One of the surprising Rookie of the Year candidates this season has been the Cubs’ 26 year-old righty Randy Wells. His 1.6 wins above replacement are 2nd among National League rookies behind Colby Rasmus’ 3.0, and he’s been one of the North-Siders most pleasant surprises of the season after taking a long and winding path to the big leagues.

Wells originally was drafted in 2002, and after three seasons of stalling as a no-hit catcher in the lower minors, the Cubs put his strong arm on the mound. There his career gained traction, at least for for a while. His head bumped up against a glass ceiling once he hit Triple-A. After two solid but unspectacular season in Iowa, he looked to have been freed when Toronto selected him in the Rule 5 draft in 2007. After pitching just a single inning of mop-up duty against the Red Sox, the Jays returned him back to the Cubs, where he went on to post another Randy Wells, 4.00 FIP type of season back in Des Moines.

On the strength of an improved slider this season, Wells was dominating Triple-A this season. When Carlos Zambrano hit the DL back in May, he was recalled and struck out 5 Brewers over 5 scoreless innings, and has since been a staple in the rotation, forcing Sean Marshall to the bullpen.

Wells has a four pitch mix with a fastball, sinker, change-up and slider, and as I noted, it’s the slider that’s been the major key to his success. In fact, it’s been a “one-win” pitch, with a pitch type value of 11.0 runs. Only Zack Greinke’s and teammate Ryan Dempster’s sliders have been more valuable. Looking at each pitcher’s PitchFx overviews here at FanGraphs, each pitcher throws different variations of the pitch. Maybe my colleague Dave Allen will treat us to some in-depth study on One-Win Sliders some day, but for now I’ll approach this quick-and-dirty like in order to give you a better idea about Wells’ slider. Here’s their average pitch FX Horizontal and Vertical Movement for his slider compared to Dempster’s and Greinke’s.

Wells appears like he’s throwing almost more of a slider/cutter hybrid compared to Dempster and Greinke, with more sweep and less sink. Someone who knows a lot more about PitchFx than I, Harry Pavlidis, notes the same thing, and gave the pitch a delightful name – the slutter.

ZiPS expects Wells to come back to earth a bit, projecting a 4.23 FIP the rest of the season. Assuming he hits 150 innings, he looks to be in line for a 3 WAR season. For a returned Rule 5 pick, you can’t really ask for a lot more than that. Wells has shed his Quad-A label, and it’s always fun to see a pitcher put a new trick into his bag and succeed.

For an All-Star Game, I don’t think you could have asked for a whole lot more than what we saw last night. One-run baseball, lead changes, web gems and homage to Stan the Man. Not too shabby. As a Senior Circuit fan whose favorite team playing host, it was disappointing to see the NL extend it’s losing streak to yet another presidential term, but all in all it was a pretty decent night of baseball.

Carl Crawford was the right choice for MVP. I am all for rewarding defense, and any metric or fan with some sense will tell you that Carl Crawford has been the best defensive left-fielder since breaking into the league in 2002. The world got to see what Rays’ fans have been spoiled with the past decade. His play — bringing back a HR off the bat of Brad Hawpe (at least it looked like it probably would have went out) — was worth .209 of win expectancy. Add in .009 for his single in the 5th, and he edges out Mariano Rivera‘s .209 WPA, three up, three down save in the 9th. The catch was a bigger play than Curtis Granderson’s exciting, one-out triple in the 8th inning. (.167).

I personally thought Jason Werth’s catch in center field off of a hard struck ball off the bat of Justin Morneau to end the 7th was the more difficult play, but obviously Crawford’s catch ended up being more important to the game’s outcome.

Charlie Manuel’s managing irked me in that there just should never should be intentional walks in the All-Star game. The move was a product of having “this one count”, so giving Victor Martinez a free pass was somewhat understandable, but boring. Heath Bell gets his fair share of ground-balls, and Adam Jones hits his fair share of ground-balls, so from that perspective, it makes some sense. It just didn’t work out, with Jones hitting a go-ahead sac fly.

And nothing against Heath Bell, who is having a nice season and all, but I would have liked to have seen Josh Johnson get an inning. Johnson throws on average 95 MPH as a starter, and has quietly become one of the game’s best pitchers. Of course, no one knows that because he’s a Marlin. It would have been nice to see him bring the heat out of the bullpen.

