This time of the season is great for two groups of players within organizations of dying (or dead) playoff aspirations. One group is those of young players, some even legitimate prospects. The other is the group of veterans that will fill the gaps as the team’s way of saying thanks for a year of duty. These veterans may be on their last legs, but if their major league careers are soon to die, at least they will always live through box scores.

Jay Gibbons – Los Angeles (N)

The Dodgers are still without Manny Ramirez and recently dumped Garret Anderson. Thus opening a spot for Jay Gibbons, even with Scott Podsednik already around. It’s hard to believe that Gibbons last played in the majors back in 2007 because it seems like his name pops up at least twice a season, but that’s the case. It’s a little too early to declare Gibbons back from a period in which major league teams were inhospitable towards him, but he did have an OPS over .960 for the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in nearly 400 plate appearances and he’s certainly a better player than the aforementioned Anderson.

Phil Humber & Bryan Bullington – Kansas City

These two soak together. In fact, Bullington started for the Royals last night while Humber finished the last two innings.

When the Pirates drafted Bullington as the first overall choice in the 2003 draft, they boasted about his middle of the rotation potential. Naturally, Bullington never fulfilled even that promise, and only pitched in 18 innings for the Pirates before moving on. He tallied more innings with the Indians and Jays over a combined seven games than he did for the big league squad in Pittsburgh. Last night represents his first start with Kansas City, although he’s worked out of the pen for them, and his numbers weren’t too bad (he walked one, struck four out, and allowed no dingers).

A year after the Bullington selection, the Mets tabbed Philip Humber with the third overall pick in the draft. There are about three things Humber is known for:

1) His performance at Rice University
2) His constant battles with injuries
3) Being involved in the Johan Santana trade

Last night marked the first time he appeared for the Royals and that he lasted two innings without suffering another injury is sadly a positive development. For his sake, maybe he can add a fourth item to his trivia card that involves rekindling his career as a middle reliever.

A common adage is that a pitcher needs either good stuff or location to make it in the major leagues. Jeff Karstens is not someone with good stuff. On the best of days his fastball can average a severe wind-aided 90 miles per hour. Hurricanes are uncommon in the greater Pittsburgh area so the righty settles for an average of 89 miles per hour. Karsten’s secondary offerings are superior – including a very good curveball – but the book on him is that he’s not going to get a ton of strikeouts or grounders. What he will rack up – as the adage suggests – is strikes.

Karstens is throwing 66% strikes this season, which places him in a tie with Joe Blanton and ahead of Felix Hernandez, Francisco Liriano, David Price, and a slew of pitchers with superior stuff. He’s amongst the 25 starting pitchers who throw the most strikes on a rate basis which is led by Cliff Lee (72%) and Scott Baker (70%) amongst others. This within itself isn’t too interesting or worthy of adulation because Karsten’s phobia towards throwing balls is yet to result in fantastic performances – minus one heck of a start during the 2008 season versus the Diamondbacks.

The real story to tell about Karsten’s strike rate is really about the reciprocal or his ball rate in this case. Karstens has issued five intentional walks in a little over 100 innings of work. His career total through about 217 innings entering this season was seven. That kind of really free pass rate has the tendency to creep into and distort things like strike ratio. Nobody ahead or near Karstens on the strike rate leaderboard is over more than 2% intentional balls/balls thrown, so his intentional balls are skewing his strike rate the most. What has it meant to his rate of strikes thrown?

Since we know that five intentional walks equals 20 intentional balls, then we can just subtract those balls from his total (491) and redo the division by his total pitches with those 20 pitches subtracted (1430 after the minus); giving us a real strike rate of 67%. That’s not entirely fair, though, because Karstens would have had to throw pitches versus those batters and we can’t simply pretend they never happened. What if he threw 20 pitches to each, and half were strikes – after all, 10 extra strikes instead of 10 extra balls is better than 20 balls to 0 strikes. Well, then we get a strike rate of 67% again.

67% to 66% is a minute difference; no doubt, but when we talk about strike rates or even walk rates, the amount of intentional balls and walks is often ignored.

