J.P. Howell seems destined to miss at least a month. Howell is one of the better relievers in the division, so by no means is this soothing news, however the presence of Rafael Soriano lessens the sting a bit. The thing the team could miss the most is Howell’s versatility. Not just his ability to go multiple innings, but that his stuff plays up against lefties and righties alike. Grant Balfour and Dan Wheeler are decent, and yet the latter should never face a lefty in a close game, and the former has the ability to put on a walkathon that makes the March of Dimes proud.

The wild card is Joaquin Benoit, although there’s no health guarantee for either him or Soriano. Minor league cult heroes Winston Abreu and Dale Thayer could conceivably break camp with the squad, otherwise the Rays could push Lance Cormier into higher leverage situations while letting Mike Ekstrom or Jeff Bennett handle the mop-up duties. Alternatively, they could pursue a free agent reliever or someone via trade, but the significance of a missed month probably won’t trigger such.

Dioner Navarro suffered a bruised nerve in his leg on Saturday, a result of Jacque Jones colliding into him at the plate. Besides being the first thing Jones has hit solidly in many years, Navarro would seemingly be easier to replace than Howell if he misses a few weeks, something the Rays don’t anticipate occurring.

A deflated batting average on balls in play and a regressed sense of plate discipline lead to a .258 wOBA in 2009. How bad is that? Jason Kendall posted a .290 wOBA, which means Navarro was 32 points worse, Kendall is roughly 32 points worse than a Major League average hitter … and Navarro is double that. That’s bad. Mike Piazza could walk on tomorrow and outhit 2009 Navarro.

His refusal to walk is akin to a children’s refusal to take a bath. At one particularly low point in the season, Navarro saw four pitches during an at-bat. Two were inside (he swung at one of these), one was up and away but a strike nevertheless, and the final pitch bounced before it crossed the plate. Navarro swung on this pitch and struck out as a result. Anecdotal evidence, certainly, but the empirical data is there as well. Navarro’s best offensive skill is his ability to make contact with the baseball, but for reasons that only he knows for certain, he became timid – or perhaps unsatisfied – with taking pitches, and instead would attempt to put as many balls into play as possible. Navarro is a slap hitter at his best, and a weak groundout or infield fly at his worst.

It’s not that either of these injuries sink the Rays’ playoff ship, but they don’t help either.

No introduction necessary. I’m simply going to attempt to explain all about options in fewer than 300 words. Here we go.

Options are essentially an expansion of the Rule 5 draft. Both are means to prevent teams from collecting and hoarding talent beyond the amount they can field. When an option is used, that simply means the player is on the 40-man roster and was sent to the minors. The majority of players have three option seasons; seasons being the key word there. Take Jeremy Hellickson for example. The Rays reassigned him to minor league camp a few days ago and he will begin the season in Triple-A. At which point an option will be used.

There are some exceptions to this rule.

As discussed with Andrew Miller, a player with fewer than five professional seasons will have a fourth option added.

If a player is optioned to the minors, but spends fewer than 20 days in the minors throughout the entire season, then an option is not used.

If a player misses the season due to injury.

The most confused aspect of the entire ordeal is the difference between years and seasons and how it portrays into options. Take Hellickson again. Since Hellickson was only added to the 40-man last winter, he will have two more options remaining. That is true no matter how many times the Rays promote and demote him throughout the 2010 season.

Oh, and one other thing, teams cannot run what amounts to a 26-man roster by optioning a pair of players up and down throughout any given week. A player sent down has to stay down for 10 days barring an injury to someone on the 25-man roster.

Hopefully that clears things up, if not check out Keith Law’s more detailed post here.

The Seattle Mariners hit 160 home runs last season, the fourth lowest team total in the American League, ahead of only Oakland, Kansas City, and Baltimore. Those three teams combine to average a little under 70 wins. Seattle won 85 behind brilliant defense and the long arm of Felix Hernandez. Naturally, Seattle looked to add some power this off-season, right? Well, not quite.

Russell Branyan, the lone Mariner over 30 homers in 2009, is elsewhere, replaced at first base by Casey Kotchman (career high amount of homers in one season: 14). Jose Lopez was the only other Mariner to hit more than 20, and he’s now at third base, replacing Adrian Beltre and making way for the Mariners’ big free agent acquisition in Chone Figgins (career high: 9). The M’s did add some guys with pop, like Milton Bradley (career high: 22), Ryan Garko (career high: 21), and Eric Byrnes (career high: 26), but clearly the Mariners are not going to win because of the long ball. That raises the question: Do you need home runs to win ball games?

The answer is no, even in the modern era.

