Los Angeles, 99 wins
Boston, 97 wins
New York Yankees, 95 wins

Kansas City, 69 wins
San Diego, 68 wins
Washington, 55 wins

Based on Baseball Prospectus’ updated PECOTA team projections, these six teams are the only ones among all 30 teams that are projected to finish with more than 90 or fewer than 70 wins this season. The other 24 teams comprise the entire divisions of the NL Central (currently five teams within four games of the lead) and AL West (currently three teams within five games of the lead).

It is a shocking display of parity amongst a vast majority of the teams in baseball and should lead to among other things, a rather stagnant trading deadline as a remarkable nine teams in the AL and 12 teams in the NL are currently in or within five games of a playoff berth. That is 21 teams in total that right now would consider themselves to have a reasonable shot at post season play.

As boring as that might make July 31st, it should make August and September exciting. And with the economy the way it is, there might be more post-July 31st deals this season with more teams reluctant to lay waiver claims on expensive players. Of course the economy might also prevent teams from trading for some of those hefty salaries, but with the playoffs in more direct sight and a more tangible pay off looming in terms of ticket sales, perhaps teams will pull the trigger more often.

Even if not, we stand a good chance at seeing some close finishes for playoff spots, even if the eventual winner is around the 88-win mark instead of the usual 92 wins or so.

Zack Greinke is about half way through the 2009 MLB season and to date he has been worth 5.5 wins. He is roughly on pace to accumulate 11 wins. As a pitcher. In the last four years, no pitcher has broken past the eight win mark. Since 2002, the first year our win values start, the highest recorded mark is Randy Johnson’s 9.9 wins in 2004.

In fact, aside from Grienke’s fabulous season, Tim Lincecum is also on pace to better Johnson’s mark. With 5.1 wins so far, he is set up to squeak by with 10.2 wins in total, but that is another time and post. From 2004-7, Greinke averaged about a 7.2% swinging strike rate. He improved that to 9.0% last year and is at 10.1% so far in 2009. Those extra missed bats have allowed Greinke to significantly raise his strikeout rate, up above 25% of all batters faced this year.

Amazingly, despite batters swinging less often than ever recorded before against Greinke and Greinke missing the strike zone significantly more often than ever recorded before, Greinke’s walk rate is down to a minuscule 4%. That gives Zack a tremendous 6.3 strikeout to walk ratio.

Greinke’s batted balls are not significantly different from past years, but his home run rate has unsustainably dipped to just 3.3%. All in all, Greinke is missing more bats this year, but he is also throwing fewer strikes overall. Somehow he has reduced both his walks and his home runs allowed to depress his FIP to 1.98, but going forward you would expect that to be a lot closer to his 3.56 from last season. Still, with half a season banked, Greinke has a serious shot at being FanGraphs’ first 10 win pitcher.

What is up with Jonathan Papelbon? Granted relief pitchers are volatile, but a lot of that has to do with the smaller sample sizes they have compared to starters each year. Even looking at stats that are not as affected by the sample limits however, show a much different Papelbon in 2009.

In terms of pitch selection, Papelbon is throwing his slider more than he ever has and although it has improved in isolated results, the increase in usage might be in part because, and by no means offsets, the big drop in fastball effectiveness. From 2006 through 2008, Papelbon’s fastball was worth about three runs more than average per 100 fastballs. This year it is down to just 0.76. His velocity has not diminished though as far as obvious answers go.

In terms of location, Papelbon is hitting the strike zone at the worst rate of his career, down below 50% compared to the previous three year average of around 55%. Hitters are laying off pitches more than ever before as well, which is hurting both Papelbon’s strikeout and walk rates.

In terms of results, Papelbon is missing bats at almost half the rate that he did in his amazing 2007, and his 9.8% figure in 2009 is down from his three year average of 14.4%.

All in all, Papelbon has a 4.12 FIP and a 4.40 tRA, leaving him on pace to be worth just one win over replacement, a marked departure. His runs per inning pitched this year in just 30% what his 2006-8 value was.