In less than two months the regular season will come to a close and the postseason will begin. In each of the past three seasons we’ve had teams go to game 163 in order to decide a tiebreaker. Frankly, those win or go home games rank right up there with some of the best games in recent memory. Whether it be the controversial Padres/Rockies finish in 2007, or the White Sox and Twins in 2008, or even the Tigers and Twins last season; each came down to being decided by a single run. The way the standings are shaping up right now, we might be in store for another tiebreaking game or two.

AL West

You can all but call this race. Baseball Prospectus has the Rangers at 92% likely to make the playoffs. The Angels and Athletics spit the remaining ~8% of simulations, but right now the Rangers hold the league’s largest divisional lead (8 games) which is more than five times the next closest. It really is hard to see the Athletics or Angels make a legitimate push for the crown and a lot would have to happen for Texas to miss the postseason.

AL East

The Yankees are the next surest thing, at 87%. Tampa Bay is on their heels (80%) and Boston isn’t dead quite yet (25%) meaning, unlike Texas, it’s possible to imagine the Yankees not winning the division crown at this point. The goal for these teams need not be much more than to finish in the top two of the division and assume second place guarantees a wild card berth…

AL Central

…which makes this race all the more vicious. The Twins and White Sox are tied for first place at this point. Most would probably give the edge to the Twins, but the White Sox always find a way to surprise everyone. The only wild card involved will be whether Kenny Williams can work some magic on the waiver wire.

NL East

Believe it or not, the Braves are projected to make the playoffs more often than any other National League team despite having an identical win total to that of the Reds and Padres (and Giants). Their lead over the Phillies is slight, but this Phillies team that has Mike Sweeney and Wilson Valdez starting on the right side of the infield most days isn’t too inspiring, even if they have beat up on Florida and New York since losing Ryan Howard.

NL Central

With last night’s defeat, the Reds’ lead over the Cardinals is down to a game and a half. This very well could be the most difficult race to call in the entire league.

NL West

The Padres might be baseball’s best story this year and they still have the division lead and a 76% shot at the playoffs. The Giants, though, are breathing down their necks, with an equal number of wins and three extra defeats. If the season ended today, both would be in the postseason.

This post is not timely whatsoever, so apologies for that; also, props to Tommy Rancel for suggesting it and helping with the research.

On July 27, 1996, Alex Rodriguez turned 21 years old. He also signed an extension valued at four-years and $10.6 million. Despite Rodriguez’s age, he was in the midst of his first major league season and third overall. Through the season’s first 86 games, Rodriguez had started 85 of them while hitting .351/.410/.632 with 21 home runs in just 353 at-bats. For comparison, Jason Heyward was 20 when he had a scorching hot May. He hit .337/.453/.628 over those 25 games. Rodriguez was not too far off and he did it over a full season while being only a little older.

Rodriguez was about as close to a sure thing as possible from a stats or scouting perspective; after all, that’s why he was the top pick in the draft and that’s why he ascended the ladder so quickly. That extension by today’s standards looks woeful for Camp Rodriguez and amazing for Woody Woodward and the Mariners but the economic environment in baseball was wholly different 14 years ago. The highest payroll in baseball still belonged to the Yankees, but at $52 million instead of $206 million. The highest paid player in baseball that season was Cecil Fielder, just over $9 million. Ken Griffey Jr. ranked third with a $7.5 million salary. In 2010, a $7.5 million salary doesn’t crack the top 25, in fact, a $15 million dollar salary doesn’t either, as Hiroki Kuroda’s $15.4 ranks 25th overall.

Still, for the production the Mariners received, the market rate for wins had to be extremely, extremely low for them not to rake on this deal. From 1997 until he left following the 2000 season, Rodriguez racked up 27.4 WAR. He was paid $10.6 million. That is roughly $390 thousand per victory. One would have to set the market rate for wins very, very low to say the Mariners made anything but a profit off Rodriguez’s extension.

His current and previous contracts are well publicized and overwatered from snark and critique alike. At one point, though, Alex Rodriguez was a hell of a bargain.

