Valdespin and Andrus: Youth is Wasted on the Young

The quote in the heading by George Bernard Shaw could also be modified as, "Talent is Wasted on the Young." Two different stories have caught my attention this spring. Both involve the people behind the baseball players.

The first story  caught my attention early in Spring Training and involved Elvis Andrus being in the best shape of his life (BSOL). And the second story was much more recent concerning Jordany Valdespin and how his mother told him to grow up. Andrus is 26 and Valdespin is 27.

It is easy to forget that baseball players reach their physical peak early in life. We also fail to understand that most males do not reach their maturity peak until much later. I used to tell my son that boys were always three years younger (in maturity) than their actual ages. Sometimes that is optimistic.

And yet for every Mike Trout who bursts onto the scene with nothing but determination and a level head, there are a dozen others that don't figure it out until much later. The result is losing a lot of time and talent and sometimes it is too late.

Let's start with Elvis Andrus as his is perhaps the less harsh story of the two. Andrus has been a millionaire since the age of 23. When he signed a long-term deal with the Rangers that runs unti 2022, his future became secure and he had nothing but years of money heading his way.

Andrus' reaction to that was him coming to Spring Training a year ago really out of shape. I am not being unfair here, he says it himself. As such, he wasn't ready to play and ended up having the worst year of his career when he should have been peaking as a player.

Andrus has been in the spotlight since he arrived in the Majors. The arrival coincided with the Rangers having great teams and making two World Series in a row. Andrus wanted to be talked about in the same breath as Jeter. But it never happened. While he was a much better fielder than Jeter ever was, his offense has been below league average for every season he's been in the Majors.

It appears that last season made the bell go off and he went into the off season with a plan and is having a fabulous spring. This could be the year that he actually becomes the offensive player it was thought he could be.

It's just a shame that it took him so long to figure that out.

Jordany Valdespin has an even harsher story. The Mets were excited about his talent and either thought he would be the team's future second baseman or a weapon as a super-utility type player. The trouble was, the young man was poison to his fellow players.

Valdespin has a track record of immaturity which included altercations with his manager when he didn't play or was sent to the minors. And when he did play, he angered his teammates by showboating. His results definitely show a guy who should not have been showboating.

How bad was the antipathy with his fellow Mets? When he got caught up in the Biogenesis scandal and was suspended for fifty games, his own teammate said the incident, "definitely confirms his stupidity." Ouch.

Valdespin handled the adversity the way most immature young people do. He wanted to quit after the suspension in 2013. He was frustrated. He probably felt that where he landed was everyone else's fault.

That's when his mom stepped in. She did what every decent parent has to do at some point in the life of their child. She told him to grow up. To his credit, he took that advice and accepted it.

The Miami Marlins gave him another chance. And he is having a great spring and will make the decision on whether to keep him in the Big Leagues a tough one for the Marlins. I find myself rooting for him...and for Andrus.

You have to root for someone who finally gets it. Andrus is guaranteed to be a rich man. Jordany Valdespin is fighting for his baseball life. Both have wasted their prime years and a serious chunk of talent by their immaturity.

But that's what makes this game interesting if you care to think about it. We are talking about human beings here. And human beings who try to improve themselves and grow up are human beings to root for and make an interesting story in counterpoint to the cold, harsh reality of statistics and results.

Talent is often wasted on the young. That happens. Some take longer to figure it out. Some never figure it out. Elvis Andrus and Jordany Valdespin have apparently figured it out. I hope they are rewarded with the the physical time they have left in the game. If they never get where they were supposed to become, at least it won't be because they were their own worst enemies.

Dan Haren owes baseball nothing

Or does he?

I have been having this internal debate about Dan Haren's position about pitching for the Marlins for about two weeks now. Every time I get a handle on how I feel about how he is handling this trade to the East Coast, my emotions turn the other way.

We can all understand Dan Haren's desire to stay close to his family on the West Coast and he signed his free agent contract out there to facilitate his desire. Family is a noble thing. I once turned down a sure $160 grand job in Georgia because I did not want to leave my daughter behind. I get it. In fact, I should get it more than most.

One of the main differences in my situation and Haren's is that I was not under contract. I did not sign a piece of paper in good faith that said I would perform XYZ expectations in return for a financial gain. Haren did sign such a piece of paper.

He has made perfect use of the collective bargaining agreement to earn himself $71 million in his career playing baseball. He is signed another $10 million to do so again in 2015. His contract did not include a no-trade agreement although there is some murkiness as to what was promised him when he signed.

In fact, Haren has earned $35 million in the last three years being a less than league-average pitcher. In this age of pitching, his FIP has been over four for three straight years. But that's not really fair as he is more or less getting paid what he couldn't make when he was younger and was really worth something as a pitcher.

He has already told the Marlins (according to the linked story) that he doesn't want to play there. He is basically asking them to trade him back out West. All this speculation has caused mlbtraderumors.com to put up a poll on where he will end up. The biggest choice so far is that he will retire. Really?

Has he made enough money to throw away $10 million? For all his lack of success the last three years, he is a strike-throwing machine who has made thirty-plus starts ten years in a row. That kind of durability will get you a good contract somewhere on the open market once his obligation for 2015 is over.

Would he really leave all that money on the table? If the Marlins cannot, or will not trade him, would he just quit? Or would he sit out a year? Why can't he just rent out a bungalow in Miami for a season and move his family there? He certainly has the money. It is a temporary inconvenience for the family en route to millions of dollars of potential earnings.

The decision would seem to be easy. Miami has a spacious ballpark. One can see Haren building back his reputation as a starter and freeing him to play his hand in 2016.

Let's think about Miami's position for a moment. They already have their $10 million from the Dodgers. They got paid whether Haren pitches for them or not.  If Haren sits home with his millions, they still have their money and won't have to shell it out. If he plays for them, they can pencil in 30 starts, which is still something.  Or they can trade him and get value knowing that a trade partner would basically pay Haren nothing to pitch for them.

What would you do if you were the Marlins? Frankly, I would call his bluff. If you want to throw away $10 million smackers, have yourself a nice day. The collective bargaining agreement between the players and the teams is pretty fair. And the fact is that he is under contract.

So what happens if Haren sits out the year? What should baseball do then? Should he be allowed to play 2016 when he effectively broke his contract? I don't know the answer to that and what the provisions are for that circumstance.

What I do know is that I am no closer to resolving this moral dilemma for myself. I know it doesn't matter what *I* think. But I am sure that I am not the only one thinking about Haren's situation.

