Adrain Beltre - a product of his environment

Adrian Beltre will be heading into his Age 34 season with fifteen years already accumulated in his Major League Baseball career. Since his first (partial) season was at age 19, it seems like Beltre has been around forever. And Beltre has a chance to put up the kind of counting stats that will guarantee him a spot in the Hall of Fame, especially when you combine his fielding stats. But if you look at Beltre's career, his numbers have fluctuated greatly from season to season. Mariners fans have to be looking at what Beltre has done over his last three seasons and wonder what the heck happened. And Beltre had that one big year for the Dodgers and several not so big years there. Park effect has really been a factor in Beltre's career.

Where Beltre currently plays his home games is good news for him when it comes to piling on the rest of his counting stats because it is such a good hitters' park. For example, in his two seasons there, Beltre has a triple slash line at Ameriquest Field of .328/.369/.608. Yes, those numbers are pretty. But Beltre spent the bulk of his career playing his home games in Seattle and Los Angeles. Here are his slash lines in those two parks compared to his career line:

• Dodger Stadium: .253/.316/.423
• Safeco Field: .252/304/.411
• Career Stats: .280/.331/.476

It becomes really obvious that all those games in those two ballparks had a severe impact on Beltre's career. Out of curiosity, I wanted to get rid of the stats in all three of his home ballparks to see if that could gives me some insight of what kind of offensive player Beltre really is. I realize that other stats already do this such as wRC+ and OPS+ for example. But I wanted more organic counting stats to see the difference.

So what I did was to take his career stats and subtracted all the stats from Dodger Stadium, Safeco Field and even Ameriquest since that park has inflated his stats a bit the last two seasons. I did not bother with his one season in Boston. So taking out those three parks, the rest of the stats give him a career triple slash line of .292/.340/.496. This, to me, gives a truer picture of the kind of offensive player that Beltre has been. Sure, I know these are sloppy stats because all the rest of his non-home stats have come in all kinds of different parks and conditions and I am no mathematician. But I do believe that this triple slash line gives a better picture.

If you take the triple slash line of his non-home stats and use those numbers for his whole career, Beltre would have 96 more hits than his 2,227. He would have 51 more doubles than his current 463. He would have fifteen more triples than his career 30. Surprisingly, the home run total works out almost the same and his walk and HBP totals go down. Here is a picture of my spreadsheet. Click on it to make it larger.

Now I realize that Beltre's career will be measured without any of this hoopla. And heck, he is already rated according to JAWS as the twelfth best third baseman ever. And that is only going to rise the longer he plays. Beltre seems destined for the Hall of Fame no matter what his numbers were in LA and Seattle. I just feel that those two parks dragged him down to make that HOF vote a little less than a slam dunk years from now. The odds are good that he will reach 3,000 hits, 450 homers and 1500 runs batted in if he plays five more seasons. 

In other words, the combination of his offense and defense will give him a ticket. They just might have been a little prettier if he hadn't had all those plate appearances in those two unforgiving offensive ballparks.

Jordan Pacheco - fooled by batting average

During the last week, I have been extolling the virtues (or lack thereof) of my first ever mock draft. And to be honest, the results so far show that despite comforting words from my MLB Dirt colleagues that I would do fine, I didn't. I am gaining new respect for the people that write about fantasy baseball and who are successful at playing it. Jordan Pacheco is the third of four players I have written about now who fooled me with his batting average and on-base average. As it turns out, those two stats are like gold plating aluminum foil.

I feel stupid, frankly. Pacheco quietly put together over 500 plate appearances for the Colorado Rockies last season. Who knew and how did I miss that?  He sort of symbolizes all that is wrong with the Rockies as they have spiraled into ridicule over the last couple of seasons. Pacheco is a guy who is going to give you a good batting average with little power playing two positions that require some power (first and third), can catch on occasion and can't field any of his positions. And frankly, his numbers are inflated by his home ballpark. And I was excited about picking him? Duh.

Pacheco was drafted as a second baseman / shortstop type. In his first year in the minors, he played those two positions and also third and did not play any of those positions well. The following year, the Rockies had the bright idea of converting him to catching. That first year, he had 21 passed balls in 44 games. But the Rockies kept trying and he finished his minor league catching career with a 24% success rate throwing out base runners and had 51 passed balls in just 294 games. He also made 27 errors behind the plate.

But the Rockies must have been intrigued anyway because his offensive numbers looked good. He hit at every level and had a minor league .308 average with a .380 on-base average. The batting average has translated to the majors but not the on-base percentage. In 2008 and 2010 in the minors, Pacheco walked eleven percent of the time. So far in his major league career, that rate is 4.2 percent. He only walked 22 times in 505 plate appearances for the big club.

And it turns out that his numbers are a Coors mirage. Pacheco's OPS at Coors was .878. His OPS away from Coors was .646. Twenty-five of his forty extra base hits were hit at home. And he is much better against left-handed pitching than he is against right-handed pitching by almost 80 points. He had a good on-base percentage against lefties and none at all against right-handed ones.

