There’s a fun game I’ve enjoyed playing, called Spot The Half-Decent Astro. It’s challenging, because there haven’t been very many of them, and because I could never get anyone else to play too. Did you know that the 2012 Astros’ team leader in home runs was Justin Maxwell? Do you know anything about Justin Maxwell, aside from his name and that fact? The Astros have been dreadful for a reason — they haven’t had very many good players. One of their few good players has been reliever Wilton Lopez. Now Wilton Lopez isn’t an Astro anymore.

Basically. The Astros and Phillies have unofficially swung a trade, sending Lopez to Philadelphia, and sending a prospect or two or more to Houston. Without knowing anything about the prospect(s), it’s a sensible trade for Houston, because what they don’t need right now are good relievers. And it’s a sensible trade for Philadelphia, because it makes them better now and the Phillies are all about the now.

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Fair or not, the most common way people identify suspected “steroid cheats” is to look for sudden, unexpected improvements in power, specifically big jumps in home runs. Whenever a hitter shows a big power surge, especially later in his career, there will always be folks claiming that they had some chemical assistance. And they do it because of cases like Carlos Ruiz.

Ruiz had a breakout season in 2012, adding power to his repertoire for the first time at age 33. He’d been a quality player for the last few years, mostly based on his ability to make a lot of contact and occasionally drive the ball into the gaps. Homers weren’t really his thing. From 2006 to 2011, his career HR/FB rate was 6.3%, and he posted an ISO of .128.

Last year, his HR/FB rate was 15.1%, and his ISO was .215. Or, if you prefer pictures, here’s Carlos Ruiz’s slugging percentage, by year, compared to league average.

Yeah. It’s not hard to figure out which of these is not like the others. And so, today, no one is really shocked that Carlos Ruiz has been suspended 25 games for failing a drug test, specifically one for amphetamines. Reports suggest that he’s admitted to taking Adderall, which has gained popularity as a performance enhancing drug over the last few years. Because MLB treats amphetamines different from PEDs, the suspension means that this is actually Ruiz’s second failed test – a first failed test for amphetamines simply requires an increased level of future testing.

And so, when Ruiz issues a statement that says he’s “sincerely regretful” for his “mistake”, everyone just rolls their eyes. Given his career path, no one is surprised today. Given his multiple failed tests, his credibility is basically shot. Ruiz is only going to miss the first 25 games of 2013, but he’s now going to be followed around by a large cloud of skepticism.

If he doesn’t hit after the suspension is over, it will be evidence that the drugs were the reason he was good in the first place. If he does hit, it will just be evidence that he’s found a way to beat the system. This is the world we live in now. Guys who just suddenly start hitting for power are guilty until proven innocent. And as long as guys like Carlos Ruiz keep providing evidence to support that mentality, it’s just going to grow.

I feel bad for the guys who really are clean and just improve through natural means. I don’t like to assume the worst. I just wish the players would stop giving us reasons to think that every abnormal power spike really is due to drug use. As long as they keep providing evidence for the cliche, it will survive. Unlike Carlos Ruiz’s 2012 power spike, most likely.

Early Sunday morning, Twitter was abuzz with news that the Dodgers and Fox Sports West had agreed to a 25-year broadcast deal valued between $6 billion and $7 billion. By Sunday afternoon, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times had confirmed the outline of the deal, but cautioned that the Dodgers and Fox were still negotiating, with a November 30 deadline looming.

As I explained last week in this post, the parties’ existing agreement gave Fox an exclusive, 45-day window in which to negotiate a new deal to govern the 2014 season and beyond. Hence, the November 30 deadline. If an agreement isn’t inked by Friday, the Dodgers must submit a final offer to Fox by December 7. Fox then has 30 days to accept or reject the offer. If Fox rejects the offer, the Dodgers are free to negotiate with whomever they want.

However the negotiations play out, it’s clear now that the Dodgers’ local TV revenue is about to enter the stratosphere. A 25-year deal worth between $6 billion and $7 billion would net the Dodgers between $240 million and $280 million per year. Per year. That’s more than any team has ever spent on player salaries in a single season — even the Yankees. And it’s nearly double the amount of local TV revenue pulled in annually by the team with the second-most lucrative deal — the other Los Angeles team (the Angels) — which entered into a 17-year deal with Fox Sports West worth $2.5 billion.

