The Anaheim Angels are close to getting back a significant portion of their disabled rotation with John Lackey and Ervin Santana seeming set to return in short order.

It has been assumed and widely written that the Angels, roundly considered to be either slight favorites or slight underdogs to Oakland for the AL West would just try to weather the storm of injuries through the first two months and then take off once back to full or near full strength. Roughly 30 games into the season, it would seem that they have accomplished that first goal with Oakland seriously floundering and just the pitching-challenged Texas Rangers ahead of them by a mere half a game.

Is the second part of the model going to hold up though? The point here is to look at what has fueled the Angels success so far to date. It certainly hasn’t been the offense which has produced at a markedly below league average level and gotten roughly, but still below, league average results on the back of an inflated BABIP. It has not been their gloves either, which also rank below average.

The Angels bullpen has produced some decent fielding independent numbers, but I would still rank them as slightly below average thanks to their near league worst line drive rate allowed. In point, what has been keeping the Angels afloat has precisely been their starting pitching.

Now, nobody is going to argue that getting Anthony Ortega out of the rotation isn’t going to be beneficial, but the other displaced member of the rotation is going to have been either Matt Palmer, currently sporting a 4.54 FIP or Shane Loux and his staff leading 3.78 FIP. For reference, John Lackey’s FIP last season was 4.53 and he was projected to be around 3.90 before the injury with Ervin Santana at about the same level. A half run of FIP spread over 150 innings amounts to a mere eight runs of difference.

All told, as long as neither Lackey nor Santana get re-hurt or implode or, in the case of Santana, turn back into the 2007 form, adding the pair back into the rotation is probably worth about two wins above what the Angels have currently gotten from their worst two starters. Two wins is a lot in a tight division, but consider that even before the injuries the Angels were not projected to be heads or shoulders above anyone out west.

The Angels are about to get better, yes, but looking at the numbers, the highest probable scenario says that they are not going to simply run away with the AL West. It’s a long season yet.

Randy Johnson has not pitched particularly well this season, for instance see yesterday’s shelling at the hands of the Rockies. In fact, outside of Tim Lincecum, nobody in the Giants rotation has pitched well with their second best pitcher being Barry Zito of all people. Still, Randy Johnson is approaching history and if he can improve him outings and get some offensive support there is a chance for that history to take place in an appropriate spot.

Johnson’s next start, assuming the rotation as is holds will by May 11th at home against the Washington Nationals. The Nationals are not in fact a poor hitting team, but the current slated starter for that game is Daniel Cabrera who has been so awful this year that even the Giants’ pathetic offense stands a chance to bat him around.

Following that start, Johnson will next face the New York Mets at home on May 16th. The Mets have a very good offense and worse yet, according to the current schedule, Randy will be taking the hill opposite Johan Santana. That is going to take quite a bit deal of providence to come out on the winning side of that battle.

So there are some long shot odds that we are dealing with. However, should the Giants, and more importantly in this case Randy Johnson, get wins in both of those games, then Randy Johnson will arrive in Seattle on May 22nd with 299 career wins. His home for a decade, the place where he transformed himself, and the city that has seen Ken Griffey Jr. return home might be on hand to witness Johnson’s first attempt at win number 300.

If it happens, it would be an interesting study to see where the loyalties of longtime Mariner fans lay for that game. There are some times that hometown fans are able to root for returning players to do well and for their team to still win, allowing for some leeway in rooting interest that I am sure some people still see as infidelity. This situation would be even more divisive since if one were to root for Johnson to get win number 300 in Seattle, that would necessitate rooting for the hometown team to lose.

Dave Cameron pointed out the wave of young center fielders playing in baseball this year a few days ago. I wanted to take a moment to highlight one of those in particular whose game seems to be growing at a rapid rate.

Adam Jones in Baltimore got his first taste of regular play last year following the trade to the Orioles from the Seattle Mariners in the Erik Bedard deal. He responded by putting up some stellar defensive numbers. Although his hitting numbers were poor, the combination of defense plus position made Jones better than a two-win player, all for the league minimum.

Adam Jones has built off that experience this season, coming out the gate in a huge way at the plate. Jones hit all of nine home runs last year over 132 games. Through just 22 this season, he already has five dingers and nine other extra-base hits. He’s boasting an OPS near 1.100 and a wOBA of .471, good enough for over 11 runs above average.

