Episode 257
First, imagine FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron. Next, imagine all baseball. Now, imagine Dave Cameron analyzing all baseball. That’s precisely what follows in this episode of FanGraphs Audio.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 34 min. play time.)

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Here are the four rookie position players above 3.0 WAR in the 2012 season:
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Jeff Zimmerman and I have done lots of work on player aging curves in the past 12 to 18 months. Jeff started things off with a series of hitter aging curves, which focused mostly on standard outcomes and WAR components. Jeff and I then joined forces this year for a series focused on pitcher aging.

This time around, I wanted to know how a hitter’s plate discipline changes over his career. We already know plate discipline statistics are easily the most stable, year over year. That said, I wondered whether I’d see meaningful patterns as players age. Often times, scouts and commentators mention how a hitter’s approach changes over time: less disciplined, less contact as a young player; better bat control and better strike-zone awareness as a hitter matures. But does the data confirm this thinking?

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On Friday, the Rangers season ended, as the team fell to the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Wild Card play-in game. Josh Hamilton, in what will quite possibly be his final at-bat as a Texas Ranger, was booed by the home crowd. From an outside perspective, a break-up seems inevitable. The Rangers — and their fans — seem to just be tired of the Josh Hamilton Experience.

On one hand, the frustration is understandable. Back in May, I wrote a piece noting that Hamilton’s combination of approach and success were historically unique. That he was destroying opposing pitchers while showing the plate discipline of a three-year-old was fascinating. Then opposing pitchers adjusted, they simply stopped him throwing him anything near the plate, and Hamilton went into an epic two month slump. In August, Hamilton rebounded a bit, and he and his coaches both suggested that he’d made the necessary changes to his approach, even though the evidence suggested otherwise.

Not surprisingly, the success didn’t last, and any notion that Hamilton had made any strides with his pitch selection issues were dashed in the final month of the year, as his monthly totals illustrate:

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The presentation of Joe Saunders as a joke has escalated ever since the Orioles had the gall to name him starter for Friday’s American League Wild Card game. Nobody is accusing Joe Saunders of greatness, but he has made a living on competency. He has a 98 career ERA- — just slightly better than average. Aggressively competent, even.

Still, it’s understandable why Saunders is treated as the kind of pitcher who should be hit hard. In both browsing his statistics and watching his pitches, he has no discernible strengths. He lives in the high 80s with his fastball. He doesn’t throw a curveball with exceptional break. He has a changeup, but he isn’t a changeup artist of the Shaun Marcum or Johan Santana variety.

But in one way, Joe Saunders has been one of the major league’s best pitchers since 2008:

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Let’s all go ahead and agree right now that the worst day of Josh Hamilton’s life probably had nothing to do with baseball. I’m not going to go into any detail, and you shouldn’t need for me to go into any detail. Who knows where Hamilton would even be were it not for having baseball in his life? Baseball, for Josh Hamilton, is a blessing, that which helps to save him from what he could otherwise become.

But in terms of just on-field baseball performance, Josh Hamilton on Wednesday might have had the worst day of his career. Hamilton, of course, has been through more devastating games, such as the last two in last year’s World Series, but those were devastating on a team level. On Wednesday, individually, Hamilton sucked, and as such he’s one of the players responsible for the Rangers still having to win another game before they can think about the ALDS.

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It was almost too easy to call the demise of Ryan Dempster when he was dealt from the Cubs to the Rangers in July. DIPS theory will always have its share of headscratchers, but Dempster’s case was clear cut: with the Cubs, he managed a .242 BABIP and a 9.0% HR/FB compared to career marks of .301 and 10.5% respectively. Upon being moved out of one of the worst divisions and into one of the toughest — and one of the toughest parks to pitch in — Dempster has allowed a .319 BABIP and a 13.5% HR/FB. His ERA skyrocketed from 2.25 with Chicago to 4.64 with Texas. Simple stuff.

Now, thanks to a remarkable charge by Oakland, the Rangers are left with one last game to claim the American League West and avoid the dreaded Wild Card play-in game with Dempster on the hill. Even since being traded out of the cozy confines of the National League, Dempster has had success in the larger American League road parks. He allowed eight runs in six innings against the Yankees, but in his other five road starts, Dempster owns a 2.82 ERA with a 3.48 FIP, including 29 strikeouts against 10 walks in 28.2 innings.

The key difference between Dempster on the road — the Dempster we’ll see this afternoon in Oakland — and Dempster at home? Road Dempster attacks the strike zone.

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When the Angels traded actual value(!) for the overwhelming bulk of Vernon Wells‘ contract(!), it didn’t look like there were very many ways by which the Angels could come away looking smart. There were more ways by which the Angels could come away feeling content, though, like if Wells performed well enough, even if not well enough to be worth his salary. These days the Angels appear neither smart nor content, although in fairness the front office has since turned over. What the Angels didn’t need was for Wells to suck. What the Angels really didn’t need on top of Wells sucking was for Mike Napoli to hit the crap out of the Angels.

Sunday, the Angels and the Rangers played a critical doubleheader. The Angels won the first game, and Mike Napoli went 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter. The Angels lost the second game, by one run, and Napoli went 3-for-3 with a walk, a double, and two homers. The loss pushed the Angels one decision from playoff elimination, and Napoli’s big game capped off a big season against his former employer.

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Alternate headline: Yu Darvish Stops Being Polite, Starts Getting Real

Yu Darvish pitched again on Thursday, and Yu Darvish dominated again on Thursday. Unlike when he dominated the Mariners in his previous outing, this time he dominated a good team on the road, allowing a run over eight innings against the Angels. The Rangers beat the Angels, which the Angels found particularly devastating, and while it wasn’t all Darvish’s fault, it was a lot Darvish’s fault. Said Michael Young afterward:

“Yu has just been awesome,” said 3B Michael Young. “I hope people are appreciating what they are seeing, because rookies don’t usually get stronger as the season goes on. It’s usually the other way around. Guys are running on fumes as the season is ending. Not Yu. He’s getting stronger and better. He’s just been rock solid.”

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People care about home-run distance, because people like impressive home runs, and impressive home runs tend to have considerable distances. One is impressed when a batter drives a baseball 480 feet and out of the yard. As far as quality of contact is concerned, though, what might be more significant is the baseball’s speed off the bat. All a hitter ever wants to do is hit the baseball hard, so looking at the speed off the bat tells us who hit the baseball the hardest. The ESPN Home Run Tracker provides this data for dingers, and unsurprisingly, the hardest-hit homer of the year so far was hit by Giancarlo Stanton. It was a homer that damaged a scoreboard.

You can sort the data in the other direction to see the weakest-hit home runs. On average, home runs have left the bat at 103.5 miles per hour. The weakest homer was hit by Jayson Nix, to right field in Yankee Stadium. It left the bat at 89.8 miles per hour. The next-weakest was hit by Chris Iannetta, also in Yankee Stadium. Then the next two weakest after that were hit in Fenway Park. These aren’t astonishing results — people are familiar with the idea of Yankee Stadium and Fenway conceding some cheap dingers. People love dingers, but some of those cheap ones can make them roll their eyes.

The fifth-weakest dinger of the year so far was hit in Petco Park.

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