The season may be in its final days, but last night we saw one of the finest pitching performances of the campaign. Ricky Nolasco faced off against Javier Vazquez and the Atlanta Braves and pulled a pretty incredible feat. In seven and two-thirds innings against a total of 29 batters Nolasco struck out 16 batters. He also walked two, allowed four hits, generated five grounders, and a single pop fly; all on 123 pitches.

Since 1954 only 103 games have featured a pitcher striking out 16 or more batters. 21 of those games saw the pitcher go eight or less innings with almost a half a dozen of those belonging to Randy Johnson. Nolasco did it on 29 batters faced; something only five other pitchers have done:

Pedro Martinez 4-8-2001 16 K 29 BF
Randy Johnson 8-23-2001 16 K 28 BF & 7-18-2001 16 K 23 BF
Mark Prior 6-26-2003 16 K 27 BF
Johan Santana 8-19-2007 17 K 26 BF
Jake Peavy 4-25-2007 16 K 25 BF & 5-22-2006 16 K 25 BF

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention those who struck out 16 or more while facing 50+ batters in a game. Tom Cheney pitched 16 innings in 1962, striking out 21 of the 62 he saw. Nolan Ryan faced 58 and fanned 19 of them in 1974. Chris Short struck out 18 of 56 in 1965 and Bob Veale sat down 16 of 52 the year prior. These guys were less about efficiency and more about longevity.

Back to Nolasco. This has been a tumultuous season for the 26-year-old righty. In late May he was demoted, but since returning two weeks later he’s thrown 133.2 innings, struck out 142, walked 29, and thrown 66% strikes. He’s one of those oddballs with FIP and tRAs far more soothing to the eye than his 5-something ERA this year – a factor that could raise some to question whether he has the ability to pitch successfully in the majors.

Those questions ceased for at least one night.

File this under “unlikely results”:

When the Rays acquired Ben Zobrist in the Aubrey Huff trade a few years back, the most impressive tool in his shed was his ability to reach base. Throughout the minors his career .429 on-base percentage made him a desirable stopgap if nothing else. The Rays incumbent shortstop Julio Lugo was moved shortly after and uber prospect B.J. Upton shifted to third base. Zobrist would rack up 198 plate appearances that season, posting a measly .260 OBP and barely hitting a ball out of the infield.

The Rays would persevere with the now 28-year-old Dallas Baptist University product and start him on opening day 2007. In 105 plate appearances his line was .155/.184/.206. Brendan Harris would take over at shortstop – someone with fall-down range – and Zobrist would rake in Triple-A. An injury would sideline Zobrist in 2008 but when he finally reached the majors he took off: blasting 12 home runs in 227 plate appearances.

This was a guy who had the bat knocked out of his hands during his major league stint and someone who hit 23 minor league home runs in 1,642 plate appearances. There was absolutely no way this power surge was legitimate, right? Well, I doubted him based on this information and apparently I was quite wrong. Zobrist secured a starting spot at second base once Akinori Iwamura went down to injury and could finish with 600 plate appearances this season. He’s hit 25 homers and 25 doubles to go with his .924 OPS.

Is this his true talent level? Heavens no. His UZR at second base is 16.1 runs. Former shortstops should perform better at second base, but expecting such a performance again is a bit much. Heck, odds are his power display isn’t legitimate either. Awards aren’t given out on true talent level and expected futures though. It’s all about the actual performances and for that reason Zobrist should garner some AL MVP votes and claim the Rays team MVP award as one of the best stories and best performances of 2009.

Same rules as before: ranked by WAR and 300 plate appearances at that position to qualify.

Center field

Franklin Gutierrez – traded
Matt Kemp – drafted
Nyjer Morgan – traded
Michael Bourn – traded
Mike Cameron – free agent
Ryan Sweeney – traded
Denard Span – drafted
Torii Hunter – free agent
Rajai Davis – waivers
Curtis Granderson – drafted

Scoreboard:
4 traded
3 drafted
2 free agents
1 waivers

Corner outfield:

Matt Holliday – traded
Carl Crawford — drafted
Justin Upton – drafted
Ichiro – free agent
Shin-Soo Choo – traded
Ryan Braun – drafted
Jayson Werth – traded
J.D. Drew – free agent
Raul Ibanez – free agent
Nelson Cruz – traded

4 traded
3 free agents
3 drafted
—
Overall, we sampled 115 of the league’s best and brightest. Of those, a combined 54 players were either drafted or signed as an amateur free agent by their current clubs. An additional two were plucked on waivers or through the Rule 5 draft and 44 more were traded for. Only 15 players were signed as major league free agents, and it’s hard to classify many of those signings as blockbuster in magnitude.

