John Locke: not a Pirate.

Florida (8) at Pittsburgh (5) | 19:05 ET
Boom, Debut
Though you probably already wrote about it in your diary and everything, allow me to inform you that left-hander Jeff Locke, 23, makes his major-league debut tonight for Pittsburgh.

Regarding Locke’s Numbers
Here are Jeff Locke’s numbers this season between Double- and Triple-A: 153.1 IP, 8.2 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9.

Regarding Some Other of Locke’s Numbers
Per StatCorner, Locke’s ground-ball numbers appear to’ve hovered in the 45-50% area in the minors.

Regarding Locke’s Relationship to the Philosopher of a Similar Name
On the subject of Locke’s relationship to the 17th c. philosopher John, FanGraphs hasn’t been able to establish any relation between the two, although it should be noted that the former (i.e. Jeff) is fluent on the subject of epistemology.

Regarding How Long It Took to Craft That Fourth Section
Embarrassing minutes.

Regarding How the Yankee-Angel Game Tonight Is Way More Meaningful
Please go blerg yourself.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Pirates Television. (Or Radio, is it, that’s better?)

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When we think of the prototypical Most Valuable Player, we think of a burly first baseman who slugs forty homers. But that’s not always the case, not in terms of sabremetric thinking, and not for the Baseball Writers Association of America either. Jacoby Ellsbury as MVP candidate isn’t a figment of the interwebs’ imagination — there are several players who won that have a similar profile as Ellsbury.

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Every year, there’s at least one player that has an absolute fail-tacular year in the field. Jermaine Dye in 2009 (-22 UZR). Ken Griffey Jr. in 2007 (-29 UZR). Brad Hawpe in 2008 (-36 UZR). These players all had good years at the plate, but their defense was so excessively poor that they ended up negating a large portion of the value they provided to their team.

This year’s candidate to join this illustrious group? Mark Reynolds. After spending most of the season at third base or first base, Reynolds currently has the worst UZR score in the majors: 22 runs below average.  And not only that, but Reynolds also has the lowest Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) rating of the year (-32 runs), he’s tied for the most amount of errors in the majors (26), and his Fielding Percentage is by far the worst in the majors (.897). I don’t like using Fielding Percentage as an evaluative tool, but when the next worst person is a full 50 points better than you, your glove is pretty darn bad.

When looking at these numbers, two questions pop into my head. How often is it that DRS and UZR both agree like this? And should the Orioles put Reynolds at DH once Guerrero is gone?

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The Minnesota Twins have had a brutal 2011 season, to say the least. After winning the American League Central in both 2009 and 2010, they have plummeted into a tie for last with the Royals at the moment. There have been number of factors in the Twins’ collapse this season, from Joe Nathan‘s injury to Tsuyoshi Nishioka‘s injury followed by awful performance to Francisco Liriano’s control problems and more, but none loom larger than the injuries to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Many observers have understandably concluded that it might be time for the Twins to “blow it up.” However, in his Friday column for ESPN Insider (summarized for non-subscribers here), Buster Olney reports that the Twins aren’t necessarily going to hit the reset button. While that does not necessarily back up the “All In” in the title of Olney’s column, that the Twins are even considering doing such a thing is intriguing.

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Every season some players have a power breakout (Granderson) or meltdown (Dunn). I decided to look at the players with the highest and lowest ISO increases this season and the reasons behind the changes for a few of the players.

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Pavarotti doesn’t know what game to watch on Friday.

New York Americans (10) at Los Angeles Americans (5) | 22:05 ET
Mike Trout Watch (Full Season Edition)
97 PA, .230/.299/.448 (.224 BABIP), 106 wRC+

Mike Trout Watch (Should-Hit Edition)
If we assume a .300 BABIP for Mike Trout, he should be posting a 141 wRC+.

Playoff Watch
The Angels are 2.5 games behind Texas. Cool Standings gives them a 13.7% chance of making the playoffs.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Angels Radio?

Two Other Games
Houston (4) at Washington (6) | 19:05 ET
Don’t neglect this opportunity to watch left-hander Tom Milone, who posted a 155:16 in 141.1 minor-league innings this year, make his second career major-league start. Also, don’t neglect this opportunity to begin referring to the Nationals as the Team of the Future™.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Astros Television.

Los Angeles Nationals (4) at San Francisco (3) | 22:15 ET
This game will feature talented starters Clayton Kershaw (10) at Tim Lincecum (8). I’m hearing it will also feature All of the Sadness — in capital letters like that.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Dodgers Television or Giants Radio.

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The Phillies entered the season with the makings of an historical rotation. With Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt, their starting pitching was covered. The Braves entered the season with ridiculous pitching depth. They had a rotation filled with good major leaguers, another solid starter recovering from surgery, and some of the most renowned pitching prospects in the game waiting to make a dent.

It’s funny, then, that the performances this season from Vance Worley and Brandon Beachy — two prospects without much minor league fanfare — have helped elevate each rotation to another level.

