The Pirates and Dodgers played a matinee inside of a mostly barren, occasionally damp, but always beautiful PNC Park today.

Paul Maholm started for the Pirates. He’s a nice enough pitcher. His FIP last season was sub-4 for the first time in his career. He’s not an ace by any means and his game is all about groundballs. His fastball averages a little under 90 miles per hour. I was talking with Marc Normandin during the game and raised this question: Has any team been more stuff averse than the Pirates over the last few seasons? The only mainstay Pirates’ arm since Oliver Perez left that had good stuff is Ian Snell.

Curious and having plenty of time to do some SQL fiddling, I punched a query into the Baseball Databank and found that, since 2000, the Pirates have had three seasons where a pitcher topped 100 innings and also had a K/9 over 8. The top non-Perez and Snell entrees on the query were Kris Benson (in the year 2000) and Kip Wells. That’s just no good for Pirates fans who double as tools whores.

I wanted to test my claim a little more though, and began punching through other teams, using that arbitrary 8 K/9 number as the baseline and 2000-2008 (I don’t have the latest release of the Databank yet) as the timeframe. Here’s what I found:

Team Total
STL 1
SEA 1
TEX 1
ATL 2
COL 2
OAK 2
BAL 3
PIT 3
DET 4
LAA 4
TBA 4
TOR 4
CHA 5
WSN 5
CIN 6
MIL 6
CLE 7
HOU 7
MIN 7
PHI 7
NYN 8
NYA 9
SFG 9
SDP 10
FLA 11
LAD 11
ARI 12
BOS 13
CHN 18

Close, but not quite. Of course, you could argue that strikeouts per nine is not the best way to judge stuff, and you’d have a point. Still, it seems that a team like the Pirates under previous management would’ve surrounded flame-throwing starters like moths around … well, flamethrowers. Evidently not so.

Edgar Renteria had 115 hits last season. He recorded a little over 4% of that total in today’s game. Yup, Renteria took home the second stage of the improbable shortstop offensive outbursts by recording five hits in five at-bats. Not to be a downer and kill the impromptu parades undoubtedly taking place across streets in the Bay Area, but … have you ever looked at ow many players have recorded five hit games? It’s a nice casserole of names and abilities. Here are the last five years’ worth of April five hit games:

2009
Cristian Guzman
Ian Kinsler
Marlon Byrd
Mark Teahen
Ryan Braun
Russell Branyan

2008
Rafael Furcal

2007
Willy Taveras
Chase Utley
Scott Rolen

2006
Mike Young
Ivan Rodriguez

2005
Mark Kotsay
Mark Loretta
Alex Rodriguez
Aaron Miles

This list fascinates me because, again, the spread of talent is pretty wide. You have future Hall of Famers, all-stars, and superstars, and then … Miles and Tavares. Here’s a link to Baseball-Reference’s Play Index with a complete listing of every five hit game since the 1920s.

Now, this is not to say Renteria isn’t on his way to an improved season. There’s almost no way he posts a wOBA in the .280s again. It’s just that this game does not signify in any way that he’s back, front, or sideways. I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence and state the obvious, okay I will. Five hit games can happen to pretty much any batter. They are random and sometimes things just go that batter’s way for a night. Luck doesn’t discriminate on batting slot, defensive position, or projection.

How else do you explain Brett Gardner and Billy Butler sharing something in common besides Matt Klaassen’s heart?

Third night of the season and since more than half of the league was off, the decision came down to a pair of 7 P.M. starts: Either the Yankees and Red Sox or Rays and Orioles. No decision necessary. Here’s a few observations noted throughout the game.

Adam Jones and Matt Wieters are studs

One would wager that 99% of the reading populace is well aware of the existence and talents of Mr. Jones and Mr. Wieters. One is an uber toolsy centerfielder, capable of playing shallow without hesitation, with a great accelerator and iffy brakes on outside pitches. The other is a switch-hitting offensive-minded catcher. Both hit solo homers last night, and Jones added an infield single. Wieters received the Stephen Strasburg hype buggy treatment last season, but “disappointed.” Wieters had a .330 wOBA through 385 plate appearances as a rookie. He is a catcher. He is a catcher in the American League East. He was a rookie catcher in the American League East and he posted a league average wOBA. That is unnatural.

