What if I told you that Scott Feldman has had the most effective cut fastball in all of baseball this year — more so than Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay’s, would you believe me? At least according to the numbers, Scott Feldman has. I have to be honest, I knew next to nothing about Feldman until I found myself goofing around on the Pitch Value leader-boards yesterday afternoon. As a refresher, the pitch values use linear weights by count and by event and then breaks it down by each pitch type so that you can see in runs the actual effectiveness of each pitch. (You can read more about how they work here).

Getting to the fun stuff, Scott Feldman‘s cutter has been worth 22.6 runs, making it the third-most effective offering in baseball among starting pitchers. The only pitch that has been more effective has been Tim Lincecum‘s change-up at a ridiculous 28.2 runs, and Clayton Kershaw’s fastball, at 23.5 runs. What makes this development a little more interesting is that Feldman just started using the pitch a year ago — throwing it 13.4% of the time. He’s honed his craft and is now throwing the pitch 30.4% of the time. Only three other starting pitchers throw the cutter more often, and those pitchers are Brian Bannister, Doug Davis and Roy Halladay.

Just two seasons ago, Feldman was a frequent rider of the Oklahoma City – Fort Worth shuttle. A former 30th round pick, he was just a so-so side-arming, sinker/slider ROOGY. He completely remade himself last year, throwing from a 3/4 arm slot rather than sidearm, mostly working with the sinker. The results were less than spectacular — a 5.35 FIP over 25 starts. In continuance with that remaking, this year Feldman started leaning heavily on the cutter to compliment his sinker and help him counterbalance southpaw hitters. Check out his crazy reverse platoon splits that have come as a result:

The overall results have also have been good; Feldman has 11 wins and an ERA of 4.01. Alright, so those baseball card numbers are a bit deceiving. His FIP is 4.57 and he’s still striking out less than 5 batters per nine. That’s still good for 2 wins above replacement so far this season. Whether or not this is something sustainable is very questionable given the low K totals, but I find it fascinating that a Quad-A reliever can transform himself into a half decent starter. It’s amazing what a willingness to learn can do for a pitcher.

Mr. Ricciardi, you drive a hard bargain. You traded away your team’s best position player and in return you get…nothing! The scene from Dumb and Dumber keeps popping into my head where Lloyd proudly breaks the news to Harry that he traded the van for a moped. “Just when I thought you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this… and totally redeem yourself!” At least Lloyd got a moped, and Rios is hardly an ’84 Sheepdog. This is just so completely absurd.

Dave Cameron already has enlightened us as to why the $60 million remaining on Alex Rios contract hardly makes it a bad contract, but I’ll recap it quickly. Rios currently has a .329 wOBA, low for his standards and likely driven by bad luck. His batting average on balls in play is currently way below his career average. There’s just nothing in his peripheral stats to suggest that he’s fallen apart. Rios is a prime candidate to bounce back. His ZiPS projection calls for a .351 wOBA going forward.

Rios is having a down year defensively according to UZR (-.7) but in the last three seasons in right field he’s been one of the best defensive outfielders in the game – +15.5 last season, +9 the two seasons prior to that. The Fielding Bible also gives him high marks — +43 plays over the last three years, the 3rd highest total for right fielders behind Franklin Gutierrez and Randy Winn. He has been good to superb in right field, so I think it’s safe to say Rios will at least be average patrolling center in the Cell. His most similar fielders in the Scouting Report by the Fans is littered with center fielders.

White Sox center fielders have been the definition of replacement level with their combined .269 wOBA, so Rios probably adds a full win to the White Sox down the stretch, increasing their odds of making the playoffs while not costing them a prospect. The South Siders have roughly $35 million coming off the books this fall, so Williams has done his holiday shopping early with the additions of Peavy and Rios, while helping his chances now. There’s some gambling going on here taking on these large contracts, but Rios is a much safer bet than Peavy.

Ricciardi has to have sealed his fate by now. He’s handed out several bad contracts during his tenure and then admits he made a mistake by giving away the one contract that’s actually fair value. And he bases his admission to this “mistake” on a few months of flukiness. You can’t run a fantasy team like this and win, let alone a major league team. Rios and his contract is much more of a cornerstone than it is an albatross.

The Jason Giambi Reunion Tour has officially been canceled. The last-place A’s gave the aging slugger his walking papers after he was able to scratch together a rather woeful .197/.332/.364 line. His release probably means that it is curtains for a successful, albeit tainted career.

This season has been chock full of disappointment for the A’s, who looked like contenders headed into the season. It appeared they might have won the Defensively Challenged Slugger Sweepstakes after they signed Giambi to a low risk, one-year, $5.25 million deal, which included a $4 million option with a $1.25 buyout. The contract essentially valued Giambi as a 1.2 win player — bargain basement stuff considering Giambi was worth nearly 6 WAR over his previous two healthy years, which included a 32 HR season with the Yankees just last year.

