As we head into the all-star break, the pause gives us a chance to look at some players who have had a few months worth of performance that we just don’t think they can sustain – in short, they’re poised to regress to the mean, for one reason or another. For the second half of 2008, here’s the pitching staff for the All Regression Squad:

Justin Duchscherer: .216 BABIP, 4.5% HR/FB.

Duke’s first half is a good story, and he’s pitched very well at times, but there’s no way those two numbers are sustainable. He won’t implode, but he’s not going to keep his ERA under 2.00 all year.

Gavin Floyd: 3.69 ERA, 5.09 FIP.

Good luck keeping that BABIP at .226, and when it inevitably rises, so too will the curtain on what artificially appears to be Floyd’s breakout year.

Dana Eveland: 3.7% HR/FB rate.

I don’t care how big your home park is, that just can’t last. With his command problems, the depressed home run rate is really the driving force behind his success – when that goes, he’s going to be in trouble.

Jake Peavy: 83.7% LOB%.

Peavy is awesome, but he can’t keep stranding runners like this. No one can. He’s still going to be very good, but not quite this good.

Scott Olsen: 3.77 ERA, 5.00 FIP.

His velocity is gone, his strikeout rate is gone, his groundball rate is gone. It’s all smoke and mirrors at this point, and there’s just no way he keeps getting people out with the repertoire he’s currently throwing.

As the separation begins between contenders and pretenders, fans and organizations alike begin to look toward the upcoming off-season, planning for what the winter might bring and which free agents might be worth pursuing. This year, of course, the big names are C.C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, and Mark Teixeira, and it’s almost certain that they’ll command the three biggest paychecks when they sign.

However, there’s one free agent-to-be that generally doesn’t get included in the discussion of impact talents, but depending on how the bidding goes, could be the bargain of the winter. That player is Orlando Hudson.

Playing in the same league as Chase Utley and Dan Uggla has forced Hudson into a pretty large shadow, but that shouldn’t keep us from recognizing how valuable a player he is. His offensive production has been remarkably consistent since joining the D’Backs, as he’s posted seasonal OPS marks of .809, .817, and .822. The skillset has remained essentially unchaged, and at age 30, he hasn’t shown any signs of decline. With Hudson, you get a known quantity.

If we frame the conversation in terms of win values, we can break Hudson down as follows.

Offense: +0 to +5 runs above average hitter
Defense: +5 to +15 runs above average second baseman
Position Adjustment: +5 runs for playing second base

Add it all up, and you a player who is anywhere from 10 to 25 runs above an average major league player, depending on how good you think he is with the glove. Using the 10 runs per win formula, that makes Hudson worth +1 to +2.5 wins above average. Replacement level is about two wins below average, so Hudson’s somewhere between +3.0 and +4.5 wins above replacement.

Major league teams are paying almost $5 million per win on the free market, so using this analysis, we’d expect Hudson to sign for something between $15 million and $22.5 million per season. Now, when you think of Orlando Hudson’s impending free agency, are you thinking he’s going to get anywhere close to that? I’m guessing no.

Since he’s flown somewhat under the radar in Toronto and Arizona, he doesn’t possess the skills that teams usually overpay for in free agency, and the main point of his value is the thing that teams are worst at valuing, I’d expect Hudson to get a contract more along the lines of $11 to $14 million per season – my guess would be 5 years, $60-$65 million.

For Gary Matthews Jr money, you could acquire a guy who is arguably every bit as valuable as Teixeira. He might not be an ace or a middle-of-the-lineup slugger, but when it comes to guys who can add wins to a contending team in a hurry, Hudson might just be the guy to get this off-season.

Last night, Howie Kendrick hit his first pair of home runs of the season, getting himself past the 170 at-bat mark before clearing the fence with a long ball. However, he’s slugging .494 – not a common mark for a guy who hit hadn’t gone yard until July 10th. This kind of abnormality in performance is pretty much the norm for Kendrick, though, as he continues to establish himself as the biggest enigma in baseball.

