SUMMARY

At 56-40, the Texas Rangers start today six games clear of the Anaheim Angels and 7.5 games ahead of Oakland for the AL West crown. CoolStandings.com gives the Rangers an 86% chance of winning the division and to boot they are just two behind the Rays for the Wild Card if they were to lose the West due to some insane hot streak reminiscent of Oakland’s 2003 run of 20 games in a row or Colorado’s September of 2007.

BUY OR SELL

Obviously the answer is buy, but I cannot pretend to make this retroactive and the Rangers have already bought. A more pressing question then is whether the Rangers have bought enough. Personally, I think so. Even without much help yet from Cliff Lee or Bengie Molina the Rangers performed as one of baseball’s best teams. Cliff Lee is a huge addition and Bengie Molina a decent addition of depth at catcher. I am still of the mind that the Angels are over performing in 2010 and the Athletics pose little realistic threat down the stretch especially is Ben Sheets ends up being dealt. Assuming the Rangers do not collapse in the Texas summer heat, they should waltz to their first postseason berth since 1999.

ON THE FARM

Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland are up with the team and Justin Smoak is now with Seattle so the biggest name left near the Majors is Tanner Scheppers. Scheppers has moved back into the rotation after beginning this Minor League season in the Double-A and eventually Triple-A bullpen. It is far too early to pass any sort of statistical judgment on his performance, but his ability to miss bats and get strikeouts is certainly holding over from his amateur days. The questions on Scheppers for the near future are going to be jointly related issues with injuries and control. So far they are being held at bay, but anyone with his history should be treated with caution.

BUDGET

Put bluntly, the Rangers budget is $0. Currently mired in an ownership and financial quagmire, the Rangers are not in a good position to be adding salary. They had to construct their trades for Bengie Molina and Cliff Lee around the sending teams eating large percentages of those contracts in return for better prospects heading back from Texas. Luckily, Texas is not in an immediate need to add payroll. Where it could get very sticky is if this drags out and runs into the offseason or who knows, even next year’s draft.

It is a weird time of the year to be working on contracts but the Athletics have rarely been a team to do things normally. Details emerged today that Oakland has signed Kurt Suzuki to a four-year contract worth at least $16 million. Even more curious is that this latest deal is not an extension but rather also tears up a contract already in place for 2010. Let us step through the deal as presented by Susan Slusser.

Suzuki had been making $420,000 this season. That figure is now $600,000 with an additional $150,000 signing bonus. Suzuki’s salaries then increase to $3.4 million next year, $5 million in 2012 and finally $6.45 million in 2013, what was to be Suzuki’s final year of arbitration. There is a club option for $8.5 million in 2014 that costs Oakland $650K to buy out and is Suzuki plays in at least 118 games in 2013, he is rewarded with a vested option for 2014 at $9.25 million.

With all the nitty gritty out of the way, how does this look on paper? For starters, Suzuki has been extraordinarily consistent of an offensive force while in the Majors. His wRC+s since 2007 have been 96, 97, 97 and stands at 99 this year. I am tempted to give Suzuki credit for the improving trend and make the math easier by calling him exactly league average offense going forward, but his position behind the plate gives me pause. Attrition is high for catchers and 3.5 guaranteed years is a long time. I will proceed with league average offense for the sake of a WAR projection for now however.

I do not feel confident in assigning value on projecting catcher’s defense yet so I will also leave that as average and so the question comes down to playing time. How often Suzuki plays is indirectly tied with my concern on his hitting ability mentioned above, the fear of injuries and general depreciation that comes from the physical strain of catching. For now, Suzuki looks rather robust, averaging 600 trips to the plate the past two seasons and on his way to around 520 this year. Totaled up and Suzuki looks like he might fall a bit short of his 2.6 WAR last year; more in the 2.3 to 2.4 WAR range in 2010.

Based on the payouts above and the rough 40/60/80 scale for arbitration payouts, it is clear that the Athletics are valuing and paying Suzuki at a rate equal to a player producing right around $9.5 million per season in value after factoring in the expected discount for long term security. That is within a fudge factor of where I would peg Suzuki’s performance projections going forward so at least on the guaranteed parts of this deal, it’s a perfectly fair contract. The club and vesting option are both slightly lower than that $9.5 million arbitration valuation, but Suzuki would also be 30 that season and so a discount is warranted. I cannot find fault with this from either side.

