Some interesting news came out this week regarding Bartolo Colon and his path back to the Major Leagues. Last spring he had stem cells surgically inserted into his elbow and shoulder, and this somewhat experimental procedure is now receiving a lot of notoriety due to Colon’s surprising success so far this season. I’m not a doctor and realize that I have limited insight into medical procedures, so I’ll stay out of the debate about how effective this surgery may or may not be, but I do think that we need to keep in mind the reality of Colon’s performance when talking about whether this kind of procedure will be “the future of sports medicine”.

There’s no doubt that Colon has generated terrific results for the Yankees so far this year; his 2.81 xFIP is the lowest of any pitcher in the American League. He’s pounding his fastball for strikes and hitters are having problems doing anything with it. But if you look beyond just the raw results, there are some markers that indicate that this version of Colon isn’t all that different from prior versions.

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Bryce Harper has received his fair share of attention over the years, coming as close to being labeled a prodigy as anyone in recent history. As a sophomore in high school, he was launching 500 foot home runs in Major League Stadiums. At 16 years old, Sports Illustrated put him on the cover of their magazine. At 17, he left high school a year early to compete with wood bats against Junior College players and hit 31 home runs, breaking the previous school record for homers in a season… which was 12. He also won the Golden Spikes award as the best amateur player in the country during the year in which he should have been a Junior in High School, and then was the first overall pick in the draft last summer.

And yet, despite all the hype, I’m still not sure we’re accurately appreciating just how good this kid really could be. He’s 18 years old, playing in his first professional season at a time when he should be getting ready to graduate from high school, and he’s hitting .396/.472/.712. That’s his line after last night’s 4 for 5 performance – one which included a grand slam, his eighth home run of the season.

He’s eighteen years old. Sure, it’s only 111 at-bats, but he could go into a slump of epic proportions and still match the numbers put up by some of the best age-18 seasons of all time.

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FanGraphs Live is coming to the west coast. We are excited to have teamed up with the Society for American Baseball Research and will be holding our next event at the same venue as the 41st National SABR Convention in Long Beach this summer. The event will take place on Thursday, July 7th, from 7 to 10 pm.

Among the confirmed guests who will be joining us for an evening of baseball discussion are:

Rob Neyer, national baseball writer for SB Nation
Vince Gennaro, author of Diamond Dollars and professor at Columbia University
Rich Lederer, curator of Baseball Analysts and well known Bert Blyleven booster
Jon Weisman, author of Dodger Thoughts and writer/editor at Variety
Eric Stephen, author at True Blue LA, the Dodgers arm of the SB Nation network
Jonah Keri, writer for FanGraphs and author of The Extra 2%
Carson Cistulli, editor for FanGraphs, host of FanGraphs Audio, published poet
David Appelman, president of FanGraphs
Dave Cameron, managing editor of FanGraphs

Over the course of three hours or so, we will talk extensively about the local Los Angeles franchises, the current state and future of statistical analysis, and why Jonah is just so darn likeable. In addition to hosting several moderated panel discussions, we’ll also be taking questions from the audience, aiming for an interactive discussion between guests and attendees.

In addition to providing all this for just $20, we’re also pleased to offer discounted tickets to the SABR convention for those who attend the FanGraphs Live event. If you purchase a ticket to FanGraphs Live, you will receive 15% off of any SABR conference registration – whether it be the full conference registration ($159), two-day registration ($93), or single day registration ($59). Use offer code FGNonMember-41 to receive your discount when registering at SABR’s site.

I would highly encourage you to take advantage of at least the single day offer if you can spare a Thursday away from work, as SABR has some really interesting events scheduled for that day. Scott Boras is the keynote speaker and will be addressing the convention on Thursday morning. There are approximately 40 research presentations that will take place throughout the day, and several high-powered panels including a Thursday afternoon discussion which will include myself and Sean Forman of Baseball-Reference.com – there is a non-zero chance that we arm-wrestle for exclusive rights to WAR, and you won’t want to miss that.

Space is limited, so we suggest you buy your tickets early to make sure you don’t miss out on what should be a fantastic event. We look forward to seeing you on the evening of July 7th for baseball nerdery at it’s finest.

