Once again, our elected representatives have decided there’s something rotten in Major League Baseball, and they want to do something about it. On February 15, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) wrote an open letter to Bud Selig and MLBPA head Michael Weiner calling for a ban on chewing tobacco:

The use of smokeless tobacco by baseball players undermines the positive image of the sport and sends a dangerous message to young fans, who may be influenced by the players they look up to as role models.

The Senators noted that smokeless tobacco (or “spit tobacco,” as crusader Joe Garagiola, Sr. prefers to call it) has been banned in the minors since 1993, and called for a ban to be inserted into the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, before the current one expires in December. Their call for prohibition comes shortly after Tony Gwynn‘s cancer diagnosis and Stephen Strasburg’s resolution to quit dipping, which inspired Craig Calcaterra to issue a declare his wish that it be banned. (Could it be that Dick Durbin reads HardballTalk?)

But Durbin and Lautenberg would need players who are voluntarily willing to agree, for the first time ever, to ban a substance that is neither illegal nor a performance-enhancer. And they may find that more difficult than they imagine, even among players whom tobacco has hurt the most. After having been a heavy tobacco chewer in his early career, Brett Butler was diagnosed with oral cancer in 1996. “I probably went through a can every 2 or 3 days,” he told me. “I was getting it straight from the factory when I got to the majors.” He has been outspoken about the possible harms of chewing tobacco, but he has no sympathy for a ban. “I’ve used it as a platform to promote not using chewing tobacco,” he says. “But at the major league level I think we should be free to do what we want.”
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Dave Cameron’s look at possible replacements for Neftali Feliz’s closer role should he transition into a starter’s role inspired me to take a look at Feliz’s pitch selection. Evan Grant’s great piece on Feliz’s pitch repertoire finds that Feliz started to throw more breaking balls later in the season (and less off-speed pitches). I was also interested in looking at how Feliz’s repertoire evolved over his first full season.

Feliz throws his high-90s fastball 80-90% of the time on most nights, as well as a sort of slurvy slider-curve hybrid at 80-82 mph. As noted in Grant’s look at Feliz’s secondary pitches, his upper-80s changeup is rarely used — he used it even less as the 2010 season winded down and in the playoffs. Here’s a look at Feliz’s month-by-month pitch selection in 2010, including the playoffs (FF – fastball, SL/CU – slider/curve, CH – changeup; “total” indicates total pitches in that corresponding row or column):

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Q: Which Tigers outfielder has produced the most value at the plate during the last two seasons?

A: Magglio Ordonez.

That was easy. What might not seem as obvious is the player who trails Ordonez by just 4.5 batting runs, and 0.2 WAR, during that span. That’s Ryan Raburn. In fact, during the last two seasons no Detroit outfielder has come close to his production at the plate. In 2011, with the team’s outfield lacking depth, Raburn should finally get his shot as a full-time starter. Given his career performance, he doesn’t figure to disappoint.

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Adam Wainwright’s date with Tommy John surgery certainly hurts the Cardinals’ chances for success in 2011. But there could be an unexpected benefit: signing Albert Pujols.

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To attempt and offset the loss of Cliff Lee, the Rangers are stretching out Neftali Feliz in spring training, and are keeping an open mind about converting him back into being a starting pitcher. Ron Washington has made it clear that he prefers Feliz in the ninth inning role, but the Rangers are willing to use March to see whether Feliz can impress them enough to crack the rotation.

There has been a lot of talk about whether Feliz can successfully make this transition. Evan Grant did a great piece today on his repertoire and how his secondary pitches may affect the team’s decision on his ultimate role. However, there has been less talk about the guys in line to replace Feliz, and the reality that the Rangers simply don’t have any natural replacements for the closer’s role if Feliz does end up in the rotation.

There are essentially four relievers in the organization who would likely get some consideration for the closing job if Feliz makes the conversion – Alexi Ogando, Darren Oliver, Mark Lowe, and Arthur Rhodes. All of them have value, but none of them are good fits for the closer’s job.

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Even before the self-imposed deadline passed, the Chicago media planted the seed. Now that Albert Pujols will put off negotiations until the completion of the season, the media has run wild with the notion that Pujols could (should?) sign with the Chicago Cubs next season. Cubs Chairman, Tom Ricketts, hasn’t exactly dispelled the notion, saying the Cubs should have more “financial flexibility” once the season ends. Is Pujols signing with the Cubs a legitimate possibility, or nothing more than a pipe dream created by the media?

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Earlier in the week, we looked at pitchers that performed, eh, just about as expected. Now it’s time to look at the batters, though we lack the same sort of luck-neutralized all-encompassing stat like FIP with which we can go to battle.

