The San Diego Padres feature a roster of goodies. The brothers Hairston (otherwise nicknamed Voltron Hairston by Marc Normandin), Tony Gwynn the Thin, and of course the most contrasting pair of teammates in the league: David Eckstein and Kyle Blanks.

The physical differences between Eckstein and Blanks spell themselves out. Heck, even the varied approaches in offensive strategy and execution are pretty easy to spot. How’s this for a factoid, though: Amongst qualified batters, Eckstein is striking out at the lowest ratio and Blanks at the highest. The actual numerical figures are 1.8% and 44.8%

Blanks’ strikeout rate is coming honest. He’s making contact on a little over 63% of his swings. For perspective, Mark Reynolds’ career contact rate is 63% on the nose and Reynolds quickly gained the reputation as a windmill. Of course, the Diamondbacks are willing to tolerate the strikeouts because Reynolds makes up for it when he does put the ball in play. The same cannot be said for Blanks thus far in 2010. About 29% of the balls he puts into play are turning into hits, yet his batting average, even when fueled by an extra three home runs, is more than .100 points lower.

And then there’s Eckstein. In 116 plate appearances, Eckstein has gone down on strikes two times. It goes without saying that Eckstein will not sustain that rate of fasting. The ridiculous part about that factoid is that Blanks has struck out four times in one game, three times in two others, and twice in nine other games. Despite an identical amount of games played and Blanks appearing at the plate 15 fewer times, he’s struck out 37 more times.

The Padres are in San Francisco to start a series which will decide first place in the National League West for the time being. That’s a series worth watching, if only to marvel at the yin and yang that is David Eckstein and Kyle Blanks.

While taking part in some Mother Day festivities, I was fortunate enough to catch most of the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds contest. This so happens to be a pairing of Dusty Baker’s two most recent employers, so there’s all that added excitement and motivation to an already anticipated divisional rivalry.

Baker takes heat for a lot of things. The two most common criticisms of Baker are his abuse and misusage of young pitchers and toothpicks alike. It’s not like the Cubs from his day or the present-day are dry on pitching prospects. As such, there’s a distinct possibility that Baker views the objects as ultimately similar in construction and availability.

Mike Leake, for his part, pitched well. He actually maintained a no-hitter through five innings that was broken up on an infield single by Starlin Castro.

I bring up Baker for more than a lame joke attempt, though. He – and I’ll assume he is the one who called for these plays – had the Reds execute two plays that were pretty fun to watch, even if they changed the outcome very little.

In the second inning, Jay Bruce and Jonny Gomes hit consecutive doubles to net the Reds a 1-0 lead. Drew Stubbs came up next and showed bunt long enough to bait Aramis Ramirez towards the plate, and sending an avalanching Gomes to third base without a throw. Gomes would then score on a Stubbs’ grounder to short. With nobody out it seems probable that Gomes would’ve scored anyways, but it was a fun and smart play that depended on Stubbs’ fake being believable and Gomes making the right read.

The other Baker act worth noting came on a Cubs’ bunt attempt following the aforementioned Castro single. Ryan Dempster got the sac down, but as Bob Brenly pointed out on the wonderful WGN broadcast, the Reds were set up for a pickoff play. First baseman Joey Votto charged earlier than normal, hoping Castro would take an excess lead while second baseman Brandon Phillips came in quickly to fill in at first base. Even catcher Ramon Hernandez was coming out of his stance before the pitch arrived.

Grant Balfour might be the only baseball player around who participates in triathlons competition during the off-season. He’s not, however, the only baseball player to have an issue with walking batters while featuring a fastball so hot it produces solar flares. Something peculiar has happened so far this season, though. Balfour’s strikeout-to-walk ratio is sitting over six, a drastic improvement compared to a previous career rate a little over 2.2. Meanwhile Balfour’s fastball velocity has dipped about a mile per hour.

Announcers often talk about improving control by decreasing velocity. Whether this is a conscious change in Balfour’s game or not is anyone’s guess. The results are pretty glaring though. The top 16% of Balfour’s fastballs are averaging about 94 miles per hour (as opposed to 95 and 96 MPH in 2009 and 2008) while the bottom 16% are also about a mile per hour lower than in the past. The full table of these figures is posted below, and suggests that Balfour’s velocity has dropped by an equal rate at each level for two years running. Of course there’s a chance this is simply a pitchfx mistake.

