Middle relievers need some special attribute, performance, or history to garner attention. Here are two that qualify.

Jonathan Venters LH Atlanta

The Braves selected Venters out of a Florida high school in the 30th round of the 2003 draft. Venters started 20 games before undergoing Tommy John surgery and missing the 2006 season. 94 minor league appearances and 71 starts later, Venters’ minor league numbers were mediocre – 6.6 strikeouts per nine and 4.1 walks. The Braves installed him in their pen as the mop-up man this season and the results have been overwhelming. A groundball rate nearing 60% and a swinging strike rate of 14% are reasons enough to catch attention. A mid-90s fastball and occasional curveball have made Venters a pain to lefties, which, not to typecast every failed lefty starter as a potential LOOGY, but Venters would seemingly fit that role if his minor league numbers are indicative.

John Axford RH Milwaukee

Truthfully, Axford’s Triple-A numbers aren’t even the most impressive thing about him – although striking out 11 batters per nine is pretty nifty. This is a special circumstance where it’s more than just the performances that endear a fan base to a player. It extends well beyond his birthday (April 1st), too. Actually, it’s all about the ‘stache. Various agents of propaganda have stated pitchers of now lack the fortitude of their profession’s ancestors. When Axford pitches, it’s the visual mustachio concerto that the game so desperately needs. That thing will never have a down game. Never. Not ever. Not even when Axford’s mug displays a hangdog look after allowing a game-winning home run. Unfortunately no images exist of the masterpiece, yet.

As for Axford’s pitching … yeah, he’s the garden variety hard-throwing righty with control issues. What the world really needs is a pen with Axford, Dale Thayer, and Clay Zavada.

Roy Oswalt is having a nice season. He’s started nine games while averaging about seven innings per outing. For his efforts, he has a 3.28 xFIP and an even flashier ERA to show. All of which is noteworthy and praiseworthy, but the real reason attention is being paid to Oswalt has to do with his actions off the field. Earlier today, Oswalt requested a trade from the Houston Astros. The club he’s spent his entire career with and the club the has the 32-year-old under contract for a total of $15M this season, $16M next season, and holds a club option on Oswalt worth $16M as well.

If Oswalt’s talent were the only measure that mattered, the takers would be lined up out the door trying to land him. The problem is his contract. That’s a lot of money for a pitcher who hasn’t topped four wins in a season since Craig Biggio and Morgan Ensberg were still his teammates. Assuming that the new team would pay Oswalt about half of this year’s money and 100% of next season’s, plus the $2M buyout in favor of the club option, that’s more than $25M. And if the new team keeps Oswalt for 2012, then that number skyrockets to nearly $40M.

Simply put: Oswalt is being paid like he can still be expected to be one of the game’s elite pitchers and that’s simply not a safe bet. Moving that contract for a good return on his talent is going to be a chore for Ed Wade, although the San Diego Padres proved such a move is possible. Of the recent high-priced starting pitchers to be traded, only Jake Peavy’s current contract had more annual money remaining than Oswalt’s. The Padres even had the unfortunate break of Peavy missing most of the season and holding a no-trade clause. Somehow, they got the White Sox and him to agree to a deal, and thus ridded themselves of his three-year, $52M deal.

Scott Kazmir was owed nearly $34M over three years and the Rays didn’t receive an elite prospect in return for him last August. Cliff Lee only had a season and $9M remaining when the Indians (and then Phillies) traded him. Even Roy Halladay was owed less money ($15.75M) than Oswalt will make next season when the Blue Jays traded him to the Phillies this past winter. Those contracts look cost efficient when stacked next to Oswalt’s, and those were for two of the game’s absolute best arms.

It’s going to be an interesting and probably pun-filled few stretch leading to the trade deadline for Houston.

Ian Snell was not a fan of Pittsburgh. He even went as far to ask for a demotion just to escape the wickedness. The Pirates would oblige and would trade Snell after he conquered a few hapless Triple-A lineups. With Snell happy – or at least happier – in the Emerald City, it would seem like his pitching would improve. And hey, his ERA did improve, but his peripheral statistics actually worsened. See:

2009 with Pirates: 80.2 IP, 5.36 ERA, 4.61 FIP, 5.16 xFIP
2009 with Mariners: 64.1 IP, 4.20 ERA, 5.23 FIP, 5.66 xFIP

Seattle pitching coach Rick Adair worked with Snell on his mechanics extensively upon Snell’s arrival with the focus being on his plant foot. The intended change was for Snell’s foot to land with toes pointed towards home plate, a shift from his general landing position which saw his foot pointed towards third base. The alteration would presumably result in better command, potentially more velocity, and more comfort. Whatever Snell was doing in the rotation for his four starts, it wasn’t working.

