Tim Wakefield's Place Among Knuckleball Pitchers

Tim Wakefield retired yesterday after a long career, most of it spent with the Boston Red Sox. Wakefield, of course, was a knuckleball pitcher and member of a small club of such pitchers in the history of Major League Baseball. Knuckleball pitchers are an oddity and we baseball fans love them. Why though? Perhaps we love knuckleball pitchers because it doesn't take an elite arm to throw one. Such pitchers can pitch on little rest and seemingly, with little effort. Knuckleball pitchers can pitch well into their forties. And, of course, we have a Bob Uecker's wonderful description of how to catch one ("Wait until it stops rolling and pick it up").

Whenever a player has played as long as Wakefield has, we usually try to put such a career into perspective. And, no, Tim Wakefield is never going to be a candidate for the Hall of Fame. So we can't write that kind of post. After all, Wakefield's closest comps on baseball.reference.com are Chuck Finley and Livan Hernandez. Since knuckleball pitchers are a rarity, we can put Wakefield's career in perspective compared to other knuckleball pitchers over the history of baseball. That's what this post will do.

The hardest thing to do to compile such a list is first determining who the knuckleball pitchers were through history. Fortunately, such a list exists and was culled as the starting point of this little research project. Using this list of names and looking up all the careers of the players on the list, and going by accumulated rWAR, Tim Wakefield is the ninth best knuckleball pitcher ever. Here is the list:

1. Phil Niekro - 96.8 rWAR
2. Ted Lyons - 58.8 - 19.2 of his rWAR was accumulated before he started throwing the pitch in 1929.
3. Eddie Cicotte - 49.7 - banned from baseball after the 1920 season for his part in the Black Sox scandal  of 1919.
4. Dutch Leonard - 45.6
5. Wilbur Wood - 45
6. Hoyt Wilhelm - 41.3 - Only a starter one season. The rest was in relief.
7. Tom Candiotti - 41
8. Charlie Hough - 37.5 - Did not become a starting pitcher until his thirteenth big league season.
9. Tim Wakefield - 31.6
10. Joe Niekro - 30.2 - Also compiled some WAR before converting to the knuckleball full time.
11. Bob Purkey - 26.5
12. Hal Brown - 16.6
13. Johnny Niggeling - 15.6

While we're at it, we might as well list the best pitching years ever by a knuckleball pitcher. Wakefield won't make this list. His best season was 1995 when he accumulated 4.6 rWAR.

1. Wilbur Wood (1971) - 10.7 rWAR
2. Ed Cicotte (1917) - 10.0
3. Phil Niekro (1978) - 9.1
4. Hoyt Wilhelm (1959) - 7.4 - His only year as a full time starter. And what a year!
5. Bob Purkey (1962) - 7.2 - Amazing year for the Pirates that season.
6. Joe Niekro (1982) - 7.1

Tim Wakefield had a productive career and being ninth all time among his pitching peers is pretty darned good. He was a fan favorite in Boston and his pitching of the last couple of seasons won't be missed, but he will be.

Spreadsheet and notes. Click on the the image to make it larger.

Coming to Terms With Gary Carter

Gary Carter's death this week at the age of 57 is a bit of a stomach kicker. For one, the guy was only two years older than I am. Plus, it came during the same week when I lost a man very dear to me who has been a part of my life for over thirty years. So it's already been a week of loss and sadness. There is a lot of such sadness in life and our only recourse is to balance that with the blessings and the good times. Since the man I lost this week was 95 years old, there is much more sadness for me than for him as he had a rich life and died peacefully. There are so many good memories that can be recalled to soften the tears. But what of Gary Carter? Unlike the man in my life that I lost, I spent most of my adult life with a fetish of dislike for Gary Carter. But I saw the beginning, middle and end of his career and athletes aren't supposed to die. Not that young anyway.

Much of this is irrational. And I realize that. Mourning the passing of a ballplayer is over-hyped in a world where people die by the millions every week. Because the player was famous and a Hall of Fame player at that, his passing is given much more attention than it deserves. There is little attention except for perhaps a back page story for a child that has lost a father or a mother who has lost a son in any small town in America. But because Gary Carter was a Hall of Fame catcher, his death is given much more coverage. That's just the way it is. And my dislike for the man was every bit as irrational.

When did that dislike start and why was it so? Don't ask those silly questions of a baseball fan. Is there ever any good reason? I dislike Kevin Youkilis. Always have. Is Youkilis a bad guy? Probably not. But something inside me is turned off by the guy. Maybe it's his stupid batting stance or the way he takes a personal affront to every inside pitch or his temper when he strikes out. But other players have done that, so what gives? I don't know. Something about Gary Carter pushed all the wrong buttons inside me.

Carter was known as an intense player. Perhaps that is the tie of his dislike to that of Youkilis, who is also intense. We love intense players when they are on our team. But when they are on the other team, we like them a lot less. Carter was a catcher. Catchers are supposed to be low-profile guys. Grunts. The tools of ignorance guys. But Carter was flamboyant and even as a member of the Expos, became famous for a team that did not get a lot of national press. Carter went to seven All Star Games as a member of the Expos, including a run of six straight from 1979 to 1983. Plus, he played in the post season in 1981. It was during those contests when the dislike built.

But the loathing came to a full head in 1986 when Carter was a member of the World Champion New York Mets. Gary Carter was center stage in that post season and certainly in that improbable tenth inning of the most famous Game Six in World Series history (perhaps eclipsed this year by the Cardinals). Gary Carter helped break my heart that season.

Though I've spent a lifetime as a fan of the Red Sox's rivals, that 1986 Red Sox team had captured my heart. It was the season I developed a major man-crush on Roger Clemens. Dwight Evans will always remain one of my favorite all time players. Wade Boggs was the most amazing hit machine I have ever seen in my baseball life. Tom Seaver was having his last hurrah with that team. Bruce Hurst was an underrated left-handed starter. Bill Buckner and Marty Barrett were blue collar heroes. Oil Can Boyd was comic relief.

That team just captured my imagination. As I have mentioned here many times, I was living in southern Maine at the time (just over the NH border) and we didn't have cable television. There was no MLB.tv. Channel 38 and the Red Sox were the only games I could watch with my antenna on the roof. So I watched nearly every game of that 1986 season. I saw every one of Clemens' brilliant starts. I saw every Wade Boggs hit. I exalted over every perfectly positioned throw from Evans in right field. It was a magical season.

And that magical season led to the 1986 World Series. I kind of liked the Mets with their band of bad boys. But, of course, I didn't like Gary Carter. And then came Game Six. The game was in the bag. This Red Sox team that I had grown to love was going to win it all! It was the bottom of the tenth with just three outs and it would be done. You can "Bill Buckner" me all you want. But I remember vividly watching that last inning and screaming at the television. It was to be one of the worst managing moments in history. Boston manager, John McNamara, lost that World Series. Buckner should have been replaced defensively. Calvin Schiraldi had already yielded the lead in the bottom of the ninth and shouldn't have started the tenth. He had already pitched two tough innings. Why was he still out there?

But then Schiraldi got the first two Mets to fly out to start the tenth. One more out! One more out! It never came. I remember standing behind the couch with the couch as a barrier between me and the television. It was if I needed the furniture to keep me from devouring the television. I was close to euphoric. The Mets were down to their last out. But then Gary Carter came up. Carter with his permed hair and his All-American boyish looks hit a single. No problem, McNamara will take Schiraldi out and get this over with. Kevin Mitchell came up to pinch hit. It was the perfect time to make the switch. Except McNamara stood there. Mitchell got a hit. Still, McNamara stood there. Then Ray Knight got a hit that scored Carter. Knight was another player I hated for much the same reasons as Carter. Of course Carter's helmet came off when he slid into home. Of course, he crowed in his All-American goodness. Of course his rah-rah style of play was evident. I fumed. That couch saved lives that day.

Finally, McNamara removed Schiraldi. Bout time, stupid. But it was too late. The rest was history. I was crushed and dancing on the field, in the middle of the pile of happy Mets was Gary Carter. Loathing became hatred. Hatred burned deeply. One of my most disliked players had helped break my heart.

