Full disclosure: I’m an avid A’s fan. I’ve been one for the entirety of my adult life. The current state state of both the A’s ownership and stadium situation is seemingly hampering spending on free agents. Given the inability to bring in Major League ready talent via signings, the A’s are forced to trades, drafts, and International Free Agents. At the time of writing, I would like to see the front office fire sale anyone with value and build towards our eventual move to San Jose.

Imagine yourself as a Major League General Manager. The moves and calls are yours to make and take. The burden of responsibility to your owner, your ballplayers, and your fans constantly weighs on your mind. You know your team. You feel like you’re strong starting pitcher from running away from the pack of your division and clinching that ever coveted playoff spot. You don’t have any satisfactory internal options, so you send out calls to other teams.

Same as everyone else, you’ve heard that Gio Gonzalez is available,  or at least Billy Beane is taking calls on him. A potential deal with the Marlins has seemingly fallen through and now you have a chance to ask about Gio. Before you do, what exactly would you be getting? He’s a 5′ 11″ left hander that brings his 4-seamer in at an average 92.5 and a devastating curveball that buckles knees and puzzles aerospace engineers. He mixes in a 2-seamer with effective sink and has shown flashes of a developing change-up.

What we’re seeing is data to backup the assumption that pitchers develop and mature. Gio has gone to his fastball less and less and, as of 2011, has grown into a very strong blend of fastballs, 2-seamers, curves and sporadic change-ups. Thus far, this stronger mix of pitches has been to Gonzalez’ benefit. Observe the table below.

¹The MLB average is derived from both starters and relievers for K% and BB%

Ignoring ERA (I only included to because FIP and xFIP are measured on the same scale) you see that Gio’s FIP has been remarkably consistent. His K% has fluctuated but it does average out to what he accomplished this year. You’ll also note the slightly falling BB%. If Gio can manage just another small incremental reduction in walks, he’ll be below the 10% threshold and getting close to a league average rate. Gio already induces plenty of ground balls, with a 2011 rate that actually matches his career rate of 47.5%. The league average GB% was 43.2%. No work needs to be done there.

Like any sensible GM, you’d like to know what exactly is causing all these strikeouts and possibly all these walks. Thank goodness that in this day in age we have the ability to see.

¹SwStr% -  % of pitches throw for a swinging strike. MLB average for a starter is 8%
²zMS% – % of pitches in the strike zone that the batter swings at and misses. MLB average is 12%
³oMs% – % of pitches outside the strike zone that the batter swung at and missed. MLB average is 27.6%

Zone% and Strike% is of course the percentage of Gio’s pitches that fell in the strike zone, and the percentage of his pitches that ended up as strikes. Given that type of information it’s clear that Gio is a very rare talent. His penchant to induce swings and whiffs both inside and outside of the strike zone is certainly something to behold.

By now you’re just about convinced to give Billy Beane a call to work something out. But before you pick up the phone and start to talk business, take a look at Gonzalez’s remaining contract. Gio isn’t locked up long term, but that isn’t exactly a downside yet. He also is just now arbitration eligible. In fact, Gio won’t even be able to hit free agency until the 2015 season. If you trade for him now, you could be getting yourself a front line starter who just turned 26 this past September and has seemingly hit his stride and found his comfort level.

At this point the book is out on Gio. He is a left with a good fastball, a solid 2-seamer that induces grounders at an above average clip, and an owner of a devastating curveball. He is trending towards implementing his change-up more and more and could easily be another weapon in his already impressive arsenal in which to attack hitters. Gio strikes batters out at much better rate than the average MLB starter. The starter’s K rate in 2011 was a mere 16%. Gio is obviously much more capable at swings and misses than the average starter. His FIP numbers have dropped each of the past 3 years.

This is a strong starter that is available for a great salary price. The real price of course, will be the prospect haul. Pitchers with Gio’s talent + 3 more years of cost control don’t tend to get moved on the open market. If your club is in win-now mode then you’d be wise to sacrifice the prospects necessary to bring him in. Pick up the phone. Make the call.

 All statistics are from FanGraphs, StatCorner and Texas Leaguers Pitch f/x.

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

Enjoy the piece? Be sure to follow Scouting the Sally on Twitter, check out our YouTube Channel, and friend us onFacebook! We’d also love to hear from you in the comments section!

For all the time, energy, and late nights that we work on our pre-draft rankings there are certain things that are just unknown to us. One of those variables is injury status, and 2011 that was no exception — especially for two top tier pitchers.

