Sometimes it just all goes wrong. You could say that was the story of the 2010 Red Sox. They suffered injuries all over the roster. Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Cameron, Josh Beckett, you name the Red Sox player and it's likely they missed a chunk of time. John Lackey also fell short of expectations, Jonathan Papelbon imploded down the stretch, and the end result was a 3rd place finish.

But then again, what about the MVP season Adrian Beltre put up? And didn't Clay Buchholz somehow post a 2.33 ERA? Jon Lester had another Cy Young caliber season. Jed Lowrie posted a better OPS+ than Troy Tulowitzki in limited time. You get the point. There were bright spots for the Red Sox, and it's how they managed to win 89 games.

For the Cubs, things went south quickly. They started terribly out of the gate, and a short-tempered Lou Piniella, on his last managerial legs, reacted poorly. He mishandled Carlos Zambrano, whose awful April and delicate temperament seemed to overwhelm Piniella. Inexplicably, Piniella actually played Koyie Hill regularly while one of the game's best hitting catchers sat on the bench. In an unceremonious end to his career, Pinella quit over the summer when the Cubs were 51-74.

It wasn't just Piniella's fault, of course. From 2004 to 2009, Aramis Ramirez hit .303/.368/.551 in over 3,300 plate appearances. In 2010, he hit .241/.294/.452 on the heels of his worst BABIP, .245, since his 21-year old season for the Pirates. Derrek Lee hit .304/.384/.515 from 2007 to 2009 and then fell to .251 /.335/.416 last season for the Cubs. Sure it's probably just one of those things and not attributable to much at all, but the fact that Lee went and hit .287/.384/.465 for the Braves over the last 39 games does little to discredit the notion that there was a corrosiveness surrounding the Cubs in 2010.

There were also the 412 plate appearances of .647 OPS output that Ryan Theriot contributed. Indeed, the most productive Cubs infielder in 2010 was Starlin Castro, an exciting development that bodes well for the North Siders' future. But let's be honest. If a 20-year old shortstop is your best hitting infielder, chances are you're doing it very, very wrong.

On the pitching side, Zambrano notwithstanding, things started out pretty good for the Cubs. The problems arose over the summer. In June and July, they yielded 323 runs over a 55-game stretch. That amounts to 5.87 runs per game, or 951 allowed extrapolated over a full season. No National League team in the last 10 seasons has managed 951 runs. It was a disaster. On the bright side, the Cubs did finish 24-13 under new Manager, Mike Quade, who returns this season.

So what about 2011? Lee is gone and Carlos Pena is in. While it may be a lot to ask of an antsy fan base to grin and bear such a low batting average and a ton of strikeouts, Pena looks poised for a big bounce-back. Dan Szymborski's ZIPS has Lee at .239/.363/.508 with 31 home runs. On the other corner, Ramirez is another great candidate to return to form. At second, Theriot's out of the picture and while Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker might not amount to much, Theriot gone, and playing for the rival Cards no less, may well amount to addition by subtraction. Baker has hit .308/.363/.545 in his career against lefties, so Quade may have a tactical lever to pull in order to squeeze a bit more production out of second. At short, Castro's another year older and projects as a star one day. He might not get there this year but you never know when a player of his talent might make that leap. They're not the Phillies, the Red Sox or the Yankees but it should be a productive infield, which is a lot more than the Cubbies could say in 2010.

Behind the plate, Quade's mandate is simple. Play Geovany Soto. Play him as much as possible without risking injury. DH him in the AL parks. It was only nine games but I found this to be one of the very saddest things about the 2010 Cubs. Their pitchers hit .132/.170/.159 last season. In their nine interleague games in AL ballparks, Cubs DH's hit .154/.175/.179. They might as well have stuck with their pitcher. Sorry to get off topic but the point here is straightforward. Play Soto a lot. Play Hill as little as possible.

The outfield of (left to right) Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd and Kosuke Fukudome returns in place and while it's old and not the most prolific bunch, it's also steady. None of them figures to turn in a stinker of a season provided they can stay healthy. I'm not a big Tyler Colvin fan but he's versatile and fine enough as a fourth option.

On the pitching side, Ryan Dempster returns and Quade has already named him the Opening Day starter. It's a small thing but I like the early announcement for a few reasons. First, it shows that Quade appreciates what Dempster has managed to accomplish over the last few seasons. Since 2008, he ranks 14th in Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement among all Major League pitchers. Rewarding Dempster for that sort of output reflects well on Quade. Second, it takes a hint pressure off of Zambrano and newcomer Matt Garza. Zambrano hasn't always reacted well to the expectations that come with a big paycheck in a media market like Chicago. And, like Zambrano, Garza is a fiery competitor who can feed off of, or be done in by, his emotions. Again, it's not a big deal but it reflects a level of thoughtfulness that was lacking during the Piniella days. The Cubs had a 103 team ERA+ last season, they return four of five starters, swap Garza in for Tom Gorzelanny and have added Kerry Wood to a bullpen that returns key pieces Carlos Marmol and Sean Marshall.

If the Cubs fail to make a playoff push this season, it will likely be due to a lack of depth. That's a shame for a club with Chicago's payroll but it's the reality. A Soriano injury means everyday Tyler Colvin. If Pena or Ramirez miss time, does Baker move to a corner infield position? There's not much rotation depth at all, and outside of the top three or four or five options depending on how you feel about live arms Andrew Cashner and Thomas Diamond, the bullpen gets thin quickly.

Nonetheless there's a path to success for the Cubs this season. It's tenuous because of how thin they are, but it's there. With health, more of the same from the pitching staff, above average corner infield production, continued excellence and more playing time for Soto and a leap forward from Castro, the Cubs have the look of a contender. They look even more like one with yesterday's Adam Wainwright news, and if you compare the Cubs' reaction to the news to Cincinnati's, who knows? Karma monitors these things, and maybe the Cubs will find it on their side this year?

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It's February, when Hot Stove season slows, teams’ depth charts look more or less set, prospect rankings have come and gone, and pitchers and catchers are just beginning to trickle into their respective Spring Training homes. It feels early to start previewing teams in earnest. While we wait for the games to start, even the Spring games, time just seems to drag.

In baseball no-man’s land, projection season tides me over. “No way is A-Rod going to be better than Kevin Youkilis!” Really, I somehow become invested in this stuff. Baseball Prospectus released a revamped PECOTA this year, and I suggest subscribers have a look for themselves. Search by any which way you’d like.

One filter that I ran produced a surprising result. BP has Kila Ka’aihue as the 14th best hitter by True Average in MLB, 8th in the American League. I mentioned that prospect rankings have come and gone but for this post's purposes, it's worth mentioning that the one constant, even one truth it seems, is that the Kansas City Royals boast baseball’s best farm system. Ka’aihue factors into that in one sense, but he’s on the old side for a prospect. It’s hard to say whether or not he will be a part of the next contending Royals club.

While the future is bright, the 2011 Royals are a nightmare. Their starting pitching, with Zack Greinke now a Milwaukee Brewer, may well be the worst rotation we have seen in a long time. But their system is so stacked that enthusiasm is returning bit by bit, at least on the Kansas City Royals blogs. I suspect the more casual fans might take some more time.

The Royals will need to wage a PR battle to bridge their current product to the much better one coming down the pike. And they know this, as evidenced by the exhibition they plan to hold between their AAA and AA affiliates at Kauffman Stadium after their 12:10 game against the Los Angeles Angels on April 2nd. It’s a brilliant move. The fans know the good players are coming, so why not let them have a peek?

One other source for enthusiasm this season should be Ka’aihue. About to play in his 27-year old season, he’s a career .266/.391/.460 Minor League hitter in 4,148 plate appearances. For perspective, that’s more PA’s than Scott Podsednik has notched in his entire Major League career, and more than Nomar Garciaparra had from 2000 through the end of his career. Kila’s been around a while.

In AAA alone over the last three seasons, he’s hit .285/.424/.521 in 1,110 PA’s. In 2010 he broke out, hitting .319/.463/.598 for Omaha before getting the call up to Kansas City. There, he struggled. In 206 PA’s he hit just .217/.307/.394. Nonetheless his body of work over the course of his professional career should excite Royals fans.

PECOTA has had its share of famous misses with young players. Remember when Matt Wieters was going to win the MVP his rookie season? But it’s also been as good a barometer as any in many regards, and the fact that Kila ranks as highly as he does isn’t a sign that he should be penciled into the All Star Game now (although since there’s one player from every team, and this is the Royals…). Instead, it’s just something to look forward to, something in Kansas City to rally around. He’s paid more than his share of dues and finally, he’s set to begin a Big League season with a starting job. While Royals fans wait for talent to fill in around Kila and Billy Butler, they can take a rooting interest in the big Hawaiian as the losses mount.

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Throughout the leadup to Cliff Lee's signing with the Philadelphia Phillies, most fans and media members believed it was only the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees vying for Lee's services. Many, including his prominent sportswriting peers, mocked Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman for inserting a "mystery team" into the mix in the days leading up to the signing. Heyman was vindicated when Lee shocked the baseball world by signing with the Phillies, the team he helped reach the 2009 World Series.

Understandably, Phillies fans rejoiced. The rest of us pondered what a Roy Halladay, Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels starting rotation might accomplish. They're four of the best - what - 30 pichers in baseball? Lee and Halladay are probably two of the five best. Heck, maybe the two best.

It's a stacked rotation, and one that promises to keep Philadelphia contending. But what about the rest of the team? It's worth examining how the offense and defense look so that we can determine whether this rotation puts an already excellent Phillies team over the top, or if they actually need those four starters.

We'll start with the offense. The Phillies last season managed a 99 wRC+, which means on a park and league adjusted basis, their offense was below average. Now, there are a few reasons why that's less concerning than it may appear. For one, the Phillies had a lot of injuries. You try running Juan Castro and his 29 OPS+ out there for 146 plate appearances and see what it does to your lineup! Next, the year the Phillies won the World Series, 2008, their team wRC+ was that same exact figure of 99. If your run prevention is good enough, an averagish offense is just fine. Finally, the figure is a bit misleading in that most of baseball's best offenses reside in the American League, even adjusted for league and park. 99 may be below average MLB-wide, but it was good enough for fourth best in the NL in both 2008 and 2010.

On the other hand, let's take a look at how Philadelphia managed that 99 wRC+ in 2010. There's Jayson Werth, far and away the best hitter on the 2010 team. He's now in Washington. Dom Brown and Ben Francisco are fine players, but they're not Werth. Carlos Ruiz hit every bit as well as Ryan Howard in 2010. Whether that speaks to Ruiz's career year or Howard's reputation and paycheck exceeding his real value, I'll let you decide. For his part, Howard's walk percentage dropped for the fourth consecutive season. I don't know that it's appropriate to expect significant bounce-back from the big first baseman. Raul Ibanez, now playing his 39-year old season, took a major step back in 2010 and is penciled in at left field.

Philadelphia hopes to get full seasons from their middle infield, which could mitigate the productivity losses they may take on elsewhere. Chase Utley played in only 115 games in 2010, Jimmy Rollins 88. What kind of player is Rollins at this point, though? UZR still likes him as a defender but between 2009 and 2010 he was a .248/.304/.406 hitter, "good" for a .316 wOBA. How much better of an offensive player is Rollins than, say, Alexei Ramirez? Below is a table comparing 2010 wOBA figures to how CAIRO (unfortunate timing on the acronym, I realize) sees them performing in 2011, courtesy of the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog.

That looks about right to me, maybe slightly optimistic for someone like Ibanez. Modest upticks up and down the lineup, with a precipitous decline at catcher and in right field. The hope for the Phillies is that they can make up for what they figure to lose in output at catcher and right field with good health. If Utley and Rollins can play full seasons, Philadelphia stands a chance at putting together a similar offense to the one they had in 2010. Short of that, it's an attack in decline despite the name recognition up and down the lineup.

Of course there's that other part of baseball, too. When the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, their defense was the best in the National League according to UZR. In 2009, they dropped to fourth best. In 2010, with an aging roster another year older, they were eighth. Is there any reason to think that number will improve in 2011, when only one position player, Francisco or Brown, will be in his twenties?

The Phillies lost their biggest bat this offseason, and addressed the issue by signing Lee. With a full season of Oswalt and improved health throughout the roster, it may just work. But before we crown the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies, it's worth remembering that they can't really hit or field all that well. They'll need every last bit of that fantastic rotation they've assembled.

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There's not a heck of a lot going on in baseball these days outside of a Wandy Rodriguez extension here or a manufactured Yankees controversy there. So today I will share some links.

On some of the perceived tension between Yankee ownership and Brian Cashman, Ben Kabak offers a sober take over at River Ave Blues. Yanks ownership controls the purse strings, and with money to burn they overpaid for Rafael Soriano. Cashman hasn't exactly tried to hide the fact that he disagreed with the move, either. The intuitive reaction is to assume that dissension between general management and ownership can only mean bad things, but Cashman and Kabak do a nice job explaining why that doesn't necessarily have to be.

Cashman's word is critical when he negotiates with agents and other players. It sounds like he may have told other relievers early on in the offseason that the Yanks had a compensation threshold for setup guys that they would not exceed. Except that, as the Hot Stove season wound down and the Yanks still had money and Soriano was still out there, ownership decided they would do whatever they had to in order to secure his services. That's ok, I suppose. It's ownership's call. But you can empathize with Cashman as he sets out to distance himself from the decision.

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Sticking in the AL East, Justin Bopp of Beyond the Box Score designed an awfully cool-looking infographic highlighting attendance trends over the last decade. There's a teaser in his title, which in part reads "Apparently Baseball is Popular."

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The baseball blogosphere's favorite Badger prodigy, Jack Moore, has a thorough take on the Wandy extension. "Meh," is how Larry David might react. It's hard to argue that it's an overpay since Wandy is in fact a very good pitcher. It's just that with Houston's farm system looking pretty bare and considering what pitchers like Matt Garza and Zack Greinke have been able to fetch, and further considering that Houston isn't good, it seems that Ed Wade could have gotten more value for Wandy on the trade market than in a 'Stros uniform. I think it's especially true when you think about the teams that could be in the mix for a starter (ahem, Yankees and Red Sox, ahem) over the next six months or so.

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Finally, for Baseball Prospectus subscribers, there's this provocative take by Tommy Bennett on how much relievers are really worth. Some notable teams may have paid some notable names a little too much money, it looks like.

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Aside from a role player here or a bullpen part there, the St. Louis Cardinals' roster is set for 2011. They bring back a big part of the nucleus of a team that won 86 games and finished five games short of qualifying for postseason play in 2010. St. Louis has not won a playoff game since they clinched a title in Game 5 of the 2006 World Series, and they have averaged just shy of 85 wins over the last five seasons. No shame there, but with Albert Pujols in the middle of the lineup and a rich tradition of success, it's not a stretch to say that it's been a frustrating run since October of 2006. GM John Mozeliak and Manager Tony La Russa have to be feeling hungry to get back to the early-to-mid aughts glory days of 100-win seasons and perennial contention.

That desire for a return to greatness in St. Louis makes this past offseason puzzling, to say the least. Before delving into the individual moves, it's important to acknowledge the constraints St. Louis faces. They're paying Matt Holliday and Chris Carpenter top dollar, Kyle Lohse is making an eight-figure salary as well. They'll pay Pujols $16 million this year, and the team payroll right now is coming in at just north of $100 million, an honest commitment to winning from a club situated in a modest Midwestern city. Throwing the biggest wrench in their plans, however, is the looming Pujols extension (or departure). Without knowing what it will take to sign one of the true all-time greats, it's difficult for Mozeliak to bring on other parts.

That's fine. I understand. But this is a roster that's a lot of the way there, building off of an 86-win season with cause for year-over-year improvement scattered throughout. Even though he was excellent, 2010 was one of Pujols's worst seasons of his career. Colby Rasmus, who has all the makings of a future star, clashed with La Russa in 2010. With that situation seemingly smoothed over, he figures to see another 100 plate appearances or so in 2011. Jake Westbrook is in the fold for the whole season, taking innings from Jeff Suppan and others who aren't as good as him. Brendan Ryan, for all of his defensive wizardry, managed just a 57 OPS+ in 2010. He's now playing for the Mariners (more on that move in a moment).

This is a club screaming for a couple of savvy tweaks on the margins to thrust them right back into contention with the upstart Cincinnati Reds. Instead, they made a big splash when they decided to add Lance Berkman to the fold. Berkman may well be a future Hall of Famer, but he has had knee troubles and is coming off his worst year. It's likely that he can still swing the bat, but he's a first baseman or designated hitter at this point in his career, and look at what the Twins just paid Jim Thome coming off a .283/.412/.627 campaign. The Cardinals saw fit to hand Berkman $8 million with no DH rule that I am aware of in the NL and maybe the best first baseman ever on their roster. He hasn't played the outfield since Curt Schilling, Mike Lowell and Manny Ramirez were leading the Red Sox to another title, and over the past six seasons has played just 124 games at a position other than first or DH. With two right-handed bats in Pujols and Holliday in the middle of the lineup you can understand prioritizing a lefty, but not to this extent. An option like Magglio Ordonez or Matt Diaz or heck, waiting around for Johnny Damon, would seem to have made more sense.

The other big move was for the Cardinals to throw in the towel on Ryan, their shortstop in 2009 and 2010, in favor of Ryan Theriot. There's no excusing how Ryan hit last season, but consider that he was still a 1.0 fWAR player as a 28-year old. That's how good his glove was. What's more, it was clearly an outlier season for Ryan at the plate. He's a better hitter than he showed in 2010. When you watch this video of Mozeliak addressing the Berkman signing, there are any number of alarms that should sound for Cards fans, but the biggest red flag for me is how he says he wants to address the offense, and that the middle infield seemed like a good place to do it. My guess is that thinking led to Ryan's departure and Theriot's arrival.

Theriot has been a full-time player for four seasons now and has hit at an 87 wRC+ clip over that time. Ryan has played two full seasons in the Bigs and posted an 81 wRC+. If Theriot is a better hitter, he's only marginally so. Ryan did hit .292/.340/.400 in 2009. Since 2007, Theriot ranks 6th in plate appearances among all shortstops and 5th in games played. He's 19th in fWAR over that time. Ryan, in half the plate appearances, has posted a fWAR of 5.0 to Theriot's 6.8. Theriot will make $3.3 million in 2011, Ryan $1 million. Did I mention Ryan's two years younger? I should note, too, that I spared Cards fans the B-Ref WAR comparison. It's even kinder to Ryan. It's great that Mozeliak thought he'd try and upgrade his offense at shortstop, but even if you grant that he did so with the addition of Theriot, what good does it do when you give those runs right back in the field?

To their credit, the Cards also re-upped Westbrook at a reasonable cost, but that's really it for this offseason. For a team on the cusp, they went out and acquired what might turn out to be a big bat to play a position he can no longer play at best, and one that might force him to the DL at worst. They also swapped out a better shortstop for an older one. The Pujols situation looming might account for budget constraints - nobody is blaming them for failing to land Carl Crawford. It doesn't account for the mismanagement, though.

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Well, this is post number two this week provoked by Dave Cameron's writing. The funny thing is that I really liked both pieces. I touched on a subtle point about tone with regard to defense and Wins Above Replacement on Wednesday. This morning, I want to address Dave's latest. As I mentioned, it's a good piece. Dave compares Kyle Farnsworth and Bobby Jenks, their respective last two campaigns, the contracts they signed, and the general reaction to both. I am Exhibit A for Dave. I loved the Jenks deal, I panned Tampa Bay's Farnsworth signing. I should also mention I am a Red Sox fan.