Cliff Lee then returned. With Jason Vargas and Doug Fister cruising along, and both Snell and Ryan Rowland-Smith out of options, the Mariners chose to shift Snell to the bullpen. Snell will now move back to the rotation, replacing Rowland-Smith, who slides into the bullpen. It’s not an ideal situation for the Mariners, but at this point, exposing either to waivers so one of their Triple-A arms, like Luke French or Garret Olson, can join the major league rotation probably isn’t worth it.

Snell pitched better out of the pen in a long-relief role, totaling nine innings, six strikeouts, two walks, and a homer. The walks and the home run actually all came in his first outing against the Rays, so Snell managed to escape nearly six innings worth of action against the Orioles and Athletics without a free pass or jogger. That stat line adds up to something like a 4 FIP. Pitchers generally gain a full run per nine moving from the bullpen to the rotation, meaning that performance would be expected to translate to a 5 FIP, but it’s a null point since the sample size is ridiculously small.

Then again, a 5 FIP would be an upgrade over Rowland-Smith. In 39 innings this season, Smith has unintentionally walked 17 batters and struck out 16 while allowing 10 home runs. That’s brutal and results in a FIP of 7.14. Smith’s fastball isn’t fooling anyone this season and our run values have it worth -2.79 per 100 thrown. Last year, Smith’s worst pitch per 100 thrown was his change-up at -0.19, yet this year he has two pitches in the red.

The diagnosis on Rowland-Smith seems murky, but for now he gives the Mariners the first southpaw they’ve had in the bullpen all season.

National attention is required anytime the best hitter in baseball moves down in the lineup. Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday’s lineup swap is getting more play, though, because St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Bernie Miklasz originally suggested it in his column. Merely hours later, the flip showed up on the lineup card. Miklasz’ argument is simple and to the point. Holliday is going through a bad stretch hitting with runners on, and while there’s every reason to believe Holliday will snap out of the funk, why not swap them in the meanwhile and allow Pujols to bat with someone on base.

In The Book, the most important slots in the lineup are found to be the leadoff position, second, and fourth. This combats conventional wisdom a bit, since the number two hitter is generally thought of as someone who can ‘handle the bat’ – i.e. bunt, move the runner over, etc. – and the three hitter is your best or second best hitter. The reason that the fourth slot is more important than the three slot is because more often than not, the three hitter comes up with nobody on and two out, whereas the four hitter begins innings. Plus, the difference is about 18 plate appearances over a given season, not enough to dismiss the idea because it would mean less Pujols.

Tony LaRussa is a fascinating manager for numerous reasons — his bullpen management, batting a pitcher eighth, and having pitchers field and fielders pitch being the most obvious. He’s not always correct, but he usually is entertaining. What he’s doing here isn’t radical and it shouldn’t be brow-raising. It’s smart and defensible. Other teams across the league are implementing similar strategies, too. Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon pencils Evan Longoria in as his clean-up hitter most days, Alex Rodriguez mans the position for the Yankees, and even Kansas City has begun batting Billy Butler fourth.

LaRussa can proclaim innocence if accused of starting the fire. As to whether this was inspired by Bernie Miklasz or not, well, who knows. Both men should be commended for evaluating the lineup as rational agents rather than slaves to conformity and tradition.

Now watch LaRussa do something really crazy. Like bat Pujols leadoff.

Between 2005 and 2007 Austin Kearns posted wRC+ of 107, 118, and 107 with the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. Then something happened – namely his batting average on balls in play bottoming out – and Kearns’ wRC+ in 2008 and 2009 topped out in the 70s. Such struggles were exacerbated by declining playing time in an overstocked outfield. Kearns’ stock plummeted and the first-time free agent found himself with little in the way of options.

Kearns wound up accepting a minor league deal offer from the Cleveland Indians. The possibility of a spot on the major league roster was evident through and through. Sure enough, Kearns showed up in shape and passed the Indians’ gumshoe inspection. A month and some into the season, and the low-risk maneuver is paying dividends in real life, much like it has in fantasy leagues across the land. Just look at this comparison:

2010 – 112 PA, 32 H, 3 HR, 18 R
2009 – 211 PA, 34 H, 3 HR, 20 R

Kearns’ numerical renaissance extends into the land of sabermetrics too. A .411 wOBA places him amongst one the game’s best hitters to date. Clearly a .439 BABIP is unsustainable given what we know about Kearns, but those plate appearances are in the bank. Kearns’ early success and phoenix-like return from his ashes is reminiscent of the Carl Pavano situation from last season. With Michael Brantley and Trevor Crowe around, it might not be outlandish to expect Kearns’ names to raise in trade rumors as the deadline approaches either.

