Back towards the end of June, when the Phillies decided to send struggling starter Brett Myers to the minor leagues, I voiced my disgruntled opinion at the way they had mishandled his situation on more than one occasion. Turning him into a reliever after just three starts last year was terrible for his long-term success and then reversing the move this year, to me at least, spelled problems from the get-go. Based on his true talent level there simply was no way he could sustain the terrible performance witnessed up to that point and, since his recall, he has been very good.

Much has been discussed about his home runs allowed, and many attempts have been made, by myself included, to determine the cause of his struggles. My looks at his Pitch F/X data showed that he was throwing with less velocity on his fastball, in poor locations, with slightly less movement in certain circumstances.

A straighter 88-89 mph fastball located right around the middle of the plate isn’t exactly going to get guys out. Additionally, Myers did not change his approach; he stuck with the approach of the 93-94 mph guy he used to be and this hurt him. The slower your velocity is, the more careful you need to be with other aspects of pitching, such as sequencing and location.

Since rejoining the big league team, from July 23 until last night, he has put up some great numbers. In 6 starts, he has gone 41.2 innings, surrendering just 30 hits while giving up 9 earned runs. On top of that, he has walked just 10 hitters to go with his 32 strikeouts. His home runs? 2 in this 41.2 inning span, compared to 24 in his previous 101.2 innings.

Here are the starts, broken down:

7/23 @ NYM: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 K
7/29 @ Was: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K
8/3 @ StL: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K
8/9 vs. Pit: 7.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
8/14 @ LAD: 7 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K
8/20 vs. Was: 9 IP, 9 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

Prior to July 23, he had a WPA of -2.52. Since then, he has contributed 0.933 wins in six starts, lowering his seasonal mar to -1.59. His numbers for the entire season likely won’t turn out as well as he hoped, but if he pitches like this, you would be hard pressed to show me a team that wouldn’t love his services. And, more importantly, if he can sustain some semblance of this performance for the duration of the season, he could prove to be a huge factor in helping the Phillies make the playoffs.

Nobody honestly expected the San Francisco Giants to compete for anything significant this year. Their prized offseason acquisition was Aaron Rowand, a guy coming off of a career year in a hitter’s park; they still owed Barry Zito mega-bucks; and the outlook beyond this year did not look too bright, either. They are a bad team, but what gets lost in the shuffle too often when discussing like-performing teams is that not all of the players are bad. The Giants, as a team, may struggle, but some of their individual parts are solid or all-star caliber.

One of these players, whom Giants fans seem to be sold on as a building block, is Fred Lewis. Now, no matter what this silly article at Baseball Evolution thinks, Fred is nowhere (and I mean nowhere!) near the level of Barry Bonds… but he still looks pretty good.

In 117 games this year he has put up a .285/.355/.454 slash line with 23 doubles, 10 triples, and 9 home runs. His speed and numbers remind me of Curtis Granderson, just without the home runs that would boost the three components of his slash line. Chances are, most fans have never heard of Lewis, and while he may not sustain his current performance—a .372 BABIP—his OPS is currently higher than both Ryan Howard and Mark Reynolds, two guys with stronger reputations.

With regards to his .372 BABIP, I’m not saying Lewis cannot sustain a high number, but .372 is borderline ridiculous. It has been speculated (but never tested… hmm… maybe I’ll check that soon) that speedier players can/will post higher BABIPs because they will beat out grounders when others would not. Perhaps Lewis falls into this category, but my money would be put in the regression department in that metric’s cubby.

He does strike out his fair share of time but he has not been in the big leagues for very long and patience seems to be one of those virtues that grows with experience. His 27.1% strikeout rate is in the same vicinity as Adam Dunn and Dan Uggla, for those curious. He is also right around the halfway point in walk percentage, amongst qualifying senior circuit members.

All told, he has a 1.01 WPA/LI, and has been playing solid defense. Via the + – system, Lewis is a +8 leftfielder, which is tied for second in the big leagues. Carl Crawford, at +20, is far and away the leader. For those interested, Johnny Damon, Matt Holliday, and Garret Anderson are also +8 in leftfield this year. Dave pointed out that the Giants may be shipping Randy Winn out of town after this season, as he is a very attractive commodity from the perspective of other teams, but Fred Lewis looks like a very decent chip with which to build.

Remember at the beginning of the season when, for whatever reason, some ESPN analysts seemed programmed to think that the Detroit Tigers were seriously capable of scoring 1,000 runs this year? Of course, it was a euphemism for how potent their offense might be rather than a serious prediction (I hope). Curtis Granderson was expected to leadoff for this offense and help propel them into a landslide division victory in the AL Central.

