On July 7th, Rich Harden and CC Sabathia had been traded to Chicago and Milwaukee respectively without yet having made a start. At the time, the Cubs were at 53-36 and leading the division by 3.5 games over then 2nd place St Louis who were at 50-40 a half game ahead of the Brewers 49-40. Those three teams were 1-3 in terms of best records in the National League.

Since that date, Rich Harden has pitched 54 innings, striking out 75 and walking just 18 with two hit batsmen and six home runs allowed totaling a 2.95 xFIP and a 2.72 tRA. Meanwhile, CC Sabathia has logged an impressive 102 innings with a matching 102 strikeouts and 21 walks alongside three hit batters and five home runs allowed. That’s good for a 2.94 xFIP and a 2.50 tRA.

During this same time period, the Cardinals have given nine starts to Joel Pineiro and 12 starts to Braden Looper. Not exactly up to the same caliber as the other teams and the Cardinals have struggled as a result. Since that date, the Cubs have compiled a 34-22 record and widened their lead in the division by a game, now over second place Milwaukee who have gone an impressive 34-23 themselves.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals have only been able to hold serve at .500 with a 28-27 mark and have since fallen behind the Houston Astros in the NL Central, who made their own mid season pitching acquisition in Randy Wolf who has useful on his own in addition to helping keep Shawn Chacon away from the rotation. There was plenty of criticism of the Cardinals for not making a significant trade at the deadline because it was thought they wouldn’t have the horses to stay in the race. This time around, it appears the critics were right.

If there’s a troubling tendency of over rated and under rated discussions it’s the nature for players that appear so often on one side or the other that they switch from being perennially under rated to over rated or vice versa. This is usually partly due to repetitive media coverage hammering a player into a certain light (that he is either under rated or over rated) and usually partly due to opinions formed that were valid at the time, but because so much time has passed, that opinion needs to be updated or has become outdated completely.

One such player that I feel has become somewhat overlooked because of an opinion formed a few years ago is Todd Helton. Starting in 2005, when Helton’s slugging dropped off a cliff, his name has been usually referenced in conjunction with his contract and usually using the terms such as untradeable or overpriced.

Because of that, Helton’s started to fly under the radar as his contract comes closer to the end. Assuming his option is declined, Helton is owed just under $57 million over the next three seasons. Because of this high amount of dollars left and the Rockies poor record this season, the rumors of Todd Helton being moved are on the rise. How viable would Helton be as a trade target in a winter that seems overloaded with aging hitting talent?

Helton’s performance is down a lot this season, but for the most part, it’s due to bad luck as his 23.4% line drive rate coupled with just a .298 BABIP suggest. With most of his core numbers intact, it’s likely that Helton’s overall skill hasn’t diminished all that much from his previous years. That would put his bat at around 30 runs over average in value.

Worth the contract? No, not even close, but if the Rockies are indeed intent on moving Helton and willing to eat some salary, then Helton might make sense to a team in the market for a first basemen with strong on base skills.

There’s a revolution going on this year in Florida this year and it’s happening in perhaps the most underrated aspect of baseball today. According to John Dewan’s Plus/Minus system from the Fielding Bible, the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays were the worst two teams in baseball last season in team defense, clocking in at 88 and 107 plays below average respectively.

Using Tango’s figure of 0.8 runs per play, we come up with figures of 70 and 86 runs these defenses cost their teams’ bottom lines. Those are exceptionally damaging magnitudes. For reference, according to wOBA, Barry Bonds was worth a little over 60 runs over average back in both 2003 and in 2004. Moving their defense up to league average would be akin to removing a replacement level player from your lineup and inserting Barry Bonds from that era.

Fast forward to almost the end of 2008 and how are those teams doing now? Well, we don’t have final numbers from Dewan’s system just yet, but a similar plus/minus system, used by The Hardball Times, gives us some clues. They have the Rays at a positive 13 plays (10 runs) and the Marlins at just negative 16 plays (13 runs).

