Here’s the NL version. This morning’s AL version can be found here; the updated reverse engineered Elias rankings can be found at MLB Trade Rumors.

Ted Lilly, Chicago Cubs

Lilly will almost certainly be shopped by the Cubs as they will seek some financial freedom from the roughly $6 million remaining on Lilly’s contract. Although Lilly’s peripherals aren’t great, he has a 3.76 ERA, which could entice some suitors, and there is reason to believe that he can get his FIP closer to 4.00 than 4.50 by season’s end. The interesting question is whether or not the Cubs or a team that receives him in a trade would be willing to offer him arbitration

An arbitration offer can result in a one year salary no lower than 80% of the prior year’s salary – in this case, no lower than $9.6M, and there’s reason to believe that his arbitration salary would be equal to his $12M 2010 salary or higher. Lilly will turn 35 in January, and teams may be leery of that kind of financial commitment to an aging pitcher. If Lilly pitches well down the stretch, though, he can likely cash in on a weak market for SPs next season, and may turn down arbitration and bring his team some valuable draft picks.

Felipe Lopez, St. Louis Cardinals

Last season, the Milwaukee Brewers acquired Felipe Lopez from the Arizona Diamondbacks in a deadline deal as a result of the injury to Rickie Weeks. Lopez had easily his best MLB season between Arizona and Milwaukee, posting 3.9 WAR and a career high – by 30 points – .358 wOBA. The Brewers didn’t have a starting spot for Lopez with the return of Weeks, and they didn’t want to risk Lopez, a type B, accepting arbitration and receiving a contract for upwards of $5 million. Lopez almost certainly would have accepted, given the market for 2B – Orlando Hudson only got $5 million himself, and Lopez had to settle for $1 million from St. Louis.

Lopez’s wOBA has fallen to .338, but still above the .320 level that his career had settled upon prior to last year. He’s an average fielder at 2B and 3B, making him about a 2-2.5 WAR player over 600 PAs. With David Freese at 3B and Skip Schumaker at 2B, there probably aren’t 600 PAs available for Lopez, but there’s probably still enough to make an arbitration offer worth the risk for St. Louis if he remains Type A –

Some other players to watch include Jayson Werth, as Matt Klaasen looked at here, Adam Dunn, and Arthur Rhodes – the type A crop in the National League is thin this season.

Yesterday, MLB Trade Rumors posted the newest set of reverse engineered Elias free agent rankings. Here’s a look at a few notable would be Type A free agents if the season ended today.

Carl Pavano, Minnesota Twins

Carl Pavano’s Type B ranking put the Twins in a win-win situation last year. An arbitration offer would either result in a supplemental draft choice or a low-risk, one year deal with a solid pitcher. Pavano was projected be roughly league average entering the season, but has posted a 3.88 FIP in the first half this year. ZiPS still only projects a 4.20 FIP going forward, but there’s reason to believe that he has recovered from the injuries that plagued his New York Yankees career and can continue to pitch at the level he’s established since joining the Twins in the middle of 2009.

Pavano is anywhere between a 2-3.5 win pitcher going forward, and as such is likely worth whatever he would get in arbitration were he to accept. That seems unlikely given his success this season. If he were to decline, the return on their investment – Yohan Pino, currently with a 4.48 FIP in AAA – could be an excellent 2010 out of Pavano along with two high draft picks. That’s certainly better than most imagined when Pavano was acquired in a waiver deal last season.

Adrian Beltre, Boston Red Sox

Beltre’s contract situation is quite odd. If he reaches 640 plate appearances – very possible, given his 329 PA total after July 4th – his player option for 2011 escalates from $5 million to $10 million. Still, given Beltre’s success this year, with a .373 wOBA and his ever excellent defense, the most likely situation would be for Beltre to decline his player option, becoming a free agent, and, if I understand my contract rules correctly, allowing Boston to offer Beltre arbitration. Much like with Pavano, the Red Sox could truly have a haul with this contract. Either they negotiate long term and get a great player in Beltre in Boston for the next few years, or they pay $10 million total for a fantastic 2010 season and two more high draft picks in 2011. Beltre is certainly making Theo Epstein look good this season.