His approach at the plate is to swing at absolutely everything. He’s taken a cut at 53.76% of all pitches thrown this year, including 37.54% of pitches out of the strike zone. Not surprisingly, this hyper aggressive attack makes him a player who just never walks. His BB% is just 1.7% – only Yuniesky Betancourt takes the free pass less often, but his aggressiveness is born out of confidence that he can make contact. Kendrick swings at everything while striking out 16.9% of the time, giving him a remarkable 0.10 BB/K rate on the season, just slightly worse than his 0.16 career mark.

That kind of mark puts him in the company of noted hackers such as Ivan Rodriguez and Jose Guillen. Of course, Guillen’s earned his money with his power, and Pudge is noted most for his skills behind the plate, not at it. Kendrick has power (23 of his 58 hits have gone for extra bases), but it’s completely different than Guillen’s – he racks up the doubles but has just 11 career long balls.

So, in total, we have a guy who doesn’t walk, isn’t an extraordinary contact hitter, and doesn’t hit home runs, but continues to produce offensive value through sheer quantity of singles and doubles. His skill set just isn’t something we see very often, and while it’s almost certain that he can’t sustain the .399 BABIP he’s run over the last year, Kendrick’s unique enough that trying to use historical comparisons is next to impossible.

For the sake of baseball, we should all hope he figures out how to stay healthy, because the game needs more interesting players like Kendrick.

With the trade deadline just a few weeks away and the C.C. Sabathia and Rich Harden moves thrusting the spotlight back on the veterans-for-young-players deals, one name comes up time and time again in regards to the Los Angeles Dodgers – Matt Kemp. Loved by some and loathed by others, the divide between those two camps on Kemp’s value is astronomical. So, which polarizing position is closer to the truth? Is Kemp an all-star slugger in the making, or is he simply a guy who coasts by on natural ability and will never live up to his potential?

Most Dodger fans online are firmly in the first camp. Despite not being given regular playing time and having to force his way into the line-up, Kemp hit .342/.373/.521 as a 22-year-old last year, cementing his status as one of the Dodgers best hitters in the ’07 campaign. However, that .894 OPS was built on a house of cards – a remarkable .417 batting average on balls in play that was in no way repeatable. Even though BABIP for hitters is indeed influenced by skill, and they do have control over whether their balls in play become hits or not, there are still upper and lower bounds on what is actually skill and what is noise. Even the very best BABIP-skill guys post numbers in the .350 to .360 range over significant samples, so it was pretty obvious that Kemp wasn’t going to be able to sustain that performance.

Indeed, his BABIP has fallen to a still-high .380, and thanks to a simultaneous increase in strikeouts, his overall performance has taken a pretty big step back. In fact, Kemp’s contact rate has become a real problem, as he’s now posting a 30.4% K%. Among hitters who have a K% of 30% or higher, he’s the only one who doesn’t walk at least 10% of the time and he has the lowest Isolated Slugging Percentage of the group as well, coming in at .149.

Striking out a lot is okay if you also draw a bunch of walks and hit for power, but Kemp isn’t off-setting the swings and misses with enough positives, and as such, he’s a below average major league hitter right now. Considering he turns 24 in a few months and doesn’t offer much in the way of defensive value, that’s something of a problem.

Despite his physique, Kemp’s power remains more of the doubles variety, and his aggressive approach at the plate only works if he makes up for all the bad swings with long drives that fly over the wall. The “he’s young” thing only works for so long, and Kemp is rapidly getting to the point where he needs to produce at the plate, because when he’s a below average hitter, he’s not helping anyone win baseball games.

This isn’t to say the Dodgers should dump him the first chance they get, but if LA does trade Kemp in the next few weeks, beware the narrative that they’re giving up a young star. They’re giving up a guy with potential, but the jury is definitely still out on whether he’s going to fulfill it or not.

When the A’s decided yesterday to trade Rich Harden to the Cubs for a package of players that lacks a guy that you could point to as a potential star, they knew they were giving up one of the most talented arms in baseball. When Harden’s been healthy, he’s been lights out, blowing opposing hitters away and reminding the world that he’s still a force to occasionally be reckoned with.

