Game Picks - Tuesday: April 2, 2013

Monday gave us our first semi-full day of Major League Baseball and it was delicious. Only having all thirty teams in action would have been better. But it was fun nonetheless. How did the Game Picks fare during this first big day of action? Well...it was a mixed bag. Half the picks were correct and half were incorrect. Not a great start, but it is a better start than the Yankees, Rangers and Cardinals have made.

Speaking of the Yankees, I knew they would lose. C.C. Sabathia is never good against the Red Sox and has a history of being pretty terrible on Opening Day. And picking against old man-crush, Ian Kennedy, was a mistake as he had a good day against the Cardinals.

But Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper had big days and the Nationals began their season of high expectations on a bright note. The Cubs beat A.J. Burnett as Jeff Samardzija was untouchable. That pick went sour. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw both threw nothing but zeroes to make those picks come out on top. But so did Chris Sale who out-dueled James Shields for a 1-0 win. I had it in reverse. But I did predict a tough adjustment for the Royals, who hit so well in Arizona, which can be a mirage.

Opening Day, like any other day in baseball, is a day where anything can happen and did with wild games in Atlanta and Milwaukee. The former was an incorrect pick while the latter was correct. The Mets, which I picked, scored eleven runs. The Mets!?

There are seven games on today's schedule. The Orioles, Blue Jays, Indians and Rays will all play their first games today. Only one of the games is a day game. Here are Tuesday's picks:

• The Rays over the Orioles: David Price is one of the best and ace's dominated yesterday. The Orioles counter with Jason Hammel, which shows you the one big difference of these two AL East competitors. Many experts are still picking the Rays to win the AL East. We'll see.
• The Blue Jays over the Indians: The Indians--or most of them anyway--have never seen R.A. Dickey pitch. They are in for a tough day. Justin Masterson, a ground ball pitcher to the extreme, will need to have a good BABIP day. The Blue Jays should win.
• The Brewers over the Rockies: This is a game where anything can happen. You have a pitching match up of Jorge de la Rosa against Marco Estrada. Yeah, go ahead and pick that for me, will you? The pick goes to the home team, Brewers.
• The Cardinals over the Diamondbacks: This is another tough game to gauge. Jaime Garcia had a good spring after a tough season a year ago and goes for the Cardinals. Trevor Cahill goes for the Diamondbacks.
• The Mariners over the Athletics: This should be another low scoring game. Hisashi Iwakuma was a big surprise last season and had a good spring considering it was pitched in Arizona. He should keep the A's quiet. Jarrod Parker had a bad spring and got lit up in Arizona, but that should change in Oakland.
• The Dodgers over the Giants: Dodgers' starter, Hyun-Kin Ryu, is a total mystery to me. It looks like he was tough during the spring, but I have no idea about him at all. Madison Bumgarner is a great pitcher and had a great spring, but still going with the Dodgers in this one.

And the Game of the Day!

• The Rangers over the Astros: Yu Darvish puts the Rangers back on track and the Rangers should hit Lucas Harrell to the tune of three or four runs. That should be enough behind Darvish to win this one.

Yesterday: 6-6

Week:  7-6

Month:  7-6

Season: 7-6

Games of the Day: 1-0

Game Picks - Monday: April 1, 2013

Major League Baseball has this Opening Day thing all wrong. On Opening Day of the season, every team should be in action. It should be one grand celebration across the land. Instead, there are twelve games today after one last night and the Orioles, Blue Jays, Rays and Indians do not even play their first game until tomorrow. Plus, two of the games will be at night on the West Coast so that most of the country will be in bed before they start. This needs to be fixed, Bud Selig. Not only should Opening Day include baseball for all fans and all of the games should be day games, but it should be brought to Congress to make a national holiday so that we can all stay home and bask it in.

Ah well. We make do with what we have. The very first Game Pick of the season was successful as the Astros won their first game in their new league. As also predicted, the loss for the Rangers sent their Twitter followers into a tizzy and already Ron Washington should be fired, Ian Kinsler should be traded and Derek Lowe will never recover.

The second day of Opening Day picks:

• The Yankees over the Red Sox: I don't think the Yankees will really win. Sabathia never pitches well against Boston and the Yankees' patchwork offense has more holes than a mobster on Valentine's Day. But they are the Yankees, man. C.C. Sabathia over Jon Lester. Mariano Rivera with the save.
• The Nationals over the Marlins: Two teams heading in different directions. Ricky Nolasco is capable of a good start. Juan Pierre, if he gets on base, could be a problem. But the pick is with Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals to begin their assault on the NL East.
• The Pirates over the Cubs: A.J. Burnett gets off to a fast start, Russell Martin hits a homer (Yankee fans gnash their teeth) and Jeff Samardzija gets the hard luck loss.
• The Brewers and the Rockies: If Jhoulys Chacin is your Opening Day starter, that is a bit of a problem, no? Yovani Gallardo is a notoriously slow starter, but he should get the win for the Brewers at home.
• The Reds over the Angels: I give this game to the Reds because the game is in Cincinnati and already an American League team must go without the DH. Jered Weaver will get tagged for at least one homer in that little ballpark and Johnny Cueto will prove that last year was not a one time thing.
• The Tigers over the Twins: Vance Worley might be the best starting pitcher the Twins have had in a couple of years, but he faces Justin Verlander. And even though the Twins start out at home, it will be with a loss. The Tigers still seem a bit creaky to me, but they will hit.
• The Royals over the White Sox: Chris Sale was outstanding last year and despite the fact that he looks like he will break at any second, he should be the White Sox' best pitcher again this year. But when was the last time the Royals got to start the season with a pitcher as good as James Shields?
• The Dodgers over the Giants: Right out of the chute, the big rich upstart Dodgers face the World Champion Giants. Fascinating. So too is the match up of Clayton Kershaw versus Matt Cain. The Dodgers are at home, so the pick has to go that way.
• The Phillies over the Braves: This is one non-home game pick. The Phillies are pitching Cole Hamels and since he is my Cy Young Award pick for 2013, I have to go with him over the venerable Tim Hudson. One of the Uptons will homer though.
• The Mariners over the Athletics: Okay all you hitters that enjoyed the warm Arizona air. Welcome to Oakland where your bats turn to sawdust. This will be a pitchers' duel between Felix Hernandez and Brett Anderson. The last bullpen standing will win.
• The Cardinals over the Diamondbacks: I still don't understand what the Diamondbacks are doing. It was defense that won them the division two seasons ago and they traded most of it away. Ian Kennedy needs good defense as he is a BABIP pitcher. Going with Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals to win.