Adam Wainwright was out for the season when forced to go under the knife as a victim of yet another Tommy John’s surgery. Yes, Waino’s ulnar collateral ligament had to be replaced. The other pitcher that we’ll be taking a look at today is Josh Johnson. This season Johnson was held to just 9 starts before he was shut down for good in mid May with a shoulder injury.

Although everyone was (or should have been) aware of Wainwright’s non existent 2011 season, few foresaw the injury to Johnson. Despite a back strain that caused Johnson to miss the last 3 weeks of the 2010 season, there was little reason to be concerned for the hurler coming into 2011. True, Johnson underwent TJS in August of 2007, but with little sign of any elbow injury or pitching delivery quirks, there was no cause for alarm. Although Johnson was the one with shoulder pain, I was one of the victims left with buyer’s remorse. With a sensational start to the season (1.63 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, but an unsustainably low .239 BABIP) I had nothing but Roy Halladay level number hopes for Johnson. Alas, it was not meant to be.

Let’s take a look at Wainright’s and Johnson’s prospect pedigree before we compare their MLB careers or injuries any further.

Looking at this simple table, it’s clear that Wainwright was the much more highly touted prospect both coming out of high school and in the minor leagues. I would say it is safe to say that Johnson’s 2007 TJS hurt his prospect rank, but that’s just speculation. Let’s move onto their career numbers.

Or in other words, a study of dominance. Combine a high strikeout and ground ball rate with very few walks, fly balls and even fewer home runs and you have yourself a pair of front line starters. If you’d really like to pick nits, then a little higher of a ground ball rate would be nice, but you’d just be complaining that your gold isn’t platinum at that point.

We’ve seen that both pitchers come from a fairly high pedigree, although Wainwright did outclass Johnson in the minor league rankings. Despite the misnomers, Johnson has proved every bit as capable of getting big league hitters out at the same rate and almost the same fashion as Wainwright. As their pitching ability has been proven to be even, let us observe the injuries that have derailed them.

Wainwright underwent TJS February 28th, 2011. The typical time frame of recovery is 12 to 15 months, which would put Waino clearly on track to be ready for Spring Training if everything proceeds as planned. Given that he was already throwing off a mound multiple times in late August and early September, at this point in time, there is little reason to doubt his recovery process. Although TJS is certainly a long and disappointing turn of events for Wainwright, replacing the UCL is a relatively common injury to come back from. Sometimes even multiple times. I’m not one to marginalize a surgery that derails a pitchers career for a minimum of a year, but TJS is an injury that can be addressed efficiently and thoroughly.

Shoulder pain on the other hand is something that is not yet fully understood. Look no further than the remains of Jake Peavy and Brandon Webb for some recent examples. Not even the great  Chet Steadman wasn’t impervious to the brutal truth of shoulder injuries and the uncertainty of shoulder surgery. The fact of the matter is that from a medical science standpoint, we simply aren’t in the same ballpark of knowledge when it comes to shoulder injuries as we are with elbow injuries. Although Johnson did not actually undergo surgery, opting instead for rehab, the basic nature and cause of shoulder soreness is something that we don’t currently fully understand.

Given the performance already demonstrated, the noteworthy prospect pedigree and the working knowledge that we have of each pitcher’s injury, I will be looking towards drafting Adam Wainwright, with confidence, to my fantasy teams. If Josh Johnson happens to fall to the 20th round or so, then sure, I’d take a flier on him. However I personally do not recommend nor do I expect Johnson to be nearly as highly drafted as in previous years. I can’t imagine that when you compare Johnson and Wainwright, why you would take the much larger risk in Johnson. Yes, Wainwright is the one coming off of major surgery, but it is a known and well established procedure. Johnson still represents risk, and in fantasy baseball, there isn’t much room for risk on the draft board.

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

Enjoy the piece? Be sure to follow Scouting the Sally on Twitter, check out our YouTube Channel, and friend us onFacebook! We’d also love to hear from you in the comments section!

After stunning the baseball world and trading for Ubaldo Jimenez at the trade deadline this year, the Indians seem to be in a rush to get the front of their rotation set for 2012. Earlier today the Indians announced a trade with the Braves for Derek Lowe for a prospect and salary relief. The Braves picked up reliever Chris Jones in exchange for Lowe and 5 million dollars to Cleveland. The Indians already have Fausto Carmona on their staff, and most know of my affection for Justin Masterson. Those four will form the core of the 2012 Cleveland Indians starting rotation. Listed below are their 2011 numbers.

¹The average is for qualified starting pitchers only, in both the AL and NL.

If Philadelphia has a historic group of control and strike out pitchers, then at the least Cleveland has a near historic collection of ground ball machines. Each of the four listed above have a better than average ground ball rate, three of them by a difference of 10%!