Take those two, add Nick Markakis, add Brian Roberts, and then think about adding Joshua Bell and, well, it’s not hard to fall in love with the potential of this team. It sounds defeatist or even mocking in nature to write something like, “They could compete for third place next year …” but that’s just the reality of the situation and it’s not a knock on the Orioles whatsoever.

Joe Maddon’s managing

I think Maddon is a smart individual, and relative to the other MLB managers, he’s probably above average, otherwise I doubt the Rays would continue to employ him. Some interesting developments that had me scurrying to the splits’ pages.

1) Randy Choate facing a right-handed batter

Choate entered to face Nick Markakis – a lefty – whom he retired on strikes. Miguel Tejada was then due up with another lefty – Luke Scott – on deck. Maddon only had Lance Cormier warming and, with one out and a runner on first, he elected to keep Choate in the game. I think this was the wrong decision despite the good result – Choate inducing a groundball that turned into a double play.

Choate is left-handed and rocks a side-armed release. That screams platoon split and, sure enough, Choate has a career 2.57 FIP versus lefties and 4.87 versus righties despite facing more righties throughout. Cormier became a full-time reliever in 2008 (with the Orioles, coincidentally) and, since then, has little in the way of a platoon split of which to speak. He’s posted FIP versus lefties of 4.02 and 4.28; and against righties, FIP of 4.06 and 4.08.

Scott was the key, since after Choate retired him in the next inning, Cormier entered to face the switch-hitting Wieters. It just seemed like two batters too late, even if no damage was done.

2) Carl Crawford facing a left-handed pitcher

This one is more trivial. The Rays have Gabe Kapler on the bench. He hits lefties quite well, and he’s a good defender, meaning replacing the superb Crawford in close situations with a lefty on the mound might not be as insane it sounds. Let’s say Kapler is projected to be a .350 wOBA hitter versus southpaws. Account for the pinch hitter penalty (10%) and you have him at .315. Crawford’s never been too good at hitting lefties, but his career .308 mark is a bit unfair and skewed from his first few seasons when he was absolutely miserable against them. Over the last three seasons he’s hit .313, .289, and .360 … which basically kills the idea that he should be replaced by Kapler in such spots.

But wait. In the ninth inning, Maddon shows understanding of this very situation once more, leaving Crawford in versus Mike Gonzalez. Crawford promptly drove home the game-tying and game-winning runs, and by pinch-hitting for Dioner Navarro with Kelly Shoppach.

Dave Trembley’s managing

In the seventh inning, he had to decide whether Will Ohman or Cla Meredith would face Ben Zobrist. I do not envy him.

This is running long, and that’s without mentioning Evan Longoria’s 470 foot homer, Rafael Soriano doing his best to invoke mass hysteria about his quality, Luke Scott’s free-flowing hair, Kevin Millwood’s missing hair, and Mike Gonzalez one-upping Soriano’s incompetence. Forget the payrolls and media attention; this was the game of the night.

I find these early season posts harder to write than the off-season posts. Part of it is the desire to write about the games occurring, while at the same time trying to provide something worth reading. There are only so many ways to write about the improbability of Yuniesky Betancourt’s at-bat against Justin Verlander yesterday*. With that in mind, I’m going to shamelessly steal a topic from Dave Cameron’s 2009 early season posts: Wins in the bank.

Dave’s original post was followed by Sky Kalkman expanding on the topic by applying it to the CHONE standings through that point. The concept is explained by both, but I’ll rephrase it here for originality’s sake. Say the Orioles start off 6-4. CHONE projected the Orioles to win 75 games, or 46% of their games. That 60% win rate seems to be overachieving, but don’t trip into the Gambler’s Fallacy line of thinking that the Orioles will go 3-7 at some point to ‘even things out’.

No, instead you give the Orioles credit for those earned wins while respecting the projections heading forward. 46% of 152 equates to 70 wins. Add those six they already racked up, and the Orioles solid start improved their expected record by a whole game. Of course, this can be applied at just about any time throughout the season. Say the Rays go 35-20 and we still have reason to expect them to be a 90 win team, then they would improve their expected record by four games. In that division, in that race, that’s a huge swing.