Ah, but do we? So much of our analysis of a batter’s state of ‘luck’ does stem from one statistic. All hail the mighty BABIP.

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As unfortunate as the Adam Wainwright injury is for the Cardinals, they can hardly afford to wallow in shame. With all the rest of the talent on hand in St. Louis, the Cardinals are still within striking distance of the NL Central title as well as the Wild Card. How close they can come to a playoff appearance without one of the best pitchers in the game will largely depend on his replacement. The Cardinals look to have a few options. Internally, they can consider, among others, Bryan Augenstein, Kyle McClellan, P.J. Walters, and Ian Snell. Through free agency, they can consider Kevin Millwood and Chad Durbin. For the purposes of this exercise, I would like to avoid speculating on trades. Paul Swydan covered many of these yesterday, but today, I’d like to ask for your help with their projections.

McClellan has functioned completely as a reliever for the Cardinals since 2008, appearing in 68 games each season. In that role, McClellan has a fine 3.23 ERA, but his peripherals don’t look quite as hot. McClellan’s K/9 of 7.2 and BB/9 of 3.4 are nothing special in a relief role, and it’s not like McClellan is a Dave Duncan Special in terms of ground ball rate, although inducing 50% of ground balls is solid. The question for McClellan is how well his .270 career BABIP would translate into a starting role, with hitters seeing his stuff multiple times and fatigue potentially setting in the later innings.

Augenstein and Walters have limited Major League histories, throwing only 63 combined innings in the Major Leagues. Walters was unimpressive in his cup of coffee with St. Louis last year, but he has posted solid peripherals in AAA each of the last two seasons with FIPs below 3.75. Augenstein was plucked from the Diamondbacks organization in the offseason, and is most notable for posting one of the better minor league seasons in the game according to Dan Szymborski’s zMLEs

Ian Snell was supposed to be a reclamation project for the Seattle Mariners, but he was unable to return to the effectiveness he showed with the Pirates in 2007. Given that he is now three full years removed from that 3.5 WAR season, Snell’s MLB career will likely reach an end without a quick resurgence. But Dave Duncan has been able to find that magic with starters before, such as Joel Piniero and Jake Westbrook. Is Ian Snell next on that list?

The external options are less than exciting. Kevin Millwood only managed a 5.10 ERA and 4.86 FIP with Baltimore in 2010. A move out of Camden Yards and into the National League should help, but one has to wonder whether a 36-year-old starting pitcher with 2500 innings already in his right arm can manage to return to competence. Chad Durbin had a good 2010 for the Phillies in relief, with a 3.80 ERA and 3.97 FIP, but could he maintain that kind of success as a starter? Given his overall poor career numbers, chances don’t seem high.

Of course, there are some other options for the Cardinals, including Jeremy Bonderman, Miguel Batista, Adam Ottavino, and Lance Lynn, and you can click on these individual names to project them as well. But I think these first six will be enough work for most.

Click here to tell us how you think the various Cardinal SP replacements will do in 2011.

If you’ve been following the sports scene (and that means all the Big-4 sports, as in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB), you’ll know that the winds of war have been howling across two of them (the NFL and NBA). The NHL has recently extended their labor agreement until next year, which leaves us with MLB. And, unless there is a dramatic shift, labor peace should continue within baseball, albeit with one or two rumblings.

Still, it’s not as if the status quo will be coming along in December when the current CBA expires, so don’t go looking for an extension. In fact, there may be some of the more dramatic changes to the next Basic Agreement in MLB than we’ve seen in over a decade. Since there’s much to chew on, better to roll the topics out one-by-one in smaller doses. Knowing the FanGraphs fan base, better to have discussion center on one topic as opposed to some multi-threaded conversation.

So, for the first installment on the upcoming CBA and the battles within it, let’s go with something that’s been hanging around for a bit… A world-wide Draft.

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When news broke this morning about Adam Wainwright’s “significant” arm injury, Cardinals fans quickly realized that their odds of winning the 2011 National League Central took a big hit. However, Wainwright’s loss will be felt beyond the standings, and if he is indeed out for the season, this injury could end up costing the Cardinals tens of millions of dollars.

Over at ESPN Insider today, Dan Szymobrski noted that losing Wainwright adjusted the Cardinals ZIPS projection down from 87 wins to 83 wins. That four win swing is enough to cut the Cardinals chances of winning their division from 35 percent down to 20 percent. When you factor in that they’ve also taken a similar hit in their chances of winning the wild card, it becomes clear that St. Louis will lose nearly half of their playoff expectation if Wainwright is indeed shelved for the season.

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