Well, the Tigers aren’t scoring or on pace to score 6.17 r/g—what it would take to score 1,000+ runs—and Granderson’s early season absence is generally attributed as a major cause. It’s kind of odd to say that the team vastly underperformed because of him; after all, in 2006, he was a contender for the Oddibe Award (the award I give out to the player with the most average slash line). Sure, he had a great year in 2007 but to say a team “expected” to win at an alarming rate isn’t doing so because of one player means that his replacement would have to have been monumentally awful so as to make up for the difference.

Since his return he has essentially picked up where he left off. He wasn’t going to OPS .920+ realistically as it took one of those 20-20-20-20 seasons to get a .913, but that does not mean he couldn’t be a very productive player. In 105 games, he is hitting .302/.374/.502, an .876 OPS. 44 of his hits are of the extra-base variety, consisting of 20 doubles, 9 triples, and 15 home runs. With only a month and a half left, needing both 11 steals and 11 triples, it isn’t likely he can repeat the 2007 magic, but given the time he missed his stat-line is still very impressive.

His OBP was thirteen points lower last year, at .361, but his SLG was up fifty points at .552. He doesn’t seem like a power-hitter because triples aren’t necessarily held to the same power esteem as home runs or doubles; triples are thought of more as hits based on speed. Despite his slugging percentage is much lower than last year, it is still the same or in the same vicinity as Vladimir Guerrero, Jason Giambi, Nate McLouth, and Aramis Ramirez.

He has contributed 1.72 wins in a context-neutral environment, and 1.44 based on shifts in run expectancy. For the sake of context, Vladimir Guerrero is one full WPA/LI win below Grandy. He may have missed time early in the season and his absence may have hurt the Tigers get off to the start they desired, but any struggles since his return can hardly be attributed to his performance.

Over at the Inside the Book: Blog a week or two ago, TangoTiger discussed a method in which a pitcher’s “effective win-loss record” could be calculated using primarily the +WPA and -WPA components found here at Fangraphs. For all of the gory details, click here. For more of a calculation summation, this modified record can be produced by doing the following:

1) Double the +WPA and -WPA, otherwise known as Win Advancement and Loss Advancement
2) Regardless of the + or -, add the WA and LA (if a pitcher has a +8.50 +WPA and -6.50 -WPA, he would have 17 WA and 13 LA)
3) This new number gives us the GA, Game Advancements
4) Multiply the GA by .308
5) Subtract the product from #4 from the WA and LA to get the ‘Effective W-L’

With the exporting feature on the leaderboards I was able to enter this into a spreadsheet to calculate the effective w-l record of all those who qualify. Via winning percentage, the top five pitchers in this category are:

1) Ryan Dempster, .823 (12.3-2.6)
2) Cliff Lee, .813 (14.1-3.2)
3) Tim Lincecum, .724 (13.2-5.0)
4) Justin Duchsherer, .705 (9.6-4.0)
5) CC Sabathia, .691 (14.0-6.3)

Ian Snell clocked in with the lowest winning percentage, a .328 spawned from his 5.8-12.0 effective record. To view the spreadsheet I used and see everyone’s winning percentage, click here.

Whether or not this metric will find itself ingrained in the general saberstream or not is yet to be determined but it definitely serves the purpose of leveling out a pitcher’s record. By adjusting it to be indicative of the positive and negative shifts in win expectancy we are really looking at how much a pitcher helped his team win or lose.

Last year, Matt Cain posted one of the best 7-16 seasons of all time, clearly producing numbers above the level expected from a record like that. He would give up two or less runs and and lose or fail to record a decision more often than win, which speaks volumes to the offense “supporting” him. This year, he got off to a similar start, losing games in which he pitched poorly, but not winning the games he deserved to win. With a month and a half left he has already surpassed last year’s total with eight wins, but his record still is not indicative of what the rest of his numbers suggest.

He has a 3.57 ERA supported by a 3.48 FIP. Though he walks hitters to the tune of 3.62 per nine innings, he is pretty hard to hit, which is currently resulting in a 1.28 WHIP. On top of that, he rarely gives up home runs, as evidenced by his 5.7% HR/FB that is very similar to his numbers in this metric over his entire career. For the record, league average is around eleven percent.

