The first four starts of Stephen Strasburg’s career couldn’t have gone much better. His xFIP is a disgusting 1.36, and in just 25 innings of work, he’s amassed 1.2 WAR, which would extrapolate out to a +10 win season if he had started the year in the big leagues. And yet, you can’t realistically make a statistical case that Strasburg should make the all-star team this year. He just hasn’t pitched enough to overcome all the starters who have been performing well for their teams since opening day. He’s not even in the top 30 among NL starters in WAR right now.

But he should make the team anyway.

Despite Major League Baseball’s attempts to make it “count,” the All-Star Game just isn’t as interesting as it used to be. The game is a mid-season exhibition, and both players and fans treat it as such. It lost any remaining credibility as a contest in 2002, when the game ended in a tie. And perhaps the last great, organic moment at the ASG that wasn’t immediately ruined by a brutal speech from the commissioner was the Randy Johnson–John Kruk match-up in 1993.

Since it doesn’t really count, the game needs interesting stories, and there is no more interesting story in baseball right now that Stephen Strasburg. Attendance is way up when he pitches, and for good reason – he’s the best show going right now.

Really, who would you be more likely to watch pitch the 5th inning in Anaheim in two weeks – Strasburg or Matt Cain? Honestly, unless you’re a die-hard Giants fan, the answer is Strasburg for practically all of us.

No, he hasn’t earned it as much as Cain (or other pitchers) have. It won’t be fair to whatever pitcher gets left off the squad to make room for the guy with a handful of starts. I know that, and I’m still okay with him making the team, because having him in the game instantly makes it interesting again.

The all-star game is glorified theatre. There’s no more interesting actor than Strasburg. Put him on the big stage and make the game fun to watch again.

Over the winter, both New York clubs made some big acquisitions – the Mets splurged for slugging outfielder Jason Bay, while the Yankees gave up some young talent to acquire the final year of Javier Vazquez’s contract to solidify their rotation. So far, neither have lived up to expectations, as Bay’s power is MIA and Vazquez has struggled with more things than I have time to list here.

Any time a player struggles in the Big Apple, they always run the risk of getting labeled as a guy who just can’t handle the pressure. Vazquez, in fact, already carries that label, considering that he flopped with the Yankees back in 2004, the first time Brian Cashman traded for him. That he was so bad in April didn’t do anything to dispel the notion that he simply lacked the necessary personality to play well in New York.

Now some people – including one unnamed former GM who thinks trading Stephen Strasburg for Roy Oswalt is a good idea – are attaching that same label to Bay, suggesting that his lack of production is a direct result of the home fans expressing their frustration with his lack of power. There is  just one slight problem with these labels – both Bay and Vazquez have played better at home than on the road, and in Bay’s case, the difference is enormous.

Bay is hitting .308/.406/.508 at Citi Field, but just .246/.333/.333 on the road. He has twice as many extra base hits in front of those frustrated fans as he does in front of ambivalent road crowds. If he was hitting as well away from New York as he was at home, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The same is true of Vazquez, though not to the same extent. He is posting a  4.48 xFIP at home versus 4.72 on the road, with neither number representing his previous abilities. The same was true in 2004, when Vazquez pitched better in Yankee Stadium than he did away from the Bronx.

Sometimes a slump is just a slump. Guys slump in New York just like they do in Milwaukee, San Diego, or St. Louis. Perhaps we should avoid slagging a guy’s intestinal fortitude when he is performing better in front of the same fans and media that are supposed to be scaring him into a slump.

Last night, the Red Sox handed a one run lead to Jonathan Papelbon. He managed to record just one out while giving up a pair of home runs, losing the game for Boston in the process. It was his fourth loss of the season. He’s now allowed six home runs on the season, more than he’s given up in any prior season, and it’s not even July yet. His striekout rate has fallen from 10.06 last year to 7.58 this year. Given his problems, it’s only natural that people are suggesting that perhaps its time to give Daniel Bard a shot to close games.

I don’t think that’s a great idea, however.

While Papelbon has certainly struggled, we’re still dealing with a sample of just 125 batters facced, and his underlying skills don’t seem to have changed much. His velocity is the same as always. His swinging strike rate, generally a more accurate predictor of future strikeout rate than actual strikeouts, is right at his career average. His first strike percentage is nearly a career high, so he’s not falling behind hitters and having to serve up gopher balls.

And yet, it hasn’t translated into success. Whether its a location issue or just small sample noise, it would appear that the issues he’s having should be fixable with a little bit of patience.