And the Game of the Day!

• The Mets over the Padres: Jon Niese's wife will be wearing her blue panties, so he has to win The Mets and Yankees both opening at home is interesting. Edinson Volquez is the Padres' Opening Day starter!? Umm...

Yesterday: 1-0

This week: 1-0

April: 1-0

Season: 1-0

Why Jose Reyes will be the AL MVP in 2013

The fans in Toronto are really excited, and why shouldn't they be? For the first time in many years, the Blue Jays have some dynamic talent on the field and in the starting rotation. The American League East is wide open as every team has holes. The key to it all, from this office chair, is Jose Reyes. If Reyes stays healthy and has a good season, he will be the fire that lights up the rest of the Blue Jays lineup. If that happens, he could very well win the American League Most Valuable Player Award.

Here is why it can happen:

Batted ball data from 2012 shows that Jose Reyes hit more ground balls in 2012 than he has since his 2005 season. While his line drive percentage has remained constant, his ground ball to fly ball ratio rose to 1.43 while with the Marlins. Perhaps because of the ground balls and perhaps because of data positioning, his BABIP was lower in 2012 than his career average.

It seems likely, considering his batted ball stats since 2007, that his ground ball rate will drop to previous levels. And even if his ground ball rate stays the same, since Rogers Centre has artificial turf, that same ground ball rate gives him a chance to raise his BABIP.

The turf can also increase his production of doubles and triples. Reyes has hit double-digit triples in seven of his last eight seasons. There is no reason why that will not continue in 2013. Most projection systems give him double-digits in triples but on the lower end of the scale. He could beat those projections. Reyes usually finishes with 30 or more doubles in a season. With the turf, that could increase to 40 with not too much difficulty. Add in ten or more homers and he should better his career .440 slugging percentage.

The quality of the hitters behind Reyes might just be the best he has ever played with. Melky Cabrera, PEDs or no PEDs, has really turned his career around and is a solid number two hitter who will allow Reyes to continue to steal bases with abandon. Reyes has stolen 79 bases in the last two combined seasons.

After Cabrera comes Jose Bautista. Bautista has the best plate discipline on the team and, though there is some concern from his wrist injury, he has to be figured being a dangerous hitter with a pile of walks. After Bautista comes Edwin Encarnacion, who became the Bautista of 2012 as he blossomed into one of the best combination power hitters and on-base guy in the American League last year.

That top four can rival a lot of lineups around baseball. If they all perform, there is no reason Jose Reyes cannot score 110 runs or more.

Reyes has fallen off somewhat in his fielding statistics. Fangraphs rates him at a little more than three runs below average for the past two seasons. Baseball-reference.com is even harder on him at 17 runs below average for 2012. The turf at home can do two things. It can give him truer balls to field helping him a bit, or it can cause more balls to zip right by him thus causing him problems with his range scores.

But say he has a good season in the field and can play at least league average in the field. Then, all of his offensive rankings will add positively to his WAR total with a positional boost from playing shortstop.

Sure, this sounds like a lot of "ifs." But if Jose Reyes stays healthy, and if he has a good season in the field, Jose Reyes could be the spark that ignites the Blue Jays with his personality and his bat and legs. He seems to be in a perfect fit with the Blue Jays and the timing seems just right for him to have a big year. He is this site's predicted choice for the MVP in 2013.

Game Picks - Sunday: March 31, 2013

It is Sunday morning and the sun is shining. Upon awakening, there were two chocolate bunnies on the kitchen counter--one hollow and the other solid. It is Easter and it is the first day of baseball season. Can any day be more perfect?

The first day of baseball season also means the first Game Picks post of the season. For those of you new to the site, each day of the season, a prediction is made on which team will win each game. This is not a gambling feature. There are no point spreads, there are no Vegas odds. Lord knows, it is hard enough just predicting which team will win.

This feature goes back four years. Or is it five? It started because a faithful reader asked for it. Not a single game has been missed for the past three years making this the Lou Gehrig of prediction features.

The success rate is traditionally around 58%. That does not sound like a great success rate, but go ahead and try it someday and see how accurate you are. The old saying is true: On any given day and in any given game, anything can happen.

A new year's baseball season begins and a new Game Picks season starts as well. Here we go!

Sunday's pick:

• The Astros over the Rangers: Welcome to the American League, Astros! Your first assignment? The Texas Rangers. The Rangers have been predicted here to win the AL West over the Angels and  the A's simply because of their pitching. This is an "on any given day" pick. A team has to win its inaugural game in a new league right? Besides, Rangers fans are already full of angst if Twitter is any indication, so we might as well start the season with some hand wringing. Besides, the Astros are the home team and Bud Norris could have a good day over Matt Harrison.  

The Crystal Ball tells all for 2013

The computers have all had their time in the sun over the past few weeks cranking out their projections. And while, the data that gets spit out is generally accurate, there are always surprises. The Orioles certainly made all projections last season look a bit silly. But that is bound to happen in a few cases as games and seasons will always be worked out on the field and not in nano-bytes. Around here, computer sims are great, but since everyone already does that, I use the old fashioned method. I use a crystal ball.

Unfortunately, the crystal ball sends images that seem as convoluted as a Nostradamus passage. It is up to the interpreter to read the images correctly. The power that made the sphere thought of that ahead of time because say the wife got a hold of it and was given a crystal clear image of what I looked like ten years from now. She would probably run like the wind. So the images must be ferreted out to make sense. Any errors in the accuracy then are the fault of the interpretation and not the tool itself. So if you are inclined to look at the four previous years of crystal ball posts, then keep that in mind.

