Early in the 2008-2009 off-season it sounded like Raul Ibanez desired a deal that didn’t exist. After five very good years in Seattle Ibanez wanted a multi-year deal, something that teams didn’t seem to be offering non-stars that winter. For a 37-year-old with poor defensive skills, even a two-year offer seemed unlikely. Yet in December newly minted Phillies GM Ruben Amaro signed Ibanez to a three-year, $31.5 million contract that would keep him in Philadelphia through his age-39 season.

That didn’t sound like a great deal at the time, and the move faced predictable criticism. Defense dominated the conversation, but there were plenty of concerns about Ibanez’s bat. There was no denying his production in Seattle, but it’s tough to project how a player will hit as he reaches his upper 30s. Some players retain most of their skills and continue producing. Others either see a gradual decline or fall off a cliff. The Phillies risked the latter, but Amaro bet on the former. Two and a half months into the season he was looking pretty smart.

Ibanez came out swinging for his new team. In 90 April PA he produced a .485 wOBA, and then followed that with a .427 wOBA in 123 May PA. That production continued into June, as he hit in 12 straight games that month before going 0 for 8 on the 16th and 17th. Those would be the last games he’d play for a few weeks, as he hit the DL with a groin strain. It hurt the Phillies, of course, but it didn’t seem too serious. Ibanez would be back within a month.

As happens any time an older player goes on an prolonged run, steroid speculation surfaces. For Ibanez that came in the form of a now-infamous article on Midwest Sports Fans, in which Jerrod Morris ran some numbers and determined that — well, he didn’t determine anything, really, except that we couldn’t rule out PEDs, something that can be said for just about any player in the game today if you want to stretch the point far enough. It caused a stir that ran right up to Ibanez’s injury.

Upon his return Ibanez hit more like he had earlier in his career and less like the flukey run he experienced in April and May. He produced horribly in August, a .244 wOBA, but he surrounded that with a .375 wOBA in July and a .367 wOBA in September. It added up to the best offensive season of his career, a 379 wOBA. He also came closer than ever before to a World Series victory. There might have been downturns, but Ibanez’s first year in Philly can’t be classified as anything but a success.

In 2010, though, things started off on the downslope with a .295 wOBA in April. That got Phillies fans and analysts talking, of course, but Ibanez did his part to quell the criticism with a .340 wOBA in May. It wasn’t like any month, save August, in his 2009 campaign, but it was still above average. But then came June, which Ibanez started off with a 1 for 17 skid. His 0 for 4 day on June 6 represented a low point, after which his OPS dropped to .699.

That very evening, after the 0 for 4, Corey Seidman of Phillies Nation spilled something he must have been thinking for a while: it was time for the Phillies and Ibanez to part ways. This went beyond mere fan emotion. He went on to cite the myriad struggles Ibanez faced during the year, including a slugging percentage lower than David Eckstein and defense that rivaled the worst corner outfielders in the league. I had a few issues with the premise — for example, Seidman claims that Ibanez had “two great months, one horrible month, and three average months,” even though, as we saw above, .375, .362, and .367 wOBAs are considerably above average — but the point was sound. Considering his defense, age, and recent trends, Ibanez might have been done.

I’m not sure what happened between the games on June 6 and June 7, but whatever it was changed Ibanez’s season. He went just 1 for 3 in the following game, but on June 8 broke out with a 4 for 5 performance. Since June 7 Ibanez has hit .314/.388/.500 in 219 PA. His early season slump comprised 210 PA. Of the 61 hits he has accumulated in this span, 20 have gone for extra bases, including eight home runs. In July he produced a .406 wOBA, and in his first 28 August PA he’s at it again, going 9 for 23 with a double and a homer.

The months of April and June were marked by terrible BABIP marks, .259 and .247. That might have included some luck, though considering the reactions of Phillies fans it didn’t sound like he was striking the ball well. This seemed particularly true in June, when he had a paltry 10 percent line drive rate. In recent months he’s seen his BABIP climb, to .386 on a 21.6 percent line drive rate in July, and a .500 BABIP so far this month. While he won’t keep up those marks for the rest of the season, it has provided him with something of a statistical correction. His .343 wOBA doesn’t look pretty, but it’s far better than where he sat a few months ago.

Through the slumps, Ibanez continued to walk. This year he has walked in 12.4 percent of his PA, easily a career high rate. In April he walked in 16.5 percent of PA, and in May he walked in 12.4 percent. Despite his turnaround starting in early June, it was still a poor month overall, and he walked in just 8.5 percent of his PA. But that shot back up to 12.4 percent in July and is 14.3 percent in August. Last year, in the three months following his injury, Ibanez walked in 12.7, 10.2, and 12.9 percent of his PA, big improvements over his early-season numbers.

