Tampa Bay is one game away from clinching the American League East – a win or a Red Sox loss will give them their first division title in franchise history, completing the best story of the year as the little guy slays a couple of baseball giants. Andrew Friedman and his staff deserve a ton of credit for building a division winner on a shoestring payroll.

However, some members of the mainstream media have continually attempted to demean the team building accomplishments of the Rays, claiming that the foundation of their success has been built by years of losing yielding a bevy of first round picks. As the theory goes, it’s those guys acquired as a reward of ineptitude that has allowed Tampa to thrive. To discredit the job Friedman and company have done, they instead point to the contributions of B.J. Upton, Carl Crawford, Scott Kazmir, Evan Longoria, and the gang acquired for Delmon Young this winter. And certainly, those guys are integral parts of the team.

However, I wonder if those same writers have noticed that the Rays have been without Crawford for the last two months and without Upton for a good chunk of September? In fact, if you look at some of the line-ups the Rays have been running out this month, it’s regularly included guys like Fernando Perez, Ben Zobrist, Dan Johnson, Eric Hinske, and Gabe Gross. With a patchwork line-up of role players, the Rays went 7-4 in games against Boston, New York, and Minnesota. Facing the toughest part of their schedule, without the two toolsy outfielders that have become the defacto face of the Rays rebuilding process, Tampa won 64 percent of their games to essentially put away the division title.

In fact, here is the WPA/LI for the Rays hitters in September:

Name WPA/LI
Carlos Pena 0.61
Evan Longoria 0.31
Gabe Gross 0.19
Willy Aybar 0.18
Ben Zobrist 0.11
Fernando Perez 0.11
Dioner Navarro 0.10
Cliff Floyd 0.10
Jason Bartlett 0.08
Justin Ruggiano 0.05
Dan Johnson 0.02
Akinori Iwamura -0.10
M. Hernandez -0.12
B.J. Upton -0.12
Eric Hinske -0.40
Rocco Baldelli -0.46

Crawford hasn’t played, Upton and Baldelli have been two of the least effective hitters, and the Rays have been able to play better than .500 ball against a ridiculously tough schedule: 6 against NY, 6 against Boston, 4 against Minnesota, 4 against Baltimore, and 3 against Toronto.

At some point, people have to recognize the contributions Tampa is getting from it’s role players this year. The Rays had Upton, Crawford, Pena, Kazmir, and Shields last year too, and they only won 66 games.

The young stars are certainly valuable commodities, but this team is going to win the AL East because of how good their role players have been. And for that, we have to acknowledge that no one in baseball has done a better job of team building in the last year than the folks down in Tampa.

Congratulations to Andrew Friedman and crew – you guys have earned this.

Sometimes, baseball just leaves us with some inexplicable performances, such as the infamous 50 HR season by Brady Anderson. You can’t explain it – you just realize that baseball is weird sometimes, and strange things happen.

So, in that vein, let’s talk about Jerry Hairston. For his career, he’s a .260/.330/.360 hitter – your garden variety utility infielder. He has okay contact skills and a smidge of power, can play a few different positions, and can run a little bit. He’s had a rather pedestrian career, finding playing time as a role player on some not good teams, and generally just floating around the game as a warm body.

Last year, though, he fell apart. He hit .189/.249/.289 while playing in Texas – racking up 184 terrible plate appearances and generally looking like a guy who couldn’t play baseball anymore. His walks were down, his strikeouts were up, and he posted a pitiful 13.5% line drive percentage, so it’s not like he was scorching the baseball right at people. 52% of his balls in play were flyballs, and when you’re a guy without much power, that’s bad news, because those fly balls aren’t going over the wall, and the outfielders will have plenty of time to track them down. Even worse, 21% of those flyballs were of the infield variety – weak popups that are always outs.

By pretty much any standard, Hairston was one of the worst players in the game in 2007. Texas jettisoned him, and he ended up signing a minor league contract with the Reds. When injuries struck and they needed some help at the big league level, they gave him a call… and he’s had the year of his life.

