Earlier today, the Detroit Tigers traded Nate Robertson to the Florida Marlins for minor leaguer Jay Voss. The move is essentially a body dump for the Tigers, since they’ll be paying for 96% of his 2010 salary. That means, the Marlins are getting Robertson for what equates to a league minimum salary and a future lefty specialist.

Not long ago, Robertson was viewed as an important, irreplaceable part of the Tigers’ future. Injuries have since led to this. The Wichita State alum was drafted in the fifth round of the 1999 draft by the Marlins, and later traded to the Tigers prior to the 2003 season for Mark Redman. Redman and the Marlins’ rotation of Method Men combined to lead them to a World Series title. Robertson would have his own high moments years later. How high? Well, he helped the Tigers ascend the ranks and reach a World Series of their own.

Robertson is a southpaw and a 32-year-old one at that. He only started six games for the Tigers last season, but before that had a run of five straight seasons of at least 150 innings which mostly encompasses his career. Such a run of success convinced the Tigers to ink him to an extension worth $21.25M over three years, of which he enters the final season.

Robertson’s career xFIP to date is 4.42, while his regular FIP is 4.74. The 1,000+ inning sample size in a favorable pitching park suggests Robertson’s issues with the long ball might be traced to his struggles with right-handed batters more so than a run of bad luck. Observe his career splits:

Versus lefties: 1,113 TBF, 18.6% SO, 5.3% uBB, 3.34 FIP
Versus righties: 3,491 TBF, 14.5% SO, 8.6% uBB, 5.21 FIP

Odds are Robertson would make a killer reliever against lefties, but the Marlins – excuse me, the Tigers – are paying him to start, so start he will. CHONE projects him at a 4.81 FIP and ZiPS at 4.97. Bump those down a little since he is transitioning to the National League, and maybe, just maybe, he can luck into a 2 win season for the Fish.

As I’ve discussed before though, I fully expect the Marlins to have Robertson lead the league in ERA through July 31st, promptly flip him for something useful, and then watch as he explodes for his new team. There’s magic in them there waters and Robertson has the eyewear to dive right in.

This one is pretty easy. Chad Gaudin kills righties and makes perfect sense coming out of any team’s bullpen. The Oakland Athletics need relievers, well, healthy relievers. Gaudin comes cheaply since he’ll be cashing two paychecks (roughly $700k from both, Oakland and the Yankees), and his performance speaks for itself.

Through nearly 600 career innings in the Majors and with 75 starts, somehow Gaudin has maintained a decent FIP at 4.5.What makes that career FIP interesting is that, as mentioned, he is a righty killer, but lefties punish him. As a starter, Gaudin would face lineups loaded with southpaws. His career totals for batters faced are 1,267 lefties and 1,389 righties, which only makes sense, given that Gaudin has a career 5.16 FIP versus lefties and 3.97 versus righties.

If used in a strict role where Gaudin only faces batters of the same hand, it would be easy to see him performing better than his FIP projections of 4.58 (CHONE) and 4.42 (ZiPS). Also worth noting: Those projections include a combined 52 starts. Expectations for his performance would alter by something like an entire run per nine innings if he became a full-time reliever.

The move represents a return to Gaudin’s old stomping grounds. Oakland is actually the organization in which Gaudin has pitched in the most games for as he did so during a three-year stint that stretched between 2006 and 2008. With the collective health of Andrew Bailey and Michael Wuertz questionable and opening day a week away, Billy Beane recently added Edwar Ramirez to the bullpen mixture as well.

One more time for redundancy’s sake: This move just makes sense.

The Cubs are in the midst of a drought. That one, too, but over the last decade-plus, their first round selections have inspired confidence only in the team’s inability to draft well in that round. 1999’s Ben Christensen is more famous for his hit-batsmen antics than his playing career. Then came Luis Montanez, then that Mark Prior guy, but since then, things have resembled Wrigley’s ivy in January. In 2002 came Matthew Clanton, Chadd Blasko, Luke Hagerty, and Bobby Brownlie. The next few years brought Ryan Harvey, Mark Pawelek, and then Tyler Colvin – who seemingly just made the Cubs opening day 25-man roster over the weekend.