Beltre, like Pavano, is making the jump from Type B to Type A. The combined value of a first round pick (picks 16-30, as the top 15 are protected) and a supplemental pick is about $7.5 million, according to Victor Wang’s research. Of course, we can’t expect a team with an unprotected pick to sign these players – with that accounted for, the Type A draft picks are valued at around $3-5 million. That’s still a major pickup for these general managers in Pavano and Beltre, on top of the solid production from each.

There are, of course, many other Type A’s in the AL who will be hitting the market. A.J. Pierzynski could be the next Jermaine Dye; Cliff Lee and Carl Crawford will certainly demand huge contracts. Victor Martinez’s contract will run out. Johnny Damon is projected as a Type B at the moment but is very close to A classification. For anyone interested in the free agent market, these rankings will be important to watch as the season winds down.

There’s no denying that Chris Coghlan produced in his rookie year for the Marlins. He posted a .321/.390/.460 line that took him straight to the top of the NL Rookie of the Year ballot. However, the sustainability of this kind of performance wasn’t obvious by any means. Coghlan was helped out by a .365 BABIP. With an average performance on balls in play, Coghlan’s wOBA likely falls near the league average, which is a poor mark for a below average defensive left fielder, as Coghlan appears to be. That lead to a few doubts about Coghlan’s performance this year, although the projection systems still saw him as an above average hitter. CHONE projected a .357 wOBA while ZiPS was less optimistic at .345.

The pessimistic types looked to be vindicated at the beginning of the season. Coghlan had an atrocious April, posting a .195 batting average without a single extra base hit. He wasn’t walking either; at month’s end, Coghlan’s wRC+ was 26 through 88 plate appearances. Things picked up in May, but not to the point where his hitting could be called productive. Coghlan’s May line very much looked like a possibility for what to expect from him – with a .296 BABIP and 7.1% BB%, Coghlan posted a .262/.304/.369 triple slash line. His strikeouts were up and the walks were slightly down from his rookie season, but this looked dangerously close to what we might expect out of a Chris Coghlan who couldn’t post a .360 BABIP.

Of course, much can happen in a month. Something great happened to Coghlan, as he made major league pitchers look silly for all of June. Coghlan posted a 200 wRC+. Naturally, Coghlan’s success came on the heels of an equally ridiculous .468 BABIP. Still, there were encouraging signs apart from the success on balls in play. Coghlan’s walk rate was up to 12.2% after sitting below 8% the whole season. His power also started to materialize, as he posted a .264 ISO – likely aided by the BABIP, but still encouraging, given his struggles with extra base hits.

Coghlan’s line to date is now .282/.348/.419, which is below what he produced last season, but a .343 wOBA is serviceable for a left fielder. His BABIP for the season now sits at .352. He’s been a little worse this season due to more strikeouts and the lower BABIP, but he’s still a good major league hitter and the reason is still a high BABIP. The longer Coghlan can keep up this high BABIP, the more confidence we can have in projecting a high BABIP for the future, but at this point, we just never know if we’re going to get the April Coghlan, the May Coghlan, or the June Coghlan, or something inbetween. Simply put, Chris Coghlan is still a very mysterious player.

On Wednesday night, the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants announced the swap of Chris Ray and a player to be named later for Bengie Molina. Molina’s purpose in Texas will be to improve the catching situation, which has been brutal thanks to the incompetence of Matt Treanor and the disappointing although underrated season from Max Ramirez.

The only problem for the Rangers is that Molina is not actually an upgrade. Rangers catchers have a season wOBA of .296, mostly thanks to Treanor’s .308 wOBA and Taylor Teagarden’s 33 PAs of .139 wOBA. Max Ramirez has actually had an above average hitting season despite a .234 batting average. Thanks to his 15.0% BB rate, he’s posted a .336 wOBA this season. Bengie Molina, on the other hand, posted a .284 wOBA in the NL due to a complete lack of power, a penchant for fly balls, and possibly the slowest pair of legs in the majors.

