Last week, we talked about Kyle Farnsworth, and I applauded the Royals for giving him a chance to see what he can do as a starting pitcher. Kansas City isn’t the only AL Central team considering trying a relief pitcher in the rotation, however, as Jason Beck reports that the Tigers may do the same with newly acquired Phil Coke.

Coke was a starter in the minors, and had a decent amount of success, so Detroit isn’t entirely throwing spaghetti at the wall here. However, unlike Farnsworth, Coke just doesn’t seem to have a starter’s repertoire.

In his limited major league time, Coke has relied heavily on his fastball/slider combination. He’s thrown his four-seamer about 70% of the time, while throwing his strikeout slider about 25% of the time, leaving just 5% of his pitches for a change-up that’s a work-in-progress at best. Not surprisingly, as a fastball/slider guy, he’s performed like a classic LOOGY. Here are his splits:

Vs Left: 1.22 BB/9, 8.32 K/9, 36% GB%, 3.23 xFIP
Vs Right: 4.75 BB/9, 6.53 K/9, 40% GB%, 4.91 xFIP

He’s a terrific LOOGY, but hasn’t shown any ability to get right-handed hitters out. And, remember, he was selectively used to avoid good right-handed bats. Of the 290 batters he’s faced in the majors, 56 percent have been left-handed. As a starter, that number would fall to between 20 and 25 percent.

Unless the Tigers know something about the development of Coke’s change-up, this doesn’t seem like a very good use of resources. Coke is terrific against left-handers, but moving him into a starting role will guarantee that he won’t get to face many of those. I wouldn’t expect this experiment to go very well or last very long. Coke belongs in the bullpen, where his stuff can be leveraged against good left-handed bats, and I’d guess that the Tigers will quickly come to the same conclusion.

Every spring, there is one constant, a telltale sign of the beginning of baseball, when people are starved for news but there just isn’t any – the “Player X is in the best shape of his life” story. Every year, without fail, certain players report to spring training having done one of the following:

1. Lost 30 pounds
2. Had laser eye surgery
3. Rehabilitated their knee/back
4. Rededicated themselves to the game
5. Found a new passion for baseball

Because these things are more interesting than a player reporting to camp in exactly the same form he was last year, the guy and his new attribute get written up in the paper. He gives some quotes about why this is his year, how it is all going to be different, and why fans should prepare for a whole new version they’ve never seen before.

Most of the the time, it turns out to be nothing. The player is what he is, and he plays just like he always has, with his new form never mentioned again as he’s struggling in July. But, I’m sure some players have made legitimate strides in their work ethic this winter, and for some, it might even pay off.

So, to the end of actually documenting the success and failure of these players, let’s crowdsource the Best Shape Of Their Lives guys. If you see a story where a player is reported to have done one of the above things, please mention it in the
comments, along with a link to support the citation. Hopefully, we can get all of the Good Shapers in one list, and then look at how they perform once the season begins.

Here’s the list, to be updated as the information from the comments is confirmed:

Ken Griffey Jr – Seattle
Jonathan Sanchez – San Francisco
Carlos Zambrano – Chicago
Geovany Soto – Chicago
Daisuke Matsuzaka – Boston
Mike Pelfrey – New York
Chipper Jones – Atlanta
Brian McCann – Atlanta
Tim Hudson – Atlanta (clearly, it’s the Braves year)
Bobby Jenks – Chicago
Delmon Young – Minnesota
David Price – Tampa Bay

Pitchers and catchers report to their team’s camps in Arizona and Florida today, kicking off the beginning of spring training and the 2010 baseball season. It’s a good day.

However, with spring training starting off, it’s time for the annual reminder to not pay any attention to numbers for the next six weeks. We like our stats here, obviously, but spring training numbers just don’t mean a thing. At all. Anything. Need proof?