Okay, enough disclaimers. Let's get to the results. Here now are the fifth annual Flagrant Fan crystal ball predictions:

• The Red Sox, thanks to the wondrous pitching coach that sped up his pitchers' tempo, will win more games than they lose. 
• David Ortiz will unfortunately play less than 90 games.
• Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz bounce back to very good pitchers. See above.
• Justin Verlander will finish 18-8, but will lose the Cy Young Award to Josh Johnson who has a monster year for the Blue Jays.
• Speaking of the Blue Jays, Jose Reyes has an MVP-type season and with Johnson, Buehrle, Dickey and Morrow, will dominate the AL East.
• The Orioles will not do as well as last season as the one-run game results fall back to normal and the pitching doesn't hold up as well.
• Derek Jeter's ankle bothers him all season and causes him to retire after the season.
• Mariano Rivera will save 44 games and finish with an even 650. He then rides into the sunset like Gary Cooper.
• Despite stacking the deck, the Angels will still not win the AL West. The Rangers prevail again. The Angels will win the wild card though with the Astros giving them eleven extra wins this season.
• The other wild card will go to the Indians as Terry Francona wins Manager of the Year.
• And yes, that means the Red Sox and Yankees will not reach the post season.
• The Indians will win the wild card game and then win their ALDS, but come short of the World series.
• Mike Trout and Bryce Harper continue their giddy assault on the Major Leagues and follow up with terrific seasons. Harper will do at least one stupid thing though and get suspended for four games.
• The Diamondbacks will finish just ahead of the Rockies in the standings in the NL West as they have traded away their defense. Despite the lack of help behind him, Ian Kennedy again wins 16 games.
• The Tampa Bay Rays will fall out of the race early and trade David Price at the trade deadline for some team's entire minor league system.
• The Royals will win more games than they lose. James Shields has a good season but doesn't have enough help in the rotation to make them a playoff team.
• The Tigers just beat out the Indians for the AL Central title. But again they won't look pretty until the playoffs.
• Yu Darvish will have a more impressive season than Felix Hernandez.
• The Padres will be a surprise team and will contend until they fade in August.
• Ichiro Suzuki will bat .300 but it will not help get him to the kind of WAR Swisher put up in his four years there.
• David Wright has a big season as will Ike Davis, but the rest of the Mets are nowhere in sight as the team loses 85 games.
• Ron Gardenhire will be the first manager fired this season.
• The Dodgers win the National League West despite another MVP season for Buster Posey.
• The Giants do pick up the wild card.
• The Braves and Nationals battle it out for the entire season for the NL East, but the Nats prevail at the end. The Braves get yet another wild card spot.
• Josh Hamilton will play 130 games and hit 36 homers.
• C.J. Wilson will not be much of a factor for the Angels.
• The Astros will lose 95 games but will hit better than people expect.
• The National League will win the All Star Game again.
• The Yankees will sign Robinson Cano long term.
• B.J. Upton will have a better season than Justin Upton. But Jason Heyward outplays both of them.
• The Phillies will be a .500 team. Rollins and Howard continue to fade but Chase Utley will have an All Star season.
• The Dodgers will trade Andre Ethier at the trade deadline.
• The Red Sox will trade Jacoby Ellsbury.
• Elvis Andrus will win a Gold Glove Award.
• Phil Coke becomes the Tigers' closer and will have a good season there.
• Stephen Strasburg will not win the Cy Young Award. But he'll have a good season.
• Jose Bautista will "only" hit 30 homers but Edwin Encarnacion will prove he was not a fluke and hit more.
• Vernon Wells will hit more homers than Curtis Granderson.
• Adam Dunn will struggle to bat .210 but will still hit 35 homers and walk 90 times.
• Chris Sale will not dominate like last year and the White Sox finish with a losing record.
• The Reds will beat out the Cardinals in the NL Central but not by as much as last season. Even so, the Cards fail to make the playoffs.
• Allen Craig will have a great season though.
• Jesus Montero will have a very good season, but the Mariners still struggle to win 75 games.
• Jered Weaver will win more games than Zack Greinke.
• A.J. Burnett and Russell Martin have good seasons for the Pirates, but they will be a .500 team. An improvement, but still not enough.
• The parachute will finish ahead of Pablo Sandoval when Sandoval makes parachute sprints.
• Paul Konerko will fall to the ravages of time and will not have as good a season.
• Michael Pineda will pitch for the Yankees this season. 
• Ivan Nova will win more games than Phil Hughes, who gets traded at the trade deadline along with Joba Chamberlain.
• The Cubs will finish near .500 and show promise that they are on their way back. Alfonso Soriano will have a good season and get traded to a contender at the deadline.
• This will be Charlie Manuel's last season in Philadelphia and Ryne Sandberg will take over.
• Cole Hamels will win a Cy Young Award but Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee look ordinary.
• Jose Inglesias will have more plate appearances than Stephen Drew and more hits than Enrique Inglesias.
• The Miami Marlins will lose more games than any other NL team and fail to reach a million in attendance.
• Ryan Braun will have another big season and make Bud Selig gnash his teeth.
• Yovani Gallardo will hit better this season and will have another fine season on the mound.
• Oakland's young pitching will crumble this season but Chris Young and Yoenis Cespedes will have very good seasons.
• The Rockies will lose more than 95 games again as the team continues to struggle finding pitchers than can pitch in that ballpark.
• The assistant GM having his office in the clubhouse will become a huge story in Colorado this season.
• But at least Troy Tulowitzki will play 150 games and win the shortstop Silver Slugger Award.
• Todd Helton hits over .300 in his swan song season.
• Jedd Gyorko wins NL Rookie of the Year honors but Puig comes up in the second half to give him a run for his money.
• And finally, the Nationals win the World Series.

There you have it, the crystal ball predictions for 2013. The daily Games Picks posts start on Monday. And President Obama and Congress, the first day of baseball season needs to be a national holiday.

Imagining a computer with personality computing Josh Hamilton's 2013 projection

Imagine, if you will, a computer with a personality and emotions like a human being. The computer is having a good day and has been cranking out projections with ease. The computer is popping Starburst candies and singing Katrina & The Waves', I'm Walking on Sunshine. "This is a good day," the computer says to itself." After all, it is a computer and it knows it has been well fed by its data keepers. And then suddenly, the computer gets to Josh Hamilton's data. Queue the sound of a record needle jagging  off a record. The computer spills water on itself. "What the bloody heck," the computer says as it jumps up from its office chair in shock and surprise.

Cleaning the spilled water with a paper towel, the computer sits back down and frowns at the data. "This does not compute," it thinks. "90 games played, 156, 89, 133, 121, 148!?" The computer rolls up its sleeves. "How many stupid games is this guy going to play?" It runs the scenarios five different times and five different sets of numbers pop up varying from a low of 120 to a high of 147.