Here's Dave:

News Item #1 – AL East team with strong sabermetric leanings signs free-agent reliever. His peripherals are better than his ERA, and he’s considered to have some personality baggage. Reliever gets $12 million over two years – reaction is mostly positive.

News Item #2 – AL East team with strong sabermetric leanings signs free-agent reliever. His peripherals are better than his ERA, and he’s considered to have some pesonality baggage. Reliever gets $3.5 million for one year – reaction is abject mocking.

As you may have figured out by now, News Item #1 refers to the Boston Red Sox’ signing of Bobby Jenks, which took place a month ago, while News Item #2 refers to the Tampa Bay Rays’ signing of Kyle Farnsworth, which broke today. I find the differences in response to these deals somewhat amusing.

Here are the numbers for Farnsworth and Jenks over the last two seasons.

Farns: 102 IP, 2.91 BB/9, 9.09 K/9, 0.62 HR/9, 43.0% GB%, 3.79 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 3.54 xFIP
Jenks: 106 IP, 2.89 BB/9, 9.34 K/9, 1.02 HR/9, 53.3% GB%, 4.08 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 3.13 xFIP

Go read the rest of it. He touches on changes in Farnsworth's delivery, and it's a nicely written and evidenced post about how there may not be much difference at all between Jenks and Farnsworth. Here is how he concludes it, however.

Once you factor in the size and length of their respective contracts, it seems pretty clear to me that the Rays got a better deal with Farnsworth than the Red Sox did with Jenks.

I find this conclusion problematic for a few different reasons. The first has to do with the innings Jenks and Farnsworth have been pitching. Let's first look at Leverage numbers, a metric tracked at Baseball Prospectus. 1.00 is the Leverage situation at the start of the game when the first pitch is thrown, and then from there it's driven by Win Expectancy. We will limit our look to Dave's comparison of 2009 and 2010 for obvious reasons. Going back further overwhelmingly favors Jenks, and it does seem that Farnsworth may have turned a corner with regard to mechanics. So 2009 and 2010 only it is.

As you can see, Jenks has been pitching very important innings over the last few years. Farnsworth, not so much outside of a handful of key appearances for the Royals in 2010. It's important to remember, too, that Jenks has been closing games for a perennial contender while Farnsworth has pitched for the Royals. His ~20 innings with Atlanta in a pennant race were often low to medium leverage situations. If there were a playoff expectancy or championship expectancy figure, the gulf would be even wider.

Farnsworth's high leverage innings have come amid a push for 70 wins, while Jenks's have come in a pennant race. But let's set that aside for the moment and just look at how they have performed in their respective high leverage situations. Here it is, presented as OPS against.

Let's remember that Dave's conclusion on its face makes the narrow point that $3.5 million guaranteed for one season to Farnsworth is better than $12 million guaranteed to Jenks over two seasons. It's not terribly provocative in the context of how he presents it. They have similar peripherals, and there's reason to believe Farnsworth's improvement in 2009 and 2010 is real. Over and above the leverage point I have made above - both the innings pitched in those situations and how they have performed once there - there are additional considerations.

A $3.5 million investment for the Rays accounts for a greater percentage of their payroll than a $6 million annual investment does for the Red Sox. It's great that Tampa Bay has carved out a niche developing talent and finding undervalued assets but, just like the Boston Red Sox, the Rays are in the winning business. I understand they do not have the luxury of ponying up $12 million for someone like Jenks. In that context, given their similar output in 2009 and 2010, Farnsworth makes for a nice proxy. But let's not jump to the conclusion that the market is out of whack, or that Boston missed on Farnsworth by paying up for Jenks. Jenks comes at a premium for a number of reasons, and it's not just because professional evaluators only remember Farnsworth's failures as a Yankee.

Jenks is 30, Farnsworth 35. Jenks has five career postseason Saves, including two in the 2005 World Series as a rookie. Jenks has a quality track record extending back to 2005, while Farnsworth optimism hinges on 102 largely meaningless innings in 2009 and 2010. I don't like to overemphasize "clutch" statistics but when it comes to evaluating relief pitching I think all the information we can get is relevant. It's particularly so in the ultra-competitive American League East. In this light, when you consider age, leverage and career quality, even if the Rays have unearthed another gem in Farnsworth, the respective contracts look about right to me.

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Recently Dave Cameron took to ESPN Insider to pen a column about Andruw Jones, how he stacks up against Derek Jeter, and what his Hall of Fame prospects might look like. Dave's a great writer, as you know, and he's at his best when handling provocative topics. It's a compelling read since, according to WAR, Jones stacks up nicely next to the Yankee legend.

I really only have one issue with it. At the end, he starts to back off. I can respect that on the one hand, because there is so much we don't know about defense and how it might impact Wins Above Replacement totals. On the other, he leaves no room for the possibility that Jones's defense could make him even better than WAR shows him to be.

While no one can deny the number of base hits that Jeter has accumulated, the idea of Andruw Jones being in the defensive company of Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith could certainly be a contentious claim. Data should be used to inform our discussions, but we should not be slaves to the numbers, and there is a reasonable discussion that can be had about the scale of credit that should be given to players for their defensive abilities.

Certainly, Jones should get a significant boost for his defensive chops as he was widely seen as the game's best center fielder during his prime. He won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves, after all, so it is not only the numbers that see him as a historically elite defender. However, there are enough legitimate questions about defensive metrics, especially those from before this century, that we should be careful with equating defensive specialists with those whose value was created in more traditional ways.

I like that we're all going to stop short of assigning too much value to WAR. One number should not tell us everything. But with regard to defense, I don't like that our default assumption is that WAR overrates players who derive relatively more value from their defense. If we're throwing our hands up and saying "I don't know" then let's not then turn around and say "but I know if anything his defense is overvalued." Maybe when it's all said and done, when we really have a great sense for how to evaluate and then contextualize defense, players like Jones and Mike Cameron and Smith will have been sold short by WAR.

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Before I jump into this thing I would like for readers to understand that, while this is Rich Lederer’s joint, he allows his fellow writers full editorial latitude. He’s never asked to see anything I’ve written before it went up on Baseball Analysts, for better or worse. Rich is on the west coast, I am on the east coast, and that means that this thing will appear atop the site before Rich rises Thursday morning. If he’s uncomfortable when he wakes up and sees it, oh well. He deserves his day in the sun and damned if I’m not going to do my part to make sure he gets it here.

There have been really nice tributes written around the web already. Criag Calcaterra said he probably wouldn’t have his gig at NBC’s Hardball Talk if not for Lederer. Alex Belth wrote a really nice blog post at Bronx Banter about how Rich was one of the original baseball bloggers, “a hobbyist”, and it’s a distinction I want to touch on further. More on that in a bit. Matt Welch of the Libertarian publication, Reason, chimed in too. And, of course, there was Jon Paul Morosi taking to his big media sports page to make sure the masses understood how Bert Blyleven went from 26.3% of the Hall of Fame vote the year before Rich wrote his first Blyleven article, to the cusp of immortality.

Rich asked if I would join him at Baseball Analysts late in the year back in 2005. We had forged an internet friendship through blogging over the previous couple of years and he said he liked my writing. I was floored, and it just so happened that my professional life was ramping in a way where I would have to scale back daily writing. Baseball Analysts allowed me a chance to write less frequently for a much, much larger audience.

Our connection runs deeper, though. My wife is a Long Beach native, where her parents still reside. As regular readers may know from the Jered Weaver posts or Area Code Games updates, Rich also lives in Long Beach. We took in this Angels-Red Sox game together in Anaheim and Rich stopped by our engagement party four months later in December of 2005. We’ve played golf with my father in law at Recreation Park Municipal Course, Rich’s Country Club and Trump National LA. We’ve taken in a Rays-Sox game at Fenway Park and dined together in Boston’s North End with Rich’s son Joe and my wife Johanna. We’ve had countless spirited baseball and political debates over too many Happy Hours on Second Street in Long Beach. Rich and his wife Barb were there at my wedding in Palos Verdes.

Rich, 25 years my senior and 3,000 miles away, is now one of my dearest friends, and it’s all because of the internet. That’s a timely idea today, too, because Bert Blyleven is a Hall of Famer because of the internet. It took a long time and assists go out to guys like Calcaterra and Joe Posnanski and others, but when Rich published Only the Lonely the day after Christmas in 2003, it was pretty much checkmate.

Every pitcher with 3,000 or more strikeouts who is eligible is in the Hall of Fame except for one pitcher. His name? Well, for those of you who may be color blind, the lone exception is none other than Rik Aalbert Blyleven. As shown, the Holland-born righthander ranks fifth all time in strikeouts. Other than Mr. Blyleven, there are only two pitchers--Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson--on the above list who are not in the Hall, and both will surely be inducted on the first ballot. Bert Blyleven, Only The Lonely.

Go back and have a look at the post yourself. It’s masterful in how plainly Rich is able to make the case. Blyleven was being held to an unfair standard.

Along the same lines of the flattening effect of the internet, I want to get back to that point Alex Belth made about Rich being "a hobbyist." It’s what I am too (it’s late here in NYC, I'm exhausted, and I have two more days at this conference), and I think that "hobbyist" status should equate to, if anything, more credibility and not less. Rich has no commercial aspirations at all, no agenda, no ax to grind. It’s not why he writes. And yet, as Hall voter after Hall voter started to admit that Rich’s persuasiveness was selling them on voting for Blyleven, others cringed.

Jon Heyman was the most famous of these writers, recently labeling Lederer an “internet zealot” while he spent 2,000 words writing an internet article on a player for whom he WAS NOT going to vote. Rich has had a series of mocking back-and-forths with Heyman over the years, although Jon was never man enough to identify Rich by name publicly. I love a good FJM’ing of mainstream nonsense, don’t get me wrong. But I always thought those Heyman episodes were a little unfortunate since, in (appropriately) taking the fight right back to Heyman, a professional with a much broader platform, Rich came off at times in a way that sells short just how sweet of a man he is.

Rich is sweet, you bet he is, but he also will never back down from his principles. He knew he was right. The mainstream quote that has stuck with me all year long was this one from the blogger Murray Chass.

Am I right? Yes. Why? Because my opinion counts and his doesn’t. My ballot was one of the 539 counted in the election. He did not have a vote. Therefore, his opinion is worthless as far as the election is concerned.

There it is, as plain as day. A non-voter’s HOF opinion is "worthless as far as the election is concerned." Boy oh boy, would that be news to Bert Blyleven. There’s just no way at all he would have been elected to the Hall if not for Rich Lederer, a non-voter of course.

It's too great of a day, however, to focus on the Blyleven holdouts. To bring it back, what Blyleven finally getting into Cooperstown means to me is a triumph of purity. Purity of truth in that Rich, time and again, employed logic and rational argument to make his point. Purity of spirit in that Rich’s motives have never been commercial. He thought Bert Blyleven deserved to be in Cooperstown, so he sat down to make his case. And finally, purity of unadulterated love of baseball. It’s the foundation of my friendship with Rich, it’s the foundation of why he started this site, it forms the foundation of many of his very warmest memories of his late father, George Lederer.

And I guess that’s why I find myself becoming a bit emotional as I write this. It's strange but somehow this whole thing has a lot of meaning, even over and above the road map to Cooperstown it offers Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell. It’s perhaps the greatest and most tangible triumph of Sabermetric writing outside of actual front office influence, and if George Lederer were alive to see it all, holy hell would he be proud. His son, already having built a successful investment management career that has afforded his family opportunity and comfort, decided he’d write about baseball because, well, he wanted to. Rich Lederer, “the hobbyist” as Alex Belth calls him, toppled entrenched flat-eartherism to ensure that a man’s life’s work would be recognized appropriately. And now, Bert Blyleven, an all-timer in every regard as meaningful pitching metrics go, will get his due.

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Inspired by Mike Axisa's new Twitter feed, @WARGraphs, I have been playing around with a new tool, or at least one that's new to me. As you may know, WAR Graphs is a Fangraphs feature where you can compare up to four players by Wins Above Replacement. Once one enters their desired search, three graphs appear. One shows how the players compare in their nth best seasons. The second shows how they compare year-by-year over the course of their careers. The final one shows how they stack up by age.

It's a neat tool, and a handy one when like-minded folks are looking to settle a quick dispute. For instance, as a Red Sox fan, a pet issue of mine has been the travesty that is Jim Rice's Hall of Fame enshrinement while Dwight Evans never amassed more than eight percent of the vote. Anyway, here are two of the three WAR Graphs for a Rice and Evans comparison.

Because the topic is something of an obsession for me, I tweeted my findings from this WAR Graphs search last night.

When he saw this, Dave Cameron responded with the following:

And sure enough, here is the WAR Graphs comparison of Rice and Chet Lemon.

Chet Lemon and Jim Rice are more or less indistinguishable. Chet. Lemon.

**********

All of this was a long and graphical way of setting up the point of this post, which is to articulate a coherent way to think about WAR in the context of Hall of Fame voting. Jonah Keri has done a really nice job advocating for Tim Raines in a more visceral way than Rich Lederer has for Bert Blyleven. Rich has gradually won over voters by reminding them time and again of Blyleven's statistical dominance. Keri, on the other hand, will make his case with stats, but also with well-supported assertions along the lines of had Rickey Henderson never come along, Raines may well be regarded as the finest lead-off man ever. That resonates more than a WAR Graph with many.

To take it a step further, not only is something like WAR altogether unpersuasive to some, but when many see the WAR Graph above of Jim Rice and Chet Lemon, their gut may be to write off the statistic itself altogether. In other words, it's not that the graph shows that Rice and Lemon were comparable. No, the graph shows that WAR as a statistic is moronic.

But here's the thing about WAR. It lines up with so much of what we understand to be true, even before we start in on any sort of advanced statistical analysis. Here's a list of the top-10 position players by B-Ref WAR:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Barry Bonds
3. Ty Cobb
4. Willie Mays
5. Hank Aaron
6. Tris Speaker
7. Stan Musial
8. Rogers Hornsby
9. Eddie Collins
10. Ted Williams

The next five on the list are Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Rickey Henderson and Mel Ott. We are talking baseball royalty. It's not as though Nomar Garciaparra or someone crept into the top of the list because of some quirk in the statistic. It actually aligns beautifully with a list your grandfather might furnish you of the very best baseball players of all time.

Here are the top pitchers:

1. Roger Clemens
2. Walter Johnson
3. Tom Seaver
4. Pete Alexander
5. Lefty Grove
6. Phil Niekro
7. Greg Maddux
8. Gaylord Perry
9. Warren Spahn
10. Randy Johnson

The next five? BERT BLYLEVEN, Christy Mathewson, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton. Nobody is saying that this is the definitive list of the best pitchers of all time, ranked perfectly in order. Peak matters, for instance, and I don't want to speak for anybody else but I don't think you'll find too many stat heads saying that Niekro, Perry or Blyleven were better than Pedro Martinez or Sandy Koufax. But the point remains the same: that's a pretty darn good list in terms of how it compares to common baseball wisdom of the very best pitchers ever.

There are single-season examples, too, of the visceral or instinctive aligning with analytical conclusions. Growing up, I heard non-stop stories from my father and grandfather of how great Carl Yastrzemski was for the 1967 Impossible Dream Boston Red Sox. We would listen regularly to the WHDH-produced soundtrack to that season, including the ragtime adaptation a song whose chorus went "Caaaahhhhrrrll Yastrzemski" over and over again. Later in life, my father in law, a Long Beach, California native who studied law in Boston during the 1967 season, would tell me one story after another about how incredible Yaz was. This is a man who is no Red Sox supporter, and as prone to hyperbole as anyone you could meet. Given everything I had heard throughout my life about Yaz in 1967, you'd have thought he had one of the very best seasons ever. Having bought in more and more to advanced statistical analysis, I just assumed all of this was overblown.

Well you know what? Yaz did have one of the very best seasons ever. Go on and check it out. Aside from three insane Barry Bonds seasons, Yaz's 1967 stands as the finest year by a position player since 1958. All of that wonderful stuff I had heard about Yaz, all of what seemed like folklore, it ALL lined up perfectly with what WAR would tell you about Yaz's heroics in 1967. It was one of the truly great single seasons in baseball history.

When I see a graph like the one above of Lemon and Rice, I don't immediately assume Lemon was better than Rice or even that Lemon was the same caliber of player Rice was. I'm more skeptical of defensive data than offensive, and I have a ton of respect for what Rice did at his peak. But that's not how WAR is supposed to work, or at least it's not how I think it should work. Instead, I believe it should be your first pass.

Oh, I see here that Blyleven ranks 11th all time and Morris 119th. I probably would be wrong to vote in Morris then, and not Blyleven.

Huh, look at this: Tim Raines ranks 55th all time and Lou Brock 121st. Maybe I need to think a little differently about Raines's candidacy?

In the Rice and Lemon case, it just shows that maybe we've thought a bit disproportionately about both players. Rice is in the Hall of Fame while Lemon, well I hadn't even thought about Chet Lemon in over a decade. That doesn't seem right to me anymore now that I have taken Dave Cameron's suggestion to run the comparison.

WAR is not perfect but it cannot be ignored, either. My hope is that more Hall of Fame voters will look to the stat to help frame their decisions. If a certain player amassed many of his Wins Above Replacement in exceedingly favorable conditions, no problem. Dock him. If WAR sells short a player like Morris or Rice for whatever reason, you can make that case too. All I ask is that voters recognize how well the statistic holds up to everything we understand to be true about baseball. More often than not for the attentive baseball fan or writer, a quick pass at WAR will serve more as affirmation than an eyebrow-raising contradiction. That being the case, when it does not quite align with pre-conceived beliefs, it merits further investigation and not immediate write-off.

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I had been planning a write-up of the Japanese pitchers currently in Major League Baseball who could change uniforms this off-season but one of those players won’t be changing teams. Hiroki Kuroda will return to the Los Angeles Dodgers thanks to a 1-year, $12 million deal that was announced last night.

Kuroda’s numbers might not leap off the page but he pounds the strike zone and, when healthy, is a legitimate number 2 or 3 in a championship caliber rotation. There are 87 starting pitchers who have tossed 400 innings since 2008. Among them, Kuroda ranks 20th with a 3.18 K/BB ratio and also sports the 11th lowest BB/9.

That still leaves a number of Japanese pitchers who could impact the 2011 Hot Stove in a significant way. There’s Kenshin Kawakami, whose $6.67 million price tag is one the Braves are reportedly looking to shed. They may have a taker back in Japan, but Kawakami may be worth a look for teams here in the States. His ground ball rates are well below average, so the best fit would be on a team with superb outfield defense and deep pockets. Maybe the Yanks think about it and save themselves a Dustin Moseley start or five. Kawakami’s no superstar but he could make for nice rotation depth, particularly if the Braves would be willing to pick up a little of his salary.

With Kuroda now locked up, that leaves two compelling free agent options, Koji Uehara and Hisanori Takahashi. Here are their respective MLB numbers to date, Uehara with the Baltimore Orioles and Takahashi with the New York Mets:

Takahashi had an excellent first season, and is now looking for a 3-year deal. He won’t come cheaply to whichever team inks him. Uehara, on the other hand, is the better pitcher and likely to cost a lot less. The risk lies in Uehara’s health but if a team can get comfortable with his medicals, he could offer big-time returns.