If those values hold through the end of the season, and assuming they generally reflect what Dewan’s system will report, that would represent an improvement of 57 runs for the Marlins and an astounding 96 runs for the Rays. You want a reason why the Rays have become the team they are this year? Well there’s several, but don’t you dare overlook defense. When a team can add 100 runs to it’s net runs scored – runs allowed total, that’s a huge swing in success’ direction.

As we get entrenched in September baseball, we’ve narrowed it down to just a few teams that still harbor rational playoff hopes. In the American League we have Boston, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Chicago and Anaheim. Unless something crazy happens, Boston, Tampa and Anaheim are in and it’s a playoff for the Central division crown between Chicago and Minnesota to determine the fourth team. Either way we have two teams returning from last season’s October and two new entrants.

Over in the National League things are a bit murkier. The Cubs are nearly a lock and right now Milwaukee looks solidly in as well, though their lead on the Wild Card isn’t as sacrosanct as Boston’s is in the junior circuit. Arizona and Los Angeles are fighting it out for the West division and that’s a winner take all prize because the loser has no chance at sneaking in with the Wild Card. Between New York and Philadelphia in the East, there’s a slim, but not insignicant chance that both could get in if they rattle off some wins and Milwaukee falters. Six teams are still in it, three of whom joined us for postseason play last year.

Beyond that, what is still very much in the air are the playoff seedings. Back to the American League, the winner between the Twins and White Sox is likely to end up with the third seed, and because of the rule that the Wild Card team cannot play a team in its own division in the first round, Anaheim’s final record doesn’t matter at all (opponent-wise) provided they finish ahead of the Central champ. Instead, it all comes down to whether the Rays can hold off the Red Sox for the Eastern lead. If so, regardless of the overall record (again, provided it’s better than MIN/CHA) they’ll face the Central winner and Anaheim and Boston will face off. If instead Boston grabs the division lead then the Rays and Angels will square off.

In the National League, the Cubs are almost certain to nab the top overall seed and most likely the Brewers are going to nab the Wild Card, which creates the same conflict as in the American League and means the Cubs are off to face the NL West winner (which is actually better for them) while the Brewers will get the NL East champ. Of course, if Milwaukee stumbles and the Wild Card comes out of the East, then that team will head to Chicago and the NL East and West winners face off.

It’s worth pointing out that we’re going to be getting at least three new teams in the playoffs for this year which is a healthy turnover. For those teams that are now comfortably (relatively, no fan is likely entirely comfortable until their team has clinched) in the playoffs, these are the races worth following. As we all know, anything can happen in the playoffs and even more so, anything can happen in a best-of-five series.

We can rationally tell ourselves that small sample sizes have to be taken with caution (and they do), but no matter how much we believe that to be true, they will still affect us. It’s a byproduct of a psychological bias known as anchoring and for the most part it’s extremely difficult to avoid falling victim to. The aspect of anchoring (or focalism as it’s also known) that we must be aware of for baseball purposes is sometimes referred to as the adjustment problem. In a nutshell, the adjustment problem is when you are asked to make a value judgment on something. Almost without fail, your brain will go back to some previously heard value and adjust from there. Basically, it’s letting an extremely (and sometimes completely irrelevant) small sample hold a sway over your perception and it’s tough to avoid.

What I am specifically getting at is performances in April and how they influence opinions of players for the rest of the year. A hot start in April establishes a baselines of performance at a high level and probably gets mentioned a lot in the media. From that point forward, no matter how well that player performs, unless you are intimately familiar with the player’s performance, your first instinct is to go back to those numbers you were hearing about in April and adjust from there. This is similarly true for cold starts. All that’s needed is for the performance to be extreme enough to get mentioned and for you to not pay that much attention to the player at other times. Need a few examples?

These aren’t going to apply for everyone, we don’t all have the same strength of bias and like I mentioned above, if you happen to follow a player day to day whether because he’s on your favorite team or rival team or fantasy team or whatever then you will not be as susceptible to the adjustment because your brain has many more data points stored away. The key is not having heard or seen a player’s stat line for awhile. For American League fans, quick, how has Miguel Tejada and Carlos Delgado’s season gone? Think of their line in your head right now. Now go click on those links and see how you did?

