With one week in the books, we can be sure that the standings in September won’t look anything like they do now. Anything can happen in seven games (the first place Padres say hello), and we can’t extrapolate much from early season performances. It’s just one week, after all.

That doesn’t mean that we didn’t learn anything last week, though. There are some things that became obvious during week one that weren’t as clear prior to the start of the season.

The Washington Nationals are terrible.

An 0-6 start to the season isn’t the end of the world for most teams, but for a club trying to resurrect some respectability, they can’t really afford to have their season go down the drain in April. Scott Olsen didn’t put any fears to rest about his diminishing stuff in his first two starts, with a fastball that averaged just 86.9 MPH and a 7.50 FIP. The rotation is a mess, the outfield is still overcrowded, and the offense leads the majors in strikeouts while showing the least amount of power of any NL team. It’s going to be a long year in Washington.

Josh Johnson and Erik Bedard are healthy.

Coming into the season, the Marlins and Mariners were both understandably reserved about what to expect from their talented starters coming off of injuries. Both have put any concerns about their arms to rest – they have identical 15/1 K/BB ratios through their first pair of starts, and both are showing electric stuff. Johnson’s average fastball is 94.4 MPH, way up from previous seasons. Bedard is pounding the zone with his 91 MPH fastball and ridiculously sick curveball. His 1.45 FIP barely beats out Johnson’s 1.53 FIP, but both have been ridiculously excellent to start the season. They’re still health risks going forward, given their track records, but there shouldn’t be any question of whether they are still recovering from previous injuries. They’re fine.

Evan Longoria is kind of talented.

When the Rays drafted Longoria, he was touted as a defensive whiz with potential to be an above average hitter. The latter part has turned out to be a massive understatement. He hit a major league leading five home runs during the opening week of the season, flashing massive power. He even added four doubles, so nine of his 13 hits have gone for extra bases. Oh, and he made contact with 88.4% of the pitches he swung at. That kind of contact + power ability is only found in the best of the best. Longoria isn’t just a good young player – he’s a remarkably talented superstar in the making. He’s Ryan Braun with gold glove defense at third base. This is the kind of player you build dynasties around.

Outfield defense can win games.

The Mariners decided that their outfield defense needed an upgrade over the winter, so they imported Franklin Gutierrez and Endy Chavez to help cover the gaps. Through one week’s worth of games, the pair rank 2nd and 3rd respectively among MLB outfielders in UZR/150, as both have played off the charts defense so far. Gutierrez made a catch in Minnesota that’s an early Catch Of The Year candidate, and the improved outfield defense has helped the Mariners post the third lowest ERA in baseball with a pitching staff that could generously be described as questionable.

When the White Sox named Dewayne Wise their center fielder and leadoff hitter, laughter and high-fiving could be heard for miles away in Cleveland and Minnesota. Wise, he of the career .277 wOBA, isn’t exactly the kind of player you want at the top of your line-up if you’re trying to win. And, presumably, the White Sox are trying to win this year.

It didn’t take them long to realize that Wise wasn’t cut out for the job, though. After two games (where Wise went 0 for 8 and struck out four times), they’ve replaced him at the top of the order with rookie second baseman Chris Getz, and are actively shopping for his replacement. Let’s help GM Kenny Williams out and point him in a few directions he might want to look.

Marlon Byrd, Texas

The Rangers have a surplus of outfielders on the roster, and could replace Byrd without taking a significant hit to their team. The 31-year-old is coming off a career best season where he posted a .370 wOBA and was worth 3.6 wins above replacement. He won’t repeat those numbers, but CHONE has him projected as an above average hitter and he’s consistently been rated as average or above defensively in center field. Offering a .340ish wOBA and a defensive upgrade from Wise, adding Byrd to the team could net two to three wins for the White Sox.

Melky Cabrera, New York Yankees

Cabrera is where Byrd was in 2005 – a promising young player coming off a lousy major league season with a questionable future in his current organization. He was essentially a replacement level major leaguer last year, but he’s only 24 and has a strong minor league track record. A switch-hitter and a decent runner to boot, he’s more of a classic leadoff type than Byrd is, and he offers more long term upside. He might only add one or two wins over Wise in 2009, but he’d also be a potential answer in CF in 2010 and beyond.