So Jordan Pacheco has no position, has offensive stats that are inflated by Coors, never walks, has little power and looks bad against right-handed pitching. Obviously, I am not very good at this fantasy draft thing. Not good at all. 

Jose Altuve under a microscope

This is the third post in which I try to rate how well I did on my first ever mock draft. To this point, I liked my catcher (Mauer) and did not much like my shortstop (Desmond). Today, I take a look at my second baseman, Jose Altuve. When I was looking at the available second basemen, I saw Altuve's name and I saw the .290 average and .340 on-base percentage along with the 33 steals. Those things looked pretty good to me so I picked him. I knew nothing about the guy except that he was Freddie Patek-kind of short. Altuve is listed at five foot, five inches which is ridiculously short for a baseball player. I wish now that I had known more than just his size and a few counting stats.

It turns out that Altuve was tied with Murphy of the Mets as the sixteenth best second baseman in baseball last season. Since there were twenty-two qualifying second basemen last year, sixteenth isn't very good. What hurt Altuve the most in his ranking was his fielding. And this was a big surprise for me. Of all second basemen that qualified for the batting title, Jose Altuve ranked next to last with his fielding.

The reason this is such a surprise is that Jose Altuve has better than average range. Both his range factor and his range factor per game were above average. But still, his fielding earned him -15.8 runs in 2012. Among ALL qualifying middle infielders, including shortstops, only one scored worse than -15.8 (Weeks). Heck, even Jeter scored better at -15.2. And that was despite Altuve coming in sixth in putouts and seventh in assists.

The problem, it seems for Altuve is he simply did not convert enough of his chances in the field. If you look at scouting reports, part of the problem seems to be his release is not quick enough and he doesn't have a strong enough arm. Then again, what would expect for an arm from a guy who is five foot, five inches tall?

Jose Altuve is not a bad offensive player. His offense rated at 5.9 runs above average and his base running rated at 4.2 runs above average. He did steal 33 bases, but he was thrown out on 11 attempts, which makes his success rate of 75% marginal. But he did score 80 runs for a team that was woeful on offense, so his on-base skills are noted here.

His patience at the plate improved a lot over the 55 games Altuve played in 2011. In that small sample size, his rate at swinging at pitches out of the strike zone was 41.3% according to PitchF/X. And he improved that to 29.4%. For a guy with Altuve's game, that needs to come down even more. But he hardly ever swings and misses. He did so at a remarkably low 4.1% in 2012.

Altuve hits his fair share of line drives at 20.2%, but he hits a lot of ground balls. His ground ball to fly ball rate is 1.94. That is extremely high on the ground ball side. His BABIP on those ground balls was .277, so it works out okay for him since the league average is .238. One interesting fact, though, is that since he hits so many ground balls, he only popped out to the infield two times in all of 2012. At least he isn't hitting into cheap outs.

All in all though, I probably could have done better with my choice, which shows I shouldn't perform a writing career change and focus on the roto world. But there is a flicker of hope. Two projection systems I looked at believe Altuve will continue to improve offensively while improving defensively to at least not so harmful. Apparently, that is the best I can hope for.

Ian Desmond - regression candidate?

I participated Sunday night in my first ever fantasy mock draft with the folks from MLB Dirt and others noted for their skills in that realm. As such, I was a bit of a saltwater fish trying to adapt to a freshwater pond. I was pretty high on my shortstop, Ian Desmond, until I started to dig this morning into his numbers a little more closely. Once I did, his 2012 numbers looked a little suspicious and less likely to be repeated.

I liked Desmond when he appeared on the board because of his combination of power and speed. He stole 21 bases in 27 attempts, good for a 78% success rate. His base running is not a fluke. Base running hardly is. His success rate was his best as a professional player and that shows he is getting more selective and is more savvy with his steal attempts. And his attempts have been consistent since he came into the league as the Nationals starting shortstop. So half of what I wanted, I will get.

The power number is another thing. His first full season, Desmond's homer to fly ball rate was 7.7%. In his second full season in 2011, that number slid a little bit to 6.1%. That means that his first 1,224 plate appearances did not show any big power. He showed a little more pop in the minors, but not enough to expect what he did last year.

Suddenly, in 2013, Ian Desmond's homer to fly ball ratio jumped to over 18%. Whuh? This jump is reminiscent of the jump that Kirby Puckett made all those years ago when he went from a slap hitter to a home run hitter overnight. But how many Kirby Pucketts come along? Heck, now I'll have to do a study, but for now, my best guess is that such a jump after that many major league plate appearances seems a bit rare.

Without delving a bit deeper, and until proven otherwise if he can repeat that homer rate, his home run total seems a bit of a fluke.

