The Giants picked up Jason Schmidt's 2006 option yesterday for 10.5 million dollars. Over the past 4 or so years, he has been one of the better pitchers in baseball with a winning percentage of 69%. That puts him at the 6th best in baseball for that same time period. The only knock against him is that he can't pitch an entire season without getting injured at least once. It will come as no surprise then, if I tell you over the past 4 years he is 3rd in pitches thrown per start.

If you take a look at his strikeouts per 9 innings, he reached a 4 year low. I'm not too concerned about this since it still sits at an excellent 8.6. The real drop off came in the free base department.

As you can see, he allowed more walks per 9 innings last year than he had since the 2000 season. Why did he have such a down year in 2005? Could it be the fact that he threw the most pitches per start of any pitcher in all of baseball in 2004? In 21 starts before his injury that year, he averaged a whopping 120 pitches per start. He did have a decreased workload last year, down nearly 600 pitches from the year before. Hopefully he'll come back next year well rested, but the Giants might be wise to put him on a strict pitch count. I think if he can stay healthy and relatively fatigue free for an entire season he has the ability to be a serious Cy Young contender.

Congratulations to the White Sox for winning their first World Series since 1917. Before I go onto the usual daily graphing, I feel it necessary to rant about the headline pretty much everyone chose to use for the White Sox win, “Say it's So!” or its wordier cousin, “Say it IS So!” I actually saw this same headline being used when they made the World Series, and now it's being used again, and again, and again…. The worst part is, this play on the now famous cry of a small boy in reference to the 1919 White Sox scandal never actually happened. Rant over. Let's take a look at B.J. Ryan.

Free agent B.J. Ryan was given the Orioles closers job last year and he thrived in it. He converted 36 saves out of 41 chances, a solid 88% successful conversion rate. More importantly, he kept his strikeout rate ridiculously high for the second season in a row.

Of all active players, his 2005 K/9 of 12.79 is the 11th highest of any other single season. That puts him in the elite company of Eric Gagne, Brad Lidge, and Billy Wagner to name a few.

To go with a career high strikeout rate, he also managed to get his walks down to a career low. As you can see from the BB/9 graph above, there's still room for improvement here. The only weird thing is his high Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) of .337. I don't exactly know how to explain it, but it could have to do with the Orioles defense. Whatever the reason may be, it's quite possible he hasn't reached his ceiling yet. Barring injury, he should be worth every penny he gets.

I'm sick of hearing how baseball playoff games are too long. If it were up to me, game 3 would still be in progress right now (that would put them right around the 48th inning). I wonder who would be pitching in the 48th inning of a game, perhaps Ozzie Guillen? In any event, Brandon Backe will take the mound tonight in game 4 of the World Series as the Astros try to avoid a White Sox sweep. He actually pitched pretty well in his last start, giving up only 2 hits in 5.2 innings while striking out 7 and walking 3. Looking at his season as a whole he's been incredibly inconsistent.

Taking a look at his walks per 9 innings, things started off quite well for Brandon Backe, but then he literally went off the charts. This is not a good thing on the walks graphs. He had thrown 1,050 pitches on the year before he went on his walk frenzy. Guess how many pitches he threw the entire year before? 1,102. That was the most he had ever thrown in the majors and it was over the course of an entire season. Now he had equaled that total in just 2 months. After he went on the DL with a strained rib cage and missed all of August, he seemed to get his walks under control again.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about his strikeouts per 9 innings which has drifted down the entire season. All signs point to him being a little overwhelmed with his workload. It will be interesting to see if Brandon Backe can build up the durability to be able to pitch a consistent 200 inning season.

Guess what? Another White Sox player. I keep expecting them to stop winning, but it just isn't happening! Anyway, onto Jon Garland who had a career high 18 wins and a career low 3.50 ERA. He doesn't exactly have overpowering stuff so perhaps we need to put him in the category of crafty lef… righty?

If you take a look at his strikeouts per 9 innings, you'll see he's been consistently unable to strike batters out. He's made up for this by limiting his walks to just under 2 per game.

Just goes to show what keeping runners off base will do for you. This isn't the only thing Jon Garland has going for him. Remember just a second ago when I called him a crafty righty? That's because batters can't seem to get hits off him even when they do make contact.

His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) from year to year remains remarkably low, and this season it was his lowest ever. Actually, since he's entered the league in 2000, he has the lowest BABIP of any right handed starter. The only pitcher who has a lower BABIP than him is Barry Zito (that doesn't surprise me).

The skeptic in me says there's no way Jon Garland can repeat last season, but I have to say as long as he can keep his walks down like he did this year, there's no reason he can't continue to be a reliable inning eater.

After a solid season last year, it looked like Juan Uribe might be ready to breakout. Looking at his final year end numbers, it really looks like he took more of a step backwards. The graphs however tell a slightly different story.

His BB/K ratio has been on a steady rise since the middle of the season. I find a steady improvement more encouraging than a random spike (even though I haven't done the research to prove it).

Looking at his Isolated Power (ISO), it's quite clear he can still hit for power but he experienced several major power outages throughout the season.

Fortunately for the White Sox, the good play Juan Uribe exhibited towards the end of the season has continued well into the post season and I truly believe he's one of the unsung heroes of their current run to the World Series title.