Of course, half-season stats can only tell us so much, and it’s possible that we’re missing something about Ramirez, Treanor, and Molina by limiting ourselves to their performance so far. Treanor is likely playing over his head, as bad as that sounds. In 1,000 major league PAs, Treanor’s wOBA is .289, and his ZiPS (R) projection of .298 still leaves a bit to be desired. He does appear to be an above average catcher, according to our own Matt Klaassen’s catcher defense rankings. In those same rankings, Ramirez has been poor behind the plate, but at the plate he projects as a slightly better .306 wOBA for the rest of the season.

That’s certainly a bleak outlook on the catching front for Texas. The addition of Molina does nothing to change that, though. Molina’s .306 projected wOBA is identical to Ramirez’s and doesn’t account for the move to the better league. At best, the movement to the AL could be cancelled out by the move to the hitter’s park in Arlington, but there’s also a good chance that Molina’s poor performance will only be exacerbated by the tougher pitchers in the American League.

Molina’s defense and baserunning also leave much to be desired. Bengie ranks 82nd of 90 catchers in the aforementioned defensive rankings, at -2.5 runs already this season. His EQBRR, Baseball Prospectus’s baserunning metric, has him as an average baserunner this season. However, he was -4.5 runs last season and -7.1 two seasons ago; the chances that Molina repeats his average performance for the rest of the season are slim. Ramirez is a poor baserunner, as well, but Treanor has been above average in his last two recorded seasons, 2010 and 2008. Due to Molina’s deficiencies behind the plate and on the bases, he provides little, if anything, over Matt Treanor and Max Ramirez.

At least the Rangers didn’t give anything up to get Molina. Chris Ray is a below replacement level reliever, projected for a 4.60 FIP, and will likely perform worse, as he’s struck out 16 and walked 16 batters in 31.2 innings. However, this move likely precludes any improvement at the position. The Rangers also took on just under $2 million in salary when they probably could get similar production by recalling Jarrod Saltalamacchia from AAA. This move is just a headscratcher from Jon Daniels and the Rangers – it seems as if they’re acquiring a name more than anything else.

For the Giants, the return of Chris Ray isn’t what this trade is about. This trade is about finally opening a spot behind the plate for young Buster Posey. Posey hasn’t done much in his first 98 MLB plate appearances, but he’s been very promising in AAA and his .330 projected wOBA would make him a 3+ WAR player with upside. The Giants shouldn’t have re-signed Molina in the first place, but this is a good move by Brian Sabean to unload Molina and his remaining contract now that it’s absolutely clear that he is not a useful player. The Buster Posey era can now officially begin in San Francisco.

On June 25th, the Philadelphia Phillies started Chase Utley at second base and Placido Polanco at third base. On June 30th, a mere five days later, both of these players were on the DL. The Phillies, in their stead, started Wilson Valdez and Greg Dobbs.

The Phillies, last year’s National League champions, find themselves locked in a tough division race. The Braves and Mets find themselves tied atop the Eastern division, with the Phillies one game behind. Entering the season, the Phillies looked like a frontrunner for a playoff spot. Can the same be said now, with two of their key players, including the most talented player on the team, potentially to miss significant time?

Time is likely the main factor here, as the Philadelphia Enquirer reports that the Phillies only know that the two players will each miss “at least two weeks.” Let’s take a look at how much the loss of each player will cost the Phllies.

First off, Placido Polanco will be replaced by Greg Dobbs. Polanco has put up 2 WAR in nearly 300 plate appearances and his season wOBA is exactly equal to his ZiPS (R) wOBA, at .346. It seems fair, then, to consider him a 4.0 WAR/600 PA player – his +5 UZR is right in line with his career +10 UZR/150 at 3B. Dobbs was DFA’d just last week, but much of his poor performance can be blamed on a .191 BABIP. He’s projected for a .323 wOBA – just below average – with below average defense (-7 according to CHONE’s defensive projections) at third. Dobbs projects as a below average player, at 1.5 WAR/600 PA. With the typical player receiving 4.35 PAs in a game, this difference comes out to only about .025 wins per game. It would take 40 games for Polanco’s absence to cost the Phillies a win, or a little over a month.

