Hello friends, my name is Jeff. You might recognize me from Lookout Landing or Baseball Nation, or from being my mother, Mom. Beginning today, right now, I’m going to be doing a lot of writing over here, and I hope that we can get along famously. If we don’t, remember that it wasn’t my idea for them to hire me. People make mistakes. Now let’s talk about baseball.

I was nervous about starting over in a new place, so I was hoping that Dave would spoon-feed me an easy topic suggestion. Of all the things currently going on in baseball, perhaps the most fascinating scenario is unfolding in Anaheim, and that’s what I’m here to tackle now, as Dave came through in the clutch. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the Angels have fallen on their faces of late. Perhaps you haven’t! Considering what the Angels were supposed to be, this is worthy of some discussion, and then some more.

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Mike Napoli was, at least at the time, an under-discussed portion of not only one of the worst trades of recent times, but also the puzzling follow-up trade in which the Jays sent Napoli to the Rangers for reliever Frank Francisco. Even given that at the time Napoli was not projected to be the monster he turned to be in 2011, that seems really weird given that his hitting style seemed to fit right into the type of sluggers the Jays love to collect.

In any case, after dealing with injury issues early in the year Napoli turned into one of the great stories of the 2011 season, as he not only hit for great power even by his previous standard, but significantly upped his average (by cutting his strikeout rate and boosting his BABIP) to finish the season with a .320/.414/.631 (144 wRC+) line that rivaled Josh Hamilton’s from 2010.

Even given reasonable expectations for regression, Napoli’s 2012 has been disappointing. While he has dealt with health issues this season, going on the disabled list this weekend after trying to play through an injury, Napoli has never really gotten going in 2012. After a career best wRC+ in 2011, Napoli currently has a seasonal career worst 105 wRC+. The easy thing would be to simply point to average on balls in play dropping back closer to his pre-2011 rates, but the issues go beyond that. His drop in power is particularly interesting.

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According to reports, this is how Billy Beane feels.

The casual fan will be excused for not knowing this, but Yoenis “La Potencia” Cespedes is having a phenomenal rookie year.

The Cuban import entered the league this past offseason with a fanfare rivaled only by that of Yu Darvish, who had the weight of his own nation’s media trained on him. But Cespedes — he of the plucky YouTube training video, he of the flight from totalitarian Cuba — has been just as worthy, if not more, of the media’s eye.

His rookie campaign started with a little old fashioned oh-em-gee — three home runs in the opening Tokyo series against the Mariners — but then the excitement petered out as an injury, a muscle sprain in his left hand, stalled his season.

But do not let that trick you. Not only is Yoenis Cespedes crushing the ball this season, he is hitting like one of the best rookies in the league — and if this were any year but Mike Trout’s, then he’d be in serious Rookie of the Year contention.
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On Friday night, the Angels landed the big prize of this trade deadline season, acquiring Zack Greinke from Milwaukee in exchange for shortstop Jean Segura and pitchers Ariel Pena and John Hellweg. Given all that the Angels have invested in their current club, pushing the team forward with another big upgrade makes sense on paper. In fact, given that they’ve cut the Rangers lead down to five games in the AL West, the value of a marginal win for Anaheim is extremely high, as the difference between a division winner and a wild card is enormous.

So, acquiring an impact player makes sense given the Angels position in the standings and their desire to win in the short term, but in looking at the specifics of the Angels roster, I wonder if they won’t realize a smaller improvement than one might expect from a team acquiring a top flight starter.

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The trade deadline rush has not disappointed so far, and the latest big news is that Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin delivered on his promise to move Zack Greinke. Greinke is now an Angel. Marc Hulet already covered the prospects that the Angels sent to Milwaukee.

Was it a “good” trade? Well, the Brewers are not going anywhere, and Greinke is going to be a free agent who will be expecting a big payday, especially with Cole Hamels now off of the market. The Angels gave up some decent prospects (even if none of them looks likely to be a future superstar), but they are obviously built to win right now. If the standings remain the same (which is a big “if,” even for a good team like the Angels), Los Angeles will be in the playoffs. Greinke gives them even more gas in the rotation. What all this means for the “fairness” of the trade is something for others to sort out. I want to briefly take a look at how Greinke might fit in in the Anaheim and how imposing the Angels’ rotation looks for the playoffs.

