Contractual ethics are always fun to discuss. Whether they be service time (Dave will cover that) or based on incentives. The philosophy of handing out playing time incentives is pretty simple. The only way the player can earn the money (or added option year, new car, whatever the two agreed on) is to play well, stay healthy, or have a manager who hates his owner. It seems like losing on a playing time incentive is impossible for a time. Either the player earns the money and the added benefit, or you simply don’t play him. Simple right?

It is, except when the player is 35-years-old, doesn’t really fit anymore, and shows signs of slowing down. Oh, and the option is for 18 million. The problem here is that Magglio Ordonez isn’t a bad player, per se, but the idea of paying him next year when he turns 36 is, well … on a 1-10 scale of unattractiveness, the proposition ranks as “cat”.

So Jim Leyland has 50 games to juggle Ordonez’ playing time just enough in order to prevent the option from vesting. Ordonez’ has 990 plate appearances since 2008, the clause needs 1,080 during 2008 and 2009 to kick in; Ordonez’ also has 231 starts and the clause requires 270. 50 games, 90 plate appearances or 39 starts to avoid.

To avoid having a grievance filed on behalf of Ordonez, the Tigers need an excuse to prove they are only sitting Ordonez because his performance is detrimental to the team’s success. Thankfully for them, they have an excuse built in. Ordonez is hitting quite poor against right-handed pitchers. His line .253/.322/.339 this year with two home runs – and yes, we should always use multiple year data, but if grievances are anything like free agency compensation rankings, arbitration, or awards, or anything else in baseball determined by stats, the only thing that matters is batting average, home runs, and runs batted during this season – while Ordonez’ teammates, Clete Thomas and Marcus Thames, are batting .253 (with more home runs) and .252 (with more home runs). Ergo, both are more productive and should be playing over Ordonez.

Unless the American League Central plans to force the Tigers hand by intentionally starting southpaws against them*, the Tigers can make it known they only wish to give Ordonez plate appearances against lefties. Theoretically ending any hope of 39 starts or 90 plate appearances. Of course, there’s always the question as to whether the Tigers should worry more about the playoffs than the money, but, that’s for another day.

*The Tigers play the Royals nine more times. How amusing would it be to see the Royals send out random minor league lefty after random minor league lefty to force the Tigers hands? I mean, they may have to call on guys out of baseball, like Bruce Chen but still.

On this date a year ago, J.J. Hardy was hitting .275/.336/.462 with 17 home runs. Hardy is hitting .229/.300/.367 with 11 home runs this year, and for the time being, won’t have the opportunity to change his line anytime soon. The Brewers have officially optioned him to Triple-A and promoted their top prospect, shortstop Alcides Escobar, to the major leagues.

Hardy is older, more expensive, and was a season from free agency (more on that from Dave tomorrow), so it was clear that Escobar was the Brewers shortstop heading forward. The estimated time of arrival was up in the air, with Hardy still around and presumably possessing some trade value, but remaining with the team through July and not even being placed on waivers. I don’t know what the league would offer for Hardy, but for a team in desperate need of pitching help, you have to imagine a shortstop averaging a little over 3 WAR per season could bring a starter or two back, right?

Perhaps the Brewers want Hardy to dominate in Triple-A, therefore being able to showcase him as someone who still possesses skills. His ratio of line drives and groundballs hit are down as well, which is contributing to his poor luck on balls in play. Hardy’s strikeouts are up for the second consecutive season, but so are his walks. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him return to form with whatever team lands him this off-season, maybe as this year’s Nick Swisher?

Escobar is a fantastic defender and his bat has caught up with this glove over the last year. His first exposure to Double-A ended with a .296 wOBA, but last year he repeated the level with vengeance, staking a .369 figure. This year he’s hitting well in Triple-A , with a .351 wOBA. He’s an extremely good thief on the path when he gets on, but the most glaring weakness in his game right now is his ability to draw walks, something he’s improved on this year, but could still use some work.

I’m not entirely sure this makes the Brewers a better team this year, nor am I sure any added benefit was worth potentially sinking even more of Hardy’s trade value. Doug Melvin knows more about the second part of that statement than I do, so we’ll see how he handles Hardy in the off-season.