Last year, 7 NL players hit .400 or better in spring training. Included in that list of guys who tore it up in March were Jeremy Reed, David Eckstein, Khalil Greene, and J.J. Hardy. Reed played badly enough that he was non-tendered, and is now a non-roster invite with the Blue Jays. Greene did even worse than Reed, and is also now trying to fight his way back into Major League Baseball after losing his job with St. Louis. Hardy had the worst year of his career, then got shipped to the Twins over the winter. Eckstein posted the lowest wOBA of his career, and that’s saying something.

Okay, you say, batting average is flukey, but power, that’s legit. After all, Ryan Howard hit 10 bombs to lead all NL players in spring training a year ago, and he’s a monster. Sure, I’ll give you that.

But Craig Monroe finished second with 8 spring home runs, followed closely by Travis Ishikawa with seven. It’s even better when you look at the AL leaderboard – the immortal Mike Wilson out-homered all of the junior circuit competition, then forgot how to hit minor league pitching once the season started. Not too far behind Wilson are the immortal trio of Mike Jacobs, Mark Teahen, and Wilson Betemit. Yeah.

The lowest ERAs of any AL pitcher last spring? David Purcey and Chris Jakubauskas. Brian Moehler was second in spring training ERA for NL hurlers.

The games don’t count, and the players know this. They’re working on things. They’re facing minor league players or guys trying to come back from injury. Half the teams play in a desert atmosphere that helps the ball travel like its Colorado. I know its easy to get sucked in by the story of a new swing, a new pitch, a winter full of hard work, and I’m sure some of that is true. But you won’t find those guys by looking at the stats. Ignore the numbers coming from the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues. They don’t mean a thing.

Ever since Curtis Granderson revealed that the Yankees asked if he’d be willing to move to left field this weekend, various people have weighed in on the merits of such a move. My take? It really doesn’t matter much at all. Whether you have Brett Gardner in left and Granderson in center or vice versa, the overall impact on the Yankees will be so minor as to not be worth the discussion.

Gardner may actually be the better defender at this point, and we have been conditioned to believe that the best defensive outfielder should play center, as he will have more opportunities to flag down balls than either of the corner outfielders. But if you have two guys who can capably handle center field (as the Yankees now do), it isn’t all that important which one ends up in CF.

The CF-playing-a-corner guy doesn’t magically lose some range when shifting to a corner. His physical abilities are the same, and his ability to cover ground to his left and right remains the same. The only difference is that instead of covering two gaps, he’s now covering one gap and one line.

Even if we accept that Gardner is a better defensive outfielder than Granderson, which may or may not be true, the Yankees wouldn’t lose anything in their ability to cover the gap in left center with the current alignment. They would take a very marginal hit in right field gap coverage, but that would be somewhat offset by the gain in their coverage of the left field line.

The total difference in defensive performance between the two alignments is simply the drop in value in right-center balls caught minus the rise in value in left field line balls caught. We’re talking about a marginal difference on just a handful of balls in play over a full season. We’re talking about fractions of a run.

The Yankees have two center fielders. One of them will play left field. It doesn’t matter which one. So, just to avoid it becoming a story, it should probably be Granderson. No point creating something for the media to talk about when the end result just doesn’t matter.

This afternoon, I offered up three guys who I think I’m a bit higher on for 2010 than most people are. The conclusion? I like switch hitters, apparently. However, since there aren’t any switch-pitchers in MLB (yet), I’ll have to settle for other criteria in listing the pitchers that I’m a fan of, relative to my perception of expectations surrounding them.

Manny Parra, Milwaukee

There’s probably not a better example of the divide between the FIP crowd and the ERA crowd than Parra. Those who evaluate a pitcher by the amount of hits and runs he allows will see Parra as an inconsistent flake, a guy with good stuff but no idea how to use it. Those of us who don’t hold a pitcher’s entire BABIP against him will see a lefty who gets both groundballs and strikeouts and has been the victim of bad luck and/or bad defense in a career that still represents a small sample.

I lean more towards the latter camp, obviously. I don’t see a compelling reason to believe that he’s earned a .349 career BABIP. His line drive rates are average-ish, and his GB rate isn’t high enough that we should expect him to give up that many hits on balls in play. He doesn’t throw hittable crap down the middle. He may have been frustrating to watch over the last several years, but there’s a lot more ability here than the results would suggest.

