As part of a critical five-run rally in the bottom of the fifth inning of yesterday’s Phillies-Diamondbacks game, Arizona second baseman Kelly Johnson slugged his NL-leading seventh home run. That leaves him only one home run behind his 2009 total of 8, a career low and a likely factor in the Braves’ decision to non-tender Johnson at the end of the 2009 season.

There are a couple of tools readily available to us with which we can evaluate a player’s home run hitting ability. First, HR/FB%. Simply put, hitters with home run power will hit more of their fly balls out of the park – that’s why Emilio Bonifacio and David Eckstein are at the bottom of the leaderboard and Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard are at the top.

In prior years, Johnson’s HR/FB ranged from 7.5% to 13.8%. In 2010, however, Johnson’s HR/FB is a staggering 36.8% – 10% higher than Reynolds’s 26.0% league-leading rate from last season. Even though this almost certainly represents some luck, it also suggests that Johnson is hitting the ball extraordinarily hard right now.

We can also look at the sheer distance of the home runs that are hit, thanks to the excellent resource HitTracker Online. Again, we see sluggers like Reynolds, Joey Votto, Howard, Nelson Cruz, and Carlos Pena near the top of the farthest home runs hit in 2009.

So far, Johnson’s seven 2010 homers have traveled an average of 411 feet, well above the league average of 398.8 and his personal average of 400.4 last season. His 431 foot blast off of Nelson Figueroa on Saturday was the longest of his career. The “True Distance” supplied by HitTracker adjusts for wind, altitude, and temperature, so the move from Atlanta to Arizona shouldn’t be affecting these numbers.

There’s no chance that Johnson keeps slugging at the rate that he is now, but projection systems have been predicting a breakout for a couple of years now. Johnson is really driving the ball at this point in the season, and the distance of his home runs this year suggest that his latent power may have increased. The addition of Johnson has made the Diamondbacks lineup one of the best in the National League so far, and he will surely be a key to any run the Diamondbacks make in 2010 or 2011.

Ivan Rodriguez has been a staple in the major leagues since 1991, appearing in at least 88 games in every year of his career. However, after 5 straight seasons of below average hitting finally culminating in a .287 wOBA between Houston and Texas last season, it seemed like Pudge’s productive days were over. CHONE, ZiPS, and the fans all projected Rodriguez for a .290 or lower wOBA once again in 2010, and the two year, $6 million contract was trashed by many analysts.

Pudge has certainly shown signs of life in 2010. His 2-4 night against Ubaldo Jimenez and the Rockies on Thursday raised his 2010 line to .449/.472/.592. ZiPS has updated its rest of season projection up to .302 after this torrid start, and the .320 overall season projected wOBA would be his highest since 2006 with Detroit.

However, Pudge has managed to put together this line despite hitting zero home runs and only walking three times in 49 plate appearances – that’s why the rest of season projection is still well below average despite the hot start. Soon, the hits will stop dropping in and Rodriguez’s BABIP will regress toward his career average of .323 – and probably lower, given his advanced age. Still, the fact that Pudge has gotten out to such a fast start does signify that there is still some pop in his bat and that aging hasn’t yet taken a strangle hold over his baseball skills.

Given how difficult catcher is to play, a .302 wOBA could still lead to a decently productive season, as long as Rodriguez can still play some defense. According to our new measure of catching defense, there is no reason to believe that he can’t – since 2005, he’s rated at +22 by our system and was +4 last year. He certainly appears to be able to limit the stolen base, and given his history, I have no questions about his game calling abilities.

Although I still question giving Rodriguez $6 million guaranteed over two years of a waning career, he has shown that he’s not dead yet. Perhaps there’s just enough left in the tank for him to effectively be Washington’s bridge to Bryce Harper.