With June over, I was taking a look back at the month for various teams and Philadelphia really stood out to me because of four players and the team overall. In June, the Phillies went just 11-15 and yet they expanded their lead by a game. As a team, they hit just .249/.320/.423 leading to a below average .326 wOBA.

The starting pitchers compiled a very solid 2.4 strikeouts per walk ratio, but a below average ground ball rate and a slightly elevated home run figure kept them right around average overall. Meanwhile, the bullpen was almost the opposite with a mediocre 1.34 strikeouts per walk, but a fabulous 46% ground ball rate kept the home runs at bay.

Moving on to the players themselves, here are some of the more interesting lines. First, a pair of mashers.

Jayson Werth heated up big time in June, which was an accomplishment given his .379 wOBA through May. 18 walks to just 20 strikeouts was an improvement and his ten extra base hits included seven of the long ball variety. Overall, it was a .930 OPS and a .406 wOBA, good for about eight runs over average. Exceeding that was Chase Utley. Utley came into June with a .436 wOBA, and he bettered that with a .440 wOBA in June. That included a matched 21 strikeouts and walks and fifteen extra base hits with a triple and six home runs.

On the other end of the spectrum was Jimmy Rollins. Rollins has had one of the most baffling seasons of late. Coming off five straight seasons of at least four wins, Rollins has been worth -0.6 wins to date. It was a horrible first two months and June was even worse. Rollins’ line ended at .167/.206/.292, bad for a .227 wOBA.

On the pitching side, Cole Hamels entered June with just so-so numbers so far. He had a good 76:16 strikeout to walk rate, but 11 home runs in just 81 innings. Here is what a dominant month looks like. 45% ground balls, one home run allowed in 76.2 innings, 26 strikeouts, just six walks.

Nearly half way through the season, I thought I would check in on the defensive numbers once more. This time, I took the team totals from 2008 and so far through 2009 and going by UZR per inning, rank the teams in order from most improved to least.

Fair warning, a half season worth of UZR data is not that big of a sample size in which to draw good conclusions from. That being said, it is a fun little exercise. THe numbers below are differences in UZR, projected out to a full seasons worth of 2009.

Tigers 97.9
Pirates 89.8
Reds 89.7
Rangers 84.7
Seattle 69.6
Dodgers 58.7
Dbacks 53.2
Yankees 28.2
Brewers 25.3
Giants 23.1
Rockies 6.9
Angels 5.5
Padres 2.7
Chi(A) 1.0
Chi(N) -2.6
Twins -6.6
Rays -10.0
StLouis -24.3
Braves -28.3
Toronto -28.5
Marlins -31.0
Oakland -31.9
Orioles -40.7
Royals -44.7
Astros -46.1
Indians -51.0
Philly -57.7
Mets -70.1
RedSox -80.3
Wash -81.7

The Nationals have boasted a better than average line up and pitching that is not too terrible. Wonder why they are on pace to add Bryce Harper to Stephen Strasburg next June? Defense. Conversely, improved defense is playing a key role in helping the Rangers and Mariners hang around in the AL West and it is giving the Tigers a lead in the AL Central.

Keep in mind that these are just differences from 2008. The Rays are ten runs worse than they were last year, but they were tops in 2008 and are so far remaining atop the league in 2009 as well.

When Ichiro Suzuki was diagnosed with an ulcer that would cause him to miss at minimum eight games, people began to crawl out of the woodwork to question many aspects of Ichiro’s game. Whether he would reach 200 hits for the 9th straight season. Whether, coming off a .747 OPS season, Ichiro should not be traded.

I think we can say that Ichiro is off to a healthy start in proving his skeptics wrong. Again. With 110 hits through 67 games and 312 plate appearances, Ichiro is ahead of even his record-setting 2004 season. Over the same 762 PAs that he received that season, his current rate would net Ichiro with 269 hits.