The White Sox are certainly a surprising team this year. I do not think many gave much thought to the AL Central under the assumption that the Twins were clear favorites there and that the Wild Card was assured to come out of the AL East. Instead, the White Sox are holding the divisional lead and they are doing it with little help from their position players.

It has been the pitchers where Chicago has made up ground on the better teams in baseball and the success on the mound has come from some unexpected sources. Mark Buehrle is having a typical Mark Buehrle season and Jake Peavy was a bit of a disappointment in both performance and durability, though neither should have come as too big a shock. To counter the letdowns and exactly-as-predicteds, three pitchers have exceeded expectations enough to propel the White Sox up the divisional leader board.

J.J. Putz came into 2010 on the heels of an injurious and all around disastrous 2009 season with the Mets. Having thrown just 29.1 innings, Putz’s strikeout rate fell from a three year average close to 11 per 9 to just 5.8. His walk rate also stayed at his 2008 level in the mid to upper 5s, which left him with an equal number of walks as strikeouts in 2009.

The projection systems did see much improvement for Putz in 2010. CHONE and ZiPS put him at a 4.29 and 4.24 FIP respectively. FanGraphs readers were a lot more optimistic with a 3.49 predicted FIP, but even they are being blown out of the water by Putz’s actual performance that is right out of his 2006 model of success. The strikeouts are back to 10.6, the walks are back down to 1.5 and the high ground ball rates are back as well, keeping the home runs infrequent. In total, Putz has already thrown 35.2 innings with just a 2.00 FIP. He’s been one of the very best relievers in baseball.

John Danks ended up in Chicago with a reputation as a big time fly ball pitcher, a reputation well deserved. His ground ball rate in his rookie 2007 season was just under 35%. It has steadily risen each season since up to 43% in 2008, 44% last year and now up to 47% in 2010. Interestingly, the cause might be because of his drastically reducing the use of his breaking ball. During that transformation, Danks has managed to hold onto his strikeouts and cut down on his walks by a smidge. His continued improvement has once again bested the average projections.

Gavin Floyd took a sizable step forward last season, upping his strikeout rate by about one per nine without any additional walks. Largely, the projection systems did not expect Floyd to hold onto those gains as well as he has in 2010. The other part that nobody expected was Floyd’s ground ball rate going from a well-established rate in the low 40s to 51% this season. Floyd’s 6.4% home run per fly ball rate is unsustainably low, but even adjusting for that, Floyd has held onto his 2009 improvement and is establishing a new baseline for performance as a high-3 xFIP pitcher as opposed to the mid-4 range that was working in previously.

There are obviously many reasons for Chicago’s success to date in 2010, but the above three pitchers are both some of the biggest and some of the least expected.

OVERALL

The Angels came in to today’s games trailing the Rangers for first place in the AL West by 5.5 games. They are also fifth in the Wild Card a half game behind Minnesota, two behind Chicago, four and a half back of Boston and seven and a half behind Tampa. Given the strength of the Twins, Red Sox and Rays, the Angels should not hold strong hopes or capturing that particular title. Their best bet to qualify for the postseason is to win the West from the Rangers.

BUY/SELL

Realistically, the Angels should treat 2010 as a year to sell. They will be hard pressed to pass Texas, even if the Rangers do not make any further moves to bolster their team. Chasing that hope could cost them dearly in future wins if they deal off players that would help down the line. Of course, there is no reason to make that decision now; they can afford to wait out the month of July to see how the team holds up. In the meantime, I would hold off on making any major additions at the cost of prospects as difficult as it might be to effectively concede the division to Texas.

ON THE FARM

Mike Trout is the name on everyone’s tongues with his performance to date in 2010, an insane .448 park-adjusted wOBA that he’s put up in Cedar Rapids. It just A-ball, but Trout is only 18 as well giving him plenty of time to continue growing. Closer to the majors, Hank Conger entered the year as perhaps the Angels most touted prospect and while he has done fine at Triple-A this season, there is still a lack of power.