One of my long-time battles is explaining that MLB average players are actually good and important to winning ballgames. A few months ago, I ran across a piece on Driveline Mechanics that highlighted the most average players through means of WAR (simply put, Runs Above Replacement – Replacement Runs) and loved it. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen an update by the author, appropriately named Devil_Fingers, in a while. So, in his spirit I decided to highlight the players who exemplify league average performances this year.

Keep in mind; this is simply this year and not a complete representation of their true talent levels.

The most average players in baseball – which is to say those with the closest proximity to zero either way – are a pair of outfielders who hit about as well as anyone in the bigs, but field about as well as … well anyone in your local beer league. I’m talking about Brad Hawpe and Jason Bay. After them you have names like Luis Castillo, Mark DeRosa, Cristian Guzman, and Jimmy Rollins. Former top prospects like Billy Butler, B.J. Upton, and Andy LaRoche are within stone throws away from being average one way or the other.

Much like how Hawpe and Bay were penalized for their inability to field, Randy Winn has runs deducted for his poor bat. J.J. Hardy too. Clint Barmes has his offense and defense basically cancel out, and Jose Lopez is slightly poor at both things, but his positional adjustments cancel the struggles out.

You should be able to take away that average players are everywhere, unique to themselves and useful to their teams. I can go on for a while, comparing average players to snowflakes or butterflies, but that seems boring and misguided.

Tonight, Junichi Tazawa is slated to make his first major league start against the Detroit Tigers. Tazawa made his debut last week against the Yankees, facing nine batters allowing a home run, walking nobody, and striking a pair out. He tossed 35 pitches, 24 for strikes, with most of them being fastballs although he also threw an assortment of breaking pitches and even a pair of off-speed pitches.

The Tigers lineup figures to look something like this:

Granderson CF
Polanco 2B
Thomas LF
Cabrera 1B
Guillen DH
Ordonez RF
Inge 3B
Laird C
Everett SS

Only three lefties (Guillen is a switch hitter) but it probably won’t matter too much. According to MinorLeagueSplits, Tazawa struck out a quarter of the left-handed batters he faced in the minors while walking eight percent. Against righties his strikeout total was down to 18%, but his walk rate halved.

The scouting report on Tazawa includes a fastball in the low-90s that cuts into righties; a 81-83 MPH slider that serves as Tazawa’s out-pitch; a curve that sits around 76-78 and has two-plane movement; and a change-up that also sits 81-83. That repertoire seems to agree with the numbers in saying he can be effective against any batter, including the abnormal species known as left-handers. One thing to watch is Tazawa’s release points, check the separation from his reliever outing on his breaking stuff and fastballs, they seem to be slightly higher:

Detroit is a middle of the pack offensive team, but Fenway favors hitters and is practically a doubles haven, so there’s a decent chance Tazawa gets touched up a bit. If he doesn’t, I’m sure we’ll hear about him non-stop from ESPN for the next two years.

For the first time since 1996, Jamie Moyer is going to be appearing in the bullpen more than once. News broke yesterday that Pedro Martinez will start for the Phillies on Wednesday, bumping baseball’s version of old man river to the bullpen permanently.

Moyer’s season has been a dramatic letdown after his perceived revival last year. His home run rate is back up to norm while his strikeouts are back down and while Moyer’s velocity has been unaffected; his stuff is resulting in less swings and misses than in the past. In fact this is the highest contact% in Moyer’s recorded history.

Dave (surname: Allen) covered Moyer’s new fastball-heavy approach last month. The updated news is that it still seems to be working out horribly. Take a look at his wFB/C over the past few years:

2006 0.01
2007 -1.55
2008 -0.37
2009 -0.51

For every 100 pitches Moyer is throwing 61 fastballs and it happens to be his second worst pitch behind only his change-up (at least this year). Obviously those numbers are heavily dependent on Moyer’s defense making the plays but it’s simply not an effective pitch after nearly three years of negative numbers despite good defenses.

So he moves to the pen and how exactly he’ll be used is up to anyone’s guess. An atypical lefty Moyer’s numbers don’t scream specialist. Since 2006, his wOBA against lefties is ~.357 and ~.383 against righties; in terms of 2009 equivalents, you get Nick Markakis and Derek Lee. That’s not a pretty sight to behold.