Not only is the average as healthy as ever, but the power is at nearly an all-time high. Only Ichiro’s 2005 season, a year marked by a change in approach to increase his slugging at the expense of some of his average, has seen a higher isolated slugging percentage, and its .133 mark is a mere five points ahead of his current .128. In other words, so far in 2009, Ichiro is hitting for average like it is 2004 and hitting for power like it is 2005. The only thing he is not doing at the plate is drawing walks, but it is pretty difficult to level that as a legitimate claim against him when he is experiencing the level of success as he has been.

Interestingly, pitchers seem to be trying to offer him those walks. Continuing a nearly uninterrupted trend since 2004, Ichiro is seeing less pitches in the strike zone than ever before. Instead of laying off of them and taking more walks, Ichiro has in fact increased his rate of offering at balls. Of course, he also makes contact on them 86.7% of the time, a flatly absurd number.

Not satisfied with just decimating the calls for decline at the plate, Ichiro has stepped up his defensive game as well. Long praised for his great arm, Ichiro is putting up the best Range numbers of his career.

Adding it all up and Ichiro is on pace to eclipse even his 2004 season in terms of win value. Worth three wins already, Ichiro’s projected playing time would have him worth just under seven wins were he to maintain his lofty rates.

In the past four years, Yorman Bazardo has played for four organizations (Florida, Seattle, Detroit and how Houston), being traded twice, designated for assignment twice and outright released once. Seems strange for a guy with a career ERA of 4.61 in Triple-A and who is just 24 years old, so what might be contributing to Bazardo’s seeming unattractiveness as a prospect?

First, because I like the hard evidence better, let us take a quick tour through his numbers. Bazardo does a good job of missing bats but has also had some issues finding the zone. His reduction in pitches outside the zone is a big reason why he is seeing the level of success this season in Triple-A for Houston that he is. Bazardo has also been a prolific groundballer, holding above the 50% mark as a starter. Based strictly on missing bats, finding the zone and keeping the ball on the ground, you would think Bazardo would rank as an above average Major League starter right now.

The problem has been turning those missed bats into strikeouts. That did not happen in 2008 and that torpedoed Bazardo’s stay with Detroit. Still, that usually corrects itself, as it has so far in 2009, so you would think that giving up on Bazardo so early still seems odd.

Here is where we get into the less clear issues. For one, there is speculation that Bazardo is not actually 24. If true, that would certainly explain teams being more willing to cut ties with him. Another issue might be his attitude, rumors of markup issues dogged him in the past. I could only speculate, and I won’t, on the severity of them if they were, in fact, present. Maybe the scouts see something that limits his ceiling. Even if all three of these were true, it still strikes me as odd that so many teams have passed him on in such inglorious fashions.

Neftali Feliz, recently invited to the Futures Game was rated among Baseball America’s 10th best prospect coming into this season and the Rangers overall first.

Spending last year between High-A and Double-A, the right-handed Feliz absolutely dominated during the first half while in High-A Clinton. The move up to Double-A encountered some difficulties as expected for someone his age as the strikeouts dropped and the walks rose. Feliz also lost a lot of luster off his shiny ground ball rate, falling from 51% to 38%.

Starting this season out with another promotion, this time to in Triple-A Oklahoma, Feliz has seen his ground ball rate settle in at 44%, about halfway between this two rates last season. The strikeouts have fallen again, now down to 21% of batters faced from his High-A mark of 33%, but he has managed to trim down the walks from 12% to 10% over his Double-A numbers. All in all, it looked encouraging from a person regarded as one of the best pitching prospects in baseball.

And then this happened:

“We’d like to see if he’s an option to help the Major League club in that role,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “He’s scheduled to throw an inning there tomorrow. We still feel he may start for us in the future but we’re going down that road first.”

That quote is concerning the move of Feliz to the bullpen, nominally in order to get him up to Texas faster. There is just no way this is a good idea. Feliz’s weakness has been in his secondary stuff and moving him to the bullpen will only stunt his development along those fronts. It seems that the Rangers are seriously jeopardizing Feliz’s future as a starter in order to try and provide aid to the Rangers league-worst bullpen. I have news for you Texas, your rotation sucks too. Unless there is something more going on, like a health concern, moving Feliz to the bullpen solely to get him to the big leagues faster, when he is already doing fine in Triple-A, is just plain silly and short-sighted.