Where I am, basically, is where I started. Dan Haren has made his millions and owes no man anything and can walk away if he wants to. He owes baseball nothing except for that contract he signed in good faith. That contract and the fact that baseball has been the means of his family having the lifestyle they lead swing me over to the other side of the moral reading.

Thus, my conclusion is wishy-washy. Dan Haren owes baseball nothing, but yet again, he owes baseball everything.

The tale of two MLB debuts - follow up

I wrote yesterday about two pitchers making their MLB debuts in starts for their respective teams. The topic interested me because I am always rooting for a new guy to make an impression. But the difference between the two situations was so striking as to make it all the more interesting. The two pitchers were a phenom, highly touted prospect and a fighter who rode the buses in the minor leagues for a decade.

So how did they do? Let's start with the career minor-league player. His name is Yohan Pino and he pitched for the Twins. Frankly, he was brilliant. He gave up two runs in seven innings on five hits and one walk. Only one hit was for extra bases--a double. And Pino struck out seven.

When he left, the game was tied, 2-2, and the Twins went on to win the game. He did not get the win, but he allowed his team the time and ability to win it. Nice job!

I was worried that Pino would never get the start as heavy rain delayed the game for quite a long time.

Here is a link to the video of his outing.

The phenom, former Number One pick (9th overall), Andrew Heaney also pitched brilliantly. He faced the Mets, a weak-hitting team in a big home ballpark in Miami, which had to have helped. But even so, he gave up only one run in six innings pitched. He walked one and allowed four hits to go along with four strikeouts.

Unfortunately, one of those four hits was a first-inning homer to David Wright. Also unfortunate is that Zack Wheeler of the Mets had his best Major League outing of his career and blanked the Marlins on three-hits and pitched a shutout. So that one run allowed gave Heaney the loss.

But if Heaney pitches like that, he will win his share of games. Here is video of Heaney's first MLB strikeout.

All in all, it was a very satisfying night of debuts for two pitchers coming to the big leagues from opposite ends of the spectrum. Neither got the win they deserved, but both did themselves proud.

A tale of two MLB debuts - Andrew Heaney and Yohan Pino

Two pitchers will make their first Major League starts tonight--Yohan Pino for the Twins and Andrew Heaney for the Marlins. Their two paths to this point could not have been more different. Heaney was a Number One draft pick, but he's only pitched three seasons in the minors (this year being his third). Yohan Pino is not 23 like Heaney. Pino is 30-years-old and has been beating the bushes in the minors for ten long seasons. Like I said, you could not have had two different paths to this same point on the same day.

Let's start with Andrew Heaney. He was drafted in the 24th round of the 2009 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays right out of high school. But Heaney did not sign and instead went to Oklahoma State University. It turned out to be a good move because after his years in Stillwater, he was drafted in the first round of 2012, the ninth overall selection. The decision to go to college made him a few million dollars in salary.

And he has earned the draft selection. He struggled a little in his rookie league campaign despite great peripherals but the Marlins kept moving him up anyway and starting with the 2013 season, has had nothing but success along the way.

After 38 minor league games, Heaney is 17-7 overall with a 2.31 ERA, a 1.126 WHIP, 9.0 strikeouts per nine and only two walks per nine. He has given up only seven homers and sports a nifty 0.3 homers per nine mark. In other words, he is everything a young phenom should be and worthy of his status as one of the best prospects in baseball.

Heaney made Triple-A look easy to start this season despite being 3.9 years younger than the average age of his peers. His strikeout per walk ratio at New Orleans was an amazing 13.9. It seems natural for a young guy such as Heaney to make this next natural progression for a young team like the Marlins.

Nothing could be further from the truth for Yohan Pino. Pino was a free agent signing of the Twins out of Venezuela way back in 2005. He went 9-2 for the Elizebethton Twins in the Appalachian League in his first season in 2005. Teammates of his that season, Brian Duensing, Matt Garza and Kevin Slowey have made hundreds of Big League appearances. But not Pino.

Pino went 14-2 in the next season for the Single-A Beloit Snappers, again with great peripherals. One of his teammates on that team was an 18-year-old Chris Parmalee. But Pino stalled the following season in Double-A.

Pino pitched for parts of three seasons for the Double-A New Britain Rock Cats. During the 2009 season, Pino started with the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings but he was traded to the Indians' organization and was assigned to Columbus.  After finishing with the Clippers in 2009, he pitched the entire season there in 2010 and his numbers slipped. After a bad start for Columbus in 2011, he was traded to Toronto and really struggled for that organization as he bounced between Las Vegas in the PCL and New Hampshire in the Eastern League through the 2012 season. His career seemed stalled.

Pino, then 29, signed with the Reds' organization and split the 2013 season between that team's Double and Triple-A teams with decent peripherals but mundane win-loss totals.

He re-signed with the Twins, his first organization, to start the 2014 season. Coming full circle to the Rochester Red Wings and now three years older than the average Triple-A opponent, Pino was 9-1 this year for the Red Wings with a 1.92 ERA and a 0.934 WHIP.

But Pino only started seven of his fourteen appearances this year for the Red Wings. The Twins must have liked what they saw enough to give him a shot...finally...in the Big Leagues.

Pino has thrown 1,093.2 innings in the minor leagues. He has a .597 winning percentage, a 1.198 career WHIP to go with a 8.2/2.2 strikeout to walk ratio. His 3.74 career ERA was somewhat inflated by pitching for the Blue Jays' organization. But the guy has certainly been good enough to have gotten a shot somewhere along the line. But he hasn't.

Until now. So, yes, Yohan Pino's debut could not be more different than Andrew Heaney's. The younger pitcher is making the next natural transition. The elder is finally getting a shot after paying long dues and riding way too many buses.

I will be rooting for them both because I am a sucker for both kinds of debuts. But I confess that I will really be pulling for Pino. After all, after all those years, the guy is finally getting a payoff for his efforts.

Enjoying Casey McGehee...for now

If you have read my stuff for a while, you know that I am a sucker for the comeback story. I love the improbable when a guy falls out of baseball only to come back a year or more later and have some success. There has been Vogelsong in the past and this year the Sizemore story in Boston. Another one that might not be as much in the news is what Casey McGehee is doing down in Miami. After two terrible seasons left him out in the cold and forced him to Japan, McGehee is back and looking great for the Marlins.