Most of the reactions that I’ve seen so far are along the lines of “that’s it?”, expressing disappointment that the A’s dealt Harden away for what most see as a group of guys with limited upside. However, I think this deal makes a lot of sense for an A’s team that wants to continue to win in the near future while also solidifying their long term ability to compete. To show what I mean, let’s take a look at projections for Harden and Sean Gallagher going forward.

Based on his performance when healthy, and his numerous issues that have led to extended time on the DL, most of the preseason projection systems had Harden tabbed for between 50 to 100 innings pitched and a FIP of between 3.15 and 3.99. He’s already been able to throw 77 innings with a 2.70 FIP this year (even though a good part of that is an unsustainably low HR/FB rate), so if we add this new information to what we knew heading into 2008, we’d probably project Harden going forward as something like a guy who will throw 100 IP per season with a 3.25 FIP. That makes him one of the league’s best pitchers for about half a season, which sounds about right.

We knew a bit less about Gallagher, since the projections had to be built with the help of minor league data and a small sample of major league performance, but ZIPS and CHONE pegged him for a FIP between 4.9 and 5.1 over 120-140 innings while being unsure which role the Cubs would use him in. In 12 appearances this year (10 starts), he’s thrown 58 innings and posted a 3.98 FIP, so again, adding that new information and adjusting for the switch from the AL to the NL, we’d probably project Gallagher in Oakland for something like 180 innings a year with a FIP around 5.00.

Harden is obviously the better pitcher, but we have to account for the difference in durability as well, so let’s add Harden’s theoretical replacement into the equation. The A’s are one of the best organizations in baseball at finding spare parts to put up solid performances in their rotation (their defense and home park don’t hurt), so let’s assume that Amalgamation Of Harden Replacements will make up the 80 inning difference by posting a 5.50 FIP, a tick or two above league wide replacement level.

That brings the combined totals for Harden + Harden Replacements to 180 innings with a 4.25 FIP, compared to the 180 innings we were projecting from Gallagher at a 5.00 FIP. That’s a difference of three-fourths of a run per nine innings, which while significant, adds up to a grand total of about 15 runs over the course of an entire season.

Fifteen runs, or roughly 1.5 wins – that’s the entirety of downgrading from Rich Harden to Sean Gallagher, based on the assumptions I made above. If you don’t like the numbers I used, feel free to plug in your own, but unless you’re very bullish on Harden’s health, you’re going to come to the conclusion that the swap will cost the A’s at most two or three wins between now and the end of 2009, when Harden’s contract expires.

For giving up those two to three wins in the next year and a half, the A’s receive club control over Gallagher from 2010 to 2013 (his ’08-’09 years are already counted above), control over Murton from 2008 to 2011, control over Patterson from 2008 to 2014, a potentially useful prospect in Josh Donaldson, and they save approximately $8 million in salary.

The A’s sold two to three wins for four years of a guy who projects out as a league average pitcher, three years of a useful platoon outfielder, six years of a potentially useful utility player, a young catching prospect, and $8 million in cash. And they’re getting killed for it?

If Beane spends the $8 million he saved on a free agent this winter, he’ll be able to buy back at least one of the wins he surrendered in this deal, and probably closer to two, erasing almost the entire difference between Harden and Gallagher just with the financial savings. Even if Murton, Patterson, and Donaldson are all busts, the A’s are still just about as good in 2009 as they were with Harden, meaning they picked up Gallagher’s age 24 to 27 seasons for free.

I’m not a huge Sean Gallagher fan, as my rather conservative projection above shows, and after running through all this, but if I was the A’s, I still might have considered swapping Harden for Gallagher straight up. The fact that they got Murton, Patterson, and Donaldson as sweetner is just a bonus.

This deal is a win for the A’s, even if it doesn’t necessarily seem like it. They don’t take much away from their 2009 team while making the 2010 to 2013 squads potentially a lot better.

There are a couple of things we know for sure about pitchers, and one of them is that fastball velocity almost always peaks early and declines as a pitcher ages. Rarely will you see someone begin throwing harder later in their career, especially pitchers who have had to deal with a long series of injuries.