In his reaction to the release Ibanez article, Bill Baer hit on an important point:

The 2010 season has been a real struggle for Raul Ibanez and the Philadelphia Phillies, but it is not unique. The Atlanta Braves are wondering if they are ever going to get anything out of Nate McLouth; the New York Yankees have been waiting for Curtis Granderson to find his power; the Houston Astros are trying to find out who took away Carlos Lee‘s offense. Over the next four months those three hitters will, most likely, improve offensively not because someone found a mechanical flaw or they fixed their timing (although that could certainly happen), but because they are simply regressing to their mean. I can flip a coin ten times and get eight tails. If I continue to flip a coin 100 more times, I should expect that coin to come up tails not 80% of the time, but 50% — its true probability. The same holds true for Raul and many other struggling baseball players.

Patience, of course, can be over-extended, and there was a solid case in early June for not granting Ibanez any more time. The Phillies could have called up Domonic Brown then and moved Ibanez to the bench or to the waiver wire. But they saw something, I guess, that gave them a bit of pause. That little pause was the difference between realizing superior production over the past two or so months and having to find yet another player to fill a spot in the outfield.

It has not been a smooth year and two thirds for Raul Ibanez in Philadelphia. He’s faced criticism from all angles, some of it justified, some of it not. Chances are the final year and a third of his contract will play out in a similarly up-and-down manner. His age, poor defense, and, recently, streaky tendencies will not make life easy. But we now know that Ibanez can be a productive player for the Phillies. That might not add up to the $11.5 million he’ll make next year, but it should be good enough as to avoid the mid-season DFA.

When is a top prospect not a top prospect? Dave covered that topic right before the deadline, and he makes an important point. There are plenty of things that can happen between the time when a prospect gets graded and when he gets traded that changes how teams value him. A No. 1 prospect can struggle at a higher level, causing his team to lose a little faith. We saw something along those lines when the Twins traded Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps. Unless the organization egregiously overvalued Capps, they had to have seen something that cause them to second guess Ramos’s potential.

We’ve seen the Dodgers do this a few times, most notably in 2008 and then again this year. At the trade deadline two years ago they traded Jon Meloan, who before the season was one of their No. 8 prospect, for veteran help from Casey Blake. Around the same time they also traded their No. 2 prospect, Andy LaRoche, in the deal that sent them Manny Ramirez. To date neither player has produced at the major league level. In fact, the player the Dodgers most regret trading, Carlos Santana, didn’t even make their Top 10 that year.

Once again the Dodgers were at it this year. To obtain Octavio Dotel, they traded the Pirates their Nos. 1 and 2 prospects from 2009, Andrew Lambo and James McDonald. Of course, both players’ situations have changed since the start of the 2009 season. Lambo had a so-so showing as a 20-year-old in AA. McDonald actually pitched excellently in the minors last year, striking out 11 per nine, but he exhausted his prospect status by pitching 63 innings. He wasn’t bad by any means, a 4.00 ERA, though his FIP, 4.48, and xFIP, 4.78, suggested he might have gotten a bit lucky.

This year both McDonald and Lambo produced poorly. Lambo improved slightly in his repeat performance at AA, but it was nothing that would raise his prospect status. McDonald spent some time injured, but was otherwise so-so in the minors. He didn’t get much of a chance in the majors. Both were seeing their stocks at their lowest, and the Pirates took advantage by dishing an expendable reliever in Dotel for the pair. So far it has worked out in their favor.

Last night McDonald dazzled in his Pittsburgh debut, striking out the side in the first and ending the night with eight strikeouts through six innings. The Pirates took it easy on him, sending up Jeff Clement to pinch hit in the bottom of the sixth with two outs even though McDonald had thrown just 89 pitches and had a 5-0 lead. It was as good a debut as they could have hoped, and it certainly has to give them further hope that a change of organizations is just what McDonald needed to fulfill his potential.

One start, of course, doesn’t mean that McDonald has gone from underperforming top prospect to legit major league starter. It’s a nice first step, but he has a long way to go before he proves the Dodgers wrong about his value. After all, the Dodgers have a decent track record when trading prospects when their values have been low. But for starters, a 0.3 WAR night will do just fine. It might be better than what Dotel produces for them the rest of the season.

For a while it seemed like Jose Guillen was at risk of spending three full years with the same team. From the start of his career, in 1997 with the Pirates, through 2007 he had spend no more than two years and change at any one place. Then, when he became a free agent after the 2007 season, he signed a three-year, $36 million contract with the Royals. After two and two-thirds years, the Royals have designated Guillen for assignment.

Guillen’s history in the league is so long that it makes little sense to describe his journey. Instead, his Baseball Reference page puts it best:

Click for larger

Guillen experienced a breakout season with the Reds in 2003, producing a .423 wOBA through 349 PA to start the season. Cincinnati sat 10 games back in the NL Central at that point, though, and traded Guillen to the A’s in a deal that brought back Aaron Harang. Unsurprisingly he cooled off in the final two months, producing a .330 wOBA in 186 PA. He was set to be be a free agent, and the budget-conscious A’s let him walk.

