Brad Lidge, fireman turned arsonist. Lidge was a perfect 48-for-48 in save opportunities last season for the World Champs, including the playoffs. This year has been a whole other story, as Lidge blew his 9th save yesterday against the Phillies lowly in-state rival the Pirates in true swamp gas fashion.

There’s a Jekyl and Hyde thing happening here with Lidge.

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26-year old rookie pitcher J.A. Happ has been a revelation for the Phillies. With 10-2 record and a 2.59 ERA for a team that’s a lock for the NL East pennant, Happ may be pitching his way to the NL Rookie of the Year award.

So then, is Happ for real? That depends on what you mean by “for real”. If you mean legit big leaguer? Sure, absolutely. Is he a genuine top of the rotation starter? Well, let’s not get too worked up.

Right off the bat, his ERA-FIP differential is a striking 1.57. His strikeout (6.2) and walk rate (3.3) both are average. His HR/FB rate is 7.6%, pretty suspect, especially for a Philly pitcher. His left on base % is 86%, and his BABIP is at an unsustainably low .252 mark. His expected fielding independent ERA (xFIP) is 4.75. Reading various scouting reports on Happ, the group-think seems to be that he’s a 4th starter. That would make an xFIP of 4.75 feel about right. So there you have it. Red flags o’plenty. I would, however, expect his K’s to go up a bit based on his minor league numbers.

Digging a little deeper, let’s look at Happ’s repertoire, as this is where things get interesting. Few pitchers throw the fastball more than Happ. He throws the pitch 71.5% of the time and for a good reason, the pitch has been worth 18.6 runs above average. Pitchers that throw the fastball as often and effectively as Happ are either: A.) Flame-throwers like Clayton Kershaw or B.) Extreme sinker-ballers like Joel Pineiro. Happ is neither. His fastball averages 89.7 MPH and it’s straight as an arrow. No, really, check it out; it’s actually kind of bizarre. Here is a chart of his vertical and horizontal movement from his last start against the Mets –

The pitch, on average, has 4.5 inches less vertical movement than the average four-seamer, but three inches more ‘rise’. I have the tendency to think a pitch this straight might get punished, but it’s giving hitters fits. There’s an interesting theory out there that because of Happ’s freakishly long wingspan (he’s 6-6), he gets more extension towards home plate, making his perceived velocity to the hitter 94 MPH. That would explain a lot. It reminds me of Chris Young, pre-injury.

Young’s 7/4/07 start

To compliment the heat, Happ also features a decent slider, along with a decent change-up and curve. Put this all together and you have the marks of a solid, cost-controlled piece of the Phillies’ rotation who happens to be on one heck of a nice run at the moment. Happ has benefited from some luck, but he has been more than just lucky. He’s actually pretty good. Not this good, but better than average.

I’m grateful to Eric Seidman for sharing some of his insights for this post.

The Cardinals’ acquisition of John Smoltz sparked some debate here and elsewhere. The debate basically went like this:

“Smoltz is not done. His ERA is meaningless. His peripheral stats are still pretty darn good. His high batting average of balls on play and homer per fly ball rates are unsustainable. More importantly, he’s still missing bats. He may not be a dominant pitcher anymore, but there’s no reason to believe he can’t be decent. He’s just thrown 40 innings of unlucky ball.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? Have you seen him pitch? He’s old, coming off of major surgery and can’t hit his spots. He’s throwing meatballs and getting pasted. He can’t make it past one trip around the lineup. He should just retire.”

First hand experience can sometimes cloud our judgment when it comes to regression to the mean. In other words, perception and reality many times will clash. Having personally watched Smoltz pitch on TV yesterday, my feeling was the he is at the very least a reasonable facsimile to the Smoltzy of old. His fastball had decent life and he located the pitch well. His splitter was a thing of beauty. His slider and curveball both looked pretty good. The final result, Smoltz threw 5 innings, allowed 3 hits, no walks and struck out 9. At one point in the game, he struck out seven in a row. Granted, this came against San Diego’s weak lineup, but how in the world did Boston let this guy go?

Who is right? The Boston fan who witnessed this guy get blasted around Fenway, or me?The process in finding out is a lot more complicated than people think. We’ll have a clearer picture over Smoltz’s next few starts, but even then it’ll still probably be in the realm of small samples. Smoltz says it was mechanics, the Cardinals say it was a matter of tipping pitches. We can’t quantify either, really.