As has been well documented in this space, John Lannan has defied DIPS theory for much of his career, posting a 3.98 career ERA in 438.2 career innings despite a 4.83 FIP and a 4.65 xFIP. Lannan doesn’t strike out many batters (4.58 career K/9) and walks too many (3.41 BB/9) to be considered an elite control pitcher. His only redeemable quality as a pitcher is his extreme ground ball rate – 52.7% for his career to only a 29.0% fly ball rate.

Through three starts, Lannan’s peripherals had dipped to a career low level – in particular, his K/BB was a staggeringly low 0.78. Thanks to his inability to control the strike zone or get batters out through any way but a ground ball, Lannan’s FIP sat at 5.69 entering Wednesday night’s start against Colorado.

Things didn’t improve for Lannan, despite a Nationals victory. On the plus side, Lannan only allowed one walk, but he also couldn’t find the strikeout, either. Finally, allowing so many balls in play is catching up to Lannan. On Wednesday, he allowed 11 hits in total, including one homer, and was pretty much knocked around by the Rockies for the whole game.

Lannan just doesn’t have the type of stuff to make batters miss. His career swinging strike rate of 5.8% is well below the league average, and that has dropped to 3.7% so far this year. On Wednesday, he only drew 2 swinging strikes in 106 pitches – only 1.8% swinging strikes. A pitcher cannot rely on called strikes to induce strikeouts, and at the rate that Lannan is drawing whiffs both for this season and for his career as a whole, he likely won’t be able to draw enough strikeouts to be effective.

The ridiculous amount of balls in play that Lannan allows is finally catching up to him, it would appear. It is a long season, and there is time for Lannan to revert to the form that added up to that 3.98 ERA the first few years of his career. As Joe mentioned earlier this month, Lannan has been a bit of a study in DIPS theory for his whole career. What we’re seeing now is much closer to what DIPS theory would tell us to expect from a pitcher like Lannan.

With Ted Lilly’s return from the DL imminent, the Cubs had a decision to make. With two lefties already in the bullpen, the Cubs needed to move one of their right handed starters to the bullpen. There had been speculation abounding that Carlos Zambrano could possibly be the odd man out of the rotation, but few actually believed that manager Lou Piniella would expel him from the rotation over obvious choice Carlos Silva.

However, Piniella surprised us all this afternoon, announcing that Carlos Zambrano would indeed be moving to the pen. That leaves the Cubs rotation with Randy Wells, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, Tom Gorzelanny, and Carlos Silva.

As I wrote earlier this month, I no longer consider Zambrano to be an elite pitcher. However, he is quite clearly one of the top-five starting pitchers in the Chicago Cubs’ staff. Zambrano’s FIP has typically been in the 4.00-4.50, but a good year last year suppressing the home run ball led to a 3.61 FIP, a 3.6 WAR, and his best season in three years. The projection systems saw Zambrano as a 3.90-4.10 FIP pitcher for 2010, and even despite his slow start, ZiPS’s updated projections expect a 3.80 FIP for the rest of the season.

Carlos Silva, on the other hand, has earned a starting rotation spot solely on the basis of two starts. Silva is 31 and coming off of two terrible seasons with the Mariners. None of the projection systems entering the season projected Silva to be better than a 4.64 FIP starter – above replacement level, but far worse than Zambrano, Dempster, or Wells, the other three right handed starters on the Cubs roster.

Not only that, but a move to the bullpen for Zambrano eliminates his greatest asset – his durability. Last season was the only year since 2003 in which Zambrano didn’t throw 200 innings, and he still made 30 starts and threw 188.2 innings. Zambrano’s been worth at least 2.8 wins per season in that time frame, and that’s in spite of his second-tier peripherals. Simply put, there aren’t many pitchers, regardless of their skill, who can throw that many innings year-in and year-out.

Silva, on the other hand, is fresh off an injury in 2009 and also missed time due to injury in 2008. He threw as many innings in 2008 and 2009 combined as Zambrano did in 2009 alone. Not only that, but even in his two excellent starts as a Cub, Silva’s fastball velocity is still 1.4 MPH lower than it was in his 3.3 WAR 2007 with Minnesota.