Of course a ground ball pitching staff is only as good as the infield defense behind them, so let us take a look at the likely starting infield come 2012. Currently the only 1B that Cleveland has on it’s roster is Matt LaPorta but it would be an understatement to say he hasn’t hit or fielded as well as hoped. One would imagine that Mark Shapiro isn’t done acquiring players yet, and I would assume the next player added is Carlos Pena. Pena is merely speculation at this point however, so I will include LaPorta in this. Here we have the the MLB defensive numbers for each player from this year².

²The elephant in the room to RngR (Range Runs above average) and UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating Runs) is that the accepted rule is a required 3 year data set. That is to say, it is best to take the accuracies of the statistics in a 3 consecutive year sequence. Worth noting: Cabrera has never been the “glove wizard” that announcers tend to make him out to be. For his career per 150 games played, he has a -10.5 UZR. To put that in perspective, that equals 1 win person season he is costing his team on his lack of range at shortstop.

Well that doesn’t exactly bode fantastically well, does it? At least the 4, 5, 6 are able to start double plays in any order. Finished them at 3 might be a bit tougher with LaPorta being there, but again, he has hasn’t had a huge sample size to draw conclusions from. If I were Shapiro, I would go after Pena in an attempt to boost my defense. I’m less worried about Chisenhall and Kipnis, as various scouting websites have listed both them as average with the glove, and some saying Chisenhall a tick above average in the field.

It appears as though Mark Shapiro has decided to bet wins and losses (in essence his very job) on these ground ball hurlers. Statistically, ground balls translate to fewer XBH than fly balls. It’s not just that, but the last time I checked it was impossible for a ground ball to go for a home run. It seems as though Shapiro has found a way to make a bet and beat the odds of baseball. As an extension of that wager, he is counting on the infield defense to turn those grounders them into outs. It is a bet that I would be willing to make too.

Tables via Tableizer!

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

Enjoy the piece? Be sure to follow Scouting the Sally on Twitter, check out our YouTube Channel, and friend us onFacebook! We’d also love to hear from you in the comments section!

While perusing the FanGraphs Team Pitching Totals page I was surprised to see the Marlins so high up on the FIP leader list. They’re ranked as 9th best in all of baseball. This is mostly a surprise because after the loss of their ace, Josh Johnson, I assumed that the pitching would certainly struggle. After Javier Vazquez’s (3.57 FIP, 3.2 WAR) big midseason turn around and Ricky Nolasco (3.54 FIP,3.5 WAR) with another strong pitching performance, the Marlins leader in both FIP and WAR was none other than Anibal Sanchez (3.35 FIP, 3.8 WAR).

Success is not new to Sanchez as he threw a no-hitter as far back as 2006, but being healthy is an important turn of events. He seems to fully recovered from a torn labrum that required surgery in 2007 and another injurt shortened 16 games started in 2009. Lets see what Sanchez has accomplished the past two years.

The O’s represent Outside the strike zone. Z’s are within the strike zone. Basically what we are seeing is a big jump in strike out rate and a slight dip in walk rate. Sanchez has managed this by increasing swings outside of the zone, inside the zone for less contact and, most importantly, a higher rate of swinging strikes. Additionally, his ability to throw first-pitch strikes (F-Strike) should not be lost. The expected outcome from 1-0 to 0-1 in the count can swing an average* MLB hitter’s expect run value as much as .080 of a run**. Of course at first glance less than 1/1oth of a run seems absurdly small, until you remember that we are talking about a single pitch’s value. Sanchez’s ability to consistently get ahead of hitters is another key in his evolving into a strikeout machine.

*MLB non-pitchers OPS’d .720 in 2011, or a .316 wOBA.
**The run envrionment from 2008 was of course higher than in 2011, but I wasn’t able to find a more updated run value by batter count. As a point of reference, the MLB average in 2008 was a .749 OPS, or a .328 wOBA.

Looking at past performance is always a fine exercise, but the real question is what predictive value can we gain from the past? Since his injury shortened 2009, Sanchez has been able to cut hit walk rate by over 5% while increasing his strikeout rate by almost 6%. Sanchez has a strong pedigree, as his pre-2006 Baseball America prospect rank was 40th overall. I wouldn’t count on him continuing to lower his peripherals, but given that Sanchez’s ADP was somewhere after the 25th round, he ended up being a great bargain.

As for his 2012 season, my friend Dan Szymborski was kind enough to run his projection system, ZiPS for Anibal Sanchez to see what the computer think Sanchez can do next year. I placed 2011 and 2012 on here, to give a better frame of reference for accuracy.