Hairston is hitting .329/.389/.473. His line drive rate is now 28.2%, as he really is just crushing the baseball every time he swings. He has 25 extra base hits after totaling just 17 in 2006 and 2007 combined. He’s been worth about a win more than an average hitter in just half a season’s worth of playing time, and he’s doing it as an up the middle defender at age 32.

Last year is the type of season that ends a lot of careers – a guy with limited value turning in a terrible performance in a hitters park at age 31. There aren’t many teams that will look at that player and say “hey, he’s due for a rebound”. But Hairston has apparently decided to regress to Barry Larkin’s mean instead of his own, turning in a season that just makes you scratch your head and wonder what’s going on.

If any Reds fans have any idea why Jerry Hairston has played at an All-Star level for the last few months, I’d love to hear it.

Last night, the Yankees were officially eliminated from playoff contention. For the first time since 1993, we’re going to have baseball in October and the Yankees won’t be participating. How different were things the last time New York watched the playoffs at home?

The Yankees best hitter was Mike Stanley, their best outfielder was Dion James, and their best pitcher was Jimmy Key. Spike Owen was playing shortstop and Bernie Williams was trying to prove he could play center field on a daily basis.

Chris Hoiles was the best catcher in baseball. Travis Fryman was a shortstop, Gary Sheffield was a third baseman, and the best all around young outfielders were Bernard Gilkey, Mark Whiten, and Al Martin.

Nine pitchers threw more than 250 innings, led by Greg Maddux’s 267. Alex Fernandez looked like the next great young starting pitcher. Bryan Harvey was the game’s best closer pitching on one of the worst teams in the league – the expansion Marlins, who were in their first season as an MLB team (along with Colorado).

Philip Hughes was seven years old. Tim Beckham, the kid who went first overall in the draft this past summer, was three years old.

Bobby Bonilla was the game’s highest paid player – he made $6.2 million. The Blue Jays had the highest team payroll at just over $45 million. The expansion Rockies had a payroll of $8.8 million. 10 teams had total payrolls less than $27 million – the amount Alex Rodriguez will make this year.

Baseball has gone through some huge shifts, but the Yankees playing in October were always a constant. It will be nice to have some fresh blood in there, but it’s going to be a bit weird.

David Price made his first major league start against the Orioles and did not disappoint those who were looking to be impressed by the former #1 overall pick. He took a no-hitter into the 5th inning before running out of gas, and while his command wasn’t top notch, his stuff was still good enough to keep the runs off the board.

Price has now made three appearances for the Rays since they called him up and given Tampa Bay fans reasons for optimism. His fastball is averaging 95.1 MPH but also inducing a lot of groundballs – his early GB% is 58.8%. The hard throwing groundball pitcher group is one of the best peer groups in baseball, consisting of a bunch of Cy Young candidates (and Fausto Carmona). Being able to get groundballs while throwing hard is a terrific building block for a pitcher.

Price hasn’t been afraid to work in his slider, either, throwing it 40 percent of the time, and using it as his out pitch. It’s a good but not great pitch, and it can get slurvy at times, but it’s a terrific weapon against left-handed hitters. We see that, so far, lefties haven’t been able to touch Price, going 3-18 with a walk and six strikeouts. All three hits have been singles, so LHBs are hitting .167/.211/.167 against him.

Given his stuff, we’d expect him to dominate same handed hitters, but the lack of a change-up makes him somewhat vulnerable to right-handed batters. In general, we’d expect a pitcher who throws exclusively a fastball/slider to show a larger than average platoon split, and even in the small sample of his ML performance to date, that’s been true – RHBs are 5 for 24 with a couple of extra base hits and only three strikeouts. The slider just isn’t nearly the weapon against RHB that it is against LHB, so Price has to rely more on in play outs to keep righties off the bases.