Chan Ho Park wants to be the exception that proves the rule. Here is his average fastball velocity for each of the last four years.

2005: 89.3 MPH
2006: 89.5 MPH
2007: 88.4 MPH
2008: 92.3 MPH

That 2008 reading sticks out like a sore thumb. For those wondering if it’s an anomaly due to the Dodgers gun, it doesn’t appear so – Chad Billingsley, Derek Lowe, and Brad Penny all have the same or slightly lower fastball velocities that they did a year ago, and the Pitch F/x data on Park confirms the BIS data we have here on the site. Chan Ho Park has, for whatever reason, found an extra 4 MPH that he hasn’t had in a long, long time.

It’s showing up in the results, too. His strikeout rate is the highest it’s been since 2002, and his 4.09 FIP would be the fourth lowest mark he’s posted in his career if he can keep pitching at this level the rest of the season. Of course, that FIP is a pretty far cry from his current 2.36 ERA, which is built on a ridiculously unsustainable 89.7% LOB% – his run prevention is going to regress even if he can keep pitching as well as he has up to this point.

Generally, we would look at a 35-year-old who hasn’t been an effective pitcher in years as a prime candidate for collapse, but armed with the knowledge that Park is throwing harder than ever, we have real reason to think he might be able to keep getting hitters out. The real question, then, is how on earth he found that kind of extra velocity at this stage in his career?

Continuing on in the week long series on the 50 most valuable assets in major league baseball. If you missed the introduction, it can be found here.

Ranking, Player, Position, Franchise, 2006-2008 WPA/LI
5. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis, 13.79 WPA/LI
4. David Wright, 3B, New York Mets, 9.05 WPA/LI
3. Grady Sizemore, CF, Cleveland, 8.47 WPA/LI
2. Hanley Ramirez, SS, Florida, 7.11 WPA/LI
1. Evan Longoria, 3B, Tampa Bay, 0.80 WPA/LI

Pujols is the perfect hitter. Among active players, he has the highest career batting average, second highest career on base percentage (only Coors-aided Todd Helton is higher), and highest career slugging percentage. There is literally no one in the game that can compare to his abilities with a bat in his hands. He has remarkable bat control, a great approach, and terrific power. And, just for good measure, he’s made himself an outstanding defensive first baseman – perhaps the best in the league. Even at $16 million a year through 2011, he’s still a ridiculous bargain for the level of play he provides. Only the nagging injuries that have kept him out of the line-up too frequently keep him from being further up this list, but make no mistake, we will all tell our grandchildren that we got to watch the great Pujols play.

When you have a 25-year-old third baseman who hits like Mike Schmidt, you sign him up for as long as you possibly can and do a happy dance. That’s what the Mets did with Wright, inking him to a deal that will keep him in Queens through 2013. Wright’s a very good hitter, and there’s still room for power growth that could allow him to make the leap to great hitter. His defense at third has improved quite a bit, and the offense he provides from the hot corner at a young age makes him a legitimate star.

Still just 25-years-old, Sizemore has added legitimate home run power to his repertoire this year, as he’s just two home runs away from matching his 2007 season total before this year’s all-star break. The power surge, combined with a slight decrease in strikeout rate, shows the maturation of a player just entering his prime. He has a legitimate chance to go 40-40 this year, and oh yea, he plays a pretty good center field as well. He will never be the premier player in the game at any one particular skill, but his excellence at everything makes him a superstar. While it’s been a disappointing year in Cleveland, the Indians’ fans have to be happy that they have this kid under contract for the next four years for a total of $26 million. He’s the building block around which a great franchise can be established, and the production he gives his team for what their paying him makes him one of the game’s truly great assets.