His defensive numbers have fallen back to Earth which is the only facet preventing him from being among the most valuable players in the league. Expect those numbers to bounce back a bit, though all the way back to 2008 levels is likely too much to ask for. Still, Jones is well on his way to becoming a consistent three to four-win player and Baltimore has him under team control for quite a few years yet. Paired with Nick Markakis, the Orioles have an incredibly valuable two-thirds of an outfield sewn up.

I might be unlucky. Yesterday it was Gil Meche that I cursed with my plans to talk about Kansas City’s top two starting pitchers and today it was Erik Bedard to a milder extent. Oh well. Tonight it’s a look at the surprising Seattle Mariners, led by Felix Hernandez and Erik Bedard.

The pair ranked 5th and 9th in the league in FIP coming into play today. We have seen flashes before from both of these pitchers that indicate that each has the raw talent to be among the best, if not the best, pitchers in baseball. Bedard was sidelined with injury issues again in 2008 while Felix lost some of the luster off his extreme ground ball tendencies and started relying far too much on predictable fastballs, as I have made mention of here several times.

But so far in 2009, both have been aces. Felix Hernandez has both raised his strikeout rate and lowered his walk rate, always a good combination for an improved season. His ground ball has taken another step back this year which is troubling, but is mainly the result of one particularly fly ball happy start. In his past two outing, Felix’s ground ball rate has been above 60%. Also of note, Felix’s changeup speed continues to rise, and is now sitting at an average of 89.1 miles per hour. That is his changeup. While that seems good on its own, the fact that the gap between his fastball and changeup speeds continues to shrink is probably not great.

Before suffering his worst outing of the season today, Erik Bedard sure looked like the Erik Bedard of 2007. In fact, he looked even better because even in 2007, Bedard started slowly. Not this year, storming out of the gate Bedard’s strikeout rate returned to 2007 levels and he flat out eliminated the walks. That resulted in Bedard ringing up almost ten hitters for each one he walked. For good measure, he’s also increased his ground ball rate.

Bedard got hit around a bit today, but that was mostly due to some poor command on his fastball, leading to three walks and a pair of hit batters. Even when scuffling badly and essentially reduced to throwing only his curveball for strikes, Bedard still managed a decent enough outing. Felix is still relying heavily on his fastball, but he’s actually commanding its location so far this season. If he keeps up his feel for that pitch and Bedard keeps up his health, watch out, we may have another worst to first this season.

Continuing on from my look at the duo of Derek Lowe and Javier Vazquez atop Atlanta’s rotation, I had planned tonight to highlight the performances of Zack Greinke and Gil Meche at the head of the Kansas City Royal’s rotation. Then Gil Meche had to go and get rocked tonight. Oops. Skipping right over that (no, I’ll come back to it), let us look at what these two have done so far.

Coming into play today, Zack Greinke led the major leagues with a 1.45 FIP and Gil Meche was sitting not too far behind in fourth at 1.82. tRA, another pitching metric that takes batted ball profiles into account, agrees with FIP, ranking Greinke 3rd and Meche 5th in baseball. Clearly, these two have been among the best pitchers this season. This should not come as too big of a surprise seeing that Meche and Greinke both ranked inside the top 25 pitchers by FIP last season as well.

Zach Greinke has upped his strikeout rate to almost one out of every three batters faced while simultaneously chipping away at his walk rate slightly as well. Greinke’s batted ball profile has not moved much, but he has yet to allow a home run which is the main culprit in keeping his FIP so deflated. That is certainly not going to hold up and given the little change so far, it would not be outlandish to still expect a repeat of 2008 from Greinke. Of course, that’s still a fantastic season.

Before today, Gil Meche’s success had been tied to cutting his walk rate by more than half while slightly upping his strikeout rate, sort of the opposite good version of Greinke’s season to date. However, Meche walked five of 22 batters faced today which more than doubles his walk rate and bring it to just under his 2008 level. He did manage to avoid yielding any home runs though, keeping his season total at zero along with Greinke. The difference there is that Meche has seen a dramatic increase in ground balls, continued today, going from a ground ball rate in the low 40s to mid 50s so far in 2009. If Meche can hold that rate, even though he will eventually start allowing home runs, he will be on track to see a legitimate improvement from his already solid 2008 numbers.

Albert Pujols is no mere human baseball player, of that we were already pretty certain. Ryan Ludwick as well put a rather impressive impression of his hitting skills on display last year. That those two have followed up so far in 2009 comes as no real surprise. Neither is a tremendous surprise to see the Cardinals pacing the league in offense this season. They were, after all, the third best offensive team last year behind the Rangers and the Red Sox. Besides Pujols and Ludwick though is a different crop of supporters.