The most questionable move by far was Manuel using Ryan Howard as his pinch-hitter in the 8th in the game’s most crucial situation. With two outs and runners on second and third and Joe Nathan on the mound, the outcome was all too predictable. Howard is a St. Louisan and received a nice hand, so it was a nice sentimental play, but was hardly the right choice. Joe Nathan gets plenty of whiffs and it’s a well known fact that Howard swings and misses just about more than anybody. The strikeout was a killer for the NL to the tune of a -.173 WPA. With the National League needing a single to tie or possibly even possibly go ahead, why not save Howard for the 9th when a solo homer may be needed, and let a more contact-prone hitter like Freddy Sanchez into the game?

The fact that I’m even second-guessing managerial moves means that it was an entertaining game to watch. Thankfully, games that actually matter will be back very soon.

Sometimes I think people underestimate the performance analysis savvy of certain organizations. Then, today happens.

Trade reaction from Ben Badler, via Twitter.

After a long week, I was tired Friday evening and was in desperate need of a nap. About an hour and a half later, I woke up bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed, and went over to the computer to read up on some baseball in attempt to help wake myself up out of a hard sleep. Looking over the headlines, I thought to myself “why, this must be April 1st. That, or I’m still dreaming”. The Royals and the Mets both made moves to acquire two of the worst regulars in all of baseball. After pinching myself and checking other various websites, yes it was true. Jeff Francoeur and Yuniesky Betancourt were both traded on the same day.

R.J. already covered the stupid that is the Betancourt trade. There’s little to say about the Ryan Church for Jeff Francoeur trade that hasn’t been said, and really, there really is no reason to even try and break down such a trade here to FanGraphs readers. I will say that my favorite part of the trade is hearing Minaya repeatedly refer to the amount of games Francoeur can play. Good job, Omar. Way to fail to get the simple concept of replacement level. Gratuitous graph, in light of Frenchy’s now famous quote “If on-base percentage is so important, then why don’t they put it up on the scoreboard?” :

In a Day of Crazy, Jack Zduriencik shined by trading minor league pitcher Justin Souza for 3B Jack Hannahan as a stop-gap option while Adrian Beltre is on the shelf until mid-August. No, Hannahan is not very good, but he’s an upgrade over Chris Woodward, he’s basically free and can pick it at third, to put it in a nutshell. Hitting is definitely not Hannahan’s thing, last season he was 15 runs below average and this season he put up a paltry .260 wOBA before being sent down to Triple-A. He’s the proud owner of one of the major league’s longest swings, and the result is a 30% strikeout rate. He at least has some sort of batting eye, with an 11% walk rate last season.

No, what makes Hannahan a nice addition is the fact he can play third base with the best of them. Over the past three seasons, Hannahan has an UZR of 18.4 and an UZR/150 of 14.7. Over the course of a season, his defense alone is worth a win alone, and over the past 238 games with Oakland and now a couple with Seattle, Hannahan has been a three WAR player on the strength of that defense. The M’s are still in the race and adding Hannahan to replace Woodward only helps. Zduriencik is continuing a pattern of picking up undervalued glove men, as we’ve seen him do with acquiring Franklin Gutierrez, Endy Chavez and Ryan Langerhans. On a day of fools, Jack Z. looks like a genius in contrast.

Outfielder James McOwen is the current owner of the 45-game hitting streak, the minors’ longest since Roman Mejias hit in 55 straight — over 50 years ago. During the 45-game streak, McOwen has batted .398/.440/.536 for the High Desert Mavericks, the High-A affiliate for the Seattle Mariners. Obviously hitting safely in 45 straight games is quite a feat, so one might assume Jamie McOwen is some sort of valuable prospect, no?

Well, not exactly. McOwen didn’t make Baseball America’s Top 30 Mariners’ prospects in their latest handbook. He’s never been mentioned as a prospect by any of the other prospect gurus around the interwebs, such as Kevin Goldstein, Keith Law or John Sickels. What little I’ve been able to dig up is that he is what scouts call a “tweener”, meaning that while he might hit for some average, he won’t hit for the type of power you’d hope for out of a corner outfielder, and he can’t play center or any other up-the-middle type of position.

Looking at his minor league numbers, he has cut down on his strikeouts; they are down to 14.5% to 21% last year at the same level. His power production is up a bit, (.149 ISO) but it is hardly considered to be anything extraordinary in the hitter’s paradise that is the Cal League. With anyone in the middle of a 45-game hitting streak, you’d expect a high BABIP, which McOwen has, at .403. So there’s nothing whatsoever statistical here that backs up that McOwen is some sort of uber-prospect. He’s 23 years old, put up a ‘meh’ .323 wOBA last year, and as I said, is repeating a level.