I expect there to be a minor outrage that Ramirez isn’t #1 on this list, and when the assumption that you’re the second most valuable asset in the game is controversial, you know you’re pretty special. Ramirez’s bat has developed far faster than anyone could have expected, and he’s turned into one of the premier power/speed guys we’ve seen in the last fifty years. In the history of baseball, only 13 players have posted an Isolated Slugging Percentage of .200 or higher in the same year that they stole 50+ bases. Here is that list. Look at the names on there – Cobb, Henderson, Morgan, Bonds – and you’ll see just how impressive Ramirez’s combination of skills are. And just in case the offense isn’t impressive enough, he plays shortstop. Sort of. Because as great of a hitter as he is, Ramirez isn’t really much defensively, and realistically, he should probably be in center field. While he has the physical tools to handle shortstop, the instincts and reactions just aren’t there, and his skills would be maximized in the outfield, where his raw speed would allow him to make up for the first step that he doesn’t have. While it takes away some of the value of his bat, it certainly doesn’t diminish Ramirez’s value much – he’s still a franchise player and a great, great talent.

And now, for the most valuable asset in major league baseball – Evan Longoria.

Yes, I know, he only has a half season of major league experience, and we have to be careful drawing too many conclusions from sample sizes that don’t include more than 300 major league at-bats. However, the value of his abilities is so great, and his contract is so ridiculously awesome for Tampa, that the positives more than outweigh the negatives and make him the guy I wouldn’t trade for any other one player in the game.

He’s just 22 years old, but he already is showing legitimate middle of the order power, posting a .256 ISO thanks to 39 of his 79 hits going for extra bases. When you have a kid who can drive the ball like Longoria can at a young age, you have a special hitter in the making. The power is simply a pleasant surprise, however, as Longoria is a legitimate all around hitter who has a good approach at the plate and can hit to all fields. We’re not looking at an Adam Dunn type of slugger, but rather a complete hitter who can also turn on a fastball and put it in the seats. Meanwhile, his defense is nearly as good as his offense, as he’s already one of the game’s best defensive third baseman. He has enough range that it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to play shortstop, and the Rays have already acknowledged this ability by putting him there earlier this year. His hands and footwork are top notch, and his abilities with the glove are reminiscent of a younger Scott Rolen. While he’s going to be a terrific hitter, he’s also going to toss in top shelf defense as well. You just don’t find 22-year-olds who are this good at both aspects of the game this soon.

On ability, he’s terrific, but it’s really the contract that he just signed that puts him over the top. Tampa wisely saw a star in the making and decided to strike early, locking him up to a contract that gives them the ability to keep him around for eight more years after this one, and at salaries that are going to be laughably low by the end of this deal. He signed away the absolute prime of his career for an absolute maximum of about $50 million, and Tampa is only on the hook for a guaranteed $17.5 million through 2013. If Longoria gets hurt and regresses significantly, well, they didn’t pay him much anyway. If he turns into the perennial all-star that we should expect him to, then he might go down as the least compensated superstar in recent history.

When you have a 22-year-old who can hit, field, run, and has agreed to play for bargain salaries until he’s 31, well, you have a player you just shouldn’t trade.

Continuing on in the week long series on the 50 most valuable assets in major league baseball. If you missed the introduction, it can be found here.

Ranking, Player, Position, Franchise, 2006-2008 WPA/LI
10. Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Colorado, -1.00 WPA/LI
9. Tim Lincecum, RHP, San Francisco, 2.45 WPA/LI
8. Felix Hernandez, RHP, Seattle, 3.22 WPA/LI
7. Chase Utley, 2B, Philadelphia, 10.49 WPA/LI
6. Brian McCann, C, Atlanta, 2.84 WPA/LI

When he’s healthy enough to take the field, you can count on one hand the list of human beings on the planet who are better defensively than Tulowitzki. According to pretty much every possible way you could evaluate defense – stats, scouts, magic 8 ball – Tulo was somewhere between 20 and 30 runs better than an average defensive shortstop last year. Shortstops are, of course, the very best defenders in the game already, so Tulo was heads and shoulders ahead of the best of the best. When recounting how Colorado made it to the World Series last year, nothing deserves mention before Tulo’s defense. There are still legitimate questions about whether he’s just going to be an average hitter or develop into a good one, but here’s the thing – if he puts up a major league average offensive line, his defense is good enough to make him a 4 to 5 win player alone. If he turns himself into a real hitter, he’ll be the best player in the game. The Rockies were wise to lock him up when they did.