Flash forward to the present. That same Gary Carter was diagnosed with cancer, that dreaded disease that strikes fear in all of us. Carter was upbeat and leaned on his faith. He faced his illness with class and courage. How can you hate such a man? Footage was shown just recently of him at an event and ravaged by illness, he still had a big smile on his face. Where does such courage and faith come from? Years of loathing and animosity melted away to admiration in less than the time it took to write this post. I came to love that Gary Carter.

How strange life is. Carter's death will forever be linked to the other loss in my life this week. The two will be paired. One man I lost will be a love grown over thirty years and an influence on my life that will never end. The other's death was a man I had disliked as long as I had loved the other man. But both are mourned today. The inherent goodness of both men is the bottom line and I have no doubt that both will have eternal rewards beyond this life. Both men led by example. One just took longer to get his message across than the other. Rest in peace gentlemen. Rest in peace.

And the Jermaine Dye Award Goes To...

Trucking Day has come and gone for baseball teams and pitchers and catchers started reporting for duty and will continue to increase in the coming days. Spring Training engines are revving up in Florida and Arizona as teams try to ready themselves for the upcoming 2012 baseball season. How exciting is that!? But it's not so exciting for some fairly well known free agents that have yet to find jobs for the upcoming season. To say these players might be getting a bit antsy is an understatement. Who will be this year's Jermaine Dye?

Why Jermaine Dye? Dye was a two-time All Star who also won a Silver Slugger Award and twice made the top 20 in MVP Voting. Dye made over $74 million during his career. But after 2009, Dye became a free agent and his phone never rang. Well, it might have a few times, but there was never a connection on what Dye was willing to make and what a team was willing to offer. His career was over just like that one year after a fifteenth place finish in MVP voting in 2008.

Dye was a casualty of baseball's new valuation analysis. Armed with all kinds of new data, teams know what players are worth and rarely allow themselves to pay above that valuation. No team saw Dye as a good option. Dye was used to making $11 million a year and never heard the new reality coming until it whacked him in the forehead.

So at least in this mind, Dye is a symbol of sorts--enough so that a new award is named after him: The Jermaine Dye Award, given to a player each year that ran headlong into the slammed door of the evaluation machine. Who are this year's candidates? Well, there is Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is one of the better pitchers of his generation. But thus far, Oswalt has limited the scope of teams he will deal with and unfortunately, those limited amount of teams haven't bit the bullet on Oswalt's price tag. But Oswalt will likely get a deal. He is still too good a pitcher in a market that covets such things. The only question is how much money he'll get.

So who else is there? Pat Burrell retired, so we can't count him. How about Johnny Damon? Hmm...that's an interesting call. His status might depend on if the Yankees can trade A.J. Burnett. But there are whispers that his desire to reach 3,000 hits have compromised his value at the plate as his quest makes him less patient. Damon is a strong contender. It's been rumored that he wants $5 million and most teams won't want to pay him that kind of money.

How about J.D. Drew? Reports are that Drew is going to retire. But no official word has come forth. In fact, no words have been written about Drew at all, which is kind of fitting as he's always been the silent type. Until Drew's announcement comes, he's a contender.

Vladimir Guerrero might be the winner of the award. Vlad is one of the best players of his generation. But his bad wheels caught up to his free-swinging ways in 2011 and his value has gone way down. It's hard to imagine a player of his magnitude settling for a cheap little deal somewhere.

Derrek Lee? Another strong candidate. Lee had a strong finish with the Pirates but that was after a sluggish stint with the Orioles. Lee has made over $90 million in his career including $7 million last year. Count on your fingers the number of teams that need a first baseman. Not many, right? He's worth a flyer as a DH, but not for any kind of significant money. Would Lee accept that? 

Ivan Rodriguez might not get an offer, which is sad. It's hard to think of baseball without him. But he's been fading for so long that he doesn't quite fit our criteria here. The same can be said for Edgar Renteria. The rest of the unsigned free agents are fringy at best unless you want to include Jason Kendall. Uh. No. Skip that. 

It appears that our candidates are Guerrero, Damon, Lee and Oswalt. Of the four, Vlad seems to be the most vulnerable. And that's a shame. He was amazing in his prime.

BBA Link Fest - In General Terms

Another week. Another links post. That may sound mundane to you, but nothing is ever mundane from the writers in the General Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. And with teams beginning to trickle in to their spring sites, anticipation is growing that our long winter without baseball is heading into spring. The links that follow are culled from all of our General Chapter sites around the country and around the world. Pour yourself another cup of coffee or tea, click some links and enjoy.

Russ Blatt over at 85% Sports thinks that Moneyball is dead in Oakland. And he is dumbfounded. Check out why.

Over at Analysis Around the Horn, Ryan Sendek has been doing amazing things prepping you for the fantasy baseball season. This week, he takes his spreadsheet for a test drive.

Sooze over at Babes Love Baseball continues her Haiku baseball previews. How unique is that!? This week, it's the Pirates.

At The Ball Caps Blog, Dan still misses the Washington Senators. Which version? Both, of course.

Stevo-sama has a lovely ode to Chuck Knoblauch and a very special World Series game in 1991. Fantastic read over at The Baseball Enthusiast.

Baseball Unrated thinks that Darvish + Cespedes = Insanity.

This week's post of the week unflinchingly goes to Blogging From the Bleachers as Aaron does a superlative job summing up the Theo Epstein compensation circus. Excellent stuff.

Blaine Blontz of Call to the Pen is very interested in what will happen with Hanley Ramirez in Miami. Blontz's post makes it so for us as well.

Mario Salvini of Che Palle! reminds us that Seattle needs to train earlier because they will start the season in Japan. The post features a touching fan tribute to Greg Halman and a new tattoo for Mike Carp.

Talk about an ambitious project! Matt Whitener of Cheap.Seats.Please. gives us two posts to cover the top 100 players of baseball. Part 1. Part 2.

Not to be outdone by Matt above, Curley Bender of Crum-Bum Beat started a great series on the top pitching rotations of all time. Golly, these guys work hard to give us such good stuff. Part 1. Part 2.

In case you haven't seen enough of Kate Upton this week...wait...oh...what?...oh...got lost in thought there for a minute. Anyway, TheNaturalMevs has her and Jay Bruce in a commercial for MLB2K12 over at Diamond Hoggers.

Just what does a third baseman do in a game anyway? Dugout 24 has the answers.

In easily one of the most intriguing post of the week comes from The OCP over at For Baseball Junkies with a terrific work on the Billy Beane era in Oakland.

The Baseball Index projects the Pirates' starting line up and admits to a man-crush.

Over at Going Yard, the writer thinks that several unsigned free agents are singing a Blondie tune.

The Golden Sombrero again has terrific content this week. The site started a great series on Spring Training invitees, which is very helpful. But for this Fan of the game, it was a little gif that caught the attention and held it.

Grubby Glove catches up with his father's favorite team in a wonderful post that's a great read.

This week brought us Valentine's Day. So it was fitting that The Hall of Very Good caught up with Ellis Valentine.

Hot Corner Harbor's Theo has some problems with another writer's NL Central projections. Agree with his final conclusions.

Well, yeah, Left Field's post this week is about football and not about baseball. But what they heck, when it's well written, it's worth reading. Even if the post opens up wounds just healing for this Fan.

Andrew Martin has been a wonderful new asset for the MLB Dirt team. His interviews with prospects around the minors have been priceless. Here's his latest.

Jonathan Hacohen's review of Howard Megdal's new book, Wilpon's Folly, over at MLB Reports is almost as good as the book itself. And that's saying a lot!

Over/Under is a fun game this time of year. Niktig's Baseball Blog gives us a meaty one worthy of some fun comments.

Want to see what Greg Maddux looked like in 1985 before he was a star? Old Time Family Baseball plucks out a great old video to show us.

The only team that has acquired better talent than the Miami Marlins this off season has been The Platoon Advantage. They signed up another great writer this week in Chris St. John. Here's his first post for the site.