Derek Holland, Texas

In an organization with a lot of good young arms, in a division with a lot of good young arms, Holland gets overlooked, but he may be the single most important player in the AL West in 2010. If he’s as good as I think he is, Texas has a legitimate shot at winning 90 games. This kid can really pitch. His 2009 numbers are driven by a high HR/FB rate, which caused him to allow too many baserunners to score, but I don’t see either of those issues carrying over this year.

He has four pitches, throw strikes, misses bats, and has better command than he showed a year ago. And he’s left-handed. There should be way more excitement about a kid with these tools, but that ugly 6.12 ERA still scares people off. Forget the ERA – Holland can pitch, and could easily emerge as the ace of the Rangers rotation.

Nick Blackburn, Minnesota

When people talk about the Twins rotation, they’ll usually focus on one of the other four guys. Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Carl Pavano, and Francisco Liriano all have higher profiles, and Blackburn just kind of hides in the background. As a strike-throwing sinkerball without an extreme GB%, he doesn’t really fit into any category of pitcher that gets a lot of attention, but he does everything well enough to make the total package work. He mixes in several fastballs to keep hitters off balance, and his change allows him to get left-handers out with regularity.

Guys who lack an out-pitch are often projected to fall apart by people who evaluate pitchers almost exclusively by strikeout rate, but Blackburn fits the mold of pitchers who just make it work without racking up a lot of Ks. He might be the obscure pitcher in the Twins rotation, but he’s also the most reliable.

Pitchers and catchers report this week. Yes, it’s the most anti-climactic day in the history of the world, but the symbolism is real: when these guys start unpacking their bags and taking physicals, baseball is back. And so, our attention begins to shift. We now talk about 2010 as the current season, no longer referring to it as “next year” or “the upcoming year.” It’s now “this year.” And that’s exciting, even if the actual details behind pitchers and catchers reporting is not.

So, to kick off the start of the looking ahead season, I’m going to do two posts today on guys that I feel like I am more optimistic about than the general consensus. For various reasons, I like these guys more than the projection systems or the wisdom of the crowd. These are the three hitters that I think will surprise people with how well they play in 2010.

Carlos Guillen, Detroit

Whenever an older player has a bad season, it is always attributed to age-related decline, no matter how the drop-off comes or how severe it is. If they regress a bit from prior performance, well, that’s normal, they’re getting older. If they decline a lot, they fell off The Cliff. There’s hardly ever any allowance for the fact that it could have just been a bad year, especially if it looks like a player is trending downwards.

This basically sums up the thought process on Guillen, I think. His wOBAs have gone .390-.361-.359-.328 the last four years, and he’s now 34 years old, so the assumption is that Father Time is just catching up to him. Except that, when you look at his core statistics, that isn’t really true. His .177 ISO last year is above his career average. His BB/K was normal, though his strikeouts went up a bit. His HR/FB% and LD% were both right around his career norms. The 30 point drop in wOBA is all BABIP, which went from .321 to .267. Even if he’s slowing down, I see no reason to believe that reflects 100% skill reduction. Guillen’s still a good hitter with both power and patience, and he shouldn’t be written off prematurely.

Cliff Pennington, Oakland

As one of those decent-at-everything-great-at-nothing types, Pennington avoided hype while climbing the minor league ladder despite being a former first round selection. His lack of power is usually one of the first things people will mention, but he’s not David Eckstein or Luis Castillo – he hits the ball hard enough where you can’t just throw him a fastball down the middle. He controls the strike zone well, makes good contact, and is a pretty good baserunner, plus he offers the benefit of being a switch hitter.

If he can show enough glove to stick at shortstop, he’s one of the better young players in the game at the position. Yet, he’s almost never talked about outside of Oakland, at least as far as I can tell. Most teams would love to have a guy at SS with Pennington’s offensive abilities, and if the A’s end up as contenders in the west, don’t be surprised if their shortstop is one of the reasons why.

