John Jaso's plate discipline improves the Athletics

The Oakland Athletics won the American League West last season despite a virtual black hole on offense from the catching position. In 632 plate appearances by all of their catchers in 2012, the triple slash line from the position was: .204/.262/.325. That .587 OPS was abysmal and worked out to a 64 OPS+. And so it made sense for Billy Beane to use a couple of his pitching prospects for the on-base capabilities of John Jaso in a three-way trade with the the Mariners and Nationals first reported yesterday by Adam Kilgore. Jane Lee, MLB.com's Athletics beat reporter, later tweeted that Beane had been trying to get Jaso for months.

Jaso will also improve a team that led the league in offensive strikeouts last season. He rarely swings and misses (4.6% for his career) and rarely swings at pitches out of the strike zone. According to PitchF/X, Jaso has only swung at 19.3 percent of pitches out of the strike zone in his career. That leads to the rare statistic that Jaso actually has a higher walk percentage for his career than strikeout percentage.

After the season Jaso had in 2012, it now appears that the horrible season he had in 2011 was the fluke. In that season with the Rays, Jaso batted only .204 with a .298 on-base percentage. His season caused him to fall out of favor in St. Pete after a very successful 2010 and led the Rays to trade him to the Mariners. But now, Jaso has two of his three (somewhat) full seasons where he has put together an OBP of .372 with a 111 OPS+ in 2010 and last year's .394 OBP and 144 OPS+. Jaso had a .379 on-base percentage for his minor league career.

There is one offensive flaw Jaso does possess. He cannot hit lefties as a left-handed batter. His career triple slash line against southpaws is: .164/.302/.230 with a BABIP of .200. That's some pretty bad-butt contact right there. He does maintain his plate discipline but not much else.

But that's okay. The majority of pitchers in baseball throw from the right side and when the A's face a lefty, they can go with Derek Norris who hits much better against lefties.

John Jaso is also a very smart and reflexive base runner. I watched a lot of Rays games in 2010 and Jaso takes off immediately after a ball gets even minutely away from the opposing catcher. I saw him do that time and time again to get himself to second and third base. And Jaso has stolen ten bases in the last three seasons and has only been thrown out twice. He doesn't have a great base running score on the stat sites, but most catchers are way on the negative side and he is not, so that is something.

What about on defense? Well...Jaso is not great. He is a slight step down in that department from Kottaras and quite a big step down from Suzuki. Jaso has never had a good track record gunning down potential base steal attempts either in the minors or the majors. His defense is listed in the negative category. It's not that deeply in the negative, but it is not one of his strengths.

But if you believe in such things, he has a very good catcher ERA (CERA) and so does Norris who was among the lowest in that disputed statistic in 2012. So all Jaso has to do is not cause much harm behind the plate, receive his pitchers well and continue offensively as he has done two of the last three seasons. And if he does that, he adds two to three wins to the A's from the catching position.

An ode to Jeff Karstens

I am a sucker for guys like Jeff Karstens. And there is no rhyme or reason for the fact. It just is. Perhaps it is because he is a former Yankee and it is a personal habit to follow such creatures once they leave the New York nest. But he left a long time ago. Perhaps it is because he was not drafted until the nineteenth round of the 2003 draft. It is not hard to root for guys who had 573 guys chosen ahead of him in that draft so his signing bonus must have been like a Swiss army knife and some gift certificates to Wendy's. And yet Karstens still made it to the majors for a few emergency starts in 2006 and 2007. I root for guys like that.

Jeff Karstens is about as nondescript a pitcher as there is. He has pitched parts of seven seasons and has 91 big league starts and another 47 relief appearances. He has pitched in relative obscurity in Pittsburgh during some really challenging years there. He is not an All Star. He is not going to make the Hall of Fame. To look at him, he never seems to fit into his uniform. When he has attempted to pull off the scraggly, unshaven look affected by so many modern males, he just looks unkempt. His big league record is nondescript as well. He sports a career 26-40 record, good (bad?) for a .397 winning percentage. His career ERA is 4.44 and career FIP is 4.55. They are mundane numbers.

And yet, I find that I am not alone in my suckerhood for the guy. When MLB Rumors announced his signing by the Pirates for $2.5 million, it was after they unceremoniously dumped him to the non-tendered pile so the team wouldn't have to pay him more in arbitration. Any team could have had him at that point and yet he went back to Pittsburgh. The comments under the story are mostly from Pirate fans and they are mostly positive. Pirate fans appreciate him as a "bulldog" type of pitcher who hangs in there and doesn't get rattled and gives it all he has each outing. They like him. Some called it the GM's best move of the off-season.

Is such a discourse an insult to the Pirates' off-season? Perhaps for some. But for others, it was a heartily approved signing to get one of their own back that has become a fixture for several years. Two of those seasons weren't very good. His WHIP in 2009 and 2010 were above 1.4 and one season, he even went 3-10. But how much of that was due to a woeful team and poor defense?

As I look at his last two seasons, Jeff Karstens hasn't been half bad. He pitched 162 innings in 2011 and went 9-9 with an ERA of 3.28. His FIP was higher at 4.29, but that's not a bad season. In 2012, he battled injuries and was limited to just over 90 innings. But his ERA was 3.97 and his FIP was 3.32. Again, that's not bad. And if you dig a little bit, you can see some good things.

His fastball has always been an 89 MPH fastball. But at least it hasn't headed south. His strikeout rate was abysmal earlier in his career. But in 2010 and 2011, it rose to mediocrity at 5.3 and in 2012, it rose again to 6.6. That's not bad. Combine that with his ability to avoid bases on balls and you get a very good 4.40 strikeout to walk ratio in 2012. Now we are getting somewhere.

His walk rate of 1.5 batters per nine innings was the best on his team. His 1.8 BB/9 was the best on the team in 2011 too. That walk rate gave him the best WHIP among Pirate starters in 2011. And his WHIP was the best among the Pirate starters in 2012.

But let's go even deeper. And maybe these numbers will blow your mind a little bit. Karstens must be deceptive because of all pitchers who pitched 90 innings or more in 2012, nobody enticed a higher swing percentage on his pitches out of the strike zone. Batters swung at 36.6 percent of his pitches out of the strike zone. And that rate was very good in 2010 and 2011 as well with both seasons coming in at 31.2% and 32% respectively.

Of all pitchers with more than 90 innings, he was 18th in getting first pitch strikes. That is another nice number. He was tied for 22nd in swinging strike percentage. And we are talking about over 200 pitchers here. His home run per fly ball rate was 12th lowest.

Am I cherry-picking numbers here? Well, probably. But Jeff Karstens is not a bad major league pitcher. In fact, I would go ahead and say that he would be better than the third or fourth starter on a lot of teams in baseball. He needs to stay healthy this season. And if he does, Jeff Karstens will keep the Pirates in the game. He went 5-4 in 2012 despite having the eighth lowest run support among all pitchers with 90 innings or more.

No, it would not matter if these conclusions were reached. I would still be a sucker for the guy if he was terrible. But at least I root for a guy that is better than most people think.

Is LOOGY, Mike Gonazlez, worth $2.25 million?

The Milwaukee Brewers improved their bullpen this week with the addition of Mike Gonzalez. Yes, he is one of those left-handed specialists that is able to pitch in Major League Baseball well into their nineties. The deal calls for Gonzalez to get $2.25 million with incentives. Gonzalez will be 35 in May and has pitched for the Pirates, Braves, Orioles, Rangers and Nationals. Gonzalez pitched to a grand total of 151 batters last season in just under 36 innings. Doesn't that seem like a lot of money for so little pitching?