Finally, there are two Red Sox I would not be surprised to see suiting up elsewhere in 2011. Daisuke Matsuzaka can be frustrating, but he’s a perfectly fine turn-taker for any rotation. Matsuzaka has a career 5.52 ERA against the Yankees and a 5.09 figure against the Rays. For his career in Inter-League action, his ERA is 3.97. It makes sense beyond the simple quality-of-opposition adjustment, too. Matsuzaka walks too many batters and often cannot last long into games. The National League mitigates this weakness for a couple of reasons. First, facing a pitcher means less nibbling, which means fewer pitches, fewer walks, and the potential to last longer. Second, the strategic imperative in the Senior Circuit, regardless of how the pitcher is performing, is sometimes to pull the pitcher for a pinch hitter in a middle-innings high leverage run scoring opportunity. I really think Matsuzaka could thrive in the NL.

There’s also Hideki Okajima. Like Dice-K, he’s played an integral role in Boston’s run of success over the last four seasons. But despite a second half rebound last season, the long-term trend on Okajima is ugly. He’s been regressing pretty steadily. I imagine scouts could offer more insight as to why that might be the case, but it’s my belief that hitters have simply caught on. He has a unique delivery that was deceptive for a few seasons, but now hitters have a beat on him. He’s arbitration-eligible and will likely be due somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million for the 2011 campaign. Boston has not yet decided if they would like to tender Okajima or not.

There’s no shortage of compelling story-lines this Hot Stove season. Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford will be huge-impact players, and the Cliff Lee sweepstakes are already underway in earnest. But it looks like Japanese pitchers in new roles on new teams could also influence the 2011 season, something to look out for in the coming weeks and months.

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The San Francisco Giants just won the World Series. They wear gorgeous uniforms, and they play in a world-class city performing in front of a rabid fanbase who jam one of the best ballparks in the world to watch their team. Whatever the lackluster television ratings might say, I think it was a great post-season for Major League Baseball. The Giants won and and the Dallas baseball market had a chance to experience World Series baseball as well. That's two big markets that the game can count on for years to come.

I offer that preface because I don't want to come off as though I am not allowing the Giants their moment. Really, I couldn't be happier for them. I've been digging into their roster over at B-Ref and Fangraphs and I think it's a fascinating mix of players. But what I am also finding is that there's a lot of work to do in order to put together anything resembling a championship-caliber lineup together for 2011, even when you factor their remarkable pitching. Jeff Fletcher addressed the topic at Fanhouse yesterday, and ends his column this way:

So you can expect next year's Giants to look a lot like this year's, with good young pitching and a patchwork lineup.

Worked this year.

"If these (pitchers) stay healthy, they have a chance to do a lot of good things," Huff said. "Get some guys that pop the ball out, and that's all you need. Two or three runs is all you need."

Let's start with this year's lineup. Four - FOUR - players had a wOBA of over .330 who had 100 or more plate appearances.

Player       PA      wOBA
A. Huff      668     .388
P. Burrell   341     .371
B. Posey     443     .368
A. Torres    570     .363

Cody Ross came over from the Marlins and posted a .352 wOBA in 82 plate appearances, too. But that's it. For frame of reference, the lowly Houston Astros had five guys better the .330 mark. The Cincinnati Reds had ten. You get the picture.

For much of the season, the Giants were hanging on by a thread. On August 30th, they trailed the San Diego Padres by 5 games and were on the outside looking in for the Wild Card race, too. They finished the year on a tear, going 18-8 over the last month and clinching a post-season berth on the season's final day. Here is where the offense came from over that stretch:

Player       PA      OPS
C. Ross      65     .886
P. Burrell   94     .870
F. Sanchez   98     .840
A. Huff      121    .834
B. Posey     115    .818
J. Uribe     100    .800

"Smoke and mirrors" does a disservice to a team whose pitching dominates the way San Francisco's can and whose General Manager papered over his own roster blunders with mid-season fixes. Ross and Burrell paced the Giants playoff push, and then Ross was terrific into the post-season, too. It's important to ask what's sustainable and what's not. So, what about next year?

Huff is a free agent, but Fletcher seems to think he'll be back.

Look for them to re-sign Huff to at least a two-year deal, worth around $8 to $10 million a year.

That's fine, but it's not hard to see how such a move could go wrong. He's one season removed from .241/.310/.384 and turns 34 in December. I'd liken re-upping Huff now to the Red Sox re-signing Mike Lowell after his standout 2007, which Lowell capped by winning the World Series MVP. Great clubhouse guy, veteran, winning reputation, aging, solid performance track record. Plenty of people might feel good about a Huff extension because of all the goodwill generated in 2010, but that doesn't mean it will work out.

As for Burrell, he's gone. Uribe is unrestricted, too, and if I were Brian Sabean, he'd be getting a much longer look than Huff. Uribe's fielding versatility and sneaky pop make make him the type of player good teams should always try and carry, even if there won't be 650 plate appearances for him. Like Huff, Uribe will have his suitors but if you're going to overpay, do so for the younger middle infielder. The market is awful for middle infield types, anyway, and the Giants will have a gaping hole at shortstop since they're unlikely to pick up World Series MVP Edgar Renteria's option.

So let's say Uribe is back. Here is what we have:

C - Posey
1B - Open
2B - Sanchez
3B - Sandoval
SS - Uribe
OF - Ross
OF - Torres
OF - Rowand

That's still a lineup screaming for an impact bat. After all, even with Huff's career year, the Giants still were a below average offense. Posey could improve, I would expect some bounce-back from Sandoval and a full season of Ross's bat should help, but other than that, it's hard to see where the Giants might get increased production over and above 2010 without Huff's monster year mixed in.

There are a few necessary moves here. First, that's not a viable outfield at all. Thankfully, Ruben Amaro is reported rumored to be feeling sentimental for Rowand so the Giants could move him. It won't solve any money issues since the Giants would have to pick up a lot of his tab, but it frees up roster space and an outfield slot. I think the Giants would be nuts not to hop in the mix for one of Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth. Sure you'd have to pay up, but if you're not going to invest now, then when? The rotation is cost-controlled and as deep as can be. Both players field excellently, an added bonus in spacious AT&T Park. Finally, the team should be flush coming off the World Series win. A payroll bump has to be in the cards. It seems like too good a fit not to consider. Werth or Crawford paired with Posey could form an excellent offensive core for years to come, supporting a truly outstanding group of pitchers.

At first base, another position they'll need to address if Huff walks, I might opt for another buy-low guy like the Giants netted with Huff in 2010. Carlos Pena looks as good as any other there, but Derrek Lee could be an attractive short-term option, too.

I don't think that Brian Sabean should feel satisfied with his "patchwork" offense. It worked but he got lucky, like all World Series winning teams do, and should recognize as much by taking a big swing for 2011. He oversees one of the great franchises in the game, one that should be a choice destination for stars like Werth and Crawford given the atmosphere we've all just witnessed.

Strike while the iron's hot, Sabes.

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John Farrell was named Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday, a great choice for a team with a young and promising pitching staff looking to compete in the brutal American League East. Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman felt differently, however, and took to his Twitter feed with the following:

We have been tough on Heyman here at times, I admit it. We think he’s been pretty obtuse in his belief that Bert Blyleven doesn’t belong in Cooperstown, and Rich wrote the definitive Heyman takedown over his Scott Boras servitude. With this in mind, I want to try and be cordial towards Heyman despite my frustration with his reaction to Farrell's hiring.

First, there was Heyman's use of the term “neophyte.” A “neophyte” is a novice. One example someone used when I asked whether others on Twitter considered the term derogatory was that Meg Whitman is a political “neophyte”. That sounds right to me. It’s not necessarily derogatory in that light. It’s just a fact. But when applied to someone like Farrell, who has spent his life in baseball, I think it’s misapplied.

In the narrowest sense, yes, Farrell is a “neophyte” as it relates to Major League Baseball Managing. But he appeared in eight separate Major League seasons as a pitcher, so he’s capable of relating to the day-to-day life of a Big Leaguer. Players value that. He also spent six years heading up the Cleveland Indians’ Player Development organization from 2001 to 2006, a time during which they turned out some awfully good players. He’s an excellent evaluator, and has a track record of getting the most out of talent. Finally, in his latest gig, he’s been pitching coach for a team that has won 375 games in four seasons. Player, front office guy, coach. I’m not sure you could come up with a more seasoned professional to take the reins. As far as his overall baseball experience is concerned, he’s anything but a "neophyte".

My wife thought I was nitpicking by isolating that word, however. “A neophyte is someone who is new to something, and Farrell is new to Managing,” she reminded me. Fine, that’s true. We’ll set that aside. She then said, “it’s the world ‘gambling’ that would offend me if I were Farrell.”

As I think more about it, it’s a fantastic point. Who are the better, more experienced Managerial options for Toronto? Would Art Howe or Don Baylor or Jimy Williams or Mike Hargrove be better? And if so, why? Joe Girardi had all of 162 games of Manager experience before the Yankees hired him, and he ended up leading New York to a World Series title last year. That seemed to work out ok. So where exactly is the “gamble”? Who's to say Bobby Valentine wouldn't be a "gamble"?

I think Farrell's the perfect choice for the Jays, a team whose future hinges on its young pitching staff's continued improvement. Shaun Marcum, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Brandon Morrow and Marc Rzepczynski will average 26 years old for the 2011 season. Kyle Drabek, Zach Stewart and Brad Mills aren't far behind. Farrell will be able to lean on all of his professional skills - his MLB player experience, player development expertise and pitching coach track record - to help strengthen Toronto's biggest asset, its young pitching.

There may be others like Farrell around the league, but I can’t imagine a better extended apprenticeship than the one Farrell has served leading up to this moment in his career. I don’t mean to pick on Heyman, but I found his remarks to be unfair. Farrell has too much experience in baseball to be considered a “neophyte” (except in the narrowest sense), and his hiring is both sound and the byproduct of a long and drawn-out process by the Jays. They’ve done their diligence. If only Heyman would do the same prior to taking to his keyboard.

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At Red Sox Beacon last weekend, I decided to see where J.D. Drew's performance in Game 5 of the 2008 ALCS stood on the all-time great Red Sox postseason performances. The metric I chose was Win Probability Added, and thanks to Baseball Reference's Play Index tool, I was able to sort through the best (and worst) games this way.

I thought I would do it here, but limit our search to the five best hitting performances by WPA since 2000. There are no World Series games on here, which sort of screams for a follow-up post as the Fall Classic is set to start. I will also take a look at pitcher performances. There are some forgotten names listed (Erubiel Durazo!), and some no-doubter Hall-of-Famers as well, a dynamic that makes the playoffs so much fun. Sure, Josh Hamilton was great last night. But Bengie Molina!

Top Five Hitting Performances

5) Adam Kennedy, 10-13-02, ALCS Game 5, .634 WPA

The Minnesota Twins had taken the first game of the series, but Anaheim ripped off three straight wins in Games Two through Four. Game Five was big because the series was set to head back to the Metrodome, a difficult place to win. This was the first playoff series for the Twins since the 1991 World Series, when the Atlanta Braves took a 3-2 lead back to the Homerdome. The same had happened in the 1987 World Series, too. St. Louis showed up in Minneapolis for Game 6 with a 3-2 lead. We know how those ended.

So, even though momentum was Anaheim's, they wanted to wrap things up in California. In the top of the 7th, the Twins took a 5-3 lead over the Halos, and according to B-Ref, had an 80% win expectancy at this point. In the bottom of the 7th, things would change. Adam Kennedy, having already homered twice, would hit his third of the game off of youngster Johan Santana, a three-run shot that would give the Angels the lead for good. They would tack on, oh, another seven runs that inning, and win the game 13-5.

4) Alex Rodriguez, 10-6-04, ALDS Game 2, .684 WPA

Again with the Twins! A-Rod gets a lot of heat for laying an egg in Games 4-7 of the 2004 ALCS, but the Yanks never would have had a chance to participate if not for his performance in the ALDS that season. He hit .421/.476/.737 in the 2004 Division Series, and came up huge in Game 2 after the Yanks had dropped the first game of the series. Incidentally, Rodriguez lays claim to games 4, 6 and 11 on the list of best (most clutch) postseason performances since 2000.

Game 2 was a back-and-forth affair, and things looked bleak for the Yanks after the Twins took a 6-5 lead in the top of the 12th. Mariano Rivera had already pitched. In the bottom of the 12th, Ron Gardenhire pushed things a bit by bringing Joe Nathan back for a 3rd inning of work. Nathan got John Olerud swinging to lead off the 12th but then issued walks to Miguel Cairo and Derek Jeter on 9 pitches. Gardenhire stuck with Nathan though, now 46 pitches into his outing, and A-Rod made him pay with a double that plated Cairo and sent Jeter to third. After an intentional pass to Gary Sheffield, J.C. Romero relieved Nathan but Hideki Matsui hit a sac fly on the very first pitch from the southpaw.

Rodriguez finished the game 4-6 with a home run, the key double, three RBI and two runs.

3) Erubiel Durazo, 10-1-03, ALDS Game 1, .701 WPA

I remember this one well. Durazo was a beast, going 2-4 with 3 RBI, 2 walks and a run scored. His double in the 3rd came off of Pedro Martinez, and plated two runs to give the A's a 2-1 lead. In the 9th inning, Grady Little panicked. Byung-Hyun Kim started the inning with a 4-3 lead and induced a fly ball out. He then walked Billy McMillon and hit Eric Byrnes with a pitch.

Well this was when Kim still had the 2001 Yankee Stadium meltdown choker stigma, and the Boston fans were tough on him when he blew a few games down the stretch. Still, he had been an excellent pitcher and was a perfectly viable option for the Red Sox in this spot. He demonstrated as much on the next batter, getting Mark Ellis to strike out. Two outs.

Now the panic. Little decided with two outs to go and get Kim and bring in lefty Alan Embree. Problem was, Kim was no worse than Embree against lefties and even worse, Durazo had a reverse split! He hit lefties better! Embree entered nonetheless, Durazo singled and the game was tied. In the 12th, Durazo worked a lead-off walk and the A's went on to win 5-4.

2) Ivan Rodriguez, 10-13-03, NLDS Game 3, .717 WPA

This one's not too hard to figure out. The Marlins won the game 4-3 and Pudge had all four RBI. The first two came on a home run in the opening frame off of Kirk Rueter. The last two, the game-winners, came with the Giants ahead by a run with two outs and the bases loaded. Pudge singled off of Tim Worrell to give the Fish a 2-1 Series lead.

1) Jimmy Rollins, 10-19-09, NLCS Game 4, .753 WPA

One moment can change everything in the playoffs. To get a sense for the drama in the bottom of the 9th in Game Four of last year's NLCS, scroll to the 13:45 mark or so of this video. When Rollins came to bat, his team had an 83% chance of losing, and that's before you factor how good Jonathan Broxton had been for the Dodgers in 2009.

But Rollins squared up a fastball, ripped it into the right-center field gap, two runs scored and the Phillies would go on to qualify for the World Series for the second time in as many seasons. In the first inning, Rollins had singled and scored on a Ryan Howard home run.

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Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers dropped the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 of the American League Division Series last night, setting up an enticing matchup with the defending World Series champions.

The Rangers and Yankees respective run prevention units profile similarly. Each features a dominant ace, capable depth rounding out their rotations, and good bullpens where all roads lead to their shut-down Closers. Defensively, both teams are good, too. The Yankees probably have the outfield advantage with Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner patrolling, while the Rangers enjoy the infield edge thanks to their stud middle infield of Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler.

Offensively, it’s an entirely different story. They’re both very good with the bats – the Yanks led the AL in runs and the Rangers were fourth – but they go about their work at the plate in different styles. Lineup anchors for Texas like Mike Young, Josh Hamilton and Kinsler all see fewer pitchers per plate appearance than the league average. And of course, one of the great all-time free swingers in baseball history is Vladimir Guerrero. He’s in the mix too, although he has struggled over the second half of the season. Only the Baltimore Orioles saw fewer pitchers per plate appearance than the AL West champions.

On the other hand, New York saw the most pitchers per plate appearances in the American League other than Boston or Tampa Bay. It’s really only Robinson Cano that will hack away for the Bombers, and it’s not like his approach needs tweaking. He makes it work to the tune of MVP candidacy. Even more troubling for Rangers pitching, not only can the Yanks get ahead in the count, but they hit better than any other team in baseball once there.

This contrast in hitting styles is where the ALCS will hinge. Right off the bat, the Yanks will have a chance to leverage their patience. C.J. Wilson had a nice year, but his traditional numbers outpace his peripherals. The biggest blemish on Wilson’s performance record is his high walk rate, 4.10 per 9 innings. He also throws his first pitch for a strike and induces swinging strikes on pitches outside the zone at a below average rate. Grooving the first one and forcing otherwise patient batters to chase bad balls are two tools the high-walk pitcher can turn to, but Wilson seems to have neither. The Yankees will be a test for him.

As you might imagine, Wilson struggled in three starts against New York this season, pitching just 14.1 innings and walking 5.65 guys per 9 innings. But Wilson’s smart (follow @str8edgeracer on twitter), and he doubtless knows his weakness and his opponent’s strength. In Tampa Bay for Game 2 of the ALDS, he limited his walk total to just two while facing a team even more patient than the Yankees. He’s a good pitcher with great make-up. I’m not counting him out by a long shot.

While Wilson could be a problem for Texas, Lee is the prototype to combat a patient offense. He walks nobody, and pounds the zone with pitches that move every which way. He goes in Game 3 for the Rangers at Yankee Stadium.

For the Yankees, their pitchers will have some latitude to expand the zone thanks to the Rangers’ approach. This is a risky game, however, because the Rangers righty-stacked lineup will crush mistakes from lefties. Vlad, Nelson Cruz, Kinsler and Young all murder southpaws, and if C.C. Sabathia or Andy Pettitte decide they want to get Texas to chase and they don’t bite, the Rangers’ righties should see some nice pitches to hit.

The pitcher-batter match-ups in this series should be terrific, a study in Game Theory from start to finish. I give the edge to the Yankees because of their superior approach at the plate. But it’s close, and if Sabathia and Pettitte are off even the slightest bit, it’s not hard to envision a scenario in which the Yankees head home to face Cliff Lee down 2-0. Watch individual pitches, match-ups, strategies and yes, umpiring within each plate appearance. It promises to be fascinating, and it's where this series will be won.

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It's hard to remember sometimes but Barry Bonds had just an awful reputation for failing to come through in the postseason by the time his stint with the Pittsburgh Pirates ended. This excerpt from a 2001 article for Slate that Ben McGrath wrote captures the sentiment well, though it incorporates some of his playoff failures as a Giant, too.

In five playoff series for the Pirates and Giants—all losing efforts—Bonds has batted .196 with just one home run and six RBIs over a span of nearly 100 at-bats. In 1997, the San Francisco Examiner declared, "Barry Bonds continues to struggle in clutch situations, to the point where failures now are almost expected." Last month, the New York Times' Murray Chass quipped, "If Bonds had played for the Yankees, George Steinbrenner would have called him Mr. O, not for October but for zero."

At the end of the 1992 season - Bonds's seventh in Major League Baseball, Bonds had won two MVP awards and was in line for an enormously lucrative free agent contract. Still, in 83 postseason plate appearances he had hit just .191/.349/.265. His Pirates had lost three consecutive National League Championship Series and time and again, when a key Bonds hit might have made all the difference, he came up short.

At the end of the 2010 season - Joe Mauer's seventh in Major League Baseball, Mauer has won an MVP award and should have a second. He's arguably off to the best start of any catcher in Major League Baseball history. His power stroke comes and goes, but that part of his game is just icing. He's phenomenal with or without hefty slugging totals. The Minnesota Twins rewarded Mauer with a $184 million extension this season.

