Last season, the Rays signed Gabe Kapler to platoon with Gabe Gross in right field. Yesterday the Rays re-signed the righty bopper to partake in a similar role, this time likely with Matt Joyce. The details of the contract are pretty minor; it’s a one-year $1.05M deal, which represents a slight raise over Kapler’s salary of $1,000,018 last year.

The Rays are a glutton for outfielders. Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton are two of the best defenders in baseball, Gabe Gross and Fernando Perez are serviceable, and there’s always Joyce and the highly touted Desmond Jennings to join the fray sometime next year as well, so re-signing Kapler may raise some eyebrows. He’s older and more susceptible to false praise about how hard he runs or devoted he is to working out. Still, Kapler holds some quantifiable attributes that should help the 2010 version of the Rays out.

For one, he hammers left-handed pitching. Over his last three seasons against southpaws – seasons, instead of years, since Kapler was busy managing in the minor leagues in 2007 – Kapler has maintained OPSs of .931 (145 AB), 1.001 (82 AB), and .749 (68 AB). Kapler is less effective against righties, but Joe Maddon used him efficiently last season and there’s no reason to believe Maddon will suddenly become liberal in his substitution patterns based on platoon splits. Kapler should get around 200 plate appearances with at least 75% coming with a platoon advantage. He should also have a higher OPS against right-handers next than .357 (aided by a BABIP near .200).

Kapler is better than pedestrian as a defender, too. The raw UZR numbers account only for the playing time he receives, so the last three seasons (from most recent to oldest: 6.2, 3.2, and 1.5) aren’t entirely telling of his talent level. His UZR/150s during that same time period are 9.7, 11.4, and 6.1; that makes him an above average defender and one capable of manning the occasional post in center if needed.

Watching Kapler is entirely captivating yet, at times, maddening. He plays the outfield and runs the bases like a spider on LSD – which is to say he appears to have eight legs and lacks basic control of each – and he looks like your typical jockhead with big muscles, a shaved head, eye black, the occasional pair of high socks. Then you listen to him talk and he comes off articulate and personable. Jonah Keri swore by this after spending some time talking to him last spring training, and I was in disbelief until hearing him in a post-game interview.

Quite a bit has been made locally about the Rays ignoring clubhouse chemistry and all that jazz, yet if the Rays win this season or in 2010, I guarantee Kapler would be praised as one of the glue guys. There’s enough grit and hustle to captivate the casual fan, yet still a pinch of underrated charm to endear the more sophisticated crowd.

Given the low cost and likely production of Kapler, this has the looking of an easy win on the Rays end.

The last time Pedro Martinez faced the New York Yankees in the post-season came back during the 2004 American League Championship Series. Some may recall that series because (a) it launched a million annoying Red Sox fans and (b) Pedro appeared in game seven as a reliever, pitching an inning and giving up a few runs. Five years later, many things have changed. The Yankees’ trophy cases are empty since – Boston’s case is not – and Pedro has only appeared in one playoff game since leaving soon after.

Needless to say, the old rivals will have some catching up to do prior to Pedro’s first start – whether that comes in Game Two or Three is anyone’s guess at the moment. The Yankees side of things seems to be well-covered, so let’s focus on Pedro and what he works with nowadays.

Fastball

No longer the ethereal and (at times) deadly projectile of times past, Pedro can still get over 90 MPH, just not with any sense of regularity. That doesn’t stop him from using the pitch nearly 60% of the time. The lack of top-end velocity hasn’t stopped batters from swinging and missing 9.3% of the time either. Left-handed batters, of which the Yankees have a few, still went contact-less about 9% of the time. Pedro’s fastballs still flash some decent movement too, just at a reduced pace.

Change-up

The Isis to the fastball’s Osiris, Pedro’s change is quite the miss. Despite a whiff rate of 18%, it does have a negative run value; however, the figure could be a benefactor of shoddy luck rather than a staple of ineffectiveness because of defensive dependence. The Phillies were one of the three best defensive teams in the National League as told by UZR and their pitchers combined for a .304 regular season BABIP (for reference: Pedro’s regular season BABIP was .315). Looking for the actual hit data against the change-up to corroborate the ‘it’s just luck’ assortment serves no help to Pedro. The pitch was put into play on 41 occasions and 25 turned into outs. That’s a .390 BABIP on 46% groundballs and a wee bit misfortunate. The question becomes whether a pitch can generate that many whiffs and yet still be extremely hittable. Maybe it was location or good guessing by the hitters or maybe it’s just small sample sizes magnifying everything.

Breaking pitches

Pedro’s curveball gets the second most whiffs of his pitches. There’s some debate as to whether he throws a slider or cutter. The pitch goes in the low-80s, so I would call it a slider. It doesn’t induce many empty swings, no matter what you call it.

