I talked briefly about Chris Young last night, but I wanted to cover him in more depth this morning. He’s an odd case. His peripheral numbers are essentially equal to B.J. Upton – 11% walks, 29% strikeouts – because of the difference in BABIP, the two have around 25 points separating their wOBA. Young’s strikeout rate is odd though, like Upton, he makes contact 75% of the time. He’s no Chris Davis or Miguel Olivo. The company Young holds is decent; Evan Longoria, Adrian Gonzalez, Mike Jacobs, Kevin Kouzmanoff, and Adam LaRoche amongst others.

I took every batter within the 74-76% contact range, weighed their strikeout rate by plate appearances, and arrived at a figure of ~25%. As Matthew has noted elsewhere, the R^2 for strikeouts and contact% is 0.77 – pretty sturdy – which implies the other part of strikeout percentage is made up of called strikes. Is Young a sufferer of the called strikeouts? I decided use Z-Swing% and altered it for my usage so that it’s “Z-Take%”. Essentially (1-Z-Swing%) – hardcore, right? – and here is how those numbers break down:

Player Z-Take%
Kouzmanoff 22.8
I. Rodriguez 23.8
Ortiz 26.4
Ad. Jones 26.9
Soriano 28.6
Ad. Gonzalez 29.2
Ad. LaRoche 32.8
Kemp 32.9
C. Duncan 33.1
Jacobs 33.2
Longoria 33.8
Ibanez 36.3
B. Upton 37.5
Cameron 38.4
B. Anderson 39
C. Young 40.3

Young takes the most pitches in the zone, nearly 40%, while Cameron and Upton aren’t far behind. Those three – along with Mike Jacobs – make up the high water mark of the strikeouts. Jacobs is the leader of the pack and far less disciplined than the other three, which is why he strikes out 31% of the time. So, if Young is taking that many strikes, the questions that arise are: A) Why? B) Are they good strikes? I’m no Dave Allen or Harry Pavlidis, but I did have a look at Young’s zone this season in Excel.

Quite a number of strikes are being called on the outside portion of the plate. So far outside, that Young is actually being called for strikes that aren’t really strikes at all. Notice the yellow lines are placed where the width of the zone ends, or is at least is supposed to. The pitches Young is getting called against him must be framed well. That’s something I would chock up as bad luck – in the same vein as receiving a favorable ball call or three dozen – more so than something Young could change.

So what’s the difference between Young and the guys striking out less? Probably nothing more than some umpire-based luck.

It seems only fitting that in the same week Tony LaRussa sees his league come under fire for an intentional walk in the All-Star game, he finds himself on the receiving end of an IBB backfiring.

I’m talking about Saturday night’s game. Dan Haren had thrown seven beautiful innings against his former team, keeping them in check for one run and preserving a lead for the D-Backs. In the top of the eighth, two runners had reached with two outs as Josh Kinney entered the game to face Chris B. Young. With Haren scheduled to bat next, and the Cardinals having a heck of a time trying to hit him, LaRussa tried forcing A.J. Hinch’s hand by placing Young on base with four wide ones and taking his shot with a pinch hitter.

Hinch didn’t flinch, sending Haren to the plate to face Kinney. After taking the first three pitches low, Haren took strike one, a pitch on the inside corner. The next pitch sailed low again, and just like that Kinney had not only walked in a run, but done so by walking the pitcher of all players. The results suggest it was a silly move to walk Young, even if we don’t know what he would’ve done if pitched to regularly, but was the walk the right call anyways?

Using the methodology outlined in The Book we can answer that question. Page 312 holds the information we’re looking for. Essentially: if the pitcher is a weak hitter (meaning a wOBA of ~.115) then walking the number eight hitter with either runners on second and third or first and third is worth the walk. If the pitcher is a decent hitter (The Book says ~.220) then the walk is no longer worth it.

Dan Haren’s wOBA this season is a remarkably good .307. Last year’s was .237. Haren has proven that he’s decent with the stick despite his primary position. Young, who entered as a pinch hitter, only has a wOBA this season of .299. As much as I appreciate the thought put into game theory, LaRussa made the incorrect call by walking Young. Not just because the results worked against him, but because he made his pitcher face the better batter with the bases loaded.

If Haren’s affinity for pitching well hasn’t driven LaRussa to regret the Haren deal, his ability to hit decently may have.

At some point I’m going to stop acknowledging the silly things the Royals do. Today is not that point. Over the weekend, the Royals had the lead entering the eighth three times; which is to say they had the lead in each game with six outs to go. They trailed entering the ninth in each of those games. That’s not the reason for confusion, the fact that Joakim Soria failed to throw a single pitch is.