Melky Cabrera, Atlanta

He’s been around long enough that its easy to forget that he’s just 25 years old. He gets labeled as a tweener, because he’s not a great defensive CF or a great offensive LF, but guys like this are often better than people realize, and there’s still upside left with Cabrera. He’s a really good contact hitter and strong enough to add to his current gap power levels. He doesn’t even have to add all that much power to turn himself into a legitimate 20-20 threat.

He may not look like a classic corner outfielder, but Cabrera can play, and I think Braves fans will be pleasantly surprised with what he offers. His defense is going to be a solid plus in a corner, and he’s not far from being a quintessential #2 hitter. Given his physical skills and age, don’t be surprised if he locks down an outfield spot in Atlanta for the next several years.

Joe Pawlikowski made his debut here at FanGraphs by listing four reasons why teams are avoiding Jermaine Dye. I’d like to add a fifth.

He’s right-handed. Let me explain.

At this point in his career, Dye is essentially a DH who might be able to fake it at first base, depending on how hard he works at it. He’s not an outfielder anymore, not at 36-years-old and coming off a four year stretch of -20 UZRs. And, because of the physics of throwing across the infield, right-handed 1B/DH types just aren’t all that appealing.

Second baseman, third baseman, and shortstop all have to throw right-handed. It’s just the nature of tossing the ball to first base – left-handed throwers are restricted to first base or the outfield. Because one of the requirements of playing the three non-1B infield spots is throwing right-handed, it follows naturally that most of those infielders also hit right-handed.

There were 71 2B/3B/SS types who accumulated 100 or more games at those infield positions in 2009 – 47 of them bat from the right side. That’s 66 percent. Approximately 2/3 of all non-1B infielders are right-handed batters. And of the 24 guys who can swing it from the left side, a group of them aren’t really offensive threats; we’re talking guys like Geoff Blum, Cesar Izturis, and Kaz Matsui. The list of guys who can provide real offensive ability from the left side while playing 2B, 3B, or SS is pretty short.

What does any of this have to do with Jermaine Dye? Well, if you’re a team that is already stocked with right-handers around the infield, you’re running out of spots to get a really good left-handed hitter to balance out your line-up. Unless you have an MVP caliber center fielder, he’s probably not that guy. You might be able to get a left-handed thumping bat in a corner outfield spot, but those guys are expensive, and a lot of teams are realizing that it’s more cost efficient to put a good defender out there anyway.

This gives rise to a strong preference to fill your 1B/DH jobs with left-handed hitters. Dye is not only trying to convince teams that he can still hit after a miserable second half, but he’s also trying to convince them to forfeit a natural line-up spot that could go to a left-handed bat. For a lot of teams, this is just not worth doing.

Even if Dye can outproduce a comparable left-handed hitter by 5 or 10 percent, managers are going to prefer a balanced line-up, so that opposing managers can’t just shut down their offense with specialist relievers in every close game. And as a right-handed 1B/DH type, Dye threatens every team he may join with a lack of balance in their line-up.

Not only does he need to find a team that is interested in an aging DH, but he needs to find one that doesn’t have too many right-handed infielders on the roster. It should be no surprise that, given how many restrictions there are on teams who may be interested in his services, that there just isn’t much of a market for him.

If you’re a right-handed hitter, you don’t want to end up in the 1B/DH pool. Do whatever you can to sustain your defensive abilities at another position, because once you’re down that far on the defensive spectrum, your career as an everyday player is probably close to being over.

The Royals haven’t gotten much of a return on their 2 year, $9 million investment in Kyle Farnsworth so far. Rather than proving to be a relief ace to stabilize the bullpen, he’s continued to be his enigmatic self, with the results never living up to the raw stuff behind them.

Now, the Royals are going to try something a bit different – give him a shot at starting. He’ll come to camp in the mix for the 5th starter’s job, as pitching coach Bob McClure wants to see how he’ll adjust to using his arsenal in longer outings. Reliever to starter conversions generally don’t go very well, as most bullpen guys are there for a reason, but I like this idea, and I think there’s a decent chance it may work.