The question, of course, is how long it will last. After all, two years of history are hard to erase. In 2011 and 2012, McGehee came to the plate 952 times and compiled an fWAR for the two seasons of -0.3 to go along with wOBAs of .275 and .283. Those are pretty ugly seasons. After two such seasons, nobody wanted him and he went to Japan for a year.

And he did really well in Japan. He put up a .891 OPS in Japan in 144 games and had a season very reminiscent of his 2010 season for the Brewers. But it is easy to dismiss such success as we all wink and say the competition and the pitching is not as consistently strong in Japan as it is here in the Major Leagues.

But perhaps he found something. Perhaps he got his stroke or confidence back or both. I noticed that he got an invite to the Marlins this season and did not think much of it. He had a decent spring for that club but nothing special. But here he is fifteen games into the season, and yes, it is a small sample size, but he is hitting .309 with a very healthy .381 on-base percentage. He has not hit a homer yet, but he has five doubles and a triple and currently has a wOBA of .358. Good on him!

The question, of course, is if it will last. The odds seem to be against it. For one thing, his current BABIP is .395 which is way high and speaks to a bit of good fortune so far. Are there any indications that his success can continue? There are a couple.

First, his plate discipline thus far is much improved over any time in his previous MLB incarnation. He has a career 7.8% walk rate and thus far is walking at an 11.1% clip. And the PitchF/X data seems to indicate that is not a fluke.

While McGehee always was pretty good at laying off the pitch out of the strike zone (25.5% for his career), he is very good in that area this year at 21.4%. Therefore he is being more selective at the plate than at any time in his career. Confidence in his ability has a lot to do with that and these numbers are encouraging.

The second encouraging thing is that he seems to be a different hitter if you look at his batted balls. In his two terrible seasons, his line drive percentages were pretty awful at 16.2% and 15.5% respectively. And his career line drive percentage is only 17.5%. But this year (so far), line drives are whistling off his bat.

His current 2014 line drive percentage is 23.3%. If you hit a lot of line drives, good things are going to happen and a healthy BABIP should occur. Perhaps not as healthy as .395, but healthy nonetheless. The drawback to the line drives is that he has the lowest fly ball percentage of his career, which will cut into his normal power numbers some.

But with a big home park like the Marlins play in Miami, hitting a lot of fly balls would probably not be a really good thing and line drives would be more suitable. I still think he will hit double-digit homers. He always has, even in his two terrible seasons he hit 22 of them.

Casey McGehee has been a nice story thus far and has tickled my comeback radar nicely. I don't believe he will do quite as well as he is doing now. But if he hits .270 with a .340 on-base percentage or higher, it will be a resurrection of sorts for a career that seemed to have ended with a thud after the 2012 season.

Jose Fernandez's conservative projections

Jose Fernandez's rookie season, as a 20 year old starting pitcher, started out as an interesting conversation piece. He had a couple of spectacular starts offset by some so-so starts, generally depending on whether he was home or away at the time. By the end of 2013, he was the talk of baseball writers and won the Rookie of the Year honors. Despite how he finished 2013, projection systems are taking a conservative approach to how Fernandez will perform in 2014.

First, let's look at the projection systems' numbers and then a discussion of them will follow:

System, IP, K/9, B/9, ERA, FIP, WAR

• ZiPS: 154, 9.53, 3.16, 2.57, 2.87, 4.5
• Oliver: 118, 9.67, 3.27, 2.74, 2.86, 2.6
• Steamer: 192, 10.01, 3.35, 3.35, 3.05, 3.8
• Fans: 201, 9.72, 2.87, 2.83, 2.97, 4.2
• PECOTA: 186, 9.77, N/A, 2.44, N/A, 4.6

If we average them all out, here is a list of how the projected numbers stack up to his 2013 numbers:

• IP - 170, less than 2013
• K/9 - 9.75, higher than 2013
• B/9 - 3.16, higher than 2013
• ERA - 2.79, higher than 2013
• FIP - 2.94, higher than 2013
• WAR - 3.94, lower than 2013.

As you can see, the average of the five projection systems paint a picture of a pitcher not as successful as last season. Two of the five systems projected his WAR at equal to 2013 or higher. They all projected more strikeouts per nine but higher ERA and FIP numbers.

The projections are, in fact, conservative. Is there a good reason to be? Well, sure. So many things can happen to a pitcher. There are pulled muscles, blisters, line drives hitting them like tiny dodge balls, sore shoulders and elbows and just plain bad luck. And consider that of the 79 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title last season, only 46% of them, or 36 of them pitched 200 innings or more. Pitching is a tough gig.

But what if Jose Fernandez stays healthy and pitches 200 innings or more? What can we tell from last year? What we did see was a pitcher who gained mastery and unbelievable numbers as the season progressed.

In his first ten starts covering April and May, Fernandez went 2-3 with a 3.78 ERA with a 1.204 WHIP. Here is how he did each month after that:

• Jun: 2-1, 1.67, 0.928
• Jul: 3-1, 2.08, 0.857
• Aug: 3-1, 1.15, 0.846
• Sep: 2-0, 0.64, 0.786

Unbelievable, eh? He was getting better as the season went along. As you may or may not know, during the season, I pick the games every day to predict which team will win or won't win. In the first half, if Jose Fernandez was at home, I would pick the Marlins to win. If the Marlins were on the road, I would pick them to lose if Fernandez was pitching. After the first half, I always picked him to win. It did not matter if he was home or on the road.

This is a special pitcher who just happens to be heading into his Year 21 pitching. There is something exciting about him and when he pitches, he is the kind of pitcher that everyone wants to watch. The only thing that can derail him is some sort of injury and you really have to root against that happening with all of the fibers in your body if you are a baseball fan.

It is easy to understand the computer models being conservative. Things happen to pitchers. So much that actually occurs in the game are out of their control. His fielders have to field, his batters have to get ahead in the game to keep him on the mound and his catcher has to frame and block pitches well.

But there is a lot in his control. Even as a freshman pitcher, he got batters to swing at 31% of his pitches out of the strike zone. I think his walks will come down significantly. I think he has adapted to pitching on the road and getting batters to hit less fly balls on the road (which the records show he did). For gosh sakes, he led the league with only 5.3 hits per nine innings! That is remarkable.

If he stays healthy--and man, I hope he does--I see no reason why his ERA cannot again finish under 2.50, his winning percentage stay above 60% and his strikeout to walk ratio to improve. I see no reason why he cannot go 200 innings at least and yet keep his WHIP under 1.00.

I cannot wait to see what he does because pitchers like him do not come around very often. If Jose Fernandez does not finish with 6 WAR or higher, I will be totally shocked and disappointed.

