Sometime in the near future, Tommy Manzella is going to be the answer to a trivia question. That trivia question will involve naming the starting National League Central shortstops during the 2010 season. Orlando Cabrera and Julio Lugo will roll off the contestant’s tongue; Ryan Theriot and Alcides Escobar will follow; even the memory of the fierce war Ronny Cedeno and Bobby Crosby waged in spring will flare like so many bombs; but Tommy Manzella? No way. No how.

When one arrives on Manzella’s Baseball-Reference page, they will look at his positions and see “pinch runner” and “pinch hitter” listed before “shortstop”. This is amusing on three different levels, but truth be told, Manzella’s ability to field at shortstop is evidently his best talent. For years now, Manzella has been named by Baseball America as the Astros’ best defensive infielder. Evidently he can pick the ball. Even so, BA has yet to rank Manzella in the Astros’ top 10. That’s a bit of a problem, because the Astros’ system is not one that you would call “deep.”

Defense is the new black, though. So maybe all the disrespect stemmed from Manzella’s wickedly mediocre offensive game. In nearly 830 plate appearances at Triple-A, Manzella has hit .268/.319/.380. Most of that comes from a truly horrid 2008. His OPS at Double-A (503 PA) was .758, and last year his OPS was a career-best .756 (580 PA). CHONE forecasts a .244/.295/.349 line, which would be worth -1.6 wins over 440 plate appearances. For reference, Cesar Izturis’ career Major League line is .259/.298/.331 and the aforementioned Cedeno’s is .240/.280/.346.

Manzella turns 27 in mid-April. Unless he’s Adam Everett with the glove or goes through a Ben Zobrist transformation (Zobrist was an on-base machine throughout the minors though, mind you) he’s a utility player at best. Luckily for him, the Astros (a) have nobody else besides Jeff Keppinger and (b) don’t appear interested in signing the 35-year-old version of Manzella. That within itself is progress, if you ignore the whole Brandon Lyon contract.

Apologies for the horrible headline.

To say the market for Will Ohman never formed this off-season is like saying that writing is really just organized words. The good news is that Ohman already has his assignment for the season. Last year he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30th and made his Dodgers’ debut about a week later. Things didn’t go so well though, and Ohman racked up 12 innings in 21 appearances before bowing out in late May due to injury. The Orioles stand to potentially gain from this down year as they signed the 32-year-old to a minor league deal last week.

Overcoming the odds is nothing new for Ohman. He made his Majors’ debut in 2000 at the tender age of 22. He made six appearances for the Cubs and followed that up with 11 appearances in 2001. At this point, it seemed that Ohman would conceivably break camp with the Cubs to begin the 2002 season. Instead, Ohman would undergo Tommy John Surgery and miss the 2002 and 2003 seasons. He returned to pitching baseballs in 2004 and to the Majors in a more-permanent role in 2005.

The southpaw has 324 career appearances and 231 innings. That suggests he’s not someone teams will run out there for a complete inning every time, but he’s actually faced more righties since 2005 than lefties (503 to 440). His splits suggest that he is indeed better versus lefties, as he holds a 3.99 FIP versus lefties (3.51 xFIP) and a 4.15 FIP versus righties (4.96 xFIP). Besides striking out lefties at a higher clip,he also induces more grounders against them.

At some point, Ohman will pitch for the Orioles. The Orioles only have three lefty relievers on their 40-man roster, and that includes recently re-signed Mark Hendrickson, Alberto Castillo, and Wilfrido Perez. Former Royals’ arm Chris George will also be in camp. My best guess is that Ohman makes his debut early on and the Orioles attempt to spin him off for something at the deadline; selling Ohman to a contender as the proverbial lockdown lefty.

Has any division seen a collection of odder off-seasons than the American League Central? The Twins have stocked up, the Indians have stocked down, and the Royals have stocked. Now, the White Sox and Tigers are engaged in what amounts to a bidding war over Johnny Damon. In order to avoid weak arm jokes about a Juan Pierre and Damon collaboration, I’ll focus on the Tigers’ supposed interest.

If reports like this one are valid, then the Tigers are willing to offer Damon a two-year deal worth around $14M. That’s a pretty chunk of change; both fiscally and literally. Most projections held Damon as this year’s Bobby Abreu; the veteran who would be iced out of a roster spot until he signed for a contract severely below than his market value. This Tigers’ offer isn’t his exact market value, but it’s considerably closer than expected. Almost too close, given the team.