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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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Earlier this week I posted about the Best Bunts of 2012 according to Win Probability Added (WPA). Nothing like that is really complete, however, without talking about the worst. So here, divided into some rather arbitrary categories, are some of the worst bunts of 2012.

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Evaluating a pitcher is simpler than evaluating a hitter.  It isn’t easier, due to pitcher attrition, but pitchers show you everything they have to offer—stuff, location, delivery, athleticism, etc.—pitch after pitch and are dictating the action.  Watching a hitter is more complicated since you’re evaluating their ability to react to what the pitcher is doing, along with the physical tools, ability to use them, approach at the plate, etc.  Hitters can go a couple at bats without swinging and full games without having to show their ability in one of these key areas.

The hit tool is the hardest tool to predict and also is the most important.  Imagine the job of a pro scout grading the hit tool for every player on a team from a five game look.  You’ll have notes from batting practice and every at bat of each player, but the information is asymmetrical.  You don’t know how he responds to a fastball on his hands until one is thrown and maybe he never gets one or he doesn’t swing at it.  You pay close attention to his plate discipline but maybe he doesn’t see any borderline pitches for a game or two.  This is multiplied for every player on the team, some of whom play irregularly, so your notes can have some holes. Evaluating a hitter is difficult because it’s a passive act graded off of a short look but also because it’s very complicated by nature with countless components.

While my method for grading hitters isn’t a revelation, it’s helped me organize my thoughts about hitters while taking notes mid-game and while writing the final evaluations.  I separate the hit tool into three components –tools, plate discipline and bat control—and classify any observation into one of the three groups, then use the grades of each of these components to get to the hit tool grade.  If I don’t take this methodical, checklist-type approach, I end up looking at a mess of notes, outcomes, stats and background info and gut-feeling my way to a hit tool grade.

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Something ridiculous happened. When ridiculous things happen, you’re often left wondering how much to worry about it, since, of course, it was ridiculous. It might be even more ridiculous to continue thinking about it.

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I’m not exactly sure how Major League Baseball players feel about fame, but you can probably guess what they think about infamy. You want to leave your mark because of your greatness, not because of some asterisk or fluke or memorable gaffe.

Cliff Lee is a fine pitcher. Fine like diamonds, not like, say, a Subaru Justy. He’s been among the elite starting pitchers going on five straight seasons. And he’s is making history this season. But probably not the way he wants to.

I doubt that the recording of the win and reliance on ERA were the genesis of sabermetrics. But a lot of what exists here — both in the statistic and narrative format — is because of a disdain for traditional measures of what supposedly makes a pitcher good.

But allow me to depart from that for a moment, because Lee is accomplishing something that’s rarely seen: He’s been a dominant pitcher without earning many wins this year. It’s not that I like the win any more than anyone else, I just like the significance of the anomaly that we’re seeing.

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I thought about leading off this post with one of those “Guess who leads the Majors in WAR among shortstops” questions, but then realized that I put Jimmy Rollins name was in the headline, so that seemed to not be much of a challenge. But, yes, Jimmy Rollins currently leads all MLB shortstops in WAR, checking in at +4.9 for the season. He’s been the lynchpin to the Phillies second half comeback, but on the other hand, he was also one of the reasons that they had a big hole to dig out of to begin with, because Rollins is having one of the weirdest good seasons in recent history.

Here are his monthly splits:

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Perhaps inspired by teammate Mariano Rivera’s vow to come back in 2013 after suffering an injury, Andy Pettitte is apparently considering a 2013 return in the wake of his injury-limited innings this season. Pettitte’s numbers this year (3.22 ERA, 3.41 FIP, albeit in a small, sub-60 inning sample so far) would be good for any pitcher. They are even more amazing considering that Pettitte turned 40 in June and did not pitch in 2011. Few pitchers have done what Pettitte is considering doing, let alone left-handed starters. Rather than doing a detailed (and premature) analysis of Pettitte’s 2013 outlook, it might be interesting to see how some 40-year-old southpaws have done in the past when coming back for their age 41 seasons.

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