Jo-Jo Reyes was demoted out of the Atlanta starting rotation in May and then in his first appearance out of the pen, injured his hamstring landing him on the disabled list. Coming back on rehab, Reyes lasted just five pitches before coming out with the hamstring re-injured. That was on June 9th and Reyes has not pitched since.

Reyes was demoted out of the rotation in large part to his proclivity toward walks and home runs, which were teaming up to help drive his ERA up to 7.00. However, there was another huge key to that ERA. Reyes’ LOB%, largely a measure that will tell you how lucky or unlucky a pitcher has been at avoiding costly groupings of hits, was sitting at just over 45% at the time of his demotion. Pitchers normally sit around the low 70s with some fluctuation based on how often they generate strikeouts. In other words, Reyes was getting hammered by the bad luck, for lack of more conclusive evidence, of having his hits grouped more closely together, making them more likely to push runners across the plate.

Reyes’ FIP was 4.99. That’s not a great number, but it is a far sight better than 7.00 and a lot of that high FIP was tied up in a 14.3 home run per fly ball rate. ZiPS projected a 4.49 FIP going forward. That is not the only reason for optimism when it comes to Reyes’ future.

Jo-Jo Reyes also holds the distinction of having the largest increase in swinging strike rate among starting pitches with at least 100 batters faced in both 2008 and 2009. 2007 and 2008 established Reyes as a pitcher with a slightly below average 6.5% missed bat ratio. Enter 2009 and through about 500 pitches, Reyes has jumped that rate a whopping four points to just under 10.5%. Now, that is not a terribly large sample, but swinging strike rate happens to be one the quickest stats to stabilize and even if Reyes did not maintain a rate above 10%, it was still pointing toward him making a big jump in skill this season.

The reason is a lot harder to fetter out, but of note is that Reyes did start throwing his slider a lot more often this season compared to the prior two. And that despite his average fastball speed losing a tick, his other offerings all gained in speed.

It would be easy to dismiss Reyes based on his 6.09 career ERA at the Major League level, but doing so would be bypassing a pitcher who just might have taken a big step forward. He will be interested to watch when he gets back on the mound, wherever that is.

How about another interesting streak of pitching? On June 10th in the bottom of the 2nd inning, Juan Pierre grounded out to the second baseman against Kevin Correia. At the time, Rafael Furcal was on 2nd after a single and sac bunt. On June 21st, in the top of the 5th inning, Landon Powell grounded out to the right side with two outs and Orlando Cabrera standing on second after a two-out double. The pitcher was also Kevin Correia. In between those two events, Kevin Correia faced 52 batters. During those 52 trips to the plate, there was never a man on base.

Correia retired the final fourteen men that he faced against the Dodgers, but as two of them came with Rafael Furcal on base, only the final twelve count here, comprising his work during the 3rd through 6th innings. At the other end, Correia retired the first 14 batters against Oakland on June 21st before surrendering the double to Cabrera and putting his streak to an end. In between those two games, Correia had a June 16th game in which he went eight innings and never once pitched out of the stretch, ultimately losing to a complete game, shut-out by Felix Hernandez.

Now, the reason it was 52 straight batters out of the windup and not the more impressive 52 straight batters retired is that during the Seattle game, Correia surrendered two home runs, one to Adrian Beltre and the other to Franklin Gutierrez. Obviously, neither put a runner on base. Here’s the breakdown of the 52 batters:

-Nine struck out swinging
-Five struck out looking
-21 hit ground balls (all outs)
-12 hit fly balls (10 outs, two home runs)
-One hit a line drive
-Four hit pop flys

31 balls were put in play during the stretch and all 31 were turned into outs. Correia also struck out 14 with, obviously, no walks so it was not solely a streak of good luck and good defense.