Yesterday, Brewers top hitting prospect Mat Gamel made his season debut as a pinch hitter. Milwaukee summoned him from Triple-A, where he was tearing the cover off the ball, hitting .336/.428/.647 with 20 extra base hits in 145 plate appearances. As a 23-year-old with serious thump in his bat, the Brewers realized that he had little left to learn in the Pacific Coast League, and have brought him up to help them contend for the NL Central title this year.

No one questions Gamel’s bat. Everyone questions his glove, however. His lack of range and stiff hands are a significant problem at third base, and even at first base, the reviews aren’t good. More than once, it’s been suggested that Gamel’s best position is probably designated hitter, which doesn’t exist in the National League. A significantly improved defense was one of the main keys to the Brewers run last year, and they are understandably cautious about weakening their defense by giving Gamel significant playing time.

However, they should give him a shot at third base against right handed pitchers. Bill Hall is having a nice rebound season from his miserable 2008 campaign, but he’s the quintessential platoon player. In 2007, he hit .247/.305/.408 against right-handers. Last year, that fell to .174/.242/.316. This year, he’s at .212/.316/.333. Hall can hit lefties (career .862 OPS versus southpaws), but he’s vulnerable against right-handed pitching.

The Brewers line-up has enough lefty mashers. Seven of their eight position players are right-handed, with only Prince Fielder swinging a lefty bat in their regular line-up. Gamel, even with his fielding issues, would offer a little bit more balance and give them a significant offensive upgrade at the hot corner against RHPs. Hall could still sub in as a defensive replacement and play against lefties, so the time share would be something along the lines of 70-30 in favor of Gamel.

His defense is bad, but the opportunity to get a real hitter against right-handed pitching in the line-up at third base is one the Brewers shouldn’t turn down.

Yesterday, Rob Neyer blogged about the Rangers improved pitching. Thanks to improved run prevention, Texas finds themselves in first place in the AL West, playing better than almost anyone could have expected. However, the continuing conclusion that ERA = pitching throws Rob’s analysis off a bit, because the Rangers pitching has actually been worse this year than it was last year.

As a whole, the Rangers pitching staff is averaging 3.4 BB/9, 5.3 K/9, and 1.25 HR/9 for a 5.17 FIP this season. Compare that with 3.9 BB/9, 6.1 K/9, and 1.1 HR/9 for a 4.83 FIP last season. The walks are down a bit, but so are the strikeouts, and the home runs are up, which more than offsets the drop in walk rate. Texas’ pitching staff isn’t doing any better this year than they did last year. They still aren’t very good.

Why is their ERA lower then? Texas got on the defensive bandwagon over the off-season, and their decision to realign the team in order to improve the glovework has made them significantly better. It’s the defense, not the pitching.

It all started with the decision to go with 20-year-old Elvis Andrus at shortstop. The kid is something else, range wise, making a couple of plays the last few nights that were just ridiculous. It’s very easy to see why scouts were so high on his defensive abilities, and through the first five weeks of the season, UZR agrees – his UZR/150 through five weeks is +8.9. Expect that to go up significantly in next week’s update, which will reflect some of the plays he’s made recently.

Adding a really good glove at short allowed the team to move Michael Young to third base, and while the transition hasn’t gone as smoothly as they would have liked, he’s still a significant upgrade over the butchery they got at the position last year from Ramon Vazquez, Chris Davis, Hank Blalock, German Duran, and Travis Metcalf. The Rangers got a -26.7 UZR from their third baseman last year, and even adjusting to a new position, Young is going to give them much better glovework than that.

Having Young at the hot corner also shifted Davis across the infield, where he’s a much better fit defensively. He’s not as good as his early season +24 UZR/150, but he’s a better glove guy than Blalock, and he’ll give them average to above average defense from the first base spot.

By shifting the assets around to make room for Andrus, the Rangers have drastically improved their infield defense at three spots. Not surprisingly, their team-wide UZR has gone from -51.7 in 2008 to +9.5 in 2009. This is expressly manifest in the lower team ERA that Neyer noted yesterday – their 4.72 ERA is 45 points lower than their 5.17 FIP, giving them the fourth largest gap between how well they are preventing runs and how well their pitchers are actually performing.