In yesterday’s chat, a question was raised about Brandon Morrow and where his stuff ranks with other starting pitchers in the game. Due to the nature of how chats work, I didn’t really have time for a detailed explanation, but I felt like the topic probably deserved a post of its own. So, let’s talk about a pitcher’s “stuff”.

We’ll focus on starting pitchers because relievers are a whole other ball of wax – they get used situationally depending on who is due up, only have to throw 15-20 pitches per outing, and are mostly pitchers who lacked some necessary skill to stick in the starting rotation. The best pitchers in baseball are starters, and we’re most interested in who among that group has the best stuff in baseball.

In general, the easiest way to explain the term “good stuff” is that it’s essentially a proxy for velocity. Guys who throws hard are stuff guys, while guys who don’t are not. There are some differences among pitchers with similar velocity – with movement and secondary pitches coming into play – but you’ll never hear a guy who throws 89 get labeled with better stuff than a guy who throws 95. By far, the main determinant of who has “good stuff” is how hard they throw.

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The Royals went into the season stating that they were determined to see what Kila Ka’aihue could offer them as a regular first baseman, but it only took 96 plate appearances for them to come to the conclusion that Ka’aihue is no Eric Hosmer. Yesterday, they made the switch official, swapping the two between Triple-A and the majors, and Hosmer will take over at first base for the Royals this evening.

It’s easy to see why the Royals made this switch – Hosmer is killing Triple-A pitching, putting up a .502 wOBA to start the season, while Ka’aihue is struggling again at just a .282 mark. Hosmer is the future in Kansas City, and given how well he was hitting down in Omaha, it’s not hard to conclude that he’s the better player of the two right now as well.

That said, I do find it interesting how differently batting average is treated as a possessor of predictive power at the minor league level. Hosmer’s results are fantastic, but the basis of his batting line in Omaha is a .500 batting average on balls in play. Of his 43 hits, only eight of them have gone for extra bases, the kind of total you’d expect from a leadoff hitter, not a slugging first base prospect. I’m sure Hosmer is hitting the ball hard, but I’d also suggest that he’s also a bit fortunate in how many of his balls are finding holes – you don’t rack up 35 singles in a month without a decent amount of luck, no matter how hard you’re hitting the ball.

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It hasn’t been as heavily covered as it was last year (the Year Of The Pitcher, if you hadn’t heard), but run scoring in baseball is down again. The sport as a whole is averaging just 4.26 runs per game, down from last year’s 4.38 R/G, and way down from 2009’s 4.61 R/G. Run scoring is often lowest in April, so as the days get warmer, we’ll probably see a rise in offensive performance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the final season offense marks looked similar to what they were last year.

However, it seems pretty clear that we’re not headed for a return to the days where it took five runs to win a game and every team had six or seven guys who could hit the ball out of the park. The game is just lower scoring now than it was even a few years ago, and that means we need to continue to shift our expectations of what “good” numbers are.

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You have probably heard that Francisco Liriano threw a no-hitter last night. You may have also heard that he posted the lowest Game Score of any no-hitter in history, or that his xFIP for the game was 5.96 (yes, seriously). Essentially, as soon as the game ended, the “Liriano Throws a No-Hitter” headlines were replaced by “Reasons Why Liriano’s No-Hitter Wasn’t Very Impressive.” The guy’s 15 minutes of fame didn’t even last 15 seconds before his accomplishment was overcome by a wave of explanations on why it was more of an historic fluke than a spectacular pitching performance.

While I understand the sentiments of my fellow writers, and agree that it’s worth pointing out that Liriano’s no-hitter was, err, unconventional, I also think we shouldn’t overlook the obvious — Francisco Liriano threw a no-hitter.

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It’s May 3rd and Vladimir Guerrero still has not drawn a walk. He’s come to the plate 113 times and refused to take a free pass in any of them, a pretty remarkable accomplishment. Well, it seems like a remarkable accomplishment anyway, but then you run a query and see what Mariano Duncan accomplished and then you just think Guerrero is slacking.

On June 19th, 1994, the Phillies beat the Expos 13-0. In the process, Mariano Duncan started at third base and contributed a single, a double, and a pair of walks. They would be the last two walks of his Phillies career, which wouldn’t be so notable except that he wasn’t claimed off waivers by Cincinnati until August 8th, 1995. He then spent another three weeks with his new franchise before drawing his first walk as a member of the Reds, and the first walk he’d taken in 14 months.

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