There are some teams that take the scouting and drafting game less seriously than they should. I doubt those teams read this website, but if they did and wanted to take one statistic – one message – from this series, it’s this: 47% of 2009’s best players were “just prospects” at one point or another. That’s not to include all of the players traded at early points of their career either. Meanwhile only 13% were signed as free agents.

Free agency may get all the hype and buzz, but the draft is where teams find impact talent.

Ranked by WAR amongst players with at least 300 plate appearances:

First base

Albert Pujols – drafted
Prince Fielder – drafted
Adrian Gonzalez – traded
Miguel Cabrera – traded
Mark Teixeira – free agent
Kevin Youkilis – drafted
Derrek Lee – traded
Ryan Howard – drafted
Joey Votto – drafted
Kendry Morales – amateur free agent

Scoreboard:
5 drafted
3 traded
1 free agent
1 amateur free agent

Second base

Ben Zobrist – traded
Chase Utley – drafted
Dustin Pedroia – drafted
Felipe Lopez – traded
Robinson Cano – drafted
Ian Kinsler – drafted
Aaron Hill – drafted
Brian Roberts – drafted
Placido Polanco – traded
Brandon Phillips – traded
Juan Uribe – free agent

Scoreboard:
5 drafted
4 traded
1 free agent

Third base

Evan Longoria – drafted
Ryan Zimmerman – drafted
Chone Figgins – traded
Kevin Youkilis – drafted
Alex Rodriguez – traded
Pablo Sandoval – amateur free agent
Casey Blake – traded
Mark Reynolds – drafted
Michael Young – traded
Scott Rolen – traded

Scoreboard
5 traded
4 drafted
1 amateur free agent

Shortstop

Hanley Ramirez – traded
Derek Jeter – drafted
Troy Tulowitzki – drafted
Jason Bartlett – traded
Marco Scutaro – traded
Yunel Escobar – drafted
Erick Aybar – amateur free agent
Brendan Ryan – drafted
Rafael Furcal – free agent
Elvis Andrus – traded

Scoreboard
4 drafted
4 traded
1 free agent
1 amateur free agent

All told we have a breakdown of: 18 drafted, 16 traded, 3 free agents, and 3 amateur agents. I’m sure most people see the developing theme here, but let me state the obvious: the best players in baseball this year were not acquired on the free agent market. Despite the hype and headlines that come with big-time contract signings and hot stove nature, the aggression on the trade, draft, and international scouting fronts seems to pay off with more impact players. Maybe it’s a one-year fluke or maybe it’s just an infield thing. We’ll cover the outfield and wrap up the series tomorrow.

On to the next position: logically being the catcher spot. Let’s jump right into the list, based on WAR of players with at least 300 plate appearances at catcher:

Joe Mauer – drafted
Victor Martinez – traded
Brian McCann – drafted
Jorge Posada –drafted
Yadier Molina – drafted
Miguel Montero – amateur free agent
Mike Napoli – drafted
Kurt Suzuki – drafted
A.J. Pierzynski – free agent
John Baker – traded

Scoreboard:
6 drafted
2 traded
1 free agent
1 amateur free agent

70% of the list was developed by their current teams. Mauer is the poster child. I feel like I should’ve added a few empty spaces after Mauer’s name because he’s just that good. He was also the first overall pick in the draft, something that none of the other catchers can say. Here’s a list of rounds in which those six were drafted:

Mauer 1st
McCann 2nd
Posada 24th
Molina 4th
Napoli 17th
Suzuki 2nd

Well that portrays the inherent wackiness of drafting catchers. I did more research on this a while back and found the difference between picking a catcher between 31st and 60th overall and picking one between 61st and 90th overall is minimal at best and that drafting first round catchers doesn’t guarantee much of anything. That last point is obvious about any position, but really, evaluating catchers is extremely tricky. Those teams that do it well at least once try and hold onto their talented backstops as much as possible; maybe that’s part of the reason that only one free agent catcher is amongst the top ten, and his reputation is that of a jackass.

