Scrapbooking and scorecards

I wrote a memory piece of whimsy over at It's About the Money, Stupid that featured names like Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone, Harmon Killebrew and others. Check it out.

So long, Lance Berkman and Michael Young

A couple of Texas institutions during the past fifteen years hung up their spikes this week. Between the two of them, Lance Berkman and Michael Young banged out 3,940 hits while wearing the uniform of teams from Texas. Berkman, of course, was the first round draft pick of the Houston Astros who had quite a career there and Young plied his trade with the Texas Rangers for his long career.

Though they were both drafted in 1997 and both were institutions where they played and banged out consistent .300 batting averages over the years, the similarity between the two players pretty much ends there. If the sun were Cooperstown, Lance Berkman was the Earth and Young, probably Jupiter. I said Pluto last night on Twitter, but that was a bit unkind and in response to another blogger who stated that Young retired on the cusp of Cooperstown. Young was not even close to that kind of player.

But Lance Berkman was. If he could have stayed healthier, he could have really put up the kind of numbers that would get him a plaque. Berkman's injuries led him to have only twelve seasons where he played more than a hundred games. Out of those twelve, he slugged over .500 eleven times and had over a .400 on-base percentage eight times.

Just to give you an idea of how different they were offensively, Lance Berkman had a career wOBA of .400 on the dot. Michael Young had a career wOBA of .342. Lance Berkman's offense was worth 433.6 batting runs during his career. Young's offense was worth 44.2, almost ten percent of Berkman's contribution. Berkman finished with a 144 wRC+ (same as his OPS+) and Young, 104.

Interestingly, they finished within six total bases of each other for their career, but Berkman compiled his in almost 800 fewer plate appearances. Berkman's 1,201 career walks more than doubles Young's career total.

Young was much more durable. In one twelve year stretch, Young played more than 150 games in eleven of those seasons. He also led the league in hits twice and batting average once. He made seven All Star teams and finished in the top ten in MVP voting twice.

Young was more of a cog in a wheel of some very good Rangers teams (and some very bad ones). Berkman was a contemporary with Biggio and Bagwell for years and was just as much as an offensive star as either of them.

Young will always be marked down a bit because he played half of his games in Texas Rangers' home parks, always considered hitters' paradise. Indeed, his home OPS for his career is 108 points higher than his road OPS.

Berkman just flat out hit no matter where he was. For his career, Berkman a .946 OPS guy at home and .940 on the road. His OPS was over .900 for every month of the year--over .950 for three of those months. He had a career .970 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position, a .926 OPS in late and close games and a .956 OPS in tie games.

Young played more valuable positions on the field and his versatility is somewhat what kept him a fixture for so long. That is not to say that he always played them well. Berkman played the bulk of his career as a left-fielder (while Bagwell was at first) and then as a first baseman: two positions that do not rate highly on the positional skill ranking. But he played them reasonably well most of the time.

Young was strictly a right-handed batter who was consistent against pitchers who threw with either arm. Lance Berkman was a switch-hitter who was much, much better batting left-handed.

Both players were considered good clubhouse guys. Berkman was known for his humor and for keeping things loose and teammates laughing. Young was a leader of his clubhouse in Texas for many years.

Both played quite a few post-season games. Berkman over-performed his career numbers there was killer in his two World Series appearances. Young under-performed in his post-season career.

As you have seen, Lance Berkman was twice as valuable a player than Michael Young. But both are gone now and after watching them for all these years, they are going to be missed. Baseball goes on, but every so often, you lose players that have seemed to be with you forever. Michael Young and Lance Berkman were Texas baseball and it won't be the same without them. 

Edinson Volquez is not the next Liriano

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been a bit like the Statue of Liberty when it comes to broken pitchers: "Give me your tired, your poor..." They took a seemingly broken A.J. Burnett and received two productive years from him. They took a seemingly broken Francisco Liriano and he had a fantastic year for them last year and even won a playoff game. Now, the expectation is that their next tired and poor pitcher to reclaim is Edinson Volquez. It's not going to happen.

I have to admit that I am biased against the guy. So let's put that up there right at the start. He has been the worst starting pitcher in baseball over the past three seasons. He gave up the most earned runs allowed in his league in 2013 and the most walks in 2012. But people still look at him as a "stuff" guy that just needs to figure it out.

The past is littered with such guys. Stuff doesn't always get you a good pitcher. Let's put some things in perspective here. Edinson Volquez has made 154 starts in his career and pitched a total of 850 innings. For all that pitching, he has the grand sum of 1.7 rWAR to his credit. To be fair, Fangraphs.com gives his career 5.9 fWAR.

Volquez has one good season to his credit--2008, his first year with the Reds. That season featured his best BABIP and his best HR/9 rate. He also featured a 75.5% strand rate. All of which lead him to a FIP that season of 3.60. It was a good season. But the rest has been a whole lot of nothing.

Are there legitimate comparisons with Liriano who had his own struggles with the Twins before coming to Pittsburgh? Well, yes, if you want to state that both had been disappointing. But there was always some concern (whether fair or not) that the Twins never believed in him because he did not fit their pitch-to-contact, low walk mantra.

I think the comparison ends pretty much there. After completing a successful 2013, Liriano now has three very good seasons to his credit in his eight years of pitching. Volquez still has the one. Liriano has a 2.41 strikeout to walk ratio for his career. Volquez is at 1.77.

Liriano has a 1.333 WHIP for his career. Volquez has a career WHIP of 1.505. Liriano has a devastating pitch, his slider, which has racked up 99+ runs in value over his career and a change-up that has given him 16.4 runs of value above average. Volquez does not have such a killer pitch and his highest pitch value for any of his pitches is his change-up which has a career run value of 5.9. Every other Volquez pitch type has a negative value.