There haven’t been too many college arms in recent years that caused as much division coming into the draft as Lincecum. His diminutive size, unorthodox mechanics, and crazy workloads at the University of Washington convinced a lot of people that the risks surrounding him had reached the level of red flags. The Giants, however, ignored the risks, focused on the reward, and have reaped the benefits of one of the game’s best young pitchers. Lincecum’s power arsenal allows him to miss enough bats that the lack of command isn’t a huge problem, and he’s dominated the National League since showing up in San Francisco. At 24 and with just over one full year of service time, he’s a long way from any kind of real payday, and as long as he keeps his right arm attached to the rest of his body, he’s going to keep getting people out with his unique pitching style.

I, among others, have been hyping up King Felix for so long that a significant portion of people view him as a disappointment for not turning into the game’s best pitcher to date, so I feel somewhat compelled to remind those people that Felix is still 22 years old. He has racked up just short of 600 major league innings at an age where a normal pitching prospect is still in Double-A. He’s shown extended flashes of brilliance, and his stuff is still better than any other pitcher alive. The upside is still off the charts, and there’s an argument to be made that trading him right now, for anyone, would be selling low. However, he’s garnered enough service time that he stops being free next year, and he’s a couple of years away from what will almost certainly be the biggest free agent contract ever given to a pitcher. As much as I love Felix, he still hasn’t become the ace he can be, and he’s going to get paid like the greatest pitcher in history pretty soon. It’s time to take your throne, kid.

There’s a pretty good argument to be made that, right now, Utley is the best player in baseball. His consistency over the last four years has made him one of the game’s truly elite hitters, and it doesn’t hurt that he plays a terrific second base. There are better hitters, and there are better fielders, but there aren’t any who offer a better package of both. If he doesn’t win an MVP award soon, he should just steal the pair that have already been given to his undeserving teammates. However, he’s already 29, second baseman don’t age particularly well, and he’s getting paid like an All-Star. That’s enough to knock him down a few pegs on this list, but don’t let it talk you out of realizing just how great he really is.

The return of McCann’s 2006 power has allowed him to re-establish himself as the game’s premier offensive force behind the plate, and at just 24, he’s off to the kind of start to a career that ends in Cooperstown. When you offer the combination of middle-of-the-order offense and the ability to catch, you have a remarkably valuable player. The Braves got McCann signed long term at the right time, and thanks to their prescience, he won’t earn market value until he becomes a free agent in 2014. By then, Atlanta will have received the prime years of his career for a grand total of $27 million. That’s a huge asset.

We’re going to take a pause for the holiday weekend and finish off the top ten on Monday, but wanted to give you guys a chance to see the list up through #11 in one big post. Feel free to put your guesses for the top ten in the comments and we’ll see how well you guys do on Monday.

11 B.J. Upton, CF, Tampa
12 Josh Hamilton, CF, Texas
13 Cole Hamels, LHP, Philadelphia
14 Brandon Webb, RHP, Arizona
15 Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota
16 Justin Upton, RF, Arizona
17 Jay Bruce, RF, Cincinnati
18 Russell Martin, C, Los Angeles
19 Jose Reyes, SS, New York Mets
20 Ryan Braun, LF, Milwaukee
21 Roy Halladay, RHP, Toronto
22 Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Detroit
23 Scott Kazmir, LHP, Tampa Bay
24 Josh Beckett, RHP, Boston
25 Chad Billingsley, RHP, Los Angeles
26 Justin Verlander, RHP, Detroit
27 Dan Haren, RHP, Arizona
28 Geovany Soto, C, Chicago Cubs
29 James Shields, RHP, Tampa Bay
30 Prince Fielder, 1B, Milwaukee
31 Joba Chamberlain, RHP, New YorK Yankees
32 Clayton Kershaw, LHP, Los Angeles
33 Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, San Diego
34 Ian Kinsler, 2B, Texas
35 Lance Berkman, 1B, Houston
36 Curtis Granderson, CF, Detroit
37 Edinson Volquez, RHP, Cincinnati
38 Dan Uggla, 2B, Florida
39 John Lackey, RHP, Anaheim
40 Alex Rodriguez, 3B, New York Yankees
41 Jake Peavy, RHP, San Diego
42 Chipper Jones, 3B, Atlanta
43 Dustin McGowan, RHP, Toronto
44 Jacoby Ellsbury, CF, Boston
45 Robinson Cano, 2B, New York Yankees
46 Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington
47 Carlos Zambrano, RHP, Chicago Cubs
48 Clay Buchholz, RHP, Boston
49 Johan Santana, LHP, New York Mets
50 James Loney, 1B, Los Angeles