Carlos Zambrano is simply a better pitcher than Carlos Silva. Carlos Zambrano is simply a more durable pitcher than Carlos Silva. Instead of getting 180-200 innings out of one of his top pitchers, Lou Piniella is instead opting for about 40 to 50 innings from him and then 100 to 150 out of a pitcher who projected as average at best coming into the season. The Cubs’ chances at the division were low coming into the season. If Piniella’s rash and irrational decision stays in place, they become virtually nil.

Along with Heath Bell, Padres reliever Mike Adams forms one of the best closer and set up man tandems in the National League. That tandem was on display last night against San Francisco, as Bell and Adams combined for a +.247 WPA in the 8th and 9th innings of a victory, a victory that came despite the fact that Jonathan Sanchez and Sergio Romo combined to throw 8 innings of one-hit ball.

Adams’s early career with the Milwaukee Brewers was unremarkable. In 2004, his first season, he posted a decent 3.71 FIP in 53.0 IP, but was quickly derailed by injuries in 2005. He played for four different teams in 2006 and didn’t even pitch professionally in 2007.

Adams then resurfaced with San Diego in 2008, and he did so in style, posting a 10.19 K/9 and a 3.13 FIP. In 2009, he improved upon all his already solid numbers, posting a 10.95 K/9, a meager 1.95 BB/9, and a microscopic 0.24 HR/9, good for a 1.66 FIP and 1.3 WAR as a setup man.

After watching Adams pitch last night, his career resurgence isn’t surprising at all – his stuff is ridiculous. Adams posted a 10.1% swinging strike rate in his decent 2004 season, and finally returned to that level in 2008, with an 11.0% rate. That rate jumped again in Adams’s fantastic 2009, all the way up to 14.4%. His combination of a mid-90s fastball with effective breaking pitches makes for a formidable opponent for hitters.

The most remarkable change in Adams’s career is the dramatic increase in swings drawn on balls out of the zone. In his first 55 innings, Adams only drew a “chase rate” of 14.8%. Now, Adams ranks in the top 25 relievers in the game, drawing chases on nearly 30% of balls out of the zone. Despite actually throwing fewer pitches in the strike zone, Adams has managed to increase his strikeouts and decrease walks and solid contact allowed with deceptive pitches.

There is a definite chance that Heath Bell will be on his way out of San Diego by this season’s trading deadline. If so, the Padres won’t see much of a drop off from the closer position, as Adams has taken his stuff to a new level in San Diego.

With the game tied at two in the bottom of the tenth, Giants manager Bruce Bochy’s greatest concern was likely Adrian Gonzalez, the man in the on-deck circle at the beginning of the inning. He probably hadn’t even considered the possibility that the game would be over before he even reached the plate.

David Eckstein cared not for improbability on Monday night, as he homered down the left field line off Jeremy Affeldt to win the game for the Padres. It was Eckstein’s first home run of the year and only his 10th since 2006, when he was a member of the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Eckstein never really had power, but his ability to hit home runs has disappeared since 2005, a season in which he hit 8 home runs and put up a career high .102 ISO. Since then, he’s averaged a home run every 199 plate appearances. A move to PETCO park, where last night’s home run occurred, certainly hasn’t helped the power-starved Eckstein, who saw his HR/FB% fall to a career low 1.3% last season as a Padre.

Not only that, but Jeremy Affeldt is an extreme ground ball pitcher, with a career 48.9% GB rate and a ridiculous 65.0% GB rate to 18.5% FB rate last season, and his GB rate has been above 50% since 2007. Over the last three years, Affeldt has allowed a 26.2% FB rate, and Eckstein has a 29.7% FB rate. Given the league average FB rate of 36.7%, using the crude estimation Expected = (Offense + Defense – Average) – used in The Book – we would expect Affeldt vs. Eckstein matchups to end in a fly ball only 19.2% of the time. Then, given Eckstein’s 1.9% HR/FB over that time frame, we would expect this matchup to end in a home run only .003648% of the time, or roughly 36 out of every 10000 times. With PETCO Park’s .86 HR park factor, that falls to 31 out of every 10000 times.