Here’s my lazy, take it for what it’s worth analysis. John Smoltz was by all accounts an awesome pitcher in 2007, when we started to get pitch f/x data. Not a full season’s worth, mind you, and there have since been some kinks worked out. Caveats now aside, here’s how his stuff stacked up from 2007 to his time in Boston to his one start for St. Louis —

(Sorry, not sure why the curves got cut off. Velo is the same year to year)

What can this tell us? Not a whole lot. Obviously his fastball and slider’s velocity is down. His fastball has been less than effective, while his slider is still an effective pitch. His splitter is also still a weapon, although I can’t explain the crazy horizontal movement from yesterday. Yes, his stuff is down. He’s not the “let’s stink up the joint” version of Smoltz, neither is he going to strike out 40% of the batters he faces. But I just don’t see any reason to believe he is finished, from a quantitative standpoint and from my own two eyeballs. I just trust the numbers more.

For all of Bud Selig’s efforts to strong-arm owners into signing draft picks to slot recommendations, it is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention to the game of baseball that this system is woefully broken. Every year, it’s the same thing. A good chunk of the draft class has to while away time rather than playing baseball before Bud will allow ownership the freedom to do whatever the heck they want. Development time is lost; recommendations go completely ignored and the amount of bonuses getting handed out goes up instead of down. It’s completely counterproductive on both sides.

While players are waiting to sign, plenty of rumblings go out on what different player’s asking prices are, and threats are issued of going to play at college or the independent leagues are made if demands are not met. Players and agents are vilified as selfish little punks. The general feeling seems to be that draft picks need to prove something before they get paid, and that handing out big dollars to a player who hasn’t done anything in the big leagues is a huge waste of resources. After all, even first round draft picks bust all the time. But are they really overpaid?

I’ve gone back and researched the draft from the past decade, similarly to what Victor Wang has done, only using WAR. In my research I’ve listed out the total WAR for each first round draft pick during their cost-controlled years to see what sort of surplus value they have. We’ll say a win on the free agent market is worth today’s rate, $4.4 million. I know we’re looking at six years, so just forget inflation for a moment. The picks were worth –

• Picks 1 though 5 on average gave their teams $32M of production.
• Picks 6 through 10, $22.4M
• 11-15, $17.6M
• 16-20, $18.9M
• 21-30 $6.6M

That’s a lot of surplus value. Even with the relatively high failure rate, first round draft picks are incredibly valuable and actually have proven to be quite a bargain. For example, recommended slot for the first overall pick is this year was $3.6M. While it’s only a group of ten players, 1st overall picks from ’90-’99 produced on average $51.5 million worth of value that a team would normally pay for on the free agent market, or about roughly 14 times today’s recommended bonus!

Even with his record deal, Stephen Strasburg is a great value. If you don’t think so, just imagine the bidding war that would go on between large market teams if he were a free agent. Dump the slots. Let teams do whatever they want. If they can’t do their homework on what a kid’s asking price is before the draft him, that’s their own failure.

When I say “the Barry Zito contract”, what feeling immediately rises up in you? Is it disgust? Shock? A little schadenfreude? It’s still amazing to think how could a pitcher with such bad trends – xFIPs of 5.04, 4.61, 5.64 each season before signing with San Francisco – would ever get paid “ace” money, and that over seven years? How does a GM do that and still have a job? But I digress.

After pitching terribly for the Giants the past two seasons, Zito has put together a pretty solid season this year. No, he hasn’t had an $18.5 million dollar season, but a team could do worse for their 4th starter. Look at his three year trends:

(Pardon my use of MS Paint, WordPress is giving me formatting fits w/ making a table).

Looking at his peripherals, it’s easy to pinpoint the “why” for his improvement. Zito’s increased his strikeout rate by a batter per nine innings, while also cutting down his walks. His stuff appears to be new and improved compared to previous seasons with the Giants. Here’s a scouting report of Zito from just last April from the ever-resourceful site 60 Feet, 6 Inches:

Barry Zito is a nice guy. He does yoga and gives money to injured veterans. Unfortunately his fastball is slow and his changeup looks like a little league pitch. In his prime, he pumped in a 92mph fastball and was tough to hit. Always known for his curveball, the pitch has become a lob that is hard to throw for a strike. A couple years ago he added a tighter breaking ball that he uses like a slider to LHs.