For a thought provoking piece, look no further than Matthew Mahaffey's piece over at Pop Fly Boys as he looked at free agency and parity.

Replacement Level Baseball Blog continued their 2012 baseball preview series this week with a look at the NL East. Great job! The only argument here is in the number of Phillie wins.

Hardball Times writer, Jeff Gross joined Sully of Sully Baseball on his blogtalk radio show. They got into an argument. Definitely worth the listen.

Thomas Fitzgerald of Through the Fence Baseball breaks down the 2012 Boston Red Sox catchers and is a great read.

X-Log's, Mike Cardano, writes that Alex Gordon is an excellent choice for your fantasy baseball team.

Have a great week!

Applauding the Red Sox Deal with Ortiz

Last season, David Ortiz became relevant again. It was quite the surprise. And since it has been a tradition in this spot each year to ponder what the Red Sox should do with David Ortiz, such a post was written way back in November. Recently it was announced that the Red Sox and Big Papi have reached a deal to avoid arbitration. The announcement made it kind of fun to go back to those November musings. According to the announcement, Ortiz will be compensated to the tune of $14.6 million for 2012. That's about a million and a half more than what November's post recommended but at least the Red Sox were wise to resist a multiple year deal. So, well done, Mr. Cherington.

As the November post indicated, it is unlikely that Ortiz will earn his contract. And stating that seems like a contradiction to the first paragraph. But it's not really. Sometimes you have to go with a situation that is good for your ball club despite perhaps a bad value judgement on a player's worth. The Red Sox with David Ortiz in the line up in 2012 is simply a better line up than without him. Heading into his thirty-seventh year makes Ortiz a long shot to reproduce what he did last year. And no projection system consulted predicts that he will.

David Ortiz put up a slash line last year of .309/.398/.554. As noted in the November piece, Ortiz hit lefties and inside fastballs again like he did in the past. He cut down on his strikeouts. His season was among the biggest surprises in baseball. All the projections predict he will be more in the .277/.378/.515 range in 2012. That's still potent production at the designated hitter position that few teams will be able to match. With the injury to Martinez in Detroit, no other contending team has a weapon like that in their arsenal. Frankly, the projections seem a bit optimistic, but the thoughts here remain the same: The Red Sox line up will be better with David Ortiz than without him.

But that fact remains that David Ortiz is a risk. As we saw in the early stages of 2009 and 2010, what Ortiz does well can disappear just as fast. By resisting a multiple year offer, the Red Sox have continued to protect themselves from an older player suddenly declining past the reclamation point. And by signing the deal at below Ortiz's asking point in an arbitration deal probably saved them a few million if Ortiz would have won his case. In the end, the Red Sox probably paid more than market value. But the move was a wise one.

There is no doubt that David Ortiz could have one more good season in him. If he does, the Red Sox will be that much tougher to beat. If he doesn't, the Red Sox haven't sunk a cost beyond the upcoming season. Well done. Well done, indeed.

Japanese and Cuban Players Are Risky

Two of the larger story lines of this baseball off season have been the pursuit of Yu Darvish and Yeonis Cespedes. Ironically, both ended up signing for American League West teams. And the two acquisitions point to the difficulty in evaluating obtaining players from both countries. We have the scouting reports and how the players performed relative to the competition in their respective countries. But nobody knows how that will translate to success in Major League Baseball. Ozzie Guillen said it best. Wanting such players is like gambling.

Getting players from either Cuba or Japan is difficult. Japan has the posting situation where a team has to first pay the Japanese team that owns the rights to the player just for the opportunity to negotiate a deal. As the Darvish deal shows, that can be an expensive proposition. It goes without saying that a Cuban player has to first defect from his country, obtain citizenship in another country and then get a visa to play in the United States. Cuban defectors then become free agents that instigate bidding wars for their services. The final tally for the Oakland Athletics was $36 million for four years for Cespedes.

Naturally, when you have to lay out that amount of cash to obtain a player, you want that player to play in the majors and not the minors. Many experts insist that Cuban baseball is the equivalent to High A minor league baseball. It's not a guarantee that such players are ready for prime time. Japanese players have even more resistance to the idea of pitching in the minors. For a Japanese player to want to leave their home country, they want to play at the highest level in this country.

To get some kind of handle on the value proposition, a search was made of Cuban born players since 1980. The 1980 date assumes that the player in question was more highly likely to been a defection situation since those players were likely born after Fidel Castro came into power in Cuba. The search found forty players who have played a total of 173 years in the majors. Of course, many of those years were partial seasons, but we'll stick with that for now.

A similar search also found 45 Japanese players who have played a total of 175 years. This near-symmetry gives us a nice comparison point. The list of success stories among these players is not a large one. Five of the 40 Cuban players have put together careers of more than 10 bWAR. Six of the Japanese players have compiled more than 10 bWAR thus far. Sixteen of the Japanese players have negative WAR totals. Fifteen of the Cuban players have compiled negative WAR totals for their career.

Career leaders among the Japanese players:

• Ichiro Suzuki - 54.5 WAR
• Hideo Nomo - 20.6 WAR
• Hideki Matsui - 16.9 WAR
• Takashi Saito - 11.1 WAR

Career leaders among Cuban players:

• Livan Hernandez - 27.6 WAR
• Orlando Hernandez - 21.1 WAR
• Yunel Escobar - 17.2 WAR
• Jose Contreras - 13.9 WAR

That's not an overly impressive list. There are probably better ways to calculate value for Cuban and Japanese players than years played because of the obvious problem in that many of those years were partial years. Perhaps others have done better work at figuring the value proposition here. But for the sake of making a point, Japanese players have played 175 combined seasons and have compiled 205.1 WAR or 1.172 WAR per season. Cuban players have only accumulated 120 war in their 173 combined seasons or .69 WAR per season. Of course, if you take Ichiro out of the mix (the one true superstar among all of these players) the Japanese players come down to .92 WAR per season.

Players from these two countries provide strong interest among clubs in Major League Baseball. And while the teams should scour the world for talent, there is risk involved. Obtaining such players can be expensive and as we have seen in our crude little study, the value obtained hasn't been great.

NL East: A Fascinating Place: Mets

This is the last post in a series that has looked at the boiler plate that is now the National League East. The series started with a look at the Phillies and determined that, with that pitching rotation, and despite a weaker line up, should be given the nod once again as the favorite to win the division. The next three posts focused on the Braves, Marlins and Nationals and found all three of those teams with the on-paper ability to challenge the Phillies at their own game. Each of those three teams have question marks that must have positive answers to approach the amount of wins necessary to rival the Phillies. This post focuses on the Mets. To be honest, this post was dreaded.

By now, everyone is aware of the New York Mets' financial plight. Heck, even the general manager is on record as joking about it. There is no reason for this post to retread the back story to the mess the Wilpons have become. One needs to look no further than the amazing work done by Howard Megdal in his new e-book, Wilpon's Folly. That book, which can be found here, is probably the the best $2.51 you'll ever spend. Read it and you'll know all the nuances to why the Mets are where they are.

Instead, this post will focus on what the Mets will have on the field. It's certainly a cause and effect situation as the financial troubles have limited what Sandy Alderson has been able to do to field a viable team. The team lost one of its best players in Jose Reyes. But for now, it still has David Wright. Jason Bay is still a sunk cost in left field. How bad will it be? It might not be as bad as we think. Before we can actually look at the team, there was another new wrinkle in that the dimensions of Citi Field have been altered.

Again, there is no sense in breaking new ground on the new dimensions of the park the team has worked during the off season. Adam Rubin of ESPN.com has written the definitive piece on the new dimensions and includes statistics on what the dimensions mean for the team. The biggest takeaway from the terrific article is that the Mets should hit 27 more homers at home this coming season while the visiting teams should hit 23 more. And while the park should still be more favorable toward the pitchers, it's more neutral than it was before. Add that to Ryan Howard starting on the disabled list and some top sluggers like Pujols and Fielder now plying their trade in the American League, it all boils down to better news for the Mets.