The projection system nailed Sanchez’s adjusted ERA but missed the mark in terms of  durablity (innings pitched) and K-rate. ZiPS has Sanchez as having an ERA 15% better than league average and that sounds about right. I would expect his BB% and K% to normalize now. Viewing Sanchez’s Pitch F/X his groupings are very clear and distinct. He uses his 4-seamer, changeup, sinker and curveball all very effectively. My only regret is that I was too slow in noticing the strides Sanchez has made.

If you were lucky enough to draft him in the late rounds or even pick him up off the waiver wire, and play in a keeper league, I certainly recommend you keep him at that discounted price. The surplus value that you will be saving yourself is huge. Sanchez seems to have fully found his grove. If you don’t already own him, I suggest making an offer for him, and if you play in a re-draft league you may be able to sneak him a round or two lower than where he should go based on his injury history.

Despite Sanchez’s strong pitch repetoire and peripherals that lineup well for the future, he does have a bit of a “one-year wonder” feeling. Other owners may be scared off on drafting him. I wouldn’t be. 200 K pitchers don’t grow on trees. Do yourself a favor and make acquiring Sanchez a priority.

A special thank you to Dan Szymborski, the creater of ZiPS, FanGraphs contributer, Baseball Think Factory writer and contributer to ESPN Insider. Despite all that, he still lends a hand to writers like me. He truly is one of the good guys. Do yourself a favor and check out his work.

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

Enjoy the piece? Be sure to follow Scouting the Sally on Twitter, check out our YouTube Channel, and friend us onFacebook! We’d also love to hear from you in the comments section!

During the 2010 season, I made the three-plus hour journey from my house in NW Georgia to Greeneville, Tennessee, home of the Greeneville Astros, the Appalachian league affiliate of the Houston Astros for the first time.  On that evening, Greeneville was playing the Kingsport Mets, a team led by Mets prospect and Scouting the Sally staple Aderlin Rodriguez.  It was a great evening at Pioneer Park, one of the best minor league baseball stadiums I have ever visited and I promised myself to make the trip again with the goal of catching some of the best and brightest of the Appalachian League.

Being primarily interested in Mets prospects and high-ceiling prospects on other teams, my goal was to catch two K-Mets game in hopes of seeing two of their three top pitching prospects while also catching Astros Bonus Baby Ariel Ovando.  I thought I’d planned it perfectly this time: I’d see Mets pitching prospects Juan Urbina and Domingo Tapia pitch in consecutive starts but miss the other pitching prospect Akeel Morris.  It didn’t work.  At the end of my trip, I would miss Domingo Tapia; the K-mets had shuffled their rotation from what was listed on their site, and Ariel Ovando was MIA with an apparent injury.  But I didn’t let that dampen my enthusiasm as I still had a chance to see Juan Urbina.

Juan Urbina, son of former Major league reliever Ugueth Urbina, was signed by the Mets out of Venezuela in 2009.  After making his pro debut the previous season in the Gulf Coast League, Urbina, a lanky 18 year old left handed pitcher, was preparing to make his second start of the 2011 season in the visitor’s bullpen at Pioneer Park.  When I say preparing, I mean preparing.

Urbina was stretching fifteen to twenty minutes before the G-Astros starter Chris Lee was stretching.  I have never seen a pitcher in the pen so early for his start.  He had to wait on the catcher and the pitching coach a good long time before starting his routine.  After stretching, he went to the bullpen mound and started throwing an imaginary baseball at about half speed, much like a little league outfielder practicing his swings between pitches with his imaginary bat.  Once the catcher was ready to go, Urbina had already been out there for 15 minutes stretching and throwing imaginary pitches.  I started taking video of once Urbina started warming up, which is posted below

As you can see from the video, Urbina has a lot of room to grow.  He is listed at 6’2″, 170 Pounds and I would say that is about right.  His mechanics were very consistent thru the first three innings then they became erratic, which coincided with the Astros hitters knocking him around a bit.  It got very rough when he employed a slide step, which infuriated me to see an 18 year old left handed pitcher doing.  I captured a few of these pitches at the tail end of this video.  His arm effort on those pitches was alarming to me and I hope the Mets limit him from using the slide step until his mechanics are refined.  Also, Urbina worked exclusively from the stretch throughout the game.