Now that it’s all but over for Giambi, where does he rank among the all-time greats? I’m not sure anyone will confuse Giambi as a future Hall of Famer considering his checkered past and also the era he played in, but for his career he was one heck of a ballplayer, even if he was quite overpaid from that colossal contract the Yankees gave him.

407 HR, 43rd all time
1319 RBI, 89th all time
.527 slugging, 52nd all time
1255 walks, 45th all time
143 Adjusted OPS+, 52nd all time
1512 runs created, 76th all time, tied with Ernie Banks and Lou Brock
.405 career on base percentage, tied for 45th all time with Bobby Abreu
.248 ISO, 32nd all time

His 52.3 wins above replacement ranks 150th overall according to Rally’s historical WAR database. That total is better than 48 players currently in the Hall right now, for what it’s worth.

Just for fun, here are some mostly meaningless historical comparisons for your enjoyment:

And another lashing of a dead horse:

Well, this was unanticipated. I’m not sure what is more surprising – that Carl Pavano has actually thrown nearly 2000 pitches this season, or that Carl Pavano is an actual upgrade to the Twins’ rotation. The Twins’ rotation looked to be their saving grace headed into the season, but injuries and disappointing performances (I’m looking at you, Francisco Liriano) have kept them behind the Tigers and White Sox in the AL Central.

Minnesota fans probably will see what’s on the surface — a legendary bust of a free agent signing from years gone by who just so happens to be sporting a 5.37 ERA — and be unhappy, but that’s not quite fair to Pavano. While he has been known to have bouts of awfulness, his periphs are less than awful: 4.26 FIP, 4.15 xFIP, tRA* of 4.72 (when scaled to ERA it would be around 4.3). He’s been striking out batters at about an average rate (6.3) while demonstrating good control (1.65 BB/9). ZiPS projects a 4.25 FIP from here on out, although it also projects just 5 more starts left. After all, it is Pavano ZiPS is projecting, but I think he’ll surpass that.

Stuff-wise, Pavano has been throwing a good slider along with a decent change. He has returned to the 90-91 MPH mark with his fastball, a velocity he’s been able to consistently maintain throughout the season, so that’s encouraging. But less encouraging is that it’s the fastball that he’s gotten pasted with; the pitch has been “worth” 17 runs below average. Looking at his pitch f/x numbers, I can’t see quite why this is, those of who have seen him pitch feel free to fill me in. All I can see is the fastball that has a little over an inch more of tail than average, but a little less than half an inch of “rise” than average. Is he catching too much of the plate, or is this just a crummy sinker that the pitch f/x algorithms have mislabeled as a 4-seam fastball?

Pavano’s not going to put the Twins over the top in the Central; at best he lightens the blow of losing Kevin Slowey for the rest of the season with a wrist injury, and that at a reasonable cost. Then again, we are talking about the Twins, who always seem to have hope as long as there is a chance, however slim that chance may be.

Rocktober is making a comeback. After stumbling out of the blocks, the team fired Clint Hurdle and installed Jim Tracy as their manager, who has since guided the team to a 41-20 record. They now are on pace to win 90 games and PECOTA gives them better than 55% odds to make the playoffs. Before the season, their CHONE projection pegged them for just 78 wins. Managerial regime changes aside, what’s the story behind the Purple Revival?

For starters, it’s been the starters. Starting pitching, that is. The Rockies’ starting five has been the best in the National League by a good margin – their 125.6 runs above replacement is 11.6 runs better than San Francisco’s. The Rockies seem to have torn a page or three out of Cardinal pitching coach Dave Duncan’s book “Keys to Winning with an Iffy Staff”. We know Ubaldo Jimenez is great and Aaron Cook is usually solid, but the Rockies are getting good production out of three retreads – Jason Marquis, Jason Hammel and Jorge de la Rosa. What pitching coach Bob Apodaca (fun name to say) has been able to do is coax his pitchers to throw strikes and induce ground-balls.

Colorado pitchers throw more fastballs than any team – 67.6% .The starting five also induces more ground-balls than any team – at a 51.9% clip. More burned worms has led to fewer homers, as the Rockies have been surprisingly good at keeping balls in the yard – 0.83 HR/9. As I said, they’re also throwing strikes, ranking third in the National League in walks per nine innings at 2.9. So it turns out that you can pitch at high altitude, you just have to go about it the right way.

Couple the strong pitching with a resurgent Troy Tulowitzki, who his hitting .302/.392/.619 since June 1st, and more of Seth Smith in the lineup (.385 wOBA, 7.4 UZR), and it’s easy to see why the Rockies are the back in biz.