Because of his early success and his pedigree, there will probably be some talk that the Rays should use Price as their #4 starter in the playoffs, supplanting both Edwin Jackson and Andy Sonnanstine. I’ve even heard Jim Callis, who I have a lot of respect for, suggest this very thing, but based on his current two pitch repertoire, his ability to hold down good RH hitters is still a work in progress. Price could be a dominant force coming out of the pen, where he could be selectively used to maximize his ability to shut down LHBs.

Price’s talent is certainly there, and I have few doubts that he’ll eventually settle in as a quality starting pitcher, but that can wait until next year. For right now, the Rays should see Price for what he can be the next month – a fantastic LH relief pitcher.

Jamie Moyer is 45 years old. Jamie Moyer has thrown 190 innings, has won 15 games, and has a 3.78 ERA. Jamie Moyer is 45 years old.

This is, in two words, historically remarkable. Very few pitchers last long enough to throw until they’re 45, and even fewer do it at a level that adds value to their team. Finding pitchers who are significantly better than the league average starting pitcher at age 45 is almost impossible.

In the history of baseball, the list of guys who have been this good while being this old essentially reads like this:

Satchel Paige, 1952 and 1953
Phil Niekro, 1984
Jamie Moyer, 2008

At age 45 and 46, Paige put up two terrific seasons with the St. Louis Browns, but he did it primarily in relief, only making ten starts combined in 1952 and 1953. While Paige is certainly one of the great pitchers of all time, there’s still a pretty significant difference to pitching out of the bullpen, and Paige’s ’52 and ’53 seasons weren’t that much better than Moyer’s even on the surface. The fact that he was mostly a reliever makes them slightly less impressive.

Niekro’s 1984 season is the real contender to the throne for best pitching season at 45+ years of age. He tossed his knuckler up there for 216 innings, and won 16 games with a 3.09 ERA in his last truly good season. He floated his way to a 3.50 FIP, and despite being a knuckler, he didn’t get any real boost from limiting hits on balls in play. His real success was in keeping the ball in the park, as he allowed just 15 home runs that year.

Moyer’s 2008 doesn’t quite compare – his 4.33 FIP is higher than 1984 Niekro even after adjusting for the relative run scoring eras, and the difference is essentially in that home run rate. Moyer’s alllowed five more home runs than Niekro did and has pitched 25 less innings to boot. The rest of their performances are pretty similar, but those longballs give Niekro a slight edge.

So, instead of saying that Moyer is having the best age 45 season of all time, he has to settle for second best. Ever. In all the great performances we’ve seen this year, let’s not overlook what Moyer’s doing in defying aging.

Yesterday, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched seven scoreless innings to help Boston beat Toronto. He only gave up two hits and two walks while striking out six, pushing his record to a gaudy 18-2 and lowering his ERA to 2.80. 18-2 with a 2.80 ERA in most years gets you right near the top of the Cy Young voting. However, no one’s talking about Dice-K as a potential Cy Young winner, and it’s not just because of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay’s brilliance – it’s because Matsuzaka is having one of the strangest seasons ever.

His 2.80 ERA is 61 percent better than league average – that’s obviously outstanding. But, this isn’t a normal type of dominance, where he blows hitters away and looks like an ace every time he takes the hill. This is… something else.

Dice-K has a staggering 5.17 BB/9 – among qualified pitchers, it’s the worst of any starter in baseball. If you walk five guys per game, you generally don’t stay in the rotation long enough to rack up big innings totals. If we lower the IP qualification to 50 innings, we get the following pitchers who have displayed worse command than Dice-K this year:

Kason Gabbard: 4.82 ERA
Miguel Batista: 6.70 ERA
Tom Gorzelanny: 6.66 ERA
Radhames Liz: 6.69 ERA
Tom Glavine: 5.54 ERA
Fausto Carmona: 5.19 ERA

Batista, Gorzelanny, and Liz are basically the three worst pitchers in baseball this year, while Gabbard, Glavine, and Carmona all ended up on the DL with arm problems. So, Matsuzaka’s peers in strike throwing include the worst of the worst and some guys who were pitching hurt.