One of the reasons we can make that statement is that the Mets' starting rotation consists of ground ball pitchers. The rotation should consist of Jonathan Niese (1.84 ground ball to fly ball ratio), Mike Pelfrey (1.31), R.A. Dickey (1.54), Dillon Gee (1.45) and Johan Santana (0.87 for his career). Of course, it is questionable if Santana will start the year with the Mets and if he is available, just what he can offer the team.

Jonathan Niese might be the most underrated young pitcher in the game. If you look at his record last year, you'll see an unimpressive 11-11 record with an equally unimpressive ERA of 4.40. But that cover really doesn't judge the book. He had an extremely high BABIP against last season at .333. Part of that was due to a fairly high line drive rate at 20.6 percent. The Mets' infield defense will be discussed in a moment, but suffice it to say that it didn't help Niese, a ground ball pitcher. Plus, a fairly significant amount of balls hit in the air ended up over the fence. Since opponents do not hit a lot of fly balls against him, we can consider that home rate a bit of a fluke. Niese had a FIP last season of 3.36 and an xFIP of 3.28. He was a much better pitcher than he looked.

R.A. Dickey comes right behind him following his mountain climbing adventure. Hopefully, the Mets won't hold that against him as they obviously didn't want him to risk such an feat. But it's not like the team has better options, so Dickey will get his 30 starts. The knuckleball pitcher had sort of the opposite season of Niese and with a .278 BABIP, his 3.28 ERA was a bit lucky. But Dickey is as reliable a starter as there is and should give his team a chance to win every five days out.

Mike Pelfrey is a bit of a mystery. At times he looks fantastic and then he doesn't. His real problem is that he doesn't miss enough bats. His strikeout rate was among the lowest in the majors for starting pitchers while still walking three or more batters per nine innings. That's not a good recipe. With Pelfrey, it all depends on the vagarious nature of the batted ball. Since there are a lot of them, it worked in 2010 but did not in 2011. He's a solid innings eater but that's about the best you can say.

Dillon Gee has been a bit of a good luck charm for the Mets as he has won 15 of his 23 decisions as a starting pitcher for the team. But that charm seemed to tarnish a bit in the second half last season. More precisely, luck caught up with him. He puts too many people on base with four walks per nine innings with a strikeout rate that is just passable. He produces more ground balls than fly balls and is a reliable starter. But he's not great. He's more league average and probably better than Pelfrey. But not by much.

Santana is the wild card in all of this. Nobody really knows if he will offer anything to the team in 2012. From recent history, he can't be counted on health-wise with stories as recent as December that he might not be ready to pitch. The Mets will then have to have an open audition for the fifth starter in Spring Training.

Again, this is a ground ball staff. Unfortunately, the Mets don't have the best fielding infield. David Wright is consistently rated as one of the worst fielding third basemen in baseball. He was a full ten runs below average in 2011. He is what he is and one can only hope that he has a better year in the field than normal. His offense should improve with the new dimensions and he is still enough of an offensive force to offset his defense nicely.

Ruben Tejada takes over at short. He will only be 22 years old in 2012. Tejada is a solid defender who gave the Mets surprising offensive production last year. He has no power, but he hit .284 with a .360 on-base average. That was a complete surprise and Bill James doesn't buy it in his projections this season. The Mets, of course, hope that it wasn't a fluke. Still, he's not a bad shortstop at an important position not overly ripe in the majors with talent.

Second base will be handed to Daniel Murphy. The move is a huge risk as the position isn't natural to Murphy, normally an outfielder/first basemen. He didn't overly embarrass himself at the position last season and the guy sure showed he can hit in the majors with his .350 wOBA last season in over 400 plate appearances. How his fielding plays over a full season will be interesting to watch.

Ike Davis should be back at first this season. Davis lost almost all of 2011 to injury and he is a large key to how good the Mets can be in 2011. Davis is a slick fielding first baseman who has shown flashes of excellent power with great on-base ability. This is a pivotal season for him as he has to show that he is someone the Mets can count on moving forward. If he breaks down again, the Mets do have other options but none with the upside of Davis.

Josh Thole has been a disappointment behind the plate. The thinking was that he was the catcher of the future. Instead, he had a terrible time adjusting to the majors. His offense was certainly better in the second half and he does display some decent plate discipline. He might just hit after all, but his defense left a lot to be desired and new research showed that he wasn't great at blocking balls in the dirt or framing pitches to the benefit of his pitchers. The Mets have to hope that Thole makes major strides in 2012 to become the catcher they thought they had for the future. He is backed up by Mike Nikeas, who gets a chance after a long minor league career. He's a decent receiver who has yet to show an ability to hit major league pitching.

The Mets outfield is a mixed bag with Bay still anchored in left. Bay is not as bad a defender as he is made out to be, but he's not great by any means. The disappointment for the Mets with his big contract has been his offense. After big numbers in Pittsburgh and in Boston, Bay has done little damage as a member of the Mets. Perhaps no one will benefit more from the new dimensions of his home park where so many of his fly balls went to die. The Rubin article linked earlier in this post indicates that Bay could double his home run output with the new dimensions. If he can do that and become some of the force he was in the past, Mets fans should feel better about his place on the team. His offensive performance will be quite interesting to watch in 2012.

Lucas Duda is a first baseman now playing right field. He can mash major league pitching, but he was brutal in the field. If he can improve his offense further (likely) and improve defensively (not as likely), he can be a nice player for the Mets. Still, it seems that either Duda or Ike Davis will be traded eventually.

The new center fielder is Andres Torres. He's a terrific fielder who fell down for the Giants offensively last season. He'll have to cover a lot of ground for the Mets with Duda in right and Bay in left, but he's certainly capable of doing that. The key is if he is the kind of offensive player he was in 2010 or the one he was in 2011. Bill James predicts something somewhere in the middle, which makes sense. If that comes close to being true, the Mets have a fine center fielder.

The Mets bullpen has been totally revamped for 2012 (on the cheap of course). The closer will be Frank Francisco. An earlier post at this site indicated that "Fat Frankie" as he had been dubbed by Toronto bloggers, has pitched his entire career in terrible pitcher ballparks (Texas and Toronto). He could really benefit from pitching at Citi Field as he's been a great reliever on the road and terrible at home for most of his career. Look for him to have a surprisingly good season.

That same feeling isn't shared by the addition of Jon Rauch. This really tall pitcher gave up a ton of homers last year for a relief pitcher. He is a fly ball pitcher and perhaps his new home ballpark will aid him as well. There have been whispers that he's got a bit of a messed up makeup. But we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

The Mets also obtained Ramon Ramirez from the Giants and he was very solid for them last year. He along with returnees, Bobby Parnell, Manny Acosta and D.J. Carrasco should provide the Mets will a solid bullpen.

The conclusion and bottom line for the 2012 New York Mets is that there are worse teams in the majors. The Astros and Orioles are certainly worse. If all goes really well for the Mets, they could win 80 games. But the competition in the NL East has blown by them and will be really stiff. And until the Mets financial mess can be straightened out, it will be like this for a while. They have a general manager who has dealt with building teams with a limited budget, so the news could be a lot worse. But it could be a heck of a lot better.

NL East: A Fascinating Place: Nationals

This is the fourth post in a series that has looked at the National League East, a division that has had some dynamic movement during this off season. The first post looked at the Phillies and they are the top dogs until somebody knocks them off. The Braves were covered in the second post and it was seen that they have the potential to win 95 games if everything goes perfectly. The third post covered the Marlins, who were shown to be vastly improved and could be in a position to shake up the division. Today's installment looks at the Washington Nationals. The Nationals seemed to be in on every free agent mentioned during the off season. While the team didn't get Fielder or Reyes, they did acquire two starting pitchers. Will that be enough to put them in contention?

