The 2011 amateur draft is just over a month away (June 6-8) so we’re breaking out some pre-draft coverage with a review of the 2008-10 drafts. We kick things off with a look at the American League West. The AL Central will be up next.

The first three rounds are listed for each team, plus any other above-slot signees.
(X = Signed to Over-Slot Deal; S = Supplemental Round; DNS = Did Not Sign)

The Texas Rangers
1st. Justin Smoak, 1B, South Carolina
2nd. Robbie Ross, LHP, Kentucky HS
3rd. Tim Murphy, LHP, UCLA
7thx – Matt Thompson, RHP, Texas HS

Read the rest of this entry »

Jorge Posada doesn’t always get hits, but when he does they’re home runs.* In his 67 PA so far this season, all from the DH spot, Posada has managed a mere nine hits, good for a .153 batting average. As Bradley wrote last week, that gives him a “laughably terrible BABIP,” which is now down to .086. That might seem a bit odd at first glance. A .154 BA against a .086 BABIP? That’s what happens when six of your nine hits clear the fence. It’s clear that Posada will still run into one from time to time. Unfortunately, similar to Vladimir Guerrero, about whom I wrote last week, Posada has looked a bit washed up at the plate.

*Gotta credit River Ave. Blues commenter whozat for this one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Among the most talked about story lines heading into the 2011 season, few generated as much interest as Jose Bautista’s attempt to follow up on his monstrous season from last year. The universal consensus was that he would take a step backward, as it was a given he wouldn’t hit 54 home runs again, but the question was just how far back would he go?  Perhaps it’s time to change the question.

Bautista’s ridiculous start to the season – he’s now hitting .359/.506/.750, good for a Major League best .533 wOBA after making just two outs over the course of the three games against the Rays this weekend – has effectively ended any legitimate speculation about whether Bautista’s season was an enormous outlier. He is still doing all of the things that made him so good last year, only now he’s proving that he can do it while hardly seeing any pitches in the strike zone, and his patience has upped his walk rate to elite levels as well.

So, instead of asking just how far Bautista will regress, perhaps the more relevant question now is whether or not Bautista is currently the best hitter in the American League. It’s a question that would have seemed ludicrous 12 months ago, but what Bautista has done since – and done consistently – while adjusting to a changing approach from opposing pitchers has made this a legitimate query.

Read the rest of this entry »

The real Matt Garza?

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Far-seeing previews for two games.

2. Updated Team NERD scores in parentheses and updated ZiPS projections for pitchers — plus, an updated Team NERD table featuring all 30 MLB teams.

3. Some serious questions about Matt Garza’s identity.

Read the rest of this entry »

Marlins over Rockies, 2 games to 1

Moving the Needle: Mike Stanton gets his groove back with a monster three-run shot, +.379 WPA. As we see so often, the Sunday rubber match between the Rockies and the Marlins proved the main event. Three times the WPA swung more than 25%. Omar Infante provided the first score in the fifth. He came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, scored tied at zero. A triple cleared the bases and put the Marlins ahead. Then, in the top of the eighth, Troy Tulowitzki — who else? — doubled home the tying run. Finally, in the bottom half the Marlins put a couple of runners on with two outs for Mike Stanton, who hit one way out to left. It was technically only the third-longest of the day, at 420 feet, but it seemed like it was a lot further than that.

Notable Pitching

Anibal Sanchez: 9 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 9 K. He held his no-hitter through eight, and still managed to complete the game.

Jason Hammel: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 0 HR, 11 GB. A fine performance in a game where the Rockies just couldn’t afford to give up many runs.

Josh Johnson: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. The question is now whether any of Johnson’s starts won’t make the notables section.