He’s 18-2 with a 2.80 ERA. With the worst walk rate in baseball of any pitcher in baseball who was able to keep his job. His FIP is a pretty ordinary 4.01, which is about the best you could possibly hope for given the worst walk rate in the league. He misses enough bats to offset some of the control problems (8.21 K/9) and has also had great success keeping the ball in the park (0.63 HR/9), though his 5.9% HR/FB rate suggests that’s not all skill. He’s also benefited greatly from a .271 BABIP, which has directly led to him stranding more baserunners than anyone in the AL.

Essentially, Matsuzaka has been the master of getting himself into, and then out of, a lot of jams. This is the kind of season that comes around every 50 years or so – for instance, Herb Score had a somewhat similar performance in 1956 – he went 20-9 with a 2.53 ERA on ratios of 4.66 BB/9, 9.49 K/9, and 0.65 HR/9. Score wasn’t exactly a command artist either, but his strikeout rate was ridiculous for the era – the next best guy in the AL had a 7.73 K/9, and the next best guy after that was 6.47. So, while Score dominated despite having control problems, he also was far better at missing bats relative to his peers than Matsuzaka has been.

Really, for a pitcher to experience this much surface-level success while pitching as badly as Matsuzaka has is nearly unprecedented. There’s little doubt that his 2008 season will go down as one of the most unique in history, and it’s unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

As most people have noticed over the years, talent ebbs and flows between positions. The AL had four terrific offensive shortstops back at the beginning of the decade, but now, it’s a wasteland of mediocrities. We’ve seen a surge of terrific catching enter the NL in the last few years, filling what was a pretty enormous hole for the league.

Somewhat under the radar, we’ve seen another strong talent push – have you noticed how good the crop of American League right fielders are right now?

Nick Markakis – 2.86 WPA/LI
J.D. Drew – 2.70 WPA/LI
Jermaine Dye – 2.28 WPA/LI
Shin-Soo Choo – 1.83 WPA/LI
Bobby Abreu – 1.73 WPA/LI
Magglio Ordonez – 1.27 WPA/LI
Vladimir Guerrero – 0.94 WPA/LI
Denard Span – 0.84 WPA/LI
Alex Rios – 0.50 WPA/LI
Gabe Gross – 0.46 WPA/LI
Ichiro Suzuki – 0.09 WPA/LI

Ichiro and Rios have supplemented their slightly above average hitting with excellent defense, which isn’t represented in WPA/LI, so they’re both quite a bit more valuable than this list shows. Span, meanwhile, has racked up his value in half a season – when you include defense, he’s been better than everyone but Markakis on a per game basis.

If we were just looking at a per-game basis, we could argue that Vladimir Guerrero has been something like the 8th or 9th best right fielder in the AL this year. Even though it’s a down year for Vlad, that’s remarkable – in most seasons, you can’t find seven or eight guys at any position in either league that are better than him on a per at-bat basis.

It’s really a pretty remarkable crop of talent. Markakis gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, thanks to the presence of bigger names like Guerrero and Ordonez, but he’s been the best of the bunch this year, and at 24 years of age, may have established himself as one of the game’s young stars. With other talented youngsters like Span and Choo also showing some real value, the position looks strong for years to come.

Last night, the Rays took an 8-6 lead into the 9th inning, looking to win their third straight game and put a bit more distance between themselves and the Red Sox in the A.L. East. Instead of walking away winners, however, they watched Dan Wheeler cough up the lead without retiring a batter, giving up four runs in the process, and they ended up 11-6 losers. Wheeler was pitching the 9th due to the recent struggles of Troy Percival, who has spent most of the year closing games for Tampa Bay but has looked vulnerable of late.

So, with a playoff spot a virtual certainty, the folks down in Tampa have to be deciding – just what should their playoff bullpen look like?

J.P. Howell and Grant Balfour have been outstanding all season, and give the team reliable relievers from both the right and left sides. Those two are definitely going to get high leverage innings in October. But what innings? And what about the other roles?