McOwen’s hit streak is the 8th longest in minor league history. Just for kicks, let’s look at players with longer hitting streaks, and whether or not it translated into big league success. Take into consideration that the minors are quite what they are now, but:

• In 1919 Joe Wilhoit hit in 69 straight games for Wichita. In four seasons he played for four different teams, compiled 887 plate appearances and a wRAA of 4.
• In 1930 Joe DiMaggio (ever heard of him?) hit in 61 straight in the PCL. I think we know what sort of career he went on to have.
• I mentioned Roman Mejias earlier; he carved out a 9-year career, playing with the Pirates, the Colt .45’s and Red Sox. He had a career high .343 while with Houston, but for his career was a negative at the dish, with a -19.8 wRAA.
• In 1922, Otto Pahlman hit in 50-straight in the now defunct Illinois League. He never cracked a major league roster.
• In 1915, Jack Ness hit in 49-straight for Oakland and had the PCL record until The Yankee Clipper came along. Ness only lasted 12 games with the 1911 Tigers, and didn’t play in the minors again until the season after the streak, in 1916 with the White Sox. He played in just 87 total games in the big leagues, posting a .299 wOBA for his brief career.
• In 1945, Harry Chozen also hit in 49-straight for Mobile. The hit streak came eight years after he played one game for the Cincinnati Reds in where he went 1-for-4. That was it for his major league career. Despite the streak, he never was brought back to the majors.
• In 1925, Johnny Bates hit in 46 straight for Nashville of the Southern Association. There’s a Johnny Bates that had a pretty nifty 9-year career (164.3 wRAA), but that career ended in 1914. It’s doubtful that the same Johnny Bates was playing in the minors eleven years later at age 43, right? Because if so, then that’s just plain interesting.
• Sitting just behind McOwen is Brandon Watson, who hit in 43-straight games for Triple-A Columbus. He’s now 27, playing in the Diamondbacks organization, and his hitting for a .310 wOBA. In 96 major league plate appearances for his career he has a .216 wOBA.

Th lesson is here is these hit streaks are pretty meaningless in determining prospect status. Not trying to downplay his accomplishment, and here’s hoping he keeps the streak going. It goes without saying that McOwen is not the next Joltin’ Joe, but he’s not even necessarily a prospect.

J.P. has a quick hook. You can say a lot of things about Ricciardi’s tenure as the Blue Jay’s GM, but you have to say this: The man is willing to swallow his pride and admit when he’s wrong. But wasn’t this a bit premature? The Jays will take a real bath here, eating $15 million of B.J. Ryan’s salary. Combine that with last year’s dump of Frank Thomas, and you have twenty-five million bucks worth of break-ups the past two seasons.

Ryan, as most of you may remember, was signed to a big 5-year, $47 million dollar contract in November of 2005. Year one of his contract looked promising — Ryan saved 38 in 42 attempts, posted a FIP of 2.14 and was worth three wins above replacement as Toronto’s closer in 2006. Unfortunately, the wheels came off quickly from there. Back pain somehow turned into Tommy John surgery, (read: the team lied to the media) and Ryan has not been the same pitcher since. While he was able to save 32 games in 36 tries last season, his stuff never returned. His fastball and his slider have dropped about 4 miles per hour and his slider has flattened out. The results have not been pretty:

Still, it’s surprising that the Blue Jays were so quick to show him the door. Ryan had complained to the press about a lack of playing time but (allegedly) refused any minor league assignment after the team placed him on the disabled list with tightness in his shoulder. Releasing Ryan was probably about the only way to make him semi-attractive to other teams who may be interested in taking a flier, so in that sense it may have been the right thing to do. Right now he looks more like a long-shot LOOGY than anything else, as he has shown he still at least has some ability to miss left-handed bats.

According to Ryan’s win values, he only “earned” $12 mil of that $47 million dollar contract, good for a $35 million dollar toilet flush.

Ryan seems to be a rarity in that Tommy John surgery hasn’t really seemed to take. Signing a 30-year old closer to a big, five-year deal hardly seems like a good idea to me, but at the time the deal wasn’t universally pilloried, and the Blue Jays were bumping salary in order to compete with the big two. The reign of Ricciardi has been a bumpy ride, and if I’m a Blue Jay fan I’m a little worried about him finding a way to screw up the Halladay trade negotiations.

