Stephen Strasburg did his job Monday night against the Astros, notching the win and a quality start. He threw six innings and held Houston to two runs on six hits and one walk while striking out five. It was a solid outing and any pitcher across the league would take it, but this was Stephen Strasburg pitching at home against one of the league’s lesser squads. The no-hitter watch was started as soon as Jordan Schafer stepped up to lead it off for the Astros. Given the circumstances, Strasburg’s performance looks surprisingly human.

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This is footage of Houston right-hander Bud Norris’s second overall pitch — against Alejandro De Aza — from the Astros’ Tuesday night exhibition game against the White Sox. Said footage captures Norris throwing a pitch (a) that, owing to the velocity (91 mph) and arm-side run (about 5.8 inches, according to the game data) looks very much like a two-seam fastball and (b) to which the Astros broadcast team referred as a two-seam fastball.

Why that’s (potentially) notable is because, according to the PITCHf/x data at the site, Norris had no pitches classified as two-seamers in 2011. Brooks Baseball has 7% of Norris’s pitches from 2011 classified as sinkers — i.e. a close relative of the two-seamer — but only four of the 207 (1.9%) he was recorded as throwing induced a swing and miss.

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In perhaps the fasteset set of transactions I’ve ever seen, the Astros announced that they were releasing Livan Hernandez at 12:07 pm eastern time, and then Jon Heyman reported that Livan was signing with the Braves at 2:02 pm eastern. Livan wasn’t even unemployed for two hours.

Livan’s a pretty fascinating guy. While his xFIPs are crazy consistent over the last four years (xFIP- of 112, 111, 114, 111), his results have swung wildly from awful in 2008-2009 (ERA- of 138 and 133) to pretty good in 2010 (ERA- of 91) back to not great (ERA- of 118) last year. On one hand, you know exactly what you’re getting with Livan – a durable innings eater who won’t miss bats. On the other hand, you have no idea what you’re going to get from Livan, as his BABIP and HR/FB rates have fluctuated wildly over the last five years.

This series of moves perfectly illustrates how a player can have value to one team but not another. The Braves needed to reduce their exposure to disaster performances, and signing Hernandez gives them some rotation depth and the ability to let Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado start the year in the minors. While he doesn’t do anything to help raise their upside in win total, he probably helps raise the downside slightly, as they now have a decent enough fifth starter to keep the team from imploding if the kids aren’t quite ready on Opening Day.

The Astros, though, have little need to reduce their volatility. The marginal value of a win to a team in their position is quite small, and as a pure rebuilding organization, they’re better off figuring out what they have in a guy like Kyle Weiland instead. The innings Livan would have pitched for Houston would have just reduced the number of chances the team would have had to evaluate their young arms, and so the value of having a veteran stop-gap in place simply wasn’t there.

It’s weird to see a contender pick up a guy that the worst team in baseball just decided they didn’t want, but in this case, it makes sense for both sides. Perhaps that’s why it all happened so fast.

Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore

Houston’s 2011 Ranking: #30

2012 Outlook: 26 (30th)

Five position players recorded a WAR above 2.0 (i.e. league average) last season for the Astros, and three of those five (Clint Barmes, Michael Bourn, and Hunter Pence) don’t play for the club anymore. Another (El Caballo himself, Mr. Carlos Lee) benefited greatly from a defensive rating (11.2 UZR) which is almost certainly not representative of his true talent. And the fifth, Brian Bogusevic, benefited not only from defensive runs (12.1 UZR in just 324.0 innings in the corner outfield) but also a .355 BABIP. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that the Astros’ present is dim. On the brightish side, J.D. Martinez appears poised to provide value on both sides of the ball, and offseason acquisition Chris Snyder (in tandem with now-less-injured Jason Castro) has a good chance of improving upon the -0.3 WAR for which Houston catchers combined in 2011. But in reality, the 2012 Astros are, on paper, perhaps the worst team in recent baseball history. They might not match the 119 loss season that the 2003 Detroit Tigers put up, but they’re a mortal lock for 90 losses and a pretty good bet for 100. This is just a roster that is not set up to compete against Major League teams.

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What do these fellow batsmen have in common?