With the entire baseball world talking about Bobby Jenks' 100 mph fastball, Neal Cotts made the two most important outs of last nights World Series opener by striking out Morgan Ensberg and the red hot Mike Lamb with the tying run on 3rd base. Even though he's had a great season, posting a 1.94 ERA in 60 plus innings, did you know his once excellent strikeout and walk rate have been in a downward spiral since the All-Star break?

His rolling K/BB ratio has fallen so low, it's now in the bottom 20%. That's not the stat of a pitcher you want to rely on in the World Series. How has he kept his ERA so low then? His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) sits at .248. That is not something any pitcher can expect to sustain.

The good news is, he's been able to keep the ball in the park, giving up 1 (yes, a single home run) all season long. Chances are that's probably not sustainable either. Even though he's a ground ball pitcher, he's far from being an extreme ground ball pitcher.

It's really unfair to say Neal Cotts has been succeeding with smoke and mirrors the entire season since he really was quite good during the first half, but the second half I think it's safe to say he was more lucky than good. Perhaps last night was the start of a reversal in his falling strikeout rate and rising walk rate.

For tonight's World Series opener it appears Jeff Bagwell will be the designated hitter for the Houston Astros. Since coming back from shoulder surgery, he has 4 singles, 1 walk, and 3 strikeouts in 18 plate appearances. Not much of a sample size there, so it's going to be tough to gauge how well he'll do. One thing's for sure, Jeff Bagwell's power is pretty much gone.

Even though he probably won't be hitting too many home runs (or doubles, or triples), if he really is healthy, he can still be a valuable player by getting on base.

Throughout his career he's been one of the elite players at getting on base and even as age sets in he continues to be in the top 20%. I think just getting on base this World Series is going to be extremely important with such solid pitching on both teams. If Jeff Bagwell can make the White Sox pitchers work a little bit harder, it could be the difference between winning and losing in what should be a series full of low scoring games.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the reason for Brad Lidge's NLCS game 5 blown save. One of the most common answers to that one blown save has been, “he's overworked”. Let's see if the numbers will back it up.

Here we have a graph of the number of pitches he's thrown comparing it towards his K/BB ratio for all of 2005 including the playoffs. There's no doubt that he has been worked harder recently than any other time this year. It also kind of looks like a higher work load does have an effect on his K/BB ratio, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think it's a whole lot to worry about. His rolling 15 game K/BB ratio has never reached a worrisome level this season.

One other thing of note is that his overall season work load is down from 1475 pitches, to 1138 pitches. If we take a look at his 2004 season, you can see that Brad Lidge has been capable of a higher sustained workload with little to no effect.

I think Brad Lidge will be just fine going into the World Series. He has worked more than usual recently, but he's had a relatively light workload this season and chances are, game 5 was just a hiccup in what should continue to be another stellar post season for the closer.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting that the Red Sox have offered Manny Ramirez to the Mets for Carlos Beltran. If this were to happen, talk about a blockbuster trade! Lets take a closer look at Carlos Beltran since he's coming off such a mediocre year.

There were three areas where he dropped off significantly: walks, power, and speed. The good news is it looks like he showed real improvement in his walk to strikeout ratio towards the end of the season. It's also worth noting that he was not striking out more than in previous seasons, it's that he was walking less.

The bad news is, he never showed any spikes in power for the entire season.

On 5/21 Carlos Beltran strained his right quadriceps. Then he aggravated the injury on 6/10. Finally he had his knee drained on 6/27. It's possible that this injury could have sapped his power. However, it is quite likely that this injury decreased his stolen base output. You can't accuse the Mets of holding him back either since they had the most stolen base attempts in the National League.

I think it's likely that this was just a down year for Carlos Beltran, especially with his lingering injuries. While I think it's doubtful he'll return to near 40 HR/ 40 SB form, there's a good chance that he'll rebound to at least his 2003 season.

Tonight's NLCS game 6 matchup of Mark Mulder vs. Roy Oswalt appears to be an intriguing one. Roy Oswalt has had about as quiet a season any 20 game winner has had. He's been absolutely phenomenal and though he probably won't win the Cy Young award, he deserves to be in contention. Mark Mulder on the other hand has had another solid season winning 16 games, but how well has he really pitched?

Comparing the two's strikeout to walk ratio shows there is little in common between the two pitchers. Roy Oswalt's superb 3.8 K/BB ratio (the highest of his career) shows that he has full command of the strike zone. Mark Mulder on the other hand has really dropped off in the past two years, falling to a poor 1.6 on the season. That is not the K/BB ratio of a great pitcher (let alone an average pitcher), yet Mark Mulder has a respectable ERA of 3.64 for the season.

Mark Mulder's BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) of .292, is a little lower than average, but in a very realistic range, so it's hard to say he's just gotten lucky. Taking a look at his Ground Ball/Fly Ball/Line Drive percentages it becomes quite clear what makes Mark Mulder successful.

He has always been a ground ball pitcher, but he has taken it to the extreme this year. Since the damage done on ground balls is minimal, falling for extra base hits around 8% of the time, chances are any base runner isn't going to get too far. In fact, he ranks 6th highest in ground ball percentage with pitchers who pitched over 100 innings for the 2005 season. Combine 61% ground balls with the good St. Louis defense and you should have a fairly successful pitcher.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'd rather have Roy Oswalt on the mound. He has everything you look for in an true ace, and he's no slouch at inducing ground balls either.