In spite of a lineup featuring Suzuki, Smoak, Death To Flying Things and scrubs, the Seattle Mariners sit just one game under .500 at 24-25 and trail the first-place Rangers by a game-and-a-half.

The offense is still wheezing along, besting only the Twins in park-and-league-adjusted batting, and the M’s have been the worst defensive club in the AL thus far, according to Ultimate Zone Rating. The starting pitching, on the other hand, has been superb and has kept the Mariners in AL West contention to this point. With a collective 3.40 xFIP from its starters, Seattle is neck-and-neck with Oakland for the top honors in the league.

Felix Hernandez, as always, is dominating. Jason Vargas and Doug Fister are pitching fairly well, and Zombie Bedard has been fantastic this May. King Felix isn’t the only royalty in Seattle’s rotation, though — Prince Michael Pineda is making major league hitters look like mere paupers during his rookie season.

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What a terrifying thought for the National League. Roy Halladay, a 34-year-old pitcher with a history of utter dominance, is beginning 2011 with the best numbers of his career, and by a wide margin. Forget the two Cy Young seasons. Forget the seven All-Star games. Roy Halladay has taken a massive leap forward in 2011, and the result is a trail of destruction blazed straight through the National League.

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Not all wOBAs are created equal. Nor should they be. There are many ways to produce runs, and wOBA weighs each type in kind. It can create some amusing scenarios. My favorite involves Kosuke Fukudome. He has just five extra base hits, one homer, in 147 PA this year, yet has a .377 wOBA. Rickie Weeks has an identical wOBA, but has a .202 ISO. On an individual level this probably doesn’t make much of a difference, since there are nine other guys involved in run scoring. But on a team level, a skewed wOBA can present problems.

The 2011 Anaheim Angels have a .317 wOBA as a team, which is just a tick above the league average of .315. There are four teams clustered in the middle of the wOBA leader boards, ranging from .314 to .317. It’s safe to say that the Angels have a league average offense this year. Yet they have scored just 3.87 runs per game, which is more than a third of a run below the AL average, and ranks just 11th in the AL. Could their lack of power be the main culprit?

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With the draft quickly approaching, it’s time to take a closer look at some of this year’s better prospects. You can check out reports on Sonny Gray, Aaron Westlake, Jason Esposito, and others here.

Possessing arguably the highest ceiling of any player in this year’s draft, Kentucky right-hander Alex Meyer shouldn’t last long come draft day.
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When talking about a player’s defensive value, you will almost never hear things like errors or fielding percentage discussed on FanGraphs. These metrics have all kinds of problems, and we simply have better ways to evaluate the abilities of defenders nowadays. Occasionally, errors and fielding percentage do tell the story correctly, however. For instance, I present Edwin Encarnacion.

The Blue Jays began the season with E5 as their starting third baseman. He’s played 141 innings in 16 games at the position this year during which time he has already made eight errors, tying him for the league lead among third baseman. The man he is tied with, Mark Reynolds, has played 430 innings at third base this year. Encarnacion has made the same amount of errors as the league leader in 1/3 of the playing time.

Or, if you want to look at it from a fielding percentage standpoint, his mark at third base this year is .784. The next lowest mark of any semi-regular player in baseball is Andy LaRoche at .892. How low is E5’s fielding percentage? Let’s just put it this way – Jose Bautista slugging percentage is higher than Encarnacion’s fielding percentage at third base. Disenchanted with his play at third, the Jays have recently used Encarnacion more at first base; he has the lowest fielding percentage in baseball of any first baseman too.

In 200 innings in the field, he has made 11 errors. A normal everyday position player will rack up about 1,300 defensive innings over the course of the season – at this rate, over a full season, Encarnacion would finish the year with about 70 errors. Seventy.

Teams have been putting up with E5’s defensive issues over the years in order to get his bat into the line-up, but this year, he’s not even providing any offensive value – he’s hitting just .237/.262/.324, he’s without a home run, and he’s decided to just stop walking. His ZIPS projection over the rest of the season is .247/.313/.427, good for a .328 wOBA that would make him roughly a league average hitter.

A league average hitter who is also one of the worst defensive players in baseball is not a Major Leaguer. The Blue Jays have resisted bringing up top prospect Brett Lawrie from Triple-A Las Vegas, in part because his defense at third base is also not very good, but there’s no way the Blue Jays should continue to pencil Encarnacion’s name into the line-up. He’s an absolute disaster in the field, and his bat simply doesn’t even come close to making up for it.

Despite their current three game losing streak, Toronto should have some hopes for contending for the wild-card this year. They’re only four games behind the Red Sox and Yankees, have scored more runs than they’ve allowed, and have the game’s best hitter anchoring a solid line-up. If they patch a few holes and keep their pitchers relatively healthy, the Jays could stay in the race all summer.