Colvin appeared out of place as the 13th overall selection in the 2006 draft. The Clemson Tigers’ outfielder drew comparisons to Steve Finley and Shawn Green in part because of his left-handed stroke. Throughout the minors, Colvin has spent most of his time playing center, although with the presence of Marlon Byrd that appears likely to change. Kosuke Fukudome and Alfonso Soriano would presumably be the most affected, though early suggestions have Colvin playing once a week at each position.

Offensively, Colvin has more than 1,000 at-bats at Double-A, yet he’s never spent a day at Triple-A. His career Double-A slash line is .276/.318/.461; that’s an ISO of .185 to go with a walk rate of 5.5% and strikeout rate of 19.4%. Baseball America has noted that Colvin’s plate approach against crafty pitchers is iffy because he must cheat to square up on fastballs. That might be a problem because it would seem that the pool of crafty pitchers is only going to enlarge once major league teams become aware – if they aren’t well aware already.

Colvin’s fantastic exhibition season appears to be the driving force behind him making the roster. In an ideal world, your team’s players perform above expectations in spring training. This is not an ideal world. Reality exists. The reality is Colvin’s spring performance is unlikely to be a harbinger of Colvin’s rise to the outfield prospects elite. CHONE and ZiPS have Colvin posting a wOBA of .308 and .299, respectively. Unless his glove is something else, he’s going to hurt the Cubs more than he’s going to help them.

A guess: Most people who read this site grew up yearning to become – heck, dreamed of becoming – a professional ballplayer.

Another guess: Most people who read this site are not professional ballplayers.

Lots of broken dreams surround the job title “professional ballplayer.” The lavish life, full of carefree living, groupie love, hero worship, private jets, and, in Carson’s dreams, additional groupie love. Well, it’s not really like that. Not for most professional ballplayers. The title is ambiguous, although since there are more minor leaguers than major leaguers, the realities of the majority should overshadow the fortune of the extreme minority.

Nevertheless, when people read about Danny Duffy walking away, one reaction is more common than any other. Something like, “How could he!?” Duffy has been called a moron, an idiot, a fool, and a few words that need not be reprinted. Here are the facts as we know them:

– Duffy is 21 years old and the Kansas City Royals selected him in the third round of the 2007 amateur draft.
– His signing bonus was worth roughly $370,000.
– He ranked just outside of Keith Law’s most recent top 100 prospects list.
– Had yet to pitch this spring due to elbow soreness.

To say Duffy had a golden track to the show is a lie. The attrition war that comes with young pitchers has claimed countless victims. Most of them you don’t remember. Most of them never came near a big league ballpark as a player. The majority of the minor league community won’t reach the bigs. That could be a good thing for some, since that one taste as a 25-year-old inspires them to latch onto the hope for another three, five, maybe six years. Then what? Then it’s time to find a day job.

It’s not that these guys never dreamt about being ballplayers. They almost definitely did. It’s just those dreams about the perfect picnic never account for the traffic. As I’ve written before, pitching baseballs seems like a great life, until the next mortgage payment relies upon it. And the thing often ignored when it comes to a player walking away is just how hard this decision probably is for them. The guilt of being successful and blessed with natural talent. The guilt of getting this far, and then to just walk away because you feel overwhelmed or realized that reliance upon money and ability to have fun sometimes cancel out. That guilt has to be… well, difficult.

Critics often accuse saberists of losing sight of an endless truth – that being that most baseball players are human beings, too. Indeed, they are. We might be experiencing the most varied collection of ballplayers in the history of the game. You have metric conscious sweethearts like Brian Bannister. Oft-beat and often humorous players like Manny Ramirez. And then there are players with amazing intellect, like Fernando Perez, or amazing mystique, like Ichiro Suzuki. This collection includes a more taboo side, too. Players like Khalil Greene, dealing with some personal issues and a battle with self, are beginning to find it acceptable to openly exist. And yeah, there are players like Grant Desme and Duffy. They have dreams, and those dreams included baseball at some point.