The general rule of thumb is for starters to lose about a run off their average in a transition to the pen. Combine such knowledge with Moyer’s ZiPS ROS projection and you get a 3.7 run average reliever. Of course ZiPS doesn’t know Moyer is using his fastball more or anything of the such, so you can bump that projection up as you see fit.

Unfortunately, Moyer’s career in the rotation could come to a close. Maybe he can extend the longevity by excelling out of the pen.

Remember when the American League East was supposed to be extremely close down to the wire? The Yankees sweep of the Red Sox coinciding with the Rays dropping two of three to the Mariners leaves New York up 6.5 on Boston and 8 on Tampa Bay with 51 games remaining. I’m not saying the divisional race is definitely over, but Yankee fans can probably begin taking out loans for playoff tickets.

Coolstandings has the Yankees divisional chances at 78% and their playoff odds have actually surpassed the Dodgers. Even if the Yankees play a little under .500 from this point forward and go 25-26, the Red Sox would have to play ~.600 ball and go 32-20 to win the division. The Rays would have to move a mountain and win 65% of their games to simply tie the Yankees. Anytime you have to bank on winning that many games in such a small time frame, you should probably start focusing on the wild card race .

If/when the Yankees win the division, expect the events of the past weekend to be fingered as the most important series of the season. The 13 inning game and Daniel Bard implosion instantly become Yankee folklore. A split leaves Boston within striking distance and a loss series puts Boston in passing position. Now the 12 games remaining against the Red Sox/Rays can be split without fear of losing the lead from a few bad games.

Obviously anything can happen over the last few weeks, but barring a few injuries or prolonged slumps, the Yankees are going to break new Yankee Stadium into the October activities right away.

Over the weekend Matthew covered the American League East race, meanwhile the Tampa Bay Rays made a few moves to make the last fourth of the season a bit more interesting.

The Rays catching tandem of Dioner Navarro and Michel Hernandez combined for the lowest wOBA in the league at .262 or a .227/.262/.335 line. Enter Gregg Zaun, acquired from the Orioles for cash and a player to be named later, the veteran journeyman is hitting .243/.351/.370 and represents an offensive blizzard compared to the snow globe the Rays were previously trotting out there. If you assume Zaun gets most of the remaining ~200 plate appearances and hits to his ZiPS projection (.321 wOBA) he represents a ~3-4 run improvement over Navarro’s projected performance.

Along with being a patient hitter capable, Zaun has a reputation of being a decent defensive catcher. We don’t attempt to quantify defense, but everyone who has attempted agrees with conventional scouting that Zaun is a good defender minus an iffy throwing arm. Navarro on the other hand has struggled with actually catching the ball at times and questions about his ability to do the small things behind the plate were intensified with Hernandez’ presence. Whether or not the difference is worthwhile or not is just gravy to the offensive upgrade.

As if one veteran addition wasn’t enough, the Rays claimed Russ Springer on waivers and were granted his services on Saturday. Springer comes from Oakland where his 3.39 FIP was surprisingly met with his highest HR/FB% in years. Somehow Springer’s BABIP is .400 despite 60% fly balls. Major league average BABIP on fly balls is .138 while Springer’s is .174. His groundballs and line drives are becoming hits more often than league average as well, but he’s heading to a team loaded with stout outfield defenders like Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton, and Gabe Gross. For some reason I don’t see that BABIP sticking the rest of the way.

Neither move is going to catapult the Rays over the Red Sox or Yankees, but they’ve been super active on the waiver wire for the second consecutive year. Who says the acquisition madness ends on July 31st?

The week after the trade deadline is always fun. The waiver wire rumors may lack the intrigue and publicity of their free trading big brother, but the amount of movement we saw this week, specifically with veteran pitchers. Here’s a recap of the frenzy.

After Sidney Ponson’s latest effort, the doughty cousin of Radhames Dykhoff was designated for assignment by the Royals. ERA can and does lie and probably did Ponson in more than anything. Ponson’s FIP was a decent a 4.69, eons better than his 7.36 ERA. No word yet on whether Ponson has cleared waivers or if louche behavior played into the transaction.