Some would argue that perhaps Papelbon shouldn’t be working through these problems in the ninth inning, and I would be more sympathetic to that argument if they had a good alternative. However, Bard is not one – not yet.

One of the keys to being a shut down closer is to be able to retire hitters from both sides of the plate. You don’t get to selectively use your closer when the match-ups are in his favor, as you can with middle relievers. As such, if three left-handed hitters were due up in the 9th inning of a one run game, and Bard was the closer, he’d be on the mound. Except, you don’t really want Daniel Bard on the mound against left-handed hitters in a high leverage situation.

This year, Bard has faced 78 lefties and posted a 4.56 xFIP against them. He has struck out just 12 while walking 8 (plus hitting another batter), which pales in comparison to the 27/4 K/BB ratio that he’s running against righties. He was better at blowing lefties away a year ago, but still struggled to throw strikes against them, and now sports a career 4.13 xFIP vs left-handed hitters.

Bard has good enough stuff to get lefties out, and in time, he could indeed be a quality ninth inning guy. But right now, the Red Sox are better off letting Papelbon work through his issues.

In the midst of a disastrous season, the Astros seem to finally admit that they need to rebuild. Their franchise pitcher, Roy Oswalt, has requested a trade, and the team seems willing to accommodate him in finding a new home. Besides Cliff Lee, Oswalt is the most talked about name on the market as we head toward the trade deadline.

I wonder, however, if Oswalt is merely the Astros’ second most marketable pitcher. Hiding in the shadows, Brett Myers is quietly putting together an excellent season, and while he doesn’t come with Oswalt’s pedigree, neither does he come with the baggage of a huge contract and a no-trade clause.

Oswalt is the better pitcher, certainly. Going forward, ZiPS projects Oswalt to throw 110 innings and allow 47 runs, while Myers is projected to pitch 80 innings and allow 40 runs. Given that the innings difference will have to be made up by relievers, a team would be projected to save about 10 runs over an equivalent number of innings by acquiring Oswalt instead of Myers.

10 runs, or about one extra win. Is that really worth the cost difference? Myers will cost just over $1 million for the remainder of the 2010 season, while Oswalt’s contract will pay him about $5 million in August and September. For teams with strained budgets, that money could be a significant factor, but of course, the real cost differences kick in next season.

Myers will almost certainly decline his part of the mutual option and become a free agent this winter, so the acquiring team will have no long term commitment, and could potentially even recoup some compensation if they offer Myers arbitration and he signs elsewhere, as he has a chance of pitching himself into Type B free agent status.

Oswalt, on the other hand, is due $16 million 2011 and either another $16 million in 2012 or a $2 million buyout of the final year. Even if the acquiring team exercises the buyout, they will end up having paid $22 million for a little less than one and a half season’s of Oswalt’s services.

There’s a pretty good case to be made that a team would be better off with Myers and the $21 million they would save by going for the lesser Astros arm, which would give them more flexibility to make other moves to additionally improve their roster. Oswalt is the better pitcher, but it’s hard to argue that the gap is large enough to justify the differences in salary.

The Astros will almost certainly trade both pitchers at some point in the next month. Just don’t be surprised if they get a better return in prospects for Myers than they do for Oswalt.

Right now, the top of the MLB position player WAR leaderboard looks like this:

Justin Morneau, +4.4
Robinson Cano, +4.3
Carl Crawford, +3.8
Alex Rios, +3.4
Adrian Gonzalez, +3.3

Besides all having excellent first halves of the 2010 season, and generally being high quality players all around, these five have something else in common – they were all pretty awful in their first trip around the big leagues.

To illustrate the point, here’s their WAR per 600 PA for something equivalent to their “rookie year” – several of these guys had half seasons in several different years, so I’ve combined those into one “year” and then extrapolated the number to an equivalent of one full season’s worth of plate appearances.

Morneau, 2003-2004, +1.1 WAR
Cano, 2005, +0.2 WAR
Crawford, 2002, +1.3 WAR
Rios, 2004, +2.1 WAR
Gonzalez, 2004-2005, -2.3 WAR

Morneau flashed some power, but didn’t hit for much of an average or draw enough walks to be useful at the start of his career. Cano didn’t walk and couldn’t field his position. Crawford was excellent defensively but couldn’t hit. Rios was like Crawford, but with even less power. And Gonzalez was just all kinds of terrible.

Of the five, only Crawford came up at a really young age. The rest were 22 or 23 and were coming off successful stints in the minors, offering hope that they could contribute right away. Pretty much across the board, they came up and stunk up the joint at the plate. Crawford and Rios were able to rescue themselves a little bit with their athleticism on defense, but none of them were able to quickly translate their minor league success at the plate to the big leagues.