Soria did not pitch in the All-Star game, but did pitch last Sunday. That means he’s received an entire week’s worth of rest. Being cautious with an important arm is fine, but this is the same organization that rushed Gil Meche back into a 120-pitch outing shortly after returning from ‘dead arm’. This isn’t about ensuring health or taking precautionary measures. It’s about being stuck in the 1990s way of thinking. If this series has taught me anything, it is that apparently the only inning the Royals are going to use their best reliever is the ninth. Look at these three viable entry points for Soria during the series:

On Friday, Juan Cruz retired two batters quickly, then allowed a single and homerun to back-to-back batters. This is the most acceptable example of Trey Hillman sitting on Soria.

On Saturday, John Bale entered in the 8th, walked a batter, recorded a groundout, and then was lifted for a righty with the tying run on second. Rather than call upon Soria, he called upon Cruz again. A pair of doubles later Roman Colon enters a one run game. Colon walks a pair and allows a single, giving the Royals a nice two-run deficit to work out of. They don’t, and there goes the series.

Sunday, with a chance to salvage one win, Hillman again refuses to use Soria. Instead he throws Jamey Wright and Colon at the fire. Again, the Royals blow the lead. To Hillman’s credit, he did have Soria warm up during the eighth. With the game tied and the bases loaded, Hillman decided this was not an ideal situation to use his best pen arm, and instead turned to Colon. A walk later, and the Royals are on the receiving end of a broom.

Rany Jazayerli mocked the situation by saying Soria will miss the rest of the season because he is “too rested” to pitch. Meanwhile Will McDonald called the Royals baseball philistines.

It’s beyond me how can any manager willingly sit by and allow each of those three games to slip away because of the save metric. Hillman might be a very intelligent person — I don’t know him and probably never will – so he has to realize that if the ownership group starts grumbling about a team that some, including ESPN, mislabeled as potential contenders this year, then there’s a good chance he’s the first one to go. With that in mind, doesn’t he have to start using Soria in some unconventional situations to pad this staying power? I guess he’s not managing for his job.

Too bad I’m not sure he realizes that managing is his job.

When the Red Sox signed Julio Lugo to a four-year, 36 million dollar contract in winter 2006, Theo Epstein assumed he was getting the player who hit .284/.348/.405 over the previous season. Two and a half seasons and more than 20 million later, Lugo is on the outs in Boston. Reports have Boston willing to eat the contract and take on a fringe prospect in exchange for the roster spot. That’s quite the fall from grace for someone who looked like the cream of the crop not long ago.

Lugo has actually hit better this season than in his other two seasons with Boston. That’s not saying much, and his career line with Boston is still .251/.319/.346. Defensively, Lugo hasn’t been much better in Boston, posting UZR/150 of 4.3, -2.6, and -43.2. Okay, obviously the last one is due to an extremely small sample size; if you assume he’s more like -10 than -43, you get the picture of a below average defensive shortstop, but hardly the worst in the majors.

What happened to him? His ISO has sat well below .100 the past two seasons after never touching .105 or lower the rest of his major league career. His walk rates are still quite solid, same with his strikeout rates. His BABIP hit a rough spell in 2007 but has since bounced back fine. He hit a lot of grounders last season, and now he’s hitting a lot more fliners. Lugo’s tendency to hit a home run has all but vanished. He still makes contact, doesn’t swing out of zone, and he’s seeing fewer balls in the zone.

The only thing that makes sense is that Lugo’s physical skills have decayed. He is a shortstop in his mid-30s, but he’s also hovering around replacement level. ZiPS projects Lugo to hit league average, and depending on where he plays on defense, he shouldn’t be that poor. Maybe Lugo’s body has decided enough is enough, or he really misses playing with his brother (Ruddy Lugo was his teammate during his time in Tampa Bay) or he simply doesn’t feel comfortable in Boston and never did.

If Boston is covering most of the salary and willing to take back just about anything to clear the roster spot, teams have done a lot worse than taking on Lugo and winding up with an average bat and probably below average glove at either middle infield position.

Hanley Ramirez is really good

So good, that Ramirez ranks fourth on the career leaderboard in shortstop wOBA. Behind Arky Vaughan, Alex Rodriguez, and some guy named Honus Wagner. ZiPS projects Ramirez to finish with a .417 wOBA this season, one point lower than his current figure, which keeps his career wOBA around .397. How unique is that from a shortstop? Well the top two offensive shortstops had the following numbers through 25 years of age:

Honus Wagner: .392 wOBA, 1,519 plate appearances, three seasons of play
Alex Rodriguez: .406 wOBA, 4,247 plate appearances, eight seasons of play
Compared to Hanley: .397 wOBA, ~2,752 plate appearances, five (four, really) seasons of play

Hanley is in the middle in each regard. The biggest hurdle might be whether or not he can stick at shortstop moving forward. In the full four years he’s spent in the majors, Hanley has rated as a slightly below average shortstop twice (including this year’s -2 UZR/150), solidly below average once, and holy-mackerel-move-him-to-center-tomorrow-bad once. Unless he suddenly deteriorates, it seems unlikely Hanley is moving before he reaches 28/29 – the same age when Rodriguez made the switch, albeit not because of necessity.