Polanco is a good player, but Chase Utley is one of baseball’s superstars. He has put up five straight seasons of 6.6 WAR or more and was well on his way to a sixth before this injury. Utley is projected to do essentially exactly what he did in 2009: a .403 wOBA with fantastic, +15 defense at 2B, which comes out to a 7.5 WAR/600 PA player. His replacement, for now at least, is Wilson Valdez. Valdez doesn’t have any projections in the ZiPS system – his CHONE projection has him as a well above average defender but a terrible hitter, with a .285 wOBA and +6 defense at SS. If we give him +10 defense at 2B, which may be generous, Valdez comes out to a roughly 1.0 WAR/600 PA player. This difference, on a per game basis, is far more significant, at about .05 wins per game. It would only take 20 games, then, or about three missed weeks, for Utley’s absence to cost the Phillies a win in the standings.

The Phillies are still a talented team without Utley and Polanco, thanks to players like Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Jayson Werth, to name a few. Losing the Major League’s best 2B in Utley and a good 3B in Polanco even for a minimum of two weeks, however, will likely cost the Phillies nearly a win going forward, and another win for every two weeks this pair misses. The Phillies were around a 35% playoff probability after last night according to both CoolStandings and Baseball Prospectus. A run to the playoffs certainly looks to be a struggle now, even though Atlanta also lost a major piece in Jason Heyward. It’s hard to imagine after the last two seasons, but right now the Philadelphia Phillies are more likely to miss the playoffs in 2010 than challenge for a third straight National League title in October.

The idea of ranking every team’s power in a context-neutral situation is something that appeals to many of us sports fans, regardless of how we feel about statistics. The idea of listing each team in a descending order, such that if #4 played teams #5 through #30, we would expect #4 to win, has a certain appeal to most people – it greatly simplifies the MLB, complicated by the two separate leagues and the three divisions in each league.

There could be other measures of power besides future play, such as the strength of a team’s play so far, which is what Beyond the Box Score’s Team Performance Index attempts to measure. Sometimes we get numbers that don’t quite match up with the win-loss records that we’ve seen on the field. Yes, the Astros are still bad, but TPI has the Athletics, a sub-.500 team, at #11, and the Angels, a team that was seven games better at the time of the rankings, at #19.

Unless it’s the first week of the season, however, the “subjective” power rankings you see at megasites like ESPN, Fox Sports, or FanHouse are unlikely to do much other than rank the teams by win-loss record and then adjust that for their records over the previous week of games. Take a look at this graph, generated from the June 21st or 22nd rankings from each of the sites listed:

Click to enlarge

The black line represents a ranking of the teams by victories as of June 21st, with victories in the last 10 games as the tiebreaker. The black boxes represent FanHouse rankings, blue represents CBS Sports, and red represents ESPN. Unsurprisingly, there is little difference from the ranking by simple wins and the ranking from the experts and these sites. What differences we do see can likely be accounted for with the biases of the writer(s), whether or not the teams are on cold or hot streaks, and their position within their division.

The idea of the power ranking should be able to set us up with some interesting discussions. At the most prominent places in which they’re seen, however, the power rankings are nothing more but a slightly modified league standings page, with a comment on what happened to the team over the previous week. The ranking really has little to do with how these teams would fare against each other over the rest of the season.

We should be able to do better. My ideal power rankings would simply rank the projected strength of each team for the rest of the season – in that sense, power is actually ranked, unlike simply using wins and volatile streaks to put teams in order. There could certainly be many different methodologies, just as there are a variety of projection systems for individual teams. As long as we can get to something deeper than simply pointing out which team has more wins than the other teams, I’ll be happy.

”There was nothing wrong with the investment. This guy was an outstanding pitcher in the National League, in the game, for the four or five years before that. And there’s no question that the deal was a solid one in the industry. He certainly would have been one of the hotter tickets on the street if that thing went to the end of the season.”

This is Jim Hendry, talking to the Chicago Sun-Times about the Carlos Zambrano contract, which was signed in August of 2007 with free agency looming for the Cubs ace. The $91.5 million contract is now seen as an albatross. Here’s how it breaks down, starting in 2008, via Cot’s Contracts

08:$15M, 09:$17.75M, 10:$17.875M, 11:$17.875M, 12:$18M, 13:$19.25M vesting player option

Given that the option only vests if Zambrano finishes first or second in Cy Young voting in the 2011 or top four in 2012, we can be relatively safe in assuming that the contract will expire after the 2012 season. When we look back at Zambrano’s performance up to and including 2007, was Jim Hendry actually justified in handing Zambrano such a large contract?