I said all of this to say don’t give up on talented young players who struggle in their first taste of the majors. Whether its Justin Smoak, Matt LaPorta, Michael Saunders, or even Mike Stanton, patience is a virtue. Writing off a young player who doesn’t hit immediately upon arrival is a great way to get burned – just ask the Rangers whether they’d like to have Gonzalez back right now.

Noon, baseball, chatting. Let’s do it.

Today, Ken Rosenthal wrote about a conversation he had with Frank Robinson, who has been tasked by Bud Selig with trying to get a few teams to shorten the length of their games. As Rosenthal notes, MLB has been trying to do this for years, and with no success. They send memos, they ask nicely, umpires complain to the media, and none of it matters.

And yet, somehow, they continue to miss the obvious – they cannot make the games shorter unless they reduce offensive levels. It is a simple fact that run scoring is the main driver of the length of a baseball game. You will never go to a 13-10 slugfest that moves at a brisk pace. The only way for games to end is for 51 or or more outs to be recorded, and every time a batter reaches base safely, he’s extended the time of game without contributing towards its finish.

Yes, the Yankees and Red Sox games always take longer than everyone else. Guess what? The Red Sox score more runs than any other team in baseball, and the Yankees are right behind them. This shouldn’t be any kind of surprise to Robinson, or anyone else in Major League Baseball.

The Yankees and Red Sox have something else in common, of course – an offensive philosophy that values selective hitters. Boston’s hitters see 4.07 pitchers per plate appearance, most in baseball. With hitters like J.D. Drew, Kevin Youkilis, and David Ortiz, the Red Sox have built an offense that was designed to make pitchers work. The Yankees do the same, always loading their line-up with high walk, high power guys who don’t swing very often.

This style of baseball is naturally going to take longer than the Royals or Giants swing-at-anything approach. Guess what, Mr. Robinson? You can’t issue a memo that orders Nick Swisher to swing at pitches out of the strike zone.

If you want Boston and New York (as well as the rest of the league) to play quicker games, you have one option, and one option only – make the strike zone bigger. Over the years, it has steadily shrunk, especially on the high side, where nothing over the belt is a strike anymore. The shrinking strike zone has allowed selective hitters to keep the bat on their shoulders until they get a pitch they can drive, and no amount of complaining about it is going to make them adopt a less effective approach to scoring runs.

Nothing else they do will matter. The only way to shorten a Major League game is to make the strike zone bigger. Until they decide to do that, the rest of this is just posturing.

When people talk about the starting pitchers that will be available for trade over the next month, the same names always come up – Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Ben Sheets, and Jake Westbrook lead most of the discussions. I would like to throw another name into the mix, however, and suggest that the best value purchase for a team looking to add a middle of the rotation starter for a few months might be Kevin Millwood.

Yes, the same Kevin Millwood who currently owns a 5.12 ERA for the Orioles and is due about $5 million for the rest of 2010.  Due to the money he’s owed, the runs he has allowed and the generally average stuff he throws, Millwood is not going to be highly sought after. But he has pitched pretty well this year, and is quite reminiscent of a pitcher in a similar position a year ago: Carl Pavano.

Like Millwood, teams weren’t beating down the door for Pavano a year ago, despite a good walk rate and solid strikeout rate. Pavano’s BABIP was .330 when the Indians finally traded him to the Twins, albeit with a 5.34 ERA standing beside a solid 3.94 xFIP. Because of the disparity, Pavano was able to sneak through waivers and be traded after the July 31st deadline, and the Twins merely surrendered a PTBNL to get him. Pavano then pitched well for the Twins down the stretch and in the post-season, and has continued his success for the Twins in 2010.

Millwood’s xFIP currently stands at 4.17, a number inflated a bit from the division in which he plays. Four of his starts have come against the Yankees and Red Sox, and in those games, he has walked 16 and struck out 18. In his other 11 starts, he has walked 13 and struck out 60. Yes, those games still count, but if he pitched in a less demanding division, his over all numbers would be quite a bit better, and he would be attracting more attention.

Unless Millwood really turns it on over the next month, he’s unlikely to command much of a return from the team that acquires him. Don’t be surprised if his results magically improve once he flees Baltimore- the BABIP and HR/FB numbers are bound to regress, and getting him away from the AL East can only help.

For a team that doesn’t want to pay a premium price to acquire pitching help, Millwood may be the best bet.