The Nationals won 80 games last season. Can they add ten or more wins this season to put them in contention for the division or set them up for a wild card run? Like all of the teams in their division, the Nationals will live or die depending on how well their starting rotation holds up. By adding Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson, the Nationals have certainly improved their rotation. But by how much? If we trade in Gonzalez for Livan Hernandez, you substitute a 3.5 fWAR pitcher for a 1.9 fWAR. Many have worried about Gonzalez in the hitter friendly home park he will now pitch in for half of his outings. He will certainly face tougher competition within his division than he did pitching for Oakland. But he should still be at least a 3.0 fWAR pitcher giving the Nationals a one win edge on what they had with Hernandez.

Edwin Jackson illicits a lot of different reactions in baseball reporting. Some of his numbers are encouraging and others are baffling. But the bottom line is that he has garnered 3.8 fWAR in each of his last two seasons so that seems to be a figure we can stand on. If the Nationals swing him in the rotation instead of Jason Marquis, who was a 1.6 fWAR pitcher for the Nationals last season, that's a 2.2 win swing upward for the Nationals. Is this a bit of a pie in the sky picture? Well, sure. Nothing is guaranteed in baseball except the games already in the books. But in theory, between Jackson and Gio Gonzalez, the Nationals have picked up 3.3 wins. That's a start. Where else can the wins come from?

How about a full year of Stephen Strasburg? Worried about giving him a full year? Don't blame you. It's scary. But even if Strasburg makes only fifteen starts (three times as many as last year), then he should triple his 1.1 fWAR, right? If he gets to twenty starts, then that's 4.4 fWAR based on his five starts last year. Twenty starts seems to be a realistic goal and expectation. That 4.4 fWAR would effectively replace his own fWAR last year along with Ross Detwiler's 0.6 WAR and Chien-Ming Wang's 0.2 WAR. Or, to put it another way, 4.4 WAR replaces 1.9 WAR from last year giving the Nationals up another 2.5 for a gained total so far of 5.8 wins. With everything else being equal, the Nationals are now theoretically up to 86 wins.

And yes, this is a simplistic way of looking at things as WAR doesn't go hand in hand with wins on a one to one basis, but we're just shooting the breeze here, right? Now say Jordan Zimmermann is as effective as last year but can increase his output to 200 innings. You can gain another half a win there. John Lannon is John Lannon and we can only expect him to be about as good as last year. Therefore, our grand increase in wins from the starting rotation is up 6.3 wins.

The problem from here is that the offense and the bullpen really can't make up the four win difference we need to push the Nationals to the 90 win total. Well, maybe it can if you think about it. Say Ryan Zimmerman can get 600 plate appearances instead of 440, that should add a win or two to our total. For the sake of being conservative, give him one more win. And let's say that Ian Desmond and Michael Morse can improve their defense by about half, which isn't unreasonable with Desmond's maturity rate and Morse becoming more proficient in the outfield (agreed, a stretch). That would be another win. 

Okay, now comes the stroke of genius. Let's give Jayson Werth the benefit of the doubt and call last year an off year. Werth was a five fWAR player for two straight seasons with the Phillies before last season which came in at a disappointing 2.5. All he has to do is get back to his Phillies-like performance and you pick up another two and a half wins. We're almost there!

It's not like this grand game is not without its pitfalls. Wilson Ramos became one of the better catchers in the game last season. He will need to keep improving. Michael Morse's fantastic slugging season last year will have to continue. Adam LaRoche will have to be better than the average Adam LaRoche. Roger Bernadina and Danny Espinosa will need to continue to improve.

The bullpen will have to be as good as it was last year and as good as it still looks on paper with Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard, Brad Lidge and Sean Burnett in the most important roles. The Nationals also have some depth. Chien-Ming Wang showed flashes of his old self last season. Tom Gorzelanny is capable in a pinch as is Detwiler. The Nationals also have some exciting talent waiting in the wings in case some of these pieces get broken.

There are concerns for this Nationals team. You have to wonder about Morse. You have to wonder if Ian Desmond can really be the shortstop the Nationals need. Can Werth bounce back? Can Zimmerman and Zimmermann stay healthy? These are all questions that will need to be answered once the season starts. But just imagine--if you can--these Washington Nationals performing as capable on the field as they appear to be on paper. If that happens, this NL East races can be a really wild race. It can happen and it just might. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch.

Yet Another New MLB Statistic

There are simply some records over at Baseball-reference.com that are more fun to look at than others. Russell Branyan has one of those records. Russell the Muscle just signed a minor league contract with the New York Yankees. If Branyan manages to crack the Yankees' line up, it will be the eleventh franchise for which the slugger has played. So far, he has homered at least once in each of his stops. Branyan now has played parts of fourteen seasons. But his Baseball-reference.com page is 25 lines long. That seemed like a lot. And so hours were culled on B-R to see how unique that figure is. This research has resulted in yet another new statistic called, "Baseball-reference Lines Per Years Played." Obviously, we need an acronym: BRLPYP.

And it turns out that Russell Branyan is not the record holder for BRLPYP. He is among the leaders but he doesn't come out on top. Our all time record holder for BRLPYP is Bobo Newsom. Newsom pitched for nine teams over his twenty year career from 1929 to 1953. A right-handed pitcher, Newsom won 211 games. But he lost 222. Even so, his career ERA+ was 107, so he was pretty good. Newsom's Baseball-reference.com record is 38 lines long. From what research can tell during this journey, that is also a record. The longest B-R records were: Newsom (38), Deacon McGuire (35), Rickey Henderson (33) with David Weathers, Terry Mulholland and Hoyt Wilhelm all tied at 32. Newsom's 38 lines for 20 seasons gives him a BBLPYP of 1.9 even.

Second all time in BBLPYP is Willie Montenez at 1.857. Montenez played for parts of fourteen seasons for nine different teams between 1966 and 1982. He was originally signed by the Cardinals but they lost him in the Rule 5 draft to the Angels who gave him back to the Cardinals less than a year later. Montenez is also part of MLB history because he was the player the Cardinals sent to the Phillies when Curt Flood refused to be part of that deal. Thus began Flood's fight against Major League Baseball. Montenez was a useful hitter for a long time but never stayed in one place very long. Amazingly, he played for multiple teams in the same seasons on six different occasions. His B-R record is 26 lines long.

Branyan comes in third all time with a BBLPYP of 1.796. Following Branyan on our all time BBLPYP list are:

• Bob Miller - 1.705 (29 lines for 17 seasons)
• Ocavio Dotel - 1.692 (22 lines for thirteen seasons). Dotel will set a record if he plays for the Tigers this season as his thirteenth franchise.
• David Weathers - 1.684 (32 lines for 19 seasons)
• Chuck McElroy - 1.615 (21 lines for 13 seasons)
• Terry Mulholland - 1.6 (32 lines for 20 seasons)

This new statistic is sure to rock the very foundation of the Sabr community.

NL East: A Fascinating Place: Marlins

This is the third post in a series looking at the newly fascinating National League East Division. In the first two installments, the Phillies were given the top spot they deserve until some team dethrones them. They have been the king. The Braves finished a distant second last season with a fade at the end but were found to be capable of winning 95 games if everything goes according to plan. But that's a long shot. The truth is that they still look like an 89-win team. The early post season was dominated by the newly renamed, Miami Marlins. They have a new manager, a new ballpark, a new shortstop, new pitchers and a new outlook on life. Can this team that lost 90 games a year ago compete with the big boys this year? Let's take a look.

The Miami Marlins' quest for legitimacy rests largely on the starting rotation. Carlos Zambrano and Mark Buehrle should provide some stability to what has been a rotation in flux for multiple seasons. Of course, "stability," is kind of a relative term when mentioning Carlos Zambrano. But the thought here is that he will be fine working under Ozzie Guillen, his friend, and living large under the Florida sun. Buehrle, of course, is stability personified and about as consistent as a pitcher gets. He's not spectacular, but if you want quality innings by the boatloads, Buehrle will give you that.

Anibal Sanchez is also a stable force in that rotation. He had a weird season last year when he was among the best pitchers of the first half and then was nearly non-existent in the second half. But make no mistake about it, Sanchez is one tough pitcher with a great arsenal of pitches and loads of talent. He could very easily put together a big season under Ozzie.