If they’re not convinced that Lawrie is ready yet – and remember, Las Vegas is a hitter’s paradise, so you have to deflate his Triple-A numbers by a good amount – they should still be able to find a competent alternative at third base. There’s no reason that the Jays should continue to put up with a never-ending series of errors from one of the worst defenders the sport has seen in a long time.

Shaun Marcum unfairly obscures the center-field batter’s eye with heavenly white light.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for six games — including many italicized points.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s games (using the highly experimental and dangerous pitcher-heavy method discussed recently).

3. Matter over mind. Way over it.

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I had an opportunity to watch Tampa Bay Rays pitching prospect Alexander Torres make a start against the prospect-laden Louisville Bats (Cincinnati Reds). At first glance, Torres needs to tighten up his conditioning; he’s a little soft around the middle. He’s also too soft in his approach on the mound. When he gets into to trouble he pitches away from contact and needs to trust his stuff more to be successful at triple-A.

In this game, Torres featured four pitches: a fastball that sat around 91 (touching 94 mph), curveball, slider and changeup. His strikeout pitch is the breaking ball. I’m not sure how well his curveball is going to work at the MLB level because it’s loopy. He also shows a tighter breaking ball (slider) that shows some potential.

I also liked his changeup, but he rarely used it. I’m not sure if Robinson Chirinos or the manager was calling the game but the pitches were poorly mixed. Torres threw far too many breaking balls and needs to work off the fastball – especially when he’s struggling – if he’s going to succeed at the Major League level and strike batters out with his best pitch (curveball).

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Adrian Gonzalez is a student of hitting, which should come as no surprise given that he is one of the game’s premier sluggers. The left-handed-hitting first baseman has a career slash line of .288/.369/.510, and this season he’s been even better. In his first 50 games with the Red Sox, he’s hitting a superstar-caliber .337/.385/.553.

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David Laurila: Is hitting simple or is it complicated?

Adrian Gonzalez: “Hitting is simple. We make it complicated. We look into mechanics and a lot of different things that could be wrong, instead of simplifying everything by staying back and letting our hands go to the ball. In this profession, because of how good the pitchers are, it’s hard not to look at a lot of different things.

“Getting hits is extremely hard. Swinging, just getting up there and hitting, and doing the right mechanics, that’s what I’m saying is simple. But when you put in all of the equations, like the pitcher on the mound and the defense that’s behind him, that’s what makes it complicated.”

DL: What role do hitting coaches play for you?

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Gotta eat that throw, Juan.

White Sox 3, Blue Jays 1

Moving the Needle: Juan Pierre singles, but Juan Rivera’s error costs the Jays, +.405 WPA. This is the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t happen if the Jays had an actual first baseman playing first. With runners on second and third in the top of the ninth, Pierre slapped one down the first base line. Rivera, playing behind the bag, fielded it cleanly, but clearly did not have a play on Pierre. Yet he still tossed it underhand to Marc Rzepczynski, who was running to cover. It was a bad throw, and it caused Rzepczynski to crash into the bag. More importantly for the game’s outcome, it caused the ball to roll away and allow the runner from second to score. That made it 3-1, and the Sox held on in the bottom half to win it.

Notables

Brandon Morrow: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K. He ran into trouble from time to time, but he worked out of it. This was the first time he’s finished seven innings this season.

Phil Humber: 7.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 HR. The White Sox have six men in the rotation, and surprisingly Humber probably isn’t the guy who gets knocked to the pen when they pare down to five.

Also in this issue: A’s 4, Angels 3 | Cubs 9, Mets 3 | Orioles 6, Royals 5 | Diamondbacks 6, Rockies 3 | Red Sox 14, Tigers 1 | Phillies 10, Reds 4 | Marlins 1, Giants 0

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Players switching their representation to Scott Boras in order to maximize earnings isn’t uncommon. Jayson Werth felt it prudent to do so last season in anticipation of his big upcoming contract. Robinson Cano acted accordingly in February. Around the same time as that Yankees slugger, Astros center fielder Michael Bourn followed suit and dropped SFX Baseball for the biggest agent in the game.

Bourn doesn’t necessarily profile similarly to Werth or Cano, but a player does not seek the help of Boras to offer hometown discounts or sign at a below-market rate. Just like the aforementioned triumvirate of new Boras representees, Bourn’s change in agencies likely signifies that he feels his money is coming. He avoided arbitration and signed for $4.4 million this season. Next year will mark the end of his arbitration eligibility, as he reaches free agency for the first time in 2013.

Is Bourn, 28, really a big contract type of player? Upon revisiting this story and reviewing his numbers it seems that, while he may be vastly underrated as a player, three issues loom with respect to his pending contractual status: the perception of players whose value is heavily derived on defense, his offensive numbers relative to the new league averages and not those from 2006-08, and the current status of the Astros franchise.

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