The Orioles have a lot of good young pitchers. David Hernandez made his major league debut earlier this season, and top prospects Chris Tillman and Brian Matusz aren’t too terribly far behind. Toss in Jake Arrieta and Brandon Erbe, and Baltimore has as good a crop of pitching prospects as any organization in baseball.

But, for all the big time velocity arms that are on their way to Camden Yards, Brad Bergesen and his 89 MPH fastball has snuck into the team photo and is threatening to stick around. I’m going to go so far as to say he’s the best pitcher that most people have never heard of.

Bergesen is the classic kind of pitching prospect that slips through the cracks. A fourth round pick back in 2004, he worked his way through the minors with average stuff and no out pitch, leading to rather boring looking strikeout numbers, which is the main way pitching prospects get recognized. His minor league K/9, by year/level:

2005: Short-Season A: 6.8
2006: Low-A: 5.1
2007: Low-A: 7.0, High-A: 5.6
2008: High-A: 7.8, Double-A: 4.4
2009: Triple-A: 7.4, Majors: 4.1

Usually, a pitching prospect isn’t going to get much respect if he’s punching out less than a batter per inning, especially in the lower levels. Pitching to contact in low-A is usually a sign that your stuff isn’t major league quality, and when your fastball tops out at 92, the suspicion is confirmed.

However, the strikeout obsession has led to a lot of missed evaluations on groundball specialists, and Bergesen is proving to be exactly that. Pitch F/x shows that his fastball has similar amounts of vertical movement to some guy named Roy Halladay, so we shouldn’t be terribly surprised that Bergesen has a 54% groundball rate through his first twelve major league starts.

When you can command a sinking fastball and have an off-speed pitch to keep opposite handed hitters at bay, you can be an effective major league starter. Bergesen doesn’t have the same potential as some of the more hyped arms in the Orioles system, but don’t discount his strengths and write him off as a no-stuff guy who belongs in the bullpen. Command, sinker, and change-up – it’s the recipe for a solid back-end starting pitcher.

As we head towards the trading deadline, it seems like every contender in baseball is shopping for a starting pitcher, and they’re all complaining that there aren’t any available. The guys who were expected to be available aren’t as of yet, thanks to trips to the disabled list or the fact that they’re teams just aren’t ready to sell yet, so organizations like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Texas are just cooling their heals, trying to patch their holes internally while hoping that the market opens up in July.

Well, I have a suggestion. Rather than sitting around for a month, losing games that will come back to haunt you in September, why not give a kid a shot who deserves one and certainly won’t be getting one in his current organization. That kid is J.D. Martin, currently destroying the International League as the ace of the Syracuse Skychiefs.

Martin was signed as a minor league free agent over the winter by the Nationals to provide some Triple-A pitching depth, and while the Nationals have a lot of problems, they don’t lack for young pitching options in their rotation. It’s unlikely that they’ll be giving Martin a look this summer, and if he’s not traded, he’ll probably spend the whole year in Syracuse.

However, he’s earned a shot at the big leagues. A former first round pick of the Indians in 2001, he’s overcome some arm problems and has begun to show durability that was always a question mark. Despite standing 6’4, Martin is a strike-thrower with a below average fastball who lives off of his change-up. That package works a lot better in the minors than it does in the majors, but extreme users of this skillset can provide useful innings in the big leagues.

Martin is definitely an extreme strike thrower. He’s walked 7 batters in 70 innings so far this year while racking up 52 strikeouts and a league average groundball rate. When you pound the zone that often and aren’t getting torched for copious amounts of fly balls, you’re doing enough things right to get hitters out. This is, essentially, the Minnesota Twins model of pitching. Carlos Silva, Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, and Nick Blackburn have all been successful in the Twin Cities while throwing below average fastballs over the plate a lot.

Other teams are still skeptical of the command-and-change-up right-handed pitcher, however, and guys like Martin have trouble finding a major league job. While it’s true that there’s almost no star potential in this skillset, and the upside offered is that of a #5 starter who will depend on his defense to help him get through 5 or 6 innings, that kind of pitcher can help a contender in the right situation. Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Texas could all use a guy like Martin right now.