Depending on how well the prime of Ramirez career and – more importantly – the slope of his career treat him, we could be looking at the third best hitting shortstop in the history of baseball. Or he could fall off and only be one of the five-to-ten best hitting shortstops in history; because that would obviously be such a huge disappointment of a career.

Stan Musial’s legacy has come under discussion with the All-Star festivities taking place in St. Louis. Dave Brown at Yahoo! Sports asks why the guy isn’t more celebrated. Joe Posnanski is easily one of baseball’s most popular writers — widely read by fans of sabermetrics and superb writing alike — has repeatedly hammered Musial’s nail into our memory banks as one of the best ever to play. Still, the message seems to have either been ignored or largely forgotten until this week.

Present day fans of the Cardinals are spoiled much like fans of the Musial days. Sure, the Cardinals have some holes, and yeah, they’ve only won a single World Series with Pujols, but I’m guessing none of them would trade the experiences with Albert Pujols for another world title. Not because they don’t care about winning or anything silly like that, but because Pujols is as close to a deity as baseball has right now. He’s the type of player that, even if you can’t afford him in talent or dollars, teams should send their scouts to watch. To appreciate.

Few would argue Pujols’ placement amongst the all-time greats. He is only 29-years-old and it’s hard to see Pujols sliding off the mountain top anytime soon. He is beyond the point of being discussed as a potential legend, he is one. He’s a player we’ll tell our grandchildren about in the same tone – with the same exuberance and respect – as the older generations talk about Musial. That makes it only fitting that the two share more than a team in common:

Pujols’ line acts like a shadow to that of Musial’s. Think about how many players outhit Pujols through age 29. Five? Maybe six? Hitting better than Pujols is the baseball equivalent of outmaneuvering Alexander the Great or outwitting Kurt Vonnegut. It happens, but not too often. Musial and Pujols have nearly identical wOBA, but Musial racked up 7,320 plate appearances after turning 30-years-old. Will Pujols? Can he hold the same level of performance if he does? Probably not, and that’s why we should think of Stan Musial in higher terms than we do.

Roy Halladay is the hottest name on the trade market; making Toronto the center of the trade universe is the addition of Scott Rolen. The Jays have made Rolen available with a season and a half left on Rolen’s contract – one that includes a no-trade clause that Rolen would presumably waive to join a contender – Cots lists an “additional $4M bonus due to Rolen in 2010”, which raises the amount owed to 20 million. That’s a steep financial price to pay for a 34/35-year-old averaging 123 games the past three years.

Rolen is experiencing an inflated BABIP, raising his wOBA to .369 on the season. ZiPS suggests that’ll come back to Earth, but that he’s still an above average hitter moving forward. Gone are the days where Rolen would accumulate 15-20 runs on defense, but he’s still very much above average. So far his UZR/150 is 5.2, last year it was 8.5, and the year before 17.9.

Rolen should be an okay gamble for an additional season, but only for teams that can run the risk of a collapse. The Red Sox and Giants make the most sense. Boston has Mike Lowell eventually coming back, but in the meanwhile could maximize their roster by shifting Youkilis back to first and throwing Rolen in at third. You have some issues as to who plays when once Lowell returns, but I think that’s a problem Theo Epstein and Terry Francona wouldn’t mind. The Giants could shift Pablo Sandoval to first and upgrade their defense and offense at once.

Rolen’s not quite the catch he was in 2002 – when the Cardinals sent Placido Polanco, Bud Smith, and Mike Timlin to acquire him – but for a team in need of a third baseman with capable bat and glove in tow, he’s probably the best option remaining.

“The defensive statistics – I still really don’t understand how some of those statistics are evaluated, I really don’t. When you watch baseball games every single day, its very apparent who can play defensively and who can’t.”

That quote comes from Dayton Moore on a Kansas City radio station yesterday morning. Let’s ignore that Moore probably shouldn’t publicly admit that he doesn’t know about defensive metrics and assume he’s not the only GM with this ‘flaw’. He could easily say defensive statistics are imperfect and should be combined with some good scouting and had his point made just as easily, but he didn’t. Whatever, the larger point is that he’s claiming Yuniesky Betancourt looks like a good defender if you watch him every single game. That’s simply untrue.