Ian Desmond is not a patient hitter. He swung at 38% of pitches out of the strike zone in 2012. That was the nineteenth highest in baseball. His swing percentage of 54.6% was the seventh highest in baseball. So yeah, the guy goes up there to hack away. As such, his walk rate is a puny 5.5%. The point of stating all this is that any on-base value Desmond is going to have is based on his batting average. And since Desmond hit a good .292 last season, his .335 on-base percentage was at least respectable.

But there are two signs that his batting average had quite a bit of luck involved. First, Desmond hits a lot of ground balls. For his career, his ground ball to fly ball ratio is 1.58. That is plenty high on the ground ball side. That came down to 1.38 in 2012, but that still makes him a ground ball heavy batter. And when he hit the ball on the ground in 2012, his average on that batted ball type was .306.

.306!? Just to give you an idea on how inflated that sounds, the league average BABIP for ground balls is .238. Desmond beat that by 68 points! Perhaps he beats a lot of ball out. Perhaps he hits his ground balls hard. His career BABIP on ground balls is .271, so that is lower, but still over league average. The career average is much better to expect than a repeat of a .306 BABIP on ground balls.

The second marker of a much less successful 2013 season for Ian Desmond would be his success rate on his line drives. Ian Desmond does not hit a lot of line drives. His 17.9% on line drives was the twelfth lowest in baseball among qualified batters in 2012. And that line drive rate was the highest of his career, which has averaged a very low 16.8%. Line drives are obviously and easily the most successful batted balls of all and Desmond does not hit a lot of them.

But when he did hit a line drive in 2012, holy smokes was it effective. When Desmond hit a line drive in 2012, his average on such hit trajectories was .753 with a BABIP of .740. The league average on such hit trajectories is .718 and the league average BABIP was .709. To be fair, Desmond has done this his entire career so like his ground balls, he has beaten the average BABIPs on such hit trajectories for three seasons now.

But he never hit .292 before. From all these things talked about in this post, it seems reasonable to expect regression in 2013. Two projections consulted for this piece have his batting average to fall in the high .270s range with a drop in homers from 25 to either 18 or 20. And again, with his lack of patience at the plate, a drop in average will mean a drop in his overall offensive game since so much of his on-base average is based on his batting average.

The good news is that Ian Desmond has been improving as a shortstop in the field. He scored positive numbers there for the first time in 2012 and he has always had great instincts and a cannon for an arm. The Nationals are going to be a team to beat in the National League East and all Desmond has to do is hold down the shortstop position and any offense he brings is a bonus. But as I have found out, drafting him for fantasy purposes based on his 2012 numbers might have been kind of misguided.

My first ever roto draft and Joe Mauer

Thanks to my colleagues over at MLB Dirt, I participated last night in my first ever mock draft. I had no strategy since I had no clue what I was doing and I never anticipated it would last three hours. But it was fun and it was a good exercise for a baseball writer because it forces you to think about players at different positions and make value judgements as to their relative worth. I picked Verlander first and Sabathia second. That meant that most of the great hitters were unavailable. So I picked the best of what was left in each of the next ten rounds or so. By the end, I was pretty happy with my team. The bonus of the whole thing is that I now have twenty-four stories I can write, one for each of my players. Today's inaugural entry is on Joe Mauer.

I was able to pick Mauer very late in the draft. I think I got him in the sixth round or thereabouts. This just goes to show how far his stock with people has fallen since his MVP season in 2009. It is perhaps also a verdict at how low the Twins have fallen and nobody seems to pay any attention. But after looking at Joe Mauer's 2012 season with fresh eyes, what am I missing?

After all, the triple slash line is pretty darned impressive: .319/.416/.446. That was good for a 141 OPS+ in what has become a pitching era. His on-base percentage led the American League. We are not talking peanuts here.

Another part of the fall in perceptions is that he doesn't just catch anymore. He caught 74 games, DHed 42 games and played first base another 30. And most people think his value lies only because he is a catcher. As if. The guy, no matter where he was playing, got on base 41.6 percent of the time! Baseball-reference.com valued his season at 4.1 rWAR. Fangraphs.com came in higher at 5.0. That is hardly invaluable. Others say his salary, which is huge, is only valid if he is a catcher. Well, maybe. But Fangraphs pegs his value last season at $22.5 million, just a slight hair under his $23 million salary.

I do not have any quibble with that though because of all the value he gave the Twins in those years before he was making big money. I know that's not the way the world works, but the way I think, if a player's overall career value is way above what he has made in his career, he has been worth every penny.

I have already mentioned his triple slash line for his 2012 season. His career line is now: .323/.405/.468. What we see in Joe Mauer is one of the best hitters of his generation. His season in 2009 was obviously an outlier. But it was in the same way that Wade Boggs' was in 1987. Few would not call Wade Boggs a Hall of Fame player. And right now, Mauer's career stats are very similar to Boggs. Oh Boggs will probably have a higher peak and Mauer still has to go through his regression years, but still. Joe Mauer has been fantastic.