Brandon League has always looked the role of a shutdown reliever. He throws a high-powered fastball that smacks the mitt with authority and had thrown a slider to complement the pitch. This year, however, League flashed a curveball and a change-up.

League began throwing the latter pitch more and more after using it a little more than a tenth of the time in April. Per Baseball Info Solutions Data, that figure rose to nearly 30% in May and continued moving up the charts. 36% in June was followed by 46% in July before sliding back down to 39.7% in August. League threw 30% change-ups in September and October, causing his usage curve to look a bit like a bell curve. The numbers are a bit skewed because of the pitch totals varying in totals; however, the pitch was an accurate assassin throughout.

Take his 11 appearances in August during which League threw 234 pitches (44 change-ups, 34 curves, 128 four-seam fastballs, and 14 sliders). Batters swung and missed on 32 of those pitches for a rate of 13.7%. On individual pitches, League saw 27% whiffs on his change, 32% on his curve, 21% on his slider, and only 4% on his fastballs. This is only 21% of League’s total pitches on the season, so small sample size does apply. Still, League’s seasonal numbers bare out improvement in provoking contact-less swings, as his 71% contact rate was a career low by more than 10 percentage points.

Most of League’s issues with the run average metrics come from a high home run rate. His fastball has the tendency to stay flat and crushed into the seats on a handful of occasions per season. He still possesses the upside you desire. Toronto doesn’t seem likely to ditch League (entering his second year of arbitration as a super-two member) but if some team can yank him away, they could be getting more than anticipated.

Need an example of how quickly someone’s post-season reputation can change? Look no further than a certain player on the New York Yankees. No, not Alex Rodriguez; at least he enjoyed some success in the post-season since 2002. Instead, the player is CC Sabathia.

In 2007, Sabathia had seen elimination and failure come in very personal manner as he allowed 15 runs in 15 innings. A year ago Sabathia’ Milwaukee Brewers were eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies in the Divisional Series. The tall lefty with an appetite for outs would make a single start in the series, pitching three and two-thirds innings of un-Sabathian ball: four walks, five strikeouts, and five earned runs. The last time Sabathia pitched well in the post-season was 2001 against the historic Seattle Mariners. The (then) 20-year-old appeared in one game, going six while walking as many as he struck out against a team that won 116 regular season games.

Sabathia has started three games for the Yankees this October, winning each start and allowing a total of three earned runs. In the matter of a month he’s won more post-season games than he had in his entire career. Nifty, right? Here are his post-season stat lines for easier comparison:

Era	GS	IP	SO%	uBB%	ERA
Pre	5	25	9.8	14.3	7.92
NYY	3	22.7	23	3.4	1.19

For further perspective, Sabathia’s post-season FIP are as follows: 3.88, 7.09, 7.22, and 2.44. That’s a drastic change and one that has wiped away any grumblings of Sabathia not being a big-game pitcher or one afraid of the bright lights of the post-season. Not that anyone – minus Twins or Angels fans – should be complaining about this development. If nothing else, it saves the rest of us time from defending Sabathia much like we have that previously mentioned Rodriguez fella over the past few years.

A few things are held true throughout baseball fandom. One of them is Barry Zito’s contract being described as a general manager’s worst nightmare. It’s been a while since someone quantified just how horrendous it is though.

In December 2006, Brian Sabean and the Giants outbid Bill Bavasi and the Mariners in order to land the overrated southpaw billed as an ace. As Nate Silver, amongst others, noted at the time, the deal was perfectly reasonable if you believed Zito could replicate his ERA. Unfortunately for the Giants, Zito’s ERA was a confluence of a spacious ballpark and a bloated amount of stranded baserunners. The contract – or, perhaps, The Contract to Giants fans – held a length of seven years (with a club option) and $126 million (given a $7M buyout for 2014 the contract is actually worth at least $133 million and has the chance to be worth more than $151 million).

To date, the Giants have paid Zito roughly $43M. He has posted FIP of 4.82, 4.72, and 4.31 in innings totals of 196.2, 180, and 192. After park and league adjustments that works out to WAR of 1.7, 1.4, and 2.2 or in dollar terms: $6.9M , $6.4M, and $10M; a sum of $23.3M. Quick subtraction shows the Giants losing about $20 million on the deal so far, and, as mentioned, there are still four years and $90 million left.

The somewhat good news that arrives is Zito had his best season (as told by WAR) since 2005 last year. His fastball went faster, as he used it less than before, and he relied heavily on an upper-70s slider. Maybe he can at least replicate that success heading forward, although it still won’t prevent him from being a punch line.

