Without looking at the leader boards: who’s the best catcher in baseball? Criteria will vary from person to person, but generally it will involve a heavy weight on recent performance with some level of emphasis on long-term production. At this point, I’m willing to bet that the most common answer is Brian McCann. He stands far ahead of the pack this season with 19.1 wRAA, which bests No. 2 ranked Alex Avila by 7.3 runs. Still, there has to be some weight give to performances in the recent past. If we expand this leader board to include the past two calendar years, McCann does not stand atop. That honor belongs to another household name, Joe Mauer.

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With the non-waiver trade deadline past us, we can take a step back and see how each contender upgraded its roster. Because the season is two-thirds over, these players might not have an enormous impact. But for a contender sitting on the fringe, or a leader wanting to solidify its position, these acquisitions could make enough of a difference now, and then a bigger one come playoff time, when everyone starts from scratch.

To project the positional upgrade the team will receive, we’ll look at the wRAA the team has received so far from the position, the projected wRAA for the incumbent, and the projected wRAA for the replacement, based on ZiPS rest of season. We’ll assume 230 PA, which is based on a prorated 700 PA season. I’m leaving out defense, because I’m not comfortable projecting 1/3 of a season. I’m also leaving out guys such as Jerry Hairston, who are injury fill-ins rather than upgrades.

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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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…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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“He may not look like a classic corner outfielder, but Cabrera can play, and I think Braves fans will be pleasantly surprised with what he offers.”

— Dave Cameron on Melky Cabrera, February 15, 2010

Well, Dave was probably right that Braves fans were “surprised” with Melky Cabrera’s 2010 performance, but I’m not sure the surprise was all that pleasant. Having seemingly gained forty pounds between the Yankees 2009 World Series victory and Atlanta’s 2010 Opening Day, Cabrera followed his reasonable 1.7 WAR 2009 with a combination of a .294 wOBA and awful defense all over the outfield to end up one full win below replacement level for the 2010 season. Dave wasn’t the only one: check out this fool who thought Melky Cabrera was a three-win player who would have made signing, say, Johnny Damon pointless for the Braves.

So when Melky signed with the Kansas City Royals this past off-season, there was very little excitement, to say the least. With a few exceptions, the signing was panned. Given that it came in close proximity to the fulfillment of The Jeff Francoeur Prophecy and that it was for only $1.25 million, it didn’t get all that much attention. However, while the pitching has been awful, the Royals’ offense has been right in the middle of the pack so far, and Melky’s career-high .349 wOBA and 3.0 WAR have been a big part of that. What does this mean for his near future?

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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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Like most hitters in Oakland this year, David DeJesus is not doing so well. The A’s acquired him from the Royals to give their offense a spark, but thus far he has racked up just a .229/.313/.358 line and has begun to find himself on the bench with some regularity. During interleague play, Bob Melvin has chosen to use Hideki Matsui in the outfield in lieu of playing DeJesus, a sign of just how uninterested Melvin is in using DeJesus.

That said, DeJesus is actually having a pretty standard season in many areas. In fact, take a look at his 2011 marks compared to the last two seasons:

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The Toronto Blue Jays signed shortstop Yunel Escobar (28) to an extension over the weekend. The contract reportedly includes two guaranteed years at $5 million each buying out his last two years of arbitration (2012 and 2013) as well as club options for 2014 and 2015, also at $5 million each. After impressing both at the plate and in the field with the Atlanta Braves during his first three seasons, Escobar had a rough 2010 and was traded to the Blue Jays. He’s recovered quite nicely this season, and it is hard to see how the Blue Jays could lose out in this deal. The only question is why Escobar agreed to it.

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The Milwaukee Brewers’ “all in” offseason, during which they traded a good chunk of young talent (including some of their best prospects like Brett Lawrie and Jake Odorizzi) to dramatically improve their pitching staff, seems to be working. New Brewers Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke are dominating so far (although it hasn’t shown in Greinke’s ERA), and Milwaukee is currently in first place in the National League Central. However, as part of the price for acquiring Greinke from the Royals, the Brewers had to take on shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt. Betancourt has somehow been even worse than the Brewers might have expected (perhaps he’s the victim of a curse), and is at -0.5 WAR so far. Betancourt isn’t hitting, and he has only exacerbated the Brewers problems in the field. The Brewers are in the divisional lead, as mentioned, but some might doubt whether the Brewers can make the playoffs with Betancourt playing like, well, Betancourt. What does history tell us about replacement level players and playoff teams?

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About a month ago, Matthew Carruth wrote about Jonny Venters and his unbelievable batted ball profile. At the time (May 6th), Venters had allowed 37 balls in play. Of those 37, a remarkable 34 of them (91.8%) were ground balls. Obviously, Venters couldn’t keep up that kind of pace, right?

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