Of course, you already knew that Eckstein’s home run was unlikely. Still, I think events like these are fascinating. Personally, I think one of the most remarkable things about major league hitters is that even those that we consider not to have any power, such as Eckstein, are capable, on any given pitch, of hitting the ball out of the ballpark. Eckstein just happened to hit his in a clutch situation against remarkable odds.

Game time: 11:05 ET

Starting Pitchers
Rays: Jeff Niemann (R)
2 GS, 8.1 IP, 3 K, 1 BB, 2 HBP, 1 HR, 4.94 FIP, 5.34 xFIP.
Projected FIP: 4.13 (FAN) 4.61 (CHONE) 4.67 (ZiPS)
L-R Splits: 0.20 run reverse split in 205.0 IP

Red Sox: John Lackey (R)
2 GS, 12.2 IP, 5 K, 6 BB, 1 HBP, 0 HR, 3.88 FIP, 5.50 xFIP
Projected FIP: 3.74 (FAN) 3.90 (ZiPS) 3.96 CHONE 4.18 Marcel
L-R Splits: 0.21 normal split in 1513.2 IP

The Red Sox will be looking to avenge three straight losses to the Rays and four straight overall. They appear to hold the pitching advantage in the last game of this four game set, as John Lackey will take the mound for the Red Sox. Although his 1.42 ERA looks great right now, Lackey has had some issues with control so far, issuing 6 walks against only 5 strikeouts. The ERA is a result of keeping the ball in the ballpark, as we can see from his high xFIP.

Lackey appears to have a completely new approach this year, as he has taken to throwing a cutter – 38% of his pitches have been classified as a cutter so far this year, a pitch with significantly less movement towards a right-handed hitter than his four-seam fastball. His cutter is averaging 89.5 MPH on the year, so far a significant drop off from the 91.6 he averaged on his go-to four-seam fastball last season. He hasn’t completely scrapped the four-seamer – he still uses it over 20% of the time – but the average velocity appears to be lower, sitting at 90.2. It’s very early in the season, but he’s only drawn 6 swinging strikes in 207 pitches – a paltry 2.9%. That number will need to rise for Lackey to be effective as the season continues.

Niemann, similarly, has a low ERA in his first two starts despite poor performance. Niemann hasn’t managed to strike batters out as of yet, and although a 1.08 BB/9 looks nice, he also has hit two batters in only 8.1 innings. His first start ended abruptly, as he was hit on the shoulder by a Miguel Tejada line drive.

Much like with Lackey, the use of a secondary fastball – in this case, a two-seamer – appears to be much more prominent in Niemann’s repertoire this season. Unlike Lackey’s cutter, Niemann’s two-seamer exhibits a sharper break towards a right-handed batter. In his April 13th start against Baltimore, the two-seamer drew 2 swinging strikes in only 27 pitchers, for a swinging strike rate of 7.41%. If his breaking pitches can draw more swinging strikes – only one between 33 changeups, sliders, and curveballs – an increased whiff rate on his fastballs should lead to more strikeouts and, naturally, more success for the second year pitcher.

Neither pitcher exhibits a strong platoon split, and so neither team should be looking to stack the lineup with lefties. Expect the normal lineups for each team today.

The CHONE projected standings originally showed the Red Sox 5 games ahead of the Rays for the AL Wild Card. The FAN projections showed the Rays as within 2 at the start of the season. With the Rays taking the first three games of this series at Fenway Park, the Rays have closed the gap. This is an important game for the AL East and Wild Card races, even though it’s only April, as each team needs all the ground it can get.