If they’d overlook the lack of big time velocity, they’d find that there are pitchers out there who could be acquired right now and could help patch a hole in their rotation. J.D. Martin deserves a shot in the majors, and with all the teams currently whining about the lack of available pitching, one of them should give Washington a call and give the kid an opportunity.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Manny Ramirez is hanging out in Triple-A, getting ready to return to the Dodgers after serving his 50 game suspension. Ramirez’s return will certainly give the Dodgers offense a boost, but it has also caused some consternation among some who believe that Juan Pierre has played well enough in Manny’s absence that he should keep playing regularly.

And it’s true, Pierre’s performed admirably well – his .327/.384/.424 line while playing quality defense in left field adds up +1.5 WAR in 240 plate appearances, or about a +3.75 win pace over a full season. If he played that well all the time, he’d actually be worth his contract.

But, of course, Pierre doesn’t play that well with any kind of consistency. And he hasn’t sustained that kind of pace this year, either. Here’s his 2009 season, broken into two chunks.

April 8 – May 28: 133 PA, .407/.470/.542
May 29 – June 24: 107 PA, .232/.276/.283

The first half of Pierre’s season, he hit like a Hall of Fame candidate. In addition to his usual batch of singles, he had 13 extra base hits and drew more walks (12) than strikeouts (10). It was a tremendous stretch of hitting for anyone, much less a guy with a checkered track record like Pierre.

The more recent chunk, however, is more what we’re used to seeing from the guy. No power, few walks (just four, compared with 10 strikeouts), and the ball has stopped finding holes. For the last month, he’s been a sinkhole, making outs in bunches and doing little to nothing to help the Dodgers win.

He’s neither as good as his first 133 PA or as bad as his recent 107, of course. However, based on his full body of work, no one would seriously suggest that Pierre should play ahead of Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, or Andre Ethier. Instead, the argument for Pierre staying in the line-up rests on the theory of “the hot hand”. The problem, of course, is that Pierre hasn’t been “hot” for a month now. Why should the Dodgers play Pierre in July because he hit well in May? Even if you believe in the hot hand, June’s performance requires you to admit that Pierre doesn’t have it anymore.

Pierre is what he is – a +1 win player with good speed and range, a terrible arm, no power, and a horrible contract. He’s not the worst fourth outfielder in the world, but despite his remarkably good run earlier this year, he doesn’t belong in the starting line-up for any team trying to win. Especially one with Ramirez/Kemp/Ethier.

Back to bench, Juan. It’s where you belong.

Yesterday, we talked about Troy Tulowitzki powering the Rockies resurgence in June. While he’s the main reason, he’s not the only cog in the Colorado offense having a good month. Seth Smith is hitting .417/.463/.556 in June, fulfilling GM Dan O’Dowd’s preseason predictions of a breakout year.

Only, it’s only sort of a breakout season, because Smith keeps finding himself on the bench. It’s hard to break out when you’re sharing time with inferior players. Smith has appeared in 16 games this month, starting eight of them. He has 41 plate appearances in June, the same number as Ryan Spilborghs, who got the start in left field again last night. Spilborgh’s slugging percentage this month is lower than Smith’s batting average. Yet it’s Smith, not Spilborghs, who has been relegated to pinch-hitting duties the last few weeks.

How Smith has been handled by the Rockies this year is ridiculous. He hit .324/.490/.595 in April, despite only starting nine of the 18 games he appeared in and racking up all of 49 plate appearances. The Rockies responded to his hot start by giving him a whopping 60 plate appearances in April, and while his average sank, he drew 11 walks and had five extra base hits. In June, the average is back, and he’s still not playing.

For the season, Smith is hitting .303/.427/.500 for a .412 wOBA. He’s started 29 of the Rockies 72 games. He’s on pace for just over 340 plate appearances. He has a .412 wOBA.

There’s no argument to be made that Spilborghs is a better player. Smith is a 26-year-old patient hitter with gap power and above average defensive abilities who hits both lefties and righties. Spilborghs is a right-handed platoon guy who can hit lefties but shouldn’t ever start against an RHP. Especially not at the expense of Seth Smith.

Both Clint Hurdle and Jim Tracy should be embarrassed by how they’ve handled Smith this season. The team consideres themselves contenders now that they’ve caught fire, and yet they continue to let one of their best players languish on the bench. If you don’t want to play him regularly, Colorado, I’m sure 29 other teams would love to give him a real job.

Stop with the insanity. Put Seth Smith in the line-up and leave him there.