Continuing on in the week long series on the 50 most valuable assets in major league baseball. If you missed the introduction, it can be found here.

Ranking, Player, Position, Franchise, 2006-2008 WPA/LI
15. Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota, 6.09 WPA/LI
14. Brandon Webb, RHP, Arizona, 8.14 WPA/LI
13. Cole Hamels, LHP, Philadelphia, 4.65 WPA/LI
12. Josh Hamilton, CF, Texas, 3.37 WPA/LI
11. B.J. Upton, CF, Tampa Bay, 1.99 WPA/LI

In some circles, Mauer is considered a disappointment because he simply hasn’t developed the home run power that people thought he would grow into. However, if we focus on what Mauer doesn’t do, we’ll miss what he does exceptionally well, and that’s everything else. He’s a 25-year-old outstanding defensive catcher with a career .397 OBP. His command of the strike zone is impeccable, and he has enough juice to drive the ball into the gaps and rack up a significant amount of doubles. Behind the plate, he controls the running game and pitchers love working with him. He’s heading into his physical prime as an elite catcher already. He doesn’t need to add power to be a star – he’s already one.

The best pitcher in baseball checks in at #14 simply because he’s only under contract through 2010. If the D’backs could have locked him up for several more years without paying market rate, he’d have been in the top ten. You can’t really build a pitcher much better than Webb – extreme groundball nature from his diving sinker, good strikeout stuff that he can use for a punch out when he needs it, solid command, and extremely durable. He’s thrown 1,200 innings in just 180 career starts. There are no ups and downs with him – you know exactly what you’re getting, season in and season out. He’s the definition of an ace.

The first time I ever saw Hamels pitch, he was throwing for low-Class A Lakewood in the South Atlantic League. I was sitting behind the plate with some scouts (including Dave Winfield) and was wondering what the big deal was. He was sitting between 88-92 with a fastball that didn’t move all that much and he left up in the zone, and his curveball was just okay, but nothing special. Then, out of nowhere, he throws a change-up that was so ridiculously awesome that I literally jumped out of my chair. He then threw about 15 more while we all felt pity on the poor 18-year-old kids trying to hit this pitch. That change-up is still amazing, and still making hitters look foolish five years later. Durability will likely always be a concern, but talent never is.

Hamilton was another guy who was tough to place on this list. On one hand, he’s established himself as one of the premier left-handed hitters in baseball over the last year and a half, displaying ridiculous power and using his unique physical gifts to complete an offensive package that is tough to match. His raw ability is as good as anyone in baseball, and it’s remarkable how good he is right now considering how much development time he lost. He’s also just in his second year of service, so he’s four and a half years from free agency. However, we can’t overlook the fact that he’s 27, and unlike some of the people ahead of him on this list, he probably doesn’t have a full decade of greatness in front of him. As much as I like Hamilton, the peak is probably going to be too short for me to get him into the top ten.

Upton is quite the interesting player. We know he’s got power – he posted a .209 ISO last year and has 96 career extra base hits. We know he has a good approach at the plate – He’s got a 13.5% walk rate dating back to the start of the 2007 season, and he’s cut his strikeout rate dramatically from last season. We know he can run, as he’s stolen 45 bases in the last year and a half and has made the transition to center field well. The physical abilities are all there, and at times, they’ve all been manifest in his performances. But he’s yet to put the whole package together, and that’s the scary part – at just 23 years old, he’s still got a good bet of room to improve, and he’s already a highly valuable player. Tampa should work on locking him up sooner than later, because the longer they wait, the more its going to cost them. He isn’t going to get less valuable any time soon.