Guillen surged for his new team, the Angels, in 2004, producing a .361 wOBA, including a high, for him, 6 percent walk rate, in 621 PA. Yet his attitude problems got the best of him by season’s end. Following an incident where he showed up manager Mike Scioscia after getting pulled for a pinch runner, the Angels suspended Guillen without pay for the remainder of the season. He ended up missing the playoffs, in which the Angels lost in the ALDS to the Red Sox.

The Angels got a return on him that off-season, sending him to Washington in exchange for Maicer Izturis and Juan Rivera, both of whom are still with the team. He had a decent season for the first-season Nats in 2005, producing a .347 wOBA in 611 PA. His 2006 season went much worse, a .284 wOBA, and was cut short when he required Tommy John surgery. He then signed with the Mariners and produced a .355 wOBA in 2007 before signing his three-year contract with Kansas City.

On the same day that Guillen’s three-year, $36 million contract with Kansas City was announced, MLB suspended him for 15 games for violation of its drug policy. This was not for a positive test, but instead was in response to evidence that Guillen received shipments of human growth hormone and two types of steroids between 2002 and 2005. Guillen filed a grievance and eventually the suspension was overturned, allowing him to play a full season in 2008. Yet he was back to the production levels of his early career, producing .318 and .304 wOBAs in his first two seasons. He started off the 2010 season hot, a .401 wOBA in April, but as Dave noted, we shouldn’t have expected that to stick. At the time of his DFA he has a .325 wOBA.

Click for larger

As we can see, a few years gave Guillen the reputation as someone who can produce. Why the Royals signed him to such a large contract I’ll never understand. He was coming off a rebound season of sorts, but even then he was just barely crossing that blue line into the good category.

Focusing just on his offensive also ignores just how bad his defense has been. His career fielding component is -59.4 and he has produced a positive number just five times (strangely, including +2.6 this year). This, combined with his mediocre bat, has led to seven seasons with a negative WAR value and another three, including this year, where it was less than one. In only one year of his career, 2005, was he worth as much as the $12 million he has made in each of the last three years.

The move to designate Guillen for assignment likely won’t result in his free agency. Plenty of contending teams have worse bats than him, so chances are the Royals will work out a deal to send him somewhere within the next 10 days, probably on the sooner side. With somewhere around $4 million remaining on his contract he’ll certainly clear waivers, opening a deal to any team. The Royals will almost undoubtedly pay most of what remains on the contract.

I’ve seen comments saying that this move has come a little too late, but that misses the point that it’s a move that shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. There were zero indications that Guillen would produce value remotely approaching his contract. It was a foolish contract signing from the beginning, and the Royals realized nothing from it. His time in Kansas City resulted in -1.2 WAR. If players were compensated with WAR Dollars, he’d owe the club $5.9 million.

When it comes to Nationals pitching there’s plenty of excitement. Stephen Strasburg plays the headliner, but there’s also Jordan Zimmerman, in the minors after completing rehab from Tommy John surgery, Drew Storen, and even Ross Detwiler. In the minors they also have Brad Meyers, No. 7 on Hulet’s Nats prospects list and who, in limited time, has thoroughly dominated AA, though his foot injury has kept him out of action since June 3. With that type of high end in the system it’s easy to overlook potentially solid contributors. Though his MLB career hasn’t looked good to this point, Craig Stammen could be just that.

A 12th round pick in 2005, the Nats obviously didn’t have the highest hopes for him. He never ranked among their Top 10 prospects, and for good reason. His fastball sits at just around 90 mph. While he does carry the staples — slider, curveball, changeup — none stands out. Yet through most levels of the minors he was able to keep his walk rate down, and that earned him a promotion in 2009, after he worked 40 excellent innings in AAA. Yet, unsurprisingly for an unheralded pitcher with no discernible out pitch, Stammed stumbled in his debut season, though his 5.11 ERA was quite a bit worse than his 4.68 FIP and 4.48 xFIP. His low strikeout rate was concerning, but he did keep his walks low, always a desirable trait for a back-end starter.

Stammen’s season ended when he underwent surgery in August to remove bone chips from his elbow, which might have helped explain his 4.09 K/9 after experiencing much better marks at nearly every level of the minors. Might a clean bill of health be the difference between Stammen the mop-up man and Stammen the back-of-the-rotation starter? DC Sports Blog thought so. In a September 2009 post, Sean Hogan wrote:

Looking at Stammen’s AAA and ML rate stats, his K rate has dropped at an alarming pace in 2009, from 7-8 K/9 in each level in 2008 down to 3.15 in AAA and 4.08 in the Majors. I’m guessing it has to do with his elbow issues. If that’s the case, Stammen could be another breakout candidate in 2010, as he is the anti-Martin in terms of luck-his FIP, BABIP and LOB% all suggest he was unlucky in 2009.