Let’s take a look at Zambrano’s 2004-2007, the years that should be the deciding factors in this contract. 2002 and 2003 are far enough removed that their impact on Zambrano’s predicted future performance is minimal.

2004 (age 22-23): 209.2 IP, 8.1 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 3.57 FIP, 3.80 tERA, 3.88 xFIP, 2.75 ERA
2005 (age 23-24): 223.1 IP, 8.1 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9, 3.70 FIP, 4.36 tERA, 3.54 xFIP, 3.26 ERA
2006 (age 24-25): 214.0 IP, 8.8 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 4.14 FIP, 4.44 tERA, 4.20 xFIP, 3.41 ERA
2007 (age 25-26): 216.1 IP, 7.4 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 4.58 FIP, 4.53 tERA, 4.62 xFIP, 3.95 ERA

There’s a pretty simple picture painted here. Zambrano constantly managed to outperform his peripheral numbers, mainly because of BABIPs below .290 every season. Still, he was becoming worse and worse each season, as his ridiculous HR rate in 2004 normalized and as his walk rate ballooned in 2006, followed by a stirkeout shortage in 2007. At 26, there was no reason to believe that Zambrano had already peaked, but the trend is certainly disheartening. Marcel saw Zambrano as a 3.48 ERA pitcher for 2008 and a 3.90 FIP. CHONE was less optimistic, projecting a 3.82 ERA and 4.17 FIP.

If we use Zambrano’s 3.50 ERA as our input for WAR, the deal looks excellent. Over 200 innings, that would be worth about 5 WAR, and in 2008 a marginal win was going for about $4.5M on the free agent market. Even with a discount for contract length, with Zambrano at 26 years old, the contract would pay for only 3.3 WAR. That looks like a major win for the Cubs.

If we use 3.90, close enough to Zambrano’s CHONE ERA and exactly his Marcel FIP, the deal looks like a fair market value contract. That input produces 3.5 WAR, just above what the initial contract calls for.

If we instead use 4.10, the value of Zambrano’s CHONE FIP, the deal becomes a loss for the Cubs, as Zambrano would only produce 3 WAR in the first season.

If Jim Hendry had a legitimate reason to believe that Carlos Zambrano could keep his BABIPs ridiculously low, than there was a legitimate reason to believe that Zambrano would continue to be a 3.90 ERA pitcher or better, which would make the contract a reasonable one for the Cubs. However, given DIPS theory and how successful it typically is with evaluating pitchers, it seems likely that the 4.20 FIP which CHONE projected for Zambrano (and which he actually posted in 2008) was a much more realistic expectation.

Certainly, the case that we see right now with Zambrano is among the worst-case scenarios, but there wasn’t much reason to believe that Carlos Zambrano would produce that well, especially for five years after the contract was signed. It seems to me that Hendry saw too much of the 2004-2005 Zambrano when he offered this contract and not enough of the 2006-2007 version.

On Saturday, the Seattle Mariners acquired Russell Branyan in order to shore up their poor situation at first base. Branyan will replace Josh Wilson and Mike Sweeney, who played there the last three days as the Mariners took on the Milwaukee Brewers in interleague play. Given that the Mariners are currently 31-44 and 15 games out, the playoffs are a virtual impossibility – they just don’t have the talent to catch the Rangers.

The Mariners gave up Ezequiel Carrera and Juan Diaz. Carrera has a meager .318 SLG in AAA this season but has speed to burn and could become a fourth outfielder, possibily in the Joey Gathright mold. Diaz wasn’t among the Mariners’ top prospects entering the season. His .298/.349/.440 line may sound slightly impressive, especially at SS, but we have to remember that High Desert is among the easiest parks to hit in across all of professional baseball.