If you go by the WAR proposition, Gonzalez was worth 0.5 fWAR in 2012 which makes him slightly overpaid based on WAR. But relievers really cannot be judged by WAR like other players. But it just seems funny that the guy will be paid $14,900 per batter if he has the exact same season in 2013. Just for comparison, if Kershaw pitches his normal season, he will get paid about $12,200 per batter in 2013. Gonzalez is worth more per batter than Kershaw? You wouldn't think so. But then again, Cliff Lee made about $32,000 per batter last year, so there is always that.

Gonzalez is the lefty who comes out of the bullpen to get lefty batters out. He has been doing it since 2003. And he has been good at it. For his career, Gonzalez has faced 591 lefty batters (which still doesn't seem like much) and has allowed a slash line of .206/.278/.327. Yeah, that's pretty darned effective. His career against right handed batters has a .674 OPS against and that is nothing to sneeze at either. He has faced 1,076 of those.

Gonzalez has lost a mile off of his fastball velocity and two miles per hour off of his slider since his younger days and he is no longer quite as effective against right handed batters. But he still gasses those lefties. They had a .566 OPS against him and a .240 wOBA. Woof. That is futility he is causing right there. But there is something else to consider about Gonzalez. If you need a big out, he will give it to you.

In high leverage situations, Gonzalez allowed a .578 OPS. With men on base, he allowed a .472 OPS. With runners in scoring position, he allowed a .536 OPS. That is impressive. And those numbers are only slightly lower than his career numbers in those same situations.

Consider also that Gonzalez has had positive WPA figures in every season he has pitched except the first one when he was up getting a cup of coffee. His clutch number is well into the positive as well.

It will always be difficult to justify in the mind a value of a LOOGY that on many occasions will only pitch to one batter in a game. But some pitchers are better at it than others and Gonzalez is one of those. And when you also consider the circus that was the Brewers' bullpen in 2012, you can understand that team wanting a pitcher with a proven formula for getting guys out.

The somewhat maddening game of J.J. Hardy

One name that keeps popping up in rumors this week is J.J. Hardy. The Orioles shortstop has been mentioned as desired by the Tigers in a three-team deal that would supposedly send Porcello to the Cubs. According to MLB Rumors, that essential off-season site for us baseball groupies, Buck Showalter has said that the Orioles would have to be unbelievably overwhelmed in order to trade Hardy. And on face value, Showalter is smart to say that. Hardy was terrific at short last season. But his offense has become baffling and bit into his value in 2012. Hardy is difficult to digest in one sitting. But it is a Sunday and a day off, so let's tackle it anyway.

The facts are that we can make a case that J.J. Hardy has been the best fielding shortstop since 2005. Of all qualifying shortstops during that time, Hardy has the highest UZR, the third highest fielding percentage and the sixth highest number of assists with 2,000 innings less than, say Rollins ahead of him. He was easily the best shortstop in baseball in 2012. Brendan Ryan might have been better if he played enough to qualify. Hardy led the majors in chances, fielding percentage, assists and total zone runs saved over average. That's like the Triple Crown for fielders, isn't it?

Here is a stat for you: Hardy's 529 assists in 2012 was the 78th highest in major league history. That's pretty impressive. His fielding percentage was the tenth highest ever recorded in a season for a shortstop. That is impressive too. It is easy to see why the Orioles' took off in the second half after Machado joined Hardy on the left side of the infield. Good fielding is invaluable and really reiterates what a dumb move it was by the Brewers and then the Twins to get rid of Hardy when they had him.

After saying all that, we can then pat Buck Showalter on the back and say, "yeah, Buddy, good call." Except J.J. Hardy's fielding was only one facet of his game. There is also batting and running the bases. And Hardy wasn't good in either case and as such, was only the eleventh highest ranked shortstop overall last season in value. Heck, even Hanley was ahead of him.

But Hardy is a good offensive player, isn't he? He has hit over 20 homers four times in his career. The answer is that Hardy has had a couple of effective offensive seasons and a bunch of bad ones. 2012 was not one of the good ones. Fangraphs rates it as -16.4 runs bad. Consider that his on-base percentage was .284 and that his OPS was .671. He batted .238. That doesn't sound like Hardy, does it?

His 2012 futility came after a very good offensive season in 2011 and his WAR shows the difference. His overall game was worth 4.8 fWAR in 2011 but only 2.8 in 2012. Hardy has now had two seasons over an .800 OPS and three seasons under .700. Maddening.

One glaring thing to notice is that his walk percentage has disappeared. Before 2011, he walked in the 7.5 to 9.2 range each season. But that figure sunk to 5.5% in 2011 and went further down to 5.3% of the time in 2012. And he has gone from a somewhat disciplined hitter to one with no discipline at all.

Earlier in Hardy's career, he hardly ever swung at pitches out of the strike zone. The last two seasons, he has done so over 30% of the time. The last two seasons showed him having his highest contact rates on pitches out of the strike zone of his career. That is not a good recipe for good contact. And indeed, he set his career high in grounding into double plays in 2012 with 21. His line drive percentage is low and his pop up rate to the infield is high.

Most players in the majors are somewhat easy to predict. They will have a down season or two, but most of the time, you will see them fall in a range that is somewhat predictable. J.J. Hardy is not one of those offensive players. He is up and down and up and down with wide extremes. That makes Hardy one of the most maddening players in baseball. His fielding has always been top notch and that is the one steady constant of his career. He will save a pitching staff a ton of runs with his glove. But his bat? Well, that will depend on the season.

Six reasons why Adam LaRoche was a good signing

There were some raised eyebrows when the Washington Nationals signed Adam LaRoche to a two year deal with an option on the third. The Nationals were praised for waiting LaRoche out to get the right price, but still, not too many people get all excited when considering LaRoche as a player. After all, his closest comps at his age according to Baseball-reference.com are Geoff Jenkins, Tony Clark and Jason Bay. But as we will see, LaRoche is getting better with age and has become a much more consistent producer in his last two full seasons than when he was younger. So here goes, six reasons why Adam LaRoche was a good signing.

1. The cost. LaRoche will be paid $10 million in 2013 and $12 million in 2014. If he continues to produce and both sides pick up the options in 2015, the cost goes up to $15. This is a very modest salary considering that his play was worth $17 million in 2012. Granted, it was LaRoche's best season ever, but as we shall see, there are signs that he has found consistent ways to produce. According to Fangraphs' Leaderboard, LaRoche was the fifth best first baseman in baseball in 2012.

2. LaRoche is not a liability against left-handed pitching. It is granted that his lifetime split against left-handed and right-handed pitchers has a pretty big swing. His career OPS is 93 points higher against right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers. But in his last two full seasons (he missed most of 2011), those splits are not nearly as nasty. While his split was 44 points different in OPS in 2010, his batting average and slugging percentage were right in the same ballpark. The entire difference was basically in his on-base percentage as LaRoche only walked eight times against lefties that season (which is pretty incredible). In 2012, LaRoche put together an .825 OPS against lefties. That was still 39 points different and again the difference was in the OBP.

3. Adam LaRoche has shown consistency in his last two full seasons. In 2012, his OPS was .836 in the first half and .869 in the second. His OPS was .871 at home and .836 on the road. In 2010, his OPS was .787 in the first half and .788 in the second half. His OPS was .803 at home and .773 on the road.

4. LaRoche has improved his play at first base. Adam LaRoche's defense was not always a good part of his game. And again, while he is not the best, his fielding was rated as fifth best for his position by Fangraphs which has given him him high marks in all three of his past seasons. Baseball.reference.com does not rate his fielding as highly. That site has always rated LaRoche in negative territory. But at least that site rated him as league average in 2012, their best rating for him in his career.