Wheeler’s obviously still in the mix – one bad outing doesn’t ruin a successful season. But his run prevention is built on a ridiculous .193 BABIP – his 4.27 FIP is more indicative of his real talent level. That makes him a solid bullpen guy, but nothing like a relief ace. Tampa would likely rather have him working the 7th inning than the 9th.

Chad Bradford and Trever Miller have the specialist roles locked up – they’re both good against same handed hitters, not so much against anyone else.

Those five have jobs, and for the most part, roles. But with four man rotations in October come the opportunities to have 7 or even 8 man bullpens, so there’s still some open spots.

Percival is likely to get one if he’s healthy, though it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll be used at this point. Do they allow such an extreme flyball guy to pitch in one run games? Unlikely. His home run problem probably takes him out of the mix at closer, so perhaps he joins Wheeler in middle relief, where he can be used in spots where a single bad pitch won’t turn the tide of the game.

That makes six. One, maybe two spots left, with Jason Hammel, Edwin Jackson, and David Price fighting for a spot on the playoff roster. You have to think that Hammel’s the odd man out here, as Jackson will be the long man coming out of the pen after spending the whole year in the five man rotation. And Price is just too talented to spend the postseason watching on TV. If they end up just carrying 7 relievers, though, do they go with Jackson or Price? Reward the guy who has given you innings all year or the phenom with upside? It’s an interesting question.

The folks running the Rays are smarter than me, but here’s my suggestion: Give as many high leverage innings as you can to Balfour and Howell, use Wheeler and Percival in the middle innings, spot Bradford and Miller as specialists in key at-bats, and go with Price over Jackson. Don’t pass up a chance to have a lefty throwing 95 coming out of the pen, especially if you think you’re going to have to go through Boston eventually.

Not a lot of things have gone right in Washington this year, even if you just focus on their baseball team. Ryan Zimmerman hasn’t progressed into the franchise player as hoped, Austin Kearns took another step backward, Nick Johnson got hurt, and the GM and one of his top advisers are being investigated for crimes of fraud. Despite moving into a new park, the team has been horrible and is driving fans from the park.

However, in that overwhelming cloud of darkness, there has been one glowing light, growing in strength the last few months and giving Nationals fans some hope for the future. That unlikely bright spot is Elijah Dukes.

The oft-troubled Dukes is finally making noise for what he’s doing on the field, living up to the reputation as a potential all-star hitter he built while in Tampa Bay’s farm system. After a terrible start to the season (.167/.311/.208 in May after missing April entirely), Dukes is hitting .300/.404/.585 since June 1st, compiling 235 plate appearances while hitting like one of the game’s elite players. 29 of his 60 hits during that span have gone for extra bases, and he’s essentially become Washington’s only legit power threat.

If we extrapolated his production the last four months out to 600 PA, we’d see Dukes has been sustaining a pace that would give him 36 2B, 5 3B, 33 HR, 77 BB, and 26 SB in a full season. That kind of performance would make him one of the game’s best all around players, as we discussed yesterday.

Now, clearly, hitting well for 235 PA isn’t the same thing as doing it for a full season, and Dukes has a lot to prove after years of injuries and off field problems. But Jim Bowden’s strategy has always been to acquire high ceiling under-performers and watch one or two turn into legitimate stars, and he may have hit the jackpot again with Dukes. If he can stay out of jail and off the DL, he has the talent to be a frontline player, and the Nationals could certainly use more of those.

When scouts dream at night, they dream of five tool players – guys who can hit for average, hit for power, run, catch, and throw. These are considered the building blocks on which a superstar is built, and the very best players in the game can usually do most, if not all, of those things at a very high level.

There are a decent amount of true five tool players in baseball right now, and at one time or another, almost all of them have been referred to as “the best all around player in the game”. But who really has been the best of the bunch – the guy with a diverse skillset who exceeds in every area of the game – in 2008?