As for Ryan, I’d imagine he’ll latch on somewhere, reportedly Florida has some interest. Whether he ever regains his form seems rather doubtful at the moment, but some team will give him a shot.

Kenny Williams just can’t help himself. The man loves hard-throwing, right-handed relievers and will pay through the nose in order to get them. We are talking about the same general manager who in recent history agreed to $30 million bucks worth of Octavio Dotel and Scott Linebrink, and now he pulls the trigger to get another strong armed reliever in Tony Pena, giving up a solid prospect in the process.

As many of you may recall, Pena once was a once a big story, and not for his arm, but for falsifying his information on his visa, going under the alias Adriano Rosario. When the truth of his real identity came to light, what also was revealed is that (surprise!) Pena was five years older than his reported age. In a flash, Pena went from an 18-year old whiz kid dominating the minors to something like Billy Madison throwing dodge-balls at hapless elementary school students.

That’s not to say Pena doesn’t have talent. In a nutshell, Pena throws hard. His average fastball velocity is 95-MPH, and he also features a hard slider and a changeup, both pitches have been effective offerings for him this year. For someone with stuff as good as Pena’s, it’s surprising he doesn’t strikeout more batters; he’s actually been rather average in that regard. (6.55 career K/9, 6.88 this season). Pena has better control than average and for someone who has pitched in a rather hitter-friendly park, he’s done a fine job of keeping the ball in the yard. He has a 4.24 ERA now, but much of that can be blamed on some bad BABIP breaks (.352). ZiPS pegs him to post a 3.53 FIP for the rest of the season. I can imagine that may change a tad due to the switch in leagues, but as far as ballparks he’s moving from one rough neighborhood to another.

The price for Pena is Brandon Allen. The 23 year old is a big, left-handed power hitter who positioned himself as either Jim Thome or Paul Konerko’s heir. The former prep linebacker was a fifth rounder out of high school in ’04, but struggled to make contact during his first three seasons in the minors. Allen has made strides over the past couple of seasons, and after being promoted to Double-A last year, he posted a nifty .290/.358/.614 line in 274 plate appearances. All told, between High-A and Double-A, he smacked 29 homers last year while cutting down his strikeout numbers and increasing his walk rate.

This year it seems Allen has traded power for contact. His average is up to .290 at Double-A and he’s striking out less than ever (19.5%), but his power has suffered (.162 ISO). Of course, he still has more time to work out the kinks. Chad Tracy has been just plain bad since coming back last year, so D-Bax fans hope Allen is the answer to the first base question for years to come. Allen does carry an air of uncertainty given his recent power decline and the struggles he experienced early in his career, but if all goes well, he profiles to be better than your run of the mill, everyday first baseman.

The Southsiders are only a couple of games behind Detroit and have won eight of their last ten games, so Kenny Williams is going for it, but in the wrong way. The Sox have plenty of needs, but fixing the bullpen is hardly one of them. Assuming Pena will slot behind Jenks, Thornton, Linebrink and Dotel, all Pena figures to add to the Sox is half a win. On the flip side, Dotel is a free agent at the end of the year, and Pena won’t be eligible for free agency until 2013, so I guess there is some foresight in this move, but it’s not like relievers of Pena’s ilk are hard to find. The Sox had hitting depth to spare given the presence of Tyler Flowers and Dayan Viciedo, so trading from that strength makes sense, but not for another bullpen arm.

Headed into spring training, Ryan Franklin was considered to be the back-up plan to the back-up plan for the closer’s job in St. Louis. Coming off of a middling season in what has been a mostly middling career; Ryan Franklin is hardly anyone’s idea of a typical closer. No, Franklin’s job more or less was to mentor and set-up for rookie flame-throwers Chris Perez and Jason Motte. Instead, Perez became expendable, and Motte gave up a four-spot against the Pirates on Opening Day. Mr. Awesome Chin-Hair has been the de facto closer ever since. And now, he’s an All-Star.

Franklin has all the nifty baseball-card stats – he’s leading all qualified major league relievers in ERA (0.84). He has 20 saves in 21 tries. He is just one-tenth of a point behind the NL leader (Jonathan Broxton) in a non-baseball card stat — Situational Wins (WPA/LI) – at 1.30. So from that standpoint at least, one can make an argument for Franklin being all-star worthy. (I’m not saying I agree with it. You’d be hard-pressed to argue Franklin over Vazquez, Gallardo, Ubaldo…) So what gives? Can Franklin keep this up?