Consider a couple of things. In today's strikeout happy baseball, Joe Mauer's career strikeout percentage at 10.4 is lower than his walk percentage of 12.3. And as far as the walk percentage, he is only getting better as his 14% in 2012 was the best of his career. For his career, Mauer has only swung at 20.3 percent of pitches out of the strike zone. For his career, he has swung and missed only 4.1 percent of the time. This is a remarkable hitter.

He is not going to hit 28 homers. So what? Put him on the Yankees and he is sung praises around the world. Put him on the Red Sox and he would be their best player and Nick Carfardo would have a good attitude.

Joe Mauer fell to me in a late round because he is an undervalued player. Because he plays for the Twins and because he doesn't wallop a bunch of homers, he isn't sexy? Because his hair always looks so nice, he has become a joke? Oh please. Just mark him down in 2013 for .320/.400/.450 because you know it is going to happen. He is one of the players of this generation people will talk about for a long time.

Vernon Wells - Anatomy of a career's death

Vernon Wells was drafted in the first round with the fifth overall pick of the 1997 draft. His first full season for the Toronto Blue Jays showed promise in 2002 when he drove in a hundred runs. His star exploded in 2003 when he led the league in hits, doubles and total bases. After two middling seasons in 2004 and 2005, he again had a terrific season in 2006. He rallied for decent seasons in 2008 and 2010. But he never became the superstar 2003 promised. His last two seasons have been so bad that Wells has become a symbol of sorts of what can go wrong with a career and a GM decision. What this post will attempt to show is that the signs were there all the time.

Toronto Blue Jays general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, was heralded as a genius when he was able to unload Wells on the Angels an off season move before the 2011 season. The move has probably been the most mocked trade since Babe Ruth. It cost then Angels' GM, Tony Reagins, his career and led to the hiring of Dipoto. Dipoto, who has a reputation for using the new metrics from the analytic world most likely have never done the Wells deal if he was in office at the time.

And that is because there have been signs since 2004 that Vernon Wells had serious flaws in this game. In his early years (2002, 2003), Wells had good line drive rates which led to league average BABIP rates. But the flaw of his game in those years was a lack of taking walks. In his first three seasons, his walk rates were 4.9, 4.2 and 5.7 percent respectively.

His walk rates rose by a couple of points in subsequent seasons while his career lost some of its luster. So that really is not a smoking gun even though his last three seasons have seen his walk rates again plummet and even worse, his O-Swing rates rise dramatically.

What Tony Reagins should have seen and what Alex Anthopoulos undoubtedly saw was that there were several items in Wells' stats that showed that a little less bat speed would accelerate these hidden problems to the point that he would start tumbling to the point of uselessness.

Okay, these stats have been hinted at for long enough. Let's get to them. Two of them are striking. The first is that since 2004 and with a minimum of 5,000 plate appearances, Vernon Wells has had the highest infield popup rate in baseball. There is nobody even close. Damon is second and almost a percentage point and a half behind Wells. And this is not something that is new in Wells' career that suddenly rears its head. It has always been there. Wells never had a season where this rate was less than 12.2% and most years it was much higher. His career rate is 16.3% and that is what it has been since 2004.

It was mentioned earlier in this piece that Wells started his career with good line drive percentages. His first full season of 2002 showed a line drive percentage of 24.4% and his terrific season of 2003 showed a line drive percentage of 21.6%. But starting in 2004, his line drive proficiency dried up. And again, if we look at all players since 2004 with at least 5,000 plate appearances, nobody has a lower line drive percentage than Vernon Wells. Since 2004, his line drive percentage is 16.6%. And since 2009, his line drive percentages have been particularly woeful: 14.8, 15.9, 12.3 and 15.7.

Though those line drive percentages have been particularly bad in the last four years, the signs started way back in 2004 as they never again came close to his 2002 and 2003 seasons.

Add the low line drive percentage to the high popup to the infield percentage and you have a recipe for a low BABIP and again, continuing the theme of looking at 2004 to today and nobody with 5,000 plate appearances since that time have had a lower BABIP than Vernon Wells.

Combine a low BABIP, low line drive percentage, high popup rate and the fact that he puts a lot of balls in play thanks to low walk and strikeout rates and you have a recipe for the death of a once promising career.Wells had once improved his plate discipline to respectable levels but in the last three years, that discipline has gone out the window meaning even less good contact than before.

These numbers put the nail in two coffins. The first was Reagins' who should have seen these and the second was in the Blue Jays before Anthopoulos who gave him this massive, intractable contract that makes the whole story worse.

The Angels have tried to shop Wells all winter. But in today's day and age with analysts in front offices, nobody is going to make the same mistake the Angels did. They are stuck with a player who once looked like he was heading to a superstar career. Instead, he turned into the conversation of worst trades and contracts of all time.

The first pitch means a lot

There is one statement I can make that I absolutely cannot get wrong. The first pitch of every plate appearance will be either a strike or a ball. A batter might put the ball in play on that first pitch, or it might hit him. But it does not matter. It is either a ball or a strike. And whichever that first pitch is has a lot to do with how successful a pitcher (or batter) is going to be. This is such a no-brain thing that you know pitching coaches have been stressing it since time began. Or perhaps I am giving them too much credit because the percentage of first pitch strikes has not always remained static.