The Yankees signed Russ Ortiz for added depth meanwhile the heir to that position, Brett Tomko, was signed by the Athletics. Much like Ponson, Ortiz is the sufferer of a poor ERA and figures to spend more time in Triple-A than the majors. Tomko is an interesting addition if solely due to the tidbit that if he reaches the majors this would be his fourth California-based team to do so with, leaving only the Angels. Here’s hoping Tony Reagins hands him a contract during the winter.

Not to be outdone by their bitter rivals the Red Sox re-added Paul Byrd. I’m not entirely sure why, since the Red Sox have a surplus of young starters close to the majors, including that guy Clay Buchholz. Byrd has familiarity with the team and all that goodness, but it still seems odd given the Red Sox’s refusal to find consistent starts for Buchholz or Michael Bowden.

Joe Nelson’s time in the majors dates back to 2001. Since the often-injured journeyman has made trips to the show with Boston, Kansas City, Florida, and currently with Tampa Bay. Somehow a minor league option remained on Nelson’s book and the Rays exercised it this past weekend. Nelson had been ineffective at best since transitioning to the American League.

Oh yeah and Mike Koplove was traded to the Mariners. I’m not sure anyone else can top that.

David Price hatched onto the scene last October, laying claim to the trivia question which will inevitably ask which Rays pitcher recorded the final out in the 2008 ALCS. His transition to the majors leagues as a starter hasn’t gone as smoothly. Through his July 4th start in Texas, Price had walked 30 batters in 38 innings. The 40 strikeouts represented an impressive figure, but still the southpaw needed the walks to drop and soon.

After that start I wrote a piece on my home site, discussing how Price’s ball rate was far too low to sustain such high rates of free passes. Apparently I encountered a case of fantastic timing, because in the month since Price has looked like a different pitcher. He’s begun to pound his hard fastball down in the zone and run it inside to righties. The negatives? He doesn’t work both sides of the plate and developing trust in his change-up/spike curve has been slow coming. Look at the percentages:

K%
Through July 5th 22.3%
After July 5th 18.2%

BB%
Through July 5th 16.8%
After July 5th 4.1%

Basically that’s Chris Carpenter. Price’s skill set doesn’t match up with Carpenter’s (one is a groundball pitcher, righty, less reliance on fastball, etc.) but what Price has done with two of his controllable aspects are dead ringers for Carpenter’s season. Five starts is too small of a sample size to proclaim that this is the Price we should expect to see heading forward, still the signs are encouraging.

Another hard-throwing reliever debuted last night this one going by the name of Waldis Joaquin and pitching for the San Francisco Giants. The 22-year-old pitched an inning against Houston last night, giving up a run on two hits and striking a batter out. So what makes him so special? The 11 fastballs he threw averaged out to 97.7 MPH and his top-end velocity registered at a ridiculous 98.5 MPH.

When I see numbers that extreme I check the other pitchers involved to see if the machine was simply experiencing velocity inflation.

Felipe Paulino sat at 95; Jonathan Sanchez at 92; Wesley Wright at 90; Justin Miller at 90; and Tim Byrdak at 89. Baseball Info Solutions has those players averaging 95, 91.5, 91, 88, and 89. So the pitchx numbers appear to be accurate and I guess Miller had his good fastball for once.

Not only can Joaquin bring the heat, but Baseball America also named his slider as the best in the Giants system. Throughout the minors Joaquin has showed an affinity for generating groundball outs alongside some impressive strikeout rates. In his 2005 stint at rookie ball Joaquin fanned 37 in 29 innings, after missing 2006 Joaquin struck out 30 in 38 short season innings and spent 2008 in A-ball where he struck out 72 in 71 innings. A move to Double-A deflated his punch outs and to date he only has 40 in 54 innings.

Like with most youthful flamethrowers, Joaquin showed some command issues during his time in Double-A, which raises the question: was he able to make up for those issues by simply overpowering less talented and more aggressive youth? During this writing Joaquin was actually demoted to Triple-A so it should be telling whether his strikeout rates perk up or remain flatter than usual.

Joaquin clearly has the stuff to pitch at the major league level; it’s just a matter of when and how well.