Trevor Reckling was projected as a pitcher with possible breakout potential if he managed to harness some control. Starting the season with a promotion to Triple-A’s rotation, Reckling walked 50 in 69.2 innings with just 46 strikeouts. Needless to say, that was a disappointment and he’s since been pushed back to Double-A. The Angels have some interesting players in their farm system now, but for the most part will need some years to see the fruits of the more recent crops.

BUDGET

Entering the season with their highest payroll of all time, it is hard to imagine the Angels having much room to add payroll for this season. With over $80 million already committed to 2011, the budget looks a bit tight for this coming winter as well. Keep in mind that the Angels have several players such as Mike Napoli, Howie Kendrick and Jered Weaver that are second or third–year arbitration players without long term deals so they are not counted in that $80 million yet.

Mark Reynolds is a special breed. The stereotype of the slugger swinging from his heels is well known, but Mark Reynolds has been setting a new benchmark for that this season, far eclipsing his peers.

On pitches located outside the strike zone, Reynolds makes contact just 44% of the time when he swings. That is the league’s worst rate by a couple percentage points, even worse than the likes of Ryan Howard, Adam Dunn and Justin Upton, the only other hitters to fall below 50%.

What truly sets Reynolds apart though is his contact rate on pitches inside the strike zone. At 69%, Reynolds is a whopping eight points behind the next nearest whiff master, Mike Napoli. Of course, that means that Reynolds paces the league in swinging and missing both at pitches inside and outside the zone. Even with a moderate overall swing rate of just 46%, Reynolds far and away leads the league in pitches swung at and missed at 17%, three points more than Josh Hamilton.

Reynolds is striking out in 42% of all his plate appearances, also leading the league by a considerable margin over fellow Diamondback Justin Upton. Incidentally, teammate Adam LaRoche ranks seventh in the league in strikeout rate and Arizona as a whole is the worst hitting team in baseball when it comes to strikeouts.

This is not new territory for Reynolds however. Reynolds had baseball’s worst contact rate and highest swinging strike rate in 2008 and 2009 as well. Reynolds also led in strikeout rate last season, but Jack Cust managed to eclipse him in 2008. Despite all those strikeouts, Reynolds has been a productive hitter his whole Major League career. Nobody launches more fly balls in the league than Reynolds does and doing that in a home run haven as Arizona is can pay big dividends when you have power behind them. Mark certainly has that to spare and as a result, his home run per fly ball ratio is one of the league’s best.

Now if only he could field.

Getting to an 0-2 count is highly advantageous to the pitcher, which comes as no surprise. After reaching an 0-2 count, Major League hitters so far in 2010 have batted .172/.203/.254. It is a simple formula: get ahead of hitters and things get easier for you. To that end, it was worth keeping an eye on which pitchers have been most effective at reaching that intermediary step in retiring hitters.

I limited my first look to starting pitchers with at least 100 batters faced on the season. If anyone needed another example of the supernova arrival of Stephen Strasburg then here is one more: Strasburg leads all starters with 29% of his batters faced ending up in an 0-2 count. Among those with a larger sample size comes runner up Cliff Lee at 28.3%. Obviously, Strasburg is a strikeout fiend and Cliff Lee could throw a beach ball through a pinhole so their high placement comes as no shock.

When it comes down to it, I expected a list of pitchers proficient at getting into 0-2 counts would correlate well with a list of pitchers sorted by strikeout to walk ratio. For the most part, that expectation was borne out. There were, however, a few notable exceptions that I found interesting. Among pitchers with stellar ratios, Roy Halladay (74th of 173), James Shields (94), and Zack Greinke (99) were much further down the 0-2 count list than seems fitting for such pitching profiles.

Conversely, Wade Davis (27), Joe Saunders (37), Gio Gonzalez (52), and Clay Buchholz (53) were much higher up on the 0-2 scale than their strikeout and walk rates would have suggested. Joe Saunders might be the least surprising of this group of four given his reputation for going 0-2 on hitters and then inevitably ending up in a full count due to his lack of any out pitch.

What does it all mean? I don’t propose that there is some grand insight here. Rather, I find it to be another perspective, another cross section on the battle between hitter and pitcher in each at bat. The top and bottom ten are produced below.