Earlier we looked at where the best starting pitchers came from this year, this time let’s focus on their relieving counterparts. For the rankings I used plain ol’ FIP since relievers home run rates don’t regress to a central mean like starters and instead of the top 30, I used the top 15. Here are those players and how they were acquired by their current teams:

Phil Hughes – draft
Jonathan Broxton – draft
Chan Ho Park – free agent
Mike Wuertz – trade
Kiko Calero – free agent
Matt Thornton – trade
Brian Wilson – draft
Trevor Hoffman – free agent
Heath Bell – trade
Luke Gregerson – trade
Andrew Bailey — draft
Rafael Soriano – trade
Huston Street – trade
Joakim Soria – Rule 5
Joe Nathan – trade

The count:
7 traded
4 drafted
3 free agents
1 Rule 5

This is a similar pattern to the one established for starters. Of those acquired in trades, only Soriano and Street were truly established as top of the line relievers – although I suppose you could make the case that Wuertz was quite solid in the past as well.

Let’s take a closer look at the four drafted relievers.

Hughes was a former top-flight starting prospect for the Yankees. You have to figure he’ll make the transition back to starting at some point but Joba Chamberlain hasn’t flipped from Mariano Rivera’s Robin to the next Josh Beckett quite yet, so maybe the Yankees are hesitant to make the switch once more; no matter how easy of a long-term decision it seems to be.

Broxton too started games in the minors for the Dodgers. 50 of his 87 games came as a starter, and his numbers weren’t too poor in either capacity. The Dodgers let him make the switch full-time beginning in 2006.

Wilson is the only true reliever of the quartet. He started three games in low-A during his debut season and that was that.

Bailey started for the A’s throughout his minor league career. In fact, 47 of his 73 games came as a starter. He made the jump from Double-A to the majors this year in a full reliever capacity and hasn’t looked back.

The old adage is that anyone who can throw strikes can make it as a reliever. At the same time, a lot of failed starters are transitioned to the pen. Beyond the top 15 guys like Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon, J.P. Howell, and even Trevor Hoffman were starters at some point in their career before making the transition.

For the majority of major league teams, this is the final week of their season. This means back to the planning board for the front offices as they decide whether to buy this off-season, sell, do both, or attempt to remain static moving forward. One thing is for sure: every team in the league – barring perhaps the Yankees – could use more star power. So how do you acquire stars?

Let’s start with the starting pitchers. Obviously “star” is a word with ambiguous meaning. For some it means a guy who will move tickets, sell jerseys, and land them a marquee spot in the highlights on nights he pitches. For others it means one of the best pitchers in the league whose performance should bring the attention and spotlight, but everyone knows that’s not always a guarantee.

For this set of exercises I’m choosing to define star as the latter. I’ve taken the top 30 starters as told by THT’s xFIP metric. Why xFIP? Because it normalizes home run rates and saves time in noting certain pitcher performances in ballparks like those Oakland and San Diego. From there I noted how each was acquired by their current team. Here’s the list:

Javier Vazquez – trade
Tim Lincecum – draft
Dan Haren – trade
Roy Halladay – draft
Zack Greinke – draft
Jon Lester – draft
Josh Johnson – draft
Justin Verlander – draft
Ricky Nolasco – trade
Adam Wainwright – draft
Chris Carpenter – free agent
Felix Hernandez – amateur free agent
Josh Beckett – trade
Joel Pineiro – trade
Ubaldo Jimenez – amateur free agent
Cole Hamels – draft
Wandy Rodriguez – amateur free agent
Yovani Gallardo – drafted
Gavin Floyd – trade
Brett Anderson – trade
Jorge de la Rosa — trade
Jason Hammel – trade
CC Sabathia – free agent
Ryan Dempster – free agent
Roy Oswalt – draft
Aaron Harang – trade
Max Scherzer – draft
Chad Billingsley – draft
Joe Blanton – trade
Clayton Kershaw – draft

That works out to 11 pitchers acquired via trade, 13 in the draft, 3 as amateur free agents (read: intentional in this case), and 3 as actual free agents. Of those three, Sabathia is the only one signed to a large deal; Carpenter was a pet project for Dave Duncan and a similar tale exists for Dempster’s signing.

The best pitchers in baseball aren’t being acquired on the free agent market. Teams looking for their ace pitcher this off-season should take note.