• Adrian Gonzalez
• Matt Kemp
• Emilio Bonifacio
• Michael Bourn
• Michael Young

Well, probably a lot, seeing as how they all share a profession, but today let us examine a particularly unique distinction: The fact that they collectively represent the top five BABIPs of the 2011 MLB season.

Let’s find out how much was luck and how much was repeatable.

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The Houston Astros minor league system was abysmal for years but there is finally a faint light at the end of the very long tunnel… and it’s actually not a train. It’s the hope that comes with a new vision from a new front office filled with intelligent, forward-thinking individuals who realize the organization needs to build from within to survive – especially with the impending move to the American League West division, which is on tap for the 2013 season. To be fair, former GM Ed Wade and his staff were starting to right the ship with some smart decisions in 2011, which included the Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence trades, as well as some improved amateur draft choices. New GM Jeff Luhnow, formerly of the St. Louis Cardinals, comes with a strong reputation for developing and acquiring prospects. He appears to be the right man for this difficult – but exciting – task of rebuilding the franchise.

1. Jonathan Singleton, OF/1B
BORN: Sept. 18, 1991
EXPERIENCE: 3 seasons
ACQUIRED: 2009 8th round, California HS (by Philadelphia)
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: 2nd (Philadelphia)

Although he already has three seasons already under his belt Singelton did not turn 20 years old until after the regular season concluded in 2011. The former Phillies prospect is definitely the type of player that the new front office in Houston can eventually build around. He should hit for average and power at the big league level. He shows both power and good pitch recognition but he’s too passive at times and allows too many drivable pitches to go by. It’s also one of the reasons that his strikeout rate jumped from 16.5% in 2010 to 24% in 2011. Singleton has yet to display above-average power numbers, having failed to surpass the .200 mark in isolated slugging, but he should eventually hit 20+ home runs at the big league level. Defensively, the prospect has played both first base and left field, as he was blocked in Philly by Ryan Howard. His defense in left field is average-at-best due to below-average range. Luckily, there should be no roadblocks at first base in Houston. Singleton will move up to double-A to begin 2012 and could see time at the big league level by the end of the season.

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This is the third of four stories on Major League Baseball and social media. You can read the first two stories here and here. Full disclosure: Major League Baseball Advanced Media employs FanGraphs contributor Paul Swydan, who wrote this series.

As the social-media revolution began, few major league franchises were fortunate enough to have a championship-caliber team. And perhaps only one was down the street from a company leading that charge. In 2010, the San Francisco Giants went on a historic World Series run while its neighbor was going on a run of its own. That company was called Twitter.

The close proximity between the baseball Giants and the social-media giant gave the team the online head start that perhaps no other team enjoyed — though several teams have now been able to replicate. And the rewards are still rolling in for those franchises.

Case in point: one of the first Tweetups organized by a club was one that the Giants hosted with Twitter founders Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, “They have been instrumental in helping us understand how to use Twitter to communicate and engage with fans,” says Bryan Srabian, the Giants’ social media director. Twitter, too, most certainly understood the value of a live baseball game.

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With disabled list information available going back 10 years, I have decided to examine some league wide and team trends.

League Trends

To begin with, here are the league values for trips, days and average days lost to the DL over the past 10 years.

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Brett Myers is headed back to the closer’s role in Houston. He should be a decent closer. But why, from a team standpoint, would the building Astros shift a capable 200-inning resource into a 70-inning role?

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It sounds as if Roy Oswalt should sign sometime this very Thursday. Since you are reading this in the future — which, to you, will feel like the present, but trust me: it’s the future — you may already know of Oswalt’s new team. Don’t gloat.

Instead, let us turn our languid eyes to Oswalt’s future, more specifically, his 2012 projections.

Maybe it is because he has pitched 150 innings in every season since the beginning of the Bush administration — or maybe it is because he played such a prominent role in a successful Houston Astros that seems now so distant from reality — but Roy Oswalt somehow feels ancient. Despite that, he is only a year and change older than Mark Buehrle and a year and one day older than Cliff Lee.

So Oswalt, first of all, is really not old — especially for a pitcher. At the same time, though, he is not necessarily healthy. He hit the DL twice last year and his back problems and his full history of injuries leaves great cause for concern.

Still, the Wizard of Os also ranks among some the best active pitchers. Regard:

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