Zito threw 92 MPH in his prime? Maybe that was true back in ’00-‘01, but for his Cy Young season in 2002 – the season we begin to have velocity data here at FanGraphs, Zito was averaging 87 MPH on his fastball. That’s consistent with his seasons in Oakland from ’02 through –’05. It wasn’t until 2006 that Zito was throwing his pedestrian 85 MPH fastball. This season, his velocity is up a tick. –

Last night against Cincy, Zito topped out at 89(!). Slight bump in velo aside, Zito’s started to get away from throwing that little league change-up so often. The past two seasons he’s thrown it 20% of the time, this year he is doing that with a slider, a pitch he previously has not thrown a whole lot of.

That lob of a curve has also been tightened back up to form. According to pitch-type values, Zito’s curve has been worth 11.3 runs, good for 6th on the leaderboards. Looking at pitch f/x, the pitch has gained about 2 and ½ inches of horizontal and vertical movement on average in comparison to last year’s slop ball. Zito isn’t about to revert to his former dominance, but at least he’s proving to be an above average starter at the moment. His ZiPS update forecasts that Zito will finish with a 4.13 FIP over 195 innings, good for nearly 3 WAR. Giant fans will gladly take it at this point.

“You trade away your starting catcher, it could send mixed messages. This time of year is when you’re looking to make additions, if you feel your team is close enough. We didn’t do that. We chose to make a subtraction.”

-Astros third baseman Geoff Blum.

I’m sure Blum means well and takes pride in his team and all, but has he taken a look around lately? The Astros are a bad baseball team. They’re lucky to be just ten games back of the Cardinals with their -73 differential in runs scored/runs allowed. Looking at various playoff odds that are based on crazy things like, you know, math, Houston has a .2% chance of reaching the playoffs. I have a better chance at being elected the Prime Minister of Bulgaria than the Astros playing in the postseason. Nothing short of acquiring Tim Lincecum and Albert Pujols through the help of Jedi mind tricks can save Houston’s season, and I get the feeling that Ed Wade is not that strong in the ways of the Force.

Ivan Rodriguez is part of the reason the Astros are bad. He has a .285 wOBA, putting him in Willy Taveras, Jason Kendall and Emilio Bonifacio like-territory of ineptitude. The fact that the Astros got two C grade prospects in return for the charred remains of Pudge should be considered to be quite a coup.

The Rangers seem to be bringing I-Rod back for nostalgia’s sake, and a heavy helping of good ol’ intangibles. He’ll be backing up Taylor Teagarden, who Marc wrote about yesterday. ZiPS forecasts a .299 wOBA the rest of the year for Pudge. Teagarden is projected to rebound with a .319 wOBA the rest of the way.

Going to Houston is Matt Nevarez, 22, who working out of the bullpen was overpowering batters in Low-A with a 13.2 K/9. He’s going to be Rule 5 eligible this season if Houston doesn’t add him to their 40-man, but that may not be necessary as he probably would not get drafted. 2B Jose Vallejo was ranked in the Ranger’s Top 20 prospects by Baseball America, and the Ranger’s system is quite deep. He’s hit a wall in Triple-A, but hit .292/.345/.415 with 42 steals in 46 attempts between High-A and Double-A last year, and is said to have good range. Neither player is going to turn around the Astros, but credit Ed Wade for getting something out of nothing.

I have a soft spot in my heart for soft-tossing, trick-pitch throwing hurlers, which means that I’m a card-carrying member of the Charlie Haeger bandwagon…and the R.J. Swindle bandwagon…and I would be on the Dallas Braden bandwagon if he threw more than a couple of screwballs per game. That being said, I was excited to see Haeger make just his second big league start against the Cardinals last night.

The baseball world does not seem to share my affinity for junkballers as the Dodgers are the third team to give Haeger a try in the last three seasons. Coming up through the White Sox organization and making his big league debut at just 22-years old, Haeger was haled the best knuckleballing prospect since Tim Wakefield. Regrettably, the Sox had little lenience for Haeger when he struggled. He made his first big league start on May 1st, 2006 and allowed 5 ER over 4.1 innings pitched. Haeger didn’t get back to the majors until he was a September call-up later that season. In 2007, he was roughed up in eight big league relief appearances and sent back to Triple-A. He was a waiver claim by the Padres last September, but pitched poorly again over 4 relief appearances for the Friars and his contract was non-tendered. Talk about a quick hook. I would have thought that a young knuckler in Petco Field was a match made in baseball dork heaven.