If Duffy’s dream is to exit on his own, without a tattered elbow, without a wrinkled face bearing disappointment, or without the assistance of poor performances, and instead to go out with a good perspective on being a professional ballplayer then yeah, I can accept that.

Part three of the Twitterverse giveback. FanGraphs’ colleague Zach Sanders asks about the Braves’ utility players. This confused me, because Sanders is a smart fellow who can figure things like this out himself quicker than I can. He seems slightly nefarious though, so I’ve arrived at the conclusion that his request is just Eric Hinske bait. That’s cool, Sanders. I’m totally onto you.

Anyhow, by “Braves utility players” I’m going to take creative liberty and assume that Sanders means Omar Infante. Take a glance at Infante’s positional column on Baseball-Reference. Since 2007 here are the values:

2007: 468597
2008: 75648
2009: 456879

For those who speak in English, not numerical positional coding, allow me to translate: Infante has seen quite a bit of time at second base, third base, shortstop, left field, center field, and right field over the last three seasons. By “quite a bit of time” I mean, he’s really seen playing time all over the field. Last season, for instance, he made 30 appearances at second; 10 at third; 10 at short; 10 in the outfield corner spots; and 8 in center. Plus three pinch running appearances. Infante himself is a pretty useful player. He’s roughly a league average hitter who excels versus lefties and he fields most of those positions well, or at least passably.

My guess is he’s going to continue to play all over since Martin Prado appears to be the better player overall. That makes for a boring piece though, so allow me to parlay this into another Tweet (this one from Philkid3 who used to write on Beyond the Boxscore) in which he wonders aloud whether the back-up middle infielder should primarily possess the skill set of a shortstop, which is presumably interpreted as being able to fill-in at shortstop when necessary. Infante himself actually was a shortstop until the Detroit Tigers acquired Carlos Guillen in 2004. He then moved to second before becoming the super sub that he is today.

I want to open this one up to discussion a bit more, because my answer is that yes. Not because you necessarily want it (although I do think you want the defensive flexibility that being a passable shortstop emits), but because most utility players seem to be former shortstops who couldn’t cut it at the position full-time for whatever reason. Although, maybe I’m off base.

Part two of the Twitterverse giveback. This suggestions comes way of Jake Larsen, who just so happened to give me a chance to write on DRaysBay. That turned out decently.

Truth be told, when Tommy Rancel suggested an interview with Jaime Cevallos, I was skeptical. Cevallos, self-labeled as The Swing Mechanic, was the man responsible for Ben Zobrist transformation. The process was easy enough though, and Cevallos was a willing participant, so why not? Rancel has gone on to write multiple pieces surrounding what he named The Zobrist Code and Cevallos’ popularity has mushroomed since that interview. Just Google Cevallos’ name and you can see he’s become a bit of a cult figure.

Rancel delves into Cevallos’ history in more detail than I will, but it goes like this: Jaime Cevallos was a scrap-hitting middle infielder who struggled to break the Mendoza line at Saint Mary’s University. Along the way, he began ignoring all outside advice about his swing, and instead looked to the professionals (in this case, he cut out images from issues of Sports Illustrated) for help. After doing this, Cevallos morphed into the Ted Williams of Saint Mary’s University.

Through the ebbs and flows of life, fate found Ben Zobrist and Jaime Cevallos together. Months later, Ben Zobrist became Ben Zobrist. Was it fate? Of course it was. Fate even asked for a finder’s fee. Zobrist, not unlike Cevallos, was a slap-hitting middle infielder who drew comparisons to Jay Bell. During his rookie year of 2006, Zobrist would show bunt in between having the bat knocked out of his hands. Over the last two seasons Zobrist has hit 39 homers in 699 at-bats. Zobrist has 23 career homers in 1,336 minor league at-bats. Saying that appears improbable is being kind.