Late on Thursday, the Toronto Blue Jays agreed to acquire Fred Lewis for a washing machine.

Lewis had reached the end of a minor league rehab start, and as such the Giants needed to either open up a 25-man roster spot for him, place him on waivers, or trade him. The Giants will actually be receiving either cash considerations or a player to be named later.

Lewis is pretty clearly a Major League quality player. In 1,048 plate appearances in the major leagues since 2006, Lewis has recorded a .277/.355/.420 line, showcasing good plate discipline and slightly below average power. His 109 wRC+ suggests an above average player. 2009 was a down year for Lewis, however, as his ISO dropped from .158 to .132. As a result, his wOBA and wRC dropped to .327 and 98 respectively, the first year in which he has been below average in either statistic. The projection systems see him as slightly above average this year, and ZiPS in particular expects a return to 2008 levels.

Defensively, both UZR and +/- are fans of Lewis, despite his poor reputation among Giants fans in Tom Tango’s Fan Scouting Report. Both systems have Lewis between +9 and +11 over his 326 game career, which would still make him a below average position-neutral defender over 150 games.

Overall, not only does that make Lewis an MLBer, but it makes him nearly an average player. There is no way that Lewis is only the 6th best outfielder on the Giants roster. Aaron Rowand is projected to have a similar or worse year. Nate Schierholtz has similar projections. Andres Torres is 32 and projected to be well below average at the plate by both CHONE and ZiPS – Marcel’s projection is only operating on 181 ML plate appearances since 2007. Eugenio Velez has put up 201 games of replacement level baseball in his career so far, and the projections don’t see improvement in his future – only a data-starved Marcel projects a wRC+ greater than 90.

Still, it’s possible that the Giants know something that isn’t in these stats. Perhaps UZR and +/- are completely wrong on Lewis’s defense. Maybe he’s a clubhouse cancer, or maybe his injury troubles are worse than they seem on the surface. Even if all of those things are true, though, there’s no way the Giants found maximum value for Lewis’s talents. Hitters with a .355 career OBP and a walk rate over 10% don’t just grow on trees, and especially not those still drawing a pre-arbitration salary. Somebody must have at least had a grade B prospect they would have been willing to part with for Lewis, and if not, then there’s no reason to get rid of him when Torres and Velez are still on the team.

For the Blue Jays, this is an immediate upgrade over Jose Bautista, a player projected for a mid-90s wRC+ and poor defense in the corners – a combination that results in roughly replacement level production. The Jays have acquired a player who could potentially become an asset and a contributor for essentially no cost. The risk is minimal, and a potential reward is there. For the Blue Jays, this is a no-brainer, and for the Giants, it’s a head scratcher.

With the Diamondbacks early season schedule, tomorrow will be the first game which requires the fifth starter. After giving two starts each to Dan Haren, Edwin Jackson, Ian Kennedy, and Rodrigo Lopez, Arizona will hand the ball to Kris Benson for their 9th game of the season.

Benson threw 22.1 innings of below-replacement level baseball in 2009, his first major league action since 2006, with Baltimore. His minor league performance wasn’t terribly encouraging either, as between 2008 and 2009, he pitched 129 innings in Triple-A, giving up an FIP above 4.00 and and ERA above 5.00. The last time Benson was truly productive was in 2004, when he allowed a career low 6.2% HR/FB rate and posted 200 innings of a 3.75 FIP, good for 3.8 wins.

Due to his poor performance in the minors and lack of performance in the majors in recent years, projections are not kind to Benson. The 5.37 and 5.31 FIPs projected by CHONE and Marcel, respectively, seem optimistic when compared to the 6.03 projected by ZiPS. Simply put, the projection systems do not believe that Benson is a major league pitcher.