Projecting the five least valuable players of 2014

Without much else to do in this dead zone waiting to see where the last remaining free agents wind up and Spring Training games, looking at projections is a fun way to pass the time. Whether you do this for fantasy baseball purposes or--if you are like me and do not play fantasy--just for the fun of it, There is a lot of stuff to sort through and ponder. Projection systems are difficult to wrap your head around because some project actual playing time and others assume everyone is going to get 550 plate appearances. The latter, I suppose, is helpful in case a player breaks out in Spring Training and ends up as a starter (which rarely happens). What I thought I would do on this Sunday afternoon was cull through the various projection systems and determine who the five least valuable players would be in 2014.

Such an exercise is harder than you think. First, I have an artificial number of projected plate appearances of 450. I want to consider starters and not part-time players. Secondly, I have to figure out which of these players will actually get the playing time he is projected to obtain. For example, one of the lowest rated was Brett Wallace. But he was just DFA'd by the Astros and doesn't figure to catch on with a full-time gig anywhere else. And lastly, most of the projection systems have to agree on the lack of value a player will have in 2014.

After making my list, a discussion on the merits of each will occur. Think of it as sort of an over/under type discussion. For disclosure sake, I used PECOTA, Steamer, Oliver and Fans projections. I used MLB Depth Charts to confirm possible playing time.

Okay, the list:

1. Garrett Jones - Average Projection of 0.23 WAR
2. Raul Ibanez - Average Projection of 0.3 WAR
3. Mitch Moreland - Average Projection of 0.55 WAR
4. Adeiny Hechavarria - Average Projection of 0.65 WAR
5. Ryan Ludwick - Average Projection of 0.78 WAR

Garrett Jones - Jones holds one of the most extreme L/R splits in the Majors with less than a .600 OPS against left-handed pitching and in the high .878 against right-handed pitchers. He is penciled in as the platoon partner with Jeff Baker at first base. That would be a good thing for Jones as he is capable of hitting more than twenty homers. If he can field first base at near league-average level, he could score 2.0 in WAR. If he plays full time or spends any time in the outfield, all bets are off.

Raul Ibanez - The projections are logical since Ibanez is 41 years old and should never wear a glove. But the Angels only need him as a DH and have plenty of outfielders. So unlike last year in Seattle, Ibanez should only be a DH. That said, will he get 400 plate appearances? He won't if he is platooned (and he should be). Based on offense alone, he could get 1.5 in WAR.

Mitch Moreland - Moreland has no home at first base with the Rangers' addition of Prince Fielder. MLB Depth Charts has him listed as the Rangers' DH. Plus, he has spent plenty of time in the outfield too. Moreland's career doesn't seem to be going anywhere and I think these projections are pretty money.

Adeiny Hechavarria - Not only is his name a bear to spell, but he was awful for the Marlins last season. And still, he is pegged as their starting shortstop again this year. I don't think he will ever hit and a sub-.300 on-base percentage could be his norm. He gets bonus WAR points for his "important position" on the field, but doesn't score all that well as a fielder. If he reaches 1.0 in WAR in 2014, it will be a surprise.

Ryan Ludwick - I kept hearing last year that the Reds will be okay once Ludwick comes back from injury. And it made me scratch my head. Yeah, he had a pretty good 2012, but that is the anomaly for him over the past five seasons. The Reds have him penciled in as the starting left-fielder. I think it is a pie-in-the-sky scenario for them. He is not great in the field, and 2012 aside, his bat has been missing since his days with the Cardinals. I think his projection is fair. His positional ranking hurts him, his fielding hurts him and I don't see him repeating 2012 for offensive production.

There you have it. The projections have spoken. But of course, nobody knows how any player's season will go until he actually plays the games.

Giancarlo Stanton is the old man of the Marlins' outfield

Giancarlo Stanton has been one of the youngest players in baseball for so long that it seems surreal that he could be the old man of the Marlins' outfield this coming season. Heading into his age 24 season, Stanton looks to be joined by young guys, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich, who both had a successful first taste of the Majors in 2013. Despite the youthful nature of Stanton and his outfield mates, this could actually work out quite well for the Marlins.

Let's start out with Stanton himself. Despite the fact that he has hit 117 homers before he turned 24 years old and despite the tape measure of many of those homers, he has still been a bit of a disappointment. He has not been able to stay on the field the last two years and his strikeout rate is one of the highest in baseball. Plus, his fielding seemed also to stumble in 2013. His career has had superstar written all over it, but the reality has been less than so.

But you have to consider the age as well. He could easily come into his own and be the kind of player we have expected him to be. There were some positives in 2013 in what was otherwise a disappointing season. While he still struck out 140 times, his plate discipline improved and his swinging strike rate (though still enormous) went down. There seemed to be a little more selectivity in what he was swinging at in 2013.

Projection systems still love the guy. The Oliver projections have him averaging six WAR per season for the next five seasons with plenty of power and despite the continued strikeout rate. I still think he can be even better if he can stay on the field, plays better on the road and improves on his strikeout rate. I still see a superstar there.

And I see fun things for Christian Yelich too. He did quite well in his first 62 games in the Major Leagues. The former first round draft pick for the Marlins in the 2010 draft held his own despite being only 21 years old in 2013.

What I liked best about his debut was that he held onto his plate discipline from the minors to the big show. He walked over eleven percent of the time and finished with an on-base percentage of .370 for the Marlins. His ISO and slugging percentage did not show what he did in the minors, but that will come.

I also loved that he stole ten bases for the Marlins without once getting caught. Yelich held his own in the outfield and did not make an error in 2013. The fielding numbers show that he is much better in center field than in left and center is where he should be stationed from now on. His one fielding flaw is that he does not have much of an arm.

The weakest link of the three to me is Marcell Ozuna. I like his play in the outfield and it will be a tough decision whether to use him in center or left with Yelich. But his offensive game leaves me a bit concerned.

Ozuna showed no plate discipline in his 70 games in the Majors. He swung at 35.5% of pitches out of the strike zone. And while that is not quite in Josh Hamilton territory, it is a high rate. Combine that with his swing and miss rate of over 12% and that is a problem. He only batted .265 despite a BABIP of over .320 and that concerns me as well. A major league outfielder with little power and a .303 on-base percentage is a problem.