Ryan Spilborghs, Colorado

The overachieving Spilborghs has gotten the most out of his tools during the last three years, exceeding expectations and earning a right to play regularly for the Rockies. Even adjusting for Coors Field, his offense has been worth +13.7 runs above an average hitter in his 779 major league plate appearances. For a guy with enough range to get by in center, that’s a pretty useful player. However, with Dexter Fowler breathing down his neck, the Rockies already have his replacement in place, and could afford to part with Spilborghs.

The White Sox need a real center fielder, and there are players who should be available and would represent a real upgrade for the team. If Williams is serious about contending this year, he needs to make a move sooner than later.

Last year, the Tigers had high hopes for their team, but those expectations were sabotaged by some brutal performances from their starting pitchers. In 2009, they’ve rebuilt their rotation, adding Edwin Jackson via trade, Zach Miner moving from the bullpen, and Rick Porcello from the farm system.

Jackson and Porcello hae gotten most of the ink, as a hard throwing pair of new guys that a lot of Detroit fans hadn’t seen pitch. However, Zach Miner is quietly going about his business, and there’s reasons to think he might be the best of the three this year.

His fastball averages just over 90 MPH, but he gets good sink on the pitch – his career GB% is 48.4%, and 61% of his balls in play in his first start of the year were hit on the ground. His fastball won’t light up radar guns, but he has enough movement on it to get a decent amount of worm burners. Being a groundball pitcher can help make up for a lack of velocity.

Miner’s second pitch is a change-up that he threw 26.5% of the time in his first start – he definitely has a lot of faith in it, and having a quality change is one of the keys to holding opposite handed hitters in check. In Miner’s case, he has a fairly normal platoon split (LH batters have a 100 point OPS bonus versus RH batters), but the change gives him a weapon to keep LH hitters off balance.

He has both a slider and a curve, though he generally uses one or the other. In his first start of ’09, he went the curve rather than the slider, a flip from his ’08 repertoire. Neither is a knockout pitch, but they’re both useful pitches and give him a legitimate third pitch.

Miner was a decent pitcher last year, splitting time between the bullpen and the rotation. As a full-time starter, he’s not going to rack up the strikeouts like Porcello or throw 95 like Jackson, but his combination of a sinking fastball, a change-up he believes in, and a useful breaking ball might make him the best of the three in 2009.

Last night, Carlos Silva returned to his former stomping grounds in Minnesota, trying to resurrect his career after a disastrous 2008 season. Silva represents one of the tests for the predictive power of FIP, which we often use to evaluate pitchers here on the site. Last year, Silva posted a 4.63 FIP, not much different than his career 4.54 mark. However, a .347 batting average on balls in play and a 61.1% LOB% led to a ridiculous 6.46 ERA – almost two runs higher than his fielding independent numbers would suggest.

Based on the fact that his struggles came from two areas that show very weak year to year correlation, and that he posted numbers in both categories that are basically unsustainable, most of us would expect positive regression to the mean in 2009. His walk rate, strikeout rate, and ground ball rate were all basically unchanged, so it seems unlikely that Silva mysteriously lost the ability to get outs on balls in play while holding on to the rest of his skills.

Last night’s performance, however, wasn’t particularly re-assuring to the regression crowd. He got lit up again, giving up six runs in five innings, thanks in large part to allowing a pair of two run homers early in the game. Besides the gopheritis, he was typical Silva – threw a lot of strikes, got a lot of contact, and even found some sink on his fastball that allowed him to get 13 ground balls.

Well, maybe he didn’t get that much more sink on his fastball. Perhaps the ground balls came from a remarkable reliance on his sinker. Here’s Silva’s pitch selection in column form.