Year	N	T16%	M68%	B16%
2010	180	93.9	92.2	90.5
2009	990	95.4	93.3	91.1
2008	920	96.4	94.8	92.9

Undeterred by that possibility, here are the overall results breakdowns for Balfour’s fastballs:

 
Year	N	Cld Sw Str	Foul	Ball
2010	180	0.21	0.08	0.23	0.3
2009	990	0.17	0.09	0.24	0.35
2008	920	0.18	0.12	0.24	0.36

Note the figures in the last column. Balfour has made drastic improvements in reducing the amount of pitches he’s thrown that were called balls. Move your eyes towards the left and you’ll see that these additional strikes are not the result of more whiffs or more fouls, but rather an uptick in called strikes.

There’s a degree of luck that goes into called strikes, no doubt – sometimes the hitter is fooled, sometimes the hitter is taking 100%, other times the umpire messes up – and called strikes do not correlate as well to strikeouts as their swinging variety brethren, but right now, the drop in strikeouts is worth the drop in walks. Balfour’s xFIP is a full run lower (3.21) than it was in 2009, his FIP is more than a run lower, and his tERA is even lower than his 2008 mark, which happens to be the year he did his best Mariano Rivera impression. It’s also worth noting that Balfour is throwing a first pitch strike roughly 69% of the time as opposed to a career rate around 54%.

Balfour will be eligible for free agency at season’s end and as such his agent couldn’t plot a better start to his season.

Willie Mays turned 79-years-old today.

It’s easy to look at Mays and the (few) players of his ilk and start waxing poetically. Getting entrenched in Mays’ greatness is nearly unavoidable. Read an article about Mays or look at his player page and the enchantment will suck you up like quicksand. There’s a lot to be written and a lot to be read about Mays. About his being the prince of the sepia-toned utopia. About his pain. About his fights with villains just to take the field as a black. About his ability to make basket catches easier than N.B.A. rims. Even about his supposed tarnish legacy by spending some time with the New York Mets.

There’s a legitimate case to be made that Mays is the best baseball player ever. Rally’s WAR has him amassing about 155 wins over his career, which puts him fourth all-time behind names like Cobb, Bonds, and Ruth; and just ahead of names like Aaron, Wagner, Speaker, and Musial. Presumably most of the reading audience did not get to enjoy Mays with the baseball knowledge they’ve since acquired. But if a poll were to be taken on which recent player people thought most emulated Mays’ style of play, doesn’t Ken Griffey Jr. glide by with victory?

Everyone knows the tale of Griffey’s body deserting him and depriving the world of the opportunity to say they just saw the best ballplayer to ever live – although, Bonds … — and everyone knows that Griffey made highlight reel grabs, hit towering home runs, and did it all while rocking his cap backwards. Even his nickname, The Kid, is a play on Mays’ Say Hey Kid moniker. And, like it or not, the twilight of Griffey’s playing days are taking a certain resemblance to Mays’.

Griffey has a .237 wOBA this year and an aggregate batting line of .214/.316/.386 since rejoining the Mariners prior to the 2009 season. 26.4% of Griffey’s balls in play have turned into hits this season – a stark increase from 22% last season – and Griffey is even striking out less than in 2009, yet his batting average is worse, his walks have dropped, and his power is non-existent. Griffey Jr. is a designated hitter and yet his upside might be a .305 wOBA.

Even the ticket office and merchandise boosts Griffey supposedly gave the Mariners have disappeared. Seattle has already set a record low in Safeco Field attendance this season, and their series against the Tampa Bay Rays has about as many plastic chairs present as fans. The venom for Griffey might be at an all-time high as well. There’s no upside here.

For all intent and purposes, it’s time. And Griffey probably knows it. The amazing thing about the end of Mays’ career is how much play it gets. You know, that 1973 season saw Mays appear in 66 games and post a .302 wOBA. In 1972 he appeared in 88 games and hit for a .365 wOBA. In the years before that, Mays had consecutive .400 wOBA seasons. What Mays did in 1973 did not tarnish his legacy. What Griffey Jr. is doing now should not tarnish his legacy. Griffey Jr. is a ballplayer hanging around for one more curtain call, one more big hit, and one more doubleheader. This is hardly an unusual end to the career of a superstar.