5. LaRoche can hit all types of pitches. He was equally adept at hitting finesse pitchers (.826 OPS), average pitchers (.818) and power pitchers (.935), fly ball pitchers (1.050) and ground ball pitchers (.844). He is much better at hitting the slider and curve than he was earlier in his career and even rated 1.5 runs above average against the knuckleball. It looks like he might be one of the few players in the National League to miss Dickey.

6. And finally, as the figures in Number 5 show, LaRoche hits a good amount of fly balls. And since 17% of those go over the fence, that is a good thing for him. LaRoche's ground ball percentage of 33.6% was the sixth lowest in baseball in 2012. That means that everything else was either a line drive (22.3%) or a fly ball (44.1%). Once again, major league batters do their most damage on line drives and 22.3% is a very good rate and as mentioned, when you have a double-digit chance of hitting a fly ball over the wall, those fly balls are a good thing too.

Adam LaRoche hit 33 homers in 2012, which was tied with Cano for tenth best in the league. Since power has become a new premium now in the pendulum swing that is baseball, having a guy like LaRoche is a good thing. LaRoche also added 35 doubles. While it isn't really smart to predict LaRoche will improve over his 2012 season, he doesn't have to. All he has to do is put up two more similar seasons (even a little less maybe) to make his contract worth what the Nationals are paying. With his fielding and consistency, the Nationals made their bets on LaRoche over Mike Morse and that seems to be the right call here.

Six fielders who should be DHs

Last night on Twitter, Dave Cameron responded to a statement made by Michael Morse that he was vehemently against being used in the designated hitter role: "My suggestion to all these guys that don't want to DH - Don't suck at fielding, then." That quote leads to today's post which is: Six fielders who should be DHs. Why six? Who knows. All posts in the last week have started with six. Just humor me.

The problem identifying the top six worst defensive players is that Fangraphs and Baseball-reference.com do not always agree on defensive statistics. So the criteria becomes, then, who do both sites agree on as woeful fielders? Three years of data was used in the criteria and then players who are playing out of position are taken out. For example, nobody has lost more runs to average for his fielding than Shawn Kemp. Well, that is because he should not be playing center field. Should we punish Kemp for playing out of position? Perhaps so. But it did not seem fair here because he might actually be good in left or right fields.

So, without further ado, here are six fielders that should be DH's

1. Mark Reynolds - Reynolds has been just about the worst third baseman that baseball has seen in the last twenty years. The Orioles finally got a hint and moved him to first base halfway through last season. And from what was seen of Reynolds there on television, the move seemed to work pretty well. Except the numbers do not agree. According to the fielding metrics, Reynolds was just as bad at first base for his time there (-8). Reynolds has now lost 38 runs for his teams over the last three seasons which is about three and a half wins. In five seasons, he has lost 61 runs for his teams. Ugh. Hey, at least he did not strike out so much.

2. Chris Johnson - Johnson might be one of those guys who is out of position at third base. The Astros did have him play first base for six games last season. And there is a reason why people lump these players into the 1B/DH category like they are the same thing. I do not agree and think first base is a highly underrated important position on the infield. But either way, Johnson should not wear a glove. He has cost his team 32 runs in the field in the last three seasons.

3. Ryan Doumit - This catcher turned outfielder is heading quickly into a DH for the Twins and that is a very good thing. Doumit can hit but he was just about the worst fielding catcher in baseball and him plodding around the outfield is downright scary. His affectionate name here is "DumbMitt." As a catcher, he allowed nine passed balls in two out of three seasons. One of those seasons led the league. He can't throw anyone out either. The Twins used him 48 times as the DH last season. Keep him there, Twinkies.

4. Wilson Betemit - It has always confused me that teams have constantly desired Betemit as a player. Oh, he is versatile and can play all four infield positions...poorly. In fact, his last name is an oxymoron. He is certainly not a bettemitt. He is a worse mitt. Betemit has cost his teams 29 runs in just about the fewest games played on our list for the three years (281). He is a DH and a DH only. He is not versatile but simply can play awful defense in more positions than most people.

5. Mike Morse - Morse is built like a Greek god or something. The guy is a stud. Perhaps he should have been a tight end in football. Or perhaps the women think he has a tight end. But he is more the Johnny Five kind of muscular guy than anything else. There is a reason Morse is fighting the DH role...because he is one. He is not a good first baseman. He is not a good right fielder. He is not a good left fielder. He is a handsome devil of a DH if there ever was one.

6. Carlos Quentin / Ty Wigginton - Quentin has had some injury problems to his wheels over the years, so perhaps this is unfair. But the facts are the facts. Quentin has played parts of six seasons, all in the outfield, and yet has 24 errors. That is a lot for an outfielder. He improved to terrible from really really bad with the Padres last season. He only cost them 8 runs this past season after having double digit types of bad seasons before that. But B-R somewhat disagrees with Fangraphs how bad he has been Wigginton has played for a bunch of teams at a bunch of positions and is really not that good at any of them. According to B-R, he has cost his teams 118 runs in his career. Yeesh. He has played five different positions and all were played poorly.

So there you have it. Those are six players (seven really) who have been so bad on defense that they should be DHs. What other thing do they all have in common? They are all bad base runners too. Slow and fielding do not usually go together well. But speed, or lack of it, does sort of define the DH position.

Defense a big difference between 2011 and 2012 Diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks have had two seasons that pretty much defy their actual run differential. That defiance was good in 2011 and not so good in 2012. The similarities between the offense was minimal. The Diamondbacks scored 734 runs in 2012 and 731 in 2011. The pitching was not that far off either. The pitching allowed 688 runs in 2012 compared to 662 in 2011. And yet in 2011, the Diamondbacks should have won 88 games and won 94 and should have won 86 games in 2012 and won only 81. Was the team lucky in 2011 and unlucky in 2012? Perhaps. But from what I can see, the difference was the defense.

Circumstantial evidence

Before we look closely at the difference in the two years from a defensive standpoint, let's look at some circumstantial evidence. The real striking Exhibit A is how the team fared in one-run games. The two seasons are a mirror image. In 2011, the team went 28-16 in one run games and 9-4 in extra inning games. In 2012, the team went 15-27 in one-run games and 3-4 in extra inning games. Again, you can chalk that up to luck and the bounce of the ball. But this, to me, is circumstantial evidence of a deeper problem.

Harder evidence

The Diamondbacks as a whole team had a +30 score overall for total zone runs saved over average in 2011 (baseball-reference.com). That figure fell to -6 in 2012. The glaring difference was the outfield. Many Diamondback fans dislike Chris Young and cheered when he left the team this off season. But he was spectacular in 2011 and by missing much of 2012, the center field defense suffered. But the biggest difference was in left field. Gerardo Parra played 128 games in left field in 2011 and left field in total had a fielding score of +11 over the course of that season.

Enter Jason Kubel in 2012 and the outfield defense crumbled. Kubel scored a -12 all by himself. Parra played about eight percent of the innings in left and at least pulled the total up to a -6. But that is a twelve run swing from one year to the next.

The injury to Stephen Drew hurt too. Drew has been an underrated defensive player in a league dominated by Tulowitzki and Rollins. But the shortstop play in 2011 was rated at zero. In other words, based on an average, the D-back shortstops did not cost their pitchers any runs nor saved them any against the league average. In 2012, that figure fell to -6.

Can we see a difference in outfield play in the record? Again, this isn't a one to one cause and effect, but when Arizona pitchers allowed a fly ball in 2012, the opposing batters batted .238 with an OPS of .882. On line drives, the OPS against was 1.730. In 2011, opposing batters batted .209 with an OPS of .770 on fly balls and had an OPS of 1.676 on line drives. Clearly, outfield defense had to have some effect on those numbers.