Liriano has struck out a batter more per nine for his career more than Volquez while walking a batter less. I think the situation with Liriano and the Pirates last year was that the Pirates had something to work with, just like what they did with Burnett. I don't see the same canvas with Edinson Volquez.

Maybe I have been so down on Volquez for so long that I cannot see the silver lining the Pirates are seeing. I certainly can be proven wrong in thinking that there is no chance the Pirates turn him around. Some of his peripherals with his short stint with the Dodgers were better. So maybe that is what the Pirates see.

The projections are fairly kind to him. Two that I checked in with have him finishing with a 4.01 FIP. Another pegs it at 4.36 (his career average). Perhaps that would be good enough for what the Pirates are looking for. As a fourth or fifth guy in the rotation, that would be somewhat acceptable.

But those projections still like his 8.4 K/9 rate and look at his low LOB rate and high BABIP and say that he was unlucky. Perhaps. But perhaps he simply is not a very good pitcher who is what he is. I could be wrong. But don't count me as an optimist here that the Pirates will raise another pitcher from the dead.

Why should people hold ill will to Jerry Remy?

We have a fundamental question to ask here. How much of a son or daughter's actions are the responsibility of their parents? How much hate to parents of mass killers should there be? The answer to the question has a lot to do with some angst being reported about the public's response to Jerry Remy returning to the broadcast booth in Boston.

Here is a typical argument against such a move written by Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald.  Buckley says quite frankly in the piece that Remy should not return. He later waffles a bit, but here is the major meat of his concern:

No.

Yes, Remy struck all the right cords of grief yesterday when he expressed his condolences to the Martel family. He began the conversation that way and he ended it that way. And to look into Remy’s eyes is to see a man whose life, whose family’s life, has been thrust into chaos in the aftermath of the events of August 15. He also spoke of his 5-year-old granddaughter, saying, “This is a little girl who is going to grow up with no mother and no father. She’s probably going to have issues. We can’t even imagine at this point.”

And sadly, that’s what is at issue. To watch a Red Sox game on NESN this season, and to see and hear Remy engage in his famously upbeat and entertaining banter with play-by-play man Don Orsillo, it will be difficult not to think of that brutal murder, difficult not to speculate about the trial, difficult not to think about that little girl.

Basically, what Buckley is saying here is that if Remy returns to the style that made him famous as a broadcaster and made he and Orsillo one of the most entertaining duos in baseball is compromised by what the public thinks about what Remy's son did.

If you haven't heard what happened with Remy's son, you'll have to look it up. It is brutal and it is awful in the most unimaginable way. But again, the question remains: How much should the public hold Remy responsible for his son's crime?

I say none. I came from a broken home and my choices have led me to a productive and reasonably honorable life. Others have come from perfect households and much love to commit horrible crimes. Drug addicts, murderers and other bad things that happen to the children of families are their own choices.

I don't buy that a criminal should be let off because they were beaten severely as a child. Every human being has a thousand choices each and every day. Some of those choices are between self-inflicting and inflicting harms on others. Different choices can always be made and are not. Oh, there might be the odd disorder that renders a person incapable of making good choices, but I think those are rarer than most people think.

I have dealt with this personally with drug addiction within my own family. The child was loved and surrounded by care and good examples of what being a good person and a good citizen are. The child chose a life of drugs and stealing and crime. Despite the human nature that makes us blame ourselves as parents, the truth is that the child made all the wrong choices.

Jerry Remy did not commit that horrible crime. Jerry Remy did not turn his granddaughter into an orphan. His son did. Remy was a baseball player and then a broadcaster. That means a lot of traveling and being away from home. But Remy says that his wife was a great mother and I believe that. The son made the choices, not the parents.

Feel sorry for the grandchild and for Mr. and Mrs Jerry Remy and for Jennifer Martel's family. But do not deprive the man from going on with his life doing what he was meant to do. A horrible thing happened. Everyone does not need to be punished because of it.

Starlin Castro and his nosedive

Starlin Castro of the Chicago Cubs burst onto the scene as a twenty year old kid in 2010. In his next 445 games for the Cubs, he belted out 529 hits including 96 doubles, 26 triples and 27 home runs. He looked like the brightest young shortstop in the game. Before the spring of 2013, there were legal troubles and the entire 2013 season was a wash for him offensively as everything went downhill. What went wrong with Starlin Castro and will he right himself in 2014?

If you look at the counting stats, you can see just how far Castro fell in 2014. Here are his string of OPS figures for his seasons thus far: 755, 773, .753, .631. Which number doesn't fit in there? Yeah, it is that obvious.

There are many opinions as to what happened. Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs.com believes that a more patient approach was forced on him and it backfired.  Another source, which I cannot seem to find at the moment, believed that BABIP was at least partially to blame.

Let's look at a couple of these insights to see what they are about. First. Sullivan makes a good point in that the Cubs encouraged Castro to see more pitches and he did. The problem, as Sullivan points out, was that Castro was very successful on the first pitch and by not swinging at the first pitch, he lost one of his best weapons.

Sullivan also shows that despite seeing more pitches, Castro did not walk any more than he did in the past and in fact, walked less. His walk rate was the lowest of his career and the strikeout rate was his highest.

The BABIP theory might be part of Sullivan's theory. Perhaps losing the first pitch to jump on, Castro's contact success suffered. If you look at Castro's heat maps for each of his years, his contact led to over a .300 average on just about every quadrant of the plate and even just off the outside corner and middle in as well.

