Only after a closer examination may one put to rest the fears of a washed-up Ramirez created in Cubs’ fans minds on the stillest night. After 185 plate appearances (which happened to cover the first two months of this season) Ramirez had only popped four homers with a line of .162/.227/.269. He played better in June with the saddest coincidence being that he barely played at all; a thumb injury sidelined him for all but 10 games.

Starting in July, Ramirez wiped the sleep from his eyes and bat alike. Seventeen home runs in 242 plate appearances is impressive and contributes to Ramirez’s seventh 20-plus home run season in nine seasons. Ramirez’s 35 strikeouts since the calendar flipped to July is remarkable since he struck out 43 times in April and May combined.

As for his line, try .299/.343/.594 on for size. That slugging percentage would mark a career best if he somehow extrapolated it over an entire season. Unlikely as it may be (he turns 33 next June), Ramirez will attempt the feat while wearing blue pinstripes. He holds a player option for his next season (as well documented lately) that he should exercise. By doing so, he will have the opportunity to exercise the demons that derailed his 2010, even if they reside in his thumb.