Back when Kearns signed with Cleveland, Matt Klaassen drew a comparison between his career arc and that of Indians’ general manager Mark Shapiro. Klaassen even went as far as to call the pairing serendipitous. That works. The direct relationship between general manager and player is illustrated nicely on the margins. When a high priced player busts or when a lowly spring training invite, like Mr. Kearns, recaptures shine and illuminates his front office’s aptitude with every stroke.

Shapiro’s reputation has experienced dimming with Travis Hafner’s and Kerry Wood’s contracts, but he’s certainly looking bright with Kearns.

Something is amiss across the baseballing populace. Take a glance at the pitching leaderboard and note all of the high strikeout totals. More than a dozen starting pitchers are averaging at least one strikeout per inning and about half of them are averaging more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings. It would seem as if the league is striking out more batters than usual, and sure enough, a check of this handy dandy chart confirms that suspicion.

The league is averaging more than seven strikeouts per nine innings for the first time in the history of the game – note that the SO/9 ratio from last year is based on rounding rules rather than a true ratio over 7. This season hasn’t just given us the highest strikeout rate in league history either, though: the 4.17 league-wide ERA is the lowest since 1992. Home runs are also down, below one per game for the first time since 1993, and walks are actually slightly up – to 3.55 – despite intentional walks per game remaining static from 2009.

Before declaring this the great offensive depression or the golden era of pitching, it’s important to put these numbers into context. Specifically: Did the league struggle like this last season too? Here are the comparisons between the 2010 ratio statistics versus the 2009 statistics through the May 16th, 2009 slate of games (gathered thanks to Baseball Musings’ day-by-day database and an assist to Marc Normandin):

2010: 4.17 ERA, 8.70 H/9, 0.94 HR/9, 3.55 BB/9, 7.08 SO/9, 0.31 HBP/9
2009: 4.56 ERA, 9.14 H/9, 1.05 HR/9, 3.71 BB/9, 6.89 SO/9, 0.37 HBP/9

Offense is down in every conceivable way from last year at the same time. Pick the reason. From Houston and Seattle’s struggling run production, to an influx of talented young pitchers, to a league-wide shift towards defense and a league-wide acceptance of strikeout-heavy hitters, to the fact that this young season has already had a no hitter and perfect game occur, to hey, it’s just some variance and luck. None of those answers seem outrageous or outlandish and a combination thereof is probably the most likely answer.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the data holds up as the season progresses.

Being a slugger brings with it perhaps the greatest glory a playing style can in baseball. Aces are elevated, high contact hitters occasionally revered, and lock-down relievers feared, but sluggers? Chicks have never adored the four-out save like they do the four-base hit. Being a switch-hitting slugger leads to even more hagiography. Mark Teixeira is that and fits the image of the imaginary basher.

Teixeira is tall at six-foot-three with sturdy forearms and an all-American jaw-line. His batting stance is rather simple to imitate, which cannot be said about the amount of force Teixeira’s bat strikes baseballs with. As such, the public perception of Teixeira is increasingly strong, especially when one combines the locale of Teixeira’s job – both on the field and a map – with the aforementioned style of play.

Teixeira neither is, nor will he ever be, the most prolific home run hitter — in output or length -– but thus far, launching bombs has been one of the few parts of Teixeira’s offensive game apparent in his .217/.341/.420 line. That translates to a .340 wOBA which is above the league average mark, but below the expectations from a first baseman and particularly a first baseman named Mark Teixeira. The good news for the Yankees, besides being able to whether the struggles with a strong record, is that little cause for concern exists.

Teixeira is hitting the same number of line drives, fly balls, and grounders as he always does, yet his batting average on balls in play is .223. Over the last three seasons, Teixeira’s BABIP have ranged from .302 to .342. To state the obvious: .223 is nowhere near the previous low tide. Teixiera isn’t even hitting more infield fly balls than normal; instead, he’s hitting fewer pop ups.

Literally the only conceivable explanations that do not involve a heavy dosage of bad luck is Teixeira’s amount of contact with pitches outside of the strike zone. In previous seasons, his O-Contact% bounced around between 40-60%. This year, it’s at 70%. That simply means that Teixeira is making contact with pitches that should be called balls.

That nothing short of his BABIP has changed seemingly supports the idea that this is just a dry run on good luck and should allow Teixeira to keep his slugger glory in tow.

Oliver Perez’s name has always been synonymous with top flight starter potential. In 2004, he pitched one of the best seasons in recent Pirates’ history, posting a 3.45 FIP in almost 200 innings of work. Since then, he’s racked up exactly one FIP below 4.5 and three (while working on a fourth) seasons with FIP over 5.5. Potential isn’t a static attribute and Perez is proof positive of that. Unfortunately for the Mets, they paid him as if his potential were solid and as if Perez were a safe bet to reach that upside.