As you’ve probably heard, the Colorado Rockies have gotten hot lately, surging to a 37-34 record after starting the year as one of the worst teams in baseball. New manager Jim Tracy has been given a significant amount of the credit, as the team started winning right after he took over from Clint Hurdle, but there’s one really obvious reason why the Rockies are winning that has nothing to do with Jim Tracy – Troy Tulowitzki has been the best hitter in baseball this month.

After some pedestrian performances in April and May on the heels of a 2008 season that was one long struggle, questions about TT’s ability to hit began to gain momentum. Was he just a product of Coors Field? A flash in the pan who peaked early? A good glove that can only hit mistake pitches?

No, no, and no. After hitting two more home runs last night, Tulowitzki is hitting .373/.466/.797 in June, and only Albert Pujols has hit more home runs this month. His .508 wOBA since the end of May is the best in baseball. When you’re getting this much offense from the shortstop position, it’s going to make it pretty easy to put runs on the board and win some ballgames.

Tulowitzki has raised his entire offensive game this year. His walk rate is up to 13.8%, well above his previous career high of 9.4%, thanks to a more patient approach that has him swinging at less pitches out of the strike zone. Despite shifting to a more walks-and-power offensive attack, his contact rate is actually at a career high as well. That’s an impressive combination.

Despite a slow start, Tulowitzki has already racked up a +1.7 win value for the season, and is re-establishing himself as one of the better players in the game. His success in June is the main reason that Colorado has turned the corner and started playing well. Sorry, Jim Tracy, but at least you get to go along for the ride.

As you may have noticed, two new writers joined the site today. Erik Manning shocked everyone by writing about a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, while Dave Allen tackled the fly ball depth of David Ortiz. We’re all thrilled to have these two on board, and while I’m just a dude who writes here, I’m pretty proud of what the site has become. These two just keep adding to the awesomeness that is FanGraphs. Even if David fired me tomorrow, I’d still be a fan.

Anyway, I didn’t mention those two articles just to suck up to the new guys. Instead, I wanted to build off of Other Dave’s topic about Ortiz. During his disastrous run in April and May, you could walk around any city in America and run into someone proclaiming that David Ortiz was washed up. The bat speed was gone. He was off the juice. His weight caught up with him. He lied about his age. The theories were almost as numerous as the people spouting them, but the conclusion was all the same – Ortiz was finished.

Of course, he wasn’t actually finished. He was just about to start hitting like the David Ortiz of old, in fact (he’s at .308/.400/.654 in June, by the way). Despite what everyone saw, said, and agreed upon, Ortiz was on the verge of a big performance spike.

This isn’t an isolated incident, either. Last year, I was one of many who wrote off Carlos Delgado when he started the year hitting like a middle infielder. Right after we all declared him too old to play, he started hitting like an MVP candidate again. The Tigers cut Gary Sheffield because he looked done in spring training, and he’s been one of the Mets best hitters this year. Jason Giambi hit .208/.342/.379 in 2004, then led the American League in on base percentage in 2005. Scott Spiezio was released by the Mariners in 2005 because he was 3 for 47 and looked as bad as anyone ever has, then proceeded to post an .862 OPS for the Cardinals in 2006.

We could go on and on. The list of guys who have been written off as over the hill and then shoved that right back in everyone’s face is long and distinguished. You would think that eventually, we’d learn our lesson. There may be a point at which a major league player just loses enough of his ability to stop being productive, but we suck at figuring out when that point is. We’re so bad at it that we should just stop trying.

We haven’t figured out what numbers show that a player is truly washed up. We haven’t figured out what it looks like when that happens. We haven’t figured out how to combine scouting and statistical analysis to give us a warning before a player heads off the cliff. All we’ve figured out is how to guess wrong a lot. Young player struggle, old players struggle, middle age players struggle, and we don’t have any good way of figuring out why in most cases. Just because a player experiences a drop in performance, and is old, does not mean that age related decline is the reason for the performance. More often than not, it’s just bad luck.

Let’s stop pretending that we can identify players who have “just lost it” overnight. Too often, they find it again the next morning.

Unless you’ve watched Seattle play quite a bit this year, odds are you don’t realize that David Aardsma has the highest WPA of any relief pitcher in the American League this season. Yes, David Aardsma – the guy who the Red Sox traded to the Mariners for the immortal Fabian Williamson over the winter.