The other two rotation spots are worrisome for different reasons. Josh Johnson has to be in the top five of pitchers in the National League with his talent. But he can't seem to stay healthy. If Johnson can get thirty starts, whoo boy, that would be interesting to watch. The guy can bring it. One of these years, he's going to stay healthy. If this is that season, the Marlins will be very tough indeed. 

The other is Ricky Nolasco. Every year, Nolasco's FIP is lower than his actual ERA and we all scratch our heads and wonder why he isn't better than he's shown. But he regressed last year and line drives whistled all over the place (23.8 percent) and his BABIP jumped to .331. Perhaps he'll settled down this season. All the Marlins really need is for him to be as good as he was in 2010 and 2011. They would take that kind of performance from their fifth starter in a heartbeat.

On paper, this rotation could put together a big season. But Zambrano has to prove he still has something in the tank, Nolasco needs to be better and Josh Johnson needs to stay healthy.

The Marlins' bullpen should be solid. The addition of Heath Bell slots Juan Carlos Oviedo into the number two spot where he should belong. Mike Dunn showed that he has a big arm and the rest of the bullpen is passable. Bell should make a huge difference. Man, San Diego and now Florida? Bell sure knows how to pick his paradises.

Catching those pitchers isn't a pretty aspect of this team. John Buck is one seriously overrated catcher. His only real positive is blocking balls in the dirt. His offense was a one year fluke up in Toronto and a whole bunch of nothing in most other years and he's terrible at obtaining strikes on close pitches with the way he receives the pitch. Backing him up is the equally ineptness of Brett Hayes. The catching position is a real weakness on this team.

The infield, on the other hand, could be a real strength. Omar Infante is terrific defensively at second base, but slipped pretty dramatically at the plate last season. Projections predict him to bounce back in 2012. That's important and would certainly help. With Buehrle, his defense should really come in handy.

Jose Reyes, of course, was the biggest acquisition of the off season and will be the shortstop. Reyes, when healthy, is one of the premier all-around shortstops in baseball. His energy also lifts a baseball team, something the Mets will surely miss. Naturally, his health will always be a concern. He has to stay healthy to make this deal work and to bring the Marlins to the next level. Perhaps the warm weather in Florida will help him to keep those muscles loose.

Gaby Sanchez is a great defender at first. But he isn't a slugger. He's more of a contact hitter, which makes him somewhat of an anomaly at the position. The good news is that with the Fielder and Pujols defections to the other league, power hitting first basemen will be rarer in the National League. That bodes well for the Marlins. Sanchez is steady and productive if not spectacular.

That brings us to the enigma of Hanley Ramirez. The erstwhile star will move to third, which is good news for the Marlins defensively. The feeling here is that Ramirez will respond to Ozzie Guillen and will rebound offensively. The prediction here is that in 2012, Hanley Ramirez will reestablish himself as a premier batsman in the National League. If he can do that, look out National League!

The Marlins outfield is a bit of a puzzle. We baseball experts made fun of Emilio Bonifacio for years until he shut us all up with a 3.3 fWAR season last year with surprising defense in center with a .360 on-base percentage. Is he really that good? Time will tell. It's still hard to believe. But for now, he's not the butt of our jokes anymore.

Logan Morrison is still a first baseman playing the outfield. He's terrible out there. And his offense took a dive in 2011 as well. The guy has all kinds of talent though and should rebound offensively. Whether he can improve his defense is another whole kettle of fish. It would be great if LoMo could be better known for his play again then his tweets on Twitter.

Everybody loves Mike Stanton and the big kid has proved more than adequate in right field. He also busted out with 34 homers while adding 30 doubles last season. His upside is tremendous and we all look forward to what he can achieve in baseball. In order for him to reach his potential though, his pitch recognition needs to improve greatly and he needs to make more contact. Take that power and add twenty points to his batting average and you have the bomb.

The Marlins' bench is a weakness and the Marlins lack depth. If anyone gets hurt, the team could have trouble. If things don't go well physically, this team could easily fall to a .500 level. But if they stay healthy? If the Marlins push all the right buttons and everyone plays to their ability level, this team could get scary and challenge the existing powers in the division. And hey, it will be fun to see that home run feature going off in center field!

BBA Linkfest - General Anticipation

The members of the General Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance are getting excited now that pitchers and catchers report to their spring assignments in less than two weeks. Great posts are blossoming everywhere. But then again, if you have been following this weekly links post every Thursday, you know that great posts are the norm around the chapter. As we do each week at this time, here are this week's General Chapter links. Please give a click and your comments are always appreciated.

We'll start this week with a link from Going Yard and the provocative title of, "Why I Hate ESPN." That's enough of a teaser for you to click the link.

Sadly, The Golden Sombrero's, Dee Clark, finished his amazing series on the top fifty prospects. But hey, one series ends and Mike Rosenbaum begins another with a preview of the baseball draft. The first of the series introduces us to Joey Gallo, the fine wine of prospects?

Grubby Glove has a proposal for its BBA buds. This Fan thinks we should support it. Also check out a wonderful post on what a baseball fan did on Super Bowl Sunday.

You can probably guess which athlete Forbes Magazine selected as its most hated player in baseball. Just in case you guessed wrong, The Hall of Very Good has the answer.

Theo of at Hot Corner Harbor plays a game of, "Name that Molina." How fun is that!? Must read in spades.

Our friend over at Left Field gives us the newest market inefficiency. Bet you can't guess what it is.

If you haven't been following along on Jonathan Mitchell's top prospects series, you are seriously missing out. This week's version is on the top prospects in the Twins' organization. MLB Dirt.

Sam Evans over at MLB Reports has an interesting idea for MLB about its roster size.

Over at Niktig's Baseball Blog, its author makes some bold 2012 predictions. Time will tell!

Old Time Family Baseball remembers when Nick Johnson was hungry. His hunger turned into a problem. Read on.

Sadly, this will be the last link here for Mark Smith over at The Platoon Advantage as he was hired by the Atlanta Braves. But how cool is that!? Good for you, Mark. In the meantime, TPA picked up another great writer in Cee Angi. Great choice!

Since we've already mentioned ESPN and since the Super Bowl is still in our memory back (alas), J-Doug over at Rational Pastime takes an analytical look at ESPN's Super Bowl picks.

The Replacement Level Baseball Blog has a great series going on looking at each division heading into 2012. You should read all of them. But the latest is on the AL West.

Over at The Sports Banter, one writer's head is still spinning at the David Wright rumors. Rightly so.

The usually effervescent Sully over at Sully Baseball has a more sobering moment this week with a tribute to Danny Clyburn, who was sadly killed this week. A fitting tribute. 

Danny Zyskind of Through the Fence Baseball reminds us of a forgotten prospect--a guy whose name was on a lot of people's lips just a few years ago.

Russ Blatt has started a fun series over at 85% Sports on how baseball teams got their names. He starts with the AL East. Fun stuff!

Ryan Sendek of Analysis Around the Horn has given you fantasy baseball fans the ultimate tool for your drafts! You have to check this out.

Sooze over at Babes Love Baseball is doing her favorite thing: Baseball Season Previews. But Sooze does them in Haiku! Can guarantee you that nobody else comes close to matching that!

The writer of The Ball Caps Blog has a really lame television set. He ain't kidding either. Highly entertaining stuff.

Baseball Unrated's weekly column feature this week bounces off a Danny Knobler piece on steroid users and the Hall of Fame.

Kyle Davis of Call to the Pen spotted a couple of big stars in full uniform.

Mario Salvini of Che Palle! wants you to buy a lock of Jose Reyes' hair. It is for a good cause, but eww.

Matt Whitener of Cheap.Seats.Please. announces his top five moments in Cardinal history from a fan's perspective. 

In exciting news, Crum-Bum Beat has found Derek Holland's missing mustache!

TheNaturalMevs of Diamond Hoggers fame forgives Josh Hamilton. Agree with every sentiment here.

The Baseball Index has some American League post season predictions for 2012. Agree? Disagree? Check it out.