Oriole fans should get happy. Their patience is going to be rewarded. The overhaul of the Baltimore pitching rotation is almost complete. The team boasted a troika of top 100 pitching prospects going into the season, and one of those pitchers is 2008 first round pick Brian Matusz, who made a solid debut last night against the Detroit Tigers.

Outside of somewhat of a rocky 2nd inning in which he walked a pair of batters, Matusz did an exceptional job of mixing his pitches and locations, keeping Tiger hitters off-balance. He allowed six hits against five strikeouts and three walks to pick up his first big league W. Let’s take a quick look at his repertoire through Pitch F/X.

First, a movement graph:

Matusz throws both four-seam and two-seam fastballs. The four-seamers are the straighter pitch; the two-seamer is the one with more sink and tail. Rather than breaking both pitches out I just lumped all his fastballs together, but you get the idea. His fastball topped at 94 MPH and averaged 92 MPH. He also mixed in a change-up, slider and a curve. All look to be about average, which –- surprise, surprise — accurately matches his scouting reports.

And now some flight paths, which you can click on to enlarge:

What really sets Matusz apart is that he has more command than your average call-up. Known for being the most polished pitcher in the 2008 draft, the southpaw posted a phenomenal strikeout to walk ratio of 141 to 22 his final season at San Diego. Between High-A and the Double-A level, he has nearly a K/BB rate of nearly 4:1 while getting plenty of whiffs –- 121 in 113 innings.

While Matusz doesn’t necessarily blow anyone away in terms of pure stuff, he’s just so freakishly polished for a 22-year old. It should only get better from here.

Neftali Feliz made his big league debut last night, and he came with the shock and awe. Feliz was brought in to defend a one-run lead against Oakland in the sixth inning, and struck out the first four batters he faced, flashing a nasty breaking ball and a fastball that reached the triple-digits. Here’s a look at his movement in graph in Pitch F/X.

Reading various scouting reports on Feliz, aside from his fastball and curve, he also throws an 85-87 MPH change-up. The reports say nothing of a sinker, so I wonder if that 90 MPH pitch is mislabeled as a two-seamer and should be categorized as a change-up. No matter. What we are certain of is Feliz pumps in the gas — he threw two pitches over 100 MPH — and he generates an impressive amount tail on his fastball. For a more intuitive look, check out his flight paths.

(You can click on the image for a larger view).

That’s just “whoa” worthy, and what makes it even more “whoa” worthy is that he makes it look so effortless.

The Rangers will work Feliz out of the bullpen for now. They did the same with Derek Holland at first; maybe it’s just their way of breaking in a player, but it’s not as if their rotation couldn’t use the help. Only the Orioles’ rotation has a worse FIP in the American League, as the Rangers’ stellar defense that has masked much of what is a lackluster staff. And it’s not as if Texas has no playoff hopes — they’re three games behind Boston in the wild card race.

Regardless of the Ranger’s early usage, Texas fans have plenty to look forward to with Feliz. If I followed the Rangers, I’d be sending former Braves’ GM John Schuerholz a Christmas card every holiday season for that Teixeira trade.

Bedlam ruled the day of the trade deadline, and the Nick Johnson for LHP Aaron Thompson deal was no exception. The Nationals broke from their age old custom of clenching to tradeable players, and the Marlins (!) acted as buyers at the trade deadline.

The Fish will gladly insert Nick Johnson and his .417 on base percentage at 1B. In consequence, Jorge Cantu gets bumped over to third and Emilio Bonaficio gets booted to the role of utility infielder.

Johnson’s OBP matches his slugging percentage and moving to spacious Dolphin Stadium can’t really help his projection for a power recovery. ZiPS projects a .389 wOBA the rest of the season, I’d say that’s a tad too hopeful. .375 for the next 60 games seems a little more realistic. He’s normally been solid with the glove, but this year he’s slipped to a -7 per 150 games.

For his career, Cantu has been a disaster at the hot corner (-19 over 204 games), but the Marlins will absorb the hit so long as it gets Bonaficio and his sub-.300 OBP out of the lineup. After a hot start, Bonaficio rates along with the likes Jeff Francoeur as one of the worst regular players in the Senior Circuit with his -0.5 WAR.

Add this all up, and the gist is the Marlins got a win or two better. I’m not sure that helps them catch the Rockies or Giants in the Wild Card race; as a team they’ve been a bit of an overachieving bunch to begin with, but Johnson is a decent value bet.

The cost is lefty Aaron Thompson, who is better known as “Not Matt Garza” to Marlin’s fans. Thompson was Florida’s 1st round pick in the ’05 draft, but hasn’t really pitched up to scratch. He’s repeating Double-A, and is striking out a little less than 6 batters per nine innings. He works with an 89-91 MPH fastball, a curve and a changeup which grades as above average. He looks like a future back-end starter at this point.