Keep in mind that the team's workhorse, Ian Kennedy, is a fly ball pitcher. Was the difference in his pitching from 2011 to 2012 the defense? I think a case can be made. The team's other young pitcher, Daniel Hudson, was also a fly ball pitcher before he went down with his elbow. And Josh Collmenter? He is one of the most dramatic fly ball pitchers in baseball and his outfield defense could not have helped him during his disappointing 2012 season.

Losing Young to injury last season probably cost the Diamondbacks two to three wins. Losing Parra's full time defense and adequate offense to Jason Kubel's bad defense cost the Diamondbacks another two wins. That kind of stuff goes a long way in telling a story about how a team can beat its run differential so well in 2011 and then lose to its differential the following season.

As of right now, Kubel is still the projected left fielder for 2013. Cody Ross takes over in center and he isn't bad out there and has had some decent seasons. But even Ross's best season does not add up to Young's two best seasons. It seems the Diamondbacks had a winning formula in 2011 and should have stuck with it.

Six things you might not know about Lance Berkman

There have been a lot of mixed feelings out in the blogging world on what the Texas Rangers have done by signing Lance Berkman. There is a palpable risk for the Rangers since Berkman only played 32 games in 2012 due to continued problems with his knees. But what if Berkman could play a hundred games in 2013? If that could happen or more, then Lance Berkman will be worth every penny of that $10 million the Rangers will be paying him. At times quietly (most of his seasons in Houston) and at other times noisily (Cardinals in 2011), Lance Berkman has been one of the best offensive players of his generation. Don't think so? Check out these six things you may not know about him.

1. Lance Berkman has a career on-base average over .400 (.409). That is 38th all time. He has walked more than 90 times in a season in ten of his fourteen seasons and three of those were over a hundred times. Only ten players in history have walked more than 90 times in a season in more seasons than Berkman. And they list like the Who's Who of baseball history. Since 2009, which includes some injury-riddled seasons, he is tied with Jose Bautista for the highest walk percentage at 16.2%. If you go back as far as 2004, Lance Berkman is fourth in the majors in walk percentage (min 3,000 plate appearances) behind only Thome, Dunn and Giambi. And this is despite not being in the top 30 in plate discipline as far as swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. Berkman has been an on-base machine.

2. Since 2004 (the post Bonds era), Lance Berkman has the seventh highest wOBA in baseball among players with more than 3,000 plate appearances. Those ahead of him?  It's a pretty good list: Pujols, Votto, Manny, Miggy, Big Papi and Braun. So getting on base is not his only strength. Berkman also has a career Slugging Percentage of .544 and his rank since 2004 with the same criteria as before is 12th. If you go by OPS+, Berkman is fifth in baseball since 2004 behind only Pujols, Votto, Cabrera and Manny. In other words, one of the best offensive players of his generation.

3. Can we dare say that Lance Berkman is as clutch a player as there has been in baseball? Yeah, people hate that word. But consider these facts. First, since 2004, Berkman is third in all of baseball (position players) in WPA behind only Pujols and Cabrera. For his career, Berkman has an OPS of .984 with two outs and runners in scoring position. In tie games, his OPS is .969. In high leverage situations, his career OPS is .970.  For his career, he has a .954 OPS in the ninth inning. That's a pretty good argument, is it not?

4. Lance Berkman is remarkably consistent. He has a career OPS of .914 or higher in every month of the season. His career OPS at home is .955. On the road it is .950. He's had a .909 OPS at every position he's played except as a pinch hitter. His OPS with no outs in an inning is .978. His OPS with one out is .946. His OPS with two outs is .936.

5. There is one exception to Berkman's consistency. He is no where near as good a hitter when batting from the right side against left-handed pitching as he is from the left side against right-handed pitching. His career OPS on the former is .777. His OPS in the latter situation is 1.007. That is a 230 point difference. It is a little better against left-handed starters where his career OPS is .833. But still, this is a huge difference.

6. If the Rangers are going to the post season, Berkman is a great guy to have along for that ride. Berkman has been as good or better in the post-season as he has been in the regular season. In 233 post season plate appearances, Berkman's triple slash line is: ..317/.417/.532. Yeah, that will do, eh?

Hopefully, the case has been made here of Berkman being among the best offensive players of his generation. Hence the Rangers' risky move here. If Berkman can slot into the DH and get 350 to 400 plate appearances, he should reward the Rangers' risk. And of course, he has always been highly rated for those clubhouse intangibles. But if his wheels are as toasted as they were for the Cardinals last season, then the Rangers' risky move will blow up big time. Health will be the key.

Six things you might not know about Allen Craig

Allen Craig of the St. Louis Cardinals has done nothing but hit ever since he's had a chance to see Major League pitching on a regular basis. He did struggle in his first brief playing stint in 2010 for 44 games, but he also was asked to play five different positions and has played six different positions since he arrived in St. Louis. In his last 669 at bats, Craig has 207 hits, 33 homers, 50 doubles and has driven in 132 runs. And after a devastating injury cost him the first 43 games of last season, it appears that he has settled into being the Cardinals first baseman for the foreseeable future. Let's dig a bit deeper into Craig and see if we can find six things you might not have known about him.

1. Allen Craig has had a healthy home run to fly ball rate in his last two seasons. His rate of 18.3% of 2011 fell a bit to 17.1% in 2012, but that is still a very healthy power sustaining rate. However, his percentage of batted balls hit into the air have tumbled with each of his three seasons where it went from 39.3% in 2010 to 37% in 2011 to only 33.3% in 2012. It will remain to be seen if his more or less full season in 2012 shows more of who he really is as a hitter than his two previous partial seasons. Craig does hit line drives prodigiously but for the Cardinals to reap more of his power, he needs to get the ball in the air more.

2. Craig was more or less wasted for two seasons in the Cardinals organization at the Triple-A level. It is pretty obvious from looking at his 2009 and 2010 seasons at Memphis that he had nothing to gain by being there. He did get into 44 games at the big league level in 2010, but Craig finds himself heading into the 2013 season as a 28 year old looking for his first complete season thanks to his late start and injury history.

3. The longer Allen Craig sees major league pitching, the better his plate discipline gets. In his brief 2010 season, Craig swung at 33.5% of pitches out of the strike zone. That came down to 29.2% in 2011 and then down again to 28.6% in 2012. If he can learn just a little more patience, he will be an even more elite hitter in the national league as his low walk total holds him back a bit.

4. While Craig's plate discipline gets better as we have seen in #3 above, he is also swinging and missing at less pitches. Craig swung and missed at 10.2% of pitches in 2010. That came down to 8.1% in 2011 and was down again to only 6.9% in 2012. That was a lower swing and miss rate than Albert Pujols had in 2012 (7.0%). That's pretty impressive.

5. Even though Craig missed 43 games in 2012, he still came in 27th in the majors in WPA. He seems to be very good at being productive with runners in scoring position. That, folks, was an understatement. In 255 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, Craig has an OPS of 1.055. Yes, that will do some damage. When there are two outs with runners in scoring position, his OPS was .992. However, Craig falls down a bit in late and close games in which he dries up a bit and that results in Fangraphs giving him a negative clutch score.

6. Allen Craig is not discriminatory on what he hits. He has positive scores against every pitch type except the change up. He has a healthy OPS against power pitchers and finesse pitchers, ground ball pitchers and fly ball pitchers and hits the ball well to all fields. Perhaps this is sneaking Numbers 7, 8 and 9 in here, but Craig really isn't a pull hitter, but when he does pull the ball, his OPS is a mashing 1.358 for his career.

It appears that Allen Craig is going to be one of the league's elite hitters the next couple of seasons if he stays healthy. He seems to have found his permanent home for the Cardinals at first base. But to offset the position value there, he will have to reverse his trend of less fly balls and hit for some more power. But Craig does have a career .515 slugging percentage so that is nothing to sneeze at. The two projections for Craig in 2013 seen so far are bullish for him and there is no reason why Craig can't continue to develop his plate discipline to add to what is already a pretty fantastic offensive arsenal.