Aardsma’s always been a guy with a big fastball and no command, as his career 5.56 BB/9 shows. He’s on his fifth organization in six years, as everyone has had him previously got tired of seeing him walk the world and decided to go another direction. He’s still walking everyone in sight as a Mariner, but he’s turned up the strikeouts and stopped giving up home runs, so the overall package has worked for him this year, delivering a 1.62 ERA while pitching in extremely high leverage situations.

This kind of breakout year has inspired a couple of people to ask me what Aardsma’s doing differently this year. I’ve told them the same thing – nothing obvious. He’s the same guy he’s always been, with the same skillset as always. He just was better than people realized.

For example, here are his 2009 numbers to date.

33 1/3 IP, 19 H, 20 BB, 41 K, 1 HR, 2.79 FIP, 1.62 ERA

And here’s his numbers last year through July 18th, when he was placed on the DL.

39 1/3 IP, 29 H, 26 BB, 41 K, 1 HR, 3.58 FIP, 2.75 ERA

Not a huge difference, honestly. The strikeouts are up a little bit, but not that much. The hits are down, but that’s what happens when you take an extreme flyball guy out of Fenway and put him in Safeco with some terrific defensive outfielders behind him. Overall, the core performance isn’t that much different from what he was last year before he got hurt. He tried to return in August, but he was a walking disaster – 9 1/3 IP, 20 H, 9 BB, 8 K, 3 HR, 9.52 FIP, 17.36 ERA

Trying to pitch while hurt didn’t do him any favors, ruining his 2008 season line and giving the impression that he was still unable to get major league hitters out. However, before landing on the DL, he was doing just fine. The command was bad, but the strikeouts and lack of home runs made it work. Just like now.

I’m not saying Aardsma is going to continue to post a 1.62 ERA all season. With as many fly balls as he gives up, he’s going to surrender a few more home runs along the way. But Aardsma’s a quality relief pitcher, and we shouldn’t be that surprised that he’s performing well for the Mariners. He did this last year too, but no one noticed.

If you’ve hung around here very long, you’ve heard the term replacement level. We often refer to a players performance in terms of his Wins Above Replacement, which is based on the replacement level baseline. Despite significant inroads in acceptance, replacement level can still be one of those murky things to try to explain to someone. Fans, and even some GMs, will often find it hard to believe that you can get decent performances from guys for the league minimum, and constantly want examples of guys who prove the replacement level baseline.

Well, today, we got yet another walking example. The Twins designated Luis Ayala for assignment, as Minnesota becomes the third team to get rid of him in the last 12 months. Here’s how he’s performed over the last three seasons.

BB/9: 2.55, 2.83, 2.23
K/9: 5.95, 5.95, 5.83
HR/9: 1.06, 1.07, 1.11

Or, if you want to see it expressed in terms of wins above replacement: 0.0, 0.0, 0.1.

Ayala’s settled in as an extremely consistent 4.4 FIP reliever. He throws strikes, givese up a few home runs, and gets some strikeouts, but he doesn’t do any of those things exceptionally well or poorly. He throws a 91 MPH fastball, an 83 MPH slider, and an 82 MPH change – about as average in terms of stuff as you could find.

There’s nothing that stands out about Ayala. He’s just a run of the mill strike throwing reliever with nondescript stuff. The Wins Above Replacement metric things he’s essentially the baseline against which all other relievers should be measured, and MLB teams agree. Ayala’s performance is good enough to keep landing him jobs and bad enough for those teams to decide they could do better.

Luis Ayala defines replacement level.

We’re coming up on the halfway point of the season, and there seems to be a theme – the lessons to be learned over the last seven days are things we already should have known. Here’s what we learned last week.

Albert Pujols is ridiculous.

He only hit .389 for the week, but he made those hits count. Four of his seven hits went for home runs, and he slugged 1.111 over the last seven days. His home run total is now up to 26 for the season, and his power surge has given him a career high .469 wOBA. It’s getting so silly that his intentional walks are close to being even with his strikeouts. The guy is just a pure hitting machine. Barring a strange second half of the season, he should clear out some space on his mantle for another MVP trophy.

Gordan Beckham has adjusted to major league pitching.