Marlins 4, Rockies 1
Rockies 3, Marlins 1
Marlins 6, Rockies 3

Also in this issue: Red Sox over Angels | Dodgers over Cubs | Yankees over Orioles | Marlins over Rockies | Tigers over White Sox | Brewers over Astros | Twins over Indians | Mets over Diamondbacks | Rangers over Royals | Cardinals over Reds | Rays over Blue Jays | Phillies over Padres | Braves over Giants | A’s over Mariners |

Read the rest of this entry »

Anibal Sanchez came close to throwing his second career no-hitter Friday night against the Rockies. He would have become just the 29th pitcher to hold a team hitless on multiple occasions. Before Dexter Fowler led off the top of the ninth inning with a single to right — slightly out of second baseman Omar Infante’s reach — Sanchez had walked three batters and allowed a run without surrendering a hit.  After a double play wiped Fowler away and Carlos Gonzalez grounded out, Sanchez had pitched a one-hit, one-run game with an 89 game score.

The concept of throwing a no-hitter while allowing a run piqued my interest as it feels counterintuitive. I immediately correlate no-hitters with shutouts, fair or not, and anything against that grain feels strange. A no-hitter is certainly a remarkable feat, but the wiggle room allowed for walks and runs can strip away some of its luster. Would you rather have a one-hit shutout or a one-run no-hitter? Or how about a one-hit shutout with no walks issued or a no-hitter with seven walks?

These are the types of inane questions I ask myself during games, but given Sanchez’s almost-accomplishment, I questioned how many of the no-hitters thrown in baseball history involved the hitless team scoring one or more runs.

Read the rest of this entry »

A pitcher’s hitting ability often goes unremarked upon. For roughly half the league, that’s fine since pitchers don’t hit. In the National League they do however, and while nobody ever expects much out of them, pitchers do occupy a spot in the batting order and what they do with it is part of the overall package of value that they deliver to the team.

On its own, that’s never a surprising statement to make. What I think is surprising is the range in values of hitting value that pitchers display. Granted they are always over small seasonal samples so I am taking care not to mention skill or repeatability here. Nevertheless, pitcher’s plate appearances do matter and managing not to be a federally declared disaster at the plate can be a stealthy way for a pitcher to add a significant amount of value.

Read the rest of this entry »

For those among you out there who read FanGraphs regularly, chances are you have a copy of the Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2011. If so, pace around your mother’s basement, take your dog-eared copy off that book shelf, and flip to page eleventy-one with me (or do yourself a favor and purchase a copy here). Take a couple of minutes to (re)read Rob Neyer’s article documenting his giddiness of the potential of FIELDf/x, a new player-tracking system by Sportvision. Fully operational FIELDf/x camera systems will be installed in five stadiums by the end of this season and hopefully all 30 by 2012. Here’s an excerpt from Rob’s article describing FIELDf/x:

FIELDf/x will manifestly and forever revolutionize the evaluation of defense. In fact, I will venture that the defensive metrics in use today, whether by John Dewan or Sean Smith or David Pinto or Mickey Lichtman or anyone else, will in five years seem nearly as primitive as range factor does today. Because with FIELDf/x, we’ll know not just (approximately) where the baseball went and whether it was caught and who caught it (or didn’t). We’ll know exactly where the ball went and exactly how long it took a fielder to arrive and exactly how he got there. All the talk about range and getting a good jump and taking a good route — it won’t be just talk anymore. There will be cold, hard data for every bit of it.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s funny how quickly we – and by we, I mean us fans – can shift our attention from one top prospect to the next. I like to call this phenomenon the “Shiny New Toy Syndrome”, as we become enamored with the Next Big Thing coming up from the minors and slowly forget the prospects we were falling for a week earlier. Prospects are showered with attention when they reach the majors and their performance is analyzed from 10 different angles. But once those players become established, they fall off the radar — and our attention shifts to the next big prospect. In many ways, prospects are like Christmas presents: anticipation builds until Christmas morning arrives; but within two weeks, the presents are forgotten and tossed in the toy bucket with everything else.

While Michael Pineda is currently dominating the prospect chatter, I want to shift our attention back to a top prospect who made his debut a little less than a year ago: Starlin Castro.

Read the rest of this entry »