The other option is Billy Buckner, a 26-year-old righthander. Buckner was impressive in Triple-A in 2009, striking out 8.4 batters per 9 innings in 103 innings of 3.31 FIP baseball. On the surface, Buckner looked bad in 77 major league innings (6.40 ERA), but a 63.2% strand rate, 16.7% HR/FB rate, and .347 BABIP suggest poor luck. Buckner still carried a respectable 3.07 K-BB differential and induced a high rate of ground balls at 48.8%.

Buckner’s solid performance in both leagues results in all the projection systems favoring him over Benson, with projections ranging from 4.46-4.63 in FIP. That makes Buckner a slightly below average starter in the NL – worth nearly 2 wins in 200 innings. Buckner had a rough spring, allowing 21 earned runs in 18 innings, but his peripheral line of 18 Ks, 8 BB, and 4 HR doesn’t suggest that he’s nearly that bad of a pitcher, even ignoring the obvious issues with spring training numbers. Still, a 5 IP, 10 H, 7 ER performance in his first minor league start doesn’t exactly instill the front office with optimism.

It’s likely that Buckner’s poor spring and first start is what has deterred the front office from Buckner and towards Benson, whose first minor league start was a five inning scoreless outing. However, it doesn’t appear, based on their recent performance, that Benson is likely to outperform Buckner this season. Billy Buckner should be taking the mound for Arizona today.

After Brian Matusz struck out Willy Aybar in the 8th inning of last night’s Rays-Orioles game, Matusz was probably feeling pretty confident about leaving the game with a win. At the time, the Orioles led the Rays 3-0, and with only 5 outs remaining in the game, the Rays’ chances of winning were slim – 5.5%, to be exact.

Similarly, Brian Bannister had to feel good after recording the first out of the seventh inning. At the time, Bannister’s Royals led the Tigers 5-0 with only 8 outs remaining for Detroit. The Tigers’ chances at the time sat at a mere 2.9%. Even though Bannister allowed a run at the hands of Gerald Laird before exiting the game, the Royals’ win probability was still over 90% when he was replaced by Roman Colon.

Naturally, I wouldn’t be mentioning either of these situations if the improbable hadn’t occurred – neither Bannister or Matusz recorded a win, and in both cases their teams lost.

The Royals’ bullpen worked with remarkable efficiency to blow the lead. Colon gave up two doubles to only one out in the three batters he faced, allowing the Tigers to close the gap to 5-3. Dustin Hughes gave up a single and a walk to load the bases, setting the table for Juan Cruz. After a walk to Miguel Cabrera closed the gap to 5-4, Cruz finished the job by allowing a two run double to Carlos Guillen. By that point, the Tigers’ win probability had skyrocketed to 79.2%, a gain of 76.3% in merely 8 batters. The Tigers managed to hold the lead, and the game finished with a score of 6-5.

The collapse of the Orioles in the 8th was also quite rapid – Jim Johnson immediately recorded an out after replacing Matusz, but then combined with Will Ohman to allow 3 straight run scoring hits to Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, and B.J. Upton. The hits combined for 4 runs, and put the Rays up by a score of 5-3, boosting the Rays win probability up to 85.3%. The Orioles hitters nearly reclaimed the game, however, as Luke Scott tied the game with a two run shot in the bottom half of the inning. Ohman and Cla Meredith combined for a quiet 9th inning, and a Nick Markakis single brought Baltimore back to a 72.4% chance to win, but the Orioles bullpen just wasn’t deep enough to handle the Rays in the 10th. Carlos Pena sealed the game for Tampa Bay with a 3 run shot off of Matt Albers. Rafael Soriano managed to save the game, despite a solo home run by Ty Wigginton, and the Rays won 8-6.

After dominating the majority of the game, both the Orioles and Royals were let down by their bullpens. The odds of both comebacks happening on the same night are a mere 0.16% chance – we would expect two comebacks of this magnitude to happen on the same night only about 0.25 times per season. Tuesday’s heroic comebacks (or unbelievable choke jobs, depending on your perspective) certainly provided us with some entertaining baseball, possibly on a level we won’t see again this season.