This year, he has given up two earned runs or less in 13 starts, and gone just 6-1 in that span. Though better than his results in 2007, that means there are six no-decisions that could have or should have been wins. Though I ultimately don’t care about the W-L record, most of the country does, and Cain’s reputation is likely hurt outside of San Francisco or NL West teams because of this. He has seemingly perfected the art form of pitching well enough to win while losing or not getting any decision.

His 1.62 WPA/LI and 1.54 REW are solid for this year, but nowhere near the top of the leaderboards. He has been the perfect compliment to Tim Lincecum and a great number two pitcher. For those curious, his WPA/LI is one win lower than Lincecum and his REW is about two wins lower. Still, the tag team nicknamed “LinceCain” is one reason Giants fans should feel happy about something from this season.

Cain is a very good pitcher… not a league best righty by any means, but with some better run support, his reputation would be much stronger amongst baseball fans. He could conceivably receive, and deservedly so, a huge contract when it is free agency time despite a potential W-L record 20 games below .500.

The Diamondbacks have been a disappointment so far this season, failing to distance themselves from their NL West rivals on several occasions. Now, with a month and a half remaining, they face the serious possibility of losing the division and missing the post-season. None of these woes can really be attributed to Brandon Webb or Dan Haren, however, as both pitchers have been fantastic this year.

A couple months ago that I would take Webb over Haren in a crucial situation but that there weren’t any other twosomes I would want to headline my rotation. Granted, a CC Sabathia/Ben Sheets twosome may give them a run for their money now that Sabathia is in the senior circuit, but Webb/Haren have both put together great seasons. Which one is having the better year right now, though? Even though we know and understand that W-L records are terrible evaluative barometers, it’s pretty hard to look at Webb’s 18-4 mark and completely disregard it. That’s what we need to do, however, to get a clear picture of everything. Here are some comparisons:

Webb: 2.85 ERA, 1.11 WHIP
Haren: 2.96 ERA, 1.03 WHIP

Webb: 177 IP, 154 H, 9 HR
Haren: 167 IP, 143 H, 14 HR

Webb: 7.37 K/9, 2.14 BB/9, 3.45 K/BB
Haren: 8.41 K/9, 1.56 BB/9, 5.38 K/BB

Webb: 2.96 FIP, .291 BABIP, 72.8% LOB
Haren: 2.91 FIP, .291 BABIP, 74.3% LOB

Webb: 2.12 WPA/LI, 2.66 REW, 26.73 BRAA
Haren: 3.23 WPA/LI, 3.14 REW, 31.68 BRAA

The first two comparisons may lean towards Webb, but after that it is pretty tough to argue that Haren has not been the better pitcher to date. He doesn’t walk anyone, has a great strikeout rate, isn’t posting an unsustainably high strand rate, and his BABIP isn’t abnormally low either. On top of that, his context-neutral contributions are over one full win better than Webb, while his wins based on shifts in run expectancy are almost a half-win better.

One of the aspects I touched on last time dealt with Webb having better numbers in high leverage situations. That has not changed:

Webb: .200/.260/.264, .524 OPS
Haren: .289/.317/.447, .764 OPS

The caveat to this, however, is that Webb has 126 PA in these situations and Haren only has 84. Haren doesn’t seem to be as good under the pressure but he has been good enough this season to avoid these pressure situations. Granted, some of this is also contingent upon the defense and game state but you may be inclined to think that the better a pitcher is, the less high leverage situations he would find himself in. It won’t be true in all cases, but if a pitcher is constantly in the midst of high leverage situations—and he isn’t a late inning reliever—that means runners are constantly reaching base and posing legitimate run-scoring threats.

Just 12.6% of Haren’s PAs this year have been of this nature whereas Webb is under pressure 17.4% of the time. Take from that what you will, or take away nothing from it. If nothing else, it is interesting to note. It looks like Haren has performed better than his sinker-balling teammate this year even though most people are going to be swayed by Webb’s impressive W-L record and slightly lower ERA. Don’t be fooled, though… Haren has been just as effective, if not better. If they do manage to make the playoffs this twosome could prove huge in their World Series chances.

Between a few errands yesterday, I happened to catch one of those ESPN baseball analysis segments in which a series of supposedly interesting questions are analyzed from all angles until the viewer walks away with an extreme understanding of the subject. Or maybe the opposite. I can’t remember. Anyways, the analyst was Chris Singleton, whom I actually feel has the best presence on-screen and is the smoothest of the bunch, generally offering good insights. Something he mentioned on this particular segment, however, made me cringe.