From 1998, the last time expansion took place, through the 2008 season, 85 teams won at least 90 games. The average amount of homers hit by the 90+ win teams is 192, the average amount of homers hit per team across the league from 1998-2009 is 174. Nearly 30% of the 90+ win teams between 1998 and 2009 hit fewer than the team average during that time period. It makes sense that most playoff quality teams hit more homers than average because most playoff teams are better than the rest of the league; whether it’s at scoring runs or preventing them.

The correlation coefficient for team wins and team homers between 1998 and 2009 is a not insignificant .19. That’s stronger than the correlation coefficient associated with doubles and wins (.078), triples and wins (.015), but not stronger than the relationship between walks taken and wins (.22). Seattle was second to last in walks last season. They’ve added quite a few patient batters, like the aforementioned Figgins (the only player in the American League with more than 100 walks last season). Despite walks evidently having a stronger relationship to wins, we won’t hear about it. *

In the end, homers and walks are really just means to scoring runs, and scoring runs is just a means to winning ballgames.

*Inevitably, someone will point out the obvious by saying that one walk is worth far less than a homer. That’s absolutely true, but it’s not the argument. I’m not arguing that teams should focus on walks instead of homers or that walks are more valuable than homers, I’m simply showing that walks correlate better with winning games than homers do. There are ways to win without doing either. Just ask the 2007 Angels who didn’t do much walking or homering and still won 94 games.

You know what the Boston media doesn’t want you to forget? That Theo Epstein focused on run prevention this off-season. As such, columnists hold a sense of animosity towards the Red Sox’s lineup. Boston scored 872 runs last season, third most in the American League, and hit 212 homers, also good for third most in the American League. Oh, and they did this with Nick Green or Alex Gonzalez in the lineup most days.

Let’s focus on this season though. For whatever reason, Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron are being looked upon as defensive collateral, allowed to bat only so they are allowed to field. For whatever reason, the common thought is that Boston’s offense will struggle to score runs. That assumption is based in something, but that something is not reality.

Using Baseball Musings’ lineup analysis tool, I ran the 2009 Red Sox through (with Victor Martinez and Nick Green included) and found that their optimal lineup netted 5.86 runs per game (in reality they averaged 5.38). I then ran the CHONE projections for their prospective starters* through the same analysis and found that their optimal lineup expects to produce 5.33 runs per game. Odds are the Red Sox won’t score exactly 5.33 runs per game, but if they do, the difference in optimal lineups – which, let’s be honest, few teams actually run out what the lineup analysis tool would consider optimal – is a half run per game. In reality, the difference would be 0.05 runs per game; or about eight runs over a full season.

Yes, Beltre and Cameron are going to swing and miss quite a bit. And yes, they’ll chase some pitches they shouldn’t have. And yes, the sixteenth time Dan Wheeler enters to face the pair is going to be as tedious as the dozen before, but at the end of the day, Boston’s offense is going to be fine. And odds are, the Red Sox as a whole will benefit from these changes more than expected.
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Andrew Miller has two articles linked on his page. One directs to a RotoGraphs piece written by the Talented Mr. Bendix and clicking the other will lead to a detailed look at the tallest rotations. This is not what most people had presumably predicted would headline on Miller’s page back when the Tigers selected him sixth overall in 2006. The first place Tigers pulled the draft equivalent of a heist by popping the North Carolina ace over signability concerns. Miller provided plenty of reasons to be excited. For one, being a tall lefty with a live fastball and plus breaking pitch naturally gains you status amongst the baseball folk. He inhaled strikeouts and exhaled weakly hit grounders.

18 months later, the Tigers traded Miller to the Florida Marlins to acquire Miguel Cabrera. Since then, Miller settled on the brink of irrelevancy. The most notable thing about his off-season is being placed in the Arizona Fall League to work on his altered delivery (as detailed by Keith Law) and whether he’ll make the Marlins’ rotation out of spring. Since joining the Marlins he’s struck out a little over seven per nine while walking nearly five. He’s a groundballer, which allows for some leniency on the walks, but still, that’s not a great ratio. It’s also worth noting that a high BABIP has lead to a below average strand rate.

Over the last two seasons he’s appeared in 49 games for the Marlins while totaling a little shy of 190 innings. If that doesn’t seem like a lot of time that’s because it’s not. The biggest knocks on him right now are inconsistent control and health; a combination that usually leads to frustration and a transition to the bullpen. Miller actually finished last season in the pen while the Marlins rolled with a six-man rotation. Pitchers with high strikeout and walk rates are generally more successful after transitioning to relief, so writing Miller off based on his previous relief work is laughable with the current sample size.