After a rough start to his major league career, Beckham has adjusted and is stinging the ball lately. He hit .375/.524/.625 over the last week, drawing four walks against just three strikeouts. His overall line might not look like much, but he’s showing some legitimate offensive skills a year after being drafted. The White Sox have a good one here.

Chris Davis is killing the Rangers.

Jon Daniels gave Davis a vote of confidence a few weeks ago, stating that their commitment to young players required that they stick with them through tough times. That’s going to be tested, as the Rangers offense has fallen apart and the team has stopped winning, while Davis continues to flounder. He was 1 for 20 with 9 strikeouts last week, and that’s just not the kind of performance the Rangers can live with from their first baseman.

Wandy Rodriguez’s regression has come swiftly.

In his first eight starts of the season, Wandy Rodriguez did not give up a home run. Through eleven starts, he’d only given up one long ball despite allowing 71 fly balls. Everything we know about the predictability of HR/FB rate told us that regression was coming. Man, was it ever. He gave up four home runs last week, in addition to the five he gave up the week before, and nine of his last 28 fly balls have left the yard. From a 1.4% HR/FB rate through 11 starts to a 32.1% HR/FB rate over his last four, Rodriguez is walking proof that getting a lot of fly ball outs is a risky path to success.

The Brewers could use a pitcher or two.

It was an ugly week for the arms in Milwaukee. As a team, they posted a 6.08 FIP, and five of their pitchers had an ERA of 10+ for the week. Braden Looper and Dave Bush got pounded for six home runs in 10 innings of work between them, while Manny Parra was banished to Triple-A due to an inability to throw strikes. Their rotation currently stands as Yovanni Gallardo and cover your eyes for four days. The Brewers have a good team, but Doug Melvin needs to get them another arm pronto.

On the front page, over there on the right hand side, you’ll see some top five leaderboards for our win based statistics that we track on the site – WAR and WPA. If you look at the top of the list for batters in WAR, you’ll notice Joe Mauer has ascended to the pinnacle, as his 3.8 wins above replacement to date leads all major league position players.

Now, to rack up a +3.8 win value through mid-June is impressive enough on its own. Our fair value salary estimate suggests that Mauer has already played well enough to justify a $17 million contract for 2009, and we’re still a few weeks away from the all-star game. Even more amazing, of course, is that Mauer missed the first few month of the season with a back injury that landed him on the DL. Mauer has racked up his 3.8 WAR in just 43 games, totaling 190 plate appearances.

If we prorated Mauer’s performance out over a full catcher season, plus giving him some time at DH, we’d be looking at a +12 WAR season. The only guy to put up 12+ WAR in a single season since ’02 (as far as our numbers go back) is Barry Bonds, and we’ll just say that there’s a wee bit of controversy surrounding that guy.

So, there’s no doubt, Mauer’s having an incredible season. Playing a +12 win level, even for just a few months, is pretty remarkable. But, here’s the thing – our version of WAR probably underrates Mauer, because we don’t try to quantify the defensive value of each catcher. Because of the problems in evaluating catcher defense, for right now, we just assume they’re all average for the purposes of calculating win values. Of course, they aren’t all average – some are demonstrably better than others.

Mauer is one of those better than average guys. Baseball-Reference tracks “runners bases advanced” and “runner kills”, which quantifies how many bases opposing runners are able to take with a certain catcher behind the dish (whether via SB, PB, or WP) and how many times a catcher is able to gun down a runner on the bases. Mauer’s allowed 27 baserunner advancements and has seven runner kills, for a 3.91 rate of advances-to-kills. The league average is 4.96. This isn’t new, either – his career rate is 3.47.

We don’t have a good way of evaluating the other stuff catchers do, or how their responsibilities behind the plate translate into the batter/pitcher match-up. But, there’s certainly not any evidence that Mauer is below average at that stuff, either – the Twins have their highest BB/K rate and lowest opposing BA, OBP, and SLG when he’s behind the plate of any of their three catchers. Despite having a rotation full of guys with fairly pedestrian stuff, the Twins pitchers keep outperforming expectations, and some of that credit has to go Mauer’s way.

If we knew how to evaluate catcher defense well, odds are pretty good we’d be adjusting Mauer’s win value up even higher than it is now, likely pushing him over the +4 win plateau. He’s played 43 games, and he’s already had a full, all-star worthy season.

Right now, Joe Mauer is the most valuable player in the American League, and it isn’t particularly close.