It seems to happen every year — a good hitter gets especially hot in the playoffs and people start talking about how he should get the “Barry Bonds Treatment,” i.e., walking the batter almost every time he is up. It is generally a bad idea to give a free pass to any hitter that often, but if any current player deserves that treatment, it is Albert Pujols. A comparison of Pujols and Bonds as hitters is not quite as interesting as it sounds. Pujols’ highest single-season wRC+ is 185 in 2003; in 1993, Bonds’ wRC+ was 193 and that was only his sixth-best season. What more is interesting is the thought that teams should walk Pujols almost every time he is up. If you are reading FanGraphs, I hope that you know that walking even a Hall-of-Famer-if-he-retires-three-years-ago hitter like Pujols every time is bad strategy. However, Pujols is obviously good enough that opposing managers are justified in giving him a free pass in certain situations. How common are those situations?

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Whereas first base features a few of the top talents available in the coming period of free agency, second base… does not. That is hardly surprising. Second basemen are generally culled from a pool of players from which the best bats generally move to third base while the best defenders go to shortstop. The leftovers become second basemen (or Bloomquist-ian utility players). There are a few impact players at second base, and none of them are going to be available as free agents this winter. However, second basemen have been getting paid relatively little in free agency the last few years, and some of the available players could represent an inexpensive, short-term upgrade for a number of teams. A few of the better options are discussed below.

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Today’s installment of our series on the coming free agent market takes a look at some of the first base and DH options that will be available. While the 2012 free agent class is pretty shallow overall, at first base (and DH, if you include it) there is some true quality and a bit of depth. At the top of the list are an old player, a player some people think will get old fast, and a player some people think is older than he says he is.

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Heard this: over the weekend, Buster Olney tweeted: “Rival executives getting signals that the Reds won’t shop Joey Votto — but that they are fully prepared to listen to offers.” While the tweet does not come close to saying that Votto was up for grabs (“they’re willing to listen, I’ve never heard that before!”), it generated a substantial amount of buzz across the internet. Votto is one of the best hitters in baseball and he is in his prime (he just turned 28). Earlier this season, Dave Cameron ranked Votto seventh in his most recent installment of his annual trade value rankings. What sort of return can the Reds expect if they trade Votto during the coming off-season?

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Prior to last night’s decisive ALDS game, Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland remarked of that Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner “had been really pesky” at the plate. I am not sure exactly what Leyland meant, but I have my own idea about what it means to be “pesky” at the plate. Usually, people mean that a “pesky” hitter is hard to strike out. That is part of it for me. However, when I think of Brett Gardner plate appearances, I think of not only a lot of contact, but a lot of pitches seen in general, both because of contact and simply taking pitches. So, let us say farewell to the Yankees by looking at the five most Gardner-esque, “pesky” hitters of 2011. To the junk stat laboratory!

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…or, “Alex Gordon, Superstar? Part the Second.”

Part One of my long-awaited-by-no-one post on Alex Gordon’s 2011 and future was originally intended to see just how Gordon’s 2011 performance compared to his contemporaries — and recent Royals seasons — as well as to begin assessing his true talent. Well, after more than 1,000 words I only got to the comparison portion, which inadvertently may have given some people the wrong impression of my intent. Hopefully, today’s post will clear some matters up. The key is the in question mark — Alex Gordon seems to have performed (and orated) like a superstar in 2011, but how good is he, really? What is his true talent, and what (if anything) should the Royals be willing to give him in a potential long-term extension?

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[Part Two is now posted here]

Near the end of his miserable 2010 season, Alex Gordon issued a proclamation: “I’m going to dominate next year.” Later in the off-season, Gordon was more circumspect: “What did you want me to say, I was going to do okay?” Understandably, this bit of bravado generated much mockery. After decent-but-uninspiring performances during his first two major-league seasons in 2007 and 2008, during 2009 and 2010 the one-time “next George Brett” endured injuries, demotion, miserable major-league performance when healthy, and a position shift to left field in order to accommodate the next next George Brett Mike Moustakas. (To be more precise, Moustakas is the next next next George Brett, if you count former Royals third baseman and current hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. Mark Teahen does not count. He is the next Jason Giambi, remember?)

Gordon’s 2011 performance received relatively little attention in 2011, but it is safe to say that no one is laughing at him. Although Gordon may not have received the attention that other players in the American League with similar performances, or even of his other teammates having better-than-expected seasons, in 2011 Gordon was a monster. This two-part post will try to put his season in a bit of perspective to get a sense of how good it was, and, more importantly, try to get a sense for how good Gordon “really” is going forward.

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