Matt Melton of Pop Fly Boys ponders on how the Cardinals can replace Albert Pujols. 

Have a great week everyone!

NL East: A Fascinating Place: Braves

Yesterday began a new series on the National League East, a division that has dramatically evolved during the off season. The series began, of course, with the Phillies. The Phillies are still the top dog until some team rises and knocks them off their perch. Could that team be the Atlanta Braves? Not if it is last year's Braves who never looked as good as the Phillies. And certainly not the September Braves who had as bad a fall as the Red Sox and lost was looked earlier to be an insurmountable wild card lead. As we look at the 2012 Braves, the first question is if this team is better than 89 wins.

Why 89 wins? Because last year, 89 wins wasn't good enough for the playoffs and it won't be enough again this coming season. The Phillies should win 90 at the very least. So the Braves need to be better in 2012 than they were in 2011. Is there any hope that they can be better? Yes and no. Yes because so many of their players had down seasons in 2011 and no because there are a lot of "ifs" on this team. Of the early projections consulted for this piece, 89 wins was this team's projection. Uh oh.

The easiest place to start are with the "Ifs." The biggest "if" of the 2012 season is the health of three-fifths of the Braves' starting rotation. Tim Hudson is coming off back surgery (November) to repair a herniated disc. Tommy Hanson missed most of the second half with persistent pain in his shoulder. A small hole was found but surgery was not deemed necessary. Hanson says he is fine and ready for Spring Training. Lastly, Jair Jurrjens missed much of the second half with knee problems. Jurrjens and Hanson had a big first half of the season in 2011 only to be unavailable much of the rest of the season. IF the best case scenario results and all three can pitch with good health for most of the season, then the Braves will be in good shape depending on some other "ifs." Brandon Beachy and Mike Minor should be solid in the back end of the rotation.

What does Chipper Jones have left? Jones played 126 games last season and managed 512 plate appearances. That was more than expected considering his age and the condition of his knees. The problem is that the Braves are in the National League and Jones has to play the field to play at all. Chipper Jones wasn't a great third baseman in his prime and he certainly is a liability in the field now. Even so, if the Braves can get the same production from this future Hall of Fame player as he was in 2011, the value proposition still works. Martin Prado can come in from left field to replace Jones if Jones' health falters. But the Braves need Chipper to have one more good season.

Can Tyler Pasternicky (proposing "Reverend Nick" for a nickname) make the jump to Major League Baseball? The kid is only 21 but is projected to be the Braves' starting shortstop. The good news is that he can't be much worse than Alex Gonzalez was last year for the Braves. The Braves carried Gonzalez to the tune of a .270 on-base percentage last year and his defense declined. If Pasternicky can come close to a .300 on-base percentage and play solid defense, he will be an improvement. Scouting reports blunt some of the enthusiasm of Pasternicky as a prospect. So we'll have to see how this works out. If Pasternicky can't cut it, the Braves have a backup plan in Jack Wilson. Wilson is still a good shortstop but can't hit much better than Gonzalez.

The last "if" is whether the bullpen can stay fabulous after a year of overuse and IF manager, Fredi Gonzalez, can be compelled to go to that well less often. When your bullpen is that good, it's tough to resist the temptation. A projected bullpen of Craig Kimbrel, Jonny Venters, Eric O'Flaherty, Kris Medlen, Arodys Viscaino, Anthony Varvaro and Christhian Martinez are a collective weapon in what has to be the best bullpen in baseball.

The good news is that Martin Prado, Dan Uggla and Jason Heyward all had offensive seasons below expectations last year. Uggla has had bad years before and always bounced back with a good one. He seems to be on the "every-other-year" plan of offensive efficiency. This, then, should be the good year. But even his "off" year was good enough for second place on the team in fWAR (among position players). Uggla's defense will always be a liability. It's been said in this space before: Switching Uggla to left and bringing Prado back to the infield is the thing to do. But that will never happen.

Speaking of Martin Prado, he also had an off year offensively. After being a .300+/.350+/.450+ guy for the Braves the previous three seasons, Prado sank to .260/.302/.385 last season. A .266 BABIP certainly didn't help and that gives hope that Prado should bounce back to his career norms. If he can, that would be a two win swing for the Braves.

Jason Heyward is saying all the right things this off season. He is working hard and has a positive outlook. He'll need it. Heyward was so good in 2010 and so bad in 2011 that it is really difficult to know which player will show up in 2012. The kid just seems to have too much ability not to bounce back. But it is a huge concern. Heyward lost his manager's confidence last season and when he did play, was placed at the back end of the batting order. If Heyward is not hitting in the middle of the line up and making things happen, the Braves have less of a chance than otherwise.

Looking around the rest of the team, the Braves are led by Brian McCann, one of the most under-appreciated players of his age. You can count on McCann to have another solid season and he is backed up quite capably behind the plate by David Ross.

Freddie Freeman should be able to build on a great rookie season and if he can improve his defense, will be a fixture at first base for quite some time. Expect even better power numbers this season and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Freeman can slug over .500 this coming season.

Michael Bourn faltered a bit for the Braves down the stretch and for a fast guy, he should be more patient at the plate. But he's the best center fielder the Braves have had in years and the Braves can only benefit by having Bourn the entire season. 

After considering this team the last couple of hours, the conclusion is that if everything goes right, this could be a 95 win team. Good seasons from Uggla, Heyward and Prado could be worth four or five wins. Even if the rotation has some health issues, Randall Delgado and Julio Teheran are waiting in the wings for their chance. Pasternicky or Wilson shouldn't hurt them and should provide good defense in what is a sub-par defensive infield. The Braves have a terrific defensive outfield, a strong bullpen and a top five catching core. A lot has to go right for them to win 95 games. But if it does, 2012 will be mighty interesting in Atlanta.

NL East: A Fascinating Place: Phillies

The East division of the National League is starting to look a lot like the American League version. There are the obvious contenders, the interesting teams who have greatly improved themselves and one really bad club. And with an extra wild card spot now up for grabs, the division will prove even more interesting. The Miami Marlins have a new stadium, a new manager and new fire power. The Nationals have put a great rotation (on paper) together and have Bryce Harper looming. The Phillies have been perennial division winners and the Braves still have a very good team. 2012 could be a fascinating season. In the next few days, we'll look at each team in the division starting today with the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Phillies still have three of the best starting pitchers on the planet in Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels. The trio's strikeout to walk ratio alone makes them breathtaking to behold. Barring injury, three out of five games, the Phillies will be pretty hard to beat. Vance Worley proved to be capable of replacing the now departed, Roy Oswalt. Joe Blanton and Joel Pineiro will battle for the fifth rotation spot with Blanton already under contract and therefore given the edge. There's little doubt that Worley will regress a bit. But his strikeout rate and other peripherals were very good and make a large regression doubtful. If Blanton comes back with a strong season, the Phillies will be hard to catch.

The Phillies bullpen now sports one of the game's best closers in Jonathan Papelbon. Love the guy or hate him, he's been terrific over the years. Antonio Bastardo can be a dastardly number two, especially if he can lower his walk rate just a bit. Bastardo was nasty last season with only a .179 batting average on balls in play to go along with his 10.86 strikeouts per nine innings. The rest of the bullpen is not inspiring. The team has added Dontrelle Willis and Chad Qualls to go along with the promising Michael Stutes and the versatile (if not overpowering) Kyle Kendrick. The aged Jose Contreras may start the season on the disabled list.

The bullpen depth shouldn't be that much of a concern with the Phillies' rotation. The top three will give you six to eight innings every start.

The Phillies' offense is a bit of a concern. After scoring 5.06 runs per game in 2009, that figure fell to 4.77 in 2010 and fell again to 4.40 runs per game in 2011. The season will already begin with slugger, Ryan Howard, on the disabled list and despite reports that he is healing well, an Achilles tendon injury is not an easy one to recover from. Either Ty Wigginton or John Mayberry Jr. will play first until Howard returns. Both are solid batsmen so there shouldn't be a large gap in production there.