If you look, then, at his heat map for 2013, only the upper third of the plate led to contact that was productive and just off the plate, middle-in was his happy zone. Every other quadrant of the plate was awful.

To me, the biggest "tell" is his success on line drives, or I should say the lack of it in 2013. Here are Castro's BABIPs on line drives for his career (starting in 2010): .738, .739, .716 and .593. Again, which number doesn't fit?

That is a naturally low BABIP on line drives. The Major League average is around the .660 mark. Castro has been super consistent in the number of line drives he hits per season. The difference was that in 2013, less of them found free space.

Starlin Castro also hits about 1.5 ground balls for every fly ball, or nearly 50% of his batted balls. Whether it is due to poorer contact, better defensive positioning or what, but his BABIP on fly balls also suffered. After being in the .228 to .254 range for his first his first three years, it fell off to .177 according to Baseball-reference.com.

The thing that hurts the most about Castro's season in 2013 is that he was particularly awful against teams in his own division. He was good against the Cardinals. He has always been good against the Cardinals. But look at these OPS figures against the rest of the division: Reds - .432 (!), Brewers - .599 and Pirates - .491. He has always been pretty successful against all those teams in the past.

So what does the future hold for Starlin Castro? That depends on a few things that helped cause such a bad season. Perhaps his head was in a bad space between the legal troubles last spring and the lawsuit and counter-lawsuit going on in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps he was just unlucky with his line drives and twenty more of them will fall in for him in 2014. Perhaps the Cubs will allow him to go back to hacking at first pitches. After all, he is never going to be a patient hitter. That is just not who he is.

The important thing for the Cubs is that Castro is a plus player at a thin position around the Majors if he has an OPS of .750. But another season in the .630 range will have to force them to rethink the future with him.

For the Cubs, Starlin Castro has to be better against his NL Central opponents and he has to have be better than he was in 2013. It will be one of the more interesting stories to watch in the coming season.

The Tigers are getting defensive

The Detroit Tigers had the third best pitching staff (overall) in the American League in 2012 and 2013. They had the second best offense in the American League in 2013 and the fourth best (by OPS+) in 2012. That combination should land you close to 100 wins each season, right? But the Tigers won 93 games in 2013 and 88 in 2012. Those totals are not terrible by any means and got them to the post season. The missing ingredient has been defense.

The idea for this post came from a conversation between Neal Kendrick (@neal_kendrick) of High Heat Stats and Jacob Smith (@JTD_Smith) that started with this tweet:

AL pitching leaders in fWAR for 2013 1. Max Scherzer, DET 2. Anibal Sanchez, DET 3. Felix Hernandez, SEA 4. Justin Verlander, DET
— Neal Kendrick (@neal_kendrick) January 26, 2014

Think about that for a second. Their starting rotation featured three pitchers in the top four in the American League. And Doug Fister was eighth! Their fifth starter, Rick Porcello, is a ground ball pitcher that needs fielders to field his batted balls.

How did that staff ever lose? They lost, at least in part, to fielding.

In the old school way of looking at things, the Tigers' fielding would have looked great. Hey, they finished with the least amount of errors in the AL and the highest fielding percentage. The trouble is, we now know that fielding percentage is nice if you are getting to a lot of batted balls. But when you are not, you have a lack of defensive efficiency no matter how good you are at catching and throwing the ball.

In 2012, the Tigers were next to last in the AL in defensive efficiency. In 2013, they were tied for tenth out of fifteen teams. In 2012, the team as a whole had a -31 runs below average according to Baseball Info Solutions. In 2013, that figure was worse and ended up at -64 runs! That is between five and six wins of bad defense. While we are not dealing with direct cause and effects here, it is a coincidence that adding those lost wins gets the team pretty close to 100.

Who is to blame for this lack of focus on defense for the Tigers? It is easy to blame Jim Leyland because he is gone now. But you have to give him some of the focus. Leyland wanted as much offense in the lineup as he could possibly stack. He would bring outfielders to play second base. You have to give part of the blame to the general manager and owner who signed the biggest free agent regardless of what it meant for the offense.

Whatever the case may be, it looks like the organization is finally paying some attention to defense. The Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder was one example of sacrificing a little offense to get much better defense. The move also allows Miguel Cabrera from third base, where he was a disaster last season, to first base, a position he is much more capable of playing.

If you look at just the infield (the outfield is okay), you have the following improvements from last year again based on Baseball Info Solutions and a projection of what will happen in 2014:

First base: Fielder to Cabera: -10 runs to -3.

Second base: Omar Infante and others to Kinsler: -7 to 12

Shortstop: Jhonny Peralta and Jose Iglesias: 0 to 10

Third base: Cabrera to Nick Castellanos: -15 to -5.

By my count, that is an improvement of 46 runs just in the infield. The infield improvement does not only improve the infield but also the pitching. The biggest beneficiary will be Rick Porcello and his 50+% ground balls. But it will also help the entire pitching staff.

The one question, of course, is how much offense the new infield will cost. Most feel that Iglesias' offense was a fluke last year. We don't know yet how Castellanos will fare at the Major League level. And you have to wonder how much Kinsler will dip leaving the friendly conditions of Texas.

Kinsler is a loss in offense compared to Fielder and Castellanos (naturally) will not equal Cabrera offensively. But even if the Tigers lose twenty runs of offense, that is more than doubled by the improvement of the defense.

You have to wonder if Iglesias and Castellanos struggle early on offense what the Tigers will do. Hopefully, the Tigers will stay with it. The team has come close to the promised land in the last two seasons. Perhaps with some defense, they can make the last hurdle to get there.