What Mays did though, by walking away at the first sign that it was time … that’s something I don’t think Griffey or most players would ever be able to emulate. And I think that speaks to just how special Willie Mays is and will forever be.

It feels like Brian Moehler has been around forever. The major league portion of his career began way back in 1996 with the Tigers. In 2002 he moved on to the Reds. After that he flip flopped from the Astros to the Marlins a few times, but he’s settled in Houston since the 2007 season. In that year, he made 42 appearances without a single start. The Astros would have him start 26 games (of 31 appearances) in 2008 and all 29 of his 2009 appearances stemmed from the rotation.

This year, the Astros are using him as a low leverage reliever. Okay, perhaps the better term is extremely low leverage reliever. His average leverage index is 0.08. His seasonal debut came with a five run deficit in the ninth. His next outing began with the Astros trailing by five runs. After a week off, the Astros gave him a moderately important situation and Moehler did fine; entering down by one versus the Chicago Cubs in the eighth inning and escaping without further damage. Since then, though, Moehler is yet to enter a game in which the Astros lead nor are they within three runs of the opposition.

The odd thing is that Moehler isn’t even that bad of a pitcher. Sure, he’s not Wandy Rodriguez, Roy Oswalt, or even Brandon Lyon, but there’s no shame in that. He’s projected to have a 4.55 FIP by ZiPS and his last three seasons have resulted in xFIP of 4.35, 4.49, and 4.67. Again, not great, but keep in mind Moehler made 55 starts during that span.

It would seem part of his usage is tied to his multiple inning ability. And hey, don’t look now, but the Astros’ pen has been pretty good so far. Their 3.89 FIP is better than most bullpens in the league. No matter the feelings on that ranking’s sustainability, the Astros probably can’t justify Moehler moving up the leverage chart quite yet, but I bet they do by season’s end.

If Machiavelli ever penned a manual on how to operate as a general manager he would have undoubtedly included a chapter on how to extinguish the proverbial hot seat. Way number one: Win. Way number two: Win more. Way number three: Win even more. And so on until the options become more about shifting the responsibility of burden and the actions include firing personnel or trading players.

Fortunately for Omar Minaya, Jerry Manuel is giving him all kinds of signs that he’s ready for a post-managerial career. Unfortunately for Minaya, it would be the second manager he’s axed during his Mets’ tenure, and would place the heavily glowing spotlight over his own head. The way things are going, Minaya may not have a choice. He can cut Manuel loose and save his own job for the time being, or allow Manuel to drive the team into the wall and have them both dismissed at once.

Ignore the extra innings mismanagement of Francisco Rodriguez. That’s merely another bullet point on Manuel’s pink slip. Consider the horrendous handling of Jenrry Mejia to date. Manuel has instructed him to focus on his fastball – presumably the pitch that needs the least work for Mejia to become a good starter. If telling the organization’s best pitching prospect to disregard developing his secondary stuff isn’t enough, then how about then using that pitcher in lower leverage situations than just about everyone else in the bullpen? Manuel is actually using Mejia in the perfect developmental situations, yet he’s capping that development by disallowing him to throw his curve and change-up as often as he wants. Meanwhile, Mejia’s service clock continues to tick.

As for the other act of ridiculousness, it was an in-game maneuver that Manuel pulled earlier this afternoon. After allowing Fernando Tatis to pinch hit, Manuel elected to keep him in the ballgame … by removing David Wright. This decision came after Jason Bay had been removed, leaving Gary Matthews Jr. and Jeff Francoeur as the Mets’ corner outfielders. Rather than replace one of those with Tatis – the Mets’ emergency catcher, which is only important because that’s Manuel’s stated reason for keeping him in the game – Manuel decided it would help the team to replace his best player. You know, just in case Rod Barajas suffered an injury.