Most of the salary data courtesy of USA Today

After Brandon Morrow’s 17 strikeout game, the next step, after acceptance, is to wonder what the performance means for his career. Reservations for complete games with exorbitant strikeout totals and miniscule walk rates are for the finest of fine pitching. I wanted to find out just how fine the pitchers’ careers turned out who managed to spin one of these gems. In doing so, I used Baseball-Reference’s Play Index with the following query:

– Individual games spanning the 1920-2010 seasons as a starting pitcher
– Requiring at least 17 strikeouts, fewer than three walks, and at least one inning pitched

The reason for including fewer than three walks is multilayered. It trims the list of candidates down while increasing the difficulty level of the performance, thus giving us the cream of the crop. The above mandates returned 35 individual games. Quite a few being repeats of the true greats. One thing I did not adjust that I’ll disclaim here is how I did not control for age. Randy Johnson’s 20 strikeout game as a 37 year old is included just as Kerry Wood’s game as a 20 year old. Presumably age plays some role in the expectations for Morrow heading forward, as does his background, but there was just no sensible way to really adjust for either with such a limited sample size.

Here is the list of pitchers with their career innings pitched, earned runs allowed, and ERA+. I’m not saying these are the best instruments for judging pitcher worth or anything of the sort; instead I’m just giving an idea of how this group matches up with those metrics:

From there, I get a collective ERA of 3.30 and using the methodology outline by Tango here, a collective ERA+ of 118. In other words: Morrow has some big shoes to fill if he wants to fit in with the rest of these guys.

The ninth inning held two outs as Evan Longoria stepped back into the box for the 1-1 pitch. He would swing, connect, and run towards first as the ball rolled just beyond Aaron Hill’s grasp. As his foot planted on first base he ended Brandon Morrow’s bid at a no hitter. The ball only exceeded Hill’s range because he had to play over with a runner on first who reached on a walk.

In reality, calling this a “bid” at a no hitter does Morrow no respect and the performance on justice. For all intent and purposes, Morrow threw as well as any pitcher who did record a no hitter or perfect game this season. He completed the game, struck out 17 Rays, and walked only two. Nine of the 12 balls in play were of the fly ball variety, including a few warning track flyouts, but the Rays never seriously threatened until the ninth inning.

Not only did Longoria’s single end the no hitter, but it too ended the celebration of a no hitter and helped to spark a debate that will ignore Morrow’s performance.

A lot of talk will go towards his pitch count, which ended at 137. Cito Gaston is retiring at season’s end and, yeah, maybe this plays out differently if that were not the case. Or perhaps it doesn’t. There is no way of knowing and attempting to read into motives in scenarios like this is fruitless. Morrow did throw a lot of pitches, but he also breezed through most of the day. 71% of his pitches went for strikes and his slider was a weapon with a fatality rate high enough that it could be classified as a threat to civilization.

Keep in mind that Morrow pitched nine innings with only four baserunners and eight came with two total. The ninth inning will be a point of contention as he allowed a walk and a single. There’s a difference between what Edwin Jackson did earlier this summer – allowing eight walks – and what Morrow did today. The high count is not a manifestation of long counts but rather the ridiculous strikeout total. To rack up 17 means making a minimum – a minimum – of 51 pitches; to throw a complete game shutout while striking out 17 means throwing at least 61 pitches. Factor in two walks and that number bloats to 69. Add in the baserunner who reached via error and that’s 70; about half the total when assuming each of the outs will take only one pitch to secure and that each strikeout and walk will take the minimum.

Nobody knows how this will affect Morrow heading forward. Not even Morrow himself. The Jays and Gaston have been careful with him, all things considered, over the season. He’s topped 100 pitches in only eight of his 21 starts entering today and only topped 110 on two separate occasions, including an eight inning gem against the St. Louis Cardinals and days later a six inning grinder versus the New York Yankees. Yes, he has a history of durability issues that included his diabetes. And yes, in the long run, maybe this will be looked upon as a snowball to a proverbial injury avalanche. But far too often it seems we find ourselves outraged with these outings instead of simply enjoying the dominance while keeping the potential byproducts in mind.

It is possible to tip your cap to Morrow on the outing while still hoping he’ll be able to tip his tomorrow. It’s also possible to react to pitch counts that extend beyond 100, beyond 110, beyond 125 without being appalled. We don’t know the exact degree of damage those extra pitches did. Honestly, are we even sure where the baseline should be placed to account for what is and what isn’t an extra pitch?

