“I heard the jury was still out on… Science…”

–G.O.B. Bluth, Arrested Development

Saunter over to the Shutdown and Meltdown leaderboard and you will find a curious leader: The San Diego Padres.

Yes, the Friars have somehow amassed an absurd 31 shutdowns (SD) while winning a sport-worst nine games. This seems somewhat surprising, because experience has taught me — among many things about cats — that bad teams typically do not need great bullpens. They might have them (*cough* Joakim Soria *cough cough*), but they do not need them because they get destroyed early and often.

Take my hand and follow me down Logic Avenue: The worst teams will not often participate in three-run, save-opportunity games — or even one-run games. Instead they will presumably watch this and employ a slew of mop-up long men who do not affect the game’s already-decided outcome. I mean, c’mon, three-fifths of the Royals rotation is likely to allow five runs before finishing the 6th inning. What can a bulllpen possibly do when the score is 5 to -1?

In the same stroke of logic, wouldn’t we expect the best teams to have fewer save opportunities? Unlike impressively mediocre teams, like the Chicago Cubs, the New York Yankees spend a good deal of time slapping homers and trouncing weaklings. As a result, we should expect they play fewer close games than the Cubs, who must crawl, snarl, and curse their way into every victory and loss.

Well, that may be logical, but it’s not entirely correct.
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In yesterday’s One Night Only Carson Cistulli observed that Matt Garza is throwing his two-seam fastball, slider, and changeup about twice as often this year as previously — making him entirely different pitcher. Pitch F/x-guru and Cubs-fan Harry Pavlidis, with his own reclassifications of the Pitch F/x data, came to Carson’s aid and found that Garza is indeed throwing more sliders and changeups, but not any more two-seam fastballs. There are improvements in the Pitch F/x’s internal classification system during the offseason and that is probably responsible for the shift Carson saw in two-seam fastball frequency.
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Here’s the full-league wOBA leader board, set to a minimum 50 PA. On this you will see few surprises. We know that Jose Bautista , Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, and company are off to hot starts. We also have heard plenty about unexpected contributors such as Jed Lowrie and Russell Martin . In fact, only one name really stands out in this top 10.

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Of course, if you read the headline you know which one I’m talking about. Kosuke Fukudome with a .483 wOBA? Well that was unexpected.

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It’s funny how quickly we – and by we, I mean us fans – can shift our attention from one top prospect to the next. I like to call this phenomenon the “Shiny New Toy Syndrome”, as we become enamored with the Next Big Thing coming up from the minors and slowly forget the prospects we were falling for a week earlier. Prospects are showered with attention when they reach the majors and their performance is analyzed from 10 different angles. But once those players become established, they fall off the radar — and our attention shifts to the next big prospect. In many ways, prospects are like Christmas presents: anticipation builds until Christmas morning arrives; but within two weeks, the presents are forgotten and tossed in the toy bucket with everything else.

While Michael Pineda is currently dominating the prospect chatter, I want to shift our attention back to a top prospect who made his debut a little less than a year ago: Starlin Castro.

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Suppose you’re the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. You’re at home against the Chicago Cubs, and going into the bottom of the eighth inning, you’re up 5-0. So you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. On the other hand, your closer John Axford has been awfully shaky lately, and you’d probably love to scratch across an insurance run. With one out, Mark Kotsay walks, and you have Carlos Gomez on the bench. Would you let Gomez loose on the bases and see if he could make it around the bases with some old-fashioned National League speed?

Well, if you were Ron Roenicke on Saturday, April 9, that’s exactly what you’d do. Gomez came into the game and just abused Jeff Samardzija, stealing second base on the second pitch Samardzija threw to the next batter, Wil Nieves. When Nieves worked the count full, Gomez took off; it wound up being outside, and Gomez was standing on third and Nieves was on first. Samardzija managed to strike out the next batter, Jeremy Reed, but then he walked Rickie Weeks to load the bases, and walked Nyjer Morgan, which brought Gomez around to score. The Brewers won the game 6-0.

Now, we all know that there’s an unwritten rule that says that you don’t try to steal bases when you’re up by a lot of runs in late innings. Read the rest of this entry »

When Matt Garza was acquired by the Chicago Cubs this off-season, he was expected to provide stability to a rotation with some question marks. Garza’s first start with the Cubs was anything but stable, as he likely posted one of the strangest pitching lines we will see this season. Over 7 innings, Garza managed to post 12 strikeouts while allowing 12 hits and no walks. His performance in the game actually led to Garza posting a FIP of -0.48. (Since we are dealing with really small samples here, it’s important to note that this isn’t terribly uncommon early in the season. Still, it’s kind of cool to have a negative FIP, right?) The line is so unique, however, because it’s tough to understand how one pitcher can be so hittable/un-hittable in the same game. Let’s take a closer look at how this could have happened?
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In the previous episode of the Carlos Silva Chronicles, our hero exited stage left, no doubt brooding over his dramatic return. Meanwhile, in the stead of our intrepid and silver-tongued protagonist, a young and handsome right-hander — a prospect highly touted, mysterious and oft-cloaked in shadows — has emerged. Enter Andrew Cashner.

Having won the spring’s now-contested fifth starter competition (“It’s a farce!” cries our hero), the youthful Cashner now aims to prove he can begin and maintain a career as a Large League starter on the 2011 Cubs roster and avoid the scouts’ runic portents of a transition to the bullpen.

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We’re pleased to welcome the newest member of the FanGraphs staff, Bradley Woodrum, to the site. He coined the term Luck Dragon and created some fantastic videos this winter, as well as writing for about 150 different places around the web. We think he’s going to be a great fit here at FanGraphs.

On June 17, 2010, Jeff Baker cracked a Dallas Braden changeup so hard it dangled in the Chicago sun for about 30 seconds before some lucky fan 20 seats to the right of me caught it. When Baker made contact with the ball, it sounded like he fired a pistol, and the fans, taking their queue, jumped from their seats like runners jumping from the starting blocks.

I was not the least of the runners, perhaps far more surprised than the common fan at Baker’s uncanny power display. I knew his hitting ability was a tick under league average, but little did I realize the reason (his dramatic platoon split). Seeing him only occasionally had created in me a skewed perspective of the second baseman, making his offense seem unremarkable and his defense altogether forgettable.

The Cubs acquired Jeff Baker from the Colorado Rockies in 2009 for minor league reliever Al Alburquerque (real person). In 2008, Baker had shown sufficient ability to hit lefties and embarrass himself against righties. Now, as Spring Training 2011 draws its final breathes, it seems the prototypical platooner has found himself a legitimate shot to become an everyday kind of guy.

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