The Mets fittingly lost on a walkoff home run by Orlando Cabrera. This team is too big of a mess for one with so many excellent and enjoyable players like Jose Reyes, Wright, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana. It’s not just Manuel or just Minaya. It’s a combination. I’m not sure a great manager can overcome a poor general manager, and I don’t believe a great general manager would endure a poor manager. But when you get a pair of the same quality it leads either to beautiful fireworks or a bunch of self-inflicted burns. The Mets currently employ the latter. Truthfully, it’s hard to find an uglier design than what the Mets have in place with these two.

In the 2005 amateur draft the Rockies popped Long Beach State shortstop Troy Tulowitzki at seventh overall. In retrospect, this draft is absolutely loaded with talent upfront. Four of the top 10 selections are all-star level players, three others are above average contributors right now, and only Wade Townsend has no chance of being a useful major leaguer.

Tulowitzki is one of those all-star quality players. He’s posted at least five wins in the two seasons he’s stayed healthy throughout and Colorado was fortuitous enough to sign him to a team-friendly extension. It’s fair to say Colorado has to be happy with their choice and it also seems safe to call Tulowitzki the best player taken outside of the top five. Plain and simple: The Rockies nailed it.

A year later they selected Stanford’s Greg Reynolds – a tree of a man – with the second overall pick. In 2007 the Rockies would once more hold a top 10 pick and would select another college arm in the form of Vanderbilt closer Casey Weathers. The assumption with college players is that they will generally be ready for major league action quicker than their high school counterparts. That assumption is usually true. Unfortunately for the Rockies, Reynolds and Weather have combined to pitch in 14 games for the big league team, and have a combined 5.61 xFIP.

Weathers is still recovering from a blown elbow that kept him out for the entire 2009 season. Meanwhile, Reynolds will begin a rehab assignment on Saturday after only pitching in one game during the 2009 season thanks to a shoulder injury. The pair has contributed more in the way of insurance payments than on the field achievements.

Writing “What if …” articles centered on draft selections is ultimately cliché and fruitless. The knowledge of who the Rockies would have drafted and how those players would have developed is either unavailable or just unknown. The one thing that can be said is that Colorado seems pretty apt at developing their guys – just take a yonder at their lineup, after all – and while they could not have projected injuries, one does wonder just how much better the Rockies would be if they had wound up selecting someone else instead of at least one of Reynolds and Weathers.

Certain proclamations and projections seem to follow players around. Take Robinson Cano. It seems futile to watch a national broadcast and expect to not hear the announcer talk about Cano is a future batting title winner. Where that sentiment came from is unknown, but it stuck to Cano. The oddest part of that assumption is that Cano’s minor league batting average is .278, and in Triple-A it was only .284. In fact, he never topped .300 throughout a full season until a shortened 2005 season.

Nevertheless, if the season ended today, Cano would finish second in the batting title race behind a guy the Yankees traded this off-season. Cano has been better than that though. He’s currently third in wOBA (behind Andre Ethier and Justin Morneau) and he’s been the Yankees’ best offensive player. He’s second in on-base percentage — Marcus Thames’ .552 on-base percentage looks more out of place than Johnny Gee – and first in slugging and ISO.

Cano has served as the tongue of the Yankees’ offense so far. He’s been in complete control while Nick Johnson and Mark Teixeira are struggling to find the .300 wOBA mark, Alex Rodriguez is doing his best impression of a league average batter, Curtis Granderson is on the disabled list, and Randy Winn is doing everything in his power to limit Michael Kay from making the worst pun possible about his last name on a routine basis.

Whenever someone has a career high batting average, the usual culprit is an increase in batting average on balls in play. True, nearly 35% of Cano’s in play balls are turning into hits, but the real suspect here is Cano’s increased home run rate. More than a quarter of the fly balls he’s hit have turned into home runs. His previous career high is 13% set last season. It’s not unbelievable that a 27-year-old with ferocious bat speed would begin to hit more jacks as he grew, but not at a Ryan Howard rate.

All of Cano’s homers have exited via stage right field and HitTracker has the average true distance at 391 feet. That’s almost identical to the 391.3 feet from 2009 and falls well shy of the 398.4 feet from 2008. This isn’t a Joe Mauer situation where Cano is suddenly going the other way. He’s just ripping the ball down the right field line. While it’s unrealistic to continue this power surge to continue, that should not stop this from being a special season for Cano and it probably won’t stop the talks of his surely inevitable assault on the league’s batting averages.