50 greatest players not in the Hall of Fame

Graham Womack has done it again. The guy is amazing as a compiler and a gatherer of talent. His third annual opus on his Baseball: Past and Present site featured writers from all the important places. Somehow, I was included too. Humbled. If you have some time today to read all the submissions and the entire piece, do so. It is epic.

Six things you might not know about Ian Kennedy

Ian Kennedy had some real pretty numbers in 2011 and some less pretty numbers in 2012. Even so, Kennedy's 2012 season ended on a high note and he finished at 15-12 to give him a two year win-loss record of 36-16, which again looks very pretty. Those 36 wins are the fourth most in baseball over those two combined season. But, of course, we all know that the win-loss statistic is not very favored these days in the analytic community. And for the most part, that is the correct call. As such, Ian Kennedy is not really considered to be an elite pitcher and nobody's list of the ten or twenty best pitchers in baseball would include him.

But there are some things you may not know about Ian Kennedy and you should. Some of them defend his lack of elite status and some fly in the face of it. Here, then is a list of things you probably did not know about Ian Kennedy's pitching.

1. Most of the batted balls off of Ian Kennedy are fly balls. Kennedy's ground ball percentage over the last three seasons has been 37.7 percent. Only thirteen other starters over that three-year time period have had a lower ground ball percentage. And this is despite increasing the number of two-seam fastballs he throws.

The belief here is that this statistic is the difference between his 2011 and 2012 seasons. In 2011, the Arizona Diamondbacks had the fourth best fielding runs saved from their left fielders and the best fielding runs saved in center field. Garardo Parra was terrific in left and Chris Young was terrific in center. In 2011, Ian Kennedy's BABIP on fly balls was .110 and .730 on line drives. In 2012, Jason Kubel played left field most of the season and Chris Young missed more than 30% of the season. In 2012, Kennedy's BABIP on fly balls was .162 and .784 on line drives. The Diamondbacks went from seventh in overall defensive efficiency in 2011 to 23th in 2012.

2. Ian Kennedy has been really durable. Kennedy has made 98 starts over the last three seasons, tied for seventh in all of baseball over that span. He has been a rock in the Diamondback's rotation.

3. Ian Kennedy is a strike throwing machine. Only five pitchers have thrown more strikes than Ian Kennedy in the last two seasons combined. In that same time period, he is tied for eighth in first pitch strike percentage. He was seventh over those two seasons for most pitches seen in the strike zone. And most people do not consider Kennedy a strikeout pitcher, but his 8.05 strikeouts per nine innings over the last two seasons is more than respectable. His strikeout to walk ratio has been 17th best among starters when you combine the last two seasons. And it is better than David Price and Matt Cain over that time period.

4. Despite his control, he is fifth in baseball in hitting batters over the past two seasons.

5. His five balks over the last two seasons are the second most in baseball. That's weird.

6. Ian Kennedy does not have a dominant pitch. That's right, everything he throws is rather ordinary. None of his pitches: fastball, curve, change up and slider have finished in the top thirty for pitch value over the past two seasons. There is not one pitch you can point to and say, "that is why Ian Kennedy is successful."

There you have it, six things you might not have known about Ian Kennedy. This observer has a real soft spot for him, so the perspective here is that he is a better pitcher than people think. But the numbers give mixed reviews. The best things he does are throw strikes and take the ball every fifth day. And he certainly wins a lot. The fact that he does not have a dominant pitch and has had a higher FIP than ERA the last two seasons tend to show that perhaps he isn't as good as this man-crush warrants. But what the heck, right? The heart goes where it will.

Six things you probably didn't know about Edwin Encarnación

Everybody is aware that the Toronto Blue Jays' Edwin Encarnacion went all Bautista on us in 2012 as he suddenly became a premier slugger in baseball. Everyone is aware that he hit 42 homers and slugged .557 en route to a .941 OPS. Everybody also wonders if he can repeat those numbers after coming from nowhere to have that kind of season. But there are things that you probably do not know about Encarnacion which may just hint that he is not a fluke.

1. Edwin Encarnación hardly ever hits the ball on the ground. Of all qualifying batters in 2012, only Josh Reddick of the A's had a lower ground ball to fly ball ratio and lower ground ball percentage. Only 33% of Encarnación's batted balls went on the ground for a ground ball to fly ball ratio of 0.67. And since 18.6% of those fly balls went over the fence, that is a good recipe for hitting homers. This is not a fluke as his career ratio is 0.80 and has been under 0.70 in two of his last three seasons.

2. He also has very good plate discipline for a bopper. He only swung at pitches outside the strike zone 24.5% of the time. That is the 25th lowest in baseball. And only 26 other baseball players (qualified for batting title) swung at less of a percentage of pitches than Encarnación who only swung at 41.6 percent of the pitches he saw in 2012. This shows that he has become adept at waiting for something he likes before pulling the trigger. The plate discipline is not a fluke as it was only one percentage point below his career average. The swing percentage was a marked improvement and could be one of the markers of his improved season. His career swing percentage is 46%.

3. For a big guy who hits for power, he does not swing and miss very many pitches. Only 41 qualified batters swung and missed less than Edwin Encarnación's 7.1 swing and miss rate. In other words, he is not just up there hacking. His strikeout percentage was only 14.6%

4. You can't pitch him fast or slow. Encarnación had the fourth highest pitch value against the fastball in 2012. His prowess versus the fastball was 30 wFB. He was also tied for fourth best against the change up. And he was seventh best against the curve. So what DO you throw this guy? Good luck with that.

5. He is a better than average base runner. Not only is it somewhat rare for a slugger to be good on the bases, but he is surprisingly effective at stealing. He doesn't do it a lot, but in 26 attempts over the past two seasons, he has been successful 21 times good for an 80.8% success rate. And that rate exactly matches his career success rate when attempting to steal a base.

6. His 2012 season was as good as it was despite a .266 BABIP. The low BABIP makes some sense since he hits so many fly balls. But still. He hit .286 despite a .266 BABIP. Can you imagine if a few more things dropped in for him? His career BABIP is .280, so he was a bit unlucky in 2012.

There you have it--six things you probably did not know about Edwin Encarnación. Those six things--especially the first five--show at least to this observer that like Bautista before him, Encarnación's season was not a fluke and that he can repeat what he showed us in 2012.

A long fondness for Dwight Evans

Dwight Evans fell off the Hall of Fame ballot in 1999 after three seasons. Only 3.6% of voters thought he was good enough for a vote. And yet, even the estimable Bill James thought Evans merited more consideration. I happen to agree. But then again, I am extremely biased as Dwight Evans was one of my favorite baseball players ever.

"But wait, William," you must be thinking, "weren't you always a Yankee fan?"

That is correct. And yet incorrect. After growing up in New Jersey, I went off to New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire in the fall of 1974. That January, I met and fell for the mother of my children. Except for a summer, I never went back to New Jersey. Married in 1977, we settled in her home town of Rochester, New Hampshire and lived there for several years and then moved one town over to Lebanon, Maine, where we lived until 1990.

Lebanon was in the sticks. It had gravel pits and not much else. And though cable television started making inroads in the 1970s, it would be years before it would be get out to rural wastelands like Lebanon. The only solution available until late into the 1980s was a television antenna. For years, the only stations we received were two network channels and Channels 38 and 56. Both of the latter were out of Boston and the former of those two carried the Red Sox games.