"Let's try something easy," says the computer and brings up the data for the strikeout percentage. "Holy, mother of..." The computer accidentally snaps a pencil in half. It looks at the consistent flow of data from 2007 to 2011 and that looks okay. But then the number jumps to 25.5% in 2012. "How did that happen?" And so the computer loosens its tie and looks at the plate discipline information.

"Okay, he was never the most patient of hitters and his swing and miss rate was always fairly high," it sees. But why did Josh Hamilton swing at everything in 2012!? 45.4%!? "He was swinging at everything!" The computer looks for strands of data that might indicate if there was an eye injury or something that could explain why Hamilton started swinging as soon as he got out of bed in the morning.

The computer dutifully ran the data several thousand times and felt a little better when the data settled down to anywhere from 21.9% to a high of 22.9%. "Okay, that's better. After all, that was this human's rate in 2009. This will work."

But the computer is working up a sweat by now. The tie comes off. He calls on the intercom for a coffee. The Starbursts get shoved into a desk drawer. It decides to look at this human's ISO. "What the..."

It sees the ISO numbers over the years fall all over the sandbox. .262 in 2007, .158 in 2009, .238 in 2011 and .292 in 2012. The computer starts thumping its chest to see if his data is flowing properly. How does it figure this mess out? The computations are run a few thousand times. They spit out .214 from its ZiPS computation. Frowning, the computer is not happy with such a low number after a .292 season and runs the data a few more thousand times using slightly different algorithmic sets. "Wait! Wait!" the computer shouts as .251 spits out followed by a .221, followed by .246.

"Oh. Come. On. Now!"

The computer sits back and pictures the Rocky Mountains and then Lake Reno. It tries to regulate its breathing. After a while of doing this, the computer cracks its knuckles and repeats a mantra that everything is going to be okay. After all, it is just numbers and numbers don't lie. The computer decides to tackle on-base percentage. "This should be easy."

Trying to be dispassionate and look at the data impersonally, the computer sees a normal progression with two anomalous seasons in 2009 and 2010. "It's okay," says the computer, "We'll just throw those out." And it does. As it runs the algorithmic calculation, the computer is confident about this one. Suddenly, numbers start spitting out anywhere from .333 to .356 and everything in between. "What is wrong with me!?"

By now, the computer's shirt is untucked, the tie has been long discarded. The coffee has been drained and is empty despite how many times the computer brings the cup to its lips. Finally, in a moment of clarity, the computer sits back and thinks that a self-diagnosis is in order. Repeating its mantra over and over, the computer checks every one of its systems.

Everything seems normal. "Keep checking!" The computer goes into a trance-like state and tries to push its mind outside its body. Looking around at all its inputs and orifices, the computer finally spots something. "What is THAT?"

Taking a closer look is difficult because what has been spotted is in the middle of its back. It keeps reaching around and cannot get to it. Rooting around its desk, the computer finally spies a pair of tweezers and reaches around. Using the mirror for a guide, the tweezers slowly inch to the target. Finally, "I got it!"

As the offending particles are brought around to where the computer can inspect them, a puzzled look and a frown creases its face. "Chewing tobacco??" What the heck does that mean?

The computer sits back heavily in its chair and creates an email that it sends to Szymborski. The short e-mail reads as follows: "Josh Hamilton: you're on your own on this one, Dude."

The Arizona mirage

Spring Training has been traditionally described in two ways. For veterans who have established jobs, it is a time to get in shape, get repetitions in to get ready for the season. For everyone else, it is a time to compete for jobs, rotation spots and future consideration. The former description can happen anywhere. The outcomes do not matter. But for the latter, where the competition takes place has to be largely taken into consideration. If that place is in Arizona, evaluating that competition has to be difficult because Spring Training in Arizona inflates offense.

In 2012, the top three Spring Training offenses were the Seattle Mariners, the San Diego Padres and the Oakland Athletics. As most know, the Mariners finished dead last in offense once the regular season came to a conclusion. The Athletics came in third from the bottom and the Padres were 22nd out of 30 teams. Obviously, what happened in Spring Training in Arizona did not translate to the regular season.

You should also notice that all three of those teams play in pitcher friendly (and batter unfriendly) parks. The problem is that hitters are having fun in Arizona and then once they get to their home parks, what flew around the stadiums in Arizona are settling nicely into gloves once the seasons starts. There has to be some sort of mind blowing that happens there.

A quick look at the spring statistics this year shows that the top five offensive teams by team OPS are all teams that play their spring games in Arizona. The Royals are on top. The Mariners are again right up there in second. Then the White Sox, the Angels and the A's. This kind of production gets the fans in Kansas City and in Seattle all excited, of course. "We are going to hit this season!" But will they?

Let's take the Mariners as a microcosm of this Arizona phenomenon. The Mariners currently have nine batters who have had at least ten spring plate appearances with an OPS over 1.000. Jesus Montero, for example, is batting over .400 with an OPS of 1.180. A year ago, his spring OPS was .923. Once the season started, he had trouble getting going and finished with an OPS of .685. Now personally, I believe Montero is a much better talent than that .685 finish of a year ago, but his Arizona numbers are highly inflationary.

Justin Smoak has a spring OPS of 1.285! Last spring, he compiled an OPS of .966. So how can you get all excited by what Smoak is doing this spring when last year's spring success did not lead to anything during the season?

Now let's look at the same team's pitching. Pitchers who can miss bats will hold their own. Felix Hernandez has decent stats this spring. Fire-ballers like Brandon Mauer blow people away. Kameron Loe is having a good spring because he can miss bats. But pitchers that rely on contact are getting whacked at an alarming rate. Joe Saunders is getting his head handed to him. Blake Beavan is getting blown up.

Joe Saunders has never been a great pitcher, but he has proven that he can at least get Major League batters out a league average number of times. If you are trying to evaluate whether Saunders should get a rotation spot, how do you do that based on his pitching in Arizona in the spring? Do you go by his history in the majors are by what is happening this spring?

I would love to see some people that are great with statistics to see what kind of lag there is with teams that train in Arizona for the first month or two of the season. I would bet that there is a direct correlation that can be proven between the giddy times of hitting in Arizona to the reality of hitting at the teams' regular home base once the season starts.

I would guess that teams that train in Florida have a much easier time to evaluate players than managers and GMs do in Arizona. I would love to see some statistically smart people do a study on this. It is for this same reason why teams sending young pitchers to the Arizona Fall League should do so with caution. These five teams that lead the majors in OPS this spring will be interesting to watch during the regular season. I would love to believe that the Mariners are going to hit better this season. But I'll believe it more when I see it.