Basically, Carrera and Diaz don’t look to be valuable players in the Major Leagues, and the best case scenario for both appears to be as bench players in low contribution roles. Jack Zduriencik clearly didn’t view them as an important part of either the future or the present of the Seattle Mariners. There is also no question that Branyan is a major upgrade at first base. Branyan is projected for a .348 wOBA by ZiPS for the rest of the season and has a wOBA above .360 since 2007. Although he has a reputation as a poor fielder, much of that is based on his time spent at 3B. Over a short time at 1B, he has graded out as slightly above average, which is what would be expected out of a below average third baseman who doesn’t quite qualify as a butcher.

So far, the Mariners first basemen are at a collective .260 wOBA, 16 runs below average over 300 plate appearances. If Branyan picks up 300 plate appearances, he projects as a roughly average player (+4 bat, +2 glove, -6 position). Given that Mariners 1B have performed roughly 18 runs below average this season (-16 bat, +4 field, -6 position), the gain for the team could be around two wins.

The win gain we’re talking about here could be from 70 to 72, 76 to 78, or 65 to 67, depending on how pessimistic you are about this Mariners team. It raises the question: what are the value of extra wins to teams at the low end of the win curve? Do these movements in the 60 or 70 win marks matter at all for a franchise, especially to the point where talent, even marginal talent like Carrera and Diaz, should be dealt?

Jack Zduriencik surely believes so. As he told Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times,

But part of that development process is also winning games. We want our players to be able to experience winning games this year. And we’re trying to do what we can to give them what they need to get there.

This development, of course, is conveniently difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. There is also the more quantifiable benefit to present wins of revenue. I certainly believe there is a causal relationship between wins and revenue. Along those lines, Buster Olney suggests that local TV ratings may be a motivating factor for the deal.

The theory behind the Branyan trade – acquiring wins in a down season at a low cost in order to further development and, more importantly, increase revenues – appears solid. What it really depends on is if the Mariners’ evaluation of the prospects involved is correct. If, as the Mariners seem to think, Carrera and Diaz are nothing more than organizational depth, the trade is absolutely the right move, as the wins this season very well could increase potential payroll in seasons to come, and typically, that will mean more wins as well. If it turns out that one of these two prospects is a legitimate Major League talent, then trading that future value for a gain in this lost season is the incorrect move.

From what I’ve been able to figure out about these two prospects, their Major League potential is slim at best. Similarly, their ability to bring in future value in the form of prospects was also slim. Therefore, the present value that Branyan brings, potentially around two wins, is more than enough to justify this trade. It’s not the typical trade for a team in a selling position, and the idea of giving up any sort of prospect for wins in such a lost season will likely rub some people the wrong way. Valuing current wins for bad teams isn’t an exact science – at least, not that I know of – but I certainly believe that the value that Branyan gives to the Mariners is likely to outweigh the value that Carrera and Diaz would, even in their six years of team control, due to their poor prospect status. As such, I consider this trade a victory for the Mariners.

There were a pair of exciting games in last night’s MLB action. Seattle and Chicago produced an extra innings pitcher’s duel behind Felix Hernandez and Ted Lilly. The most exciting game in a NL park had to be this 13-11 thriller from the Red Sox and Rockies.

It certainly didn’t seem like it would be a slugfest from the early going. Daisuke Matsuzaka loaded the bases in the first and allowed two runs to score on a Brad Hawpe single, but that would be the only scoring Matsuzaka would allow in the game and the only runs to score until the 4th inning. The 2-0 lead held by the Rockies held their win expectancy above 70% for the majority of the first three innings, the first of three distinct peaks for the Rockies in the game.

The Red Sox hitters took over in the middle third of the game. Dustin Pedroia hit what would be the first of his three home runs in the game; Mike Cameron doubled; Matsuzaka managed an RBI hit; and Adrian Beltre ended the barrage in the 5th with another home run. By this point, the Red Sox led 6-2, their win expectancy topping out at 90.3% after five innings.

Of course, a lot can happen in four (plus) innings. And happen it did, with the victim being Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima, who was brought in to clean up the bases loaded mess left by Manny Delcarmen. Okajima’s performance wasn’t much better. Todd Helton immediately brought in two runs, and then two out singles from Miguel Olivo, Ian Stewart, and Clint Barmes brought in four more runs to put the Rockies ahead 8-6. The big inning put the Rockies in relative control of the game for the second time; their win expectancy at the end of the inning was 79.6%, topping out at 83.1% after the Barmes single.