How much difference does it make? In 2012, if the pitcher started the plate appearance with a first pitch strike, the subsequent plate appearance averaged a .612 OPS. If that first pitch was a ball, the plate appearance led to an .822 OPS. That is a 210 point swing in OPS. Is that significant? It sure seems like it to me. 

And those results seem to be rather static. For example, in 2011, when a first pitch was a strike, the plate appearance led to a .606 OPS and a first pitch ball led to an .821 OPS. In 2010, it was .615/.824. In 2009, it was .629/.852. The spread is pretty similar from year to year. The conclusion we can make here is that throwing a first pitch strike leads to a lower OPS and is thus important.

And for some reason, pitchers are getting the message. Whether it is an improvement in talent, some help from the umpires, or whatever, the bottom line is that the last three years--notably considered pitchers' years--first pitch strikes have risen somewhat dramatically and league OPS has tumbled. Smoking gun? I'm sure there are other factors, but yeah. It has to have some impact. 

Look at the charts I have put together. The first is my data. The first column is the total number of plate appearances that started with a strike. The second is the total number of plate appearances that started with a ball and that gives us a first-pitch strike percentage. The rest of the chart shows whether the pitcher was ahead in the count when the ball was put in play or whether he was behind. I thought those two items were interesting too and did show a slow change over time from 2001 to 2012. The last column is the league OPS for each season.

You should notice that things stayed pretty close in range from 2001 to 2009. There was just a slight increase in first pitch strike percentage. But the last three years have shown a dramatic rise in first pitch strikes. The chart should illustrate it better:

I am not smart enough to say that Point A is caused by Point B, but look at a similar chart that tracks OPS over the same time period:

I am sure that I am not breaking new ground here. It was simply something that caught my interest and I thought I would share it with you. Let's look at some individual pitchers for a minute.

In 2012, the three starting pitchers with the lowest first pitch strike percentage were Ubaldo Jimenez, Edinson Volquez and Ricky Romero. Jimenez and Romero had really disappointing seasons. Volquez had a slightly better season in 2012 than he did in 2011, but some of that had to do with pitching his home games in San Diego instead of Cincinnati. When Jimenez threw a first pitch strike, he had a 4.60 strikeout to walk percentage. When he threw a first pitch ball, his strikeout to walk percentage sank to 0.68. So yes, it mattered a great deal what he did on the first pitch.

The highest first pitch strike percentage belonged to Cliff Lee, which is no surprise at all. And that made a dramatic difference for Lee. When he threw a first pitch ball, his OPS against was .821 in the subsequent plate appearances with a 3.00 strikeout to walk ratio. When he threw a first pitch strike, his strikeout to walk ratio ballooned to 13.25 and his OPS against was .564.

For relief pitchers, the two leaders in first pitch strikes were Jason Motte and Craig Kimbrel. Yeah, those two guys had pretty good seasons. The two with the lowest first pitch strike percentage were Carlos Marmol and Ramon Ramirez, certainly not two relief pitchers that instill confidence when they take the mound.

Baseball has changed from 2001 to 2012. You can point to PEDs if you want to. But from what these stats tell me, the biggest difference has been a rise in first pitch strikes. There is a cause and effect in a plate appearance on whether the first pitch is a strike or a ball. And the stats show that first pitch strikes have been on the rise and are much higher than they were in 2001. Strikeouts have risen to record levels. Throwing first pitch strikes will not guarantee you will be a successful pitcher. But it sure does help.

Plenty of closer candidates for the Tigers

The Papa Grande era in Detroit is over. And that is probably for the best. Despite his 110 saves from 2010 to 2011 and despite being perfect in 2011, Valverde saw a serious reduction of his ability to fool or blow away major league hitters in 2012, particularly late in the season. And the eccentric closer was completely pounded during the last two post seasons. So now Valverde is gone and the Tigers need to find another closer. They were linked to Soriano most of the off season. That did not happen. Other closers came and went off the board. Some raised eyebrows at the unusual restraint of deal-making. But the truth is that the Tigers have plenty of candidates for the closer position. Let's take a quick look.

The most quoted name linked this winter to the closer's role has been Bruce Rondon. Rondon is yet another Venezuelan and is going to be 22 years old. The Tigers have stated publicly that they are confident that Rondon can step into the role. Rondon did save 29 games for Tigers' minor league affiliates last season and has big time swing and miss ability. But there are two things that make this move a bit scary.

First, Rondon has a rather alarming walk rate in the minors. This walk rate of 5.1 has elevated his overall minor league WHIP to 1.240. The second problem is that he has never pitched at the big league level and only had a small sample size of outings at the Triple-A level. Others can point to Kimbrel of the Braves and say that it can be done. After all, Kimbrel had a high walk rate in the minors. Where the comparison fails, though, is that Kimbrel had a much higher minor league strikeout rate and had a much lower WHIP.