It’s early and easy to get swept away in some paranoia and hyperbole. But yeah, the results matter, and they can make a difference.

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Last season, the Royals blew three leads in which Zack Greinke would’ve qualified for a win and actually lost each of those affairs. Baseball is back in session, and the Royals wasted little time going to the blackboard. Greinke didn’t pitch his best (which is to say he gave up baserunners), but he still left after six innings and the Royals up by two runs. Trey Hillman then went to the bullpen. Here’s a quick rundown of the hell unleashed thereafter:

In box score format:

Roman Colon 0.0 IP, 2 BF, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 ER
Robinson Tejeda 0.1 IP, 4 BF, 3 H, 0 BB, 3 ER
Juan Cruz 1.1 IP, 6 TBF, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 ER

Before the Royals’ pen could secure an out, they had surrendered the lead. The highlights of the inning being 1) Austin Jackson recording his first Major League hit (a liner over third base) and 2) Johnny Damon sitting on a 2-1 Tejeda fastball, then pulling it into right field to give the Tigers a lead. Miguel Cabrera would later tack on a few more runs, and the rout was on.

It’s one game. It’s opening day. These things are going to happen to every team. Still though, in terms of disheartening results, this ranks pretty high. The worst part might be the predictability of the whole thing. During the FanGraphs’ chat A poll was taken early in the inning asking whether the Royals’ pen would blow it and more than half the conglomerate voted yes.

The bright side is that Greinke won the Cy Young despite missing out on those victories last season, and maybe he can do it again this year. The dark side is he may have to for the sake of Matt Klaasen’s sanity.

The Oakland Athletics caught lightning in a mousetrap when they promoted Andrew Bailey essentially from Double-A to the Major League pen. Bailey had appeared in one Triple-A game, and started for most of his minor league career, but the decision paid dividends quickly. Bailey was one of the game’s top relievers last season. Injuries and concern over Bailey’s health has lead the A’s to do something similar this spring.

Tyson Ross is considered one of the Athletics’ best prospects. Baseball America recently ranked him as the sixth best prospect and our own Marc Hulet had him at fifth, saying this:

If you love groundballers like we do at Fangraphs, then you’ll want to meet Ross. The right-hander posted a 56.6% ground-ball rate on the season, including a 61.9 GB% in 66.3 double-A innings. Just 22, Ross is a promising pitcher despite a modest strikeout rate in double-A (8.55 in high-A, 5.58 K/9 in double-A). His fastball can touch the mid-90s so the strikeouts should come once he improves his secondary pitches. He also needs to improve his command and control a bit after posting a walk rate of 3.48 on the seasons. Ross allowed 10 homers in high-A (1.04 HR/9) despite his impress ground-ball numbers. If his secondary pitches don’t improve, he could become a dominating late-game reliever with his sinking fastball.

Hulet wrote that only a month and a half ago, but he looks quite prescient, since the Athletics will feature Ross in the opening day bullpen. The aforementioned Baseball America noted that Ross’ delivery puts a good deal of stress on his shoulder — which lead to some injury issues. If the A’s feel Ross is an injury waiting to happen then a move to the bullpen should theoretically help.

Earl Weaver used to break his starters in as relievers, and it seems likely the A’s will use Ross in a role similar to Bailey’s in 2009. No, not as a closer, but rather as a reliever capable of going at least two innings at a time. Before Bailey turned into their closer (in June), he appeared in 23 games and threw 32 innings. As you can imagine, he pitched quite well out of the role. Ross shouldn’t be expected to pitch quite that well, but the question that remains is whether this is a short- or long-term experiment. Or, rather, is Tyson Ross’s days of starting behind him?

Ross will improve the Athletics’ pen, but that doesn’t mean this is the best decision. Unlike Jenrry Meija, though, it might be defensible.

This is my last post before baseball’s regular season gets underway. That means, anything that needs to be written before 2010 kicks off, needs to be written now. I’ve chosen to make the most of this closing window by previewing an issue that I guarantee will be written about extensively throughout this season, which just so happens to be the big trade return.