Nick Swisher - Ready to rock Cleveland

Nick Swisher is ready to rock Cleveland. After four quietly terrific seasons in New York, Swisher is now taking his laughter and baseball delight to a dugout where he will be teamed up with old Yankee nemesis, Terry Francona. Swisher reminds me of cats--you either love him or hate him. The word, "douche" seems to come up a lot on Twitter from baseball fans and writers who have not had Swisher play on their teams. But for those who have, Swisher is a great big old fun machine. And he is going to have fun in Cleveland.

Frankly, I have never understood the hatred of Nick Swisher. I can probably understand if you are a White Sox fan simply because Swisher did not perform well there and did not fit in with their fiery manager at the time. And it is one thing to dislike him in Chicago for his performance in his one season there and perhaps even in New York for his post season letdowns. But how can you not like that guy as a baseball playing human being?

Nick Swisher plays like he has the best job in the world. And, gosh, he does have the best job in the world. Instead of acting like he is suffering because of his fame, Swisher embraces it and the fans and puts smiles on people's faces. He also did a pile of charity work in New York during his years there thus showing that he appreciates what he has been given and has given back.

What is really different between the way Swisher enjoys the game and say, Jose Reyes? Is it because Reyes has a toothier smile? Baseball is a game and it should be fun and I do not understand anyone for being hated for enjoying the ride. He gets excited when his team does well. Shouldn't he? Is that showboating or a good team guy? He points to the sky when he doubles or homers. Is that a showboat or someone who has made a point of honoring those who came before him?

Hate on Nick Swisher if you will, but from this seat, the guy is what baseball is all about.

With all that said, what kind of player is Nick Swisher going to be in Cleveland and away from the bright lights of the Bronx? I can't see him being much different than he has been in the last four years. His WAR might take a one win hit because of playing first base more than right field this season. But he has been very consistent offensively. His wOBA has been over .360 for five out of this last six seasons.

Nick Swisher is what you dream about when it comes to patience at the plate. His O-swing level has risen slightly in the last three seasons, but is still well below league average and his total swing percentage of 36.7% is very low and has been consistent throughout his career. Both of his last two seasons have also seen a rise in his line drive percentage, though that is a volatile statistic that is hard to predict.

And yet, his projections all predict his wOBA will be under .360 with only the Fans being close at .359. Heck, ZiPS has him finishing at .337. That is simply too pessimistic for what Swisher has done in his career. ZiPS also assigns him a .175 ISO for 2013. Swisher has never been below .188 in that department...ever. So why is his power going to dry up? Because he is playing in Cleveland? And Cleveland is a tougher park than Yankee Stadium?

Well, it is. But Swisher's ISO has remained consistent throughout his career and that included years in Oakland which makes Cleveland look like the Great American Ballpark.

Here's what I predict. Nick Swisher is older and wiser. He does have his hot and cold streaks, but his patience at the plate is streak proof. He will have freedom to be himself with Terry Francona in the clubhouse. He is going to have a blast. He is going to hit 25 to 30 homers, drive in from 85 to 95 runs and have an on-base percentage over .360. His wOBA and ISO will be at career levels or higher. Again, if he plays first base because of the positional difference between right field and first, he will lose anywhere from a half a win to a win in WAR. But otherwise, he'll be Nick Swisher.

Indians fans are really going to enjoy Nick Swisher. He was loved in New York (at least until the post season) and he was loved for a reason. The guy simply puts a smile on your face if he plays for your team and not only that, he produces year after year. Have fun, Cleveland and enjoy the Nick Swisher Experience.

The Astros first round pick castoff club

The projections for 2013 for the Houston Astros are all pretty grim. And that is understandable considering the team lost 107 games in 2012, have to switch leagues in 2013 and have a projected 2013 payroll of $14.6 million. Baseball Prospectus expects the team to lose 97 games in 2013. And any kind of optimism for the Astros to surprise anyone in the coming year would be supremely "pie-in-the-sky." But the second-year Astros' GM, Jeff Luhnow has done something fairly interesting in compiling a team with a starting lineup that will feature no less than five former first round picks and the rotation will feature one starter who was once the third overall pick in the country. What if two or three or four of those former first round picks were to suddenly recall that kind of promise?

Yeah, it probably won't happen. Most of them were given up on by their original drafting teams, which means something because you don't easily give up on a first round pick simply because of the money involved and the emphasis placed on their development. Even so, it is always fun to dream. Maybe a couple of the castoffs can find the star brilliance that garnered them that kind of pick placement in the first place. Let's take a look at who they are.

Carlos Pena

Well, yeah, Pena doesn't really fit the profile here. The guy has already logged twelve years in the big leagues and his first round pick (Texas) was way back in 1998. Pena is pretty much a known commodity. As a DH and occasional first baseman, he is going to strike out thirty percent of the time, walk thirteen to fifteen percent of the time and hit in the low .200s (if that). But he can still hit 20 to 25 homers and give the Astros an on-base percentage over .320 no matter how badly he hits. And that is worth something at least for a team like the Astros. Pena is going to be 35 in May, but who knows, he could have one more decent season in him.

Brett Wallace

Wallace was the thirteenth pick overall (Cardinals) in the 2008 draft and is already with his fourth organization. He mashed at every level in the minors (.307/.381/.491). But he hasn't hit his stride with the Astros in parts of three seasons and has only compiled an OPS of .699 (.304 wOBA) in 792 plate appearances. Unlike Pena, Wallace can hold his own against left-handed pitching though he does not walk as often against them. The problem with Wallace is that even if he can still put it together as a batter, his glove is fairly catatonic. It would almost seem that Pena would be a better option at first base to let Wallace DH, but Pena is a short-term option whereas the Astros hope Wallace becomes a big Major League hitter long-term. Projection systems see him progressing in the power department with a little fewer strikeouts and a few more walks. And they grant that his fielding will improve marginally.