Looking at his pitch selection, he’s a cutter convert. He’s seldom thrown one before. Franklin has never been afraid to experiment with different pitches, he is even known to occasionally throw a knuckleball. With the cutter he seems to be enjoying some success. Franklin has gone from throwing a slider 23% of the time last year to a cutter 27% of the time this year. Now before you cry “screwy pitch classification”, it is a true-blue cutter. Firstly, his slider last year was an 85 MPH pitch on average last year. This pitch is 89 MPH. The pitch also has 3 inches of higher vertical movement than his slider. To clench the nail, we also have Ryan Franklin himself saying he’s ditched the slider in favor of the cutter.

(Referring to his cutter) “It’s become a real weapon for me. I have a lot more consistency with it, which means I’m more confident. A lot of times when I got hurt last season it was with the slider…”

In terms of effectiveness, it doesn’t quite explain Franklin’s breakout. Really, it’s his curveball that’s been his most effective pitch, and it’s basically the same curve he’s always thrown, he’s just throwing it a lot more — 20%, or twice as much as he threw it last year. Both may have led to an increase in whiffs, as he’s striking out more batters than ever before at 6.75 K/9. That’s hardly a dominant rate for a closer, but for Franklin I suppose that’s pretty darn good. Where Franklin has really shined is demonstrated by his walk rate; he’s giving up just under two free passes per nine innings.

There is however one underlying factor that overrides all, and that’s lots of lucky goatee grease:

Given Franklin’s history, lucky hit rate and strand rate, his projections call for him to come back to earth and post a 4.10 FIP the rest of the season. He’s been good, and some of that may have to do with pitch selection, but there is no way he’s this good. The Cardinals are somehow hoping Franklin can keep the lucky fuzz keeps working, because there’s no one ready to claim the role of relief ace in that bullpen.

With the All-Star rosters unveiled, Charlie Manuel showed that you can be a championship-winning manager and have no more intelligence than your average fan when it comes to putting together an All-Star team. Picking Jason Marquis over Ubaldo Jimenez vividly illustrates that point that Manuel is still living in the dark ages.

Ubaldo Jimenez is what the All-Star game should be about — showcasing the brightest and the best talent in the major leagues. For starters, he throws consistently harder than any major league starting pitcher, averaging 95.6 MPH on his fastball. Obviously, putting together an All-Star pitching staff should not based upon finding the pitchers who throw the hardest, but it doesn’t hurt that Jimenez is also really, really good. His fielding-independent ERA (FIP) is 3.33, 7th among NL starting pitchers, and his wins above replacement total is 2.9, good for 5th best. To to sum up: Jimenez is young, he has electric stuff and is pretty stinkin’ good at pitching.

Jason Marquis on the other hand is leading the NL in the preeminent Wins category, with 10 to his credit. What Manuel seems to have forgotten is that Jason Marquis is the definition of a back-end starting pitcher (with a career FIP of 4.88). He forgot that Marquis has an average repertoire and is striking out just 4.2 batters per nine innings. He overlooked the fact Marquis is getting lots of run support, at 7 per game. Marquis does have a near-identical ERA as Jimenez (3.87), but he is exactly the type of pitcher you expect burn up as he hurtles quickly back to earth. His rest-of-season ZiPS projection calls for a 4.73 FIP. All Manuel saw was 10 Wins.

I don’t expect an old school manager to care about rest of season ZiPS, FIP or WAR, but I would think they would know the difference between an ace and a back-end starter having a fluky first-half of a season. And who wouldn’t want Ubaldo Jimenez coming out of their bullpen, pumping in 100 MPH fastballs? Few fans get the privilege of seeing Jimenez pitch with him tucked away in Colorado, and unfortunately they’re not going to get the chance to see him shine on one of baseball’s biggest stages.

The international free agent market opened yesterday with a bang, with two 16-year old Latin Americans signing for huge bonuses. The Yankees signed catcher Gary Sanchez for a $3 million bonus, and the Cardinals, not to be outdone, spent $3.1 million on outfielder Wagner Mateo, a record amount for a Dominican position player. Signing kids to big bonus money involves a fair share of risk, as one doesn’t know fully what type of player or even person a 16-year old will grow up to be. A team has to feel fairly confident about it’s ability to scout and forecast a player’s potential, but these players still sort of feel like expensive lottery tickets.

Wily Mo Pena signed for what was once a record $2.44 million, and he had only two seasons in which his WAR was in the positive, and neither seasons were with the team that signed him. Joel Guzman also received a huge bonuses, and he has a whopping 62 big league plate appearances to his credit. Those are a couple of the bad stories, but there is one story of a bonus baby that currently is developing into a really good one, and that is Jesus Montero’s.