After getting swept over the weekend, the Dodgers have now dropped four straight games and sit two games out of first place in the National League West, behind both San Diego and San Francisco. With the league adjusting to John Ely, the focus has once again turned to LA’s need for some pitching to stabilize their rotation, but there’s another problem with this Dodger team that gets little notice – their outfield defense is atrocious.

The Dodgers OFs have combined for a UZR of -27.5 so far this year, easily the worst in the majors. It’s even worse than that number claims, though, as Reed Johnson’s +6.3 is propping up the starters. The regular trio for LA are posting fielding numbers that will make your eyes bleed – Manny Ramirez is at -4.1, Matt Kemp has a -13.8, and Andre Ethier is the king butcher to date with a -16.5 UZR. Ethier and Kemp have the two lowest UZRs of any players in baseball so far in 2010.

Of course, we’re less than halfway into the season, and you need large sample sizes to judge a defender’s abilities using a metric like UZR. But all three of these guys have been in the league for a while, and the big picture isn’t much prettier.

In over 8,000 innings in left field, Ramirez has a career UZR/150 of -20.4, and while there were a lot of cries about the Green Monster making him look worse than he really was, he has posted a -22.6 UZR in 1,549 innings with the Dodgers.

Kemp doesn’t have the same track record of being terrible, but he’s played nearly 3,000 innings in center field, and his career UZR/150 is -10.1. Toss in another 1,300 innings in the corner outifield positions with a below average UZR as well, and it’s pretty clear that Kemp is not much of a center fielder.

Finally, there’s Ethier, who has spent nearly 5,000 innings in the corner outfield spots in his career, racking up a UZR/150 of -9.1, and he’s trending the wrong way, posting the 5th worst UZR total since the beginning of 2008, beating out only Adam Dunn, Brad Hawpe, Jermaine Dye, and Bobby Abreu. Not really the kind of company you want to keep when talking about defensive prowess.

Essentially, at this point, the Dodgers are running out an outfield that consists of a right fielder and two designated hitters. While all three are quality hitters and help the team score runs, they are giving back a lot of value with their lack of range in the outfield. The team’s run prevention problems do not fall on just the pitchers, as they aren’t getting much support from the guys behind them.

As the Dodgers pursue a starting pitcher for the stretch run, may I suggest they target a guy who gets a lot of groundballs?

As of last night, we have officially had a changing of the guard. After setting up camp at the top of the WAR leaderboards for most of the season, Justin Morneau has finally been displaced. Now it’s Robinson Cano leading all of Major League Baseball with +4.0 wins of value added, as the Yankees second baseman is carrying his teammates.

Offensively, not much has changed with Cano, as the surge in his numbers is basically tied to a higher than usual BABIP (.382) and his extra base hits flying over the wall instead of bouncing off of it. Last year, 36.7 percent of his hits were of the extra base variety, and he’s at 36 percent this year – the distribution of those XBH, however, have tilted toward home runs. It’s hard to say that either of those spikes represent a significant improvement, and not surprisingly, the ZIPS rest-of-season projection suspects that Cano will hit at basically his 2009 level for the rest of the year.

There exist other numbers, however, that suggest Cano has indeed turned himself into a better over all player. The big strides he has made have not been at the plate, but rather in the field. I saw Cano play quite a bit in 2002 when he was assigned to low-A Greensboro, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that he was a defensive disaster. His footwork was laughably bad, and while he showed athleticism, there were just no fundamentals that suggested he was even on the path to becoming a big league middle infielder.

He wasn’t much better by the time he got to the majors, in 2005, as he posted a -21.2 UZR in his rookie year. Despite hitting well for a second baseman, he gave back nearly all of his value by failing to convert outs behind his pitchers. Again, I figured it was only a matter of time until Cano was shifted to the outfield, where his athleticism could play well and his inability to react quickly would be of less importance.

To his credit though, Cano has put in a tremendous amount of work, turning himself into a competent defender. No, he’ll never win a gold glove, but his +2.3 UZR to date this season is no longer the kind of shocking number that makes people question the system itself. While a couple of months of UZR data isn’t large enough to make any conclusions, his UZR since the 2006 season is just -12.4, or about -3 runs per year.

Cano probably won’t continue to have 40 percent of his extra base hits fly over the wall, nor will he be able to keep his BABIP at .382. He can, however, continue to play a decent enough second base, and he should take pride in that fact, because he got there through sheer hard work. Even when the offensive numbers inevitably regress a bit, Cano will still be one of the game’s best second baseman, and that’s a testament to just how far he’s come as a player.