Joe Torre versus Joe Girardi in bullpen usage

I have long been curious if Joe Torre really did beat up his bullpens and if Joe Girardi was as good with bullpens as his reputation. So I crunched their numbers and spit out my results in a post over at It's About the Money, Stupid. I hope you go over there and enjoy it.

BBA Linkfest - General snow drifts

Welcome to another edition of the BBA Linkfest, where I scour the earth for links from my fellow members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance general chapter. "General," here means that the sites that make up our chapter do not focus on one particular team, but all of baseball and in some cases, all of life. The title of this post comes from staring out my window at another gray, wintry day where the wind is howling and it seems like I live in the frozen tundra. Reading these writers at the very least makes me think of spring and better times when baseball again will be here.

Before I start linking to our sites, special mention has to be given to Michael Clair and his Old Time Family Baseball. Clair, a hilarious individual who gives me great pleasure from his writing and his Twitter persona, completed his third annual blogathon last weekend to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Not only did Clair exceed his goal by a landslide, but he also brought together hundreds of the best baseball writers in the land who submitted work for him for the weekend. I salute Michael Clair and all those writers that made the goal just a stopping point on the final total. Great work, everyone. And trust me, you could spend an entire day reading all those excellent posts. So do it! I also love his recent post on one of his favorite players of the past.

And here we go with the links!

Justin Miller is a good baseball guy and I like his articles and his prospect scouting reports. This post talks about the recent signing of Grady Sizemore, a guy who most of us are rooting for in his comeback. InsideTheMLB is the site's heading.

Over at the Baseball Hot Corner, Jason Leary has a great post titled, 5 Tattoo Ideas for Tortured A's Fans. You have to check that out, right?

I am so pleased that High Heat Stats has joined the general chapter. This is a world class site that started on baseball-reference.com as that site's blogging crew. They have only gotten better as they left B-R and have gained new writers (many from our crew here in the general chapter!). Their post I am featuring today is written by Doug and is so packed with information, you need to set aside some good quality time. But read it!

David, over at Baseballroundtable.com has a great post about prospects to watch in 2014. Great stuff.

Over at Know Hitter (I love that title), there is a suggestion for what the Mariners' new acquisition, Corey Hart, should play.

Kenneth Matinale of Radical Baseball has an interesting post in which he takes issue with the Yankees' off season strategy. I'm not sure I agree, but that's what makes baseball so great!

The Playoff Pitch site has had a series going with breaking down 2014 teams, which is always a fun exercise. The latest one is on the 2014 Red Sox.

Off the Bench is an interesting and fairly new site not afraid to make bold stances. Take, for example, this post and then the response gotten from that post. Makes for fun reading.

I enjoyed the post over at Baseblog94 on the Cubs' new manager, Rick Renteria.

Even though it is not a recent post, I am constantly moved by Stevo-sama's post about his father over at The Baseball Enthusiast. It was reposted from Baseblog94 with additional pictures. Very moving.

One of the great things about my affiliation with the BBA is watching all these folks who become friends who go on to better things. Chris Carelli is a great guy and a great writer whose The Baseball Stance featured his stuff. The site now provides summaries and links to his work for Yahoo Sports along with the occasional full piece. Very cool and I am happy for him.

Matt Whitener of Cheap.Seats.Please takes a stab and listing the top ten shortstops in the Major Leagues today. How many do you agree with? Matt and I definitely agree on the number one name.

In his latest post, Grubby Glove talks about where he has been. I'm just glad he's back!

Theo of Hot Corner Harbor has another of his usually thoughtful posts on predicting the Hall of Fame. Interesting stuff.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, For Baseball Junkies compiled a list of the most questionable votes by the writers.

Chuck Booth of the always reliable MLB Reports talks about the the first week of the season and Australia. BTW, I always appreciate the site's #FF support each week.

My buddy, Bryan O'Conner, of Replacement Level Baseball also talks about the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Stats. Did you know that he is better looking than Ben Affleck?

Through the Fence Baseball has really continued to expand and get better each year I have done this. They have become a don't miss site! For example, here is one-of-a-kind content on the best freshmen college baseball players of 2014.

Dan at The Ball Caps Blog had an interesting take on Richard Sherman's bombastic interview. But if we stick to baseball, his amusing take on Phillies fans is a fun read.

Call to the Pen is another site that has grown tremendously since I have been doing this. They are now part of the Fansided network. Cool on them. Dan Zinski's report on Tony La Russa's HOF logo is a case in point of why they are where they are.

Italy's Che Palle! by Mario Salvini shares an amazing picture he found on Twitter. It is amazing too.

Another site that has come a long way is MLB Dirt, which is now part of the Field Rush network. Alas, I used to write there semi-regularly and have great guilt that I no longer have the time to do so. Jonathan Mitchell is one of the greatest guys on the planet and his feature recently covered Grant Balfour returning to the Rays and that C-word.

Another great bud is Dan from the Left Field site who also writes for High Heat Stats. Dan is a real interesting guy with a great family and what I like about his site is that it features baseball, his favorite music and his love of craft beer. Check out his recent playlist.

The Sisco Kid of Baseball Sisco Kid Style hit the nail on the head with his HOF picks, which is pretty amazing. Whether I agree that it should have only been three or not is neither here nor there.

The always interesting Sully of Sully Baseball has probably the best solution I've heard to the problem of which hat to wear to the Hall of Fame for those chosen. Good solution! Interesting post!

Ben's Baseball Bias salutes the three HOF inductees.

If you've ever wondered how a baseball is made, Dugout 24 has just the video for you!

The Sports Banter posted some interesting, sometimes hilarious and random thoughts in a recent post.

Clint of Diamond Hoggers is part of one of my favorite baseball podcast teams. And I don't just say that because they invited me to join them once. The latest installment is linked here.