Zobrist isn’t the only Cevallos’ student to flash improved power, either. The Reds’ Drew Sutton saw his ISO increase after meeting with Cevallos. The Rays’ Justin Ruggiano is in the midst of a scorching spring, hitting .447/.488/.868 in 38 at-bats and reinvigorating a career that appeared to cap at the Triple-A level. And there are other minor leaguers who appear on Cevallos’ site with testimonies on how much Cevallos’ MKNX bat has improved their results, although the numbers come in either too small of a sample size, or do not support these statements.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see a few of Cevallos’ video breakdowns, much like the ones he shares with his hitters, and hear him speak on hitting planes and bat placement. And, look, the guy is very convincing. He’s clearly confident in his abilities and at the very least sounds like he knows a little bit about what it means to swing the bat with power. He’ll flash a few Ted Williams’ images into the fray, then go back to the hitter in question, then switch back to Ken Griffey Jr. in his prime, and yes, it’s very easy to get lost in the whole thing and take Cevallos as a hitting prophet.

Yet, I’m still a skeptic. Players can improve, yes, and Cevallos very well could have found the secrets to unearthing power potential in any batter, but the sample size is just too small to attempt and draw meaningful conclusions about his Midas-like touch. In the end, though, it’s not up to me to decide whether Cevallos’ teachings have merit or not. Plus, at the very least, you have to applaud him for making a bit of a name for himself and having big dreams.

Sometimes success in life depends on being able to convince people of your authority rather than actually being an authority. Isn’t that what some experts are all about?

This is the first of a few reader-submitted topics from the Twitterverse. Basically, it’s my small way of giving back to you folk who endure me on a daily basis. The first topic was suggested by a pair of my favorite baseball writers: Tommy Bennett and Shawn Hoffman. Both of Baseball Prospectus’ employment and both are masters of their craft. Bennett is also master of his magnificent beard, while Hoffman mastered this nifty Google Chrome add-on.

Cubs’ fans were well accustomed to left-handed first baseman by the time Hee-Seop Choi climbed the ivy. Mark Grace manned the position for more than a decade. The illustrious Matt Stairs and Fred McGriff split the majority of the playing time once Grace signed with Arizona. Both were lefties with endearing cult qualities; namely great mustaches. Choi was a product of the Cubs’ international scouting efforts

Baseball America named him the Cubs’ top prospect in 2003, while ranking him as the 22nd best prospect overall. They praised his short stroke and power potential. Potential that would never be realized, although that would be a common theme amongst fellow Cubs’ prospects David Kelton and Nic Jackson. Choi tore up the minors. He hit 45 homers in 810 Triple-A at-bats between the ages of 22 and 24. The Cubs decided Choi was ready for Major League exposure on a consistent basis in 2003. And boy, did they look right.

Coming into an early June affair with the New York Yankees (famous for the Texas heat match-up occurring between Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens), Choi had a line of .244/.389/.496 with seven homers in a shade under 170 plate appearances. It was on that day that Choi’s career took a drastic turn. In the top of the fourth, Jason Giambi would hit a pop fly that neither Choi or Wood efficiently called. They collided, and in a disturbing scene, an ambulance would enter Wrigley Field through the right field fence. Choi would suffer a concussion and miss most of the month. Upon his return, he would hit .164/.263/.269 in 77 plate appearances as Eric Karros became the starter.

Choi would be traded to the Florida Marlins for Derrek Lee in the off-season. A deal that looked like a win for the Marlins, if Choi could live up to his potential. Through 340 plate appearances, he looked well on his way. He was hitting .270/.388/.495 with 15 homers. The Marlins traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers, though, in the Brad Penny trade. Choi would go homerless over his next 76 2004 plate appearances while posting a .531 OPS. He would spend 2005 with the Dodgers too, posting a .789 OPS and hitting another 15 homers in 368 plate appearances, but they would non-tender him in the off-season.

Choi would then be claimed off waivers by the Boston Red Sox in March of 2006 and would sign a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for the 2007 season. He would sign alongside some guy named Carlos Pena, in what amounted to a battle between the two former top prospects with loads of power to become the Rays’ eventual first baseman. Pena won, and Choi has since found a home in the Korean leagues.