Unless Kenny Williams’ desire is understated, it would seem like Detroit is bidding against themselves not only in money, but years. To make things all the murkier, this is the same Tigers’ ballclub who faced severe payroll limitations earlier this off-season, and as a result traded one of their best players because of it. Curtis Granderson will be paid only $5.5M in 2010. The Tigers also traded Edwin Jackson who will make more than $5M as well. They then turned around and used some of that money on … well, a closer, by signing Jose Valverde to a two-year deal worth $14M with a club option for 2012.

The Tigers appear willing to hand out a duplicate of that contract, minus the option, and my math skills aren’t the best, but 7+7 is more than 5+5. That’s not the entire analysis, since the value of adding Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson (along with others) cannot be understated, but it has to be unsettling for Tigers’ fans to see Granderson wear pinstripes and then possibly be replaced by an older, worse, and more expensive player.

Let’s take a closer look at Detroit’s situation. this whole financial crisis going on in Detroit extends beyond their economy. The Tigers’ payroll will sit around $120-$130M next season in large part because of extensions handed out to starting pitchers.

Following Detroit’s run to the World Series, Jeremy Bonderman received a four-year, $38M extension, and nearly a year later the Tigers acquired and re-signed Dontrelle Willis to a three-year, $29M extension, and then about one year after that, they signed Nate Robertson for three years and $21.25M. Those three combined to make 14 starts last season, which equates to roughly $2M per start. Pitchers are a different beast. Obviously all three falling to health and ineffectiveness seemed highly, highly unlikely, but it happens. That’s not even to say the contracts were bad ideas, but boy are they shaping the way the 2010 Tigers look.

Whether the Damon deal happens or not.

Chien-Ming Wang is probably signing with his new team sometime today or tomorrow. With that in mind, let’s have some fun(!) with his splits and his full season totals.

Wang’s career ERA away from Yankee Stadium is 4.57 in more than 300 innings. His ERA at Yankee Stadium is 3.81 in nearly 365 innings. Clearly he pitched better in the Bronx, except he really didn’t. His FIP at home was actually poorer (4.03) than his road FIP (3.95), although his home xFIP was better and the disparity is nowhere near as drastic as his ERA foretells. As former RotoGraphs contributor – who’s since moved on to greener pastures – Peter Bendix put it: “Nothing Wang with Chien-Ming”.

Here’s a small sample size-influenced tidbit that holds next to nothing in means of predictive value and is simply an observation. In high leverage situations, Wang saw his infield fly ball rate fall off a cliff. Well, that makes sense, since he is a groundballer. Maybe he just zoned in on pitching down in the zone? Nope, or more accurately, the numbers don’t reflect it. His groundball percentage was actually its lowest in high leverage situations. At the same time, so was his home run per fly balls ratio.

Moving away from the splits, Wang is an interesting pitcher. His strikeout totals are unimpressive and his method of pitching combined with a poor infield defense has disaster written all over it. Still, Wang has 670 Major League innings and a career 4.22 xFIP. Yeah, there’s a chance he never recovers to his old form or even to a useful piece, but for what the rumored costs are, it’s a worthwhile risk.

Even if he leaves his heart and horrible puns in New York.

Anytime a new offensive statistic or function is added to the site, I tend to gravitate to Barry Bonds’ page to see what the outer bounds look like. The splits function is no different.

For instance, did you know that in his 268 high leverage plate appearances Bonds was walked intentionally 58 times. All told, Bonds walked in 42.2% of his total plate appearances. When he did hit, his ISO was a ridiculous .360. That’s good for a 1.354 OPS and a .524 wOBA. I don’t know if people will reference these numbers in 200 years after reading up on baseball history (folklore by then) and how Buck Showalter walked him with the bases loaded, but if they do, such a factoid should help to create understanding, if not acceptance.

Even the immortal saw the typical platoon advantage, which is to say that the left-handed Bonds was superior against righties. A .492 wOBA against them versus only a .480 wOBA against lefties suggests the Giants wasted a golden opportunity for a platoon. Bonds was more discriminatinh when it came to hitting the ball hard in certain directions. He hit the ball well to right (.524), center (.513), but not nearly as well to left (.394). Of course, a .394 wOBA is nearly .020 points higher than Evan Longoria’s career wOBA, but this is Bonds we’re talking about. Unacceptable, Barry.

Somehow he hit more home runs at home (one more, to be exact) than he did on the road. This came in light of nearly 40 fewer plate appearances at home, too, and while playing in one of the more homer-constricting parks in the National League. Oh, and this, well, this I just have to replicate in full These are Bonds’ 2002 month-by-month wOBA figures:

April: .563
May: .509
June: .536
July: .514
August: .607
September/October: .530

A .509 wOBA was a down month for him. Goodness gracious … goodness gracious.