Mike Hilywa has a real fun post over at Off Base Percentage on Australian baseball. I love the pic and the heading too.

Apparently, Jack Morris is tired of getting scrutinized by baseball writers. Shawn Anderson of The Hall of Very Good gives us all the details.

There are the links, but before I go, I figured I would leave you with one toot of my own horn. Your favorite Fan recently garnered his first ESPN byline. Very cool for me!

See you next time and stay warm! Baseball season will get here eventually.

The fine wine of Adrian Beltre

Adrian Beltre has been perhaps the most unappreciated player in baseball over the past four seasons. They have been four seasons in which he has averaged thirty-one homers and a hundred runs batted in and a .385 wOBA. According to the Fangraphs.com leaderboard, Beltre has been the fifth best position player in the Major Leagues during that time. In fact, if Adrian Beltre were to never play another game, he would be the eighth best third baseman of all time. Six of the seven in front of him are in the Hall of Fame. The seventh, Chipper Jones, will be.

Beltre's consistency has been remarkable. You may--if you think of Beltre at all--think that his success over the last three years would be from hitting in Texas half of the time. And yes, Texas is a great place to hit. But Beltre does not have Nelson Cruz-like splits. His wOBA at home last year was .891 and on the road it was .879. In fairness, the splits were a little more dramatic his first two years in Texas and perhaps facing the Astros helped in 2013.

But look at his wOBA over the last four years. They are, in order from his year in Boston to last year: .391, .381, .388, .379. That is a great four-year spread. Beltre's triple slash line over the four years: .314/.358/.545. Nice.

But of course, Beltre is not just a great hitter. There has also been his defense at third. Beltre is currently ninth on Baseball-reference.com's all time total zone runs for third basemen. Perhaps Beltre is slowing down a bit. His numbers on both Fangraphs.com and Baseball-reference.com went into barely negative territory for 2013 for the first time in his career. And this has been part of a slow decline in his fielding numbers over the last four years.

But regression as a player probably shows up more on the field than anywhere else. He is heading into his age 35 season after all. So how much longer will Beltre be a great player? If history tells us anything, perhaps three more seasons.

I studied the WAR graphs of some of the great third basemen over time. I left off Mike Schmidt because he blows away the curve. But when comparing Beltre to Brooks Robinson, George Brett, Chipper Jones, and Ron Santo, only Santo was done by Beltre's age. The others all had three more productive seasons after Beltre's current age and then leveled off.

Take a look at the WAR graphs of some of these greats:


Source: FanGraphs -- Chipper Jones, Adrian Beltre, George Brett

What I find remarkable about this chart is how similar all those careers were. Not only that, how well Beltre stacks up against all those great third basemen. For his age, he is right there with all of them at similar points in their careers. And, again, only Santo was done by age 34. 

Adrian Beltre has been a terrific player over his entire career. He has done it with the bat and with the glove. His statistics with the bat over the last four years show consistency and have been prolific. When you watch Adrian Beltre play a baseball game, don't just think of him currently as one of the better players in the game. Think of him as one of the best third basemen of all time.

Can the Seattle Mariners compete in 2014?

Last night I was tweeting that writing was coming hard for me lately. After cranking out over 3,000 long-form posts over the last five years, the cupboard has gotten a bit empty. After bemoaning my state, a long-time Twitter bud, Chris Cochran (@kingkube), suggested I write about the Seattle Mariners' chances of winning the AL West. I wrote back that I had to believe that was a possibility before I could write it. But for Chris' sake and since Mariners fans are about as passionate as there are in baseball, let's take a look anyway.

Before we start assessing where they currently are, we need to look at what happened last year. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Mariners ranked 22nd out of 30 teams in runs scored, 26th in runs allowed giving them the 26th worst scoring differential in baseball. The team's Pythagorean win/loss record should have been 67-95, but the team actually won 71 games.

On top of this tough season, stories blew up from their former manager and a former front office guy that the organization was a disaster and they are currently looking for a new president of team operations. All these factors do not point to a pretty picture.

But the Mariners made a gigantic splash into the free agent pool and got the biggest fish of the off season in Robinson Cano. Most Mariners fans are not mindful at the staggering cost and years of the contract and instead are focusing on the short term benefits, as they should. Cano is going to help.

They also signed Corey Hart and traded for Logan Morrison. On top of those items of good news, they will start the season (so it seems) with two great prospects in the rotation with Taijuan Walker and James Paxton, who won't have to pitch all that well to beat the likes of Joe Saunders, Aaron Harang and Brandon Maurer (though I am not giving up on Maurer just yet).

Such developments lead Mariners fans to hope for much better results in 2013. But will they be enough? The A's are still tough, the Rangers have weakened a bit and the Angels should be better. Is there any chance at all they can leap frog all of those teams this coming season?

Let's look at the starting lineup:

• Batting First (projected): Dustin Ackley. Mariner leadoff batters had an on-base percentage of .296 last season (Yuck!) and an OPS of .688. Ackley has a career OBP of .315 and while that is not very good either, he showed ability to get on base in the minors. He is still young and could finally start to figure things out. Improvement possibility here.
• Batting Second: Kyle Seager. The batting order position for the Mariners had a .700 OPS in 2013. Seager had a .764 OPS last year, so that is a big improvement. Seager has to figure out how to hit in his home ballpark. His OPS on the road was 147 points higher in 2013 and 189 points higher for his career. If he can lick that, he can be a star.
• Batting Third: Robinson Cano. The third batters in the Mariners' lineup compiled an OPS of .697 in 2013. If Cano cannot beat that by more than 150 points, it will be a huge disappointment. He should considering his history.
• Batting Fourth: The fourth batter in 2013 for the Mariners had a compiled OPS of .782. It was their most productive batting order position with Kendrys Morales batting there. He is not back and Corey Hart takes his place. Hart has a lifetime OPS of .824 and he has been around that area consistently. But the Mariners play in a park that is much tougher on offense than in Milwaukee and Hart has missed an entire season. He should be able, despite all this to at least equal .782.
• Batting Fifth: Justin Smoak: While Smoak still has a ways to go to prove he can be an offensive threat in MLB, his OPS last season was .746, or 57 points higher than what Mariners' fifth batter hitters compiled last year.
• Batting Sixth: The sixth batter for the Mariners was their second most productive in the lineup with an OPS of .782 in 2013. Logan Morrison is penciled into that lineup slot according to MLB Depth Charts. Morrison's career OPS is .764, but has not risen above .709 the last two seasons. My thought is that he will finish around .730 to .740. So I am giving this position in the order a -42 points.
• Batting Seventh: Michael Saunders. Saunders had a .720 OPS in 2013 and the batting order position for the Mariners compiled a .717. So let's call that one a wash.
• Batting Eighth: This one is difficult because new catcher, Mike Zunino is there backed up by John Buck. Zunino was fast-tracked with only two years of minor league ball. His .775 OPS in Triple A and .690 in his brief MLB experience gives some indication that perhaps .730 is a decent range for him. Buck is a career .701 OPS guy. But combined, they should beat last year's .650 OPS by Mariner eighth place hitters by 50 points.
• Batting Ninth: Brad Miller finished his short season at the MLB level at .737 and was much higher consistently in the minors. A .750 OPS is not a stretch for him this year and it could be much higher. Mariner ninth batters compiled a .530 in 2013, so we have a 200 point plus there--at least when the pitcher does not have to bat there during interleague games.

As you can see, the offensive is actually looking quite improved this season. Every position in the batting order except one should be better, most by a long shot. If Walker and Paxton are the real deal and greatly enhance the rotation after Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma and the bullpen can be better anchored from the beginning of the season with Lord Farquhar...er...Danny Farquhar, then perhaps the optimism is warranted.

Will the Mariners compete in 2014? Maybe I am more optimistic than when I started this process. But all these things mentioned have to go well just to get them close to the A's and the rest of the AL West. It should be a lot more interesting to watch than I originally thought.

Leadoff batters, where are you?

Everybody has their own idea of what a leadoff batter should be. Some think it should be the fast guy who can steal bases. Others like the speed / power combination. Some think that the leadoff batter should be the guy with the best on-base percentage. Some, writing in the past, focus on OPS. I tend to favor one or two of the latter. But if I had to commit myself, my preference would be the guy with the best on-base percentage who is not necessarily the elite hitter on the team.

The elite hitter usually bats third or fourth and the long-standing theory is that the leadoff guy gets on base and the big guys get him home. If they are also speed guys, that's great as long a they can be successful stealing 80% of the time. If they have some pop, that's also great. But the bottom line, for me, is that the first guy in the lineup can get on base at least 35% of the time.

I compiled the league spit total for all of the Major Leagues for the past fifty years. And except for one golden age we will talk about in a minute, the collective of MLB leadoff batters have not been overly more successful of getting on base better than the collective of MLB batters as a whole. See the chart below:

The last four years is the first four-year stretch since the early to mid-1960s where the collective leadoff batters did not average a .330 on-base percentage. The downturn follows the overall downturn in offense over the last four years.

But as you can also see, the current offense is similar to the offense of the mid-1980s but that was also the dawn of a golden age of leadoff batters that lasted until 1995 or so. That was the period of Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Lenny Dykstra, Tim Raines, Brett Butler and even Bip Roberts. All those guys were terrific at getting on base despite whatever the league averages were and dragged the entire category up with them.

The average year for a leadoff batter resulted in an on-base percentage of about 10 points higher than all players as a whole. During those glory years, it often rose as high as 18 points. 

Why is that significant? Some writers have suggested that a good leadoff batter can add as much as 15 runs to his team. Generally, leadoff batters have a thousand plate appearances league-wide more than the number three hitter on the team, or about 33 more plate appearances for each of the thirty teams. 15 runs is a little more than a win. A win is worth $5 to $6 million. A win could also make a difference in the standings.

I have found in my research that unless the collective of leadoff batters have an on-base percentage of .330 or higher, they will not score more collective runs than the number three batters in the league. And that is for a thousand more plate appearances! So, yes, it does make a difference.

As I stated, the last four years, the collective leadoff batters (by the way, I am using baseball-reference.com's league splits) have averaged less than a .330 on-base percentage. This past season (2013), only six leadoff batters--or one-fifth of all teams--had a leadoff guy whose on-base percentage was over .350: Shin-Soo Choo, Matt Carpenter, Norichika Aoki, Jacoby Ellsbury, Ian Kinsler and Jose Reyes.

Is it any surprise that two of those guys were two of the highest paid free agents this off season and another, Kinsler, was part of one of the biggest trades?

As recently as 2009, there were fifteen leadoff batters (I have been using 400 min. plate appearances at the position) whose on-base percentage was over .350. So we went from half of all teams to a fifth. In 2008, there were fourteen. In 2007, there were fourteen. But there have been only six for the past three seasons.

Perhaps the leadoff batter has become a market inefficiency. Or perhaps the trend simply indicates a pitcher dominated era. There also might be a reflection of the acceptance of the strikeout as just another out somewhere in the mix too. Whatever the case, the leadoff batter is not what it used to be even as recently as 2009.