Ichiro recently reached 200 hits for the ninth consecutive season. Not by coincidence, that matches his career length in the major leagues, meaning he’s reached the plateau in every season since making the leap. That’s a lot of hits and one of the reasons for Ichiro’s streak is his ability to generate infield hits. Ponder his totals:

2002 – 41
2003- 34
2004 – 57
2005 -31
2006 – 41
2007 – 44
2008 – 49
2009 – 49

337 infield hits over eight years – or roughly 42 per season. That’s a ton of hits and none of them have left the infield. Since Ichiro is left-handed and his follow through includes “starting towards” first base, you would expect a fair number of those to be of the bunt hit variety. Yet he’s only laid down 50 bunt hits since 2002 and has attempted only 98 bunts – which equates to a pretty ridiculous success rate when he does choose to lay one down.

Not only does Ichiro lead the league in infield hits, but by a pretty considerable amount. He has 21 more than second place Michael Bourn, 22 more than Carl Crawford, 24 more than Jacoby Ellsbury, and 33 more than Hanley Ramirez. With such it’s little surprise that the Mariners lead the league in infield hits. Ichiro obviously makes up a large contribution, but Franklin Gutierrez (14) and Adrian Beltre (13) are into double digits as well.

The Oriles, Dodgers, Nationals, and Yankees round out the top five in league-wide infield hits as a team. Meanwhile the Braves, Cubs, Pirates, Indians, Phillies, and Reds have considerably fewer infield hits.

The best tradition of a Yankee-infested post-season is the hatchet job to Alex Rodriguez whenever the Yankees fail. They are heading to the tourney this year,which means after Alex Rodriguez’s first 0-for playoff game we’ll get to read about how awful he is in the post-season. With that in mind let’s address the topic before the headlines do.

Alex Rodriguez does not hit well in the playoffs

His career wOBA in the regular season is .412. His career post-season wOBA is .368. Relative to his standards he doesn’t hit well in the playoffs.

He’s been the invisible man with the Yankees

Let’s drop wOBA for a moment and simply look at his playoff series lines in pinstripes:

2004 ALDS: .421/.476/.737 (21 PA)
2004 ALCS: .258/.378/.561 (37 PA)
2005 ALDS: .133/.381/.200 (21 PA)
2006 ALDS: .071/.071/.071 (14 PA)
2007 ALDS: .267/.353/.467 (17 PA)

You have one great series and two awful, and two below A-Rod standards. Invisible? No. Not as good as his regular season self? Yes. The sample size isn’t big enough to say whether this is simply random fluctuation or a fear of the post-season stage.

A-Rod isn’t clutch

Our glossary defines the Clutch statistic as:

Clutch – How much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment.

You can read more about it here, but let’s look at those playoff years and their Clutch figures:

2004: 0.45
2005: -0.09
2006: -0.08
2007: -0.12

Overall positive, but recent history has been unkind to Rodriguez. How about a quick comparison to Derek Jeter’s figures during that same time period?

2004: -0.05
2005: -0.07
2006: -0.30
2007: -0.01

Oh. Well then.

During the Rays/M’s game, announcer Dewayne Staats noted that Carl Crawford’s .307 batting average was good for seventh best in the American League. Erik Hahmann – my co-writer at DRaysBay – questioned the rank, insinuating it seemed a little on the low-end for a top 10 BA. Sure enough, Staats and the Rays media notes were correct.

22 AL batters (who have qualified) have recorded hits in roughly 30% of their total at-bats; last year 17 hit .300; 20 in 2007; and 20 once more in 2006. How about Erik’s assertion that .307 usually doesn’t land you in the top 10? Here are the cutoff averages – so to speak – of the tenth highest BA in each of those years:

2008 – Nick Markakis .306
2007 – Dustin Pedroia .317
2006 – Reed Johnson: .319

In some ways this is a renaissance of .300 hitters on the Junior Circuit – the Angels are to thank for some of this – however the quality of the best batting averages appears to be slipping a bit. The first reason that pops to mind for deflated batting averages is an increased emphasis across baseball on defense. The A.L. features the Rays, Mariners, and Rangers – three of the best defensive clubs in the game – and if this is the case, shouldn’t it show up in the league’s non-pitcher BABIP rates? Let’s look.

2009 – .305
2008 – .303
2007 – .309
2006 – .307

Nothing there other than simple fluctuation. The only other thing I can think of is a possible increase in strikeouts. Here are those totals:

2009 – 20.4%
2008 – 19.6%
2007 – 19.6%
2006 – 18.5%

Well, there’s certainly something there, albeit not nearly enough to point to an increase in whiffs as the reason for deflated batting averages. Does it play some kind of role in the change? Certainly.

It’ll be interesting to see if the league strikeout rate continues to climb into next season and whether batting averages continue to drop.