TOP TEN
Stephen Strasburg
Cliff Lee
Phil Hughes
Josh Johnson
Roy Oswalt
Scott Baker
Clayton Kershaw
Carlos Silva
Hisanori Takahashi
Homer Bailey

BOTTOM TEN
Justin Duchscherer
J.D. Martin
Dana Eveland
Brian Tallet
Mitch Talbot
Brian Bannister
Brian Moehler
Brian Burres
Doug Davis
Carlos Monasterios

I have not been posting much lately and that is because my usual writing slot is the late night shift, a shift that does not do well with my recent fortnight of 4am west coast wakeups in order to be up and sprightly for World Cup soccer. I am not the world’s biggest soccer fan, not even close. I support my local team, but do not follow an adopted European team or anything.

I feel both a sort of kinship between being a soccer fan and being a baseball fan and at the same time a complete separation between the two. Soccer supporters are known for rowdiness while baseball fans have become a sedate bunch. Baseball offers an endless about of quantifiable information while soccer is all fluid. However, both sports seem to have boredom listed as their number one distraction. This despite the average baseball game has more game action than the average football game and despite soccer having that ever-running clock.

What it comes down, I think is that any sport seems boring unless you have some sort of interest in it, no matter the inherent quality of activity that is going on. Car racing is almost non-stop action, but I cannot stand watching it. Basketball has tons of scoring but I watch the final three minutes take 20 minutes to play and I’m cursing at the TV set for the teams to stop calling timeouts and just play. I know I am not alone and I know there are people out there literally 180 degrees different.

I think going from soccer neophyte to genuine soccer fan has made me consider what gets me, and possibly others, interested in a sport. I believe there is a tendency to end up entrenched in strong opinions about areas that we have little expertise in. A belief that opinions on matters should be formed instantly and then never changed. Sports radio might be to blame, or media in general, or thousands of possible influences.

Regardless, we should all strive to open ourselves up more. Not just reconsidering viewpoints that we didn’t agree with, but also to viewpoints that didn’t agree with us. Baseball is boring many people say. We don’t think so. We find endless avenues in this game to fascinate us. Next time somebody criticizes the sport, consider sharing what you love about it. What is it about baseball that gets you to watch every day?

Overview

For a little while, it seemed the Oakland Athletics could emerge as the victors from 2010’s AL West survivor pool. At the close of May, the A’s were 28-24 and led the division. They have gone 6-16 since and now sit over ten games back and without the sort of talent advantage that would allow them to make up such a deficit.

Buy or Sell?

The answer then is to sell, though Billy Beane has long been anything but predictable. The next question is what to sell, and, like the Mariners, the A’s lack a plethora of sought-after assets. After the seemingly obvious Ben Sheets, nearly all the players that would be interesting to other teams for performance reasons are cherished by Oakland for their youth and contractual status in addition to their solid stats, thus they seem unlikely to go anywhere.

Daric Barton might find himself theoretically expendable thanks to Chris Carter, but Oakland shouldn’t ditch Barton for Carter unless Beane finds himself a steal. Barton is still under a mammoth amount of team control and there is also the DH spot if Oakland wants to get Carter out of Sacramento.

On the Farm

Where Oakland dips into its farm system might depend more on which players are kept around from the 2010 team than on any elite prospects pushing their way onto the scene. Tyson Ross was a name to keep an eye on, but he’s been with the big team all season. 2011 might see him return to the rotation after Ben Sheets’ turn is up. Shawn Haviland might be on the scene sooner than previously expected, but his numbers in the upper minors are still too small to judge.

Chris Carter should be called up sometime soon, but he still needs to provide more value from his bat given his defensive shortcomings. Josh Donaldson could make a similarly valuable, but perhaps underwhelming addition behind the plate for Kurt Suzuki.

Budget

Sticking to a budget of around $60 million each year, the Athletics have an unholy amount of payroll space freed up in the future. Eric Chavez will have his option declined and be paid $3 million for the privilege, which is currently the highest expense on the books for Oakland in 2011. Michael Wuertz is signed for $2.8 million, Brett Anderson for $1.25 million, and there are club options on Mark Ellis and Coco Crisp which both carry half million buyouts but that is it as far as guaranteed expenditures go.

Many of their players are arbitration eligible and therefore will see some raises but it’s difficult to see that adding more than $20 million to the books which still leaves Oakland with something in the vicinity of $25 million to spend in this coming offseason assuming the same budget room. The A’s were never built to run away in 2010, but rather to take a stab at a winnable division but bide their time for the future. They are going to miss the brass ring, but the future still looks intact.