The main difference in ability between a starter and most middle relievers is the ability to get opposite handed hitters out. A huge majority of relief guys are some sort of specialist, often throwing a fastball/slider mix that is dominant against their same handed hitters but with nothing to offer batters from the other side. They get selectively used by their managers to enhance their strengths and limit their weaknesses, and can be effective in that role, but they would simply be exposed if they were not able to face a majority of hitters from the same side that they throw.

Farnsworth is not that type of reliever. Here are his career L/R splits:

vs RHB: 3.43 BB/9, 9.45 K/9, 41% GB%, 3.68 xFIP
vs LHB: 4.63 BB/9, 10.41 K/9, 36% GB%, 3.89 xFIP

His strikeout rate is actually higher against left-handed hitters, which is unusual for a power righty. He’s still better against RHBs, as the strikeouts don’t offset the higher walk and lower groundball rates, but the difference isn’t huge. He’s not the type of pitcher who is going to fall apart when the opposing manager stacks the line-up with left-handed bats.

There’s also reasons to be encouraged that he may have learned something last year. As McClure notes in the linked article, they got him to start throwing both a two-seam and a four-seam fastball last year, and it significantly changed his pitch mix.

BIS classified the new pitch as a cutter, but it doesn’t really matter too much whether it’s a two-seam or cut fastball – it’s certainly a departure from what he’d been doing previously. For most of his career, he threw ~70% four seam fastballs and 30% sliders. Last year, he threw 50% four seam fastballs, 20% sliders, and 30% cutter/two-seamer.

This new wrinkle paid dividends. He’d been an extreme flyball guy most of his career, which was one of the driving causes behind his home run problems. With his new lower velocity fastball, he posted a 46% GB% in 2009, drastically reducing his long ball issues. Thanks to the limiting of his biggest problem, he posted a 3.10 xFIP, his lowest since 2005.

In a lot of ways, Farnsworth is reminiscent of Ryan Dempster, another power reliever with command problems who flourished with a move to the rotation. It’s not wise to expect that kind of outcome, but there are reasons to believe that Farnsworth could find success in the conversion. The stuff is good enough, especially with his new pitch mix, and it’s certainly worth the experiment.

The Royals take a lot of crap from us, but I’ll applaud them for recognizing an opportunity here. Farnsworth could justify his contract, and then some, if this works.

The mention of Jered Weaver’s platoon splits yesterday raised a few questions, with both Eric Van and Jeremy Greenhouse speculating that his arm slot could be the cause of his ability to limit hits on balls in play and home runs on fly balls versus right-handed hitters. In his career, RHBs have only racked up a 5.6% HR/FB and a .282 BABIP against Weaver, though he’s basically average in both of these categories against LHBs.

Putting Weaver aside for a second, I think the issue of whether or not BABIP and HR/FB rates are affected by handedness is worth thinking about. We know that certain pitches exhibit large platoon splits in walk rates, strikeout rates, and groundball rates – the two-seam fastball isn’t nearly as effective against opposite handed hitters, for instance. It’s essentially a totally different pitch to an LHB than an RHB. Does this carry over to things that we’ve presumed are not repeatable skills overall, such as HR/FB and BABIP?

This isn’t a conclusive study by any means, but I thought I’d start digging into it a bit. To begin, I asked David for the league average splits by handedness, 2002 to 2009, which I’ll present below.

RHB vs RHP: 44% GB%, 36% FB%, 12% IFFB%, .296 BABIP, 10.3% HR/FB
RHB vs LHP: 42% GB%, 38% GB%, 11% IFFB%, .303 BABIP, 10.5% HR/FB

LHB vs LHP: 46% GB%, 34% FB%, 11% IFFB%, .298 BABIP, 10.4% HR/FB
LHB vs RHP: 44% GB%, 35% FB%, 9% IFFB%, .306 BABIP, 10.9% HR/FB

You’ll notice that there is an average platoon split for BABIP, though its small – 7 or 8 points. There’s not really any significant HR/FB platoon split, at least in the aggregate. Despite the big platoon splits that are exhibited in things like strikeout rate, those don’t appear to carry over to BABIP or HR/FB rates.