	Lead off
Year	OBP	LG OBP	Difference
1963	0.318	0.309	0.009
1964	0.317	0.313	0.004
1965	0.318	0.311	0.007
1966	0.324	0.310	0.014
1967	0.307	0.306	0.001
1968	0.314	0.299	0.015
1969	0.331	0.320	0.011
1970	0.335	0.326	0.009
1971	0.325	0.317	0.008
1972	0.315	0.311	0.004
1973	0.336	0.325	0.011
1974	0.336	0.324	0.012
1975	0.340	0.327	0.013
1976	0.328	0.320	0.008
1977	0.339	0.323	0.016
1978	0.323	0.330	-0.007
1979	0.342	0.326	0.016
1980	0.348	0.320	0.028
1981	0.330	0.324	0.006
1982	0.329	0.325	0.004
1983	0.343	0.323	0.020
1984	0.333	0.323	0.010
1985	0.333	0.326	0.007
1986	0.333	0.331	0.002
1987	0.349	0.331	0.018
1988	0.336	0.318	0.018
1989	0.332	0.320	0.012
1990	0.345	0.325	0.020
1991	0.343	0.323	0.020
1992	0.342	0.322	0.020
1993	0.350	0.332	0.018
1994	0.349	0.339	0.010
1995	0.350	0.338	0.012
1996	0.350	0.340	0.010
1997	0.347	0.337	0.010
1998	0.347	0.335	0.012
1999	0.349	0.345	0.004
2000	0.349	0.345	0.004
2001	0.331	0.332	-0.001
2002	0.332	0.331	0.001
2003	0.333	0.333	0.000
2004	0.343	0.335	0.008
2005	0.342	0.330	0.012
2006	0.343	0.337	0.006
2007	0.345	0.336	0.009
2008	0.345	0.333	0.012
2009	0.347	0.333	0.014
2010	0.329	0.325	0.004
2011	0.328	0.321	0.007
2012	0.324	0.319	0.005
2013	0.329	0.318	0.011
	0.335	0.326	0.010

Rick Porcello should not rhyme with poor fellow

The Detroit Tigers have never had a love affair with Rick Porcello. He does not strike guys out like Verlander. He does not have plus stuff. His name comes up often in trade rumors. He is a pitcher that does not satisfy a general manager trying to win it all. And yet, Rick Porcello is probably as good a fit in Detroit as just about any other fourth or fifth starter you can find out there.

After spending quite a bit of time looking at Rick Porcello's statistics, it is easy to get wrapped up in the meh. He has a lifetime ERA+ of 95 when 100 is considered league average. His figures in that statistic over the last four years have been thus: 83, 85, 93, 97. A bunch of years not to get overly excited about. But at least they show progress.

His career WHIP of 1.389 also leaves you with a distinct bland feeling as does his career strikeout rate of 5.4 to go with the 10.2 hits per nine he has given up for his career.

But again, if you think of him as a fourth or fifth starter and think of the competition of his own division, you put him side by side with the likes of Paulino in Chicago, Carrasco in Cleveland, Davis in Kansas City or Pelfrey of the Twins and you would take him over any of them, right?

But there is more. He has pitched for five full seasons now and is only now entering his year 25 year old season. He has been durable all five of those seasons. And, he is getting better and might even be on the cusp of being a pretty good pitcher.

Let's look at his FIP over the last four years in progression: 4.31, 4.06, 3.91, 3.53. Now his xFIP: 4.24, 4.02, 3.89 and 3.19. How about his RA9-WAR: 0.6, 1.1, 1.1, 2.2. There is definite improvement in all of those numbers.

And consider the fact that he is an extreme ground ball pitcher, averaging 2.35 ground balls per fly ball over the last two years. What infield has he had for most of his career. We are not talking rangy guys in Peralta, Fielder, Cabrera and even Infante has seen his range reduced over the past three years. And before Infante was a revolving door of second basemen, some converted willy-nilly from the outfield.

Now think of a ground ball pitcher pitching to an infield of Ian Kinsler, Jose Iglesias, Cabrera back to first where he belongs and Nick Castellanos, who has to be better than Cabrera was at third last year. More of those ground balls should be cleaned up in 2014.

But it is not only the infield that gives some optimism. He really is becoming a better pitcher. For the first couple of years, he was a fastball, slider guy. He then added in more change-ups. The slider has pretty much gone by the wayside (as it should have) and he is now throwing a curve 16.5% of the time and his change-up 15.5% of the time.

The curve as pretty much league average, but it was the first year he threw it a lot. The change was much better according to the value given that pitch by the stat sites. And the nuanced repertoire is making a difference.

His strikeouts per nine jumped last year to 7.2. While that is not world-beating by any means, it is still way above his 5.4 career average. And his strikeout to walk ratio went from his 2.37 career average to 3.38 in 2013. This is also shown in his swinging strike percentage. His career average is 7.1% and in 2013, that jumped to 8.6%. His percentage of pitches swung at out of the strike zone have increased nicely to 32.6 and 31.7%, an increase over his career average of 29.5%.

All of the numbers in the above paragraph show a four-year improvement curve where every year gets better in all those categories. In other words, he started as a 20 year old pitcher in the Major Leagues and is getting better at his craft and is in good shape going into his year 25 season. He is still incredibly young with more room to grow.

Rick Porcello might never be a great pitcher. But he is getting better. He has never been a real fan favorite or a front office favorite. But if you look at his durability, his improvement and the fact that he finally might have an infield suited to his skill-set, you should see that for what most teams have for depth in the fourth or fifth starter role, few seem as solid as Rick Porcello. And from what the numbers speak, he might even surprise a few people in 2014 and beyond.