Needless to say, Perez hasn’t been right since, for reasons mostly unrelated to his paychecks.

He’s always had issues with walks. Always, with the exception of that 2004 season. In his first full season in the majors he walked nearly 5.5 per nine innings. In 2005 he walked more than 6. In fact, 2007 is the only other season in which his BB/9 was lower than 4.5. Those walks were sufferable because of high strikeout totals, but Perez hasn’t even been striking out as many batters as usual this year. Not only that, but since signing that new contract, he’s walked three fewer batters than he’s struck out.

Perez looks broken. His fastball is averaging a career low 88 miles per hour. Distressing, since his previous career low was 90 MPH, set just last season. He’s not missing bats, he’s not getting outs, he is allowing ton of baserunners, but really he’s not doing anything to help the Mets. Not even getting lefties out. It seems like that knee injury is still bugging Perez and that he’s being selfish in not admitting it to the team.

No matter the parallels in highly paid starting pitchers being converted to the bullpen this season, Carlos Zambrano’s situation has nothing on this one. Unlike Zambrano, Perez doesn’t belong in the rotation, and frankly, he doesn’t belong in the majors.

Scott Boras represents Hank Blalock and Hank Blalock has an opt-out clause in his contract. Rather than simply executing the clause, Boras decided to talk about it with the press first. It’s an understandable move since Boras is never in the press, and it also gives us some time to analyze the forthcoming scenario in which the Rays must ultimately choose between Pat Burrell and the aforementioned Blalock.

Burrell has completely lost the ability to hit left-handed pitching. Between 2005 and 2008, Burrell’s lowest wOBA against lefties was a robust .401 in 2008. His wOBA last year was .278, more than double this year’s .132 figure. As far as ISO goes, forget it. He’s yet to record an extra base hit against a southpaw this year, and last year the rate was a career low .050.

Surely a .071 BABIP against lefties is hurting his performance, but at the same time, a .378 BABIP against righties is propping up his .368 wOBA against normal people. He’s just not hitting for power anymore against anyone. Consider that Burrell hit 57 home runs against lefties between 2002 and 2008, yet he’s hit zero since joining the Rays.

Clearly something’s gone wrong with Burrell and there’s a pretty good chance whatever is wrong isn’t going right anytime soon. For all intents and purposes, just call Burrell a sunk cost and cast aside the concerns about money. He’s going to be paid his money no matter what and the Rays are going to be the ones writing the checks. With Willy Aybar entrenching himself as the designated hitter against lefties, this comes down to which of the not-so-killer-and-somewhat-irritating B’s can be counted upon to hit righties moving forward.

The answer isn’t as cut and dry as Boras and Blalock would hope it would be, even after a torrid April in Triple-A. Blalock has a career .362 wOBA against righties (.328/.349/.391 last three seasons) but posted those numbers while having the benefit of hitting in Arlington and in a (mostly) non-designated hitter capacity.

Maybe the solution is to toss aside Burrell and plug in Blalock while the option persists. And hey, if Blalock doesn’t work, maybe try Matt Joyce when he finally returns from an elbow sprain that could limit his throwing abilities. If that doesn’t work, then there’s always Dan Johnson and Ryan Shealy.

Or Andy Sonnanstine.

Akinori Iwamura is batting .187/.290/.271 with a .258wOBA through his first 128 plate appearances. He’s managed two home runs though, which tops his total from 2009 in less than half the playing time. It would be easy to write Iwamura’s slow start off as bad luck and nothing more, but it’s just really hard to find anything wrong with his numbers. Drawing a walk in 13% of his plate appearances is better than his career ratio and he’s actually striking out a little less often than normal. Even his .082 ISO isn’t too far off pre-established expectations.

Iwamura is hitting more groundballs than ever – about 55% in fact – and yet, his batting average on balls in play is a measly .207. The previous American low for Iwamura’s BABIP is .337 in 2008. About 4% of Iwamura’s hits have been of the infield variety. Again, that’s just not too far off from his norms. Everything just seems to come together and suggest that Iwamura is the victim of chance rather than the victim of a decaying – or perhaps deceased – skill set.

More interestingly is Iwamura’s defense. The sample size is ridiculously small – a little over 230 innings to date – but Iwamura has been worth -8.2 UZR and -9 DRS. That’s bad. Like, Yuniesky Betancourt looks good by comparison bad. It’s just so easy to take data like that and completely ignore granularity issues while trying to connect the dots. For instance, Iwamura did suffer a horrific knee injury roughly a year ago … maybe it affected his already pedestrian range?

The odds that Iwamura continues to be one of the league’s worst hitters and fielders are staggeringly low. Breathe easy, Pittsburgh.