Jason Castro

Castro is not a castoff as he was drafted by the Astros as the tenth overall pick in the 2008 draft. In parts of two seasons with the Astros, the catcher has not shown the promise as of yet that he can become a top flight catcher in the majors. But part of that problem can also be attributed to some pretty severe injury problems involving his knee and his foot in that time frame. He is having a monster spring this year if that can be taken with any kind of optimism. His minor league career showed very good patience at the plate and much better defense than he has shown in the majors thus far. Projections for 2013 are soft and perhaps justifiably so. But Castro is going to get the opportunity to be the starting catcher this season and if he is healthy, could be one of the nicer surprises of 2013. I am going to keep an eye on him optimistically.

Matt Dominguez

Dominguez was cast off by the now Miami Marlins  for Carlos Lee. The Marlins may live to regret that trade. Just add it to that team's pile of trash legacy for the last year. Dominguez can become a star that befitted his tenth overall selection in the 2007 draft. The third baseman is still only 23 years old and is hampered somewhat by a lack of patience at the plate. But that is combined with a low swing and miss rate and a fairly good strikeout rate considering. If he can be more selective and not swing at 33% of the pitches out of the strike zone, he could be quite good. The projections aren't buying it, of course. But he, at least, is one of the few players that ZiPS at least predicts will be league average for the Astros in 2013. I think he can be much better if his fielding improves (league average right now) and he gets in the lineup for 150 games. Thus far, he has hit too many ground balls in his brief Major League career and that probably stems from his lack of selectivity at the plate. His home run to fly ball rate was 20% in a small sample size. So, if he hits the ball in the air a bit more, he can hit 20 homers or way above projections.

Tyler Greene

Perhaps no player has ever engendered more arguments by Cardinal fans over the years than Tyler Greene. The Cardinals drafted him in the first round of the 2005 draft and then never really gave him a chance to be their shortstop. When he did get calls to the big club, they moved him all around the field--so much so that he has played seven different positions in his 266 games played. Greene had good hitting numbers in the minors, especially for a shortstop. But, whether because he is over-matched in the majors or because of a lack of a true shot at playing regularly, his hitting has never gelled in the majors. His .292 career on-base percentage is fairly pathetic. His fielding metrics are equally troubling. But then again, how much of that was from being bounced around and knowing he wasn't going to really get a shot with the Cardinals? He is going to get that shot with the Astros, especially now with Lowrie gone to the A's. At the age of 29 now, this will be a make or break year for Greene.

Philip Humber

Philip Humber was the third overall pick (Mets) in the 2004 draft. After a long and winding road, he became a surprisingly decent pitcher for the White Sox in 2011. Then he started the 2012 season well and in his second start of the 2012 season, threw a perfect game. You go, Philip Humber! Well, not exactly. The wheels came off after the perfect game and his season went to hell in a hand-basket. The final numbers were ugly: A 6.44 ERA with a 5.77 FIP, a 1.539 WHIP and a 2.0 homer per nine rate. Woof, that is some stinky pitching. His ground ball rate tumbled and everything else fell apart. But Humber is pitching well this spring for the Astros so maybe he can bounce back to his 2011 form, which is certainly going to improve on the Jordan Lyles of the world.

Six former first round draft picks. Six possibilities to live up to that long lost hype. Of the six, Matt Dominguez and Jason Castro can be special. Tyler Greene could be a middle of the pack shortstop. Stranger things have happened. If it does, it still won't make the Astros a great team. But they could be a heck of a lot more entertaining than last season.

Wade Miley - Everyone's favorite regression candidate

Wade Miley was such a surprise last year for the Arizona Diamondbacks that the surprise factor might have cost him the Rookie of the Year Award nod in a very close race with Harper. Nobody expected that Wade Miley would be the tenth most valuable pitcher in baseball in 2012. And his 1.79 walks per nine innings and 3.13 FIP were so fabulous that it had everyone scratching their heads. Thus, it is no surprise that Miley is everyone's favorite regression candidate heading into the 2013 season--so much so that it almost makes you root that he proves everyone wrong.

The problem stems in part because Wade Miley was never a prospect despite being a first round pick in 2008. He never made anyone's list of top tier young guys to watch. Plus, he never had the kind of success in the minors that he had in the majors. He never came close to the depth of his walk rate in the minors. For his minor league career, he averaged 3.1 walks per nine innings. How can that turn into 1.79? His minor league ERA was 3.79. So how did he manage 3.33 in the majors? And it was in Arizona no less, where the thin air flies baseballs. Add to all this lack of history, his mundane strikeout rate and skeptics abound.

The walk rate was a result of two things. First, he was very successful at throwing first pitch strikes, which he did at a 60% rate. Combine that with enticing hitters to swing at pitches out of the strike zone, which he did at a 33.8% rate, the 12th highest rate in baseball.

His heat maps show that he pounded the strike zone against right-handed batters low and inside with his fastball and his change up and then threw is curve on the outer half and down in the zone or out of it. It was a potent mix of getting ahead in the count and then putting batters away on his counts. Forget about left-handed batters. They couldn't hit him at all. Left-handed batters had a triple slash line against him of: .200/.238/306.

But, yeah. It makes sense to look at his walk rate and state that he cannot repeat it. But the projections also predict that he cannot sustain his home run rate. His home runs per nine innings of 0.67 seem unsustainable along with his tiny 6.9% homer to fly ball rate. But that particular skill is one he did display all during his minor league career. His minor league homer per nine inning rate was 0.5.

And why can't he maintain that rate? He keeps the ball down almost exclusively. His ground ball to fly ball rate is 1.28. That is not an extreme ground ball pitcher, but it is certainly far from being a fly ball pitcher. So there is really no reason to expect his homer rate to regress. Sure, his walk rate is in uncharted territory, but not his homer rate.

At least most of the projections have him being somewhat successful. All the ones listed on his Fangraphs.com player page think he'll win more games than he loses, will finish somewhere in the 3.60 to 3.90 ERA range with a more normalized walk rate and a slightly higher home run rate. But Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA rating really is a lot more pessimistic.

That system has him finishing with a 10-13 record with a 4.53 ERA and only a 0.9 WARP. That is a pretty heady fall from his 2012 stats.

Again, there is nothing about any of those projections that are arguable except maybe the jump in homer rate. But the possibility is also there that Miley really found something in 2012 and that with more experience, his strikeout rate will improve above middling and he can keep his walk rate down. The key is his first pitch strike rate and getting ahead of the count. If he can continue that trend for another season, the projections will look a lot different next season.

I don't care anymore

With apologies to Phil Collins for melting his lyrics...