Signed for a $1.6 million bonus by the Yankees, scouts have raved about Montero’s future power potential, some going far as to grade his power an “8” on the 2-8 scouting scale. The knock was on his body, which some said he looked like Travis Hafner. (He’s currently listed at 6-4, 225). At 16-years old. I guess when you are projected to hit like vintage Travis Hafner, no one seems to mind.

Montero is just 19-years old and is currently dominating the minors. After posting a .326/.376/.491 line in Single-A ball, Montero started his season in the High-A Florida State League, a notoriously friendly league to pitching. In over a little 200 plate appearances, Montero was a man among boys, leading the league with a .444 wOBA. A promotion to Double-A has not slowed him, in 86 plate appearances Montero has a superb .325/.395/.571 line. Between Tampa and Trenton, he has just an 11.6% strikeout rate, which is outstanding for a young power hitter. His walk rate is 8%, but he should grow more patient at the plate with experience and maturity.

Montero just been playing like an absolute man child, and at this pace it’s not inconceivable that he’s ready for a big league job at 21-years old. But if there is hole in his game, it definitely on his defense. As a catcher, the young Venezuelan has allowed 74 stolen bases in the 43 games he’s caught this season, and has thrown out just 15 would be base-stealers.

A move to 1B or even DH could be in order, but we know the Yankees are pretty historically indifferent to defense. Maybe the Yankees think he’s their mini-Piazza. Hitting the way he has at a young age, maybe it’s not completely preposterous to believe so.

Andy Marte completed a backslide of epic proportions earlier in the year when he was designated for assignment to clear a roster spot for a Juan Salas, a relief pitcher who the Tribe claimed off of waivers from the Rays. No team claimed Marte, and Salas was later dumped on May 6th in favor of Matt Herges.

From being a top prospect to major downer, it seems like Andy Marte has been around forever. Dave Cameron already took us through Marte’s fall from grace back in February, but I’ll recap it quickly: Marte first hit the prospect scene after posting a .211 ISO in the Sally League in 2002 as an 18-year old. He showed impressive patience and pop in a tough hitter’s environment in the Carolina League (12% walk rate, .184 ISO) the following year. Marte continued to mash in the higher levels of the minors hit, with a nifty .269/.364/.525 “slash” line as a 20-year old in Double-A, and .275/.372/.506 as a 21-year old in Triple-A.

Going into 2006, by all appearances, Marte was ready for a big league job. Baseball America rated him the number one prospect in the Braves’ system and the 14th best overall, but with Chipper Jones receiving a three-year extension, Marte was traded to Boston for Edgar Renteria. Boston then flipped Marte along with Guillermo Mota, Kelly Shoppach to Cleveland Indians for Josh Bard, Coco Crisp, David Riske and Randy Newsom. To prospect geeks like me, it seemed a little strange to see a supposed future star get traded twice in one winter, and especially for solid-but-unspectacular players like Crisp and Renteria (who was coming off the worst season of his life).

You know the rest of the story. After being traded twice, Marte was terrible for Cleveland and middling in Triple-A, up until now. Last night for AAA Columbus, Marte went 4-for-4 with two doubles and a homer. In his last ten games, he’s hit .459/.512/.892. His overall line is now up to .319/.351/.527 for the season. It would be tempting to write that sort of performance off considering how this is his 8th season in the minors, but Marte is 25 years old, not young, yet hardly Quad-A age.

After being traded to Cleveland, Marte has gone from being posting decent walk rates to being downright hacky, walking in just around 5% of his plate appearances. His BABIP (.335) is a tad high, but doesn’t really show anything super-fluky. Marte is making solid contact, striking out in 16.7% of his plate appearances. His minor league equivalent is .287/.313/.458, definitely not the superstar level, but the Indians will take it, especially taking into account that Marte is regarded as being one of the better defenders in the minors, so much so, he was voted by minor league managers and coaches as the International League’s best defensive third baseman three years in a row (’05-’07). His Total Zone numbers match the scouting reports; in those 301 games, Marte has been worth +31 runs.

Marte still could and should be a productive major league player, even if merely productive is a fraction of what is upside once was perceived as. Since Mark DeRosa has been traded to St. Louis, Jhonny Peralta and his disappearing power act has taken up residency at third base for Cleveland. So once again, Marte has opportunity. Hopefully he can make the most of his next chance, because it should be coming soon.