Rondon seems like either wishful thinking or a long shot at best.

But that is okay because the Tigers have two other candidates. The first is Phil Coke. I have watched Coke for many years now and had never seen him turn into such beast mode as he did against the Yankees in the 2012 ALCS. Such a display, not only of stuff, but of emotion and competitiveness leads me to believe that he has the mentality for the role. The Tigers would lose his situation status for lefties, but they still have Duane Below.

Al Alburquerque is another possible closer. He certainly has the "stuff" to throw up there. Alburquerque missed a huge chunk of 2012 due to injury but was effective in the few innings he had. His strikeout rates are ridiculous and are in the Kimbrel-type territory. Alburquerque also walks a lot of batters but get a load of this stat: In 56.2 major league innings, Alburquerque has given up 27 hits. Woof. The Tigers wouldn't make a wrong turn at Alburquerque.

Then there is Joaquin Benoit, a guy the Rays turned around in 2010 when they recreated him as a strike-throwing artist. I like a closer that is not going to create his own drama with walks. And since those amazing Rays got a hold of him, his walk rate the last three seasons has been terrific. Benoit has periods of inconsistency, But there is no doubt here that he could do the job.

One last candidate is Brayan Villarreal, yet another Venezuelan, with big stuff and control problems. Villarreal would need to lower his walk rate as his strikeout rate is not quite as impressive as Alburquerque.

The bottom line here is that the Tigers can easily work this out and give the ninth inning to one guy and get the game finished in the win column. I have serious doubts they will really give the role to Rondon, but I have been wrong before. Alburquerque intrigues me the most with his strikeout ability with Coke being a close second based on what I saw in the post season. Either way, Valverde won't be missed and the ninth inning will be a lot quicker in Detroit this season.

How patient will Rays be on Wil Myers?

The recent acquisition of Shelley Duncan gives the Rays a bit more reliability in their left-field platoon paired with Sam Fuld. Duncan is a known quantity with a career .755 OPS against left-handed starters. Duncan can also provide the same flexibility with lefty-swinging James Loney at first base. Duncan blunts a bit of the question mark of if Brandon Guyer will ever hit major league pitching. But while Fuld provides excellent range in the outfield with somewhat questionable offensive capabilities, Duncan is more stodgy in the outfield. Will such a combination test the Rays and tempt them to see if Wil Myers can make the jump?

Myers, of course, is the highly-rated prospect gained from the Royals in the James Shields trade. While Royals fans like the idea of improving the rotation, there were collective groans about losing Myers, the most fascinating hitter in the Royals' organization. And rightly so.

Myers is only 22 years old but after Trout and Harper last year, the dynamic has changed for how young you can hope prospects to perform once they hit the majors. Myers flew through the lower minors since he was drafted in 2009. He hit a bit of a lull upon hitting Double-A in 2011 but blew it up in 2012 and then did very well in Triple-A as well. Baseball America touts his plate discipline skills and ability to hit for average. They rate him as the Rays' Number 3 prospect. Baseball Prospectus rates him first in the Rays' organization.

The Rays have never seriously played the clock on their young players like other teams. David Price, Matt Moore, Jeremy Hellickson, Evan Longoria and Desmond Jennings are recent examples of really young players that the Rays have turned to if it gives them a better chance to compete. With that track record, it seems logical that Myers will not be artificially delayed because of service time issues.

If the Rays bring Wil Myers to Spring Training and he blows up the joint, perhaps the temptation will be strong to go with talent over proven major league players that are less talented. There is no doubt that the Rays would have done their homework when scouting him. There would be less of a need to "see what he can do" in the minors first.

Myers has struck out at a higher rate once he reached the higher minors and those rates (over 20%) are a bit of a concern. But it is hard to ignore that in 99 games at the Triple-A level, Myers put up a .932 OPS.

Yes, Myers will test the Rays and tempt them if he has a good spring. But the odds have to be taken that he will start the year in the minors. If the Rays struggle offensively out of the gate, that temptation will prove too strong and Myers will get the call. Either scenario is lip-smacking in the anticipation department.

The all time African-American team

Saying, "Happy Martin Luther King" day just doesn't feel right. And it is mostly because I lived through those days and they were not happy days. The world was upside down and upheaval was everywhere. It seemed that society was flying apart at the seams. Growing up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, we were somewhat shielded from the strife. Bergenfield was mostly Irish, Italian and Jewish at that time. But four miles away was a town called Teaneck and riots were occurring there. We heard about it and we were scared. But I am one that believes that celebrating Martin Luther King's life is the right thing to do. His cause was right and just. He fought it courageously and was gunned down way too soon.