Fastball:  Urbina featured an above average fastball.  He worked primarily in the 87 to 91 MPH range, touching 93 more than once.  When working in the high 80′s, he showed some plus downward movement on his 2 seam fastball.  As the night went on, he had difficulty commanding this pitch.  His 4 seam fastball left something to be desired.  At times was flat, especially when he reached back for extra velocity.  A 93 MPH flat 4 seam fastball got driven for a home run, another was lined sharply for an out. He did not lose velocity despite getting tired, and he last fastball he threw was 93.  When right, he worked in and out with his fastball on right handed hitters, setting them up for his vaulted change up.

Change up:  Going into this game, any scouting report I found about Urbina talked about how good of a pitch his change up is, Those reports didn’t disappoint.  Clearly it’s his best pitch and the pitch that has the ceiling of a plus-plus offering.  His arm action on this pitch is tremendous, especially when you consider he is only 18.  He only slowed down his motion as he got tired and I don’t believe, even then, a good swing was made on the pitch.  It sat between 80-83, with good downward movement.  On more than one occasion, it just dropped off, resulting in an ugly swing and miss.

Breaking Ball:  Honestly, I didn’t see enough to really say anything about his breaking pitches.  I have heard he throws a Curveball and a Slider, but they weren’t on display that evening.

I’m very curious to track Urbina’s development as he makes his full season debut.  He is very raw with a tremendous feel for one pitch.  I think it is foolish to project a kid this far away because the jump to full season ball for a teenager like Urbina is a big step.  I think next year, we’ll see what he’s made of.

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Today we’re taking a look at legitimate ROY candidate Eric Hosmer and trying to find a decent statistical comp for him in hopes of putting his season into perspective and projecting, to some degree, his career going forward.

I began my search reviewing all left handed rookies between the ages of 20 and 22 in the live-ball era who had an OPS range within 40 points on either side of Hosmer who also hit at least 15 home runs.  In other words, just those hitters who performed at a similar level, at a similar age, as the Kansas City first baseman.

I thought the OPS range an appropriate (if simplistic) yardstick to measure relative value which also allowed me to weed out anomalous or statistically aberrant performances such as Ted Williams’ rookie season which was, well, let’s just say pretty, pretty good.

Our list is short but distinguished, and included the likes of the NY Mets Darryl Strawberry, Boston Braves Eddie Matthews, Bill White (who, in addition to having a successful 13-year career with the Giants, Cardinals, and Phillies also famously called Bucky Dent’s fly ball home run as a Yankee announcer in 1978) as well as more recent rookie performances by Jason Heyward and Jay Bruce.

I was a bit surprised, however, to find that Hosmer’s closest match was, in fact, none other than Baltimore’s Nick Markakis.

Both Hosmer and Markakis were top-10 picks, the former being selected straight out of high school as one of the nation’s top power projects in 2008. I think it’s easy to forget  in only five years just how good Markakis’ rookie season was when placed into historical context.  While he didn’t win the American League Rookie of the Year award that year (that honor instead went to Justin Verlander), he did lead all rookie positional players in Baseball Reference’s WAR board that season.

As we see, Hosmer had six additional extra base hits his rookie season, which is reflected in his higher isolated power number (.172 vs. .157).  However, once he got his feet wet, Markakis ratcheted up the power by hitting a .185 ISO, 23 home runs and 43 doubles the next season and .185 ISO, 20 home runs and 48 doubles effort in ’08.   Markakis’ season that year should have concluded with a few MVP votes – he was a top three positional player in the American League with 5.5 WAR (according to Baseball Reference) that year — but for reasons unknown was omitted from the ballot entirely.

While Hosmer may project for more consistent power than Markakis season-to-season, the latter has a much better glove.  Though defensive metrics aren’t fully developed, it’s reasonable to argue that Hosmer’s lack of defensive prowess may limit his overall value.

He isn’t likely to hit more than 30 homers a year (and some say that’s a stretch), so Hosmer will need to improve his glove work to make a bigger impact in the bigs.  Markakis was called to the show with outstanding leather, reasonable speed and good footwork, and was nearly three wins better – defensively – his rookie year.

Hosmer showed some speed this year by swiping 11 bags, but I wouldn’t expect anything more than 10 steals over the course of a full season going forward; he doesn’t need to prove his merit to the Royals in any way and shouldn’t risk injury.  Markakis on the other hand stole only two bases as a rookie, but turned that around his sophomore season by nabbing 18.  Since then, Markakis has averaged only about twelve attempts a year.

With sluggish and declining power numbers the past three years, Markakis appears to have entered into the decline phase of his career.  He continues to make good contact, but his isolated power numbers are down over 60 points from their peak, and this is during his prime.  In fact, his decline across the board since 2008 (including defense) bears further investigation; it doesn’t appear he’s the same player he was just a couple of years ago.