The Dodgers assigned Haeger to their Triple-A affiliate Albuquerque, where he posted a 3.55 ERA and a 103/55 K/BB ratio in 144 2/3 innings, along with a HR/9 rate of 1.0. Isotope Park is the minor league equivalent to a pre-humidor Coors, so adjusting for park, Haeger’s HR/9 rate would be .78. In his eight year minor league career, Haeger’s HR/9 rate is just .6. Considering that a knuckler that doesn’t “knuckle” turns into a pitch you’d see thrown in batting practice, this indicates that Haeger knows his business.

While Haeger did throw a couple of BPers that ended up in the stands at Chavez Ravine the other night, the Dodgers have to be impressed by his performance. Rather remarkably Haeger needed only 80 pitches to cruise through seven innings; 61 of those pitches were thrown for strikes. He allowed three earned runs on five hits, with the damage coming from the big flies.

I am by no means a Pitch F/x guru, but here’s a look at his movement graph. As you can see with the knuckler, it breaks all over the place. There are a couple of 82 MPH fastballs that are easy to pick out in there as well.

(Click on any of the images for a larger view)

Haeger’s most beautiful flutter-ball came in the 3rd inning when he got Yadier Molina to go down swinging, who happens to be the 4th most difficult hitter to strikeout in all of baseball. To get a look at this from Molina’s perception, let’s turn to Dan Brooks’ site who gives us Batter’s Box plots, which simply is the pitch as viewed from the batter’s box.

Let’s look at this from a lefties’ perception to get another glimpse of the random movement. This would by Skip Schumaker’s at-bat in the 5th inning. Skip grounded out.

Haeger’s just 25 years old, so he’s probably a decade or so away from his prime being that he’s a knuckleballer. I hope the Dodgers give him more of a shot that his two previous teams did. It will be a sad day if the knuckleball ever goes extinct.

“It takes a big man to admit he was wrong, but takes an even bigger man to make fun of that man”.

-Unknown, but I’d guess that it would have to be Jack Handey.

I was wrong. I said the price – Brett Wallace – was too much for the Cardinals to pay for a two month rental of Matt Holliday. Factoring salary and production I reckoned Holliday was worth about $8 million of surplus value. According to studies, a top fifty hitting prospect is worth on average $25 million dollars in surplus value. Including Wallace, the Cardinals also gave up two solid prospects (Clayton Mortensen, Shane Peterson) for an additional $3 million worth of surplus value. The math, I figured was simple enough: $28 million is better than $8 million.

I underestimated how much Matt Holliday would enjoy his return to the National League. I mean, he is really, really enjoying it. Holliday is hitting like a man possessed, to the tune of a .459/.490/.776 line in 85 at-bats, something I don’t think anyone could have predicted. Coincidentally, the Cardinals have distanced themselves from the Cubs and are sitting atop the NL Central with a 5 game lead. According to coolstandings.com, their playoff odds have more than doubled from 40% on July 24th (the day they acquired Holliday) to 83% today, and the Cardinals are now on pace to win 91 games. Holliday can’t be credited for doing this single-handedly, obviously, but his performance has been worth +2.01 in win probability added; quite a boost. Obviously he’s been playing over his head, and I still feel good about my expected value figures, but I think I neglected to see how much the deals increased the Cardinals’ playoff odds.

The Cardinals paid a high cost for all their wheeling and dealing, trading six of their top prospects to get Holliday and Mark DeRosa, but the cost looks to be worth the reward, as the difference between an 87 win team to a 91 win team can mean a lot. In the book Baseball Between the Numbers, Nate Silver calculated that reaching the playoffs is worth about an extra $30 million dollars to a club’s bottom line. Flags fly forever, and thanks to Mozeliak’s dealings, the Cardinals are in line for their 23rd postseason appearance in franchise history, barring an unforeseen meltdown.

Dallas Braden is like the baseball equivalent of a bumblebee. Everyone, excluding the bumblebee itself, knows that a bumblebee can’t fly. Its body is too large for such tiny wings, it’s not sleek like the wasp. Likewise, everybody, except Braden himself, knows that his stuff won’t hold up in the majors.