There are a few subsets under this. I’ll focus on two in particular: 1) The free agent to be and 2) the minor league signee who lights it up. Pretty transparently named, but here’s a rundown of each.

The Free Agent to Be

Let’s use Carl Crawford. After the season he will reach free agency. He’s no guarantee to acquire Type-A free agent compensation. Say he does, though; at the deadline, if the Rays are not 150 games ahead of the rest of the American League, undoubtedly some will wonder whether the Rays will trade Crawford or let him walk for nothing. Sky Kalkman put together a great resource for comparative analysis between draft picks and prospects that, in theory, would sprinkle some logic into hot and heavy rosterbation sessions. Only since have we found that to be impossible.

More to the point, though. People overrate returns on players like Crawford all the time. No, he’s not bringing back Buster Posey. Everybody wants shiny prospects but nobody wants to tell their player goodbye until the season’s outcomes are definitive. That will not stop people from wondering out loud as to whether Crawford for Wandy Rodriguez and Hunter Pence is a fair deal come July 30th.

The Minor League Signee

Sticking to the Rays roster for an example, let’s go with Hank Blalock. A month ago, Blalock was without a job and had to choose between minor league offers from the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays. A few weeks later, he may or may not make the opening day roster. Either way, nothing, I repeat, nothing he’s done since is going to alter his market value dramatically. As much as his agent and the Rays wish a sucker rally would develop, it’s just highly, highly unlikely.

Teams have years and years of data on a guy like Blalock, why would three weeks worth of spring data change his market from two minor league deals to a flood of trade offers that have any modicum of value? Even an injury at this stage in the game does not mean Blalock is suddenly going to become an attractive option.

And yes, I’m well aware this post isn’t preventing or curbing either of these scenarios from popping up all across the internet. But, if it stops just one brain-numbing proposal from being written about, then I think I’ve done my part.

The Dodgers released Brian Barton. Meanwhile, Garret Anderson will evidently make the opening day roster. There’s something amusing about these two statements.

Anderson is a veteran. He’s fought in numerous baseballing wars endured in the Los Angeles market for years upon years. Anderson’s career has become a parody of itself. In the past he was always the choice for most underrated player, and now he’s just bad and overrated. Since 2005 Anderson has been an above average hitter once and above average fielder once. His combined WAR during that time is 2.8, but he’s been paid in excess of $40M to be an annually below average player. He figures to back-up the outfield and first base positions while pinch hitting as well.

Barton is considerably younger than Anderson, right-handed – which may ultimately be his downfall – and also an outfielder. His Major League sample size is too small to draw conclusions from and in 640 Triple-A plate appearances, his OPS is only .720, although that underrates Barton, who walks more than the usual minor leaguer. He’s still cheap, offers more upside, and he’s fast. If those reasons aren’t enough to secure Barton a roster spot over Anderson, then so be it. However, the Dodgers will regret this maneuver if the National League institutes a rule surrounding aerodynamics knowledge and scoring runs.

Oh yes, Barton has knowledge of aerodynamics, and as he shared in this interview a few years back, he grew up dreaming of being an astronaut, and how the pursuit of those dreams affected his status as a baseball player:

BB: When I was younger I had dreams. I wanted to be an astronaut growing up. As I got older and older, I really just wanted to be a baseball player. Everything else at that point became secondary. This is my dream and what I’ve spent pretty much all my life doing. And then from the outside world it was almost taken from me because a lot of people–the majority I didn’t even know–felt like they knew what I wanted out of life. That was one of the main things that hurt, especially when draft day came up. A lot of people who never saw me play, a lot of people I’ve never even talked to in my life now had what I saw as a pretty glaring role in determining my future.

That kind of bothers me a little bit because I think any time you make a decision on me you should at least come talk to me–know what’s going on in my mind before you just assume things.

As an aside: Human beings generally classify people based on three physical attributes. Those are: Shape, size, and color. For the life of me, I can’t shake the idea that somewhere, in some manila folder on some desktop is a scouting report that compares Barton to another black outfielder with speed and smarts; that outfielder being the scholarly Fernando Perez.