So to honor his life today, the idea was to come up with an all African-American team of the greatest players at each position. That seems right too since it was Jackie Robinson's history-making introduction to the majors that opened the doors to others that have graced us with their play ever since. And Jackie Robinson preceded King and was a first step in what King and others were to accomplish. We still have a long way to go. Until all people are not only treated equally but that we all understand that all have the right to be created that way, we still have work to do.

Again, in honor of King and Robinson and with an eye on the grander themes than baseball, here is one Fan's thoughts on the all time African-American team. The criteria is based on statistics from 1947 to 2012. There is a debate if this list should include Hispanic players and it is a valid debate. But we can debate that another time. They were not included in this list.

Outfield:

We'll start with the outfield since this one is easy.

• Barry Bonds in left
• Willie Mays in center
• Hank Aaron in right.

Not only were they the three best ever for their race, but they are probably two, three, four all time for all players. You can pick that order though.

Catcher:

Again, this is easy. It has to be the one and only:

• Roy Campanella

Campanella's career was tragically cut short due to a spinal injury. But in his ten seasons, he packed in three MVP Awards. His offense for a catcher was great with a career .860 OPS, but he was also great defensively as he threw out 57% of all base steal attempts during his career. The rest of his contemporaries averaged 42% during that time. 

Now it gets a little harder. 

First base: 

• Eddie Murray

This ended up as a toss up between Murray and Frank Thomas. There were other greats like Ernie Banks and Willie McCovey, but they split time in their careers between other positions--McCovey in the outfield and Thomas as a DH.

Second base: 

• Joe Morgan

You would like to put Jackie Robinson in here for what he did. But Morgan was simply the best. Lou Whitaker and Willie Randolph are a distant second and third.

Shortstop:

• Derek Jeter

Jeter beats out Banks by a nose with Barry Larkin and Ozzie Smith a bit behind. Jeter had the highest wOBA among them and the highest wRC+ along with the highest WAR.

Third base:

• Dick Allen

This one was extremely tough to pick. Allen played more first base than third and also played the outfield. But there really wasn't anyone else.

Starting pitcher:

• Bob Gibson

Fergie Jenkins a close second.

Relief pitcher:

• Lee Smith

There was nobody else that was close.

There you have it. One Fan's all time African-American team. And while you are at it, you must go and listen to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. You will be moved.

Craig Breslow - unsung reliever

One of the most fascinating players in baseball is Craig Breslow. To be sure, one man's fascination is not the same as another's. Breslow first appeared in my consciousness back in 2009 when I followed a cool blog called Jews in Baseball. No, I am not Jewish, but I always considered us Italians as the lost ten tribes since our mothers are the same. But anyway, Josh Borenstein, the proprietor of that site listed the daily accomplishments of Jewish players around the majors. Breslow was one of those guys. So I started following him too.

Breslow went to Yale University. He seems to always make the lists of smartest baseball players. He would have been a doctor or a scientist if he had not made it in baseball. But he has had an effective career in baseball so America lost a great scientific talent. Perhaps the scientific career would have had less bumps along the road.

Breslow might be the best relief pitcher in baseball that was selected on waivers three times and released once. He has now been traded twice in two years. That is a lot of roster manipulations he has been through. Was he too smart for the managers he played for? Well, those Red Sox are smart because they just signed him to a two-year contract to give the vagabond lefty a home for a couple of years.

He might have been a starter in his Yale days, but Breslow has only been a reliever in his professional career. He now has logged over 600 appearances in both his major and minor league careers and in all of those appearances, his lone start was in 2006 in the minors. He is left-handed, so naturally you would thing LOOGY. But he is not one of those. Oh sure, he is dominant against those who hit from the left side of the plate, but he has been effective against those from the right side too.

How effective? For his career, Breslow has allowed a puny wOBA of .280 against left-handed hitters. But it is only .293 against right-handed hitters too. He tends to walk more right-handed hitters, which was particularly seen in 2012. And that does elevate his walk rate higher than one would like. But those hitters do not hit him any harder. In an interview he did with Fangraphs.com a while back, it appears that he believes he can have some impact on BABIP with the location of his pitches. He must know what he is talking about because his career BABIP is just .266.

Breslow is not a hard thrower. His fastball is in the 91 MPH range. He has introduced a two-seam fastball to what has been mostly four-seams and his ground ball rate did rise in 2012. Fangraphs and PitchF/X disagree if his secondary pitch is a slider or a cut fastball. Since both agree that the pitch is around 84 MPH, slider seems like the better call. He also throws a change and a curve. All of his pitches were rated in the positive category in 2012.

As a reliever, his career strand rate of 76.6 does not rate among the best relievers in baseball since 2009, but it is still a very good strand rate. He has had a positive WPA in four of the last five seasons with only 2011 as the exception. His career OPS against in high leverage situations is just slightly higher than his career numbers.

The Red Sox would be wise to make him the eighth inning setup guy. For his career, he has an OPS against of only .578 when pitching in the eighth inning (149 appearances). They would also be wise to limit him to less than 70 appearances. The A's pitched him quite hard and he pitched 152 times for them in 2009 and 2010. Breslow would always seem to have a bad appearance when pitched too many days in a row.