Like Bonds, Mauer has been awful in the postseason. He's never won a game in the playoffs and is a career .286/.359/.314 hitter in 35 plate appearances. This past American League Division Series, Mauer hit .250/.308/.250. He came up short again.

It's interesting to contrast the way fans and media treated Bonds to the way they treat Mauer. Both were/are superstars en route to Hall of Fame careers who failed miserably under the brightest spotlight. Aside from a corner here or there of the internet, there doesn't seem to be much anger or ridicule towards Mauer. The same could hardly be said of Bonds. His detractors reveled in his high-profile failures.

That may be for any number of reasons. I'd like to think it's because we know postseason performance deviating from career norms to the upside or down is most likely due to the sample size than some innate character trait in the player in question. A more informed fanbase and media set are much more likely to cut the guy who falls short some slack. It happens, or so we've learned as the SABR movement has made its way mainstream.

One could also attribute this phenomenon to their respective dispositions. Bonds, by many accounts, was a jerk. Mauer, on the other hand, has a great reputation as an individual.

There's another potential explanation, of course. And while I don't want to use this space for social or political commentary, I'd urge you to consider alternative reasons why Mauer seems to escape media criticism while so many took such great joy in Bonds's struggles.

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There is no shortage of great sites where you can catch LDS previews. Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs are both running in-depth previews of each series. Team-oriented sites like The Process Report, River Avenue Blues, Pinstriped Bible, Aaron Gleeman, Lonestar Ball, Crashburn Alley, Red Leg Nation, Red Reporter, McCovey Chronicles and Capitol Avenue Club also have you covered.

I thought we could take a different approach here and just pull out a handful of thematic storylines running through the 2011 post-season and have a look. For starters, let's look at two of the better rookies in recent memory set to square off out in San Francisco for the National League Division Series.

Jason Heyward wasted no time making a name for himself in 2010, homering in his first career plate appearance off of Chicago's Carlos Zambrano. If you don't think he's captivated the Atlanta faithful, I urge you to check this out:

It's with good reason, too. Heyward is the most promising player his age to come along in decades. Below is a look at the five best 20-year old seasons in terms of OPS+ since 1946 (65 years). Minimum 300 plate appearances:

On its own, that's compelling but with names like Pinson and Horner on there, are there any guarantees that Heyward will become a superstar? Well there are no guarantees, but this next table tells you why Heyward stands out from the bunch at this stage. It's all about his approach.

Heyward's walk rate stands way above the others on that list, which bodes extrardinarily well for his future.

In the NLDS Heyward and the Braves face the San Francisco Giants and their standout rookie, Buster Posey. Here are the best OPS+ seasons by a catcher 23 and under with 300 plate appearances since 1961 (50 years):

Posey and Heyward play critical roles on their respective teams, too. Heyward trails only McCann among Braves position players in Fangraphs WAR. Posey trails only Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff on the Giants.

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New Digs

From the entirely non-predictive department, the last two teams to qualify for the playoffs in their first season in a new ballpark won the World Series. Both the 2009 New York Yankees and 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the Fall Classic their first year in new Yankee and Busch Stadiums, respectively.

This year, the Twins will give it a go. It's been an incredible debut year for Minnesota at Target Field, as they have posted a home record of 53-28. The Twins will be without the services of Justin Morneau, one of the very best players in baseball, but they're used to it at this point. Since Morneau played his last game on July 7th, the Twins actually improved their record, going 49-29 to close the season. Over that same span, the Yankees were 41-36.

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2002 K-Rod Candidates

Jeff Fletcher has a good piece on Aroldis Chapman today, and how his presence to the Reds could be what Francisco Rodriguez was to the 2002 Angels. I agree with Fletcher, but there are others who fit that category too.

For one, there's AL Rookie of the Year candidate Neftali Feliz. The Rangers could expand their Closer's role to include additional high-leverage work. Remember, Feliz came up through the Minors as a starter. He could handle additional innings here and there.

There's also Craig Kimbrel of the Atlanta Braves, who has 40 strikeouts in just 20.2 innings of Big League work. He'll have to improve his control if he is going to dominate the way Atlanta might like him to. Kimbrel has 16 walks to go along with those 40 punch-outs. At the same time, the Braves won't need to lean too heavily on him given their relief depth, should Kimbrel struggle.

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Lefties Reign in the AL

Top-5 American League playoff starters by Fangraphs WAR:

Notice any commonality there?

The top righty was Carl Pavano of the Twins.

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Things You Should Read

This Dave Cameron piece on how Dusty Baker should deploy his pitching staff in Game One. Sure, the schedule allows Philly the chance to deploy its big-3, but it also allows the Reds to keep their outstanding bullpen fresh.

This guest post by Mike Fast on David Price on The Process Report was outstanding. Jeremy will really appreciate it, I think.

Joe Pawlikowski's take on A.J. Burnett's move to the Yankee bullpen is terrific, too.

So you want to dabble in the free agent pitching market, huh? Sure you might net yourself a gem like C.C. Sabathia. But how about Barry Zito, Javier Vazquez and Burnett? Where would the Red Sox be had John Lackey and Josh Beckett pitched the way Boston had hoped? In Zito, Vazquez, Burnett, Lackey and Beckett, that's $76.5 million doled out to starters who will not be taking a playoff rotation turn.

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Last year, I wrote about how the Baltimore Orioles could be on the cusp of something special. Then, this year, I wrote about how I was so wrong about the Baltimore Orioles and how it was really the Toronto Blue Jays that were the team flying under the radar. I even mocked myself for being so wrong on Baltimore.

I wish I had hung in there with the Orioles but who could have blamed me? The Orioles were awful, almost historically so. When play ended on Sunday, August 1st, Baltimore was sporting a record of 32-73 and were 34.5 games back of first place. That’s a 49-win pace and, playing games in baseball’s most competitive division, there seemed little hope that they could turn things around.

The dismal first 105 games was a top-to-bottom group effort. Let’s start with the job Andy MacPhail did last off-season. His three most high-profile moves were to bring in free agents Garrett Atkins and Mike Gonzalez, and to trade for veteran right-hander Kevin Millwood. Atkins hit .214/.276/.286 and was released on July 6th. Gonzalez has earned nearly $275,000 for each inning pitched, which might be OK if he were Mariano Rivera. But he’s Mike Gonzalez, and through August 1st he had a 5.40 ERA in just nine appearances. He stunk, and couldn’t stay healthy. As for Millwood, he’s pitched ok at times but that 3-16 record while blocking other potential Big League- ready arms has hardly served the team’s interests. Finally, presumably because he looked down at his roster before Opening Day and noticed Cesar Izturis (65 career OPS+) was his shortstop, MacPhail added Julio Lugo for depth. In 253 plate appearances, Lugo has 6 extra-base hits and 14 walks.

A group of youngsters expected to develop into legitimate Big League contributors share culpability as well. Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta and Brad Bergesen all struggled through August 1st. One time uber-prospect Chris Tillman has yet to show that he can be effective in the Majors, and Koji Uehara missed much of the year with injury troubles. Offensively, Nolan Reimold backed up his breakout 2009 with a .210/.289/.350 start and a season-ending achilles injury. Matt Wieters continued to disappoint. Josh Bell, the player so many praised MacPhail for prying away from Ned Colletti in exchange for George Sherrill, has floundered in 151 plate appearances. It looks like even if the veterans had performed for the Orioles, those of us who were bullish on them last season were a year or two early on the youngsters.

But the veterans own the mess that is (was) 2010, too. Ty Wigginton has managed just a .318 on-base. Brian Roberts, through August 1st (last day of the Juan Samuel era), was at .250/.313/.318. Miguel Tejada never even looked interested, hitting .269/.308/.362 before being shipped off to San Diego. Adam Jones had a .306 on-base on August 1st. Nick Markakis hit .303/.384/.488 in his 23 and 24-year old seasons. He’s hit .292/.356/.438 in his 25 and 26 seasons. Through August 1st, his first 132 innings, staff “ace” Jeremy Guthrie was 4-11 with a 4.23 ERA.

It’s well outside of my expertise to understand the impact a Manager has on a ball club, but here are the facts as they relate to Baltimore in 2010. Dave Trembley started the year 15-39. Juan Samuel, with the interim reins, went 17-34. Buck Showalter, since taking over on August 3rd, is 28-19. That 49-win pace now looks more like 65-67 wins. 49 wins is no-man’s land but heck, the 2007 Rays won 66 before reaching the World Series in 2008. Last year's San Diego Padres went 23-13 over their last 36 games, and their success has carried over into 2010. Everything has changed in Baltimore. Just look at some of the performances below:

And for the pitchers, the two numbers presented below are K/BB and then ERA.

There have been other exciting developments, too. Uehara has emerged as a potential shut-down reliever with just five walks in 39 innings pitched and Luke Scott has OPS'd over .900, for instance.

The Orioles have been the AL East's best team for 45 games or so, and with a young pitching nucleus returning and Andy MacPhail's stated commitment to beefing up the offense this off-season, the O's may yet be interesting in 2011. I am reluctant to say more than that given the competitiveness of the division and my own checkered history forecasting Orioles success. But Showalter's aboard, the youngsters are coming along and the veterans are performing the way they're supposed to. From there, you'll have to draw your own conclusions.

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At the conclusion of play on August 25th, the San Diego Padres had amassed a 76-49 record, and were 6.5 and 10.5 games clear of the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies, respectively. With a little more than a month to play, a club supposed to be in rebuilding mode was running away with the National League West title.

They had done it by averaging a respectable 4.5 runs per game when you consider their home ballpark, and their pitching and defense had been in top form all season long. From the beginning of the season through August 25th, the Padres were only yielding 3.4 runs per game. A closer look at the personnel might have given some pause about this team, but 125 games into this season they looked every bit the part of a legitimate contender.

Over their next 17 games, 14 of them at home, the Padres would go 4-13. Prior to the start of Monday’s series in Denver against the Rockies, from August 26th through September 12th, San Diego averaged just 2.2 runs per game while yielding 4.2. They were awful, and the division seemed to be slipping away. Their playoff odds, a lock just weeks ago, had dwindled down to the 50% mark.

The collapse was a total team effort, saving maybe superstar Adrian Gonzalez. His production remained steady. But other key contributors for the Padres were cratering. David Eckstein had held his own for much of the year but is at just .197/.242/.213 since August 25th. Yorvit Torrealba had been a nice surprise but he’s hit .219/.306/.333 from August 1st through today. Newcomers Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada faltered badly, too, as the former has slugged just .323 since the losing began while the latter has managed just a .253 on-base.

Meanwhile, the Rockies got hot. Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki went nuts, and their pitching has improved as well. While San Diego went 4-13, the Rox ripped off a 14-4 stretch. San Francisco was playing better baseball, too. They went 10-6 over that same stretch. The NL West was shaping up to be one heck of a race.

Over the last two nights, however, things have taken yet another turn. The Padres won consecutive games on the road in Colorado thanks to a couple of huge home runs, one from Matt Stairs last night and another from Miguel Tejada on Monday. Also of note, Jon Garland bounced back and pitched well last night after a dreadful month for him. The Padres playoff odds are back up around 70%, thanks not only to their two-night resurgence, but also to Clayton Kershaw’s complete game shutout in San Francisco last night.

San Diego now has two games in the loss column on the Giants and four on the Rockies. The Padres have eight games remaining on this road trip, including another in Denver, four in St. Louis against the flailing Cardinals and three at Dodger Stadium. Then it’s the Reds and Cubs at home before what could be one of the most exciting season-ending series in a long time: three in San Francisco against the Giants.

Everything is more or less settled in the American League, faux AL East drama and all. The Phillies have scooted ahead of the Braves, but the Braves seem poised to take the NL Wild Card (although the two teams do have six games remaining against one another). That leaves the NL West, where you’ll want to remain focused if pennant race drama is your thing this time of year.

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These are exciting times for the family of our fearless leader here at Baseball Analysts. Rich's father George, profiled here and here in the past on this site, will be inducted into the Long Beach Baseball & Softball Hall of Fame a week from Saturday night. I mention this today in this space because the publicity surrounding George’s induction tells you a lot about Rich Lederer, his priorities and his character.

This Long Beach Press-Telegram article offers a glimpse into Rich’s upbringing and how his values came to be. He spent his childhood hanging around Major League ballparks, and most of that time was in the company of his father and brothers. To this day, Rich’s love of family and baseball shine through for anyone lucky enough to call him a friend.

Rich will have a recap of the ceremony itself one week from Monday.

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Given Rich's past work on payroll efficiency, I found this graphical look at the current MLB standings to be fascinating. Great stuff from Kevin Dame at Hardball Times. Oh, those Cubs.

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Ben Kabak has a great write-up on Brett Gardner at River Avenue Blues.

On the season, Garnder is now at .284/.390/.384 through 504 plate appearances. He’s seventh in the AL in on-base percentage, ninth in walks with 70 and fourth in steals with 40. As a defender, too, his numbers are steller. His left field UZR is 16.9, and his arm is 5.3 runs above average. His eight outfield assists are second in the American League, and opposing teams have stopped running on his arm. Have I mentioned he’s making just $452,000 this year?

That Gardner has played as much as he has for the Yanks is Exhibit A that these aren't the mid-aughts Yanks, throwing money at anything and everything when they have a hole to fill. Gardner has subtle skills, and could easily be passed over by a dumber team with championship hopes. But the Yankees aren't dumb, and their ability to pay a very good player the minimum allows them the financial freedom to flex their financial muscles elsewhere.

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This is the most incredible thing I've read all year. Joey Votto does not have one single infield pop-up this season. I just don't even know what to say about that. Here's 'Duk from Big League Stew:

It's difficult to get your head around, but the above headline is true: Joey Votto has not hit an infield popup all season.

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Enjoy the start of the NFL season this weekend, and tomorrow has an excellent slate of college football. Even though the AL playoff slots are more or less wrapped up, the NL picture remains wide open. The two series to keep your eye on are the Cards in Atlanta and the Padres hosting the Giants.

San Francisco is just a game back of San Diego, and if the Cards have a miracle comeback in them, they'll have to make a dent this weekend.

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When Marlon Byrd signed his 3-year, $15 million contract with the Cubs this past off-season, it was seen as yet another indicator that Jim Hendry was out of touch. Why add a 32-year old center fielder with a flimsy track record of success to a team with a $144 million payroll and legitimate championship aspirations?

Here is Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus reacting to the acquisition:

My initial response on Twitter (@ChristinaKahrl) was that Byrd won't slug .420 away from Texas, and while that was a flip comment*, the more I think about it, the more I'm comfortable with the idea. It might cost less than half as much as signing Gary Matthews Jr. did, but that doesn't make the signing less than half as dumb. That's the basis of comparison I'm operating from, because we've heard this story before: toolsy 31-year-old ex-fourth outfielder has big year in a superheated bandbox, gets big money, and becomes a permanent punchline on his general manager's highlight reel. No doubt Jim Hendry's moved beyond the laughter, since he's on the downslope of the Milton Bradley experience.

Byrd's performance record is entirely unmysterious.

Kahrl thought the one silver lining of the move would be that Sam Fuld, a 28-year old who hasn’t managed a .400 SLG in the PCL in 2010, might be able to get some playing time more quickly given Byrd’s ability to shift to the corner outfield positions. Christina was not alone. There was a guy named Sullivan right here at Baseball Analysts who wrote the following:

It's hard not to think back to the Milton Bradley episode and how much it distracted Chicago when looking at their moves this off-season. Losing Bradley and picking up Carlos Silva and Marlon Byrd, wherever you come down on the argument that they just had to part ways with Bradley, amounts to wheel-spinning. Byrd is no better than Bradley, Silva is just awful.

Ouch.

So how has Byrd performed? He’s hitting .302/.358/.446, good for a .356 wOBA and a 119 wRC+. Byrd ranks 3rd among National League center fielders in Runs Above Replacement. When you factor defense, his season looks even more impressive. He sits 12th in Fangraphs WAR among all National League position players. By any measure whatsoever, the Byrd signing has been a masterstroke for the Cubs, albeit a bittersweet masterstroke for Cubs fans as they ponder what might have been if their team’s other pieces were up to par.

A lot of Byrd’s success offensively has been tied to a high in-play average of .338, but then again his career figure is .325. He’s murdered lefties to the tune of a .953 OPS, and in case you think his output is tied to Wrigley, he’s been much better on the road than he has at home. Defensively, as you can deduce from his WAR number, he appears to have been terrific this season. Just five months into a 3-year deal, the complete story of the Byrd acquisition is as yet unwritten. He is hitting just .245/.268/.340 over the last 28 days. Nonetheless he's been good enough to date that it warranted attention.

I wanted to post this for a couple of reasons. The first was simply to point out a ray of light in an otherwise miserable Cubs season. Byrd seems to have exceptional make-up and character – check out his blog here – and has quickly become a fan favorite. When I attended Wrigley in late June to watch the Cubs take on Pittsburgh, I noticed how much the fans seated in the bleachers adored Byrd, cheering wildly as he took the field in the first inning. And Byrd impressed me by how much he seemed to be relishing the opportunity to patrol the Wrigley outfield in front of such appreciative fans. Byrd would be one of the great stories of 2010 if Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez had come to play this year.

Another reason I wanted to post this was to consider what it means when the saberists get it so wrong. A 32-year old whose offensive value had been tied to hitting in Texas, who had not even experienced real Big League success until age 29...well that’s not a guy worth inking to a guaranteed 3-year deal, right? That’s how my thinking went anyway. But there are considerations that teams take into account, granted inaccurately at times, that performance analysts do not.

I don’t know if what follows is true, but I bet a lot of it is, and I also bet this represents much of the case for Byrd that refutes the reasons not to sign him that Christina and I exclusively considered. Here goes:

Byrd is a guy with outstanding character who works hard and has never been in better shape. He will be a remarkable influence on his teammates, and the opportunity to play for a team with a rich tradition like the Cubs will not be lost on him. Whatever drop-off a move away from Arlington entails, consider all of these factors enough to counteract it. He’s a mature player, a true professional who got a late start but is now ready to take his game to a new level into his mid-30’s.

I bet there’s a scout out there, probably working for the Cubs, who had written something precisely to that effect on Byrd. That scout was dead right, and I know as a result of the Byrd case I will be looking into factors I previously had not considered when analyzing player movement.

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This article is cross-posted at Red Sox Beacon, a site I started with Baseball Prospectus writer Marc Normandin. We're not sure where it will go but for now it's just a repository for a handful of us to jot down our thoughts on the Boston Red Sox. I will still be contributing here at least every Wednesday, and occasionally on weekends as well.

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Fresh off a series loss in St. Pete and with their playoff chances inching from slim towards none, there is a new narrative taking hold here in Boston . It's difficult to follow but the best I can boil it down to is "The Red Sox knew this was a ‘bridge year’ all along and are not going for it.” Those who hold this belief - ostensibly at least - point to the lack of deal-making at the deadline and to Theo Epstein's terribly misunderstood "bridge year" remark before the beginning of the year. That the team continues to rely on the likes of Daniel Nava and Darnell McDonald to claw back into the most competitive division in baseball means the front office is content to let the season slip away, or so it goes. Some examples:

Tony Massarotti, August 30th

At any point, to blame it all on the injuries is rather elementary and downright blind.

Fenway Park has gone from among the most fashionable places to be seen to just another ballpark, and the timing could not be worse for a Red Sox administration that might have been planning for another lean year.