Ozuna showed some occasional power in the minors and that would be welcome if that reappeared for the Marlins. He was an .820 OPS guy in the minors despite being so young. If he can improve his on-base percentage and have a little of that power show up, then he could be useful, but I am not that optimistic on him. The projection systems are not either. So we will have to see what happens.

Not all the youngsters the Marlins throw at the Major League wall are going to stick. It is a risky strategy, but I like it too. Why not find out what young players can do rather than paying fringe veteran players a million or two to do the same thing.

But it is strange that Giancarlo Stanton has become the old man of the Marlins' outfield at the age of 24. It has the potential toe be a very good outfield. Or it could fall apart. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it all works out for the Marlins.

Jose Fernandez thus far

One of the most interesting stories in baseball this season is the Miami Marlins employing a twenty year old starting pitcher from Cuba who never pitched a game above A+ ball before this season. The Jose Fernandez story has been largely overlooked because of where the Marlins currently sit in the standings and the lack of national exposure the team gets. Now that we are nearing the halfway point in the season, how is Jose Fernandez doing?

The large answer is that he is doing just fine. That probably surprises some people who scoffed at the idea of putting the kid in the rotation at the start of the season. But it probably surprises a lot of people that the Marlins have played over .500 ball in June too. It is funny what happens when nobody is looking.

Jose Fernandez has now made fifteen starts. Seven of those have been no-decisions. That leaves his current record at 4-4, a rather nondescript number that may also lead to few probing into his season to shrug. Fernandez had a rough April and was 0-2 after that first month with an ERA of 4.50. I remember seeing some articles and tweets wondering if he should be sent to the minors. He was not sent down.

Since the end of April, Jose Fernandez has gone 4-2 and now things look a little better. He made five starts in May and went 2-1 with a 3.18 ERA. That was better. He has made five starts in June and has gone 2-1 with an ERA of 1.67. That was impressive. The progression shows in his WHIP for the three months too. In April, his WHIP was 1.292. In May it went down to 1.200. In June it is a microscopic 0.928. His overall ERA is down to 2.98 and his FIP is also impressive at 3.20. That is good pitching.

His home / road splits might make you think that his spacious home park is adding to those numbers and you may be right. In seven starts at home, he is 2-0 with a 1.76 ERA and a .231 BABIP. On the road, he has pitched eight times and is 2-4 with an ERA of 4.12 and a BABIP of .281. But I think those numbers are skewed by two bad starts on the road in April that led to both of his losses that month.

If you look at his last two road starts, you will find that he pitched 13.1 innings and gave up only six hits and three runs. One of them was a fantastic start against the Cardinals in St. Louis, a tough place for any pitcher to go. His peripherals both home and away are very similar, so look for this home / road split to stabilize as the season goes along.

Fangraphs.com and PitchF/X disagree with what types of pitches Fernandez throws. PitchF/X seems to indicate that he throws a curve 31.1% of the time and a slider only 0.4% of the time. Fangraphs has him throwing a curve 23.1% of the time and a slider at 8.3%. The two pitches are nearly the same speed according to both, so it is easy to see where the confusion comes in. So let's just say that Fernandez throws four and two-seam fastballs (mostly four), curves / sliders and a change-up. He may throw four pitches or he may throw five.

The important thing is that Fangraphs rates his curves at a negative value for the season and all other pitches in the positive category. PitchF/X gives positive ratings to all of his pitches. For all intents and purposes, it does not matter what Fernandez throws, he has been effective.

Currently, Jose Fernandez is averaging 94.7 MPH on his fastball. That is fourth highest in baseball among starters behind only Strasburg, Harvey and Samardzija. That is impressive. And if you look at his velocity graph, he does not go up and down from start to start. His fastball velocity from game to game is pretty darned near flat-line. That is impressive as well. He does not yet possess some of the vertical movement that those other big arms have on their fastballs, however.

Unless he hits a wall and goes through the dead-arm thing, I do not see a lot of regression in his future. His strand rate is normal. His overall BABIP makes sense considering the success and arsenal of his pitches. His line drive rate is a little high at 22%, but he allows slightly more ground balls than fly balls and his fly balls do not go over the fence at a very high rate. His homers per nine inning rate is 0.64 and that is pretty consistent both in his big home ballpark and on the road.

Not only do I think he is not a regression candidate, I believe he will get better. His walk rate of 3.4 walks per nine innings for the season has improved in June to 3.08. I believe that will go down even more as the season progresses.

Of course, all of this does not negate some of the other consternation caused by Miami's decision to install such a young pitcher in the rotation in the first place. His success thus far proves he was not rushed. But the other argument is why speed up his "clock" for a team that is obviously not going anywhere in the short term.

I understand the argument and the economics involved. But it is an argument I hate. Personnel decisions should not be based on economics but on putting the best product on the field. The Marlins obviously felt that doing so meant installing a twenty year old pitcher into the rotation and I applaud this. The argument extends further in that Fernandez will become too expensive too soon and thus the Marlins will have to trade him away too soon. I do not buy that argument either and I believe that if Fernandez continues his successful pitching, the Marlins will take care of him the same way they took care of Stanton.

Obviously both Fernandez and Stanton need complimentary pieces for the Marlins to start getting somewhere. And perhaps those pieces will come in time. But I, for one, am glad that both are in the bigs because they are exciting and fun to watch. How is the Jose Fernandez experiment going thus far? In keeping with the team's name, the experiment is going swimmingly.

Anibal Sanchez is better than you think

Anibal Sanchez has been on the edge of this writer's mind since his blazing debut in 2006 when he went 10-3 and pitched a no-hitter against the Azizona Diamondbacks. Since that rookie season, Sanchez has a record of 32-38. But he is better than that. He was better than his 13-12 record for the Marlins in 2010 and better than his 8-9 record for the Marlins last season. Much of that lack of success has been due to the Marlins' proclivity in the past to pull starting pitchers early and having a weak bullpen. In his last two seasons, he has averaged only 6.09 and 6.06 innings per start respectively. But how good is he?

Since the start of the 2010 season, Sanchez has been the fourteenth best pitcher in baseball. Considering each team has five starters and there are thirty teams, that is a base of 150 pitchers. Yeah, fourteenth is pretty good. He is just behind Hamels, Lester and Cain. Despite Lester's struggles since late last season, that is pretty good company, don't you think? And if you look at FIP, then Sanchez has been the twelfth best pitcher since 2010 with a better FIP than Cain, Sabathia, Hamels and Haren. Yes, he is very, very good. And yet very few people recognize him in that kind of company.