It’s hard to really put Choi’s career in perspective. What isn’t hard is seeing why general managers like Larry Beinfest, Theo Epstein, and Andrew Friedman saw in Choi. His power was legitimate. He walked 13% of the time during his big league career and struck out around a third of the time. His greatest shortcoming was a hellacious time against southpaws. His career wOBA is .341 overall, but only .279 against lefties. Managers were well aware of the struggles and impressively Choi only saw 106 plate appearances against lefties, and 980 versus righties.

Choi celebrated his 31st birthday eight days ago. Presumably his Major League career is over. The ending was pretty bland and in 100 years Choi is going to be less than a footnote in baseball history. He’ll be a journeyman or something. But aren’t journeymen supposed to stink? Choi was a part of five different organizations in five seasons time despite being an above average hitter with a terrible platoon split while batting from the side where having a terrible platoon split still means starting 60-70% of the games. Heck, insert him in the Mets’ lineup tomorrow and they become better because of it — although I suppose the Mets would only be interested in the 20-year-old version of Choi.

Maybe Choi hated American life or just missed Korea. I can feel him on both, but I do find it disappointing that nobody gave Choi 450 plate appearances to go with that trip to the Home Run Derby.

Franklin Morales has endured a career destined for someone well beyond his years. Morales has always been a precocious talent though. The Rockies signed him back in November 2002. At the time, Morales was two months from turning 17. In 2007, Baseball America would rank Morales as the 30th best prospect. A season later he was up to 8th — the highest rank a Rockies’ pitcher has ever received. He made his MLB start at the age of 21, and threw in more playoff games that year than he had previously at Triple-A.

The six-foot-nothing southpaw seemingly found his home in the bullpen last season, which is to say that he appeared 40 times and 95% stemmed from being summoned from the bullpen. He struck out more than a batter per inning while still struggling with some control issues. Nevertheless, he managed to deliver a 4.15 FIP while throwing in some tense moments. He tossed fire to lefties, striking out 10 per nine and showing a better feel for the zone.

Unsurprisingly, Morales leans heavily on his mid-90s fastball, but does mix his breaking pitch in along with the occasional change-up. Each pitched held a whiff rate over 8% last season, including that change’s 15.4%. Morales rarely threw it, but when he did, the similar break to his fastball really gave batters fits. The Rockies never scrapped Morales from the rotation because he couldn’t miss bats though; it was about control, something he still struggles with.

It does raise a question though: Are the Rockies giving up on Morales the starter too quickly? Maybe not. He’s made 47 starts between the bigs and Triple-A. His Triple-A numbers are the damning ones. A 1.19 SO/BB ratio just won’t cut it. If a guy with this kind of stuff can’t avoid walking that many batters in Triple-A, where the batters are considerably less talented, then it’s probably not happening in the big leagues. Morales being out of options and being short for a traditional starter complicates manners even more.

Most are aware that Huston Street will begin the year on the disabled list and as of now, Morales looks like the favorite for the job. He’s certainly dressed for the part, although at the tender age of 24, he would be the youngest closer in baseball, at least until Street returned. If for whatever reason Morales is removed from the gig, the Rockies have plenty of alternatives, including Rafael Betancourt and Manny Corpas.

With the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs needing late inning relief help, a lot of attention has been shined upon Toronto’s Jason Frasor. Such a deal would make sense. After all, Toronto made a similar trade earlier this off-season when they traded Brandon League to Seattle for Brandon Morrow. Say what you want about J.P. Ricciardi, the man built a nice bullpen, and trading another reliever won’t exactly turn the Jays’ pen in to the worst in the league – and if it does, what difference does it make for this version of the Jays?