Braden is a classic junkballer. His calling card is a fastball that averages just 88 MPH along with a “Bugs Bunny” change up that comes in 15 MPH slower than his fastball. He also throws a slurvy offering that averages 75 MPH, a cutter at 82 MPH and will even mix in an occasional screwball. In 69 minor league games, Braden posted an ERA of 3.30, averaged a K/9 rate of 10 and a walk rate of 2.4. Despite the sexy numbers, scouts weren’t buying Braden because of the aforesaid quirky repertoire. See for yourself in Pitch F/x. The game chart is from his start on 6/5/09, when he struck out 7 Orioles over 7 innings pitched, having allowed just a run on 5 hits. I’m pretty sure those four little dots on the middle right are screwballs.

Right now in the A’s rebuilt rotation that features stud arms like Brett Anderson, Trevor Cahill and Vince Mazzaro, this former 24th round pick is leading the way for Oakland with a 4.39 tRA and a FIP of 3.72. He has 2.9 wins above replacement over 22 starts, and over his last 190 innings Braden has 3.5 WAR. That’s not too shabby for someone who was regarded as organizational roster filler coming up through the minors. Unfortunately, Braden’s season recently has been interrupted by an infection in his foot.

Braden is not getting the whiffs he was getting in the minors (5.7 K/9) and that’s a concern, but at least for now he’s proving to be an above average major league starter. Braden ought to give hope to young soft-tossers across the globe to remain undeterred when scouts tell them that their stuff won’t play in the big leagues.

Word is Aaron Harang has cleared waivers, meaning he can be traded to any team. Any takers? Is that the sound of crickets chirping that I hear? It feels a little weird that no clubs are interested in the Harangutan, a pitcher who averaged 5 WAR per season from ’05-’07. Let’s look closer and see if the apathy is deserved.

Harang was a shell of his normal self last year, and even spent time on the DL with forearm tightness. His struggles have been well chronicled, with the fault landing on Dusty Baker, every saber-minded baseball fan’s favorite punching bag. The censure may be well deserved. Rewinding a bit, on May 22nd, Harang took his start on normal rest. On May 25th, Baker called upon Harang and his resilient arm into a tie game in the 13th inning. Harang threw 63 pitches over 4 shutout innings in extra innings and then proceeded to make his next start on the 29th. He crumpled under the load, pitching terribly until he hit the DL on July 9th. Upon returning from the DL, he eventually reverted back to his normal self for his last 8 starts.

This season, Harang has shown improvement, but hasn’t recaptured ace status. He has increased his K/9 rate from 7.5 to 8. His command has rebounded too, with a 3.5 K/BB ratio. The problem is he’s still afflicted with gopheritis. His 1.3 HR/9 rate is a step up over his 1.7 rate from last year, but it’s still not up to snuff. Peculiarly enough, he’s allowing more homers away from the Great American Bandbox than in it.

Not only has Harang taken a beating with the homers, he’s also allowed a 24% line drive rate which has bloated his BABIP to .347. Depending on what side you fall on in the tRA/FIP debate, you could attribute these numbers to poor luck. His xFIP is a healthy 3.85, which is right in line with the rest of his career and a lot better than his current ERA of 4.43. His tRA is 4.74, scaled to ERA that would be about 4.35. His regressed tRA (tRA*) is just .01 higher, suggesting Harang isn’t out of the woods yet. I’ll let smarter folk than I argue the merits of xFIP over tRA and vice versa, I just refer to both to illustrate that there’s some uncertainty with Harang. That half a run difference, over 180-200 innings, is a little over a win, if you feel these numbers foreshadow Harang’s performance going forward.

His contract calls for $12.5M next season, and if he’s traded, Harang’s $12.75M club option for 2011 with a $2M buyout becomes a $14M mutual option. If you believe that Harang could be a 3.5 win pitcher or better with a simple change of scenery, then he has surplus value. If you believe that his best days are behind him and he’s more of a 2.5 WAR pitcher going forward, then his surplus value is zilch. Teams also might see the decline in performance, Dusty finagling and the high mileage on Harang’s arm and be totally scared off.

When Harang signed his 4-year, $36.5 million extension, it looked like a sweetheart of a deal. He was one of the best and most unheralded pitchers in the game. In hindsight, the deal still looks quite solid for the Reds, but it’s not the huge bargain that it originally appeared to be, which is precisely why Reds’ GM Walt Jocketty is having such a difficult time trying to move it.