That’s 84 fastballs, 10 sliders, and 4 change-ups. For a guy whose fastball averages 90 MPH and doesn’t have that much movement, that’s a lot of confidence in one pitch. Or a lack of confidence in the other pitches, at least – both home runs allowed by Silva came on change-ups, and after the long ball to Span, Silva was reluctant to throw any more.

It’s really rare to see a starting pitcher throw 85% fastballs. It’s even rarer when that fastball isn’t particularly good. Silva’s done this before, though – in his career best 2005 season, 84% of his pitches were fastballs.

Can he get his results to match his FIP? Can he succeed with essentially one pitch? It might not be fun for Mariner fans to watch, but he’s certainly an interesting experiment.

Last night, Nick Adenhart had the best start of his career, shutting out the A’s for 6 innings. It will be the last time anyone saw him pitch. He was killed in a car accident shortly after midnight.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and the Angels organization.

The live Win Probability graphs are easily one of the coolest things we have here on FanGraphs. They convey the story of the game so well. And sometimes, that story doesn’t have a happy ending.

For fans of the Royals, Mariners, and Tigers, yesterday’s graphs represent pure pain.

Kyle Farnsworth, Brandon Morrow, and Brandon Lyon decided to pull the agony of defeat out of the jaws of victory, squandering leads and inflicting trauma upon three metropolitan areas. Not exactly the most auspicious way to begin your seasons, boys.

Over the winter, I did a series of posts on position adjustments and put forward the idea that second base is an overrated defensive position. It is lumped into the “up the middle” spots with catcher, shortstop, and center field, but is not actually that much more difficult to play than third base. I also mentioned that there’s been something of a height bias, where tall infielders are shifted to third and short infielders are shifted to second, even if the tall guy is a better defender than the short guy.

You can imagine, then, that I’m thrilled to see three teams experimenting with non-traditional second baseman this year.

The Cardinals have replaced Adam Kennedy with converted outfielder Skip Schumaker, who had spent his entire career in the outfield with the exception of six games at third base in Double-A in 2004. After some early problems in spring training, Schumaker has proven good enough to be handed the Cardinals second base job, despite no previous experience at the position.

Likewise, the Royals have decided to use Mark Teahen at second base in 2009. Developed as a third baseman, Teahen has spent most of the last two years in the outfield, and has never played a professional inning of second base prior to this year. To boot, Teahen is also 6’3 and listed at 210 lbs, so he’s significantly larger than the prototypical second baseman.

In Colorado, the Rockies are continuing with their second base experiment, handing the opening day job to Ian Stewart. Like Teahen, Stewart is 6’3 and listed at 200+ lbs, so it’s not surprising that he was developed as a third baseman. However, with Garrett Atkins around, the Rockies have decided to use Stewart at second base in order to get his bat in the line-up.

Three franchises, all with off-season decisions to make about how to fill a hole at second base, decided to fill the position with players from the corners. Schumaker, Teahen, and Stewart are not traditional keystone defenders in any way, shape, or form, but all three organizations have decided to go make some defensive sacrifices at the position in order to improve their offense.

It’s interesting to me that we’ve seen three franchises go away from the traditional second base model in the same winter that outfield defense seemed to increase significantly in value in the marketplace. As the newer defensive metrics gain credibility, we saw an increase in the premium for defense at positions where defense hasn’t historically been valued and a corresponding decrease at a position that has been genuinely considered a premium glove spot.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I’d bet that going forward, second base is going to look a lot more like third base.

As the season begins, here are some of the areas that I think I differ on from the generally agreed upon consensus, for better or worse.

Teams I Like More Than Consensus

Baltimore – the pitching is better than people think and Wieters is on the way.

Atlanta – There are more strengths than weaknesses, and this is a roster with upside.

Seattle – Good defense and a couple of top notch arms make up for some other problems.

Teams I Like Less Than Consensus

Minnesota – A ~.500ish club when Mauer is healthy, and he’s not.

Philadelphia – Too many areas for expected regression. Long shots to repeat as champs.

LAnaheim – A ton of health problems and not as much depth as in past years.

Units I Like More Than Consensus:

Indians Rotation – Even if the experiments flop, there’s depth ready to step in.