Most of you, if you qualify above, would have over-estimated Miguel Tejada’s line and under-estimated Carlos Delgado’s. Tejada got off to a fast start in Houston and made some news as they flirted with contention and since Tejada had come over via trade and posted a near 1.000 OPS in April. But since May 4th, Tejada has posted just a .263/.295/.367 line. Delgado has been the opposite. He sat at a meager .532 OPS on April 27th and was subject to some stories about how the hope for a bounce back from his previous year’s struggles were not to be. All Delgado has done since then is hit .274/.360/.542 and he’s now up to a .840 OPS on the year and making a case for his option to be picked up by the Mets.

A last one, this time for the National League folks. How’s Jacoby Ellsbury doing? He was in the news a lot this spring for his fast start to the year paired with the Red Sox defending title and his memorable October. Through Ellsbury’s first 28 games this season he had an .857 OPS and an impressive 17 walks to just nine strikeouts. But since then, Ellsbury is hitting just .258/.304/.347 with 66 strikeouts to just 22 walks and his season OPS is now under .700.

Beware those early numbers.

I was watching a game recently when the broadcasters began a discussion of possible American League MVP candidates and Dustin Pedroia’s name was brought up in a serious manner. I was a little floored by the notion. Do not get me wrong, Pedroia is a fine player and a great asset to the Red Sox, but MVP? No. There are several factors as to why not.

First, and this is a giant one, park factors. Fenway Park is a playground for right-handed pull hitters ramping up the amount of singles and doubles hitters get because of the green monster. Guess what Pedroia is? In fact, it is such a huge influence that Pedroia’s park-adjusted wOBA is a whopping 11 points below his un-adjusted number.

Secondly, there is defensive position to consider. Yes, Pedroia plays second base, a tough position to play, but as Tango’s positional adjustments show, second base is behind catcher, shortstop, centerfield and is tied with (and this is important) third base.

Finally, we have the actual offensive production. Pedroia is good, yes I admit as much and his play at second base only helps, but there are just far better candidates for the MVP when you consider everything listed above. Joe Mauer has been better with the bat, plays a much tougher position and even works better under the whole “valuable, not best” argument because without Mauer there’s no way the Twins are in the playoff hunt while without Pedroia, the Red Sox are still very good. Not to mention that Joe Mauer is tops in the AL in WPA. Staying in the Central division, Grady Sizemore and Curtis Granderson are two excellent centerfielders who both have been more valuable with the bat and glove than Pedroia.

Pedroia ranks 18th in the AL in WPA/LI and it’s in that list that we find yet another worthy candidate who seems to be going overlooked, Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez plays a credible third base so he gets the same defensive credit as Pedroia, but his bat just dominates everyone in the AL. Again going by wOBA, Rodriguez has been worth over five more runs than any other player has and most of the ones near him are DHs or corner outfielders. For best hitter in the AL this season so far, it comes down to one choice, Alex Rodriguez.

Last night I brought up the subject of under appreciated hitters and am going to continue it tonight with Aubrey Huff in Baltimore.

Drafted by Tampa in the 5th round of the 1998 draft, Huff reached the majors in a scant two seasons and after a rough go of it for the first couple seasons, established himself as an offensive force in 2002 as a sometimes outfielder, sometimes third baseman. Over the next few years as he stuck with Tampa, and Tampa was still poorly run and bad, Aubrey Huff consistently came up in trade talks each summer only to stay put. Finally, in his last year of team control, Huff was dealt off at the deadline to the Astros for Ben Zobrist and Mitch Talbot. Huff would spend a few months with Houston hitting a little over league average and then depart for Baltimore at age 30 on a three-year, $20 million contract.

A shift to primarily being the DH last season seemed to do nothing to hold off Huff’s gradual decline, which makes 2008 all the more surprising. Huff isn’t really doing better at drawing walks as the slight up tick in his walk rate is due to an increase in the amount of intentional walks he receiving. His batted ball profile shows no departure from his norm either. No, Aubrey Huff has seemingly just re-learned how to hit home runs.

