And SHAZAM! Now’s there’s parity in the MLB!

The MLB is a funny organization. One would think that in a sport producing most of the world’s largest guaranteed contracts, the production being paid for on the free agent market would guarantee on-field success. But that is not the case. Large payrolls have been large busts, such is life.

We know that a larger payroll leads to more wins, if not necessarily a playoff appearance, but also that teams need a strong input from their farm system, too. Teams have to strike a balance with these two inputs. For some teams — like the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics — the vast majority of their talent input must come from the draft. They can afford only the January Free Agents — the unwanted scraps of the big market teams. Because of a matter of geography and history, newer teams in smaller markets like the Diamondbacks, Marlins and Rays will probably never again draw the kind of income the Mets and Yankees do.

So, an outsider might look at Wednesday’s Competitive Balance Lottery (CBL) and say, “Hey, well it’s good the MLB is trying to even things out a little bit, help out the little man.” But in truth, the CBL is a weak offering to a ever-crippled lower class. And if the MLB wants to keep small-market teams like the Rays capable of winning, they must undo their recent changes.
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Jameson Taillon has been considered one of the top pitching prospects in the minors since signing with the Pirates for $6.5 million as the second overall pick in the 2010 draft.  What I’ve seen has matched the hype, but he does have some things to work on.  I scouted Taillon in a short spring training outing and two full outings with the Pirates Hi-A affiliate in Bradenton.  I’ll have notes on the rest of the Bradenton squad coming soon.

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With yet another day to go before actual baseball returns to the field, I thought I would take a quick look at some of the potential MVP candidates in both leagues based on the first half of the season.

Identifying MVP candidates is certainly not a straightforward process, nor is the criteria universally agreed upon. Knowing this I will not begin or end this article with any claim to have identified the “proper” candidates. These are my candidates based on my way of looking at the term “valuable”.

So what is my criteria? Well, I like to think of MVPs as players that provide an exceptional amount of production in both an absolute and relative sense. This means identifying players that lead or are close to leading the league in production, but where there is also a sizable gap between their production and that of the second best player on their own team. This means that I do tend to discount great performances by players that happen to share the same uniform as equally great players. Is it their fault? Absolutely not. In fact, those players could likely be the best all around players in the entire league. But when it comes to value I think there is a relative component that should be considered. This isn’t to necessarily give credit to the player (i.e. they don’t “step it up” to make up for the gap in talent on the team), but rather to the performance itself.

Like I said, this is my criteria and I don’t claim that it should trump all others, nor would I say it is complete on it’s own. Rather, I think it’ a useful starting place.

Okay, enough with the preamble. Let’s get to the data.

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The All-Star Game is over and it’s time to turn our attention to the second half of the season. All of the teams still in contention face questions as games get underway on Friday. We will take a look at those questions in two posts. Today, we’ll discuss what to look for in the National League when play resumes. On Thursday, we’ll address the American League.

The NL East is a four-team race. The Nationals are the leader in the clubhouse at the break, with a four-game lead over the Braves (five in the loss column) and a four-and-a-half-game lead over the Mets (six in the loss column). The Marlins are nine back with the Phillies in last place fourteen games behind the Nats. For the Marlins, that is a lot of ground to make up, but the NL East teams will play a lot of games against each other just after the All-Star Break. That could solidify the Nationals’ lead or tighten the race even further.

The Braves and Mets are essentially tied with the Giants and the Cardinals for the two wild card spots, just behind the Reds, who trail the Pirates by a game in the Central. The Diamondbacks, Marlins and Brewers sit three-and-a-half, four-and-a-half, and five-and-a-half back, respectively.

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Fare thee well, father, mother. I’m off
to de-luck the f*** out of this s***.

With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.

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At the end of May, I observed how the Pittsburgh Pirates had an offense poised for history. They were not just bad at scoring runs, they were great at making outs. They had a team wRC+ twelve points lower than the next-nearest lineup:

I called it a “catastrophe” then, but now it has become a swash-buckle’d turnaround.
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In this, their long-overdue rebuilding year, the Chicago Cubs have redefined terrible on the North Side. They currently sport an Major League Baseball-low 24 wins and have a dreadful duo of punchless offense and impotent pitching.

But they are not without trade chips as they approach a dark second half. Bryan LaHair and Jeff Samardzija — who possess an attractive blend of affordability and upside — and Ryan Dempster, Geovany Soto and David DeJesus will all get a number of inquiries as the deadline approaches. But the team is particularly eager to sell one asset more quickly than the others. His name is Alfonso Soriano.

Signed to a double-albatross contract — awarding the 36-year-old an $18 million salary through 2012, 2013 and 2014 — Soriano has no hopes of playing at a value commensurate with his income. However, he’s not without his strengths, and for certain teams looking for a power-hitting righty, Soriano might be the right fit.
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Lost in the Kansas City Royals’ Yuniesky Betancourt-fueled 5-3 extra-innings win over the Cardinals yesterday was that Alex Gordon tied his franchise record with five walks in a single game. Yeah, I’m as furious as the rest of you that this was overlooked. But hey, at least this time he at least scored a run. When Gordon originally set the record (as I am sure you all remember) back on July 30, 2008 against Oakland, he did not score once. (I remember that game well, as not long before that I had an argument with someone who said that Jose Guillen was the Royals’ only “feared” hitter, unlike that loser Gordon. Guillen hit right behind Gordon in this game. FEAR.)

It was an amazing feat, in a way, but not nearly the most times on base without scoring. In fact, since 1918, there have been 73 players who have gotten on base six or more times without scoring in regular season games. What follows is a look at the most extreme cases.

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This post isn’t going to be overly long, because the data mostly speaks for itself.

One of the primary traits that scouts look for in a catcher is a strong throwing arm, and catchers who can throw out opposing base stealers are often considered to be good defenders regardless of what else they do behind the plate. And, there’s no question that creating outs and intimidating runners into staying put is a useful skill, and a catcher who can shut down the running game can add value to his team.

However, this year’s Pittsburgh Pirates are proving just how small a part of overall run prevention that throwing out runners actually is. Here are the leaderboards for National League teams in opposing SB/CS:

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With a sweep of the Royals this weekend, the Pittsburgh Pirates moved into a tie with Cincinnati for first place in the National League Central. If you read baseball blogs, you probably realize how surprising this is. Sure, last year the Pirates had a winning record as late as August 1 before finishing the season 72-90. But rather than getting into an overall “are they going to regress?” post, I’d like to be more light-hearted (or shallow, depending on your perspective), and look at three curious facets of this particular Pirates team so far.

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