This isn’t an accident. The Rangers made a conscious decision over the winter to upgrade their defense, and it’s paying dividends early on. They might not win the AL West, but they’re better than most people thought, and they’re headed in the right direction.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Carlos Pena had a monstrous week in the Three True Outcomes, with 20 of his 28 plate appearances ending in a walk, a strikeout, or a home run. Pena essentially took the defense out of the equation when he was up to bat, making the result almost entirely dependent on the pitcher-hitter confrontation.

Today, we’ll look at the pitcher who is doing the exact opposite of that so far this year, Joel Pineiro. Through six starts, Pineiro has posted a 3.73 FIP, besting all of his seasonal performances dating back to 2001 when he burst onto the scene as a dominating relief pitcher for the Mariners. He’s given the Cardinals rotation quite a boost, and is one of the reasons why St. Louis is off to such a strong start.

Pineiro’s achieving this low FIP by minimizing the true outcomes to a ridiculous extreme. He’s faced 160 batters in his first six starts, and only 22 have managed to walk (seven), strikeout (13), or hit a home run (two). The other 138 batters, or 86.2 percent, have put the ball in play. The average National League pitcher has had just 68.5 percent of their plate appearances end with a ball in play.

Pineiro is easily the National League leader in ball in play rate. Ross Ohlendorf comes in second with 77.8 percent of batters faced ending with a ball in play, a far cry from Pineiro’s line so far. Over in the American League, however, there’s another pitcher giving Pineiro’s extreme contact strategy a try. Shane Loux, one of the Angels multitude of reinforcements, is at 82.7 percent balls in play. Like Pineiro, Loux also has gotten strong results from the no true outcomes strategy, posting a 3.80 FIP.

Both Pineiro and Loux are groundball pitchers, so they just throw a ton of sinkers and hope for the infielders to rack up the assists. However, in both cases, their success has been buoyed by remarkably low HR/FB rates – Pineiro’s is at 5.6 percent while Loux’s is at 2.6 percent. Pretty much every announcer on earth will tell you that these are succeeding due to the quantity of their groundballs, but in reality, it’s the quality of their flyballs that has made their seasons a success so far.

Unfortunately for these two, there’s no way they can continue to keep the ball in the park at these rates. The pitch to contact strategy can work for a while, but unless you have the most ridiculous sinker known to man, you’re going to give up home runs eventually. It might not happen over a given six start stretch, but it’s going to happen.

Theoretically, a pitcher can succeed with a no true outcome approach. We just haven’t seen one who has been able to limit the longball enough to make it work since Tommy John, who had a career 80 percent ball in play rate and a 3.38 FIP. I’m sure we’ll see another pitcher who has that special skillset eventually, but unfortunately for fans in St. Louis and Anaheim, these two aren’t it.

The Blue Jays success is probably the biggest story early of the first 20% of the major league season. The preseason focus was squarely on the Boston/New York/Tampa triumvirate of power, with Baltimore and Toronto relegated to tough luck also-rans in the best division in baseball. A good defense and a strong bullpen wasn’t expected to be able to make up for an offense that had some problems and a patchwork rotation, and even finding someone who thought the Jays would finish above .500 was a challenge.

However, the Jays offense has been a monster so far this year, scoring runs in bunches and pounding opposing pitchers into submission. The huge surprise has been the inexplicable surge from Marco Scutaro, but just as vital to the team’s success has been the mashing of Adam Lind. The 26-year-old had posted just a pedestrian .282/.316/.439 in 349 plate appearances last year after a .238/.278/.400 line in 311 PA in 2007. Put together, his ’07/’08 seasons inspired little confidence, as he played at +0.2 win level over a full season’s worth of innings.

2009 was essentially Lind’s make or break year. If he flopped at the plate again, he risked getting tagged as a AAAA player, a guy who could hit minor league pitching but couldn’t translate that success against higher quality pitchers. It’s still early, but Lind is doing everything possible to ensure that the season ends up making his career instead of ending it.