The period of 1976 through 1978 were great as a Yankee fan because there were three trips in a row to the World Series with two straight wins. But while they were thrilling, they were also exhausting with all the shenanigans of George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin. By 1981, it became intolerable after a strike and the Dave Winfield fiasco. That was the season Winfield went one for twenty-two in the World Series and became Mr. May. Steinbrenner's treatment of Winfield was a total turnoff and between the strike and everything, I was pretty disillusioned.

It was a period ripe for the Red Sox to steal my attention. They were the only team I could watch and players like Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens brought me over to the dark side. I liked the Red Sox in the 1980s. The Yankees had become a circus and were away from my vision. What could I do?

While Boggs and Clemens thrilled me with their amazing heroics, it was Dwight Evans that captured my imagination. It's funny how a fan's perception develops totally separate from reality. I did not know that Evans was from Santa Monica, California. In my mind, he became the every-man kind of hero. He was the guy who had to work hard at his craft to be a good player. For a baseball purist, it was obvious that he worked hard at the fundamentals of the game. He worked on positioning, footwork and arm angles with his play in right field and worked extra hard to become a good offensive player.

That was probably true of 99 percent of all baseball players, but somehow, you could tell it about Evans. I related to him somehow. I noticed him as far back as 1975. He was only 23 when the Red Sox played that famous World Series against the Big Red Machine. He had started in the big leagues in 1972 as a 20-year old and after his first year cup of coffee, he averaged a little over 400 plate appearances in 1973, 1974 and 1975 as the Red Sox used a rotation that at times included Evans, Tommy Harper and Rick Miller.

But by 1975, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice thundered onto the scene and Evans became more of a regular but split some time with Bernie Carbo. Anyway, the 1975 World Series is famous for the Carlton Fisk homer that we see in highlights every post season and will until eternity. And some even may know that in that game, Bernie Carbo pinch hit and hit a homer that was as big as what Fisk did. But there was another big play in that game that is forgotten.

With the game in extra innings, Ken Griffey was on first in the top of the eleventh and Joe Morgan hit a shot toward Pesky's Pole in right. If it fell in or went over that short porch, the Red Sox might have been done for. But despite the ball slicing away from him, Dwight Evans raced to the corner and made a fabulous catch and for good measure, threw out Griffey at first for the double play. Fisk would hit his famous homer an inning later.

Dwight Evans was a good offensive player from his debut in 1972 until 1980. And with his defense, was a valuable player. But with Lynn, Rice, Yaz, Fisk, etc., Evans usually batted in the lower third of the batting order.

During the 1980 season, Evans became a disciple of Walt Hriniak, who was a disciple of Charlie Lau, who famously helped George Brett become a Hall of Fame player. In actuality, at the time, Hriniak was still a bullpen coach and Johnny Pesky was the "official" batting coach. But several players turned to Hriniak, who would eventually become the batting coach when Pesky retired in the mid-1980s.

Perhaps under Hriniak, or perhaps just his maturation as a player, Evans became a star in 1981. And he exploded. His OPS was 1.054 in April, 1.025 in May and ten games into June went at a clip of 1.018. But then the strike of 1981 hit. Oh no! The strike cost Evans all that momentum or mojo or whatever you want to call it and by the time baseball had lost forty-plus games, Evans would not be the same in the second "half" when he finished those months with an .838 OPS.

But still, Evans led the American League that season in walks, runs created, wOBA, OPS and Total Bases and tied for the lead in homers. In one of the biggest bits of post season idiocy ever, Rollie Fingers won the Most Valuable Player Award despite pitching in only 35 games. The award should have gone to either Evans or Rickie Henderson with a good case to be made for either.

Though Evans had his best season shortened, he was a star offensive player for many years after 1981. Before 1981, Evans averaged a walk percentage a little over ten percent. But from 1981 on, he was frequently in the 15 to 16.9 percent range. He led the league in walks in 1985 and 1987--both seasons over 100. He finished with an OPS over .900 in 1982, 1984 and 1987.

Other than 1981, Evans had his best full offensive season in 1987, his sixteenth season in the majors. His triple slash line was, .305/.417/.569. He was fourth in the majors in wOBA that season. But by then, the Red Sox were having Evans play half his games at first base, so his overall value was diminished.

Evans would play nineteen seasons with the Red Sox and twenty seasons overall. Baseball-Reference.com gave him 62.8 rWAR and Fangraphs, 71.4 fWAR. According to Fangraphs, Evans was a better player than Dave Winfield. Jay Jaffe and his JAWS system has Evans as the fifteenth best right-fielder of all time. Everyone ahead of him except for Larry Walker and Shoeless Joe Jackson are in the Hall of Fame and those two should be. And there are quite a few Hall of Fame players behind him.

All that is great. But besides the numbers, Evans simply thrilled this Fan with his grace, his professionalism and his style. Dwight Evans did things the right way. Or at least, that is the way I choose to remember him.

Luis Gonzalez was better than you think

Luis Gonzalez has been persona non grata as a spoken name here in the Tasker household. There was that certain bloop hit in 2001 that ruined everything and ended a dynasty. He is used by some to refute the greatness of the great relief pitcher he hit that bloop against (as if). But that was a long time ago. It wasn't Gonzalez's fault that Torre brought the infield in. The fact is that Gonzalez has been gone from the game for five years now. From this seat, his retirement went unnoticed and his career has had little reflection given. The guy was a better player than people remember. May it dare be said that his career was perhaps a hair or a cut below Hall of Fame caliber?

The trouble with Luis Gonzalez has been the whispers. He played in the era of steroid use. His 57 homers in 2001 are treated with smirks and proof of his guilt. Plus, he is Hispanic, so that paints him guilty by association. But Gonzalez has vehemently denied ever using and to this observer's knowledge, has never been painted with a guilty test. Should we believe him? The answer is ambivalent. Does it make any difference? And yet those 57 homers stick out like a sore thumb. They make him the Brady Anderson of his era.

That season was certainly his peak. It was also an outlier. But it should not detract from what was a long and productive career. Fangraphs and Baseball-reference.com differ on the value of his career. B-R has him at 48 rWAR while Fangraphs gives him ten more wins. On the bottom of his B-R page, Gonzalez passes at least one HOF test. He drove in and scored over 1,400 runs. He accumulated over 2,500 hits. His career in left field led to over 90 runs above average on defense (both sites agree on that). He tallied over a thousand extra base hits. And his career triple slash line was: .283/.367/.479.

His career wOBA was .364 and his career WPA came in at 30.98. This was a terrific player!

Many point to the fact that he did not become a star until he came to Arizona. To those who say that, the association again comes down to PEDs or the fact that Arizona is a nice place to hit with its dry, warm air. The fact long forgotten is that before his Arizona days, he played seven seasons with the Houston Astrodome as his home park. That place was murder on hitters.

Gonzalez endured 1,465 plate appearances in the Astrodome. His OPS there was .738. Just for the sake of comparison, in later years, after the Astros moved to Minute Maid Park, Gonzales (SSS) compiled an OPS over one in that park. Imagine his current stats and then adjust for those 1,465 plate appearances and his numbers would look a whole lot better. Gonzalez also spent more than a year with the Dodgers with Dodgers Stadium as his home field and another year in Tigers Stadium. Both could be tough on hitters.

Luis Gonzalez was better than you think. He walked eleven percent of the time in his career and struck out only a little over eleven percent of the time. His ground ball to fly ball ratio was neutral. He only swung and missed 6.1 percent of the time for his career. All of those things are extremely rare for a slugger. And yet Gonzalez left the game with little fanfare and is largely forgotten since he left. His career has been strangely whitewashed by the times in which we live and that is hugely unfortunate.

Alex Gordon is king of Missouri

If you look at the overall value of non-pitching ballplayers over the last two seasons, you would probably guess most of the top five players. But it is almost guaranteed that you would miss who comes in at Number Five. You have Braun on top. Yup. Cabrera is second. Indeed. Cano is third. Got it. McCutchen is fourth. A mild surprise, but okay. And then there is Alex Gordon. Alex Gordon? Yes, Alex Gordon, the king of Missouri.