Here are the contenders, in alphabetical order:

Carlos Beltran, .280/.371/.490, 38 2B, 4 3B, 24 HR, 21 SB, 3 CS
Curtis Granderson, .293/.375/.504, 24 2B, 13 3B, 19 HR, 10 SB, 4 CS
Hanley Ramirez, .294/.396/.527, 33 2B, 4 3B, 30 HR, 33 SB, 12 CS
Jose Reyes, .295/.359/.474, 34 2B, 18 3B, 14 HR, 50 SB, 14 CS
Alex Rodriguez, .304/.393/.584, 33 2B, 0 3B, 34 HR, 17 SB, 3 CS
Grady Sizemore, .271/.379/.513, 36 2B, 3 3B, 32 HR, 38 SB, 5 CS
Alfonso Soriano, .291/.351/.561, 29 2B, 0 3B, 29 HR, 19 SB, 2 CS
Chase Utley, .289/.377/.533, 38 2B, 4 3B, 31 HR, 12 SB, 2 CS
David Wright, .298/.386/.534, 40 2B, 2 3B, 31 HR, 15 SB, 5 CS

Hits For Average

For the most part, they’re all pretty similar. A-Rod’s the only one who cracks .300, but besides Sizemore and Beltran, they’re all in that .290 to .300 range. Sizemore’s contact issues leave him at the bottom of the barrel in this specific tool.

Hits For Power

Again, A-Rod has a slight lead in longballs, with most of the group being around that 30 HR mark. However, power isn’t just hitting the ball over the wall, as we see from guys like Jose Reyes, who has 66 extra base hits even though he only has 14 dingers. Wright has racked up more XBH than the rest (73), but Rodriguez’s slight lead in HRs and fewer plate appearances make him the winner in this category.

Running

At first glance, we have our first landslide, as Reyes has 50 steals while no one else even has 40. However, Sizemore’s 38 steals and just 5 CS is more impressive. To catch Reyes, he’d simply have to go 12 for 21 in stolen base attempts the rest of the way, and I think we’d all agree that he probably could run at a 57% success rate if he really wanted to – he’s just choosing not to because it would hurt his team. We can’t ignore the extra bases Reyes has been able to take turning doubles into triples, however, so he wins this category even though Sizemore’s been the better base stealer. There’s a big dropoff after those two, with everyone else clustering around the same area.

Fielding

The combination of range and fielding ability, the Fielding Bible’s +/- system is quite helpful here. They have Utley at a ridiculous +39 plays above an average second baseman this year, but second base is comprised of worse defenders than shortstop, so we have to account for the position adjustment. John Dewan’s system has Beltran at +17 plays in CF, which is fantastic, and Sizemore at +9, which is also very good. It has everyone else at around average (or worse, in Granderson’s case) for 2008, so we can realistically look at Utley, Beltran, and Sizemore as the category leaders. Beltran’s +17 as a CF is extremely impressive, but no matter how many adjustments you make, it’s hard to get away from Utley’s +39. He could be a good shortstop or CF if the Phillies wanted to move him, and he’s proving it every year. Utley gets the nod here.

Throwing

Here’s where it gets a bit subjective – most people would agree that Hanley, Reyes, and Soriano have impressive arm strength, while Sizemore and Granderson certainly don’t. But we don’t have any seasonal data that tells us who has been more valuable throwing the ball this year, so I’ll just let you pick your own winner here. I’m going with Reyes, because he has more opportunities to use his arm at SS than others do, but I’ll let someone talk me out of that if they want to try.

So, after going through all five categories, what have we learned? A-Rod’s the best in the batters box, with small advantages in average and power, but he falls off in running and fielding. Reyes is the fastest and might have the strongest arm, but he hits half as many home runs as most of the others. Wright is solid across the board, but isn’t the best at anything.

For me, it comes down to Sizemore, Beltran, and Ramirez. Hanley has best average but the worst baserunning and the worst defense of the three, so he’s out. Sizemore’s average brings him down, and Beltran has a slight edge defensively, but it’s hard to get past 71 extra base hits, 38 steals at an 88% success rate, and terrific defense in center field.

So, my vote for the best all around player in baseball in 2008 goes to Grady Sizemore.