Both Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley have slipped offensively since their peaks a few years ago. Both are still terrific defensively and if at least one of them can flip a switch back in time to regain some of that lost production, it would be helpful to the Phillies' cause. Both will be 33 in 2012 and you can't expect the players they were in their prime. But both are capable of better seasons than we saw in 2011.

Placido Polanca remains anca-ed at third. Sorry. Just felt silly for a moment. Anyway, Polanca is 36 years old and while he remains an elite fielding third baseman, he hasn't been the same offensive force he was back in 2007. Plus, the injury bug has plagued him in recent seasons.

All in all, the Phillies have a tight and wonderful defensive infield with some offensive question marks. The Phillies do have to figure out who can back up the starters since they traded Wilson Valdez.

Two-thirds of the outfield is set with Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence. Victorino is among the five best center fielders in the game and Pence was a fabulous pick up last season. Left field candidates include Laynce Nix, Mayberry and perennial prospect, Domonic Brown. If Mayberry doesn't start the season at first, he probably has the edge and was surprisingly good on defense in left last season. And it's hard not to like his bat.

Carlos Ruiz has become a leader from his catching position and he backed up a terrific 2010 season with a solid one in 2011. He should be a fixture behind the plate for the Phillies for years to come. Brian Schneider had a dismal season in 2011 as Ruiz's backup. But the backup catching position is probably still his to lose.

After going through the team in this exercise, it seems like the Phillies have few question marks other than age, Howard's return, left field and a backup infielder and catcher. With their rotation and experience, the team seems like a lock to win at least 90 games. You have to favor them to hold on to the division for at least another season. But as we shall see in the next couple of articles on this division, the road won't be as easy as it has been.

Cliff Lee and Fastball Velocity

Cliff Lee certainly was worth his newly-earned free agent salary last season for the Philadelphia Phillies. Lee kept his end of the bargain for the "dream" rotation that nearly overcame some of his team's offensive deficiencies but fell short of their World Series goal. Lee and Halladay in particular have become as automatic a value package as you can find anywhere. According to Fangraphs, Lee's fWAR the last four seasons: 7.2, 6.6, 7.2 and 6.7. And while he makes his rotation start like clockwork year after year, the one fact that is still a head scratcher is his velocity.

Cliff Lee pitched into his tenth season last year during his thirty-second year on earth. And despite all the wear and tear a pitcher's arm endures, especially since Lee has not missed many starts since 2007, Lee's fastball velocity continues to rise year after year. Starting in 2007, Lee's velocity (according to Pitch/FX) has had the following progression: 2007 - 89, 2008 - 90.5, 2009 - 91.1, 2010 - 91.3 and 2011 - 91.5. How is that possible? Doesn't that seem to defy logic? Along with his fastball velocity, he has had a similar rise in velocity in his cutter as well.

To think this through logically, there are two ways to improve velocity: conditioning and mechanics. Today's baseball players are highly conditioned machines. They no longer have off seasons and condition themselves year round. So Lee must be very good at keeping himself in tip-top shape. After all, the guy looks like a terrific athlete. If you compare him to say, Mark Buehrle, a pitcher who throws with the same left arm and is about the same age, Lee appears on the face of it to be better conditioned. Perhaps that is some part of Lee's constant increase while Buehrle has lost velocity.

But that comparison isn't fair to Buehrle. Who knows how hard the new Marlins' pitcher conditions himself? Heck, he might work just as hard as Cliff Lee. As sophisticated as today's conditioning knowledge has become, you have to assume that most pitchers work just as hard. So there has to be another answer. And yes, that answer has to be mechanics. 

Let's take a quick look at Cliff Lee's Pitch/FX release points. We'll start with his horizontal release point over the years thanks to Brooks Baseball:

Now his vertical release point:

It seems very apparent from looking at those two maps that Cliff Lee has continually tightened his mechanics from year to year. In 2008, there was quite a bit of variation, particularly in the horizontal release point. In 2009, there was much more play in his vertical release point. But look how tight everything is in 2011! Just to have a frame of reference, we'll use Mark Buehrle again. What follows are Buehrle's release point maps. First the horizontal.

And now Buehrle's horizontal release point map:

Mark Buehrle's release point isn't nearly as clean as Cliff Lee's. Lee has seemed to clean up his mechanics from year to year and that has to account for a crisper fastball. And Lee's mechanics not only aid his velocity. Pitch/FX also shows that Lee has more vertical and horizontal movement on all of his pitches now than he had before. 

Cliff Lee is simply an artist that has fine tuned his craft year after year until he can virtually repeat his delivery for optimum speed and spin. That's a beautiful thing for the Phillies and not so pretty a picture for teams that have to face him.

Roy Oswalt and Market Determination Revisited

Yesterday in this space, this author wrote that Roy Oswalt had earned the right to limit his market choices and to stick to his price in negotiations as a free agent. The piece was a counterpoint to another writer who stated that Oswalt "had too big a head" and can move along from the St. Louis Cardinals' feeding trough. The point was also made that Oswalt is well worth what he is asking for his services. This other writer wasn't very happy about yesterday's post and chose to rebut it by reprinting this writer's entire post and interspersing comments throughout. That's kind of rude, but at least the writer provided a link back to here. Thanks for the page views, sir.

Disagreement is fine. Enlightenment only comes from open dialogue, which is why the Freedom of Speech is so important to us as a people. Your host here certainly doesn't believe he knows all the answers. Somebody once said that wisdom begins with the knowledge that there is more unknown than known. So the name calling directed here as "noninformed ," is not overly troublesome. Without resorting to a flame war, which is way too unseemly in polite society, this author does want to make a few points in response.

The key issue is market determination. That other writer feels that Oswalt has run into a problem where the market considers his value lower than Oswalt does. That would be true enough if Oswalt had allowed a complete and open market for his services to develop and could still not find a job. Oswalt's true "problem" is that he has limited his market choices to a few teams that do not care to pay Oswalt what he wants. If Oswalt was available to any team on the market, someone surely would have given him the money is is asking.

Roy Oswalt doesn't want to pitch in Seattle or Detroit or a host of other different cities. He has narrowed his choices to just a few teams he would consider. That's not a true market determination problem. That's a personal market limitation choice that has led to a problem. This other writer also states that Oswalt's performance value (which last year stood at $11.1 million, Oswalt's lowest) doesn't matter. It's the market that matters. But performance value does matter. That's why the Phillies chose not to offer Oswalt arbitration. Arbitration would have given Oswalt the money. That's what arbitration does.

Okay, you might say that the Phillies just proved the market determination point. It only proves it as far as the Phillies were concerned. They had cheaper options in Vance Worley, etc., and have a huge and unwieldy payroll they have to worry about. Other teams may not have those options or problems. Let's look at the Cardinals as an example. On the Cardinals, only two of their pitchers' performances were more valuable than Roy Oswalt's last season: Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia. Jake Westbrook was paid $8 million and was far less valuable a pitcher. Kyle Lohse made $11.8 million and was far less valuable. On paper, Adam Wainwright is more valuable than Roy Oswalt. But let's see what happens as he returns from Tommy John surgery.

Could Roy Oswalt be a benefit to the Cardinals? Certainly. Will they choose to pay Oswalt $10 million for a season. Maybe not. We'll see. This other writer made a point that the Cardinals can't afford $10 million for 139 innings. The Cardinals are still $20 million below last year's payroll and that's with the addition of Furcal and Beltran and a bump in salary to Berkman and Garcia. With the cash from their World Series title, the savings from Pujols and La Russa, the team may well choose to incur more profit this season as is their right. But they could certainly afford Oswalt.

Roy Oswalt has made the personal choice to limit his market. That choice may lead to less income (or no income) than he wants. Any personal choice comes with inherent risks. Frankly, any team that wants to compete should sign the guy. Pitchers with his skill aren't rampant in the game. Feel free to disagree. Oswalt's problem isn't that he has a big head. He absolutely knows his value. He has simply chosen fewer teams to pay him market value rather than allowing the full marketplace to bid on his services. Time will tell if his choice costs him in the end.