Admittedly, if this happened in May or June or even August nobody would notice. But April just ended and that means an entire month of data is available. And that means people will take note that Mike Pelfrey, Ubaldo Jimenez, Livan Hernandez, and Francisco Liriano had earned run averages below 1.00. A sub-1 ERA is more significant than a .300 batting average because it means the pitchers are allowing fewer than one earned run per nine innings pitched. That’s not to say ERA is meaningful though. This is just for trivial purposes. Four pitchers pulling the sub-1 ERA trick is pretty rare though, check the quantity by year:

2010: 4
2009: 1 (Zack Greinke)
2008: 1 (Cliff Lee)
2007: 0 (Closest: John Maine 1.35)
2006: 0 (Closest: John Thomson 1.32)
2005: 1 (John Patterson)
2004: 0 (Closest: Tom Glavine 1.64)
2003: 0 (Closest: Shawn Chacon 1.04)
2002: 2 (Tom Glavine and Al Leiter)

Throughout the eight season stretch from 2002-2009 we had four sub-1 ERA Aprils. 2010 matched that total. It’s easy to look at recent history (well, the last two years) and pencil in Liriano as the American League Cy Young winner – and hey, maybe he will be – but the rest of the list is rather lackluster. Here’s a look at the top xFIP through April for each of those seasons:

2010: Tim Lincecum (2.21)
2009: Javier Vazquez (2.25)
2008: John Smoltz (2.57)
2007: Jake Peavy (3.18)
2006: Cory Lidle (2.91)
2005: Johan Santana (1.93)
2004: Ben Sheets (2.75)
2003: Javier Vazquez (2.03)
2002: Curt Schilling (1.62)

The John Smoltz incited argument from last season on the granularity of ~40 innings worth of pitching need not be rehashed. This is just one month of data and it’s only notable because it’s the first and only month we have. I mean, do you know who lead the majors in xFIP for June of 2005?* Of course not. The old rule in screenwriting is that the author must mention an object or item at least seven times for the audience to remember it. I think I’ve fulfilled that requirement, but just to make sure: These numbers do not guarantee future success nor do they reflect true talent levels.

*‘Twas Chris Carpenter

The finest moment in Jim Hendry’s general managing career still might be that July night in 2003 when he landed Aramis Ramirez. Henry wound up acquiring Kenny Lofton too for Jose Hernandez, a minor league pitcher, a promise of future employment to Dave Littlefield, and Bobby Hill (much to the chagrin of Randall Simon, this was not the animated character who adores fruit pies). The Cubs were a series of unfortunate events away from reaching the World Series, and the Pirates were the Pirates.

Six and a half years later, Ramirez is the only player from that trade still in the confines of Major League Baseball (Hill has carved out a niche in the Newark Bears, hitting .286/.417/.414 for his career). Some fans of the Cubs may very well wish he was elsewhere with his production so far in the 2010 season. He’s batting .155/.215/.278 with three home runs and three doubles to his name.

Some aspects of Ramirez’s struggles aren’t showing up in his slash line either, such as his strikeout rate which is approaching 26%. Ramirez’s career strikeout rate is hovering above 15%. One of the other underlying issues with Ramirez is his inability to hit fastballs. He’s giving away five runs per 100 fastballs, which is the worst in baseball. In fact, Juan Pierre is second worst, and he’s only giving away three runs per 100 fastballs seen.

Ramirez only has a .169 batting average on balls in play, but some would probably raise the question: is this bad luck or is it a slow bat? Call the sudden decaying run values against fastballs by Morgan Ensberg and Richie Sexson to the stand and there’s a battle brewing. Through Saturday’s affairs, Ramirez was swinging and missing at roughly 11% of the fastballs he’d seen and fouling about 19% off. In 2009, Ramirez found himself whiffing a little under 8% of the time and fouling off 27% of fastballs seen.

It’s probably nothing to worry about. Ramirez started the 2006 season with a similarly poor April against fastballs and chugged along to a .381 wOBA. Still, sharing a dishonorable accolade with recent leaders like Brian Giles and Kevin Millar can’t do much to inspire confidence alongside the slow start.