You can tell everyone that Braun's a down disgrace,
drag his name all over the place,
I don't care anymore.
You can protect all you want the state ball is in,
I just want to watch and hope my team wins
I don't care anymore. I don't care anymore.

I don't care what you say.
I don't like the games that you play.

Because I've been reading all the people that you call your friends,
And it seems to us all that you're mean till the end.
They don't care anymore.
And Braun can sit there and bide his time,
He made you lose when you botched his crime.
I don't care anymore. I don't care anymore.

I don't care what you say.
Nobody has ever played by the rules anyway.

I'm not with you anymore
You, MLB, and the BBWAA.
Let me be
I've got better things to do with my time.
I don't care anymore. I don't care anymore.
I don't care anymore. I don't care anymore.

Well, I don't care what you say,
You and your complicit BBWAA
Cause I'm not really bothered what you think of me.
All I want is for the Hall of Fame to be free.

I don't care what you say.
Where were you in the 90s anyway?
Let's just play ball,
I've got better things to do with my time
I'm not listening anymore
I don't care anymore.
Do you hear? I don't care anymore.
I don't care anymore.
You listening? I don't care anymore.
No more.

You know I don't care anymore.

Julio Teheran making believers

Julio Teheran is making believers this spring including the guy behind this keyboard. After being in just about everyone's top ten as a prospect in 2010, 2011 and even heading into 2012, Teheran got a bit blown up in his brief stop in Atlanta in 2011 and followed that up with a real downer of a season for the Gwinnett Braves Triple-A team in 2012. Suddenly, here he is in the Braves' spring camp and--albeit, in games that do not count--is pitching spectacularly. Maybe we counted this kid out too quickly.

Teheran fell in the prospect lists like Baseball America's from fifth to 44th. But at least he was still on the board. That might have been generous after his awful numbers in Triple-A last season. The numbers were ugly. His WHIP ballooned to 1.44. He gave up over ten hits per nine innings. And after allowing only fourteen homers in 287+ innings combined in 2010 and 2011, he gave up eighteen in just 131 innings in 2012. Heck, he even hit fifteen batters.

And it wasn't only that he was getting pounded a bit that was concerning. His strikeouts per nine innings fell to 6.7 after posting much better numbers in 2010 and 2011. Was there something wrong with him? He made  one emergency start for the Braves on June 10 and it was deceptively negative. He pitched four and a third innings and gave up four hits and a walk and struck out five. But four of his five base runners scored. He did pitch two scoreless innings on October 3 but that did little to leave a confused tale of what seemed like a wall thrown up in Teheran's face in 2012.

And so it was with a certain amount of skepticism that he was viewed as the Braves' fifth starter on MLBDepthCharts.com. Surely, the Braves would sign or trade for somebody else. But they did not and other candidates have fallen by the wayside. It really looks like Julio Teheran is going to be the Braves' fifth starter. And that could be a good thing if this spring is any kind of indication.

Teheran has started five games this spring. He has pitched twenty innings. And yes, these games don't count and yes, many players were off playing in the World Baseball Classic. But even so, you have to like what you see. He has given up only seven hits. He has only walked six and allowed two homers. Spring batters are batting .103 against him. And best of all, he has struck out 25 batters.

He looks overpowering and a complete opposite of last year's spring exhibitions when he looked over-matched and finished the spring of 2012 with a 9.37 ERA. Last year, he gave up nine homers and 22 hits in just 16.1 innings of work. What a difference a year makes.

Video of some of his performances seem to show a confident pitcher who is keeping the ball down, making great use of a fastball that is darting away from left-handed batters and a curve that he is throwing with some authority. It was kind of hard to tell, but those fastballs looked more like a two-seam fastball instead of a four-seam one he has featured exclusively to this point in his brief major league appearances.

The Atlanta Braves could push the Nationals this season if their pitching holds up. And if Julio Teheran keeps pitching the way he is right now, that pitching could be much better than expected. The projections for him are pessimistic and all in the 4.25 ERA range. But perhaps 2012 was just a blip and Julio Teheran can make believers out of all of us.

Any last hurrahs for Utley and Howard?

Once upon a time in our not too distant past, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard were a two-man wrecking crew for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 2006, the two combined for 13.7 fWAR as Howard hit 58 homers and Chase Utley was in the second year of a five-year run that might be among the best runs ever for a second baseman. Howard has never matched the incredible numbers he put up in 2006, but he did hit 145 homers combined in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The two were part of a World Series Championship in Philadelphia in 2008 and were beaten by the Yankees in the 2009 World Series. Those were heady times.

Howard slipped in value in 2010 and 2011 and in his last playoff game of 2011, tore his Achilles tendon and only played in 71 games in 2012 finishing with a fWAR value of less than zero. Utley ran into a series of medical problems starting in 2010 and has played 115, 103 and 83 games respectively in the last three seasons. When he played, he still showed some value, but, as you can imagine, that value was about half of what it had been in that incredible five-year run.

So what will 2013 bring for the pair? Are their glory days gone for good? Can they (or should they) play a full season? The good news is that both are playing a lot in this Spring Training. Ryan Howard is killing the ball with four homers and four doubles accounting for half of his eight hits this spring. Utley has a homer and two doubles but is hitting about .200 in his spring games. Is the fact they are playing a full spring schedule a sign that they might just have some of that old magic left in them for the 2013 season? The projections are mixed.

First off, projection systems like PECOTA see the Phillies as a .500 team. And the projections for Utley and Howard do not seem to predict that they will make much of a difference to change the Phillies' chances of improving on that record. Let's look at both players and see if there is any hope for some sort of renaissance season for either or both of them.

Let's start with Ryan Howard. The five projection systems that Fangraphs.com list on Howard's player page do not have hope that Ryan Howard will be any better than he was in 2010 and 2011. The WAR range from the five systems project him anywhere from 0.9 WAR (ZiPS) to 1.8 (Fans34). PECOTA rates him much higher and checking in with Baseball Prospectus his projection there is a somewhat healthier 2.2 WAR projection. Despite the higher projection, PECOTA doesn't see Howard finishing higher than an OPS of .812.

While that is not that bad of an OPS, with Howard's diminished defense and base running, he still doesn't project anywhere close to where he was from 2007 to 2009.