His .333/.405/.561 line is eerily similar to the .328/.394/.534 mark he posted in Triple-A last year. His walk rate, strikeout, and isolated power are all almost identical to what he did in the International League last year as well. He’s never going to be the most patient guy in the league, but he’s doing a better job of swinging at strikes, cutting his O-Swing% from 34% last year to 24% this year. He’s been far more selective overall, as he’s swinging the bat just 40% of the time this year, way down from his 50% mark in his previous major league trials.

Despite swinging less often, his contact rate is basically unchanged, suggesting that Lind’s change is almost entirely related to chasing less bad pitches. By refining his approach and making pitchers throw him something he can hit, he’s establishing himself as a legitimate major league hitter.

He’s almost certainly not this good, of course. The updated daily ZIPS projection that we debuted here on the site today projects him for a .349 wOBA over the rest of the 2009 season, way down from the .417 wOBA he’s currently posting. His current .384 batting average on balls in play isn’t sustainable, no matter how much more patient he has gotten. Regression is coming. But his early season performance should give Blue Jays fans hope that Lind can hit major league pitching.

It may have taken him awhile to adjust, but it’s unlikely that Lind will be making any return trips to the minors anytime soon.

Baseball is starting to sort itself out. The Marlins and Mariners have fallen apart after their hot starts to the season, the Angels are surging back towards the top of the American League West, and the Mets are riding Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran to victory. The standings still don’t look exactly like most people thought they would, but we’re starting to see some results that fit into preseason expectations. There were still things to learn last week, however.

Jayson Werth really wants to be taken seriously.

Despite posting a +5.3 win season last year, Werth is still considered a complementary player in Philadelphia. He’s overshadowed by Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Cole Hamels, and new acquisition Raul Ibanez stole the spotlight the first few weeks with his Ruthian start to his Phillies career. However, Werth demanded some attention this week, launching four home runs and reminding everyone that he can still swing the stick. Despite expectations for a regression, Werth is on a +6 win pace for the 2009 season. At some point, the baseball world is just going to have to admit that he’s a terrific player.

Miguel Tejada can still hit the ball over the fence.

Tejada didn’t have quite as good a week as Werth did, but two home runs in a four day span for Miggy is cause for celebration in Houston. Tejada had gone 180 plate appearances without a home run, dating back to last September, before he deposited one over the fence on Thursday. The power surge pushed his seasonal wOBA line up to .336, and Houston has to hope there’s more of this to come. There are several teams that could be in the market for shortstops this summer, and Tejada’s contract finally expires at the end of the season. If he can pull a few more fastballs, Houston might be able to ship him off somewhere else before the season ends.

Carlos Pena idolizes Rob Deer.

Pena’s having a big season with the bat so far, posting a league leading 13 home runs and a .414 wOBA for the Rays. If you’re a fan of the Three True Outcomes, you’d have loved Pena last week. He stepped to the plate 28 times, and 20 of them ended with a walk (five), strikeout (13), or home run (two). Eight balls in play for the whole week. Not one single. Pena is trying to chase down Jack Cust and Russ Branyan for the title of most TTO hitter in the game.

Yuniesky Betancourt knows how to take a pitch.

Mariner fans have been tearing their hair out watching Betancourt hit this year, as his hacktasticness continually kills rallies and lets pitchers off the hook without even trying. He’s swinging at 43.9% of pitches out of the strike zone this year. His approach at the plate is just miserable. So, you can imagine the amazement when Betancourt drew two walks last week – the first two he’d drawn all season. One of them even came off Royals all-star closer Joakim Soria, in the 9th inning of a close game no less. It has not yet been confirmed that Soria’s subsequent stint on the disabled list was due to embarrassment caused from the event.

Zack Greinke is good.

Just in case you weren’t sure. Two starts, two complete games, zero walks, 15 strikeouts. He still hasn’t allowed a home run this year. In seven starts, he’s been worth +2.9 wins to the Royals. This is just ridiculous.