Is he hitting the ball harder? To look for an indication of that, I turned to his Hit Tracker numbers, but comparing 2007 to 2008 (and even comparing prior years as well) shows no significant difference in the average distance or average speed of his home runs. It could be that Huff is hitting the ball harder and thus some of what would have been doubles are now just creeping over the fence and keeping his averages low, but I’d still expect to see some higher numbers at the peak and he doesn’t have any home runs under 350 true feet this season.

What does all this add up to? I’m not sure, but given Huff’s age and track record, I am not overly confident that Huff will maintain this level into 2009 and beyond. However, his performance this year and one year left on his contract could make him a valuable trade target this winter if Baltimore concludes that their chances of overcoming Boston and Tampa next season are not high enough to warrant holding on to veteran players.

The first rule when searching for underrated or overrated players is not to look at the players themselves, but to look at their teams. Players that play in big markets and for successful teams get a much larger percentage of media exposure then those that don’t. For that reason, merely good players on good teams are viewed as great while great players on bad teams are viewed as merely good or sometimes even worse.

Tonight, I kick off my attempt to give such unfortunate hitters at least a little bit of their due. Matt Holliday made himself a national star last year during the Rockies’ amazing run. Full crowds chanting M-V-P whenever Holliday strode to the plate made for excellent imagery and the amazing run of wins both into and during the playoffs didn’t hurt either. Thus it comes as a bit of a shock to me that just because the Rockies have regressed in 2008 that the hype around Matt Holliday (the hitter at least) has as well because he might be having a better season this year.

For one thing, he’s created more runs than any hitter in the National League not named Albert Pujols or Lance Berkman. While his slugging and overall OPS are down from last years lofty figures, offense across baseball is down and Holliday has upped his on base percentage enough to maintain the .421 wOBA that he posted in 2007.

Really, the only major difference between last year and this year’s incarnations of Matt Holliday is that this year, Holliday is taking more pitches, whether in the zone or not, which is what’s aiding his large jump in walks. And despite watching more strikes go by and missing pitches that he swings at slightly more often as well, he has cut down his strikeouts by a fraction as well.

It’s not Matt Holliday’s fault that his RBI total has fallen from 137 last year to under 80 this year and that the Rockies win totals have fallen from 89 to under 80, but because they have he’s become under appreciated for the hitter he is. If he truly is on the trading block this winter, with one year left before free agency, expect a large number of suitors.

Stephen Drew and Adrian Beltre both hit for the cycle last night marking only the second time in baseball history that two players hit for the cycle on the same day. The previous occurrence was also in September, the 17th in this case, way back in 1920 with George Burns of the Giants and Bobby Veach of the Tigers.

Dave Cameron mentioned this morning about the similarities between Adrian Beltre and Stephen Drew as hitters. Well, it just so happens that Veach and Burns followed coincidentally similar career paths as hitters as well.

George Burns was enjoying what would be one of his final few productive seasons back in 1920. Breaking in as a regular in 1913, Burns consistently posted above average OPS numbers as an outfielder thanks in part to excellent walk totals peaking with 101 in 1923, but come his 30s and the burgeoning era of power during the 1920s, Burns would find himself out of a regular job by 1924 and out of baseball entirely after 1925 at the age of 35.

Bobby Veach suffered a similar fate as to that of Burns. Also breaking in as a regular in 1913 as an outfielder, Veach had more power than his counterpart in New York with similar, though less prolific, on base skills. After a successful decade and change with the Tigers, Veach was purchased away by the Red Sox in 1924 at age 36 and promptly had the worst season of his career, which is note-worthy because even then he managed to post a .295/.359/.426 line, good for a 102 OPS+. Veach then bounced around with the Yankees and the Senators in 1925 and despite posting a combined 105 OPS+ that season he, like Burns, would not play again.

All in all, for two players that shared no other connections beside being the only players to ever hit for the cycle on the same day (until yesterday), Veach and Burns shared a funny number of likenesses.