Of course, the original question wasn’t whether all pitchers are able to suppress these two “luck” statistics against same handed hitters, but whether a pitcher with a certain type of arm angle could generate an advantage and beat the averages. Weaver is one example of a pitcher whose career data suggest that he may be able to, but we’re talking just over 300 innings against right-handers in his career, so the samples are too small to draw any firm conclusions.

So I went looking for other examples, based on similarly strange arm angled pitchers. Here’s the guys I chose to look up, based on my experience with watching them add some deception to their delivery with frequency:

Orlando Hernandez:

Vs LHB: .289 BABIP, 11% HR/FB
Vs RHB: .275 BABIP, 9% HR/FB

Vicente Padilla:

Vs LHB: .324 BABIP, 12% HR/FB
Vs RHB: .273 BABIP, 10% HR/FB

Bronson Arroyo:

Vs LHB: .298 BABIP, 12% HR/FB
Vs RHB: .291 BABIP, 8% HR/FB

Brian Fuentes:

Vs RHB: .294 BABIP, 9% HR/FB
Vs LHB: .324 BABIP, 7% HR/FB

Sean Green:

Vs LHB: .299 BABIP, 10% HR/FB
Vs RHB: .332 BABIP, 6% HR/FB

It’s only five pitchers, and guys like Arroyo and Padilla don’t pitch exclusively from a Weaver-esque arm angle, but it’s still interesting to note that all five pitchers have lower HR/FB rates against same handed hitters than opposite handed hitters – even Fuentes and Green, who do not follow the BABIP prevention vs same handed hitter trend. Both of those guys give up significantly more hits on balls in play against same handed hitters, but still manage to hold down the rate of fly balls that head over the wall.

Additionally, we’ve observed that a decent amount of relief pitchers generally have lower HR/FB rates than starting pitchers. Given that relievers face same handed hitters with more frequency than starters, this also points to there being certain types of pitchers who can sustain a platoon split on HR/FB rate.

This is nowhere near an exhaustive study, but the results are interesting enough that we should keep digging.

I’ll put an end to my quartet of splits-related postings by looking at one more area I find tremendously interesting – power to all fields. There are some guys in baseball who can only drive the ball when they turn on it, but they’ve figured out how to do that enough to make it work. Other guys, though, can launch a pitch to any part of the field. These guys have power to all fields. It doesn’t matter where you pitch them – if they hit it, it’s going a long way.

I browsed through the split data for guys with reputations for serious power. Here are the breakdowns of career ISO by field for three classic, big-time sluggers:

Adam Dunn:

To Left: .272
To Center: .294
To Right: .518

Mark Reynolds:

To Left: .449
To Center: .395
To Right: .267

Russell Branyan:

To Left: .377
To Center: .376
To Right: .456

Dunn and Reynolds both hit for power in any direction, but they have pretty significant gaps between their pull field and their opposite field. They are pull power guys who also are strong enough to hit one out the other way when they make contact, but they’re not your traditional “power to all fields” type of hitter. Branyan is much more like that, and is among the best examples of this description. When he makes contact, he’s going to hit the crap out of the ball more often than not.

I can’t end without giving a nod to Ryan Howard, however. The big Phillies slugger is known for his opposite field moonshots, and the numbers bear this out. Here’s Howard’s breakdown.

To Left: .701 (!!!)
To Center: .480
To Right: .327

Ryan Howard’s slugging percentage on fly balls to left field is a staggering 1.138. That’s not his OPS – that’s his SLG. 71% of all of his balls in play to left field are fly balls, and 27 percent of those leave the yard. You may remember from yesterday that the league average HR/FB for a lefty to left field was 3%. Howard’s HR/FB to left is nine times the league average.

We don’t have the historical evidence to prove it, of course, but I’d wager that Ryan Howard may just be the greatest opposite field power hitter in the history of the game.