Normally options wouldn’t come into play with 2006 draftees. Even if the player reached the Majors in 2008, they would still have at least one option remaining. Because of a clause in Miller’s contract which dictated he be promoted to the Majors at the end of his first professional season, he burned one of those options almost immediately. The Tigers then optioned Miller to the minors to begin 2007. That’s two seasons, two options used. The Marlins did not option Miller in 2008, but did send him to the minors in July 2009, which normally would mean Miller could not be sent to the minors without passing through waivers. However, since he does not have five professional seasons yet, the Marlins will hold a fourth option year.

That gives Florida the ability to send Miller down to New Orleans where he can continue to work on his new delivery and wait on the inevitable Anibal Sanchez injury. Such a predicament all but guarantees Miller will remain a starter. However, if the injury and inconsistency bugs continue to harvest on his ability, it could be inevitable that Miller winds up in the bullpen.

Let’s just get this part out of the way: The Mets have issues. Lots of issues. But, as if Jose Reyes’ thyroid, repeated late-season meltdowns, questionable ownership finances, and an assistant general manager turning into Hulk Hogan weren’t bad enough, now this appears:

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – If Jenrry Mejia is assigned to the Mets’ Double-A team, he’s not going to be stretched out enough to immediately contribute in the Binghamton rotation. Jerry Manuel is determined to begin using Mejia in short and frequent relief spurts, to gauge how he reacts to pitching in that capacity, the Daily News has learned. The expectation is Mejia will remain in big-league camp through the final week working as a reliever.

The scariest part of this is not that Jerry Manuel is evidently making decisions on prospects. It’s that Omar Minaya is either in complete agreement or is totally indifferent to the situation at hand. Minaya’s job is to handle the team’s present and future assets with care and diligence. Manuel’s job is to manage the players assembled by Minaya and provide input on the margins, not to decide in autonomous fashion what capacity the team’s best pitching prospect should be used during spring. Neither is doing their job.

This becomes less of a possibility and more of a certainty once you realize who we’re talking about. Save the comparisons to Neftali Feliz and David Price. Neither began the season in their respective Major League team’s bullpen and both had more experience starting. Those two situations were of special circumstance (that circumstance being a heated playoff run). The Mets aren’t doing this to limit Mejia’s innings or propel them towards the playoffs. Well, they might actually be doing it for the latter, but more on that in a moment.

This is all tempting because Mejia is a great arm. Keith Law had his fastball sitting in the 93-96 range with cutting action and noted his overall repertoire as “top-of-the-rotation stuff” – big praise for a 20-year-old with a little over 150 innings of experience outside of short-season ball. Baseball America ranked Mejia as the Mets’ top prospect and quoted catcher Josh Thole as saying that the movement on Mejia’s heater convinced batters that it was a slider. They also note that Manuel watched Mejia during Arizona Fall League action to gauge whether he could be of relief help in 2010.

Could Mejia jump to the Majors in three weeks and succeed? Probably. He’d probably pitch quite well out of the bullpen. He has a fastball so hot that it removes the wrinkles from opposing hitters’ shirts. He could really dial that baby up even more in limited action. He might just be the best set-up man in the National League. Heck, maybe the next Mariano Rivera. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2011, which happens to be the final year that Francisco Rodriguez is guaranteed a paycheck. It’s also the final year that Oliver Perez, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, and Luis Castillo are under contract. It’s a big year. It could be the final year they have this nucleus to really go for it before drastically altering the look of the roster. So, maybe they move Mejia to the rotation. Maybe he hits the ground running and never looks back. Or maybe, like Joba Chamberlain, he has a few hiccups moving to the rotation permanently, and rather than sending him down, they send him to the bullpen where he once again turns the eighth inning into Hades for opposing hitters. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2012 and Mejia is their closer. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2013 and Mejia is still their closer. And so on.

Yes, that entire scenario is derived from a lack of confidence in the Mets and their ability to properly handle the situation. Did it fall down a slippery slope and is it a bit melodramatic? Yes, most likely. But at the same time, if they place Mejia in the pen it will open Pandora’s Box moving forward. More concisely: It sets the table for confirmation bias when Mejia is moved back to the rotation.

This isn’t Earl Weaver with Dennis Martinez, Wayne Garland, or Scott McGregor. Those guys had hundreds of minor league innings before Weaver broke them in as a long reliever. This is reckless handling of a long-term asset in order to save Manuel and Minaya’s jobs. Maybe that’s too harsh, but these guys have not earned the benefit of the doubt.