Again, this year, his record is nothing to get excited about. He is 3-3. Ho-hum. But he is even better this year than he has been in the past two seasons. He is averaging 6.6 innings per start. In ten starts, he is averaging a 61 game score when 49 is average. He has a 2.57 ERA and a 2.63 FIP and a 2.96 SIERA. His ground ball rate is up and over 50 percent. He is striking out a batter per inning and has a 3.94 strikeout to walk ratio. He is having a great season. And yet, he is 3-3 and that is what people will notice.

And despite the fact that he is in his seventh major league season, Sanchez is only 28 years old. In a week where it seems that the Red Sox are being picked on because of their trades (Lowrie and Reddick), Sanchez was a product of Boston's Latin scouting arm. He was signed as just a kid out of Venezuela and became a part of that big trade after the 2005 season when the Marlins dumped everyone to save money. The Marlins shipped Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell (among others) and got back Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez. A year ago, a look was taken at that trade in this space and the Marlins were the clear winners. To be sure, the Red Sox would not trade their 2007 championship to undo that deal and rightly so.

Here is a fun fact for you, when Sanchez threw that no-hitter back in 2006, he was one of six rookies in the Marlins' lineup in that game. Isn't that amazing? Okay, back to business.

So what makes Sanchez so good? For one, he has six pitches the throws regularly and he can throw them at any time in any count. Of all six, the only one that Pitch/FX gives a negative ranking to is his curve. All of his other pitches have positive value. That is pretty special. He has learned to limit his walks and his current 2.3 walks per nine this season is a career best. A big part of his success and evolution as a pitcher is that each year for the last five, he has increased the number of pitches outside the strike zone a batter will swing at. Naturally, the 33.9 percent this year is a career best. In other words, he makes you think you are swinging at strikes and you are not.

Sanchez is also getting ahead of batters. His 66 percent first pitch strike rate is currently fifteenth in baseball and of the top fifteen, only one other of those starters has a swing and miss rate higher than Sanchez's ten percent miss rate. Sanchez will get ahead of you and then get you to miss his pitches. That's an effective combination. 

One of these years, the Marlins will win a string of Anibal Sanchez's starts and perhaps then people will know how good he really is. Sanchez is as reliable as he is effective. Johnson has gotten more hype and has perhaps more pure "stuff.". But Anibal Sanchez is the best of the Marlins' pitchers.

Trading a Z for a V is Good in Scrabble

Chicago is going to be a sleepy baseball town in 2012. No more Ozzie Guillen managing the White Sox and if reports are correct, no more Carlos Zambrano on the Cubs. That would be like the Republican Party losing Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. This author will let you decide if that's a bad thing or not. What this author intends to decide is if Chicago losing Carlos Zambrano is a good thing or not. The temptation is to write a single word sentence and move on to other things: Yes.

But that would be taking the easy way out. Zambrano will only be 31 in June. So it's not like he's an over-the-hill, washed-out arm. He has lost a couple of MPH on his fastball of late. But that could be due to all the time he has missed for his antics. He hasn't pitched 200 innings since 2007. He was worth three and a half wins in 2009 but sunk down to less than two and a half in 2010. He bottomed out last year with a value less than a win. For a guy making $18 million, that wasn't a good value proposition for the Cubs.

Frankly, if this Fan were a pitcher and played in front of that Cubs' defense, which was second from last in defensive efficiency last year, this Fan might have also had a hissy or two. Good luck to him with that Marlins' defense, which wasn't much better (though they did upgrade at shortstop this off season). If you were really old school, you might love Zambrano's career win-loss total. The guy has won forty-four more games in his career than he's lost. Even last year, he was 9-7. The guy's a winner, right?

But nobody thinks like that anymore, do they? Well, okay, maybe they do. His winning record sure does look good when placed side by side with Chris Volstad. Volstad might be on the Vernon Wells' even/odd year vortex. Volstad was a combined 18-13 in 2008 and 2010. But he was a combined 14-26 in the odd years of 2009 and 2011. If we believe in such random events being a pattern, then 2012 should be a good year for him.

Now that the Fan has covered things from the Murray Chass angle, what have we really got here? The Cubs basically are paying $16 million for Chris Volstad's services in 2012. $15 million of that goes to the Marlins to cover most of Zambrano's salary. The other million or so is what Volstad will make in his first arbitration year. We've got a problem here because Volstad has never had a season (even or odd) that was worth more than $7.2 million. So the Cubs are overpaying for him by more than double in 2012. But Volstad will be under Cubs' control until 2015, so even if he is only worth $7 million a season, he'll be a value in 2013 and 2014 and the Cubs won't have to worry about Zambrano anymore.

It's hard to believe that this deal was only based on the desire to get rid of Zambrano. Though Theo Epstein has done that before when he got rid of MannyBManny in Boston. Volstad has to have an upside that the Cubs see and to this author's hazel eyes, there just might be one. Volstad suddenly became homer-plagued in 2011. Could that be flukish? The homers were essentially his problem in both odd year meltdowns. His homer to fly ball rate the last four years looks like a Wall Street chart: 3.9 percent, 17.5 percent, 8.8 percent and 15.5 percent. Volstad also gave up his highest rate of hits per nine innings in 2011. Was that flukish as well with a BABIP of .310? Remember, the Marlins defense was awful too in 2011.

There are things to like in Volstad's numbers. He lowered his walk rate (6.8 percent compared to a career 8.1), increased his ground ball rate (52.3 percent compared to a career 50.4) and sported a 3.64 xFIP and 3.84 SIERA, both decidedly lower than his actual ERA.

Volstad has to improve to three-win pitcher for 2012 to pay off Zambrano. That's somewhat unlikely, but not impossible. But Volstad doesn't have to be a three-win pitcher after 2012 to be a bargain. Zambrano for the Marlins? He's only going to cost them $3 million this season and it shouldn't take much for him to be better for them than Volstad was in 2011. It would be great if he could find his fastball again and lower his walk rate (not to mention his personality pain threshold). It will be costly for the Marlins if Zambrano has a remarkable season. According to the report linked earlier, Zambrano has a $19 million option for 2013 if he finishes in the top four in Cy Young voting. But who sees that coming?

One other thing. Carlos Zambrano can really hit. Volstad can't. That might be worth another half a win by itself.

All Zambrano has to be is solid for the Marlins to make this worth their while. When playing Scrabble, you'd rather have a V than a Z, but if you can make a word with a Z, it's worth ten points. V words only gain you eight points. Take that however you want.