Seriously, might not that be, above all else, the reason the Sox put in a claim for Johnny Damon? The Sox lack star power. The Sox lack appeal.

Joe Haggerty’s Twitter feed, August 28th

Hawpe is just an example. The main point is that the #redsox lack of movement toward any players = not going for it

Chris Gasper, who basically took to Boston.com to throw a temper tantrum yesterday

Last night's defeat at Tropicana Field and the series weren't just lost over the weekend. They were lost in the last month, when fatal flaws went unfixed by the front office. While teams like the San Diego Padres (Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada) and Minnesota Twins (Matt Capps and Brian Fuentes) have addressed needs, the Sox have preferred to stand pat and apply internal patches. The Padres and Twins look playoff-bound, the Sox do not.

Actions speak louder than words. Francona's actions tell the tale of a team that waited for reinforcements from its front office that never came.

Dan Shaughnessy in today’s Boston Globe

It’s not like they didn’t warn us. Remember Theo’s comments in December about the “bridge period’’? He said that’s not what he really meant, but it was a moment of truth. The reality is the Sox figured they were in for a soft season.

A number of reactions come to mind as I read mainstream writing along these lines, but the first is to spell out exactly what the Red Sox have been through this year. Let's start with the obvious. Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, conservatively, are two of the 20 best position players in baseball. They’re probably two of the 15 best and possibly both top-10. Combined, they’ve missed 85 games in 2010. Imagine if the Brewers were without Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, the Rays without Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria, or the Yankees without Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira. You could stop right there and forgive the Red Sox for merely being a .565 team playing in baseball’s (sports’?) toughest division.

Of course the story of Boston’s misfortune runs much deeper. Jacoby Ellsbury, an established 3-win player entering his 26-year old season, has played in just 18 games. Victor Martinez, one of the best catchers in all of baseball, has missed 33 games. Since health is a skill, it’s hard to get too upset about Mike Cameron’s plight in 2010, but nonetheless the fringe Hall of Fame candidate who was coming off consecutive 4+ win seasons according to Fangraphs, has not been healthy all year long. At 37, some durability issues could be expected, but Cameron has managed just 180 largely ineffective plate appearances.

On the performance side, key Sox players have struggled. Josh Beckett has been terrible in his limited action this year. John Lackey has not pitched nearly as well as he is capable. J.D. Drew has managed a couple of hot streaks but he has not been able to piece together a typical Drew offensive season despite remaining healthy as his teammates fall all around him.

The Red Sox have endured as much adversity as any team in baseball. Just a few of the items mentioned above breaking their way and Boston’s in the thick of this race. This was a bridge year in the sense that Boston needed to ink some veterans to short contracts in order to remain a top-flight team while they waited for their youngsters to develop. Marco Scutaro, Cameron and Beltre all fall into this camp, but how do any of those signings indicate that Boston's front office thought they would have a soft year? They would probably be baseball’s best team with any luck at all in 2010. I look at the 2003, 2004 and 2007 clubs and I don't know - I think this may have been the very best Red Sox roster of the Theo Epstein era. This team was designed to compete and all year long, it has.

But that first point – that the Red Sox intended to try to win the World Series all along - is only partially responsive to the complaints circling the Boston airwaves and filling the broadsheets. The notion that they’re not “going for it” by failing to make trades is preposterous on its face. Whom would you like to have seen the Red Sox acquire?

If only the Red Sox had managed to get Brad Hawpe, then at least they’d be making a go of it. Had the Red Sox traded for bats like Ludwick or Tejada, then at least we’d know they were serious. Their bullpen has been so bad. How could they NOT add Matt Capps or Brian Fuentes. And for goodness sake, things have become so dour down in the baseball ops offices, the marketing folks are now calling the shots. How else to explain the attempt to acquire Johnny Damon?

It’s hard for me to unravel the logic of these complaints but for our purposes, let’s consider the Los Angeles Dodgers. On July 31st, they sat 5.5 games out of a playoff spot, just like the Red Sox. Ned Colletti was aggressive, acquiring Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot and Octavio Dotel at the deadline for a number of promising pieces in the Dodgers farm system and a couple of established Big Leaguers. For the short-term, the moves have worked out really nicely. Theriot has managed a 109 OPS+ as a Dodger, and Lilly is 5-1 since arriving on the west coast. Dotel has been spotty at times, but he’s only tossed 11 innings.

So the Dodgers made moves and were rewarded with very good productivity from their new acquisitions. Meanwhile, the Red Sox did virtually nothing at the deadline. After looking at potential moves – say Scott Downs for Casey Kelly as an example – the Red Sox decided that the market just wasn’t shaping up the way it would need to in order to compel them to deal. A month later, LA’s playoff odds have dwindled to 4% while the Red Sox chances are also slim, but still two times that of the Dodgers. Making trades for the short-term guarantees nothing.

But even when the Red Sox gave it an honest shot with the Johnny Damon waiver claim, they were not insulated from this line of attack. Damon chose not to join the club, but you can’t say the Red Sox have not been active. But folks like Mazz claim that the Damon attempt was driven by the business side of things, since, you know, the Red Sox aren't really going for it. I’m still waiting for any actual reporting on the subject. It’s speculation, and flies in the face of how the Red Sox have operated under John Henry's ownership group. Baseball Ops has total autonomy once made aware of their budget.

Boston is on pace to win 92 games in 2010. This despite as bad a non-New York Mets injury season as I can recall. Oh, those poor 2009 New York Mets. After winning 89 games in 2008, they had high hopes last year. Like the Red Sox, they got crushed by the injury bug, losing Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana among others. Unlike the Red Sox, they won 70 games.

I understand that you have to fill space in newspapers but the simple explanation for the 2010 Boston Red Sox is “shit happens.” It’s unsatisfying, but it’s the truth. They had a plan, assembled a great roster and on any number of fronts they’ve run into just awful luck. 92 wins might cut it in any other division in baseball, but in the AL East it means you might not qualify for the playoffs. And as a result, while Kevin Youkilis looks on in a splint and Dustin Pedroia gets set for surgery, an entitled, spoiled, silly media gets to spend the final month of the season grasping at straws assigning ex post facto blame as to why the Red Sox didn’t win a handful more games.

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Back in January, before the start of the season but after much of the hot stove dust had settled, Dave Cameron wrote about how aging players represented a new inefficiency in the market. Consider the deals players like Ricky Romero, Brian McCann, Ervin Santana, Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia have signed, and it’s evident that many teams are looking to sign their key players pre-arbitration. Standout players like C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and Johan Santana entering their free agent years for the first time are paid lucratively too, of course. But Cameron notes that older players who may have already played out one big contract are too easily overlooked.

Teams have become cautious with the contracts they give to aging players, not wanting to get burned paying too much to a guy who may end up not having anything left in the tank, but I feel like we’re passing the point of caution and shifting towards a market failure. If a guy is a good player at 35, you should not expect him to be useless at 36. Yes, you regress his projection for aging, but players who go from good-to-terrible in a single season are the exception, not the rule.

Aubrey Huff, a 33-year old with “old guy” skills, hit .241/.310/.384 last season. This season, he’s been one of the best players in baseball, hitting .301/.394/.534 in one of the worst hitting environments in baseball. Huff had earned the entire $3 million the Giants paid him for the 2010 year with April and May’s output alone. The Twins continue to enjoy a monster season from Jim Thome, who’s earning just $1.5 million for the 2010 campaign.

Incidentally, both players will once again be free agents for the 2011 season, and so too will a number of other aging players who still likely have productivity left in them. Some will flop badly of course, but isn’t that the nature of the free agent market more generally? There may be more risk associated with older players, but it seems exceedingly “priced in” as compared to younger guys on the market.

We’ll leave the pitchers aside for the moment, and just take a look at some of the position players that will be hitting the market. We’re not talking Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford here, the guys that are likely to break the bank and project as shoo-in productive Big Leaguers for years to come. No, we’re talking guys like Thome and Huff, players who may or may not be worth a flier. And we’ll also include the likes of Adrian Beltre and Derek Jeter. They may not come cheaply, but the risk/reward still may skew in the team’s favor nonetheless. I will list their 3-year (2008-2010) B-Ref WAR totals, along with their age.

Some of these players will make for excellent values, some will be overpaid, but it’s likely that a number of these guys will make a huge difference for their teams in the coming years. The challenge for GM’s is to figure out how to allocate resources to aging players. Do the Yankees have to go all in for Jeter? What’s Scott Boras going to get for Beltre? Can Thome do it again next year? What does Berkman have left? Manny would make for a productive DH, no?

Says here that teams brave enough to play in this market, on average, will see more ROI than elsewhere.

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Identifying who the best baseball position players are is delicate business for executives trying to field the best team possible. You have to figure out what kind of offensive performer the guy is, and then what sort of glove he has, and then what it all means. You would never want David Ortiz playing outfield for your club, and you would never want Mark Kotsay to be your Designated Hitter. They’re equally preposterous.

The problem is that Kotsay actually does start at Designated Hitter for the Chicago White Sox. Year after year teams squander the opportunity that the DH presents – the chance to increase your odds of getting real productivity by removing defense from the evaluation picture. Whether it’s Jose Vidro, Rondell White, Scott Hatteberg, Carl Everett or even someone like Marlon Anderson in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, every year there are wholly unqualified players filling the DH slot for teams. I still remember watching incredulously when I saw that Anderson would start at DH for St. Louis in that game.

Fortunately for teams lacking punch at the DH spot, there is an intriguing crop of aging 1B/DH types set to hit the free agent market after the 2010 season. And since only four American League teams have managed a team OPS north of .800 at the position, you’d better believe their services will be in demand. Seattle DH’s have “hit” .182/.260/.303 in 2010.

Joe Pawlikowski took a look back at the 2010 Free Agent DH class last week at Fangraphs, and now I’d like to look forward at the guys who will come available for the 2011 season.

Last year about this time, on July 29th to be exact, I wrote a piece here at Baseball Analysts wondering how close the Baltimore Orioles were to competing in the AL East. They were 13 games under .500 at the time with a solid young core and a fast-rising crop of top prospects. Since then, the O’s are 54-114. Well it’s that time of year again and as a loyal Red Sox fan it’s my obligation to give another AL East team, the Toronto Blue Jays, that same treatment.

No, but seriously, the Blue Jays are good. They won their 8th game in 11 tries last night, including two straight in the Bronx against the New York Yankees. Against baseball’s best lineup, Blue Jays starters Brandon Morrow and Ricky Romero struck out a combined 13 Yanks in 14.1 innings, walking just 3 along the way. Romero tossed a complete game 2-hitter last night. For more on Morrow, check out Rich Lederer’s piece from Monday. The Blue Jays trail the Yankees by 9 games in the loss column for the Wild Card, and the Red Sox, who are in contention according to many, sit just 3 games ahead of the Jays in the loss column.

Coming into this season, without the services of Roy Halladay, things were supposed to be bleak north of the border. There seemed to be a consensus that the Jays would be the new Orioles, AL East doormats, while the Orioles would turn into the team the Jays have been for so long: the club that needed to just get the hell out of the AL East. Instead, both teams have held steady in their “rightful” 4th and 5th place in baseball’s toughest division. Looking around the Jays organization, there’s plenty to be excited about. The offense is pounding the ball, the pitching is young and promising, there’s lots of money coming off the books this year, prospects are on the way and the early returns on General Manager Alex Anthopoulos are terrific.

Let’s start with the offense. The Jays rank 26th in Major League Baseball in batting average, but rank 9th in the Majors in runs scored. Their free-swinging ways can cost them at times but on the whole, they’ve made it work thanks to a couple of big bats. Incredibly, Jose Bautista leads Major League Baseball with 33 home runs, 6 bombs clear of Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds. Vernon Wells, who hit .265/.317/.426 in 1,792 plate appearances from 2007 to 2009, has bounced back in a big way, slugging .534 this season with 22 round-trippers. He may not quite be earning that hefty contract, but this level of production for a couple of more seasons from Wells will ease the pain of one of the worst contracts in recent memory. Other highlights include the catching combo of John Buck and Jose Molina, one of the most effective backstop duos of 2010.

What’s most incredible about the Jays offense is its productivity despite lackluster seasons from Aaron Hill and Adam Lind. In 2009, his 27-year old season, Hill hit .286/.330/.499 and was one of the most productive second basemen in the game. Lind, just 25 last year, hit .305/.370/.562. This year Hill is “hitting” .213/.289/.395 while Lind has “contributed” a .219/.278/.379 line. Both are in their prime, both were productive last year, and both have been awful. As I think about what Hill and Lind’s catastrophic under-performance means for the longer-term hopes of the organization, I don’t worry too much. They both have track records and are young enough to straighten things out.

The overall run prevention has been just middle of the pack, but that’s due in large part to a mediocre defensive unit. The team’s FIP and xFIP ranks third and fourth respectively in the American League. Morrow’s peripheral statistics have been superb, while Romero has shown flashes of brilliance in just his second Major League season. Two more cost-controlled starters, Brett Cecil and Shaun Marcum, have turned in solid campaigns as well. This is a good young rotation, and one that figures to remain together for a few years:

              Age      AL xFIP Ranking
Romero        25             7
Marcum        28            10
Cecil         25            31
Morrow        23            12

The future is bright for Toronto’s starting pitching staff. For depth, they have arms like Kyle Drabek, Zach Stewart and Brad Mills on the way, and they could always dip into the free agent market for a 5th starter while they wait for their prospects to develop.

Speaking of the future, General Manager Alex Anthopoulos seems to be tending to it nicely. His swap of Alex Gonzalez and prospects for 26-year old Yunel Escobar was nothing short of a masterstroke. Sure Escobar had some problems in Atlanta, but he’s productive both offensively and defensively and cost-controlled. Anthopoulos parlayed a stopgap option like Gonzalez into his shortstop through 2013. The Jays GM will have some money to work with this off-season, too, as the team’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th highest paid players will all come off the books (assuming he does not offer arbitration to the inconsistent Edwin Encarnacion).

As it stands, the Jays will need to add depth at the corner infield positions and also determine if J.P. Arencibia is close enough to assume catching duties, as Buck will be a free agent after this season. Toronto does have a $1 million club option should they wish to retain Jose Molina.

But the core is in place. With continued development from the starting pitching, bounce back from Lind and Hill and a few more shrewd moves from Anthopoulos, the Jays could sneak into the AL East mix sooner than many think.

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Say you’re a Major League Baseball General Manager and your long-term planning shows an opening at second base in 2012. The farm system looks bare at the position and nobody currently on the big club looks like a candidate for the job that season. The plan would be to make some calls to feel out the trade market and parallel track an approach focused on the free agent market.

A look at the 2012 free agent class shows that Rickie Weeks would have to be high on your list of acquisition targets, but now comes the hard part. How do you budget for Weeks? What will the market bear for a player of Weeks’s skill and performance history?

Rickie Weeks, to date, has underachieved. Coming into the 2010 campaign, the second overall pick in the 2003 Amateur Draft had hit .247/.351/.415 for his career. He’s struggled with the glove, his bat has been inconsistent and he can’t seem to stay on the field. Weeks has never played more than 130 games in a season.

Still, he has shown flashes. He hit .251/.422/.481 in the second half of 2007, his 24-year old season. The enormous difference between his on-base percentage and his batting average suggested Weeks might be a special player, a middle infielder with superb pitch recognition skills and excellent power. From August 1st through the end of the 2007 season, Weeks hit .273/.442/.553.

Now a darling breakout candidate, a kid on the cusp of superstardom, the incredible finish to the 2007 campaign would not carry over. 41 games into the 2008 season Weeks was hitting .184/.317/.329. With a low batting average that was unlikely to remain suppressed for a full season, Weeks once again finished strong, hitting .261/.373/.448 over final two months of the 2008 season.

So now Weeks was entering his 26-year old campaign. He had amassed a good amount of Major League service time and even if he was inconsistent, he had played at a high enough level for extended stretches that there was still plenty of hope that Weeks could fulfill his promise. Perhaps his biggest drawback early in his career, his erratic fielding had even begun to stabilize in 2008. 2009 would be his year.

Unfortunately, 2009 would be anything but Weeks’s year. He would tear the tendon sheath in his left wrist on May 18th in the midst of his best season to date. For the first time in his career he was off to a good start, hitting .272/.340/.517. Now a wrist injury would call into question how he might ever bounce back.

A player has a few opportunities to make a lot of money in Major League Baseball. A draft pick as high as Weeks receives a hefty signing bonus. A player can start off his career with enough promise to compel their employer to buy out arbitration years and maybe a free agent season or two. Sticking at second base, think Robinson Cano or Dustin Pedroia for these sorts of contracts. Players can also make a lot of money on a year-to-year basis in arbitration. And finally, guys can hit it big on the unrestricted free agent market. For Weeks, the wrist injury that took out his 2009 season also eliminated any hopes he may have had for a big contract or multiple lucrative arb years before he became a free agent. His window was closing.

Understandably given the nature of his injury, Weeks started slowly this season. On May 23rd, he was hitting .246/.338/.374. Since then, he’s been one of the very best players in baseball. Weeks is hitting .307/.407/.589 over his last 58 games while playing a decent enough second base. He homered for the third consecutive game last night. Already he has been worth 4 Wins Above Replacement (according to Fangraphs), a higher total than any other full season of his career and remember, he has been strong finisher his whole career. At 27, Weeks seems to be putting it all together.

This brings me back to the beginning of the piece. What do you make of Rickie Weeks if you need to look to the free agent market for a second baseman in 2012? He might be a top-10 player in all of baseball, he might tank, his fielding may regress to the point where he must be moved off of second as he ages, the wrist injury could pop back up in some form or another. You get the picture. Right now, he is probably the most difficult player in baseball to project.

For his part, Weeks has eight months of baseball that will in all likelihood set up the rest of his life. If he performs, he will earn tens of millions of dollars well into his 30’s. If he doesn’t, he will likely play out lesser contracts for (relatively) short money.

From a baseball analyst’s perspective, when you take into account the factors that go into projecting future performance, there is no greater enigma right now than Weeks. And from a human perspective, for anyone trying to earn as much as possible in their respective fields, how can you not relate to a guy who has faced this much adversity and is now pushing for his chance to fulfill all that promise and strike it rich? Weeks has a small window to show what he can do. Meanwhile, teams around the league have to decide what sort of commitment they’re willing to make to a player who would come with no shortage or risk or reward.

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Yesterday I wrote about some of the surprises that a B-Ref Play Index search for individual teams’ all-time single season WAR leaders turns up, and limited it to the American League. Today, let’s look at the National League. Because I referenced some bad MVP decisions in yesterday’s piece, I want to make clear that I am not advocating that the MVP simply be handed to the player with the highest WAR (though you could come up with a worse system). It’s simply a solid representation of a player’s contribution and when you dig in, it can turn up some unexpected items.

As you might imagine, Hank Aaron is all over the top of the Braves list but the third best season in Braves history belongs to Darrell Evans. He hit .281/.403/.556 in 1973, good for a 9.0 WAR year, easily the very best year of his long career. The best position-player season of the last 20 years for the Braves was Marcus Giles’s 2003. I would have thought Chipper Jones.

Ron Santo Hall-of-Fame supporters looking to rile themselves up should check out the Cubs list. Santo is mixed right in there with Ernie Banks and a few others and in fact, from 1964 to 1969, no National Leaguer amassed a greater WAR total. Right behind Santo on THAT list are Willie Mays, Aaron and Roberto Clemente.