In 2010 Stammen broke camp in the Nats rotation, first getting the ball on April 8. The start to his season didn’t go nearly according to plan. He faced Philadelphia in both of his first two starts and managed a combined 6.1 innings, allowing 11 runs on 16 hits with just one strikeout to speak of. He kept the ball in the park and didn’t walk anyone, surrendering one of each, but that didn’t make the Nats look any better. He did recover in his next few starts, but a few more poor starts, including a five-inning, five run performance against Houston on June 1, sealed his fate. He’d be demoted after his June 6 start — 6.2 innings, one run — against the Reds to make room for Strasburg.

We so often see so-so major league pitchers go down to AAA after a stint in the bigs and dominate, and that’s exactly what Stammen did. He pitched 20 innings in three starts, allowing just five runs and hardly walking anyone. His strikeouts were still low, but everything else seemed fine. When the Nats needed another starter later in June they recalled him. He has been in the rotation ever since.

This stint has gone markedly better than his previous. He started with a 7.1 inning, two-run performance against the Braves that included four strikeouts. The Mets knocked him around the next time, and the Giants did a good job on July 10. But in his last four starts it looks like he has hit his stride. While he has managed just 22.2 innings in that span, he has struck out 20, walked nine, and allowed only one home run. They have come against Florida, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Arizona, all offenses that rank above the NL average.

Yet Stammen’s place in the rotation is not safe. Jason Marquis is ready to return following an injury that has kept him out most of the season, and MASN’s Ben Goessling thought Stammen “the logical choice.” Yet Goessling adds an interesting note, especially considering Stammen’s quality outing against Arizona: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 K:

Things will get interesting, though, if Stammen pitches well. He was sharp in his last start and solid in the one before that, and seems to be turning a corner. The Nationals are going to have to make a few of these decisions in the next two months, none of them involving a pitcher in whom the Nationals have invested as much financially as Marquis.

Given his recent performances, it would seem like a mistake to demote Stammen again. His skillset is finally coming together to form a back-end major league starter. He has the first requirement of such a pitcher, a high groundball rate, 49.7 percent this year. His strikeout rate was also markedly higher in June, 6.58 per nine, which is more in line with his minor league totals. The most standout number, though, is his swinging strike rate. Hitters have whiffed at 9.2 percent of his pitches this year, a rate equal to David Price and Phil Hughes. This is encouraging, in that it could eventually lead him to a respectable strikeout rate, making him an even better back-end starter candidate.

Overall Stammen’s peripherals have improved this year. His .320 BABIP has led to a high hit rate, but other than that his peripherals are getting better, especially with his strikeout rate on the rise. His ERA sits at an ugly 5.06, but his FIP and xFIP are much better, 4.14 and 4.16. His strand rate is also pretty low, 64.3 percent. If he moves more in line with league average his ERA could fall a bit.

At 26, Stammen is running out of chances to establish himself in the rotation. This goes especially for a team like that Nats that has plenty of young pitchers who will compete for rotation spots in the coming years. Yet it looks like they might have someone to depend on in the back end. That’s never something to overlook for a team that is going about the rebuilding process slowly and steadily.

Every so often a team has three pitching prospects so exciting that they get a group label. In the 90s the Mets had Generation K. The A’s opened the 00s with the Big Three. Later in the decade the Yankees had a group that announced Michael Kay dubbed Generation Trey. Around the same time the Texas Rangers had their own troika of elite prospects. Their collective name was a bit more clever, as fans turned the last names of John Danks, Edinson Volquez, and Thomas Diamond into DVD. Unfortunately, the fans who coined the name never saw much of those players.

Danks was the first to go. The ninth overall pick in 2003, he ranked among Baseball America’s Top 100 in each year he qualified. Yet his journey to the majors was not smooth. In 2004, he started in low-A, dominated, and got a promotion to high-A, where he stumbled a bit. In 2005, he pitched well while repeating high-A, but again stumbled upon his promotion to AA. The Rangers stuck with the same plan, though Danks again failed to show the stuff of a ninth overall pick at both AA and AAA. Maybe his home run rate that year was the tipping point, but whatever the reason they traded him after the 2006 season to Chicago for Brandon McCarthy.

Next went Volquez. An amateur free agent signing in 2001, Volquez first appeared for an affiliated team in 2003 and worked his way all the way to the majors by the end of 2005. He spent 2006 and 2007 mostly in AAA, though he did manage to get almost 70 major league innings during that span and showed improvement during his second short stint. Still, the Rangers decided to trade him for Josh Hamilton that winter. That left Diamond as the only remaining member of the seemingly indefatigable triumvirate.