Garza and Nolasco are Interesting Comps

Charlie Saponara had a great post yesterday on his Fantasy Baseball 365 site about his love/hate relationship with Ricky Nolasco of the Miami Marlins. The read itself spurred some curiosity from this Fan about Nolasco, who has always seemed like a bit of an underachiever. It was great to have a little chat about Nolasco on Twitter with Saponara after reading his post. The post, the chat and looking at Nolasco's numbers reminded the Fan about another seeming underachiever, Matt Garza. So his numbers were checked as well. Amazingly, the two pitchers, both of whom threw for Florida-based clubs, have very similar comps.

Before getting into the similarities, we should get their differences out of the way. Garza is a full year younger than Nolasco. Garza has a bigger fastball that's three MPH faster than Nolasco. Garza was the more touted prospect and was a former first round draft pick. Nolasco was drafted in the fourth round. Garza was drafted out of college and Nolasco right after high school. Nolasco toiled in the minors for several years before getting the call to the majors. Garza was pitching in the bigs the year after his draft. Garza is slightly taller and thinner. Those are the differences.

There are far more similarities. Both are California dudes. Garza was born in Selma, a western-California city in central California. Nolasco is from Corona, with is also a western-California community, though much further south. Nolasco has thrown 922.1 innings in the big leagues. Garza has pitched 923.1. Nolasco has struck out 7.67 batters per nine innings, Garza, 7.50. Garza's career FIP is 3.98. Nolasco's career FIP is 3.83. Nolasco has six complete games in his career and two shutouts. Garza has eight complete games and three shutouts. Nolasco has thrown a two-hitter. Garza has thrown a no-hitter. Nolasco's career WHIP is 1.289. Garza's career WHIP is 1.303.

Both pitchers have made an attempt to change their pitching style in the last year, which is serendipitous as well. In 2010, Ricky Nolasco threw a two-seam fastball only 5.6 percent of the time. Garza in 2010 threw his 10.5 percent of the time. But in 2011, Nolasco increased his use of that pitch to 14.9 percent while Garza increased his two-seam usage to 15.5 percent. As a result, both pitchers saw a jump in their ground ball rates.  Thus, Nolasco's 45.1 percent ground ball rate in 2011 was the highest of his career. Garza's 46.3 percent ground ball rate was also the highest of his career. Both pitchers saw spikes in their line drive rate in 2011. Nolasco's was the highest of his career. Garza's was his highest since his rookie season.

Matt Garza has a clear edge on Nolasco in WPA with a career number of 2.42 compared to Nolasco's -0.67. But that is understandable considering that Garza pitched on a highly successful Tampa Bay Rays team in 2009 and 2010 while Nolasco's Marlins have muddled around a bit. Their "clutch" numbers are remarkably similar with Garza rated at -0.64 in his career compared to Nolasco's -0.69.

Baseball-reference.com and Fangraphs have widely divergent views of Nolasco's career value but agree pretty much on Matt Garza. Garza has compiled 12.7 rWAR compared to 14.6 fWAR. Nolasco, however, is only given 4.7 rWAR by B-R while Fangraphs is much more bullish at 15.4. Baseball Prospectus has Nolasco at 10.6 WARP and Garza at 10.1 WARP for their careers. Two of the three sites, then, rank the two pitchers remarkably similar in value.

What's the point of all this? Well, you could just take it at face value as a piece that simply compares two pitchers and their careers. Of course, you have to take into account park effects, defenses behind them (Nolasco has had awful defenses behind him), and competition. But on another level, you can see two pitchers that haven't been quite as good as they seem capable of being. For whatever reason, their careers have sputtered around. Garza's past season for the Cubs gives hope that he is starting to put it together as he posted the top ERA and FIPs of his career. Nolasco? Not so much. In many ways, the two pitchers have been the same pitcher for their big league careers. Garza now has shown a greater upside going forward.

Projecting Mike Stanton

Quick quiz: Who had the higher home run to fly ball ratio in 2011 between Mike Stanton and Jose Bautista? Why yes, that would be Mike Stanton, who led the majors in that category among all qualified batters. In fact, Stanton's home run to fly ball ratio was higher than Bautista's in 2010 too. The problem (if you want to call it that) is Bautista hits a lot more fly balls than Mike Stanton. Among all power hitters in the game in 2011, only Prince Fielder and Michael Morse had lower fly ball rates than Stanton. All of that plus a brand new ballpark makes projecting Mike Stanton in 2012 very difficult.

Let's start with the new ballpark. The Marlins' new stadium has larger dimensions than Sun Life Stadium. The left field line is ten feet further. Left center is thirteen feet further and dead center is eight feet further. But as most of us know, when Mike Stanton hits a homer, dimensions don't matter. Mike Stanton does not hit cheap homers. What we don't know is how balls in the air will react in the new stadium when the roof is closed. So again, projections are a bit difficult.

Stanton's plate discipline is confusing as well. He certainly walked more in 2011 than he did in 2012. His walk rate rose to 11.6 percent from 8.6 percent the previous season (his first). But Stanton swung at more pitches out of the strike zone in 2011, 33.6 percent compared to 32.1 percent the year before. Not surprisingly, that increase also meant Stanton swung and missed at a higher rate in 2011 than he did in 2010 (15.2 percent compared to 12.8 percent). Stanton's 166 strikeouts in 2011 are a bit alarming.

Perhaps part of his problem in 2011 was that he spent the early part of the season batting sixth in the line up. When you only have weakness batting behind you for 58 games, you're not going to get pitched the same when you are further up in the line up. His strikeouts decreased somewhat when he moved up to third and fourth in the line up, but his average slumped. He hasn't yet learned to succeed in high leverage situations and times when runners are in scoring position. His numbers in both were poor. He will need to improve in those areas to justify staying that in those prime positions in the line up.

A return to form for Hanley Ramirez and the addition of Jose Reyes should help as pitchers would have much more to think about than just Stanton. Logan Morrison also had a disappointing season and if he comes back with a better season, than much more protection is afforded Stanton. Stanton is a lot like Bautista in that both players have a similar lack in line drive percentage. Both players are well below league average in hitting ropes. But again, Bautista is much more adept at hitting the ball in the air. Stanton could dramatically increase his home run total if he could improve his fly ball rate. It's hard, however, to increase a batting average stuck in the .250 to .262 range when you only hit 16 percent of your balls in play on a line.