It’s not an earth-shattering deal for either side, but I got to give the Nats some credit for turning Johnson, a player that was of no use to them, into something.

Man-crushes can die hard. Reds’ GM Walt Jocketty has swapped Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Roenicke and Zachary Stewart for Scott Rolen. This is the second time Jocketty has traded for Rolen, but now under very different circumstances.

The Reds playoff hopes are nil, and this isn’t the same Scott Rolen of old. Granted, he’s hitting much closer to the Rolen of old with a .320/.370/.476 line, but that’s largely inflated by his .347 BABIP. Even with some falling off, Rolen still is an above average hitter at his position. His defense is no longer Brooks Robinson-esque, but he’s still slick with the leather – his UZR/150 last season was 8.5, this season 8.

Rolen is due around $20 million, including the rest of this year and the next, and reportedly Toronto is going to foot a portion of the bill. For the Reds’ sake let’s hope it is a good piece of the contract. Rolen is a moderately safe bet to be worth 2.5-3 WAR next year, and has upside to be worth 3.5-4 if he can stay healthy. That’s a big if. In the process, the Reds give up cheap players.

Edwin Encarnacion is due to make $4.75 million next year. With the stick, he’s fine, with the leather, he’s terrible – he’s been a career -12 UZR per 150 and is -23 per 150 this season. He’s probably a 1.5 win player next year, making his contract pretty fair.

Josh Roenicke looks like a decent middle reliever who will be glad to get off the Louisville-Cincinnati shuttle. His fastball has some giddyup and he throws a solid cutter as well.

Zachary Stewart is the “get” of the trade. He has a 92-95 MPH fastball with good sink and a hard cutting 82-85 MPH slider. He’s quickly climbed the ladder, pitching at High-A, Double-A and now Triple-A this season, and has a cumulative 2.92 FIP in 92 innings pitched. He pitched mostly out of the bullpen last year but is showing some good promise as a starter. He’s a solid B grade pitcher.

Rolen doesn’t make the Reds a contender next year, and he certainly doesn’t make them one this year. He’s a good player, but I just can’t understand this from Cincy’s perspective. Toronto must be be ponying up a lot of cash. Even if they are, I still can’t quite wrap my head around this.

Today is deadline day, and as Chris Needham points out so well, the Nationals have been quiet. Too quiet.

Apparently the Nats are so loaded with talent and potential for the coming years that they don’t need to make a change. At least that’s how you could read it considering all the moves they haven’t made and how two-thirds of the league’s players have seemingly changed hands.

The Nationals are on their way to losing well over 100 games this season and even the most die-hard idealist isn’t expecting them contend anytime soon. Their attendance is one of the worst in baseball despite their nifty new facilities. Let’s face it; the team may as well be back in Canada for all Washington fans care at the moment. They have one thing in the world to look forward to as fans: Signing Stephen Strasburg. So why are the Nats not in full blown fire-sale mode, a la Pittsburgh? They have some assets.

Needham pointed out a few, including Nick Johnson and Josh Willingham. Johnson is healthy this season and still gets on base at a high clip. ZiPS projects Johnson to produce a robust .380 wOBA the rest of the season. He’s going to be a Type B free agent, meaning you can buy Nick Johnson and he comes with the added bonus of a draft pick. Not much not to like.

Josh Willingham is quietly having a fantastic season, putting together a .300/.410/.586 line. Bear in mind his batting average is nearly thirty points higher than his career standard, but Willingham has been a consistently productive hitter, with a career .372 wOBA. He picked a great time to have a career year, as he’ll be arbitration eligible for the second time this off-season, making him due for a raise.

But what about Adam Dunn? Why is no one talking about him? The Prophet of the Three True Outcomes Cult is putting together yet another strong offensive season, posting a .407 wOBA. Granted, he’s been downright grisly in left field (-12) UZR, but there has to be a contending team out there with a 1B/DH on their wish list. Matt Holliday, Dunn is not, but he’d bring comparable offensive production, just keep the Big Donkey away from the outfield.

The only stumbling block I can see that would deter a team from trading for Dunn is that he has 1 year, $12 million left on his contract after the season. While that might not be ideal for some buyers, in view of the fact that he’ll most likely be a 3-4 win player next year, that’s really not all that exorbitant.

The Nationals are a terrible team with a rather weak farm system. They need all the extra dough they can scrape up just to sign Strasburg, and more talent than the Zimmerman(n)s and Derek Norris to build around their future ace. It’s a quarter to midnight, Mr. Rizzo. Do the team’s future GM a favor and don’t just keep his seat warm. Give him or her a head start at rebuilding this mess.

updated: I stand corrected, Johnson is just short of Type B status. He’s still a decent trading chip, though.