Angels shortstop Erick Aybar always had a pretty slick glove, but in 2008, as a 25-year-old, his bat made noise, too. Aybar showed an all-star level of talent, combining his good defense with a .312/.353/.423 line in 556 plate appearances, picking up 3.7 WAR and ranking behind only Chone Figgins and Torii Hunter and just ahead of Kendrys Morales (before we discovered the lost “s” in his name) and Maicer Izturis.

At the heart of his improved bat, however, was a .332 BABIP. Regardless of the cause — the standard “luck” idea thrown around by many, or adjustments made by pitching staffs, or another explanation — Aybar couldn’t sustain it. His BABIP plummeted to .289 in 2010, the second lowest of his career, and Aybar’s offensive game simply has too many flaws to handle such a drop. He doesn’t walk much (never a walk rate above 6%) and he doesn’t hit for power (prior to 2011, never an ISO above .111).

In 2011, we see Aybar returning to his 2009 levels and beyond, posting a .281/.319/.427 line. The resulting 110 wRC+ even outclasses his 2009 wRC+ of 104, thanks to the league-wide drops in offense. And he’s not even doing it with BABIP. In part, Aybar’s resurgence is due to a return to his old swing-happy ways.

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One has to imagine that Tony Reagins didn’t expect Mike Napoli to end up in Texas when he signed off on the deal to bring in Vernon Wells this winter. But here we are, and Mike Napoli is hitting .312/.411/.613 for the Rangers while the Angels stagnate 3.5 games behind, unable to make a push in recent weeks. Napoli may not be the singular reason why the Rangers are atop the AL West, but with 5.0 WAR bolstered by his impeccable batting line, he’s near the top of the list.

This situation presents is with one of the greatest “what ifs” of the 2011 season: what if the Angels never traded for Vernon Wells this offseason?

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It’s been a pretty solid week for Adam Loewen. First, the newly-converted outfielder gets called up to the majors for the first time since 2008, back when he was pitching for the Baltimore Orioles. Then, on September 7th, he gets his first start in center field and picks up his first major league hit and run to boot. This Sunday, Loewen picked up his first home run and his first two-hit game, and then yesterday he went and robbed a home run from Carl Crawford at Fenway Park. Not bad for anybody, really. Even better for a guy with Loewen’s story.

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We knew the Giants were going to miss Zack Wheeler when they pulled the trigger on the deal to acquire Carlos Beltran. Brian Sabean was sacrificing a piece at the future for the sake of the present. Many of us thought the pain would at least be dulled by a postseason appearance and a shot at defending their 2010 championship. It’s OK, though. We all make mistakes. Myself included:

The Giants’ addition of Beltran should put the NL West title squarely in the bank for San Francisco, as they already hold a three-game lead over a flawed Arizona team. Beltran will replace Nate Schierholtz in right field. The 27-year-old right fielder has been serviceable so far, posting a 109 wRC+, but Beltran has been worth nearly three more wins this season and could be an upgrade of as much as two wins over the next 50 games and change remaining.

Whoops.

Fast forward to September. The Giants have dropped 11.5 games in the standings and, depending on your source, have between a 0.2% and 0.3% chance of winning the National League West. Beltran’s play hasn’t quite been what the Giants were hoping for — the 34-year-old has a .296/.333/.463, good, but not superstar-level — and he’s spent much of his time in San Francisco injured and on the pine, missing 14 games and only playing in 28.

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At the end of August, amid the beginnings of Justin Verlander’s entry into MVP discussions, I investigated his chances at winning 25 games this season, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Bob Welch did it for the 1990 Athletics. Using two methods, I came to the conclusion that Verlander had anywhere from a 5.7% chance to a 29% chance of winning 25 games (although our best estimates likely come on the lower end of the spectrum), assuming he would start five games between August 29th and the end of the season (which looks like it’ll be the reality). Now, Verlander is a 22-game winner, earning victories in his past two starts despite allowing four earned runs in Wednesday’s victory over Cleveland.

A reminder of the first estimate, the absolute upper bound on his chances:

For our first estimate, let’s use something relatively simple. So far, Verlander has 22-5 win-loss record in 31 starts. Verlander has a “start win percentage” of .709, as he’s won 22 of his 31 starts this year.

Using this extremely simple method, Verlander would have a remarkable 36% chance at winning 25 games this year, up from 29% two starts ago.

Now, for the more meaningful method:

The method is based on the Marcel projections featured here — so simple a monkey could do it, as long as he had a working understanding of the SQL programming language.

For a Marcel-type projection, we weight the past three years on a 5-4-3 basis (most recent gets 5, then 4, then 3), and add in two seasons (68 starts) of an average pitcher. Remember, we’re concerned with start winning percentage here, not decision winning percentage. Of the 1,854 games started in the American League this year, 678 of them have been wins. That’s a start winning percentage of only .366 for the American League. That number goes with a .690 start win percentage this year in 29 starts, .545 in 2010 in 33 starts, and .543 in 2011 in 35 starts.

Using this method, we get a winning percentage of .570, slightly up from our .564 from earlier. Using this number, we arrive at an 18% chance of winning 25 games.

Given the fact that this year’s Tigers squad is a bit better than the teams he’s played for lately, we can probably elevate that number a bit. What we really want here is a range of probabilities, and given this data, I would feel pretty comfortable assigning a probability of 15%-25% for Verlander’s probabilities of winning 25 games.

Even in this brave new world of very few exciting postseason races, at least we’ll have something to watch for as Verlander approaches a milestone untouched since 1990.

Four great men from Philadelphia once said, “You don’t know what you’ve got, til’ it’s gone.” In the case of Stephen Strasburg, at least in my case, I think we didn’t know what he had until he returned. Last night, Strasburg turned in a very pedestrian performance by his standards, striking out only four batters while allowing only two hits and zero walks.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I suggest that should Strasburg stay healthy and avoid the problems that ended his first season, he could be the best pitcher I’ve ever seen, and perhaps the best pitcher to ever play the game. He is only 73 innings into his young career, and already we’ve seen more excitement and amazement than many pitchers provide in a career. He already has a 14 strikeout game, a 10 strikeout game, a nine strikeout game, and two eight strikeout games. He’s thrown 100 MPH fastballs and 92 MPH changeups. He’s thrown freezing curveballs and now, Pitch F/X suggests he may have even found a fourth pitch.

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The NL West race isn’t over yet, but unless the Giants can hit the turbo boosters soon, they’ll be left in the dust created by the Arizona Diamondbacks over the past week. After losing the first of a four-game set at Washington last Tuesday, the Diamondbacks swept the final three games, then swept three games against San Diego, and then swept another three game series against Colorado. The Diamondbacks began this stretch with a mere two game lead over San Francisco. They enter this weekend’s series in the Bay with a six game lead, and even if disaster strikes and the Giants sweep, the Diamondbacks will still hold a three game lead for the final month of the season.

It just feels as though — and I’m sure Giants fans agree — the Diamondbacks can do no wrong right now.

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