If history can be a guide of sorts for us in any way, it’s not a stretch to argue that Hosmer’s peak will be very similar to Markakis’:  25/100/90 with 10 stolen bases.  The question will become whether he can sustain that production over a longer period of time.

A lifelong baseball fan and savvy 12-year veteran of high-stakes fantasy baseball leagues, I cut my teeth on Boston’s heartbreaking losses in the late 70′s and 80′s, studied philosophy and critical theory in college, and once convinced a girlfriend that criss-crossing the country visiting ballparks would be good for the relationship.

I’ve since relocated to the Hudson Valley, call ‘The Dutch’ my home ballpark and, after putting pen to paper to wax didactic on the multiverse of fantasy sports, have been a regular contributor to FantasyPros911 and Roto Hardball. I look forward to huckleberry pie, data crunching, and adding a metrics-driven spin to Scouting the Sally.  Follow me on Twitter @Todd_McMacken.

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The 2011 MLB regular season has come to an end. Twenty-eight ball clubs played all 162, while the Nationals and the Dodgers got short changed as they only played 161. No worries, neither team was withing shouting distance of a playoff spot. A full season of 162 games is a considerable sample period and should certainly normalize both hot (Andre Ethier) and cold (Dan Uggla) starts to the season.

But sabermetricians know that even 162 games can’t fully account for a a player’s statistical fluctuations as both hitter and pitchers have anomalous seasons that can be reasonably regressed to the mean; players will often bounce back to career norms the next year.

But I’m not here to talk about the value of interpreting BABIP correctly. No, I’d like to discuss the postseason, and how it makes a mockery of the regular season. The 162 game season is an idea that the best teams will eventually rise to top of each division. The division winners and a wild card team will face off against each in the first round of the playoffs. Then the second round. And finally the World Series. Another way of reading this would be:

“You play 162 games to draw out the best in yourself, then you roll the dice in a best of 5 game series. If you make it past there, congrats! You will now once again roll the dice in a best of 7 series. If you’re good enough, or just plain lucky enough, you’ll contend for the World Series…in another best of 7 series.”

I would call that setup far from ideal, but it’s the system we have, so analyze it I shall. The problem with such a small sample is simple: volatility and unpredictability.  So far this postseason, run scoring is coming in like a rising tide. Actually, its been more of a tsunami. Observe the graphic below.

The Rangers have managed to boost their scoring output from the regular season at each level of the playoffs. The Cardinals had a dip in offense in the Division Series, but they made up for it with a strong effort in the NLCS, actually scoring more than their AL counter-part despite not having the luxury of the DH. Given the scoring listed, one would be inclined to assume that recent trends will hold and each World Series game will be a shootout, right?

Of course not. It’s obviously less than ideal to make assumptions based on such a small sample size as a 11 or 12 games. The problem is most mainstream media types would beg you to view the postseason as some type of mystical, magical time frame where the gritty, competitive, leadership types trample upon the weak minded, didn’t-want-it-enough, chokers. I implore you to not buy into that narrative. Perhaps some announcers should heed Abraham Lincoln’s words:

 ”It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

A good example of buying the narrative along with the numbers is Cody Ross. In last year’s playoffs, he went Bondsian and put up a .453 wOBA. That’s actually better than the .439 Barry Bonds did in the regular season for his career. Of course the predictive value of Ross’s 59 PA is laughable compared to the 12,600+ PA that Bonds racked up in accumulating his numbers. But that’s part of the beauty of baseball; anyone can get hot, even Yuniesky Betancour who raked to the tune of a .355 wOBA in his first playoff performance.

I would never belittle the accomplishments of any baseball player in the postseason. I’m only asking that we don’t get over-zealous about 60 plate appearances. Part of the joy, and agony, of baseball is the small sample size of the playoffs. Great hitters go through 2-25 stretches. Average hitters catch fire and carry teams to glory. That’s just a baseball truth. What isn’t a baseball ”truth” is that the stars shine brightest in the playoffs. It just doesn’t jive with the record books.

Remember the line from The Fast And The Furious? Where Vin Diesel’s character says:

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters. For those 10 seconds or less, I’m free.”

That may work beautifully in street racing, but in baseball, it’s different. Allow me to re-write a bit of dialogue to better suit our baseball needs:

 ”I live my sabermetric life one statistic at a time. Everything matters. But for those 60 postseason plate appearances or less, those aren’t predictive enough. Not for me.”

Yeah, that’s better.

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

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Everytime you hear a pregame posteason show, you’ll hear the same basic tenants of a “winning ball club.”  Key hits, strong starter performance and of course, a strong and deep bullpen. I think bullpens are the key to the modern game.