Odds are, you know Evan Longoria is pretty good. He’s just 23, but he’s already made his mark on the American League with a stellar rookie season, and he’s followed it up with a strong start to the 2009 season. It wouldn’t be that controversial to call Longoria the best young player in the American League.

I’m here to say we can take the word young out of the previous sentence. Evan Longoria is the best player in the American League. He’s not that far behind Albert Pujols for the title of best player in baseball.

So far, Longoria has racked up 637 major league plate appearances, basically one full season’s worth. His career line – .291/.356/.574, good for a .395 wOBA. His power has developed earlier than anyone expected, making him one of the premier sluggers in baseball. He covers the plate, drives the ball to all fields, works the count, and crushes mistakes. The list of players who have hit this well at this early stage of their careers is littered with Hall Of Fame talents.

If that wasn’t enough, Longoria might just be the best defensive third baseman in the game. He posted a UZR of +14.9 in 119 games last year, he stood at +4.5 through the most recent update last Sunday. His career UZR/150 stands at +20.5, thanks to his excellent footwork and reactions, which allow him to swallow up nearly every ball hit within shouting distance of third base. He was praised more for his glove than his bat coming out of college, so this kind of defensive excellence isn’t a surprise. He really could play shortstop, and probably be above average there.

Add up the total package, and in 151 major league games, Longoria has been worth +7.8 wins to the Rays. In what amounts to one season’s worth of playing time, Longoria has performed at a +8 win level that is rarefied territory. Our win value data goes back to 2002, and in the 7+ years of data that we have here on the site, Pujols and Alex Rodriguez have a massive lead over everyone else. Pujols has +56.7 wins, while Rodriguez has +55.2 wins. On a per year basis, those totals work out to just about +8 wins per year.

Longoria, in his first season’s worth of major league performance, as a 22 and 23 year old playing in the toughest division in baseball, has performed at a level essentially equal to what Pujols and Rodriguez have sustained for most of the decade. His rookie “season” was the equal of most MVP seasons.

This kid is sick.

Well, that didn’t take long. Despite the flukiest hot start baseball has seen since Tuffy Rhodes, it looks like the Emilio Bonifacio era may be coming to an end in Florida. The Marlins have recalled top prospect Chris Coghlan from Triple-A, where he was hitting .348/.425/.565 with a 12/10 BB/K ratio to go along with 12 extra base hits. The power was the nice surprise so far, as no one questions his ability to handle the bat and control the strike zone. He’s not the greatest athlete in the world, but he’s a baseball player. He’s essentially the anti-Bonifacio.

Early reports say Coghlan will see time in both the outfield and at second base (his natural position), giving the team a chance to give the slumping Dan Uggla a day or two off. However, there’s just no reason to keep a scrub like Bonifacio on the field when you have a talent like Coghlan ready to play everyday. He’s played 42 games at third base in the minors, including 11 there this season.

Thanks to their 11-1 start, the Marlins are still semi-competitive in the NL East despite the fact that their offense has fallen apart. Hanley Ramirez could use some help, and Coghlan is the kind of player who could give the team some legitimate offense from a position where that is sorely lacking. There’s just no reason why Coghlan shouldn’t get the majority of playing time at the hot corner. Even if the Marlins fall out of the race, Coghlan is a part of their future, while Bonifacio is not.

How he distributes the playing time at third base will be something of a litmus test for manager Fredi Gonzalez. The sooner he puts Bonifacio on the bench the better, and hopefully it’s permanent this time.

Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for failing a test for PEDs. Somewhere, Alex Rodriguez is doing a happy dance, as this will take the spotlight off of him for a while.

This is, honestly, fairly shocking. As much as everyone has said that you can’t really know who is clean and who isn’t, Manny’s one of those guys that there was no real reason to suspect. He’s always been big, he’s always had power, he’s always been a great hitter, and he’s not exactly known for his amazing work ethic. Manny Being Manny never included an intense dedication to making the most of his abilities.

He was just a guy who was born to hit, and he’s been hitting at pretty similar levels for his entire career. Yea, he went bananas on the National League after Boston traded him last year, but did anyone think that was evidence of steroid use?