A year after selecting Danks with the ninth pick, the Rangers selected Thomas Diamond with the 10th pick. He was another high strikeout guy who had problems with walks, but his stuff was undeniable. Unfortunately, injuries hit him hard. He underwent Tommy John surgery, causing him to miss the entire 2007 season. His 2008 comeback was cut short by an ankle injury and then a shoulder one, allowing him to pitch just 53.2 innings that year. They were not particularly good innings, either, as he walked 37. In 2009, there was hope that he could join the Rangers as a reliever, but he experienced poor results in the minors, walking 44 in 55.2 innings. That September the Rangers designated him for assignment, and the Cubs wasted little time claiming him. They then DFA’d him themselves later that month, but this time he passed through wavers and was outrighted to AAA.

This year in the minors has been a bit better for Diamond. He finally got his walk rate under reasonable control, walking 46 in 104.1 innings (3.8 per nine). Meanwhile he struck out 8.6 per nine and generally kept the ball in the park. That resulted in the Cubs calling him up and putting him on the mound for his major league debut last night. He didn’t fare poorly, allowing three runs through six innings while walking three, though he did strike out 10. It took him 122 pitches to do it, so he still has efficiency issues. But Diamond could be a bright spot on a generally disappointing Cubs season.

The effects of Diamond’s injuries were clear. Once heralded as a guy who could sit 92-94 and touch 97 with the fastball, Diamond just barely cracked 90 mph with his best fastball last night. He averaged 88.4 mph. Yet he threw 45 of 68 for strikes and generated six swings and misses. His changeup, previously rated as above average, also worked for him. He threw it 23 times for 16 strikes, seven of which were swinging. Baseball America noted that the development of a third pitch would be crucial to his development, and to that end he seems to be working in a slider, throwing it 11 times last night for 7 strikes, though no swings and misses.

Other teams might kick themselves for trading way or releasing their three top pitching prospects only to see them succeed, to varying degrees, elsewhere. Danks is an established top of the rotation guy for the White Sox, Volquez impressed in Cincinnati before requiring Tommy John surgery, and now Diamond has a chance for the Cubs. Yet the Rangers have one of the deepest pitching systems in the game. In fact, of their top 10 prospects, per Baseball America, they feature seven pitchers, three of them left-handed. The future certainly looks good for the Rangers.

Yet we’re seeing a trend similar to what we saw with DVD. Both Martin Perez and Kasey Kiker, the team’s Nos. 2 and 6 prospects, have faltered a bit this year. Will we see them turn to the trade market this off-season as they had in the past? Or will we see them a bit more reserved about giving up prospects who have experienced rough years?

The Reds have made the NL Central perhaps the most interesting race of the summer. At the two-thirds mark they’re 60-47, leading the Cardinals by just one win. They’re tied for the NL lead in team wOBA, and while they rank 13th in FIP they’ve realized better results. Their 4.02 ERA ranks seventh in the NL, thanks, at least in part, to their team UZR/150 of 6.3, third in the NL.

They’ve had plenty of help from the expected performers. Joey Votto has established himself as an elite first baseman in a league where there are six first basemen with a WAR of 3 or more, Votto leads the way with 5.1, a full win better than the next closest player. Brandon Phillips, thanks to equally excellent seasons on offense and defense, ranks second among NL second basemen with a 3.7 WAR. Despite missing time, Scott Rolen ranks third among NL third basemen with 3.6 WAR.

Still, it takes more than three heavy hitters to power a league-leading offense. To that end, the Reds have gotten help from Chris Heisey (6.6 wRAA), Ryan Hanigan (4.3 wRAA), and Miguel Cairo (4.0 wRAA). These players have played an important complementary role on offense, bringing above-average production to supplement the star power of Votto and company.

That last name in particular stands out. Cairo is the definition of a journeyman. Just look at his Baseball Reference page. He has played parts of 15 seasons in the majors, landing on nine different teams. He has stayed on no one team for more than three years, and even then he hasn’t done that since his 1998-2000 stint on the Devil Rays. He has played on five teams in the last four years and has changed teams nine times in the last 10 years. In other words, he is the consummate journeyman. Every once in a while he makes a positive contribution to his team, and the Reds are the beneficiaries this time around.

At 36 Cairo is not in the midst of a career revival, but instead is making one last run while he’s still considered an option as a utility player. His .355 wOBA is by far the highest of his career. Last year he produced a wOBA of over .300 for the first time since 2004, and even then it was .304 in 47 PA. Before that he had a .336 wOBA as the regular second baseman for the Yankees in 2004. He hasn’t eclipsed the 400 PA mark since that year. Even this year he figures to clock in under the 250 PA mark, but unlike in years past he has been quite effective.

Like many runs by below-average players, Cairo’s 2010 outburst is BABIP-fueled. It is .328 this year — well above his .292 career average and his highest, again, since that 2004 season. This is due, it appears, to him squaring up plenty of pitches, leading to a 27.3 percent line drive rate. Yet these aren’t the only standout aspect of Cairo’s season. He has walked in 8.1 percent of his PA, the highest he’s achieved since splitting time between Cubs and Cardinals. His power has also hit a high-water mark, a .121 ISO, his highest again since 2004 (and discounting his 47 PA from last year, which may or may not be fair). His .367 OBP is the highest in his career.