Giancarlo Stanton is the old man of the Marlins' outfield

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hall of Fame voting results are disappointing

The Hall of Fame ballot was stuffed with at least sixteen candidates worthy of HOF honors. Three got in. And while I have no qualms with the three players elected and should at least be happy that the HOF party in July will celebrate something more than dead people like last year, the lack of inclusion of so many others is vastly disappointing.

It is also disappointing that the vote has dredged up even more vitriol between the older writers and the "sabermetric crowd." Don't believe me? How about Jon Heyman saying twice on the MLB Network reveal show his disappointment that the said "sabermetric crowd" cost Jack Morris his election after fifteen tries? How about a Seattle-based beat writer defending his stupid observation with the typical "I get paid to do this" snarky answers? How about others who during their HOF vote columns mention that it is not a Hall of WAR?

It is disappointing that the PED issue is still the white elephant in the room. Without direction from the Hall of Fame itself, the writers become judge and jury over an entire era. And they are not alone as opinion polls of casual fans would not elect the PED-suspected writers either. See Deadspin's post on the ballot they purchased from a writer to see that the fans would not have elected Bonds and Clemens either. So the writers cannot be fully blamed here. There is enough blame all around including those that ingested or injected to get us in this mess in the first place.

And so an entire era is condemned to not include the best players of that era. Well, yeah, three players from that era were elected today, but only because the writers deemed them clean, as if we can really ever say that with certainty. And no matter what they did or did not do, Bonds and Clemens were two of the best players in the history of the game. What the heck is a Hall of Fame without those two and Pete Rose?

It is disappointing that Biggio--a worthy candidate--is deemed vote-worthy and just missed by two votes when his clearly better teammate, Jeff Bagwell, missed my dozens of votes.

It is disappointing when voters still say things like, "I don't care what the numbers say, you had to be there and see them in action." Seriously?

It is disappointing when so many voters when faced with sixteen great options only voted for one to three players on their ballots. Seriously?

It is disappointing when Tom Glavine gets more than 90% of the vote because writers wanted him and Greg Maddux to go in together and then say that their vote is emotion-free. Emotion-free is the exact opposite of such pairings voting. And who said that being a journalist meant a lack of emotional investment? Was Walter Cronkite not a journalist when JFK was killed and when men landed on the moon and Cronkite truly displayed emotions at both instances? It's a stupid argument.

It is disappointing when voters continue to state that a player's first ballot should be only considered when they were the best of the best. A Hall of Fame player is a Hall of Fame player. Ballot manipulation does not make any such sense. Either a player is or he is not. If he is, what difference does it make if you vote for him the first time?

It is disappointing when statistical arguments for players like Mike Mussina and Tim Raines are rejected by half the voters or more because they are statistical arguments.

I agree completely with Mike Bates when he said that he has tried not to care about the Hall of Fame but cannot help but be passionate about what happens. How can you not be passionate about a sport that is in our blood to the point where we write about it every day? We have these arguments and we have Deadspin doing what they did because we feel powerless and held hostage by 571 keepers of the flame.

By the way, I applaud Dan Labatard or whatever his name is. That took guts and, yes, passion!

Another year of Hall of Fame results are in. I am glad for Glavine, Maddux and Frank Thomas. They deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. It is truly frustrating and emasculating that so many other deserving players will not be standing next to them in Cooperstown in July.

Free Ike Davis

The Ike Davis Experience in New York needs to end. It is as simple as that. The former first round draft pick who showed great promise in the minors and in flashes in the big leagues is just stuck with the Mets and needs a change of scenery. It remains to be seen if such a change will change what has become a nightmare for the player, his team and the fans. But the Mets cannot commit to him at this point and the only shot he seems to find himself again is to go away.

When you look at Ike Davis' numbers, they are just goofy. The difference between the first half Ike Davis and the second half is like two different people. Who knows why. Maybe he needs a sports psychologist or something. But it really is a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing.

In the second half, Ike Davis is a career .869 OPS guy. In the first half, he is a .697. He has a career OPS of .584 in May with a .184 batting average. In contrast, his batting average for September is .289. And there is more.

In the first half, his strikeout rate is 25.4% and his walk rate is 10.1%. In the second half, his strikeout rate is 22.1% and his walk rate is 14.9%. It is freaky.

His real struggles last year included facing left-handed pitching. He was awful against them to the tune of a .406 OPS. But as with Granderson and Long on the other side of the city, strategies against southpaws can be taught.

Everything came to a head last year. He had his typical terrible first half. He got sent to the minors where he was absolutely great and he finished the season with the Mets decently. But his power disappeared. He has a .192 career ISO and that fell to .129 in 2013. His home run per fly ball ratio fell from over 21% in 2012 to 11.8% in 2013.

It just gets to the point where the player just seems all messed up. And Ike Davis is all messed up. He needs to get out of New York where the managerial and coaching staff has been stable for several years and go get a fresh perspective somewhere.

But where? The need for first basemen around baseball is slight. The best locations for him to have a chance to resurrect his career would be for the Brewers or the Pirates. The Pirates are back to the Gaby Sanchez option. I have never been a fan of Sanchez who can hit for average occasionally but offers little else.

The Brewers currently have journeyman, Juan Francisco, as their first baseman on their depth charts. Seriously? Ike Davis would have to be an upgrade over that. Rumors are that the Mets are asking a lot for Davis. They should not. They should just move him for something useful.

This is a case where a team like the Mets is stuck with a puzzle they cannot figure out and Ike Davis is languishing in New York and his career is rotting before our eyes. For their own sake and for Davis', the Mets need to trade him soon to a good home like Pittsburgh or Milwaukee and see if Davis is done or the next Chris Davis.