The first, second, third, fourth and fifth best seasons in Cincinnati Reds history belong to Joe Morgan. Do you get the sense that people don't quite appreciate what a great player he was? I know I expected him to be up there, but the five best seasons in the history of a franchise with no shortage of history and success like the Reds? It's incredible. Morgan bears some responsibility for a legacy that could be so much more due to his broadcasting style and occasional unfortunate commentary, but he really does seem unfairly underrated nonetheless. He's on the short short list of the very best players of all time.

He's long been a favorite of this site, but Jimmy Wynn claims 3 of the top 20 seasons in Astros history. It would be hard to identify a player whose reputation as a player is more hampered by context. He played home games in the Astrodome during a brutal pitcher's era and was a high-OBP/low-AVG type. He finished his career with just a .250 batting average but a 128 OPS+.

Adrian Beltre's 2004 is the second best season in Dodgers history. The rest of the list includes names you'd expect except for number seven. There's that guy again! It's Wynn, who hit .271/.387/.497 for the 1974 Dodgers.

Four of the ten best Mets seasons took place between 1996 and 1998, and the names blew my mind. I guess John Olerud's doesn't - he was an excellent player and his 1998 is tied for the best Mets season. Who's he tied with? Yup, Bernard Gilkey, who hit .317/.393/.562 for the 1996 Mets. Edgardo Alfonso's 1997 and Lance Johnson's 1996 rank 7th and 9th respectively. Alfonso's 2000 ranks 10th.

So Chase Utley's been pretty good, right? He's one of the best players of the last bunch of years, the very best player in fact during one of the most successful stretches in Philadelphia Phillies history. Well Mike Schmidt had NINE seasons better than Utley's second best. Ryan Howard's best season ranks 52nd in Phils history ($125 million LOL).

I have never heard of Sixto Lezcano, but apparently he had the 4th best season in Padres history. For any reader who feels inclined, I would love to learn more about Sixto if you could share memories in the comments section.

Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Hornsby, Musial Pujols...check out the St. Louis Cardinals list and you get a real appreciation for the standing that Pujols already has in the game's history.

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I can’t imagine many readers of this site don’t know about Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, but in case not, know that it represents one of the great joys of being a baseball fan for those interested in mining baseball's past and present. The recent addition of Sean Smith’s historical WAR data has only made the Play Index that much more enjoyable. In a recent guest post I wrote at Wezen-Ball on Red Sox Hall of Famer Fred Lynn, I searched for the greatest individual seasons by Red Sox and sorted by WAR. The results were surprising, and so I decided to play with it some more. What follows are some of the more surprising items that caught my eye. I will follow up with a National League piece tomorrow.

Let’s stick with the Red Sox for starters. In 1995, they won the American League East and first baseman Mo Vaughn won the American League Most Valuable Player award. While it may not rival 1987’s George Bell over Alan Trammell sham, it was an awful choice. Albert Belle was much better than Vaughn and among stat-friendly types the 1995 vote goes down as one of the worst in recent memory. It’s hard to see how anyone could have believed Vaughn was better than Belle, Edgar Martinez or even Tim Salmon that season.

But that’s old news. What caught my eye as I sorted through the greatest individual Red Sox seasons of all time (as determined by WAR), was that another Red Sox, one of Vaughn’s teammates, appeared to have had a much stronger MVP case than Vaughn, too. John Valentin’s 8.5 WAR season, the strike-shortened season of 1995 no less, stands today as one of the finest years a Red Sox player has ever posted and wouldn’t you know it, the highest total in the AL for that year.

Valentin hit .298/.399/.533 while playing a very good shortstop for Boston that season. I want to be careful not to ascribe too much value to WAR since Valentin derived so much of his value that season from his fielding, an area of the game more easily quantified today than ever before but still inexact nonetheless. Still, you could imagine my surprise when Valentin’s name appeared so high on the list of all-time great Red Sox seasons, and atop the American League for 1995.

Perhaps the most surprising team list of all is the Angels. Here are the top individual seasons in Angels history:

               Season  WAR
Jim Fregosi     1964   8.1
Darin Erstad    2000   7.7
Jim Fregosi     1970   7.7
Troy Glaus      2000   7.6
V. Guerrero     2004   7.4

Nothing against Fregosi or Erstad but for a proud franchise like the Angels with a particularly strong recent history of success, one would just think that names with more zing than Fregosi or Erstad might sit atop their best ever list.

The Yankees’ list is just absurd. When purists or others criticize a stat like WAR, I like to urge them to check out some of the results and see if it aligns with their impressions of who the best players are. I realize this post is about surprises, but the Yankees’ list is surprising in its ridiculous predictability. The top 25 seasons ever recorded by Yankees is an exclusive list of just six players: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Rickey Henderson, Alex Rodriguez and Joe DiMaggio. It’s almost as if WAR might be a reasonably accurate measure of a player’s value!

Speaking of Henderson, did you know that Jason Giambi has the 4th best season in A’s history, trailing only Eddie Collins and Jimmie Foxx, and better than any season Rickey notched in an Athletics uniform? Or that Reggie Jackson’s 9.7 WAR season in 1969 was the 3rd best A’s season in the last 50 years (trailing only Giambi and Rickey) and also the very best of his career? I hadn’t realized Reggie’s best year came so early on in his career. Go check the A’s list out for yourself! There’s a lot there.

To give you a sense for just how futile Seattle Mariners baseball was before the arrival of Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr., only one of their top-42 seasons by WAR pre-dates the duo’s arrival. Alvin Davis’s 5.6 WAR season in 1984 ranks as the 23rd best season by a position player in Mariners history, and is the only season to appear in the top-42 before 1990.

Ben Zobrist holds the Rays all-time single season WAR record, with his 7.1 figure in 2009. Amusingly for this Red Sox fan, Julio Lugo appears on the Rays top-10 list. Chalk it up to their short history, sure, but there were also some mighty lean years down in St. Pete.

Finally, to tie it all together, we get to the Blue Jays. There are many players and seasons on their list before you get to 1987 MVP winner Bell. Among others, some of the least distinguished you’ll find include Lloyd Moseby, Devon White, Marco Scutaro and Aaron Hill. They may not be baseball royalty, but they all had better seasons than the 1987 American League MVP winner!

I urge everyone to check out the Play Index, and specifically to play around with the WAR lists. It’s simultaneously fun, shocking and enlightening, and will only enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of baseball’s best and most memorable players and seasons.

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Let’s get a few things out of the way. Daisuke Matsuzaka’s value as a starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox has not been commensurate with the $103 million they doled out to acquire the player. Also, just like many other Red Sox fans who feel frustrated watching Daisuke perform, his pitching can drive me nuts at times, too. He works slowly and walks way too many batters. In his final four seasons for the Seibu Lions, Matsuzaka averaged 2.3 walks issued per nine innings. For the Red Sox, his 162-game average BB/9 has jumped to 4.3. Combine the walks, his inefficiency and his unreliability from a health standpoint and it’s all just very maddening.

With all that said, I was taken aback yesterday morning when I read this Nick Cafardo headline from The Boston Globe. In a piece about Matsuzaka and another frustrating outing in St. Petersburg Monday night, the following headline appeared:

You wonder when it’ll start to pay off

This headline very much reflects conventional wisdom here in Boston. At my doctor's office yesterday, the nurse asked me "what are we gonna do about Daisuke?" I think we've reached a point where public perception on Daisuke is now far too negative. For perspective, I would like to look at his acquisition from a different angle.

The aim of this entry is not to defend the Matsuzaka signing like I did with J.D. Drew during the off-season. J.D. Drew is a terrific baseball player, one any team would be lucky to have. He is not overpaid at all, not by one cent. In fact, his signing has been one of the better free agent deals over the last five seasons or so. The aim of this entry is to showcase the sort of value teams are likely to receive when they turn to the free agent market. From this lens, compared to other free agent starting pitchers, Matsuzaka may not be the best signing of Theo Epstein’s time as Red Sox General Manager, but it’s important to keep in mind that the Japanese right-hander has also been a key contributor to some excellent Red Sox teams.

Since the 2006-2007 off-season, when Matsuzaka signed with the Red Sox, there have been 33 contracts handed out to starting pitchers whose total value met or exceeded $10 million. Of those 33, 9 have contributed no value at all, or even negative value. Jason Schmidt, Adam Eaton, Kei Igawa, Mark Mulder, Woody Williams, Oliver Perez, Aroldis Chapman, Randy Wolf and Jason Marquis (in his deal signed prior to this season) all have either added nothing to the Big League club or in some cases, actually altogether detracted from their teams’ winning efforts irrespective of money. That’s $254 million total doled out to pitchers who have just killed their teams or in Chapman’s case, not yet had a chance to contribute.

That leaves another 24 contracts for pitchers who have contributed to their teams’ winning efforts. Presented below are those 24, sorted by Millions of dollars spent per Win Above Replacement (thanks Fangraphs).

As you can see, Matsuzaka is far from a bargain. But at the same time, he's in the same neighborhood as players like John Lackey and A.J. Burnett, and that's WITH his lost season of 2009. Of those 33 contracts I alluded to earlier, Matsuzaka ranks 18th in terms of dollars spent per Win Above Replacement. That's not great value, but it is just about the median.

This brings me back to the Cafardo headline. "You wonder when it will start to pay off." I look at that and think to myself that IT IS paying off. Maybe it has not been an optimal allocation of resources, maybe Matsuzaka has not lived up to expectations, but he has had two very good seasons, one lost to injury and is on pace to have another decent year. That's not a terrible return.

The purpose of the free agent market is for teams to round out personnel where their farm systems could not supply the talent needed. By its nature, the free agent market offers less value than players in their cost-controlled years. The beauty of this is that so long as the Red Sox draft well and get ridiculous value from the likes of Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, they can afford to overspend on Matsuzaka. And this principle doesn't just apply to big market teams. Derek Lowe hasn't exactly supplied great value for Atlanta, but they sit in first place. Other expensive "under-performers" like Aaron Harang, Carlos Guillen and Rich Harden suit up for teams atop their respective divisions. Free agent "misses" come with the territory.

Two of the more maligned players in my time following the Boston Red Sox closely, J.D. Drew and Daisuke Matsuzaka, both joined the team prior to the 2007 season. They will cost the Red Sox a combined $173 million when it is all said and done. Since their arrival, thanks in part to their considerable contributions, Boston is 99 games over .500, has won a World Series, lost in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS and has qualified for the post-season in three consecutive years. Matsuzaka will probably never be the pitcher Boston fans hoped he would be, but Matsuzaka has also contributed greatly to some of the most successful Red Sox teams in franchise history. In this light, since all we root for is the Red Sox to win, maybe the nibbling, the DL stints, the posting fee and the big contract have been worth it after all?

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R.J. Anderson, in a piece at Fangraphs, sets the stage nicely:

The 2009 season ended poorly for Miguel Cabrera. An arrest and the Tigers’ collapse coincided with the worst month of his season which wasn’t all that poor by anyone else’s standards. The dialect associated with the 27 year old was unkind and the offseason carried with it rumors of a potential trade for budgetary concerns. Those passed and as such Cabrera has spent the 2010 season changing the language like Babylon.

Cabrera is back and producing like he never has before. His .337/.412/.628 line would easily be a career best, which is saying something given the career we're talking about. Since 1960, only 12 players amassed more plate appearances through their age-26 season than Cabrera. Of those with at least 4,000 PA's through their age 27 season, here is how Cabrera ranks in OPS+.

Cabrera is off to as good a start as all but a handful of the very best hitters over the last 50 years. And now, at 27-years old, it appears he could be coming into his own as a truly elite power hitter. Not once has Cabrera finished in the top-5 in his league in slugging percentage. In 2010, despite playing home games at spacious Comerica Park, Cabrera leads the American League with a .630 figure.

Working in Cabrera's favor is the historical trend that hitters tend to tack on power around the age of 27. Below I present the average of the ten best slugging seasons by 24, 27, 30 and 33-year olds from 1990 through 2009:

Age     SLG
24     .588
27     .628
30     .634
33     .618

Some might say that the era in question, 1990 through 2009, could be skewed by the influence steroids played. Have players always been able to tack on power into their 30's? Well here is the same table, this time for 1970 through 1989.

Age     SLG
24     .550
27     .591
30     .582
33     .549

In both eras, elite sluggers were able to establish and maintain peak power levels at the age of 27. From 1990 through 2009, hitters were able to extend the period out another three years to their 33-year old season, while in the earlier timeframe power leveled back off to the levels seen prior to the 27 season. Depending on how you choose to interpret the data above, it would appear Cabrera has anywhere from three to six top-notch power hitting seasons ahead of him. More succinctly, the power spike could well be here to stay.

There are no guarantees, of course. Albert Pujols had his best two slugging seasons in his age 26 and 23 seasons respectively. Alex Rodriguez notched his best number at the age of 31. But something seems to be happening with Cabrera, and if history is any guide, it's quite possible that one of the more impressive young sluggers of all time is about to get even better. Even though Miggy's problems were mostly off-the-field at the end of 2009, the power spike is a welcome development for Tigers fans, who only months ago seemed to be questioning whether Cabrera was the sort of cornerstone player they wanted for their team. He's answering those questions emphatically in 2010.

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For the first time in a while I feel like a fan of any other team in baseball. As a Red Sox fan, things have been great over the last 8 years or so. And they still are - don't get me wrong. But just like so many other teams face uncertainty, so too do the Red Sox now. In years past, you could pencil in a certain amount of production from the Red Sox players and chances were, in the aggregate, you'd end up pretty close to where you thought they'd be. This year though, who the hell knows?

From the start it's been a season of surprises. The team's core stunk for the first 15 games of the season or so, and the Rays and Yanks seemed to be running away. Then, thanks to outstanding work from some of the veterans in the lineup and surprising performances from journeymen cast into leading roles, the Red Sox have clawed their way back into the playoff race. Most satisfying of all, a team "experts" said wouldn't hit became baseball's best offense despite missing two starters for much of the season. Go and search "run prevention" and check out all the snark from the likes of Dan Shaughnessy, Nick Cafardo, Mike Silverman and others.

Questions still abound. Josh Beckett will not be back for a long time, which might even be a good thing if his pitching looks anything like it did before he went on the Disabled List. If you find someone who can shed light on Jacoby Ellsbury's health, let me know. The bullpen gets worse every game. John Lackey had something of an encouraging start in Denver the other night but his peripheral numbers still look awful. Relying on a AAAA guy like Darnell McDonald is beginning to take its toll. And now comes what is potentially the most devastating blow of all. Dustin Pedroia's health is in question after pounding a foul ball off the instep of his left foot last night in San Francisco. X-Rays were reported to be negative, but he's on crutches.

Back to being a Red Sox fan this season. Watching a team battle through imperfections and shortcomings when they had been all but written off has been an entirely new experience. It's been a blast. Watching a juggernaut fulfill its destiny is great, too. Don't get me wrong. But for one season, I am enjoying this. Nobody has any idea what to expect from the Red Sox the rest of the way because the answers lie in dynamics whose uncertainties extend well beyond even the difficult task of projecting forth human performance. We don't even know which humans to project! As a fan, the experience is heightened because it feels like this team needs us pulling for them more than ever. And that's what I find myself doing every night!

I am not confident that Josh Beckett will make a healthy and/or effective return. Same goes for Jacoby Ellsbury. It's hard to see signs of Mike Cameron turning a corner. He may surprise me, but I just want Lackey to eat innings at this point. Pedroia may be out for a while. And yet, thanks to guys like Jon Lester and Daniel Nava and Adrian Beltre and Daniel Bard and Kevin Youkilis, I can't help but love this team. I feel confident in the Red Sox as a whole even though when I think of the parts, I shudder.

This is the least analytical piece you may ever read on this site, so I apologize for betraying the spirit of the site's name. My brain's just been scattered as I think about this Red Sox team and I felt compelled to put some thoughts down. What I've come up with is this: uncertainty breeds a whole hell of a lot of excitement.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

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The Boston Red Sox weathered the slow start, guys we knew could play better started to do just that, the balls started to bounce their way, they now hit well with runners on base...so it's smooth sailing now, right? They've ironed out their problems and Boston just needs to keep after it and chip away at the 4-game deficit New York and Tampa Bay currently enjoy over them. Perhaps the hole they dug themselves may prove to be too big, but they're out of their rut.

But are they? I'm not so sure, and here's a handful of reasons why.

1) John Lackey continues to look awful.

Yes, he's 3-1 in his last 4 starts. Yes, the ERA is coming down. But it's June 16th and Lackey currently has a 4.87 K/9. Of the 61 starters in the American League who have tossed at least 60 innings, only 9 have posted a lower K/9. Only 2 pitchers have a less impressive K/BB.

But he's pitching better of late, no? It's hard for me to see that he is. Amazingly, that 4.87 K/9 is actually DOWN to 3.42 over this 4-start "good" stretch for Lackey. His ERA sits at 4.54 while his xFIP is 5.21. He's been bailed out by a superb Red Sox defense and some good balls-in-play fortune.

John Lackey's far from out of the woods, and it's hard to see how the Red Sox fulfill their goals for this season without an effective Lackey.

2) Injuries

The Daniel Nava story has been a blast. Darnell McDonald has filled in admirably. Bill Hall has really come around of late and his ability to play more or less every position, albeit badly, has been invaluable. Felix Doubront has been great in the Minors this year and it will be fun to watch him take the hill Friday night. Tim Wakefield's ability to fill in and make a start whenever needed is huge.

But let's be honest with ourselves. Scott Atchison started a game last Saturday. Nava led off while Hall played shortstop last night. The depth, the scrambling, the fill-ins, it's all great fun but it will also catch up in due time. The Red Sox need strong aggregate contributions from the likes of Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jacoby Ellsbury and Mike Cameron if they are going to be the team they can be in 2010.

3) Adrian Beltre will not keep this up.

I love the guy. He's been the best 3rd baseman not named Evan Longoria in the American League. He's raking, and like he always does, he's playing defense. The Red Sox and Scott Boras could not have scripted this any better. It's June and Boston has already got its money's worth out of Beltre while Boras licks his chops as Beltre once again will hit the free agent market after the 2010 season.

It's not going to last, though. Beltre is hitting .333 on the strength of a .367 BABIP, a figure he almost definitely will not be able to maintain. Beltre's ZIPS projection on his Fangraphs page for the rest of 2010 has him at .293/.337/.473 while he currently sits at .333/.366/.524. The drop-off might not feel precipitous, but the Red Sox will begin to get less and less out of Beltre.

4) Clay Buchholz is having a 2008 Daisuke type season.

In 2008, Dice-K was 18-3 with a 2.90 ERA. As Larry David might say, prett-AY prett-AY good. But beneath his win-loss record and earned run average, Matsuzaka had a pedestrian K/BB ratio and a downright awful 5 walks per 9 innings. Somehow he maintained a .260 BABIP-against for a full season and a ridiculous strand rate.

Fast forward to 2010 and Clay Buccholz is 9-4 with a 2.67 ERA. Ostensibly, Buchholz looks like a Cy Young candidate. But like Matsuzaka in 2008, his peripherals don't seem to line up with those of a great pitcher. He's posted just a 1.71 K/BB, and his good fortune shows itself in his .281 BABIP-against and his incredible, unsustainable 3.9 HR/FB%. Some of those fly balls Clay is giving up will begin to land on the other side of the fence, and some of those grounders will find more holes.