Overview

While the rest of the AL West has played out just about as we predicted it would, the Seattle Mariners have not even come close to living up to their promise for 2010. The Mariners were always a high-risk, high-reward team this season, and the coin landed on risk. A combination that seems equal parts underperformance and poor luck has essentially sunk their playoff hopes for the season. They’re obvious candidates to be selling, but the question is: what is there to sell?

Buy or Sell?

Cliff Lee is the obvious piece but trading him is slightly complicated by the guaranteed draft pick compensation due the Mariners should GM Jack Zduriencik hold onto Lee for the entire season. As Dave pointed out earlier, those draft picks carry meaningful value and require a bigger trade return to make it worthwhile.

Aside from Cliff Lee, David Aardsma is the next most likely pitching trade chip thanks to his closer status and success last year. His crummy 2010, however, will put a damper on any mid-season trade. Everyone else on the Seattle staff is either young and cost-controlled or bad.

The hitting side isn’t any more fruitful. There would be a market for Ichiro Suzuki, but the team would never trade him unless he asked them to and there’s been no indication of anything close to that. Jose Lopez has made great strides defensively and adapted well to his new position at third base, which would have made him a great trade piece if his hitting hadn’t completely deserted him. Chone Figgins might net some interest from teams, but it is excessively premature for the Mariners to consider him a busted signing, especially when he looks slotted to slide back to third base in the near future.

On the Farm

Like most high-profile players associated with the Mariners, Dustin Ackley got off to a tough start with just a .244 wOBA. His 15 walks to 14 strikeouts was a good indicator as was the unlucky looking .180 BABIP, but it was still a disappointment for some. Since May 1, however, Ackley has really picked things up with a .415 wOBA and a remarkable 33 walks to 15 strikeouts. He might get a short look in Seattle come September and will be pushing for a starting job as early as next season.

Michael Saunders appears set to take over left field full time later this season and into 2011 as the Mariners should shift more DH time to Milton Bradley. Another OFer, Greg Halman, has taken a big stride forward at Triple-A.

On the pitching side, Michael Pineda is the big name, currently cruising at Double-A with 73 strikeouts in 70 innings and only 16 walks. What the Mariners lack in big name prospects outside of Ackley, they are boasting increased depth at all levels from what’s shaping up to be a very productive minor league season.

Budget

The Mariners are not going to be able to wade wily-nily into the free agent market this winter, but there’s not a whole lot to be excited about regardless. Current estimates of around $10-20 million in payroll space for free agents and a whole host of positions that need improvement. I would expect Jack Zduriencik to once again be active on the trade front.

A busy news day in baseball. As Ken Griffey Jr. announces his official retirement from baseball, a chapter is closed on baseball’s past. I hope that the blown call on Armando Galarraga’s perfect game attempt helps stimulate the mandate for more instant replay in baseball. If so, today could be seen as the opening of a new chapter in baseball’s future.

I spent my formative childhood years in and around Seattle. For better or worse, Griffey is what comes to my mind first when I think about the Mariners. Edgar Martinez was the better hitter and the consummate professional. Randy Johnson was electric in his own way on the field, but as a starting pitcher didn’t impact every game and he never had the force of personality that Griffey had.

Both of them were loved and even revered, but Griffey is the only player who I have ever seen stop concession sales. When he came up to bat in the 90s, people in line for a hot dog or beer would stop and watch the TV monitors. The lines stood still until the at bat was over.

The lines no longer stood still this season, but thankfully 2010 will eventually fade from memory. So many will remain. Griffey with his father in the clubhouse. Griffey hitting the warehouse in Baltimore. Griffey scoring the run in 1995. Griffey getting carried off the field in 2009. There are countless more.

The rational and calculating part of me is glad that Griffey has moved on. He was hurting the team on the field and that was too bad. On one hand, it is sad that it ends this way. On the other, I can confidently say that we saw every last drop of Junior that he could give us. There will be no wondering about what could have been with just one more year and in the end, I surprise myself by being almost happy that it does end that way.

So long, Griffey. I hope you stay around in some form or another and I will never, ever, forget your swing.