As most of you are probably aware, player pages now feature splits. As such, we’re beginning a splits blitz which should educate our readers as to the many different usages of the newest toy. Home and road splits are probably the most commonly used and misused of all splits. Here I would like to show why just using career home/road splits to evaluate a batter isn’t a good idea.

A quick Google search of Matt Holliday + home/road splits brings back multiple results from this very chunk of the internet. For his career, Holliday has hit .351/.420/.632 at home and .284/.353/.455 on the road in 1,860 and 1,778 plate appearances apiece. It’s fair to say that he has performed better at home. Holliday has spent the majority of his career – read: every season but his last – playing home games inside of Coors Field.

That factoid helps explain some of the difference between his .442 home wOBA and .353 road wOBA, but not all. Far too often folks point out a player hitting worse on the road as an indictment on his talent, or as a doubt in his ability. The reality is that most players hit worse on the road. In 2009, the average major leaguer hit .267/.340/.430 at home and .258/.326/.406 on the road. The exact reasoning can be debated for eons; the point is the home field advantage does exist and Holliday was no exception to the rule:

Home: 8.9% BB, 17.1% SO, .281 ISO, .378 BABIP, 20.4% HR/FB, .442 wOBA
Away: 8.9% BB, 20.4% SO, .171 ISO, .329 BABIP, 12.3% HR/FB, .353 wOBA

Leading up to his trade, people referenced the career numbers – in part as an adjustment to the small sample sizes naturally associated by slicing and dicing an already small dataset. In theory, 1,000 plate appearances over five years is worth more than 600 over three, but when dealing with past data and attempting to find the true talent level of a player, we have to weigh the most recent data the heaviest, something lost in this method.

The other big issue was that people took the road numbers as gospel, applying no adjustments or considerations to the numbers and completely ignoring obvious factors. For instance, Holliday’s road numbers excluded Coors. Meanwhile every other National League hitter would have those numbers included in their road totals. That means Holliday’s road numbers were naturally deflated just based on the ballparks he batted in.

Just using his career numbers, nobody would’ve predicted that Holliday could succeed to the tune of a .412 home wOBA in another environment, or that he would post a .367 road wOBA. That’s not to say that either of those numbers are his true talent levels, either. It is to say that while understanding park factors and how particular parks can affect batters (and pitchers) is important, that simply looking at career home/road splits as the gospel is not the best way to evaluate whether a batter is a figment of the park’s construction or simply behaving like most major leaguers.

I would recommend simply allowing the built-in park adjustments within projection systems do the math for you while exercising common sense in extreme cases.

Red Sox sign Joe Nelson

This marks the third time Nelson and the Red Sox have came together on a deal. Nelson actually pitched in three games for the Red Sox in 2004, before shuffling off to Kansas City, Florida and, most recently, Tampa Bay. He is best known as the master of the Vulcan change – think an extreme split-finger grip – and perhaps the funniest reliever in the game:

6. Have you ever played as yourself on a video game?
JN: Yes! Didn’t do well, either. I’m not good at video games, but I think it’s MLB 2002 was the first time — it was the one with Derek Jeter on the cover, and somebody called me and said, “Dude, you’re in this game.” I ran over to their place and I was like, “I wanna pitch with myself.” First ball I threw, I threw for a strike. Then, when you’re not very good — A, I’m not very good, but B, they didn’t make my character very good — I got tired after like three pitches and started getting hit around the ballpark. I’m like, “This is a really realistic game!” But yeah, I did it once. Other people have called me and yelled at me, said, “Your guy is not very good in this game!” I know. Sometimes I trick ’em, sometimes I don’t.

Nelson struggled in 40 innings with the Rays. 12% of the fly balls he allowed went over the fence and he frequently lost the strike zone, even in the minors. Nelson also lost some zip on his already somber fastball. Guys with history of arm injuries are always wild cards and Nelson is no different. On a minor league deal, though, it’s hard to find fault in the depth.

Rays claim Mike Ekstrom off waivers

Formerly of the Padres, and formerly a starter, Ekstrom spent most of 2009 in between Portland and San Diego’s bullpens. He pitched well in the minors and has some traits that could be useful in a middle relief role. He’s a short righty (5’11”) with a low-90s fastball and pretty decent slider that leads to groundballs – over 50% in the minors and just shy of 50% in a small sample size of 28 MLB innings. Even Chad Harville racked up 175 appearances with similar traits, so there’s hope yet.

Orioles retain Dennis Sarfate

He’s one of those guys that is older than you think (turns 29 in two months) and is already with his third organization since 2006. He throws hard though and generally that’s enough for someone to lay claim.

It took a while, but Jeff Weaver has finally stepped in from the rain.