5) The Bullpen

In February, while many touted the Boston bullpen as a real strength, I expressed concerns. Hideki Okajima, Ramon Ramirez and Jonathan Papelbon all slipped in the 2nd half of 2009. Manny Delcarmen was more or less awful all season long. Daniel Bard seemed to be the only real sure bet in the pen.

Sure enough, it's more or less how 2010 has played out. Bard's been excellent, Papelbon somehow ekes by with seemingly weaker stuff, and the other three have been awful. Nobody has more appearances in the American League than Bard, so Boston will need others to step up before long, or else they will need to acquire another arm. It's likely that they will need both to happen, but it's hard to see a quick fix on the horizon.

==========

The storyline for the Red Sox this season has been that they have been able to battle through a slow start, some crippling under-performance and terrible injury luck to crawl back into playoff contention. All of these things are true. What I wanted to highlight in this post was that there are two sides to that coin. The Red Sox have also been the beneficiaries of unlikely performances, while there may not be a quick fix to some of the problems that continue to plague the team.

All in all, I would say the problems above are easily offset by the potential a healthy quartet of Beckett, Matsuzaka, Ellsbury and Cameron offer. But if those four cannot provide a boost down the stretch, look for items discussed herein to sink Boston's hopes.

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A little over a month ago in a piece about Geovany Soto's hot start, I noted the following about the Cubs offense:

When your biggest problems are Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, there's hope.

Now, on June 2nd, the question has become "when your two biggest problems are Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez for the first third of the season, and you're 6.5 games out of a playoff spot as a result, is there still hope?". Lee is hitting a career-worst .232/.339/.366, while Ramirez, at .162/.227/.269, might be the very worst regular in baseball so far in 2010. Lee is not living up to his potential, Ramirez isn't living up to MY potential. Since I wrote the sentence above on April 29th, Lee has hit .252/.341/.365, Ramirez .169/.239/.241.

So, is there hope? For Chicago, given the strong play from those around Ramirez and Lee, the prospect of the two performing at anywhere near their career norms is tantalizing. Here is how Cubs regulars have performed thus far in 2010:

           AVG   OBP   SLG  wOBA
Soto      .260  .409  .415  .376
Fontenot  .324  .373  .481  .372
Castro    .310  .355  .414  .334
Soriano   .301  .368  .589  .414
Byrd      .299  .340  .490  .366
Fukudome  .294  .392  .490  .382

Lee is a career .283/.368/.500 hitter, while Ramirez put up a .292/.369/.539 line from 2006 to 2009. Add those two hitting the way they can and suddenly the Cubs have one of the best lineups in the National League. Will Ramirez and Lee turn it around? Let's take a look at some numbers that might offer a glimpse (the line drive numbers are from 2002 on).

                  BABIP   LD%     K%    BB%
Lee '10           .275    23.0   23.8   13.7
Lee Career        .322    21.3   23.1   11.3
Ramirez '10       .187    15.0   25.7    8.1
Ramirez Career    .288    19.8   15.5    7.3

In Lee's case, I think we can safely expect significant improvement. He's hitting the ball hard, and his strikeouts and walks are in line with his career totals. If anything, Lee's peripherals presented above look better than his career numbers.

As for Ramirez, everything looks pretty ominous. He is striking out way more than he ever did, while only walking slightly more often, and not hitting the ball as hard as he has in the past. His .187 BABIP is ridiculously low so he's likely to improve - really, he cannot get any worse - but there's a chance Ramirez may not return to form in 2010. Given what we've seen from the third baseman thus far, I don't think it's premature for the Cubs to contingency-plan for 3rd base while looking out for signs of improvement from Ramirez over the next 30-50 games or so. Maybe the best available way to glean how Lee and Ramirez figure to play the rest of the year is by looking at their Rest of Season Zips projections on Fangraphs.

          AVG   OBP   SLG  wOBA
Lee      .277  .363  .466  .366
Ramirez  .265  .337  .460  .349

That Ramirez projection looks optimistic to me, but one can hope.

Even if Lee and Ramirez return to form, the rest of the lineup that has performed so ably to date for the Cubs might regress. There are no guarantees. The lesson of this Cubs season so far is that teams need their stars to perform in order to fulfill expectations. The Cubs remain within striking distance, but a 2-4 stretch with just 11 total runs scored over their last 6 games has made it painfully obvious that this Cubs offense needs a productive Lee and Ramirez to mount a playoff charge.

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When the 2007 season wrapped, the Boston Red Sox were World Series Champions and their starting first baseman two seasons running was Kevin Youkilis. He was a championsip caliber player, which is to say that he was good enough to play everyday for a team that could win a championship. To heap more praise than the "championship caliber" label implies would have been to overstate his contributions.

To get an understanding of how Youkilis stacked up heading into 2008, you can check out our AL East preview from March of that year. Youkilis is referred to as "average at best" with the bat and is more or less an afterthought as we discuss the Red Sox. There was little in Youkilis's performance record that would have suggested he was poised to become one of the very best players in all of baseball. In 2006 and 2007, he hit .284/.385/.440, productive but not elite as first basemen go. Since the beginning of 2008, Youkilis has hit .311/.409/.567. He's a superstar.

I decided I wanted to write on this topic, on how good a player Youkilis had become, a few months back and was hoping Youkilis would get off to a good start so that I could. This past off-season, many in the Boston media criticized Theo Epstein's approach to assembling the 2010 team, doing so on the basis that without Jason Bay the Red Sox would lack an "impact" bat. The prevailing wisdom of December 2009 is summed up nicely in this Dan Shaughnessy quote:

The Sox still need a couple of bats. They still need one or two guys like Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, Adrian Gonzalez, or Miguel Cabrera.

Well let's have a look at some of the guys Dan mentions and see how they stack up against Youkilis since the start of the 2008 campaign:

               AVG   OBP   SLG  OPS+
J. Bay        .281  .381  .522   133
M. Holliday   .314  .396  .518   136
A. Gonzalez   .279  .386  .526   152
M. Cabrera    .311  .378  .549   139
K. Youkilis   .311  .409  .567   149

The only player of the bunch even comparable to Youkilis as an offensive player is Gonzalez. The Red Sox had their superstar slugger all along.

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Somehow, Baseball Reference got better recently. Using Sean Smith's Wins Above Replacement data, they have compiled WAR totals for all players and are even keeping running tallies in season. In their Play Index feature, you can now sort players by WAR. This represents a major enhancement because now Play Index data (1) incorporates fielding and (2) has a better offensive measure than, say, OPS+ thanks to proper weighting of things like on-base percentage and base running.

Ok, back to Youkilis now. If you asked smart baseball minds who the best four players in baseball have been over the last 2+ seasons, the responses would be more or less unanimous. Nobody questions the great Joe Mauer's place in the game, and the same goes for Albert Pujols. Two middle infielders whose numbers are just shockingly awesome, Chase Utley and Hanley Ramirez, round out the list. From there, however, if you ask folks who the 5th best position player in baseball is, or has been over the last 2+ seasons, that's when the answers start to range.

Certainly Adrian Gonzalez is in the mix, and so too is Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. It's hard to ignore Evan Longoria, Justin Morneau has really emerged, Ichiro Suzuki plays such a great right field and is a consistent offensive performer. Has David Wright fallen off too much? What about Youkilis's teammate, Dustin Pedroia? These would all be viable guesses, but I wonder how many would say Youkilis?

Well here it is, the top-10 players by WAR since 2008.

I don't have much more to add, other than to point out what's now obvious: that Kevin Youkilis is a true superstar. Given that he is having his best season at the age of 31, in just his 5th year of full-time duty, it's hard not to wonder what might have been had he been given a Big League job earlier in his career. Nonetheless we should all appreciate what Youkilis has become, one of the best players in all of baseball and the caliber of player any championship-aspirant club would do well to build around.

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On his Twitter feed last night, Tyler Kepner mentioned that Dallas Braden considered Jamie Moyer to be one of his heroes. Said Braden, "I don't know how old he is. He played catch with Jesus." I won't necessarily deify Moyer in this piece, but I do want to address the notion that Moyer gaining baseball's version of immortality - Hall of Fame enshrinement - is somehow preposterous.

I turned my attention to Moyer's Hall candidacy after I noticed a tweet in Peter Abraham's feed, expressing incredulity at the mere mention of Moyer for the Hall. And I agree with Abraham on one level. Moyer WON'T get any real consideration for the Hall of Fame, so Pete's right in that sense. But it's more interesting to talk about whether or not he deserves the honor, and that conversation means we need to compare him to some other Hall-eligibles.

Joe Posnanski, and you'll be shocked to hear this, wrote a phenomenal blog entry a number of weeks back. It compared Rick Reuschel to Jack Morris and the case Joe made was well-researched, meticulous, and entirely responsive to the core points upon which the pro-Morris crowd tends to base its case. In it, Poz was also careful to note that he didn't want to pick on Morris and that he thought Jack was a very good pitcher.

To even be considered seriously for the Hall of Fame is a great honor, and you have to be a tremendous player to reach such great heights. Jack Morris won 254 games in his career, and he had memorable postseason performances, including one of the greatest ever in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. He threw 240-plus innings 10 times — only 14 pitchers in baseball history did it more. Whenever I write one of these Morris pieces, it feels like I’m bashing his career, when that is not what I mean to do. He was a terrific pitcher.

I want to offer the very same caveat myself. This is not meant to pick on Morris, but rather it's meant to bring to light the body of work that Jamie Moyer has managed to craft over the course of his Major League Baseball career. Comparing Moyer to Morris, a fringe candidate with some ardent and influential supporters, just seems to make sense. So we'll start high-level, and kick the analysis off with a look at their career numbers.

         W    L    IP    BB/9   K/9   K/BB   ERA+
Moyer   262  197  3,948   2.6   5.4   2.11   105
Morris  254  186  3,824   3.3   5.8   1.78   105

Without knowing anything else about the two players, right off the bat, you can see that a comparison of the two is very much in play. They look identical, and again, without knowing more, you would give Moyer the edge. But we do know more.

For instance, we know that Morris made five All-Star Games and Moyer made just one. We know that Moyer managed a 4th, 5th and 6th place finish in Cy Young voting but never managed another showing in the top-10. Meanwhile, we know that Morris placed in the top-10 seven times, and even appeared on the MVP ballot five times. So maybe Moyer has just racked up a bunch of innings and some solid numbers, but Morris was a star. Right? Let's look at their respective peaks by comparing each of their five best seasons according to Sean Smith's Wins Above Replacement calculation.

          Moyer
 Yr   IP  K/BB  ERA+  WAR
'99  228  2.85   130  5.7
'02  231  2.94   128  5.3
'01  234  3.76   131  5.2
'03  215  1.95   132  3.9
'97  189  2.63   116  3.7
         Morris
 Yr   IP  K/BB  ERA+  WAR
'79  198  1.92  133   5.1
'87  266  2.24  126   4.9
'85  257  1.74  122   4.8
'86  267  2.72  127   4.7
'91  247  1.77  125   4.1

Well now, that's interesting. If you tally their respective five best seasons, Moyer totals out at 23.8 and Morris at 23.6, It's easy to forget, or at least it is for me, that Moyer was a total mainstay, a rock, for some of the better baseball teams in recent memory: the turn of the century Seattle Mariners. And I urge you to dig a little deeper, to have a look for yourself. They both have eight 3+ WAR seasons, both have ten 2+ WAR seasons. It's remarkable, but their careers look very similar. Moyer nets out with a more productive overall career thanks to a handful of seasons where he was worth a win or so throughout his 24 seasons.

But still, we know Morris was better, right? Because we know how excellent he was in the 1984 World Series for the Detroit Tigers, when he notched two complete game victories. And we DEFINITELY know about one of the finest baseball games ever pitched, Morris's complete game 10-inning masterpiece to lead the Minnesota Twins over the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 World Series. We tend to block out things like how Morris almost lost the 1992 World Series all by himself for the Toronto Blue Jays. That tends not to factor into his reputation as a clutch post-season pitcher. Instead, as far as 1992 is concerned, Morris was a 21-Game Winner For a World Series Winning Club. All the same, it's fair to say that thanks to his extraordinarily memorable performances in '84 and '91, his reputation is well-earned.

The point is to say that a number of voters look beyond Morris's numbers, they look beyond some of those shoddy post-season outings, and deem him Hall worthy thanks to three games he pitched: two in the '84 Series, one in '91. Rightly or wrongly, he gets extra credit for doing extraordinary things that stick in voters' memories. And that's fair enough. But is there anything in Jamie Moyer's career that might merit him the same sort of consideration over and above his performance record? Well, how about this?

HE'S TAKING A ROTATION TURN FOR THE TEAM THAT'S BEEN BEST IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE THREE YEARS RUNNING AT THE AGE OF 47!

Moyer has posted a 32-19 record as a slightly above average pitcher since 2008, when he was 45 years-old. And with the way these Phillies pound the ball, above average, dependably taking the ball every fifth day, puts Moyer's team in a great position to win when he starts. He has been a critical contributor during the best Philadelphia Phillies stretch of baseball in history, all while pushing 50-years old. For heaven's sake, the man pitched a complete game shutout last week! If we're doling out extra credit for memorable performances, quirks, things that make a player stand alone, then what Jamie Moyer is doing these days qualifies as far as I'm concerned. To put it in perspective, here's your list of players who have pitched at least 200 innings in their 45-year old season and beyond:

Look at that list! Moyer is handing Nolan Ryan his 45-and-older lunch!

Finally, it's worth noting that Moyer has a good post-season record of his own. Save a disastrous outing against the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2008 ALDS, he's been excellent. In 2001 Moyer went 3-0, including a most impressive outing at Yankee Stadium in Game 3 of the ALCS.

I don't think Jamie Moyer is a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher. I think he's exactly the kind of player who will be, and should be, remembered fondly by baseball fans who had the chance to enjoy watching him pitch. Maybe I will one day tell my grandchildren how Moyer had a devastating change up, pinpoint control, and was an effective pitcher for one of baseball's very best teams well into his late-40's. We might never see another pitcher like Moyer. That's awesome, but he's just not a Hall of Famer.

To me, that's Jack Morris too. He threw a million innings per season during a time when the trend to protect pitchers more and more was beginning to take hold. Wherever he went, his teams won. And my goodness, the 1984 and 1991 World Series! What a career he had.

Sometimes, it's ok just to leave it at that.

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Update: I see that Howard Megdal & Jon Daly have tackled the very same topic at The Perpetual Post this morning.

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In today's Boston Sunday Globe, Dan Shaughnessy wrote a paragraph that reveals just about all you need to know about his character, his intellect and his baseball acumen. Concerning that last point, his baseball acumen, you'll recall he believes Jack Morris to have been a better pitcher than Curt Schilling.

I don't have any further comment.

It looks like those sun-deprived stat geeks eating pudding in their basement (the same nitwits who insist that homers and RBIs are overrated) outsmarted themselves in assessing this unit. Marco Scutaro is not better than Alex Gonzalez (not to rub it in, but Gonzo has 10 homers already for the Blue Jays). The Cameron-Ellsbury combo hasn’t gotten out of the trainer’s room, and Beltre is emerging as an Edgar Renteria or Rasheed Wallace, take your pick.

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A couple of weeks ago, I tried to detail what was wrong with the Boston Red Sox as best I could. It was pretty straightforward. The Red Sox could not pitch, they could not field, they could not hit. Since April 21st, the Red Sox are 10-6 but with the Yankees and Rays still playing terrific baseball, Boston does not have much to show for their improved play.

The fact remains, however, that the Red Sox have been settling in. Another Yankees blowout last night when the Red Sox seemingly had the starting pitching advantage hurts. So did last weekend's sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles, who had just four wins coming into the set. With their stiff competition and regular lackluster efforts, this 10-6 stretch hasn't felt quite as good as it otherwise might. The doubters sure haven't seemed to quiet down at all.

Coming into the season, those who questioned Boston's chances did so on the grounds that letting Jason Bay walk without replacing his formidable bat with a comparable hitter amounted to an exceedingly large step backwards for the offense. It would be too much to fill with pitching and defense, no matter how highly one might think of Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre and John Lackey. But let's just take a quick look at how that rationale plays out.

Last year, according to Fangraphs' WAR, Mike Lowell, Bay and David Ortiz contributed a combined 7.0 Wins Above Replacement. Lowell, slowed by mounting injuries, could no longer field his position at 3rd and David Ortiz hit like Neifi Perez for half the year. This season, they would need to replace Bay, find a legitimate everyday 3rd Baseman and, one way or another, get more from the DH position. The rest of the lineup would remain stable, with the one exception that Victor Martinez would be the everyday catcher for a full season.

If you average their 2008 and 2009 seasons, Beltre and Cameron combined for 7.5 wins per year between them. The plan to replace Bay and Lowell with Beltre and Cameron, while giving Ortiz, Lowell, and maybe Jeremy Hermida a chance to offer more production from the Designated Hitter position, was to amount to a better collection of position players.

And guess what? It has! Boston's 114 OPS+ is 2nd in Major League Baseball and 9 points better than the 105 figure they posted in 2009 when Bay was in the mix. Their .355 wOBA would be their best total as a team since the 2004 team managed a .358 total. Just like 2009, they're 3rd in the American League in runs scored. By any measure, this offense has been phenomenal.

Defensively, they've just been middle of the road but that's attributable more to injuries than anything. As any Red Sox fan can attest, whether he is at left field, center field or heavens, shortstop, Bill Hall does not belong on a Major League Baseball field. The 168 combined innings Hall, Jonathan Van Every and Darnell McDonald "contributed" in center field to date have been a complete joke. With either Jacoby Ellsbury or Cameron playing everyday, those 168 innings would never have come to pass. I still believe this is a top-notch defensive team.

That brings me to the starting pitching. You want to have a look at the difference between this year's team and last year's? See below:

         K/9   BB/9   K/BB   ERA  xFIP
2009    7.43   3.00   2.48  4.63  4.17
2010    6.95   3.65   1.90  5.10  4.39

Those numbers are just for Boston's starters, but keep in mind what we are really looking at there. This season, Daisuke Matsuzaka's delayed return notwithstanding, Boston's ducks were in a row. Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Lackey, and Clay Buchholz were healthy and ready to go, and Tim Wakefield would tend to Dice-K's spot until he returned. Last year, that top line that looks so much better than the 2010 numbers, well that's filled with Brad Penny and John Smoltz and Junichi Tazawa and Michael Bowden and Paul Byrd. The 2009 unit that so badly outperformed Boston's starting pitching to date in 2010 was not exactly the 1995 Atlanta Braves (well, except for Smoltz).

The consistent excellence of Lester and Beckett anchored the Red Sox rotation in 2009. Respectively, they ranked 5th and 7th in the AL in WAR among starters. This season, Boston's top two starters have been Lester and Buchholz, who rank 18th and 20th in the AL thus far. Beckett has been one of the very worst pitchers in baseball to date, sporting a 59 ERA+.

Beckett's awful start has been mystifying. Digging into his Pitch Type data on Fangraphs, he is throwing fewer fastballs and curve balls than ever, and replacing them with more cutters and change ups. The result has been a big drop in strikeouts, a big hike in walks and much harder contact according to his Line Drive percentage allowed.

There is some hope. Beckett's 56.9% LOB rate is absurdly low. That will improve. Likewise, his .365 BABIP allowed is bound to normalize as well. Better luck will make Beckett a decent option for the Red Sox, but they obviously are counting on him for much, much more. John Farrell is a highly regarded pitching coach in Major League circles, and what he can do to get Beckett right will go a long way in determining whether or not the Red Sox can climb back into this race.