The combination of Joe Beimel and Manny Corpas wasn’t enough to stop Boston’s hit parade in the seventh. The left-handed Beimel allowed Pedroia and David Ortiz to reach base before Manny Corpas, in an attempt to stop the bleeding, allowed an RBI single to Beltre and then a two run double by Jason Varitek. The Sox would extend this 9-8 lead to 11-8 in the 8th, as Pedroia hit his second homer of the game, this time off Rafael Betancourt. The Red Sox once again possessed the driver’s seat, this time with a win expectancy of 89.6% after the top of the 8th. Even though Jason Giambi had a pinch hit RBI to bring the score to 11-9 in favor of the Red Sox in the home half of the inning, the Red Sox’s win expectancy was up to 91.3% entering the final frame.

Jonathan Papelbon’s struggles would continue, however, against the meat of the Rockies lineup. Papelbon allowed three straight singles to Todd Helton, Carlos Gonzalez, and Brad Hawpe, allowing two runs to score and the game to tie at 11-11. After Hawpe’s one out RBI single, the Rockies held a 64.8% win expectancy. It would climb no higher, as Papelbon worked through Seth Smith and Miguel Olivo to end the inning.

It was in the top of the tenth that Dustin Pedroia made last night his own. Already 4 for4 including two home runs, Pedroia took to the plate against Huston Street, who has been lights out in his career but was making only his second appearance of the season due to an injury. Pedroia would homer for the third time, putting the Red Sox up 13-11. The home run added another .478 to his already lofty .421 WPA. His final total of .899 ranks third among hitters in 2010, only behind Lance Berkman on June 1st and Jason Heyward on April 18th.

Papelbon would return for the 10th and retire Ian Stewart, Chris Iannetta, and Melvin Mora in order to finish the game, earning the “win.” Papelbon was the 11th of 12 relievers to enter the game; only Scott Atchieson recorded a shutdown, and Papelbon was among the four Red Sox and five Rockies to record meltdowns. As much as this game may be remembered for Dustin Pedroia’s display of power, it should also be remembered as one of the most inept displays of relief pitching possible. Still, there’s no denying the excitement of this game, as it exemplified the ups and downs that can be encountered in the game of baseball.

Discussing balks is different from discussing almost every call made by major league umpires. For balls and strikes, there is an objective rulebook strike zone; for fair and foul, the line is clearly drawn; for base-out calls, if either the player or the base (if a force play) is tagged before the runner touches the base, he is out. All of these plays are objective. However, the balk call is more of a subjective animal.

The balk is dealt with throughout Rule 8 of the MLB rulebook, which deals with the pitcher, but specifically in rule 8.05. Much of it is, in fact, objective, such as 8.05 (f), which states it is a balk when “The pitcher delivers the ball to the batter while he is not facing the batter,” but the comment on rule 8.05 is where the subjectivity comes in: “Umpires should bear in mind that the purpose of the balk rule is to prevent the pitcher from deliberately deceiving the base runner. If there is doubt in the umpire’s mind, the ‘intent’ of the pitcher should govern.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at another play from the Dodgers-Angels game from last night: Brian Fuentes’s pickoff of Matt Kemp in the top of the 9th inning. Watch the video here.

As soon as I saw this play, I felt it was a balk, but feelings were mixed. Given that the balk rule is very complicated – rule 8.05 has 13 subheadings and a comment with two more subheadings – I figured that I should really analyze this closer to make sure. However, I believe rule 8.05 (a) clearly defines this pickoff move as a balk.

If there is a runner, or runners, it is a balk when —
(a) The pitcher, while touching his plate, makes any motion naturally associated with his pitch and fails to make such delivery

First, let’s take a look at a snapshot of the motion in question.

Now, let’s take a look at another Fuentes pitch, this one taken from the final at-bat of the game.

These are two remarkably similar images, and I would say that this for certain violates rule 8.05 (a) and the penalty should be a balk.

There is also a convincing argument to be made that Fuentes violated rule 8.05 (c) as well, after the jump.

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