This is, obviously, a pretty big blow to the Dodgers. They’ve played so well to start the year, and their division rivals are so lousy, that they should be able to survive without Manny for a few months. But still… wow.

Update: Manny is claiming that he took a medication that contained a non-steroidal banned substance. Will be interesting to see how much detail comes out, as guys who have made similar claims in the past have mostly cleared their names by being transparent.

This afternoon, the Twins decided they’d seen enough of Alexi Casilla, who entered the day as their starting second baseman. A 24-year-old switch hitter who fits the athletic, groundball/contact skillset that the Twins prefer, Ron Gardenhire just got tired of the mental mistakes. Casilla has driven Minnesota’s management nuts with his sloppy plays, his lack of fundamentals, and his general underachievement.

Then, of course, there’s this.

May, 2008: .340/.417/.520
June, 2008: .304/.330/.412
July, 2008: .308/.333/.385
August, 2008: .234/.260/.362
September, 2008: .221/.321/.253
April, 2009: .174/.231/.202
May, 2009: .135/.233/.135

I’m not a big believer in trend analysis, but you rarely see that kind of direct line with no variation. His OPS by month has declined every single month since last May (he began the season in the minors, so there’s no April data for ’08), where he went from great to good to okay to bad to really bad to miserable to holy crap we’ve seen enough.

At this point, I think we probably have to assume that Casilla is not going to make it in Minnesota. He showed some promise last year, but for a guy with no power and an aggressive approach at the plate, his margin for error is very small. When he gets into funks like this offensively, he’s going to be really bad, and he’s not exactly making up for it with gold glove defense at second base either.

The Twins are going to look at Matt Tolbert and Brendan Harris to fill the void, but they’re going to need to make a move to bring in a new second baseman if they want to try to get back in the AL Central race. At this point, Casilla’s probably out of the picture for good, and they don’t have a quality option for the long term available.

It will be interesting to see how long Casilla stays in Triple-A before he gets the change-of-scenery trade.

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers for clinching the first playoff spot of the 2009 season.

Okay, fine, it’s only May 6th. The Dogers have another 134 games to play. Things could go wrong. The whole team might get the swine flu. Short of that, however, this division race is over.

Heading into the season, the Dodgers and Diamondbacks were the two leading contenders for the division, with the Giants kind of lurking as an interesting team if they can find a couple of hitters. The Rockies and Padres were also-rans. The Dodgers looked like a better team than Arizona, but injuries to guys like Hiroki Kuroda threatened to potentially leave the door open for the D’Backs if they could get some production from their young hitters and All-Star seasons from Webb/Haren/Scherzer.

That’s out the window, though. Brandon Webb is on the DL, the D’Backs offense is a mess, and they are now 8.5 games behind the surging Dodgers, who are playing like the best team in baseball despite using Eric Stults and Jeff Weaver in the rotation. The Giants stand as the only team within seven games of LA in the division, and they’re struggling to stay above .500 because they have the worst offense in the National League.

Quite simply, there just aren’t any challengers to the Dodgers throne. At 20-8, they could play .500 ball the rest of the year and finish with 87 wins. The Giants would have to play .548 baseball (75-62) to finish with 88 wins and nip LA by a game. The Diamondbacks would have to play .570 baseball (77-58) to finish with 88 wins and squeak past the Dodgers. And that’s assuming that the LA falls apart and plays .500 baseball the rest of the year.

In reality, we should probably expect the Dodgers to play something like .550 baseball for the remainder of the season. They aren’t 20-8 good, but they’re an above average baseball team, and their +48 run differential is easily the best in baseball. If the Dodgers play .550 ball the rest of the way, they’ll win 94 games. I’m not sure anyone else in the rest of the division will win 84 games, much less 94.

It’s early, yes. Baseball is a crazy sport where all kinds of unexpected things can happen. The D’backs went 20-7 last year to start the year and didn’t win the division. That’s okay – I’m still more than willing to say that the NL West race is over and done with. Thanks for playing, everyone. We’ll see you in October, Dodger fans.