In 2008, Troy Glaus, Rick Ankiel and Felipe Lopez were the primary secondary hitters for the Cardinals, posting wOBAs of .371, .360 and .415 respectively. This year, Brian Barden, Yadier Molina and Chris Duncan are trio providing the offense behind Pujols and Ludwick this time around. Barden is currently getting his at bats at third base, which opens the question about what the Cardinals might do when Troy Glaus returns if Barden defies the odds and is still hitting. Barden has some experience at the middle infield positions, so that might be the route they go. Of course, even a cursory glance at Barden’s past results will lead one to be skeptical that he’s going to be any significant part of the Cardinals plans as the season progresses.

Yadier Molina, though highly unlikely to maintain an OPS over .900, has shown a marked increase in offensive production over the past few seasons. After establishing a baseline wOBA in the high 200s, and declining, after his first three years, Molina posted a wOBA of .311 and .323 in 2007 and 2008. A final line in that range is more plausible than his current standing.

Never much on the fielding side of things, Chris Duncan has seen his offensive output decline since he came onto the scene in 2006. Still, most projection systems pegged Duncan to return to a hitting level somewhere between 2007 and 2008. He’s been much better than that so far in 2009, but looks to be the fortune of an inflated BABIP number. When that falls back down to Duncan’s established career norms, his overall production is likely to regress back to a more expected figure.

Even with the expected regression from all three of the above players, the Cardinals still boast a powerful offense that should remain one of the league’s best as long as Pujols and Ludwick stay healthy.

Early on this season, about three turns through rotations and about 10% of the way through the season, we have some preliminary indications about some front line duos emerging this season. For now, here is first of a few of them.

Atlanta Braves: Derek Lowe and Javier Vazquez.
Vazquez, the pitcher with a reputation of out-pitching his ERA or under-pitching his core stats, depending on how you look at it. Moving to Atlanta, Jazquez has seen his individual pitch results remain stable with previous years to date, though an up tick in ground balls leading.

Interestingly, despite the stable pitch results, Javier Vazquez’s pitch selection has changed dramatically. Vazquez has cut in half the frequency with which he used his slider from 23% to 11%. That lost 12% has been redistributed roughly equally between his change up and curveball.

Derek Lowe, another newcomer to the Braves rotation, wouldn’t be having a great season if you looked just at his individual pitches. His fastball velocity is down over a mile per hour, a drop consistent in his slider and change up as well. Interestingly enough, Lowe has further decreased the usage of his change up. What once made up 10 to 15% of his pitches is now down to around just 4%.

Lowe is also missing many fewer bats and is missing the strike zone more often as well. His groundball rate is also down as well. So what is fueling a good start for Derek Lowe? Zero home runs allowed so far is a prime motivator. That is certainly not going to hold up, but Lowe’s still great groundball rate should help stave off too harsh of a regression.

With Vazquez and Lowe up front, the starting rotation is a key for the Braves in their hopes to climb back into postseason play.

Ryan Zimmerman and the Washington Nationals agreed to a contract yesterday that fits Zimmerman in a Nationals (or Natinals) jersey for the next half-decade at a minimum. The five-year, $45-million contract buys out all three of Zimmerman’s arbitration years plus two seasons that were to be under market control. Because of our 40/60/80 rubric for arbitration value, that gives us 3.8 equivalent free agent years covered under this contract.

At $45 million over 3.8 years, the Nationals are paying Zimmerman the equivalent of just under $12 million per market year. Using current market rates per win (around $4.25 to $4.5 million per win), the Nationals are paying for about a 2.75-win player. Does Zimmerman project to live up to or exceed that mark?

Zimmerman has seen his offense decline over the past three seasons, but only be slight amounts and given that offense as a whole dove last year and was down in 2007 compared to 2006 as well, he still looks fine. In fact, Ryan Zimmerman has actually maintained a relatively stable wOBA compared to the league, around 5% above average. Interestingly enough, a majority of the projection systems predict a substantial rise in Zim’s wOBA this year, with an average coming in around the .360 mark which would be a full season career high and put Zimmerman around the 15 run above average mark.

Fielding wise, Ryan Zimmerman’s numbers outside of 2007 show that of a consistently slightly above average player. He flipped out according to UZR in 2007, but given the stability in each other year, that looks like a fluke. Still, it shows what he is capable of, and I am comfortable penciling him in as an average fielder at about five runs over average for the duration of this contract. Toss in the 3B positional adjustment and the replacement level bonus and Zimmerman projects out to a touch over four wins on average.