Worley and Beachy weren’t exactly afterthoughts, but neither was expected to be a key contributor this season. In fact, Worley started the season in the minors and spent even more time on the farm when both Oswalt and Joe Blanton returned to the rotation. Fast-forward to early September and both pitchers have tallied 2.2 WAR in under 130 innings. Both pitchers are also making a big case for their inclusion in the playoff rotation.

Despite these similarities, the major difference in their production makes a comparison interesting. Worley relies on the called strike while Beachy has become a master of the whiff. Though each is fairly inexperienced as the final month of the season pushes on, their different approaches invites a discussion on the sustainability and predictive value of called and swinging strikeouts.

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Last Thursday, news broke that the prospective deal was dead between Fred Wilpon and David Einhorn for Einhorn to buy $200 million worth of the Mets, a little more than three months after it was first announced. As is often the case with such matters, both sides blamed the other. Einhorn backed out claiming that the Mets changed terms at the last minute; a Mets source told ESPN New York that Einhorn was lying and that he was the one who changed his terms. It seems that the sticking point of the deal was the point that was always most remarkable: the provision that Einhorn would have an option to buy the entire team from Wilpon. The Wilpons clearly didn’t want to lose control of the team, and it seems likely that they simply balked because they were worried at the prospect.

Einhorn is an investor by trade. Unlike the Wilpons, who made their money in real estate, Einhorn spends his career trying to decide whether to invest in people and companies, rather than buildings or land. And he views baseball as an investment, not an act of charity. In a speech to the Ira Sohn Investors Conference earlier this June, he engaged in an extended baseball analogy to explain how Microsoft was like Alex Rodriguez:

I got the analogy wrong. Microsoft is not A-Rod. The better analogy is that the best parts of the Microsoft product portfolio, particularly the dominant Windows Office and Enterprise server franchises, are A-Rod. Put simply, they are some of the most valuable products ever developed in technology. They are record-setters and hall of famers. But they are only part, albeit a large part, of Microsoft. And having A-Rod by himself does not win championships.

Before the 2001 season, the Texas Rangers signed A-Rod to a record 10-year $250M contract. He spent the three years in Texas and did not disappoint, hitting 156 homers and batting over .300, but the team never won more than 73 games, and the Rangers management and overall resource allocation decisions were more Charlie Brown than Sandy Alderson.

That’s not only precluded them from winning despite A-Rod’s heroism, it eventually pushed them into bankruptcy.

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At the end of August, amid the beginnings of Justin Verlander’s entry into MVP discussions, I investigated his chances at winning 25 games this season, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Bob Welch did it for the 1990 Athletics. Using two methods, I came to the conclusion that Verlander had anywhere from a 5.7% chance to a 29% chance of winning 25 games (although our best estimates likely come on the lower end of the spectrum), assuming he would start five games between August 29th and the end of the season (which looks like it’ll be the reality). Now, Verlander is a 22-game winner, earning victories in his past two starts despite allowing four earned runs in Wednesday’s victory over Cleveland.

A reminder of the first estimate, the absolute upper bound on his chances:

For our first estimate, let’s use something relatively simple. So far, Verlander has 22-5 win-loss record in 31 starts. Verlander has a “start win percentage” of .709, as he’s won 22 of his 31 starts this year.

Using this extremely simple method, Verlander would have a remarkable 36% chance at winning 25 games this year, up from 29% two starts ago.

Now, for the more meaningful method:

The method is based on the Marcel projections featured here — so simple a monkey could do it, as long as he had a working understanding of the SQL programming language.

For a Marcel-type projection, we weight the past three years on a 5-4-3 basis (most recent gets 5, then 4, then 3), and add in two seasons (68 starts) of an average pitcher. Remember, we’re concerned with start winning percentage here, not decision winning percentage. Of the 1,854 games started in the American League this year, 678 of them have been wins. That’s a start winning percentage of only .366 for the American League. That number goes with a .690 start win percentage this year in 29 starts, .545 in 2010 in 33 starts, and .543 in 2011 in 35 starts.

Using this method, we get a winning percentage of .570, slightly up from our .564 from earlier. Using this number, we arrive at an 18% chance of winning 25 games.

Given the fact that this year’s Tigers squad is a bit better than the teams he’s played for lately, we can probably elevate that number a bit. What we really want here is a range of probabilities, and given this data, I would feel pretty comfortable assigning a probability of 15%-25% for Verlander’s probabilities of winning 25 games.

Even in this brave new world of very few exciting postseason races, at least we’ll have something to watch for as Verlander approaches a milestone untouched since 1990.

It’s clear the Giants are in desperation mode. Now seven games out with 19 to go, they’ve jettisoned their disappointing veterans and have called on hands onto the deck. Wednesday night, facing righty Aaron Harang in San Diego, two of those callups were in the game. Did their inclusion on the lineup card actually constitute a mistake on the part of the Giants? Has their search for lightning in a bottle set them astray?

First, the more obvious head-scratcher. Perhaps on the basis of his Tuesday night home run, 27-year-old rookie Brett Pill was inserted into the sixth spot. Pill is a righty. Brandon Belt is a lefty. Harang is a righty. So that’s strike one for the managerial team in San Francisco.

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