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The Milwaukee Brewers finally pulled the trigger on the trade that everyone was expecting: The team traded starting pitcher Zack Greinke. In return, the Los Angeles Angels sent a three-prospect package, which middle infielder Jean Segura headlined.

Segura, 22, was recently promoted to the majors for the first time in his pro career and was one of the Angels’ top prospects — if not their best, with the graduation of MVP candidate Mike Trout — but the system is also among the bottom 10 in baseball (and now possibly is one of the five worst). Milwaukee — another bottom-feeder, in terms of their minor league system — moves up a couple of slots with this deal that also included Double-A pitchers John Hellweg and Ariel Pena.

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I’ve written quite a bit this year on trends in pitcher aging, specifically velocity loss and gain. In the last iteration I focused on the odds of pitchers gaining velocity back after a season where their fastball dropped by at least 1 mph.

In that piece I listed a few pitchers to keep your eye on given that their velocity was down from 2011. In June, I wrote about CC Sabathia for ESPN and noted that the big lefty is likely beginning to “age”, as the odds are quite a bit higher that pitchers over the age of 30 do not gain their velocity back once they’ve lost it.

After thinking about it a while it occurred to me that there is of course the chance that these pitchers will gain their velocity back by the end of the year (as I noted in both pieces). We know that, generally speaking, pitchers gain velocity as the season goes on. Temperatures rise, and so too do fastball velocities. If this is the case I wondered at what point in the season we can say with greater certainty that a pitcher is throwing as hard as he is going to throw. Is there a particular month where a velocity decline is more likely to translate to or predict a full season velocity decline?
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Yesterday we talked about the questions facing the National League contenders. Today, we turn our attention to the American League. Every team but the Twins, Royals and Mariners are within four-two-and-a-half games of a spot in the postseason, if you count the wild card play-in game part of the postseason. That leaves us with eleven teams still playing for something in 2012. Or does it?

In the American League East, the Yankees have a comfortable seven-game lead, and seem poised to pull away with the division title. Yes, with injuries to CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees could improve by adding a dependable starting pitcher, but so far they haven’t been linked with the starters most likely to hit the trade market. Overall, though, the Yankees are in the best shape of any team heading into the second half.

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With yet another day to go before actual baseball returns to the field, I thought I would take a quick look at some of the potential MVP candidates in both leagues based on the first half of the season.

Identifying MVP candidates is certainly not a straightforward process, nor is the criteria universally agreed upon. Knowing this I will not begin or end this article with any claim to have identified the “proper” candidates. These are my candidates based on my way of looking at the term “valuable”.

So what is my criteria? Well, I like to think of MVPs as players that provide an exceptional amount of production in both an absolute and relative sense. This means identifying players that lead or are close to leading the league in production, but where there is also a sizable gap between their production and that of the second best player on their own team. This means that I do tend to discount great performances by players that happen to share the same uniform as equally great players. Is it their fault? Absolutely not. In fact, those players could likely be the best all around players in the entire league. But when it comes to value I think there is a relative component that should be considered. This isn’t to necessarily give credit to the player (i.e. they don’t “step it up” to make up for the gap in talent on the team), but rather to the performance itself.

Like I said, this is my criteria and I don’t claim that it should trump all others, nor would I say it is complete on it’s own. Rather, I think it’ a useful starting place.

Okay, enough with the preamble. Let’s get to the data.

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Mark Trumbo was the least recognizable player in the Home Run Derby. Sure, Trumbo finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year Award voting last season, but he lacked the star power of a true superstar like Prince Fielder or Matt Kemp. But Trumbo impressed in the Derby, nearly making the finals while hitting some of the longest home runs of the night. And while the Home Run Derby doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, it’s an opportunity for players to display their talents in front of a national audience. Casual fans may not realize how good Trumbo has been this season. After last night, fans will start to take notice of his breakout.

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