Yesterday, he rejoined the Dodgers, but not on a Major League deal; oh no, on a minor league deal. The inking is a pyrrhic victory at best for Weaver, who actually did pitch in the Majors last season, and pitched pretty well at that. That the best he could net was an invite to spring training and a chance at maybe making the opening day roster seems a bit odd.

Weaver appeared in 28 games, starting seven of them, and compiling 79 innings and a 4.07 FIP. By my rough napkin calculations, Weaver’s reliever FIP was roughly 3.77, albeit in a lacking sample size. Still, the interest in the 33-year-old was nearly non-existent.

He’s always fended off batters of the same hand with great success. Remember, Weaver has made 274 starts, yet his platoon splits read as such:

RHB: .257/.304/.385 (3,650 PA)
LHB: .295/.359/.501 (4,121 PA)

Over the last three years those splits have still held mostly true, albeit in much smaller sample sizes. Fittingly, Dave Cameron just wrote about platoons and bullpens yesterday, which is something that can be discussed and applied to this signing. Weaver is a ROOGY, or at least, the right-handed version of a lefty specialist. These types can come in handy, since most batters are of similar dexterity and this gives Weaver the perceived edge, but types like Weaver are also the most fungible reliever type around.

The Dodgers already have a pretty fantastic pen, which means Weaver is by no means a safe bet to break camp in the bigs. Even if he starts in Las Vegas, it’s a nice piece of depth to have. After all, the Dodgers had seven relievers last season who made at least 20 appearances and had an above average leverage index, the most of any team ranked in the top 10 of bullpen FIP.

Willy Taveras is jobless. Not for too long, since the A’s will either lose him on waivers — not sure lose is the right word here — or he could find himself in Triple-A. His employment in limbo stems, in large part, because his on-base percentage was .275 last season. Here’s some food for thought. Zack Greinke was pretty much the best pitcher in the American League last season. Greinke’s on-base percentage against was .276. That means, Taveras got on base less against all pitchers faced than the rest of baseball did against the league’s best pitcher.

Some of that horrid mark involved disobedience by never walking and the other part seems to be poor luck. A .278 BABIP is well below his career norms, and his previous low was twenty points higher. Taveras is a slap hitter who is at his best when he’s hitting the ball on the ground and using his legs to secure singles. Bunts have always been a part of his game, but his execution last year was the worst he’s had throughout his major league career. Failure to reach on two-thirds of his bunt attempts wasn’t the only batted ball issue Taveras had, for whatever reasons, 20% of his fly balls were of the infield variety – about as close to a sure out as you can get.

Taveras can still be useful though. That seems like a thought shared by those who think Socrates is a clothing brand, but it’s true. The problem for Taveras is how late he joins the fray. A team could claim him on waivers, or look towards similar players – like, say, the recovering Endy Chavez – and save a 40-man roster spot as well as cash. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Taveras fill out some National League team’s bench. It does surprise me that Taveras racked up nearly 400 plate appearances as the Reds’ leadoff man.

I guess there’s nothing like starting every game by facing Zack Greinke.

Consider this about Gabe Gross’ $750K contract: Mark Kotsay will be making double that next year while providing fewer than half the value.

I’ve enjoyed watching and writing about Gross to almost hyperbolic levels. He’s a fantastic athlete, one who actually played quarterback for the University of Auburn, and has more range than a soprano. His arm isn’t half bad either. Offensively, Gross will strikeout a bit while walking and hitting the occasional home run. He rarely goes outside of the strike zone to chase a bad pitch. He’s largely ineffective against southpaws, making him a platoon player and defensive replacement on any consciously managed team.

There seems to be two chief concerns about Gross on the A’s:

1) The Athletics already have three defensive wizards in their outfield

2) The Athletics also have Travis Buck

Let’s address the second point first. Buck had a fine entrance to the Majors back in 2007 producing 2.3 WAR. Since then injuries have absolutely sunk any hopes of dependability the A’s can put on the 26-year-old. In fact, he has fewer plate appearances since 2007 for the A’s as Gross did last year. The hope for Buck is basically to be Gross: an average hitting corner outfielder with above average defensive abilities. Since the A’s appear able to make a run at the division this year, Gross seems to provide more reliability, even if Buck’s upside is higher.

The first point is one people constantly harp on with the Mariners, too. Runs are runs. If there’s any ballpark in America that can handle three range-blessed outfielders at once, it’s the canyon Oakland plays inside of. If two of the fielders overlap constantly, have one take a few steps away. Gross doesn’t have to live up to his CHONE projections to be worth the contract.

Matt Klaasen ran through the math in more vivid color than I will here, but there’s little room for failure when evaluating this deal in WAR to dollar terms.