In his first go-round with the White Sox in 2009, Brent Lillibridge wasn’t good, and that September he turned 26. Lillibridge knew he needed to make changes, and his coaches knew he needed to make changes, and so that offseason Lillibridge re-tooled his swing. In the minors, in 2010, he was more or less the same as he was in 2009. In the majors, in 2010, he was a little better than he was in 2009. Yet he posted a 60 wRC+, and a negative WAR.

In the majors in 2011, Lillibridge posted a 125 wRC+, and a strongly positive WAR.

In the majors in 2012, Lillibridge posted a 43 wRC+, and a negative WAR.

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It has been a fun and exciting week of awards and the debates around them. Now it is time to get serious. We have just finished celebrating the best players of the 2012 season, whether or not one agrees with those officially recognized as such. Snarky jerks (present writer very much included) have had fun at the expense of the worst. Only one task remains: acknowledging those in the middle, the most average position players of 2012. One might think this is no big deal. I disagree. Isn’t the bulls-eye right in the middle of the target?

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It’s the bottom of the eighth inning. Men are on first and third base, there’s one out and your team is down by one run. The opposing team has one of the best ground-ball pitchers on the hill, and the infield is playing back and is looking for a double play. All you need is a fly ball to tie the game and significantly swing your chances of winning.

So who do you want at the plate?

It’s likely that the opposing manager will either bring in a ground-ball specialist or just tell the pitcher to stay away from pitches that could be hit in the air to the outfield. Knowing who you’d want to hit requires an understanding of what pitches are the most likely to induce a ground ball — and what hitters manage to hit fly balls against those pitches most often.

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The Indians might be shopping some of their players. The newest rumor has the Red Sox interested in Shin-Soo Choo, whom the Indians have under team control for one more year of arbitration. Assuming the team won’t be in contention for the division title next year — they haven’t had a winning season since 2007 and, in related news, their starting staff has the second-worst FIP in the American League since that year — he seems to be an ideal player to trade away. Except for the fact that he owns a spotty track record and his value has been all over the place.

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David Wright experienced a resurgence of sorts in 2012. After four straight outstanding offense seasons, Wright’s offensive production dipped significantly in 2009 — from a 141 wRC+ to 125. In 2011, Wright’s wRC+ declined all the way to 116.

But this year, the old David Wright reappeared and the 29-year-old third basemen posted a 140 wRC+. The Mets, encouraged by Wright’s year at the plate, have not only picked up his 2013 option (which was predictable), but have also continued discussions for a long-term contract extension.

How likely we are to see Wright put up similar numbers in the future is debatable.

Regardless, one thing was clear: Wright was making better decisions at the plate in 2012. And while his plate discipline numbers were positive (e.g. -2.1% O-Swing), the overall change didn’t seem to capture how well Wright’s plate approach improved.

In an effort to tease this out beyond the basic plate discipline metrics, R. J. Anderson used Mike Fast’s “correct” decision-making approach to look at how Wright’s decision-making improved in the past three season. Anderson calculated the percentage of “correct” pitches Wright swung at in 2012, compared to the two previous seasons. He found Wright had improved his decision-making by 7%.

I decided to take an even narrower view than Anderson and focused only on the location of balls Wright swung at that were just off of the plate, or that were off the black.

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First there was man, and then there was baseball. Soon after baseball there were baseball statistics, because there’s no sense in male competition if you don’t have a record of who’s good and who’s not. Baseball was played in ballparks, and in time people came to notice that different ballparks affected the game in different ways. Eventually people put numbers to park factors, and after there were park factors, there were park factors broken down by handedness. This is where we are today, with the focus being on how specific environments affect specific players. Later on, we’ll know a lot more than we know today, but today we know plenty, relative to what we knew just a few years ago.

As we’ve come to understand park factors, we’ve come to understand the importance of sample sizes. Many prefer multi-year factors over single-year factors, because single-year factors can be misleading. That’s when you’re dealing with events that happen a lot, like walks or strikeouts or singles. Even with multi-year factors, you can observe wild swings with events that happen more rarely. I’m talking here about park factors for, say, hit batters, or park factors for triples. With that in mind, the updated righty park factor for Progressive Field for triples could end up looking a little silly. Let me explain.

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[In case you need a soundtrack for this post.]

