Ron Fairly was a better player than you probably realize. In 21 major-league seasons he hit .266/.360/.408, with 215 home runs, while spending the prime of his career in an extreme pitcher’s park, in an extreme pitcher’s era. Overshadowed by big-name teammates, he quietly helped the Dodgers to World Series titles in 1959, 1963 and 1965.

Fairly is also a good storyteller  — especially when the stories pertain to the Dodger-Giants rivalry. When Juan Marichal attacked John Roseboro with a bat, Fairly was there. Ditto when Sandy Koufax was dominating hitters, and Don Drysdale was knocking them down. What did it feel like to get drilled in the back by Bob Gibson? What hitting advice did he get from Ted Williams? What did Duke Snider say about Roy Campanella? Well, now you’ll know.

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David Laurila: You had a productive a career that looks even better after accounting for era and park factors. Were you underrated?

Ron Fairly: “I think everybody feels that maybe they weren’t appreciated as much as they should have been for the contributions they made to ball clubs. I think it goes without saying. A lot of players feel that way.

“I think my numbers would certainly be better today. I played in an era — the 1960s — that might have been the most difficult in which to make your living, as a hitter, of any in the history of the game of baseball. I played in Dodger Stadium, which was a big ballpark where the ball didn’t carry very well. It doesn’t take many [lost] hits during the course of a season for your average to drop a little bit, and you weren’t going to have as many home runs or RBIs there.”

Laurila: Sandy Koufax put up his numbers in that same environment. While he was obviously a great pitcher, was he maybe a little overrated? Read the rest of this entry »

In an effort to sure up their interior defense, the St. Louis Cardinals agreed to a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, bringing Rafael Furcal back east in exchange for Double-A outfielder Alex Castellanos. The trade was first reported last night, but could not be made official until Furcal – a 10/5 player – waived his no-trade clause to complete the transaction.

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I’m sure I’m accidentally quoting dozens of able writers and analysts when I state that at the heart of a baseball game lies the pitcher-batter confrontation — and that, at the heart of that confrontation, is a power struggle over rights to the strike zone.

If, in some kind of alternate reality, a batter (for whatever reason) weren’t permitted to swing, it’s very possible that Josh Tomlin or Doug Fister or some other control artist would dominate the game. If, in a different reality from that, there were no such thing as a base on balls — that a pitcher just needed, say, to get three strikes — then Aroldis Chapman and his 13.9% swinging-strike percentage would be incredibly valuable (until such a time as his arm fell off, that is).

As it turns out, batters are allowed to swing and there are such things as four-ball walks — and it’s for these twin reasons that pitchers must employ all manner of spins and changes of speed and menacing scowls to defeat their opponents within the strike zone (or, if possible, tempt them out of it).

Currently — and somewhat unexpectedly, I’d suggest — the pitcher most frequently winning this battle for strike-zone supremacy is Dodger lefty Clayton Kershaw.

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…since 1974, when our play-by-play database begins.

On Monday, I posted about the three worst double plays ever according to Win Probability Added (WPA). From 1974 through yesterday’s games, there have been 89072 double plays caused by groundouts (I’m leaving out other sorts of double plays as, from the hitter’s perspective at least, they have more to do with dumb luck). Of those, only 51 have a positive WPA. However, it does happen from time to time, and while the shifts aren’t as dramatic in terms of WPA, the circumstances make them more interesting (at least to me) than the negative WPA occasions.

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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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In 2007, Daisuke Matsuzaka became the talk of baseball with his Gyroball and the over $51M paid by the Red Sox to negotiate for him. The next season, Hiroki Kuroda quietly signed with the Dodgers. Since coming over from Japan, Matsuzaka has gotten more media coverage while the less publicized Kuroda has been the better pitcher on the field.

Matsuzaka came to the U.S. under a media storm which can be seen in the number of news articles written about him. Doing a Google search for news stories shows that he has had about 25K news articles written about him. On the other hand, Kuroda has had only about 1/4 the number of online articles. The 36-year-old Kuroda has definitely flown under the radar compared to his fellow countryman.

Since joining the league, their only similarity seems to be that they were from Japan. After signing with the Red Sox, Dice-K had 15 wins and over 200 Ks, helping the Red Sox to a 2007 World Series title. He had similar production in 2008 with an 18-3 record. In 2009 is when injuries began to creep up on him. In 2009 and 2010 he went on the DL five times and missed 164 games. In 2011, the story hasn’t been much different. He managed only seven starts and has been on the DL since May 17th.

His WAR totals definitely mirror his ability to stay healthy. In 2007 and 2008, he generated 7.2 WAR. From 2009 on he has totaled only 3.2 WAR. The 30-year-old still has a chance to rebound to his previous levels, but after each injury he deals with, the chances get slimmer and slimmer.

On the other hand, Kuroda has been fairly steady with his production while with the Dodgers. He has averaged 3.3 WAR and 28 starts from 2008 to 2010. So far in 2011 he has generated 1.2 WAR for career total of 11.1 WAR in 3.5 seasons, or 0.7 WAR more than Matsuzaka has created in his 4.5 seasons with the Red Sox.