The aforementioned Jackson threw 149 pitches in his no hitter. His FIP up to (and including that game) was right around 4.10. Since then his FIP is roughly 4.30. Pointing to him and saying, “See! See! Nothing to it.” would constitute as confirmation bias and selection bias. So too would be pointing to Morrow if he struggles in his next start or two. Our level of knowledge about the subject and our level of outrage are on different levels right now and unfortunately, the outcries have not lead to a seesaw effect where we are more enthused and interested than ever to learn more and more about pitch workloads.

All told. I probably would have removed Morrow following the hit. That Gaston let him make a few more pitches may or may not be as horrific as the instant reaction would lead you to believe. We just don’t know, and that’s half the problem.

If you have not caught an Oakland Athletics’ game lately, then seeing the names “Matt Watson” and “Matt Carson” in the box score might catch you off guard. By this point in the season, it should be no surprise that the A’s are rummaging through each and every trashed box with the words “outfield” marked. Since opening day, their outfield has been in a liquid state. Take a look at the starting outfield by the first game of every month for proof:

Opening day: Travis Buck/Rajai Davis/Ryan Sweeney
May 1: Eric Patterson/Davis/Gabe Gross (Sweeney’s platoon mate)
June 1/July 1: Gross/Davis/Sweeney
August 1: Watson/Davis/ Carson

The A’s have had a dozen different players start games in the outfield. That number is one more than the depleted Boston Red Sox have sent beyond the infield dirt. So who are these Matt fellows? Let’s start with Watson. For the sake of timeliness, here are each of the organizations Watson has been a part of since being drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1999:

Montreal
New York Mets (twice)
Oakland Athletics (twice)
Toronto Blue Jays
Lancaster (Independent League team)

Watson actually did reach the majors with the Mets in 2003, racking up 25 plate appearances in September. Two years later he resurfaced with these very same Oakland A’s and now he’s back. As far as personal achievements go, I’m not sure how highly he cherishes breaking the 100 career plate appearances mark, but he broke it earlier this week, so congratulations to him on that and having an interesting choice in facial hair.

Carson’s story is less winding since Oakland is only the second organization he’s played with. Drafted by the New York Yankees out of BYU, he spent years intheir minor league system before joining Oakland prior to the 2009 season. Naturally, he made his major league debut last season and even hit a home run. He’s got one this year as well.

Honestly, neither is performing well enough to think they will ever be anything more than organizational soldiers called upon during lost seasons – which is why you’d never heard of them before. That’s not to diminish what they’ve accomplished, though, as only a select few amongst the world’s baseball players get to don a major league uniform, and even fewer for the amount of time these two will have if they can last the season .

It’s probably safe to say Joe Inglett will never be a starter for any prolonged time. The 32 year old recently filled in for Corey Hart during his absence, topping the 100 plate appearances mark during any given season for only the third time in his career – he fell one plate appearance shy of the mark last season while showing up in 36 games for the Blue Jays. If that factoid has you unconvinced, how about that Inglett was claimed off waivers twice within a six-week span during the winter?

Toronto waived him in early December, ending a relationship that lasted a little over two years. The Rangers claimed him and then weeks later bid him adieu as the Brewers scooped him up. Inglett has performed mostly well throughout his career when given playing time. This season he has a .349 wOBA with a .364 on-base percentage representative of his first foray into National League baseball.

Part of that OBP is an increase in walks that coincides with a decrease in swings. Inglett is swinging at a career low 42% of the pitches he sees. If one were to divide his career swing rates by the league average during any given season, here is what their product would be (Note: Only seasons with 100+ PA and 2009 are included):

2006: 0.93
2008: 0.95
2009: 1.07
2010: 0.92

Labeling Inglett as a part-time player is being kind, so his numbers carry with them a strong sense of mendacity. Inglett’s teammates, Rickie Weeks, may finish with more than 600 plate appearances this season. If he does, he would be a mere 120 away from matching Inglett’s career total. That statement is not meant to downgrade Inglett’s production – his career wOBA is over .330 – it’s just to show that the sample size for him is smaller than most 32 year olds with stints reaching over five seasons in the majors.