I’m not necessarily talking about having multiple LOOGY’s to get all the southpaws in lineup, but just having a deep bullpen to begin with. Think about it, what in baseball is more agonizing than seeing your bullpen waste a great starting pitching performance? The only thing worse than a blown save is giving up a walk off hit. As an A’s fan, I still have nightmares from the 2006 postseason.

The explosion of 7 and even 8 man bullpens in recent years is a testament to relief pitching being the key to games. (For the record, I’m not absolutely convinced that this is the ideal 25-man roster construction, but that’s a different post for a different day). Your team needs every favorable matchup it can get, no matter how small. Let’s take a look at a pair of significant season-to-season turnarounds in recent years:

In just one short offseason the Devil Rays became just the Rays, and with that exorcism the bullpen woes of 2007 also departed Tampa Bay. The 2008 squad generated more strike outs and gave up fewer hits and home runs. While some of that can be attributed to luck and better defense, I’d still say that qualifies as a pretty big turnaround, and the WPA reflects that. By going from nearly “worst to first,” the Rays bullpen helped shorten games and make sure late close games were closed out.

In 2007, TB had 21 blown saves, 5th most in baseball. In 2008, only 16 blown saves, tied for 4th fewest in the MLB. The Tampa front office recognized a major weakness and spent that offseason accordingly by bringing in Troy Percival. Percival, addition with the maturation of J.P. Howell and Grant Balfour, helped turn around the Rays. Although Percival didn’t quite live up to expectations (or his salary), the bullpen did help the Rays reach the World Series ’08.  If you need further convincing, observe a more recent example:

Here we see a little more skill-based change; that is to say only strikeouts, walks and home runs. The shift in win probability wasn’t as stark, but the results and consequent WAR are served the same. Again, the combination of free agent spending and accurate front office evaluation are critical as the Diamondbacks brought in J.J. Putz on a 2 year, 10 million dollar deal, traded for David Hernandez and then at the deadline traded for submariner and groundball specialist Brad Ziegler.

All too often baseball fans and even baseball insiders are quick to write off bullpens as failed starters, career journeymen and the like. But as we’ve seen, both of these teams exploited their competitor’s undervaluation of the player pool.

Looking ahead to next year, the Angels and Royals are two teams that are primed to improve their bullpens, and possibly make the jump from watching baseball in October to actually playing it. I wouldn’t say that building a bullpen is the number one thing a club can do to turn around its franchise. The bullpen is just one small factor when it comes to team building, but apparently not as small as we think.

Huge kudos to Joe Pawlikowski for his FanGraphs peice earlier in the year year for inspiring this article

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

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For some Yankee fans the 2010 draft was a failure before the players even received their assignments.  The big over-slot signing was Mason Williams, who got first round money as a fourth round pick.    And as always the case, with big money there are substantial expectations whether it is in the draft, international free agency or with MLB free agents.  Williams, selected 145th overall out of West Orange High School in Florida, received a hefty $1.45 million and has delivered on the Yankees’ investment.

Williams’ triple slash line was an excellent .349/.395/.468 as a 19 year old.  Very impressive numbers — at any age — but especially for a teenager in the NY-Penn league.  Still, there were some questions in that line.  An ISO of .119 went along with a walk rate of six plus percent.  His strikeout rate was a respectable fourteen percent.  With Williams’ speed you would expect his twenty eight steals but not the twelve caught stealings; at best a 70% success rate is the low end of acceptable

Overall his season was very good and it probably puts him  as a top five prospect in a Yankees system.  I suspect you will see Williams in a few top 100 prospect lists around spot seventy five or so, and he was ranked the top prospect in Baseball America’s evaluation of the NY-Penn League.  While his numbers deserve the accolades, there are some issues that are worrisome.  First we’ll take a look at Williams as he appeared in high school, and then later as a Class A professional with Staten Island.

As you can tell from the second video the Yankees have reworked his stance and his swing.  The Yankees normally don’t tinker with a young player’s swing until he has 150 at bats in the organization, but we see that Williams’s new stance is open and reminds me of Curtis Granderson’s swing before Kevin Long worked with him.  He has a ton of bat wiggle and his hands are too high, but you can see that he generates good bat speed and shows the ability to get inside pitches and go the other way.

While Williams may not have elite bat speed (these are the only good videos I can find), it’s easy to see he has the beginnings of a decent hit tool.  The Yankees will need to work with their young prospect on quieting the swing by limiting his bat wiggle and lowering his hands to improve his timing.