Besides the fanfare of the signing and helping lead the Red Sox to a World Series Championship, it can be easy to tell why Matsuzaka gets more media attention. His 49-30 record looks prettier than Kuroda’s 33-39 record. Also he has been able to strike out more batters (8.2 K/9) than Kuroda (6.6 K/9).

Kuroda, on the other hand walks, less than half the batters (2.1 BB/9) than Matsuzaka (4.4 BB/9). Even though Kuroda has started seven fewer games, has has generated a bit more WAR due to his better walk rate. Kuroda’s career ERA/FIP/xFIP values (3.52/3.52/3.63) are about 0.75 points lower than Matsuzaka’s (4.25/4.25/4.52) values.

Matsuzaka came over from Japan with a media blitz and once he is done pitching, there will probably be another one. Kuroda has had less hype surrounding him, but has been the better of the two pitchers.

After yesterday’s seven-run, four-inning fiasco against the Reds, Chad Billingsley is sporting some ugly numbers. His current 4.65 ERA is the worst that number has been at this point in the season. Last year’s 4.34 ERA on June 15th was his second-worst, though, and something has been amiss in his repertoire since as early as 2009. As the doubles kept falling in on Wednesday, the twitter questions began pouring in: “What’s wrong with Chad Billingsley?”

The easy answer is nothing. His 8.09 K/9 is basically the same as his career number (8.18). So is his 3.84 BB/9 (3.86 career). His fastball velocity is still right around 91-92, and he’s still using the same pitching mix as ever. This could just be his ongoing below-average control working hand-in-hand with his career-worst BABIP (.336). It could.

Watching yesterday’s game, you can get that BABIP feeling. In the second inning, Brandon Phillips hit a dink that was a hair away from an out. Fred Lewis‘ double later that same inning was a hair fair. In the third inning, Edgar Renteria slapped a single into right field that wasn’t lined with authority. Jonny Gomes broke his bat on a flare single that prompted Vin Scully to exclaim that he’d “be happy with that.”

Then again, there were some moments that were all poor performance. The Scott Rolen double that plated the first run of the day was down-the-middle belt-high. A couple ball fours were way out of the strike zone. He walked in a run. He hit 94 on the gun a few times… on balls. It wasn’t a good performance waylaid by the bouncing ball. It was a mediocre performance that was augmented by some poor luck.

Scanning his pitching mix, it seems that Bills is using his cutter and curveball less and using his changeup more, and that doesn’t seem optimal. By pitch-type linear weights, his cutter and curveball are by far his best pitches. And yet his curveball usage is at his second-lowest level, and the pitch itself is at its slowest. Perhaps there’s something to this. Per Dave Allen, he only used the pitch eight times last night, in 88 pitches, which is far below his 18.4% career usage. Ryan Hanigan’s two-run single was on a curveball. The pitch broke well enough, but Hanigan seemed ready for it. There might be something off with his off-speed pitches: Billingsley only managed six swinging strikes on Wednesday, and all of them were on fastballs. Perhaps a Pitch F/x centered approach could find something wrong with his curve, even if the pitch is still a positive by linear weights. It doesn’t seem quite right.

Since 2009, Billingsley has the fifth-worst ERA-FIP difference among qualified starters. Ricky Nolasco and Jason Hammel sit one-two in that category. Somehow, this is a fitting group for Billingsley to be in. In recent years, the overall results have not matched up with the outcomes of his individual at-bats. As long as his curveball is okay, though, Billingsley should right ship again. Then again, with Clayton Kershaw in town, he’ll never reach top billing again in Los Angeles.

Source: The Washington Post

Consider this: The MLB’s opening day rosters were 72.3% America-born and, therefore, 27.7% foreign-born. Moreover, my diligent Googling skillz have suggested that 42 million Americans play baseball — recreationally, collegiately, high schoolally, professionally, or otherwise. So, that is 7 out of every 10 MLB players coming from a stock of 13.4% of Americans (24 42 million players / 313 million Americans).

In other words, the pool for American baseball talent is large and well-tapped (because it fills the most roster spots). High school and college teams have done an excellent job of vetting young American talent, ensuring that only the best reach the minors — and then the best of the best reach the majors. Despite this considerable pool of American talent, the teams that want an edge know they cannot let the local talent satisfy their needs. Enter: East Asia.
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Former Milwaukee, Colorado, Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, and Los Angeles infielder Ronnie Belliard announced his retirement yesterday. This probably won’t garner too much attention. That is understandable, as Belliard was mostly an unspectacular player at a position that is perhaps the most frequently overlooked. This isn’t a “Belliard was a hidden superstar” post, but he was somewhat underrated, and he certainly had his moments.

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Wrapping up the series on trade targets, today we’ll look at a few catchers who might be available (and perhaps even desirable!) for teams in contention. With the Diamondbacks surprisingly in the race for the National League West (at least for the moment), Miguel Montero isn’t on the table (if he ever would have been), and he probably would have headed up this list. Leaving out the multitudes of generic backup catchers (the Jose Molinas and Matt Treanors [Treanor!] of the world), there isn’t much out there. Among the contenders, the Giants need to fill a Buster Posey-shaped hole and the Red Sox probably want to improve on the Jason Varitek–Jarrod Saltalamacchia Duo of Yuck. Here are four catchers might be available and/or could draw varying degrees of interest.

In no particular order…

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