For someone to think Betancourt is a good defender that person either has no idea what a good defender looks like, or simply can’t evaluate defensive ability. You know who watched Betancourt seemingly every day since his career began? The Mariners fan base. Thanks to Tom Tango and the Fans Scouting Report, we have their honest evaluations of Betancourt’s defensive ability dating back to his rookie season.

Betancourt was appraised highly in 2005, receiving a 86 overall position-neutral score. The number of ballots shot up by nearly 200 in 2006 and Betancourt retained a fair score of 82. Even more ballots were cast in 2007 and his score again slipped to 69. Then 2008, Betancourt’s position neutral score sat at 39. The obvious retort is that fans aren’t qualified to scout defensive qualities either, but compare the scores to what UZR has said and a trend emerges:

Year – FSR/( UZR/150)
2005 – 89/2.1
2006 – 82/0.7
2007 – 69/-1.4
2008 – 39/-12.7

The fans say Betancourt has lost defensive quality steadily since 2005 and so does UZR. Both agree the biggest jump happened between 2007 and 2008. I suppose you could say the numbers have influenced the fans a bit – we are talking about a pretty intelligent fan base with Seattle – but our version of UZR only became readily available last winter.

The fans and UZR agree that Betancourt has gotten progressively worse and is a below average shortstop, Moore and the Royals scouts don’t. Odds are, Moore and company have the least amount of data to form their opinion on Betancourt. We’ll see if Moore is right after all.

Help us all if one of the home run derby contestants goes on a cold streak. Someone, somewhere, will mention that the slump started right after the player partook in a contest all about hitting the long ball, and naturally hasn’t adjusted his mechanics or mindset since. The poster boy for the post-derby slump is Bobby Abreu. He hit a of homers in the first half, only a few in the second, yet still wound up with around what you would expect from a slugger on the wrong side of 30.

Any fears of a powerless second half because of the derby are extinguished when you examine the last three seasons of participants. Taking all 24 of their first and second half homerun and plate appearances, I found that the difference is marginal, and can probably be attributed to regression more so than anything derby related.

First half HR/PA%: 5.52
Second half HR/PA%: 4.79

Over the average second half (377 plate appearances) the difference is 3 home runs. You could blame this on a meaningless competition, or you could chock it up to regression. Why are these guys even chosen for the event? Because A) they’ve hit a ton of homers in the first half or B) they’ve hit a ton of homers in the past. “A” is the key to the regression pie. Let’s take a look at the biggest drops.

Justin Morneau (2007) 6.6% /2.3%
Dan Uggla (2008) 6.6%/3.3%
Chase Utley (2008) 6%/2.8%
David Wright (2006) 5.2%/2.2%
Lance Berkman (2008) 5.5%/2.6%

Each of these guys outdoing their previous numbers and the league’s numbers; a combination which signals some regression is on the way. That means, it’s not a physical or mental adjustment some players are going through, but rather a statistical one.

It takes the rarest of circumstances for a perfect game to occur. Friday night in San Francisco had all the makings. The intriguing subplot involving Jonathan Sanchez’ future, the tender moments provided by his father and brother being in attendance – reportedly the first time his father has seen him pitch in the majors –, and the worst offense in the National League. Everything was brewed and marinated just right, or so it seemed.

Sanchez started the evening with a groundout and a pair of strikeouts. In the second he secured three fly outs. After getting some run support in the bottom of the second, Sanchez kept on rolling, retiring 6-9 and 1-3 in the next two innings and setting up a big match-up with Adrian Gonzalez to start the fifth. It’s hard to say whether anyone was really excited about the potential of a perfect game at this point, but anytime you have to face off with Gonzalez, it’s a big deal. Sanchez struck Gonzalez out swinging on four pitches and then K’d Chase Headley for good measure.

In the sixth and seventh innings, Sanchez would strike out five of the six batters he faced, with the only ball in play coming courtesy of Luis Rodriguez. The final out of the seventh would be Kevin Kouzmanoff, which again set up Gonzalez to open the next inning. Realistically, Gonzalez is the only obstacle between Sanchez and immortality. Gonzalez flies out to the track, and there you have it. At this point, someone – likely upon emptying their beverage container – has realized Sanchez’s line is starting to look historic.

Chase Headley comes up, hits a hopper to third and…oh heavens, Juan Uribe butchers it. Even with the perfect game over, Sanchez retires Craig Stansberry, Eliezer Alfonzo, Luis Rodriguez, Edgar Gonzalez, and Evereth Cabrera in order. Sure, it’s not a perfect game, but you have to feel good for Sanchez tossing a no hitter. Even after the game, Sanchez’s ERA sits a half run higher than his FIP. The guy definitely could use some good luck, and he got some on this night.