At 36, Cairo doesn’t have much time left. There are a few utility men who can play into their late 30s, but Cairo never seemed the type. Like other utility men, he lacks with the bat, but he doesn’t have top-notch defense to go with it. His career UZR is negative at every position except third and first bases, and at third he’s right around league average at best. Chances are he’ll head to free agency again and wait until late January or even February to catch on with a team in need of a utility player, and even then will probably receive only offers for minor league contracts. Still, he’s made the most of his opportunity in 2010, and the Reds are all the better for it. It’s not every day that you see a utility player with the sixth highest wRAA on the team.

Sometimes we see clear-cut winners at the deadline. This year we saw many contenders add pieces for a relatively cheap cost, making most of them winners. Yet we also saw some winners from the non-contention pool. Jack covered one this morning, when he praised the Pirates for their roster upgrades. They sent out four players and received some decent returns. The Indians, too, traded four of their players — Austin Kearns, Kerry Wood, Jhonny Peralta, and Jake Westbrook — five if you count Russell Branyan. Yet it doesn’t appear they got much in return. Would this count as a negative for the Indians?

From the returns on their players it doesn’t seem like much of a win. While they picked up some recognizable names when trading Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez last year, the players they acquired this year hit only the most dedicated prospect maven’s radar.

Giovanni Soto, acquired for Peralta, is a 2008 46th round pick who has put up very good numbers in his first two professional seasons. Ezequiel Carrera, acquired for Branyan, ranked 12th on John Sickels’s Mariners prospects list, but got off to a disappointing start in 2010. The other player in that deal, Juan Diaz, didn’t make anyone’s list, though he did get off to a good start in 2010. Corey Kluber, received in the Westbrook deal, also didn’t make any big prospect lists, but is having a high-strikeout, low-walk season in AA. Forget about the returns for Wood and Kearns; they were both exchanged for players to be named later.

With so little in return, it might seem like the Indians lost at the deadline. Then again, the five players they traded combined for 3.8 WAR this season and all would have walked without providing any compensation at season’s end. With the Indians going nowhere in 2010, they did well to acquire any talent in exchange for them. Even in the Wood deal recouped some of the money remaining on his contract, another plus for a small market team.

As for the players, the outlook appears the one Jack described for Pittsburgh. Maybe one or two of these guys turns into a solid regular, and if that happens the Indians should throw a party. If none of them works out it’s not a big deal. These were five players who would have played elsewhere in 2010 and wouldn’t have brought the Indians any return in the form of free agent compensation according to the latest Elias rankings update. Yet the players themselves aren’t the biggest return here.

Today on Rob Neyer’s SweetSpot blog, Steve Buffum of B-List Indians Blog reflects on the activity of the past weekend. He hits on the major point of moving these five players: it allows the Indians to slot in players who might help them in 2011 and beyond. It stated in late June when Matt LaPorta replaced Branyan. After a shaky start to the season which resulted in a demotion, LaPorta has demonstrated improvement since his full-time assumption of first base, producing a .340 wOBA in July. With Wood gone Chris Perez can remove the “of the future” addendum to his role as closer. Moving Kearns means a longer look for Michael Brantley, though because he was demoted on Tuesday he can’t come up again until Thursday.

These are not insignificant gains. By moving established players to other teams, the Indians not only got returns for players whom they otherwise would have lost for nothing in the off-season, but they essentially turned the season’s final two months into an audition for 2011. For at least one month they’ll play against full-strength, 25-man squads, allowing the Indians to get a better gauge of the players they control. It might not make them contenders in 2011, but it’s a good first step towards 2012.

Making predictions in baseball isn’t actually about predicting the future. We know from decades of experience and more than a century of history that you cannot predict baseball. Instead, predictions act as a jumping-off point for interesting discussions. Dave Cameron knows this. Before the season began he made a series of predictions that included James Shields as the AL Cy Young winner. We used this to create an interesting conversation on FanGraphs Audio, during which I expressed some confusion over the pick. Shields has always been a solid pitcher, but he never struck me as a Cy Young candidate. So what did Dave see in him?

Whatever he saw became evident to everyone earlier in the season. Shields mowed down opponents like he never had before. Through his first 10 starts he not only held a 2.99 ERA, but had struck out 71 in 69.1 innings, far exceeding his career average. It might have been a fluke, since we know that anything can happen in 10 starts. Watching Shields, though, something felt different. It was as if he had figured something out during the off-season and was putting it to use on American League hitters.

The difference was most noticeable with his changeup. He threw the pitch at nearly the same frequency as 2009, but the results were much better. While in 2009 he got batters to whiff on 17.4 percent of his changeups, during his first 10 starts in 2010 he got an astonishing 26.1 percent swings and misses. He had generated a few more swings in general, but the increase was not at all in line with the swings and misses. Combine that with a lower foul-ball rate, and it seems like the change really turned a corner.