Yankees Bullpen – Good arms, even if you haven’t heard of most of them.

Mets Offense – Could challenge the Cubs for the highest run scoring line-up in NL.

Units I Like Less Than Consensus

A’s Defense – Supposed to bail out the rotation, but I’m underwhelmed.

Red Sox Offense – Lowell’s back? Ellsbury’s bat? Varitek’s starting? Too many questions.

Cubs Bullpen – No relief aces in sight, which Lou will yell about frequently.

Players I Like More Than Consensus

Kosuke Fukodome – He’ll play a decent center field and hit enough to be useful.

Yunel Escobar – The Braves should be thrilled the Padres didn’t take him.

Josh Hamilton – It’s become cool to call him overrated. He’s not even at his upside yet.

Players I Like Less Than Consensus

Dustin Pedroia – Had a really good 2008. I doubt we ever see a repeat.

Matt Cain – When HR/FB rate regresses, people are going to wonder what’s wrong.

Jake Peavy – Padres should have sold high when they had the chance.

It’s Opening Day – meaningful MLB games return to the daily schedule, and for the next six months, we can settle in and enjoy what should be a fun season. Everyone starts out at 0-0, and while not every team has the same amount of hope, everyone has some “what if” scenario where things could break their way and they could be playing in October. It’s a day full of optimism for everyone – the teams who were bad last year offering up reasons why this year will be different.

Except in Washington, where it’s apparently more of the same. Even with the GM having resigned in disgrace and promises of a new organization going forward, the Nationals have managed to screw it up. Elijah Dukes, the best player on the team, is not in the line-up today. He’s not injured. He’s not being punished for an off the field transgression. He just had a bad spring, and Austin Kearns had a good spring, and that was enough for Manny Acta to decide that Kearns should get the first chunk of the playing time pie that will be split up amongst the crowd of outfielders the Nationals have.

Dukes had a .382 wOBA last year to go along with a UZR/150 of +13.7. In about 60% of a season’s worth of playing time, he was worth 2.9 wins to the Nationals, which put him on a +5 win pace over a full season. Five win players go to the all-star game, sign really big contracts, and become heroes to their fans.

Dukes will spend Opening Day on the bench.

I like Kearns as much as (probably more, actually) the next guy, but he’s not Elijah Dukes. He’s got some rebound potential and could be a nice role player on a team that needs a good defensive OF who can hit a bit, but he’s an expiring contract with no real future in Washington. He’s not a franchise cornerstone. He’s not even someone who will be with the organization next year.

Seriously, Washington, you have a 24-year-old coming off a .382 wOBA and a +13.7 UZR/150. I don’t care if he went 0 for 60 in spring training – you should play him whenever he’s healthy. This isn’t the kind of talent that you ask to share playing time, especially not with the likes of Kearns or Josh Willingham.

Happy Opening Day, Nationals fans. Hope you weren’t planning on seeing the team’s best player.

The Gary Sheffield sweepstakes didn’t last long, as the mercurial slugger signed with the Mets this afternoon. He will reportedly replace Marlon Anderson on the roster, so he’s being given the lowest hurdle to clear in the history of hurdling.

His role is being reported as right-fielder against left-handed pitching and pinch hitter on other days. Given that there weren’t any teams interested in him as a DH, this is probably the best fit he was going to find. With Carlos Beltran entrenched in center field and flanked by Ryan Church and Daniel Murphy, the Mets have three legitimate outfielders who can cover some ground, so they can afford to carry some guys for their bats.

With Fernando Tatis and now Sheffield in the fold, the Mets have some line-up flexibility in the outfield, giving them a pair of L/R platoon options. Sheffield shouldn’t be expected to play the outfield regularly, but as the right-handed portion of a platoon, he won’t be asked to play more than a few hundred innings in the outfield.

Even with his struggles last year, CHONE projects Sheffield as a league average hitter for 2009. If they can limit the amount of time he spends in the outfield and get him at-bats mostly against left-handed pitching, he could be a valuable role player. This is a good fit for both Sheffield and the Mets.