If Mason Williams continues to develop and shows more power, you could see him vault up into top-50 prospect status.  At this stage, he appears to project as an average-to-good center fielder who is certainly worth the investment.

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Since the dawn of man, well, at least since the dawning of free agent spending man, GM’s have sought cheap and effective ways of filling out their rosters.  Specifically, finding cost effective pitching staffs. Due to the violent nature of pitching, many elbows, shoulders, and careers have been lost to the fraility of the human build.  Given this inherent unpredictability, lower-cost and less-obvious options can be an efficient way of balancing the risk/reward ratio when assembling a pitching staff. Even if a few arms don’t succeed, it won’t be a potentially crippling cost to the franchise.  So, what type of arms are plentiful in any farm system? Bullpen arms.

Although the idea of turning a great reliever into a starting pitcher isn’t a new idea, Derek Lowe and Adam Wainwright for example, intuitively, it seems that recent Spring Training news and even in-season news has been largely focused on relievers being converted to starters. Remember all the discussion surrounding Joba Chamberlain?  Once upon a time, Joba was the #3 prospect in baseball.  After Texas had great succes moving C.J. Wilson to the starting rotation, this past spring was all about closer Neftali Feliz‘s possible move to the rotation. Instead, they chose setup man Alexi Ogando, and it seems to have worked out. The Padres, a team that can pretty much pick a guy off the street and make him a decent 5 starter, tried a different approach and instead promoted Cory Luebke mid-season. The Bravers took a gamble on one-time reliever Brandon Beachy, who was named the clubs 5th starter out of Spring Training and was fantastic.

Admittedly, this post is more meta-game than scouting, but hear me out. I’m going to do a bit of a comparison. I’ll be looking at Ogando’s and Luebke’s statistics compiled as relievers against those as a starter. Both are under club control and neither are arbitration-eligible until 2013, with both clubs attempting to maximize their value. I give credit to the Rangers and Padres talent evaluators, as it seems it was a smart move for each team. Let’s dive into their numbers a bit.

Well now, this is a bit interesting; look at the difference in the LD% for both pitchers. Given the standard small sample size disclaimer, that is nonetheless a stark difference. Pure speculation, but I wonder if it has to to with a smaller pitching repertoire to choose from? Another curious note is the higher walk rate as a reliever — I would have assumed the exacty opposite. Both of those are issues that require deeper investigation. Another but less surprising fact is the higher K/9 coming out of the bullpen.  It’s not such a large variance for Luebke, but Ogando is striking out less than 7 batters per 9 IP. That seems awfully low to maintain a mid 3 FIP, although its not unheard of for a pitcher to be pretty successful without fanning a ton of hitters.

Texas’ and San Diego’s handling of Ogando and Luebke has been superb.  Last year, coming strictly out of the pen, Ogandao managed 0.8 WAR and a 0.37 Win Probablity Added. This year Ogando has started 29 times and come out of the pen twice. His advanced value numbers are 3.6 WAR and 2.24 WPA. The Rangers paid Ogando the league minimum last year. This year? He’s making the minimum plus 30,000 dollars.

Luebke was shuffled mid season, as his first start came June 26th, and he has been used exclusively as a starter since then. He threw 39 innings as a releiver, and 100 2/3 as a starter, combining for a total of 2.4 WAR. It is a relatively safe assumption that given 30 starts instead of just 17, Luebke would easily have been a 3-win player; an extemely valuable proposition considering he was paid 415,600 for his 2.4 WAR and he didn’t even start for half of a season. Other pitchers who had 2.4 WAR this year? Hiroki Kuroda, Ryan Vogelsong and Jason Vargas. Each of those 3 pitchers threw more than 179IP. Kuroda and Vargas both throwing more than 200 innings. And for the record this year alone: Kuroda – 12 million, Vargas – 2.45 million and Vogelsong signed a minor league deal, so his contract to win ratio is close to Luebke’s. When you consider quantity vs. quality, Vogelsong accrued the same amount of WAR as Luebke in almost 80 more innings. That’s a massive difference.

I’m not advocating that all 30 teams begin transforming their 12th and 13th guys into a starters.  The crux of my argument is that while there aren’t many 3.0+ WAR pitchers sitting around in bullpens, there are some–and that is enough.

David considers himself a student of the school of sabermetrics. As a rule, he doesn’t discount anyones word until it’s disproven, or cite any statistic until it’s verified. A cautioned optimistic, he loves watching, learning, and studying the intricacies of baseball.

Enjoy the piece? Be sure to follow Scouting the Sally on Twitter, check out our YouTube Channel, and friend us onFacebook! We’d also love to hear from you in the comments section!

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