There is a case to be made here that Barton is a better player at this point in time. He is easily a superior defender and baserunner, and the average wOBA of his CHONE and ZiPS projections is .307. Anderson’s CHONE/ZiPS average is roughly .314. That’s about a run difference over 200 plate appearances, which disintegrates once the aforementioned defensive and baserunning are taken into account.

And hey, even if you don’t buy into the argument that Barton could be a Dodger, he should definitely be on Cistulli’s All Joy Team, right?

Jeremy Sowers passed through waivers untouched. This is unsurprising. In 400 (exactly 400) Major League innings as a starter, Sowers has an xFIP over 5 and a contact rate near 88%. His high-80s velocity is unimpressive, even for a lefty, and only slightly does he initiate groundballs more than fly balls. Truthfully, Sowers’ current state is rather uninteresting. He’s going to Triple-A for a reason, and that reason is because his left arm seethes with mediocrity.

Take a moment to remember back to the good days. Do you remember, for instance, that Sowers’ first season featured 88 innings with an ERA of 3.57? Sure, his xFIP was 4.49, and his ERA was fueled by a low BABIP, but hey, ERA! More than half of Sowers’ starts came in August and September. He fed the hype machine by posting a 3.21 ERA during that stretch. Outside of that late season push, Sowers has a career 5.44 ERA, and his peripherals support it.

One of the reasons for Sowers struggles appears to be his heavy reliance on his fastball. He threw it more than half the time, yet batters swung and missed about 5% of the time. In fact, the only pitch that Sowers threw with any regularity that induced a decent number of whiffs was his slider, at 8.4% empty swings. For comparison’s sake, Nick Blackburn only gets 3.2% whiffs on his fastball, but 10% on his slider, and he’s a groundball heavy pitcher. Something Sowers isn’t.

The whole mess is particularly a headache for the Indians because Sowers was the sixth overall selection in the 2004 draft. Taken around such breadwinners as Mark Rogers, Wade Townsend, and Chris Nelson. Even if one ignores the signability issues associated with Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew, there were some quality players taken a few picks later, though, that would definitely help the Indians in the present day. Of course, it’s easy to say such in retrospect, since even up until the 2006 season, Sowers was ranked as one of the top 100 prospects by Baseball America.

This whole thing reads sort of like a career obituary, which is a little unfair to Sowers. He’s going to Triple-A and being removed from the 40-man roster, not being sold to Japan (although, look at what that’s done for Colby Lewis) or traded for a stick of gum. Maybe he finds a new pitch in Triple-A and rejoins the fray later this year. Or maybe he doesn’t.

Not long ago, Sergio Santos represented the name of a shortstop prospect for the Arizona Diamondbacks, a pretty well-regarded prospect at that. The D-Backs made him a first round pick in 2002 and by 2004 Baseball America ranked him as the 37th best prospect overall. The offensive aspect of the game was lost on Santos. In more than 3,000 plate appearances, Santos’ career minor league line is .248/.305/.393. As a result, the Chicago White Sox converted him to pitching last season.

In 28 innings across four levels, Santos struck out 30 batters and walked 20. This spring, he’s shown the White Sox enough to break camp with the big league team. It might be the quickest hitter-to-pitcher transition that finds itself to the majors. Tony Pena Jr. converted last season but he’s yet to reach the majors. Casey Kelly is nowhere close. Rick Ankiel appeared in the Majors as a pitcher last in 2004, and then as a hitter in 2007. Adam Loewen, Kevin Cash, and Ben Davis never made it that far.

So, the timetable alone makes this an interesting case. It only helps that Santos evidently has a strong arm. That’s to be expected, since he did play shortstop and most scouting tidbits about him suggest such. CHONE is none too optimistic about his chances of making this work, although, again, we’re talking about 28 innings of work, which means the 6.72 FIP projection is essentially meaningless and shouldn’t be taken with a dosage of salt, no matter the size.

The question I pose is this: What do we project Santos at? Replacement level, or perhaps lower? Presumably the White Sox staff thinks of him as an above replacement level arm, and for all we know, he could be. But the accelerated time table and lack of experience makes me suspect this just isn’t the case and that Chicago might make their roster worse by carrying Santos. Although, that’s an easily fixed problem and not one that will alter their season dramatically.