Kevin Hart represents one-third of the return on Josh Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny (the other two-thirds being Josh Harrison and Jose Ascanio). He’s a study, six-foot-four, 220-something pound righty out of the University of Maryland. Originally drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in 2004, the Cubs acquired Hart in late 2006 to complete the Freddie Bynum deal. That deal looks worse in retrospect since at the time, Hart was 23 and coming off a rough stint in High-A. At least Bynum runs fast.

Hart pitched 148 innings while boasting a FIP of 4.65 and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.88 despite striking out more than seven per nine innings. The Cubs ignored his struggles and promoted him to Double-A where he would find his groove, notching a KSO/BB ratio of 3.41 in 102 innings. They would then promote him to Triple-A Iowa, where he’s spent most of the last two seasons, laying in wait for a rotation or bullpen spot to permanently fill.

That’s not to say Hart hasn’t had some chances. In 2008, the Cubs used him in 21 games in a mop-up role. He performed so-so, while battling with control issues. He spent last July in the Cubs’ rotation, pitching rather poorly and walking more batters than he fanned. His Pirates’ tenure wasn’t too much better, with him posting a similarly poor FIP of 5.16 in what amounted to 53 innings.

So, interestingly enough, CHONE projects Hart to post a 4.19 FIP this year, despite a career 4.89 mark in roughly 120 innings. Is there reason to be that optimistic? I think so. Baseball America ranked Hart as the Cubs’ sixth best prospect in January 2009, citing his nastiness as a reliever. It’s too soon for the Pirates to give up on Hart’s starting career though. He throws fastballs in the low-to-mid 90s while mixing in a cutter and a particularly effective curve that rests on the crest of the high-70s. This has resulted in a fair amount of missed bats (78.2% contact rate) and groundballs (46% grounders).

Hart’s issue has been control. He’s finding the zone at a career rate of 45.5%. Of qualified starters last year, only Joe Saunders (43.8%) pitched within the zone less often. That’s not always a bad thing though, as long as batters are convinced to chase often. To his credit, Hart has tempted batters to swing nearly 30% of the time while making contact with those pitches 58% of the time. That’s a profile similar to Chad Billingsley and John Lackey. Someone is going to take that comparison and run with it, but the difference is that Billingsley and Lackey can find the zone when they want to, something Hart needs to do given his handful of walks per nine.

The 27-year-old figures to spend this year in the Pirates’ rotation. He might not be a sexy name, or a hot prospect anymore, but Hart could still become a useful pitcher if he starts throwing strikes again.

In the year 2005, Chad Orvella and Andy Sisco flashed promise as two of the league’s youngest and more successful relievers.

Orvella was 24-years-old and appeared in 37 games with the Devil Rays. Two years earlier, the Rays had taken Orvella in the thirteenth round of the draft. Orvella had been the starting shortstop for the North Carolina State Wolfpack while occasionally pitching. The Rays converted him to pitching full-time and he flew through the lower ranks. In his first 85 professional innings, Orvella struck out over 130 batters. A 25 inning stint with Double-A Montgomery ended with Orvella posting a 0.36 ERA, 1.8 FIP, 12.8 K/9, and a 6.11 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Such success continued for Orvella upon reaching the majors. His K/BB ratio slipped under 2, but he still managed to post a 3.78 FIP in 50 innings.

In spring training 2006, the Rays and new pitching coach Mike Butcher messed with Orvella’s mechanics, attempting to make him more aerodynamic and less of base-stealers’ delight in those high leverage situations. Naturally, Orvella lost all ability to throw strikes. He’s seen 32 Major League innings since and walked 30 (one of those being an intentional walk); in his first season he walked 23 in 50 innings and he’s walked 40 in 124 Triple-A innings.

Sisco, once described as Randy Johnson’s height meets David Wells’ belly, never took precautions to hide his control problems. He just flaunted them openly while striking out more than a batter per inning. Through nearly 150 innings in the Majors, he’s averaging 5.7 walks per nine. Even still, his career Zone% is 50% exactly. Orvella’s 2006 Zone% was 47.8%. Let that sink in for a moment. The Angels have signed Orvella to a minor league deal in hopes that maybe he can rekindle what made him appear to be the Rays’ future closer way back when.

Sisco was the Royals’ 2005 version of Matt Thornton. He appeared in 67 games, posting a 3.11 ERA and a 3.79 FIP. His strikeouts slipped, his walks increased, and he started giving up homers in 2006. That’s a really bad combination, and Sisco found himself on the way out of Kansas City as Dayton Moore flipped him for Ross Gload. Sisco has pitched 14 innings in the Majors since. The Royals didn’t get a steal though, since Gload produced -0.5 WAR over two seasons in which he accumulated nearly 50% of his career plate appearances.