And Alex Gordon is one of those rare players where Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference actually agree. Fangraphs says Gordon has compiled 12.8 fWAR the last two seasons. B-R gives him 13.3 rWAR. The problem for Gordon is that he has played for the Kansas City Royals, a team whose celebrated team bloggers are more known for their ire and anger at the team's management than anything else. The Royals have lost 181 games over the last two seasons.

But maybe this season will be different in Kansas City. The additions of James Shields, Ervin Santana and Wade Davis along with a full season of Jeremy Guthrie at least gives the Royals four starting pitchers you can't laugh at like in seasons past. A full season of Salvador Perez should help too behind the plate. If Moustakas and Hosmer find their way after difficult seasons in 2012, Alex Gordon might actually play some games that matter.

If that happens, the Royals might make a national telecast or three. They won't play in a vacuum or a black hole. And then the world might discover just how good Alex Gordon has become.

It was a slow road to get to this point for Gordon. He was the second overall pick in the 2005 draft after a stellar college career. The Royals had Gordon skip all the lower levels in the minors and started him at Double-A in Wichita. Gordon did not seem fazed and clocked a 1.016 OPS there in 2006. But then Gordon suffered the fate of great young talents on really bad teams. He was rushed to the majors.

Gordon, then a third baseman, held his own in 151 games his rookie season. He compiled a .725 OPS in 2007 which was somewhat promising considering he only had one year in the minors under his belt. The following season went even better as he compiled an OPS of .789 or a 109 OPS+. It appeared Alex Gordon was progressing toward the path of stardom.

But then he hit a wall in 2009 and 2010. His star fell so rapidly and his performance suffered so radically, that he was sent to the minors during both seasons. By the start of 2011, Alex Gordon was a former phenom pushed aside by the excitement of the new phenoms in Hosmer and Moustakas. But then an unexpected development happened. Alex Gordon came into his own in 2011 and became the team's best player.

Gordon won a Gold Glove in 2011. Now a left fielder, he led the league in assists. His bat became electric as his wOBA soared to .382. A player that was a symbol of failed promise became one of the best in the league. But was it a fluke? Could he repeat 2011? Or was it a career year that would vanish away again like it had going from 2008 to 2009?

Gordon's 2012 should have put away those questions. His offense fell off just a bit from 2011 to 2012. His wOBA went from .382 to .357. But he was even better in the field. He led the league in doubles with an incredible 51 to give him 96 of them in two seasons. After throwing out twenty runners in 2011, he threw out seventeen more in 2012. His on-base percentage has been over .360 the last two seasons. He has compiled 374 hits the last two seasons. He is the complete package.

And maybe, just maybe, 2013 might be the year when more than just fantasy baseball players will discover just how good Alex Gordon is. Maybe he'll actually make an All Star team. Maybe a third straight Gold Glove will convince a few more people how good he is of a left fielder. If the Royals can become competitive in 2013, then Alex Gordon will become the superstar in people's minds outside of Kansas City.

Alex Gordon is a superstar. And more people should know that. He is the undisputed king of Missouri. Perhaps 2013 will be the season he explodes on the world's consciousness.

Nick Swisher's Yankee obituary

In case you are interested, yours truly wrote Nick Swisher's Yankee obituary over at It's About the Money, Stupid this morning. This is truly an odd and troubling Yankee off season.

Why we root for guys like Jeremy Bonderman

The Seattle Mariners took a flier yesterday and signed Jeremy Bonderman to a minor league contract. While of itself, this is nothing to get too worked up about. Broken down pitchers are signed to such deals every year. Sometimes, like in 2011 with Garcia and Colon for the Yankees, it works out. Most of the time it does not. And to be sure, Tigers fans will probably not root overly hard for Bonderman to make it back to the majors. He became symbolic of failure to that fan base. But for the rest of us, Jeremy Bonderman was not treated very well by baseball and a successful return would be sweet.

Tiger fans will counter that Bonderman made quite a bit of money for his problems, and that would be correct. Bonderman was overpaid by the Tigers his last few years there. But that only seems right because of how his early career was mishandled.

The beginning starts with the Oakland A's and a prominent part in the Moneyball book. Bonderman supposedly was the only high school junior ever drafted in baseball. His draft by Grady Fuson is credited in the book for Billy Beane's famous chair throwing incident. But looking back on that draft somewhat exonerates Fuson. It really was a weak draft in 2001. The top three of Mauer, Prior and Teixeira all were terrific, but the rest of the first round was really a wash. The only case (in hindsight mind you) that Beane has here is David Wright, taken ten picks after Bonderman. And you can probably include Dan Haren, a college pitcher who was not taken by anyone until the middle of the second round.

But it was a mindset by the A's that Beane was supposedly so upset about and that was the odds of a high school pitcher making it were so much higher than a college pitcher or a position player. And Beane was all about the odds. Whether true or not, the A's including Bonderman in a big three team trade a year after that draft was Beane's way of getting even.

And even that was unkind to Bonderman. Sending a young pitcher to the Tigers back in those days was like sending someone to Siberia. The Tigers averaged 96.6 losses a season between 1996 and 2005. This was where Bonderman was thrown. And what is a common theme for a team that has no talent? It is the temptation of pushing talent faster than it needs to be pushed.

And that is exactly what happened with Bonderman. As a nineteen year old in A+ ball in the minors, he was asked to throw 157 innings. And then, inconceivably, the Tigers brought him up the very next year to pitch at the age of twenty in the majors.

The 2003 Detroit Tigers were one of the all-time worst teams ever. They went 43-119 that season. Ouch. And at the age of twenty, Jeremy Bonderman was thrown into that rotation. Predictably, it did not go well. He went 6-19 in 28 starts and 33 overall appearances and pitched 162 innings. He was shut down the last week of the season so he would not reach twenty losses. Which was weird because they did not mind letting the 25 year old, Mike Moroth lose 21. But anyway, that's how it went.

The following season, now twenty-one, Bonderman improved to 11-13 with a 4.89 ERA. But his FIP was 4.27 and his xFIP was below four. The Tigers improved as well and "only" lost ninety games.

The next year was even better as Bonderman went 14-13 with an ERA of 4.57 and a FIP of 3.90. The Tigers still lost 91 games.

But things came together in 2006. Jim Leyland took over for the beleaguered Alan Trammell and the Tigers won 95 games. Bonderman, still only 23 years old, was, according to Fangraphs, the third best pitcher in baseball. He went 14-8 with a 3.29 FIP (this was still in the offensive era). He pitched the game of his life to eliminate the Yankees in the ALDS and extracted some revenge on the A's with a successful start in the ALCS. He again pitched well in the World Series against the Cardinals but the Tigers lost the series.

Bonderman seemed poised to become one of the best pitchers in baseball. And indeed, he started 2007 with a bang. At the end of the first half, Bonderman was 9-1 with a 4.28 strikeout to walk ratio. But all those innings on his young arm must have caught up to him in the second half. He went only 2-8 in the second half with an ERA over seven. He had to have been hurt and sure enough, would lose much of the next two years to injury.

A much weakened pitcher showed up for the Tigers in 2010, his last season in the majors. He did make 29 starts, but was ineffective. His ERA ballooned to 5.53 and his FIP of 4.90 showed that much of it was earned.

After 2010, he disappeared. And he wasn't heard from in 2011 or 2012. This year, he is attempting a comeback and he is only thirty years old. Stranger things have happened (Vogelberg, for example). And the Mariners have taken a chance on him with a Spring Training invitation. The odds are tremendously long. But wouldn't it be cool if he made it? Wouldn't that be fun?