After that 10th start, an eight-inning, two-run effort against Boston, Shields hit something of a rough patch. In his next eight starts he pitched just 47 innings, striking out 38. Worse, he had allowed a ton of runs in that period, a 7.66 ERA, bringing his season total to 4.87 after the Indians scored four runs in 6.1 innings against him on July 9. That stretch certainly changed the view of Shields’s season. For starters, Cameron stopped bragging about his awesome pick. But it also signaled that maybe the early season run was just that, a run of excellent starts. Pitchers have them all the time, so why should Shields be any different?

When I went to check Shields’s pitch selection for this period I expected to see that he reduced his changeup usage, instead dipping into the other pitches in his deep arsenal. Surprisingly, I saw an insignificant drop, down to 22.5 percent. He was still generating plenty of swings and misses, 20 percent, but not as many as earlier in the season. On the surface it might look as though he was just getting lucky with the changeup early in the season, and that hitters had finally figured out how to handle it — relatively, at least. Yet looking a bit deeper, this might not have been the case at all.

A fledgling yet intensely interesting aspect of baseball analysis is pitch sequencing. It’s interesting because so much of the batter-pitcher matchup relies on how the pitcher sequences his pitches. It’s intense because even though two pitchers may throw the same pitches in name, their pitches still have different effects. In other words, pitch sequence efficiency and effectiveness is going to vary pitcher-to-pitcher. I don’t have any analysis on Shields’s actual pitch selection, but rather an observation from his first 10 starts compared to his next eight.

In the first 10 it seemed as though he leaned on his fastballs and changeup more than the rest of his repertoire. To wit, he threw his four-seamer 20.1 percent of the time, his two-seamer 26.4 percent, and his changeup 23.5 percent, totaling 70 percent of his overall pitches. Yet during his rough patch he turned to the other pitches in his arsenal more frequently, going to those three pitches 61 percent of the time. He actually did increase his usage of another fastball, his cutter, though that is more complementary to his slider.

Could it be that moving away from the two-seamer changed his sequencing and therefore made his changeup more hittable? Without a strict sequencing mechanism in place it’s tough to say. Shields did improve in his first three starts after the All-Star break, though in this case we saw him use his changeup even less, 16.8 percent, and his four-seamer more, 32 percent. Yet in these starts he turned to his curveball more often and generated a 14.8 percent swinging strike rate, over 10.2 percent on his changeup. So was the pitch less effective in general, or just less effective because he’d been using it less frequently?

If yesterday’s start was any indication, it’s the latter. Sheilds attacked the Yankees with almost 70 percent four-seamers and changeups, using the changeup for 31 of of his 116 pitches. With it, he generated 35.5 swinging strikes, leading to 11 strikeouts. When he wasn’t getting hitters to swing and miss he was getting them to hit the ball on the ground, as only six out of 16 balls in play got some air under them. It was an all-around dominant start, made possible almost exclusively with the changeup.

Shields’s odd season makes it difficult to pinpoint what he’s doing well and what is luck. As we saw, he used his changeup about the same in his first 10 starts as he did his next eight, yet he saw drastically different results in those starts. Then he turned away from the change and saw positive results, and then had what might have been his best start of the season yesterday by leaning heavily on the change. So what works best for him overall?

It’s a fallacy to say that because his changeup is so good that he should throw it more often. If hitters know it’s coming it’s easier to lay off and therefore won’t be as effective. Yet with Shields’s case that might not be the case. As our own R.J. Anderson said in the River Ave. Blues Yanks-Rays series preview:

Shields is such a weird case. You’re talking about a guy with maybe the best changeup in the American League who says and does intelligent things all the time; I would not be shocked to see him become a pitching coach down the line because he helps teammates with mechanical issues and philosophical talk. He seems to understand game theory and he’s even said this season that he likes it when team’s ambush him and figure him out. Presumably so he can mix things up. You can see that attitude prevalent in his arsenal too. He could probably just throw the changeup all day and night with good results – ask Nick Swisher – but he goes to a cutter, he goes to a curve, and sometimes maybe he outthinks himself.  Joe Magrane used to say he gave the hitter too much credit by not throwing his change more often and maybe he had a point.

It does seem that leaning heavily on the changeup works, especially when it goes along with a correspondingly heavy usage of his fastball. Shields does have other weapons, and by all means he shouldn’t let them become stale. But with an all-world changeup, he might not need those weapons unless the changeup fails him here and there. It doesn’t seem, though, like that happens too often.

The NL Central figured to be a battleground once again this year, but few, I’m sure, had the Reds in it as late as July. Yet there they are, just a half game behind the St. Louis Cardinals. We’ve heard that the Reds probably won’t make a deal, which leaves the window open for St. Louis. Adding Jake Westbrook could be a move that helps propel them to the Central crown.