The Giants have fittingly signed the six-foot-ten ‘Sisquatch’ with the hope that he can climb the beanstalk.

Just more proof that sometimes the best laid bullpen dreams don’t always work out.

The first day of August 2004 brought with it an interesting array of baseball storylines. The Chicago Cubs were hosting the Philadelphia Phillies. Greg Maddux was on the mound. Surrounded by young arms like Mark Prior and Kerry Wood and intriguing throwers like Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement, at times it seemed like Maddux was the boring option in the rotation. The vanilla option so to speak. Today though, was supposed to be his day. This was his first chance at win number 300.

Naturally Maddux would be overshadowed. See, this was August 1st, the day after the trading deadline. The day after the Cubs went out and acquired Nomar Garciaparra. The Nomar Garciaparra. The Cubs’ faithful gave Garciaparra a standing ovation in warm-ups on this Sunday that lived up to its name. The Cubs’ lineup looked wholly competent now too. Prudent maneuvering had the Cubs fielding an offensively strong lineup, one that featured Michael Barrett, Derrek Lee, Todd Walker (or Mark Grudzielanek), Aramis Ramirez, Moises Alou, Corey Patterson, and Sammy Sosa. Now, writing Nomar instead of Ramon E. Martinez must’ve been a feeling of ecstasy for fans and manager Dusty Baker alike.

Of course this isn’t the memory most fans have of Nomar. He is a Boston legend. Even re-watching the DVD I have of this game leaves the entire scene with a surreal sense, and it’s not because the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air preceded the pre-game show hosted by Chip Caray. This isn’t the Nomar most of us know, but somewhere in Massachusetts, there’s a five-year-old child who has no idea why Nomar Garciaparra retiring is a big deal. That’s startling. Here are some of the more interesting Boston-related tidbits about Nomar:

After hitting 30 and 35 home runs in his first two full seasons, Garciaparra never reached 30 homers again. He hit a homer in about 5% of his plate appearances those two seasons; only 3% the rest of his Boston career.

It seems like there’s a legitimate case to make that Nomar should’ve won the 1998 A.L. MVP. Nomar’s wRC+ was 143 which falls a little below Juan Gonzalez’s 149, but Nomar played shortstop and Gonzalez was a right fielder. You could make the case for Ken Griffey Jr. too, who had a comparable amount of RBI (146 to Gonzalez’s 157), more homers (56 to 45), and an OPS only 20 points lower while playing center field. Alex Rodriguez has a really strong case too.

Amongst shortstops with at least 1,000 career plate appearances, Nomar’s wOBA ranks eighth all-time.

Someone else is going to put what Nomar meant to the Red Sox into better terms than I can. Whether that person is Joe Posnanski, Peter Gammons, or even Marc Normandin is anyone’s guess. The only thing I can harp on is that Nomar is a Boston legend. In nine seasons he hit .323/.370/.553. After being traded, he hit .287/.338/.440. Not having the monster to bang doubles off, not having complete health, or not having amigos Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez around to push him; whatever it was, he was just never the same.

He’s yours again, Boston. But I guess he always was.

Jason Bartlett is an odd bird, one without a beak or visible feathers. One presumably etched in as the Rays’ leadoff hitter come the regular season. One who happens to bat righty yet struggles with pitchers who throw from the same side, at least until last season. This wouldn’t be an issue, except the league has far more right-handed starters than southpaws.

By now, everyone knows of Bartlett’s 2009 season. Fueled by an increased batting average on balls in play and doubted, in part, because he actually hit more fly balls. That means more home runs, but it also means more outs. Or it should mean. Batting Bartlett leadoff is a carryover from last season, which is fine if Bartlett could be reasonably expected to repeat his success or if this was a lineup maneuver against lefty starters and below average right-handers. Take a look at how Bartlett has fared versus righties since 2007 in various metrics:

This is nothing new. Bartlett’s career wOBA versus righties is .310, the exact number B.J. Upton posted last season, when he was (deservedly) removed from the leadoff spot and met with widespread criticism. Bartlett has faced about 29% lefties the last three years, so Bartlett’s struggles are not from unfamiliarity or small sample sizes. He just can’t hit righties.

Perhaps this is all just a head nod towards Bartlett’s 2009 production and a good-willed approach to rewarding players. But, instead of removing Bartlett from leading off now, the Rays are facing the possibility of removing him 150 at-bats into the season. It’s just a peculiar situation since the Rays have an everyday player who switch hits and seems to profile as the typical leadoff hitter.