Yesterday, we talked about Jed Hoyer potentially taking the post as the Padres new GM. Today, let’s look at two situations which he’ll need to address this off-season.

Adrian Gonzalez

One of the most talented (and underrated) players in the N.L. held a coming out party last season. Gonzalez has been worth at least 3 WAR in every season since 2006, but not many saw a 6 WAR season coming surrounded by a bunch of nothing. Gonzalez is signed in 2010 for $4.75M and the Padres hold a club option worth $5.5M in 2011. When talking about great team contracts, this one has to be mentioned. Kevin Towers signed him to a four-year, $9.5M extension back in April of 2007 and he’s been worth over $50M since. Good deal? No. Great deal.

With such, Gonzalez holds a tremendous amount of trade value. The Red Sox are known to be heavily interested, which likely means the Yankees hold interest too. He’ll turn 28 in May, so there’s no rush to move him due to age and decline concerns. The Jake Peavy deal helped to rebuild the Padres farm system, but there’s still work to be done. Certainly the Padres don’t have to (and seemingly won’t) move him. That won’t stop teams from calling and shouldn’t stop the Padres from listening.

Heath Bell

It’s amazing how one 42 save season is going to change Bell’s perceived value. Since arriving in San Diego back in 2007, Bell has been an extremely solid reliever. He’s posted FIP of 2.50, 3.34, and 2.42; tRA of 2.55, 3.59, 2.45. He’s predominantly a groundball pitcher, but he has some swing-and-miss stuff. Last season he posted a career low HR/FB% of 5.1 which surpasses his previous totals by nearly a full percentage point and should cause some skepticism about a repeat performance quite this good. He’s entering his second year of arbitration and San Diego may be able to cash in on those saves if the right team buys into him.

Given how the Padres shifted into “sell everything” mode last year, this off-season should be a fun one to watch. Will Hoyer attempt to load up for a quick run or will he attempt to rebuild further?

If Buster Olney’s latest report comes to fruition, then San Diego’s search for a new General Manager is all but over. The man pegged to replace Kevin Towers appears to be Boston’s assistant GM, Jed Hoyer. Besides being 35 years old and working in the Boston front office for the better part of this decade, what else is known about Hoyer?

Through this excellent interview with Baseball Analysts’ Patrick Sullivan, we can take away a number of things:

– He seems to be of the philosophy that scouting and statistical work should be used together in player evaluation. At one point he actually says, “As we see it, we want every piece of information possible before making a decision. We have spent a lot of time and energy in developing our quantitative methods and we certainly use them in making player personnel decisions. But we also have a lot of great scouts and we read their reports and have lengthy conversations with all of them before making decisions.”

– He believes having a well thought-out plan is as important as anything when acquiring players.

– He’s a fan of Jason Varitek.*

Obviously, there’s more to the interview than those three points, but what the Padres seem to be getting – and this is not intended to be a slight or insult in the least — is the new-school GM starter kit. Hoyer seems like a bright enough individual with an open mind and the experience of working alongside some extremely talented folk during his Red Sox tenure. How he’ll fair as a GM is anyone’s guess at this point, but he seems to possess the skills needed in order to succeed and with that one guy, Paul DePodesta, still around, he should have a decent supporting cast.

The next questions if Hoyer is hired will be: 1) who (if anyone) will Hoyer bring with him from Boston and 2) just how much money will they have to work with this off-season.

—

*I apologize for this bit of rosterbation, but imagine Chris Young pitching to Varitek next season. Dexter Fowler is.

World-renowned pitching coach/guru Rick Peterson, after a hiatus, is back in baseball as the Brewers new pitching coach. He’s got some serious work to do, as the Brewers pitching staff ranked second worst amongst all 30 teams in FIP and actually finished with an identical ERA and FIP of 4.84.

The rotation pitched horrendously with the exception of Yovani Gallardo, who posted the sole starting FIP sub-4. Manny Parra and David Bush were the only other two under 5.00, and free agent additions Braden Looper and Jeff Suppan had FIP of 5.70 and 5.74 respectively with ERAs over 5.00 as well. Looper made more than 30 starts, which means his 2010 option is now worth $6.5M instead of $6M and his buyout increases from $750K to $1M. It’s hard to see Milwaukee picking that option up given the potential grabs on the free agency market.

Trades could also be an avenue of injecting pitching talent. Shortstop J.J. Hardy could probably fetch someone who effectively becomes the Brewers second best starter. If the Brew Crew feel like placing Prince Fielder on the market, one would think they could land a legitimate equal to Gallardo. Maybe the good news is that almost any addition is effectively an upgrade given just how putrid the starters were.