Although they have played better since, the Brewers’ nine game losing streak in May all but sunk their season. Doug Melvin may draw some ire and questions concerning his team’s rotation and re-signing of Corey Hart, but one thing he has done particularly well is finding worthwhile contributors at bit prices. Dating back to Gabe Kapler in 2008 and extending to this season with fellows like Jim Edmonds and, yes, Joe Inglett.

Now, if he could just work similar magic on his free agent pitching signings, Milwaukee could be in this thing come next August.

Fourteen months ago, the Florida Marlins’ collection of natives from atop beanstalks inspired Eric Seidman to write about the tallest rotations in the Retrosheet era. The Cincinnati Reds’ rotation might just be the antithesis of the Marlins. Right now, the Reds are running Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake, Bronson Arroyo, Edinson Volquez, and Travis Wood to the mound. Here are the listed heights for each:

Cueto 5’10”
Leake 6’1”
Arroyo 6’4”
Volquez 6’0”
Wood 5’11”

With the exception of Arroyo, you will note that the rest of the pitchers stand well below the league average height of 6’3” – a number provided by Mike Fast last week. In a world where the archetypal pitching body stands at least 6’4” with the ability to add muscle, it is rather unusual to see a collection of guys tall enough to be considered for Nicolas Sarkozy’s bodyguard positions rather than admission into the Imperial Guard.

The most captivating question is whether the Reds actively target shorter pitchers to acquire. Probably not. This is the same team that chose 6’2” Bradley Boxberger in the supplemental phase of the 2009 draft’s first round, as well as Donnie Joseph (6’3”) and Zach Stewart (6’2”) within the first three rounds the last few years. The one shred of proof that maybe Walt Jocketty has an affinity for little pitchers is the fifth round of the Reds’ drafts under his control. They’ve yielded three right-handed pitchers with a max height of 6’1”, although who knows how much say Jocketty even has.

Most of the modern day rotation was assembled by the previous regime anyways. For comedic purposes, though, it’s only fitting that the Reds also have two of the tallest pitchers in baseball, 6’8” Logan Ondrusek and 6’7” Aaron Harang, along with the shortest person to throw a pitch in the bigs this season, 5’6” Danny Herrera.

Of course, one can throw all the trivia and jokes aside if a rotation isn’t worth its weight. It certainly feels like the Reds’ rotation gets its fair share of credit for their impressive season, but if you go by FIP, their rotation is middle of the pack, only a slightly in front of the Milwaukee Brewers. Only one of those squads will be pitching in the playoffs, and for now, it seems like the Reds are just tall enough to board the ride.

The White Sox are always creative when it comes to their bullpen construction. After all, not too many other organizations would have placed Sergio Santos in their opening day bullpen and, by extension, not many would have benefited from his performances to date. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that the White Sox have called up their first round pick, Chris Sale, to work out of the pen this year.

Chicago selected Sale 13th overall out of Florida Gulf Coast. He’s a six-foot-six lefty with a strong fastball that can hit the mid-to-upper 90s with arm action that led at least a few pre-draft reports to suggest his role will ultimately be that of a reliever. That sentence might remind some White Sox fans of the other giant fireball tossing lefty that already resides in their pen – that Matt Thornton fellow – but to say Sale might be able to replicate Thornton’s past few seasons is being optimistic at best; after all, Thornton is one of the best left-handed relievers in the game.

Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds have Chicago with a 54% chance at making the tournament and if Sale can flash heat out of the pen in late game situations, you have to figure it’ll only help. The question is how this will affect his development — if at all. Jim Callis noted that Ryan Wagner is the only draftee since 2003 that got the call before Sale, and… well, we all know how Wagner turned out. You may also remember that Andrew Miller was brought into a similar situation in 2006.

Sale took slot money to ensure his chance at pitching in the bigs this season and it may pay dividends. The White Sox did not sign him to a major league deal, meaning if Sale remains in the big leagues throughout the remainder of the season, or if he goes down for fewer than 20 days before being recalled, he will not burn an option year. Depending on his development, he could be one of those four option year players anyways.

The upside for him is that he’ll get his clock started while receiving a boost to his pay outside of the signing bonus he signed just two months ago. He might also impress enough to earn a spot in the playoffs, but that’s a ways off.