All the attention seems to be simmering around Frasor and lefty Scott Downs. For teams like the Twins and Cubs, they should focus a little lower on the Jays’ depth chart in order to find a potential bargain. Not to Jeremy Accardo, the tantalizing flamethrower, but on Shawn Camp. The six-foot-nothing righty who lays claim to being one of the few pitchers that was neither good enough for the Royals or Devil Rays bullpen within a three-year span. Usually that’s enough to kill a career, yet the exact opposite has occurred. Take a look at Camp’s FIP by year:

2004: 4.41
2005: 3.98

Signed with the Rays

2006: 4.33
2007: 5.29

Signed with the Jays

2008: 3.21
2009: 4.03

The 2007 season inspired nightmares. Camp’s 7.20 ERA (in 40 innings) was fueled in large part by a .422 BABIP. Since then, though, he’s popped back with his two best seasons. Along the way, Camp has picked up a change-up to go with his fastball and slider combination. Camp did more than pick the pitch up; he threw it over 30% of the time in 2009. That story is eerily similar to Brandon League’s 2009. Although unlike League, Camp’s fastball doesn’t touch 94 MPH in a hurricane. Instead it sits around 88, and Camp relies on mixing speeds more than the baker man. Camp actually worked in higher leveraged situations on average than League did last season while missing a career high percentage of bats.

What makes Camp intriguing besides his (presumably) lower trade return and modest salary just over a million dollars? He’s a groundball machine (56% career) and devours righties (career 3.05 K/BB ratio against them). Any pitcher who can survive in the American League East is worthy of a look-see, and a transition into the American or National League Central would almost certainly improve his numbers, albeit on a marginal level.

For a team on a manhunt that makes Jennifer Anniston blush, Camp certainly makes sense, even if it means living with the jokes about his big ears and country demeanor after the occasional rough outing.

After Tim Lincecum got off to a rough start, I wrote that perhaps 2008 would be his peak season. No shame in that. Only 20 individual pitching seasons had accumulated at least 7 WAR, one of those was Lincecum’s 2008. Naturally, he responded by pitching even better in 2009, and finished with a WAR above 8. So, with the odds on my side, I feel comfortable taking a shot at this again. What are the odds that Lincecum makes me look like a moron again? Well, here’s a list of every pitcher season to post at least 7 WAR during a single season in our database that data available for the season afterwards:

Curt Schilling 2002
Randy Johnson 2002
Pedro Martinez 2002
Roy Halladay 2002
Roy Halladay 2003
Pedro Martinez 2003
Mark Prior 2003
Esteban Loaiza 2003
Randy Johnson 2004
Ben Sheets 2004
Johan Santana 2004
Curt Schilling 2004
Johan Santana 2005
Johan Santana 2006
Brandon Webb 2006
CC Sabathia 2007
CC Sabathia 2008
Tim Lincecum 2008
Roy Halladay 2008
Cliff Lee 2008

That list is full of some all-time great pitchers pitching some all-time great seasons. The average WAR of those spectacular seasons is 7.8, with a spread of 2.9 wins (9.7 being the max, 7 the min). In the year after, the average fell to 5.5 wins with a spread of 6.8 wins (8.2 by Lincecum being the highest, and 1.4 by Esteban Loiza being the lowest). Roughly two-thirds of those pitchers failed to post 7+ WAR in consecutive seasons, which shows just how rare Lincecum’s feat was, and only one pitcher (Johan Santana) pulled the feat in three straight years.

Assuming my SQL database skills are still in the best shape of their life (meaning replacement level as a ceiling) there were 660 individual seasons of 25+ starts between 2002 and 2008. We had 20 seasons with 7+ WAR, 6 with 8+ WAR, and 4 with 8.3+ WAR. By those numbers, and completely ignoring that Lincecum is clearly better than most, if not nearly all of those pitchers, he has something like a half of a percent’s shot at reaching 8.3 WAR next year. That’s without figuring in that he just had an 8 win season, and that nobody who recorded at least 8 WAR in a single season has replicated that success (although Pedro Martinez did reach 7.9, which is basically the same thing).

Some encountered more bad luck, others injuries, and yes, Lincecum is a fantastic arm and talent, but so were most of those guys. So yeah, I feel comfortable betting against Lincecum being even better this season. And hey, if he does make me look bad once more, then we’re all winners by witnessing The Freak at his best.

For extra credit I’d suggest reading this Book Blog thread. It’s about that Stephen Strasburg cat and projecting his ERA. Even if you don’t understand most of the comments at first read, and heavens I sure didn’t, you should still absorb something worthwhile.