The Cincinnati Reds have had a number of surprising heroes as they have pulled away from the field in the 2012 National League Central despite losing one the best players in baseball, Joey Votto, for a substantial chunk of games (although Votto has still managed to be worth about five wins this year). In addition to the expected contributions of players like Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce, and Mat Latos, the Reds have been the beneficiary of a number of performances that have, in varying degrees, been much better than one might have expected from players such as Johnny Cueto, Aroldis Chapman (still ridiculous to look at his numbers), and Todd Frazier.

Perhaps the most surprising Reds overperformer has been Ryan Ludwick. After bottoming out in San Diego and Pittsburgh last year, Ludwick has hit .275/.345/.534 (132 wRC) with 25 home runs for the Reds so far in 2012. Is Ludwick (and, by extension, the Reds) just getting “lucky,” and if so, what does that even mean?

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Ubaldo Jimenez was once a terrific young starting pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. He had tremendous raw talent and pitching acumen to boot. If harnessed, he figured to miss bats, keep the ball on the ground and limit walks while remaining on the effectively wild side. He could dial it up to 96 mph — average fastball velocity of 95.8 mph in 2007 — and threw a top-notch, looping curveball that was tough to pick up with his herky-jerky windup. He was, potentially, the prototypical pitcher capable of succeeding at Coors Field.

After posting WAR totals of 4.3, 5.9 and 6.4 from 2008-10, he took a step back last season. His strikeout, walk and groundball numbers were very similar to the prior three years, but he served up more home runs and was less effective at stranding runners. Last season was a case of strong ERA estimators that belied better performance than his actual earned run average. As such, he seemed like a prime regression candidate this season. Through 28 starts and 161.1 innings this year, however, Jimenez has just 0.4 WAR. After averaging 5.5 WAR from 2008-10, Jimenez isn’t currently on pace to finish with even one win above replacement over a full season.

While last season’s relative struggles — he had been so effective that 3.5 WAR represented a down year — at least gave hope to improved performance, everything has gone wrong this season. Jimenez has regressed, but not in the direction his 2011 peripherals portended. Instead, he is set to finish this season with the worst numbers of his career across the board. He quickly went from one of the best to one of the worst, and it doesn’t seem that the major causes are easily fixable.

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Is it possible for every team in a division to be disappointing? Probably not — somebody has to win, after all, and it is sort of hard to say that a division winner is disappointing (although I’m sure the New York and Boston medias can correct me on that). The 2012 American League Central is coming close to being completely disappointing, though, which is saying something, given the division’s normally low standards. The amazing White Sox are obviously excepted, given that no one really saw them leading the division this late in the year.

As for the rest of the division, the Tigers could still take it (and could get into the playoffs without winning the division), but prior to the season everyone thought they would run away with the division title. The Royals were not expected to win the division given their lack of starting pitching, but the young talent has been very disappointing this year — Danny Duffy got hurt, Mike Moustakas has flatlining for two months, and Eric Hosmer is engaged in a “Who Sucks Worse” contest with Jeff Francoeur that makes one nostalgic for the legendary Mike Jacobs–Jose Guillen battle of 2009. (This would be a good time for everyone to hail my genius). In the meantime, the Twins… oh, who am I kidding, everyone knew the Twins were going to be horrible this year. Speaking of which, where is Posnanski’s annual “Gardy Time!” post?

And then there is Cleveland, who were supposed to have a puncher’s chance to challenge Detroit. What happened there?

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The Indians acquired Lars Anderson from the Red Sox on Tuesday, sending knuckleballing prospect Steven Wright — not to be confused with this guy — to Boston. Anderson was once considered one of the top prospects in the game, but struggled in major league cups of coffee (or shots of espresso given how short his major league stints were in 2011-12) and was never viewed as a viable long-term solution at first base or designated hitter.

From 2008-10, however, he was the talk of the rumor mill. His name popped up in practically every Red Sox trade rumor. Last offseason, the Athletics were interested in him as part of the Andrew Bailey package. In July 2011, the Athletics were close to acquiring him in exchange for Rich Harden.

In 2009, Anderson was frequently discussed as part of a potential prospect package for Roy Halladay. The year before that he was mentioned as a key part of a rumor surrounding then-Padres starter Jake Peavy.

As recently as two years ago, Anderson was viewed as a key part of potential returns on all-stars and award winners. Since then, his stock has fallen to the point that he only netted the Red Sox a risky Double-A knuckleballer.

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