They were showing a highlight of the DBacks-Rockies game in which Adam Dunn grounded out to end the game in a clutch spot. Singleton started by mentioning how tough of a plate appearance it was with so much at stake and Brian Fuentes—who hides the ball very well—on the mound. So far so good. But when Chris got into his overall evaluation of Dunn, despite presenting the information in a smooth manner, it came off as nothing more than generic announcer-talk that exhibited next to no knowledge of what he was discussing.

To paraphrase, he essentially said that while Dunn will hit homers he will also strike out quite a bit… and because of the strikeouts he’ll post low on base and slugging percentages.

What!? Seriously?

So, does that mean that Hanley Ramirez is posting low on base and slugging percentages? As Dave showed a couple of days ago, these players have virtually identical OBP and SLG numbers over the last two years. Why would Singleton say this? If he meant to say that, because Dunn strikes out so much it prevents him from getting more extra base hits and more opportunities at reaching base, then it would make at least some sense… except that would mean Dunn would be a completely different player. Basically, there really is no justifiable reason to make this comment other than having no idea what you are talking about.

His OBP is virtually the same as Chase Utley, who by all accounts gets on base at a very decent clip. His SLG is higher than David Wright’s and virtually the same as the aforementioned Ramirez as well as Prince Fielder. In fact, Dunn and Fielder have very similar OBP and SLG numbers despite Prince’s forty point advantage in batting average. If Dunn was striking out a ton and producing a .230/.320/.430 slash line I might be able to understand Singleton’s point of view, but his actual line is .234/.373/.525.

His OBP and SLG may be lower than his counts last year or a few years ago, but they are not low.

Around this time of year those who write or analyze, be it in the mainstream media or the blogosphere, tend to get involved in posts discussing end of season award-winners. Heck, even Dave and I joined the fray yesterday in discussing the AL Cy Young Award with regards to Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. In the comments sections of both of our articles, the conversation surrounding who will win the award vs. who should win the award began to surface. Conversations like this seem to sprout up all over the place so I figured a post was in order to attempt to figure out why they exist and where they come from.

For starters, the idea of someone who should win something vs. someone who will win the same thing implies that the eventual winner is not deserving of whatever it is he is winning. In our case, an award like the MVP or Cy Young. Those in the camp of the former are seceding that their guy is not going to win the award but that he should. And, when they say he should, it really means that if they were voting, the results would be much different.

This then implies those voting are wrong in their decisions.

Some of the time they are, but really, do those voting on the awards get it wrong all the time? And who is deciding the criteria with which to gauge their decisions? These awards are voted on by mainstream writers, ones who generally are not well-versed in much other than batting average or win-loss record. Most of the time, us in the sabermetrics community mock their lack of statistical prowess but, for me at least, I don’t truly get bothered unless the author blatantly misuses or quotes numbers out of context.

Saying, for instance, that Adam Dunn lacks value because he has a .230 BA annoys me because the writers are making a definitive claim about his worth while using a metric that does tell us something, but nowhere near enough to make such a claim. On the other hand, if someone says that Player X could win the MVP award because he made the most impact on a good team and has a lot of home runs, RBIs as well as a high batting average, I really do not get that bothered. Sure, I know that there are plenty of other, better metrics out there to truly measure worth, but I don’t really care much about the awards. It isn’t going to effect me if someone “undeserving” wins.

See, for us who analyze stats and base judgments on a series of metrics, awards just aren’t that meaningful other than for posts discussing, for instance, why David Wright or Matt Holliday was more deserving than Jimmy Rollins… or why Johan Santana should have won instead of Bartolo Colon in 2005. Do I wish those making these decisions were a bit more educated with regards to evaluating players? Of course… but I’m not going to let it ruin my day that they vote for the wrong person, unless of course the losing player had planned on splitting his award bonus with me.

I guess my point here is that those of us who understand how to evaluate a player better shouldn’t care so much about the awards and should leave it to the people who care more about impact on the game from what they see rather than what some numbers may suggest. As in, why get involved in something or get bothered by something we should care about very little, if at all? Leave the WPA/LI, VORP, BRAA, and UZR to us analysts to do our jobs and properly gauge the true talent levels of players, but let’s not bring them into MVP or Cy Young discussions when we know that the percentage of voters who utilize and understand these metrics is likely much lower than Adam Dunn’s percentage of hits/at-bats.

The Texas Rangers are known this year for a very, very potent offense. With Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, and Ian Kinsler all producing top-of-the-league numbers it becomes very easy to overlook other contributing players on the team. Granted, none of these players are in the pitching department, but Marlon Byrd is having a very solid season and, over the last two weeks has arguably been the best player in baseball.

