Last week, the Houston Astros put Wandy Rodriguez on waivers, giving teams until Tuesday afternoon to make a claim on him. At the time, Jon Heyman noted that only “some fool” would put in a claim, given the amount of money he’s still owed on his contract. This isn’t to pick on Heyman, since he’s hardly been the only writer talking about Rodriguez’s burdensome contract and how Houston should be happy to be rid of their obligation to him going forward.

Through it all, I’ve sat here and scratched my head trying to figure out if we’re all talking about the same Wandy Rodriguez here, because the one that I’m aware of is a pretty good pitcher.

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Over at The Book Blog, Mitchel Lichtman commented that Astros pitcher Mark Melancon, should not have thrown an inside fastball on a 2-2 count with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt. Instead the pitcher should be looking to throw a ball on the outside part of the plate. I decided to take a look at the location and results of similar pitches and the effect on the Win Probability Added (WPA) of the game.

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This past off-season it seemed as though Wandy Rodriguez would sit near the top of available pitchers at the deadline. The Astros were going nowhere, and Rodriguez was set to hit free agency after the season. But out of nowhere the Astros signed him to a three-year, $34 million contract that covered 2011 through 2013. In itself that’s still a tradable contract, but the $13 million option changed the story. If traded it becomes a player option, which makes a deal far less likely. Written that way, the inclusion of the option clause made it seem as though the Astros intended to keep Rodriguez. And yet here we are in August, hearing talk of a possible waiver trade.

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The Braves finally got in on one of the most active trade deadlines in recent memory Sunday morning, when they acquired Michael Bourn from the Astros. In doing so, the Braves were able to part with quantity over quality and get a guy who perfectly fits their ballclub.

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You’re the shepherd of a contending team. Your veteran left fielder is 10% worse than the average major leaguer and your young right fielder is part of a tandem that’s third-worst in the National League at he position. An exciting young corner outfielder is available on the market. Acquiring the upgrade is a no-brainer, right?

A lot of ink will be spilled about how Hunter Pence is over-rated. You can point out that he’s got a below-average walk rate. You can say his strikeout rate is only average. It’s true that his power looks above average when compared to the league but is only about the same as the average right fielder (.163 ISO for Pence, .168 for the average right-fielder). It’s even true that he steals bases at a less-than-efficient rate (63%).

And yet, acquiring Pence makes sense for the Phillies.

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The Astros might have the most tradable chits this week, but that doesn’t mean they’re in an enviable position. With ownership in transition and a GM who will, in all likelihood, be searching for employment this winter, there aren’t many easy decisions. New ownership has given a directive to cut payroll by about $15 million next year, but that certainly comes with the caveat of making moves that benefit the team long-term. That’s what makes the deadline so difficult for them. Can they get more value now, or would they be best served in the off-season, when there might be more buyers?

The question applies to a few players on the Astros roster, but perhaps none greater than Hunter Pence. His name appears in trade rumors almost as frequently as Carlos Beltran’s, though his status in the trade market is less certain. The Astros are under no obligation to trade him now, but given the need among contenders for a quality outfield, particularly in the corners, they figure to find a few palatable deals proposed this week.

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“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.” J.R.R. Tolkien

By most accounts, Jose Altuve did not have the most impressive debut for the Houston Astros on Wednesday. The 21-year-old second baseman stepped into the void left by Jeff Keppinger’s move to San Francisco and… well, he didn’t fill that void. Aggressive in each of his at-bats, he went one for five with a strikeout. The fact that he was in the major leagues at all was a bit of an upset, however: Altuve is only five foot seven, and perhaps generously listed as such.

With the Astros not headed to the post season and looking to see what they have for the future, Altuve is in line for at least 200 plate appearances the rest of the way. The team is likely to give him enough leash to finish the year no matter how he fares. Only 22 middle infielders that were his height or shorter have ever accomplished that feat in their first year. But how did those comp players fare at the plate? And how did those numbers compare to the general middle infield population? That might help us manage our expectations for the diminutive one.

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There’s an adage regarding the trade deadline I heard recently, but can’t remember the source. The idea, essentially, is that if you require additional players in order to contend, you shouldn’t play the role of buyer. The trade deadline is a time for contenders to shore up their rosters for the final third of the season, not for pretenders to sell the farm for a prayer. This year the Pirates might have reason to eschew that logic. They’re playing better than their talent indicates — about seven wins better, according to Baseball Prospectus’s third-order wins — and could come crashing down at any time. But they’re currently just a half game back of first, and without a standout team in the NL Central they could stay in the race with the right upgrades. A rental, however, might not be the way to go.

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…or at least since 1974, since that’s how far the play-by-play database goes back at the moment.

All non-masochistic fans hate watching a hitter from their team ground into a double play. It is almost always (that’s right, almost, as we’ll see in a post later this week) devastating for your team’s chances. In terms of linear weights, the average double play in modern baseball is about .37 runs worse than a normal out because it costs another out and takes a runner off of the bases.

Of course, the actual effect of a double play depends on the game situation in which it occurs, it’s place in the story. While Win Probability Added (WPA) isn’t a good way to value individual players, it is a good “story stat,” as it gives a quantitative sense of the ebbs and flows of the game play-by-play by seeing what the teams chances of winning before and after each event are. So let’s take a look at the worst (from the perspective of the hitter’s team) three double plays (just grounded into double plays, as things like lining into a double play are a different sort of beast) according to WPA since 1974.

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Whence we last examined yonder batting orders, we came away with several expected observations (Jose Bautista plays baseball like a video game, the Oakland Athletics do not care much for scoring runs, Rick Ankiel and Ian Desmond are not feared hitters, and so forth) as well as a number of curious findings (the Cubs lead-off combo was tops in the majors, the 7th hitters on AL teams were worse than the 9th hitters, NL managers effectively managed the bottoms of their lineups, and such).

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