Kyle Kendrick is generally underrated in the realm of back-end starters, but the Phillies still came into the offseason seeking rotation depth behind Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels. That need grew even greater two weeks ago when the team used Vance Worley to acquire Ben Revere. With veteran back-end arms aplenty on the free agent market, Philadelphia managed to find a bargain in former National (and rival) John Lannan.

Lannan, as Phillies fans surely remember, started his big league career by breaking Chase Utley’s hand with a pitch back in 2007. The bad blood has lingered for years, and the Fightin’s have done a damn good job of exacting revenge over the years — Lannan has pitched to a 5.53 ERA (~5.80 FIP) against the Philadelphia compared to a 3.80 ERA (~4.30 FIP) against everyone else. The 28-year-old southpaw has responded by hitting more than twice as many Phillies (11) than players on any other team. Think of it as a light version of Pedro Martinez vs. the Yankees.

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Episode 289
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning the trade of R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays from the Mets for prospects. Also: how the Angels’ signing of Josh Hamilton doesn’t particularly represent a huge payroll spike for them. Also-also: the Phillies spend more on a relief than starting pitcher — why that might be.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 31 min play time.)

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The Phillies have a hole at third base, and Michael Young is a man without a position in Texas. These two problems look to be coalescing into a trade between the Rangers and Phillies, where Texas would ship Young to Philadelphia in order to give him the chance to have a regular gig again, and they’d receive a little bit of salary relief in the process. The Rangers would still be on the hook for $10 million of the $16 million he’s due in 2013, a natural response to the fact that Young was Major League Baseball’s worst regular player in 2012, but they’d free up a roster spot, save a bit of money, and give one of the franchise’s most popular players a chance to keep his career going in a new city. From that perspective, the deal makes a world of sense for Texas.

But, despite Young’s dismal 2012 season, I like this deal for the Phillies as well. As I noted on ESPN Insider yesterday, there’s a decent list of recent performers who have apparently fallen apart in their mid-30s, only to rebound the next season and regain most of their pre-faceplant production. While Young was genuinely terrible last year, we also need to keep in mind that single year performance isn’t the best indicator of future performance, and any decent projection should be informed by his success prior to 2012 as well as his failure last year.

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Bad news for Michael Bourn – the Phillies just emphatically closed the door on bringing back the free agent center fielder, giving up Vance Worley and top prospect Trevor May to acquire Revere from the Twins. Given the price that we just saw Denard Span go for last week, this is a bit of a shocking price for Revere, and looks like a significant overpay for the Phillies.

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We have already run two pieces on Shane Victorino since he signed his new contract with Boston by Eno here and by Michael Barr at RotoGraphs. They are both fine pieces in their own right, but one issue that needs more discussion is Victorino’s platoon split.

As people noted elsewhere in the signing’s aftermath (and analyzed in some detail earlier this season by Jack Moore), Victorino, a switch-hitter, has a very pronounced platoon split, hitting left-handed pitching well and right-handed pitching poorly. In 2012 Victorino hit just .229/.295/.333 versus righties while facing them about in about three-fourths of his plate appearances. How much does this split really hurt his overall value?

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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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