The vastly under-appreciated Carlos Beltran hit three home runs last night, boosting his line for the season to .296/.387/.590 (.417 wOBA). Although the Mets are, as expected, not in contention this season, Beltran’s return to his pre-2010 offensive form so far has been a welcome development. Given Beltran’s age and recent injury issues, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d simply not be able to contribute much this season. Despite the hot start, he’s in the last year of a big contract and probably not part of the Mets future. Beltran is probably a trade candidate. What sort of value does he have on the trade market?

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Some interesting news came out this week regarding Bartolo Colon and his path back to the Major Leagues. Last spring he had stem cells surgically inserted into his elbow and shoulder, and this somewhat experimental procedure is now receiving a lot of notoriety due to Colon’s surprising success so far this season. I’m not a doctor and realize that I have limited insight into medical procedures, so I’ll stay out of the debate about how effective this surgery may or may not be, but I do think that we need to keep in mind the reality of Colon’s performance when talking about whether this kind of procedure will be “the future of sports medicine”.

There’s no doubt that Colon has generated terrific results for the Yankees so far this year; his 2.81 xFIP is the lowest of any pitcher in the American League. He’s pounding his fastball for strikes and hitters are having problems doing anything with it. But if you look beyond just the raw results, there are some markers that indicate that this version of Colon isn’t all that different from prior versions.

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Josh Collmenter, sans excellent mustache, makes his first major-league start on Saturday.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for five! five! five! weekend games — likely including your favorite team!

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s games.

3. A programming note, as follows:

As a sort of experiment, I’ve weighted the NERD score for each game’s probable starters three times as much as the corresponding team score when calculating the NERD Game Scores for this weekend’s games. Accordingly, for each game, you’ll see the new, pitcher-heavy Game Score in the normal place and then, in the right-most column, on top, what the score would usually be and then, just below that, the difference between the pitcher-heavy and usual-type of score.

Like so:

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He won us the game! Maul him!

Orioles 2, Mariners 1

Moving the Needle: J.J. Hardy comes up with the walk-off single, +.463 WPA. This game came in two acts. First was regulation, in which the two pitchers dueled to a stalemate. The second was a series of one-inning playoffs. The Mariners struck first, scratching across a run in the top of the third playoff. They went to their closer, since it they were on the road and it was no longer a tie game. Brandon League immediately allowed a single and then plunked two straight batters. His shortstop, Luis Rodriguez, who absolutely deserves a mention, saved at least a run, and maybe the game, with a diving catch on a line drive. League wouldn’t get so lucky with Hardy at the plate. He grounded one up the middle and brought both runners home. Both acts were rich entertainment.

Notables

Justin Vargas: 9 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 12 GB. Coming into the game Vargas had an ERA inflated by a couple of bad starts. But in four of his seven starts he allowed two or fewer runs. That ERA dropped from 4.68 to 3.87. Despite the eight base runners, he never really got too deeply into trouble, which, I suppose, is why he was able to hold them scoreless for nine.

Zach Britton: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K, 12 GB. Game Score goes to Britton on this one. He faced 29 batters and only used 108 pitches to get through those nine innings. In five of his eight starts he has given up 1 or zero runs, combining for a line of: 34.2 IP, 20 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 11 BB, 16 K, 52 GB.

Also in this issue: Braves 6, Nationals 5 | Rays 7, Indians 4 | Cardinals 9, Cubs 1 | Royals 11, Yankees 5 | Mets 9, Rockies 5 | Giants 3, Diamondbacks 2

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The top prospect label is a form of baseball tenure. No matter if the player is deemed a bust, what once vaulted him to the top of prospect lists will continue to earn him big league opportunities.

Players aren’t considered to be the best of the best by prospect mavens unless their skills project extremely well at the major league level. When a player of this ilk fails, analysts can usually point to a specific flaw preventing his success. If a former top prospect is struggling to stick in the big leagues, many organizations will take a flier on the player to try their hand at solving his problems. If successful, a team can reap the rewards of a cheap and effective player. Otherwise, the investment was minimal, and the team can cut ties without any real risk.

This is why players like Lastings Milledge, Brandon Wood, and Jeff Francoeur will continue to get signed. In covering all three of these players over the last month, I got to thinking about how frequently these prospects-turned-busts turned things around at the major league level. Does it happen?

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“In 1987, on deck in Boston, and I was called an Alabama porch monkey… I’d like to be able to say yes [to the question of whether racism has declined], but my mail and my telephone calls suggest otherwise.”
— White Sox GM and former White Sox center fielder Kenny Williams, September 22, 2009

“I was a prisoner in my own home.”
— Milton Bradley, March 9, 2010

Milton Bradley was a complicated man. The usual word was “controversial”; it accompanied stories about him as often as the phrase “race card.” Bradley was rarely happy and always seemed to mention race, appearing time and again in stories in which he criticized people for making racially inappropriate remarks. I think that the frequency of these stories tended to dilute their impact. Many people found it hard to take Bradley seriously — he was frequently awful, and it was easy to believe that he was just blaming other people for his problems. That’s exactly what Chicago GM Jim Hendry believed: “He didn’t get the job done. It’s really unfortunate that you… try to use the other areas for excuses.”

Bradley admitted that much of the negative perceptions surrounding him were related to his lack of success on the field: “If I was hitting .300 every year, and on toward a Hall of Fame career, then maybe a lot of the minor BS along the way wouldn’t be such a big deal.” he told ESPN’s Karl Ravech in 2010. But that doesn’t mean he was wrong about race.
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Coming into the eighth inning of Wednesday’s game against the San Diego Padres, the Milwaukee Brewers held a 6-5 lead. With just six outs remaining, it seemed like a safe bet that the Padres were done scoring, considering San Diego entered the game averaging just over three runs a game; then the eighth inning happened. Facing a three-game sweep, the mighty Padres’ scored eight runs on nine hits to take a 13-6 lead over the Brewers.

The frame started with Mitch Stetter versus Brad Hawpe in a lefty-on-lefty matchup. Hawpe — who entered the game as a pinch-hitter – pulled a slider into right field for a lead-off single. With the right-handed bats of Chris Denorfia, Jason Bartlett, and Jorge Cantu due up, Ron Roenicke made a move to the bullpen for Kameron Loe. Roenicke’s choice was rooted in sound process especially since Loe has earned a 3.07 FIP/3.17xFIP against right-handed batters since he joined the Brewers’ bullpen in 2010. On the other hand, the results were disastrous.

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In terms of position players, the Pirates at least have something going. They have four above average position players age 25 or younger, and a few promising players on the way. Better yet, two of the current young players, along with a couple of the up-and-comers, occupy premium spots on the defensive spectrum. It might not guarantee them a powerhouse offense for years to come, but it’s a fine foundation.

When we move to the other side of ball and look at Pittsburgh’s pitching, we see a completely different story. There is plenty of room for optimism, sure, but it’s mostly based on wishes and dreams. It’s certainly not based on the current major league staff. Few, if any, of them will be around in the next few years.

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Over the past decade, the decision making of major-league teams has increasingly come to reflect the values of the sabermetric community. There is, however, one prominent area in which the valuations made by major-league teams and those around the blogosphere continue to diverge – and that is the value of relief pitchers, particularly late-inning relievers.
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