As can be expected by now from Bill James projections, the projections are bullish for Stanton in 2012. James has Stanton hitting 39 homers and raising his average by twelve points. Fans projections are equally bullish. This Fan hates to be a wet blanket, but Stanton has to hit more balls in the air to hit more homers and he has to hit less ground balls and more line drives to raise his batting average (if his BABIP remains static).

Mike Stanton will only be 22 in 2012 and will continually have to adjust as pitchers adjust to him. He didn't have a whole lot of growing time in the minors as you can well imagine. He is getting his training at the major league level. How will Mike Stanton do in 2012 and in his new ballpark? We are all excited to find out because the guy is intriguing as heck.

Prediction Comes True - Jose Reyes to the Marlins

To have a prediction come to pass is a toast of fine champagne. This writer called it less than thirty days ago. And so it comes to pass that Jose Reyes has agreed to a six year deal with the upstart Miami Marlins. But along with the thrill of correct prognostication comes a sadness for New York Mets fans that their exciting and personable shortstop has indeed flown the coop.

These are heady and frightening days for those who follow the Miami Marlins in their first year under that designation. Fresh off of signing Heath Bell, the once frugal franchise has splurged in major fashion in the dugout, in the bullpen and now at shortstop. All this comes in anticipation of entering a brand new ballpark and a new season of intent. All the while this is happening under remembrances of years past when World Championships were bought and then disbanded and the threat of the federal government circles around the ballpark deal the Marlins allegedly swindled from the taxpayers of southern Florida.

The Mets, with legal problems of their own, lose their most bankable player, albeit one that has missed major chunks of time with physical mishaps. But still, Reyes was the smiling face of the other New York franchise and despite more injuries, Reyes showed the glory of his talent by winning the batting title and became the most valuable shortstop in baseball. The Mets must lick their wounds and with a talented front office begin the re-fabrication of their franchise. Think kindly of Mets fans tonight as this has to be a bitter day for them.

And so Jose Reyes is the new Marlin shortstop. What of their own once-highly-touted shortstop? Hanley Ramirez was the most valuable of commodities just a few short years ago when he challenged Albert Pujols for that title in the National League. Two years of whispers about his effort, his size and the stark reality of his performance lead to speculation. Ramirez has made it known that he considers himself the Marlins' shortstop. He's probably the only one left in that organization that thinks so. Will he fight the Marlins if they move him to third or the outfield? Should they trade him if he does? For this to be as effective a signing as it should be, Hanley Ramirez needs to embrace this and forget about where he plays and reestablish the offensive force he once was. If he can do that, the Marlins will get two great players in this deal instead of one. The ball will be in Ramirez's court.

As for Jose Reyes, congratulations on hitting the big time. Ah to be young and rich and living in south Florida! He got his big payday and now has a chance to change the power of the National League East. This deal could be the best thing to happen to the Marlins and their fans in a long, long time. That is, if Jose Reyes can stay healthy and get the most out of his abundant talent.

Getting to Know Heath Bell

The Miami Marlins reportedly signed Heath Bell for a reported $9 million per year for three years pending a physical. The yearly rate is somewhat lower than Mariano Rivera and Jonathan Papelbon, but does put Bell in the second echelon below them on the pay scale for closers. Bell has saved over forty games a year for the San Diego Padres for the last three years after taking over that slot from the great Trevor Hoffman. Since Bell is known mostly for his antics in the All Star Game and toiled in relative obscurity in far flung San Diego (there's some East Coast bias for you), perhaps we need to get to know Heath Bell a little bit better.

WAR doesn't always work for a closer. They pitch sixty to seventy innings a season. So unlike starting pitchers and position players, their body of work is not large enough to generally make the pay proposition work when using WAR. Bell is no different. Bell has averaged $6.9 million of worth per season based on his WAR valuation for the past five years. He's had a high of $9.8 million during that time and a low (last season) of $2.3 million. That hardly justifies paying him $9 million a season. Perhaps we have to look at Win Probability instead. If we look at the last three years, Mariano Rivera leads all relievers in WPA followed closely by Papelbon. Joakim Soria is a distant thrid behind those two and Heath Bell is right behind Soria. Based on that, his pay slot not in the top tier but in the second tier makes sense.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sport tweeted this last night: "Marlins give Heath Bell and his rapidly declining K rate $27M, per@jaysonst. Good to see em spend. Whether it's wise, on the other hand ..."  That seems a bit hyperbolic to this writer. Yes, Heath Bell struck out only 7.32 batters per nine innings last season. But it's not like that is a long term slide. In 2009 and 2010, Bell struck out 10.21 and 11.06 per nine respectively. That's not a slide. More it is a one year fall. You have to look at other factors to see whether that large dip is worrisome or not. 

For one, Bell's velocity did not dip in the slightest. He has consistently thrown his fastball at 94 MPH for the past several seasons. 2011 was no different. Unlike Rivera, who lives on the inside part of the plate, Bell stays away from batters on both sides of the plate. His heat maps are little different from years past in his approach.  The horizontal movement of his fastball was no different in 2011 than it was in 2010. It appears he lost some vertical movement from previous seasons (10.2 to 9.2). So that may explain a bit of the downward movement of his strikeouts this past season. But the reasons might be elsewhere.

For one, his curveball--a pitch he throws about 28 percent of the time--lost value in 2011. That pitch has always been rated as above average in the previous years. This past year it was in the negative. Looking at the heat maps again, fewer curves landed around the strike zone than in the past. So that might explain some of the dip in his strikeouts. 

But perhaps we can also conjecture that Bell pitched more for contact this past season. The stats seem to bear that out a little. He threw his highest percentage of first pitch strikes in his career in 2011. From 2008 to 2010, Bell averaged 1,224 pitches a season. Last season, his pitch count was down to 1,098. So without talking to him, we might guess that pitching to contact was part of his strategy. In fairness, though, he did pitch fewer innings last year than the year before. But the strategy seemed effective as he recorded a .266 BABIP against this past season.

With everything looking close to his career norms, it's hard to get too worked up about Heath Bell's strikeout rate. After all, Mariano Rivera's strikeout rate has been all over the place over the years. With Bell's homers per nine looking pretty darned similar to previous years, the loss of strikeouts is less worrisome. 

Heath Bell is the third or fourth best closer in baseball. His productivity and success have been consistent over a five year period. The Marlins paid him in a range that is befitting of his ranking among his peers. Many, of course, will shake their heads at the over-inflation of closer reputations. But not in this space. After the Marlins' adventures with Leo Nunez last season (or whatever his real name is), there will be a lot more peace in their fans' minds when the ball is handed to Heath Bell in the ninth inning.