Jeremy Bonderman was not treated very well as a young pitcher. It's all speculation, of course, but that seeming abuse caught up with him in the second half of 2007 and plagued him until his last season in 2010. You have to root for a guy like Jeremy Bonderman. You just have to.

The enigma of Edwin Jackson's market

Unless Edwin Jackson is signed by a team he has already played with, he will be pitching for his eighth team in 2013. He is 29 years old. Switching teams is common for relief pitchers. But young starters who have made thirty or more starts for six straight seasons usually get to hang their hats somewhere for a little while. Durable and above replacement pitchers usually find a home and yet Jackson has played for five teams in the last four seasons. Pitchers a lot less successful than him have already been signed this off season. Jackson seems to be down to two suitors who may or may not be interested in giving the 29 year old a four year deal. Something seems amiss here.

Jackson has gone 59-52 as a starter the last five seasons. He has a sub-four FIP his last three. While control was once a problem, he has a walk rate under three per nine innings in his last two seasons. His ground ball percentage has been over 43% for the last three seasons and over 47% in two of his last three. His fastball has averaged 94.1 MPH for his entire career and was just slightly less than that at 93.5 this past season. He is solid rotation stuff and has shown durability and resilience. And yet his travel trunk is covered with city stickers.

And he is a known quantity. In his last four seasons, his fWAR has been remarkably consistent: 3.6, 3.9, 3.9 and 2.7. That is an average value of $15.5 million per season, good for the 25th highest over that time among all starters. Only seventeen starting pitchers have made more starts than Jackson in the last five seasons. Yet, at this point, only two teams are interested in him.

What are the negatives involved with Edwin Jackson? Oh, there have been hints that he isn't a great clubhouse guy, but we're not really going to buy into that, are we? Yes, he gives up just under one homer per nine innings. His strikeout rate is okay, but not spectacular. He has some trouble going deep into games and has averaged 6.22 innings per start. But half of that at least can be seen as quite a few National League starts where he would be pinch hit for in close games.

But there are signs that he is getting better as a pitcher too. In his last two seasons, the amount of pitches out of the strike zone swung at against Jackson have risen sharply. And last season, the contact rate against those pitches out of the strike zone was the lowest of his career.  His first pitch strike percentage has never been higher than it has been the last two seasons. So it seems clear that he is still learning his craft.

And yet, only two teams are left in the running for the four years and $59 million he is asking. There is an understanding that Edwin Jackson is never really going to be a dominant pitcher. He is not really an All Star kind of guy. But he is a solid three-hole starter with durability and above average stuff. With pitching as thin as it is around baseball, Jackson seems a lot more attractive than the market suggests.

Understandably, Jackson is looking for a place to call home for the next four years. His last four years suggest there are worse options for teams out there. This wanderer seems like a better deal than the market has dictated.

Andruw Jones was Dale Murphy with a rad glove

The offensive similarities between Andruw Jones and Dale Murphy are striking. And since each career encompassed successive generations in the Atlanta Braves' outfield, these similarities are even more fun to consider. Jones had a ten year peak from 1997 to 2006. Murphy had an eight year peak from 1980 to 1987. Both started their careers at a very young age, Jones at nineteen, Murphy at twenty. And both lost their value in their early thirties. The only real difference between the two was defense. And it was this aspect that separated the two players.

Let's look at the offensive numbers:

Standard:

• Murphy: 9041 plate appearances, Jones 8664 plate appearances
• Murphy: 1197 runs scored, 398 homers, 787 extra base hits, 1266 RBI
• Jones:     1204 runs scored, 434 homers, 853 extra base hits, 1289 RBI
• Murphy:  .265/.346/.469 = .815 OPS   Jones: .254/.337/.486 =.823 OPS
• Murphy:  161 stolen bases / 70.3%,  Jones 152 stolen bases / 72%
• Murphy:  822 non-intentional walks with 1748 strikeouts, Jones: 827 non-intentional walks, 1748 K's.

Advanced:

• Murphy: 357 career wOBA, Jones: .352 career wOBA
• Murphy: 121 career OPS+, Jones: 111 career OPS+
• Murphy: 228 batting runs above average, Jones 163.4
• Murphy: 10.9% career walk percentage, 19.3% strikeout percentage
• Jones:     10.3% career walk percentage, 20.2% strikeout percentage

Basically what you see is two similar offensive careers. But Dale Murphy will never get elected to the Hall of Fame and Andruw Jones will be hotly debated. The difference, of course, is defense. Murphy is given -33 runs below average for his career defensively. Andruw Jones is given credit for 236 runs above average for his career and is considered by many to be one of the best center fielders of all time.

And that difference makes up most of the difference as to why Andruw Jones is a 59.5 rWAR career compared to Murphy's 42.6.

They both started young and lost productiveness in their early thirties. Both were iconic during their peaks. And both had eerily similar offensive careers. But Andruw Jones played a pivotal position and he played it better than most who have ever played the game.

Dickey's high cost would bring short term rewards for Blue Jays

The pending trade between the New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays has people buzzing. Opinions have been bandied about everywhere. While one more voice on the subject might get lost in the cacophony, here is the Fan's take on the deal as it stands in the rumor mill. The deal, if completed, makes the Blue Jays a mighty tough team in the American League East and an instant darling for projections. But it would cost the Blue Jays beyond a two and three year period.

Despite the fact that the Mets may be feeding out nuggets about Dickey to the local media in New York to paint the pitcher in a negative light (see Davidoff's column yesterday for example), R.A. Dickey is a great pitcher whose three year track record seems too good to think he will crumble any time soon. He was 11-5 last season against teams with an above .500 record so don't buy the thought that he will crumble in the AL East. If you take any rotation and remove J.A. Happ and insert R.A. Dickey, you are adding three wins to the rotation.

Then look at that rotation from top to bottom: Josh Johnson, Brandon Morrow, R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Ricky Romero. That is pretty sweet and should rival any rotation in the American League. Add that to the additions on offense and the Blue Jays--at least on paper--are mighty impressive.

So, yes, this deal makes a lot of sense for the Blue Jays and bringing Josh Thole, who is used to catching Dickey, along for the ride makes sense even if John Buck should be a slightly more valuable catcher.

And don't buy the arguments that Dickey is 38 and will fade after another year or so. Phil Niekro, another knuckleball pitcher, pitched effectively for seven years past his 38th birthday. Dickey has found himself and it is irrelevant at what age he found it. His consistency the last three years should put aside all doubts.

But then there is the cost. And it is steep. Basically you are trading away seven years of cheap control on two (albeit unproven) talents in Travis d'Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. As an aside: Do the Blue Jays have any prospects that are easy to spell!?

Anyway, d'Arnaud is a major offensive talent that has some question marks about where he will play in the field. He was drafted a catcher, but some, including the Blue Jays, question his defensive ability behind the plate. He played quite a bit of first base and DH this past season in the minors. But the guy seems to be a "can't miss" offensive player who could preferably play behind the plate adequately.

It is hard not to drool at Syndergaard's minor league stats thus far in his two short years at the lowest level in the minors. A K/9 rate over ten and a BB/9 rate under three is a pretty sweet combination. He is six foot, five inches which is just want you want to develop an incredible downward angle at the plate.

He is too young and new to have made any top prospect lists. But Syndergaard was a 38th overall pick in the 2010 draft.

Your host here has always subscribed to the "prospects are lottery tickets" theory. The odds are better than the lottery, but a prospect becoming the player projected once he gets to the big leagues is always a long shot. A proven commodity like Dickey for two lottery tickets does make short term sense if short term means three years or so.

But if d'Arnaud and Syndergaard find success in the big leagues once they arrive, this deal will be discussed for many years to come...if it happens, that is.