The bad news is that Suppan is still due $12.5M and has a buyout after the season. Is there even another challenger to what Doug Melvin’s worst move is? Suppan’s strong post-season duped the then-uprising Brewers into inking him for veteran presence, playoff experience, and all the other terms that sounds good at a press conference but don’t quite translate to wins and losses – okay, they do translate to losses when you throw over 300 innings of replacement level ball while making over $20M.

Not as much work needs to be done with the bullpen, which had a FIP and ERA on level with the Yankees and Mariners. That’s middle of the road to slightly on the curb, but comparing that to the monstrosity known as the rotation is like comparing a grasshopper to Godzilla.

As for Peterson himself, he wasn’t entirely out of baseball last year, as he tried to fix Scott Kazmir mid-season and seemingly did a decent job at it. He’s one of the forefront supporters of advanced and rigorous physical testing of pitchers, and for that reason alone Milwaukee should welcome him with wide arms. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but go back and read Derek Zumsteg’s excellent series on pitching prospects and attrition for a reminder of just how good the Athletics were at preventing arm injuries during some of Peterson’s time there.

Peterson also seems to know a little bit about how pitching works. As demonstrated in multiple interviews, he doesn’t pound the “first-pitch strike” philosophy; instead he focuses on winning the first three pitches. He knows the value of the swinging strike and groundball, and he doesn’t seem to carry a notebook of clichés and labels for each of his pitchers.

Milwaukee made a sound hire; now it’s time to get the man some talent to work with.

Christmas came early for the Mariners yesterday, as Kenji Johjima has decided to opt out of the remaining two years of his contract and return to Japan. The 33-year-old backstop was due 16 million over the final two years of his extension which he just inked last April.

The Mariners have multiple soon-to-be free agents on their roster. Adrian Beltre and Erik Bedard top the list, but Russell Branyan is also unrestricted. The only safe bet on returning seems to be with Branyan, but stranger things have happened. The Mariners also have a potential arbitration hearing with Felix Hernandez lined up, and given his season, he should see a substantial raise.

Johjima only appeared in 71 games and recorded a career low 258 plate appearances in which he looked more like the morbid 2008 version of himself rather than the solid 2006/2007 editions. He split playing time throughout the year with Rob Johnson – a prototypical backup catcher, right down to the hyperbole about his defensive abilities – and with top prospect Adam Moore not too far off from Safeco, odds are Johjima wasn’t getting 500 plate appearances again anytime soon.

Despite this rather unceremonious exit, Johjima’s initial signing is a bright spot. He combined for 7.4 WAR during his time here in the States – a value of 29.4 million – while receiving around 25 million in salary. That winds up being a net gain, and whatever jerseys or television ratings he gained through the Japan fan base that previously didn’t embrace Ichiro – do such people even exist? – makes his employment a net gain for the M’s.

1,700 plate appearances and a .268/.310/.411 line later, we have likely seen the last of Kenji Johjima in Major League Baseball. Somewhere Jarrod Washburn is ripe with glee.

Last season, Eric Seidman set out on a quest to find the most extreme mop-up men. Eric has since moved on, but if I may, I would like to keep the tradition of honoring those ill-forsaken heroes by following the same methodology laid out in this post. To quote the most important part:

The LI component, for those unaware, is Leverage Index, developed by the aforementioned TangoTiger. The stat essentially measures the stress level of the situation at hand. An average LI is 1.00, so when dealing with supposed mop up pitchers, of interest are the average LIs for pitchers equal to, or below, the average. Plugging it into the above formula, dividing by innings pitched, and multiplying that quotient by the total number of games pitched should, in theory, help us narrow these mop up guys down. Basically, the lower the number provided by that formula, the more mop-uppy the pitcher.

Pretty straight-forward, no? The bar for qualification was set at 40 innings, which just so happened to give a nice selection of relievers – 176 to be exact – for which we can answer of whom was the most janitorial and of whom was the most executive – or whatever the opposite of the pitching equivalent of a janitor is. The answer to the former question is actually well-known – or at least should be by now. Most of the die-hard readers know more about Luis Perdomo than they should thanks to my obsession with him. His “MOP” score came out to a minuscule 0.163. Only one other pitcher finished within 0.1 points of Perdomo, and that was Josh Fogg at 0.174. The top 10 breaks down as such:

Luis Perdomo Padres	0.163
Josh Fogg Rockies	0.174
Chris Smith Brewers	0.266
R.A. Dickey Twins	0.293
D.J. Carrasco White Sox	0.307
Matt Palmer Angels	0.323
Leo Rosales Diamondbacks	0.344
Carlos Fisher Reds	0.344
Mark Hendrickson Orioles	0.405
Brian Bass Orioles	0.418

Carrasco is the best of the bunch (as judged by FIP) and as such, dethrones Buddy Carlyle as mop-up man of the year.