You pretty much have to throw out Howard's 2012 season. The numbers simply do not fit in any category to his career numbers (or even his 2010 and 2011 numbers). His plate discipline went out the window and whereas he used to swing at only 25% of pitches out of the strike zone, that number ballooned to 37% in 2012. His strikeout rate also blew up from its already high 27.8% career percentage to 33.9%. Those numbers should be thrown out the window as a year adjusting to a bad wheel and not really being in any kind of shape to play.

But you cannot dismiss his 2010 and 2011 seasons when he lost some of his plate discipline and went from that aforementioned 25% to the low 30's percent range for swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. He did not strike out more than he had before, but his wOBA or TAv (pick your favorite) was thirty to forty points lower than where he had been as recently as 2009.

The spring he is having is encouraging and perhaps is a sign that he can produce somewhere near where he was in 2009. But the odds seem in better favor of him staying at his 2010 and 2011 levels. He will need to regain some of his plate discipline of the past and make pitchers pitch to him to return to some semblance of his old form.

Oddly, the feeling here is that there is more cause for optimism for Chase Utley than there is for Howard. One of the reasons is that Utley's game is still more complete than Howard's. Despite playing only 83 games in 2012, Utley still garnered eight runs above average in fielding from Baseball-reference.com and 5.5 above average at Fangraphs.com. Plus, Utley still scores high for his base running skills.

The other thing to look at is that Utley's BABIP has been ridiculously low for both 2011 and 2012 at .269 and .261 respectively. If you look at his line drives, for example, his BABIP on line drives in 2012 was .528. That may sound high, but the league average is a hundred points higher than that. His ISO was off about seventy points from his super hero days. But his home run to fly ball percentage rebounded a bit in 2012 from a career low in 2011.

Looking deeper at Utley's numbers, he still maintained his plate discipline and he swung and missed at pitches at a very low 4.7%, the lowest of his career.

Most of the projections for Utley are not encouraging. They have him in the 3.2 to 3.5 WAR(P) range. All of them see his wOBA and TAv off by twenty points from his career average. Until proven otherwise, it is hard to fault these projections. But then again, both B-R and Fangraphs had him at 2.9 and 3.4 respectively for 83 games in 2012. If he plays 135 to 140 games, there is no reason not to think he can represent about a five or six WAR season. 

The key is their continued health. It is encouraging to see them both playing so often this spring. That seems to indicate that they are both healthy...or at least healthier. If they can both obtain 550 to 600 plate appearances, there is a chance that both can rebound nicely to some semblance of what they were from 2009. Howard is 33 and Utley is 34. So neither is ancient by baseball standards. It would be fun to see them both rebound in 2013. It still might not be enough to overcome both the Braves and the Nationals. But it would be fun for baseball.

A response to Jeff Passan's, "U.S. fans are boring"

Yahoo Sports, Jeff Passan, recently called American baseball fans boring and judging from this particular paragraph, it is because we do not watch a baseball game with the same fervor as a football or basketball game:

"Were people to tune in, they'd see baseball can capture the dynamism of college basketball and football, our two sports that feel as much like a rock concert as they do a sporting event. Much has been made of the United States not having the same passion for baseball as the Dominican Republic or Japan. That's rationalizing. And it's not true. If conventions were different – if players and fans both weren't boxed in to a preconceived set of emotions, reactions and morés – American baseball would be just like the rest of the world."

I get it. As a whole, we are just not that into the World Baseball Classic and we don't get ourselves whipped up into a frenzy like fans of the Japanese, Dominican Republic and others do. We don't get a rock concert feel at a baseball game. The games do not have a dynamism of college basketball or football.  And perhaps Passan--who I respect greatly--has a point that our baseball watching ways come a bit from who we are as a people and how we live our lives.

But I think Mr. Passan misses a point here. Unlike just about any other sport, baseball is obsessed with statistics and those statistics are important in only two ways, the regular season and less importantly, the post season. And since how well or how poorly our teams are doing is based on those statistics, anything that happens outside of those two parameters don't matter.

This even relates to the All Star Game. Do you ever hear anyone quoting All Star statistical facts? Nope, because the game doesn't count. It is also why Spring Training becomes a drag once the initial novelty wears out. Those games do not count either. And even when a prospect has a great spring, it does not matter. Contrary to beliefs, hardly anyone wins or loses jobs in Spring Training.

American baseball enthusiasts care about games that count. The World Baseball Classic will never count. Therefore, for the most part, they are viewed with sleepy eyes and viewership shrugs.

There is another point to be made here. Baseball fans are trained to be patient. Why? Because each season contains thirty teams that play 162 games each. That adds up to 2,430 baseball games a season. We know that if our team starts the season 10-1, it's best to not get too excited because a lot can happen over the next 151 games. 

How many college games do they play in basketball and in football? To my shame, I don't really know. But I know it isn't 162. Each contest, then, becomes more crucial and important. Baseball seasons in other countries do not consist of as many teams or as long a season--with perhaps an exception of Japanese baseball. 

And there is something else to be said here. We American baseball fans watch our sport with teams that are made up of players from around the world. The best talent of Venezuela and the Dominican Republic come here to play because this is where the money is. The World Baseball Classic gives these countries a chance to see and root for players that already fill them with nationalistic pride because they have made it as stars in American baseball. 

Our sympathies are torn when our favorite player like a Robinson Cano plays for the Dominican Republic team or some other players play for the Puerto Rican team and others. 

There is one more point I want to make. The American press has increasingly become a jaded press. I don't really mean "jaded" in a negative sense. But since Watergate, the key is to be about the truth beneath the hype. Our American journalists do not let nationalism get in the way of their reporting. I don't think this is true of other countries.

This World Baseball Classic becomes a series for national pride in other countries and I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that the press in those countries whip up some national fervor for the results of their teams. Thus those country's teams and fans are whipped up into more of a frenzy. There is less of a "fair" analysis of who the manager is and what moves he makes.

The American press, in comparison, will spend countless pages analyzing what Joe Torre did as manager and what moves he made that did or did not work. 

American fans will never really buy into the World Baseball Classic. The games do not count or mean anything statistically. They are a flash of games to be followed by a long, grueling season that is much more marathon than sprint. Yes, American baseball is more pastoral. The NFL has taken over our country of MTV-inspired sound bites because the action covers only sixteen games per season for each team. The games are played once a week. A typical baseball week consists of fifteen games a day for at least five of the days per week. With such a baseball season, and for such reasons, the WBC will never really catch on here. If that makes us boring, so be it.