Given that he’s averaged 3.8 over the prior three seasons, this seems like no stretch at all. Really, this is a huge win for the Nats both on getting value on Zimmerman and in keeping him in DC where they can hopefully use him to help establish an identity for the franchise.

Out of curiosity this afternoon, I was browsing through our leader boards when I confirmed that we did have a player, a single one, who had already accumulated a full win of value in this young season. Thanks in no doubt large part to his massive day at the plate on Wednesday, Ian Kinsler ended up with 9.4 batting runs over average. The boost over replacement was more than enough to crack the one win threshold.

Kinser’s wOBA currently stands at .600 coming into play Thursday. Though there’s no chance that he would be able to sustain that level of play over a full season; it does put Kinsler on pace for just shy of 170 batting runs in 2009.

Kinsler’s batting line has certainly been buoyed by good luck and his home park, but he’s also been driving the ball extremely well so far. A full quarter (or more depending on your batted ball source) of his balls in play have been line drives. Still, with six of the nine games in question taking place in the launching pad of Arlington, and 10 of Kinsler’s 11 extra-base hits coming at home, there are some flags showing through Kinsler’s fast start.

One look that might be telling is to look at Kinsler’s plate discipline. Doing so expands our sample a bit and also reveals any fundamental changes in Kinsler’s approach at the plate. In fact, all the shows through in this early stage is that Kinsler’s swing rate is up and oddly enough, his contact rate is down. It’s a pair of signals that run counter to the improved outcomes. All in all, it’s obviously too early to tell if there’s anything new or improved in Ian Kinsler’s game. For now, he’ll just have to be content with being baseball’s first one win player of 2009.

It’s funny; we analysts wait throughout the off season for regular season games to begin so that we can have meaningful stats to write about and then once the season does begin, we have to hold off further still until decent sample sizes can be established. Still, though everything comes with menacing caveats of sample size warnings, I will forage on. For now, a look at two teams that surprised me from the first week of play:

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals seemed a bit underrated coming into the season. Many people concluded that the Cubs were the class of the National League, much less the NL Central. While that may still portend to be true, there is always the case of the Wild Card and a weak class of divisional foes. The Brewers are suffering from a lack of pitching depth (as are many many teams it seems) and their offense just doesn’t seem as up to the task as the Cardinals’ is.

That offense for St. Louis has certainly shown up early in the season. Albert Pujols is no surprise, but fast starts from Chris Duncan and Ryan Ludwick are good news for Cardinal fans who might have been worried about regression from the duo. Newly acquired Joe Thurston has been a welcome surprise to date, helping to quelsh some fears about the infield production outside of Big Al. All told, they’re team .371 wOBA is fourth best entering play today.

More than the hitting though, it’s been the pitching, especially in the rotation, that has fueled the Gateway city. A 3.23 staff FIP is good for third in all of baseball to date. The unit seemed shaky at the start of the year and though one week should not alleviate those fears, Chris Carpenter looking healthy and dominant is a big weight off the backs of the other members of the rotation. You weren’t going to build a playoff rotation with the likes of Kyle Lohse, Todd Wellemeyer and Joel Pineiro, but having Carpenter front and center gives everyone else a little more margin for error.

Kansas City Royals

Staying in the same state (sort of), but moving leagues, how about those Royals? On one hand, they’re the most impotent offense in the leauge by a wide margin, with just a .269 wOBA with both Arizona and Oakland next worst at .290. It’s just a woeful collection that was never expected to score many runs. Granted, it seems unlikely that they will stay this bad (378 run pace) but it might accelerate the Royals on the subjects of Eric Hosmer and Mike Moutaskas down in the low minors and might even get them to admit that Kila Ka’aihue might be a better idea than Mike Jacobs.

On the other hand, they boast the league’s best pitching staff with a 2.78 FIP, almost a full half run better than the second place Padres who are at 3.23. The bullpen has been boosted with the addition of Juan Cruz to the already dominant Joakim Soria and he’ll hopefully replace the production of Ramon Ramirez. The rotation has seen some solid first performances from Sidney Ponson and Kyle Davies which you will have to excuse my skepticism of sustainability, but Luke Hochevar is hanging around in Triple-A. Given the dearth of offense and the questionable back end of the rotation, it seems unlikely that the Royals will contend for the playoffs, but the AL Central is looking weak this year and the Royals could find themselves pushing .500 and a spot in the middle of the pack.