Byrd has had an interesting and underachieving career. He was once considered a super-prospect in the Phillies farm system but never met expectations in red pinstripes and soon found himself sent packing to the Nationals in exchange for Endy Chavez… yes, the Mets legend once played for the Phillies! He then signed with the Rangers as a free agent prior to the 2007 season and remains there today, roaming all three positions in the outfield.

In 82 games this season, Byrd has produced a .298/.381/.477 slash line, good for an OPS+ of 128. He also has an RZR (fielding metric developed at The Hardball Times) of .957. Though he doesn’t technically qualify for inclusion on their leaderboard, the current leader in the outfield is Adam Jones of the Orioles, whose RZR is .948. Take from that what you will.

Though Byrd’s seasonal line is pretty impressive, he has been extremely hot lately. Since July 8, he has hit .383/.463/.636, for a 1.099 OPS, drawing 14 free passes and fanning just seven times in these 29 games. Since the start of August, however, Byrd has been even better. Using the ‘Last 14 Days’ filter here at Fangraphs, Byrd is hitting .480/.559/.740, a 1.299 OPS. His WPA/LI is 0.84 in this span, which ranks atop the American League. Additionally, his BRAA (12.65) and REW (1.22) rank above all other AL players.

Now, The Book showed us that hot streaks, even the most flammable of the bunch, have next to no predictive value with regards to what will happen from that point on. So, it isn’t to say that because Byrd has produced these numbers over the last two weeks that he will continue to stay hot, or has any type of advantage over someone not as hot lately. Still, he has had a good season thus far and I think it’s safe to say very few people have noticed.

Is he living up to the potential that made its way into his corner as a minor leaguer? No, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a quality major league player

Is it just me or has there been a recent dearth of articles focused on Cliff Lee lately? It seems like all the major sources used up their Cliff Quota earlier in the year when he looked more like a fluke than now when he seems to be much more for real. Regardless, it’s time to check back in with our AL Cy Young Award-favorite and see how his season looks and what it might look like when September ends… and wake me up when that happens… ten points to whomever catches that reference.

In 23 starts, Lee has gone 161.2 innings, giving up 152 hits—just 7 of which are home runs—and 22 walks while fanning 128 batters. His HR/9 of 0.39 leads all of baseball, as do his 1.22 BB/9 and 5.82 K/BB. He has a 2.45 ERA which happens to be lower than any other starter and his FIP, which could show whether or not he has been lucky or unlucky, comes in a mere three-hundredths of a point higher at 2.48… which also happens to be the best in the bigs.

Another indicator of luck is BABIP, where we would expect someone not “for real” to have a very, very low mark; Lee’s is right around the average .300 at .307. His strand rate is 78.1% which, while very impressive, is not ridiculously unsustainable, especially for someone pitching on as elite of a level as Lee. All of these numbers have translated into a league best 4.97 WPA, a league best 3.90 WPA/LI, and a league best 4.07 REW.*

*There have been a lot of questions regarding REW. To clarify, it is Wins based on shifts in Run Expectancy, not Win Expectancy. It is essentially BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average) quantified in terms of Wins.

Seems like I’ve been writing the words ‘league’ and ‘best’ an awful lot so far. I’d stop, but the Indians lefty happens to lead baseball in many important categories. A really interesting note is his shift in GB/FB ratio. Prior to this year his ratio had never topped 0.84, whereas right now he has a 1.29, meaning he has been inducing many more groundballs. Not only does it seem that Lee’s numbers are the results of skills rather than luck, he seems to have become a different type of pitcher.

His in-season projection calls for 61 IP, 58 H, 6 HR, 15 BB, and 42 K over his remaining nine starts which would result in the following seasonal line: 32 GS, 222 IP, 210 H, 13 HR, 37 BB, 170 K, 1.11 WHIP, 2.78 ERA, 2.79 FIP.

Tom Tango discussed a really interesting way of turning the +WPA and -WPA found here into a W-L metric, so what happens when we plug Lee into that equation? His 16-2 becomes a 13-3, so his W-L has done a pretty good job of letting the public know how good he has been. With that in mind, has this guy already wrapped up a Cy Campaign? Is there any way he doesn’t win the award? I mean, his remaining nine starts are calling for a bit of a regression and even if he regresses more than that his numbers should still end up better than any other AL starter. If not, who would step in and take it away?