Craig Breslow is simply a very good relief pitcher who should give the Red Sox some reliability for the next couple of seasons. His career ERA is 3.00 and it was less than that in 2012. He is especially good at getting left-handed batters out, but is also good at getting right-handers. It is hard to believe that teams would kick him around for so many seasons. Chalk one up on the plus side for the Red Sox this time.

A cause and a blogger worth supporting

Many of us who write about baseball are aware of and appreciate Michael Clair and his blog, "Old Time Family Baseball." It is one of the quirkiest, different sites in the baseball realm. But Michael also has a view beyond the baseball diamond and to the world at large.

For the second straight year, Michael is running a "blogathon" to help raise money for Doctors Without Borders, a wonderful organization that helps people around the world. Last year, Michael raised $2,000 and this year he is shooting for $3,000. 

Not only does Michael runs posts every half hour over a 24 hour period, but he also has solicited the help of bloggers from around the country to "donate" posts for the cause. I was privileged to participate and I'm sure my contribution will appear sometime during the day tomorrow.

Do your old Fan a favor and check it out and donate to a worthy cause. It is easy to do and you do not have to donate great sums of money. Any sum will help. Of course, if you want to donate a lot, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. So check it out and help Michael if you can.  Thanks!

Jeff Samardzija under the radar

After years of being the golden boy and fan favorite who couldn't quite get there, Jeff Samardzija arrived as a starter in 2012. His record and ERA perhaps belittle the type of season he really had. His record of 9-13 with an ERA of 3.89 in 28 starts might not excite anyone. If you dig a little deeper, there was a lot of impressive stuff about his season considering it was his first full one in the rotation. Let's look a little closer.

Baseball-reference.com uses a statistic called the Game Score which has been talked about here before. Basically, what the statistic does is start a pitcher at 50 points. And then the pitcher gains points for innings pitched in the game and for strikeouts. He loses points for walks and hits. Anything over 50 was a good start and under 50 is a bad start. 50 is an average start. Samardzija had a Game Score average of 55.1, which was 5.1 points over average. And 61% of his starts were quality starts when the league average there is 51%.

Now you are getting a little better picture of how good Jeff Samardzija was in 2012. Also remember that the Cubs were a brutally bad club. The team lost 101 games in 2012 and the offense ranked fifteenth in a National League that sports sixteen teams. That offense was so bad that the team scored two runs or less in eleven of Samardzija's 28 starts. Nine of his thirteen losses came in those games. He was 6-4 in his fourteen games when the team scored from three to five runs, which is still not a lot of run support. Only two of his starts featured an offense that scored six or more runs.

And for a guy who was putting in his first full season as a starter, he got better as the season went along. In fact, he was killer in the second half. He was shut down early, of course, after he reached 170+ innings, but in his eleven second half starts, his ERA was 2.58 and his strikeout to walk ratio was a brilliant 4.21. His most dominating month was in August when in six starts, his strikeout to walk ratio was 6.0. He walked only seven batters in those six starts and still went 1-4 that month. Ugh.

A case could be made that if you could just throw out June, he would have been right up there with the pitching leaders. It was like he hit a wall in June or something. It was the only month that his strikeouts per nine innings fell under nine. Most of his months show him in the 1.050 WHIP rate or lower. But in June it was over two. He made five starts that month and lost four of them and had an ERA of 10.41. That is a lousy month!

But again, he was brilliant after and really the two months before it.

According to PitchF/X, Samardzija threw seven different pitches: four-seam and two-seam fastballs, a cutter, a curve, a slider a change up and a split-fingered fastball. His fastball averaged a very impressive 95 MPH for the season! But that wasn't his best pitch. The splitter was his best pitch. In fact, Fangraphs rated his splitter as the best in baseball both in total score and in value per 100 pitches.

The split-figured pitch probably accounts for the 34% of the time Samardzija enticed batters to swing out of the strike zone. It probably also helped him have the fifth highest swing and miss rate in baseball among qualifying pitchers too.

There is a lot to like here looking at his numbers and that is why it was a little disappointing to see the Cubs recently back off making a multi-year offer to extend him. It looks now like he will just sign a one-year deal to avoid arbitration. But then again, the Cubs control him through 2015 so there is time.

Jeff Samardzija had a very good first full season as a starter. It was an encouraging season that got better as it went along. If you take out June, he was one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball and really flew under the radar because of the team on which he played. It will be interesting to see if Samardzija can improve on his great season or if he will regress. If he improves, now that will be exciting! And the coolest thing about the pitcher? I can now spell his name without looking it up.

John Jaso's plate discipline improves the Athletics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An ode to Jeff Karstens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is LOOGY, Mike Gonazlez, worth $2.25 million?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The somewhat maddening game of J.J. Hardy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Six reasons why Adam LaRoche was a good signing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Six fielders who should be DHs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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