On May 8th, the Red Sox sit in fourth place, at .500, and six games out of a playoff spot. I hope that I have managed to demonstrate that their poor play to date has been attributable to terrible starting pitching and little more. So, if you're a pundit who thought the Red Sox might struggle because their rotation would not cut it, take a bow. You've nailed it thus far. Otherwise, Red Sox doubters, quiet down please.

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It's April 29, the Cubs are 10-12, and they sit 2.5 games back of the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants for the National League Wild Card. They're 4.5 games back of the hot-starting St. Louis Cardinals in their own division. It's been a mixed bag thus far for the Cubs, with slow starts by key players and bullpen woes mitigated in part by surprisingly strong performances from players they did not expect as much from. On the whole, despite coming off of a home series loss to the Washington Nationals, I think the Cubs should feel encouraged by how the season has played out to date. When your biggest problems are Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, there's hope.

No player has contributed more to the Cubs winning efforts thus far in 2010 than Geovany Soto, as heartening a sign as any for Cubs fans. After a banner 2008, he fell off badly last season. Since he only had two years of full-time service to his name, it was hard to tell which Soto to expect. Well the 27-year old catcher has started the year at a .362/.516/.511 clip and while I don't think a .516 on-base represents the player Soto really is, his torrid start would seem to suggest that he is very much capable of another 2008.

How Soto has managed this start has been a case study in the virtuous cycle that is a solid approach at the plate. Let's dig into Fangraphs' plate discipline stats for Soto. We'll look at his 2010 numbers versus an averaged figure for 2008 and 2009.

Here's a quick rundown of the definitions of each of the stats listed:

* O-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.
* Z-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone.
* Swing%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at.
* Zone%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone.
* SwStr%: The overall percentage of swinging strikes

          O-Swing%  Z-Swing%  Swing%  Zone%  SwStr%
'08-'09:   18.6     64.7      41.9    50.2    9.7
2010:      12.1     52.9      28.9    41.1    5.8

Here's what we learn from this: Soto is swinging at way fewer pitches outside of the strike zone, swinging at fewer pitches inside the strike zone, swinging less overall, seeing far fewer pitches inside the strike zone and incurring far fewer swinging strikes. What's more interesting is the inter-related nature of these numbers.

If you swing at fewer pitches outside of the strike zone (balls), you can be more selective within the strike zone while up in the count. If you aren't swinging at balls or difficult-to-hit strikes, you will walk more frequently and make better contact when you do swing. In Soto's case, this is revealed in his ridiculous 36.8 line drive percentage and unsustainable .417 batting average on balls in play (BABIP).

Basically, he's been perfect at home plate this season. In full counts, Soto has hit .333/.684/.333, compared to the 2009 NL average of .235/.475/.380. Unbelievably, he's posted a .500 on-base percentage in 18 plate appearances after the count ran to 1-2. Again, the 2009 NL average on-base percentage after the count was 1-2 in was .234. Basically, while most hitters more or less freak out and ditch selectivity altogether while down in the count, Soto has been unfazed.

This is all very unlikely to keep up, of course, but it's hard to imagine some of Soto's new approach won't stick. He seems to be coming to the plate with a real plan this year, and that's to swing less. The result is that he's hitting more, better than any other catcher in baseball this April.

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Baseball's simplicity can be frustrating sometimes. Teams score runs by avoiding outs and efficiently advancing runners by mixing in power. Preventing runs means amassing outs without allowing too many base-runners or extra base hits. If you consistently score runs better than you prevent them, you win. AND THAT'S IT. As a Manager or General Manager, your job is to assemble personnel positioned to consistently score more runs than they allow. At the beginning of the season, it appeared that the Red Sox had such a team. 13 games into the 2010 season, it still appears the Red Sox have such a team.

So what about baseball's simplicity? Why is it frustrating? The 2010 Boston Red Sox serve as a great example in that as much as we want to stretch for an explanation for why they are off to such an awful start, the answer is much simpler than we'd like to think. It's because a bunch of really good baseball players are playing really poorly. That doesn't make for very good copy or talk radio, though.

Here's Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe:

All one has to do is look at the team that demolished the Sox this Patriots Day weekend, the Rays, who went 11-16 to start last season and never recovered. In the AL East, you just can’t be 4-9 after 13 games, 6 games behind the Rays and 5 1/2 in back of the Yankees, and think it’s going to be easy to come back.

That’s why it wasn’t too early to be concerned about David Ortiz after only two games of the season. It wasn’t too early to question whether Mike Cameron was a suitable replacement for Jason Bay. It wasn’t too early to wonder whether Victor Martinez could be the full-time catcher and still maintain his hitting.

Cafardo even floats the prospect of Jon Lester being sent to the Minors to fix his problems. Here's Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, gleefully stomping on the Red Sox' grave 13 games in.

Everything is going wrong right now.

And that means everyone was right.

By everyone, that means if you were worried that the “run prevention” philosophy was a bunch of bunk, the 4-9 Red Sox and their 10 errors and their nowhere-near-as-advertised defense have proved your point.

If you were worried that the offense was looking thin, the 4-9 Red Sox, now 0-for-their-last-32 with runners in scoring position, have proved your point.

If you were worried that David Ortiz [stats] was going to get off to a poor start, the 4-9 Red Sox and their designated hitter with the two RBI, .289 slugging percentage and .158 average have proved your point.

If you were worried about catchers Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek [stats] not being able to throw out base-stealers, the 4-9 Red Sox and the 22 stolen bases they have allowed - while throwing out just one runner - have proved your point.

If you were worried about the Yankees or the Rays, the 4-9 Red Sox, who are now a combined 1-6 against the twin towers of the AL East, have proved your point.

Here you have two attempts to diagnose structural problems with the way the Red Sox approached this past off-season. And what is the evidence that Boston faltered in putting together this roster? Why it's their first 13 games of course. If only the Red Sox had retained Jason Bay instead of Mike Cameron, then everything would be better (don't tell Cafardo and Silverman that Bay is off to a .245/.351/.327 start with the Mets).

Boston won 95 games last year, lost Bay, added a top-20 pitcher in John Lackey, an upgraded shortstop in Marco Scutaro and two veteran top-notch defenders in Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre. You could argue whether or not those moves amounted to an improved team or not, but even if you come down on the side that they did not improve, nobody thought they would play .300 baseball and hit, pitch and field like some of the very worst teams in baseball. The team's composition is not the issue. They're just playing terribly. Just consider the following:

Since late February, a collection of bloggers, analysts, mainstream writers and senior front office personnel have joined us to discuss a specific team's hopes for 2010. Some have been in-depth, some light, some analytical, some less so but the series has been well received and we were thrilled about the lineup of guests we were able to attract. While it was intended as a preview series, time got away from us and so we are just going to keep at it until we have finished all 30 teams. We may even keep at it throughout the season. Today it's Tommy Bennett on the Philadelphia Phillies.

Patrick Sullivan: So the Phillies have Roy Halladay. That's a very good thing as far as the 2010 club is concerned. But they also lost Cliff Lee, and there are some that viewed the move as just kind of wheel-spinning and unnecessary when you look at all the pieces exchanged. What were your thoughts?

Tommy Bennertt: The answer to this question depends entirely on how you frame the tradeoff. Compare the deal the Phillies now have Halladay signed to ($60M for 2011-2013) is almost certainly better than the deal that the Phillies could have reached with Cliff Lee, and I think it's pretty clear that Halladay is the superior pitcher. However, when you disaggregate the deal that brought Halladay to town from the one that sent Lee to Seattle, it looks a little bit more questionable.

Ultimately, I view the two trades together as a shifting forward of wins from four (or so) years in the future to the immediate present and next two years. Those two years are critical for the Phillies, because that's when you'll have Howard, Rollins, Werth, and the rest of the core together on the same team. As much as possible, you want to stack your wins in the same seasons, and I think this helps them do that. That being said, I think the prospects the Phillies gave up--especially Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor--are going to be good players.

PS: What did you think of the off-season more generally? Did you support the Placido Polanco acquisition? Is Ruben Amaro lucky, good, neither?

TB: I thought Polly was a fine pickup. From the looking that I've done, the best bargains are usually found later in the winter, but it comes at the considerable cost of certainty. What Amaro did was trade value for certainty, and with a team that is this ready to compete, I think that is a completely justifiable tradeoff. The transition from second to third won't be as hard on Polanco as it would be on some other players (because of his defensive skill set, most notably his arm). Also, he's going to have a natural comfort level in Philadelphia from playing there in the past that frankly a lot of other guys would not. You can deny the measurability of intangibles all you want, but until you've survived the boos raining down from the upper decks, you can't really say you'll hack it in Philly.

PS: Ok, I'll stop with the negativity. Let's now discuss how the Phillies sure seem to have an awesome baseball team. Talk about Cole Hamels. I am already hearing some in the mainstream talking about how Hamels looks as sharp as ever and how he is poised for a big "bounce-back" year. We know the truth though, right? He will probably be really good again because, well, he is really good.

TB: Things that were very close to the same or better from '08 to '09 about Cole Hamels: K/9, BB/9, HR/9, GB%, FIP, SIERA.

Things that were worse from '08 to '09 about Cole Hamels: Strand rate, ERA, BABIP, IP.

Hamels is one of those cases that will really test your faith in DIPS theory. If you would rather rely on strand rate, ERA and BABIP, then you can say he's worse now than he was last offseason. Otherwise, just relax. It's fine. He's a great pitcher.

One impulse might be to say that Hamels was regressing to the mean after a stellar '08, but even that isn't really true when you look at his peripherals. He basically repeated every skill-based achievement last year except innings pitched that he had in '08. Like I said, though, Philly fans are fickle and there are some things you just can't get away with.

PS: Can we get Chase Utley an MVP award? Want to talk about him? How good is he and how good has he been? Want to put some historical context around it? He's terrific, of course, but I would guess there are still some who think that he's been the 3rd best position player throughout this great Phillies run.

TB: I have this theory that historically great second basemen are always underrated. The best second basemen ever (Joe Morgan, Rogers Hornsby, Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins) are almost criminally underrated as ballplayers. Even Jackie Robinson, one of the most celebrated players in baseball history, isn't given the respect he deserves for his actual play on the field. So I think Utley has a bit of an uphill climb.

On the other hand, he's basically doing all the things you need to do to become a top-20, and perhaps top-10 or higher, second baseman all time. Basically, he's got a good shot at passing Sandberg and Alomar (and I think you can make a reasonable case that he'll do both), and once he's there he's basically in the top 10 all-time. I have a hard time conceiving of a Hall of Fame that doesn't include the ten best players at each position. In other words, barring injury, I think he's got a legitimate shot at the Hall, and a fortiori, a shot at a minimum of one MVP award.

Let me put it another way for perspective: Chase Utley is the best player on the Phillies and he's the best player in baseball that doesn't have a Cy Young, a Rookie of the Year, or an MVP award. Then again, he's got the most glorious television expletive in Philadelphia history.

PS: Ok, 2010. What do you expect of the Phillies? Will they get a serious challenge in the NL East? Do they have another title run in them?

TB:I'm legitimately worried about the Braves. Their weakest positions on offense are probably second base (Martin Prado) and right field (Jason Heyward). Those are still two pretty darn good players, and their pitching staff will do enough so that they'll win around 87-88 games. If Tommy Hanson doesn't hit a stumbling block, I think they can survive that thumping sound you hear (Jair Jurrjens falling back to earth).

If the Phils can hold off the Braves (or at least secure the Wild Card), I'm not sure there's a team they are likely to face before the World Series that would be able to go 1-2 like Halladay-Hamels in a short series. The bullpen could always, however, make things interesting. Call it Halladay, Hamels, rain, and pray for a complete game.

Tommy Bennett writes for Baseball Prospectus and can be found on Twitter @tommy_bennett

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When we decided back in February to forego our traditional roundtable format for this season's previews, there were a number of drivers. First, there are lots of previews everywhere around the web and we didn't want to go with something undifferentiated. Second, we thought the interview format with various baseball constituents would make for good reading. Third, candidly, we were all a bit short on time. Between travel, work, work travel, and school, we all had schedules not exactly conducive to preview season.

So Stakeholders seemed like it would be a good way to go. And it was. Some smart baseball folks have given it high praise and if you've missed it, here is the list of teams we have featured thus far (we will have the Philadelphia Phillies up a bit later today, too):

New York Yankees - Cliff Corcoran
Boston Red Sox - Zack Scott
Tampa Bay Rays - R.J. Anderson
Minnesota Twins - Aaron Gleeman
Kansas City Royals - Joe Posnanski
Seattle Mariners - Dave Cameron
Oakland Athletics - David Forst
New York Mets - Pat Andriola
Washington Nationals - Jonah Keri
St. Louis Cardinals - Bernie Miklasz
Milwaukee Brewers - Larry Granillo
Pittsburgh Pirates - Joe Sheehan
Los Angeles Dodgers - Jon Weisman

We have fallen woefully short of our goal of having all 30 teams done in time for the season and for that, I take personal responsibility. I spearheaded the initiative and for a whole bunch of reasons, did not finish it in time for the beginning of baseball season. BUT, as I said, we have been thrilled with the output. So we are going to keep after it, finish up all 30 teams, and then I plan to continue the series from time to time throughout the season.

Our readers are best served when we're engaging other baseball websites, writers and front office personnel. There's no reason that it has to be just a preview series. Stakeholders, though incomplete, was a success. Because we think it was a success, you can expect more quick interviews like the ones you have seen over the last 5 weeks in the coming weeks and months.

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Speaking of engaging other writers, kudos to Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe. Abraham highlighted in today's edition the Tufts University course, Sabermetrics: The Objective Analysis of Baseball. In the piece, Abraham mentions our very own Jeremy Greenhouse of Tufts, who, as you all know, has been doing groundbreaking work right here since his very first post. Abraham gets extra credit for running the piece on the same day that his colleague Dan Shaughnessy wrote his laziest mail-in of anti-stat drivel to date, which is saying something when you consider all the drivel that has come to define Shaughnessy's body of work.

Finally, still along the lines of baseball writers enaging one another, the guys from the hilarious and insightful Yankees blog Fack Youk asked me to preview the Boston Red Sox in a Stakeholders-style preview of their own. Go on and check it out if you'd like.

Happy Baseball, everyone. It's here.

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From now through the beginning of the regular season, we will not be posting in-depth round-tables previewing each division like we have in years past. Instead we will feature brief back-and-forths with "stakeholders" from all 30 teams. A collection of bloggers, analysts, mainstream writers and senior front office personnel will join us to discuss a specific team's hopes for 2010. Some will be in-depth, some light, some analytical, some less so but they should all be fun to read and we are thrilled about the lineup of guests we have teed up. Today it's Larry Granillo on the Milwaukee Brewers.

Patrick Sullivan: Well let me just ask you right off the bat, Larry, what do you make of the 2010 Brewers in comparison to the 2009 club? Last year was fairly tumultuous from a personnel standpoint, most notably evidenced by J.J. Hardy's tenure as a Brewer coming to an end unceremoniously. How's this year's club looking?

Larry Granillo: I don't know exactly what happened with JJ Hardy last year, but it reeks of mismanagement. And, frankly, coming from the Doug Melvin regime, that's incredibly disappointing. Sure, JJ was hitting poorly, but his defense more than made up for it. To top it off, the demotion to Nashville, and the ensuing (blatant) service-time manipulation, wasn't even all that fruitful, as Melvin was only able to turn JJ into Carlos Gomez. I've heard that JJ isn't all that pleased with the Brewers organization these days, and I can't blame him one bit.

As for the rest of the 2010 Brewers, it's hard to say. The offense, despite the loss of Mike Cameron, should be pretty healthy still. When you have Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder hitting back to back for 150+ games a year, that's how things tend to be. But even a high-powered offense is helpless when you have the worst pitching staff in baseball, and the 80-win 2009 Brewers are pretty good proof of that. The 2010 staff isn't all that different - or, at least, isn't all that better talent-wise.

The biggest hope I have for the 2010 Brewers - and I think this is true for a lot of fans - is that the 2009 staff was *so* bad that it's not likely to happen again. So many pitchers had career-worst years - Parra, Bush, Looper, Suppan - that even a little regression to the mean will make the team better. If that does happen, and Braun and Fielder keep hitting the hide off the ball, then an 85-87 win season doesn't seem all that crazy. And, in this division, that might be all that they need.

PS: How good is Yovani Gallardo? How good do the Brewers need him to be in order to contend for post-season play?

LG: The one bright spot in the 2009 Brewers' rotation was the young ace, Yovani Gallardo. He pitched brilliantly in the first half, including being a major part of one of the best games I've ever seen live, but faded in the second-half. He tends to overthrow the ball at times, as young power pitchers are wont to do, and that takes its toll in the form of increased walks and high pitch counts. He'll have to learn to control that as he matures if he wants to be the superstar that we all know is in him. Luckily for us, he is only 24 years old.

How good is Yovani Gallardo? Let's just say that the Brewers aren't too far away from having two homegrown, legitimate MVP contenders and one homegrown, legitimate Cy Young contender playing together every year. I can't wait.

PS: What do you think Milwaukee's best shot at the playoffs is? Will it be easier to snag the Wild Card or to somehow catch St. Louis in a light-looking NL Central?

LG: Neither is much of a given, or even all that likely, but I'd have to say that catching the Cardinals is the Crew's best shot at the 2010 playoffs. The Cards took the division last year with 91 victories, and that was with Cy Young-caliber seasons from their top two pitchers and some memorable years by a few role players/rookies. And though I consider them (easily) the best team in the Central, I don't see them matching that total this year. It's entirely possible that an 86- or 88-win team could win this division. The Wild Card is bound to be more competitive than that.

PS: Try and put into perspective for Milwaukee fans and fans of other clubs just how good of a hitting pair Ryan Braun and Prince Fieder make. I mean, it's bordering on historic, wouldn't you say?

LG: I try to steer clear of words like "historic" just because I don't trust my own biases, but Prince and Braun are something, aren't they? The best thing about watching these two play everyday is just how consistent they are. You might see them pressing a bit in the occasional at-bat (those Miller Park fences look awfully close at times), but, for the most part, they keep true to the same approach day-in and day-out. There's no doubt in my mind that it helps the club win more games. I wouldn't say the Prince/Braun combo is on par with the likes of Griffey/A-Rod or Aaron/Matthews yet, but a duo like this comes along very rarely and we Brewers fans are lucky to see it. (Maybe they're a power-hitting version of the 1970s Yount/Molitor pair?)

PS: What are your expectations for Rickie Weeks?

LG: Sadly, this could be the 3rd year in a row you've asked that question, and I wouldn't realize it. There's a lot to like about Rickie Weeks, and his recent track-record seems to show an improving ballplayer. The optimism and loyalty the Brewers have shown him is definitely grounded in something.

He's also coming off his second wrist injury in the last three years (one on each wrist), and we all know how dangerous those can be. When it comes to Rickie Weeks, you have to remember this: an injury-plagued, 40-game season seems to be about as likely as an All-Star caliber campaign. Of course, with this being his age-27 season, the Brewers' loyalty to Rickie could be running out here in 2010. Maybe he can use that as a motivator.

PS: Talk a little more about some of the new regulars for the Brew Crew. I have four players in mind. How do you feel about Alcides Escobar, Carlos Gomez, Randy Wolf and Doug Davis? Comment on the Brewers' catching, too, if you would. Can't get worse than Jason Kendall, right?

LG: I'm pretty stoked about the Escobar era. The kid can flash some leather (though it should be noted that JJ wasn't exactly