The Cardinals have a strong top of the rotation with Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Jaime Garcia, but have had trouble filling in the rest of the staff. Brad Penny, who was pitching well before suffering an oblique injury, has faced further setbacks during rehab and his return this season is questionable. Kyle Lohse might return soon, but he was horrible in nine starts this year. Jeff Suppan hasn’t produced the worst results, but with 1.8 homers per nine and more walks than strikeouts he’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Garcia presents an additional problem. While he has pitched better than anyone could have hoped this season, he does have a workload limit. His career high in innings pitched came in 2006 when he threw 155 innings in Class-A. He threw 122 innings in 2008, but last year, because of injury, he managed just 37.2 innings. The Cardinals might keep him in the rotation through the year, but it’s tough to project a pitcher heading into uncharted — or at least recently uncharted — waters. Adding another starter helps hedge that concern.

Westbrook hasn’t had a very good season, a 4.65 ERA to go with a 4.67 FIP and 4.41 xFIP. He missed all of 2009 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, so it’s possible that his results improve as he continues to pitch. He hasn’t realized that type of trend through the season’s first four months, though, so perhaps a significant improvement is a bit optimistic. He is, however, a sinkerballer who will work with a pitching coach who has helped many pitchers develop the pitch successfully. Perhaps his pairing with Dave Duncan will help him rediscover his old form.

It wasn’t all gain for St. Louis, though. As part of the deal they’ll send their starting right fielder, Ryan Ludwick, to San Diego. He’s part of a powerful outfield trio that can not only hit, but also play defense. Ludwick’s three-year UZR/150 is 4.7, which puts him fifth among major league right fielders. It looks like the Cardinals will run with Jon Jay in right. He has hit well in limited time this year, but considering his minor league numbers (.799 OPS in 1767 PA) and his current BABIP (.446). The move will also give Allen Craig, the team’s No. 7 prospect heading into the season, a chance. His minor league numbers are a bit better than Jay’s, a .883 OPS with even better numbers in 829 AAA PA, so this could be his opportunity to claim his spot in right.

Still, it seems a curious trade-off for St. Louis. They’re right around league average in run scoring at 4.40 runs per game, and while Jay and Craig have some potential, it’s unlikely that they’ll replicate Ludwick’s production through the end of the season. Meanwhile they’re taking a gamble with Westbrook. There’s a good chance he’ll improve, both because of the move to the NL and Duncan’s tutelage, but he’s no sure thing. If he continues pitching like he has in Cleveland and Ludwick continues hitting, it will be a net loss.

Deadline day kicks off with a small trade that might have been a bigger deal in years past. MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert reports that the Rays have acquired right-handed relief pitcher Chad Qualls from the Diamondbacks for a player to be named later. The Rays will pay the remainder of the $1.48 million left on Qualls’s contract.

A lot of things stick out about Qualls’s numbers this year, most of them bad. His ERA sits at 8.29, his WHIP is an even 2, his BABIP is all the way up at .434, and his strand rate is just 51.4 percent — and that’s just by glancing at his dashboard. His WXRL — wins expected above replacement, Baseball Prospectus’s reliever stat — is -2.407, last among 588 qualified major leaguers. He has allowed three of six inherited runners to score. Opponents have taken extra bases on 19 of 61 hits allowed, a career-high ratio. His whiff rate is at a career low by a significant margin. He’s been pulled from a game 15 times — he was the closer until mid-June. I could go on, but the point is clear.

Why the Rays’ interest, then? The move appears to be based on Qualls’s history. He was a good to excellent reliever from 2005 through 2009. While his 2010 has been horrible, he still sports a 4.30 FIP and 3.84 xFIP, and the latter approaches his career mark of 3.48. He has held opponents scoreless in 18 of his appearances, which is not good, but of those 18, 10 were perfect appearances. So maybe they see something in him. He did undergo knee surgery in September, so there is also hope that he’ll heat up a bit in the final two months.

The good news is that his stuff appears in tact. His fastball sits at the same velocity as it has in the past, and he’s using it at just about the same rate. Looking at this PitchFX page, everything appears to be in line with his past performance. It’s a bit dicey comparing PitchFX from year-to-year — I’ve noticed a number of pitchers who have “lost” horizontal movement this year, so there are definitely some consistency issues at play — but there don’t appear to be too many differences for Qualls.

He’ll be joining a Rays bullpen that ranks among the best in the league. They have the third lowest bullpen ERA in the majors, the third lowest OPS against, and the second highest WHIP. With quality setup men like Grant Balfour and Joaquin Benoit in addition to role pitchers like Dan Wheeler and Andy Sonnanstine, the Rays can afford to take a gamble with Qualls. If he returns to his old form he gives the Rays an indomitable bullpen. If he doesn’t, the Rays have other options.